Random Acts of Hope

by Julia Kent

  “You remember?” I took a sip. Yep. A tiny bit of sugar in there, too.

  She tried to hide a smile but it snuck out. “I have a memory.” Her shrug was supposed to take the edge off, but didn’t.

  We both settled into old, metallic kitchen table chairs with duct-taped vinyl seats, facing the window. Sunlight poured in around the buildings outside. Her view left much to be desired, just an expansive look at the other side of the huge compound walled with brick buildings.

  “We used to make fun of this college,” I said, trying to think of something to say other than I want to take you right now. Up against that wall. In your bed. Anywhere. Please. God, Charlotte—please.

  Her hands couldn’t stop fidgeting, which meant she was super nervous. Years ago, I would have been, too. Now I just had a boner bigger than my head and a preternatural calm that I’d only recently cultivated.

  “Pays the bills,” she said, sweeping her hand around the room. “And who could give up this life of luxury?”

  I knew she was joking, but I came to her defense. “This is amazing.”

  “You have frighteningly low standards.” She picked at a piece of duct tape stuck to her ass.

  “No,” I said, laughing. “Not the décor. But the job. You’re a grown-up. When did we become grown-ups?”

  “We?”

  Ouch. I deserved that. “Yeah, well, stripping doesn’t come with dental insurance, but it has other benefits.” Shit. That was not what I meant to say.

  She snorted. “I’ll bet it does. Just stock up on antibiotics.”

  How the hell did we go from awkward to wistful to putdowns?

  I let silence prevail. If women can perfect the art of the icy stare, men can nail the brooding silence.

  It worked.

  “That was…that was rude,” she admitted

  “But true.”

  “You get STDs in your line of work?”

  “I don’t, because I only let them touch me. One-way street. Jack’s a walking nineteenth-century germ factory.”

  “Who’s Jack?”

  “One of my stripping partners.”

  “Anyone I know from high school?”

  “No. But you remember Sam Hinton?”

  “Of course. The drummer.” She took a few sips of coffee and then her eyes bugged out of her head. “SAM? Sam strips with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “The minister’s son?”

  “Mmmm hmmm.” Way more fun not being the target of ridicule. Deflect it all on Sam.

  She shook her head and took a long drink. “Good for you guys. You must make bank.”

  “Five hundred last night.” I reached into my jeans and pulled out a wad of money almost as big as my aching—

  “Holy shit!” she chirped, excited and shaking her head in amazement. “Around here if someone has a wad like that we assume he’s a drug dealer.”

  “If he’s built, he might be a stripper.”

  She shaped her hand like a gun and pretended to pull the trigger. “Good tip. Thanks. Now when Julian down the hall keeps strange hours and comes back smelling like Estee Lauder perfume I have a new line of thinking.”

  “Good coffee,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “Good company,” she countered, eyes shining.

  “Yeah.” Keeping eye contact killed me, because five thousand words hovered in the air between us, begging to be said the way bachelorette party women begged to be noticed.

  Charlotte didn’t crack. Neither did I.

  And then—tap tap tap.

  She jumped up so fast the last bit of coffee in her cup poured down her leg, the heavy mug thunking to the floor, falling on a tiny area carpet.

  “Oh my God, no one can see you here! Why is someone knocking on my apartment door? Office hours aren’t—”

  “Security,” the voice said. “We have an issue with the snake.”

  “The Snake? Is that what you call me?” I said with a teasing grin, looking down at my groin. “It’s big, but—”

  “You have to hide!” she hissed.

  “Why?”

  She blew out a puff of air, clearly panicking and trying to stay in control. “Because I live with about a three hundred eighteen- and nineteen-year-old women who have seen your YouTube videos a million times. Half the women in this building want to kiss you, and the other half want to fuck your brains out.”

  “Which half are you in?”

  “LIAM! I’ll never hear the end of it if someone finds out you’re here.”

  “You’re ashamed of me?” This was fun.

  “No! It’s just, I don’t know what”—she waved her hands between us—“‘this’ is, and I haven’t had a guy here ever, and—”

  “No guy ever?”

  “Shut up and hide!”

  “We’re talking about this. We are so talking about this later.”

  “Later!”

  She pushed me back toward her bedroom and I went behind the door, leaving it open. Watching her was a treat. She smoothed her hands over her belly, tugging down on her t-shirt, sliding the cloth over her hips and ass, making me harder.

  Her hair, which she seemed to be worried about all the time, was that perfect black shade, like pressed coal with gleaming spots, and it was a little rumpled. The good kind of rumpled, the way a woman’s hair looks after you’ve righteously fucked her, like you’ve spent hours pleasuring her in every way possible, as if nothing can tame her hair or eyes because everything has been given permission to go wild.

  Except Charlotte’s hair was a mess and I was not responsible.

  Had to remedy that.

  Soon.

  She opened the door and some pimply faced kid who looked to be about twelve stammered something about a snake. Were they serious? A real snake? There was a snake loose in the dorm?

  “Okay,” Charlotte said to him, “I got it. You saw it go outside. No more worries, then. Just write it up in your log. Maggie’s technically on duty now, so go find her.”

  The door clicked shut softly and she pressed her back against it, sighing with relief.

  “Oh, no,” I said, finding my cup of coffee, then turning my back to her as I refilled it. This felt awkwardly domestic, like we were two strangers put together on the set of a coffee commercial, expected to act like intimate partners. But I wasn’t going anywhere soon, no matter what she said. “The snake escaped!”

  “The snake left. Huge difference.”

  “You have a real snake on the loose?”

  “We have a six-foot boa constrictor wandering around in one of the dorms. Drew just reported that he saw it slither out one of the back doors. Thank God.”

  “Why ‘thank God’?”

  “Because it’s not in any of my buildings anymore. Now it’s a grounds and facilities issue!” Her eyes lit up, then her entire face went into a scowl. “But we have to get rid of you. If only it were as easy as having you slither out near the dumpsters.”

  “Where’d they teach you those manners? In grad school?”

  “Yes. How to Make Your Ex Leave 101. I wrote a forty-page paper on it. I’m kind of an expert.” Those big eyes remained on me, challenging.

  Double ouch.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  A flash of five different undefined emotions rippled through her face suddenly. She looked stricken. I felt gut punched. This morning wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. Any other girl and I’d grab her around the waist, kiss her, fuck her silly and the awkwardness would be gone.

  Any other girl and I wouldn’t have stayed the night curled up like an engaged couple in the Duggar family.

  “I know what you mean. I’m kind of a big deal in the college scene.” I flashed her one of those shit-eating grins Joe tells me I’m so good at. “You’ll have a pile of Ashleys and Brittanies and Taylors and all that at your door if they learn we’re dating.”

  More uncomfortable silence. Did I have a portable generator of awkwardness attached to me?

  “Ye
s. Exactly. Except for the dating part.” She ran a hand through her hair, the sweep of her neck begging for a kiss. I shoved more coffee down my throat and took a deep breath.

  “Semantics.”

  “Important semantics.” Her voice was like a knife.

  “Semantics are never important.”

  “We can argue later.”

  “Later. You said later again. You plan on seeing me again?” Victory.

  “Now you’re the one arguing semantics.”

  “No. I’m the one trying to pin down a date.”

  These words rolled out of my mouth like a riff, but not my riff. I’m the one who was wronged. I’m the one who—

  “God, I missed you.” Emotion radiated in those eyes now, morphing her into the Charlotte I’d loved so much.

  She said it first. From the way her eyes got so big, her hand smacked over her mouth, I suspected she’d been feeling it forever—like me—and had said it aloud for the first time in five years.

  “Me too.”

  And now it couldn’t be put back.

  Someone knocked on the door, and if it was Pimply Boy he was about to get a free trip halfway across the quad, courtesy of my size-twelve foot.

  “Charlotte? Missy puked on the stairs and she’s still passed out there and trying to crawl up the—” a high-pitched, frantic voice nattered on behind the closed door.

  “Hold on!” Charlotte called out, eyes locked on mine.

  “Time to be a grown-up,” I said with as much sympathy as I could muster. Snakes and girl puke. What a job.

  “I’ve been a grown-up long enough that this is nothing.” She paused, a tiny smile twisting her lips. “But barf in the staircase and a reptile on the loose are easy compared to a gaggle of freshmen discovering I had Liam McCarthy from Random Acts of Crazy in my apartment all night. So please sneak out the window and go.”

  “Window? That’s a little Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not fourteen and I have no plans to die over you.”

  “I’m worth dying for.”

  “Liam!”

  I held my hands up in protest. “All right, all right. But coffee. You and me and coffee. In Northampton at that little place right by the bicycle—”

  She interrupted with the name of the coffee shop, then eyed me warily. “How do you know about that place?”

  “Just meet me there the Tuesday after next, at 3 p.m. You working?” I named the date.

  “Not then. No class, either.”

  I opened her living room window and looked out. Easy jump. Lots of bushes. This would be a breeze.

  “Charlotte, she’s tracking the puke up the stairs, and it was pizza gyros and sangria—” The voice outside the door was increasingly desperate.

  Charlotte laughed softly and shooed me out. With an easy swing of the legs I was on the ground, and she shut the screen.

  “You realize I mean it about coffee, right?”

  Her eyes narrowed to twin triangles, lips pulled into a killer pout that made me regret the distance. “You realize I meant it about missing you.”

  And then she shut the fucking window, made a sweeping motion with her hands as if she was done with me, and opened the door to handle the disaster that had just unfurled in one of her staircases.

  I got to my car, a dark blue Honda that had air conditioning that stopped working the year I got pubic hair, and just as I was opening the driver’s-side door, an enormous squeal of a group of chicks filled the morning air. It was barely past 10 a.m., for fuck’s sake, and it was a university. What kind of freak was up at this hour? Other than me.

  “Oh, my GOD, Anna, it’s, like, Liam McCarthy!” I was seconds away, and now they were whipping out their phones, pointed at me like a Spanish inquisitor’s version of the torture rack.

  A bunch of bleary-eyed, smeared-makeup chicks who looked like they were all underage (and therefore dangerous) surrounded me, hands on my shoulders and forearms, taking selfies. The entire group smelled like rancid wine coolers, way too much Victoria’s Secret PINK, and Coconut Lime Verbena body lotion.

  The scent of beer goggles and booty texts.

  “I’m just heading home,” I said, taking my time, inch by inch, to get out from their clutches. A few weeks ago I’d have picked the oldest-looking one, made sure she was eighteen, and had some fun with her, but now her touch—all their gropes—felt so wrong. Weird. Gross.

  Like getting felt up at work minus the money.

  Windows began to fly open as some of the girls screamed out to friends; others had furiously flying fingers on their phones and were texting friends, and someone said she was “first!” and got my pic on Snapchat already.

  I looked over at the door and saw Charlotte in the silhouette, her face a mask. But she was shaking her head slowly. Some chick in Disney pajamas jostled her as she flew down the stairs to my little band of groupies, then turned back and shouted to Charlotte.

  “Hey, Charlotte! This is Liam McCarthy! You know, from RAOC!”

  RAOC? We had an acronym? Who knew?

  Charlotte nodded up and down, nice and slow. “Really? Is that the military program?”

  One of the chicks taking selfie after selfie with me stopped, a sneer curling her lip up. She snorted. “That’s ROTC. Stupid RD. Like she’d know anything about a hot band. She never goes anywhere. That woman’s a nun. Wrote me up for giving my boyfriend a BJ in the men’s room.”

  She eyed me like that was something to brag about, then asked: “You want to get written up?”

  Charlotte

  I couldn’t believe the scene in front of me, and yet—I kind of called it.

  I totally called it.

  A friendly nudge from someone who cut through the doorway made me smile, because she didn’t keep going. She stopped and let out a long, slow sigh of disgust and amusement.

  “Well, well, well. Liam McCarthy.” It was Maggie, her hair in knots, green and crazy like a bunch of fake asparagus had landed on her head. “Isn’t he that famous singer from that new band?” She was playing dumb and it made me bark with laughter.

  Jordan, the overeager resident assistant, came running over, duty clipboard in hand. “What am I missing? It’s after seven now, so I’m not technically on duty, but there’s a crowd of people out here, like there was a fire alarm? A medical emergency? Should I call campus EMS?”

  “Slow down there, hon,” Maggie said with her hand clapping Jordan’s shoulder. The gesture was nice but also a bit of a warning. A reining in. “It’s just a local rock star with a bunch of groupies around him.”

  “Rock star?” Jordan looked confused. “We don’t have rock stars here in western Massachusetts. Other than that old guy, Jon Bon Jovi.”

  “We do now.” Maggie winked at me and I crossed my arms over my chest, pretending to ignore her.

  Liam picked that exact moment to wink at me, too. Apparently I was winkable. Who knew? Half my mouth couldn’t help but smile as I watched an alarmingly large crowd form around him, now about twenty giggly, half-drunk, half-asleep women who were barely out of high school trying to get a little piece of Liam.

  On their hands, in their phones, via their eyes—whatever it took.

  “So what should I do?” Jordan was on the verge of panic, her voice high and frustrated. I put on my professional cap and gave her some advice. She needed to be talked down.

  “Sometimes, you just watch.” I pulled her close and spoke quietly into her ear. “You’re not even on duty now.”

  “Neither are you,” Maggie said to me with a grin.

  Treating Jordan like a fellow professional was key, and this was true with younger women like her, I’d learned. She wanted desperately to be in charge, to be considered important because of her skills and knowledge. Honoring that was the best way to help give her the platform for launching into the professional world, but she also needed to be tempered.

  Just because an institution gives you authority doesn’t mean you gain any respect—not one ounce�
�from the people you’re supposed to manage.

  Quite the opposite. Jordan needed to be taught that sometimes the best way to handle crowd control is to let them burn themselves out. Feel the feelings. Behave in ways that take them to the edge, and then let them come back from the line all by themselves.

  This groupie scene was harmless. It wouldn’t get out of control. Frankly, Random Acts of Crazy wasn’t that big. That special. That mind-blowingly popular.

  Yet.

  “They’re just excited to see some guy from a local band here right now,” I explained. “Let them have their fun. If they step out of line, then you act. Just watch, for now.”

  “But why is he here? Did he sneak in the residence hall and spend the night?” She stiffened. “That’s a policy violation, and maybe we need to find the woman who had him as an overnight guest and write her up.”

  Maggie gave me a knowing look and I stifled a laugh. “Remember what we said during training? Don’t go looking for policy violations. Let them come to you. The residents will generate more than enough of them. You don’t need to go on the hunt.” Besides, knowing I was the prey made this dicier.

  “But then that’s not fair to the people who follow the rules!” she wailed. Oh, Jordan, I thought. I know that feeling so well. She’s a mini-me. I was just like her my first year of college.

  Until.

  I looked at Liam and couldn’t even see his face. He was that buried in long hair and pushed-up boobs and flailing arms with iPhones and Android phones and every phone you could imagine. Some of the women were actually talking on their phones now, which—for this age group—was akin to a massive emergency.

  Maybe Jordan was on to something.

  “You’re right that it’s not fair. But if you go into that crowd right now and interrogate them and ask Liam where he spent the night last night, what do you think will happen?”

  Jordan’s eyes flew wide open. “They’d destroy me,” she hissed.

  “They’d lose respect for you and the other RAs.” I patted her on the back sympathetically. “We aren’t here to control every person’s life. We’re here to make this a safe community. If the rock star spent the night in someone’s apartment—er, room—”

  Maggie choked on her laughter. I kicked her ankle. She got quiet.