Six, Maybe Seven

by Katie George

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, I stood at the fridge, glad it was a Friday, and I would get the weekend to watch a bunch of junk TV, eat whatever food I wanted, and basically do nothing. I decided on chocolate yogurt for breakfast, and then I found myself suddenly face-to-face with Jamie, who was groggily murmuring something that sounded like Spanish. He handed me a letter.

  Emma,

  You are the ficklest creature on our planet. How about we go to dinner Saturday night, six sharp?

  Sam

  “No,” I said, my brain coming into focus. “I refuse.” I threw the note into the trash and kissed Jamie on the cheek. “Go to sleep, kid.” Then I was down the lane, off to work.

  ON SATURDAY NIGHT, I sat at Monica’s place as she dug through DVDs. We had popped some illustrious popcorn and watched four episodes of La rosa de Guadalupe, a Mexican soap opera that could only be described as the best show to ever be created. From bearded ladies to drug addiction, the show categorized a new hot topic each time the music began. Now, though, we were ready for an English-language pick, and Monica—a connoisseur of film, almost to Chelsea’s level—was leafing through her collections. She had a wicked case of OCD, with each box labeled by genre and year released.

  I’d conveniently left my phone at the apartment, where Fiona/Felix was probably licking it underneath the little cactus tree Jamie had bought me last Christmas. Speaking of the devilish angel, he was off in Santa Barbara with Ella. The two continued their hot and heavy romance, and with little prospects (in committed avoidance of Sam), I’d flown to Monica’s cramped studio apartment in Studio City.

  “So,” she said, tossing me a copy of 10 Things I Hate About You, “are you going to explain why you’re here?” She was the only one who had no qualms about an unexpected pal crashing over. Anyone else, I’d at least call. Instead, I showed up with a pillow, a bag of clothes and toiletries, and a little packet of microwaveable popcorn (stolen from Jamie’s stash).

  “What do you mean?” I stuffed the movie into the DVD player. Monica’s pet fish swam languidly around in his bowl on the TV dresser.

  As the opening sequence began to play, Monica gave me a dreaded stare, her eyes like hypnotic crystal balls. “You show up at my place—completely out of the blue. Emma, you’re one of the most responsible people I know, okay? You’re just so perfectly anal about everything, so of course, I’m suspecting something. Where’s the body? Did you get busted for a marijuana brownie? C’mon.” She winked at me, flopping onto her belly as she turned the speakers up.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course. I’m a priest—my lips are sealed.”

  “It’s a guy.”

  “A guy? You met a guy? What is this?” She paused the movie as the overhead lights flickered.

  “This is called life. Yes, I met a guy. He invited me out to dinner tonight—except I blew him off.”

  “You stood him up? What in Yosemite are you thinking, Emma?”

  “Another thing,” I whispered, biting my lip. “His name is Sam Woodshaw.”

  Monica’s mouth fell open like a fish’s. “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, oh, what have we got here? This is like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You’ve met a guy—an über hot guy nonetheless—and you’ve stood him up. There better be an extremely good backstory to this.” The crunch of kernel against her teeth sent shockwaves up my spine.

  I shrugged, though it felt like mountains moved on my shoulders. “Sam and I met through Jamie…”

  “Jamie knows cool people? What is this?”

  “So, we’ve known each other for a month now I guess. Well, he kissed me at work a few weeks ago. He was auditioning for a role, and I worked with him, and then he…just kissed me. It was surreal, Monica.”

  She turned as white as a bedsheet, her lips jutting out like balloons rising with air. Her nose ring sparkled in the fading light as one of the bulbs burst overhead. “You…made out with Sam Woodshaw?”

  “Get this. He doesn’t call at all after that. The last time we saw each other was Jamie’s birthday party. I asked him if he really likes me, and he said yes. He wanted to go on a date with me.”

  “So you’re punishing him by standing him up? This is Sam Woodshaw we’re talking about—and you’re standing him up? What kind of a fool are you?” She punched my arm in a swift motion that seemed light to her but would probably leave a purple bruise beneath my skin.

  Again I shrugged, so she punched me. “Okay,” I admitted quietly. “I like him—a lot, really. But I’m not going to sit here and let him get away with this. He shouldn’t be excused to go party every day, and then expect to be my best friend on the weekends. It’s like the party analogy. ‘Don’t go partying Saturday when you’re going to have to answer for your actions Sunday.’ Or better yet, ‘Don’t do anything around town you couldn’t do on a Sunday morning.’”

  Monica stared at me with blank eyes. “Speak English.”

  “That is the best English I’ve ever heard, sweetheart.”

  “You’re right,” she said.

  “What?”

  “About the predicament guys and girls have. It’s a rite of passage for a guy to do as many girls as he can. For a girl, it’s another world altogether.”

  “You’re speaking like you relate.”

  “Of course I relate. So do you. We’re both girls, last time I checked.”

  I swatted her, but to the athletic Monica Granger, it probably felt like nothing more than a fly landing gently on her bicep. “Thanks for listening.”

  “Shut up so we can watch the movie,” she said as tough as she could manage. As the movie began again, I saw her facial reactions: She was thinking. Like any intelligent person would.

  SUNDAY MORNING CAME, and I begrudgingly left Monica’s for Glendora, where Jamie was passed out on the couchwith a blanket on his head. I ignored the sight and headed for my phone, where twenty or so messages chimed. All from Sam, asking where I was, why I wasn’t answering the door. A drip of guilt slid into my heart, but I finally picked up the phone and called his cell.

  He answered on the sixth ring, a garbled, “Emma? What…”

  “I’m sorry I stood you up.”

  “What…”

  “But you deserved it.”

  “Well…”

  “Sam, I have to go. Jamie’s calling for me. If you want to, come over to the apartment today. But if not, I understand. Bye.”

  I hung up and hurried to the sitting room, where Jamie blindly lifted his hands into the air. “Emma…oh, dear Emma…”

  “Hello?” I said, lifting the blanket from his head.

  “Ella dumped me last night.”

  “What?”

  “She said our relationship wasn’t going to work.”

  “What happened?”

  “We…kinda ran into Erinina.”

  “Nina?” I screamed, backing away from him like he was the bug-man from Kafka’s Metamorphosis. “You ran into Nina?”

  “Nina and Christophe, her Nordic fiancé boyfriend.” His voice practically ached, before it was replaced with a mocking lilt. “Oh, Emma, I wish you’d been there. It was unbearable, like watching gorillas mate. I mean, we are in Los Angeles, and I can’t seem to get away from that girl.”

  “‘That girl?’ We both know she isn’t just ‘that girl.’”

  “I know.” His voice cracked. “What’s worse is that I totally ignored Ella. I…I might have spilled tea all over Nordic fiancé, and Nina flipped out on me, and then Ella got really embarrassed, and after we got into the car, she pulled my arm and said, ‘You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?’ I didn’t answer, so she took that as a yes, and she said that she loves me, but I don’t love her, and she can’t handle that.”

  “You’ve been dating a month? What does she think, you’re magically going to…”

  “I fell in love with Nina on our first date, Em. I’m still in love with her. Gosh, it hurts so badly�
�to see her with another man, one that I guess would fit her better.”

  “Don’t even start with that, Jamie. Anyone would be lucky to have you. Ella doesn’t deserve you, and you don’t need her. Take that mindset.”

  He gripped my hand, offering a sullen, melancholia-inducing smile. “You’re kind, Em, but you don’t have to lie.”

  “I’m not lying, James. I’m not lying to you. I mean, of course I have lied to you in the past, but I’m not lying in this moment.” He raised his eyebrows, a smirk appearing on his lips. “You didn’t even like her that much, did you?”

  “Not like I love Nina.”

  “Well, if you love her that much, you’d do something about it.”

  “It’s too late for that, Em.”

  “It’s never too late.”

  “Until it is.”

  “Oh, shut up. You’re the one lying here like an invalid. Goodbye, I’m going to the market down the road. We’re out of quinoa and other goofy stuff that’s always stocked in the pantry.”

  “Goofy stuff you’ve been eating.”

  I rolled my eyes, knowing it was true.

  WHEN I GOT home, Sam sat beside Jamie as they indolently observed a Discovery special on sharks’ predatory behavior. As a hammerhead prowled a remnant of the sea, I flopped onto the couch with a bag of assorted junk food and some snippets of parsley and quinoa. Quickly, I pulled out some sea salt chips.

  “Sharks are pretty cool, I’ve decided,” Jamie said, the blanket wrapped around him like a sheet. He seemed quite comfortable, though it felt warm to me inside our stuffy apartment. The cat rested at his feet, a little guard kitty. “Sam stopped by. I told him you’d come soon.”

  Precisely, Sam winked and leaned forward from his position. “Hey, Emma.”

  “Hi, Sam. It’s so nice to see you.”

  Jamie stared at us with bewilderment. “Oh, cut the civilities. I know that you two have some obvious romantic predilections, and I’m sick of you doing nothing about it. Okay, go get a room or something. Or, Emma, I know that’s not your thing—go swimming or to a movie. But for goodness’ sake, leave me out of this! I just want to sit here and moan like a sperm whale with all that echolocation stuff.”

  “Whales have echolocation techniques?”

  “Are you judging my intelligence, Emma Richmond? I have been watching the flight of the bumbleshark for about an hour now. There was a whole segment on whale and toothed-whale species (AKA porpoise, dolphin) that I happened to absorb. I do have a brain, my dear.”

  “Someone is crabby,” I said, defensively wrapping my arms around my chest.

  Sam stifled a giggle. “Emma, would you like to go see a movie?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like to go to the park?”

  “No.”

  “Well, how about the zoo?”

  “What? No. Have you been outside?”

  “I’m just trying here.”

  Jamie dramatically flew up from the sofa and his blanket. “I give up with you two. I’m going out. You guys can stay here, cook some salmon, watch a movie, I really don’t care. Good-bye.” As soon as he grabbed his keys and wallet, he was out the door.

  Then I was staring at Samuel Woodshaw with an Australian narrator’s voice in the background unfolding the anatomy of a blue whale. He moved closer to me, tossing the remote in my direction. “Anything else, please.”

  “Don’t you have work or something?”

  “Conveniently, no.”

  So we spent a few hours foraging for food in the pantry while intermittently flipping between HGTV, the cooking channel, and the Game Show Network. As we sat in the comfortable silence of our budding relationship, I finally caved. “Why are you here, for real?”

  He popped a bar of Hershey’s from the coffee table where our feet rested. A collection of pet-themed magazines lay as a reminder of Ella’s PETA activities. I wondered if Jamie would ever get rid of them. “Just to hang out. I don’t know, does there have to be a reason?”

  “Yes, actually, there does.”

  He gave me a look, but I pretended not to notice. He leaned over a bit and whispered, “Let’s just try the hanging out thing. Nothing inappropriate, okay?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  “With kindness, my friend.”

  “I’m kind enough.”

  “You’re kind enough to fit in with hyenas on the prowl in the African savanna.”

  “Thanks.”

  I almost, almost invited him to be my date at Monica’s wedding, but decided against it. She wouldn’t be able to handle an impromptu guest like Sam Woodshaw. So we continued to sit at the TV, methodically flipping between episodes of Chopped and Family Feud, while dusk approached, and, finally, night.

  When it was close to eleven o’clock, I shut off the TV, turning slightly to be closer to Sam. His eyes were shutting like a broken camera’s, back and forth, little moon slivers. I wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and stood up, intent on making a late-night snack, when he reached for my arm. “Come here,” he breathed.

  I tensed immediately, unable to move. “Um…”

  “Just be with me. Just sit here. I promise I won’t do anything, okay?”

  “Um? I’m not going to scratch your back. That is just weird.”

  “Sit here, hum or something, and I will fall asleep like a little baby being cooed to by its mother.”

  “A baby isn’t an ‘its.’”

  “Emma.”

  I finally sat beside him, buckling my legs underneath me. I pulled out a magazine, feeling the glossy pages on my fingertips while each little animal appeared, hopeless and abandoned. Eventually, Sam sat up and said, “Closer.”

  “What? I’m not falling for this.”

  He slouched his shoulders and laid his head on my lap like a little needy child. I was momentarily shocked, but his eyes lolled in his head, and he entered a sleeplike state almost immediately. Unable to move, I breathed hard and focused on the TV across the way, not on the handsome man before me. Eventually, I tried to stand up, but his arm reached for me, so I stretched out, laid my head against a pillow, and repositioned his head to lay on the same pillow.

  Then the blackness overcame my field of vision, like a thief had stolen my rods and cones. While I sat in the limbo stage right before one falls asleep, my heart rapidly thumped in my chest, little arrows hitting a darting board. I was having a sleepover with Sam Woodshaw. Even as a somewhat mature twenty-two-year-old, a giddy seed of excitement was rooted in the pit of my belly.