Back To Us

by Roman, Teresa

  “So how was your first week?”

  “Good. . .I think.”

  “The boys on the basketball team can’t stop talking about their hot new tutor.” Justin teased.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I replied, totally lying and feeling even more self-conscious that he’d noticed me blushing.

  “So Mrs. Connor told me you’re an education major.”

  “Yup, I am. Two more years and then I’m done. At least with my bachelor’s degree.” I glanced at Justin briefly. “What about you? Do you go to school or are you already done?”

  “Neither.” He shook his head. “I didn’t go to college. I joined the Navy instead, but I had to get out because I got injured.”

  I smiled. “That explains the haircut.” A mental picture of Justin in a Navy uniform came into my mind. I would’ve bet a million dollars he looked real good in it.

  Justin rubbed the back of his head. “I guess I just got used to getting it cut this way.”

  “So how’d you wind up working at the community center?”

  “After I got discharged from the military my parents kept pushing me to do something with my life, but I didn’t want to go to college, and I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to hire me so I started volunteering at the community center. After about a year Mrs. Connor hooked me up with a full-time job.”

  “Do you like it? Your job?”

  “I love it. I love working with the kids and helping them find something else to do so they won’t get themselves into trouble,” he said. “I know it sounds cheesy, but the people I’ve met at the community center are like a second family to me.”

  “That’s cool.” I was still trying to think of something else to add when the train stopped at our station and we all needed to get off. I let myself drift towards the back of the pack of students and away from Justin. I was supposed to be convincing myself to not like him, but the more time I spent around him, the more I was finding it hard to ignore that he wasn’t just cute, he was also really nice. Or maybe it was all an act. That’s what guys did—made themselves seem perfect and waited until they lured you in before letting the ugly truth come out and I was damned if I was going to fall for that again.

  We made it back to the community center just after noon, and by the time I went to retrieve my lunch from the break room I was starving. I stood in front of the refrigerator staring inside it for a few minutes, until I finally realized I’d forgotten my food at home. My wallet was practically empty since I hadn’t gotten my first paycheck yet. There wasn’t even enough for a slice of pizza, and I was both hungry and thirsty.

  “Damn,” I said slamming the refrigerator door shut. How could I have been that stupid? My lunch was sitting right on the kitchen table at home, but it wasn’t doing me any good there.

  “What did the refrigerator ever do to you?”

  Could this day get any worse? Justin had walked into the break room just in time to catch my temper get the best of me.

  “Nothing. Just pissed at myself because I forgot my lunch at home.”

  “It must have been a really good lunch.” I didn’t say anything. I knew he was trying to be funny, but I wasn’t in a joking mood. “You know there’s a million places to eat around here, right?”

  “Yeah, right. I know that,” I said leaning my back against the refrigerator and crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Actually, there’s a really good Mediterranean spot not that far from here. You wanna go?”

  Mediterranean sounded good, actually anything sounded good. Justin must have sensed my hesitation. “C’mon, just say yes. It’s my treat.”

  “Fine.” I agreed only because I was hungry. I hated accepting charity even if the person offering it didn’t know that’s what they were doing. “But next time, it’s on me.”

  Justin lips curled into a smile. “Deal.”

  I expected that we’d walk to wherever it was we were going, but outside Justin hailed a cab that took us about ten blocks away from the community center. If it was me, I would have walked. Rent in NY was expensive, and I doubted that community-center pay left much behind after that was paid.

  “This is the place.” Justin pointed after we got out of the cab.

  I followed him inside the crowded restaurant. We ordered our food at the front and waited at a table for everything to be brought out to us.

  “I’m so hungry,” Justin said after we got settled at our table.

  “What did you order?”

  “A few different things. There’s some stuff I thought you might like to try.”

  I drummed my fingertips on the table and looked around. The place was busy and smelled heavenly, liked grilled meat.

  “So, do you live around here?” I asked, conversationally.

  “Not too far, I’m on the Upper East Side. What about you?”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “Wow. That’s a long ride in.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said trying to sound cool and easy going. “I’d never be able to afford Manhattan rent anyway.”

  “If it wasn’t for my parents I couldn’t either.”

  “Your parents pay your rent?”

  “No. Well—I guess in a way you could say that. I still live at home with them.”

  Our food arrived. The server put my gyro in front of me and then proceeded to fill the table with plate after plate. There was Greek salad and pita bread, hummus, falafel, shish kebabs. It looked like she’d just unloaded the whole menu on our table.

  “A few things?” I said to Justin after the waitress walked away. “You ordered like the entire menu.”

  “Well, I wanted you to try my favorites. Whatever we don’t finish I’ll bring back to work. Believe me, it will get eaten.”

  I picked up my gyro and bit into it. It was amazing. The warm spiced meat felt like it melted in my mouth.

  “I’m waiting,” Justin said, as I put my sandwich back down on my plate.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “For you to tease me about being twenty-five and still living at home with my parents.”

  “I didn’t know you were twenty-five, but even if I did, I wouldn’t make fun of you. It’s sort of common in my culture to stay at home with your parents, sometimes up until you get married. At least most Croatians are like that. My family is kind of weird, though.”

  “What do you mean by weird?”

  “It’s a long story.” And not one that I wanted to share at the moment.

  One of the best things about going off to college was that I got to leave group home life behind and actually had a good reason to be on my own. When I was in the group home I got tired of being asked why a good girl like me wasn’t living with her parents. It was a part of my life I didn’t like talking about. Who wanted to admit that their own parents didn’t love them enough? If your parents didn’t even care about you, why would anyone else?

  “So if you didn’t think I was twenty-five, how old did you think I was?”

  “I don’t know,” I said between sips of iced tea. “I never really thought about it.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Nineteen?” He sounded surprised.

  “I’ll be twenty in another three months.”

  “Hmm, you seem older for some reason.”

  “Really? And why’s that?”

  “You just seem so responsible, so mature.”

  “You barely know me.”

  “I’ve seen you with the kids. You’re only a few years older than them, but you’re helping them plan their futures already. That’s not something just any nineteen-year-old can do.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve had a lot of diverse experiences in my life.”

  Justin looked up from his food. “I’d ask you more, but something tells me you’re not going to answer me.”

  “And you would be right, so why don’t we just talk abou
t something else?”

  “Yes. Perfect. Because there was actually something I wanted to discuss with you.”

  “You do?” I asked, worried that somehow I’d done something wrong at work. Technically he wasn’t my boss, but he was my superior.

  “I wanted to ask you about Don.”

  “What about him?” I tried to hide my annoyance at the thought of Don.

  “I get the distinct impression that he’s on the verge of asking you out.”

  “Why?” I asked, trying not to roll my eyes.

  “Because he told me he was.”

  I put the piece of pita bread I had in my hand down. “I’m eating here.” The expression on Justin’s face told me he wasn’t joking. “Oh God. He’s old enough to be my dad.” I was exaggerating a bit, but still.

  “So I take it you’re not interested?”

  “Please don’t tell me you thought I was, because I will be totally insulted.”

  “I was just checking.” Justin smirked. “Some women like older men.”

  “Well, not this woman. Uchh. He gives me the creeps.”

  “If you want him to back off, I have the perfect solution.”

  “Really? And what would that be?”

  “We could pretend the two of us are going out. He’ll back off if he thinks I like you.”

  “He won’t be mad at you for moving in on me?” I asked. “Don’t you guys have some sort of man code?”

  Justin laughed. “Nah, Don’s a former Marine. I’m practically a hero to him.”

  “I thought all you military people had some sort of rivalry thing going on between the different branches.”

  “We do. But I was a Corpsman when I was in the Navy, and if there’s one thing a Marine respects, it’s a Corpsman. He’d still be calling me Doc if I didn’t make him stop.”

  “What’s a Corpsman, and why would Don call you Doc?”

  “A Corpsman is kind of like what the Army calls their medics. We go out into the field with the Marines and if one of them gets injured we’re there to give them first aid. That’s where the nickname Doc comes from.”

  “I didn’t know that.” I felt kind of ignorant for not already knowing what Justin had just told me, but he didn’t seem offended by my lack of knowledge. “Is that how you got injured?”

  “Yeah.” Justin answered. He cast his eyes downward. Clearly his injury was something he didn’t feel comfortable talking about. I understood that, since I had a whole slew of things I didn’t like to talk about either. The weird thing was Justin looked totally normal, no scars at all. If he hadn’t told me about his medical discharge I wouldn’t have guessed that he’d suffered some sort of injury. Although, when I really thought about it, earlier it had looked like Justin walked with a slight limp. Maybe he’d had some kind of back or leg injury. Or maybe I was just imagining the limp. Maybe what he had was PTSD. I didn’t know too much about it, but I knew it was the type of injury that left people with invisible scars. An impulse came over me to reach for his hand across the table, but of course I didn’t actually do it.

  “So what does this pretend dating entail?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Nothing major. If Don sees the two of us spending time together he’s gonna put two and two together, and just assume we’re going out. And when he asks, I promise to be a perfect gentleman and not give him any juicy details about you.”

  “What juicy details?”

  He shrugged. “The tattoo you have on your shoulder.”

  I laughed. “I don’t have any tattoos.”

  “Yeah, but Don doesn’t know that.”

  “True, and he never will,” I said. “So I guess this means I owe you twice now.”

  “Twice?”

  “Once for lunch and then for rescuing me from Don.”

  Justin smiled again. The way his eyes sparkled made it hard to peel my eyes away from him. Good Lord, he was cute. Too cute, I reminded myself. Which meant getting involved with him wasn’t going to be anything but trouble for me.

  Chapter 5

  Justin’s plan to trick Don into thinking we were dating, thereby making me off limits, didn’t take long to work. Don stared at me and Justin as we came back from lunch together, not quite holding hands, but familiar enough with each other that it got Don’s attention. We ate lunch together in the break room for the next few days. On Friday, before I started my first tutoring session, Don stopped by my classroom. He walked inside and leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “So, you and Justin, huh?”

  “Well, kinda.” I wanted him to think we were together without coming right out and admitting it.

  “You know, Justin’s a real good guy. You be good to him.”

  “I will.” Apparently, Justin had been right, Don really did seem to care for him genuinely. And for the past two weeks I’d been convinced that Don was nothing more than an old perv. Maybe there was actually more to him after all. Or maybe it was just the way Justin affected the people around him. Everyone at the community center knew him and seemed to love him. He chatted with the janitors the same way he did with Mrs. Connor. He was friendly to everyone and when he asked them how things were going, it wasn’t just small talk, he seemed genuinely interested. I envied his ease with people and, as the days passed, began to feel sort of disappointed that our little game with Don was just a game. I had to remind myself that even if I thought Justin was cute, it was better that he wasn’t interested. My focus was supposed to be on finishing school, not the drama that came with dating.

  The rest of June seemed to fly by. I’d fallen into a routine. Work during the week, and Saturday mornings at the laundromat. The rest of the weekend I got to hang out—mostly with Mike and Mel, sometimes with Susan and Greg, which did nothing to help me feel less like a third wheel, but it kept me busy. I’d given Justin my number in case he ever made it down to Brooklyn and wanted to hang out, but he never called. Our friendship was confined to the community center, and even though Don was still convinced the two of us had something going on, things between me and Justin were strictly platonic. The more time I spent around Justin the more I had to convince myself that it had to, it needed to, stay that way.

  July Fourth wound up falling on a Thursday, which meant that the community center would be closed on both the fourth and the fifth, making it a short week at work for me. On that Monday I arrived to work early and bumped into Justin on my way in. Don wasn’t even at the front desk yet, that’s how early it was. Instead Justin and I ran into him in the break room pouring a few sugars into his coffee. Don and Justin exchanged morning greetings while I found a spot in the refrigerator for my lunch.

  “So what are you two doing for the Fourth?” Don asked. He was looking at me so I figured he was waiting for me to answer, not Justin.

  “Umm, I. . .I’m not really sure yet.”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot the barbecue?” Justin said, sounding surprised and disappointed at the same time. He played his part well, sometimes I thought he enjoyed the little game we were playing more than I did.

  “Yeah, right. The barbecue. I didn’t forget.”

  Don glanced at his watch. “Oops, it’s later than I thought, I better get up front.”

  “So what are your real plans for Independence Day?” I asked Justin when Don was out of earshot.

  “You thought I was joking about the barbecue?”

  “I figured it was all part of our “get Don to think we’re dating” plan.”

  “Yeah, well, it kind of was, but now that I think about it, I’d like to formally invite you to my family’s annual July Fourth rooftop deck bash.”

  “You guys have a rooftop deck?” I asked, trying to hide the awe in my voice. In my entire nineteen years I’d never known anyone who lived in a place with a rooftop deck. I knew they existed, but I didn’t spend time with the types of people who had that kind of money.

  “Well, my parents do,” Justin said, then paused. “So wha
t’s it gonna be?”

  I pictured what Justin’s apartment looked like and my curiosity piqued. “I already told my brother and his girlfriend that I was going over to her family’s house.” And the truth was I didn’t see myself fitting in with the rooftop deck crowd.

  “So you’re spending the day with your brother’s girlfriend’s family? What about your parents? They don’t celebrate the Fourth?”

  I laughed. My father’s opinion of American patriotism wasn’t particularly good. “Uhh, no. They don’t celebrate July Fourth in Croatia.”

  “Wait a minute. Is that where your parents are now?”

  “It’s where they’ve been for the past five years,” I replied, casually.

  “Wait a minute.” I could see Justin doing the math in his head. “You were fourteen when they left for Croatia? Who took care of you?”

  “Long. . .”

  “I already know what you’re gonna say. Long story. Fine. I get it. But one day you’re gonna tell me all your deepest and darkest secrets.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I teased. “As long as you go first.”

  “So, if your parents aren’t around does that mean you live alone?”

  I shook my head. “No. My brother and I share a place.”

  “And what does he do?” I could hear the curiosity in Justin’s voice and realized I’d said too much.

  “He works for a company that does clinical trials during the day, and he takes night classes at Hunter.” It was how my brother met Melanie, in a class they took together. “He’s a Community Health major.”

  “That’s cool,” Justin said. He stared down at his shoes for a moment before looking at me again. “You’re sure I can’t convince you to come over? You see your brother all the time, anyway.”

  I laughed. “Truth is, I probably see more of you than him. But. . .I already told Mel I was going to her family’s house, which means that she probably told her mother I’d be there. I’d feel bad not showing up.”

  “All right.” Justin took a piece of paper from his pocket and jotted something down on it before handing it to me. “This is my address, in case you change your mind.”