Most Ardently

by Susan Mesler-Evans

  “Totally. I’d be great at it, and those skills are always needed. Hair and makeup artists are the unsung heroes of the movie industry.”

  “Why do you think I let her practice on me all the time?” Lucia added.

  “Huh.” Man, I need to listen to them more often. “Hey, if it works out with Jules and Bobby, he could probably introduce you to some people.”

  “Don’t jinx it,” Julieta said. “I really want it to work out.”

  “Personally,” Elisa said, “I’m only going to get married if I find the deepest, purest, truest love in the world. Which is why I’m planning my life around the assumption that I’ll one day be the family spinster.”

  All her sisters broke into giggles. Elisa grinned.

  “It’s a hard job, I know, but someone’s gotta do it,” she said. “I’ll overstay my welcome during holidays at Julieta and Bobby’s mansion, give your kids questionable life advice, tell all the wild and embarrassing stories of our youths, be the one that teaches all the kids at family gatherings about sex and drugs and R-rated movies, drink vodka-laced coffee at the breakfast table… It’ll be great.”

  “Can there be two spinsters in a family?” Maria asked, smiling a bit.

  “I think, at that point, we cease to be spinsters and become ‘maiden aunts,’” Elisa said. “Which would mean it’d be our job to house any unmarried children of our siblings to help them find husbands, lest they wind up bitter old crones like us.”

  “Wait,” Lucia said. “You’d be the Spinster Sisters. You could totally start a band with that name.”

  Elisa laughed. “What do you say, Maria? If we’re both still single when we’re fifty, we start a band?”

  Maria laughed, too. “Deal.”

  Chapter Ten

  In Which Colin Does. Not. Get. It.

  Three days before Elisa was supposed to go out with Wick, she was still stuck playing host to Colin Burger. He’d come over every single day after class let out, like clockwork. And no matter how desperately Elisa hinted to her mother that she didn’t want to spend time with him, she kept letting him in.

  Today, he had crashed dinner with Elisa, her mother, her sisters, and Charlene. The dinner table was too crowded at the best of times, but the addition of Colin made it feel even more cramped than normal. It didn’t help that he was, as always, talking.

  “So, then Mother and I began to check into our hotel,” he said, “but our luggage hadn’t arrived yet. So, Mother gets on the phone with the hotel’s management to complain that the bellhop had lost our bags, when the bellhop himself appears behind her, just as she was demanding they fire him. With our bags in tow, no less. Of course, he took offense when he heard Mother’s harsh criticism of him, and it showed on his face. Just as I was about to pull Mother away from the situation, so she wouldn’t say something she’d regret, the bellhop’s boss comes over and—”

  “Would you like more mashed potatoes?” Mom interrupted. Camila and Lucia both blinked out of their stupor. Elisa just continued staring at the wall behind him, which was how she’d fooled him into thinking she was listening.

  “Oh, yes, please, Ms. Bello,” he said, eagerly handing over his plate. “Your cooking reminds me so much of the cook we had back home, before I moved out, anyway. As glad as I am to be living on my own, there are times when I miss the way she would prepare meals…”

  And he was off again. Elisa had taken to thinking about her most recent Introduction to Literature assignment as a means to ignore him. She’d escaped into her own head, thinking about the paper she had to write on Fahrenheit 451, when Charlene spared them all from his latest monologue.

  “How’s work going, Julieta?” she asked.

  “It’s going good, I think,” she said. “Bobby told a few of his friends about my business, so I’ve gotten a rush of new clients.”

  Mom beamed. “Bobby really is good to you, isn’t he?”

  “In more ways than one,” Maria muttered. Elisa kicked her under the table.

  “Y’all going out anytime soon?” Mom asked.

  She nodded. “He got us tickets to a laser show at the planetarium.”

  “Oh, I love those,” Charlene said.

  “I do, too,” Colin said. He looked across the table, directly at Elisa. “Do you go there much?”

  “Not much,” she said, already sensing where this was headed.

  “I’d like to go sometime soon. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me?”

  Charlene’s hazel eyes darted to the kitchen door. She must have decided it was too far and too crowded for her to make a break for it because she stayed in her seat.

  “I’m sorry, I’m very busy,” Elisa said. Her voice came out much icier than she’d intended, but he didn’t appear to notice.

  “Oh, I’d be happy to accommodate your schedule,” Colin said. From his expression, she could tell he wasn’t being intentionally obtuse—he really was that oblivious.

  It looked like she’d have to be blunt.

  “Uh… Colin, could we talk alone, maybe?” she said, wanting to at least spare him the experience of being rejected in front of six other people.

  “Actually, I was hoping we could talk right here.” He rose from his seat.

  “Um,” Lucia said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Elisa stood, too. “Let’s just go into my room to talk, okay?”

  “Dude, listen to her,” Camila whispered.

  He didn’t.

  Elisa began to leave the table and head toward her bedroom door, but Colin was faster, reaching her and taking her wrist in his hand, stopping her in her tracks.

  “Elisa Benitez…”

  “Oh my God,” Maria said.

  “Elisa, I have been pursuing your affections for almost a year now,” he said. “I know, this may come as a shock to you.”

  “It doesn’t,” Lucia said, since Elisa was too flabbergasted to say a word.

  He stammered for a second before he could use actual words again. “I really enjoy spending time with you, and I think you and I would be very well-matched. We’re both intelligent, ambitious people, and we both enjoy fine literature and a good movie. Furthermore, my apartment is only a fifteen-minute drive away from yours, so we would always be in close proximity, and the fact that we are both college students would give us plenty to talk about. Now, I know you’ve turned me down before—”

  “That’s right.” She finally found her voice, and when she found it, it came out sharp. “I have. Multiple times. So why on earth are you asking me again?”

  He faltered, for just a moment. “B-because,” he said, “because I very much like you. And I believe that I could make you very happy, if you’d allow me to try.”

  “I don’t allow it,” she said, wrenching her wrist out of his grasp. “And even if I did, you and I would never work as a couple.”

  The color drained from Colin’s face. “Wh-why don’t we step out?” he said, eyes darting nervously to the table. Mom was very still, eyes wide and horrified. Julieta, Maria, and Charlene all looked like they wanted to sink through the floorboards. Camila and Lucia were practically watching with popcorn.

  Elisa let out a mirthless laugh. “Ohhh, no. I gave you the chance to avoid this, and you blew it. You put me on the spot and ask me out in front of my whole family—you get shot down in front of my whole family. Come to think of it, I gave you the chance to avoid it the first two times I rejected you. Or was it the first three times?”

  “Um…”

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is—I have tried and tried to be nice when turning you down,” she said, “but it appears nothing less subtle than a baseball bat to the head will work with you. Colin, I don’t like you. And I never will. And I don’t just mean I don’t like you like that. I mean, I don’t like you, period.”

  Colin looked like he’d been slapped. Charlene made a heroic effort to intervene.

  “Um, maybe we should get the table cleared off—”

&n
bsp; “I’m not done,” she said. “Here’s a little tip for you, Colin. When a girl says she can’t go out with you because she’s busy but doesn’t specify a time when she’s not busy—she’s rejecting you. When a girl opts to dance with someone she hates over dancing with you—she’s rejecting you. When a girl has her best friend intervene repeatedly to avoid spending time with you—she’s rejecting you. And if you want the next poor girl you try to inflict yourself on to not reject you, here are some handy pointers.”

  Her mother tried to intervene next. “Elisa, I think he gets it.”

  “No, Mom, I don’t think he does. First tip: if you want people to like you, maybe talk about something other than yourself. Second tip: stop hugging and touching people without their permission. Third tip: stop acting like you take care of and provide for yourself. Your mom pays for everything. We all know it. Fourth tip: learn to take a rejection the first time you hear it. Because, you know, if you’d backed off earlier, maybe we could’ve at least been friends. But now, I don’t want anything to do with you, romantically or otherwise. Because you, Colin Burger, are an obnoxious, self-centered creep who won’t take no for an answer, and if you ever come over here again, I’ll beat your ass and I’ll enjoy doing it!”

  With that, Elisa was done, and the room was so quiet, the noise from the apartment across the hall seemed loud. Elisa hadn’t raised her voice—much—but she felt like she’d been screaming for a thousand years. Colin stood there, face pale, staring at her. Her mother had buried her face in her hands, and even Camila and Lucia looked like they’d stopped enjoying the show.

  “I…understand,” he finally said, after an unbearably long pause. “I’ll, um, just…just show myself out, then. Thank you for dinner, Ms. Bello. Um…”

  He hesitated, then went for the door.

  Elisa turned on her heel, and went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  A couple minutes later, Camila poked her head in.

  “You okay, Lisa?” she asked tentatively.

  She sighed, tugging anxiously at her dark hair. “I think so. I didn’t exactly enjoy that.”

  “Kind of seemed like you did,” Camila said. She sat down on Julieta’s bed, facing Elisa.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, I mean, I’d been holding that back for about a year now,” she said. “But spelling out everything I hate about somebody isn’t my idea of fun.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re practically the Ohio state champ.” She smoothed her skirt. “You were a bit…harsh.”

  “Oh, come on. I was nice the first couple times I turned him down. He did this to himself.”

  “I guess, but—”

  “The way I see it, once a guy refuses to take no for an answer, you don’t have to be nice to him anymore.” She flopped down onto her bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling.

  “I’m not sure Mama will agree with you on that front,” Camila warned.

  She groaned. “Crap. I spent all that time trying to keep her from realizing Colin was interested…” She turned her gaze toward her sister. “Guess she knows, huh?”

  She scrunched her face up in sympathy. “Looks that way.”

  “Well, she can get over it,” she said. “Because I’m never going to like Colin Burger. Ever.”

  “Yeah, I’m… I’m pretty sure you made that clear, Lisa.”

  “Mostly, I just feel sorry for whatever poor woman he manages to trick into marrying him five or ten years from now…”

  Interlude: In Which Colin Becomes Self-Aware

  Unable to stand the intensely awkward silence that had overtaken the room after Colin left and Elisa stormed off, Charlene decided now was the time to excuse herself.

  “I better head home now,” she said, rising from the dinner table. She rinsed off her dishes in the sink as quickly as she could manage. “Thank you for having me over, Alejandra.”

  “Always a pleasure, dear,” she said. She looked about ready to pass out.

  Charlene quickly left, closing the door behind her and feeling extremely glad she wasn’t going to be part of the discussion that was about to happen. Her long, red hair fell into her face, forcing her to push it away as she headed toward the elevator. When it arrived, she pressed the button for the first floor. And, as always, said a small prayer that today wouldn’t be the day the elevator broke down.

  Coffee. Coffee was something that she needed. Even if it was seven at night—getting a nice boost was the only way she’d be able to distract herself from the…experience she’d just had.

  When she stepped out of the front door of Longbourn, she was surprised to see a familiar face sitting on the bench by the curb, looking quite miserable.

  “Colin?” she said, approaching him slowly.

  He looked up, then quickly looked away, rubbing his eyes. “Charlene, hi. I was just…um, my car’s in the shop, so I’m waiting on an Uber.”

  “Oh.”

  She hesitated. She could just walk away now and leave him to mope. And yet…

  “You okay?” she asked. It was a stupid question; of course he wasn’t. But asking him still felt like the right thing.

  He nodded, rubbing his eyes again. “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been better, of course, but…this too shall pass. That’s the saying, right?”

  She sat on the bench next to him. “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean you have to be okay right away. I mean, Elisa had a right to turn you down, but that was…brutal.”

  “Yeah, that’s, uh…that’s one word for it.”

  There was a brief pause, during which she pretended not to notice Colin sniffling and wiping his nose on his jacket sleeve.

  Then, he asked, “Was she right? Have I been acting like a creep?”

  Charlene hesitated. “Um… Well, I mean, you did come on pretty strong.”

  “Well, yeah, but I thought girls wanted you to be forward,” he said. “And then I thought maybe she was playing hard-to-get, so I tried again.”

  “And again,” she pointed out.

  “Well, yeah. I mean… I guess now that I think about it, she was giving off some hints that she wasn’t into it,” he admitted.

  “Like?” she prompted.

  “Like…always excusing herself early whenever I was over for dinner…always cutting me off whenever I talked…” He frowned. “And always suddenly needing to be somewhere else when I tried to talk to her alone…”

  And then, she saw it on his face: the slowly dawning sensation of self-awareness.

  “Never responding to my messages…the fact that whenever I called, I’d always get sent to voicemail after a ring or two…” Colin continued slowly. “Stiffening up whenever I touched her…without explicit permission… Outright…rejecting me when I asked her out, aaaaaaaaaaand I’m a goddamn idiot.”

  “There it is,” Charlene said.

  “I am such a goddamn idiot,” he said again, face flushing red as he covered it with his hands. “I’m a member of the honors fraternity, and I couldn’t figure that out?”

  “You were blinded by your feelings. And also your massive, insufferable ego.”

  Much to her surprise, he actually snorted. He took his hands down from his face. His eyes lacked their usual, cheerful glint, and were now clouded with doubt.

  “She’s right.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Colin, but…you kind of made a mess of this one.”

  “No kidding,” he said. “Do you think it’s worth apologizing to her?”

  “It never hurts to try,” she said with a shrug. “But I’d wait until she’s had a couple of days to calm down. Elisa was pretty fired up.”

  “You’re right, I’ll… I’ll give her space. Maybe I should send her a very respectful text message…”

  “Give it a couple of days,” Charlene said firmly.

  “Right, right, you’re right…” Colin sighed, running a hand through his sandy brown hair. “Where are you headed, anyway? I thought you lived here, too.”

  “
I do,” she said. “I was just going for some coffee.”

  There was a pause.

  “Did Elisa really have you intervene so she wouldn’t have to spend time with me?” he asked, tilting his head as he looked at her.

  Charlene didn’t answer with words. She just made a noise and a face.

  Colin understood perfectly and groaned.

  “So, everyone knew she hated me except me?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He sighed. “I think I may have brought this on myself.”

  “‘Think,’ nothing,” Charlene said. “You absolutely did.” Then, her expression softened, just a bit, and she patted him on the knee. “But it’s not too late to say you’re sorry. I don’t know if you and Elisa can ever be friends, exactly, but a sincere apology can work wonders.”

  “And she’ll get one,” he said. “After she’s had time to become less…murderous… At least that’ll give me time to write up a first draft.”

  “Wait, wait—you make drafts of your apologies?” she asked, unable to hide her amusement.

  “I make drafts of everything important I have to say.” Colin reached into his pocket for his phone and pulled up the notes app, showing it to her. “This one from yesterday is from when I had to call my advisor to ask her a question… This is from two weeks ago from when I had to schedule a doctor’s appointment.”

  “What’s that one?”

  “That was telling my mom that it was actually me that broke her Ming vase when I was seven and I blamed it on the dog.”

  “And this one’s…”

  “What I was planning to say to Elisa today? Yeah…”

  Charlene sighed, glancing over the note. Sure enough, the first part was word-for-word of what Colin had said at dinner. It appeared he hadn’t been halfway through before Elisa cut him off.

  “Well, if you need someone to proofread your apology, I’m available,” she said.

  “Thanks. I’m probably going to start on it once I get home.”

  “Speaking of which…” Charlene pointed to the road in front of them, just as a red car pulled up in front of Longbourn. “I think your chariot awaits.”