Judging Books

by Shay Savage

  “Well, I know Isaac’s tending bar. Zoey and probably a few of her usual crowd are planning on being there. Maybe she’ll bring those guys she met Saturday. You blew us off all weekend. I would think you’d at least come by for one drink.”

  “I went out with you last night,” I said, reminding her.

  “For like, ten minutes. Then you bailed and missed all the fun, so it didn’t count. What’s everyone going to think if you suddenly stop hanging when you’re expected to be there?”

  “Maybe,” I said, noncommittally.

  I ignored Presley as I took notes during the lecture. At the end of the class period, Professor Lamon dropped one of the study plans for the economics final on my desk, and I started gathering up my books.

  “I’d like to get started on the study guide,” I told Presley, “so I probably won’t go out. This final is going to be a bitch. It is a Monday, not a Friday, you know.”

  “Who cares?” Presley rolled her eyes at me. She tossed her things in her bag and wrapped it around her shoulder. We filed through the classroom door and down the hall. “You could skip the final and still graduate at this point. You have your job, so why waste time studying?”

  “Because if I don’t ace the final, I don’t end up with an A,” I said. “I rather like my GPA right where it is, thank you.”

  “One drink, Ashlyn!” Presley knocked shoulders with me as we headed out the door and down the steps to the courtyard. “You have time for…”

  I didn’t hear the rest of her sentence. At the bottom of the stairs—balanced on his bicycle and smoking a cigarette in all his beautiful, teenage glory—was Ethan. Our eyes met, and he graced me with that smile.

  “Hey,” he said—or maybe he just mouthed it. I couldn’t hear him over Presley’s chatter. I glanced over at her, but she was looking off in the other direction and apparently hadn’t noticed him. I was only three steps from the bottom, and I’d have to either stop or walk right past him. I had no idea what to do. I wasn’t expecting him to show up here—on campus! I wasn’t prepared. What was I going to tell Presley? She was definitely going to grill me, regardless. Good lord, there was no telling what she might say to him right in front of me! Would she notice how young he was, or would she not even get past the piercings and tattoos? I couldn’t even think about the cigarette and the fact that he was on a bicycle. Shit, Presley would have a fucking field day if she found out I had spent the weekend with him. I was going to be torn apart if I even acknowledged that I knew him. I wondered what he would do if I just walked right past him and pretended I didn’t see him. Of course, we had already made eye contact, so there was no way I could do that, not without hurting his feelings.

  I hesitated a moment, having absolutely no idea what I should do and then ended up stopping at the bottom of the stairs, caught in my own indecision. Ethan twisted sideways and dropped off the bicycle seat before reaching out and hugging me against his chest. I hadn’t even considered that he might do something like that. I stiffened and glanced quickly over at Presley, who appeared to be trying to catch flies with her wide-open mouth. Ethan immediately let go, his smile disappearing.

  “I was going to call, but I figured you would be in class,” he said. “I would have sent you a text, but my friends are all at work now, and I didn’t have anyone who could help me write it.”

  Oh shit! I couldn’t believe he said that. I wasn’t ready to deal with this. I just wasn’t.

  “That’s okay,” I said. I looked over at Presley and her bug-eyes, staring first at Ethan, then at me and then back at Ethan again. I really hoped she was not so much on her game that she caught the meaning of his last comment.

  “Ashlyn?” Presley bumped into my arm again. “Are you going to introduce me to your ‘friend’?”

  “Of course,” I said quickly. I could feel my face getting hotter. “Presley, this is Ethan. Ethan, this is my friend, Presley. She’s in my economics class. Presley, I’m going to head on over to the library now and get started on the study guide. If I have time and I’m not too tired, I’ll try to catch up with you guys at the club later.”

  As if, I thought, but at least it might get her off my back.

  “Hey, Presley,” Ethan said with a smile. She definitely noticed that since her eyes bugged out even more.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ethan. How long have you known our Ashlyn here?”

  Our? How many people did she think she was? I really, really wasn’t prepared to deal with this. I definitely couldn’t do this now and definitely not starting with Presley, of all people. She could be absolutely vicious, and anything she discovered would be known by every man, woman, and grandparent in our social circle within an hour. I needed a quick escape.

  “We met just a couple of days ago,” Ethan said, blushing. He tossed a shy glance at me, and his tongue popped out to spin his lip rings in a circle. He practically had “my dick’s been in her pussy” sketched across his forehead. Oh dear lord, she would eat him alive if he kept that up. I would, of course, be her dessert.

  “Did you now?” Presley turned her syrupy-sweet smile on me. “Ashlyn hasn’t mentioned you.”

  “Oh, well…um…” Ethan stammered as he glanced at me sideways and then looked down at the ground. His tongue popped out and ran over his lip rings again. He placed his left hand behind his neck and rubbed at the back of his head, sending his hair flying all over the place in the light spring breeze.

  Shit.

  “Presley, I really need to get going…”

  “Maybe Ethan can join us at the club this evening.” Presley continued to press. My eyes widened in shock. There was no way she would invite him somewhere without a completely devious plan in her head. I absolutely, positively had to get both of us away from her as quickly as possible.

  “Which club?” Ethan asked.

  “Club Mania,” Presley said, increasing her smile to the point of looking rather maniacal. There was no way Ethan could get in there, and I could tell by her expression that she knew it. She was definitely doing this on purpose.

  “Oh…um…I think that place is twenty-one and up,” Ethan said.

  “Well, yeah!” Presley laughed. “It’s bad enough we have to put up with the older undergrads! I like a place that doesn’t allow any children.”

  “Yeah, well…” Ethan glanced over at me again. “I’m not an undergrad, at least, but I think I’ll pass. Thanks anyway.”

  “Presley, I told you I had studying to do…”

  “You said maybe, Ashlyn,” Presley said, grinning at me and raising her eyebrows. “Is there anything else you want to discuss? Maybe your friend here can fill me in on where you were all weekend, hmm?”

  “Drop it, Presley.” I glared at her through narrowed eyes. My heart was beating so fast, she could probably hear it through my chest. “I need to get to the library, and you need to get to your chem lab.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to continue this later, won’t we?” Presley resumed the insane clown smile again. “It was truly a pleasure, Ethan. Maybe we’ll see you at the club in a few years?”

  She started laughing hysterically as she sauntered off with her high-heeled boots clicking against the sidewalk. I glared after her for a minute and then tried to get my bearings. Even with her now out of the immediate picture, I didn’t know what to do next. Everything had happened so fast, and I had no idea how to proceed. I glanced around the courtyard, making sure I wasn’t going to get ambushed by anyone else I knew.

  “You didn’t want her to know,” Ethan said as soon as Presley was out of earshot. He was looking at her retreating form and not looking at me at all.

  “Ignore her,” I said quickly.

  “That is probably good advice,” Ethan agreed, finally turning to me. His eyes were dark, and his voice took on a level of venom that didn’t seem at all right coming out of his beautiful mouth. “Do you ever take your own advice to heart?”

  “What does that mean?” Even as I said it, I knew exactly wha
t he was implying.

  “Obviously, you don’t ignore her.” Ethan stopped and turned towards me, his darkened eyes narrowed a little. “You were embarrassed. You didn’t want her to see me.”

  “Ethan, it’s not like that,” I said. What was it like? I didn’t know what to say. “You’re just…a little hard to explain.”

  “Why?”

  “Presley won’t even recognize you as human if you aren’t a member of her father’s country club,” I explained. I sounded frantic. I was frantic. How could I explain someone like Presley to him? It’s not like I could do or say anything to make her less nasty. Having known her most of my life, I understood why she acted the way she did and accepted her for who she was, but that didn’t help me explain why she treated people like that. If I had been prepared, I might have been able to say something to her that wouldn’t have made this so painfully awkward, but he hadn’t given me the chance.

  “I don’t really give a shit what she thinks,” Ethan said. The tone of his voice had turned hard, the venom gone and replaced with something worse—something cold and nearly emotionless. “Your being embarrassed by me means something, though.”

  “Ethan, I’m not…” I couldn’t even finish the complete thought because I knew on some level it was true, not necessarily embarrassment, but the idea of my friends seeing me with Ethan was pretty frightening. All the questions they would ask—age, tattoos, lip rings. For the love of God, I wasn’t ready to volley all those questions just yet. I hadn’t prepared any answers.

  “It’s okay,” he said quickly and suddenly. “I get it. Sorry to waste your time.”

  Ethan was on his bike and pedaling away before I could even get a word out. He was nothing more than a speck in the distance before it even occurred to me to call after him. My chest tightened, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Half an hour later, I realized I was still standing in the same spot.

  Chapter 17—Longing

  I was a disgraceful, undeniable idiot.

  After Ethan had taken off, I could no longer breathe right. What I had said or done—or not said or done—was awful. He thought I hadn’t told anyone about us. He thought I was embarrassed to be seen with him. He thought I didn’t want my friends to meet him.

  He had been right.

  I was, simply put, a horrible person. I liked Ethan. I liked him a lot, and I had probably just ruined any chances we might have had because I was afraid of what my friends were going to think of him. I was even worse than Presley because he didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. He hadn’t poured his heart out to her while sitting in a pink bean bag chair, and he hadn’t been in bed with her less than twenty-four hours ago.

  I moved like a zombie to my remaining classes, images of Ethan’s agonized expression haunting me. As soon as my last lecture ended, I went immediately to Ethan’s apartment. Henry had greeted me cordially enough at the parking garage gate but told me immediately that Ethan wasn’t there. He had to have known I still had a key to the place, but it was pretty clear he had been told not to let me back in.

  Over the next few days, I left Ethan seventeen voice mails. I had no idea how many times I had tried to call and not bothered leaving a message—too many to count. He hadn’t called back. I had considered texting him, but he would only know what they said if someone read them to him, and I really didn’t want anyone else reading what I wanted to say.

  It had been less than a week since I had first laid eyes on him, and I had no idea where to even begin to look for him. The only place I had been with him was the penthouse apartment where he said he rarely ever spent the night. I knew he stayed with friends on the Lower West Side, but exactly where was a mystery to me. If he was going to continue to refuse my phone calls, I had no other way to find him. The phone was still ringing constantly, but the calls were from various friends, not Ethan. I knew what the rest of them were calling about, and I let every one of them go to voicemail.

  Presley’s text messages were the worst.

  At least now I know why you haven’t been hanging out with us!

  A bicycle? Really?

  Is he still in high school?

  I can’t believe you are blowing us off for a guy who shops at thrift stores.

  Have you completely and totally lost your mind? Call me back!

  I didn’t call her. I didn’t call any of them. I even avoided my apartment as much as possible just in case one of them decided to break down my door.

  On Thursday night, I started to get desperate. Though I knew Ethan wasn’t a student, I found myself searching up and down the streets of the Quarter—the small section of restaurants, shops, and bars just a block from campus where everyone hung out in between classes.

  I blinked away tears as I wandered the main street. My apartment was located on the far side of the Quarter, where all the most affluent grad students congregated to avoid the rest of the riff-raff. I had been afraid to go into the building itself since I was bound to see someone I knew. Considering all the calls I had avoided, I knew Presley had told everyone about our run-in with Ethan, and I didn’t want to answer anyone’s questions.

  I gave up on the Quarter and headed downtown, closer to Ethan’s apartment and my father’s company. I considered going back to Ethan’s place again, but I knew nothing had changed. Henry wasn’t going to let me in, key or not. Instead, I walked to the intersection where I had first met Ethan, looking left and right down the streets and alleys in hopes of catching a glimpse of boys on BMX bicycles. I found nothing that would lead me to Ethan.

  As I went past the walk-up window of a restaurant, the smell of fresh pizza shimmied up my nostrils and reminded me of our Italian dinner. Within about four seconds of inhaling the delicious scent, I went from crying harder from the memory to the joy of revelation—the restaurant workers all knew Ethan. They would be able to tell me how to find him. I turned on my heel, ran smack into a scrawny, geeky guy with an armload of packages, spent a couple minutes helping him pick them up, and then raced back to my Saab.

  Twenty minutes later, I walked through the alley where Ethan had parked his bicycle for our first date. I considered using the kitchen door, thought better of it, and decided to walk around to the front instead. It was getting late, and the restaurant would likely be closing soon. The same redhead was at the hostess’ counter, but her name totally escaped me.

  “Hi,” I said. I was having a really hard time looking her in the eye. I couldn’t remember her name, but I remembered that she and Ethan had dated. “I was wondering if you might remember me. I was here a few nights ago…”

  “Yes, I know. You were with Ethan.”

  “Um, yes, right.” I took a deep breath and tried to start again. “Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help me out.”

  “With?” The redhead raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Well, I’m trying to find him,” I said. “He’s not answering his phone, and I really need to talk to him.”

  “It doesn’t sound like he wants to talk to you,” she said as she turned her back and walked away without another word.

  I stood there with my mouth open, looking like an idiot as she went back to her podium and shuffled menus around. I was about to go back up to her and start an argument when a familiar voice called out.

  “Hello there!” The big guy in white—Alfero, I remembered—walked out of the saloon doors and smiled at me.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “How are you? You’re Ashlyn, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s good to see you again, Alfero.”

  “Did you come back for some more pasta, or is it the gelato you are craving?” he asked. He looked over my shoulder towards the door. “Where’s Ethan?”

  “Well, actually,” I said, “I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”

  “Hmm…” Alfero looked me over for a moment. “I think you’d better sit down. Sheila, ask the kitchen if there’s any gelato left.”

  “Fine,” Sheila grumbled. At
least I had a name for her again.

  I walked over to the table Alfero motioned toward while Sheila headed into the kitchen.

  “Something not going right?” Alfero asked. He didn’t waste any time getting to the point, and it reminded me so much of Ethan that suddenly tears were falling without my consent. I put my hands over my face and heard the scrape of chair legs across the floor before I felt Alfero’s large arms around my shoulders. He didn’t say a word but let me cry until I managed to compose myself. He offered me one of the linen napkins from the table to dry my tears.

  “I’m sorry!” I was still sniffling. “I didn’t mean to start all this, it’s just…”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Ashlyn dear,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  I relayed the events outside the economics building, ending with Ethan’s hasty departure.

  “I know I was rude to him, and I really didn’t mean it that way,” I said, sniffing. “I have my own hang-ups to work through, but I need to talk to him, and he won’t take my calls! I went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there. The doorman wouldn’t let me up even though I still have his extra key. I don’t know how to get ahold of him!”

  “Ethan is a very…unusual individual,” Alfero said after a moment’s pause. “He’s sensitive to a fault, and when he feels something, he feels it very deeply. He told you about his parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even before their passing, he was an emotional child. Losing them when he needed them so much was very difficult. He has found his own peace by living for the moment but has a hard time when others he cares about don’t share his view.”