You (You #1)(96)

This is an everythingship. I shouldn’t hesitate but I do.

“Joe, think about it. I’m gonna get home before you do.”

You called my place home and I give you my keys. You kiss me. Again, no tongue.

“Don’t you have class soon?”

“Yes,” you say and you hug me and it’s good-bye. “See you later!”

You’re gone, along with my keys and Ethan is chuckling when I get back into the shop. “So should we flip a coin?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Blythe just called and told me about how the girls have the day off from school because of the bomb threat.”

“Yeah,” I say but this is news to me.

“So should we draw straws?”

“No need,” I say. “Beck’s got a friend in town. Get outta here, have fun.”

He’s gone and I text you:

Hey. You got a second?

Ten minutes go by; still no response. I put up a sign in the window: BACK IN TEN. I go down to the cage. I pace. Why didn’t you tell me class was canceled? Why didn’t the bomb threat bring us together? I’ve never been so scared in my life and I wish Nicky wasn’t a bad guy because I could really use a talk right now. I plod up the stairs, broken, uneducated, sad. I tear the sign off the window and unlock the door. Still no response from you and I’m losing my mind. I slump into the chair at the register and my head is a bomb that might explode. But that’s when she walks through the door. A girl. A customer. Her eyes are giant chestnuts and she’s wearing a SUNY Purchase sweatshirt, a short skirt and kneesocks and sneakers; frisky. I check my phone; still no response.

She waves hello and I do the right thing and respond. I check my phone; still no response. I put on some tunes, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. In no time, she’s singing along, somebody said they saw me swinging the world by the tail, bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues and I check my phone; still no response. I lower the volume and she responds by singing even louder. She’s as good as any of the Barden Bellas, if not better. She pokes her head out from behind the stacks and I hit PAUSE.

“Was I singing out loud?”

“You’re fine.”

“Were you about to close up?” she says.

“Nope.”

She smiles. “Thanks.”

She disappears and I check my phone; still no response. I walk around to the other side of the counter so I can get a better look at those legs and Justin Timberlake’s “Se?orita” starts. Fucking Ethan, fucking shuffle. I scramble to get back behind the counter and change the music.

She laughs. “Leave it.”

She crosses the aisle holding a Bukowski and I swallow. I check my phone; still no response. She approaches the register with a stack of books, as casual as someone popping into the corner store for milk. I can’t check my phone; she’s a customer, she deserves my full attention. She sets her novels on the counter. Charles Bukowski is right on top, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship.

“I’m not one of those girls who buys Bukowski so I can be a girl who buys Bukowski. You know what I mean?”

“Oddly, yes,” I say. “But you can relax. I don’t ever judge anyone.”

“Then all my hard work was for nothing,” she says, and who’s the flirt now?

I scan the Bukowski and look at her. “Pardon my French, but this is one of the fucking best.”

She agrees. “I lost my copy in a move. And I know it’s stupid but I can’t sleep or function unless I have that fucking book in my possession, you know?”

“Oddly enough, I do,” I say and since when do I say oddly so fucking much? I lower the volume on Ethan’s dance party and I scan Old School by Tobias Wolff. I’ve never read this book and I tell her so.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, after I finish maybe I’ll come back and tell you about it.”

“I’ll be here,” I say.

You still haven’t touched The Things They Carried and she claps as I ring up her final purchase: Great Expectations.

The universe has a sense of humor and I have to share. “You should know, there’s a Dickens festival in Port Jefferson every year, in December.”

“What goes on at a Dickens Festival?” she asks and her eyes are as open as Karen Minty’s pussy.

Oh no. I am flirting. I smile. “Just what you would expect. Face painting and flutes, costumes and cupcakes.”

She gets me, she agrees. “That’s why the terrorists hate us.”

I am not editing myself. I am blunt. “And that’s why God made terrorists.”

“Do you think there’s a God?” She too is different, hot. She is decisive. “There has to be a God. Only God would create something as awesome as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.”

I don’t even hear “Good Vibrations” and she reaches into her wallet and hands me a Visa covered in puppies. I run the pad of my finger over the elevated plastic letters. You would hate me right now. “So your name is . . . John Haviland?”

Her cheeks turn red. “I hope you don’t need my ID because I lost it. Misplaced it, I mean.”

I run the card. She exhales. “You rock.”

I shouldn’t care; I have you. But I pry. “So what year are you at Purchase?”