Crossing (2 page)

He raises his eyebrows at me and says, “How…?” again.

I can’t keep it together. “How do you think I got your alien baby in my belly, Mister?”

He blushes and chuckles. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. How does it work with your species? On my planet, the female kneels before the male and opens her mouth—”

I slap his arm. “Gross!”

He shrugs. “What? She opens her mouth and sings a beautiful tune. Jeez, what did you think I was gonna say?”

I slap his arm again. “You know what.” I look at the clock on the wall above the drinking fountain. “Class is over in five minutes. I guess we better get our acts together and practice for real.”

“Hey, it’s up to you. I’ve been nothing but professional.”

I glare at him and then bust out a smile. “I’m thinking about your big green alien penis again. Sorry.”

“At least it’s big.”

I take two steps back from him. “Okay, I’m ready. My motivation is that I want you to stay with me and raise the baby. What’s yours?”

He chews his lip. “My motivation is to knock up as many cute Earth chicks as I can and then take an intergalactic walk of shame back to Zeldar.”

“Awesome.” I take a deep breath and calm my face, trying as best I can to put yearning into my eyes. It’s not that hard. Green dick or not, I’d hit that…if I made absolutely any effort to hit anything.

“I want…?” His voice is lower and sexier than last time. He makes my job easy.

“I wish…” I say, removing the question from my tone. I know what I want, to keep his alien spawn in my womb!

“How…?” He looks from my eyes to my stomach back to my eyes, his stare boring into me.

I can’t remember my line. It’s one fucking short sentence and I have to look down at my book on the floor. “Why does it matter?”

He turns away from me dramatically and then looks back quickly. “It does, doesn’t it?”

Maren sticks her head out into the hall. “Time to come in guys, I’ll give you five minutes to practice again at the beginning of the next class.”

Liam walks over and takes the door from Maren, holding it open for me. “I learned it by watching you.”

I reach up and pat him on the head.
Well, aren’t we super familiar with the guy we’ve known for an hour!
“The more you know.”

He smirks.

We both grab our stuff and shuffle out of the building with the rest of the class. He starts left and I go right.

Liam gives me a wave. “See you on Wednesday, Dani.”

“See ya, my alien lovah!”

That gets me a few stares, but considering we’re outside the theatre building, not quite as many as if I’d majored in accounting.

I wait until the line of cars goes by and then dart across Patterson Avenue to the duplex. Kristin and Cam are outside smoking on the little porch in front of their half of the’plex.

“Hey, Dans,” Cam says, toasting me with a jam jar I’m sure holds a Jack and Coke. “Happy first day of Fall term.”

“Same to you.” I change course and jump up onto their porch, stealing Kristin’s Camel from between her fingers and taking a quick drag. I hand it back to her and jump off the porch. “Going out later? I think Elizabeth and I are gonna hit up RUMORS for Ladies’ Night now that I’ve got a more believable fakie.”

My last fake ID said I was 5’11’’, which is six inches taller than I really am. It had always worked just fine until the cashier at Emerald Mart got a bug up his butt the first week of May and decided to actually look at my ID for once. Confiscated! Just in time for the most boring ass alcohol-free summer break ever.

“Yeah, what time?” Kristin says. “I’ve got an 8:00 am class tomorrow.”

I snort. “What’d you go and do that for?”

She takes a drag and then crushes her cig in the tall, cylindrical ashtray we subsequently stole from out front of Emerald Mart the second week of May. “Only time it’s offered.”

I turn to go up the stairs to my front door. “We’ll probably go out around nine. We’ll swing by before we head.”

“Cool.” Cam cheers me again.

My roommate Elizabeth – not Liz, not Lizzie, not Beth, not Eliza, not Betty, but Elizabeth – is stretched out on our couch that we upholstered ourselves with faux Cookie Monster blue fur, watching
Angel.
I drop my backpack into the chair by the door that no one ever sits in because it’s where we drop everything when we come in the door, and go to the couch to lift up her twenty-foot long legs. I sit down on the couch and rest her legs back on top of my stubby ones.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“I don’t really know. It’s one of the episodes where Pete from
Mad Men
is Angel’s son and they’re being all broody. I was considering turning the sound down and just looking at them and wishing for shirt removal.” She paddles her feet up and down, which in our house is the international sign for foot rub, and I oblige, putting my hands on her super gross, tore up from the dance floor, feet.

“Your pinky toenail is growing back nicely.”

“I wish it wasn’t. It’s just going to fall off again.” She moans. “Girl, you can work an arch. If only stupid boys knew what you can do with those hands of yours.”

The beautiful, tall, blond, hilarious Elizabeth is referring to my lack of any sort of love life. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve had boys who were friends that I’ve slept with, but no one who ever took me on a date, in public, or declared any kind of feelings for me. It’s weird. I’m not hideous. I mean, I’m whatever. I’m a normal-looking person with a decent personality, but it seems like all the guys on my level are always trying to trade up. Which makes them assholes and not worth my time anyway, because they go for girls like Elizabeth who could give a fuck.

She’s got a boyfriend back home in Medford who against all odds trusts her not to cheat on him, and she gives him the same respect and it works for them. They’re happy. He’s a horse trainer and they’re totally going to get married someday after Elizabeth is a famous ballerina. They’re going to live on a horse farm where she can teach dance to little kids and it’s going to work out.

You can’t help but have a little hope when someone like that thinks you deserve it, too.

“I’m not sure a foot rub and a hand job are comparable.”

She cracks her toes. “You’d be surprised what some people like.” She giggles. “So, any hotties in your classes?”

“Meh. It’s all the same pretentious Lit guys – calling Chaucer ‘deliciously bawdy’ and shit like that. I don’t have Geology until tomorrow.” For some reason, I’m reluctant to tell her about Liam. Like he’s a secret I want to keep to myself. But I don’t. This is one situation where Elizabeth lives vicariously through me. “There was this one guy…”

“Yes?” She cocks her head at me and pushes her other foot into my hands.

“My scene partner in my Acting I class. He was funny is all. Easy to talk to.”

“And…”

“And…cute.”

She kicks me in the boob, which in our house is the international sign for ‘spill it bitch.’

I sigh. “His name is Liam, and he’s from Boise. Tall. Dark brown hair. It’s cut short and not all douche-y and hipster bang-y. Brown eyes. Really nice ass. Like, infinitely grab-able.”

“Did he flirt with you Dani? ’Cause you’re blushing!”

I blush deeper. “Not really. Just…he kept up with me.”

I feel like a complete lame-o the second that leaves my mouth. It’s weird the things we know about ourselves that we’re not allowed to acknowledge out loud because it comes off pompous. Just like I know I’m only okay looking, I know I’m funny, usually the funniest.

Elizabeth doesn’t care. “Intriguing. Hot
and
witty.”

I shake my head. “Too hot. Your level, not mine.”

“I hate it when you talk about yourself that way. That’s what is keeping you from getting a boyfriend, you don’t know how awesome you are.”

“I just know from experience that guys that look like him, or hell, guys that don’t look as fine as him, like to be entertained by me. Maaaaybe they like me enough to kiss me when no one else is looking or sleep with me when they’re drunk, but I’m just not a sexual entity otherwise.”

“Fuck those fuckers!” Elizabeth lifts her foot to my cheek and runs her seriously grody bunioned big toe down my cheek.

I grab her foot and pretend to bite it. “What did I just get done telling you? Nobody is going to be fucking anyone.”

“You know what I meant. Did you ask Kristin and Cam if they want to go to RUMORS with us tonight?”

“Yeah, I told them we’d swing by on our way.”

“Cool. What do you want to do about dinner? I had a nasty salad at Dairy Queen for lunch, so please say you’ll make us something better than that.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I could make us shit on toast and it would be better than that.” Lifting her legs up, I duck under and go into our tiny, olive green tiled kitchen to see what I can dig up.

I open the fridge. “Leftover Chinese from…three days ago? Nevermind. Or I could make an omelet.”

“What kind?”

“The kind with eggs.”

“I know that, bitch. I meant, what filling?”

“Um, three day old Chinese food, bitch. We need to go shopping.”

“Ugh. Maybe you could go this weekend? Eggs sound good.”

X

“I’m already regretting my shoe and wardrobe choices,” I say as we near RUMORS.

“You look cute,” Kristin says, finishing off her cig and dropping it to the ground. “Besides, it’s going to be all women here anyway. I mean Ladies’ Night is literally Ladies’ Night at this joint isn’t it?”

“That’s why I’m worried about my clothing choices!” I scoff. “Straight guys don’t care about what we wear, but women, gay or straight, have opinions. This is going to be a night of judgment, I can feel it.”

Elizabeth punches me on the shoulder. “Not everyone is as hypercritical as you are—”

“And you are—” I say

“And I am,” she says. “Are you freaking because I made you wear that halter? Because you’ve got a fucking cardigan on over it, which negates any effect that it would otherwise generate. If anyone judges, it’s because of the black wooly flipping cardigan, not how hot your boobs look in that top.”

“Or my sparkling personality?”

“Or your goddamned sparkling personality.”

We approach the door. Elizabeth gets in without having to pay the cover or show her ID. Cam and Kristin have to pay the cover, but not show their ID. I have to both show my ID and pay the cover, and I sort of get the feeling that the bouncer would’ve been willing to give me my money back if I’d kept my cardigan buttoned up to my neck. I tell myself he’s gay and that my boobs look like two gigantic elbows to him, therefore, who wouldn’t be repulsed?

Things are in full swing inside, even though it’s only nine. Bars close at two in Eugene, but people always show up early to catch happy hour or avoid the cover.

Elizabeth waves me over to the half of a table she’s managed to snag for us. She motions for me to take my cardigan off, but I leave it on. “I’ll get the first round,” I say loudly.

I don’t bother to ask what the others want. We want whatever drink is on special unless it’s Long Islands or White Russians. Lucky for us it’s vodka gimlets. I wait patiently in line, three deep behind the server’s station, because I know from experience I get nowhere trying to weasel my way up to the bar. Plenty of other women are trying that and succeeding, but plenty aren’t. I worry less about my top when I see a middle-aged lady wearing a golf shirt buttoned all the way up. Who knows what her rack looks like, but it could be a nice one. I get a flash of rack pride and take the cardigan off, first slinging it over my forearm and then tying it around my waist.

It’s finally my turn to order drinks. “Eight gimlets please.”

The male bartender’s eyes don’t even pretend to do a quick glance at my boobs. They’re nailed to mine during our entire transaction.

“How many are you buying for?” he asks.

“Myself and those three.” I point to the table and the girls wave.

He nods. “Eight gimlets comin’ up. That’ll be sixteen.”

You gotta love two dollar drink night. I hand him a twenty.

He makes the drinks in record time and puts them on a tray for me. “Can you handle the tray?”

I pick it up and hoist it above my head. “I worked Corn Fest all through high school. I got it.” I wink at him even though he’s already moved on to the next thirsty customer.

I deliver the drinks and everyone takes their allotted two off the tray.

Elizabeth holds both of her drinks up and we all follow. Two fisted toast! “To Fall term!” she says and we all echo her. “To halter tops!”

“To pushy ballerinas!”

Kristin and Cam clink their glasses together. “To crazyass neighbors!”

X

Four gimlets, or six…an even number of gimlets greater than two later, I am an awesome dancer. I look awesome in my magenta sequined halter-top. I am sweaty. There is body glitter all over my arms and chest, and I wasn’t wearing any when I came in the door.

I’m hangin’ with the Drag Queens.

Earlier, I was feeling how I do again, getting down, wanting to put my cardigan back on. Elizabeth had an endless stream of admirers wanting to buy her drinks, most of which she refused, some of which she didn’t. Currently, she is at the edge of the dance floor kicking her right leg up next to her right ear. It’s her party trick. She’s wearing black satin tap pants for fuck’s sake.

But anyway, minions were worshipping at the altar of Elizabeth. Kristin and Cam were outside on their umpteenth smoke break, probably smoking more than cigarettes at that point. And I just was. I was at the table. Drinking gimlets and resqueezing the limes over the ice for lack of something better to do.

I liked the music, okay? I like to dance, and I can dance when I’m sober, but I’m so much better at it when I’m drunk, y’know? And I wanted to dance, but I didn’t because I wanted to wear a cardigan.

But then the Drag Queens walked in. I’d heard about them. That they did shows here on the weekends, but we’d never seen them because the cover doubles and we can get properly wasted at the Elks’ Lodge for that much money.

But they’re gorgeous. Tall platform heels. Legs longer than Elizabeth’s. Slinky gowns and sequins. Bouffant hair up to there.