That's Not a Thing

by Jacqueline Friedland

  “Whoa, don’t shoot.” He held up his hands in surrender and took a step back. “I was just trying to commiserate a little, be friendly. My freshman roommate used to barricade me all the time. It sucks not getting to use your own space.” He shrugged, like everything in life was obvious to him, like things came easy.

  “If you’re not a freshman, why are you skulking around Carman Hall like a creep?” I could feel my spine straightening, preparing for battle even as I continued to wonder why I was being so antagonistic. “And why are you covered in paint, anyway?”

  “Jeez, take it easy,” he chuckled, and I got the distinct impression that he found my agitation amusing— endearing, even. “I’m your new RA. Wesley Latner.” He started to reach out his hand again, but then seemed to think the better of it and curled his fingers into a fist at his side.

  “New RA? What happened to Keith, or Craig, whatever his name was?”

  “Kevvvin,” Wesley answered, dragging out the word like he was trying to prod my memory about the other guy’s name, “transferred to some school in California, so this position opened up and I skated off the waiting list.”

  I realized then that I ought to be a little more cordial if this male pinup was supposed to be the resident advisor for my dorm, especially since it seemed like I might soon need permission to sleep on the withered brown carpet of the hallway floor. There was only so long that I could expect to freeload off Bina and her suitemates. I blinked hard a couple of times and tried to start over.

  “Sorry.” I tilted my head to the side in a gesture of surrender. “Meredith,” I offered, along with my hand. “It’s been a long day, and I really didn’t feel like sleeping on a couch tonight. I’m not usually such an ass-wipe.”

  He reached out to shake, and his warm hand felt callused and rough as it met my own. “Apology accepted.” He was smirking. I looked down at our hands, wondering if he was holding on for a beat too long, as he added, “I’m actually already aware that you’re not usually an ass-wipe.”

  “You are?” I glanced back up, wary now.

  He shrugged again. “I’ve seen you around, at the soup kitchen on 116th Street. You seem to be a fan favorite up there.”

  I felt my eyes narrow. “Since when have you been at the soup kitchen? I don’t recall meeting.” It was a small place, and I would have remembered him.

  “I’ve been working construction next door. I get a pretty decent view of the sidewalk servers when I’m up on the scaffolding. It’s hard to miss that pink streak in your hair, even from the rooftop.”

  I tucked a piece of blond hair behind my ear, pushing at it like I was driving away everything my pink stripe represented. There was no reason to bring my mother’s illness into this conversation. I looked him over again from ears to ankles, taking in the worn jeans, the paint splatters covering his heavy gray Henley, the weathered Timberland boots. “So, I don’t get it—are you a college student or a construction worker?”

  “Both.” He smiled with apparent pride. “This was just a job I was working with a friend.” He gestured toward himself, indicating his current painty mess.

  A muffled cheer sounded from a room down the hall, likely guys watching sports or getting overly excited about a video game. He glanced over his shoulder, where the hall was still empty, and then asked, “So, is there somewhere you were planning to go for the night?”

  “Yeah, no worries. I’ve got it covered. It was nice meeting you.” I lifted my silver backpack from where I had dropped it on the floor before reading Daphne’s note, and I started to move around him so I could make my way to Bina’s.

  “Boyfriend’s?” He leaned against the cinder block wall and crossed his arms across his broad chest, as if to watch me go. As I slung my bag over my shoulder, I noticed the bulge of his forearms, sinewy and dusted with golden-brown hair where the sleeves of his shirt were pushed to the elbows.

  “No, Nosy,” I quipped, as a corner of my lip lifted, and I realized that I was flirting in spite of myself. “Difficult as it may be for you to believe, we females are actually capable of solving problems without male intervention. So, uh, see ya.” I raised two fingers in a half wave and started down the hallway.

  I had made it nearly to the stairwell when Wesley called out after me, “So, does that mean there is no boyfriend?”

  I kept on walking but couldn’t stop myself from responding, even as I marched farther away. “No boyfriend,” I called back without turning, glad that he couldn’t see the smile still playing at my lips.

  After I veered into the stairwell and started up the steps to Bina’s floor, I heard Wesley jogging after me. “Wait,” he said, “hold up.”

  I paused on the second step and turned to see that I was now eye-level with him where he waited on the landing. I heard the fire door open on the floor below, then female laughter and fast steps advancing toward us. Twin towheaded girls whom I recognized from around campus appeared, chasing each other up the stairs, one of them holding a box of donut holes. Wesley and I nodded at them as they raced past us and continued up another flight.

  He waited for the sounds of their boots to recede before he turned back to me and continued.

  “Come with me.”

  “Come with you where?” Was it against the rules for me to sleep in another student’s suite? If I couldn’t concoct a way to talk myself out of trouble, this jackass might be writing me up all semester long.

  “Come for the night, on an adventure,” he clarified. He raised his eyebrows a couple of times, as if to add to his intrigue, and it was disarmingly cute, even with the faint scent of turpentine he was emitting.

  “What are you talking about? It’s already one o’clock in the morning.”

  “It is?” He glanced at his wristwatch. “That’s perfect.” He smiled cryptically and motioned for me to come back down the stairs. “Come on, it’ll be fun. You can’t go back to your room anyway, and if you have to know the truth, I’ve been wanting to hang out with you since the first time I saw you ladling soup on 116th. Come on, don’t rob a guy of his opportunity to woo the girl.”

  “What are you talking about? Woo.” I laughed out loud. “You’re totally crazy. I just met you ten seconds ago, and what about sleep? I have class in the morning.”

  “So what?” he pushed, glancing at his watch a second time. “So, you’ll be tired tomorrow. You can take a nap in the afternoon, when your room is finally unoccupied. Please?” He reached out his hand and gave me an exaggerated version of puppy-dog eyes that just made him look ridiculous.

  I laughed again and felt myself tumbling toward his energy. “Isn’t there some sort of rule against RAs wooing members of their flock?” I asked, thinking out loud.

  “Probably.” Wesley grinned as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “But are you really going to let some handbook stand in the way of one of the most thrilling nights of your life?”

  “Wow. That’s a pretty bold promise.” I looked him over again, wondering if I should surrender to his suggestion. I thought of everything going on with my mom and reasoned that I really could use an opportunity to blow off some steam. I had been a model student since I’d arrived at Columbia, careful to prevent myself from adding to my parents’ list of worries, and, truthfully, I was feeling ready to succumb to a little recklessness, to abandon my usual fastidiousness. My eyes darted to the ceiling above me as I thought of Bina’s room on the next floor, and then I looked back at Wesley. My essay on Georges Braque was already complete, even though it wasn’t due for two more days, and I didn’t have any exams scheduled for the rest of the week. It wasn’t like I was going to get a good night’s sleep on that lumpy velour couch anyway. I pictured the Spanish lit class I was supposed to sit through in the morning, the one I was taking simply to fulfill the school’s language requirement, and I knew I’d probably zone out whether I got nine hours or stayed up the entire night.

  I chewed on my bottom lip as I began to accept that I was about to make a daring decision. Daphne w
ould never believe I’d done something so out of character.

  “Can I drop my books in your room before we go?”

  “Well, hallelujah.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me back from the stairs.

  As my feet hit the landing, I was struck again by how tall he was. I was average height at five foot four, but he definitely had nine or ten inches on me.

  “Will we be subject to more paint disasters on our adventure? Because this happens to be one of my favorite sweaters”—I motioned to the cropped purple V-neck that he obviously couldn’t see beneath my down parka— “and I refuse to get all Jackson Pollocked like you.”

  “Give me this.” He lifted my loaded backpack off my shoulder and started down the hallway.

  WHEN WE REACHED Wesley’s room, the one that had formerly belonged to Keith or Kevin, he dug into his pocket for the key. Holding up a finger, he told me, “Give me one minute. Do not leave.”

  I didn’t answer while I considered him, and he bent down so his face was right in front of mine. A Star of David necklace toppled out from his shirt as he leaned forward, and I had the fleeting thought that my mom would be pleased. I smelled the mint on his breath, and something pleasant and soapy beneath the turpentine.

  He looked me straight in the eye and repeated himself. “Do not.”

  “Okay, wow.” I took a step back. “I said I would do this . . . this . . . whatever this insanity is going to be, so I will. You don’t have to get all up in my face. But let’s move it—it’s not nice to make a lady wait.” I kicked a little at his leg.

  Before I had time to seriously second-guess my decision, Wesley was back in the hallway in a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that showcased many of the muscles his other shirt had been hiding. He was holding an olive-green, military-looking jacket. As he turned back toward his door to lock up, I studied him from behind, wondering whether he was too attractive for me, if I should cut and run before disaster stuck. But when he turned around, I looked into those pale green eyes of his and saw him regarding me with such enthusiasm, such energy, that I just wanted to bask in his intensity a little longer.

  Even so, I pushed for more information about where we were going, a little nervous about following a virtual stranger to an unknown location. I didn’t want to become another news story about a college girl who made a fatally misguided decision, and I said as much to him. He promised that we would stay in public places for the duration of our evening and then reached into his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, as he handed me his wallet and his cell phone. “You hold on to the important stuff. Like collateral. Now I’m at your mercy.”

  In retrospect, I don’t know why that was enough for me, but I suppose I was simply looking for any reason to follow him—which is exactly what I did after shoving his belongings into my coat pocket.

  A SHORT SUBWAY ride and a couple of snowy city blocks later, we were walking into a store on Amsterdam Avenue called Insomnia Cookies.

  “This is our adventure?” I looked at him sideways. “We’re having milk and cookies?” I’m not sure where I thought we were going—maybe a dance club or tourist site, or even some old speakeasy. Chocolate-chunk snickerdoodles, I was not expecting.

  “Hey, Wes.” The older woman behind the counter pulled off her hairnet and started untying her apron as she glanced up at the digital clock on the wall, which read 1:26 a.m. The air in the place smelled so sweet that I was instantly hungry. “I’m beat,” she said. “Mind if I toss you the last four minutes of my shift?” Her eyes slid toward me, and she added pleasantly, “I see you brought reinforcements anyhow.”

  He looked from the round-cheeked woman back to me and announced, “Ingrid, Meredith. Meredith, Ingrid. Sure, get out of here. Tell Abby she owes me for the extra four minutes she gets to spend in your company tonight.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said as Ingrid grabbed a black parka off a hook and began slipping her arm into one of the sleeves. It was difficult to keep my eyes from straying to the display case in front of her, where all sorts of baked delectableness were pleading to be savored. A quick glimpse was sufficient for me to take in an assortment of treats, including M&M cookies, bulging cookie sandwiches, hubcap-size cookie cakes, and dark, gooey brownies.

  “You too.” She zipped her coat and looked back at me. “Don’t let him make too much of a mess in my kitchen tonight.” She gave Wesley a friendly slap on the arm and beelined for the door.

  “You’re the cookie chef?” I asked. How many odd jobs did this guy have?

  “C’mon.” He pulled me behind the counter and put his own jacket where Ingrid’s had been hanging a moment before. “Give me your coat.” He waited with his hand out. As I sidled out of the puffy jacket, his eyes coasted quickly over my body and he added, “You’re right, it is a nice sweater. Let’s get you an apron.”

  “I’m cooking? Trust me, you do not want me messing with anything in there. I’m like the dream killer of baby cookies and brownies everywhere.”

  He rolled his eyes at me and pushed against the shiny swing door that led to the back kitchen. I followed behind him, intrigued by the evening’s turn of events, lulled nearly equally by the physical appearance of my companion and the overwhelming scent of sugar. We walked into a room that looked like any bakery kitchen I might have pictured in my head—commercial-grade appliances, fluorescent lighting, hoods and vents, complex mixing machines, stainless steel for days. He tossed me a powder-blue apron like the one that Ingrid had been wearing, slipped another one over his own head, and quickly washed his hands at a sink in the corner.

  “C’mon,” he said, “I’ll teach you.” He started pulling containers out from steel cabinets and lining them up neatly on the counter: flour, sugar, chocolate chunks.

  “Wait, seriously? We’re really cooking?”

  “Baking.” He paused in his calculated actions to correct me and then added, “If you’d prefer to watch and learn, I suppose that’s okay, too.”

  Before I could formulate a response, Wesley had arranged multiple metal bowls on the counter and was pouring out various dry ingredients with surprising speed. He opened a refrigerator under the countertop, removed two cartons of eggs, and began cracking one after another into an empty bowl.

  “This,” he informed me, gesturing toward the bowl of eggs, “will soon be transformed into our famous deluxe s’mores cookies. Since you’ve made clear your preference to remain uninvolved in the creation of this hallowed masterpiece, how about you play DJ?” He motioned with his head toward a small computer screen embedded in the wall.

  “Wait, what if someone comes in to buy cookies? No one’s up front.”

  “There’s a bell.” He grabbed for a bag of mini-marshmallows on the shelf beside him. “Also, there’s not much traffic in here on Tuesday nights. We’ll get a few walk-ins, but most of the orders are for delivery, placed through the website. The delivery guy comes and goes. That’s his gig. Mine is the baking.”

  I walked over to the computerized screen and started pressing buttons, trying to figure out the interface. I found the tab for playlists and saw that there were several different lists, each titled with a person’s name. Ingrid’s name appeared at the top. I continued scrolling until I found the tab labeled “Wes” and tapped it with my fingertip. Music started playing through speakers clipped to the back wall, and I recognized some old-school Guns N’ Roses song.

  “For real?” I looked over at him and shook my head in disappointment. “1980s heavy metal? My hopes for you were so much higher.”

  “You can keep scrolling. My tastes are eclectic,” he said, as he continued moving around the kitchen.

  “Aha!” I declared as my eyes finally landed on a song I could enjoy. I pressed play, and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” began to float out from the speakers.

  A few years earlier, when my dad still seemed to enjoy my company, he’d introduced me to this song on one of our Sunday-morning drives and it had instantly become o
ne of my favorites. Hearing the notes again now, on this random, surreal, electric night I was having, it did something to me, made me suddenly audacious.

  “Wesley . . .” I played with his name, rolling it around on my tongue as I considered it aloud. I started swaying along with the music, grooving my way around the room, briefly examining various knobs and levers that I passed. “Wesley . . .” I repeated, feeling the air slide across my tongue as I drew out the word. I kept dancing around the counters, picking up a wooden spoon as an undetermined prop along the way. Maybe the apron made him less threatening, or maybe I was getting high on dextrose fumes, but suddenly I felt much more comfortable being me.

  “Where’d you come from, Wesley Latner? Where’s home?” I asked over the music as I danced toward him, holding the wooden spoon out to him like it was a microphone and I was a television reporter.

  He played along, leaning forward to speak into the mic. “New York, born and raised,” he answered, a quick nod of his head proving his local pride. “Not the city, though,” he conceded, as he turned and absently attached the bowl he was holding to an electric mixer. “A stuffy suburb about an hour north.”

  He switched on the mixer, the sound drowning out too much of the song. I marched back to the touchscreen and raised the volume to the max. Between the mixer and the music, it was now too loud to hear much else, so we both stopped talking. I kept on grooving to the music, my movements growing progressively more outlandish with each step. All the while, Wesley was pouring and measuring ingredients like he’d done it a thousand times before. Eventually, he flipped a switch, silencing the mixer. He crossed his arms against his chest and stopped with the food prep, just watching me as I continued to sashay around the room.

  I bopped around the large rectangular island, swinging the wooden spoon like I was an orchestra conductor, shimmying my shoulders to the left for a few beats, then to the right, a faux-diva expression on my face. My movements were definitely more goofy than sexy. As the song neared its end, I was still dancing my way closer to where Wesley was standing. I realized I’d better quit it, or he might see this as a botched seduction attempt by me, which was not what I was intending. I stopped, midbop, while I was only a foot away from him, suddenly at a loss. The last notes of the song faded into the ether, and the room was instantly too quiet.