Socially Awkward

by Stephanie Haddad

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  So I told Claire what happened. How close I’d gotten to distracting Sean from his fantasies about a girl who doesn’t exist, only to be foiled by myself.

  “Who brings a guy home to the very place he should not go? To the very person he can’t see? I’m such an idiot, Claire,” I slammed a hand down on the arm of the couch. “You’d think I’d never been on a date before.”

  “Well, it has been a while,” Claire offered innocently.

  I shot her a lethal glare. “Not the time.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get the jiggling keys thing. I thought you were just struggling to get in. I was debating whether I hobble over to help you or not and then, there you were… both of you.”

  Closing my eyes, I punched the couch cushions. “Is it so much to ask for someone to like the actual me instead of the fake version? He couldn’t even see your face and he just assumed you must be the beautiful, illustrious Olivia. She’s not even supposed to be in the country!”

  “Well, you told him Olivia was your roommate. Who else would be sitting on your couch like this?”

  “My sister!”

  “Look, Jen,” she said, a warning note in her voice. “You were the one who created this imaginary world. This was supposed to be a project for your class, not a whole new problem to complicate your life. So just stop whining about it and fix the problem. It doesn’t have to be this big of a deal.”

  “But I like him, Claire!”

  “Do you?” She crossed her arms, studying me. It was hard to take her glare very seriously when her eyes were two white spheres amid the pasty, green face mask. “You like a guy who calls you by the wrong name, who interrupts his own make-out session with you to tend to your roommate’s ankle, and who just limped out of here like a sad puppy dog when I told him to go home?”

  I blinked at her wordlessly.

  “A guy who broke your heart and…well, you know.”

  My shoulders slumped and I sank back against the couch. “Yes.”

  “Don’t pout, Jen.”

  “Okay, okay. So he’s not what I thought he was, all right? You don’t have to rub it in. It’s bad enough that everyone who meets you falls in love with you!”

  “Oh, please. Don’t turn this around on me! I didn’t do this to you, Jen.”

  A knock came on the side door just then, the one connecting my apartment to my parents’ home. “Everything okay in there, girls?” It was Mom, on a not-so-stealth mission to solve her daughters’ every problem. She opened the door, which had no lock, and stuck her head in. “What’s all the shouting?”

  “Nothing, Mom. It’s just Claire trying to ruin my life again,” I sighed, playing up the brat angle for my mother’s benefit.

  “Again?” Claire shouted, trying to stand but failing and flopping back onto the couch. “When did I ruin your life before?”

  “Do you really want me to list the occasions?” I spat. She didn’t say anything, so I continued. “When you were born pretty. When every boy I ever liked preferred you to me. When you were born with perfect hearing!”

  “Okay, Jennifer,” my mother interjected, sternly. I half expected her to send us to bed with no supper or something, given her scolding tone. “That’s enough of that. Apologize to your sister.”

  “What for?” I held my hands up, innocent.

  “It’s not Claire’s fault that she doesn’t wear hearing aids. Didn’t we talk about that enough when you were younger? I won’t let you make her feel guilty about what she has that you don’t, just as I wouldn’t allow her to make you feel bad about it.” My mother pushed her glasses up on her nose and stared me down, waiting for that apology.

  Instead, I turned on my heel and marched into my bedroom. “It’s all about Claire! It always has been!” I didn’t go as far as to slam the door, but I really wanted to. There was a certain satisfaction that came from a slammed door, one I’d grown to love as a bratty teenager. I couldn’t let myself get too caught up in playing that role anymore, not as I was staring my late twenties in the face, I didn’t wait to be totally pathetic.

  But my point remained behind me, hovering in the room as my sister and mother exchanged frustrated glances. I knew what would happen next and if I were a betting woman, I would’ve put money on a knock coming on my door in three…two…one.

  Knock. There it was.

  “Jennifer?” My mother cooed sweetly through the door. “May I come in?”

  I got up from the bed and opened the door. “I’m fine, Ma, I promise. Just being dramatic to make a point to my sister.”

  “I wish you girls could just get along,” she said, chewing on her lip. I moved out of the way so she could come in and we sat next to each other on the end of my bed. “You’re sisters, after all. And you need to be there for each other.”

  “We are,” I said, trying not to get too defensive. I happened to think my relationship with Claire was one of the better sister bonds I’d ever witnessed in real life. “She just gets under my skin sometimes. I feel like she got all the good stuff and I got all the… crap.”

  “You know that’s not true. Look at you, with plenty of smarts, a great sense of humor, lots of ambition. You’re on your way to doing great things, Jen. You don’t need some stupid boy chasing you around.”

  “You heard that, huh?” I stared down at my hands.

  “These walls are thinner than you and your sister want to admit to yourselves,” she said, suppressing a laugh. “The point is, there is more to life than a handsome guy who wants to kiss you. Your sister has had plenty of guys chasing her, but she’s sitting in your living room, just as single as you are.”

  It was not the time to bring up Tom, so I let the comment go without a response.

  “The difference is, all of those guys were quite distracting for your sister,” my mother said, tucking my hair behind my ear. She said she liked looking at my hearing aids because they were a miracle that had helped her baby talk to her. “And Claire had her heart broken a few times by the ones who arrived in disguise as ‘nice guys.’ Take advantage of the time you have to yourself, Jennifer, and don’t waste it wishing for things you don’t have.”

  I sighed heavily, and my mother pulled me against her shoulder.

  “You have too many things going for you to get bogged down by the stuff that isn’t within your control,” she squeezed me tightly. “The right one will come along, when you’re not looking for him. Okay, honey?”

  As my mother let herself out of my room, and then my apartment, I let her comforting words wash around me. Was there really someone out there who would like the Jen that I was, just as she was? Or was he just waiting for me to shave off the rest of these pounds?

  Can’t I just hurry up and get finished with this already?

  ****

  “So that’s what I interrupted that day?” my mom says now, grimacing at me. “I had no idea you were fighting about Sean again.”

  “Well, your advice was still sound, even without context,” I shrug, smiling weakly. “It meant a lot to me what you said that day. I think it helped me decide what to do.”

  “That’s something, I guess.”

  Mom shifts on the couch, pulling one leg up underneath the other. I can see she’s getting tired, especially considering the lateness of the hour, but I’m so close to finishing… she’d never let me stop talking now. As she stifles a yawn, I consider where to start back up again.

  “Let’s recap,” she says, propping up on one elbow and widening her eyes. She’s fighting to stay awake and I love her for it. “Sean wants Olivia, who he thinks is Claire. Claire thinks she has Tom, but he’s too busy stalking Olivia. You still want Sean, even after all these years. But this Noah guy is just sitting around, oblivious to all of this, wanting to take you out to dinner?”

  I sigh. “Why does oversimplifying everything make me sound like an idiot?”

  “Well, sometimes you just need to look at the bare bones of things to understand what’s
really happening…” she says, trailing off. I can’t help thinking that I should’ve just gone to her for advice in the first place, months ago when this all started.

  “As I was saying,” I groan, attempting to get us back on track. I sit cross-legged on the couch and lean forward to stretch my aching back. “Tom finally replied that he would meet up with Olivia, so all I had to do was convince Claire to go out to the club with me and catch him in the act.”

  I pause, studying my mother’s face for a reaction but she gives nothing away.

  “And she did, saying it would be good for her to get out and about, stretch the ankle again. But in the meantime, while I was waiting for the big night to arrive, things were getting tricky in other areas as well…”

  ****

  Sitting in Dr. Chase’s office a few days later, I felt like an errant child getting slapped on the hand. So I’d gotten a bad grade on a quiz. So what? It was just a quiz and this wasn’t high school. I didn’t really have to prove that I understood a bunch of definitions about sociology to this woman, did I?

  I knew damn well that I did, assuming I still wanted to earn my Master’s degree with honors, as was the plan; I just preferred to play ‘obstinate child’ in these scenarios. And Dr. Chase was doing a good job at playing ‘disappointed school principle,’ so I worked with what she was giving me.

  “I’ve got to be frank with you, Jen,” Dr. Chase said, folding her hands on her desk. “I know there’s something pulling your focus away from my class, and your studies in general, and I want it to stop. As your advisor, I can’t just sit here and let you goof off for the rest of the year.”

  “I’m not goofing off,” I said, a bit scalded by her tone. “I just got one bad quiz grade. One.” I held up my index finger to reinforce my point.

  “For some other students, that wouldn’t be as big of a sign to me. But coming from you, it’s too out of character to let it slide. What’s going on? Is this project overloading you?”

  I looked at her blankly, racking my brain for a constructive class-related response to that question. Blinking, I just said, “Define overloading.”

  She sighed, closing her eyes. “Is it the research aspect? Something about the field report? How can I help you to manage so that I don’t have to watch you flounder for the rest of your degree process?”

  “It’s nice of you to offer, Dr. C,” I wanted to sound polite, but tell her to leave me alone all at once. Claire was born with all the tact, so I worried about my ability to walk this fine line. “But I think it’s under control. It’s just become more involved than I expected, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Well, I certainly hope you’re right,” Dr. Chase pushed her chair back and stood up. “But if it gets to be too much…”

  “I know, I know,” I shook her hand. “I’ll be the first one knocking on your door.”

  She let me go without any further explanation and I was relieved to get away with minimal damage. No more surfing during class and blowing off study time to play Olivia online. No more wasting my time on idiot men and other fruitless distractions. Gym, school, gym, school. That is your life, Jennifer Smith, and you’d better learn to enjoy it.

  Speaking of the gym, that afternoon found me back at Tom’s Workout World and less than enthusiastic about it. Tom didn’t seem motivated to train me without Claire present and Noah was off that day, so I wound up working out with some skinny, bubbly chick that I could probably have crushed like a whoopee cushion. I imagined she’d make at least a similar sound, too, were I to actually sit on her.

  It was a good workout, that left me sweating like a pig at a roast, but it just wasn’t the same. I knew I hadn’t pushed as hard as I could have, that I had more energy deep down in there to burn. I’d found a way to access it with Noah calling the shots and, I had to wonder, would I learn how to do that on my own, without him someday? If not, I was just going to have to follow Noah around from gym to gym for the rest of his career just to keep the extra weight from my frame.

  There are worse things that could happen, I realized.

  It also wasn’t as fun to work out without Claire by my side. Even though I’d have to watch her effortlessly kick the crap out of my numbers and all my efforts, I preferred to have her with me rather than the alternative. As weird as it all sounded, I just wanted things to go back to normal…

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Life had other plans, however, and there were plenty of other things that would need changing before I could even think about “normal” again. At the top of my to-do list? Busting Tom on his not-date with a fake Facebook persona that Saturday.

  The Rock Club was not my scene, but with Claire in tow, I could at least be sure to get through the door. She didn't seem to mind coming along when I told her there was a guy I wanted to meet... once I promised her it was not Sean O’Dwyer. Rather, she was only too happy to help me get ready to meet him. I acquiesced and let her dress me, do my hair and makeup, and instruct me on how to properly flirt with a man.

  "Just toss your hair lightly, like this." She demonstrated.

  I tried it.

  "You're gonna break your neck if you do it like that. Like this, Jen."

  And we went back and forth like that for the entire T ride to Fenway Station. During the walk from the station to Lansdowne Street, Claire's tutorial shifted focus to "how to properly walk in heels."

  "I really hate when these slutty girls wear these gigantic heels and can't walk in them."

  I scowled at her.

  "You're not slutty, Jen. Come on." She batted my arm lightly, then tucked her clutch up under her arm. "Walk like me."

  She sauntered up ahead of me, her heel making contact with the gravel on a half-second before her toe, so her feet didn't clomp around awkwardly. Her arms swished back and forth against her hip-hugging pants and sequin top. Even her hips were involved in this delicate dance across the parking lot.

  Just watching her made me feel clumsy and heavy.

  "Now you try," she said, over her shoulder. She stopped walking and waited for me to catch up. I concentrated really hard on how to guide each heel down in front of the last, lightly sashaying back and forth as I did so. My arms didn't glide as easily and my ankles weren't exactly cooperating with the stilettos heels Claire had put onto my feet. It took about five steps before I almost twisted my ankle and fell over.

  "Oh, Jen," she shook her head, visibly restraining her laughter. "You'll get it. Come on."

  She linked her arm through mine and led me toward the club, as though she thought the power of her body's guidance would make me walk less like a bull. I'm not really sure that was the case, but I made it to the front door without any injuries. That's something, at least.

  The bouncer took one look at Claire and stepped out of the way to let us in. He didn't even hesitate when he saw me, which I took as a testament to how hard I'd been working at the gym. In any case, we got in for free too, no cover charge at all. Going out with my super-hot sister had its advantages, I guess.

  Inside, I immediately regretted my decision to set up Tom in a place like this. It was crowded and loud, with very poor visibility. If Tom was here, there was a good chance I'd never even know it. Now what? I scanned the room desperately, from the crowded neon-lit bar counter to the smoke machine spewing onto the dance floor across the room. Lights, music, smoke... and alcohol. Perfect plan, Jen. Perfect plan.

  "Let's get a drink while we look for this guy," Claire said, dragging me behind her. I tried to stop her, arguing that the bar was way too crowded and we should wait for it to clear out. "Have you ever been to a club before? The bar never clears out, Jen."

  But for Claire, that didn't seem to be a problem. She scooted her way in between two big guys, who were only too happy to get out of her way. One of them even offered to pay for her, just like that. If I wasn't going to get a free drink out of the deal too, I might've been annoyed at how easy things always seemed to be for Claire. Just because she was pretty, life
just handed her things. Not fair. But I pushed the thought away, accepted my Dirty Shirley (that's a spiked Shirley Temple, for those of you who prefer the hard stuff) and followed Claire back out to the dance floor. We found one of those tall tables without chairs available and Claire fought off a couple of would-be suitors, then turned to me.

  "So where are we supposed to meet this guy?"

  "I'm not sure..." I scanned the room again, finding only a tangle of sweaty bodies on the dance floor and a crowd of half-drunken onlookers. Did people really come to these places to have fun? "He just said to meet him here. What if he couldn't get in?"

  I thought about the bouncer stopping Tom at the door. Would he pull a jerk move and keep him out, based on his looks? Big, strapping guy who could be the bouncer himself? I craned my neck toward the door instinctively, but couldn't make out any faces. A few people passed through the door toward the bar and then I caught the confused look of a tall man with black hair that looked an awful lot like Tom.