Imperfect Chemistry (5 page)

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

–Abraham Maslow

My interaction with Jensen results in a slew of unfamiliar emotions. I try to identify them in a logical and scientific manner. Shame. Regret. Embarrassment. Maybe a little of all three. I have the inexplicable and intense impulse to cease all attempts at experiencing anything further, but that would defeat the purpose of this whole venture.

It takes me a full night to regain my impartiality and decompress, but by the next day, I’m ready to move on to plan B.

Even though my plans for obtaining experience in the realm of romance seem dubious at best and extinct at worst, I can still examine other types of relationships. Friendship, for one. With that in mind, I call Freya.

“Good morning Lucy,” she answers. “You’re the only person I know who calls me before eight in the morning. Do you ever sleep?”

“Yes,” I answer.

There’s silence for a second and I think she must be walking to class because it sounds like she’s outside. There’s a slight fizz when the breeze hits the phone.

“Everything going okay? I called you last week and you never called me back,” she says.

“Yes, thank you, I’ve been busy. Can you come over tonight?”

“Um, you’re going to have to give me more than that, Luce. Am I coming over to study? To field inappropriate questions lobbed in my general direction? To stalk Jensen with night vision goggles and cameras?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “My plans regarding my neighbor seem to have been put on hold indefinitely. However, I do wish to discuss possibilities for moving forward. In addition, I wish to pursue a purely platonic relationship with you, and possibly Bethany and Ted in order to enhance my social skills and understanding of various relationships.”

“You wanna be my girlfriend, Lucy?” It sounds like she’s smiling.

I hesitate for a second. Did she understand my usage of the word platonic? Being that she is a pre-law student at a fairly prestigious university, I will have to assume yes.

“Yes?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

After giving her the address and deciding on a time, I hang up and get to work.

I’m not sure exactly how to prepare for a small, intimate gathering, so after researching a bit online, I decide at minimum I need drinks and food. This makes sense because whenever my brother Sam comes over he immediately raids my fridge. Also, Freya seems to possess an inordinate fondness for food.

After shopping and cleaning up, I’m taking the trash out when I run into Jensen coming up the stairs.

I’m determined to assure him that I’m normal and erase any awkwardness that may be a by-product of our conversation yesterday, so I smile as wide as I can. When he sees me, he stops and looks around. I wonder if he’s thinking about running away. Perhaps he’s seeking potential witnesses in case I throw myself at him. My face heats at the thoughts. The sensation is foreign. Am I blushing? There are no mirrors around to confirm my suspicion. I don’t remember ever blushing before.

I remind myself that the best way to get over an anxiety is to face it head on.

“Hello,” I say.

“Hey,” he returns.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I tell him. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me to pass by. I stop on the bottom step so we are nearly eye level and I’m blocking him from going up. “It wasn’t my intention to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine, really.” He shifts on his feet and looks around again.

I take a deep breath. “I’m having some friends over tonight. If you would like to stop by, you are more than welcome.”

“Thanks, that’s really nice, but I have plans.”

In the bright sunlight of midday, it’s apparent that although my initial assessment of his eyes were that they are a plain brown, they’re actually dark green. In a stunning burst of clarity, I realize that I think his eyes are pretty. In fact, I think he’s pretty. I’m not only intrigued by him, I’m definitely attracted to him. How odd. I hardly know him. Although I suppose a purely physical response is possible and even common. At least, for most people. It’s a first for me. But if what Freya said was true about everyone and everything finding him attractive, it’s nice to know that in some ways I’m just like everyone else.

“Okay,” I say. Putting my internal revelations aside, I step around him and head towards the big green garbage container at the end of the small driveway.

After heaving the bag into the can, I turn around. He’s still standing at the bottom of the steps, watching me.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He jolts a little, as if startled. “Yeah, just fine.” Then he disappears up the steps.

***

Right at six, Freya, Ted and Bethany knock on the door. I open the door and they barge in, a whirlwind of laughter and noise. Their hands are full of stuff: a bottle of wine, a twelve-pack of beer, portable iPod speakers, and an orange cylindrical box.

“Drinking Jenga!” Ted announces proudly, holding the box up in the air before putting it on the end of my coffee table.

“I don’t drink,” I say.

“Even better,” Bethany says with a crooked grin. “More for us.”

“If you pull a drinking block we’ll just come up with something else for you to do,” Freya says. She walks in and heads straight for the food I have laid out on the counter in between the kitchen and the living room.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

She grins around a mouthful of chips. “You’ll see!”

An hour and two rounds of Jenga later I have memorized most of the blocks and their locations. Jenga is a game where you stack rectangular blocks into a tower. Everyone has to pull a block out and place it on the top of the tower without knocking it over. However, the blocks in the game we are playing have different instructions written on each one in various shades of marker.  Some of them encourage the player to drink, others instruct the person who pulls it to perform activities such as kiss the person on the left, draw something on the person to your right, remove an article of clothing, and so on and so forth.

We’re sitting around my coffee table playing the game, munching on snacks and listening to some rock music Ted put on when the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it!” Freya yells, running to my door. She’s the only one who’s gotten this far unscathed. Ted is missing his pants but thankfully has boxers on, Bethany has a giant penis drawn on her cheek, courtesy of Ted, and I have a handlebar moustache and beard, courtesy of Freya.

I’m not paying attention to who’s at the door
. I’m too busy trying to figure out Ted and Bethany’s most recent debate. They’re trying to decide if it’s really better to have loved and lost. I’m afraid I instigated this one, since we started the night off with them attempting to assist me in finding a new direction to take in pursuing the advancement of my emotional education.

“But if you don’t know what you’re missing, you’ll be happily unaware. Ignorance is bliss!” Ted says.

“Then why is it that
everyone
who’s never been in love is
always
trying to fall in love. Ignorance is not bliss, ignorance leads to heartbreak,” Bethany shoots back.

“Everyone? Always? Really? Our discussions have dissolved into hyperbole? You are cut off that wine, lady!” He reaches for her bottle, and she shrieks and bats his hand away.

“Uh, Lucy?” Freya says from the door.

I turn towards her and at the same time realize that I’ve been smiling so much that my cheeks hurt. Once I acclimated to the never-ending banter, I began to see the humor in the behavior.

Freya steps aside to reveal Jensen on the other side of the door. My smile fades as my anxiety increases.

I stand and head towards them.

“Hey,” he says as I approach. “Someone’s parked in my spot.”

I say nothing and look at Freya, unsure whose car it is.

“Beth! Move your shit!” she yells into the living room.

“What?” Bethany calls back.

“Your car, doofus, I told you you’d have to move it.”

Freya beams a bright smile at Jensen.  “Would you like to play
Jenga with us?” she asks him sweetly.             

“I thought you had plans?” I ask before he can answer.

“I did. They fell through,” he says. “Um, yeah, I’d like to join you guys, if that’s okay?” He looks at me.

My eyes flick towards Freya. She’s standing a bit behind the door so Jensen can’t see her and she’s nodding emphatically at me and mouthing something I can’t figure out.

I move my gaze back to Jensen. “Of course.”

Bethany is heading towards us, keys in hand.

I stop her. “I’ll move your car. You’ve been drinking.”

“Are you old enough to drive?” she asks.

I frown. “Of course.”

“Here
ya go.” She passes me her keys and then runs back to Ted who’s eyeing Jensen up and down unabashedly.

I walk outside and Jensen follows. Freya shuts the door behind us and I hear her squeal through the thin door.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware they parked here,” I say, walking down the steps with Jensen on my heels.

“No biggie.”

“What happened with your other plans?” I ask.

We’ve reached the bottom of the steps.

“Well.” He shifts on his feet and won’t meet my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say when I realize I’ve made him uncomfortable, yet again. “I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“It’s okay. I was supposed to meet my dad for dinner but he flaked.” He shrugs. “It’s not the first time.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure how to respond to that statement without making him even more uncomfortable, so I walk away.

I hop into Bethany’s Jeep and pull out of the driveway, parking it out of the alley and on the street. When I return, Jensen’s getting out of his car.

We meet at the bottom of the steps. It’s dark outside except for the solitary porch light casting a dim glow on my side of the duplex.

“Nice stash,” he says.

“What?”

“Your mustache.” He points underneath his own nose.

“Oh, right. I forgot about that.”

I step up on the first stair but he stops me with a hand placed gently on my forearm.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says.

I turn and look at him. “For what?”

“For yesterday. And earlier today.” He removes his hand from my arm, and runs it through his hair. “You caught me by surprise and I haven’t exactly been in the best of moods lately.”

Now it’s my turn to be surprised. Of all the topics I thought he might broach, an apology from him is the last thing I expected. “There’s no need to apologize. I’m sure it was inappropriate for me to proposition you the way that I did, and considering I hardly know you. Freya warned me, but I’m not very good at conforming to social conventions.”

“I sort of got that,” he says. “And don’t worry. It was also the best laugh I’ve had in a long time. Maybe ever.”

I smile. “That’s good.”

“So we’re okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” I agree.

Once we’re inside, I take Jensen’s jacket and hang it on the hook next to the door. I move to sit where I was previously next to Ted but he shoves me over and not too gently.

“Honey,” he says, handing Jensen a beer while patting the seat next to him. “You sit here.”

Jensen smiles. “Okay,” he says and sits in between me and Ted.

Ted is positively beaming when we throw in all the blocks and start the game over.

Since Freya is winning—
according to Bethany and Ted, and I am not sure how they determined her to be the winner other than she has all her clothes on and nothing on her face—she gets to pull first.

“The first rule of drinking
Jenga, is you don’t talk about drinking Jenga,” Ted tells Jensen while they’re rebuilding the tower.

“The second rule is,” Bethany starts.

“You don’t talk about drinking Jenga?” Jensen supplies.

“Good man!” Ted claps him on the back.

“Also, if you wish to preclude yourself from the activity indicated on the block, the rest of the group decides your punishment,” I say.

“Yes! What she says!” Ted nods and lifts his beer in my direction.

Then the tower is ready and Freya pulls a block out of the middle. “Drink to the left,” she reads before sitting the block on top of the tower.

“To the left!” Ted says and slugs back his beer since he’s sitting on Freya’s left.

Bethany’s next, she’s sitting on Freya’s right. “Kiss to the left,” she says.