by Nicole Baart
He didn’t.
Who’s Parker? was the very first line of his next e-mail.
I nonchalantly clarified that Parker was my joking TA and acted like the whole incident wasn’t even worth thinking or talking about. I assumed the subject would be dropped.
But Thomas persisted. He seems a bit immature for a TA. Shouldn’t he have better things to do than bug you while you’re e-mailing a friend?
He was trying to be funny, I responded. Study groups get pretty intense; he was just letting off a little steam. I smiled when I realized that I was defending Parker to Thomas. Only days ago, I had been utterly disgusted with Parker for pulling such a stupid move, but when Thomas attacked him, I rushed in to stand up for the one person I couldn’t imagine needing any protection at all. It wasn’t what I would have expected myself to do. Nor was Thomas’s response what I expected it to be. In some incomprehensible way, Parker had achieved his goal—Thomas did indeed seem somehow jealous. Or at least protective, defensive, concerned in a brotherly way. I couldn’t understand where that particular emotion had come from. I tried not to dwell on it too much, though. It was such a small thing; Thomas would soon lose interest in Parker, and I’d never have to mention one to the other again.
But Thomas had other ideas. He would not let it drop. For a week he punctuated his correspondence with references to Parker’s immaturity or my annoying TA.
I ignored it for the most part and hoped that he’d get over it soon so I wouldn’t have to be continually reminded of Parker in what I had come to count on as my one safe place. But when Thomas wrote that he hoped I was keeping my distance from that jerk, I’d had enough.
You’re acting like you’re jealous! I accused, upset that he wouldn’t let such a stupid incident go and downright angry that he thought he had the right to speak into my life. Whether or not he liked Parker was of absolutely no importance to me, but it irked me that he was trying to tell me how I should feel and who I should hang out with from somewhere far outside a place of trust. We were e-mailing each other. It hardly made us best friends again.
My accusation must have touched a sore spot with Thomas. He didn’t respond for a long time, and I stubbornly refused to reach out to him either. I knew I had gone too far—that I had unflinchingly, almost rudely, hit on the issue that tore us apart in the first place—but I wasn’t ready or willing to apologize when I had yet to receive a heartfelt apology from him. I remained silent.
Whether or not my boycott of Thomas had any effect on him, it did, strangely, seem to have an effect on Parker. An unwitting participant in my tug-of-war with Thomas, Parker became the means by which I punished my old friend for leaving me high and dry, then suddenly—when my life finally seemed to be going in the right direction—diving back in as if he had a right to tell me what to do. It was misplaced, inappropriate, and infuriating. I couldn’t stand it.
Although neither man in my life had any way of knowing what I was doing, I started to be friendly to Parker just to stick it to Thomas. It was childish and hopelessly ineffective, but as I began to treat Parker better, he became a little more tolerable, a little more worthy of a simple act of kindness in my eyes. I slowly forced myself to give him the benefit of the doubt. Where I would have regarded him cautiously, I smiled. Where I would have rolled my eyes at his seemingly endless advice, I listened—and found that at least some of it was worth taking to heart.
In turn, Parker changed toward me. The sly, half-teasing, half-serious tone that he usually took with me mellowed into an almost softness that began to feel comfortable. He laid off a bit in discussion group, and when he had a sarcastic witticism to direct at me, he tempered it with a smile that didn’t leave me guessing as to its meaning. Even his eyes were surprisingly attractive and bordering on warm when seen without the shadow that had often glowered from beneath his furrowed eyebrows.
In this more gracious space we had carved out for each other, Parker seemed to know something was bothering me—and that it was more than just my steadily sliding grades. If he guessed it had something to do with what he had done in study group, he never said anything, but he did make an effort to be gentle with me. I accepted it as an apology of sorts, and though my heart began to feel sick when I counted the days that had gone by since Thomas had last e-mailed me, I didn’t blame Parker. After all, I was the one who had written that seditious word: jealous. I could only blame myself.
It had been five days since Thomas’s last e-mail—three days longer than he had ever gone before responding to one of my notes— when I ran into Parker on campus. I had never seen him outside the engineering college as even our study group met in a classroom after hours. I wasn’t prepared to run into him on the sidewalk between the library and my dorm room, and when I brushed past the tall man in the black and charcoal ski jacket, I almost didn’t recognize him.
It was dark except for the feeble light from the lampposts lining the walk. A breeze was rustling the crinkly brown leaves and breathing a feel of winter down my exposed neck. I wished I had a scarf or that my hair was not pulled into a high ponytail and bobby-pinned in place. It wasn’t bitter cold, but everything feels colder in the fall after a long summer of forgetting what winter is really all about. I balled my hands up in the sleeves of my coat and rushed down the sidewalk for home.
He must have recognized me from a distance because when we were still twenty feet apart he called, “You look cold!”
“I am,” I said, barely glancing up. It was a sidewalk conversation: two strangers exchanging pleasantries because it’s rude to simply ignore the other’s presence. I had spoken out of convention, nothing more, and assumed we would pass each other without another word. But when we met, he switched direction to walk beside me. I looked at him sharply. “Parker!” I nearly shouted his name.
“You didn’t recognize me?” he questioned, feigning hurt. “We see each other practically every day. How could you not recognize me?”
“It’s dark,” I defended with a smile in my voice. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“It’s not that dark,” he countered.
“I was looking at the ground.”
He grinned at me. “You’re a bad liar. You just plain didn’t recognize me. Admit it.”
I threw up my hands in defeat, and the backpack that was slung over one shoulder slipped to my elbow. The weight of the portentous books inside flung me off-balance, and I stumbled into Parker. He didn’t even flinch. Snaking his arm under mine, he carefully righted me and pulled the bag firmly back onto my shoulder.
I looked at him sheepishly. “I was going to say, ‘You caught me,’ but I guess that’s a pretty stupid thing to say now.”
Parker laughed. “What’s this? First you don’t recognize me; then you try to tackle me? Not cool, Julia.”
“What can I do to make it up to you?” I asked, and I was surprised to hear the flirty tone in my voice.
He didn’t even think about it. “Have supper with me.”
Automatically, my mouth began to form a refusal, but I stopped myself with my lips slightly parted. My immediate reaction had been to make some quick excuse and say good-bye before things got awkward. But looking at him with his eyes almost bordering on hopeful and the light wind tousling his hair, I found that I actually wanted to say yes.
Parker saw me hesitate, and before I could accept his offer, he clarified. “I’m not asking you on a date or anything. I just thought you’d like to eat something other than commons food.” He shrugged. “It’s Friday night.”
I was a little embarrassed that he realized I thought I was being asked out, so I tried to turn the tables. “I’ve got lots of homework. I should keep going for a few hours,” I said, taking a step or two in the direction of my building. “Thanks anyway.”
My deferral had the desired effect. Parker followed me. “I could help you.” He didn’t add, “You need it,” and I appreciated his newfound tact.
“Well … ,” I said slowly, looking at my watch.
“I make a mean plate of spaghetti,” he offered convincingly.
It was then that I knew it was a date. “Okay,” I agreed, although I didn’t know if I had gotten what I wanted or not.
Parker’s apartment was off campus, so we had to take his beat-up, mustard yellow Chevy truck to get there. It was full of rust spots and missing the tailgate, but inside it was almost uncannily immaculate. It wasn’t what I had expected from Parker, and when he was looking at the road, I stole quick glances at his profile. I wondered if we’d end up talking statics all night or if he would let me in a little bit. He was a walking contradiction in terms, and I was just starting to want to unravel the mystery.
The apartment was actually one side of a duplex Parker shared with three roommates. It was a messy bachelor pad, but there were posters of Einstein on the walls and dog-eared math and science books splayed open like some half-finished experiment all over the room.
I had to suppress a little giggle. “You live with dorks,” I whispered to Parker as he hung his coat on a hook by the door and then helped me out of mine.
“Hey, it takes one to know one,” he shot back.
One of Parker’s roommates was out with his fiancée, but the other two joined us in the kitchen when they heard that Parker was making spaghetti. He introduced me to the two slightly disheveled grad school students, but I promptly forgot their names and focused instead on making perfectly rolled breadsticks from the Pillsbury tube that Parker put me in charge of.
It was nice to stand in a warm kitchen and be surrounded by conversation and laughter. I didn’t mind that his roommates had joined us or that they were talking over me. In a way, it assuaged some of the discomfort I felt knowing that Parker asked me over because he meant what he had said the day he e-mailed Thomas. “Because I like you.” Besides, the sauce was beginning to smell wonderful, and I was setting a table for four. It was a good feeling.
Best of all, Parker hadn’t been exaggerating when he bragged about his spaghetti. He told us that the recipe was a Holt family secret, and it struck me that I had never even known his full name. I had to think for a moment. Peter? Phillip? Patrick. His name was Patrick Holt. Suddenly he looked somehow different to me.
When I used the doughy end of my breadstick to sop up the last of the tomato-rich pools of sauce from my plate, Parker laughed. “Just lick it off and put it back in the cupboard,” he joked, obviously pleased that I had enjoyed his pasta so much.
I just smiled.
The roommates disappeared when the spaghetti was gone, and Parker and I were left to clean up the kitchen together. “They always do that,” he complained as we loaded dishes into the dishwasher.
I didn’t say that it was kind of nice to be alone, but I thought it.
“Cup of coffee?” Parker asked after the dishwasher was running and the kitchen was as clean as could be expected in an apartment filled with four twentysomething guys.
“Sure,” I said, pulling a chair out from under the table and lowering myself into it.
“Oh, go sit in the living room. It’s more comfortable.” Parker motioned me out of the kitchen with one hand as he measured out scoops of coffee with the other.
The living room was furnished with two mismatched sofas and a trio of beanbags that looked like they had enjoyed their prime curved comfortably around my parents’ generation instead of my own. I surveyed the room for a moment before deciding on the brown couch with blue flowers and then plopped myself down smack in the middle of it because there was no one to leave room for.
It was a little surreal to be sitting in Parker’s living room. At times I had been convinced that he hated me; other times I was sure he saw me as a childish little peon. Watching that change—and more, realizing that at the very least he wanted to pursue some sort of friendship with me—was something I couldn’t quite get my mind around.
“I make a mean cup of coffee, too,” Parker informed me, walking carefully into the living room with two mugs brimful of coffee. He offered me the handle of an oversize orange mug, and although there was space all over the room, he sat down right beside me. Our legs were touching.
I didn’t know what to say, so I warmed my hands on the mug and peered thoughtfully into it. The coffee was the color of homemade caramel, and without thinking I commented, “I take my coffee black.”
“You’ll like this,” Parker encouraged. “Try it.”
I took a little sip. It was hot and creamy, and it stung the back of my throat a bit. I had already guessed what it was, but I asked anyway.
“It’s Baileys,” he said, taking a drink from his own mug. “Not a lot, just enough to relax you after a long week.”
I thought about reminding him that I was underage, but it wasn’t like he was trying to get me drunk—it was a tablespoon of alcohol in a cup of coffee—so I let it pass. And enjoyed it. It was smooth and light and good.
We talked about college life and making friends as an engineering major. When the conversation turned to classes, I made a move for my backpack and the statics book waiting threateningly inside.
Parker threw a pillow at me. “Not tonight!” he moaned.
“Hey, you said you’d help me!” I complained indignantly.
“Tomorrow,” he countered, waving the book away as if it was distasteful.
I sighed, sitting back down on the couch. “Likely story.” I was slightly farther away from him than I had been before.
He slid closer to me. “It was the only thing I could think of to get you to come.”
“You lied to me?” I punched him playfully on the arm.
“I asked you out and you were on the verge of turning me down. What was I supposed to do? A guy has his pride, you know.”
Although I had kind of known all along, I was surprised that he was willing to say it so readily. For all the games he had played in the first few weeks of knowing me, he was being unexpectedly candid now. It didn’t feel like another game. Parker seemed incredibly sincere and even a little nervous, but I still wasn’t about to wholeheartedly accept him at face value. I didn’t say anything.
Parker filled the silence. “You know, I was going to take you out somewhere. Spaghetti with my roommates was plan B.”
I laughed in spite of myself. I wasn’t convinced that this was a good thing at all, but Parker was being charming. What was the harm in enjoying his company?
With Parker’s confession out of the way, we relaxed enough to lose complete track of the clock.
It was after 1 a.m. by the time I finally looked at my watch and noticed how many hours had slipped away as we talked. Parker had proven himself to be a good listener, and when he probed me with questions about my life, I found myself able to confide in him things that I wasn’t willing to share with anyone else. I didn’t tell him about Janice or my dad or anything too heavy, but I did admit my true feelings about Becca, college life, and the loneliness that seemed to come hand in hand with independence. I realized with a start that he was the first person I had truly and honestly talked to since I left home. I don’t know if the words fell off my tongue because they were so eager to be spoken or if something about Parker made me trust him even though he had done so much earlier to make me hold him at bay.
But whatever the reason, as he drove me back to my dorm, I felt oddly satisfied—a sleepy combination of contentment and relief wrapped in the delicate thrill of the unknown, the yet-to-be-explored.
“I don’t kiss on the first date,” Parker said with a sly smile as he pulled up in front of my dorm room.
Truthfully, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but as Parker said it, I laughed because I was both relieved and disappointed. “Good. Me neither,” I stated resolutely, hoping he wouldn’t hear the slight tremor in my voice.
“It’s settled then,” he said, putting the truck in park and swiveling to face me. In spite of what he had just asserted, he looked like he actually did want to kiss me.
I put my hand on the door handle because I w
asn’t ready for that yet. “Thanks, Parker. It was lots of fun.” I cracked the door open, then turned back to him for a minute. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything,” he affirmed, and I knew he would tell me the truth.
“Why were you so … ?” I trailed off because I couldn’t find the right word.
“Impossible? Mean? Sarcastic?” he offered helpfully.
I bit my lip. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Half the time I didn’t know if you hated me or liked me.”
Parker put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it for a moment. “Couple of reasons,” he finally said. “I’m a bit blunt, abrupt, harsh, however you want to say it. Always have been, always will be. I think you realized that the first day. And I’m a natural-born motivator—I wanted to see what you were capable of, and when you walked into statics all pink and pretty, I knew you’d be eaten alive. I had to intimidate you a little or you would have dropped out after the first week.” He paused. Took a shallow breath. “And I meant what I said in study group. I liked you. I like you. I guess I didn’t know what to do with that.” Parker looked at me pointedly. “You’re a lot younger than me. I’m not sure I’m supposed to like you.”
I was nonplussed. “How old are you? You can’t be that much older than me.”
“Twenty-five,” he said as if it was a relief to admit it.
“I’m almost nineteen,” I said. “Is six years a big difference?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Julia, I think six years is a big difference.”
“Does it change anything?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.” Parker raised his eyebrows at me. “Do you want to find out?”