How They Met, and Other Stories(4)
Author: David Levithan

Elise stared down her nose at me. She had to angle her head to do it.

“I’m sure you’re very intelligent, but we prefer Arabella’s tutors to have graduated college.”

“Ivy league?” I asked, tongue in cheek.

“Preferred, but not essential,” Elise replied, tongue nowhere near cheek. “We had a lovely girl from Smith, but she went away to India with her new lover.”

I didn’t think it would win me the argument to point out that I wasn’t going to be running off with any lovers anytime soon. I made a mental note to teach Arabella some really stupid knock-knock jokes as retribution.

As I’d predicted, we followed the same morning routine: reading in Arabella’s room until ten (once again, I didn’t bring my own book, but this time it was deliberate—I enjoyed reading hers), then a stroll down to Starbucks. I kept looking at my reflection in windows as we walked there, checking to see if my hair was flat or if my shirt was billowing the wrong way. Arabella was telling me a story about a girl in her kindergarten class who had eaten a crayon and said it tasted like chicken. I tried to follow.

All of my prayers and fears were answered, because Starbucks Boy was working the register when we walked in. There were two people in front of us, and I obsessively paid attention to the way he talked to them—genial, but nothing special. When we got to the front of the line, he smiled a little wider (I was sure of it) and said, without missing a beat, “One iced chai and one vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha, in a purple cup, right?”

Was I dealing with some kind of Starbucks Savant, or had he thought my order yesterday was worth remembering? Melodramatic as it may sound (and it certainly felt melodramatic), I considered that my entire romantic future might hinge on the answer to that question.

The trouble with flirting with someone at a cash register is that your time together is bound to be fleeting. I could hear the people behind me shuffling and preparing to grumble as I fumbled through my wallet for correct change (saving my singles for the tip jar, where they’d be more noticeable). Starbucks Boy conveyed my order and Arabella’s cup to the worker b’s behind him, then looked at my wallet and said, “It’s cool you have a change pocket. I need one of those in my wallet. I hate loose change.”

If there was something to say next that would parlay our conversation from reportage to repartee, I couldn’t figure it out. So instead of something inspiringly witty, I said, “I got it at H&M. I like it a lot.”

“Homosexual and Metrosexual,” Starbucks Boy replied. Then, as I thought WHA?!, he added, “H&M. I know it stands for something Swedish, but really it should be Homosexual & Metrosexual.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Mmm-hmm.”

“It’s a cool wallet.”

“Thanks.”

Because I’d paid in exact change, there wasn’t anything for him to give me back except the receipt. And once he handed that over, I couldn’t continue to hold up the line. I didn’t think the woman behind me would understand if I turned to her and said, “I just need another moment—I’m admiring his eyes.” Or maybe she would, and she’d get further with him than I could.

Homosexual or metrosexual? Or just a fan of mass-produced Swedish fashion?

I hadn’t even realized that Arabella had disappeared from my side, which I imagined wasn’t the best babysitter behavior on my part. Luckily she was only a few steps away, at the pickup counter.

“He’s nice,” she observed. I restrained myself from grabbing her by the shoulders and asking, What else did you notice? Do you think he’s into guys? And into me, specifically? I wished I were back home, where I could send my girl posse in to suss him out.

That afternoon, after I’d abandoned Arabella to Ivan (who looked like the love child of Lenin and Stalin), I found myself ambling by the Starbucks again. I debated whether or not to go in, to see if Starbucks Boy’s shift had ended. Then I started to feel like I was exhibiting Typical Stalker Behavior and decided to stalk wallets at H&M instead.

I knew I was getting perilously close to opening up my History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes, but the insidious thing about the History was that I always felt each new blank page had the potential to transform it into a different book. One successful gesture, one successful relationship would suddenly turn it into a History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes That Were All Redeemed in the End. If on page 13 I wrote Justin Timberlake’s initials with mine in a heart on my sneakers, only to throw them out the next day when Laura Duke teased me for it, or if on page 98 I set up base camp outside Roger Lin’s locker just to see if he’d notice me there, or if on page 154 I entered a milkshake-drinking contest to be able to stand next to Mark Tamlin for fifteen minutes, only to have him puke vanilla chum onto my Skechers…well, somehow I felt these pages didn’t bear consideration as I headed to page 239 and bought a ten-dollar H&M wallet for a boy because it was the only thing in the world I knew for sure he liked, including me. I didn’t buy him the same exact wallet—I made his green to my blue—and I didn’t actually believe I’d ever give it to him. But at least it provided me with the illusion of doing something proactive.

That night, Aunt Celia asked me how it was going with Arabella. We were at a trattoria down the street from her apartment, her concession for never cooking me dinner.

“Fine,” I said.

Aunt Celia swirled the wine in her glass for a second before drinking it. “She’s a very talented girl…or so Elise tells me.”

“She’s very smart,” I agreed.

Aunt Celia nodded. “Good.” Then she speared an asparagus and we remained in silence until she released her next fleeting criticism.

Pretty much the whole time, I was thinking of Starbucks Boy.

The next morning, I couldn’t stop myself from being impatient. Arabella also seemed to be pushing the clock to go faster. Instead of spending time on each book, she sped through them, scowling at the illustrated kittens and puppies as if it were their fault that time couldn’t move as fast as she turned the pages.

Finally, a little before ten o’clock, she looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Let’s go now.”

I had spent about a half hour deciding which T-shirt to wear, which was a sure sign of a crush if ever there was one. I was also carrying two wallets—an empty one in my left pocket, an only-marginally-more-full one in my right.