by VJ Erickson
CHAPTER SIX
Taylor tried to process what Joseph had told her, and the conclusion she kept coming to was that Joseph was untrustworthy. For some reason, Hannah seemed more inclined to trust Joseph over Eric, but every encounter Taylor had with them just convinced her that Eric was the normal one in the family.
Though she bristled at the idea of Joseph and Hannah dictating to her whom she hung out with, it would certainly alleviate all of the pressure if she just let Eric go. He was just some cute guy who showed interest, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that he was worth all this trouble.
Still, Joseph’s remarks stuck in her mind. Though she hated the idea of Joseph breathing down her neck, she hated the idea of him getting his way even more. Suddenly feeling resolute, she pulled out her cellphone and looked up Eric’s phone number. The image of him mugging for the camera made her smile. It was so much more pleasant than Joseph’s perpetually dire expression.
She opened up the message window and typed:
still up for tonight? feeling better
The response came immediately.
meet you in lobby @ 6.30?
Taylor looked at the clock. It was 5:30.
ok
An hour wasn’t much time to get ready, but the lack of extra time would give her less room to reconsider her date. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was fine, her make-up was fine, and her clothes were also fine. Fine was not going to cut it; she would need to change everything. She grabbed her bathroom kit and rushed down the hall.
Once she was back and dressed, she stood in the mirror again and appraised her appearance. She had carefully selected her wardrobe to look nice, but not too fussy. This was an impromptu date, so she didn’t want to look like she had been planning her wardrobe all day. She also didn’t want to look like she was phoning it in.
She traded her comfy jeans for her cute jeans and her t-shirt for a black fitted shirt with a lacy collar. She rarely wore jewelry, but accessorized today with a faux white gold chain and pendant with matching dangly earrings.
She was fairly pleased with the results. She could wear this outfit to a club or restaurant, but it could also be worn to a movie theater or bowling alley. There were touches of glam, but the jeans kept it down to earth. She wished that she could lose the glasses, but for now they would have to do. She wasn’t going to sacrifice being able to see her date for the sake of appearances.
She grabbed her purse and was preparing to leave when Hannah stepped into the room.
Hannah took one look at her and asked, “Going out?”
“Yep. Don’t wait up!” Taylor said, trying to sound breezy and carefree while she kept moving towards the door.
“Taylor, please...” Hannah began, but Taylor interrupted her.
“I know. I understand. I’ll be careful. We’ll stay in well-lit public places, and I promise I’ll call if I need anything, okay?”
“Okay...” Hannah said softly, staring down at the floor.
Hannah did not make an effort to stop Taylor as she left.
Eric was already waiting for her in the lobby. For all the time she spent thinking about the proper combination of wardrobe choices to present the perfect impression, Eric was not similarly burdened. He acknowledged this was a date by switching out his shorts for jeans, and that was about it. He was still wearing a t-shirt, and his hair was still a slight mess, but this just made him appear boyishly cute.
Taylor wished there were corners to be cut for girls that made them look more attractive, but alas it seemed that only boys were able to improve their appearance by ignoring it.
“You look nice,” he said, as she approached him.
Taylor congratulated herself on an hour well spent.
“So do you,” Taylor said.
“Yeah. I put on long pants!”
He said this while tugging at the hem of his jeans as if to prove that they did in fact go all the way down.
“I’m impressed,” she said.
“You ready?”
“For?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Come on!”
With that, he turned sharply and started walking down the path away from the dorms and around the corner. He didn’t appear to be waiting for her, so she hurried along after him.
The sidewalk led to a high brick wall that ran the length between two taller buildings. There was a high-arched gate in the center of the wall, and as they walked through, they found themselves in an urban park lined with tall trees. In the center was a small pond that was hidden from view from the street by the wall and trees. A cement slab bench sat on the far side of the pond.
“C’mon!” Eric said while leading her towards the bench.
As they approached, Taylor noticed a grocery bag tucked just out of view. Eric practically skipped to the bench. He reached behind it, grabbed the bag, and placed it on the bench with a flourish. He reached into the bag and pulled out two paper-wrapped subs and held them out to Taylor.
“Ham or turkey?” he asked.
“I’ll take turkey.”
Taylor was impressed with the gesture. Given his typical frat boy appearance, Taylor was expecting an uninspired dinner and a movie. She appreciated this surprise picnic and was a little embarrassed that she had felt nervous for a moment walking into a secluded park alone with him.
She also reminded herself that they were close enough to the dorms that someone would hear her screams and then chastised herself for even thinking such a thought. Eric consistently disproved Hannah’s apparent distrust of him, and Taylor felt that she needed to start giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Eric sat down and patted on the seat beside him in invitation to Taylor. She sat down next to him without hesitation. He pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to her.
“I had no idea what you like, so I tried to keep it basic. So basically you get bread and water. Prison food!” he said, clearly proud of it.
“Eat a lot of prison food?” asked Taylor.
“Only if you count all the pizza here."
Relax, Taylor told herself. Whatever his deal was, he was not a criminal.
Eric took an enormous bite out of his sub, leaving strands of shredded lettuce hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He slurped up the lettuce like spaghetti.
Everything Eric did had a boyish quality to it, Taylor thought. From the way he ate to his always askew hair, he had an almost innocent lack of self-awareness that Taylor appreciated. She found Joseph and Hannah’s warnings even less convincing the more time she spent with him.
“So, only one more day of fun before classes start, right?” Taylor asked.
“You mean one more day of Addison until the fun starts, right?”
“I could do with less of her, yeah, but I’m not looking forward to homework.”
“Eh, homework,” Eric said, waving his hand dismissively.
“I think you’re going to need to do a little homework if you’re a science major."
“Good thing you’re taking the same classes then, huh? We could be study buddies!”
“We could," she said. "I wouldn’t have pegged you as the science-y type. Why did you pick that?”
“I want to be a doctor. I like to help people. How about you? Why biology?”
“I'm kind of a big nerd for figuring out how everything fits together. You know, plants, animals, people. Evolution especially. It's all just really fascinating to me," she said.
Eric laughed at this.
“I didn’t expect you to be the nerdy type," he said.
“Well I guess we both have a few surprises up our sleeves."
Eric nodded in agreement.
“Indeed,” he said with a grin.
