So Glad to Meet You

by Lisa Super

  He could see black tears streaking down her face. She didn’t make a sound. She had mastered the art, a crying ninja.

  The silence that was usually so safe between them had grown fangs and snarled at him in the dense air. He snapped back at it. “You want me to change, and I won’t.”

  “You want me to change, and I can’t.”

  Which was worse?

  He didn’t have to think long before realizing he was the greater of two evils. His adamant refusal to align himself with the best thing that had ever happened to him—it didn’t make sense anymore. But change couldn’t come in thirty seconds, or even an hour. She had to understand that; she was a reasonable person.

  He pulled into the Sacred Heart parking lot where they could continue the conversation without him having one eye on the road. She opened the car door as he pulled into the stall and jumped out before he’d come to a stop.

  “Daph!”

  All that was left of her was the echo of footsteps on the asphalt.

  • • •

  At lonely times in his life, Oliver turned to Mitch and Joe. After a couple hours spent with their simple sentences and bad jokes, life was better. Getting hammered in Joe’s garage pushed the future to another day. All that mattered was the night in front of them.

  Freshman year, Joe had thrown an epic party one weekend when his parents were out of town. The party had been such a raucous success that three bottles of Resolve and half the JV football team could not get the stains out of the rug in the living room. The jungle juice interwoven with the beige carpet fibers had turned from red to green to blue to purple during various stages of scrubbing, leaving the contaminated sections of the carpet dark and sparse. The color of Joe’s face had also changed during each scrubbing phase: hangover gray to panic red to sweaty orange to surrendering white.

  In hopes of a temporary solution, furniture had been rearranged to cover the stain, and the living room had a feng shui meltdown. The sofa and chairs were returned to their former divots. Carpeting installers were contacted, and estimates had been handed down like prison sentences. In the end, the cost was too high and the time too short. Joe’s parents had returned that night, and they could be heard screaming at him in Spanish from three houses down. The punishment was a doozy. The Valdivias laid off their landscapers for six months and forced Joe to spend every weekend mowing and grooming his yard.

  Members of the football team had cruised by Joe’s house on Saturday afternoons tossing catcalls while he pushed the lawnmower or pruned the shrubbery. Oliver ducked and didn’t make a sound during these drive-bys. He knew Joe’s humiliation far outweighed the punishment. He also saw a darkness in Joe that hid behind his eyes. Joe never forgot those taunts, never forgot the mouths that threw them.

  Joe never hosted another party. And if alcohol was consumed on his property, it was forbidden indoors. Oliver was only allowed inside to use the bathroom or get a glass of water. Even then, he was required to remove his shoes before entering. Joe’s fear of his parents ran deep. Six months of caretaking the grounds of his home had taught him to take zero risk when it came to illicit behavior. Oliver admired this relationship. If he had more fear of his own parents, would it have shaped him differently? Would he wade through life more carefully, with more forethought, with more cunning? Would he have figured out who and what he wanted to be? The grass was always greener, just ask Joe. The guy was shockingly knowledgeable in eco-friendly fertilizer.

  Oliver sipped his third beer, sitting on a lawn chair flanked by Mitch and Joe. “Do you guys remember that girl at one of the football games? The one who was waiting by the fence for me?”

  “Emily Bowman’s little sister. The one that blew you off on New Year’s.” Mitch sneered.

  Oliver winced. Had it been that obvious? Even Mitch had picked up on it, so that question was answered.

  “Daphne.” Joe wasn’t playing the pronoun game.

  “Yeah, her.” He wanted to know how Joe knew her name. Maybe Mitch told him. Or maybe Oliver had slipped and mentioned her. Asking would make him look guilty of some crime he hadn’t committed. “What did you think of her?”

  “Ball buster.” Mitch laughed.

  “Kind of hot, in that scary, goth sort of way,” Joe smirked.

  Oliver was surprised by their positive reactions. “Really?”

  “She might bite your dick off, but it would be really good up ’til that point,” Mitch said, matter-of-factly.

  “She asked me to prom.” Oliver expected this confession to be peppered with more embarrassment.

  “You like those firecrackers,” Mitch said.

  “I didn’t say I liked her.”

  “You didn’t say you didn’t like her,” Mitch said.

  Oliver opened his mouth to defend his omission, but Joe cut him off. “So, you’re going with her?”

  “No.” Oliver was amazed that Joe considered his going to prom with Daphne an option. Not that Oliver needed or wanted either Mitch or Joe’s approval. “I’m already going with someone else.”

  “Pussy,” Mitch teased.

  “And you regret it.” There was no hint of question in Joe’s words. They hit Oliver with the potency of smelling salts.

  Oliver tread carefully. “Regret what?”

  “Going with whoever prom-queen-cheerleader-student-council-president you’re going with.”

  “It’s Penny Layton.”

  Mitch brightened in recognition. “From the spring break party?”

  Oliver nodded.

  “And the New Year’s party,” Joe added.

  “She’s hot,” Mitch continued his singular thought without pause or breath, “You should’ve been at that party, man. It was awesome.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Oliver sighed.

  “Yeah, why weren’t you there?” Joe trained his eyes on Oliver.

  Oliver met his challenge. “If Daphne asked you to prom, would you have said yes?”

  Joe shifted in his lawn chair and the hinges squeaked. “I don’t know. It’s something different, man. Something different.” Joe tossed his empty beer across the room, aiming for the garbage can. The bottle hit the rim and bounced off, shattering on the cement floor.

  Mitch rolled off his chair in a fit of laughter, prompting Oliver to laugh at Mitch’s muscular body floundering on the ground. Joe joined in, laughing at his own misfortune while simultaneously sulking to the broom and dustpan resting in the corner.

  Maybe Mitch and Joe weren’t so bad after all. But they weren’t serving their desired purpose of making him feel smarter, wiser, and more evolved as a human being. He hunched at Neanderthal level, barely upright, and drew another long swig of beer.

  Niagara Falls

  Janine shifted on her stool at the Sweetie’s counter, nearly falling off. “Holy shit! You went to Joshua Tree and found a pair of cojones on a cactus.” She frothed at the mouth. “So, on a scale of one to ten…”

  Daphne paused from washing the scooper in the sink. “An eight.”

  “An eight? That sounds horrific.”

  “I initiated. If he would’ve kissed me, it would’ve been a nine.”

  “A nine? It should be an eleven!”

  “It can’t be more than one hundred percent. It’s statistically unsound and makes the whole rating system irrelevant.”

  “Why not a ten?” Janine planted her cheek into her fist.

  Daphne continued scrubbing the scooper, the metal lever jangling in defiance. “I’ve kissed three people in my life. I don’t want to set the bar at perfection with someone I’ll never kiss again. That’s madness. And, actually, since I don’t give out tens, nine is ten. I’m downgrading it to seven and a half. A seven-and-a-half kiss, ladies and gentlemen, nothing to daydream about here.”

  Janine shook her head slowly. “Poor puppy.”

  Lumping the three kisses together further diminished the shining glory of the Oliver kiss. Putting Janine’s stupid cousin, Oliver, and Andrew Taylor in the same sentence tallied
a dispiriting average on human lips.

  Andrew (still revered for taking down the class bully in fifth grade with his accidentally perfect dodgeball launch) had been her first kiss. His kiss was only engraved in her mind forever because of the happenstance of it being the first. The Andrew kiss wasn’t worth expanding on because it wasn’t good (even to a girl who fiercely wanted to be kissed, who had an open mind and nothing to compare it to), and it was done on a dare. The dare had not been Daphne’s, and Andrew had publicized his disgrace after its fulfillment. Douche.

  Daphne stopped torturing the scooper and set it on a towel to dry. “So want to go stag to prom with me?”

  “I don’t even want to go.” Janine swallowed. She’d dialed down the usual volume in her voice to barely a whisper. “I got turned down.”

  Daphne was equally surprised and sympathetic. “You asked someone?”

  The words tumbled out against Janine’s will. “Mel Jennings.”

  “Mel? She’s hot. I love her hair.”

  Now it was Janine’s turn to be surprised. She sat up but kept her words low. “We’ve been hooking up since New Year’s.”

  “The closet at Penny’s.” It all made sense. Janine hadn’t been getting high, she’d been getting some.

  Janine hung her head, torn between guilt and delight in her mischief.

  “You literally fell out of a closet with Mel!” Daphne folded over laughing.

  “I’m glad you find my coming out so funny.”

  Daphne cackled. “And you closed the door! You left her in there.”

  “She’s still in there.”

  Daphne dug into the freezer, scooping out a cone. “Well, there’s something sexy in a secret. Until it would be sexier if it wasn’t a secret.”

  Janine’s mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. “How long have you known?”

  “I don’t know. A while. I knew you’d talk about it when you were ready. Talking is kind of your thing.”

  Janine nodded.

  Daphne handed her a cone with a scoop of mint chip. “You look like you could use this. Sexual liberation ice cream on the house.”

  “You da best.”

  “So, on a scale of one to ten, what’s kissing Mel?”

  “A ten!”

  “Not even a 9.9, like gymnastics before they messed it up?”

  “You know me. It’s a ten or nothing.”

  Daphne laughed with her whole body, the oxygen of a thousand trees filling her blood. For a few minutes, she forgot all about Oliver Pagano.

  • • •

  In the three weeks since the Jimmy Choo blowout, Daphne had come to terms with not seeing Oliver again until prom. She hadn’t visited the chapel after school, nor dropped off any notes anywhere else. He hadn’t called or texted, probably didn’t miss her at all, which was particularly infuriating. A nerve in her left eyelid would twitch if she thought about it for more than five minutes. By this point, the twitch was commonplace.

  She was leaving Sweetie’s after her shift when she spotted someone leaning against the side of the building.

  The shadow spoke, “Hey.”

  She didn’t look at him because she didn’t want to smile. She didn’t want to cry. “Hi, Oliver.”

  “I found a trail that has a waterfall. For Niagara Falls.”

  She shook her head, “I don’t know…”

  “We’ve come this far. We’re almost done. It’s crazy to quit now.” Desperation overwhelmed the enthusiasm in his voice.

  She remained uninspired. “Maybe the crazy part was starting in the first place.”

  He ignored her negativity and kept buzzing like a salesman. “We could go tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m working tomorrow morning.”

  “I know, I called and asked Jed which shifts you were working this week.”

  Daphne glanced inside. Behind the counter, the freckles on Jed’s cheeks rose with pride. She swung the door open. Paired with the glare on her face, the bell clanging against the door frame didn’t have a welcoming effect. “Jed, from now on, never give out my shift information.”

  Jed’s cheer faded into failure. She started to let the door close and swung it open again, attempting to remove the bullet she’d lodged in the messenger. “Please.”

  “I asked him to switch shifts with you tomorrow and he said he would,” Oliver explained.

  She swung the door open again. “Jed, from now on, please don’t switch shifts with me unless I ask you to.”

  Jed nodded, beaten by the day.

  “I also told him to cover for you if your mom calls,” Oliver added.

  Daphne swung the door open again. “Jed, if my mom calls, please cover for me. Cleaning the bathroom, you know the drill.” The door fell to a close and she tugged it back open. “Thanks, Jed.”

  Jed beamed, redeemed.

  “He likes you,” Oliver stated the obvious.

  “Who doesn’t?” Passive aggression was her current superpower.

  “Let me give you a ride home.”

  “I want to walk. I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.” She hastened without glancing behind her. However long he’d lingered or watched her, she was five blocks closer to not caring.

  The next morning came sooner than she’d expected. She knew getting in Oliver’s car was a mistake before he’d even pulled up to the curb. She wasn’t in the mood to socialize, to swallow her feelings, to be the bigger person, to be an adult. Yes, she was being petty, but she didn’t care. She’d been an adult for the last seven years. It was someone else’s turn.

  Upon arrival, Oliver was his usual, considerate self. He’d packed them lunches, brought enough water for two camels, and carried it all in his own bookbag, leaving nothing for Daphne to bear except the weight of her mind.

  They started out on the wooded, secluded trail. Ten minutes away from civilization and they were in the middle of nowhere. That was the magic of the L.A. foothills.

  “What are you doing after prom?” Oliver asked.

  Daphne heard the same reluctance in his voice that she felt in her own stomach. Yet, they’d both been compelled against their better judgment to make this day work. “Norae bong,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  She wasn’t in the mental state to play this game. Prom would always be a spot that was sore to his touch, after-party included. “It’s karaoke, but better. Why are you asking? It’s not like you care.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care.”

  Daphne responded with a huff. She had only bitterness to expel and he didn’t deserve it, so she stopped there.

  Oliver accepted the olive branch. “Fine, we won’t talk. Let’s enjoy nature.”

  Waves of nausea rolled through Daphne. Spending time with Oliver used to make her feel queasy in a good way. Now the movement of her innards felt like E. coli consumption. There was such a fine line between elation and lethal bacteria.

  The awkward hike stretched for miles. They got to the waterfall, a sad excuse for a stream that happened to be flowing in a downward motion. Under normal circumstances, she would have ooed and aahed at the sight of trickling water in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. But with prom looming and the tension of the delayed arrival of her Berkeley acceptance, Daphne was not romanced by small quantities of dihydrogen monoxide.

  “This is it?” she muttered.

  “You were expecting Niagara Falls?”

  “I was at least expecting something pretty.”

  “It’s pretty. Kind of.”

  “You could stand at the top and pee and it would have the same effect.”

  “I’d have to consume a lot of beers.”

  “Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”

  Oliver couldn’t tell if they were tossing jokes or hurling insults. “You must think very little of how I spend my time.” He smiled.

  “Who even wants to go to Niagara Falls, anyway? What’s the big deal?”

  “Well, it’s huge. The photos probably don�
�t do it justice.”

  Daphne’s face burned. “It’s a suicide hot spot.”

  “Don’t go there, Daph.”

  “They probably made elaborate plans to jump off together holding hands.”

  “You’re making this ugly when it was probably innocent.” He scratched his neck. “You know there’s always a rainbow at the bottom of the falls, where the mist hangs in the air?”

  “Too bad they’d never see past the rain. And when did you become a ‘there’s a rainbow at the end of everything’ type of person? It’s trickery of light. You’re resting your laurels in illusions, now?”

  “I never would’ve brought you here if I thought it would upset you.”

  “What did you hope to accomplish?” She asked as an emotionless, blank slate so he’d have to give a real answer.

  “I wanted to check something off the list.” He took a breath, knowing he needed to reveal more. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted things to feel normal again.”

  “Maybe this is the new normal.”

  “You want that?”

  “I can’t change it. Neither can you.”

  They turned together and began the long walk back to the car. Birdsong grated against her eardrums. Oliver kicked a pinecone into the dense trees, playing games.

  “Why are we doing the list?” she snapped. “Emily and Jason aren’t watching us. We aren’t learning anything about them. And whatever I’ve learned about you and myself, I wish I didn’t know.”

  “You mean that?” He sounded like he’d been punched in the face, rubbing his sore cheek in disbelief.

  “No. But I wish I did.” She searched the sky for clouds but found only blue and smog.

  He spoke with pauses, giving her chances to cut him off. “Then we should stop. Hanging out. The list. Everything. Finito.”

  Daphne nodded, not out of anger or exhaustion or grief. She nodded because she wanted it to end. He was right. She wanted more from him than she was ever going to get. It was time to let go, even if that meant letting go of Emily, too. It wasn’t worth finding Emily if it meant losing herself.