Just Down the Hall

by Alessandra Thomas

  Yeah. I had to suck it up.

  So, I nodded again, swallowed back a lump in my throat, plastered a smile on my face, and said, "Okay. When do we start?"

  "Right after you sign this little stack of papers," Monica said, hefting a small stack of pages filled with fine print onto her desk. "You know. Liability reasons. Non-disclosure agreements, waivers, stuff like that. You understand."

  Oh, God. I was gonna be sick.

  Luckily, most of the staff at Philly Illustrated, or Phill-Ill for short, seemed to leave the office by 6 PM. I'd never really considered how exhausting it would be to move from a few hours of classes every day to nine hours in an office. So many things were just sapping every ounce of energy out of me - smiling at every freaking person who made eye contact with me, constantly checking to make sure my hair, clothes, and makeup were in good shape, trying to master the ins and outs of the creaky desktop computer I'd been asked to use - security reasons, Monica was sure I’d understand - in a musty corner of a rather sparsely-outfitted third floor office.

  Yeah. I was definitely not working at Vogue. Or even Seventeen Magazine.

  All I’d wanted since I was a kid was to be a journalist reporting on politics. I’d somehow seen one episode of The West Wing, and I’d been hooked. The way so many people worked tirelessly, day after day, for the greater good was an inspiration. The fact that the press corps was so close to the process, and sometimes even influential, all the while keeping the President and his staff honest? Well, that was where I wanted to be. On Air Force One, in the bullpen, trading jabs with the White House Press Secretary.

  I’d proven it in school, too. I’d worked my ass off and been the editor for UPenn’s student paper, and even won an award or two. My professors swore I’d get a prime position at one of the biggest papers in the country when I graduated.

  The shitty economy, and the decline it had caused in print media revenue, disagreed.

  I trudged up the three flights of stairs to my new place - our new place - wincing with each step. Who the hell knew that three-inch heels got exponentially painful with every hour you walked on them? I made a halfhearted mental note to call the landlord about fixing the freaking elevator, knowing full well that I probably wouldn't get to it. Instead, I'd turn into one of those ladies who packed sneakers and socks in her work bag, looking like a tool the whole commute home.

  God, I was old. Maybe I did need help finding dates.

  One thing I knew for sure is that I probably wouldn't be able to open my own door when sharp knives of pain were shooting up from my stiletto heels up through my calves. Did they use these things as torture devices? They should. Need to get info from someone? Make her walk around in three-inch spike heels for ten hours. Done. She'll break every time. I shoved my new key into the lock and grunted when it didn't give a single bit of give in the lock. I jiggled, pushed in, and tried again.

  Nothing. Dammit. The worst first day of anything I'd ever had to date and I couldn't even go into my half-put-together, unfamiliar place with no cable, no internet, and no food in the fridge.

  My forehead fell into the cold metal door with faux-wood covering, and I groaned in frustrated pain. Not even my freaking door was constructed from what I expected it to be. I planned to try the key again after allowing myself a few seconds of self-pity, but I didn't get the chance. The grind-and-click sound of the lock opening from the inside caused me to take in a deep breath of relief.

  Jordan. Bless him, he was home.

  I hurriedly stood up straight, shoved my feet back into my heels, and smoothed my hair. I hadn't forgotten how unexpectedly attractive Jordan had looked after six years and a six-hour drive down the Pennsylvania turnpike. Maybe he'd be as unexpectedly sweet and non-dweeby as he had been hot, and we could bond over my horrible experience.

  He opened the door, wearing the same jeans and shoes as yesterday with a different colored shirt- red heather, today. It clung to his body a little tighter than yesterday's, though. I swallowed as I dragged my eyes up to his, somehow bright behind his thick glasses. He gave a soft chuckle at the sight of me, which immediately set me on the defensive. "What?" I grumped.

  "Nothing," he said, his smile soft now. "You okay?"

  I swallowed again. “Yeah.” God, those eyes. I'd never thought dark eyes could be so multifaceted, so mesmerizing. "Just...thirsty."

  "Hungry too, I hope," he said, stepping back and motioning for me to come in. "My stop at the UPenn office was shorter than I expected this morning, so I went shopping. And then I cooked."

  The smell in our new place was freaking heavenly. I hadn't really eaten lunch - nobody had offered to take me out, like I imagined - expected - they would - and I obviously hadn't packed anything. But the other surprises of the day must have blocked out how absolutely ravenous I was. "Oh my God. Did you roast a chicken?"

  Jordan nodded. "And some potatoes and my mom’s famous collard greens."

  My mouth watered. "You know how to make those?" Mama Jacobs – all the neighborhood kids had called her that – made the best collard greens I’d ever tasted.

  "Don't sound so surprised. I've changed a lot since six years ago, you know. I asked her to teach me a couple years ago. Made her cry. It’s my great grandmother’s recipe.” He shrugged. “I guess I’m not such a dweeb anymore. " The sparkle in his eyes when he emphasized that name I used to exclusively call him created a funny feeling in my gut - something between guilt and self-consciousness.

  I stepped out of my shoes again and groaned. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry about-"

  "No worries," he said, laughing and motioning for me to hand him my bag. "I was a dweeb at eighteen. And you were obnoxious at sixteen."

  "Hey!" I said, feeling only a small sting before realizing how right he was. I mean, I must have been such a pain in the ass, always swooning over stupid fashion magazines and giggling about boys and school gossip, but I couldn't remember a single time that Jordan was ever truly mean to me and Kiera. He'd always been just a really good guy.

  "Well," I said, unable to stop my eyes from raking down his body again. "I guess we've both grown up."

  "Yeah. We really have." There was no mistaking that he held my gaze for just a moment longer than absolutely necessary when he said that. I tried to ignore the warmth gathering in my belly and cleared my throat again. Geez, he'd probably think I was contagious now or something.

  God, Elizabeth, get some chill. You are an adult. You just broke up with your boyfriend. Control yourself.

  The thing causing the heat, though, was more than just Jordan's unexpected attractiveness. It was that being near him was making me feel things that I'd never felt around Josh, or any of the boyfriends that had come before him, for that matter. It was a magnetism that made me want to get closer and closer to him - which was exactly what I'd been doing, I realized. He'd walked around into our small little kitchen area to check on the chicken, and I realized with horror that I was practically standing on his heels. Abruptly, I turned and walked back to the loveseat in our little living room and plopped down.

  This was the first time I'd sat on the furniture that had come with the place, and for a second, I was unbearably grateful that it didn't seem to be moldy or decrepit or gross. Between coming home to dinner being cooked for me and finally collapsing onto a clean, comfortable couch, I was beginning to think that, behind my faux wood door, in this little apartment with my new-old-totally-cute friend from my childhood, I'd actually get to feel at home.

  “I guess Philly apartments don’t really have room for dining room tables, huh?” Jordan called from the kitchen.

  “I thought about finding a small one Josh and I could squeeze into that corner right by the front door but…” I trailed off, feeling my cheeks go pink, even though there was absolutely no reason for them to. Maybe I was ashamed of myself, for being so used to that pesky pre-planned future where Josh and I hosted dinner parties and played house in this little apartment until he graduated, got a well-paying job, letting me ge
t paid next to nothing chasing stories, and bought me a real house.

  “Well, hopefully coffee table dinner with JJ is a decent substitute.” He stepped out of the kitchen, two plates in hand. I had literally never had a guy serve me homemade dinner at the end of a long day, but oh my God, I could get used to this.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Do you always speak in the third person?”

  Jordan laughed. “Actually, I don’t think I ever do. Maybe the exhaustion of this crazy week is finally getting to me.”

  I met his eyes with a smile and murmured a “Thank you,” before I leaned over my plate and dug in.

  “So, the ex. Josh. Total dick, huh? Or is your heart really broken?”

  I nearly choked on my first mouthful, and Jordan leaned over to slap me on the back. By the time I swallowed it down, thankfully without spitting anything onto my shirt, I’d at least figured out what to say. “Total dick,” I said, pounding my chest and clearing my throat one more time. “I mean, you saw me. I was upset, but it was more about my future plans getting messed up than losing him.”

  “You don’t miss him?”

  I shrugged. “Miss what? Making sure he paid his rent on time? Being his designated driver at parties? Dealing with his stuck-up parents? Cooking him dinner? Nah,” I said, leaning forward and taking a long drink from the glass of water that Jordan had plunked down next to my plate, letting a ring form on the cheap wood laminate. “I mean,” I finished after I’d swallowed. “He never cooked for me. Ever.”

  I took another bite, taking my time chewing, savoring the spices. It was the most heavenly thing I’d ever tasted. Truly. Even including the Morimoto’s sushi I treated myself to after I’d landed the internship.

  Suddenly, I felt even more a need to explain myself. Namely, the version of me that had been so convinced that Josh and I would be together forever that I felt confident finding us an apartment to share.

  “I know he doesn’t sound like a gem,” I blurted. “But he was exactly what I had pictured. You know? There was a path that my life would take, I’d imagined all of it, and when I met Josh…he was exactly what I had imagined. He fit the picture. Perfectly.”

  Jordan’s eyebrow ticked up, and instantly, I was mortified. I knew full well that Jordan and Kiera, being two of a very small number of kids with a black parent in our high school, sometimes met resistance from parents in our suburb when trying to date classmates. “That’s not what I meant. I mean…not how he looked,” I explained, hating the heat seeping into my cheeks. “He was white,” I jabbered. “Is white. But that’s not what it was. He was going to be a lawyer. He wanted to get a steady job and settle down and have kids. He never told me that, but it was just…part of the way he was brought up. Part of him. It’s hard to explain, but when I saw him, it was like I’d found a puzzle piece I’d been hunting for. Even if the picture of my life is different from how I’d imagined it years ago, I still wanted to grab that piece. Then that made me want to make him fit into my life, even if he was never supposed to. You know?”

  “

  Jordan just nodded, observing me, like I was a perplexing painting in a gallery that he was enjoying trying to interpret. As a kid, he had been so reactionary, so self-conscious. Six years seemed to have changed all of that.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes until Jordan leaned back against the couch, opposite me. “Either that chicken is incredible or you had a really long day, judging by the moans coming from over there.”

  My eyes went wide and I snapped my gaze to his. I had been moaning? Over chicken? God, this day just got more and more embarrassing, didn’t it? But a wide smile from Jordan helped diffuse my mortification, and I gratefully returned it.

  “Both,” I said into my napkin, grabbing at any excuse to hide while I recovered. “Dinner tastes amazing, and yes, it was the shittiest day ever.”

  “Well, if you want to tell me all about it, I’ve got nothin’ but time. We don’t even have internet yet so I can’t subject you to my Netflix queue.”

  I snorted and shook my head. “I can just guess what shows an engineer has on his list.” I sighed. “You really want to hear it? I mean, I am lucky to have a job, and this really amounts to one extended First World Problem, but…”

  “Seriously, Liz.” Jordan pushed up from his seat and strode toward the kitchen, and I couldn’t ignore the pang of worry that he was done talking to me for the night. But he pulled open the fridge, grabbed a bottle of red and a six-pack of IPA, and returned to his seat. “Have a drink with me. Tell me a story, before I get so bored that I would rather clean up the kitchen.”

  So I did. As he poured me a plastic glass of wine, I told him the whole awful day, from beginning to end. The shitty desk and computer, the condescending dismissiveness from Monica, and, finally, the details of my first and only assignment - the one that might also be my last, if I refused it or screwed it up.

  “So that’s it,” I said, staring mournfully at the bottom of my now-empty glass “My job is to go out on dates with guys that Philadelphia votes on, and write about them.”

  “Okay, here’s what gets me,” Jordan said as he stacked our scraped-clean plates and utensils in a neat pile on the coffee table. “You don’t even get to choose. That hardly seems…appropriate. Like, in terms of consent.”

  I scoffed. “It’s definitely not. But, I mean, what Monica said is true. I’m lucky to have a job at all, it’s an opportunity to get my name out there if I do a good job, and…I am single now. I guess.”

  “Maybe it’ll be a good excuse for you to get back out there,” Jordan said, suddenly examining the label on his beer bottle intently. “Although, I gotta say - and this may be the beers talking, so pardon me if I’m overstepping - but you seem pretty okay considering you were planning on eventually marrying this Josh guy.”

  I put my plastic cup down with perhaps a little too much force. “Did Kiera tell you that? God, so embarrassing,” I moaned. “I mean, yes, half of my friends got engaged to their boyfriends right after graduation, and yes I had pipedreams about it, but honestly, that’s mostly because I hate dating. Hate it, Jordan. And I just…Josh was so perfect, you know? Right career. Right friends. Right family. So cute. I mean. So cute. My parents loved him.”

  “Kiera didn’t,” Jordan muttered.

  “Oh, Kiera.” I waved him off, not even surprised to hear him say it. I knew how to tell when Kiera liked someone—the way she squealed my ear off on the phone, the way she made a interest board to plan an entire future—and she had never liked Josh. “She never thought anyone was good enough for me.”

  “Maybe nobody was,” Jordan said, his gaze fixed on one of the baseboards. Then, like he was snapping out of a trance, he cleared his throat. “Whatever. Jerky Josh is out of the picture. You’re starting a new chapter.”

  “I guess,” I said, grimacing at Jordan’s lame nickname for my ex. “But…you went to school wanting to be an astronaut, right? And here you are, getting a PhD in astronaut stuff. Your undergrad wasn’t a colossal waste like mine was. You’re here, learning what you love.”

  Jordan chuckled. “If only it were that simple. Actually becoming an astronaut is as much a pipe dream for me as becoming editor of the New York Times is for you.”

  “But…with the workouts and the perfect grades and your acceptance here, I thought it was pretty much a sure thing. Dream job on the horizon, and all that,” I finished, realizing how simplistic the whole thing sounded only as the words left my mouth.

  “Nah,” he said, letting out a slow breath. “I’ve known since space camp when I was fourteen – remember that?”

  “I do,” I replied. “I remember trying to steal that hat you brought home and write “Nerd” above “Space” on the design.”

  “And I knew you would. Slept in that damn hat for weeks so Kiera couldn’t snatch it.”

  I giggled at the memory. I’d been so stressed with adult life that remembering what it was like to be a kid was actually kind of a relief.

&n
bsp; “Anyway,” Jordan continued, “They always told us that if we wanted to go to space one day, it would take a whole lot of hard work and even more luck. Actually, the first piece of luck was not getting too tall. You have to be under six foot three.”

  “And you are…”

  “Six foot two and a half,” Jordan said. I could swear he adjusted in his seat then, sitting just a little taller. “And then it was school, school, and more school. Excellent grades in anything having to do with chem, math, engineering. Hundreds of hours of flight training, and then—”

  “Wait, wait. You’ve flown a plane?” Something about the image of Jordan in a cockpit, headset arching over his short, springy curls and his hands commanding the controls, set every part of my body on edge.

  “Yep. Solo. I could take you up some time if you want. Also went through SCUBA training and certification.” He watched my reaction with an easy smile.

  Had he just winked at me? I blinked hard and busied myself with crumpling up my napkin. Kiera hadn’t told me any of this about Jordan. Not that I had asked her.

  “So how do they get chosen? Astronauts?”

  “After I get my PhD, I’ll work for a while — two or three years max, because they don’t want you to be too old when you fly up in space,” Jordan said. “And then I’ll apply for NASA Candidate School. That’s where the luck comes in. Every applicant will be just as qualified as I am, lots of them in almost exactly the same ways. Last year, there were six thousand applicants.”

  Just picturing six thousand literal rocket scientists and their collective brain power had my head spinning. “And how many slots are there?”

  “Eight,” Jordan said, his jaw setting into a hard angle.

  “Eight hundred?”