* * *
He lived in a studio apartment on the middle floor of an old three-story house in an area that was technically considered off-campus. It must have been quite a trek on foot and he’d probably had at least a twenty-minute walk ahead of him whenever he’d brought me home after chess club. He parked on the street, and we walked up the path to the front of the house and climbed the stairs, which were on the outside like a rickety wooden fire escape. He jiggled his key in the lock of a small door that had peeling paint, the color of which I wasn’t sure. Tan, or maybe it was just dirty. “It always sticks,” he said.
He flipped on the lights, and I got my first look at the place he called home. It was small, that much I had expected considering the apartment was located in a house, but it was clean and orderly, much more so than it would be if I lived there.
I stood still as he closed the door and tossed his keys on a small table. There was a couch and a coffee table. A small TV sat on a piece of plywood spanning two milk crates that were full of books. Something about Jonathan’s place put me instantly at ease. It felt cozy, and it was every bit as quiet as he’d promised. I could see myself living in a place like this.
“I like your apartment,” I said.
He smiled. “Thanks. This was about all I could find on short notice. Do you want a beer? I’m going to have one.”
I sat down on the couch. “Okay.” I’d tasted beer before. I didn’t really care for it, but Janice said it was an acquired taste. She kept our fridge stocked with wine coolers, which we both preferred if given the choice, but I didn’t often drink them. Drinking alcohol made it harder for me to understand people; I had a hard enough time following along when I hadn’t drunk anything at all.
Jonathan opened the beer and handed it to me. Then he sat down beside me and popped the tab on his own. We each took a drink, his considerably bigger than mine. The beer tasted pretty much like I remembered from the last time, and I must have still had a long way to go before I reached the acquired-taste stage.
“What happened at the bar with that guy? I turned my back to order and when I turned around, you were gone. Did he say something to you? Something he shouldn’t have?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
I took another sip of the beer and grimaced. “It’s just that people take advantage of me sometimes because I have trouble understanding their intentions.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I don’t know why I decided to tell him, but I did, the whole story tumbling out in fits and starts. I rocked and flicked my fingers. “I thought he liked me, but he really didn’t. I don’t like to think about what might have happened if Janice hadn’t shown up.”
I will not cry.
Jonathan placed his hand on my arm and it surprised me how much the small gesture calmed me. I stopped rocking and put my hands back in my lap. “Is that why you wanted me to meet her?”
Still unable to look at him, I nodded.
“I would never do anything like that to you.”
“I don’t like bars, Jonathan. I don’t like crowds or loud sounds or cigarette smoke. I’m really bad at dating because this is the first one I’ve ever been on.”
“You’ve never been on a date before?”
“No.”
“I don’t really like bars either. I spend enough time working in one so I don’t really want to go to them if I don’t have to. But I liked being seen at Kam’s with you.”
If I lived to be one hundred, I would never be able to understand what he meant by that. All my life, I’d been an embarrassment to myself. How could he want other people to see him with me, especially after the way I acted?
“Why?”
“Because I could tell when I picked you up that you were excited to see me. And that made me feel really good because I’m pretty sure if you weren’t interested, you’d straight-up tell me. There’s something about having a pretty girl on your arm and knowing she’s into you that makes you feel like showing her off.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Which part? That you’re pretty or that I wanted to show you off?”
“I know I’m pretty. My face is aesthetically pleasing. I didn’t know about the other thing.”
“I’ve never known anyone like you.”
“I honestly don’t know what you mean by that. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s good, Annika.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s very cold in here.”
“I’m sorry. The apartments don’t have their own thermostats so I can’t control the heat. And I’m really starting to question whether this house was ever insulated. I think it’s pretty old. Winter might be rough, but at least I won’t have to live here next year.”
His apartment did seem drafty, as if the house had been poorly constructed or was simply showing its age. I snuggled deeper into the cushions on the couch in an attempt to warm myself.
Jonathan left the room and returned with a sweatshirt that said NORTHWESTERN on the front. “Why don’t you put this on.”
I took the sweatshirt and pulled it over my head, but I knew within seconds I wouldn’t be able to wear it. Jonathan went into the kitchen for another beer, and when he came back into the room he saw that I’d folded it and placed it next to me on the couch. “Don’t you want to wear it?”
“I’m okay. It’s not that cold.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s clean.” He picked it up and sniffed it. “It smells clean to me.”
“I like the way it smells, but it has a tag in it. Tags bother me.”
“Do you cut the tags out of all your clothes?”
“It’s the first thing I do when I get them home.”
Jonathan went back into the kitchen, and when he returned he had a pair of scissors in his hand. He cut out the tag and said, “Here. Try it now.”
It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me. I might not always understand what people are saying, but I know when they’ve been kind.
“Thank you,” I said, pulling it over my head.
“You’re welcome.”
* * *
Half an hour later, I’d managed to choke down a third of the beer before giving up on it. Jonathan offered to swap out my can for a fresh one, but I admitted I really didn’t care for the taste. After he finished his second, he didn’t have any more either. Now that we’d left the bar, our date was going better than I’d expected, and talking about our favorite TV shows and bands had left me in a fairly comfortable state. I knew enough about both to be able to talk about them with Jonathan. Plus, he was really easy to talk to. Maybe he was the reason I’d finally been able to get this far with a guy.
“What are your plans for after graduation?” he asked. He already knew I’d be completing my undergraduate work with a bachelor’s degree in English because we’d traded information about our majors on the drive down to St. Louis. Jonathan was a business major, and he told me he would start working toward his MBA as soon as he was hired by a company that would pay for it.
“I want to work at a library someday,” I said. “I want to spend every waking day of my adult life surrounded by books.” I also planned to earn a master’s degree—in my case, library science—in order to pursue the career I’d coveted since my freshman year, and I planned to get started on it as soon as I’d finished my undergraduate studies.
“Really? That’s cool. I’ve never met anyone who loved books so much they wanted to be surrounded by them. I want to move to New York and work in the financial district. I want to make a lot of money and not have to worry about paying for things.” He looked around the room. “I don’t ever want to live in a crappy old drafty apartment.”
“Does your family not have a lot of money?” I asked.
“It’s just my mom and me. My dad died when I was six, and I’m pretty sure we’ve been struggling ever since. There wasn’t any l
ife insurance or anything like that. Someday I’ll earn enough money to take care of myself and my mom.”
“Are you putting yourself through school?” I was lucky, because my parents had saved enough for my brother and me to go to college. We’d be on our own for our graduate studies, but we’d been given a wonderful head start on our educations.
“I had a pretty sizable academic scholarship to Northwestern. Grants and loans covered the rest. It was the only way I was going to get the education and the life I wanted.”
I remembered that Jonathan had told me he’d transferred to Illinois, and he’d thanked me for not asking about it. But why? Maybe I was supposed to? Maybe it was yet another social cue I’d missed and it had been rude of me not to show interest in the subject. Why were there so many things to think about? To remember? Why couldn’t I figure anything out in the moment instead of days or weeks later?
“Did you not like it at Northwestern?”
“I did like it. I felt like I belonged there. I didn’t set out to … I was trying really hard to keep myself afloat, and I promised myself I’d only do it once or twice. But writing the papers was such easy money and I was acquiring so much student-loan debt. I had to grovel, for days, but the university’s ethics committee finally agreed not to make it part of my permanent transcript if I just left.”
“You wrote papers for other people? That’s cheating.”
“Yeah, well. It’s not like I asked people to write them for me. I was the one who did the work.”
“But cheating is wrong,” I said.
Jonathan looked away. “You’re right. It is. And this shitty, drafty apartment is probably more than I deserve. I’m just trying to put the whole thing behind me.”
Jonathan didn’t talk as much after that, and around ten o’clock I started yawning.
“Are you not having a good time?” he asked.
“I’m having a wonderful time, but I’m very tired.”
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“Okay.”
* * *
Jonathan turned off his truck and walked me to the entrance of my building. I had to really concentrate in order to remember everything Janice had told me. “Thank you I had such a great time and I really like being around you and dinner was so good.” It came out all at once, and when I finally reached the end of that long, rambling statement, I had to gasp for air.
“I had a great time, too.”
“For real?”
He grabbed my hand and held it gently in his large palm. “Yes.”
“Are you going to kiss me?”
He laughed. “I was planning on it, yes.”
“Okay. I’m ready.”
He laughed again, but it wasn’t the mean kind of laugh; at least, I didn’t think it was. He cupped my jaw in his hands and pressed his lips to mine. He closed his eyes, which was good, because I could leave mine open so I wouldn’t miss anything. I felt the same warmth I’d felt when Jake first kissed me, but it was so much better with Jonathan. He opened his eyes and I looked away as fast as I could.
“Have you ever been kissed?” he asked.
“Only by Jake but that doesn’t count because he only did it to trick me. Did I not do it right?”
“You did it right,” he said.
I wanted to believe him. “Do it again.”
So he did.
* * *
Janice was waiting up for me. I had barely walked in the door and hadn’t even taken off my coat when the questions started. “How was your date? Do you like him? Where did you go? I want to hear all about it.”
“Most of the date was good. I liked the meatball sandwiches, but I still hate bars. We went to Kam’s and Jake was there. When I saw him, I freaked out. I almost got hit by a car because I ran right into the street. I just wanted to get away from him. Jonathan ran after me and we went back to his place. It was nice. Quiet. I told him about what had happened with Jake and he was nice about it. I felt comfortable with him. Like I could tell him things that I’ve only been able to tell you. I drank part of my beer but couldn’t finish it. When he walked me to the door I told him I had a great time and liked being around him and then he kissed me. It was so great!”
Janice made this noise like a loud sigh. “There’s nothing quite like a first kiss. What else did you do?”
“We mostly talked. He wants to move to New York someday and make lots of money. I found out he had to transfer here because he let people cheat off him at Northwestern because he was broke.”
Janice put her hand on my arm. “Annika. What did you say to Jonathan after he told you about the cheating?”
“I told him cheating was wrong because it is. It’s horrible.”
“And how did he seem after that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say anything for a while, I guess. I didn’t mind, though. Sometimes it’s nice to sit quietly with someone.”
“Sometimes it’s important to let the people we care about know that a single incident doesn’t have to define them. He shouldn’t have cheated, I’m not saying that was okay. But it sounds like he made an error in judgment based on his circumstances. It happens. And then we learn from our mistakes and we don’t make them again.”
“I did it all wrong, didn’t I? I said the wrong thing and he’ll probably never want to see me again. Do you think I hurt his feelings?” The thought of that made me want to cry, because Jonathan had always been so careful with mine.
“I think he probably just wanted to be understood. You told him about Jake, which was a very personal thing for you to share. He probably felt like he could tell you something personal too, and he mentioned the cheating because that was a difficult situation for him.”
“How do you know these things? You weren’t even there!”
“I just do. And I’ll help you so that the next time you see him, you’ll say all the right things.”
But would I? Now I’d be constantly worrying about the next dumb thing that might fly out of my mouth. “The thing I don’t understand is why Jonathan would like me? And don’t say it’s because I’m pretty.”
“I think you have a lot of wonderful things to offer people if they’ll just give you a chance. I learned that our freshman year. Others can, too.”
“I like him. I really, really do.”
It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt this way about anyone.
16
Annika
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
1991
Jonathan had told me on the phone that he’d come by after lunch to walk me to class. He’d called almost every night since our date, and twice we’d gone to lunch together. I’d felt an incredible thrill when he grabbed my hand as we walked to class afterward, because no one had ever done that. Whenever I walked alone on campus, I would stare at the couples walking hand in hand, wondering what it would feel like, and now I knew.
“Annika?” Janice said, knocking on my door. “Jonathan is here.”
My bed was in the corner of the room and I’d been lying on my side facing the wall, because that was my favorite position for reading. I was in the middle of a chapter and didn’t really want to stop. My back was to Jonathan, so I couldn’t see him as he approached the bed, but I knew he was there, because I could smell chlorine.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I’m not going to class.”
“Are you sick?”
“No. But I’m very tired.”
“Did you stay up late studying?”
“I was up late reading. I never finished my assignment.”
“Do you need help?” I could hear Jonathan shuffling through the pile of papers strewn across the bed.
“I knew how do to it, but I didn’t feel like working on it. It’s boring.”
More shuffling of papers. “Is this … is this in Italian?”
“Yes.” I’d spent an hour the night before translating an old essay I’d written
last year, the synapses in my brain firing in absolute joy at the task. So much more enjoyable than my unfinished homework.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know. Save it, probably.” I was still reading my book while I answered his questions.
“Can you turn around so I can see your face?”
“Sure.”
I put down the book and rolled onto my other side. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi!”
I remained lying on my side, so Jonathan stretched out on the bed in the same position, facing me. Looking directly into his eyes—or anyone’s, really—made me uncomfortable, so I stared at his nose. “Do you want to kiss me?” For so long, I’d envied the affection other people seemed to acquire effortlessly. Holding hands and kissing someone felt like finally being able to nibble at a buffet that had delicacies I had yet to fully sample, and I was eager to try every one of them. After years of loneliness and isolation, receiving attention and affection from another person boosted my spirits unbelievably. It was an infinitely preferable way to go about life.
“I wanted to kiss you the minute I walked into your room.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I couldn’t comprehend why he would wait when he clearly wanted to do it. There were probably a whole bunch of rules about kissing I didn’t understand and would have to muddle my way through, and that took a little bit of the joy out of it, replacing it with anxiety, my constant emotional companion.
“Because it might have seemed rude not to at least talk to you for a while first. And I want you to know that I’m not like Jake.”
“I never think you’re like Jake. I like you, and I liked kissing you the other night. As soon as it was over, I wanted to do it again as soon as possible.”
“I liked kissing you, too.”
“I need to tell you something. I wasn’t very understanding about the cheating. Sometimes I don’t say the right things, but you’ve been so nice to me, and I know you’re a good person. Everyone does something at least once in their lives that they regret later. I’m sorry you had to transfer here.”
The Girl He Used to Know Page 9