Lara laughed. “Oh my God, I love you, Isabel.”
I sighed again. “Honestly, Lara, what does she want to hear from me?”
“That you’re happy.”
“I am happy . . . sometimes,” I hedged. Well, I thought, I’m happy in law school class, I’m happy when I’m dancing, and I’m happy very briefly when I fulfill a certain physical need once in a while.
“You know what she means,” Lara said.
“Yeah, she means I would be happier with a man.”
“It’s not just a man, it’s someone who cares about you, who is a partner for you,” she paused, lowering her voice, “who gives you regular sex.” She smiled.
“Oh geez,” Patrick appeared a little embarrassed. “I’m going for a dip in the pool.” He put his magazine down on the chair and walked toward the pool.
“I get regular sex,” I told her.
“Please,” Lara said, “how often does ‘regular’ mean?” She used my air quotes, and I couldn’t help giggling.
“At least once or twice a semester,” I said. Lara knew this; I didn’t know why she was asking, probably to prove a point.
“And with random guys.”
“Yeah, well—” I had nothing to add. She was right. It wasn’t completely fulfilling. I had never said that it was. It just satisfied a primal need.
Then I thought of something. “It’s better to be alone than with someone who is not a good fit for you.”
“I agree,” Lara said. “Mom’s point is only that you don’t try to meet people.”
“Yeah, and she thought I would meet someone in law school, and now two years have gone by and I haven’t met anyone. The reason is because there is no one worth dating in my class.”
“I know. Maybe after school is done, you can join some social group, like Meet-up or something.”
Melanie and I had talked about that. I liked hanging around Melanie, so maybe we could do that together. That was assuming that we both stayed in DC. Melanie planned to stay here. She wanted to work on the Hill. I was open to going anywhere. I had even thought about going back to Spain after law school, but the employment situation was so bad there that it probably wasn’t a real possibility.
“Maybe you could meet someone you liked,” Lara continued.
“I don’t like anyone.”
Lara smiled. “You like Josh and Eric.”
“That’s different. They’re my friends, and I’m not interested in them romantically.”
“I wonder why Josh is single,” Lara said then.
I wondered too. “I think he hasn’t met the right girl.” He had dated a couple of girls since I had known him, but not seriously. “Plus,” I added, “We don’t really have time to date, those of us with jobs and in the evening program.”
“Isabel, I really don’t mean to give you a hard time. I know it’s tough.”
“Yeah, I know.” I smiled at her. “Besides, I’m not looking, anyway,” I added quickly.
“You know,” Lara began. Oh no, I thought, she’s up to something. I can see it on her face. “I think there’s this guy in my residency class that you would really like.”
“Not the blind date, Lara,” I pleaded.
“No, no, I mean, we could all go out in a group or something.”
“Maybe,” I said. I was intrigued, though. “What does he look like?”
“He’s attractive, I think he’s like thirty or thirty-one—”
“Is he Latin?” I asked, a little bit hopefully.
“I knew you would ask that. No, but he’s dark, dark hair, dark eyes. He’s really smart.”
“Is he doing infectious diseases like you are?”
“No, he’s doing rheumatology.”
“Interesting. Did he ask you to set him up or anything?”
“No, no, but I think he’d be open to dating.”
Open to dating. I scoffed inwardly. I refused to scoff openly at my sister. I loved her and I knew she was trying to help. For some reason, coming from her it was okay. Coming from our mother, it was annoying.
“I promise that I will think about it,” I told her.
She smiled broadly. Whenever she smiled like that, it lit up her entire face. Her eyes sparkled and grew huge.
Patrick came back then. “The water’s great, you guys should totally go in.” He wrapped a towel around himself and sat down.
“We will in a minute,” Lara told him. Then she turned back to me. “So tell me about your classes so far.”
I exhaled. I had been waiting for an opening. “Actually,” I began, “I kind of—met this new guy.”
Lara and Patrick both leaned toward me at the same time.
“New guy?” Patrick said, interested.
“I don’t mean new to me—I mean—I don’t mean that I’m interested in him or anything—I mean, new to the school.”
“He’s a first-year?” Lara asked.
“No, he must have transferred here. I’ve never seen him before. But he’s in all of my classes. And he sits next to me in all of my classes. We’ve talked—I mean, we’ve exchanged words, really, only a couple of times. He knows my name.”
“So he’s piqued your interest?” Patrick asked me.
“Yes, a little,” I admitted. “But we haven’t formally met.” Then I proceeded to tell both of them about everything that had taken place between Tarek and me since I had first seen him.
Lara was smiling, interested.
“Isabel, I think this guy is into you,” Patrick told me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“Are you interested in him?” Lara asked me point-blank. That was her style. She was logical, like me, and it was all about getting down to the bottom line.
Patrick leaned in a bit. “Yeah, has your type changed from the hot-blooded Latino to the hot-blooded Arab?”
I laughed. Patrick always made me laugh. I could see why my sister had fallen for him. “He seems nice,” I admitted. I was still confused about seeing him at the Federalist Society meeting. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I had been telling myself that Tarek was just another annoying Millennial. But I was totally truthful with my sister; I always was. “I’m not sure.”
Lara smiled, another broad smile.
“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “I haven’t seen that expression in a long time.”
I was confused. “What do you mean, that expression?”
“You’re discombobulated.”
I smiled. She was right.
SECOND WEEK: MONDAY
I was feverishly reading for my Criminal Procedure class. I had read the last two cases rather quickly the day before, and I was going over them again, highlighting and typing up notes. I tapped my pen on the book as I read, admiring the contrast with my dark grey nail polish. I didn’t usually do frou-frou things like paint my nails, but I liked them dark. It had been a decent study break last night. After spending time with Lara and Patrick, I had studied a little more after dinner.
Lara had given me another huge hug when I had left her house the day before. I could tell that she wanted to spend more time with me, that she was worried about me, but her schedule was so crazy that we could only see each other once in a while.
I don’t know why everyone is so worried about me. I’ve been able to manage for thirty-four years. Jesus. Sometimes my mother treated me like I was six years old. Why did she call Lara to complain about me? If she has something to say to me, then she can freaking call me and say it to me directly!
I sighed and pushed all thoughts of my mother from my head. I needed to concentrate. I didn’t have time to be pissed off about her right now. There was plenty of time to be pissed off later.
Today I was wearing all black. I decided that I was mourning the decay of civilization as I knew it. I had on black skinny jeans and a black silk, sleeveless blouse with black flats. We didn’t really have a dress code at work, and wearing jeans was accepta
ble. However, I usually tried to dress at least business casual. Today I had woken up late and had been in a rush. I hadn’t slept that great the night before.
I was rather successfully tuning out all the chatter around me, people making plans for the upcoming weekend, showing each other Internet videos and engaging in vapid conversations. I heard a female voice say, “Are my breasts too big?”
No, breasts can never be too big, not if you’re asking a guy.
“Hey, John!” some guy said into his phone, “Where are you at? We’re waiting for you!”
Where are you at?! I died a little inside. The at is totally unnecessary. Oh my God, strike me down right here with a bolt of lightning or something.
Then suddenly a soft voice cut through all the chatter.
“Hey, Isabel.”
I whipped my head up, looking over my open laptop.
It was Tarek.
Jesus. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
I decided to take in the entire sight of him. Since he had addressed me directly, I finally had an excuse to take a good look at him. I decided afterward that it was kind of a mistake. Taking in his entire body, I could feel my nipples become instantly tender. Oh my God.
He was wearing a black T-shirt with dark jeans. His T-shirt hugged his chest, which, like his entire body, was lean and muscular. His short beard and goatee were neatly trimmed. He was certainly dark enough to be what Lara and Eric called “my type,” although I usually went for Latin men. I guessed his age to be about 28, but his eyes held an experience that made him seem more mature.
He wasn’t super-tall. I guessed that he was between 5 feet, 9 inches and 5 feet 10 inches. I was 5'6" so I more or less did a quick comparison. His curly black hair hung in carefully groomed, tight tiny ringlets around his face and almost down to his shoulders. He was incredibly sexy. He probably had to spend a lot of time on his hair, moussing it up, and that if he let it go it would probably be frizzy. His curls reminded me of Lara and her unruly hair, although her ringlets were more tousled and larger, and always framed her beautiful face perfectly. She was forever straightening it, but I kept telling her it looked gorgeous in ringlets, like Tarek’s curls did now. I felt myself softening a little at the thought of my sister, but I steeled my reserve and plastered a semi-scowl on my face. My scowl and general surly attitude were my defense mechanisms. After enough unpleasantness, people generally left me alone. I liked it that way. Eric, Josh and Dinesh were somehow building up a tolerance for it. It was starting to piss me off. Lately, everything was pissing me off.
I had to admit, however, that I was intrigued as well as annoyed. Few people had the nerve to come and talk to me like this, with no warning.
I decided not to say anything at first. I just stared and raised my eyebrows.
He waited a good three to four seconds before he spoke. The left corner of my mouth started to go up into a smirk. Invariably, there were only two reasons a guy like this, a semi-stranger no less, would deign to talk to me. If he was going to miss class and wanted to get my notes, he was shit outta luck. And if he wanted a booty call, well, I wasn’t quite sure yet how I would handle that. Little did I know, he wasn’t going to ask me either of those things.
“Hi,” he began, a bit shyly, “I’m Tarek. I’m in class with you.”
As if I didn’t know that. He had a deep voice. I also listened more closely to his accent than I ever had before. It was French, but like French “light,” not the heavy French accent of someone who had lived in France his entire life and learned English in a classroom. But there was a hint of another accent, too, that I hadn’t really paid attention to before. That must be the Arabic accent. I was a translator and a linguist, and this piqued my interest a hair. Still, he wasn’t the first foreign guy I had ever met.
“Do you honestly think I don’t know who you are?” I asked without smiling. I was annoyed, at his brazenness at approaching me and at the fact that my nipples were so tender. God, I hope they’re not standing at attention right now. I couldn’t risk looking down at them because then he would notice.
He paused for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected such a surly response.
He looked at my laptop, then back at my face.
“Do you mind if I—“
I kicked the chair opposite me out from the table before he even finished the sentence. He seemed surprised but didn’t lose his composure. I was grudgingly impressed by that.
He sat down opposite me in one quick, fluid motion. I would soon learn that he always moved like that, like he breezed through life always in a hurry. We were alike in that way. But I would have sat down more clumsily, moving the chair around, scooting it into the table. Not him. It was a small table and we weren’t that far away from each other.
I closed my laptop without taking my eyes off him.
“Are you reading for Crim?” he asked.
“Talk,” I said. “What do you want?”
“It is Isabel, right?”
I didn’t see the point in refusing to tell him my name. He could look at the law school’s student directory, and look at the people in his classes, and figure it out.
I crossed my arms. “Isabel Vilanova.” I said my last name properly, with a Spanish accent. I couldn’t stand Anglicizing foreign names.
“Are you Spanish?”
“Yes.” In my experience, in the U.S. when most people say “Spanish,” they meant “Hispanic.” Either way, in my case the answer was yes.
He continued looking at me. A less secure person would be unnerved by it. However, this was not my first rodeo with a Middle Eastern man. I knew how direct they could be.
His next question was audacious, and surprised even me.
“So what’s with all the black?” He was trying not to smile.
I almost smiled, a little smile, but I caught myself in time.
“What do you mean?” I asked back.
“That’s very lawyerly of you,” he continued, “answering a question with a question.”
“Well, I am studying to be a lawyer, so . . .” I let the sentence trail off.
He continued. “The dark clothes, dark nail polish, dark lipstick—”
“Look who’s talking,” I waved a hand at his black shirt, interrupting him.
“You even dye your hair,” he continued, ignoring me.
“No, I don’t. I’ve never dyed my hair.” That wasn’t entirely true. I occasionally had it highlighted, but hadn’t done so in a long time.
“That’s your natural color?” He was incredulous.
“Yes.” Where the hell was he going with this?
“It’s almost as dark as mine.”
“Yes.”
“Are you always this—“
“Peeved off, surly?” I interrupted him.
“I was going to say hard to reach, but you’re those things too.” I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was intrigued.
I realized then that I was enjoying this repartee. It made me afraid. If I continued to talk to him, then maybe we would become friends. And if we became friends, then maybe I would end up falling for him. And if I fell for him, well who knew what would happen then? I didn’t want that. I would rather remain closed off. Besides, I figured the four friends that I had plus my sisters were enough.
I decided then that this small talk had gone far enough. There were only ten minutes until class and now there was no way I was going to finish my two cases in time. The thought made me beyond annoyed.
I leaned forward on the table, still crossing my arms, closer to him.
“Look,” I said slowly, “If you’re going to ask me out, why don’t you just do it, so that I can say no?”
He laughed softly and shook his head. At this point, almost any man would turn and leave in a huff. The fact that he didn’t, and that he didn’t seem put off, intrigued me more than anything else so far.
“I wasn’t going to ask you out.”
“Really? I’m disappointed.” My voice dripped w
ith sarcasm. Then I changed my tone. “Out with it. What do you want?”
“I wanted to know if you wanted to study together.”
Well, that was a surprise. I honestly had not been expecting that. Everyone here knew me, or didn’t know me. They either knew I was a loner and studied on my own or didn’t notice me, and therefore wouldn’t ask me to study with them anyway.
“What, like a study group?”
“Yes.”
“Just me and you?”
“Yes.”
“No.” I said it without thinking, on automatic pilot. If I started to think about it, I would say ‘yes’ only because I was horny.
“No what?”
“You’re slow today,” I said. “No thank you, I’m not interested.” Why would he think I would be, anyway?
“I’ve noticed you in class,” he said then.
Of course he had. Who hadn’t? I was on top of my game. I lived law school. I loved to argue and craved the intellectual stimulation.
I continued to stare at him.
“You’re really smart and I thought that—we could help each other.”
You mean I could help you.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said icily. It was a half-lie, though. I responded fairly well to flattery.
“I just transferred here,” he said then.
“I know,” I said.
“How would you know that?” he asked, a bit confused.
“So you think I’m a fucking moron?”
“I didn’t say that.” He was surprised, either at my tone or at my cursing, I didn’t know.
Now I felt like I had to explain how I knew. “This is my third year here. I’ve never seen you before. And I would have noticed you,” I added the last part without thinking. Smooth, idiot, I said to myself. “But you’re not taking first-year classes, which tells me you’ve already taken them. Add that all up, and it leads to the fact that you transferred here.”
He nodded slowly. “Very good.”
He’s arrogant. What a novel concept, an arrogant Arab man.
Tarek continued. “Look, I’m a good student. I’m—” he was struggling for the correct word and I felt a little bad for him for a split second, “—studious.”
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