by Ingrid Diaz
Not bothering to wipe the grin off my face I shut down the computer. “Can’t a girl just be in a good mood?”
“Not when said girl is the Princess of Darkness.”
“Princess of Darkness,” I repeated. “I kind of like that.” I rose from my chair and walked over to the closet to change into my bathrobe. “Her Gloominess is going to strip now, so please avert thy eyes lest you be blinded by her beauty.”
She chuckled and returned to whatever book she’d been reading. I’d never met anyone in my life who went through books at such record speeds as my beloved roommate. Sometimes I wondered if she read them at all or if she just used them as a shield against humanity. I doubt I’ll ever know the answer.
I changed quickly and headed to the girls’ bathroom. Walking in nothing but a bathrobe down the hallways of the dorm was something to get used to. After three years, I barely even thought about it.
My mind kept refocusing on Valerie’s email, and the idea of shopping with her for a dog made me smile all over again. Too bad it was only Monday. Three more days to go, I thought, and proceeded to take my much-needed shower.
Ò
I’d been in the middle of a dream involving royalty and dogs, when the ringing phone brought my hazy mind to consciousness. Silently, I begged Nicole to answer the damn thing, and after a couple of rings, I heard her say, “Hello,” in a soft voice. Pause. Then, “She’s sleeping at the moment, and she looked pretty tired when she collapsed in her bed earlier so I don’t know if I should wake her.” Silence. “Okay, Val, I’ll let her know you called. Bye.” Click.
Val? My eyes popped open, and I sat up in bed, feeling woozy. “Was that Valerie?”
“Is that the girl you’re going out with?” Nicole asked, aiming the receiver at my face.
“I guess you could call it that,” I responded, grabbing the phone from her grasp before she poked me in the eye with the antenna. I yawned. “How long was I asleep?”
“Couple of hours. Are you going to call her back?” Her tone bordered on impatience, and I frowned up at her.
“Can I have a minute to wake up here?”
“Well, I have to leave for work in ten minutes, so I was hoping to get some eavesdropping time before then.” She smiled innocently and made her way back to her bed. “She sounds nice. You haven’t told me much about her, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” I replied pointedly, playing with the receiver in my hand.
“You’re stalling,” Nicole informed me, as though I wasn’t already aware of the fact.
Without further ado, I punched in Valerie’s number. Unconsciously, I held my breath as I waited for Valerie to pick up.
Three rings later, I heard Valerie’s distinct voice answer, “Yep?”
Momentarily I forgot how to speak. Shaking myself mentally, I finally found my mind buried under a pile of nervousness and senseless paranoia. Beside it was my voice. “Hi,” I said, grateful to be speaking at last. “It’s Alix.” Remembering my own name was always a good sign.
“Oh, hey,” Valerie greeted, her tone brightening. “I got your email. I wrote you back, but I figure I’d call you anyway since I told you I would.”
I felt my face break into a smile. “So what inspired this sudden need to get a pet?”
“Well, I was tossing and turning in my bed, unable to sleep and feeling rather lonely when it occurred to me that I was missing something in my life. And since I figure it’s a bit soon in our relationship to ask you to move in with me, I thought a dog would make a nice substitute.”
My mind was reeling, her words breaking off until all I heard was “relationship” and “move in with me” cycling around and around in my head. Pulling myself together, I replied, “What kind of dog do you have in mind?”
“Hmm. Tough to say. I have a feeling that when I see it, I’ll know. Like love at first sight.”
I relaxed a bit, knowing we were on relatively safe ground. You couldn’t go wrong talking about dogs. “Something to keep your warm on those cold South Florida nights, no doubt.”
“You’re mocking me now.”
I laughed. “Yeah, just a little.”
She laughed too, and I couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful sound that was. It made me wish I was next to her so I could watch her face light up.
“I have a small confession,” she said suddenly.
“What’s that?” I asked, watching Nicole wave goodbye on her way out to work. I waved back and returned my attention to the phone.
“I don’t want to wait until Thursday to see you again.”
I was overcome with relief, though I responded with a nonchalant, “Oh?”
“Do you think we can get together tomorrow?”
I ran my Tuesday schedule through my head, then cursed silently. “I can’t. I have an audition tomorrow night and classes all day.” I’d totally forgotten about the audition.
“What’s the audition for?” I searched her tone for a hint of disappointment, but found none. More than anything, she sounded interested.
My excitement over the audition returned, and I couldn’t believe I’d almost forgotten about it. “An improv troupe. We go around doing improvisations at different places.”
“Sounds like fun. Do you have a good chance of getting in?”
“Hopefully. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Good luck, or break a leg. Whichever applies.”
I smiled into the phone. “Thanks.” I was disappointed, though, because I really wanted to see her. “How about Wednesday?” I suggested.
“I’m pulling a double shift at the club,” she said regretfully.
I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Guess we’re back to Thursday.”
“Guess so.” This time I detected a sad note in her tone. “Hey, if we stay up all night talking on the phone, would it count as a third date?”
Laughing, I replied, “If you can keep me on the phone for more than half an hour, you’ll win the record.”
“Not a phone person?”
“Nope.”
“I like a challenge,” she replied. “So what do I get if I keep you on the phone for more than an hour?”
“The admiration and awe of all the others who failed before you,” I answered, grinning to myself.
Five hours later I got off the phone with her . . . and I decided never to challenge her again.
Chapter 8
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered to Jade, clapping more or less enthusiastically as someone who’d just auditioned finished their piece and walked off stage.
“Does that mean we can get out of here now?” Jade asked, her eyes pleading.
I smacked her on the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to say that! I brought you along for moral support, after all. Your job is to keep me pumped up and optimistic.”
“Rah rah, go Alix go,” Jade muttered. “Now can we get out of here?”
“I hate you.” I slumped down in my seat and focused straight ahead as another hopeful actor took the stage.
Jade frowned and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into coming to these things. You know how I hate theatre.”
The guy on stage sucked big time, and I was grateful. “You hate theatre but you love me, and that’s what matters.” I clapped as the bad actor left the stage.
“Alix Morris?” someone called from the front row.
I took a deep breath and stood up. This was it. My one and only chance to join the Baldwin Players. Since it was improvisation, I was completely at their mercy. Had it been a different type of audition, I would’ve walked up on stage and acted out a pair of contrasting monologues, unless it was a cold reading, in which case I would’ve simply grabbed the script and read the lines to the best of my ability. This was a bit harder, but I just figured that my life was a huge improvisation act anyway, so if I looked at it that way I had twenty years of experience under my belt.
I took a seat on the
stool and faced the darkened audience. My heart pounded as I waited for instructions on what to do next.
“Okay, Alix. You’re a broken refrigerator that’s been abandoned in the middle of a Laundromat. You have five minutes to find an owner. Ready . . . go.”
My body sighed. This was going to be a long audition.
Ò
Jade was still laughing half an hour later when we walked back to my dorm room. “That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The part where you tried to climb inside the washer!” She cracked up all over again.
I merely shook my head and opened the door to my room, allowing Jade inside. “I just hope I got picked.”
“Are you kidding? You were the best one up there. It was wicked.” She took a seat on my bed and broke out the pack of cigarettes. “You mind?”
I shook my head and turned on the laptop.
Jade lit up the cigarette, exhaling smoke into the air. “When do you find out if you got chosen?”
“Not sure,” I replied, sitting down. “We got out of there pretty early. If I’d known I would’ve made a date with Valerie.” I said that more to myself than to Jade, but she heard it none the less.
“I still can’t believe she kept you on the phone for five hours. That’s excessive for any normal person, but for you it’s just mind-boggling.” She paused momentarily to blow a ring of smoke. “You weren’t having phone sex, were you?” She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
I narrowed my eyebrows as I glanced at her. “Yeah, that’s it.” I shook my head and signed on to AOL. “Oh, hey, you never told me about your date last night,” I said, maintaining eye contact with the computer screen as I double-clicked on my mailbox. My email listing popped up.
From: Dreamer Subject: Re: déjà vu
From: [email protected] Subject: Bored
I bit my lip, trying to decide which one to click on first. Usually I left the best for last when checking my email, but in this case I wasn’t sure which was which.
“ . . . and then the aliens began to probe us anally which I found quite pleasurable . . .”
My head snapped in Jade’s direction as my brows furrowed. “What?”
“Glad to see you were listening,” she said dryly. “What were you thinking about now?”
I smiled apologetically. “I was trying to decide whether to read Jessica’s email or Valerie’s first.”
“Oh, you’re bloody kidding me.” She walked to my desk and flicked me on the forehead.
“Ow!” I rubbed my forehead. “You haven’t done that in ages.”
“Well, you hadn’t been this stupid in a while,” Jade replied, leaning over my shoulder to look at the screen. “Read Jessica’s first.”
I looked at the computer screen. “Why?”
“Cause it’s the first one there.”
Not sure how I felt about her rationale, I clicked on Jessica’s email first anyway.
Al,
Paris is beautiful! We visited the Eiffel Tower this morning. I’m not sure what we’re doing today. Mathew has our guide book. I think we’re going to walk around and take pictures of things. I already bought you a bunch of souvenirs that you’ll most likely frown upon and wonder why I bought them for you, but oh well!
Mathew says hi. He wants to know if Dominique has asked about him? He really misses Dominique. Just got hit with a pillow. I better go before someone gets hurt (well, before he gets hurt anyway). I miss you!
Love,
Jessica
“Sounds like they’re having a good time,” Jade said.
“Yeah,” I responded. “They’re one of those freak happy couples that were brought together by the pull of the moon or something.”
“Are you going to reply first or read Valerie’s email?” Jade inquired, voicing my thoughts.
Without really thinking, I hit “next” and Valerie’s email replaced Jessica’s.
Alix,
I hope your audition went well. I had a lot of fun talking to you on the phone last night. I’m rather proud of myself for keeping you on for that long. It does wonders for my ego, which was shot after playing pool with you the other night. Well, I should go. I have a long day tomorrow. Would it be out of line if I said I missed you today?
~Val~
I couldn’t help the smile that seemed to appear whenever I read Valerie’s emails . . . or heard her voice on the phone . . . or saw her. “She missed me,” I said, unable to keep the awe from my voice.
Jade sighed. “You’re a goner.” She walked to the window and flicked her cigarette outside. “Now can you listen to my date story?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that,” I said, turning around and bestowing my full attention on my bald-headed friend. “I’m all ears.”
Jade nodded and sat on the floor next to my bed. “He took me to an art museum after dinner, where he spent about an hour staring at a painting of a yellow line crossed with a purple one. He insisted it was bloody brilliant and fantastic.” She shrugged. “So I left him there.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “How’d you get home?”
“Well, on my way out I ran into a really cute bloke who offered to drive me home, after I explained about my horrible date. He was really nice, even gave me his mobile number so I could call him sometime.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know how you manage to meet so many different guys just by breathing in their direction.”
“Pity, isn’t it, that even then I can’t seem to find one worth keeping?”
I smiled. “Pity indeed. Maybe this new one will be different.”
“Perhaps.” Jade smiled and studied me for a second. “Y’know, I really do like this new hair style of yours. You look rather girlish but in a cool dyke sort of way.”
“I’m not sure how to take that, Jay,” I replied, grinning crookedly.
She laughed. “No, it looks good.” She nodded toward the computer. “Are you writing back to them?”
My attention shifted back to the emails. “Yeah, I guess I should do that.”
To Jessica, I wrote a quick note telling her not to buy me dumb things and to have fun and to say hi to Mathew for me. To Valerie, I simply wrote back: “I missed you too.” I don’t know why but it seemed too important a phrase to include among a bunch of miscellaneous meanderings and psycho babble.
Or maybe it was just the only thing I wanted to say.
Chapter 9
In my experience, love is simply pain wrapped in a pretty package of red roses and pink hearts. It becomes a series of fantasies dancing on the walls of your mind, replaying again and again at the most inopportune moments of your day when you should be focusing instead on the tediousness of reality. Then, you return to waking life and it hits you that you don’t have what you want. And it hurts. Sometimes, it’s just a sting. Other times, the pain is so intense that you can’t even breathe. And yet, it keeps you going somehow.
I was lying in bed that Wednesday night, staring thoughtfully at a picture of Jessica. It was one I had taken of her without her realizing it. Leaning against the balcony, black hair flowing behind her in the wind, her azure eyes contemplating the distance. It was my favorite picture; the only one where the camera caught her without her defenses, without barriers. I’d never shown it to anyone, not even Jessica. Perhaps it was a bit foolish of me, but I didn’t want anyone to see her as I saw her.
How do you get over loving someone? I wondered, not at all certain that it was possible. How often do you meet a person who can take your breath away with one look?
The knock on the door caught me off guard. I hesitated a second before putting the picture away, then yelled, “It’s open!” When the door opened, and my visitor walked in, my mouth flew open. “What are you doing here?”
Valerie shut the door behind her and stood in the middle of the room staring at me. “Nice to see you too.” She eyed me for a moment and smiled. “That’s a nice look for you.”
For a moment I wondered if I was lying nake
d in bed without realizing it. I looked down and found, to my relief, that I was indeed wearing clothing. Since I hadn’t expected to leave my room for the rest of the night, I’d changed into a pair of blue and white flannel boxers and a gray tank top. My gaze returned to hers. “Thanks. What are you doing here?”
Still not answering my question, Valerie took a second to look around the room, so I took that moment to study her. Looking beautiful as usual, she was clad in faded blue jeans, a gray Miami University tee shirt, and her usual black boots. Her blue eyes ceased their exploration and returned promptly to mine. “The girl I was filling in for decided she could work after all, so I went home.”
I felt suddenly bad for making her stand there, so I responded, “I’m sorry. Please take a seat anywhere.” She went to the end of my bed and sat down. “I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t mean to be a jerk about you showing up.”
Valerie shrugged. “I should’ve called.”
Something occurred to me and I frowned. “How did you find me? I never told you where I lived.”
She looked a bit embarrassed. “I ran into your friend Jade at Whispers earlier, and she gave me directions. I really should’ve called, I’m sorry. I’ll get out of here.” She went to stand up, but I leaned forward to stop her.
“I’m glad you came,” I said, meaning the words. “I meant it when I said I missed you.”
This brought a smile to her face, and my heart skipped a beat. “I lied about that part, but I’m glad someone meant it.”
I frowned, and she laughed. “Yeah, you better be kidding,” I said, relief flowing through me. Last thing I needed was to fall for someone else who didn’t feel the same way. Quickly, I pushed that last thought from my mind. “So did you have a plan for what you wanted to do, or did you just figure you’d wing it?”