by Davis, Jarod
“Your sense of romance never ceases to amaze me.”
“Be sarcastic all you want, but we both know I’m right. You ask her out once, and that’s your chance. She’ll say yes or no and that’ll be it. No pressure, right?”
“No pressure.”
“You don’t think she could change her mind later?”
Jeremiah said, “She could in the same sense she could decide to eat her hand or drive down someone’s grandmother for the jollies of it. Physical potential? Sure, she could do it in theory. Will it actually happen? No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Have you ever changed your mind?”
“A girl’s never asked me out.”
“Then you just have to trust me.”
“Because you know everything.”
“Now you’re learning,” Jeremiah chuckled at the universe. “I’m the guy who always reads. I have to know what I’m talking about, right?”
“You’re the guy who likes talking, whether or not he’s right.”
“Evidence?”
“You’re wrong now.”
“Prove it.” Jeremiah said, “Ask her out. Do it wrong, some way you know will fail. Tug her pigtails as you demand she go get some pizza with you. Then try it again a few days later. Let’s see what happens.”
“No.”
“Because you know I’m right.”
“Because I’m not willing to risk her to prove a point,” Timothy said.
“How gentlemanly.”
After a second to think about what his friend said, Timothy shook his head. “I care about her. I really care about her. Have you ever felt like that about someone?” Jeremiah had wormed his way through a couple of relationships. He was the guy who’d date a girl if he thought he’d learn something new. Attraction wasn’t important, just the information he could win. And in a year and a half, Timothy didn’t know if Jeremiah ever cared about the girl, not just what she might teach him.
“No.” Sharp and concise, it rang accurate, the same way Jeremiah would answer an equation, “And that’s why you should trust me.”
“Because of a lack of experience?”
“Because I’m objective. I get into relationships without feeling.”
“Like a sociopath?”
“Like a scholar. No one else watches people like me. You should believe me.” It wasn’t a bad argument, and it made something in Timothy’s stomach drop. If Jeremiah was right, that’d mean he had one shot, one chance to ask Jenny out. And then he would know if he got to be with her, if everything he wanted and hoped for six months might happen.
“What do you think I should do?”
“What do you know about her?”
Timothy ran through her favorite movie, favorite song, favorite dinner, favorite flavor of ice-cream, all of those tiny factoids he grabbed each time he saw her. He never studied for his classes this hard. Every time he saw her was like a pop lecture where he had to try to hold onto every piece of information because that might be the one that would make something happen. And they were so much fun to remember.
“You could do something elaborate. Go rent every romantic comedy produced in the last ten years and rip off one of their ideas. If she recognizes it, then you’re sweet for the effort. If she doesn’t, then you’re brilliantly creative and still an awesome guy for the effort.”
“Wouldn’t that scare her off?”
“Depends on whether or not she’s already picked you. If she hasn’t, then yeah, that’d probably be a little nerve-twitching.”
“What else?”
“Dinner,” Jeremiah suggested.
“Dinner? That’s not very creative.”
“Nope, but it’s subtle enough that you could say you’re friends if you imply your love and she implies she doesn’t love you back. Silent cruelty. Kind of funny.”
“Great,” Timothy muttered, letting their conversation die because he needed to think. But thinking didn’t give him a good answer to any of these problems. Thinking just reminded him of how he didn’t have a good answer to any of these problems.
“Before you go into this, I have to ask because curiosity is my favorite vice. Do you think she cares about you?”
“We’re friends,” Timothy answered, dodging the obvious question.
“But does she care about you? Do you think you have a chance with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do. Everyone has an instinct. You can look at her, at the way she talks to you, the way she sounds. People are predictable. You have an inkling, all of those observations adding up to one jolly conclusion.”
“Unless this is too important and I can’t see her, not the way she really is.”
“Are you that irrational?”
“When it comes to Jenny?”
“Good point.”
Timothy didn’t know.
No answer. No good answer. Nothing he could accept.
Even as he scrunched his eyes shut with a few minutes left before his alarm screamed at him, Timothy couldn’t guess the right answer. Rolling over, on his back, on his stomach, on both sides, he tried to find the truth. With every thought, there was one big and glaring, gigantic reality that stared down at him.
That stood as the baseline fact of his life. There were other pieces of information he was pretty sure about. The sky was blue, mostly blue in Sacramento. Two and two were four. Pandas were black and white. Traffic could add a special kind of frustration that could only come from shoving a human in a metal box and making him pay attention to how fast he wasn’t moving. Those were things he could kind of know.
But he knew, really knew, that he didn’t know. He didn’t know Jenny. If he tried really hard and squeezed his feelings for her to the big corner at the back of his mind, he could try for rational the way Jeremiah suggested. And that could kind of work. It worked like shoving an elephant in a closet. He could think about how Jenny invited him out twice; then he could remember she did that to get another perspective on her boyfriend—the boyfriend who Timothy just killed. Ignoring that thought, Timothy remembered that she seemed happy when he was around.
Jeremiah would say that’s because she always seemed happy. It was part of what made her beautiful. She smiled. She smiled with the energy and joy of someone who could make every moment great without trying. Part of that probably had something to do with the angel’s soul she carried. If he couldn’t rely on what he knew about how they acted together, Timothy understood that he couldn’t guess what she felt.
Nice people can’t be trusted. They’re nice to everyone. There’d be no way to read their intentions. Shaking his head, Timothy decided he wasn’t tired and rolled off his bed.
And maybe he’d get one chance.
Of course he’d only get one chance, and it wasn’t even a chance because he couldn’t control this. Jenny would choose. She’d be the one with the answer. Without thinking, Timothy got dressed, turned off his alarm before it could screech, and grabbed his backpack. He had atheism today and shouldn’t miss another class.
Half way to his car, Timothy saw her. Even through the darkness of winter’s 7:30 and the fog clouding her windshield, he spotted her. She had her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel; the engine was off as she her fingers tapped to a beat he couldn’t hear.
Arms huddled to his chest for some warmth, he ran to the side of her car. “What’s going on?” he asked when the window rolled down.
“Hey Timothy,” Jenny said. He wanted to shake his head. She didn’t know what kind of jolt she caused every time she used his name. “I think I need your help.”
“Always here,” he said, hopping a little for some extra heat.
“I need an excuse.”
“For what?”
“So I don’t have to go to school.”
“You’re sick?”
“Nope, but I should’ve paid more attention in philosophy.” Timothy didn’t get that one so she said, “That’s something my teache
r said. Philosophy’s good because you learn how to justify anything. And right now I really need a good reason not go.”
“Are you okay?” he asked it, deep and solemn like she might have been broken.
“Oh no, I’m fine. I just really don’t feel like sitting in a classroom today. Don’t you ever feel you can’t go in? It’s like you’re sitting there and you feel your life ticking away, one second at a time. You know you need the grade and those units, but you have to ask if it’s worth all this life you have to trade away.”
“Right now,” Timothy said. Hers was the perfect description for Atheism, for the fight to beat sleep and pretend those seventy-five minutes weren’t a waste of air and time and heat and calories and everything else a human needs to survive.
“Hop in then.”
“What?” Dumbest question ever asked in the history of questions.
“Give me a good reason not to go,” Jenny said.
“How do I do that?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a bad influence on someone. You can help me. C’mon, be a good friend. We are friends, right?” That grin stretched across her mouth, but Timothy struggled to keep from flinching. Friends. Sometimes the word stung like a sword.
“That’s a, uh, different goal.”
“I also want to prove math wrong and write a novel made of one word.”
“Definitely unusual.”
Shrugging Jenny said again, “Get in. Let’s get something to eat. I know a great donut place. Wonderful powdered sugar. You’d think it was cocaine.”
“Exactly what I’ve always wanted,” he grinned, looping around her car and sliding into the passenger seat. A few seconds and Timothy couldn’t believe they were going to have breakfast. A surge of energy ran through his stomach, the ecstasy of hooky. And it was a cocktail, combined with sitting there in her car, knowing she was right there.
“Are you avoiding something?” Timothy asked as she pulled to a stoplight, aimed for Watt and one of the hundreds of donut shops that lined the almost-infinite street.
“A teacher I don’t really like. A class where I don’t really learn anything.”
“Me too,” Timothy said. He thought about Nogales and Atheism and sitting there, he tried not to watch the clock. Awkward silences and copying lecture notes he might need. He told her about that class, and she told her own stories about her grammar class with a teacher who didn’t believe in textbooks or teaching.
“She thinks we should learn on our own. Take ownership of our own understanding or something.”
“For grammar?”
“Yup.”
“And why are you taking that?”
“I might be a teacher. I don’t know yet.”
“But you’re doing the prereqs anyway?”
“Yup. And here we are,” Jenny said, parking outside a shop without a sign. Flyers for community organizations papered the windows so just a few inches of light could stream in. This shop was at the end of a strip mall on a part of Watt Timothy didn’t know very well.
“C’mon,” she said, heading inside. “You have to have some powdered sugar, hole or donut, it doesn’t matter. But you have to have some.”
They ordered together, and Timothy reached for his wallet, “I’ve got it.”
“No, I’ll pay.”
“You drove,” he reminded her.
“You’re my guest,” Jenny countered.
“I didn’t bring anything; I should pay,” he enjoyed this game.
“No,” she laughed.
“Don’t make me force you.”
“How?” Jenny teased, spinning on him. She crept a couple inches closer, and he wouldn’t back down either. They stood like that, two inches apart, staring at one another. Timothy blinked. “Ha! That means I win!” Jenny declared.
“No it doesn’t,” he said. The clerk at the register looked at them like a grandmother watching grandchildren play tag, shouting joy in the front yard, chasing each other with water guns. Part of Timothy said they should be mature, but that was like turning down a free car.
“You blinked. I win. Oh yeah! Take it!” Jenny slapped the four dollars on the counter. Timothy grabbed those bills and dropped his money in their place just as Jenny snatched his wrist. He pulled back, pulling her closer. She went to grab his other hand, but he was just a little faster and got her instead. A second later he got around her, his hands clamped together, his arms around her. She squirmed, trying to slide her arms free of his grip.
“Let go.”
“I’m paying.”
“No you’re not.”
“C’mon.” It sounded odd considering he had her. “I’m not gonna lose,” he promised. “I could just hold you like this. We both know you can’t get away.” Being close to her was like being drunk where he could say something risky and stupid and that’s what made it fun. Somewhere at the side of his thoughts he hoped there wouldn’t be a hangover.
“I could get away.”
“Really?”
Jenny tried to free a hand. That didn’t work. “I’m comfortable. But you’ll have to let me go eventually.”
“Are you so sure about that? I could go for some kind of world record. It would look great on my resume. I could be the dude who held a chick for the longest time.”
“That would take years,” the clerk said, taking the dollars Timothy had dropped on the counter. “Are you up for that?” she asked Jenny.
“Good point.”
“You give up then?” Timothy asked. Her sweatshirt crinkled under the pressure of his arms. He felt her biceps as they swayed. She could have knocked him down with a quick kick, and he knew it. He’d be the guy sprawled on the donut shop floor with the brown haired girl pointing and laughing until she gave him and hand to help him up.
“Fine,” Jenny said with all of the rage a bunny could muster. “I let you win.”
“Very nice of you,” he said. He took their bag of donuts and followed Jenny back to the table in the corner.
“I have a question I’ve been wondering about,” Jenny said, biting into one of the puffy disk. As Timothy debated whether or not he should tell her about the circle of power around her lips, she asked, “What’s a date?”
Timothy was glad he didn’t have donut in his mouth. He might’ve coughed it out or choked. And that would’ve been just fantastic. “A date? Isn’t it kind of obvious?”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. Like I started thinking about this in one of my classes. We were talking about how two people get together, and that’s part of a date, but then there’s so much more and we couldn’t really figure out what.”
“Two people, getting food? Having fun? Building a relationship?”
“What kind of relationship? You have to be specific,” Jenny said, “because if you’re not, then we’re on a date right now.”
“Good point,” and Timothy could have answered her question, yet that would’ve meant admitting the truth: they weren’t on a date. But it felt like one, and that could’ve been the delusion of blind hope. It was like savoring the nostalgia for a moment that was still happening with the excitement for a bunch of other great chances he could take. After all, he didn’t ask her out. “So what’s your definition?”
Jenny’s eyes fell to the table, her teeth running along her lower lip, sexy and nervous. “I’m not sure.” Timothy watched her, a trick Jeremiah taught him where if he’s quiet long enough the other person will think she had to speak. Jeremiah said Americans were allergic to silence. Timothy preferred the idea that people liked the moment to understand their answers. After all, Jenny told him, “I like the idea of it being two people who’re interested in one another trying to have fun while testing their relationship.”
“Sounds more like a first date.”
“A little,” Jenny said. “But I think it works with everyone. People are always changing. Every date is a test to see if you’re compatible, or if you’re still compatible after a long time. That’s why I think it sucks when couples
who’ve been together for a long time stop dating. Like they just give up, because it’s fun, always getting to know someone.”
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“I have,” Jenny said.
“But that’s not all of your answer.”
“It’s enough.”
“You could tell me.”
“I could, but you could laugh and I’d have to kill you, which would mean I wouldn’t be able to come back to my favorite donut place. Is that really a situation you want to face?”
“Me dying or you losing a donut?”
“Take your pick.”
“What’s the second part of your date theory?”
“It’s not part of the theory. Just something else.”
“What?” Timothy asked with his eyes on her and hoping she’d confide in him. He wanted her to trust him, to be willing to say something. That’s why it was a mini-test.
Maybe he had a chance if she told him.
“I like the idea of magic. I like the idea of the unexpected. It’s silly because it’s me trying to plan something I don’t want to plan, like I want to plan a surprise for myself. That’s the good part of a date, the unknown. But that doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“You want something special, something you didn’t see coming.” Timothy thought for a second, “It’s a cool idea. I think most of my favorite memories like that.”
“Me too.”
“Tell me one.”
“My first kiss.”
“What was that like?” Timothy wanted to know. If he were honest, he’d say he wanted a better understanding of his competition.
“I was thirteen and this boy had a crush on me. Steven was a good guy. He was really sweet, you know? Like we were all being told to freak out about college, and he just refused. He just wanted to enjoy his life and his video games. That’s what he did. He was like an expert or something.”
“At video games?”
“Yeah, and now he’s in a special program to design them. In a couple years he’ll have enough money to build a private island and blow it up so he can build a bigger one in its place.”