by Mia Archer
Probably for the best.
“It’s so nice being here with old friends,” she said. “Don’t you think Keri? So what were we talking about?”
“We were talking about Keri’s situation,” Erica said.
“What situation?” Tanya asked. She looked around the table and saw the looks. “Come on everyone. Who died?”
“My grandma, you bitch,” I growled.
I figured that might be enough to finally break through the cold exterior she’d built up whenever she was around me, but I’d figured wrong. She hit me with a flat look and shook her head.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a tone that said she was anything but.
The bitch.
“That’s what I was trying to tell everyone before I was so rudely interrupted,” I said, shooting another nasty look to Tanya. She smiled as though she was glad to have me glaring at her.
Damn she was annoying. Once more I wondered why she decided to come here. I was trying to drown my sorrows with my friends, not deal with a crazy ex who was still pissed that I told her we were over and done.
“Ooh, this sounds like an announcement,” Tanya said. “Hold on a second. Let’s all get our drinks in the proper position. Ladies?”
I didn’t even bother fixing her with a dirty look this time. It was obvious they weren’t having the intended effect so what was the fucking point?
I would’ve preferred to not have Tanya around while I was making my big announcement, but whatever. She wasn’t consulting me about what I wanted so she could hear the big change right along with everyone else.
I ignored all the glasses raised in the air. I’d ignore the mocking from Tanya and pretend they were actually toasting me. It would’ve been nice if they didn’t go along with her though.
“I keep thinking about what happened with my grandma at the mall,” I said. “And I keep thinking about how I could’ve done something if I knew what I was doing. I’ve always done the easy thing in life. It’s why I chose the English major. I went with the major that wouldn’t be much work.”
That earned some irritated looks. Most of the girls at the table were in the English program or one of the humanities that was in a close orbit with the English program. Either way they didn’t look happy that I was dismissing it as easy.
Well fuck them. Erica was one of them and she deserved it for inviting Tanya to sit here with us when she knew what was going on between the two of us.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Simone asked. “She had a heart attack. There was nothing you could do about it.”
She patted me on the shoulder. I knew she was trying to comfort me, but I also knew she was wrong. I didn’t even know how to do CPR. I was sure if I’d known what to do I could’ve saved her. It was my laziness as much as anything else that had killed her that day.
“Well whatever,” I said. “The point is I need to be able to do something even if there wasn’t anything I could do that day. So I’ve decided I’m going to go to med school.”
There. The news was dropped. And it fell in the middle of everyone with all the force of a bomb dropping. Simone coughed a couple of times and looked annoyed. Probably because I hadn’t told her anything about this.
What can I say? She was on her way out and she should realize that. It’s not like I was going to share something like this with someone who wasn’t more than a fling.
Erica nearly dropped her drink. Everyone else at the table laughed a little and kept looking at me as though they couldn’t figure out whether or not I was pulling a joke on them.
Well this was no joke. I was completely serious.
“You have to be joking,” Tanya said. “You? A doctor? You seriously think you can pull that off?”
“Maybe I do,” I said, suddenly on the defensive.
I figured the reaction would be bad enough from everyone else, but it was even worse with her sitting there looking for every opportunity she could to bring me down.
“I don’t see what the big deal is. I just have to take a few extra semesters of classes for pre-med,” I said.
“Don’t you have to have like a biology degree or something like that?” Barb said. “You’re talking about picking up a whole new major!”
“Not really,” I said. “All I have to do is take the prerequisite classes and pass the MCAT. I did a bunch of looking into this and I really think I can do it.”
“You? Research?” Erica asked.
“I don’t believe it,” Melissa said.
“Well believe it because it’s true,” I said.
“But what about the time?” Erica asked. “You’re going to be a junior. You have two years left. Switching up your major means you’ll be here forever.”
I shrugged. “I looked into it and if I start mixing classes now I can still graduate with the English degree and blow through all the prerequisites with maybe an extra year, two tops. Besides, I was planning on going for my doctorate when I was doing the English thing so it’s not like I wasn’t already planning on spending forever in school. This way I’ll make more money when I get out and I won’t be getting fucked over being adjunct faculty for the rest of my life.”
I got a few more irritated looks at that. A couple of the girls around this very table were probably heading for a lifetime of being fucked over as perpetual adjunct faculty. It was considered impolite to remind people of that fact even though it was the harsh reality in academia these days.
“Seems like a lot of work,” Barb said.
“Well maybe a lot of work is what I need,” I said. “I’ve been coasting for too long. It’s time for me to do something with my life and stop skating by on the bare minimum.”
“You can’t do that,” Tanya said. “You’re not going to do those classes and you’re not going to medical school. This is going to be like everything else in your life. You’re going to go full tilt with this for awhile and then you’re going to get bored and give up.”
Anger flared inside me. I wouldn’t be too happy about anyone saying that, but I really didn’t like it coming from Tanya. I saw red and forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths and let the ambiance of the bar wash over me and calm me down. I didn’t need to get into a fight and summon the bouncers.
“Well nice of you to show up and rain on my parade,” I said, turning on her and letting some of the anger I’d been bottling up loose on her. “Why don’t you tell me how glad you are my grandma’s dead while you’re at it? I wasn’t feeling depressed enough about that.”
She actually backed off. She blinked and scooted away from me. For a change that huge grin slipped and she looked worried about standing so close to me. For a moment. Then the smile was back.
“Never met her so I couldn’t tell,” Tanya said. “But if she’s anything like you then I bet she was a real bitch.”
Okay. That was it. I lunged for her but she slid out of the booth and took a couple of steps back before I could get to her. Probably a good thing. I instinctively glanced over to the bouncers.
They weren’t moving in our direction quite yet, but they were sure as hell giving us the eye and I knew the first sign of a real fight would bring them over to kick us out on our asses.
“I think you should get the fuck out of here Tanya,” I said. “I think you should get the fuck out of here and you should never come back. Otherwise I’m going to beat the shit out of you for insulting my grandma like that.”
Okay, so I wasn’t being the nicest person, but my grandma was one of my buttons right now and she’d just jammed her fist down on it.
Her eyes went wide and all the joking, all the amusement, was gone. I think she finally realized she’d pushed me too far. Way too fucking far.
If she thought I was going to let her get away with insulting my dead grandma then she had another thing coming. I’d figured even she wouldn’t go that far, but it proved there was nowhere Tanya wasn’t willing to go if she thought it would get in a dig at me.
Tanya dust
ed herself off and tried to look like she was still in charge of the situation, but I could tell from the way she stared down at me and then to the rest of the girls that she knew I’d won this round.
“Fine,” she said. “I didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of bitches who’d pick you over me anyways.”
That earned her a couple of grumbles from around the table and I couldn’t help but grin just for Tanya to see. She couldn’t have played into my hands any better if I’d asked her too. Not only was she going to get the hell out of here tonight, but she was going to get out of here with pretty much everyone at the table hating her guts.
I turned back to the table as she made her way to the door. I didn’t need to watch her to see what she was doing. I knew she’d get the hell out of here if she knew what was good for her.
“What a bitch,” I said. “Right?”
There were a couple of nervous glances but no one said anything. They all took drinks instead and I joined in. This was a night to celebrate, after all.
Though I couldn’t help but think about those looks as the night wore on. I was starting to think it might seriously be time to find a new group of friends if this is how they were going to act when Tanya came sniffing around.
I’d worry about that later though. For now it was time to celebrate.
2
Ashley
Studying. Nothing but studying. It felt like all I’d been doing for the past five years was study, and now here I was doing even more studying!
At least this time around I was getting paid for it instead of paying someone else for the privilege of pulling the sort of hours that would make the labor board come in and ask some serious questions if I wasn’t a student.
Not to mention I was pretty sure the labor board didn’t ask many questions of people in my chosen profession.
Doctor. It sounded so wonderful. Every time I thought about the first time I’d get a chance to put on that white lab coat with my name on it I couldn’t help but shiver. I’d been down to see one of my friends who was a couple of years ahead of me put on her coat with the little ceremony they had at the med school and it was wonderful.
I’d imagined myself doing the same thing on that fateful day ever since.
Now if only I could get a high enough score on the stupid MCAT to actually get in. That was the reason they gave me for not accepting me. It’s not like it was a bad score either. It’s just that when there are so many people applying for a limited number of positions having a good score wasn’t good enough. Not even close.
I pushed down that irritation and concentrated on the papers in front of me. Everything had to be perfect. This was my first year working as a TA and damn it I was going to be the best damned TA this department had ever seen. Just like I was going to be the best damned doctor the world had ever seen.
Assuming I could get into med school.
At least I could prepare for teaching just like I had everything else when I was still in undergrad. All my papers were in order and I’d been watching videos about teaching methods all through the summer session and trying them out on the one class I’d picked up to ease into things.
I still felt a little nervous every time I walked into a lab, but the more time I spent in that lab the better I felt about it.
“Burning the midnight oil?” a voice asked from the door.
I looked up and smiled at Charlie. She leaned against the door frame and had a winning grin plastered on her face. I might have gone so far as to say she had a sexy grin, but of course that only brought up embarrassing memories from earlier in the summer when I’d been pretty sure she was hitting on me and I’d moved in for a kiss.
The less I thought about that the better. It still turned my face bright red thinking about it, and from the way her grin widened it looked like she knew exactly what I was thinking about.
She stepped in and twirled an ancient metal chair around so she was sitting with her legs spread and leaning against the back of her chair with her front.
“You’re blushing again,” she said. “I told you not to worry about that. It was an honest mistake. Besides, I have a face that’s just begging to be kissed!”
Charlie had no idea how right she was, but I had a sneaking suspicion she knew what she was doing to me by mentioning it. I didn’t know whether to die from embarrassment or enjoy the memory of that kiss even though I knew it was the only kiss we were ever going to share thanks to her firm heterosexuality.
It was a damn shame. A real damn shame.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure there will be lots of girls for you to pick up on once the fall semester starts, and don’t forget about all the eye candy in your class.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Did you seriously just suggest I date someone from a class? You know that’s frowned on.”
“Oh it’s not just frowned on,” Charlie said. “They’ll kick your ass right out of the program, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it.”
“Does that mean you’ve done it?”
“I’ll neither confirm nor deny in the interest of keeping my job,” she said. “But enough about me. What’s up with you hanging out here late at night doing a bunch of paperwork?”
I sighed and looked at the mountain of papers on my desk. It felt like it was never going to end. Sure I was doing a hell of a lot more than other TAs, but I wanted to be the best damn it.
That obsession was going to kill me someday.
“Just making sure everything is ready to go for my class,” I said.
“Looks like you’re going a little overboard there,” Charlie said. “I never did that much work when I was getting ready for a fall class. You’re going to kill yourself if you do that on top of your school workload.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I want to make sure I’m prepared. The last thing I want is to screw up and lose my stipend. After fucking up the MCAT I’m starting to wonder if I was ever as prepared as I thought I was.”
“You’ll do fine,” Charlie said. “Everyone gets nervous their first time around, but if you’re already this over prepared there’s nothing to worry about. You should get out and have some fun instead. Enjoy being here free for the summer while you can. Get out there and live a little!”
I sighed. She had no idea how close to home that hit. After I was done here I’d make the walk across campus to my tiny little house I rented from a sweet little old lady who liked renting to grad students for cheap because we were less likely to throw wild parties. I’d maybe watch something on my laptop on WiFi borrowed from my neighbors and call it a night only to wake up in the morning and do the same thing all over again.
Yeah, it was one heck of a life.
“You know I’m going to be there when we have the get together on Friday,” I said. “That’s all I have time for though. I’m too busy prepping for everything to do anything else.”
Charlie stared at me for a moment. A long moment that made me more than a little uncomfortable. She had a way of looking at me with those blue eyes that made me shiver and I always had to remind myself that there wasn’t a chance of anything happening between us.
She’d made that clear enough during the kissing incident even if she’d been very polite about it and let me down easy.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she said. “I saw the way you looked when you went in for that kiss. When was the last time you went on a date with a girl?”
“Um. Maybe a couple of years ago? There were a couple of times when I went to the LGBT club, whatever they’re calling it this week, but I never did much more than go on a couple of dates with some girls I met there. Some girl named Tanya went a little crazy and scared me away.”
“Oh yeah? Well maybe it’s time you got out there and dated a little,” Charlie said. “I’m not saying you have to go to that group, but do something.”
I opened my mouth to protest and she held up a hand to stop me.
“Just hear me out. I know people who go wild. T
hey go from person to person fucking anything that stands still long enough. I never knew there could be someone on the other end of the spectrum though,” she said.
“What are you talking about? There are people who don’t date all the time. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them or anything.”
“Sure there are people who don’t date,” Charlie said. “But I’ve never seen a girl who looked like you who never had a date. Seriously. You’re wasting your youth and you’re ruining the potential good times some lucky lesbian out there is going to have when she gets you into bed. Think about it.”
I was flummoxed. I opened my mouth to say something and realized I didn’t have much of anything to say in response to any of that. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she was hitting on me, but I did know better. I knew there was no point barking up that tree. As much of a shame as that was.
“And don’t get any ideas,” Charlie said. “I’m trying to build you up here. I’m not trying to hit on you or anything.”
“I wouldn’t dream of thinking any such thing,” I said, even though I’d been thinking exactly that.
“You need to get out there and live a little. Date around. Have a good time,” Charlie said. “If you don’t then you’re going to look back on this time here in college and think about all the time you wasted when you could’ve been having fun.”
I sniffed and arranged some of the papers on my desk.
“The only thing I’m going to regret when I look back on this time is that I’m not in med school right now,” I said.
Charlie barked out a laugh. “You say so. I still think you need to get out there and live a little. Even if you’re not dating. Just go out and have a good time more than one time a week, because hanging out with Spencer and David and all the other guys at the roving TA party doesn’t count as a good time. Especially when there’s no one there you’re interested in banging.”
I let out a frustrated growl at the mention of Spencer. I would’ve been happy if I didn’t have to deal with him at all, but he had an office just down the hall and he went to all the same parties with all the other TAs so it meant we were stuck with each other whether I wanted him around or not. It didn’t help that he wouldn’t take “lesbian” for an answer when he tried hitting on me.