Bloom (4 page)

Chapter 7

He’s sitting at
the kitchen table when I come downstairs the next morning. His posture is relaxed into what I’ve already to come to think of as “the James sprawl”. Too big and too long for normal-people furniture, his legs spread wide, his arms relaxed. He’s sitting there with Max and another guy who must be the mysterious fifth roommate, Dan. Max is talking smack and James’s mouth is turned up — a smile about to morph into laughter. I remember that look. It affects me even more now than it did then.

And then he sees me and the laughter dies in his throat, the smile fades.

“Good morning,” I say uneasily. His face has gone from happiness to consternation in two seconds and it’s clearly me causing it.

“Good morning,” he says politely, but his eyes are wary. He introduces me to Dan, who stares at me as if I’m a gargoyle before mumbling something incoherent and practically running from the room.

“Geez, guys, what the hell did you tell him about me?” I ask. “People usually get to know me first and
then
run from the room.”

Max and James exchange a look. “Dan’s a little shy,” says James.

“Didn’t you say he manages an amusement park?” I ask. “Seems like that’d be a hard job for someone who has to flee the minute a new person walks in.”

“He’s a little shy around girls whose mothers were supermodels,” says Max.

“Ah,” I say uncomfortably. “I guess that would narrow it down a little.”

James stands to leave. He’d never admit it, but I get the feeling I’m driving him from the room too.

**

I shadow Kristy through her double shift that afternoon and evening. I can already tell this is going to be an uphill battle for me. She effortlessly remembers a huge order without writing it down, while I can barely remember to fulfill entirely reasonable requests for things like ketchup and silverware. It really doesn’t bode well.

James is working too, and that’s the problem that consumes me most. Though unfailingly polite, he seems to be avoiding me. That odd wariness of his in the kitchen was no anomaly. He speaks to Kristy when we come to the bar and actively ignores me — not an easy feat when we’re standing right beside each other. He teases the other waitresses, an easy, crooked smile lighting up his face, but he doesn’t say a single word to me unless he has to. It’s almost as if he’s going out of his way to act like I don’t exist.

I wish I could do the same, but the truth is that all I want to do is stare at him. He hasn’t changed all that much since he was 21. He’s still got that same kind of intense focus on things he always had, which he punctuates sporadically by saying something ridiculously funny, with only that slight rise to his lips to indicate he’s telling a joke. He still has that smile too – the one that gives you just the tiniest glimpse inside of him. For just a fraction of a second you see his big heart and his good intentions and the sense that there is so much more to him than meets the eye.

Except he never smiles at me.

After work we end up at home sitting on the deck. There’s apparently a certain amount of adrenaline after waiting tables that needs to subside before you can sleep. Time helps. So does beer. James finally seems to relax around me then. He actually smiles, meets my eye. He teases me about my regrettable childhood fascination with “My Little Pony”, and the fact that I used to dress up like Harry Potter to go to the movie premieres. It takes so little for him to make me happy. Perhaps it’s for the best that he rarely tries.

Chapter 8

When Paulina calls
a second time, I answer.

Be smart not defiant. Be smart not defiant.

“I know Stacy spoke to you a few days ago, and it sounds like there was a bit of a misunderstanding,” she says. “No one here meant to threaten you in any way.”

“Okay,” I say cautiously.

“I have every intention of making this up to you,” she says. “Right now, it’s important that you remain out of the spotlight, but once this dies down we can get you an internship somewhere else. A job, even. And if you want to work part-time at the affiliate up in Ithaca when you go back to school, we can make that happen too.”

The earth finally seems to right itself. “So how long do I have to ‘disappear’?” I ask.

“I’m not sure¸” she says. “This could blow over quickly, or it may take a little time. But the less you do or say, the faster it ends. Can you live with that?”

“Yes,” I reply, relief settling over me. Nothing is over. This can all go away.

I think about James then and realize I’m not sure I want it to.

**

I shadow Kristy through two more shifts before I’m finally given my own section. Thus far, I am a disaster as a waitress. I struggle to remember all the shorthand, and find myself checking with Kristy or Ginny constantly. The whole thing is humbling. A week ago I was setting up interviews with heads of state. Now I’m getting bitched at because I didn’t put the dressing on the side.

When I’m not working, there is oddly little to do, particularly with Ginny gone. I find myself compelled to fill the time somehow, perhaps because I’ve spent every summer since I was 15 working 60-hour weeks.

I begin going to a spin class, followed by yoga every morning, and I work either a lunch or dinner shift, mostly lunch because it’s slower. I can hardly argue with receiving the crappier shifts, as I can’t remember roughly half the orders I take.

But there’s still too much free time. It feels indulgent, the bad kind of indulgent, to have these hours and days spent adrift.

From what I can discern in listening to the rest of the wait staff, I’m supposed to be spending those free hours drinking, or recovering from it. But that’s not really me, or any of my housemates, except for Max.

“What would you guys do without me?” he asks that afternoon, walking into the living room to find all of us sprawled on couches and corners, reading. “I’m guessing it would be all ‘Downton Abbey’ re-runs and Scrabble tournaments.”

“I’d kick your ass at Scrabble,” says James.

“I’m sure you would, but the fact that you’d even brag about that is a perfect illustration of my point,” counters Max.

It’s almost entirely at Max’s behest that we have people over so often, a fact that irritates Ginny to no end. Actually, everything about Max seems to irritate Ginny to no end. Mostly, she’s just appalled that he’s not more like her. That he dropped out of college only one semester shy of graduation and appears to have no interest in returning. That he spends his winters as a ski instructor and his summers tending bar and seems completely content. Decisions that Ginny finds unimaginable.

“We’re having a blow-out Tuesday, by the way, since you’re all off,” he informs us.

“As opposed to what you host every other night of the week?” Ginny asks snidely.

“I’m doing it for you, Gin Gin,” he replies. “To help you remove the large stick that seems to have accidentally been wedged in your ass.”

“Yeah, well that ‘large stick’ is what’s going to make me rich and successful one day, while you’re … what? Some washed-up old guy still tending bar?”

He shrugs. “There are worse outcomes than that.”

This bothers Ginny tremendously. “How do you plan to support a family that way?” she demands.

“I’ll know that when it’s time for me to know. Besides,” he adds with a grin, “what part of my behavior has led you to think for one moment that I’m interested in having a family?”

“So all you want out of life is to bang a different girl every night?” she snarls. I’m surprised by her tone – it’s unusually aggressive, even for her.

“No,” he replies. “If we’re talking about ideal outcomes, I’d bang two or three.”

Ginny is still bitching about Max that night while we get ready.

“He’s such a pig,” she says. “And who are all these skanks he hangs out with? Do they have no self-respect?”

I laugh. “Not everyone is a Campbell,” I remind her. The acorn didn’t fall far from the tree with Ginny. Both of her parents are intense and driven. They don’t believe people make mistakes: they believe people have failed to plan. And they have fairly stringent views on human conduct — anything outside of their tightly proscribed moral code is looked upon with horror. I can only imagine what they think of my father, and me, right now.

Downstairs, both the house and deck are already full of people. “At least there are lots of men,” says Ginny.

“Did something happen between you and Alex?” I ask. The idea is almost unthinkable. They are as alike as two people ever were.

“No,” she says. “But I can look. Besides, I meant for you.”

“I think I’m over men for a while,” I tell her. What I really mean is that I am over all men but one, but even if I wanted to talk to Ginny about James, would there be a point? He has a girlfriend and he can barely stand to be in the same room as me. I’d say that makes the prognosis for our future together pretty poor.

“You can’t let that thing with Ryan kill your mojo,” she says.

I laugh. My ex-boyfriend is the furthest thing from my mind, something I didn’t even realize until she mentioned him. He’s my ex for a reason, after all. Actually several very good reasons. “It has nothing to do with Ryan,” I tell her. “I’m just not into it. There’s enough drama with my family to keep me busy for one summer.”

“That’s exactly why you need a man,” she counters. “To take your mind off things.”

I force myself to survey the room again — maybe finding someone to take my mind off James isn’t such a bad idea. But I look at the men here and find that their non-James-ness makes them about as appealing as crackers to a dry mouth.

“Ugh, gross,” Ginny whispers. “Martin is here.” Martin is our strange next-door neighbor. He’s older — maybe 30 — and seems to live in the house next door all by himself. He tends to just hang out on his front stoop, engaging whoever walks by in awkward, unending conversation. And though he isn’t invited, he apparently feels welcome to crash parties at our house. Ginny and I go around the back way to avoid him and end up sitting on the deck with James and Max. I briefly wonder why Max insists on these parties at all — he only seems to want to hang out with us no matter who is here.

He drapes his arm around my shoulders. “I want to hear more about this ex-boyfriend of yours,” he says.

The whole thing with Ryan, surprisingly, doesn’t hurt, and I really thought it would. We dated the entire year, and though I initiated the break-up, it was his douchebaggery that precipitated it. We’d been good together, but not perfect. “What do you want to hear?”

“Just what he did wrong,” he says. “So I know what not to mess up when we’re a couple.” He throws up his hands in response to James’s raised brow. “I’m kidding. But seriously, what did he do? So I’ll know once we’re a couple.”

“We had different thoughts on fidelity,” I reply.

“Oh my God,” Max cackles. “He cheated on
you
? What a moron.”

“I like how you emphasize the word ‘
you
’” scoffs Ginny. “Like it’s okay to cheat, but not on a girl who’s hot.”

“He didn’t cheat on me,” I reply. “But it was clear that a summer apart was going to be an issue.”

“So he couldn’t go for one summer without it, and lost you because of it,” concludes Max.

Ginny snorts. “Right, like you could? You wouldn’t even make it a week.”

“I could for the right girl, Gin Gin,” he purrs. “Why don’t you dump that tool you’re dating and find out?”

She rolls her eyes. “Please.”

“Oh, what’s that?” asks Max, holding a hand to his ear. “Did you fail to write me into your 10-year plan? I think you might have forgotten the following bullet point: ‘sexual awakening that occurs once I suspect my high school boyfriend sucks in bed’.”

James just laughs. His eyes are softer, almost liquid, in the moonlight. Sprawled out in the chair he’s too big for, an easy smile on his face. It’s impossible not to be drawn to him in moments like this.

Ginny and Max are consumed by their bickering, which I get the sense they both secretly enjoy.

“They’re going to do this all summer, aren’t they?” I ask James.

“Yep,” he sighs. “Makes that internship in Boston look a little more appealing.”

“You don’t mean that,” I smile.

“No,” he says. “Nothing could be worth working there again.”

“Why did you hate it so much?” I ask.

“I just didn’t care about the work,” he says. “I don’t want to give up my whole life to helping some rich-ass company delve into the tax implications of moving their headquarters. I want it to mean more than that.” There’s unhappiness in his voice, though, as if he can’t stand fully behind his position.

“But that doesn’t rule out law as a career.”

He sighs. “It probably rules out making money at it, though.”

“You can room with Max,” I tease.

He grins at me. “Don’t think I won’t kick your chair over just because you’re a girl.”

I laugh hard, and in the moment being with him feels right, and easy, and slightly miraculous, as if I’ve finally lined up all the notches and ended up in the perfect place.

Except nothing is perfect, because tomorrow he’ll become that other version of himself. Terse and tense. While I don’t want these moments between us to ever end, it’s as if he’s hell-bent on making sure they do.

Chapter 9

I work the
lunch shift and am sitting downstairs in my uniform afterward when Max comes home.

“See?” he says approvingly. “Feels like a second skin now, huh?”

“It’s tight as one anyway,” I laugh. In spite of his constant references to dating me (well, actually “dating” is a somewhat unspecific term for what he references), he is harmless. We have an easy back-and-forth, a kind of Luke-and-Leia vibe that could never be more than friendship. “I can’t change. Ginny’s video chatting with Alex in the room.” It seems like every time I go up there she’s talking to either Alex or Allison.

“You mean like
naked
video-chatting?” he suggests.

“No!” I laugh. “Oh my God. Not in a million years would either of them do that. Especially not Alex.”

“That guy’s a loser,” Max says dismissively.

“No,” I argue. “He’s a good guy. And he’s like Ginny’s alter ego. They’re so alike they scare me sometimes.”

“Yeah. That’s perfect. I bet the two of them can get together and have
no
fun for hours or even days at a time,” he says. “In my opinion, the last thing she needs is to date someone just like herself.”

“You know Ginny,” I sigh. “Her goals come first.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Campbell meant well, but in my opinion they were colossal fuck-ups as parents. Happiness isn’t even a consideration for anyone in that family.”

“That’s not true,” I argue reflexively, but begin to question myself even as I say it.

“Sure it is,” he replies. “Ginny and James both have these huge lists of things they have to do, and things they can’t allow themselves to do, and they assume that they’ll be happy in the end for all of it, but I think really they’re just going to come to the end and discover that they wanted the wrong things. You’re a little like that too – you spend so much time invested in some hypothetical future that you miss the moment you’re in.”

“That’s very philosophical, Max,” I smile. I’m teasing but in a way I’m impressed. Every once in a while, when he’s alone, he says things that imply there’s actually some thought behind his consume-and-fuck everything in sight attitude.

He grins at me. “I keep a few of those in my back pocket. They’re good for seducing girls from liberal arts schools.”

“If the girls you’ve brought home so far have ever set foot on a college campus I’d be shocked.”

He nods. “I do try to avoid that.”

I give up on ever getting into my room and decide to shower out back. Max walks with me, extolling the virtues of meditation and living in the moment. It’s not until we’re on the deck stairs that I realize James is lying in the backyard doing sit-ups. Shirtless. He seems to have twice the number of muscles a human torso should contain. And his arms … flexed as he pulls forward … Jesus. I’m pretty sure modern science hasn’t even come up with a name for all of the muscles in his arms. He may be a new species entirely. My legs go boneless and I find myself gripping the stair rail to make sure I stay upright.

“Well, well,” whispers Max, startling me. “It looks like Ginny isn’t the only one on the cusp of her sexual awakening.”

I narrow my eyes. “I was just startled.”

“Sure,” he laughs. “I always drool when I’m startled too.”