by Johi Jenkins
“She was crazy, or what?”
“Um,” I say, and pause. I’m not convinced she was crazy. “I don’t know. She was just sad. Her mother died, and she ended up stuck with me. Okay so far. But then her husband died the first morning I spent with them, which also happened to be Christmas. I think she just associated one thing with the other….”
Thierry’s smile falters a little when I mention my uncle’s death. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to call her crazy. I was just—well, I couldn’t think of anyone sane kicking you out of their house.”
“Thanks,” I say, and feel that bit of happiness I always manage to feel when Thierry says stuff like that. “You sure know how to make me feel better.”
“That’s my job,” he says. “So how did the husband die?”
Shit. The one thing I don’t want to ever talk about.
Thierry must notice something in my expression because he quickly moves his hand across the table and lays it over mine. “Hey—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Oh. The hand is cool, a little cold like mine currently is. It feels really smooth, like he wears expensive hand cream. I like it.
“No, it’s okay,” I tell him. I give him an “it’s okay” smile, and he removes his hand from mine. “He just had a heart attack. I think. I never did read the medical examiner’s report, but that’s what the paramedics said when we found him dead the morning I after I moved in.”
Thierry feels bad about asking me, I guess, because he doesn’t say anything else until I finish my dinner.
He offers me dessert but I decline. So he pays the bill and we move outside to wait for the valet to bring his car.
Again, on our pending separation, I feel a little anxiety. I don’t want our time to end. I should be getting home, I know, but my uncle and June never time me or anything. They know that the bus takes forever to get home. They expect me late tonight.
I look over at Thierry and his face seems torn, as though he’s trying to make a tough decision.
“So, you’re no longer starving, Tori?”
“You did your job excellently, Thierry.” He said that he’d take me out to dinner because we’re supposed to be friends, and that’s his job. Well, I’d much rather he took me to dinner because he likes me, as a date. Right now I hate that we’re friends.
“Can I take you home?” He asks, and my hopeful heart thinks I hear a bit of sadness in his voice.
I’m sad about leaving him, so instead of declining on grounds that I don’t really know Thierry and shouldn’t be hopping in the car with him again and showing him where I live—so says a tiny voice in my head, but it’s one that I never listen to—I actually want to say yes.
But I feel bad about him going out of his way to drop me off. It’s about a ten or fifteen minute drive to my home. “I don’t want you going out of your way to take me home,” I say, and I sigh, because I spoke against my will.
“How do you know I’m not going to the Garden District anyway?”
I’m immediately excited. “You are?”
“No, but your face just revealed that I’m going to take you home, no matter what you say.”
My face falls. “Thierry,” I complain. I slap his arm playfully with my backhand. “Ouch.”
Holy shit. He’s freaking hard, like a wall of muscles. Good thing I only half ass hit him.
He laughs, and grabs my wounded hand. He kisses it, and my knees almost fail beneath me. His lips are so soft. Smooth, smoother than his hand on my hand back at the restaurant. The touch and kiss send shivers up my arm. I look up at him, and his lips are not too far away from mine. I feel drawn to him. I’m in fact inching closer to his face when the valet pulls up his car, and I snap out of it.
He shakes his head as if to clear it. He pays, walks to the car and opens the door for me for the second time today.
I put my hands over my heart, as if I’m bowled over with cute, but I’m really only trying to stop my heart from bursting through my chest. It started going a mile a minute when he kissed my hand.
“Any guy that doesn’t ever open the door for you, he doesn’t deserve your friendship,” he says in response to my hand gesture.
“Thank you,” is all I can say. I’m dangerously close to a meltdown.
We drive off. He takes his sweet time in getting to my neighborhood, and we talk about random things. Nola, movies, music, computers. He mentions his email and says he’s hurt that he hasn’t received anything from me. I promise him I’ll send him an email next time I’m in the computer lab in school. I’ve thought about doing it all week, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse. Now I have the perfect excuse: per your request….
We talk about the Garden District and I ask him where he lives. He says the French Quarter, to my embarrassment, because that’s where we were already and he’s totally going out of his way to take me home. He dismisses my complaints and assures me it’s his pleasure, but there’s something about his tone that makes me think of duty. I wonder if he’s thinking of the incident behind the movie theater earlier.
We reach my street in fifteen minutes. I ask him to pull up to the wrong house—two houses down—and the ignored voice in my head perks up, as if happy someone’s listening to her. But I actually point to my real house and say, “It’s that one over there, but I don’t want them to see me get out of a guy’s car. Too many questions.”
“Hey, it’s okay with me.”
The little voice hangs her head in defeat, and my heart triumphs. It tells me that now, if I ever need anyone to save me from the crazy Harrises, Thierry knows where I live and can come save me.
I look at him and I battle with an absurd desire to lean in and smell him. He closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath, the kind I take to steady myself.
“I had fun with you, Tori,” he says, opening his eyes. He looks tortured, which is totally not synonymous with having fun.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m great. I like hanging out with you.”
I erase the words “hanging out with” from his sentence, and pretend that he simply likes me.
Kiss me, Thierry.
He reaches over with his hand and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. My chest burns with something… it feels good. Then I think I recognize it, and want to chastise myself.
“Good night, Thierry. Thanks for the ride,” I say, looking away.
“My pleasure, Tori. Sweet dreams,” he says.
I must be imagining the gloom I hear in his voice.
7. The Phone Fight
I don’t have to go to work on Sunday, which had been a thing I looked forward to when the manager, Andrea, had assigned my schedule for the week, but now I’m sitting home wishing I was working, because that would mean being in the Quarter which translates being near Thierry.
I get stupidly excited when I think of him. I know I shouldn’t. But the way he treats me, how can I help it? A super cute guy goes out of his way to talk to you, insists on being your friend, on wanting your friendship, picks up your tab when you don’t have money with you (or so you claim), acts all carefree and happy around you, possibly cancels plans to watch a movie only to take you out to eat, pays for your dinner, goes out of his way to take you home, oh and freaking saves you from a possible assault in the back alley of a theater… you tell me how you don’t end up in love with him before the day’s over.
I’m not sure what I feel, but I’m so close to being in love with him.
Shit.
I want to see him. I’m anxious because I won’t get to see him today if I stay here. That’s not good. Somebody, tell me to snap out of it, please.
Nothing happens. I still want to see him. At least hear his voice….
And I don’t have a phone yet. I consider buying one before I get my first paycheck, or at least signing a contract and getting a free or inexpensive model, knowing that I’ll be able to pay for it once I start getting an income.
After lunch, June as
ks me, “Do you have work today, Tori?”
“Yeah, a few hours,” I say.
June nods encouragingly, her shimmery green eye shadow gleaming in the afternoon light. She smiles, respectfully even, like I’m doing the right thing by working.
I can’t believe how I lied so seamlessly.
I don’t know why I did it. My first thought is I want to get out of the house. My second is I really want that cellphone, so that I may call Thierry. I’ve already memorized his number, I look at it so much.
And then I understand. I lied because I miss Thierry.
Brain points out that a relationship that turns you into a liar isn’t a good one. But I tell Brain to butt off. Speaking of butts, has Brain not seen Thierry’s? Jesus.
Brain has, and at the moment has nothing to add on the case against Thierry.
An hour later I head off to my fake shift at the theater, but I go straight to the mall instead. At the first big wireless carrier store, I walk inside with a determined look on my face. There are many phones here but I go for the freebies. An eager associate shows me all models that I can get for free by signing a two-year contract. In the end, I choose based on looks. The associate is smiling like I just announced her salary doubled. She’s thrilled to have made a sale—like she did anything, anyway. I came here with the intent to buy a phone. She didn’t convince me to buy anything with her sale power. But whatever.
I play with the sample phone I’ve chosen while she runs my application. I’m a little nervous because they’re going to do a credit check. I flip the touch screen left to right absentmindedly. Not bad for a freebie.
“No, you don’t want that one,” a voice behind me interrupts my inner conversation.
“Thierry!”
“Hey, Tor,” he says casually. I melt. Tor? That’s the cutest thing anyone’s ever called me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
“I’m a part-time stalker. But what is this? Do my eyes deceive me? Are you actually in a phone store, about to purchase a phone?” He speaks fast and asks his questions in quick succession, so I don’t have a chance to reply to his stalker comment, which I very much enjoyed well more than I should.
“Maybe,” I say, swinging side-to-side. “Trying to. They’re running my credit.”
At that moment the associate returns with a grave face. “I’m sorry, honey,” she says, like she’s announcing I have I only have a few months left to live. “It looks like they denied your application.”
“Oh. Hey, no worries,” I say, unsurprised. But how embarrassing for me that this happens in front of the guy I like! I turn to Thierry to explain, so that he doesn’t think I’m a total loser. “I figured they would, you know. I have no credit history, no evidence of income yet, and I’m still seventeen. But don’t worry, my plan B is to get a pay-as-you-go phone, so you can still call me in your time of need. I’ll be there for you.”
“Thanks, but no. Unacceptable. Hey, uh”—he reads her name tag—“Tyra? What if I cosign? I’m an adult with excellent credit; you’ll find.”
“Oh, certainly! That would help,” Tyra says.
“No, Thierry, c’mon,” I protest.
“What? It doesn’t cost anything to cosign. You can’t give me a hard time.”
“I’m not giving you a hard time. I just don’t want you to pay for anything.”
“Tori, I just said that I don’t have to pay for anything.” He says. He looks at Tyra the store associate. “I’m sorry, ma’am, could you excuse us for a minute?”
Her smile falters for a bit, but doesn’t quite disappear, and she nods. “Sure. I’ll be right over here if y’all need me,” she says, and walks away.
Thierry resumes his lecturing. “What’s so wrong with me cosigning so that you can get a real phone? It doesn’t cost me anything. You can’t complain this time, Tori.”
“Yeah, but.”
“But what?”
“What if I lose my job?”
“You’ll find another.”
“How do you know?” I point out.
“How hard could it be? Besides, if you have to cancel your contract, the worst thing that’ll happen is I have to pay a cancellation fee, and I’m okay with that, since I’m basically coercing you to get a contract.”
“That you are,” I say sourly. “Fine.”
His face lights up. “Fine? As in, you’ll do as I ask and won’t complain anymore?”
“You may cosign my contract,” I say. “And thank you.”
“Great! Now about this phone….” He sets it down. “We’re getting you a real phone.”
“I’m not spending money to buy a phone that will be outdated in a year, and neither are you.”
“Come on Tor, if you’re going to get a phone, get a smartphone, so that I can text you and email you. You don’t have a computer of your own.”
“How do you know?”
“You said you’d email me during school. Nobody uses school computers to email.”
“Everyone uses the lab to email.”
“But that’s not the only way they email. Just admit it,” he says.
“Okay, fine. I don’t own a computer.”
“Well, get a smartphone so that you can check your email in your phone,” he says practically.
I make a concerned face, like I’m torn. “Thierry, those phones require a data plan. That’s more than I’m willing to pay every month. I was going to get just the basic, cheapest voice package. No Internet data anything.”
He looks away as if exasperated. What did I do?
“What?” I ask.
“It bothers me that you don’t want me to pay things for you.”
“What are you talking about? You paid for my book—”
“Yeah, and you paid me back.”
“That was the deal! And you paid for my dinner. And took me home. And now you want to cosign my contract, risking having to pay a chunk of money later when I get fired. You hardly know me!”
“I know you well enough,” he says. “And none of that even counts. I’m talking about letting me do things for you that you consider so big, but in reality they’re not that big of a deal to me. Because maybe you don’t know, but I’ve got plenty of money. So, like this cellphone issue here.” He points at the counter.
“What about it? It’s not an issue. I don’t need a smartphone.”
“Yeah you do. You just don’t know until you’ve actually had one. And I want you to have one.”
“But it just feels….”
“How?”
Too good to be true. Everyone says that if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. Of course I want him to pay for everything. I want him to marry me and be my sugar daddy.
“I don’t know, Thierry. It feels like….”
“Like you want me to help you out, and get a good phone.”
“Actually, yeah,” I say, and he straightens back, a caught off-guard. “But then I feel like I shouldn’t.”
He smiles triumphantly. “No problem. As long as at some point you think it’s okay. Let’s get you the amazing thing called the Internet, in the palm of your hand.”
“The Internet? All of it?”
“Yes. And look at this.” He pulls his own phone out of his pocket, moves to my side, and takes a one-armed shot of us. I laugh and close my eyes, protesting, but he does it anyway. Then he fiddles with his phone and after a few seconds he shows me the picture. He made it magical, like a fairy tale book cover. In it he looks stunning, just like the gorgeous guy he is, but somehow better. His profile is to the camera as he looks behind him. It takes me a second to look away from him, and then I notice he’s looking at me in the picture. Oh. I actually like the way I look. I have my eyes closed and I’m laughing like he just told me the funniest joke. My face looks flawless, but that’s probably the filter he applied. My hair looks like it has golden highlights, not just my regular, flat brown.
“You like it?” He asks me.
“It�
��s cute!”
“Well, you can do that with this phone.”
“I don’t know, Thierry,” I say, but my protests have weakened. “It’s expensive.”
“Tor, there’s no point in having a data plan with a crappy phone. Here. I’ll get it, for me,” he says over my objections, “to lend to you. Use it for a week, and when you decide you hate it, give it back to me.”
“Fine. I can’t argue with that, then. You’re so pushy.”
He smiles and calls Tyra the store associate over. She is thrilled to hear me agree, and she’s even happier when Thierry says that we’re buying the expensive phone. She reruns the application, this time with Thierry’s info, and ten minutes later I have my very first, shiny new phone in my hands.
The first thing I do is dial Thierry’s phone. It vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out and smiles. “Hey, look at that! An unknown number. I wonder who it is?”
I laugh delightfully. “I have a phone!”
“That you do,” he says, following my mood.
“Do you know, I told June I’d work this afternoon? I totally lied! I just wanted to get out, and get a phone, finally.”
“So you’re saying you’re free for the next…” he shakes his head as if he can’t believe it. “Few hours?”
“Yeah. With the Internet,” I say, with fake reverence.
“Screw the Internet. Hang out with me.”
8. Tori, Interrupted
My belly feels like it’s invaded by millions of dazzling butterflies. I feel weak all over. My heart is desperately yelling that he likes me, he likes me.
“So where do you want to go?” He asks, after I politely accept his offer, like I do because I have nothing better to do.
“I don’t know any places to hang out,” I say, looking left and right, hoping to find a cool one within sight.
“Do you want to watch a movie?”
I think about it. I work at the movies, so I don’t want to go spend precious minutes with Thierry there. But I’d be sitting in the dark with him…. The thought makes my knees weak. I smile and say, “Sure.”