Lilly
To paraphrase Elie Wiesel, in relationships, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. Having no feelings at all. Not caring either way. Hate, at least, requires a foundation of emotional involvement with the relationship.
Which is not to say that Lilly hated me, or that she had complete apathy toward me, but I had to admit: It sort of stung to learn that not only was that conversation about Ben not a big deal to her, she didn’t even remember it. That was how little it mattered to her. It was, for me, this big, watershed moment in my life, a defining conversation in Lilly’s and my (admittedly one-sided) relationship. But for her, it did not even make enough of an impression that the memory was worth saving.
But I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. She liked the other guy. Not me. And though her reply on Facebook wasn’t the insightful answer I was hoping for, she did give me an answer. That’s the thing about life: Just because we don’t get the answers we’re hoping for doesn’t mean they aren’t answers nonetheless.
SASHA WRIGHT
BACKGROUND
Chapter 31
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” said the tall blond girl.
“Why are you wearing a crown right now?” I asked.
“Oh, that?” Her eyes darted upward, as if she could see through her forehead to the tiara that was perched there. “I have to wear it whenever I’m on official business.”
As a general rule, I did not walk up to pretty girls and start talking to them like this. The summer after college, I had done some soul-searching and decided I was fed up with dating. Too much rejection. Too much trouble. Not that I didn’t want a girlfriend anymore. Just that it wasn’t worth putting myself out there all the time.
So when I had moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California, I decided to take a more passive approach to dating. I was going to concentrate on becoming as cool as I possibly could. And then I would just let the girls come to me. That was my plan, at least. If I had learned anything from Lilly, it was that you can’t force something that isn’t there. A girl either likes you or she doesn’t. So now I was taking the Whole Foods approach to finding a girlfriend: I was going to let it happen organically.
Most of my friends from college were living in Washington, DC, now, but I was out in gloriously sunny but lonely Los Angeles pursuing a master’s degree in communications. I was living in a ten-by-ten-foot dorm room on campus at USC, a room about the size of a walk-in closet. There was a cafeteria connected to my dorm where I ate all my meals at a table by myself. As I walked across the palm-tree-decorated campus to class each day, I watched the pretty girls pass me on the sidewalk without ever trying to talk to any of them. If they were interested, they would talk to me, I figured.
But at the moment I met Sasha, I happened to be in North Dakota, which is kind of the opposite of Los Angeles: no beaches, no warm sun, no overcrowding. There aren’t as many beautiful people as in LA, either, which is what made this girl with the crown stand out even more.
“Official business, huh?” I said. “Are you, like, queen of an obscure nation where they speak English with American accents?”
“Yes. It’s called North Dakota. And actually if you listen carefully, we have our own accent up here.”
“You’re Miss North Dakota,” I said, realizing who she was.
“And you’re Josh. Nice to meet you. I’m Sasha.”
She held out her hand and I shook it.
“How did you—”
“I saw you speak earlier,” she interrupted. “Nice presentation. You’re very funny.”
“Full disclosure—I’m not as funny in real life.”
“Well, I don’t see any other guys my age talking to me right now, so I’ll just have to settle for an unamusing conversation with you.”
It was true: There weren’t any other boys her age talking to her or, for that matter, in this entire hotel ballroom. We were at a middle school leadership conference. My motivational speaking career had started to take off while I was in grad school, and I was at the conference as the keynote speaker. I had started giving speeches while I was in high school, and by the time I was ski racing I was getting paid for it. So during my years as a ski racer, I gave a few speeches a year to fund my training. Anyway, now that I was in grad school I was thinking I might want to make speaking my full-time profession. Especially if the job gave me the chance to meet girls like Sasha.
She had presented a workshop on bullying, according to what I’d read in the program. This was the final night of the conference, and the five hundred middle school attendees were grinding merrily on one another on the dance floor in the center of the room. Sasha and I were planted firmly against the wall, watching the spectacle from a safe distance and speaking loudly enough that we could hear each other over the music.
“So how come you aren’t dancing?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“They’re all minors. I’m not trying to end up in one of your North Dakota jails.”
She was tall, blond, and 100 percent bombshell. The regally formal tiara on her head was mismatched with the casual chic of her outfit: a light blue baby-doll T-shirt, skinny jeans, and magenta heels.
“Well, the truth is.” She leaned her head a little closer to mine and lowered her voice. “I don’t dance.”
I raised my eyebrows. She continued reluctantly.
“In fact, this is the first real dance I’ve ever been to.”
“You usually attend fake dances?”
“Basically. I was homeschooled,” she said.
“Oh, you’re one of those!”
She frowned. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“I’m kidding! I was homeschooled, too.”
She grabbed both my hands and her heels bounced off the floor with excitement. Maybe she could dance better than she thought. “You were?”
“Until high school.”
“Gee whiz! I was homeschooled till college!”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “And may I say, I’ve never heard someone use the term ‘gee whiz’ if they weren’t being sarcastic.”
Just then, the song changed.
“Oh, I love this one!” she said.
It was “California Love” by Tupac.
“Fun fact, I live in Los Angeles, and in California we sing this in place of the national anthem.”
She looked horrified. “Really?”
“No, not really. You need to get out of your state more.”
The first verse began and she started rapping along, word for word, pumping an open palm with the beat.
I said, “I thought you said you don’t dance.”
“I’m not dancing. I’m rapping.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Um, seriously? Like, think about it: Tupac doesn’t dance. He raps.”
“Didn’t dance.”
“What?”
“Didn’t dance. Past tense. He’s dead.”
She laughed. “Oh, you’re one of those.”
“One of whats?”
“Those people who think Tupac is dead. Haven’t you read his lyrics? His posthumous albums reference Bill Clinton, who was elected years after Tupac was supposedly murdered, excuse me, assassinated.”
“You’re the only homeschooler I’ve ever met who studies Tupac lyrics.”
“I bet I’m also the only homeschooler you’ve ever met who’s a Miss America contestant. Perhaps you noticed the crown?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“It is somewhat conspicuous.”
“And very official-business-looking.”
She motioned with her head so her tiara pointed toward the back of the room.
“Let’s go get some snacks,” she suggested.
I followed her. I would’ve followed her across the border to Canada.
She piled a little snack plate high with food.
“Most pageant girls are always like”—she adjusted her voice to a whiny, nasally pitch—“OMG, I can’t eat any carbs or I’ll get fat.”
I’ve found that whenever a girl uses the word “fat” in a sentence, it’s probably a trick of some sort, and the safest strategy is to say nothing. So I remained silent.
“Anyway,” she said, switching back to her normal Sasha voice, “I’m like, screw that, I’m hungry!”
I nodded and said nothing in case this was also a trick.
“So how long are you in North Dakota?” she asked. She did indeed have a slight accent, pronouncing the name of her state like Noor Dakoewwwwda.
“Just till tomorrow.”
“When do you roll out?”
“Flight leaves at six AM,” I said.
She grimaced.
“I know, right? Too early,” I said.
“No. Too soon.”
The next morning, when I took a taxi to the airport, it was both predawn and subzero, a highly unpleasant intersection of elements that sucks the life directly out of your soul. At the top of the escalator just before airport security, I found Sasha sitting on a bench. She was wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and thick-framed retro glasses. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was gorgeous.
She stood, smiling.
When you see someone unexpectedly and it is clear that person is there to surprise you, it’s tough to conjure the right words. Or for that matter to conjure any words at all. You’re just so confused.
“What are you doing here?” I managed to say.
“I came to tell you good-bye.”
“It’s very early.”
“I stayed up all night.”
“You do that normally?”
“Only when I want to make sure I’m up very early.”
There was a pause.
“So where’s the crown?” I asked.
“This isn’t official business.”
I hoped it wasn’t business at all. I hoped it was personal. I mean, it had to be, right? Why else would someone show up at the airport at such a soul-sucking hour?
“So… it’s nice to see you again. Also—I don’t know—I was thinking I could get your, or maybe…”
“Josh, are you trying to ask for my number?”
“No. Well, yes. I mean, only if you want to give it to me.”
She handed me a slip of paper on which her number had already been written.
“Call me.”
“I will,” I said. “And actually, I’ll be back here for another speech in a couple weeks.”
“Really?” she asked, her face brightening.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should hang out sometime. I mean, then. We should hang out then, at that time.”
“I would like that.”
“In the meantime, practice those dance moves,” I said.
“Maybe I will.”
“What’s your talent, by the way?”
“You mean for Miss America?”
“Yeah.”
“Stripping.”
My mouth dropped open slightly.
“I’m kidding.”
“Oh.”
“I sing opera.”
“Opera, huh? I guess that’s kind of like stripping.”
“Kind of. They both involve funny costumes.”
“I wouldn’t know. I stay away.”
“Too bad. You might like it. Opera, I mean.”
“That’s the one I stay away from. And the other one, too. But I gotta go catch my flight. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Chapter 32
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, so I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled it out. Sasha. It had been a few weeks now since we met, and we talked almost every day.
“Hey!” I said.
“Hey, what are you up to?”
“I was just walking back from class.”
“Was walking? Why did you stop?”
“I can’t walk and hold my phone at the same time. Well, I can, but then I have to use one hand to hold the phone and walk with one crutch, and it’s pretty difficult, so, you know.”
“Oh, right,” she said.
I liked that she had to be reminded I had one leg and was on crutches, how that was not the first thing she saw when she imagined me. It was different for the students who were passing me on the sidewalk as I stood there talking on my phone. All they saw was the missing leg. They would take quick glances and then look away, torn between the universal instinct to examine that which is different and the learned social behavior that it’s rude to stare.
Sasha’s voice on the phone interrupted my thoughts. “If you don’t mind my asking, how come you don’t wear your prosthesis anymore? In your speech you talked about it, but I never saw you wearing it.”
“Oh, I have nerve problems. Vestigial pain from my amputation. The leg is really uncomfortable. I can’t wear it anymore.”
“You can’t, I don’t know, fix it?”
“No, I went to a bunch of doctors. The only thing they can do is a nerve-blocking surgery on my spinal cord.”
“Eek.”
“That’s what I said. I get around fine on my crutches, so it’s not a big deal. In some ways it’s better—socially, I mean.”
“How’s that?” she asked. I usually didn’t talk much about my amputation when I was getting to know a girl. I would prefer not to emphasize it. But I know people are always curious, Sasha included, and now I’d given her a window of opportunity to ask questions.
“Well, it’s like, before, when I used to wear my leg,” I explained, gesticulating now with my free hand, balancing on one leg, crutches hanging off my forearms, “people saw me limping on what they didn’t know was a prosthesis and they were always curious what was wrong with me. They would say stuff like, ‘Did you sprain your ankle?’ and I had to be like, ‘Um, no, my leg was amputated.’”
“Awkward.” She laughed.
“Exactly. So now it’s really obvious—like right now everyone on the sidewalk where I’m standing can see that I have one leg. But at least there’s no question about what sort of disability I have. I’m not trying to disguise it with a fake leg or something. It’s like, what you see is what you get.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. That’s cool. But don’t people treat you differently because you have one leg?”
“Of course. All the time. I get asked the weirdest questions.”
“That’s how I feel being, you know, a pageant girl. Whenever I show up at an event with my tiara and the sash on, I can tell people have certain ideas about me.”
“Like what?”
“That I’m pretty, so I must be really dumb. That I’m blond, so I must be an airhead. That I want world peace, but don’t really know what world peace is. All that stuff.”
“I feel like you can use that to your advantage.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“Like, people make assumptions about me because I have one leg, right? When they meet me, I mean. They figure that I’m probably very shy, reserved, self-conscious. That I might be bitter about my situation. So, it’s like, if I act really confident and self-assured, it bowls people over. It’s shocking. They are amazed by my charisma or something, but it’s only because their expectations were so low in the first place. I feel like you can have the same effect.”
“Aww, you’re saying you think I’m smarter than the average beauty queen?”
“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”
That semester I also started traveling to North Dakota pretty often for speeches. I always thought about Kyle and his steel-toed boot, how I needed to bite the bullet and have a DTR with Sasha, tell her I liked her. For one thing, maybe she’d win Miss America. And if she did, I needed to make sure I was dating her before then, because once she had that national crown she’d be way, way out of my league.
But more importantly, we needed to have the talk for the reason you always need to have the talk: so things can move
forward, so you can emerge from the muck of ambiguity into a mutually understood, solidified relationship.
That’s where the long-distance thing was a real impediment, though, because you really don’t want to have a DTR over the phone. That’s a conversation you must have face-to-face. But during those brief hours when we’d be together in North Dakota, in between my speeches and her public appearances, the time was just so short. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was like high school all over again.
What I needed was a grand romantic gesture, a big display, a smash-bang, knock-her-socks-off surprise that would either cause us to implode or to become boyfriend and girlfriend. Like a rooftop picnic. Like a canoeing date on a lake. Like a national beauty pageant.
Chapter 33
I was pretty sure Sasha was going to win Miss America. I just had a feeling. And I was also pretty sure she liked me. I had a feeling about that, too. My idea was to bring these two feelings together in my grand gesture. Specifically, I would show up to surprise her at the pageant. Like when she surprised me at the airport. Except after sunrise.
In fact, it would not be enough for me to be merely in the audience at the pageant, just one of seven thousand anonymous faces. I needed access to her before she got onstage. But how?
In the weeks leading up to the pageant, I didn’t get to talk with her much on the phone. She was spending all her time getting pedicures, manicures, and all the other types of cures available from the cosmetology industry. You would think she was a tribute in the Hunger Games or something. Not that she needed it; she was beautiful before. But Miss America has to be perfect.
Meanwhile, after a great deal of planning and effort, I found my back door into the pageant. I made an arrangement with an organization that was one of the sponsors of Miss America. I would give a motivational speech at an event for this group. In exchange, they would get me a ticket to the pageant in Las Vegas. Not only that, they would also get me a ticket to a super-ballin’, VIP, two-thousand-dollar-a-plate banquet the night before. A banquet, it should be noted, where all the pageant contestants would be in attendance.
We Should Hang Out Sometime Page 14
