by Jill Knapp
Hey, Cassandra. I think we need to chat. Call me when you get a chance.
I hit send just as I rounded the corner and saw Michael waiting for me outside the coffee shop. He was talking to someone on the phone. I walked a little slower so I wouldn’t interrupt him, but as soon as he saw me he rushed off the phone and shoved it into his back pocket.
“Hey there,” my heart rate picked up slightly as he moved closer. I swallowed hard and nervously folded my arms.
“How did it go?” he asked, holding the door open for me.
“I’m not exactly sure. Dr. Greenfield is a tough man to read. He sure did make me nervous, though.”
“I’m sure you did fine,” he said in a reassuring tone.
We ordered our coffees, mine a soy latte, his black, and sat down on an old, beat-up couch in the middle of the joint. The place was crowded and loud, like most coffee shops in the Village. I sipped my latte and let Dr. Greenfield’s words wash over me. What did I want to do when I finished at NYU?
“Do you have any big plans this weekend?” Michael asked, studying his coffee cup.
“I’m actually going out with that guy Hayden again,” I studied Michael’s face for the faintest hint of a reaction. His face remained unreadable. “What about you?”
Michael paused and took a sip of his coffee. I still wondered how he drank it black.
“I’m going to be spending most of the day Saturday doing work, and then Sunday I might be getting brunch with Angela by where she lives in Brooklyn Heights.”
“So the two of you are dating,” I said, not as much as a question but more as a statement.
“I’m not sure,” he offered. He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something, but then pressed his lips into a tight smile. “Is it okay that I’m talking to you about this? I mean, is it weird?”
Of course it was weird. Just a few months ago I was madly in love with Michael. But in all fairness I had told him about Hayden, so I guess it was my turn to feel uncomfortable.
“No,” I lied. “It’s perfectly fine. I mean, we’re friends. Right?” I reached over and grabbed his coffee, taking a sip.
“Good?” he teased.
“I don’t know how you drink this stuff?” I grimaced.
He took the coffee cup out of my hands and placed it on the wobbly table beside him. “I guess we are,” he smiled. “Friends, that is. We were once before.”
“It might get a little awkward, though. I have seen you naked.”
Michael let out a low, breathy laugh, slightly choking on his coffee. “That’s true you have. But I won’t let it get in the way, if you won’t.”
“Agreed,” I laughed. “So, then, come on. Tell me about Angela. Or Angie as Olivia likes to call her.”
“Alright fine. She’s a fun girl,” he admitted. “I like her, from what I’ve seen of her so far.” He stopped to take another sip of his coffee. “She does give me the run-around a lot, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I’ll ask her to hang out, and she is usually always busy doing something else, or she says she’ll let me know. Very non-committal. I can’t really blame her. We’re all busy with school, but I’m always the one initiating things with her. I do like her, though.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Michael had found the female version of himself. It was poetic justice.
“So you’re chasing this girl? She’s got you hooked.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he said in a mock-defensive tone. “But I do like her. I just can’t tell if she likes me back.”
“But you’re going to keep trying?” I ask with a sarcastic grin.
“Yes, I am. And what is with this big smile on your face?”
“I just don’t understand why you would waste your time with this girl!”
“I don’t know,” he laughed. “I told you, I like her.”
I leaned in a little closer to Michael and looked in his big, gorgeous brown eyes. Commanding myself not to melt right then and there, I stayed on topic.
“Do you think it’s possible that the only reason you’re so into this girl is because you can’t tell if she’s into you back?” I put it as simply as possible.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, seemingly genuinely interested in my opinion.
“You really want to know?”
He nodded, reaching over for his coffee, spilling a little for good measure. He was now grasping his mug with both hands.
“The thing of it is, girls don’t usually like to play games,” I declared. “At least not with guys they really like.”
Michael leaned back and seemed to consider this for a moment. “Go on.”
“It’s the same thing as a guy,” I continued. “If he really likes you, he’s going to ask you out. He’s not going to give you the run-around and make you sit and wonder why he hasn’t called. So if Angela really wants to make time for you, then she’ll do it.” I shook my head and laughed. “But for some reason you all seem to love it. You guys love the hunt.”
Michael raised both of his eyebrows. “The hunt?”
“Yes,” I threw my hands in the air. “You know what I mean. The hunt, the chase, whatever you want to call it. If you really like this girl, and you want it to go somewhere, your best option is to talk to her about why she keeps blowing you off. If she gives you double talk, or is evasive, then you have your answer.”
“And if she doesn’t give me double talk?” he asked with a smirk. “If she proves you wrong?”
“Then you found someone who can talk openly about their feelings,” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and shrugged. “And if that’s the case, you’re one of the lucky ones.”
It felt strange giving Michael relationship advice. Just a year ago I would have been going crazy at the mere mention of him being interested in another girl. But somehow dating Hayden made it easier. More tolerable.
Michael shook his coffee cup, indicating that it was empty and let out a sigh.
“We should do this more often,” he said. “Not just you and me, but all of us. Let’s all get a drink next week after class, like we used to.”
“I think that can be arranged,” I said. It felt good to have Michael back in my life. I really had missed talking to him. “And in light of us agreeing to be friends again, there’s something I want to tell you. About a month ago, right when I got back from Brazil, I ran into Marge.”
The blood drained from Michael’s face and his eyes went wide. “You ran into Marge? As in, my ex-girlfriend?”
I nodded. “She sort of came up to me in the street,” I said calmly. “And slapped me across the face.”
Michael’s mouth hung open and he swiftly placed his hand over it.
“You’re not serious, are you?” he asked with a breathy voice. “She slapped you? That’s insane, how did she even know who you were?”
“I have no idea!” I let out a soft chuckle. “I was walking with Olivia and she pretty much charged at me from down the street, asked me if my name was Amalia, and then slapped me right there!”
“I am so sorry,” he said. Only he didn’t look sorry, he was laughing.
“Are you honestly laughing about this?” I swatted his arm. “That girl is nuts. I can’t believe you dated her!”
“I don’t mean to laugh,” he wiped under his eyes. “But it’s just so ludicrous.” He shook his head and then a flicker of recognition flashed across his face. “My sister must have told her about you.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah,” he started to explain. “She and Marge were friendly. When my sister, Amanda, asked me why Marge and I broke up, I told her about you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you tell her?”
“Not the entire story,” he quickly jumped in. “An abridged version. But obviously she thought Marge had the right to know. And considering we live in a post-Facebook world, I’m sure she looked you up to see what you looked like.”
“Well,
mystery solved.” I rubbed my forehead.
He shrugged and shook his head. “I really am sorry she slapped you. I honestly don’t even speak to her anymore.”
“It’s over and done with. I’m just glad she didn’t punch me,” I said. “Besides, I kind of deserved it.”
Michael moved closer to me on the couch and covered my hands with his. “No you didn’t,” he had a surprised look on his face. “Why would you say that?”
When he touched me, I felt the familiar mixture of overpowering feelings that used to occur. I looked down and carefully moved my hand away, willing my heart rate to return to normal.
“I slept with her boyfriend,” I said with a grimace. “If I had found out Nicholas cheated on me, I may have done the same thing. Actually, no, scratch that. I would have slapped him in the face, not her.”
“Exactly. If anyone deserved a slap in that situation, it was me,” he nodded.
“Now that I can agree on,” I grinned. I took my coffee mug and softly tapped it against his.
“See, this friend stuff is working out already,” he said. “We should have done this weeks ago.”
“Absolutely,” I said in agreement. I took the last remaining sip of my coffee and smiled. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter 20
Olivia
“Okay, that is officially the third thing I’ve tripped over!” Stumbling to regain my balance, I bent down to pick up a random high-heeled shoe and held it up in the air. “Seriously, Amalia, when are you going to unpack? You’ve been here for weeks!”
“Um,” she peered around her apartment and softly touched her pointer finger to her lip. I raised an eyebrow to prompt her to answer me. She laughed and gave me a wide, fake smile. “Tomorrow?” She had just gotten out of the shower and was wearing an over-sized baby-blue robe and fuzzy slippers. I was honestly surprised that she was able to find so much as a towel in the essential squalor she was living in. Not because the apartment was in bad shape, far from it, but because there were boxes and clothes everywhere. Her new place was smaller than the last one, only a one-bedroom, which made more sense since she was living by herself. Her bedroom was very small, barely fitting a full-sized bed. The counter tops in the cooking area were made out of the same fake granite we saw in the apartment-from-hell last month, but these were in much better shape. There was a small, electric stove top and a mid-sized refrigerator. There wasn’t really enough room for a table of any kind, so she’d have to do what most city-dwellers did and put stools to sit at the edge of her counter top. The floors were laminate instead of hardwood like in her former apartment, but they looked pretty real to the untrained eye. All in all, a decent apartment for the $1,900 dollars a month she was spending (plus utilities, of course). I still wasn’t sure how she managed to cough up the money to pay for the security deposit, but I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable and pry.
“Come on, Olivia, I need your help!” she stood with her hands on her hips. “What does a person wear to go bowling?”
“Jeans and a T-Shirt?” I offered. “Oh, and don’t forget to bring socks in case you have to put on bowling shoes!”
She walked back into the bathroom and retrieved a large paddle hairbrush. She then spun out of the bathroom and held the brush under her chin, pretending it was a microphone and she was hosting a talk show. She pointed it at me and smiled. “You’re a genius,” she declared, and danced back into the bathroom.
“I know,” I called to her as I sat down on her bed. There was a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t tell if they had been recently washed or not. I looked around her new place some more. It was the first time she had let me inside since she moved in and now I understood why. “You know this bed is the only seat in your apartment?”
“That’s because most of the furniture in my old apartment was Christina’s,” she came back out, dressed this time. She had on tight, skinny jeans, and a flowy three-quarter-sleeved top. It was more of a dressed-up version of jeans and a T-shirt, but she still looked good in it. She took a look around, scanning the entire apartment and grimaced. “I think I need to take a trip to Ikea.”
“Ikea?” I scoffed.
“You don’t think I’d rather be making a day of it at Restoration Hardware? Ikea is about all I can afford right now. Maybe a few end tables from Target,” she flipped her head over and brushed her long, curly hair out. “I think I am going to blow out my hair tonight, make it straight.” She grabbed a pair of socks from a box marked “clothes” and sniffed them to make sure they were clean. “Hayden’s never seen it straight before.” She smiled the whole time she spoke to me.
“You really like him, don’t you?” I hadn’t seen her smile this much the entire time I’d known her. It felt like she was really over Michael, or at least over him enough to give Hayden a real chance.
“I do,” the smile remained on her lips. She couldn’t even hide it. She was glowing. “And I owe you to thank. All because you made me invite him out that night.”
Amalia headed back into the bathroom to finish getting ready and I followed her. Even though she was glowing at the mere mention of Hayden’s name, I still had to ask if she had another guy on her mind.
“Do you still have feelings for Michael at all?” I blurted out. I knew this would catch her off guard, but I was genuinely curious. “You ended up grabbing coffee with him the other day after class, right?”
She picked up a tube of lipstick and studied it. She twirled it around in her fingers a few times before finally answering me.
“Yeah, we got coffee. And I honestly don’t know how I feel,” she admitted. The smile left her face and was replaced with a look of discomfort. She walked over to me and plopped down on the bed. “When I’m with Hayden. It feels so comfortable. I feel like I can really be myself around him. And there’s no wondering how he feels about me because he’s completely honest about his feelings. I mean look at me, I can’t stop smiling!”
“But?” I prompted.
She let out a deep sigh. “But when I’m with Michael, I feel like everything inside me comes alive,” she said with wide eyes. “But it’s all wrapped up in all of this uncertainty and evasiveness. I never know what he’s thinking. I don’t even know if he still looks at me that way. We actually discussed trying to be friends.” She pushed herself off the bed and reached for her make-up bag. She examined each tool as she took them out one by one.
I flashed back to my meeting with Nate on the subway. I hadn’t thought about him since that night I ran into him, but something about the way Amalia described Michael resonated with me. Memories of Nate and me desperately kissing, unable to get enough of each other. Of me sneaking him into my house late at night, when my parents told me I wasn’t allowed to see him anymore. The strongest were the memories of us making love in his car. We always thought it was more fun to risk getting caught then to go at it in my dorm room. It was more romantic that way. More intense. I wanted to tell her that I understood what she was going through. That I knew what it was like to be driven to someone by pure passion. But I decided this wasn’t the time.
“He still looks at you that way,” I uttered. “I catch him glaring at you constantly.”
She grimaced. “He’s probably just checking out my ass.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Look, I’m not trying to upset you, but do you really think you can just be friends?” I asked with genuine concern. “Won’t it hurt you?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted. She picked up a blush brush, studied it, and put it back down. Her shoulders deflated and she rubbed her temples. “But I don’t want to think about it right now. Tonight is my date with Hayden.” She shook her head and stood up a little straighter. “Handsome, sweet, well-mannered Hayden. Who I can’t wait to go out with, so no more talk about Michael.”
“I got it,” I put up my hands. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Don’t worry about it. Seriously. You’re the only person who I can t
alk to about how this all makes me feel,” she switched her weight from one foot to another. “God knows, Cassandra’s not one for hanging out these days. She never got in touch with me after that lunch from hell we had. I even called Aaron to see if he could give me an insight as to why she’s been acting so weird, but he didn’t have anything for me.”
“Why would Aaron know?” I asked.
“Well because they were both here this summer, and I thought they were going to spend all this time together. But apparently she blew him off every chance she got.”
“Have you seen Aaron since you’ve been home?” I asked.
“No,” she shook her head. “But he’s going to come in to the city for my birthday. It would be nice if we all could do something fun. Cassie included.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on with her,” I plucked some of Amalia’s clothes off the floor and began to fold them. I didn’t know Cassandra too well. I had met her last year through Amalia. Before she started acting so strangely, she always seemed fun to be around. “But still, I’m sorry if I upset you at all with the Michael comment.”
“Really, it’s fine.” She motioned for me to follow her into the bathroom again. “But if you truly feel that bad about it, you can make it up to me by straightening my hair for me.” She gave me an over-the-top smile.
“No problem,” I laughed. “Now if we could just find the straightening iron in this mess!”
Chapter 21
Amalia
After a quick impromptu elevator ride Hayden and I arrived on the top floor of Bowlmor. It was 8:30 on a Saturday night and although the bowling alley was busy, Hayden had reserved a lane for the two of us and we were shown to it right away. The entire place was literally glowing; it felt like something out of an 80’s movies, only with current top-40 music playing. The lanes were shining with colored lights that kept changing from blue to purple. Even the bowling balls were bright neon colors. After exchanging our shoes for the more embarrassing, yet required, footwear we entered our names into computer-type gadget and a waitress immediately materialized to take our drink order.