Rikki

by Abigail Strom

“Once. One time, out of all the times, really early on. And I told him because I wanted to be honest and because I thought he would realize that it’s actually pretty fucking amazing that I only had to fake it once, and that was in the beginning, and now that he knows what I like and how to drive me crazy I’ve never had to fake anything. And I only faked it that first time because he actually gave a shit that I wasn’t coming, which was so sweet—and, frankly, so unusual—that I couldn’t stand to disappoint him.”

  “He didn’t get that when you told him?”

  Tamsin shook her head miserably as two tears welled up in her brown eyes.

  “No. He didn’t believe it was just once, and he—” She gulped. “It doesn’t matter. It just turned into a big shouting match, and we each said things, and now it’s over.”

  “It might not be over. I mean, unless you want it to be.”

  The tears rolled down her cheeks. “No,” she said. “I don’t want it to be over. But I’m pretty sure it is.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “I have a class with him. Shit, shit, shit. Is it too late to drop the class?”

  I pulled out my phone and checked my “Important Dates” file.

  “You have one more week to drop classes without it showing up on your transcript. After that you have another month where you can petition to withdraw, but a W will show up on your transcript.” I looked up at Tamsin. “But I thought you said you really like that class?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Well, then, why let some guy drive you out? Let Oscar drop it if he wants to. You didn’t do anything wrong. Why should you have to give up something you like after you’ve already put so much work into it?”

  Tamsin stared at me. “You know, you’re right. Why should I run around changing my whole life because he was an asshole?”

  “Exactly.”

  She shook her head slowly. “How can you be so smart about all this when you’ve never been in a relationship?”

  “My mom’s a psychologist, remember? She told me once never to make a major life decision because of a guy—at least not in college. She says the decisions you make when you’re young should be based on what’s best for you and your dreams. And I know for a fact that your drama class totally fits into your dreams. Doesn’t it? So don’t drop it.”

  “Okay. I won’t.” She winced. “But I don’t want to see him.”

  “I know. That part will suck for a while. But it’ll suck for him, too.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  * * *

  Later that night, as I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I thought about Tamsin and Oscar. Tamsin often seemed older than eighteen to me—or maybe just more experienced. But seeing her crying and devastated about her breakup reminded me of my friends in high school, whom I’d seen on many occasions crying and devastated by their breakups. Of course those lows were often followed by the giddy highs of falling in love with someone new—or getting back together with someone old—but whenever I handed Sharon or Melinda a tissue I was always secretly grateful I’d never fallen in love… or gotten my heart broken. One of my greatest fears was losing control in front of people, and getting your heart broken seems to make even the strongest woman lose control.

  Maybe that’s why I’d run out of the dining hall tonight. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for all that drama.

  Maybe I never would be.

  But the thought of dying alone—except for, say, the company of thirty cats—was a little depressing.

  Someday, I decided, I wanted a real relationship… like the one my parents had. But if I put everything on hold until I was past the drama stage—my thirties, maybe?—then I wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing. That was embarrassing enough as a college freshman. I had no desire to be a thirty-year-old virgin.

  Which brought me back to the just-get-it-over-with idea.

  Could Jason be the guy for that? On paper, he seemed perfect—I was attracted to him, and since he had a girlfriend it would be clear going into it that things couldn’t get serious. Maybe that would protect me from the kind of heartbreak that leads to sobbing hysterically in front of other people.

  But if I was thinking about guys in nonexclusive relationships, then what about…

  Sam.

  My heart beat faster and I moved restlessly under the covers.

  Sam?

  Sam.

  We were both virgins, which could be good and bad. Good because we’d be helping each other with the same getting-it-over-with issue. Bad because neither one of us would know what we were doing. At least if I did it with Jason, one person in the bed would have a clue.

  I flashed back to Sam’s hands on me in the art studio. Somehow, even though he was a virgin, I didn’t think sex with Sam would be all awkwardness. There’d also be… heat. And desire. And…

  Oh my God. I was hot and bothered. I was thinking about Sam and getting hot and bothered.

  So could I imagine myself going to Sam and asking—

  No!

  Sam was starting to be someone I really wanted in my life. Someone who could be a real friend.

  As I’d just seen in action with Tamsin, sex and romance turned everything into a big soggy mess. Sam was a person I could talk to, someone whose mind worked in interesting ways, someone whose perspective on life I wanted to know more about. That was a lot more rare and precious than a guy I could have sex with.

  I could have sex with anyone—physically, at least. But there weren’t that many guys in the world I could really talk to, and I wasn’t going to mess that up with sex. If I decided I absolutely had to lose my virginity I’d find some other way to do it.

  Having decided that important question, I was finally able to fall asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time Friday rolled around, I could hardly wait for my modeling session with Sam.

  Not because I was eager to parade around in my bathing suit again, but because Sam had been avoiding me ever since that night in the dining hall, and I wanted reassurance that things between us were okay.

  I was so anxious that I arrived at the studio fifteen minutes early, expecting to have to wait out in the hall, but Sam was already inside working.

  As soon as he saw me he threw a towel over the clay. Apparently I still wasn’t allowed to see the work in progress.

  “You’re early,” he said.

  “Do you want me to come back?”

  “No, of course not. This way we can finish sooner… if you want to.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I mean, whatever works for you. I don’t mind staying longer if you get into an artistic groove or something.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “That’s nice of you.”

  “You sound surprised. And yet I’m widely regarded as a nice person.”

  That made him smile, which I was glad to see. I’d missed his smile.

  “Sorry. I just thought you might have a date, with it being Friday night and all.”

  “A date?”

  “Yeah. With Jason.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. You seemed pretty cozy the other night in the dining hall.”

  “I knew it!”

  He stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I knew you were avoiding me because of that. But why?”

  Sam’s mouth opened and then closed again. I didn’t think he’d been expecting me to address the issue so directly.

  “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  I sat down on the stage. “Yes, you have. What about English class yesterday? T.J. said something even stupider than usual, and when I looked over at you wouldn’t look back at me.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Maybe you’re right. The truth is, I don’t think Jason’s good enough for you and it bugs me to see you with him.”

  A rush of warmth went through me. That was sweet. Reall
y sweet. Except—

  “But you were the one who asked me why I hadn’t done anything about it if I was interested in him.”

  “So I’m inconsistent.” He made a dismissive gesture. “‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’”

  “Don’t quote Emerson at me. What changed?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Now that you’re with him, I guess I—”

  “I’m not with him.”

  “But—”

  “That night in the dining hall was him, not me. And I ran away right after you saw us.”

  His eyebrows went up. “You ran away? Why?”

  “I’m not completely sure, to be honest. I do like him, but he has a girlfriend, and it just seemed… I don’t know, complicated. So I panicked. Anyway, when I thought about it, I decided I don’t want to date anyone right now. I’d rather settle in at Hart and focus on my work. I don’t want to be distracted, and I don’t want to turn into a big crying mess when I get my heart broken, and I want to focus on friendships.” I took a deep breath. “Friendships, good. Relationships, messy.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “Okay,” he said. “Good to know. So, should we get started?”

  “Sure.”

  I was less embarrassed stripping down to my suit and getting into position this time, because I’d done it before. Once I was lying down Sam compared my pose to the picture he’d taken on Tuesday, and then he came over and adjusted me a little bit, turning my shoulders slightly and pulling my arm forward.

  I was prepared for my body’s reaction to his touch, and I’d inoculated myself by reading up on the chemistry of attraction.

  In the T-shirt study of the 90s, for example, researchers learned a lot about the way pheromones influence sexual attraction by having a bunch of women smell the T-shirts of different men. One of the things they discovered was the women often preferred the scents of men whose immune systems were most different from their own. Apparently this makes sense evolutionarily-speaking, because a child produced by parents with two different immune systems will be protected from more pathogens and thus have a better chance of surviving.

  Which is all very well if you’re looking for a mate with the intention of procreating, but an eighteen-year-old in the 21st century doesn’t need to think about propagating the species when she dates. So if my physical attraction to Sam was my body’s way of telling me our DNA would combine to make a genetically healthy kid, that wasn’t really relevant to me at this point and I should have no trouble overriding it with the more pertinent fact that I wanted a friendship with Sam, not a romantic relationship.

  So when Sam put his warm, strong hands on me, I was mentally prepared to ignore the goose bumps that swept over my skin and the electric surge that made my heart beat faster.

  My pulse settled back down once Sam finished with me and started working, and the silence between us was friendly and comfortable.

  I started to think about the coming weekend. My parents were coming out to visit and I was trying to decide what to do with them. Of course I’d give them the campus tour and introduce them to my friends, but what about meals? Drake was a smallish city but it had some great restaurants, and I wanted to take Beth and Charlotte someplace they’d love… especially since they’d be paying. Maybe that place on Chestnut Street? Or maybe—

  Sam’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “So, since we’re friends, do you mind if I ask you something?”

  I blinked. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Why history?”

  “Why does it exist? Well, Sam, there’s this whole space-time continuum thing. I’d explain it to you but the math might be over your head.”

  “Funny. I mean, why do you want to major in history?”

  When most people asked questions like that I got the idea they weren’t really interested in the answer—or if they were, they were looking for a superficial, one-sentence kind of answer. But when Sam asked, I got the sense he really wanted to know, even if the answer took a paragraph or even an essay.

  “A lot of reasons. I mean, I’ve always loved history. When I was in third grade I got obsessed with those biographies for kids. The skinny paperbacks with the blue covers? Beth got me the whole series—Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt and a bunch of others. That got me started with history, and as I got older I stayed interested. I think it’s because it’s so hard to understand anything that’s happening now. We’re in the middle of it, and it’s hard to get perspective. Everything’s pressing on you and decisions have to be made and you never have all the information, just pieces of it. But with history, it feels like you have a chance to actually make sense of the human condition.”

  “I get that. You like having some distance from things.”

  “I do. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Too much, sometimes. I mean, it’s good to have perspective, but intellectual distance can be a way to avoid experiencing actual life. My dad was like that, and my mom used to say that marrying her was the only crazy, illogical thing he ever did. She used to say he looked at the world the way a person looks at a map of Vermont. It’s accurate in one sense, right? I mean, once you take scale into account, it’s an exact representation of the state of Vermont. But you don’t want to confuse it for the real thing, because if you do that you’re misusing the map. It’s not supposed to be a substitution for reality. Vermont isn’t two-dimensional. It’s not twenty-four inches by thirty-six inches. The highways aren’t blue and the secondary roads aren’t red. You know?”

  “A map isn’t the real thing. Sure.”

  “But if you let yourself believe it is, you might fool yourself into thinking you don’t have to actually visit Vermont to experience Vermont. You can read about it in books, and study maps, and watch movies set in Vermont or whatever. But the only way to truly experience Vermont is to go to Vermont. And when you do that, you don’t have the same perspective as when you’re looking at a map. I mean, let’s say you’re standing under a maple tree in Vermont. You can’t see all the lakes and mountains and highways all at once, like you can when you’re looking at a map or a satellite photo or whatever. But you’re experiencing Vermont in a real way, a way that can’t be felt in a map or from a plane or in a book. You’re smelling the air, and walking on the earth, and hearing the birds and the wind in the trees and seeing the maple leaves in all their shades of red and gold. Do you know what I mean?”

  I did. “Yes.”

  “Well, I tend to be a map kind of person, and my dad was, too. He used to say that my mom saved him from living in his head. He was a chemist, and he said if it weren’t for my mom and me and my sister he would never have left his lab. He would have set up a cot there, plugged in a refrigerator, and called it a day. Even with us around it was hard for him to connect to real life sometimes.”

  “What do you mean? How?”

  “Well.” He paused. “One time, back when he was sick but still living at home, he was sitting at the kitchen table while I was chopping vegetables for a salad—tomatoes and peppers and onions. We’d just gotten a new prognosis that day and it wasn’t good. I was crying, and trying to keep my father from seeing I was crying, but eventually he noticed. He got a sketchpad and told me to sit next to him, and he drew a diagram of the human eye, a picture of an onion, and a bunch of different molecules. ‘It’s the syn-propanethial-S-oxide that does the mischief,’ he said. ‘It gets released into the air when you slice open an onion and expose its insides. See that molecule there? That molecule is the reason you’re crying.’”

  A little shiver went through me. After a moment, I noticed that my eyes were wet.

  I hoped Sam didn’t notice. “You must miss him a lot.”

  “Sometimes I miss him so much it’s like a big hole has been kicked through me. But other times, I forget. Once I went half a day without thinking of my dad once. When I realized it, I felt so guilty… like I’d dishonored his memory or something.”

  I thought about it. “Bu
t that doesn’t really make sense. Before your dad got sick you didn’t think of him all the time, did you? And if you were away from home, like with friends or at camp or something, there’d be plenty of times you weren’t thinking about your parents—unless something reminded you of them. So why should it be different now? Your dad is still a part of your life, but not all the time. Like before.”

  Sam was quiet for a moment. “I never thought of it like that, but you’re right.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is that whole intellectual distance thing the reason you want to study engineering? I mean, you’re smart enough to major in something abstract like math or theoretical physics or whatever, but engineering seems more concrete. Is that why you’re studying it? So you stay grounded in real life?”

  Sam didn’t answer right away, and I wondered if I’d offended him somehow.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m just surprised. That’s exactly why I’m studying engineering. Mechanical engineering, in fact. That’s why I’m taking sculpture, too. I want to make things and not just think about things.” There was a short pause. “Speaking of sculpture, I’ve hit a rough patch and I have to stop talking for a while. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. What’s the rough patch?”

  “Your hips.”

  “Huh. Are they too big or too small or something? Please feel free to use artistic license and make them look better than they do in real life.”

  “Are you kidding? Your hips are perfect. I’m just having trouble translating them into clay. So I have to concentrate.”

  “Okay. I’ll shut up now.”

  I was actually glad for the chance to shut up, because I needed quiet to deal with the idea that my hips were perfect.

  I decided that Sam was crazy, but I also decided I wouldn’t try to change his mind. It was nice to think that he was walking around under the delusion that my hips were perfect.

  * * *

  The next morning I was up early cleaning our room while Tamsin slept. Except for her dirty laundry, which I kicked under her bed, the place was spotless by the time I finished.