Finally, Jen had led us in a loop around the game floor and handed us each a cup of tokens. I turned to Brad, remembering my conversation with Monica. “So…skee-ball?”
“Sounds good,” he said, stretching his arm out just a bit and brushing his fingertips at the small of my back to guide me that way. As soon as he made contact, I shivered, but not in a good way, and walked half a step quicker to put some more distance between us.
We started to play, and Brad had amazing skee-ball form. Really. I watched him take a perfect stance and roll the highest score three shots in a row. It was like some crazy cross between bowling and pitching, with a windup and foot positioning that seemed calculated every time. Every time his ball landed in that middle spot, he stepped back, pumped his fist, and let out a rough. “Yeah!” like he’d just speared a wild boar or something.
I decided to ignore the weird yelling. Josh had been a more academic and less sports-centered guy, and I rarely saw displays of overtly masculine anything from him. Maybe some girls found that sort of thing attractive. Maybe I should ask my readers.
When he started winding up a fourth time, I started to feel a little ridiculous, just watching him. Plus, we’d barely said a word to each other. “Okay,” I laughed, putting my fingertips on his forearm to stop him. “You’ve gotta show me what exactly you’re doing.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking truly puzzled. “This is how you play skee-ball. I mean, everyone knows how to play skee-ball.”
I laughed again, this time feeling much more uneasy. “I…um…okay.” I pulled my arm back to roll the ball up the ramp, but before I could, he gripped my elbow.
“No, no. Here. Let me help.”
Smooth. He was pulling the classic first date move from time immemorial, where the guy positions the girl at the mini-golf course or the batting range or, I guess, Uncle Phil’s Philly Phun Zone. He let his hands float on either side of my waist as he moved closer, leaning his lips toward my ear. I smiled. If nothing else, this was good material for the column, and it felt kind of nice to be doted on.
“When you work as a model, you get to be really aware of how exactly you’re holding every part of your body at all times. I’ve been watching you move since I walked in.”
“Really?” I asked, giving him a little smile and arching up one eyebrow. “Have you noticed anything in particular?”
“Well, for starters? You have really bad posture.”
What. The. Hell.
Without missing a beat, he went right back to putting my body into optimal skee-ball position. But instead of being romantic, slow and gentle with his touches, Brad moved me stiffly, almost impatiently. He even punctuated my inability to twist my hips the way he wanted them with a frustrated sigh, then stepped back.
“Maybe you’d be better off if you had heels on.”
I let my brows crinkle down for a split second before checking myself. “I don’t know. I thought, skee-ball, Phun Zone…casual. Flats.” Was I really talking about my choice of outfit - which, by the way, I’d felt really confident about - with this random skee-ball expert that Philadelphia had chosen for me?
He shrugged. “Sure, yeah. Right.” He looked me up and down again, just like he’d done when he’d arrived, but this time instead of feeling admired, I only felt more self-conscious.
“How about another game?” I asked, bouncing on the balls of my feet a little and trying to seem much more chipper than I actually felt. If Deanna was going to be taking pictures of us, and if I was going to have any decent material to write about, I would have to at least try to have fun on this date. “Race cars?”
Half his mouth quirked into a smile and he nodded. “Sure.” I didn’t miss the look of longing he shot the skee-ball ramps as we walked away.
We agreed to play for best two out of three on the racing game, and when I completely crushed him the second time, he immediately left the little booth, watching me expectantly. “Aw, come on,” I said with a teasing lilt. “Play a third game with me.”
“No point,” he said, looking around the place like he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. “I mean, you already won the two, right? That’s what we were going for?” Once again, I decided to just go along with it. I knew that reviewing the dinner options at the Phun Zone was part of the deal, so I glanced furtively over at the snack bar. I thanked God and all the saints when I caught Jen’s eye from where she watched us behind the counter. She mouthed, “Ready?” and I nodded frantically.
“I think she has something for us to eat,” I said, grinning. “Wanna pick a table?” Josh had always liked to do things like choose a table, let me take his arm, pull out my chair. Since there were no chairs here - only plastic-molded booths - I figured I might as well try to inject some enthusiasm into the situation.
Brad slid into the booth first, and I sat opposite him. Jen came dancing along just a few moments later with a steaming hot pepperoni pizza in hand. I’d been so nervous earlier in the day that I hadn’t had anything besides a cup of coffee since noon, and my stomach grumbled. I laughed. “You must have read my stomach’s mind.”
“Can I get you guys anything else?” Jen asked, as she set a couple glasses of ice water down in front of us.
“Yeah, um…do you have a menu?” Brad asked.
“Well, it’s just what you see up there on the board,” Jen said, looking slightly confused.
Brad squinted up at the backlit neon-framed menu which outlined the prices for hot dogs, pizza, French fries, fountain sodas, popcorn, cotton candy, and fresh-baked cookies. Pretty standard fare for a game arcade, but his eyes scanned the list of offerings like it was in a foreign language. I caught a glimpse of Deanna shooting photos from a booth across the room, and only hoped she was capturing the hilariously bewildered expression on Brad’s face.
“It’s just…I’m on a cleanse. I’ve got a big shoot this weekend and…well, you get it.”
I looked up at Jen, who, for once, looked speechless.
“Water’s fine,” Brad said, rushing to fill the silence. “I ate before I came, anyway.”
That was nice of him. If he wasn’t going to eat the pizza Jen was clearly so proud of, at least he wasn’t making her feel too bad about it.
“Do you mind if I dig in?” I asked, unable to ignore the grinding in my stomach any longer.
“Suit yourself,” he said with the wave of his hand, leaning back in against the hard plastic and raking his eyes up and down, appraising me once again. What the hell was he looking for? “I mean, a cheat day’s a cheat day, right?”
I crinkled my nose. “I pretty much just eat what I want.”
“Seriously?” he asked, his eyebrows arching up. “I have literally never dated a girl who wasn’t on some kind of diet. Must be nice not to stress about having to look flawless all the time. Just…what do you do when that makes you bloat? Because you know it will.”
Suddenly, the pizza was dry in my mouth. Of course I didn’t look perfect, but I’d put a lot of effort into looking pretty freaking good. “Well,” I laughed, trying to cover my shock, “I guess I just…look bloated.”
Brad’s eyes trailed down to my belly and I was suddenly self-conscious of every little roll and bump that formed between the waistband of my jeans and my bra, even though the blouse hid them all. Then he eyed the pizza again, and then, like he wasn’t even trying to hide it, his eyes flicked toward the door.
All of a sudden, all the times he’d not-so-discreetly evaluated my physical presence that evening added up. And all together, they really, really pissed me off. I wiped my greasy fingers on a napkin, balled it up, and set it on the table, leaning forward and resting on my forearms. I leveled a serious look at him. “Is everything okay, Brad?”
“Totally, I just…I didn’t expect this sort of date. You know?”
“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”
“Well, when I signed up, I just thought it would be…you know…classy. A nice place.”
I shrugged. �
��Yeah, but this is kind of fun, right?”
He snorted. “For kids.” He looked up at me, maybe for searching for some type of understanding, but I wasn’t about to give it to him. “Just…from your picture, I expected…something different.”
“So let me get this straight. Based on some outfit the Philly Illustrated fashion editor put together and a professional photo of me in a tight-waisted skirt and impossible-to-walk-in heels, you had a vision of our date? And now you’re in some kind of a mood because it didn’t turn out to be like that?”
He shrugged. “I guess. I just…I thought this might be good for my career, you know? No offense, but you looked gorgeous in that shot. I thought I’d get some great photos and some exposure from the experience. You know?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone even and low. It was a trick my mom had always used when she wanted me to know she was seething mad. It always worked—scared the living daylights out of me. I felt the smallest bit of satisfaction when Brad’s widened eyes told me it was having the same effect on him. “I get it. You wanted to be a perfect guy in a magazine, just like you are the rest of the time, and you wanted me to be as perfect as I was in that ridiculous picture, and then you wanted us to be in a magazine together looking perfect, like a freaking Philadelphia Mary Poppins and Burt for the 21st century. Is that right?”
“I mean…sort of?”
“Well, let me tell you something, Brad,” I said, gathering my purse straps in my hand. “Mary Poppins was practically perfect in every way. She was also not real. So maybe before you agree to go on any more blind dates, you should make sure to ask the girl if she’s an actual fictional character. Because if she’s not, then you can decide to stay home and focus on your abs and your stupid kale shakes instead of wasting your time with a bloaty, pizza-eating girl like me.”
I stood up and whipped my head around, searching for Deanna so we could get the hell out of here. She was already halfway to me. Without looking back, we strode to the door. When my hand grasped the handle, I remembered my manners. I turned halfway and called “Thank you so much!” to Jen with a plastered-on smile. She stood at her post behind the counter, looking completely dumbfounded.
As I held the door for Deanna to walk out ahead of me, I heard Brad calling for me. “Elizabeth!”
What the hell? I decided to humor him. “Yeah?”
“Just…um…the cleanse isn’t kale-based? It’s probiotic. And pizza is still disgusting.”
“You’re disgusting,” I muttered, stepping out into the warm, humid twilight.
Of course my first date would be a total disaster. Not to mention slightly embarrassing.
Luckily, the train station was only a couple minutes away. As we sat waiting, Deanna turned to me. ‘You know, I didn’t know what to make of you at the beginning of all this.”
I chuckled. “And now?”
“Just…that was pretty fucking awesome. It was a privilege to photograph. That’s all.”
That was the first thing that had made me really smile in a hours. I ducked my head and watched my fingers weave together, then apart. “Thanks. Really. Thanks.”
“Yeah. And you know what? The date sucked, but at least it’ll be one hell of a fun article to write.”
She was right. I beamed and held out a hand, which she rolled her eyes at before returning my high-five. “To journalism,” I said as we settled into our seats on the train.
“To journalism.”
Chapter 13
Jordan
“So then this girl tells me she’s planning a trip to Pamplona next summer, and she didn’t even realize it was during the running of the bulls.”
I stared at Ethan, who looked like he had just walked off the floor of the stock exchange, in a perfectly pressed white shirt, his tie only slightly loosened, five-o-clock shadow barely allowed to grow in. He was an actuarial science PhD student, one of the suits who determined exactly how much of an insurance risk each and every human on the planet was. And he’d come in freaking out about some girl.
He was also the only other STEM guy who had come to the gathering the departments had supposedly planned. Some effort.
“So?”
“So?” He laughed incredulously. “There are fucking raging bulls running through the streets! She could be gored! She’ll probably die!”
“And this is related to you going on a date with her…how?” I raised my eyebrow, daring him to make a connection between the two things that made sense in any universe.
“Obviously I cannot date a girl who thinks stuff like that is fun. Especially after she runs into me in Fairmount Park. With her bike.”
I kept my eyebrow up.
Ethan flung his arms out to the sides. “Not even wearing a helmet! Come on, man! I can’t fall in love with a girl like that. Especially not if she’s just gonna die this summer.”
“Going on a date is not falling in love,” I pointed out. Even though I wasn’t sure I could speak with any authority on that, given the mooning I’d been doing over Liz after one roll in the hay. “Definitely doesn’t mean you’re going to even care about when she goes to Pimploni. Or wherever.”
Ethan took a long pull of his beer. “Pamplona, friend. Remember that, and stay away if you don’t want to get gored by a bull.”
I laughed and shook my head.
“I’m serious, man.” Just then, his phone buzzed, and his jaw dropped open. “I…uh…it’s…”
“Natalia?” I supplied.
“Yep. Her,” Ethan stammered, sliding a folded twenty onto the bar. “Shit. I’ll…uh…I’ll see you around.” I nodded, more content than I could have predicted to stay at the bar a while longer nursing my own beer. The poor guy clapped me on the shoulder as he made his way out, and I felt comforted that at least I wasn’t the only one suffering from woman-related confusion.
* * *
I spent a long time at specialty grocery stores that night, killing time. I’d learned how to make sushi during a Japanese culture filler course at Stanford, and even though I hadn’t tried my hand at it since I was twenty-one, and had kind of sucked at it back then, I decided to fill my evening trying it again. Maybe Liz loved sushi. Maybe she would love having the supplies lying around. Maybe we’d make it every Friday night and I’d stand behind her with my arms draped over hers to help her roll the bamboo mat even though she didn’t really need me to. Maybe we’d use the excuse to stay in Friday nights. Maybe the whole weekend. Maybe we’d feed it to each other naked in bed.
Or maybe I was just going to way too many grocery stores to fix dinner for a girl who might not even be interested in spending a ton of time with me. A girl who was my roommate, and I would have to see every day for the next twelve months regardless of how—or whether—things progressed with us. A girl whose job was to date other guys.
Whatever. Traipsing from one grocery store to another to pick up sushi mats, a rice cooker, seaweed and fresh fish, plus the three-store hunt for perfectly ripe avocados, filled up my evening decently. Yeah, I felt a little weird being the only brown-skinned, curly-haired, over-six-feet-tall guy in most of those stores. Not to mention that most guys my age would have been getting ready for a night on the town instead of solo shopping for domestic goods. But it was all worth it when I realized I wouldn’t be home until nearly 8:00. Just that much less time for me to figure out what the hell I was going to do with myself while I waited for Liz to come home.
I winced when I reminded myself that she might not come home at all tonight.
Once I’d stashed the refrigerated stuff away and slid the box holding the rice cooker onto the counter, I collapsed on the couch, only then realizing how tired my feet were from so much walking. Philly was different from Stanford in many ways, but the amount of walking required to get around was one of the most glaring. Not that I minded, exactly, but I’d definitely have to get better shoes.
I toed off my sneakers and let out a deep sigh as I settled into the large armchair. I wasn’t even
that hungry, having picked up a couple incredibly delicious spring rolls from a Chinatown food truck..
The apartment was too quiet. If there were going to be many nights like this, I’d have to get a fish tank or a white noise machine or something just to fill the space.
Maybe I’d make friends in my program, but the truth was that I’d never been a guy with tons of friends. It was almost like I didn’t have enough brain space to maintain that many personal and social connections, and when guys I’d gotten along with moved on to a new program or moved out of my apartment building, we sort of fell out of touch. Maybe once I got my PhD, things would change.
That’s what you need to be doing, JJ. Focusing on your damn studies. Classes started in two days and the only prep I’d done was buying a bunch of books and printing the syllabi. I eyed the stack of paper and a few of the books that sat on the coffee table, right next to my reading glasses. I’d meant to scan through them earlier so that I could email my professors with any questions before Monday rolled around, but of course I’d been too damn distracted.
I blew out a long breath as I grabbed the top syllabus on the stack and shoved on my glasses. Maybe returning to the language and form of academic paperwork after so many weeks off was exactly what I needed to get my head on straight.
I’d only read the name of the class and the professor’s name when a key ground in the lock of our front door. Before I could even get to my feet, Liz slumped in, dropping her bag and her keys just inside the door like she’d been through the longest night of her life, even though it had only just started to get dark outside.
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