Chapter 14
Are You Single?
The day I moved into my new apartment in the graduate complex at the University of Michigan, I spent six hours trying to put a computer desk together, after Dad had spent another two. He finally gave up and got ready to drive the three hours back home, leaving me stranded in my new complex. Drew was taking community college classes that semester and needed a vehicle. Before he left, Dad advised me that learning how to build things would be a good life lesson. Another thing I don’t need a man for. I stayed up late reading directions and spinning the screwdriver. Even when I got frustrated because I put the whole front side on backward, at least it meant I wasn’t focused on being nervous about starting grad school. Besides, that desk was the only furniture I had now—Mom made me give my foam couch to a couple of E-C juniors since we didn’t have room for it in the rental car.
After a restless night, I spilled coffee beans all over the kitchen floor the next morning. Hearing their individual clattering reminded me of the time I spilled my Easter jelly beans on the linoleum when I was five. Corrie came in and stomped on them, and then Mom yelled at me.
I left the coffee beans on the floor as I went to check my answering machine, silently cursing at it when the female computerized voice told me I had no messages. Someone should look into inventing a machine with a soothing reply: “I’m sorry, you have no new messages, but that doesn’t mean that you are not a nice person. Your ex is still thinking about you, he just doesn’t know your number.” Although I knew that even if Joshua was psychic and had a premonition of my phone number, he still wouldn’t call.
I wasn’t used to the phone not ringing, and the answering machine not blinking. Last semester, the phone had been a nuisance, ringing constantly with homework reminders from Nishaan, gossip from Lizzie, or invitations from guys I worked with or other random guys. I’d unplug it whenever I needed peace. Now there was nobody calling, the phone was quiet and the answering machine’s red light was steady.
Later that morning, I went to an introductory meeting in the Biology building. There were a few people already scattered at some of the lab tables when I entered, but I took a seat at an empty one, sitting with my back toward the door so I wouldn’t make eye contact with people walking in. I kept my gaze on the floor, watching jeaned legs join other legs at other tables. My heart grew heavier as more and more people filled the tables around me and the room buzzed with small talk. I felt almost as alone as on my first day of college, right before I met Jane.
As if on cue, the chair in front of me was pulled out and a large chested, dark-haired girl dropped into it. “Hey,” she said. “Care if we sit here?”
I shook my head as another girl sat beside her.
“I’m Erica.” The dark-haired girl had friendly eyes underneath tortoise shell glasses. She nodded at her companion. “This is Ruby.”
Ruby didn’t return what I hoped was my welcoming smile. She was a head taller than Erica, with eyes rimmed with heavy black liner.
Both of their heads turned as a gray-haired woman entered the room. She started her speech by emphasizing how privileged we were to be part of this program. As she continued to speak, I thought about how not privileged I was feeling. In fact, I felt more like a screw-up. I had terrible study habits; I hated school, and now that I just finished four years of it, there I was, doing it all over because I couldn’t find a job. Plus, I had to start at square one as far as friends and social stuff was concerned. And I didn’t even have a car.
“Do you want to go out with us tonight?” Erica asked after the intro was over.
“Sure.”
She slid a notebook into her bag. “We’re going to Coconuts. It’s supposed to be the place in town. Where do you live?”
“Birch complex.” It was University-owned and reserved for graduate students.
“Great, me too. I’m in Building B. Meet us there at 9 so we can pre-party.”
I gathered, from Erica’s generous use of the word ‘we’ that Ruby would be there as well, but she still hadn’t said a word.
I got dressed in a pink bejeweled tank top and dip-dye jeans with glitter on them. I had one rum and diet while I checked my e-mail. Nothing important. The coffee beans were still on the floor from earlier. Part of me was triumphant that I had my own apartment and no one could yell at me for making a mess. But then again that didn’t necessarily mean I needed to be a slob just because I could. Luckily Dad had bought me a broom and dustpan. I cleaned up the mess and even washed the cheese off my dinner plate—reveling in the hot water and access to dish soap that wasn’t afforded in a dorm bathroom—before heading out.
“Hey,” I said when Erica opened the door.
“What did you say?” Erica asked, stepping aside so I could enter her apartment. Hers was basically the mirror image of mine.
“I said, hey!” I raised my voice over the rock music playing in the background.
“Oh, I couldn’t hear you because your outfit is too loud.”
Ruby tittered from the couch in the corner of the room.
I pulled down on my tank-top. “You think it’s too much? I wore this out a lot in college.” I felt like it had been ages ago and not last week.
“Where’d you go to school?” Erica asked, grabbing a plastic cup from the table.
“Florida.”
“That explains a lot.” Ruby’s voice was soft and feminine.
“Don’t worry about it.” Erica flopped on the couch beside Ruby. “Guys will probably think you’re exotic. Are you single?”
“Yep.” Although Erica’s apartment was considerably more decorated than mine, there weren’t any more chairs that I could see.
“Me too. Ruby’s got a boyfriend, though.”
Ruby nodded emphatically.
“Let’s get you a drink.” Erica bounced up from the couch and headed into the hallway that also served as a kitchen. She nodded toward her bedroom. “There’s a chair in there.”
Most of Erica’s bedroom was taken up a by a large bed, but tucked into a corner was a vanity and a small cushioned bench. I grabbed the bench and headed back to the living room.
“You have a lot of stuff set up already.” I commented as I sat down, peering around at the knick-knacks on the bookshelf and posters covering the walls. “How long have you been here?”
“A week.” Erica replied.
“Wow. I just graduated last week.”
“Me too,” Ruby replied.
Erica took a sip of her drink. “I graduated last year. Marine bio.”
“Me too!” My voice came out as a shriek. “Let me guess, you couldn’t find a job.”
Erica nodded. “Texas A and M. You?”
“Eckhart College.”
“Where?” Ruby asked.
“Exactly,” I said. The drink that Erica made me was strong.
“This is so great!” I couldn’t help exclaiming to Erica and Ruby when we finally found a table at Coconuts.
“Didn’t you have bars at, what did you say the name of your college was?” Erica asked.
“Doesn’t matter. And no, we didn’t have bars where all the students hung out at. We’d go wherever there were specials. Usually we’d be surrounded by tourists. Old tourists.”
“Well,” Erica picked up her drink and met mine. “Welcome to the real college life!”
A cute guy in a blue T-shirt and Birkenstocks passed by our table.
Erica rolled her eyes. “Gawk much?”
Birkenstocks stood at the bar, still staring at our table. Staring at Ruby, more like it, I realized, glancing over at the statuesque brunette. Her eyeliner was even thicker now and accompanied by red lip lacquer. I hadn’t thought she was anything special, but the multiple male gazes that scoped out our table would probably beg to differ.
“Hey.” A short, chunky guy nudged Erica before glancing at Ruby. “Who’s this?” He stuck his hand out. Ruby shook it quickly. I noticed she then wiped her hand on her black trousers before wrapping it back around her drink.
“This is Ruby, and that’s Tammy. Girls, this is Bacon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as I extended my own hand. “Did she say your name was Bacon?”
He scrunched his face. With his light red hair and freckles, the act had the effect of making him look even more like a small boy. “That’s right. I’m an ag major. Ag, like as in agriculture? Pigs?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I replied.
He said something else, which I couldn’t discern.
“What?” I asked, covering my ear with my hand.
Bacon came over next to me as Erica murmured something to Ruby. They both giggled and I assumed Erica did a reprise of her earlier joke about my outfit.
“I said, ‘Are you a grad student too?’” Bacon put both elbows on the table and leaned in my direction.
I couldn’t help shifting my seat back. The club was loud, but I wasn’t sure that necessitated such a level of closeness. “Science writing.”
He nodded and then glanced over at Erica, who was still whispering to Ruby. “Well, hey, my roommate and I are having a party tomorrow night. Erica knows about it. Ask her for the details,” he said before sauntering off.
“What was that all about?” I asked as soon as Bacon was out of earshot, which didn’t take long, even given his short legs.
Erica shrugged. “I met him the first night I arrived.”
“Are you two a thing?”
She waved her hand. “With that baby face? Nah.”
“Yeah, I thought this club was 21 and over,” Ruby said. “Since when did they let toddlers in?”
Erica took a long sip of her drink.
I got up to take a bathroom break. When I got back there were two new guys at our table. One was tall and handsome, and the other was shorter, though not as short as Bacon.
“Hey. I’m Jon,” the shorter one said. The tall one couldn’t stop his ogling of Ruby long enough to acknowledge my existence.
“Tammy.” I glanced over at Erica. She rolled her eyes and tilted her head toward Ruby. I knew enough girl code to realize that Erica and I would be stuck talking to Jon so Ruby and Mr. Tall and Handsome could get to know each other better.
Jon could have been decent looking if it wasn’t for his hair, which was short, blonde, and cut in a way that made it somehow appear both frizzy and spiky at the same time.
“So what’s your major?” Jon asked.
“I’m in grad school.” The words came out more boastful than I’d intended. “Like my friends here.” Except Erica had disappeared and Ruby and the other guy were so wrapped up in each other they might as well have been on Mars.
“You want to do a shot?” Jon asked.
“Yes!” I shouted.
After a long night of drinking and fending off Jon’s advances, Ruby and I made it home, but not before she gave her number to Jon’s friend, despite her revelation earlier that she had a boyfriend. I asked Ruby if we should find Erica before we left the club, but Ruby merely shrugged. I got the feeling that Erica disappeared a lot.
I fell asleep right away, but then couldn’t get back to sleep after waking around 3 am. I must have fallen asleep finally, though, because I dreamt of Adam. “Look up, Tammy,” he kept repeating.
I woke up to find two very spindly creatures dangling right in front of my nose. They were so close that I’d make contact if I sat up, meaning I could only lie there. They must have sensed my stare because they started climbing back up the thin thread, finally allowing me to jump out of bed and hit the light. Cautiously I walked back over, catching sight of them in the corner, still entangled in each other. “Well, at least the spiders are getting some,” I thought as I went to get the broom. But of course, once I was armed, I couldn’t find them again. That would be one reason to have a guy around. I gathered my comforter and pillow and headed to the living room. To kill spiders. That and to unplug my toilet. Thankfully my toilet hadn’t clogged yet, but I was waiting for the day it would.
I technically only had one graduate class that semester, Science Writing Seminar, although the hours were the equivalent of two of my college classes. The class met for two hours, three days a week. At least it started at a leisurely 9:30 a.m.
Monday morning, I arrived a few minutes before class started.
“I saved you a seat!” Erica shouted as soon as I walked in the door.
“Hey,” I said as I sat down across from Ruby.
“I know someone who thinks you’re beautiful,” Erica commented as I pulled a notebook and pen out of my backpack.
Caught off guard, I said my first thought aloud, “Is it a guy?” Based on their interactions at Coconuts on Saturday, I didn’t think Ruby and Erica were lesbians, but I didn’t want either of them to get the wrong idea.
Erica just laughed and said, “Of course, silly.”
Interesting. I cast my eyes around the room, wondering if said person was in our vicinity. There were not that many guys in our program. Three, from my count, and it seemed that they were all sitting at the same table. The only guy who wasn’t wearing glasses reminded me of my brother, only much, much taller. The guy sitting across from him had a visible unibrow and didn’t look like the type to call a random girl beautiful.
I would also never use that term to describe myself. Even on my most self-confident days, I knew I didn’t qualify as beautiful. Cute, perhaps, which is nowhere near beautiful. But it was nice to know that for once, someone was obsessing over me instead of the other way around.
The same gray-haired woman from the other day entered the room. I’d forgotten her name so I discreetly looked it up on my schedule. Dr. Hobart. She spent the next hour going into detail on the various tasks we would be assigned during the semester, ranging from pitching stories, to researching archives, to interviewing graduate students in the sciences. Despite my racing thoughts, I managed to cheer just a little. This kind of stuff was definitely up my alley. For the first time I began to think I was in the right place after all.
“Well,” Erica asked when we left the room during break.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you curious as to who thinks you’re beautiful?” She looked over at me, brown eyes raised over her glasses.
“Okay, so who is it?”
“Bacon,” she stated, holding the bathroom door open for Ruby and I.
“But aren’t you two…” I glanced helplessly in Ruby’s direction, but she’d already gone into a stall.
“What gave you that impression?” Erica went over to the mirror and reapplied her lipstick.
Unsure of how to reply, I entered another stall instead. Despite the fact that Bacon practically ignored Erica the whole night, I’d picked up a definite undercurrent between them.
Erica seemed to forgot about her inquiry by the time I reemerged and the three of us headed back to class in silence.
Dr. Hobart used the remaining hour to give us our first assignment: to write a five-page paper on a science topic. Immediately after she paused for a sip of water, hands around the room shot up. “That’s all I’m going to say to you, besides the fact that you need at least three peer-reviewed sources. And, don’t even think about using any of the pieces you’ve written previously. Hands down,” she reiterated firmly to the couple of people who were still trying to get clarification. “The library is that way,” she said, sticking a crooked finger out. With that, she gathered up a few papers.
The whispers began as soon as she left the room, as if the speakers were afraid she’d paused outside the door to listen in.
“What are you going to write about?” Erica asked Ruby.
“Neutrinos,” Ruby replied immediately.
Erica raised her eyebrows and turned to me. “What about you?”
I shrugged.
“Me too,” Erica said, casting a sideways glance at Ruby, who was packing up her stuff.
“Are you heading to the library?” I asked her.
Ruby glanced at her watch. “I’ve got Astrophysics right now.” The science writing program left room for one science class of interest each semester.
“I’m taking Animal Behavior,” I told her. “But it’s in the afternoon.”
“Me too!” Erica exclaimed. “Guess we’ll be seat buddies again.”
“Are you hitting up the library before class?” I asked Erica as we headed toward the door.
“Nah. I’m going home to take a nap.”
“What were you up to last night?” Ruby asked, giving her a nudge. Erica wrinkled her nose but didn’t say anything.
“Walk back to the Village with me?” Erica asked me.
I planned on heading to the library myself, but acquiesced anyway. A walking buddy was a walking buddy.
Once back in my apartment, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Eager to get started on my assignment, I flicked on my computer. I hadn’t gotten Internet access yet, so there wasn’t much research I could do. I opened up a new document and flexed my fingers over the keyboard. I turned to the stack of books lying on the floor next to my computer desk, mentally adding a bookshelf to the list of things I still needed for my apartment. I remembered reading something intriguing once about Anna Anderson in my Intro to Biology textbook, so I found that one in the pile and began flipping through it till I found the blurb about the woman who claimed (falsely, we know now thanks to DNA analysis) to be one of the murdered Russian princesses. I scribbled Anna Anderson/Anastasia Romanov onto a fresh piece of notebook paper before tucking it into my backpack and heading in the direction Dr. Hobart had indicated.
Bingo, I thought when I pulled up Romanov onto the research computers in the library. There was an article only a few months old about identifying the remains of the Russian Royal family through DNA analysis. I spent the next few hours photocopying articles before it was time to go to my next class.
Erica was waiting for me outside the lecture hall. “How was your nap?” I asked by way of greeting.
“Good. Hey, what are you doing tonight?”
“Writing. Isn’t that what you should be doing?” I didn’t intend the Big Sister tone my voice took on.
She waved her hand. “I’m really good at procrastinating. Do you want to come over and hang out?”
I’d once been the Procrastinator Champion of my complex. “Sure, why not?”
Animal Behavior was an undergrad class, and since it was the summer term, the lecture hall was sparsely populated. Unlike at Eckhart, the students surrounding us didn’t seem to have a snooty air.
The professor, Dr. Durkin, was, again, older with salt and pepper hair. “Okay,” he said after settling behind the lectern. “Let’s get right to it.” He pulled up a document on the computer entitled, ‘Roadkill Report.’ “Who’s got some?”
The guy a few seats over from me raised his hand. “Skunk on I-94.” Dr. Durkin put a tick mark next to the word Skunk on his word document. “What else?”
“Dead deer on Route 91.” Dr. Durkin followed suit by putting another mark in the Deer column as Erica and I gave each other confused looks.
After class, I headed back to the library. Erica went home to straighten up her apartment.
“See you around 5?” she asked. “I’m going to cook up some Hamburger Helper if you want some.”
“Probably a bit later: I want to get some more research done. But save some Hamburger Helper for me.”
It was threatening rain as I walked home from the library. The sky wasn’t quite dark enough to prevent me from recognizing the girl that was walking a few feet ahead of me. Mal. As in Joshua’s first hook-up at camp and my sometimes co-counselor. I’d forgotten that she told me she went to Western. The bright blonde hair tugged at my memory. Was it only last summer that I knew her? She split off from the path that led back to the graduate village, heading toward the undergraduate dorms. Without thinking, I followed her, close enough to read the words on the back of her shirt, which was once again, familiar. “Up Yours” stretched across the back of her green T-shirt. The old biddies at camp had a fit over that one, complaining to Denny that the wording was inappropriate, even though it was really an advertisement for a soft drink—“Drink 7” was written on the front.
I dared her to look back, wondering if she’d recognize me. I refrained from calling out to her, figuring she’d probably ask about how Joshua was doing, and all I could say was “I don’t know.” Maybe she, like Denny, knew more than me about what Joshua was up to. Mal never looked back, so after she went into her dorm, I walked home.
“What was up with that roadkill report stuff?” Erica asked me later in her apartment.
“I know, right?” I picked at the plate Erica had made me.
“At least Dr. Durkin seemed a hell of a lot more interesting than Hobart. She scares me.”
“Me too,” I replied through a mouthful of ground beef and cheese.
“Were you smart in undergrad?” Erica asked, stretching out her legs. In the absence of Ruby, I’d taken the seat across from her on the couch.
“Not really.”
“Me neither.”
“But I’m kind of excited about being here and really getting the chance to write. Aren’t you?”
Erica shrugged and took a long sip.
“I’ve got a confession to make,” she finally said.
“What is it?” I set the plate on the coffee table.
“Bacon.”
“I knew it!”
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You’re sleeping with him.”
“Yes. More than once.”
“So why all that stuff about how he called me beautiful?” It seemed a weird way to make a new friend.
She shrugged and took another sip. “I thought you’d like to know. What’s your deal, anyway?”
“My deal?”
“I mean, you barely gave any of those guys at the club a second glance, and some of them were pretty cute.”
I tried rising off the couch, but the sunken cushions made it slightly difficult.
“Tell me about him,” Erica commanded.
I played dumb as I went into the kitchen to refill my wine. “Who?”
“The guy who broke your heart,” Erica said as I settled back into the couch.
I sighed. “Joshua.” The name felt foreign on my lips, but as soon I uttered it, I was stunned as all the other feelings I’d been trying to suppress for the last eight months bubbled into my bloodstream. “We met at summer camp, but he was from the wrong side of the ocean. His biggest dream was to work in the US and he had already gotten his visa for a year and a half, to begin next March. The plan was for me to go to school here in Michigan so we could see each other on the weekends. But…” I choked on my next words. “The plan fell through, and my world fell apart.”
“Your typical love story,” Erica said sarcastically.
“Yeah.” The wine had gone straight to my head. There was something about drinking on weeknights that made me feel the effects faster. “They never show you the rest of the love story. Boy and girl meet, they argue, they wrestle with their feelings, and finally admit that they are in love, and ta-da. It’s assumed that everybody lives Happily Ever After. Even in extenuating circumstances, love finds a way, love conquers all. But not for me.”
“So he’s not coming back?”
I shook my head, pretending those words didn’t still tug at my heart. “No. He’s going to marry some bland Englishwoman with bad teeth and they’re going to have a million bratty little kids. He’ll have to work every day for the rest of his life just to clothe and feed them, and won’t ever be allowed the opportunity to cross the Atlantic and live his dream.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m going to go through the rest of my life feeling that a part of me is missing, a part that remains four thousand miles across the freezing Atlantic Ocean.” A world away and forever out of reach. I reached up to wipe away the tears that were threatening to fall. “What about you?” I asked Erica. Something told me that we were in the same boat.
“I don’t believe in love anymore,” Erica finally said. “I’m a scientist and don’t accept things at face value.”
“Love sucks,” I replied.
“Hear, hear,” Erica said, clinking my glass with hers in a mock toast.
Needless to say, I had a hard time getting to sleep that night. The combination of seeing Mal earlier that day and the conversation Erica and I had meant that wounds which I’d once thought had healed felt fresh and raw. At camp, I was notorious for picking at scabs—I’d keep on picking and picking until they scarred so bad I’d never be able to get rid of them. A constant reminder of what used to be there. And my inner scars from Joshua were as ugly as the curling iron burn on my arm was that summer.
I wondered if I built it all up in my head; that he and I being together wasn’t as much a dream come true as I thought it was. I remembered silly things about him, like what a horrible speller he was, how pale he was, his hairy chest, how skinny he looked in a swimsuit. How different our backgrounds were—he was a truck driver’s son and barely cleared minimum wage. But those things never mattered to me when we were together, and they sure didn’t matter now. I wouldn’t care if he was white as a ghost, if he lost so much weight you could count his ribs through his skin, if he had twice as much chest hair as hair on his head. I wouldn’t care if I had to support him for the rest of my life, so long as he was there for the rest of my life.
It was after midnight when I finally tossed back the covers. I headed toward the living room to put on Chicago’s Love Songs and to grab a chair to reach the “Joshua Box” hidden out of sight in the depths of my closet. I shifted through some of the pictures. Pale and skinny or not, he still looked handsome to me. I picked up a few of his “good” letters, the ones that gushed about how much he loved me. Reassured, I finally crawled back into bed. After I’d gotten so hung up on Dallas, I, like Erica, convinced myself that love didn’t exist. But I was wrong. I had experienced it firsthand, and I would be forever changed because of it. My last thought before I drifted off to sleep was how I didn’t know how to get love back, and I didn’t think I’d want it if it wasn’t with Joshua.