by Jade Alyse
Natalie wouldn’t dare tell him that she was glad that he stayed at UGA, or that he even came at all. She wouldn’t even attempt to imagine how dull her entire college experience would have been had it not been for him.
Aside from all the soccer playing, and the apartment invasions, they’d spent the summer beneath the trees, she, falling more in love with him than she ever could have imagined.
But she could never tell him so. She figured that if she divulged how she truly felt, like explaining why her heart did such crazy leaps or why she hated not being around him, it would all go away, her feelings, him included, and she would soon discover that it was all in her head.
She loved him, but wouldn’t tell him. Actually formulating her lips to express the words "I", "love" and "you" seemed even scarier than how he made her feel. The mere unspoken comfort and feeling of his proximity was enough for her. And he seemed to understand her hesitancy, as strange as it was.
He spotted her when they were done playing, and she approached him quietly. He placed his arm around her shoulder, breathing hard, drenched with sweat. When he tried to kiss her, she pushed him away, smiling, and said, “Don’t, you smell." This only prompted him to try again, harder, succeeding this time, pressing his lips hard against hers, making his friends jeer with delight.
She’d never met some of those boys before, and one of them, a short, stocky, blond one, wrapped a towel around his head, and said, “Now, this must be…uh…Tallie…”
Natalie nodded. “Yep, that’s right,” she said, feeling her cheeks warm.
The boy, as country as anyone she’d ever seen, did some old-fashioned bow, and said, “Jake…nice to meet you…”
He then patted Brandon on the back and said, “This boy talks about you all the time, ain’t that right, Brandon?”
Brandon looked embarrassed, but his friends loved it, as if they always got a kick out of getting under his skin.
She looked up at him. “Well, that’s good to hear.”
Brandon introduced her to the rest of his soccer pals, and they nodded in her direction, and when he was done packing up his things, he offered to give her a ride back to her apartment, she, who had taken the bus.
"Nah," she sighed. "I'd rather go back to your place..."
She loved sitting on the comfortable, plush brown couch in the living room, she loved how the hardwood floor creaked beneath her feet, she loved the fact that they had digital cable, she loved wrapping up in his grandmother’s patchwork quilt and falling asleep after reading a chapter on macromolecules and nucleic acids, while he worked on his dissertation of the falling economies in select third-world countries.
She loved that so many of her memories lied there and loved that he was there to experience them with her.
“So,” she began with a sigh, as they sat on his bed together.
He looked at her. “So…what?”
“You want to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“About my birthday…”
“Oh sure,” he said, reaching for a pillow to rest his arms on. “It’s on Saturday…”
“Good job,” she said. “But you know what I want.”
“Tallie, I’m not telling you,” he said. “Get over it…”
“Why won’t you? You tell me everything else…”
“Because if I tell you this, then all the mystery in our relationship will be gone,” he said jokingly.
“Brandy,” she whined, flopping on her back.
“Natalie, you can say my name like that all that you want to, but I’m still not telling,” he said. “And Scott and Asha better not have told you anything either…I’ve sworn them to secrecy…”
He extended his body and laid with her.
“We’re friends, we should never keep secrets from each other,” she said.
“Yes, we are,” he told her. “But stop being a baby and let me surprise you…”
“Will I even like it?”
“What do you mean ‘Will you like it’? Of course you will…I know you a little better than you think…”
“Okay, so I’ll like it,” she said with a sigh. “Will I really like it?”
“Natalie, I’m not about to do this with you…”
“Indulge me, please…”
“I refuse to…”
“Well, then get off this bed,” she said. “I refuse to lay with you…”
“That wouldn’t be the first time,” he joked, allowing her to shove him.
“Go take a shower,” she demanded, kicking him with her feet.
“Will you stop it? I was just about to go…”
“Good…”
“Are you comfortable being in here while I do that?”
“Probably not…”
“I thought so,” he said, rolling his eyes. “So, why don’t you go in the living room and wait till I get done?”
“Sounds like a good idea…”
She walked back into the living room, flicked on the television and heard Brandon start the shower in the next room.
They should go eat, shouldn’t they? She’ll pay this time, and she can do her homework over here. No, maybe it was best that she did it at her own apartment. Yes, that was a much better idea. She would be less distracted there. She would simply call Brandon before she went to bed.
Scotty joined them when he came home from working as the rush hour DJ on the school’s radio station. The three of them climbed into Scotty’s black Tahoe and headed to a sub place on the east side. And when they returned, they retired to the couch and she'd passed out in his lap after the third or fourth rerun of Friends took her under.
He gently shook her awake, and she knew almost instantly what the context of the conversation would be.
“I’ll drive you home in the morning,” he offered. “Just in time for your first class.”
No, no. She should go home. And she hadn’t even started her reading. She stopped herself at thinking about how great it would feel to lie there next to him, fall asleep with the moonlight, and his soft breathing.
He looked disappointed when she refused him. But she was doing the right thing, in spite of feeling guilty for making him drive her back to her apartment, when he had to get up early for class the next day.
He pulled up in front of her complex and she sighed.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He only nodded, made some strange noise and looked out of his window.
She leaned over and kissed the side of his face, lingeringly, and whispered, “Will I see you tomorrow?”
He shrugged his shoulders, keeping his eyes focused ahead of him, and murmured, “I guess…”
He actions only made her feel worse, only made her want to drop her beliefs that instance and invite him to stay with her.
She got out of the car, shut the door behind her and hoped that he’d make the routine phone call before he went to sleep.
But he didn't call her. And she went to bed confused.
She didn’t see him the next day either. She only got a phone call from him sometime after lunch saying that he was way too busy and had some sort of test to study for. Of course, he’d never mentioned this test to her before, leaving her suspicious. But in her attempt to brush it off as her own stupidity, she called Asha when she got home from her classes, to see if she’d like to do something that night. After all, she didn’t have any classes on Friday and it would be the perfect opportunity for her to catch up with her friend.
“I can’t,” Asha sighed. “I have to stay in the library all night until I get this homework done…of course, I waited till the last minute to do it, and the shit just piled up on me…I’m sorry…”
She called Scotty to see if he wanted to catch the movie that he’d been dying to see, or at least see if he wanted to hang out with her at all, considering her two bests had ditched her suddenly.
“Sorry, babe, no can do,” he told her. “I have to work a double shift at the radio station tonight…I won’t ge
t home till late.”
The poor girl went to bed that night feeling pitiful, and for what reason? Didn’t she like being alone? Of course she did. So, why then did it matter that none of her friends had any time for her? It was just one night. She could deal with one night. She would simply lay in her bed in her favorite pajamas and watch her favorite sitcom till she passed out. She wouldn’t even wait up for Brandon’s phone call. He’d been slacking lately and she’d give him a piece of her mind when she woke up the next morning. How dare he get upset over something so minuscule? She was sorry that she wasn’t more like Sophia Baldwin: loose and carefree and just as easy as her light, bouncy blond curls. Maybe, if he was so unsatisfied with the way they were progressing physically, he should think about going back to her. Then maybe, they could both have peace of mind, and Sophia with that porcelain skin and those angelic green eyes, could give him all the worldly pleasures that he could think of.
But no, she was being silly, wasn’t she? At this point, at least from what she could tell from her heart, she wasn’t even close to letting Brandon Greene stray away from her.
#
Brandon called the following morning. She was waiting for her moment to let all of her frustrations spew. But before she could get a word in, he said, “Pack a bag,” and hung up the phone.
And, without thinking, she began packing light. She loved the fact that it was almost mid-October, and the heat wave from one of the most memorable summers in her young life still lingered in the air. She wasn’t sure what she had ahead of her, or what Brandon had planned at all, but her heart pounded all the while, and even in the silence of her bedroom with no one looking, she tried to mask her excitement, tried to play it cool, running her mind around how she would treat Brandon once she saw him again. She showered, washed her hair, and put on her clothes with just minutes to spare before Brandon was calling again, ordering her to meet him in the parking lot. She took her small duffel, tossed it over her shoulder, grabbed her keys and was out the door. She felt her stomach fall, seeing Brandon standing in front of his car, still running, with a single red rose and a cheesy grin on his face.
She approached him, folding her arms and tapping her foot, the way her mother used to do with her father when he’d done something stupid.
If Brandon didn’t smell so nice then, she would have probably harmed him in some way. He shoved the rose at her, chuckled and said, “Happy Birthday, baby!”
She took it from him slowly, and sighed, knowing that telling her that doubled as an apology for his behavior for the past couple of days.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I suppose that you are forgiven…”
“As I hoped I would be,” he told her, reaching for her bag. “Get in this car…”
“Do I have to? Where are we going?”
“You’re not a big fan of surprises, are you?”
“I have my reasons,” she said, watching him open the passenger door.
“Tallie, baby,” he began, reaching for her hand. “It’s not a booby trap…it’s my car…you love my car…”
“Not the way it smells…”
“Stay on task, please, stay on task…”
“Sorry,” she said. “Fine, I’ll go…I’m interested to see what y’all have been keeping from me for the past week…”
And Brandon drove, that sunny, breezy Friday morning, and the poor girl sat back, attempted to be calm, attempted to breathe, stealthily searched the car for any clues, for any sign, while Brandon sang his heart out to an alternative group that she didn’t recognize.
“Stop looking around,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.
Natalie gasped, smiled and her cheeks warmed. “I wasn’t looking at anything.”
“Oh, don’t you lie,” he said. “Me singing doesn’t make me blind, you know…”
“Well, that’s funny because, it makes me deaf,” she laughed; attempting to move as his hand tickled her thigh.
“You’ll find out in good time,” he told her. “It might not be anything…it could be a cruel joke that I’m playing on you…”
“I hope not…”
“You won’t know, will you? Just try breathing, okay?”
She’s tried that already. She’s tried that and failed. So, she opted to reach for his hand, and he squeezed it in return. As if he knew that she were being completely paranoid and needed to calm down. She loved that about him. She loved that he calmed her down.
She wondered how she got to be so lucky the moment that Brandon pulled into the rock-laden driveway of a wood cabin that sat on the bank of Hartwell Lake, where the Savannah River flushed through, sitting placidly on the border of sweet Georgia and South Carolina, where the leaves of lofty birches and maples appeared to be set ablaze, fencing in deep blue waters with small, sun-smeared waves, and the occasional dinghy, bobbing in the wind.
“We’re here,” Brandon sighed, looking at her.
She was speechless, of course, plumb speechless! She managed to get out of the car and stand on two feet, but her knees buckled a little, and she attempted to wrap her mind around it all, attempted to make sense of the breeze brushing against her warmed brown cheeks, of how calm Brandon seemed to be. She then allowed a wave of guilt to run over her, recalling the bottle of cologne and trip to a restaurant downtown that she’d gotten him for his twenty-third birthday. What she did definitely didn’t compare. What on earth was he thinking?
“Well, just don’t stand there with your mouth hanging open,” Brandon said to her, pulling her out of her trance. “Come inside and pick your bed…”
She trailed behind Brandon, who carried both of their bags, up to the arch head brown door, watching him reach into his pocket for a set of keys. He unlocked the door with ease, saying, “Here we go.”
Lord, she nearly fell over and died when Scotty and Asha jumped out from obscure locations in the den to spray her with silly string, and laugh at her. She waited for the moment where someone assured her that she deserved all of this, in the meantime she would attempt to figure out how these people who loved her were able to keep this a secret from her for so long.
While Brandon helped her get the silly string out of her hair, she asked, “How?”
“We all came down last night,” Scotty said. “That’s why we couldn’t do anything with you…Brandon drove back to Athens this morning to get you…”
“We wanted to make sure everything was set up right,” Asha said.
“Yea, it smelled pretty bad in here when we first came,” Scotty laughed. “So please excuse all of the Glade Plug-ins that you see…”
“And make sure that you thank Brandon appropriately,” Asha said. “It was his idea, his money, et cetera, et cetera…”
Oh, Natalie, don’t you do it! Don’t you dare start to cry!
But, she did anyway. She, who didn’t even care if she had a birthday in the first place.
And they all hugged her, making her feel even more pitiful than before, making her cry harder.
#
Upon sunset, after they’d unloaded their things, and designated sleeping arrangements, they hopped into Brandon’s truck, and headed into Hartwell, where they bought groceries to make dinner with, and where the boys bought enough beer to give to an army. Natalie only shook her head. They returned to the cabin, sometime after nightfall, and Natalie started the gas stove and rumbled through the cabinets in search of the right pan for her pork chops, while Brandon, Scotty and Asha argued over how to start a fire in the stone-lined fireplace in the narrow living room, with an ancient quilted tapestry, hanging overhead, and a vaulted ceiling.
“Brandon, give me the matches before you burn down the cabin,” Asha demanded, snatching the packet from his hands.
“Brandon, don’t let her have them,” Scotty said, snatching the packet from her. “That girl is dangerous…”
“Am not,” Asha said defensively. “I am perfectly capable of creating a fire…”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Na
talie added, turning the dial on the stove, watching the burner set ablaze.
“Nat, what are you talking about?” Asha said. “You’re supposed to be on my side…”
“I stand neutral,” she chuckled. “Because you can’t start a fire without…wood…”
“Wow,” Brandon started, getting to his feet. “I know I started dating her for a reason…”
Natalie smiled.
“Well, aren’t you just pleased with yourself?” Scotty said.
“Just stating the obvious,” Natalie replied, taking the pork loins from their packaging. “And while I’m cooking, maybe one of you would like to go and find some wood to put in the fireplace…”
Brandon, Scotty and Asha looked at each other.
“Well, I’m not cold anymore,” Asha began with a heavy sigh. “What about you guys?”
“Yea, I felt this sudden blast of warmth come over me,” Scotty chuckled.
“You two are the laziest,” Brandon said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll go get some wood…”
Natalie turned off the burner and sighed. “Hmm, I’ll go with you…”
Brandon looked pleased, and he extended his hand for her to grab.
They headed out the front door and into the fresh air.
“Thank you for walking with me,” he whispered down to her, squeezing her hand a little tighter.
She nodded and her head found his shoulder blade. She wouldn’t admit to him that any opportunity she got to be alone with him she’d seize it. Being close to him was always the best opportunity…
“They’ve been driving me a little crazy the past couple of nights,” he admitted quietly with a chuckle. “I don’t know if they were more concerned about making your birthday special or with each other…”
“You sense it too?” she asked him, watching him lower his head toward the ground.
“Are you kidding me? All they did yesterday was argue about this and argue about that…what Asha should write on your birthday cake…how Scotty should wrap your birthday present…which bedroom they should sleep in…I swear, I’ve never been happier that you’re here…”
Likewise, she wanted to say. But it didn’t come out. She only let him lead her into the woods, with the moon watching overhead, the crickets crying in the distance and the faint current brushing against the bank. She held close to his hand, walked close near him, and brushed her brown, warmed cheek against his black jacket, that she bought him for his twenty-second birthday.
