Grey

by Aundrea Ascencio

  Chantel wondered why he didn't make a move, and why he acted so friendly with Mia but hardly acknowledged her. For the first time, she felt a tinge of jealousy. It felt similar to the territorial jealousy she'd felt about his dorm room, except now she had gone from claiming the room as her space, to claiming him entirely as her domain. She knew perfectly well that Mia didn't fly on that side of the dating scene, and could be absolutely sure there was nothing going on there but friendship. However, Chantel couldn't help but feel a small amount of envy toward Mia for having enough of a connection with Eric to be on 'hugging terms' with him. Not even Chantel had gone that far in public.

  "Dude, what the hell is color-rus? I didn't teach you that," Mia chided him. "It's coh-lohr-res."

  "I said that," he insisted.

  "Dude, no, you said color-rus. I don't know what you said, but it wasn't Spanish," Mia laughed. "You totally failed me."

  "You mean Eric's actually done something to disappoint you, Mia?" Chantel asked, attempting to insert herself back into the conversation. "Shocker."

  "Well he tutors our German class, so me and him have this thing going on where we exchange languages. He wanted to learn Spanish so he could read the menu at Mexican restaurants, so I agreed to teach him words. For every German word he teaches me, I give him the Spanish equivalent of it," she said.

  "Oh," Chantel replied, feeling increasingly like an outsider. "Well then, I'm sure you two have plenty of words to review after that performance, so I'll leave you to it."

  "What did you think of the cover we did?" Eric asked, before she could escape. "I got the song off one of the playlists you gave me, and made my own version out of it. The band liked it when I played it for them, so I thought you'd like it."

  "It was ok," Chantel replied flatly, still unable to shake off the annoyance of him barely acknowledging her. "I really wasn't paying that much attention."

  "Oh...Ok," Eric said, and silence sucked all the cheer out of the conversation like a black hole.

  Chantel felt the wall thicken between them, knowing that she was the reason why it was there, but found the idea of punishing him more compelling than making nice.

  Mia glared at her, before turning back to Eric to lighten the mood. "You brought lunch," she exclaimed, glancing at the plastic bag in his hand.

  "Ya, they offered to give me 50 bucks per gig, but I told them they could pay me in tacos," Eric said, holding up his prize.

  "Tacos? Really?"

  He shrugged. "It's tacos. You can't beat that. And these aren't just tacos. They're godly," he said. "Well worth the walk from campus every Saturday. The guy who owns the truck also does mariachi"-- Mia winced at his pronunciation of the word-- "and I was at their truck one night and they were talking about their guitarist being gone to Mexico for a funeral, and needed somebody to fill in on some of their gigs, so I told them I'd do it for free tacos. You want a plate? I got some asada, pollo, cebesas, lenguas. You name it, I got it."

  "Oh he can pronounce all that. Anything on the menu, right? Fat ass," Mia remarked. "Give me the asada, and you'll be my hero for a day." She opened the bag up herself and fished out one of the paper plates. "Nice doing business with you, gringo, but I got to get back to my booth. Nice jamming out there though. I dig your style." She nudged him playfully in the shoulder and took a bite out of a taco as she marched back to her booth.

  If Love Were Enough

  Eric offered his bag to Chantel. "Shall we?"

  "Uh, no. You enjoy."

  "Ah come on. You're missing out, girl. Tacos de lenguas? I couldn't tell you what that means, but it's fucking delicious."

  "Cow tongue," she informed him. "That's what it is."

  "Wow, seriously?"

  "Yep. It's just like kissing a cow."

  Eric grinned at her before taking a huge bite of one. "Moo, cow, moo."

  "You'll eat anything."

  "It's really not that bad," he told her through a mouthful. "It's really tender and meaty, like a roast, but with little bumps all over it. I'm guessing those are the taste buds. Try it." He offered her his half eaten taco, and she pushed it away in disgust. "I had lunch."

  "Well you've made it easy for me."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You've been avoiding me lately."

  "It's midterm week. I've been avoiding everyone," she said. "You're not that special."

  "Yet here we are," he pointed out. "I got you to come to me somehow. I figured you'd be in your dorm, depressed, angry, lonely, studying all day, forgetting to be human. My original plan was to storm in and take you by force, but you walked right into my clutches quite conveniently."

  "Because you don't have the power to take me by force," she reminded him. "That's illegal."

  "By legal definition, yes, but what you see as abduction can also be argued as a form of liberation."

  Chantel laughed. "Don't try to lawyer talk me. Abduction is abduction. Period. And I don't need you to save me," she told him firmly, but added lightly, "But I wouldn't mind pretending that you are for a while."

  They found a tree on the far east side of campus, where the population of trees was relatively dense and they could isolate any one for their choosing. Chantel crouched neatly next to the trunk, careful to keep her skirt over her knees in a most ladylike fashion. Eric plopped his guitar case against the trunk and rested his back against it, crossing his feet at the ankles. He sat and chewed quietly on his tacos, studying the patterns in the trees as the sun shimmered through the leaves. "I'm going to miss the weather here," he said quietly.

  "For someone so determined to leave, you sure have a lot of regret about it," she replied. "Must be a sign."

  "I can't stay, Chantel," he told her. "I don't have a choice."

  "You can't stay. I can't go," she said. "I guess we'll both have a list of regrets soon."

  "Is this you giving me an answer?" he asked even quieter.

  "I don't know," she said. "I'm just thinking out loud."

  "Well can you not think out loud?" he asked. "Unless you're giving me a straight answer, I don't think I could take hearing anything else."

  "What if no was the straight answer?" she asked. "Then what? Would you accept it?"

  "Would you?" he asked.

  "I asked you first."

  "If you were absolutely sure that any reason you had to say yes was outweighed by your reasons to say no," he told her. "Then I'd accept it."

  "What does that even mean?" she asked.

  "If you don't know what that means, then you haven't thought about it enough and you're not ready to give me an answer," he said. "Therefore, it's kind of premature to be throwing hypothetical no answers my way without fully taking into consideration what that would mean for us."

  "Can you ever just give me a straight answer about anything?" she asked.

  "I love you. That's as straightforward and honest as it gets," he said. "Does that answer your question?"

  "No!" she said firmly. "You can tell me you love me all you want, but if love were enough, then it wouldn't be so hard to say yes? If the fact that I love you should be enough, then why can't I just say yes?"

  "Because you can still picture your life without me," he said. "And that life is too valuable to you to risk throwing it away on me."

  "I wouldn't say it like that."

  "But that's exactly what it is. I get it. I'm asking a lot from you, but if I didn't see a point in the future where it would be worth it, if I was absolutely certain that it wouldn't work between us, I would have never asked you to marry me."

  "You're right. We shouldn't be talking about this now," Chantel said, feeling overwhelmed again.

  Before she could stand up and walk away from the pressure, Eric took her hand and gazed into her eyes. Chantel expected him to say something in protest, but he didn't say anything else for a while. He just sat there looking at her, studying her face and taking in everything about her that he loved.

  "You're missing the point," he whispered
to her finally. "You're so wrapped up in worrying about us in the future that you're forgetting there's still an us to enjoy now. We're feeling this way about each other now. We have each other now. Let's take advantage of this now. I know I intend to. I'm going to make the most out of every minute you allow me to spend with you, whether it lasts for a lifetime or just until tomorrow."

  Chantel blushed and dropped her eyes from his, fearing that his sincerity and passion would push her into a decision she wasn't ready to make yet. "You make it so hard for me," she told him. "After everything, how could you be this way? I was so determined to hate you. So determine. You were so unimaginably flawed. How am I supposed to rationalize you seeming so perfect to me now? How am I supposed to feel? What do I do?"

  "Well, you can always just kiss me. That's usually how they solve it in the movies," Eric replied.

  Chantel laughed and gave him a quick peck, but when Eric didn't move away from her immediately, she found she couldn't resist the temptation of kissing him again, slower and more lingering this time, in uninhibited liberation where minute and hour no longer carried any meaning to her. Leaning her head against his chest, she watched the world buzz quietly by, and she wondered how she would ever reclaim her place in it after knowing feelings like this.

  "We're living in a dream, Eric," she told him. "What happens when we wake up?"

  "I can't tell you what the future will be like, or what obstacles we're going to face if we take this chance," he replied. "I can't make this decision for you, and whatever the outcome, I have to find it in myself to accept it and move on. I hope one day you'll do me the honor of being missus, but if it's not meant to be, I will respect your choice. I won't like it. I'm sure the women I meet after that won't like it either. In fact, she might even hate me, because no matter where you are, I will always be looking for you. The same face. The same demeanor. The same style. Whatever little fragments I find that resemble the beauty that's in front of me right now, I will spend my whole life piecing them together until I recreate you. But even then, I doubt there will ever be a moment as flawless as this."

  "It's you that's living in the dream then," Chantel said. "I'm not perfect by any means."

  "Neither am I," he said. "But I'm learning how to be better, and you had a lot to do with that."

  Chantel sat up, giving up the warmth of his chest, so she could look him in the eyes again. "I want to ask you a favor," she said.

  "Hell no. Absolutely not," he said firmly. "No, I'm kidding. As long as it doesn't involve clowns, or converting to any religion, we should be good."

  "What do clowns have to do with it?"

  "Have you seen the news lately? Clowns and religion are the major leading causes of death in the world right now. And they're creepy."

  "A clown? Seriously? Don't be a child," she dismissed him. "Actually, I was going to bring up that date thing you keep asking me about."

  "Oh, ya that too is on the list of absolutely not," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Because that offer left the table after the x amount of times you rejected me," he said. "You didn't honestly think I was going to keep asking? I have a life."

  "Well, actually, I was going to ask you."

  "On a date?" he said skeptically.

  "That's right, Sherlock. A date. Tonight."

  "Nah," he said flatly. "I'll pass."

  "You're turning me down?"

  "Them's the breaks, honey. You do me one, I'll do you one better," he said. "Your fake boyfriend's got other shit to do tonight and plans can't be canceled."

  "What do you have to do that's so damn important?" she demanded.

  "Stuff that doesn't involve taking a girl out who never wanted to go on a date with me in the first place," he replied. "Why does that sound so suspicious?"

  "It's not. I just think we should try it out," she said.

  "What do you mean try it out? I'm not a fucking car you're taking out on a test drive."

  "That's not what I meant," she protested. "Stop twisting my words around."

  "Then get to what you really mean, because you sure as hell don't mean a date," he replied. "What's the catch?"

  "I want to go out with you," she insisted. "For reals. Cross my heart. I'm being totally serious. No clauses. No strings attached. Just a normal, cheesy, cliché dinner and movie kind of occasion."

  "Ya?" Eric said, smiling and taking her in his arms again. "You want to be my girl now? My real one?"

  Chantel blushed and planted a kiss on his nose. "I guess that's what I'm trying to say."

  "Then say it."

  "I want to take this to the next level," she told him. "No more fake girlfriend. No more flings on the side. I want to be the only one."

  "You are the only one," he said. "You have been that way for a while now."

  "And," she added. "I want you to meet my mother."

  "There it is!" Eric declared, dropping her from his embrace. "The catch."

  "Why does it have to be a catch?"

  "Because I'm not actually going on a date with you, I'm going on one with your mother. Tell me I'm wrong."

  "Ok," she admitted. "Yes, my mother is coming from the Bay area this weekend, and she wants to meet you."

  "Yep. Hook, line, and sinker."

  "I meant what I said. I didn't say it just to bait you to my mom," Chantel told him. "But if we're talking about us in a more intimate sense in the future then..."

  "Then I have to get your mother's approval before I can marry you."

  "Don't say it like that. You make it sound so bad," Chantel said. "I just want you two to become acquainted with each other. I'm sure it'll make it easier for her to know who you are."

  "You haven't told her yet, have you?"

  "No, I haven't, but I figured not telling her right now would put less pressure on you when you meet her," Chantel told him. "You could focus on getting to know her rather than just trying to impress her."

  "When do you plan on telling her?" Eric asked, more gravely than she expected. She hadn't realized until then that the fact that her mother was unaware of the proposal bothered him.

  "Soon. I'm just trying to do it gently," Chantel assured him.

  "Gently," Eric repeated pensively. "You think she'd have a problem with it?"

  "No, not at all. It's just, you know how parents are. I am their only child."

  "Right, and I most certainly don't deserve their daughter."

  "Well, of course. They're my parents. No one is good enough for me."

  "But I'm really not good enough," Eric replied.

  "They won't think that. You're being melodramatic," Chantel said. "Just get a haircut. Find a nice shirt. And don't wear black."

  "Should I leave my real face behind too?" Eric asked.

  "Oh my god, Eric. Stop being so insecure."

  "I just want to make sure I get it right for them," he said. "If I show up looking like some prep school boy, then they're not really meeting me. They're meeting some Pari-fied reinvention of me."

  "Eric. Sweetheart. Just show up," Chantel told him. "The manner in which you show up, I'll leave that up to you. But show up. I'll love you either way."

  Princess

  "So, how are things going lately?" Olivia asked again, for the third time that night.

  Chantel was running out of answers to give her. The first time her mother asked her the question, Chantel replied that school was fine, and that she was developing a case of senioritis and couldn't wait to graduate. Her mother nodded, taking the answer for what it was worth, and even extending the topic by asking how midterms were going, and if Chantel had reconsidered her suggestion of going into teaching while waiting on a Journalism job.

  However, neither of them seemed interested in that topic. Chantel avoided having to answer her mother on the teaching high school thing, and Olivia remained unsatisfied that her initial question had not yielded the particular answer she was fishing for.

  She bought more time by glancing at the menu in front of
her, before posing the question again, hoping to catch Chantel off guard. "What do you think, Chant?" she asked. "The soup or the salad?"

  "The soup has shellfish in it," Chantel replied. "If we can avoid having you admitted to the ER all weekend for anaphylactic shock, that would be great."

  "Where does it say shellfish at?"

  "Garnele. Shrimp, in the language of the common folk."

  "No we definitely won't go there," Olivia said decidedly, flipping through the menu again. "I feel so lost. And I thought I was the smart one by taking French in high school. Who'd have ever thought I'd end up in a German restaurant in Central Los Angeles one day? This is definitely a new adventure for me."

  Then her eyes lit up at a newly found opportunity to pry. "You seem to be quite an authority on German these days, Chant. Did your friend Eric teach you?"

  "Actually, that would be Mia," Chantel replied, coolly turning her menu. "She's in an intermediate German class, so when you're stuck in the same dorm with her and her flashcards taped on everything you own, you tend to pick things up."

  "Oh," her mother replied, put out. "Who is she going to speak to in German around here?"

  Chantel shrugged. "Well, she already knows Spanish, so she had to pick some foreign language class for her degree. I don't know why she picked German. I never asked her."

  "Maybe she'll become an interpreter."

  "Mom, don't give Mia any more ideas. She's already changed her major three times."

  "Well then, I won't say a thing about it to her. I do think she could make a little more money interpreting for hospitals than freelance writing for online journals. Mia has a good ear for languages. Both of you girls are really smart."

  "Not this speech again."

  "No, I'm not going to say anything about your choice of major," Olivia said quickly. "I'm just trying to get you to see how you can apply yourself in other ways. It's fine to do something you're passionate about, but you also don't want to have to depend on anyone to take care of you."