“Condom?” Ginny whispers between kisses.
“Yeah, hang on…” I mutter. I grab my abandoned jeans and retrieve my wallet from the back pocket. Ever since high school, I always carry an emergency condom. I’m careful to replace the condom after I use it—on the one occasion when I didn’t, I ended up accompanying a girl to the abortion clinic. That’s not a situation I ever want to experience again ever.
The sex is quick, but (in my humble opinion) pretty damn good. With everything I put into my studying lately, I don’t have the stamina for a marathon. And especially not on the cold, hard floor of the locker room. When it’s over, I toss the condom in the garbage. If anyone sees it there, they’re going to be pretty amused.
Then we get dressed in silence. I watch Ginny doing up the buttons on her blouse with her tiny little fingers and I start grinning like an idiot. I can’t help myself—that was so awesome.
But I know that this is just sex to her. Nothing more. Just a release for two people who have done nothing but study for a full month. Or so she believes.
_____
So help me, I think smart girls are sexy. I don’t know why. I just do.
This is a bad thing for me. Smart girls hate me—they think I’m a huge asshole. Or more accurately, they recognize that I’m a huge asshole. In high school, I just dated pretty blond cheerleaders, which made my mother (a former cheerleader) very pleased. It was fun going out with popular girls like that, but they never did it for me.
Then I met Janet Stewart in my pre-med physics class. Janet wasn’t pre-med—no way. She was the teaching assistant for that class, well on her way to a combination BS and MA in physics. Janet would stand at the front of the classroom, sprouting facts about electromagnetism as her wire-rimmed glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose, then she’d turn around to write something on the blackboard and I’d stare at her ass. All through class, I’d fantasize about kissing her. Okay, more than kissing her. It got kind of graphic sometimes. Once it involved a banana cream pie and a horse.
After the class ended and I got my A, I camped out outside Janet’s dorm. I must have sat there watching the entrance for over an hour. When she finally came out, I fell into step beside her.
“Hey, there,” I said.
Janet didn’t even stop walking. She tucked her short brown hair behind her ear, and mumbled a hello.
“I’m Mason,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I know. You were in my E&M section.”
“Right,” I confirmed.
Janet shook her head. “I can’t change your grade, you know. If that’s what you want.”
I already had my A.
“Actually,” I said. “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me sometime.”
Janet finally stopped walking. She stared at me for a few seconds, then smirked. “Oh no.”
It wasn’t even a “no.” It was an “oh no.”
“Why not?” I pressed her.
“I’m not interested, Mason,” she said. She added, “Sorry.”
Of course, I was certain I could persuade her to change her mind. I bought her flowers, sent her chocolate, cute e-cards, etc. All those stupid things that girls like. I did everything short of standing outside her window with a boom box playing Peter Gabriel. But Janet seriously did not want to go out with me.
Finally, I gave up, dejected, and asked out this pretty, airhead music major named Holly instead. I dated Holly for two years. She’d probably lose it if she knew how many times when I was having sex with her I was imagining Janet.
Chapter 19
I’ve made it my goal for the year to always ask a question during lecture. I don’t think that’s so ridiculous. Asking questions shows that we’re interested in the lecture, that we’re paying attention.
And yes, I usually ask questions that I know the answer to. After all, how do I know if it’s an intelligent question or not if I don’t know the answer?
I’ve noticed in the past that professors really get off on being asked about their research. If you want to suck up to a professor, that’s a great start. The bad news is that doesn’t seem to work very well on Dr. Conlon, who is the professor I want to impress the most. Apparently, he’s not completely full of himself.
For example, I tried to ask him about a research study he’d published about a year ago, and he just smiled and said, “I doubt the class is interested in hearing about an esoteric research study about liver volume. And I don’t think it’s really all that relevant.” Then he went right back to teaching us about the female pelvis.
Fine. Dr. Conlon won’t take the bait. But everyone else will, especially our biochemistry professor, Dr. Wood.
Dr. Wood is ancient—he looks like if you blow on him too hard, he might disintegrate into nothingness. Also, he doesn’t believe in PowerPoint. When he lectures, he usually stands at the podium and rambles on about metabolism or whatever. If he does use slides, it’s the kind that come in a carousel. I didn’t even know you could hook one of those things up anymore—he must’ve found one in a museum or something. But since his lectures aren’t available online, unlike Dr. Conlon’s and several of the other professors’, a large portion of the class feels obligated to attend.
Also, Dr. Wood loves being asked about his research.
With five minutes left in the lecture time, I raise my hand in the air. Dr. Wood takes a minute to notice me, even though I’m in the first row, because he’s half-blind as well. “Yes, Mason?”
Obviously, he knows me by name by now.
“I was wondering if you could tell us more about the mechanistic implications of persulfate binding on the active site of cysteine dioxygenase?” I say.
Dr. Wood beams. “You know, I published an article on that very topic!”
You don’t say.
He also doesn’t happen to notice that it really has very little to do with his current lecture topic, the inborn errors of metabolism.
Since the next thing on our schedule is lunch, Dr. Wood is able to spend a full twenty minutes droning on about his research. I can hear my classmates groaning about being hungry, but I don’t really care. Dr. Wood loves me.
_____
I’m sitting on my bed studying (what else?) when Abe stomps into our shared bedroom. The first thing he does is accidentally knock over the stack of books next to the bed, and the texts go flying all over the floor. Typical.
“Hulk smash,” I say.
Abe doesn’t crack a smile like he usually does when I make that joke. He sighs loudly and flops down on his bed. Then he stares up at the ceiling like a hormonal teenager. “It’s hopeless,” he mutters.
“Heather?” I ask.
He nods. “I can’t take it anymore. Seriously.”
I don’t get it. “What’s so great about her anyway?”
Abe rolls onto his side and frowns at me. “What’s so great about Ginny?”
Shit, I didn’t know he knew about me and Ginny. He’s more observant than I gave him credit for.
“That’s nothing,” I say, which is the truth. Ginny would never let it be any more than that.
He sighs and rolls back the other way. “I just think she’s really great, that’s all. And her boyfriend is a total asshole who doesn’t appreciate her.”
I hate to see my roommate suffering this way.
“Okay,” I say. “You know what you do?”
Abe sits up, all eager for my advice. I get the sense he doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with girls.
“You kiss her,” I say.
His eyes widen. “I can’t do that, Mason!”
“Why not?”
“It’s a violation of her space,” he says.
Oh, Christ.
“Abe,” I say. “You have to be aggressive. Nice guys finish last. Don’t be a nice guy.”
“Maybe,” he says thoughtfully, “I can be a slightly less nice guy who finishes a little better than last.”
“Just kiss her, dude!”
Abe shakes his head. “She’d probably just slap me.”
That’s actually a distinct possibility.
“It’s worth the risk,” I say.
Abe looks dubious.
“Abe,” I say. “You have been her friend way too long. If you don’t make a move fast, soon you’re going to be painting each other’s toenails and putting her hair in curlers.”
He looks like he’s considering what I’m saying, but I doubt he’ll do it. For a big guy, Abe is really just a huge wuss.
_____
A week before our first anatomy exam, my classmate Julie Scott approaches me in the hospital after the class we just took together.
I’ve been avoiding Julie like the plague lately. I get the sense she’s interested in me, and that’s just not what I want on any level. Yeah, Julie is hot as holy hell, but so what? She just doesn’t do it for me.
Is Julie a smart girl? I guess she’s not a complete idiot if she made it to med school. Southside may not be Yale, but the school definitely has pretty stringent standards. But she doesn’t have that quality that Janet had—and that Ginny has. Plus I’m willing to bet she’s super high maintenance.
“Mason,” Julie says in a sing-song voice. She puts her hand on my arm for good measure. “Where have you been hiding yourself?”
I smile tightly. “What’s up, Julie?”
“We’re having a party the night of the anatomy exam at my house,” Julie says. She’s renting a house with a couple of other girls in the class, none of whom are girls I’d like to spend an evening with. “You must come.”
I suppress a groan. Alcohol + Party + Julie = Big Mistake. And even if I manage to avoid Julie, I can’t imagine the party being that much fun if her annoying, stuck-up friends are there. Then I get an idea for something that might make the party tolerable.
“Listen,” I say. “Can I bring Ginny?”
“Who?” Julie asks.
“Ginny Zaleski. My lab partner.”
Julie makes a face. “I’d rather not, Mason. I don’t want more girls there. The ratios are already way off.”
Is she joking? Is this freaking junior high school, where she’s counting girls and boys in the room?
“Then forget it,” I say.
Julie pouts at me. I bet that works on most guys, but not this guy. I just have no interest in her. If I can’t hang out with Ginny, then I don’t want to go to the party.
“There just isn’t room,” Julie insists.
Yeah, I’m sure she can’t squeeze tiny Ginny into her huge house. She sighs loudly and crosses her arms.
“Listen, Mason, if you change your mind, you’re welcome to come. But just you.”
I’m pretty sure I won’t be changing my mind.
Chapter 20
All the studying pays off. The day before the anatomy exam grades are announced to be posted, Dr. Conlon calls me into his office. I can’t imagine what my anatomy professor wants to tell me, but I know it can’t be bad news—I know I kicked ass on the anatomy exam.
Dr. Conlon is pulling a book out of one of his shelves when I come in. He tosses the book onto his desk then grabs his cane and limps back to his seat. His cane nearly snags his desk in the process and he plops down into his chair.
Dr. Conlon is a loser. I hate to say it, but yeah. He just is. The cane and the limp aren’t even half of it.
I mean, the man wears bowties. Enough said.
“Sit down, Dr. Howard,” Dr. Conlon says to me, a stern look on his face.
I don’t like it that he calls us all “doctor.” It’s patronizing. But I’m not going to say anything. Anyway, I sit down in front of his desk.
“May I ask you a question?” Dr. Conlon says.
I nod, intrigued.
Dr. Conlon doesn’t just ask me one question, but lets loose with a rapid fire of difficult anatomy questions. He asks about the gut anastomoses, the innervation of the muscles in the pelvic floor, and a bunch of stuff that’s ridiculously obscure. He doesn’t even tell me if I’m right or not. By the end, I have to admit, I’m struggling to keep my composure. These questions are hard.
Finally, after the fifteenth question in a row, I interrupt him: “Listen, what’s this about?”
Dr. Conlon reaches into his desk and pulls out some stapled papers that I recognize as my exam. He tosses it down on the table.
“I’ve never seen anyone get a perfect score on the practical exam before,” he says. “I had to make sure you weren’t cheating.”
“And?”
“You know your shit, Howard. I’m impressed.”
I smile.
“What field are you interested in, Dr. Howard?” he asks me.
“Plastics,” I reply without hesitation.
Dr. Conlon nods. “I have a good friend at UCSF in the plastics department. If you keep this up, I’d be happy to write him a letter on your behalf. Or even give him a call.”
I feign surprise. But of course, I knew about Conlon’s connections to plastics at UCSF. It’s one of the best programs in the country—makes me curse the fact that I’m not a California native. The reason I’m here at Southside is because of Dr. Conlon and what he can do for me. I’ll rotate over there and impress the hell out of them, of course, but a letter would be gold.
“Thank you, sir,” I say.
Dr. Conlon smiles. “Keep up the good work.”
Everything is falling into place.
Chapter 21
It’s two a.m. on a Thursday night. And I’m at the library.
I got here a little late because I had to finally do my laundry. Buying new underwear was getting old. There was so much laundry, I had to use every available washer to get it done. I really hate doing laundry. The second I get married, I am done doing laundry.
I look across the table at Ginny. She’s going through some flashcards she made for biochem. I watch her biting her lip as she tucks her short dark hair behind her tiny ear. That girl is dedicated all right—it’s so sexy.
Ginny must have sensed me looking at her, because she glances up expectantly. I’m going to brag here: we’ve had sex maybe a couple dozen times now. We do it either in the locker room or the med student lounge. The lounge is more comfortable because it’s got a couch, but the risk of getting caught is higher so we usually just go to the locker room.
We’ve got a whole system going—if we’re up for it, we tap a yellow highlighter on the table five times. I’ve initiated more than she has, but she’s definitely done her fair share of highlighter-tapping. It’s gotten so that every time I hear someone tapping their pen in class, I start to get excited.
The sex is usually fast. It’s a little embarrassing, to be honest, but Ginny hasn’t called me on it yet. Anyway, it’s good—really, really good. The truth is, I think about Ginny a lot. All the freaking time. Right now I’m trying to focus on the cranial nerves, but I keep looking up at her instead. I wonder if she’s up for a study break.
Ginny cranes her neck to look at the textbook I’m reading, which is Dr. Conlon’s book. She crinkles her nose.
“You highlight a lot,” she comments.
“Yeah. So?”
“You highlighted every sentence on that page,” she points out.
I glance down at the page in front of me.
“Not every sentence,” I protest.
“There is literally one sentence that you didn’t highlight,” she says.
Okay, fine. She’s right.
“Highlighting helps me focus,” I say.
I have five different colors of highlights, which I use for different levels of importance of the information on the page. Yellow is the critical stuff.
Ginny closes her textbook and yawns. I sneak a glance at her own highlighter, hoping for a few taps signaling she’s in the mood. But no luck. Damn. I guess I’m going to have to go at it alone when I get home.
“Leaving?” I ask her.
She rubs her eyes. “Maybe I’ll put in another hour with Frank.”
“Hey, Mason,” she says. “You ever get curious about Frank?”
“Yeah, sure,” I admit.
In the last two months, I had probably spent more time with Frank than any other person in my life. It seems strange that I know nothing about the man, other than that he might have been a cop. Not even his real name.
“I wonder how he died,” Ginny says thoughtfully. “Almost everyone else knows how their cadaver died, but I just can’t figure it out with Frank. He’s got a great heart, perfect lungs, perfect kidneys, no liver cirrhosis…”
Actually, that’s been bothering me as well. Frank is in mint condition. I’m no pathologist (and never will be… ugh), but usually there’s at least some signs that an organ is failing. Hearts often became enlarged when they’re struggling, lungs turn black, livers grow firm… but Frank has none of those problems. His death is a complete mystery.
I wonder if we’ll ever find out how he died.
_____
When I get home that night, I find Abe sitting on the futon, clicking through the late night television channels. Abe’s eyes are bloodshot and he looks awful. He barely glances at me as I walk in.
“Hey, Hulk,” I greet him. “Where’s Heather?”
I’ve gotten used to the sight of them snuggled up on our futon. It almost doesn’t make me want to vomit anymore.
“Heather is going to leave me,” Abe says in a flat voice.
So much for sleep. I drop my books on the floor and push aside some dirty white tube socks to sit down next to Abe. We’re both slobs. “What happened?”
“I should never have been with her in the first place,” Abe mutters. “I mean, she’s way out of my league…”
Abe either has the worst self-esteem ever, or else he’s looking at Heather through a pair of eternal beer goggles. She’s not that hot, seriously. And Abe’s a really good guy. He’s easygoing, smart, affable, and even sometimes makes an effort to clean our bathroom, especially when Heather is around. And I don’t think he’s awful looking or anything, not that I’m able to judge that kind of thing. I’ve got to make him see there are other possibilities.
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