A Little Something Different (3 page)

“Wow.”

“He’s so charming and one of those like sneak-attack gay guys. Like you don’t know he’s gay and then he sneaks up on you, and GAY!”

“I didn’t know he was gay.”

“Oh, for sure,” I tell her. “One time he complimented my jeans.”

She looks like she’s taking this fact in. “In addition to the time he flirted with you?”

“Yes, I’m very lucky.”

“You obviously are.”

“Come on,” I say, pulling her up.

“But we’re meeting people…” she says, pointing in the opposite direction.

“And we will, but first we should stalk Gabe for a little while. We have at least twenty minutes until we need to be at the restaurant.”

“All right, let’s do it.”

He hasn’t gotten very far, just barely onto the sidewalk that leads off the green toward the other end of campus.

“Tell me about Gabe,” she says as we walk. “He’s in my creative writing class.”

“Creative writing, be still my heart,” I say.

“Cute, right?” She threads her arm through mine and leans in closer.

“Totally. I thought he was majoring in something else, like teaching phys ed or something. And he’s on the baseball team, or maybe he was on the baseball team? Anyway. I used to see him around all the time and then last semester he disappeared, fell right off the face of the Earth, so I haven’t seen him in almost a year. I was starting to worry that he graduated or transferred or flunked out.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” she mumbles. “I think he can hear you.”

She’s right, I should be more discreet. “I get so darn excited about him though. He’s like this perfect mystery boy to me.”

“He’s a perfect mystery boy to almost everyone.”

“He is. I think I like to keep him that way. That’s gotta be the only reason I have yet to make a proper approach.”

She nods in understanding.

“I can’t believe I haven’t asked you,” I say, loathe to change the subject, but aware that I need to bring this up before I forget. “How’s the roommate?”

“She’s good! Her name is Maribel. She’s really funny but not in a mean way. She has incredible hair. I just want to touch it all the time.”

“You have nice hair,” I say, batting at her short, straight bob.

“Not like Maribel.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“She wants to get us fake IDs.” Lea crinkles up her nose at the thought.

“That’s a great idea. Then you can come out with me all the time! Or at least, you could when I finally turn twenty-one next month.”

“You don’t have a fake?”

I shrug. “It didn’t seem worth it. Most clubs are eighteen and up, and I don’t mind not drinking. And with an October birthday I’m the oldest of all my friends anyway.”

She smiles.

“Now, getting back to the matter at hand, no one really knows where Gabe was all that time. I’m sure that his friends do, but I like to imagine that he was overseas or taking care of a dying relative or something romantic like that.”

“Isn’t this basically the plot to
10 Things I Hate About You
?”

“Rest in peace, Heath,” I say automatically. “But yeah. It’s probably something dull like his parents didn’t have enough money, or he briefly transferred somewhere else and hated it.”

“We should pretend that he was overseas.”

I think about that. “But if he went abroad it wouldn’t have been a secret.”

“How do you know it was a secret as opposed to something you personally just don’t know?”

“Well, my housemate Maureen, you’ll meet her, she’s the one who lived on the same floor as him, and while they didn’t all keep in close touch, she knows people who still know him and are friends with him, but they were always vague about where he was.”

Lea looks doubtful. “So people would come out and ask his friends directly where he was and they wouldn’t answer?”

“Well, I don’t know if Mo-Mo ever asked directly. But I guess so?”

“Maybe he was in rehab,” she says.

“He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who does drugs. Although, if he was on the baseball team maybe he was on steroids or something.”

“Or maybe it was for painkillers. Or NyQuil.”

“You can’t go to rehab for NyQuil.”

“You do realize that sometimes you’re no fun to joke around with and you take my silliness far too seriously.”

I throw my head back and laugh.

“Maybe it was crystal meth. Or sex addiction!” I say in a dramatic whisper.

“I mean, really, Dan. If he’s half the man of mystery that you claim he is, he was probably working abroad as a tattoo artist for the queen of England or something.”

“Which begs the question, what kind of tattoo would the queen of England get?”

“A corgi in a crown,” she says, not missing a beat. “What kind of tattoo would Gabe get?”

He’s several blocks away from us now; we’ve been walking at a slothlike pace and need to take the next turn, but we can still see his red T-shirt in the distance.

“A ‘Mom’ tattoo,” I say with a grin.

“Definitely, on his bicep.”

“Totally.”

“You’re sure he’s gay?” she asks, making a sad little face.

“I’m pretty sure,” I say, scratching my head. “I mean, my gaydar could be on the fritz, but that doesn’t happen often.”

She smiles. “Well then, our mission will be to get you guys together. And to find out what his mysterious disappearance was about last semester.”

“Yes, agreed.” I extend my hand to shake with her to seal the deal. Then we head over to dollar tacos at Casa del Sol.

Pam
(Inga’s wife)

“Now that we’re a few weeks into classes, I have to know, who is your couple of the semester?” I ask as we sit down to dinner Friday night. It’s rare that we both sit down at the table to eat, but if it happens it’s going to happen on a Friday night.

“I can’t believe I haven’t told you,” Inga says, her eyes lighting up. “They’re a boy and a girl this time, Gabe and Lea. When I tell you they’re adorable, I mean they are adorable.”

“That’s what you say about all of them,” I say, leaning back and sipping my wine.

She rolls her eyes. “They are all adorable, but there’s something special about these two. I feel like I would have picked them out anywhere, not just in class.”

“I’ve heard you say that before.”

“I know! But they’ve been giving me some great material. She read a short assignment in class the other day and I think he definitely drooled.”

“Maybe he just got back from the dentist.”

“Why do you insist on teasing me?” she asks, glaring at me. “They have a story. I’m telling you, there’s no way they don’t have a story. They have this chemistry that’s impossible to ignore. I don’t even know what it is. But I’m going to do whatever I can to get them together.”

I shake my head even though I can’t help but smile. My girl has a passion for matchmaking.

“Or to at least talk to each other.”

“At the very least,” I agree, teasing her. She doesn’t even notice and just keeps on going.

“They sit next to each other almost every class. Or sometimes Victor sits between them,” she says, making a face.

“Curse you, Victor!” I say, thrusting my fist in the air. “Who’s Victor?”

“He’s one of those kids who have to take the class for a requirement.”

“Oh, one of those.”

“He had the balls to come see me at office hours and request that I change something on the syllabus because of his own personal timetable. I wanted to smack him.”

“There’s always one.”

“He kind of reminds me of that Indian kid from Mean Girls.…”

“Kevin G.,” I say without missing a beat.

“Yes! Except scarier, because this kid is not happy about being in this class. I’m a little bit worried he’s going to set something on fire. He’s like a cesspool in the midst of my creative writing oasis.”

“I know the type.”

“Anyway, sometimes they do that thing. Where one of them looks over at the other like they’re going to say something and then looks away just as the other senses someone’s looking at them so they look up.”

“Ugh, the bad timing thing.”

“It’s the worst. But Gabe and Lea will fall in love, mark my words,” she says, tapping her finger on the table to punctuate her statement.

“These words, they are marked.”

We’re quiet while we eat for a few minutes.

“So what’s new in the world of astrophysics?” she asks.

“We’ve been married for five years and you still have no real concept of what I do with my days.”

“No, I really don’t.”

OCTOBER

Charlotte
(a barista)

Getting stuck with this God-awful morning shift all by myself is basically the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of my career at Starbucks. It’s this new manager, she doesn’t seem to understand that I have to always work with Tabitha or Keith. They keep me level and they keep me from wanting to strangle customers.

And look who just happens to walk in—Gabe the loser. It’s an interesting and terrible phenomenon about working at Starbucks, you really do get to know the regulars’ names. And unfortunately they get to know yours. Gabe’s been coming in for a long time, though he wasn’t around much last year. I almost missed him, but now he’s come back, flakier than ever. He’s even talking to himself right now.

Tabitha and Keith like to pretend that Gabe is some kind of special snowflake. That he’s the cutest, shyest, most wonderful boy on the planet. Personally, I think they’re nuts. I think the kid is straight-up loopy and in the worst way possible.

“Hi,” I say as Gabe gets to the register, trying to put on my best Starbucks smile and failing.

He says nothing, continuing to stare at his shoes.

“Hello!”

Nothing.

“Yo! Dude!” I glance around the register to find something to flick at him.

The girl behind him nudges him and Gabe looks up.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“S’okay,” I say, even though I really don’t mean it.

“What can I get for you?”

“Grande coffee, room for milk.”

“Sumatra or Pike Place?” Normally I would assume Pike Place, but Gabe mixes it up sometimes.

He stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language even though it’s a fairly basic and obvious question.

“Sumatra or Pike Place?” I’m practically yelling. It’s ridiculous.

He stares at my lips and does a weird combination of a shake and shrug. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

I point at the urns behind me that say “Sumatra” and “Pike Place.”

“Oh, Sumatra’s fine,” he says. I feel a little bad; his cheeks are a burning red that you usually only find on cinnamon candies and he’s blinking a lot as he hands me a gift card.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why Tabitha has such a gigantic crush on him. She could do better, I think as I hand him his drink.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, digging deep into his pockets and dropping a few coins in the tip jar. I have to fight the urge to thank him profusely for his seven-cent tip. Wait until I tell Tabitha and Keith how weird he was today.

Victor
(creative writing classmate)

I don’t understand what kind of horrors I must have committed in a past life that I’m being forced to endure this kind of punishment in the present.

Why do Big Foot and the Giraffe always sit by me? I swear I randomize my seat each class and somehow I still end up between or near these two dillweeds every single time. There’s nothing about me that’s inviting, I’m sure of it.

I’m tired of playing chaperone to their weirdo mating ritual. Talk to each other already! You’re in college! Stop being coy and adorable. And I don’t mean adorable in a positive way. They’re cloying and maybe even a little bit pathetic.

I wonder what Big Foot would do if I asked her on a date in front of him. Maybe he would stomp on me with one or both of his feet.

“Victor?” I’m roused out of my thoughts by Inga. She thinks she’s so cool in her hipster glasses and tiny cardigans and her spiky blond hair.

“Yes?”

“It’s your turn to share your story idea.”

I need to start thinking of new and creative ways to get out of this class. That’s what my story idea should be.

Inga
(creative writing professor)

As one of the other students leaves office hours, I’m delighted to find Gabe and Lea waiting for me in the hallway. In fact, when they look up as the door opens, I go so far as to hold up a “wait one second” finger, just to make them hang out alone together a little longer.

I close the door and drum my fingers on my desk, straining my ears in case they decide to talk to each other.

I count to thirty.

I’m aware of how unprofessional this is and yet I can’t stop myself.

I count to thirty again.

Still not a word from the hallway. I sigh and open the door.

“Who’s next?” I ask, all too aware of how overly bright my smile is.

“Ladies first,” Gabe says. And it’s like all three of us are surprised for a second by his chivalry. He awkwardly leans against the wall and looks in the other direction.

“All right, Lea,” I say. “Come on in.”

We chat for a few minutes. I tell her how impressed I was with the direction she took on the most recent short-story prompt.

She sits up straighter and smiles at the compliment.

“Thank you, I wasn’t sure how the assignment would come out. I feel a little … young sometimes in there, quite frankly.”

“You’re a first-year?”

“Yes.”

“I have had many first-years who are far better writers than the upperclassmen. I don’t think age has much to do with writing. I think it’s something that can certainly improve in time, but there’s no age limit on how old you need to be to write well.”

“I feel better hearing you say that.”

“Have you made any friends in the class?” I ask, prodding, probably getting too close to my personal interests.

She scrunches her nose and peers at the door. “Not really. There’s that guy, Gabe, he’s nice, but I don’t know that he’s looking for a friend.”

I nod and smile and keep my lips closed tight so that I don’t burst out with something seriously inappropriate like, “I knew it!”