by Micol Ostow
“Oh, my. Did you see that guy?” Charlie hissed, grabbing at my arm and sucking all of her breath in at once.
Okay, so maybe that was the motivation. There were other fish in the sea, after all.
“Wh—,” I began, scanning the room curiously, but Charlie had already begun to shove me in the direction of the back room, where the bar was located.
“We need a drink,” she said decisively. And without further ado, she purchased one for each of us.
Apparently what we actually each needed was three drinks, which I was to learn over the course of the next hour.
Now, I know we’ve all seen the after-school special, but there was something to that theory. Something about being drunk that made the music sound a little more sensible to my untrained ear. I mean, I’m not crediting the cheap beer to my stunningly well-rendered music review, but … okay, maybe I am. Maybe going out on a Tuesday night to be a cool music critic and hear a cool alternative band really is what college is all about. Or so I was starting to think. It sure made sense at the time.
“This is awesome,” Charlie shouted, echoing my thoughts and struggling to be heard above the noise (music—I mean music). “I’m so glad you decided not to take back the night.” Without warning, the corners of her mouth flipped up, exposing a vast expanse of gleaming white teeth.
For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was beaming at, so I followed her gaze. Once I’d done that, it was simple to catch her drift: She was blatantly ogling a random if adorable skater guy. And he was ogling her right back. I wouldn’t have thought Charlie would go for someone so counterculture, but I guess everyone was looking to expand his or her horizon now that we were officially so … collegiate and all.
“I think we need another drink,” she said to me intently.
“Honestly? I really, really think we don’t,” I began to protest. At least the “me” part of “we” really didn’t. But she had already run off.
I found Charlie—unsurprisingly—at the bar, sucking down a light beer and fluttering her eyelashes at skater-pants, who had somehow beaten me over there. “This is Todd,” she said to me. “Todd, this is Claudia, my new best friend.”
I was so pleased to hear of my status on the Charlie-o-meter that I didn’t notice as she slid a drink of my own across the bar. Instinctively, I reached out and cupped my hand around the pint glass, taking a healthy swig. “Hi, Todd!” I said cheerfully.
Todd nodded at me agreeably. “Hey.”
Charlie sipped delicately at her beer. Even sloppy drunk, she was dainty. “Hey Todd, who’s your friend?”
I suddenly noticed Todd’s sidekick, a short but muscular guy with a ton of curly brown hair and a T-shirt that said, I HATE EVERYBODY.
“This is Jason,” Todd said, shoving Jason forward by way of introduction.
Jason offered a halfhearted smile. He seemed wholly disinterested in me. (But, then again, he hated everybody. It only made sense.)
“How do you guys know each other?” I asked, turning back to much-friendlier Todd. But Todd and Charlie had beaten a hasty retreat, leaving Jason all for me. He didn’t look especially pleased about it. Something in my stomach took a dip, but I dismissed the sensation as nerves. After all, it had been ages since I’d been single or out at a place like this. I was out of my element, big-time.
“School,” Jason said quickly.
Okay, then.
“Oh, so, um, do you go to school around here?” I asked, taking another stab at making with the nice.
He shrugged. “Not too far.”
I was starting to feel about as appealing as leftover Chinese food. You know, how it’s always sitting in the back of the fridge and you think you’re going to eat it but you never do? That was me. Slimy and cold and all alone in my little white container.
“Urn, so do you … ,” I started, launching a last-ditch effort campaign.
I stopped. Suddenly the thought of cold Chinese food was even less appetizing than usual. In fact, the mere idea of it sent my stomach into acrobatics. A terrible, terrible thought began to form in the back of my mind. And once it had been generated, there was no stopping it from being self-fulfilling.
I was totally going to yak.
Apparently there’s something to all of those afterschool specials, after all. Which, really, I wish someone had told me sooner, I must say. Because all I know is that one minute I was standing there talking to Jason-the-Personalityless, and the next minute, visions of kung pao chicken danced in my head. Why, oh why, had Charlie and I ordered from Sun Wah for dinner? It was only a matter of moments before I would be seeing it for real, outside of my head, in reverse.
I clapped a hand over my mouth in a futile effort to prolong the inevitable. Jason, of course, chose this precise moment to demonstrate an appreciable interest in my well-being (possibly because I was turning green). He leaned in questioningly. “Hey, are you—,” he began.
But of course he didn’t have the chance to finish. Because just as he reached out an arm to steady me, I lost whatever tenuous control I might have had over my gastrointestinal system. With a mighty heave, I bent forward and puked.
All over that stupid I HATE EVERYBODY shirt.
8/30, 5:42 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: Oooooh
Yikes. I’m not gonna lie, babe—that’s pretty atrocious. But on the plus side, it sounds sorta like he had it coming to him? (And at least that gross shirt is ruined … we hope….)
So what did Gabe think of the review? Inquiring minds want to know.
8/30, 5:58 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: re: Oooooh
I don’t know yet. I promised him I would bring it by the Chronicle by—
Oh, crap.
By six.
Later.
I raced down the hill (much easier than going uphill, I couldn’t help but notice), toward what I’d recently learned were the Memorial Steps. I had no idea what they commemorated, but it was a step toward familiarizing myself with campus, at least. At the bottom of the steps lay Colby Hall, the coffeehouse Brew and Gold, and, of course, the Chronicle.
I was sweating and badly out of breath, not to mention completely hung-over from the night before. No amount of toothbrushing could remove the film of reverse-kung pao chicken from my tongue. Why had I not chosen to e-mail my article to Gabe?
Because I wanted to see him. Right. Little had I known how closely I would resemble a limp rag when the time came that the deadline approached. A limp, hung over rag.
Rats.
I stood outside of the back entrance to the paper and collected myself, smoothing my hair down and willing my heartbeat to return to its normal pace. Pushing the door open, I saw that I almost needn’t have bothered. The office was practically empty—it being a full week before classes actually began, and all. Gabe had told me the paper’s deadline was earlier on weekends than during weekdays, and that until classes started, they would be on a weekend schedule. But he had definitely told me to have my article in at six, and it was six-fifteen. Had he already gone home? Now I was nervous that I’d blown it. My first assignment, and I was already behind.
I heard laughter from the main office and made my way inside, relieved. Gabe and Kyra were huddled over the arts computer, presumably reading something on-screen. Love notes? Unlikely. Anna Bolen, the production and copyediting manager, was leaning in the doorway that led to the production space, glancing over a sheet of paper and seeming extremely bored.
“Oh, hey,” I said, feeling awkward. My voice sounded thick and fuzzy to my ears. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hi.”
Gabe turned from the computer and looked up at me. He smiled. “Oh, hey! You’re here.”
“Am I… late?” I asked. “I thought you said six?”
“Yeah, I did,” he assured me. “It’s really more that I�
�m late. I had to work until five, so I got an extension. Anna here is kind enough to wait around for me.” He winked at her. She faked an exaggerated yawn in response, waving her sheet of paper back and forth.
“I totally should have e-mailed this,” I said apologetically. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the disk with the article.
“Seriously, no worries,” he said, taking the disk from me and popping it into the computer. A few strokes of the keyboard, and my document filled the screen. He quickly scanned it. I couldn’t bear to watch.
“So, how was your first weekend at, you know, college?” Kyra asked.
“Yeah,” Gabe cut in eagerly. “Did you like the Tin Room?”
“It was totally fun,” I said, choosing to mentally edit out Operation Regurgitation. “And my friend Charlie was really psyched to have an excuse to go off-campus.”
“Yeah, it’s hard, because around here, it’s really only house parties—which, you know, you have to know someone, or else it’s”—Gabe shuddered involuntarily—“frat parties.”
“Gabe hates the Greek scene,” Kyra said, smiling and ruffling his hair.
Gabe chuckled, leaning in toward the computer again. “Enrique Iglesias!” he exclaimed, reading from my article. He swiveled his desk chair so that he was facing me again. “You did not interview the lead singer of Rice and Beans.”
I flushed. “Urn, not as such, no….”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you got that quote from the press release?”
“Well, all I said was that he ‘told press,’” I said defensively. “So, you know, that part’s totally true.”
“Totally!” he said enthusiastically. “This is awesome. Great job! Have you ever done a music review before?”
I shook my head. “I was on my school paper, but I wasn’t a music critic. I was really worried about this,” I admitted.
“Well, you came through, kid,” he said graciously.
I basked in his praise, but the fact that he had called me “kid” did not escape my attention. He clicked on the mouse, and the computer made a whirring sound. “There. Saved,” he said, popping the disk out and returning it to me. “I hope you’ll write for us again.”
“I definitely want to,” I said. I slipped my bag down my shoulder and went to stash the disk. It slid farther down my elbow, though, and when I went to hitch it back up, it flew off my arm entirely. Gabe reached out to grab it before it hit the ground, but only succeeded in overturning it on its way down. The contents of my bag spilled across the floor: disk, wallet, cell phone, lip gloss, dorm keys….
I thanked the god of small favors that it wasn’t any particular time of the month, having already reached my weekly mortification quota. I crouched down to gather my belongings.
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” Gabe said. He stood up out of his chair and kneeled down next to me.
“It’s no big—,” I protested, straightening myself straight upward and into Gabe’s personal space. Our foreheads clunked together with an audible thud that reverberated deep within my skull. “Ow,” I said, dropping my things again and rubbing my temples.
Gabe seemed to find this all very amusing. “I am such a klutz,” he said, laughing. He pulled at my bag and began to reload it purposefully. “Ouch,” he said as an afterthought, touching his forehead curiously.
“Don’t forget this,” Kyra said, reaching out to hand Gabe my wallet. It had somehow rolled over to her feet in all of the commotion. “Oh, and I think this fell out.”
Suddenly Drew’s earnest face was beaming up at me. Was I having some sort of concussion? What was he doing here?
“I think this fell out of your wallet,” Kyra said again, pushing the photo into my hand.
Of course. My wallet. It was the picture I carried of Drew in my wallet. It had been there so long, I had completely forgotten about it—and, of course, forgotten to take it out when we broke up. It had been a week since I’d seen him—the longest we’d gone since ninth grade. I was completely taken aback. I snatched it out of Kyra’s hand and stuffed it back in its place quickly.
“He’s cute,” Kyra commented. “Very prepster-casual. Who is it?”
“My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend,” I hastily amended. What the hell was wrong with me? Seeing Drew’s face on a cold-Chinese-food day had set me back a few paces, definitely.
“High school sweetie?” Kyra asked knowingly.
“Yeah. He’s in New York,” I said. Just thinking about it made me feel nostalgic.
“It’s really hard,” Kyra said, somehow hacking into my thoughts. “I’ve been there. A lot of us have been there. But you will, without a doubt, get over it,” she said.
“Don’t be sad,” Gabe said, chiming in. He put a hand on my shoulder. “You have no idea what this year is going to be like for you.” I believed him too. He sounded so sincere.
Kyra abruptly clapped Gabe on the back. “Come on, you. Let’s go download her article onto the main drive so that Anna can get to it and go home.”
“Oh, right,” he said, as if he’d totally forgotten about that. He looked at me carefully, but allowed her to take his hand.
The next thing I knew, Kyra was dragging Gabe into the production office and Anna was giggling maniacally. “Latin-punk fusion,” she said, shaking her head. “Ridiculous.”
“It happens to be a very up-and-coming genre!” Gabe said defensively.
I realized I was the only one left in the editorial office. And I was still sitting by myself on the floor. Slowly I rose and dusted myself off. I slung my bag back over my shoulder and turned to leave the Chronicle.
8/30, 10:12 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: how ya doin’
Clauds—
That was my Noo Yawk impression. How’d it go over?
Not to cramp your newfound college style, but I just wanted to check in and see how your orientation went. I trust you took my word on the whole alcohol thing and kept your imbibing to a minimum. No, I’m serious.
I registered on Friday. The life of an engineering student is not exactly carefree. The prereqs are out of control and I think the safest thing to do is just to set up a roll-away cot in the library. The good news is that Buji is also in my program. He seems like a good study buddy, although I’m sure we’ll either be completely in synch, schedule-wise, or else one of us will have killed and eaten the other by the semester’s end. I’m pushing for outcome A, myself. Fingers crossed!
Of course, this e-mail was supposed to be about you. And so we shall end on that note. I hope you are well. Be good, Bee.
Later,
D
8/30, 11:27 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: fine thanks, and yourself?
Hey, D—
Things are cool—thanks for asking. I tried to flirt with a guy in a club on Saturday night, but instead I barfed on him. So, okay, not quite as seductive as I had hoped, but at least I made a lasting impression—
[delete]
8/30,11:28 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: fine thanks, and yourself?
Dear Drew—
Thank you for your recent inquiry after my well-being. As a matter of fact, I may or may not be in love with my new music editor. Oh! Did I forget to tell you? I’m a cool music critic now. But not the point—
[delete]
8/30,11:29 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: fine thanks, and yourself?
Drew-
I miss you. Lots. I wonder if we—
[delete]
Three
9/3, 2:54 p.m.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
re: fun times
Let’s talk about “fun,” shall we?
An interesting thing about the word “fun”: Two people with otherwise reasonably overlapping interests can have vastly different ideas about what, exactly, it means.
Case in point: My roommate, one Charlie Norton, a former Miss Georgia Peach Queen and otherwise lovely individual, seems to actively enjoy engaging in the sadistic and torturous ritual known as “the frat party.”
For you see, sister of mine, classes begin this Wednesday, and as such, the upperclass-men have begun to return to campus. And with them, so, too, have returned the subspecies known as classmaticus greekus—aka: Homo-Fratien.
Now, Charlie’s mother was a third-generation Tri-Delt (this has nothing to do with geometry. I already asked), and due to Charlie’s dubious “connections,” she was invited last night to a bash at Sigma Nu. Determined as she was to drag me out of my little post-puke-age pity party, she recruited me to go with her. To Charlie, the party would be an opportunity to “get my flirt on,” as in, to learn to communicate with the opposite sex. Never mind that I’m not totally convinced that I even have a “flirt” anymore.
The evening kicked off innocently enough.
“Have I told you how much I love that shirt?” Charlie asked. She had, actually. Several times. Not that I didn’t appreciate the vote of confidence. It was my favorite shirt: black and stretchy, skimpy but just shy of slutty. Charlie was wearing a sparkly pink halter that tied in about six different places, and of course she looked her typical breathtaking self.
We were standing on the steps of the Sigma Nu house, a redbrick endeavor in the Colonial style so favored by Woodman University. The house was located on fraternity row, or Picard Street, as it was formally known.
“Thanks,” I said, glancing down at it and picking off a nearly invisible fleck of lint.
“Don’t fuss,” she said. “You look great. I love your hair straight. Anyway, I’m sure this’ll be fun. They say the trick is to drink heavily.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could say anything, a plastic cup sailed out from the window above us, splat-ting onto the pavement with a wet smack, and dousing the bottom of my leg with something liquid (probably beer).
