by Claire Adams
The line beeps again. For a moment, I’m all excited as if it’s actually going to be Ian calling me, but it’s just the sound of the allotted message time running out.
I call Abs.
“How’s your date with skater boy?” Abs answers.
“It’s not a date, and he never showed up,” I tell her. “What are you up to? I don’t think he’s coming, and it looks like I have a couple extra hours.”
“I’m going to a party,” Abs says. “The Betas are throwing it and you’re coming with me.”
“I’m not really the sorority party kind of girl,” I tell her.
“It’s a frat,” Abs says. “Betas are a frat.”
“Whatever,” I tell her. “I’m not really into frat parties, either.”
“Come on,” she says. “I let you share your culture with me by going to that skating competition with you, now let me share my culture with you by coming to this party with me.”
“Fine,” I tell her, “but if I find a way to get to Midwest Championships, you’re going with me.”
“I don’t know what that means, so I’m going to say okay now and try to get out of it later,” she says. “Are you coming or what?”
“Well, at least I can appreciate your honesty,” I tell her. “Where are you?”
Abs gives me the directions, but I wait a few more minutes before I give up all hope of Ian showing up to get some work done.
I try not to notice when the older couple that came in shortly after me exchanges money. I try not to focus on how pathetic I must be that an old woman would actually put money on my being stood up.
I try a lot of things, but none of them seem to be working at the moment, so I just get in my car and leave.
Abs sucks with directions, but I eventually come close enough to the site of the party that I can hear the stereo that’s going to have the cops on the doorstep before too long.
This so isn’t my scene.
I have to park down the block a ways, but that gives me a chance to call up Abs and have her meet me out front.
“You made it,” she says.
“I told you I was coming,” I tell her. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan,” she says, “is to get plowed and then get plowed.”
“I’m assuming one of those is drinking, and I’m also assuming that you decided to go ahead and get started on that,” I answer with a nervous laugh.
“I’ve had a couple of drinks,” she says.
Abs is a little difficult to classify on the alcohol/behavior scale. She’s not really a lightweight, but even with a small amount of alcohol in her system, it’s as if she was born without inhibitions. That said, she can drink everyone else under the table and never actually get to the point of being sloppy.
It’s a pretty entertaining dichotomy, really.
“The second plowed,” she says and then dissolves into giggles.
“It’s sex,” I say. “You really didn’t leave that difficult a code to crack.”
“You coming?” she asks. “I know, not yet, right?”
She’s laughing boisterously now, drawing the attention of a few of the guys sitting on the front lawn with their clear plastic cups of beer. I’m wishing I was back in the café being the object of surprisingly large bets.
“Come on,” she says and grabs my arm. “Hey look,” she says, “I’m tipsy and I’m still more gentle than you were with me.”
“I think it’s ‘gentler,’” I correct, but there’s really no point. Whether Drunk Abs is an act or just a particularly strange way her body’s found to process alcohol makes no difference. She’s not going to listen to anything I have to say unless there’s some source of adrenaline attached to it.
We get into the packed house, and I do my best to breathe without gagging from the stench of stale liquor and cologne-infused sweat.
“Do you know anyone here?” I ask.
“Of course not,” she answers. “That’s part of the fun.”
“They don’t care that we’re crashing their party?” I ask.
“Oh, come on,” she says, snatching a drink from the hand of an unsuspecting frat boy with a backward baseball cap. You actually don’t see that too much, anymore. “We’re two attractive women who are willing to get drunk at their party. What’s not to like about us being here?”
Judging by the often, though not always, furtive glances from the guys around the room, I’d say she’s right about that much.
“Oh, hey, look who’s here,” Abs says, and I already know I’m going to regret turning around to see whoever’s standing there.
One of the most impressive things about Drunk Abs is that she can form meaningful connections with people in no time flat. She turns on her drunken charm and, if she decides to let someone in, that person’s got a drinking buddy until one of them gets bored with the other.
It usually happens about three hours into any given party, but sometimes, those inebriated connections can last for years.
Actually, come to think about it, the first time I met Abs, she was drunk.
The two of us work because we’re so different, or at least that’s what we tell each other whenever one of us questions the friendship.
It doesn’t happen as often as you might think.
Anyway, I turn and, standing there like nothing’s wrong, is Ian.
“Where were you?” I ask. “You left me in that café and you never intended to show up.”
“Oh,” he says, “that’s right. We were supposed to get together for that thing.”
“I left right after you texted me,” I tell him. “It’s not like it was some distant plan that you were…”
I trail off because he’s not listening. He’s not even looking at me.
Abs is putting a drink in his hand and batting her over-mascaraed eyelashes at him. Neither one of them speaks, but they both seem to come to the same conclusion and they walk off together.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, how I’m supposed to respond, but I instinctually walk after them right up until they’re opening the door to one of the many rooms in this house.
They walk inside and close the door after themselves, and I’m beyond livid.
Not only was I stood up for the main project in one of the fundamental classes of my degree, but now I’ve been publicly snubbed by my best friend and the guy I was supposed to meet at the café so they can go off and do some degree of I-don’t-want-to-know in the bedroom of a frat house.
The worst part of all is that it’s starting to dawn on me exactly why I’m so upset.
There are plenty of valid reasons for my irritation right now, but the simple fact is that I didn’t like seeing Abby and Ian walking into that room together. The fact that they just decided to go off right in the middle of our conversation was an extraneous rudeness.
The disregard for my time would be tolerable, but it’s the fact that she’s in there with Ian that’s got me wanting to break down the door or leave the party without wasting another breath.
I’m actually jealous, and that ridiculous truth has me cracking my knuckles and thinking of vengeance.
Chapter Four
Down to It
Ian
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I ask the very irritated chick in the Converse shoes in front of me.
“You’re late,” she says. “We were supposed to have something solid to go on a week ago.”
“Mia,” I sigh. “You’re missing the point.”
“What’s the point?” she asks, avoiding any kind of eye contact with me.
“The point is that I’m here,” I tell her. “So, let’s get to work.”
“All right,” she says. “We’ve decided that we want to study the prevalence of extreme views, whether religious, political, or social, but how are we going to go about that? It’s something that people often try to hide, especially around strangers. How do you think we’re going to get a good set of samples?”
“I like your eyes,”
I tell her. “Most people with naturally dark hair seem to have brown, or at least green eyes, but yours are pale, pale blue.”
“Are you listening to me?” she asks.
“I’m in and out,” I answer, and let the last three words repeat and change order in my head.
“I’m not going to do all of this,” she says. “At some point, I am going to expect you to contribute, or I’m going to end up in front of the professor with bags under my eyes when it’s time to hand our results in, and I’m going to feel obligated to tell her that you didn’t bother doing anything.”
“I’m with you,” I say. “I’m listening. We’re looking at how many crazy douchebags we’ve got in the general area. It should be fun. I’m betting the number’s going to be pretty high.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s 50 percent of the people sitting at this table.”
She keeps telling me that she’s not uptight, but if that were the case, why is it that I find myself fantasizing about giving her a massage every time I see her? I might think it was just a run-of-the-mill sexual fantasy, but it never goes past the massage.
Apparently, the more imaginative part of me just wants to see this chick relax.
“So, how long have you been into skating?” I ask her.
“I don’t know,” she says. “A long time. Now, I don’t think it’s enough to just get a general idea how common extreme viewpoints are. I think we should see if we can tie it to anything, see if there’s any common thread among those who do hold particularly fringe beliefs. Maybe something in their childhood or their economic status; I don’t know. Just having a filled out sheet of paper saying that this person thinks the government is corrupt and needs to be overthrown or that person thinks that anyone who’s not a white protestant is a drain on humanity, I really think we should see if we can learn something from this whole thing, don’t you?”
My ears take in every sound of her voice, and my eyes go back and forth between her dark purple lipstick and those almost unnaturally pale blue eyes of hers. It’s in my brain that the information gets routed the wrong way and I end up savoring the sight and sound of her speaking without actually giving it the consideration I probably should be.
“You know,” she says, but she doesn’t finish the thought. She just goes silent and starts breathing loudly through her nose.
“I really get under your skin, don’t I?” I ask.
“It would be nice if it felt like you cared even a little bit about this project,” she says.
“I do care,” I tell her. Sure, I’m not even certain I’m not lying, but she doesn’t have to literally bite her tongue. “I don’t think that we’re going to get the best results by having people fill out a piece of paper, though. We’re really going to get what we’re looking for by interviewing people, talking to them, giving them a chance to vent whatever hateful nonsense they have in them and giving them the chance to justify it with whatever hateful nonsense they justify it with.”
She blinks a few times and tilts her head to the side. “Do you think we’d have time to do something like that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’ve got the competition coming up and everything, but if you wouldn’t mind doing a little bit more down the road, I can step it up now and I think it’ll all even out in—”
“You’re joking, right?” she asks.
“What do you mean?” I return.
“You think I’m just going to pick up everything for you while you’re off skating in some competition?” she asks.
“I told you, I’d step it up before then so we’d end up doing the same amount of work,” I defend.
“I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not going to take the bullet to better facilitate your hopes and dreams. This is a project for a class, and I’m not going to let you make me do all the dirty work,” she says.
It’s probably a mistake—screw that, I know for a fact that it’s a mistake, but I go ahead and say it anyway, “You know,” I start, “I have great hands.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, her head flinching back a little.
“I also have massage oil,” I tell her. “Why don’t we head back to my house, we can get you nice and relaxed and maybe we see where it goes from there?”
“You know what?” she says, “I’m done. Pitch in, don’t pitch in, I don’t really care. You make your decision whether you want to be a part of this—a real part of this—and you give me a call. Until then,” she says, getting up from the table, pulling her wallet from her back pocket, “why don’t we assume that I’m just going to do everything and your name isn’t going to end up anywhere on it. That work for you?”
I go to answer, but she’s already walking away and I’m trying to figure out how she didn’t know I’d genuinely enjoy giving her a massage. Maybe it was the “calm down” implied in the offer.
Who knows?
Either way, she’s out the door, and we’re still no closer to being prepared for the final project.
I’m not sure quite what I think of her, apart from the knowledge that she’s too uptight for me. I guess that’s all I really need to know.
I just wish the pretty ones could be a little bit more chill in their daily lives. It really shouldn’t be that much to ask.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on her. People are going to judge my intelligence by my appearance just as long as I’ve got these sleeves coming out of my sleeves and the beanie permanently affixed to my head.
I find myself expecting more from her, though I have no real insight into her on a personal level. Maybe what I’m starting to realize is that the whole abrasive “hate you” vibe may very well be just another part of her personality.
Whatever the case may be, I just earned myself a night off of doing what I love in order to write the paper we were supposed to outline when she walked out the door.
We’re really not that far apart in what we think would be the best direction, but with her perpetual state of uncalm and my propensity for screwing with people when they’re teetering on the brink of blowing a fuse, I’m kind of surprised it took her so long to walk out.
We’re oil and water. Naturally, my dick is telling me to shake things up and see what happens, but even I don’t understand the metaphor, so for now, I just need to focus on getting this paper done and then I can get my mind back where it should be.
* * *
I think this is the first time I’ve walked into the classroom before the top of the hour, and I’m quick to make my way to my seat. Due to the long night I spent picking a firm position and expounding on it, I missed out on my daily routine.
Today’s going to be a long day.
Mia comes in a few minutes after I do, and she hesitates when she turns down the aisle and sees me already seated.
“We’re going to have to figure this out,” she says, coming down the aisle toward me, toward her seat. “I can’t keep picking up everything you don’t want to work on.”
“I think you’ve got me all wrong,” I tell her, but I’m nowhere near interested enough to explicate.
“Whatever,” she says and sits down, setting her denim bag with all those weird stick figure patches sewn to it. “Let’s get together right after class,” she says. “We can go over what I prepared for today and—”
“All right, why don’t we get started?” the prof asks, interrupting Mia. “Go ahead and pass your proposals forward, if you would. Today, we’re going to be talking about the sex drive from adolescence through the different stages of adulthood.”
The girl behind me passes me a paper and I pass it up to Mia. I wait until Mia’s passed both hers and the one from the girl behind me up before I tap Mia on the shoulder with mine.
She turns and grabs it.
“Whose is this?” she asks.
“I wrote it up last night after you decided to be unreasonable,” I tell her. “I hope you don’t mind, I took our initial idea and I gave it a clearer focus.”
“
I just handed ours in,” she says. “Save this for when you retake this class next semester.”
I clear my throat, catching the attention of a few people in the general vicinity, specifically the slovenly guy sitting in front of Mia. I hold up the paper and pass it up to him, past Mia.
He takes it and passes it the rest of the way up.
“I don’t know what you hope to accomplish,” she says, “but we’re going with my paper. It’s what we talked about, and—”
“It’s what you talked about,” I interrupt. “I think we’re going to find out which is the better proposal.”
The professor starts talking again, and I drift off into a daydream where the physically gifted poser chick is a little less up her own ass. It’s a pleasant diversion.
We talk about penises and vaginas for a while, but mostly, today’s class is a long discussion about what sort of things constitute sexual abnormality and whether the term sexual abnormality is considered the proper terminology.
What can I say? Human sexuality is one of my keener interests. I keep the conversation going.
The further off track I manage to maneuver the conversation, though, the more frustrated I become that I’m so far from the watering hole.
You know, it might be stuff like referring to sex as proximity to a watering hole that’s kept Ian Junior out of the swimming pool for so long. You know, the term swimming pool really isn’t any better.
In my head, I’m somewhere around helping Mia find her bra when a few of the professor’s words get through the din: “Mia and Ian, if the two of you wouldn’t mind staying after for a couple of minutes. We’re done for the day, everyone. Have a good weekend.”
I actually thought it was going to be a couple of classes before the professor noticed we’d both turned in proposals for the same project. Apparently, Professor Enterlastnamehere (it’s German, I think,) is a little more on top of her game than I’ve been giving her credit for.
