People Who Knew Me (3 page)

“Is this an official date?” Jen asked. We sat back on the couch.

“I guess so.”

Gabe flirted with me for months in junior year. I didn't give him much attention—partly because I was involved with Alex throughout that year, and partly because I assumed he flirted with all the girls. When the school year was coming to an end, we had a brief conversation about summer plans. He was going to Puerto Rico, to stay with his mother's family for a few months. Gabe's mom was Puerto Rican and his dad was white, which explained the juxtaposition of his brown skin and bright blue eyes. Jen called him “exotically handsome”—or was it “handsomely exotic”? His family had a place near Aguadilla and he claimed he was going to surf eight hours a day. He said I should come along, and I laughed. He said he was serious, and I laughed more. I told him we should probably have dinner first, before getting on a plane together. He suggested we go out that very night. I said, “Look, if you still want to have dinner with me when you come back, I'll go.” He said it was a deal. I assumed he'd forget about me. He'd get tan and even more muscular and he'd find a beautiful Puerto Rican girl to distract him. Come fall, I'd never hear from him. And I'd never have to worry about seeing him. He was a business major; we wouldn't share any classes.

But that's not what happened. One night in the dining hall with Jen during the first week of the new school year, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see him there.

“Emily,” he said, a dopey smile on his face. Nobody ever called me by my full name. It was always Emmy or Em.

“Yes, Gabriel?” I said, not missing a beat.

“I believe you said you'd let me take you out to dinner.”

“Did I?”

“You did. I wouldn't be confused about something that serious. You can pick the place, as long as it's not on campus.”

Jenny looked like she was about to jump out of her seat and accept the invitation herself.

“When is this alleged date?” I asked.

“Saturday? I'll be by your place at eight?”

“Here's the address,” Jenny said, scribbling madly on a Post-it note withdrawn from the depths of her book bag.

“At least someone is looking forward to it,” he said. He winked at Jenny in a way that probably made the hairs on her arms stand up. I gave him a stiff smile. Jenny berated me for ten minutes after he'd left, saying I needed to be more polite, show more enthusiasm.

“A guy that good-looking doesn't need my enthusiasm.”

*   *   *

“Where are you guys going?” Jenny asked.

“Mexican place on Bleecker.”

“You don't even seem excited.” She crossed her arms over her chest, profoundly disappointed in me and my disinterest in joining her in acting like a giddy schoolgirl.

“How I feel before the date shouldn't matter. We'll see how I feel after.”

I stood up and went to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Next door. Gabe won't be here for an hour. You wanted to say hi to the cute guy, right?”

Standing at their door, we could hear muffled music within—Nirvana. The
Nevermind
album had come out the year before; “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was on all the alternative radio stations. We knocked twice and, as footsteps approached, Jenny let out something of a squeal.

The door opened to a shaggy-haired guy, at the forefront of the grunge look. This couldn't have been the guy Jenny was raving about; her version of “cute” was very clean-cut, very JFK, Jr. I thought he was cute, though. His hair was dark, almost black, his eyes crystal-blue.

He looked at us expectantly and I remembered that we were the ones knocking on their door and not the other way around.

“Hi,” I said, more tongue-tied than I wanted or expected to be. He smiled, which just made me more uncomfortable. He had a sly grin, the type of grin that suggests he's up to something.

“Well, hello,” he said, totally at ease.

“I'm Emmy Overton,” I said, feeling immediately dumb for using my full name. That was my last name then, the one I was born with—Overton. “And this is Jenny.”

“Emmy and Jenny,” he repeated, saying it like the two of us were hosts of a variety show.

“Hi,” Jenny said over my shoulder.

“We just wanted to introduce ourselves. We're your neighbors. Next door,” I said.

“Right, I thought you looked familiar. I'm Drew,” he said, sticking out his hand. He had a firm shake. My palm was sweaty—it always is when I'm nervous—but his wasn't. “And my roommate is…”

He turned around and shouted, “Hey, Brian, come meet our neighbors.”

The “cute” one came to the door. Brian looked like he had been class president in high school. Even relaxing in his apartment, he was wearing a collared shirt and khaki shorts, like he was prepared to play golf at a moment's notice.

“Hey,” Brian said. “Nice to meet you.” He was overly nice, well mannered.

Drew welcomed us inside and cleared off their couch, which was covered in books and binders. In the next fifteen minutes, we found out that Brian's parents owned the apartment (to which Jenny, desperate for commonalities, said, “My parents own our apartment!”); Drew and Brian met in a chemistry class and became lab partners first, then friends; and they were seniors (“Like us,” chirped Jenny), Brian majoring in political science and Drew majoring in liberal arts.

“What do you plan to do with that?” Jenny asked, sounding like her mom, who asked if Jenny was still majoring in theater every time she came to visit.

“Be liberal and artsy,” Drew said.

Jenny laughed too hard, even slapping her knee, and Drew smirked at me as if to say,
This roommate of yours is a character.

I gave myself permission to peruse their bookshelf: Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, T. S. Eliot, George Orwell. There was a random palm-reading book, too.

“Let me guess—the liberal arts major is the reader of you two?”

“Guilty,” Drew said, raising a hand.

“And whose music taste does this reflect?” I asked, waving my hand to indicate the Nirvana that was filling the room.

“That would be me, too,” Drew said.

“Nirvana,” I said. “I approve.”

He nodded. Jenny and Brian looked at each other.

“Nirvana?” Brian said, confounded. They were pop music types, those two.

“I don't know them, either!” Jenny said.

It was clear where the attractions were. Brian looked at his watch and said he was heading out to a party. He asked Jenny if she wanted to come along and she skipped out of the apartment by his side, giving me a too-obvious wink on the way out. Drew and I sat on the couch, staring at anything but each other—the ceiling, our feet.

“You're a Scorpio, aren't you?” he said.

I am, born October 28.

“How did you know?”

“Just a vibe,” he said.

“Oh, god, you're not an astrology weirdo, are you? Is that your palm-reading book on the shelf?”

He laughed. “It might be.”

He stood and went to the shelf, pulled out the palm-reading book. He flipped through it, scanning, then looked up and said, “I'm a Scorpio, too. I know my kind.”

This excited me, irrationally. I was never one to believe in astrology. I'd been known to call it stupid.

“I read this back in high school,” he said, putting the palm-reading book back in its spot. “Here, give me your hand.”

He sat next to me again, taking my hand like it meant nothing. I got chills from the bottom of my spine to the top.

“Tell me my fate,” I said with a cynical sigh, trying to sound disinterested. At that age, apathy is cool.

He traced his finger along the lines of my palm. Oh, how I wanted to kiss him.

“You're going to live a long time,” he said.

“Would you tell me if I wasn't?”

He nodded. “I couldn't lie to you on the first day I met you. That's just wrong.”

“Okay, go on, then.”

“You'll experience a lot of love. You're lucky that way.”

I smiled and dared to look him in the eyes.

“You're really beautiful,” he said.

I felt my face get hot and averted my eyes from his. That's when I remembered the time. Gabe. My date. I had to get ready.

“Shit,” I said, standing hurriedly and heading for the door.

“What?”

“I forgot. I have to go. To this dinner thing.”

“Dinner thing?” he said curiously. “Like a date?”

I didn't want to tell him, which had to mean something.

“Kind of. I guess.”

He laughed like it was no big deal at all, like he wasn't the slightest bit jealous. This disappointed me, warned me that maybe I was the only one getting chills up my spine.

“Have fun, then,” he said. “And I would love to take you out sometime, but only if you don't call it a ‘dinner thing.'”

“I'd like that.”

He opened the door for me, and we stood there on the threshold. If life were a movie, we would have kissed, but it isn't, and we were shy. And I had a date expecting me. Drew just smiled that smile of his and I tried not to stumble over my own feet on the way out.

*   *   *

When I picked out my clothes for the date with Gabe, I imagined I was dressing for a date with Drew. I stepped into a flowing black skirt I'd bought at a flea market in Bensonhurst that summer. It was still warm enough for a purple tank top, as long as I wore my favorite black cardigan over it. The cardigan looked gray in comparison to the skirt. I'd worn it so many times that there were perpetual balls of lint attached to it. I hung dangly earrings from my ears and fastened a silver bracelet around my wrist.

I sat on the couch, waiting, and then felt agitated that I was waiting. Gabe wasn't even late. It was ten minutes before eight. I was just antsy. I wanted to go next door, spend the night talking to Drew.

I picked up the phone and dialed Gabe's number. It rang a few times and then he answered.

“Gabe? It's Emmy.”

“Hey, there, I was just on my way over.”

“Good, I was hoping to catch you before you left.”

“What's up?”

“I know this is strange and you will hate me forever, but I have to cancel.”

I expected a reaction or at least a question, but he was silent. I thought the connection was lost, but then I heard him breathing.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

I knew I could say that, but then he'd want to reschedule. Or bring me soup.

“No, I'm fine. It's just—I met someone.”

“You met someone? In the few days since I asked you out?”

“I know, it's weird. It just happened. I wasn't expecting it.”

He sighed. I imagined him stepping on the heel of his dress shoe with one foot, then the other, taking them off, resigned to a night of staying in.

“Well, bummer,” he said. “If it doesn't work out, let me know.”

“I will. Thank you for understanding.”

“He's a lucky guy, whoever he is.”

“Thanks, Gabe. I'll see you around.”

And that was that.

I was relieved for just a moment, before I got so anxious that I had to pee. I rifled through the drawers in the bathroom, in search of Jenny's perfume. I spritzed myself twice, on each side of my neck.

*   *   *

My knock was tentative. Drew opened the door, surprised to see me.

“I canceled.”

He smiled like it was the best news he'd gotten in years, flung his arm out to the side, and said, “Come in!”

He was in the middle of boiling a pot of water for pasta, which was impressive cooking according to my twenty-year-old self.

“I'm assuming you need to eat, then,” he said.

“Yeah, no more ‘dinner thing' means no more dinner.”

He dumped a box of noodles into the water.

“What you did right there—that's more cooking than I've ever done,” I said. “All of my eating is very microwave-based.”

“I cooked for my mom growing up. I'm used to it,” he said. “If I can't read for a living, maybe I'll be a chef.”

He's a dreamer
, I thought.

I sat at the barstool, resting my elbows on the kitchen counter, chin in my hands, and watched him. In a separate pan, he melted butter and added flour until it became a thick paste.

“A roux,” he said.

“Fancy,” I said.

Within minutes he had some kind of cream sauce simmering while the noodles cooked.

“Was it just you and your mom?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I saw my dad about once a year. He had a whole other family after us. My mom raised me. She's paying for college. My dad—he'd show up to a baseball game, school awards ceremony, that kind of thing.”

“School awards ceremony, huh? You a smarty pants or what?”

“I went to public schools in Jersey. If you could count to ten, they'd put you in the accelerated learning classes.”

I laughed. “I grew up in Jersey, too.”

“I knew we had a lot in common.”

He sat on the barstool beside mine, and rested his elbows on the counter. We filled the next few minutes talking nonstop, leapfrogging from one topic to another.

“Close to your mom?” he asked.

“Nope, not really,” I said, and he didn't press further. I could tell already that he was close to his mom, a quintessential mama's boy.

“Dad?” he said. I shook my head. I never met my dad. My mom said I was the product of a one-night stand. That fact was given to me when I was too young to know what a one-night stand was. I protested once about not knowing my father and she said, “I never knew mine, either. You'll get over it.”

“Ever been in love?” he asked.

I laughed uncomfortably. “You get right to it, huh?” I said.