Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (2 page)

I watched him walk back, thinking about the first
time I’d seen him—the first day of classes three weeks
earlier.

The first thing I’d noticed about him was his teeth.

I know it’s weird, but I have this thing about perfect,
straight white teeth. He was laughing at some corny joke our Evidence professor had made. Dark hair cut close.
Bright green eyes. The kind of guy you look at and look
at yourself and say, yeah, like that’s gonna happen. But he
caught my eye—probably because I was burning a hole
in the side of his head—as his laughter died away and smiled. I gave a half smile, unsure he was looking at me,
and turned to my laptop, suddenly fascinated by my
screen saver.

I hadn’t been able to keep him out of my mind since.

I watched him drive around to the row of cars in
front of me. The spot directly in front of me was empty.
I had that going for me at least. John walked me through
the process while I tried not to be too obvious about
appreciating his arms. The sleeves were ripped off his T-
shirt and his biceps were giving me quite a staring
problem.

He told me to try to start the car and it started. He gave me a thumbs-up, put the cables away and walked
back over to my driver’s-side door.

“Thank you so much. I know you have way more
important things to do than help me start my stupid car,” I gushed. “I owe you big time.”

“
I didn’t mind at all. I went to Virginia Beach for the day with some friends. Just getting back into town. No
hurry to get anywhere,” he said, leaning on the driver’s
side door. I wanted to be that door. “But you know, there
is a favor I’d like to ask.”

“Sure.”

“Well, I was wondering if you would mind getting
together with me sometime tomorrow,” John said.

I had no idea how to respond. What could he pos
sibly mean? I knew he couldn’t mean what I wanted him
to mean. I was afraid to even ask what he had in mind.
Instead, I sat there gaping at him. Not a good look.

“Wait, that didn’t come out right. If you wouldn’t mind—I mean, I didn’t get that Evidence reading at all
last week and class just made it worse . . . and—if you
don’t want to it’s fine, but I was thinking maybe we could
meet at Barnes and Noble tomorrow or something,” John
said, running his words together, grinning the cutest
embarrassed grin I had ever seen. He was bright red and
adorable.

I realized I was still staring at him and making an
already uncomfortable situation even worse. He looked
like he wanted to run away.

“Sure,” I said with an awkward smile.

“Great. Uh . . . four good?” he asked.

I nodded. I didn’t want to ruin the moment with one of my corny remarks.

He smiled and then waved to some guys standing
near the front entrance to the store. “I gotta go. I’ll see
you later.”

“
Okay,” I said weakly. My phone vibrated and I took
it out of my bag and ignored Suse’s call. I didn’t have time
to reflect on the horror-turned-serendipity moment I’d
just had. I’d never make it to Barnes & Noble the next
day if Suse and Astoria killed me first.

I never made it inside of Suse’s parents’ house. She
lived with her parents, who had moved to Richmond
when she started law school. She was sitting in her car
with the engine running when I pulled onto her street. I
parked behind her, grabbed my laptop bag, shoulder bag
and the shopping bag containing the pitiful present,
slammed my door shut and ran to her car.

“Look at you,” Suse groaned, burying her face in her
hands.

She was right. I was a mess. I still wore navy blue
cotton shorts with “Central Virginia Law School”
printed on them and a gray T-shirt; my favorite studying outfit. My brown hair was swept up in a messy ponytail.
Sweat glistened on my nutmeg brown skin. It was hot
out, being mid-September in Virginia, and I’d done a lot of running around in the last hour or so.

“Suse, it’s going to be okay. Don’t freak,” I said,
adding to myself,
as you have a tendency to.

“You’re not even dressed. The reservation is for seven-
thirty and we have to decorate and pick up the cake
before she gets there. It’s almost six now. And you tell me
not to freak?” Suse said, racing down the secondary road
that led to the interstate entrance nearest to her house. I
cringed as she flung her little Nissan Versa around one curve after another.

“We can fix it. Don’t panic. I’ll change in the rest-
room at the restaurant. We’ll work it out,” I muttered. “Hey, my flight just got in this morning. I just got back
from that job interview in New York, remember? It’s been
craziness all weekend. I’ve been in overdrive trying to get
everything done and still do this birthday thing for her.”

“Oh, yeah, how did that go?”

I relaxed in my seat, thankful for the subject change.
“Okay. But I’m going to hold out for that downtown
firm I have a callback interview with next week.” I had
interviewed for a summer associate position with
Dettweiler, a firm I’d had my eye on ever since I had done
an externship there as an undergrad.

“Oh, you’ll get it. For sure.”

“Hope so.”

“Oh, of course you will, I was just telling . . .” Suse
started.

Satisfied that she was no longer in attack mode, my
attention drifted away from her. I knew she was telling
me something about her boyfriend, Charles, making her
crazy yet again. She’s been with him since high school.
They’re practically married. He’s a total jerk, but she
thinks she’s in love.

Really, I guess I should have been happy that Suse was
so anxious to do something nice for Astoria. If it hadn’t
been for me, Astoria and Suse would not have ever
looked at each other. I was truly the middle ground
between them. My temper was not as volatile as Astoria’s,
but I was not as passive as Suse. I liked to go out and have
a
good time, but Astoria liked it a little too much and
Suse didn’t like to go out nearly enough.

Even in physical appearance, I was not as extreme as
either of them. My brown skin made stark contrasts to
their opposite ends of the spectrum. The only thing that
they had in common and left me out on was thin. I have
been trying to get over my freshman fifteen-plus-a-few
since before I even started as an undergrad at the
University of Virginia.

I wouldn’t call myself fat, and most of the time I like
the way I look. But it’s hard not having body issues
standing next to Suse and Astoria. Astoria especially got
on my nerves with the way she ate anything she wanted
and got away with it. We both went to the gym. She, Suse
and I were in a roller derby league. But Astoria ate what
ever and whenever she wanted and didn’t gain an inch. Did it work that way for me? Not so much.

* * *

Oh, the sacrifices I’ve made for Astoria Banks. I sat in
a too-cold restaurant pretending to enjoy sushi and
trying to force enthusiasm, which was hard when I was going on a few hours’ sleep and depleted caffeine levels.
And especially since my mind kept drifting back to John Archer. Luckily, Astoria didn’t notice too much, since she
was wrapped up in conversation with two of her other
friends, Erich and Sharon. She and Erich had gone to
SUNY together undergrad and both ended up at Central
Virginia University’s Brennan School of Law for law
s
chool. Sharon was a first-year law student Astoria men
tored and had become fast friends with. Brennan was a
small school with only a little over three hundred stu
dents total. It wasn’t a bad place for law school, though.
The school was just outside of Richmond, only a few minutes’ drive from the city limits.

Suse, who really had nobody there to talk to but me,
kept trying to draw me into conversation.

“. . . .enise? You listening?”

I looked up, realizing Suse had been trying to get my
attention. “Uh . . . sorry. I was just thinking about that
um . . . brief we have due,” I said.

Suse rolled her eyes, nodding. “Yeah. Can you believe
it? We just got back. Anyway, you coming to the thing
we’re having for the first years Monday night?” Suse was
heading up a new mentor program for the first-year stu
dents and was constantly planning events for them. I’m
sure it annoyed the few that showed up more than it helped them.

“I can’t. I told Stori that I’d help her pick up some
stuff for the fundraiser she’s doing next Friday.” I hadn’t
been looking forward to helping Astoria until that
moment. Astoria was involved in a community group
that she was hosting a fundraiser for at the law school.

“Eh. Sometimes I feel so left out with you two.”

“You know you wouldn’t want to come,” I said with
a laugh.

Suse shrugged and looked away. I knew she knew it
was true.

W
e turned to watch the other end of the table
explode in laughter. Erich had gotten up from the table
and was demonstrating some ridiculous new dance move.
Astoria was telling him he had to be exaggerating; that
the dance couldn’t be that stupid. He was adamant that
it was. I smiled and agreed with Astoria when my
opinion was asked. That was the quickest way to get out
of any question involving Astoria’s opinion, I knew.

Suse and I turned away from them again. I stifled a
yawn.

Suse picked at her pale pink nail polish and looked up
at me with chocolate brown eyes. “You know, you never
told me what happened to you earlier. You told me you
were leaving the store around five and you didn’t get to my
place until six. I don’t live that far from where you were.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering how she would handle the truth. Some things just didn’t happen to come up in conversation. But I had my ideas about
how she would react. I decided to keep it vague for the
moment. I told her about my idiot car and getting both
a jump and a study date from a fellow second-year.

“Wow, a date? Denise, you haven’t even talked about
dating anyone since I met you. This is huge!” Suse was
clearly enjoying this knowledge.

“Not a date. People study together all the time.” Yeah,
obviously I wanted to think it was. Even though I knew
it wasn’t. He wanted some help with Evidence. That was
all. But still . . .

“Anyway, I’m coming over tomorrow to help you get
ready.”

I didn’t object. I knew I could use the help.

As Suse continued to squeal and throw a fit about my
study “date”, I threw nervous glances at Astoria, hoping
she wouldn’t pick up on our conversation. I wanted
Astoria to know the full story even less than I wanted
Suse to know. Luckily, Sharon and Erich had her atten
tion. They were laughing over stories about their summer
jobs.

Eventually, the conversation returned to Suse going on and on about how all the first years loved her and
hinting to me that I was really missing out by not coming
to the function Monday night. I let her. I contented
myself by thinking about John’s emerald eyes and imagining something funny and unforgettable I could say the
next afternoon when we met up.

Annoyed with myself for even thinking it, I still
couldn’t help but wonder if John really had a girlfriend.
The rumor around school was this alleged girlfriend,
Sasha, had already put in her early decision application to
our law school. She was apparently a senior at Boston
College. I liked to pretend she didn’t exist and hope hard
proof of her existence would never come.