The Girl He Used to Know (Page 14)

This obviously isn’t our first date, and following some sort of protocol seems arbitrary and juvenile. I mean, we’ve seen each other naked. I know the sounds she makes when she’s turned on. There aren’t many places on her body that my fingers and mouth haven’t explored.

I hug her back and though it’s hard to let her go at the end, I do.

15

Annika

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

1991

“What are you going to wear?” Janice asked. She was standing in front of my closet sliding hangers to the left as she surveyed the offerings of my college wardrobe. What I wore had always been more important to Janice than it was to me. Before I started living with her, I chose a top and bottom based on how they would feel against my skin. The fact that they didn’t match and often clashed horribly had literally no bearing on my choice, and I couldn’t recall a single instance where my parents or brother had commented on my choice of clothing. Janice gently pointed out that I’d been walking around campus looking like a fashion “don’t” for weeks and helped me put together complete outfits so I could dress myself if she wasn’t around. It was yet another example of all the things I felt stupid about.

“A skirt,” I said. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what she was doing, because I had my nose buried in a book.

“That’s all you ever wear.”

“Then why did you ask if you already knew what I’d say?”

“Because I thought you might want to wear something different for your first date. I thought I saw a pair of jeans in here once. Where did they go?”

“I left them in the laundry room and someone took them.”

“You never told me someone stole your jeans.”

“I left them there on purpose because I hate jeans. You already know that.”

“What about a dress? I have a really cute floral dress and you can wear my little white T-shirt underneath it. It’s long. I bet you’d like it.”

“The T-shirt will be too tight.”

“You’re smaller than I am. There’s no way it will be too tight.”

“I don’t want to wear a dress.”

“Do you know where he’s taking you? Maybe that would help me decide.”

“Was I supposed to ask?”

“He didn’t mention it?”

I’d given Jonathan my phone number a few days before the practice tournament and he’d called last night to confirm our date. “He said we would go get something to eat.”

“If you insist on wearing a skirt, can I at least pick out the top? And do your hair and makeup?”

I’d taken a shower and washed my hair, and that had been the extent of my pre-date beauty routine. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed and instead I’d put on the bathrobe I’d owned since I was fifteen and had been lounging in it most of the day. I figured I’d select one of my usual outfits a few minutes before Jonathan was due to arrive, and we would go. Already this was becoming more complicated than I’d expected. Janice treated me like her own live-version Barbie doll sometimes, coaxing my hair into elaborate styles and painting my face with things that felt heavy and goopy and smelled weird. If I acquiesced on the hair and makeup, she’d probably get off my case about the outfit. “I don’t care.”

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She returned with a makeup case the size of a tackle box and sat down on the bed next to me. “I don’t want any of that foundation stuff,” I said, in case she’d forgotten how much I hated it.

I put down my book and did what she asked, closing my eyes when she stroked shadow across my lids and opening them as she applied two coats of mascara to my lashes. They felt heavy and I tried not to blink. “Are you almost done?”

“Just a little blush and you’ll be all set. Do you want lip gloss?” Janice loved lip gloss.

“No! Last time you put it on me the wind whipped my hair around when I got outside and some of the strands stuck to my lip.” It had been the grossest feeling ever and I’d freaked out and wiped the lip gloss off on the sleeve of my shirt.

“Oh. I forgot about that.”

Janice picked up my brush and had me turn around so that my back was to her. I hated brushing my hair, but Janice couldn’t handle seeing it tangled, so I’d long since agreed to comb it every morning before I left the apartment if she’d stop trying to get me to do anything else with it. Usually that meant a few haphazard strokes with my brush, and I’d call it done. Janice had asked me more than once why I wore my waist-length hair so long if I didn’t like styling it, but I was never able to articulate why I didn’t want to cut it. It just felt right to me the way it was.

“I know you don’t care for perfume, but it might be nice to wear a little on a date,” she said as she brushed my hair and then began French-braiding it into a single plait down the center of my back. “It will only give me a headache,” I said. Smells were mostly bad, except when they weren’t. “Don’t make my hair too tight, okay?”

“I won’t. I’m going to leave it a little loose so it looks polished, but soft and romantic.”

Janice handed me a mirror when she was done. “There. You’re all set. What do you think?”

“I can hardly tell I’m wearing makeup, but I look really pretty.”

Janice laughed as I crossed to my closet, dropped my robe, and pulled on my favorite elastic-waist skirt and the thin cotton sweater she’d picked out for me to wear with it. Socks and knee-high boots with a flat sole would complete the outfit, and no one but me would know the socks didn’t match underneath. Janice smiled when I turned around, because she’d given up the fight about my clothes a long time ago. I knew the outfits I wore were shapeless, but wearing them felt like having a security blanket with me at all times, one that I happened to wear on my body.

“You look great,” she said. “You’re going to have a wonderful time.”

Jonathan knocked on the door at six o’clock exactly, and when I opened it, he took one look at me and said, “Wow.”

It made me feel so good, and since it was clearly an acceptable thing to tell someone on a first date, I said it back to him.

He smiled, and I told myself that maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

* * *

He drove us to an area of campus lined with bars and food carts and parallel-parked at a meter on the street. I had never driven a car before, and attempting to fit a vehicle into a tiny space between two other cars would have paralyzed me, but he made the maneuver seem effortless.

We bought meatball sandwiches at one of the food carts and because the evening was crisp but not too cold, we sat at an outdoor table to eat them. It was sort of like sitting across from Jonathan at chess club, except there was food in front of us instead of a game board. No one would know it was my first date, because we looked like all the other couples eating together, and I relaxed a little.

“What would you like to do next?” he asked.

The question threw me. I struggled when presented with too many choices, but being given none at all was almost worse, and I had no idea how to answer him.

“Whatever people normally do on dates is fine with me.”

“We could go have a beer?”

“Okay.”

Jonathan threw away our trash, and we walked down the street. He stopped in front of Kam’s. It was the place to be seen on campus; at least, that’s what Janice was always saying. She spent a lot of time there, but I’d only made it as far as the sidewalk out front.

Jonathan and I were having such a good time that I didn’t want to tell him the reason I never went to bars was because they were way too loud and smoky for me. Janice had tried a couple of times, but I never lasted more than five minutes before I gave up and went home. I told myself that I could handle it just this once and that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but the minute he held the door open for me and I stepped inside, I knew it was a mistake. Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love” assaulted my ears, and the cloud of cigarette smoke we walked into felt like a one-two punch to my senses. It was standing room only, and we were shoulder-to-shoulder with half of the student body as Jonathan took me by the hand and pulled me through the crowd. I clung to him, feeling as if I might throw up.

He carved out a small pocket of empty space for me. “I’ll be right back. Wait here,” he said, and he went to stand in line at the bar.

It was so loud that the only way to communicate was by shouting or letting someone talk directly into your ear. How did everyone do this? How could they stand it? Was this really what people thought was fun? Though Jonathan had situated me out of the line of traffic, it didn’t stop a girl from weaving her way toward me and clipping me with her shoulder as she stumbled by. More followed, and pretty soon several people began to invade my tiny slice of personal space. They stepped on my feet, and someone’s beer sloshed onto my hand. I wiped it off immediately, hating the smell and how cold and wet it felt on my skin. Jonathan was still waiting his turn three people deep at the bar.

I was hanging on by my fingernails when I saw Jake, the guy I’d had the massive crush on my sophomore year, and who I’d mistakenly thought was my boyfriend. He was sitting at a table with a group of guys, and when he saw me he elbowed the one sitting next to him. R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” was now playing on the sound system, but suddenly all I could hear was Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and instead of a bar, I was in Jake’s room at the fraternity house.