by Alyssa Cole
“Hey now, what do we have here?” The guy was talking to Joe, but his eyes were running over my body as if he could see through my hoodie and jeans. I pulled my hands up into the too-long sleeves as if they were what he was ogling.
I ran through the first options that ran through my mind: break his nose, flip him off, quit this job if he was an example of the other workers. I was a grown-up now, so I decided to use my words. I snapped, and when he looked at my fingers, I pointed at my eyes. “We have your co-worker, who knows every single painful pressure point on your body and can skewer you with a bow and arrow from a hundred feet away.”
His eyes narrowed. “She a carpet-muncher?” he asked Joe, still not addressing me, and my anger spiked. I tried not to be afraid, but everywhere I went there were men waiting who thought my body was theirs for the taking, whether I was interested or not. The guy who’d whipped his dick out during my economics class, Brad, was a prime example. I didn’t allow myself to think of Kenny, who’d offered me a ride home when the engine on my parents’ van had stalled. I’d been trusting enough to accept.
Before I could say anything else, Edwin turned and began speaking in Spanish. He was calm and smiling, but he underscored certain words with a slap of the crowbar he was holding in one hand against the palm of the other. I had no idea what he was saying—I’d taken Mandarin in high school—but he had an air of command that was magnetic. The other guy’s mouth pulled down a bit at the corners, but he nodded as if he were listening. “Comprendes, Felix?” Edwin asked, and even I could understand that.
“Si. Yeah.” He turned to me. “Sorry. That was inappropriate and probably made you feel uncomfortable. It was an asshole move, and I won’t do it again.”
I was speechless. I’d been prepared for him to protest and continue being slimy, which was what usually happened when I explained to a guy how fucked up his behavior was. But I guess having a penis had added some power to whatever it was Edwin had said. I didn’t like that his words had more impact than mine, and I didn’t like the grin I had to fight to keep off my face. Edwin had schooled someone for me, and I enjoyed it way too much.
“No problem,” I said. I heard my voice come out deep, like I was trying to imitate their manly tones. I cleared my throat and adjusted to my natural alto. “I’m going to be handling inventory for a little while, so hopefully we’re cool now.”
“I was going to show her around,” Joe said. “Make sure she knows what’s what so guys don’t get sniffy with her when she’s working.” He glowered in Felix’s direction, but then someone shouted, “Joe! We got more fresh meat!” and he ended his staring contest before it had begun.
“Maggie knows her shit,” Edwin said. “But I can show her around if you want to handle the incoming student workers.”
“You guys know each other?” Joe asked. There was no insinuation in his voice, and I was glad for that. I gave a sharp nod. “Good. Yeah, you do that. I have a feeling that not everyone who shows up today is going to know their shit, as you put it.”
He hurried down the hallway, and Felix followed behind, strolling casually as if whatever weirdness had passed between him and Edwin had been no big deal.
“What did you say to him?” I asked as I followed him into the room. There was a beat-up desk at the entrance, which would probably be mine for the few hours of my shift this week.
Edwin pointed out the labels on the top left corner of each wooden shelf and cabinet, not condescending to explain what the tools were used for. “Felix has two sisters. I asked him to imagine if they walked into their first day of work and some pendejo walked up and started messing with them. How would he like that, if his sisters felt unsafe in a place they had to go every day? And then I asked him if having sisters was the only reason he understood why it was wrong to harass a woman, to imagine that the guy messing with his sister is an only child.” He opened a cabinet and began rooting around for something.
“Whoa.” Again, I kicked myself for seeing Hernandez as set of cute dimples and washboard abs. Now that I was actually talking to him, those dimples and abs had lots of good stuff to say. As fun as each discovery of a new facet of his personality was, it set me back miles in my goal of getting over my crush on him. “I mean, thanks. I’m so tired of guys thinking they can treat women however they want. It sucks always having to be on guard because men think they can treat women like shit for the hell of it.” Images of Brad and Kenny and Devon flashed in my mind. Their behaviors were totally different, but each of them had seen me as an object instead of someone deserving of the same respect they’d want.
When he leaned back to look at me, his brows were raised in a way that wasn’t whimsical at all. “You spoke to Dude Down the Hall, I take it?”
He handed me the strappy leather thing he was holding, which freaked me out for a minute before I realized it was a tool belt. I wrapped it around my waist and fiddled with the buckle as I tried to adjust it. Edwin’s hands pushed mine out of the way and began resizing it for me. His fingertips brushed my waist, and I knew he was just helping me to be efficient, but his touch felt good. I steeled myself against the sensations he drew from me. If I took advantage of him helping me, I’d be no better than Felix.
He looked up at me, a question in his hazel eyes. My inner perv hoped the question was “Do you need help out of those skinny jeans?” but that wasn’t going to happen. I remembered what he had asked me before I was distracted by his touch. “Yeah, I talked to him. He said he moved back up here because his dad needed cancer treatment, but he never told me because he didn’t want to mess up what we had.”
“Sounds legit,” Edwin said in a tone that implied quite the opposite. I felt the belt pull snugly around my waist, and then he stood back and surveyed his handiwork. I thought his gaze lingered a bit long on the journey from belt to eye level, but it was probably just a remnant of my inappropriate fantasy. “Now you have his excuse. You gonna forgive him?”
I wiggled my hips, enjoying the weight there and the way the hammer bumped against my thigh. I felt a bit of the same security that came from having my guitar at my back, like I was suited up and prepared for battle. “Since you’re dead-set on acting like my wise elder, why don’t you give me some advice? Would you?”
His lips twisted in annoyance, but his dimples still showed, so I guess that meant he was somewhat amused. “I can’t tell you how to proceed. Sometimes people do things that seem like the best idea at a certain point in time, but in hindsight, they turn out to be the worst choices they could’ve made.” He raised a hand to his chin. “Do you think he’s worth a second chance? You should keep in mind he’s not the only guy on campus. Sometimes it’s best to move on to greener, less complicated pastures.”
I mulled over his advice. “‘Less complicated’ sounds good, but ‘pasture’ implies that I’ll always have to watch where I step. If not, I’ll end up ankle-deep in cow shit.”
Edwin laughed. “Welcome to the world of dating.”
I chuckled and then realized that this was an opportunity to find out some relevant information. “So how have you found dating on campus?” His gaze flew to mine, and I raised my hands defensively. “I’m not trying to be nosy.” Lie. “I just thought you might have some advice. It’s hard on these Oswego streets, Edwin.”
His laugh was rueful this time. “That it is. I’ve seen a couple of women here and there. Nothing serious, which works for me. I don’t think I have the right equipment for that.”
“Ummm, not to be weird, but I’m going to have to disagree. I mean, I’ve seen you in gym shorts before.” My brain short-circuited for a moment as it conjured a mental image of the time Edwin was working on building plant boxes for my dad and got caught in a sudden downpour. His shorts had clung to his body, and noticing said equipment had been difficult to avoid. Arden had placed a hand over my eyes to stop me from staring.
“Maggie!” He g
ave me that weird look again, but this time I swore that I could see the slightest touch of pink on the apples of his cheeks. “Thanks for the support, I think, but I wasn’t being literal.” Great. I’d just revealed that I was thinking about his penis while we were in an enclosed space. This had to be some kind of violation of workplace rules. His next words helped shut off the perv valve in my imagination. “I wasn’t talking about the plumbing. The head and the heart are where things start getting wonky. Blown fuses, lost parts that are impossible to replace these days. You know how it goes.”
But I didn’t. I was one of the few people who couldn’t empathize with loss and how it could change you. I’d known fear and pain, but nothing that held me away from others. In fact, my last harrowing moment had sent me barreling straight for Edwin, seeking comfort I thought only he could give me.
“Well, I guess we can be on the prowl together,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as forced as my words were. “I can be your wing woman. Maybe help you find someone who replaces those missing pieces.” I didn’t know why I was saying these things. Maybe if I was cool enough to help him get a date, he wouldn’t know that my breath caught every time he got too close, like he was right now. Then I would be in control, even if only of his disinterest in me as more than a friend.
Edwin shook his head, and I felt actual relief. “If there’s one thing the last couple of years has taught me, it’s that we can make do, we can innovate and we can push forward, but we can never replace.” I didn’t know what my face showed then, but after looking at me, he tacked on an amendment. “But stranger things have happened, I’m sure.”
“Like my internet ex living in my dorm?” I asked.
“Exactly like that.” He grinned at me. “I was starting to feel a little sorry for myself, but my love life isn’t weird-internet-ex bad. Thanks for the perspective, wing woman.”
“Glad my romantic disasters can keep you entertained,” I said. For the first time, I didn’t immediately cringe when I thought of our shared less-than-romantic past.
Chapter Eleven
The first two weeks of school went by in a blur. Danielle and I fell into a rhythm of breakfast together every morning, and if it was a day when I had to work a maintenance shift, Edwin joined us. He and Danielle had Mythology together, and they’d regale me with stories about their teacher and the strange vocal tic he had; it sounded uncomfortably like a gobbling turkey.
Text messages and emails kept me connected to my family. Arden was helping to sell the produce from her parents’ garden, and Gabriel had taken a temporary position at one of the clinics there. John was busier than ever, traveling all over the state as they prepared for larger-scale implementation of the microgrid system and upgrades to the current phone and internet services. Mykhail had delegated his work to some students at the lab and now served as his driver; he wasn’t codependent, but having experienced unthinkable loss once made it very hard for him to let John travel alone without going crazy with worry. My parents had finally sold off their store and our place in town, or bartered for them rather. Among their new possessions—five baby goats that they hoped would be the beginning of a cheese business. Mom was happy to report that the goats were just as good company as her children had been and better at cleaning up after themselves than I was.
Everyone seemed to be getting it together, but college life wasn’t as easy as I’d expected it to be. My first shifts at the farm hadn’t gone as well as at maintenance, and not just because there was no Edwin. I’d walked in just as a man in coveralls and stinking to high heaven rushed out past me in an angry huff; it appeared a position had just opened up. I’d imagined I’d be reaping and sowing, but I’d been assigned to the bottom rung—compost sifting. I had to go through trash from the dining hall and make sure all biodegradable, nutrient-rich matter was collected for the compost pile. I had a mask, and gloves that went up to my shoulders, but as I worked I heard my mom’s voice echo in my head. One day you’re going to get your sweet reward for being such a bratty teenager. Please let me know when that happens—it’s the least you can do. She’d cackled with loving malice when I’d told her and Dad my work assignment because I’d been such a jerk about composting at home.
I missed my family, but to be honest I was so busy I hardly had time to feel it. My days at home had been spent searching for things to keep me occupied. My chores had increased exponentially, given that we were basically living Laura Ingalls Wilder–style, but even after our household had shrunk to just me and my parents, they enjoyed doing work so the onus hadn’t been on me.
Now I was responsible for keeping up with my coursework. I’d had to read a short story about Pompeii and write a thousand words on it, which was just about as long as the text itself. I went with the title “Isn’t It Ironic?: Preservation through Destruction in Dana Tarp’s Tale of Pompeii.” Professor Grafton had loved the paper, forgiving me for my snoozy participation in her first class. She admitted to being an Alanis Morrisette fan, which had led to an in-depth discussion of Jagged Little Pill. I hadn’t had anyone to talk music with since Arden had gone, and I’d never had anyone to discuss Alanis with since Arden thought she sounded like a strangled cat.
At my maintenance job, I’d made friends with just about everyone on the small staff, including Bulldog Rosie, who’d earned her nickname for biting a co-worker’s hand and not letting go after he’d grabbed her ass. My kind of woman, obviously. Felix had taken Edwin’s harassment talk to heart and occasionally stood sentinel when deliverymen lingered a little too long at my desk. “Be respectful, man,” he’d say. Like any new convert, he was a bit overbearing, but it was kind of sweet.
Between my two jobs, my classes and school social functions, I hadn’t even picked up my guitar in a week. My fingers were itchy, but my body was exhausted. I remembered a time when I’d multitasked with the best of them, balancing school activities with archery competitions and swim team. Now I wondered where that younger Maggie had gotten the energy. She must have been mainlining Red Bull and sugar straws, because it was all I could do to even manage to brush my teeth.
Being so busy also meant the few times Devon had stopped by my room, I’d been gone. He’d left a couple of messages on the whiteboard attached to my door, some nonsense about going to a meeting for an environmental club with him. I guess he figured I’d be into it since he knew I was working at the farm, but 4-H had never been my style, even back in my overachieving days. He waved in the dining hall during mealtimes but never tried to join me, either out of shyness or because Edwin was often with me. I’d considered it luck that our schedules were so different.
I was slogging through one of my farm shifts, looking sexy in coveralls, goggles and rubber gloves, when my luck ran out.
I was separating piles of foul-smelling cabbage into the compost heap, each loud plop making me fight against a gag, when my manager’s voice rang out behind me. I hadn’t seen Sheila since the day she’d taken me to the compost room, and I hadn’t had many generous thoughts to spare for her since that day. When I turned around, the number of them dropped into the negatives.
Devon stood behind her, and even though he was wearing a mask that covered his mouth and nose, I knew he wore that sheepish grin of his by the tilt of his head and the hunch of his shoulders. Sheila’s eyes were tight above her mask, like she could only stand being in the room for a few moments. “Margaret, this is Devon. He’s just been transferred over from the Student Center. You’re great at this job, so I’ll let you show him the ropes.”
Then she scurried out of the room, leaving me in the company of the last person I wanted to be alone with. I regretted not pelting her with a handful of rotting cabbage as she fled; instead, I turned to the pile in front of me and went back to my job.
“It’s simple. Step one, open one of the bags of trash. Step two, separate all the things that can go into a compost heap—egg shells, vegetable matter
, what have you—into a pile and throw it in the compost bin.” I jerked a thumb to my right. “Should be pretty simple to figure out, even if you can’t tell Florida from New York on a map.”
Damn it. That last bit slipped out without my permission. I was trying to project an air of detachment, not lash out like someone who was still hurt over the fact that the guy I liked had lied to me.
“The bags are over there,” I said quickly, not giving him a chance to launch into another apologia.
He nodded and set to work. I wasn’t a completely evil person—after he dug through the first bag without complaint, I broke and let him know where the rubber gloves were kept.
After a while, the silence of another person trying not to annoy me was heavy enough that I finally cracked. “You must have really pissed someone off to get stuck with this job,” I said, pretending it wasn’t a big deal that I’d initiated conversation.
This doesn’t mean I forgive him.
He chuckled. “Let’s just say I had a difference of opinion with my supervisor at the Student Activity Center.”
“How so?”
“She thought I should work at the SAC, and I thought my talents could be better used elsewhere.”
I laughed, but then something occurred to me. “So, you asked to be moved to the farm and they did it? I thought it was tough to get out of a job once you’d been assigned for a semester.” Because the whole work-for-credits program was new, the school administration was trying to be strict about reallocating people after they’d been assigned. Once you gave people the idea they had a choice in a situation like this one, it was all downhill. People would be begging to be assigned with their friends or boyfriends, to be moved to cushier positions, to jobs where they had to do less physical labor. I’d read a history of the Soviet Union I’d found at my parents’ house; Oswego wasn’t a gulag by any stretch of the imagination, but it seemed strange to just give a freshman whatever he wanted.