The Girl He Used to Know(33)
She’s done.
She walks into the bedroom, and I follow. She pulls a T-shirt out of a dresser drawer and turns her back to me, not because she’s upset that I followed, but so that I can unzip her dress. I oblige, and as soon as I’ve lowered it, the dress hits the floor. Her bra and underwear follow, which tells me that modesty is still a completely foreign concept to her. I’m not going to ogle her like the horny college student I once was, but I appreciate the view of her naked backside just the same. She turns around and when I see the front view, maybe I ogle just a little.
I mean, I’m human.
She pulls on the oversized T-shirt. It says WWJD on the front, but there’s no picture or explanatory text underneath.
“‘What would Jesus do’?” I don’t recall that Annika was particularly religious in the past, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t now.
“‘What would Janice do.’ She sent it to me a few years ago, on my birthday. It’s a joke because she always had to tell me what I should do.” She sits down on the edge of the bed and shakes a couple of pills into her hand from the Tylenol bottle on the nightstand, washing them down with a sip from the water bottle next to it.
I smile. “Yeah, I got that.” I also realize with sudden clarity that the reason Annika has done so well tonight is likely due to the coaching she still receives from Janice. How exhausting it must have been for her to attend a dinner like this. No wonder she has a headache.
“Can you stay awake for a few more minutes, Sleeping Beauty? I need you to walk me out so you can lock up.”
At the door, I say, “I had a great time tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I had a great time too,” she says.
I drop a kiss on her cheek and step into the hallway, waiting until she closes the door behind me and I hear the tumble of the lock.
It occurs to me on the way home, when I’m smiling and thinking about Annika and our evening and about the T-shirt Janice sent, that Jonathan also begins with “J.”
18
Annika
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
1991
“Someone called in sick so I have to work tonight,” Jonathan said as we walked home from our afternoon classes.
“Okay.” My good mood deflated, because I’d started looking forward to Fridays with Jonathan. He bartended on Saturdays and Sundays, but the last couple of weeks we’d hung out at his place on Friday night, playing chess and kissing. I liked that he didn’t seem to mind taking things slow. Sometimes we’d read books, my head in his lap as he played with my hair or stroked my head. Jonathan had started to alleviate some of the loneliness I faced on a daily basis, and the time I spent with him highlighted how much better it was to experience things with someone who cared about you in a way that was different from your roommate or family. For years, I’d ordered my hamburgers plain and never entertained the possibility of eating them any other way until Janice gave me one with ketchup, and I realized how much better it tasted. “You’re like the ketchup in my life,” I’d told Jonathan one night on the phone, and he laughed.
“I don’t know what that means, exactly, but if it makes you happy, I’m honored to be your condiment.” That was another thing I really liked about him. He never made me feel stupid about the weird things that came out of my mouth.
“Do you want to wait for me at my place? We could grab something to eat before my shift and then I’ll drop you off.”
“But you won’t be there.”
“No, but you’ll be there when I get home and that will give me something to look forward to. It might be kind of late.”
“That’s okay.” I often took late-afternoon naps, which meant I spent many hours wide awake in the middle of the night. Usually I read a book until I got tired again.
“All right. I’ll pick you up in a few hours and we’ll go to dinner. You should pack a bag so you can stay overnight.” He kissed me good-bye and I hurried inside because I had so many things to ask Janice.
* * *
Jonathan’s apartment made a lot of alarming sounds. The floors creaked whenever one of the other tenants walked around above, and it sounded like they might crash through the ceiling at any moment. The wind was blowing hard, and the drafty windows rattled in their old frames. I spent the evening wrapped in a blanket on the couch while I looked at my watch every five minutes.
He got home a little after midnight. I’d fallen asleep, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when he laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Annika.” I blinked several times because I’d fallen asleep with all the lights on and the brightness hurt my eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Hi,” I said.
He smiled the way he always did when I said that. “Hi. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be quick.”
I hated the way Jonathan smelled after he’d been working at the bar, especially the cigarette smoke that clung to his skin. He hated it, too, and he said he always took a shower the minute he got home. He kissed me, and I could taste that he’d had a beer or two during his shift, but I didn’t mind.
He locked up and turned off the lights in the kitchen. “Why don’t you wait for me in my room.”