She wraps a curl around her finger. “It’s so funny to get exactly what we want. Because then we realize happiness has nothing to do with such shitty things.”
I nod, even though I think happiness has everything to do with getting what I want. Then, without any warning, even though I’ve probably consumed an entire cooked onion, she puts her hand on my shoulder and leans in close.
“What are you doing?” I ask, trying to turn away from the feeling that’s deep inside my stomach and very alive.
“You never thought about this at St. John’s?”
“Well… yeah, but I figured I was sooooo bored, what with all the therapy sessions and group talks and stuff.”
“Gee, thanks.” She sounds a little hurt, but she doesn’t pull away.
“No, I don’t mean it like that. I’ve just never really been into other girls, so I figured I needed a distraction, you know?” My hands are so sweaty I could give a fish swimming lessons. Usually I’m a spectacular liar, but judging by the smile that’s playing at the corner of her mouth, she’s not buying it. “Not that I don’t think you’re beautiful and sexy and very cool—way cooler than I am, which would probably end up being a point of contention—but I can’t picture us being together.”
She puts her other hand on my other shoulder and we’re so close that looking into her eyes is like being inside a kaleidoscope: crazy repeating patterns of green and brown, punctuated by an iris as alluring as a black hole. The problem with lying is sometimes you can’t sustain it anymore. The good thing about lying, though, is it eventually leads to the truth. Key word being eventually.
“And on top of that,” I continue rambling, “you can’t kiss me out of the blue with no warning because I’m a very anxious person and I need time to put on lip balm and stuff.”
“Fine.” She takes one hand from my shoulder and places it on my bare thigh. “What if I ask first?”
But it isn’t a question I can answer dishonestly anymore, not when I have a heartbeat in places I didn’t know I could get a pulse. I say nothing, having been officially rendered mute, and look at her, trying to take it all in and make sense of it. Unfortunately, all rationality has gone shit out the window, so I nod stupidly, then she tilts her head slightly and leans in so that her lips are only a few centimeters from mine. My stomach feels like a bed of Pop Rocks. Close your eyes, idiot. And I do.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lips.
That’s what it feels like to kiss her. That and something I don’t recognize but I trust, as if everything that was out of place is not. The big hunger is gone and for however many seconds there’s clarity, the blissful sensation of her mouth and my mouth. Then the buzzer rings and the moment gets ripped off like duct tape, exposing me.
Bugg gets up and presses the button to listen. “Bugg? It’s Sara. Are you home?”
I nearly fall off my chair, but just in my head. “Shit.” My voice is squeaky with nerves. “She’s going to see my car.”
“So? It’s okay for us all to be friends.” Bugg clearly doesn’t get the stakes here.
“Well, yeah, but friends don’t make out in the kitchen.” Or I’m desperately hoping I’m right and Bugg doesn’t do this with everyone she invites over for dinner. “Don’t say anything about this to Sara, got it?”
She nods, but I want more than a nod. I want a verbal agreement and later a signed contract. Bugg presses the button to open the gates, and I wipe any remnants of her kiss from my lips. A few minutes later Sara comes into the kitchen.
“I knew that was your dad’s car! What are you doing here, Danny?” Sara gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I try not to seem flustered. The last three minutes have been a lot of lip-to-face interaction for me.
“Just eating some dinner.” I wonder if she saw me and Bugg kissing through the windows or if the bushes are tall enough to keep our secrets.
“Well, I was kind of hoping to talk to you.” For a second I think Sara’s talking to me, you know, her best friend since kindergarten, but when I look up I realize she’s talking to Bugg. “We can talk later, though,” she says, then smiles at me.
“Couldn’t we all talk?” What would Sara have to say that she couldn’t say in front of me? A) I’m a fortress when it comes to secrets, especially my own. And b) I’VE BEEN HER BEST FRIEND SINCE KINDERGARTEN.
“It’s yoga stuff,” Sara says, and I get the distinct feeling she’s lying to me. “I know how much you hate yoga, Danny.”
“I don’t hate it.” What I’m starting to hate is this triangle thing we’ve got going on. “I just think that if I’m going to work out, I should work out, not roll around the floor like a chubby baby stuck on her back.”
Sara and Bugg laugh and it kind of pisses me off. Three’s a crowd, to be honest.
“Well, I’ll let you two talk, then. My parents probably need a third in Scrabble anyway. Thanks for dinner,” I say to Bugg, while trying to tell her with my eyes not to tell Sara anything that happened with our mouths.
“Danny,” Bugg starts, but I wave her off and get out of the kitchen fast. My whole body is sweating when I get in my car, but I can’t bring myself to leave yet. It’s dark and quiet and I can feel my lips vibrating nearly imperceptibly. Whatever happened back there before Sara barged in, I want more of it. Infinitely more.
I’m too wound up from the kiss to sleep that night, so after ordering an MCAT practice book and filling out a few internship applications, I get in bed and finally address the 132 unread texts from the last two months. Nineteen of them are from Stephen, each more panicked than the last. It’s the least I can do to give him a call.
“Danny, wow, hi,” he answers. “How are you? How’s medical leave treating you?”
“How do you know about med leave?” I ask incredulously.
“Well, when I came by your room for the fiftieth time demanding where you were, your roommates finally told me. I think they thought that I thought that they were keeping you tied up in the closet or something.”
“Still, isn’t that a violation of a person’s basic right to privacy?” I grumble.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “It’s just me.”
I shrink more under the covers, as if anything material can keep you hidden. “Right, well, how was the rest of your semester?” I ask.
“Pretty weird without you. I had to join a new lab-partner team ’cause you can’t be lab partners with yourself.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.” I switch the phone to the other ear so that both sides of my face can get equally sweaty.
“Yeah, asshole,” he says jokingly, but Stephen is so nice I can tell it pains him to swear at me. “I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself. Also, I’ve been so excited to tell you this: They fired that dick of a TA, the one who told you that you should try a different career path if you hate chemistry so much.”
I sit up and immediately picture shoving pie in that TA’s face, not that I’d ever waste pie like that. “Thank God. That guy was the reincarnation of Gollum. And even if it does feel good to know that he got what he deserved, the emotional damage he did is irreparable.”
Stephen chuckles. “You’re going to be a great doctor, don’t worry.” Then there’s something resembling an awkward silence as if we both know maybe that’s not true. “So, you are taking care of yourself, right?” he finally asks.
“Yeah. I am. As soon as I left campus I felt better. Like, all the pressure of being there went away. I’m probably just allergic to the chemicals they wash the bathrooms with.”
“You’re coming back, though, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” I almost add, I should be ready for the slaughterhouse come fall, but the problem with Stephen is he’s like most people I met at school where he’s the puppy and Harvard is his master. Not in a bad way, I guess, but it’s definitely where he wants to learn his tricks.
“And how’s your friend Sara? Still pissed at you?”
I squint at the collage of her and me that’s been accumulating on my wall
for longer than half of my puny existence. “No, I think we’re fine. We have a lot to talk about still, but we will. Summer just started.”
“Well, hey, if you want to hang out sometime, I think I’m only an hour and a half from you. We could talk about nonchemistry things.” He goes on to tell me about the books he’s reading, but I haven’t read a book outside of class since eighth grade, which I tell him when he invites me to join his book club, current membership: Stephen.
“I don’t know about a two-person book club, but maybe we could hang out next week or something.” Then I add quickly, “Just to warn you, though, I got more chubby, because apparently getting healthy means putting on a shit-ton of weight. But if you wait a month, I’ll probably be half as chubby.” I’m playing with my stomach under my T-shirt, pretending my belly button is the one saying all of this.
“I’m sure you look beautiful.”
There’s a pause and I decide to go for it. “Hey, do you ever think that maybe you got into Harvard by mistake?”
There’s an even longer pause in which I hate life for not coming with a rewind button.
“Not really,” he finally says. “Both my parents went there. And my brother.”
I sigh. Of course they did. “Well, I’ll let you know about next week.”
“All right. It’s good to hear your voice, Danny.” I can almost see him through the phone deciding if he should say more or not. “Really good.”
“Okay, bye.” I hang up quickly.
As I sit there holding my phone I realize he’s probably the first guy who’s shown any interest in me since I showed up on this planet nineteen long years ago. And even though it feels good to feel wanted and even though he’s cute and nice and smart, I don’t think about his lips the way I think about, say, Bugg’s fingernails. I like Stephen, or at least 82 percent of things about him, but I just don’t want to see him naked.
CHAPTER NINE
Morning comes especially fast because Sara decides to call me and shout into the phone, even though shouting into the phone does not have the same effect as shouting in person, which everyone younger than seventy-five knows.
“COME GET MIMOSAS WITH US!”
“Who, you and Ethan?” I say groggily. “Because, as much as I like tricycles I’m not trying to be the third—”
“No, no, I stayed over at Bugg’s and we want you to come drink with us.”
I feel a pang in my stomach. “You stayed over at Bugg’s?”
“Yeah, I smoked some weed and drank some wine and totally passed out. I’m a little hungover, but nothing fixes that like a splash of more alcohol.”
“The sun isn’t even up yet.”
“Yes it is. Open your blinds, Danny.”
“You open yours,” I grumble, but I end up agreeing to meet them at the only bar in town that serves both breakfast and minors.
The whole ride to the bar I wish to God or Whoever that Bugg and Sara did not make out. Sara’s never outwardly expressed an interest in girls, but then again neither have I, so really you can’t rely on something as unreliable as how people seem.
By the time I get there they’re already sitting down in a booth with fake leather seats.
“Do you want a drink, Danny?” Sara asks, holding up a champagne flute as I slide in next to her and across from Bugg. “I brought this just in case but they didn’t even ID me.” She waves a fake license in front of my nose that I’ve never seen before.
“Grapefruit juice would be nice.”
“What’s it like to be so boring?” Sara asks, and Bugg holds up a glass of OJ in my direction.
“It’s not five o’clock anywhere in the world, let alone here.” I feel weird and nervous, and unfortunately my white smock displays my over-functioning underarms. Also, I think I smell, but there’s no way to check this discreetly.
“You okay, Danny?” Bugg asks. I’ve been trying not to look at her because looking at her makes my heart do an Olympic floor routine, but I do. Her hair is piled on top of her head and some of the curls are falling around her face. She looks really, really beautiful in a way that makes me want to kiss her again. Or for her to kiss me again, because I have the chutzpah of an ostrich, the creatures best known for sticking their heads in the sand.
“Yep, all good. Just hungry.” I grab a menu and skim over it. “Do they have acai bowls here?”
Sara snorts. “You and your health craze. Ever since you took that nutrition class last fall you’ve been a psycho about how there’s cow pus in milk and maggots in hamburgers. Remember in high school when you ate Slim Jims for breakfast? I liked you better then.”
“Well, sorry my metabolism shit the bed. That must be soooo hard for you.” The waiter brings over a glass of water and I take the paper off my straw to blow at Sara’s face. “Besides, I can’t be a doctor and promote good health if I’m going to clog my arteries in between patients. It’s inconsistent.”
She returns the favor by licking the paper and rolling it into a ball, then preparing to load her straw.
“Don’t you dare. This is a respectable establishment.” I gesture toward some scruffy men who look like they’ve been here since last night. “Besides, everyone’s a psycho about something. Your thing happens to be tennis.”
Sara and Bugg look at me in this funny way, which makes me feel like I’m the one who’s missing something. I trace my finger over the red-checkered tablecloth, hating everything about its plastic sheen.
“I don’t know why everyone is so afraid of inconsistencies,” Bugg says, breaking the awkward silence and tying her shoelace-choker tighter around her neck. “I do yoga and smoke cigarettes and sell the occasional plant of marijuana. I like to think it keeps me human.” She pauses and her voice takes on the qualities of an old white guy. “Like Whitman said, ‘I contain multitudes.’”
Just as I’m starting to think that maybe the three of us can hang out without me developing an aneurism, Bugg’s phone goes off.
“Sorry. I should’ve put it on silent.” She looks at it for a few seconds longer, then hits DECLINE. “It’s my ex-girlfriend, the one you met.” She nods in my direction, which signals my armpits to start pooling again. It’s not that my pizza mission with Bugg was a secret, but I don’t see why Sara has to know everything about me and my friend Bugg. Or why Bugg has to know everything about me and my friend Sara. Doesn’t anyone else know how to compartmentalize?
“I didn’t know you were into girls. I’m learning so much at this little brunch,” Sara says to Bugg. She sounds totally unfazed by it, which shouldn’t be surprising, but you never know. It’s not as if Sara and I hammer out our sexuality over mocha lattes every morning. “And now I feel so stupid! You should have told me to shut the hell up when I kept telling you about that friend of Ethan’s I wanted to set you up with.”
Bugg swishes OJ in her mouth then swallows. “Just because I’m into girls doesn’t mean I’m not also into guys.” Bugg grumbles something about the fallacy of the binary, and I feel that terrible bean of ignorance settling in my stomach. “All you need to know about me and my sexuality is it’s not dependent on penises, vaginas, or other related organs. Even if I were solely into guys, I could never stomach John. He’s such an asshat.”
“I agree,” I say, relieved to have something to contribute. “I think Liz found him palatable enough, though.”
“Hey, I like him,” Sara says. “But whatever, I’m so curious about this. How did you know? I’m sorry, have you been asked this six thousand times?”
Bugg shrugs and plays with a sugar packet from the holder at the center of the table. “It’s fine. I started making out with girls because I knew it’d freak my parents out, but then I realized I felt something. So then I went for it. My last relationship was with a girl, but before that I dated a guy. I don’t know, it’s whoever I connect with.” When she says this she looks at me, and we make eye contact like I’ve never made eye contact with someone before. My eyes probably fall out of their sockets like those creepy
Halloween googly-eye glasses.
“I always thought bisexual stuff was just indecision,” Sara says, swirling her glass thoughtfully. I consider reaching across the table and stuffing her napkin into her mouth. It’s easy to hate people who are overtly homophobic and much harder to know what to do with your closest friend, who doesn’t know shit about what she’s talking about. Bugg and I share a look, and she puts the sugar packet back.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Bugg says, checking the time on her phone. “Did I tell you that I intern for Cynthia?”
“Who’s Cynthia?” Sara asks, too deep in her mimosa to realize much beyond her glass.
“She teaches this poetry class we’re taking,” Bugg says coolly. “I’m helping her organize her father’s writing and stuff, and in return she helps me with my portfolio. She wants me to keep writing because she thinks that’s good enough. And she introduced me to Mary’s poems right before St. J—”
I start making this egregious fake coughing noise.
Bugg gives me a look that says Oops, sorry, then recovers. “Are you okay?”
“Wrong pipe,” I gasp and drink some water.
“Another mimosa,” Sara tells the waiter when he passes. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about when you talk poetry.”
I feel so relieved to have avoided a treatment reference that I chug some ice water and guide the conversation far away from me and Bugg. “You really want another?” I ask Sara.
“Hey, don’t judge me.” She looks playful, but there’s something about her tone that isn’t playing.
“Just don’t go and do something stupid like drive,” Bugg says. “Otherwise drink to your little heart’s content, maybe call every lousy ex-boyfriend you’ve ever had, steal from large corporations, and so on.”
“I’ll cart your drunk ass around,” I offer, like the A+ friend I am.
“Jeez, you guys are like my mother.” Sara thanks the waiter for the drink and gets started on it right away.
Love & Other Carnivorous Plants Page 7