UI 101

by M. K. Claeys

  I nodded, unsure whether he wanted me to speak and deducing it was probably better to play it safe and stay silent.

  “I care about you a lot, you know that, right?”

  I nodded again, slowly.

  “And I want you to do what is best for you, even if it hurts us, okay?”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Jamaal once again silenced me with a finger.

  “I looked up online what exactly you had to do to apply for this program of yours. It’s insane. I don’t know when you had the time to get so many references, let alone write a five-page essay on why you should be selected. I also don’t know how you kept it from all of us, but I think I know why you did. If there was any reason why you couldn’t get in, you didn’t want us to feel sorry for you. If we didn’t know you had been turned down, it would be as if it had never happened.”

  I thought about denying it, but I knew there was no use. As usual, Jamaal was completely right.

  “I get that,” Jamaal continued, “I really do. But I also want you to know that I wish you had told me. I want to be a part of everything in your life, not just the happy stuff. The disappointments, the setbacks—everything—on top of the joy.

  “Looking all that stuff up made me realize everything you put into this program before it even started. Looking at the reports from other study abroad participants made me realize how important this is for your education and for your own personal development.” Jamaal took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling for a moment. It was dark, but I thought I saw a few tears brimming in his eyes. “I want you to do this, Mitzy. I want you to go, and I want you to have the time of your life. And you can’t do that if you’re worrying about me.”

  “Jamaal, I—”

  “Mitzy, please don’t. You’ll think about this, and you’ll realize I’m right. This is something you and I can’t do together. We just can’t. We’ll ruin ourselves without even trying, and then we’ll resent it. We’ll resent ourselves, and we’ll resent each other. I need to let you go, and you need to let me go. We need to do it for each other, okay? We need to promise that we’ll take this time and not hold back; that we’ll take this time to be selfish and only care about the moment and what we want in it. I want you to do this. I need you to do this. For me. Okay? Do you think you can?”

  I thought for a moment, knowing Jamaal wouldn’t want me to answer until I was completely sure of what I was saying. Could I do this without him? Or rather, as he’d said it, could I do it with him? Could I learn and experience everything this program was designed for me to experience while leaving my boyfriend at home?

  And right away I knew my answer.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” He sounded surprised.

  “Yes, Jamaal. I hate it, but yes. You’re right. If we go off together and end up missing opportunities, we’ll hate ourselves and each other. If we go off separately and become closer to the people we want to be, then it was a right decision. If we go off separately and come back and know after everything that we still want to be together, then it was still the right thing to do.

  “So yes. I can do it. I think I have to, even if I don’t like it.”

  Jamaal kissed my forehead. “I hate it, too. But I wouldn’t be doing you any favors by being selfish and keeping you, you know what I mean?” I nodded. “So I need to let you go. I know this. But not right now. Right now, I need to love you. Is that okay?”

  I smiled. “Right now, I need to love you too. We can let go tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  25

  Auraelia

  Exam week was upon us once again, and this time it was final. It was Friday afternoon, and I could hardly stand it any longer. I’d been cramming every spare minute of the past two weeks, and Ryn, ignited by my enthusiasm apparently, had kept her nose to the grindstone right with me. We had our box fan in the window, and I had the door open to tempt any semblance of a breeze through our room. I crunched away at my laptop, doing an online review for my Psych 280 class, and a nice breeze from the hallway played across my face as I studied. I took a moment to myself, closed my eyes, stretched my arms over my head, and leaned against the back of my chair, popping a few of my vertebrae back into place and adjusting Tonic on my lap. It was a good thing we’d taught the kittens right from the beginning not to run out of the door. They kind of avoided it like the plague now. Sometimes I felt bad about keeping Gin and Tonic cooped up in our little box, but we were moving to an apartment next year, so it wasn’t for long. And we had made them a killer bed up on the window seat where they could watch birds, so they were pretty happy.

  It was finally Birkenstock weather, and I had wasted no time pulling out the favorites of my New Mexican wardrobe. The skirts were especially good at keeping me cool in the exceptionally nice April weather. I propped my bare feet up on the desk, leaning the chair back on its hind legs, and closed my internet browser, waiting for my scores to be emailed to me. Picking up my textbook, I tried to find answers to questions I had been unsure of and pulled my hair back into a loose ponytail to keep it from falling into my face. The nice, gentle breeze was back, bringing with it smells of flowers from the gardens in front of the dormitory and a certain other specific scent that I couldn’t quite make out. All of a sudden it hit me with the force of a Mac truck.

  Men’s cologne.

  Specifically: Curve.

  There was a knock at my open door. I looked up from my desk and nearly fell off my chair. My abnormal psychology textbook slid out of my hands and fell to the tile floor with a crash, startling Tonic. She dug her kitten claws into my legs and hissed, then took off like a shot under the bed as I gave a shriek. But it wasn’t my punctured thighs that had prompted my yells. Dave Baxter was standing in my doorway.

  Oh. My. God. I think I am going to throw up. Or have a panic attack. Or maybe both.

  “So this is Illington, huh?” he commented casually, leaning against the frame of my door as if he had done it a million times since Sunday and had every right to be there.

  Which he so doesn’t!

  “Nice. I like the gardens, but there are no cacti.”

  “Dave?” I squeaked. I cleared my throat harshly and started again. “Dave Baxter. What on earth are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I suppose telling you I was in the neighborhood is out of the question.”

  “Probably.”

  Dave Baxter is standing in my doorway. And my roommate is due to be home within the next hour. Oh. My. God. I have to get rid of him before anyone sees!

  I hastily got up and straightened my skirt, ushered Dave inside, and closed the door behind him, but not before I’d furtively gazed up and down the hall to make sure none of my friends had seen him.

  “So.” He gazed around my room, taking in the decorations and Christmas lights Ryn and I had accumulated over the year. “Illington. Not Bloomington.”

  “Right.”

  Exactly. Illington. As in, like, twelve hours from Evansdale. What the hell is he doing here? He is totally invading my personal space!

  “So you like it here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Made lots of new friends, then?”

  “Yeah.” I could see he was looking for more than a one-word answer there, so I began to elaborate. “My roommate, Ryn”—I gestured to a picture of us on the shelf behind him—“is really cool. She just declared poly-sci this spring. And our friend Mitzy”—another picture—“is from Tennessee; she’s a history major. Then there’s Brad, Paul, Jamaal, Kate, Maliha…lots of people, but those are the most important ones.”

  “And you’re majoring in Scientology?”

  “Psychology.”

  “Cool, cool. Psychology, right, of course. The Freud guy. So, I, um…”

  “Spit it out, Dave.”

  I was tired of small talk. I had never liked it to begin with, and I especially hated sharing pointless facts about my life with an ex-boyfriend that had cheated on me. It was beyond ti
me to get to the point so I could nod and smile and then tell him to get the hell out before anyone saw him. His presence would only cause multiple interrogations, all of them awkward, and my past being dragged out into the open for all to see. Dave Baxter was nothing but dirty laundry to me, and I did not want him being aired out in public.

  “As educational as it is to make meaningless chit-chat with you,” I continued, holding up a hand to stem his protests, “I know you didn’t come all the way to Illington to talk to me about my friends that you’ve never even met, and I also know that you didn’t come over here to catch up with a long-lost friend who went away to school.

  “We”—I pointed my finger back and forth between us—“are not friends. Because friends wouldn’t betray one another the way you betrayed me. You obviously want something, so get it over with and ask for it so I can tell you no and then you can be on your merry way.”

  He blanched and had the audacity to look hurt. “I don’t want anything from you, Auraelia, except maybe for you to actually listen this time when I try to tell you I’m sorry.”

  Wait a minute. Dave Baxter wanted to apologize to me, Auraelia Formosus? Okay, so maybe I had been a little harsh.

  I folded my arms across my chest, and when he looked questioningly at me, I simply said, “You’ve got five minutes.”

  Because any longer than that and my roommate might come home. And then I would have no way of denying a corporeal New Mexican presence.

  Even I’m not that good.

  “Really? Right, yeah, okay. Apology. Well, Auraelia, I’m sorry. I really, truly am sorry. I was cruel.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “Right. And I totally deserve for you to hate me.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I never should have cheated on you—”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “And especially not with your best friend.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “And I know you would never take me back, and well, not that I want you to or anything…”

  I had nothing to say to that. Dave, though, apparently took my silence for disbelief.

  “Okay, well, maybe the sentimental part of me wishes we could get back together and make it work, but the logical part of me says that, at best, I could hope for a lack of open hostility. Either way, I just…well, I want to tell you I’m sorry, I really, really am. I wouldn’t have driven twelve hours to tell you if I wasn’t.

  “And I hope you won’t hate me anymore. Because you’re a really great person, Auraelia, and really great people don’t come around that often. Especially to Evansdale. Really great people move out of Evansdale as soon as possible and go to wonderful places like Illington, Indiana, where they will be appreciated.”

  Well now. The sentimental part of me wanted to hug him and tell him that I forgave him, but the logical part of me was saying that this apology had probably been pre-meditated since Christmas, if not last summer, and there had to be a “but.”

  “Auraelia, I…”

  Oh, here it comes! I knew it was too good to be true.

  “Auraelia.” He leaned in conspiratorially, and I leaned into him so he could whisper in my ear. “Becky says she’s pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “She says she’s pregnant.”

  The careful façade he’d been putting up since the moment he’d entered my room crumbled, and the broken boy came falling through. All pretense of a cool, calm exterior vanished, and I was left with probably the truest version of Dave Baxter the world had ever seen.

  “And I don’t know what to do!” he cried, flopping down on my futon.

  Gin weaseled her way out from under Ryn’s desk chair and plopped herself in his lap. I watched him absent-mindedly stroke her back as he rambled.

  Man, Ryn’s cat is such a lap-slut.

  “I remembered what you said over Christmas, that you were living in Illington and you liked how it wasn’t a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business and that people were honest and sincere and smart.

  “You’re all of those things too, Auraelia, and I drove all the way from Evansdale because I knew that maybe, just maybe, you might be able to tell me what I should do. You’re smart, Auraelia, and you know what our town is like. And if anyone could figure this out, it would be you. And you’re trustworthy—not that I deserve to be able to confide in you, but just…tell me what to do, Auraelia, please!”

  Dave Baxter, bane of my teenage existence, appeared about ready to cry. And after the heartfelt apology he had just delivered, I could only do one thing. I took pity on him.

  “Honestly, Dave?”

  “Yeah. Honestly. I really need help, Auraelia, and you’re the first—the only—person I can go to. Why else would I drive over a thousand miles?”

  Well, wasn’t that a nice thing to say?

  “Well, that and I knew that if I just called, you would hang up on me. I knew that if I made a gesture, a really, really big gesture, that you would have to take the time to at least listen to me. And then maybe, if I was lucky, you wouldn’t hate me anymore, either.” He paused, took a breath, and then added, “That, and I really, really needed to get out of Evansdale. Even if just for a weekend. I needed to clear my head and figure this out away from Becky and away from the rumor mill. I needed to go where no one could find me, and this seemed like the perfect place. After all, no one’s been able to find you.”

  Well, wasn’t that a little bit more like the “but” I was looking for? But still, I had to admit driving over a thousand miles just on the off-chance that I might give him advice? Wow.

  “So Becky Jackson says she’s pregnant,” I surmised, “and you want me to tell you what I think you should do?”

  “Please, Auraelia. Please help me.”

  Dave Baxter, the most popular guy in Evansdale, high school quarterback, town hero and all-around Mr. Fix It who could make your car run with a rubber band and sealing wax, had a single tear rolling down his cheek. I handed him a tissue and a clove cigarette as I turned the fan around so the air would blow out the window while we smoked. Dave Baxter, thorn in my side and long-time enemy, joined me on my window seat and stared out at the gardens with me as we inhaled silently, each with a kitten purring in our laps. I took a minute for the nicotine and the vanilla-smelling cloves to help me ingest what I had just been told and cleared my thoughts.

  “I hate to be so blunt about it, Dave, but if I were you, the very first thing I would do is find out whether or not it’s mine.” His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “That is, of course,” I continued, “if a baby actually pops out of her in nine months. And along that line, if you haven’t already stopped sleeping with her, you should. If she’s not really pregnant, she’ll keep trying until it happens. If I know Becky, and I do, I would be willing to bet my next financial aid check that there’re at least three other potential baby-daddies out there.”

  Dave exhaled deeply, blowing a large cloud of smoke out the window through the fan. “You really think so? You think it might not even be mine?”

  “If she’s even pregnant, I’d say there’s a good chance it’s not yours. Becky Jackson holds on to girlish fantasies longer than I do grudges.”

  He cracked a smile at that one.

  “I’m sure she would love to live her life as the high school sweetheart of the star quarterback. If she wants you, there is nothing she wouldn’t do to keep you.”

  “Seriously?”

  “As a heart attack. Is there any reason that Becky would think your relationship isn’t going to be for life?”

  He thought about it. “I suppose. I mean, we’ve been fighting, like, every other day since Christmas. I think it all started because she saw me talking to you at the kegger.”

  “She probably thinks we’ve been carrying on some illicit long-distance affair or something,” I muttered.

  “Which is stupid. The whole town knows how much you hate me, thanks to the whole orange soda and granola
incident, not to mention the beer at Christmas. It made me break out, so I had almost two weeks of being reminded of it every time I looked in the mirror.”

  I laughed. Really hard. And before I knew it, Dave Baxter was laughing with me.

  “That was pretty funny, wasn’t it?” he mused. “And I mean, I did deserve it.”

  “Yeah. You kind of did. And I’m not sorry I did it, but I am glad that we can laugh about it together.”

  “It only took a year.”

  “Well, it could have been forever if you didn’t have the nuts to show up here,” I commented, and then I hesitated. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, Rae. “I’m glad you came, Dave.”

  “Thanks, Auraelia. Me too.”

  We smiled at one another, flicked our cloves out of the miniscule hole in the screen, and sat silently in the window for a time, each reflecting on our own thoughts. I don’t know what Dave was thinking about, although I imagined it being something along the lines of how Becky Jackson was a slut, but I know I was thinking about how it felt like such an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

  “So,” Dave began after a time, “you think she’s saying she’s pregnant so I’ll do the honorable thing and marry her or something? Because she wants to hold on to that hope that we’ll be the town’s it couple, having been together since high school and all? Because she wants to keep a claim on me where no one else could—not even her best friend?”

  I nodded.

  “And then, once we got married, she’d sleep with me in hopes of getting herself pregnant, if she wasn’t already, so she’d have a legitimate argument to keep me in her life?” Poor Dave looked like he was about to vomit. “Who would stoop that low?”

  “Becky would stoop that low,” I assured him. “I mean, look at how she treated me.” It was all becoming clear, a year later. “Becky wanted you, and I got you, so she snuck in and snaked you away in the only way she knew how, and now she’s afraid it might have all been for naught. She lost her best friend in that gamble, and if it were to turn out that she didn’t take the entire pot, that is to say, you… Well, what more does she have to lose?”