Just Down the Hall

by Alessandra Thomas

  Liz’s mouth curved down. “Oh, Jordan. No they wouldn’t.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I muttered, gathering up our trash and shoving it into the white paper bag printed with the red-and-turquoise Joey and Hawk’s logo. Ethan had introduced me to it the first time I met him, and I was addicted. “Anyway, I just sort of copied the outfits my Stanford TAs wore, I guess. My students seem to like me so far.”

  “Of course they like you,” Liz said as she stood up and slung her work bag over her shoulder. “And you know what?” she said, tilting her head. “You look just like every engineer I’ve ever seen on TV.”

  I chuckled. “Not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “I’m not sure either. But you look nice all the same,” Liz said, squeezing my shoulder before standing up to grab a stack of napkins. “Cute. Which, you know, is in stark contrast to Milton.”

  “His name was Milton?”

  She nodded slowly, handing me the latest issue of Philly Illustrated. “Hand to God.”

  I read over Liz’s account of sitting across from Indian-food-dude, who not only ate exclusively off food trucks and occasionally out of dumpsters, but also smelled really, really bad, I was laughing so hard that tears streamed from my eyes.

  “That is good. Really, really good.”

  “Yeah? Or is it really bad?” Liz tore off a bite of the bagel I’d brought for her from her favorite shop down the street and chewed, waiting for my response with lights dancing in her eyes. I’d be lucky if I could stop watching her lips move long enough to formulate a response.

  “Uh…well, obviously, it’s so bad it’s good. The date was bad. Not the writing.”

  “You know,” she said after she swallowed her mouthful of bagel, “I’m starting to wonder if that isn’t what Philly wants. I mean, nobody is trying to help me find true love, are they? They’re not even lying about it like on that stupid dating show, what is it called?”

  “Meet Mr. Right?” I supplied.

  “Yeah. That. Where he dates twenty-- girls and falls in love with three of them, somehow, but then has to decide to give the tiara to one, and they all cry half the time and snarl at each other for the rest.”

  “Yeah. Except, so far, you’re just going on one awful date after another.”

  “But what if I wanted to find true love?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee and staring at me over the rim of her mug. “Then all of Philadelphia is just playing a really shitty joke on me for their own amusement.”

  I shrugged, trying to ignore the pit that formed in my stomach at her words. I’d been working on the assumption that she was only doing this dating thing because Philly Illustrated wanted her to. It helped that she was damn good at doing the write-ups. The way she weaved a narrative was so engaging that I’d finished reading the column in minutes, and almost wanted more.

  If ‘more’ “more” didn’t involve Liz dating a guy that she might actually fall in love with. I thought about Ethan, afraid of seeing a girl because she was thinking of maybe doing something that might get her killed a year from now. I’d never thought of falling in love as something dangerous before, but between Liz and Ethan, I was starting to think twice.

  “Well…do you? Want to…um…fall in love?”

  Liz looked down at her hands, suddenly very interested in removing a little patch of old polish on her thumbnail. She shrugged. “Maybe. Doesn’t everyone?”

  I watched her for several seconds, until she finally raised her head and looked right at me.

  “I guess so,” I said quietly.

  “I know we didn’t decide anything definitive about…you know. Us. Last time we talked.” . I tried not to wonder if her glistening eyes meant that she was trying to hold back tears, or whether her trembling lip meant she was nervous about what I’d say.

  But Liz knew that she was in control. She knew that I was unattached, and that the barriers to us keeping up this arrangement of roommates-plus-sex were largely on her side of the fence.

  The only barrier for me was the one that scared me most, though. If I kept having incredibly hot, runaway-train, mind-blowing sex with Liz, I would just keep falling more and more in love with her. Maybe so deep that I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out again.

  If Liz did end up finding true love during her Liz Dates Philly escapades, she’d still be my roommate. And seeing her with another guy when I was already halfway to head over heels for her? That would destroy me.

  “Honestly, if you’re looking for Mr. Right on these dates…maybe it’s best for us to call it quits.”

  “Well, it’s not like you’re volunteering for the position. Right?” She stared at me boldly, and it was clear that she needed an answer from me. Now. She was asking me if she should pull the plug on Liz Dates Philly, for me. My heart pounded.

  I stirred the half-inch of coffee left in my cup, just to give my eyes somewhere to focus except on hers. I wouldn’t mind at least trying my hand at a real relationship with Liz, but I couldn’t promise that I’d fit the bill as her one and only. I knew that she was a nice girl, that she was talented and funny, and that she was amazing in bed. But that wasn’t enough for me to ask her to gamble her professional future on. I had to make her think I didn’t care about keeping whatever we might have had going.

  Cowardice won out. I forced a chuckle. “To be the subject of your dating column? Absolutely not.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down for a split second before she nodded. “I don’t know what I’m looking for. I guess there’s always a chance to find the right person for you, no matter how little you expect it. Right?” My heart sank as she stood decisively from the table and deposited her coffee cup in the sink. Seconds later, she was headed out the door, with a soft, “See you later.”

  My stomach felt like it was dropping to the floor. I’d fucked everything up. It hurt that she’d given up that easily, and I hated knowing I’d never stare into her hungry eyes as I plunged myself into her again. I wished I’d stolen just one more kiss from her before I cut off that possibility completely. But I’d done it because I cared about her. I didn’t want to see her ruin the chance she had to win a long-term position with a paper where she could start her career.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway. I knew it was because I was selfish, scared bastard.

  Thinking about Liz’s next date, though, made me grimace. Once she’d finished the “Liz Dates Philly” series with wild success, I’d be free to tell her how I really felt – as long as she hadn’t met the perfect guy along the way. What would be the harm in trying to vote so that her dates continued to be more hilarious and less swoony?

  As soon as she left, I whipped out my phone and laptop started my voting for the day. Alec the filmmaker looked high-maintenance and egomaniacal enough to get rejected by Liz right off the bat and still give her good fodder for the column. Win-win.

  Still, I wasn’t sure my voting alone would do the trick this time. Liz’s column was bound to draw a ton of readers, and they’d all be voting for the next date. I texted Ethan. Being in the actuarial department, he knew algorithms and coding like the back of his hand, and I’d considered asking him for his help on this for a while.

  * * *

  JJ: Hey Ethan - how difficult would it be to rig lots of votes to an online poll?

  Chapter 16

  Liz

  Like every other warm-blooded college woman in the United States, I’d watched my fair share of that dating reality show, “Meet Mr. Right.” In the end, he always fell in love with one of the girls, and sometimes, their relationship even lasted long enough to make it to the cover of People Magazine. My sorority sisters and I had always joked that the producers of the show must have hand-picked the most ridiculously dramatic girls possible, just for the added publicity.

  I was beginning to think the same thing about Philly Illustrated’s approach to finding men for me to date.

  Yes, Monica always ran a rough sketch of the guys in each poll by me - “Entrepreneur in h
is 30s,” “Hipster Musician,” “Eclectic Adventurer” all sounded just fine, even exciting. Then I would go on the date, and it turned out to be a complete disaster.

  As early summer turned into fall, I went on date after date with guys who weren’t just awful matches for me - they were awful matches for anyone. There was Rich, the guy who was cute enough despite his rumpled shirt, who I found out spent approximately 18 hours a day playing video games in his parents’ basement. Where he lived.

  There was Alan, who was a very successful hedge fund manager, who traveled so much that he really just wanted to keep a girlfriend in every city. I would make a perfect “Philly fuck-buddy,” he informed me. I asked him if we could spell it “Phuck-buddy,” for the sake of alliteration in the write-up. He failed to understand that I was joking.

  There were a couple more self-absorbed douchebags - the original underwear model Brad; Louis, the suffering artist; Neil, the plumber with dreads; Jack, who moonlighted as a stripper, which would be totally fine if he didn’t offer sexual services for extra tips on the side. Then there was the mayor’s nephew, Trent, who I would have loved to have a conversation on politics with if he would have let me get a word in edgewise. Most recently, there was Harry, the conservationist who said that any girl he dated had to be willing to eventually move into the tiny 250-square foot house he built on the back of a trailer with him. He cheerfully told me I’d be allowed to bring any of my personal possessions, as long as they would fit in a single storage tote.

  I never called any of them back.

  Instead, I poured my frustrations into my column, which got funnier every week, if I did say so myself. All the guys went by pseudonyms, and Deanna was super skillful at snapping photos that expressed the atmosphere and feel of each date without actually showing the guy’s face.

  Basically, Liz Dates Philly was about as pain-free as it could get for all parties involved.

  That is, unless you counted me, when I had to go home after the date was over and share space with the guy I actually wanted to be with.

  “It really is just what you read in the column,” I explained to Kiera one day on the way home from the office, my phone wedged between my ear and shoulder, making the ache in my neck even worse. “These guys are entertaining. And that’s about the most complimentary thing I can say about them.”

  “I just find it seriously difficult to believe that you haven’t at least gotten into some heated make-out session with at least one of them.”

  “Yeah, I was just dying to run my fingers through Neil’s dreadlocks. Right after he listed the top five most common cloggers of residential toilets.”

  Kiera let out a short laugh. “Okay, but Trent? He was cute. He liked the same things you do.”

  “I know, just…it’s hard to explain. Just not in the same way?”

  “The same way as who? What impossible standard are you comparing these guys to? I know it’s not Josh, because you have hardly mentioned his sorry frat boy ass in the past two months. But I am one of your best friends, and I know you are pining for someone. It is clear as the day is long, even in your voice! So maybe you should quit looking around Philly for a guy if you already know the right guy for you, babe. Because whoever it is…”

  “It’s my job, Kiera! And besides, there is no ‘whoever,’” I hissed, cutting her off with no room for response.

  It wasn’t technically a lie. I wasn’t dating, or even sleeping with, anyone on the side. Not anymore.

  “Well, all I’m saying is that if there was a ‘whoever,’ I’m sure it wouldn’t mean losing your job. Liz, I’ve read your columns since you were writing them. Remember when you started with the mystery of the tack on Mrs. Rigby’s chair for the school paper in 5th grade?”

  I laughed. I remembered, vividly. That was some freaking good writing for an eleven-year-old. At least high school level.

  “Yeah. So, I know you can spin anything. I’ve seen the readers’ comments, too. They think the dates are funny, yeah, but they all say they want you to find true love. That’s all they want. A good love story. I really don’t think they care how you get there. Follow your heart, you know? It’s never wrong.”

  “Sure, Kiera. I’ll follow my heart and then my fairy godmother will drop by with a brand-new car and a designer gown for my date with the prince.”

  “I’m serious, Liz! I mean, yeah, shit happens, but this Liz Dates Philly thing? This is a story, entertainment, escapism. Give them a good narrative and they’ll eat it up, whether they voted for the guy or not.”

  I sighed. “I know you’re usually right about everything, but I hate to break it to you—nobody is asking to be in a relationship with me. Zero guys. From anywhere.”

  That wasn’t technically a lie, either.

  JJ was utterly inexplicable to me. He never asked questions about the guys in each week’s dating pool but seemed to know all about the one who had been chosen when he read my column on Monday. And he always read my column on Monday, out loud, right after I got home from the office and plopped down on the couch.

  JJ managed to strike the perfect balance between teasing me and complimenting my sense of humor or admiring a turn of phrase and nudging me to try to add even more projects to my Philly Illustrated workload. “I’ll cook dinner for you. Twice a week, if you need the extra time,” he encouraged, squeezing my foot where it lay next to his lap on the couch.

  “I don’t know,” I grumbled, letting my head loll back on the arm of the couch. I didn’t miss how he stared at my exposed collarbones when I did, and I couldn’t decide whether that was satisfying or frustrating.

  Jordan hadn’t tried to so much as kiss me since the last time we’d had sex. The memory of that night on the couch, feeling so desperate to have him inside me, wouldn’t leave me alone. I was pretty sure you could have put People’s Sexiest Man of the Year in front of me, naked and ready, and the sight of him wouldn’t make me want the guy on the cover nearly as much as just that one memory of me and JJ together made me want him.

  If only JJ felt the same about me. Sometimes he squeezed my foot, or nudged my side with his elbow when he needed to step past me in our tiny kitchen, or gripped my shoulder in encouragement when I hunched over my laptop at our little table, frustrated with a sentence or paragraph. Every single time he touched me, goosebumps broke out up and down my arms, and I had to fight to keep from turning to him, grabbing his shirt, and pulling him down for a kiss. I knew without a doubt that I wanted more of what we’d done so many weeks ago.

  Yes, it would be complicated, but these Philly Illustrated dates weren’t going anywhere. They were one hundred percent for Phil-Ill and zero percent for me. I needed to talk to Monica about what exactly the plan was for this series - whether there was an end game like a grand date-off or whether she just wanted to draw out this misery - and the increasingly impressive advertising it attracted - indefinitely. After working on the project for four months and eleven dates I had to at least be getting close to building up some journalistic capital with the magazine. Every week more and more people voted in the column. Maybe if I got the click-through data for my column, I could float the idea of ending this project and starting on a new one. Maybe reporting on something that had any actual significance for this city.

  I couldn’t deny that a side factor in just wanting Liz Dates Philly to be over was being able to kiss Jordan again, and hopefully more. Or at least to try getting back what I thought we’d had, weeks ago. Every day I thought of a new way to broach the subject with him. Every day I chickened out.

  It wasn’t that I wanted to be able to act on my crush on my roommate, on my childhood bestie’s brother, on the one guy in the city that I shouldn’t have been fantasizing about day and night. But I did, and the crush was starting to crush me.

  Chapter 17

  Jordan

  Slowly, I’d started to admit to myself that my feelings for Liz weren’t going away. She really was as irresistible as I’d feared. Not only had we had incredible sex,
but she was adorable and funny and smart, too. And she lived in my goddamn apartment, so I was reminded of her awesomeness every single day.

  Didn’t change the fact that she’d made it abundantly clear that the possibility of us being together had ended the day I’d told her to keep going with Liz Dates Philly. She went on date after date, looked incredible for every single one, no matter how awful the guys were. (I made sure they were awful, with the simple programming hack Ethan helped me with weeks back). I may have been disappointed, but I wasn’t a bitter jerk. Rigging her dates to be ridiculous wasn’t exactly something a good friend would do, but it wasn’t really malicious, either.

  At least, that’s what I told myself.

  So when the next dating poll came up two days later, I tried to skew it again - in a direction I thought Liz might like.

  I only knew bits and pieces about her ex-boyfriend, Josh. From the photos on Facebook and what Kiera had told me about him over the years, he was a typical white-bread frat boy who got decent grades and managed a seat at a good law school thanks to his daddy’s connections.

  She’d been with him for three years. I knew from Keira that she’d been expecting a proposal the night they actually ended up splitting up.

  That was the split that opened up a spot for me in this apartment.

  The more I learned about Josh, the only guy Liz had ever liked enough to want to settle down with, the more melancholy I felt. Looked like I really wasn’t her type at all. I tried to push down the memory of her moaning my name all those weeks ago, of the exquisite pleasure-pain of her teeth scraping my skin. Sex was different from relationships, and she clearly was not interested in one of those with me.