The Hat Trick

by Tara Wimble

  “Because we’re pretty similar.” Robin replies. “And ah-”

  Like all things that seem to come about when they’re too close for too long, the interruption surfaces. Robin’s phone buzzes out a squeaking text tone that Lexie recognizes. Janice McPherson.

  Her disdain shows and fades with Robin’s instant frown.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Um,” The text isn’t for her yet Robin tells her. “Hope didn’t meet Janice.”

  Tall, dark and intimidating. Lexie finds it a little amazing how Janice managed to make something out of a failed pick up line and a station visit. Some people have all the luck. “Maybe she was busy?”

  Robin hums in disagreement. “We figured out that she doesn’t work around this time. They’ve been running together for months like,”

  “Did she make time for Janice?” Lexie asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “And today she didn’t.”

  Robin sighs and Lexie feels it coming. “I think I’m gonna go and pick her up.”

  “Okay.” Lexie says. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Robin shakes her head. “I’ll just run over to get her and it’s cold outside. But I’ll call you later and let you know what’s happened.”

  Lexie watches Robin stumble about for her wallet and the coat. When she offers Robin her hoodie back she hands it back. “Keep it warm for me.” She jokes.

  “Watch out for traffic.” Lexie berates. “I know how you cycle, Lenshire.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Robin hops back into her shoes and let’s Lexie walk her to her door. “I’ll call you later then.”

  “Sure.” Here and gone again, seems to be the pattern of having Robin in her life. The moment she thinks that maybe they’re moving forward, something comes to wash her away again.

  Robin slips out of her room wearing a grin, albeit with worry. “Lexie?”

  Her voice comes again and Lexie pauses closing the door. “Robin?”

  Backing away with her hands shoved in her pockets Robin drops the bomb. “Janice isn’t my type either.”

  The wave crashes against the shore and all the air disappears from her lungs just like that.

  “Yeah?”

  Robin nods.

  She can feel how much her body wants to lean against something and let the words ring in her ears for the rest of the night. As casually as she can muster, Lexie licks her lips and replies. “Cool.”

  The aftershock ripples quietly. Robin waves. “I’ll see you.”

  “See you.”

  Robin’s steps take her away faster in her search of Janice while Lexie closes her door, pressing her back against it, sliding to the floor with a Hope kindling in her chest that she didn’t have this morning and allows herself to think of the possibilities.

  The line is redrawn.

  Chapter 6

  Janice feels stupider the longer she sits on the bench waiting. She feels pathetic that she continues to come here and wait even though she hasn’t been given any reason to.

  It’s the second week Hope hasn’t turned up to the park and Janice can’t help feel wronged in some way. The way they’d left it hadn’t been bad at all.

  Had she done something?

  She picks at her running shoes. They’re new. She shouldn’t have bought them with the budget she’s put herself on but the thought of turning up and sitting on a bench for an hour or two just waiting for Hope seemed dire enough on top of having to look at shoes falling apart too.

  They’re stiff and unused and she wants to break them in but she can’t.

  Because she wants to break them in with Hope.

  And she feels stupider. And she wants something sweet to drown the bitterness she feels and stop her from replaying that night in her head.

  She was so close. Touching Hope’s face. She’d looked down at her, Janice saw it, that glimpse of ‘yes, this is what I want’ was in her grasp before it was taken away suddenly. Duty and time and Hope joking about her red face.

  When she thinks back at how they left it, Janice doesn’t understand how it’s come to this, waiting two hours in a park for someone who doesn’t want to see her. Still no closer to knowing why.

  She moves to King’s when the park gets crowded but leaving seems like admitting defeat in itself. She doesn’t want to call Robin again to wallow in her mood so she finds herself staring over the top of a strawberry milkshake wondering why things don’t turn out this depressing in movies.

  Or at least why she doesn’t get a melancholy soundtrack to accompany this montage of depression.

  There’s only a few people sitting around, most of them probably choosing to head home or to the library to knuckle down on some last minute studying. Janice has finals next week but she’s read so much in the last few days to distract herself that she feels like she knows the course backwards.

  Her head starts to hurt.

  “You look miserable.”

  Janice glances up over the top of her milkshake to Jasmine, who actually looks concerned despite how her voice doesn’t betray the emotion. For a second she wonders why she’s surprised. She’s lost track of how many jobs this girl has after seeing her spring up almost everywhere on and off campus.

  She swirls her straw around her glass and shrugs at her.

  Jasmine dabs the table with her cloth and debates momentarily about something. Janice’s face doesn’t improve so she continues; “If you’re still looking for Hope, she was here like an hour or so ago.”

  “What?” Everything stops.

  She’s not sure how she’d forgotten that Hope stops at King’s every once and awhile, and that she gets on with Jasmine but hearing her name come out of someone else’s mouth throws her off.

  “Yeah.” Jasmine sprays the counter and wipes it, not as concerned that she’s going to drown herself in her shake now that she’s perked up.

  “Was she on duty?”

  Jasmine shakes her head. “Don’t think so. She wasn’t in her uniform today. Were you meeting her?”

  Off duty and wandering about. Janice can just imagine Hope stopping for coffee, walking her dog, calling her brother. Forgetting her and the promise she implied by the second.

  Janice’s mouth feels dry and her face grows hot with embarrassment. “No.”

  ***

  SHE hears the storm approach from down the floor even before Laurel shoots her a warning text. It comes through just after she responds to Lexie’s trivia question.

  She’s pretty sure Tallahassee is the capital of Tennessee.

  The door darkens with a raincloud. The click of the lock turning crashes like thunder and Janice shoulders into the room looking rained on and miserable. She spots Robin quickly, darting down to the phone in her hand and sighs.

  “Sorry for interrupting your texting.” Janice’s voice isn’t sorry at all. She flings her bag on her bed and stands in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. “Was it Lexie?”

  Robin puts her phone down. “Yeah.” She challenges, getting ready for this fight again and waiting for the first wind to be knocked out of her.

  Janice rolls her eyes. “God, have you two not like, made out yet? Because this thing, this dance or whatever-”

  It stings. “Janice.”

  “-since the start of the semester and seriously, if you think someone like Lexie is-”

  “Janice-” It irks.

  “-she has other options, y’know, and she’s not gonna-”

  “Janice!” She shouts and sighs when Janice doesn’t step back.

  “I’m just saying.” Janice interrupts her again. “Stop being so damn scared and do something.”

  Robin unclenches her fist and forces herself to take a breath before standing up. Janice is shaking and unbalanced like she’s been for a few days now. Every time she looks at her roommate she hears really sad, violin music, that is, before Janice opens her mouth.

  They face off against each other for a second. Janice wondering if she’s finally t
ouched a nerve and Robin wondering whether or not Janice will ever stop this.

  Until Robin tugs the neck string of Janice’s hoodie and lets her tumble into her arms.

  “M’sorry.” She hears.

  “I know.” Robin sighs. “But, you’ve gotta stop acting like a jerk, man.”

  “I kno’.” Janice mumbles.

  “Have you tried looking for her?”

  “She doesn’t want to see me.” Janice huffs hot air into Robin’s shoulder.

  Robin scoffs. “Yeah, well she didn’t want to see you before she knew you and that didn’t stop you stalking her around campus.”

  “It’s different.”

  “What, you’re suddenly mature?”

  “She hasn’t like text me or anything.”

  “Then don’t text. Go out and find her.” Robin encourages. “The sooner you do that, the sooner you resolve all of this and stop acting like such a-”

  She’s lost for words and Janice laughs against her collar. “Bet you wish you cursed right now.”

  Robin grins and pecks the top of Janice’s head. “You have no idea.”

  Janice pulls back first. Smiling bashfully and wiping her eyes. “What if I did something?” She asks in that small voice. It doesn’t suit her at all. When Robin thinks of Janice she thinks larger than life. Energy to light up skyscrapers. Enthusiasm to fill a football stadium. Not this tiny person just coming out of her arms.

  “Then she sound be a decent person and tell you.” Robin replies. “And if she’s as good as you say she is, then she’ll give you that.”

  Janice plays with the strings of her hoodie but makes no move to sit down. Robin waits and eventually it comes.

  “I really like her.” Janice gushes. “I mean, we haven’t even kissed or anything, but Jesus- sorry.”

  Robin laughs. “Then do something.” She repeats. “Stop being so scared.”

  The words ring familiar and Janice shoves out at her jokingly. “Oh really? We’re playing that game- how about you tell me what love letters you’re sending to Lexie this week-”

  Janice dives for Robin’s phone just as Robin realizes. There’s a hanging moment in which Janice is inches away from the device, when Robin uses all of her experience watching football to tackle Janice onto her bed.

  “Oh! They must be real emotional-” Janice flips and Robin grasps what little she can of Janice, dragging her back, until her phone falls to the floor and the two of them lurch over the edge.

  “Just let me read-”

  “Janice!”

  “DEAR LEXIE-”

  “No, give it-”

  Janice reaches and just brushes the top of the screen. “WHEN I THINK OF YOU, I THINK OF YOUR SKIN-”

  “I didn’t even say that-” Robin leaves Janice behind as she snatches her phone up and locks it. Her victory is short lived.

  Janice tugs her down by the hem of her shirt, tripping her over her legs, to face plant on the bedroom floor.

  Three doors down, Laurel Santos sighs in frustration.

  Janice grab the phone. “WHEN I PICTURE YOU, I THINK OF YOUR SMILE-”

  “THOSE ARE TEGAN AND SARA LYRICS.”

  “I don’t think Lexie has reached that level of homosexual- so I think you can get away with this.” Janice taps on the screen and Robin’s face loses all of its color.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Janice’s thumb hovers over send. “You said that about the one-armed pull up. Do you want a repeat of that?”

  She’s smiling again, her anguish over Hope misplaced for another day and Robin feels selfish for enjoying it while she can.

  Robin pauses. “If a huge beam of wood came and crushed you right now if I said yes, then I’m fine with that.”

  ***

  WINTER deadlines creep up on all of them. Lexie hasn’t let the work overwhelm her but she finds herself wandering into the library with the rest of her class when the time comes. Her essay is on international political climates and she kind of hates it for the several days she spends researching it. It is, however, worth a part of her grade and the last thing she wants to do is to have to tell her parents she’s falling behind.

  On her sixth day in the library she’s greeted by a different feeling when she comes to claim her usual spot.

  “Merry Christmas.” Robin’s red Santa hat and the take-away coffee she’s holding out to her is pretty much everything that’s on her Christmas list this year.

  She manages not to turn her head away to thank Santa before she approaches.

  Robin hands her the drink and lets her hand hover to make sure Lexie has it. “Watch it, it’s hot.”

  The line is still there but they’re walking it freely now. Ever since Robin remarked about not being into Janice, even though both of them knew that, Lexie has felt the change. There’s a current running through everything now.

  From the texts Robin sends her about how her classes aren’t going, to describing her favorite surf spot, to why she looks up to Christine Sinclair and Abby Quintus. They’ve avoided talking about the things that need to be said and the things that Lexie wants to know, about Robin’s faith and her family, but she knows that those will come in time and patience.

  She’s sure that Robin has been bumping into her more as well. They’ve passed each other cycling three times this week and Robin turned up with Laurel to their lunch date when Janice asked for a rain check.

  “You’re amazing.” Lexie tastes gingerbread. “And a mind reader.”

  “I try.” Robin slides into the seat next to her. “Especially since I was wondering if you’d do me a favor tomorrow tonight?”

  Lexie takes another sip of her drink, nodding straight away. “You had me at gingerbread.”

  Robin grins. “I’m glad but you can still say no, I know you have an exam that day.” Instead of explaining, Robin hands her a small flyer with the words ‘Christian Union’ printed on the top.

  “It’s like a give back thing. Feeding the masses, singing a few songs.” Robin doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to her faith, something Lexie finds endearing about her, even if she feels a little guilty for crushing on her because of it. “I know you don’t really talk about church much but this is more of a school thing, and I think it’d be cool.”

  They’d get to spend some time together. The warmth from the drink floods her cheek and Lexie smiles back. “That’s fine, good even. What time is it?”

  Robin claps her hands together once, to the glares of some upperclassmen, at her response. “Awesome. Seven? We have to set up a bit first but then we’ll be handing out food and stuff until about eleven.”

  Lexie nods.

  “I have to go to class.” Robin gets up from the desk and sways back. “Apparently I have a presentation or something? But enjoy your drink and I’ll see you later.”

  Lexie grins. See you later.

  Wait.

  “Hey, is Janice coming? Or Laurel?” Lexie asks before Robin gets out of whispering distance. Robin’s Santa hat is dislodged when she shakes her head.

  “Nah, just you and me.” She says. After a pause, Robin’s face grows a tad serious. “Is that okay?”

  Lexie can’t help herself. “That’s perfect.”

  ***

  HER mood has improved considerably since she hashed it out with Robin. Janice has a suspicion that Robin has taken her advice as well, when she came back to the room to drop off a coffee for her yesterday, there had been a spare in the cup holder.

  Whatever, this counts as her being right. More kudos for her.

  She breezes through her finals just as fast as Lexie does, which is an achievement considering the rate Lexie manages it, and they both face freedom in the form of icy cold air.

  “Pizza is still on then?” Lexie asks as she packs away her pens.

  Janice nods. “I have to run into town to pick some things up but you can order the food to the room before I get back if you want.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  Three hours o
f staring at a piece of paper has done wonders for her ability to read subtle changes in Lexie’s expression. “And don’t worry, you and Robin will leave in time for your Christmas date.”

  “It’s not a date.” Lexie says one thing, but her red face tells another.

  “Yeah.” Janice deadpans. “Remember Lexie, liars don’t make Santa’s nice list and you definitely won’t get that racing bike you asked for.”

  Lexie chases her down the steps of the exam hall until they reach the bottom. “You’ll be half an hour at the most?”

  Janice hands over her bag for Lexie to take back with her. They’re all meeting in their building, with Robin coming back from her own exam and Laurel bringing Amy after training. “Less even.”

  “What are you getting anyway?”

  “That, my dear, would ruin the surprise.” Janice charms. “Tell Robin hi from me.”

  “Alright.” Lexie grins and starts walking to her bike.

  As a second thought, Janice yells at her. “Lexie!”

  “Yeah?” She’s trying to put her helmet on.

  “Tell Robin I love her.” Janice shouts. “In those exact words. I love you. Just use your voice to imply it’s from me okay?”

  Lexie flips her off.

  Oh yeah. Kudos.

  She doesn’t have a super cool skateboard or a bike that her future girlfriend has built her, she just has her legs and half an hour to get to the bakery before everyone eats her slices of the pizza. It’s a tough challenge, but with The Final Countdown playing in her head, it’s doable.

  Janice had planned this a few weeks ago, before all the drama, when she’d passed the place walking around. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate finishing winter exams with a huge ass chocolate cake?

  So what if it say’s ‘Janice rules all you bitches’ in pink icing? Details, details.

  The woman behind the counter had laughed so much that she was throwing in a few cookies with it. After all the crap Robin has had to put up from her over the last few days, it’s more than deserved.

  The place is warm, yet empty, when she arrives. The young girl that took her order, her name tag says Wellis, grins when she comes through.

  “Wondering when you’d show up for this.” She exclaims. “Christen just finished it like an hour ago.”

  Janice rubs her hands together. “Are the cookies still warm?”