Playful Pierce #2

“This is derivative of something I wrote last week,” she said, holding one finger in the black and white composition book. “But I still think it’s okay.”

She shrugged and smiled. She opened the book, took a deep breath and began to read.

“There is a very good reason why Julia Green can’t sleep at night, but I can’t tell you, or at least I won’t. Not now.

“So what I will tell you is that, instead of sleeping, Julia arranges her hundreds of movies by genre then by alphabetical order. She creates a database on her laptop of all the movies and prints it out to keep track of them should she ever lend them out to some friends.

“She won’t.”

A strand of red hair escaped her ponytail and settled in front of her face. But instead of pushing it away, she trudged on.

I watched the hair flit up every time she pronounced a hard ‘p’.

“The next week Julia plants petunias and posies in her backyard. She digs up her grandfather’s old miner helmet from the basement so she can see what she’s doing. The neighbor’s 13-year-old son, who had been watching television past his bedtime, sees the mysterious light and begins to suspect that she is a serial killer or a drug dealer. Julia is shocked when the flowerbed is upturned Tuesday evening. She drives to the market for more seeds.

“Julia misinterprets the strange looks the boy in the gardening department gives her when she asks about flowers with more sturdiness to them. She is certain the boy thinks she is crazy. In actuality, he finds her cute and quirky. He suggests roses. She thinks them too cliché, but is afraid to say so. She buys the smallest packet available and never returns on Tuesdays.”

She stopped, closed the book, and moved back to her desk.

The professor cleared his throat and asked, “What did you think of Jackie’s piece?”

A boy in a beanie said something about character change, but I didn’t pay much attention. Instead, I watched her glance between the boy and the professor, occasionally taking notes of any helpful suggestions.

The professor asked, “Why do you think that Julia can’t sleep?”

“Sex,” I said.

“Care to expand on that theory Mr. Reed?”

“She hasn’t had it. She doesn’t have friends. She’s awkward around guys who are interested in her. She thinks roses are cliché because she’s never gotten any.” I turned my head to stare at Jackie. I smiled. “She’s probably a virgin.”

She didn’t look up from her notebook.

* * *

After class, I caught up with Jackie at the foot of the stairs.

“What?”

“I liked your story,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and walked out the door.

I ran to catch up with her again. I grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “No, I really did. I’m sorry about that stuff. It was just for attention.” I shrugged.

She crossed her arms.

“I’m a goof-off. That doesn’t excuse it, but…” I said, looking back to the English building behind me.

“But what?”

I turned to face her. “I thought you’d let me make it up to you.”

* * *

At the dimly lit Italian restaurant Jackie told me about moving between cities every other year when she was growing up.

“Eventually I just figured out it was easier to not have stuff,” she said, breaking a breadstick in half.

“Can’t do that. I’m kind of a collector.”

“Yeah? What kind of stuff?”

“A little bit of everything. For example,” I pulled a toy skateboard out of my pocket, “I don’t even know why I have this. I just saw it and kept it.”

The waiter interrupted our conversation to take our orders. I shoved the skateboard back in my pocket. She had the fettuccine alfredo. I had the manicotti.

“So, how’d you end up here?” I asked.

She held up one hand to her mouth to finish chewing. After she swallowed, she said, “remind me to show you that. It’s kind of interesting.”

Twenty minutes later the waiter dropped the bill off at our table.

“You got this, right?”

Her fork clattered on the dessert plate.

“Only joking,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my jeans. I set the credit card on the ticket and spied a piece of cheesecake hanging on the corner of her lips. I reached out to wipe it off with a napkin.

She blushed.

* * *

In the car in front of her apartment I was getting ready to wish her a good night when she asked if I’d like to come in.

“If you want,” she said. “I can show you how I ended up going to school here.”

“Why not?”

Her apartment was quiet enough to hear the faint drizzling on her windows.

“Do you not have any roommates?” I asked.

“I do better by myself,” she yelled from her bedroom.

I sat myself down on the couch in her living room and heard her yell “found it.”

She walked back in to the living room and laid a map out on the coffee table in front of me. On one end of the map was a blue flag marked “Dad” and a red one marked “Mom” was on the other. Using two fingers, I traced the line between them until I hit the halfway point: the town where our school was located.

“Very clever,” I said.

“I’m sorry?” she yelled from the kitchen over the whir of a cappuccino machine.

I stood up. “I said it was very clever,” I shouted.

“Oh. Yeah.”

I walked to the front of the kitchen and watched her pull a second coffee mug from her cabinet. The machine stopped.

“It’s as good a selection process as any,” she said. She handed me the first cup.

I shook my head.

“No, you have to try it.”

I shrugged, reached for the mug and took a sip. I smiled. “It’s kind of hot.”

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”

“No it’s fine,” I said. “I kind of deserved it.”

She smiled and flipped the machine on again.

After another five minutes of whirring, we clinked our mugs together and toasted “to forgiveness.” We set our mugs down on the table.

“What now?” she asked.

* * *

I woke up in her bed in the middle of the night. She wasn’t there. The sheets on her bed were clean and economical: dark blue with no print. I stood up, put on my boxers and took the opportunity to look around.

She hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t keep things. Her walls were bare. There were no knick-knacks on the chest of drawers and nothing under her bed. A small amount of clothes hung in her closet, perhaps the same amount that a more wealthy person would take on a long vacation. I wondered why it took her so long to find the map.

In the corner of her bedroom were three racks of DVD’s with a binder leaning up on one of them. I opened the binder and flipped through the spreadsheet with all of the movie titles on it.

I heard sounds coming from somewhere else. I followed the noises to find her watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons in the living room wearing a long t-shirt and panties.

She turned around to see me standing there, then turned back to face the TV without saying anything.

I sat down beside her. “So, I was wrong?”

“Looks that way,” she said.

“Did you—”

“—know?” She turned to look at me.

I nodded.

“No.” She sighed. “Honestly, I kind of hoped…” She trailed off. After a minute, she turned back to the cartoon.

“Did you—” I began. I paused, collected my thoughts and tried again. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yeah,” she said, without looking away from the screen.

“No, I mean, did you—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Oh.”

She turned to face me. “Sorry. It’s just frustrating.”

I placed my hand on her cheek and pulled her face close to mine. I kissed her neck. “Maybe,” I whispered, “we could—”

She stood up and walked to her bedroom. She came back a couple minutes later carrying my clothes. “I think you should go.” She watched me dress myself.

I pulled on my jeans. The toy skateboard fell out of the left pocket. I picked it up from the shag carpet.

She watched me set it down on the halfway point on her map without saying anything.

* * *

The next class she read a new story.

Everyone loved it.