30 Guys in 30 Days (6 page)

He grabbed at my wrist. “Come on, let’s go say hi. She’ll be glad that you’re here.”

I had no idea why Gabe thought that Kyra and I were destined to be fast friends. The girl was friendly to all, including stray animals, and therefore she’d always be pleasant to me. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t the first chick to crush on her guy, and even if I were, she obviously didn’t have any reason to feel threatened. But that didn’t mean we needed to be bosom buddies, braid each other’s hair, and tell secrets at frat parties. Especially on a night like this, when I was already feeling flattened. No way was I going over there to watch Gabe fawn all over his Answer Goddess.

I was out of there.

Anyhoo, that’s my story. But no sense in dwelling. Gabe can’t possibly be the last living sex god, can he?

Can he?

—xx

“I can’t believe you just went home,” Charlie said.

It was the evening after the frat party and we were sitting in the dining hall picking at dinner and rehashing the events of
the previous night. Or, rather, I was listlessly picking away. Charlie was wolfing down her sandwich with gusto. Shelley, who was eating with us, was frowning into her salad. The tomatoes weren’t looking very promising.

Charlie swatted at my hand as I reached for another fry.

“Hey!” I protested.

“I’m hungry. There are plenty more fries over at the steam table.”

I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.” I sunk lower into my seat and zipped up the front of my hoodie. “Tired.”

She nodded. “Well, you had a long night,” she agreed. “And with a sad ending.”

I stabbed my fork toward my salad, chasing a cherry tomato around the bowl. “It was stupid to think South Park could replace Drew.”

“Maybe it’s too soon to be looking to replace Drew,” Charlie offered carefully. “If you’re feeling like your sex appeal is on the fritz, maybe you need to get more practice in. South Park might have been a dork-wad, but talking to him did loosen you up. Baby steps.”

“So what am I supposed to do, talk to someone new every day?” I grumbled. “File a report with the flirt police?”

“Yes! Well, I mean, not quite,” Charlie said, sounding thoughtful. “You don’t have to file a report. But you should do that. One guy a day. For thirty days. You know, ‘thirty days hath September.’ It could be your September thing.”

“That’s a lot of days,” Shelley pointed out.

“And it’s September third. We’re already behind.” I was not liking the sound of this.

“Whatever. It’s a good, round number,” she said. “Don’t get grouchy. You’re the one who feels ‘rusty,’ or whatever you were saying before.”

“Does last night count?” I asked. I was intrigued, I have to admit.

Charlie looked thoughtful. “Yes,” she decided, after a moment. “Because you were acting on a specific directive when you chatted up Kris.”

“Yes, yes I was,” I agreed smugly. “One target down, twenty-nine to go.” I pulled my hair out of its dirty ponytail
and efficiently wrapped it right back up again, trapping any stray hairs that had emerged during my vehement protest of this plan.

“Target?” Charlie asked.

“You know, like, ‘target practice.’ You pick a target, aim, fire. That’s me.” I explained.

“I love it,” Shelley said, laughing. She furtively crammed a french fry into her mouth.

Okay, so, so far, the most promising guy on campus—Gabe—wasn’t a target. Gabe was, hopefully, a friend, an editor, a mentor—albeit an extremely hot one. But he had Kyra. And I had to move on to flirtier pastures.

Me? I may not have had a high tolerance for beer, or Greeks, or even adequately functioning feminine wiles, but I did have one thing going for me:

As of that very moment, I had “target practice.”

9/6, 9:58 p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected], [email protected]

re: Welcome

… to the first official recap of my “target practice.” The good news is that I have been able to target as discussed, one new male a day. The bad news is that I believe my comp sci grade has already been compromised. Curious? Of course you are. Without further ado, then:

(ahem)

The Targets:

•#1: Kris the Sigma Nu creep.
(Remember,
I met him after midnight, so technically that was Sunday, the first official day of “target practice.” Ha-ha.)

•#2: The random boy
standing behind me at the movies Monday night. I reviewed that new Bond flick for the
Chronicle,
remember? The one I e-mailed you both before it printed? That you promised you’d read and in fact
claim
to have “loved”?

Right, I thought so.

Anyway, I asked him where the restroom was. He pointed. To a huge sign marked
LADIES,
which was directly to my right.

Embarrassing.

•#3: Cute soccer-type
perusing the “Local Authors” section at the bookstore on Tuesday.

Me: “Oh, are you taking intro to child psych?”

Target: “Huh?”

Me: (gesturing to the books in his hand) “’Cause of how you’ve got the intro to child psych book in your hand.”

Target: “No,
you’ve
got the intro to child psych book in your hand.
I’ve
got the criminology 101 book.”

Which, to be honest, he did. It’s just I hadn’t had such a close look. But really,
there’s no reason for such hostility. I mean, we’re all just trying to get along, right?

Hmmph.

•#4: My new comp sci cutie,
whose name is Jesse. Built blond, caffeinated Jesse. Also known as the reason I may fail this class. I arrived late for class, you see—not particularly auspicious on the first day. I tried to slink as inconspicuously as possible to the back of the room but, in the process of shimmying into my seat, managed to catch poor Jesse’s cup of coffee on my festive, if inappropriately wide, “first day of classes” skirt. My professor stopped the entire lecture to bawl me out. I didn’t have a mirror handy, but I’m pretty sure my face turned the exact shade of that pink skirt. I whispered a quick apology to Jesse, who, I must say, took the whole thing in stride. Given that he had little dregs of coffee grounds nestled in the ridges of his corduroys.

Welcome to my mortification.

More news later.

—xx

On Thursday morning I popped out of bed earlier than the early bird. Earlier than the
worm, even. I was determined to get to my classes on time, and to make a good impression on those professors who weren’t already soured against me. I dressed in another “first impressions count” skirt, though I was careful to select one that was slightly more streamlined.

I made my way to the dining hall, grabbing a
Chronicle
on my way inside. I briefly contemplated some scrambled eggs, but the woman behind the counter set me straight with a swift shake of her head
no.
Right, then. I scooped some granola into a bowl, grabbed a plastic container of yogurt and a cup of coffee, and settled into a table off in a far corner, next to a window.

I pulled open the paper to have a look. My review had run in Wednesday’s issue, and nothing new had been assigned to me just yet, but I wanted to keep up, both with whatever was going on around campus as well as with whatever was going on at the
Chronicle.

Blah, blah, SGA meeting, blah, blah, op-ed on the new shuttle system
(I fleetingly wondered who in their right mind would have any objection to this service),
blah
blah, cat stuck in tree, Greeks announce all rush season, new album released… bl—

Gabe’s music column. I had learned from Anna one evening that an editor could petition for a column by submitting three sample pieces and letting the editorial board vote. That was how Kyra had gotten her advice column—three or four semesters ago—and that was how Gabe had gotten his column, “Heavy Rotation.” Columns ran once a week. Gabe’s topic for this week was a “back to school”—type theme that drew parallels between the “fresh start-yness” of the fall and the fresh sounds of the indie scenes. I wanted to take notes. All I knew about music I’d learned from listening to local pop stations, and later, from indie-influenced friends at summer camp, but I was woefully undereducated, and suddenly these things mattered to me.

“Suddenly” since I’d met Gabe, of course.

I skimmed down to the end of his column, promising myself I’d check out the bands he mentioned online later. Then I flipped to the back of the paper.
I pulled out a pencil, preparing for the ego-boostingly-easy crossword, when my peripheral vision honed in on something else:

GODDESS: HOT TIMES AT THE LIBRARY, 10 p.m. -ROTATOR

“Goddess?” “Rotator?”

Their column names.
Ick.

Gabe and Kyra’s relationship had penetrated the personals section of the paper.

They weren’t the only ones advertising their affections, though. I took a sip of coffee and scanned the rest of the personals. Now that I was slightly more conscious, the little inside jokes practically leaped off of the page at me:

CHIEF: WINGS TONITE. BE IN THE BASEMENT AFTER BEDTIME.

John, we’ll order wings after we put the paper to bed.

PRINCESS, IT’S YOUR DAY.

Princess is Megan. It’s her birthday—heard her talking about it the other day.

Mind you, there were plenty of personals from innocent, non
-Chronicle-
affiliated students, wishing each other well this semester, saying hello after summers apart. Personals cost three dollars, and it was fun to see ones name embedded within the text. Like silly yearbook messages gone public. One of life’s simpler pleasures.

Or so I imagined.

I don’t know if I would have reacted in quite the same way if, for instance, John’s personal ad had been the first I’d seen. But it hadn’t been, so there was no telling. The fact was that this cutesy little game was something that Gabe and Kyra played together. Along with the rest of the
Chronicle.
Not me. Not only was I on the outside of Gabe and Kyra, but despite a couple of well-written (or so Gabe said, anyway) articles, I was outside of the newspaper staff, too.

I felt a lump forming in the back of my throat, a sign of a sudden wave of homesickness. Where had this come from? I’d been at school barely a week. Of course I
wasn’t in on long-standing traditions or jokes. That would have been way too much to expect, right?

But rationale had no place in my momentary emotional spaz. Memories of Drew flooded back to me: leaving a card in my locker on the first day of school every year, bringing me my favorite chocolate at lunchtime. We had plenty of our own inside jokes and things.

Unfortunately, Drew just wasn’t here.

I shoved the paper aside and let my gaze wander out the window. A trio of girls stomped across the quad, arms interlinked. I could only see them from behind, but I was sure, somehow, that they were laughing. And, of course, it wasn’t
at
me (seeing as how they were thoroughly unaware of my existence) … but it sure wasn’t
with
me either.

Pity party, table for one.

“Guess what?”

Charlie soared into our dorm room, executing a quick pirouette and hugging me before collapsing onto her bed.

I looked up from my books. “Share.”

I’d been sitting sprawled on my bed, surrounded by reading materials, schedules, calendars, and curricula from my various classes, trying to map out a plan for myself vis-à-vis reading. There seemed to be quite a bit of it expected at school. I was slightly worried.

“I’m going to rush!” she practically sang. Her eyes sparkled, and her mouth flew into a wide grin. “Isn’t that fabulous?”

“That’s awesome, Charlie,” I said. “But I don’t get it. I mean, you knew you were rushing, right? This isn’t, like, news or anything?”

She laughed. “Well, I wanted to, sure, and I pretty much figured I would, but nothing was definite—until now!” She flopped backward so that she was lying down and facing the ceiling.

I recalled the article I’d seen in the paper that morning. “Oh, yeah. They had sign-ups or whatever?”

“Registration,” Charlie corrected me dreamily.

“So you’re going to go Tri-Delt, like your mother—right?” I asked.

Charlie sat up suddenly. “Oh, Claudia,
I keep telling myself to keep an open mind, that I might be more interested in another sorority than the Tri-Delts, but I just know, deep down, that that’s not true. I
do
want to be Tri-Delt, just like my mother.” Her eyes were wide with sincerity.

“I’m sure you will be,” I said, meaning it. In addition to having bazillion generations of legacy, Charlie was basically a dream sister. I mean, the girl was born for this type of stuff. In a good way.

She gnawed at a fingernail nervously, then stopped once she realized what she was doing. “I don’t know, Claud. It ties my stomach into knots just thinking about it.” She suddenly sat up. “Come with me?”

“Uh, no,” I said shortly.

“Why not?” she pleaded. “It would really make me less nervous. And it would be so much fun! Something we could do together as roomies.”

I glared at her. “We go to the dining hall together. ‘As roomies.’ Isn’t that punishment enough?”

“Seriously, Claudia—I need you. The sisters, the parties, the judging …”

“And you think
I’ll
be able to help you
deal with that?” I asked incredulously.

“Definitely,
Claudia. Y’all have a very calming effect on me. Remember that time we were in the bookstore and I couldn’t find the book I needed, and then you knew where it was.”

“Charlie, that wasn’t me being ‘calming,’ that was me clueing in to the alphabetized shelving systems,” I insisted.

Charlie shook her head, undaunted. “I don’t care, the point is, I was all worked up, and you were so practical about it, just checking the shelves. That’s why I need you.”

“To read shelves,” I repeated dubiously.

“To be my wingman!” she enthused. “Wing
woman!”
She took an excited breath. “Whatever! It’ll be fun!”