30 Guys in 30 Days (10 page)

“I can probably hold my own,” I
bragged, suddenly overcome with a need to impress this random person I’d known for all of five minutes. It was insanity, I tell you. And it was to be my ruination.

“Oh, yeah?” he said casually. He looked me up and down once again, and I was once again grateful for the extra layer my sports bra provided. “I’ll bet you can. Your legs look pretty strong.” He eagerly loaded what felt like blocks of cement to either side of the bar.

“Go for it, babe,” he called, stepping back. “Twelve reps.”

I smiled and gathered my strength. I leaned down to release the bar.
“UF!”

Yeah, that bar? It was pretty heavy.

Once I’d gotten the bar free from its starting point, things happened quickly. The barbell bore down on me at roughly the speed of light, and I nearly sacrificed my kneecaps in a desperate attempt to stay upright. All the air rushed from my chest and I began to make, I’m sorry to say, some not-very-feminine sounds. It’s entirely possible—I’d even go so far as to say likely—that my face turned beet red, sweaty-shiny, and
that I spit. But of course I wasn’t looking in a mirror or anything, so this is all pure speculation.

To his credit, it only took Tad about three seconds to realize that something was drastically wrong. Unfortunately, they were the longest three seconds of my life.

They were also the three seconds during which, I am sorry to say, the left leg of my yoga pants and the right leg of my yoga pants decided to part company.

Oh, that’s right. They split right down the middle.

Now, it’s possible that I would have been able to conceal this fact with a witty little “Oh, Tad, you’re such a card, I’m just going to, ah, back away into the corner to spontaneously take off my tank top and tuck it into the back of my pants because I’m so amazingly, incredibly hot….”

Or some such.

But that scenario would have required my remaining, if not upright, at least in some way grounded for the duration of the experience. And, sadly, that was not the case.

Tad rushed over (to his credit—and to my extreme surprise—paying no mind to the gaping hole in the crotch of my pants) and, true to his designation as “spotter,” lifted that barbell straight off of me, placing it back in its starting position (using only his pinkie finger, of course).

Myself? Well, I was thrown for a loop by this sudden shift in equilibrium, my sense of balance thrown completely off. Did I go down?

Sure. Going down wasn’t so much the issue.

It was going down and
over
that really brought it all home.

It was like something out of Cirque du Soleil. That is, if Cirque du Soleil featured dancers wearing crotchless tights (which, when you think about it, really would make it an entirely different kind of show). Tad stared at me for a beat or two, taking in the horror of the scene. Then, all at once, he shuddered, as if waking from a nightmare. He was then kind enough to toss me his discarded hooded sweatshirt to tie around my waist, and to offer me a big, meaty paw to help me to my feet.

I was endlessly thankful for the shirt. But, of course, the damage was done. Half the gym saw me (and there’s no way they could have missed my show, what with the glorious Technicolor and surround sound, to boot) and my sad, laundry-day panties. Even Tad, trying like hell to pretend he wasn’t mortified on my behalf, looked, well … mortified on my behalf. Completely.

But he did let me wear his sweatshirt home.

—xx

9/13, 3:12 p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

re: Oh, dear

Wow, Claud, that’s really … um …

I mean, I’m sure no one …

You shouldn’t be …

Okay, just
how
badly did the pants rip?

9/13, 3:17 p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

re: re: Oh, dear

I hate you.

On Wednesday afternoon, I ran some errands in the hour I had between class and meeting Gabe, then slowly made my way over to the Brew and Gold. It was buzzing this time of day, after most classes had ended but before most students were ready to start thinking about dinner, studying, or other evening plans. Students were curled comfortably in the overstuffed sofas and chairs provided, hunched over reading or holding quiet conversations with their neighbors. It felt to me exactly like a college campus was
supposed
to feel, with lots of young people talking, thinking …
being.
For the second time that week I found myself happy, again, to be at Woodman. I went up to the counter and ordered what had become my regular: a double espresso with a shot of vanilla. I paid for my drink and made my way over to the side bar. Once I’d poured an entire cow and three packs of sugar into my drink, I backed away.

Which was when I saw Gabe.

He was on his way in, and he looked tousled and tired. His hair stood up in strange patterns, and his T-shirt (Scooby-Doo)
was rumpled. There was an unidentifiable yellow stain on his cords. And he was wearing glasses. Thick, black, Buddy Holly glasses over his beautiful hazel eyes.

I couldn’t help myself. I loved him yet. “Gabe!” I called out, waving to him. He looked up, brightening when he recognized me.

We wandered toward each other and met in the middle of the coffeehouse, sinking down in an unexpectedly vacant love seat. Gabe unshouldered his bag and collapsed against the back of the sofa. “I am so wiped,” he said, sighing heavily. “Pop quiz and then a review that needed to print, like, yesterday.”

“Oh, I didn’t see it,” I said. Normally I made it a point to always read his reviews.

“I know you didn’t,” he said, winking at me. “You didn’t even read the paper today, did you?”

I blushed. “Well, not yet,” I admitted.

“Hey, did you change your hair?” he asked suddenly, cutting me off. He sat bolt upright in his chair and reached forward to touch it.

I froze in place. “Um, I just blew it out straight today,” I explained. “Sometimes I do that.”

“I never noticed before,” he said, looking puzzled.

I was pretty darn puzzled myself. Since when did Gabe Flynn take note of my hair? Kyra must have schooled him in such things.

Thinking about Gabe noticing Kyra’s hair made me depressed. “Why—I mean, how did you know I hadn’t read the paper?” I demanded, covering.

Gabe grinned. He reached down into his bag and pulled out the day’s
Chronicle.
He quickly paged through to the back and slammed the paper down on the coffee table in front of me. “There,” he said, pointing his index finger to the personals section:

CB-ARTSY—FANCY AN ANI-FEST?

I glanced at him. “ARTSY? Me?”

He nodded enthusiastically, clearly proud of himself.

I felt strange and tingly inside. All the
blood rushed to my head. I couldn’t believe that Gabe had played the little personals game with me.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read the paper that day!

“Cute,” I said, trying not to squeak with excitement. “But how would I have known that was meant for me?”

“Well, my dear, if you’d been
reading
the paper for which you’ve been
writing,
then you would have just sussed it out, intrinsically. You start to get a feel for these things when you’ve been with us long enough.”

“You make it sound like a scary cult,” I protested. “And what’s an ‘ani-fest,’ anyway?”

“You know, like an animation-fest. Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted; Wallace and Gromit; etc., etc…. every year Boston holds its own roundup of the best new animated shorts on the scene. Most of the major distributors are there to scout. It’s really fun. Would you be into it?”

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. “I love animation. I was a huge fan of
Family Guy.”

“Me too! I have a T-shirt,” Gabe said.
“Here,” he said, rummaging back in his bag and coming back up with a crumpled press release and some passes. “It’s Saturday. This will admit you plus one guest.” He paused. “Man, I’d love to go.”

For the second time in twelve seconds, I froze. I would have been happy to invite Gabe along, of course, but it would have just been inviting pain upon myself. I mean, Saturday night was date night. If Gabe wasn’t going to the animation fest with Kyra, it was because they had other plans. But, then … why did it feel like he was hinting to me?

Because you wish that he were.

“There
you are!”

I looked up.

Gabe looked up.

Kyra beamed back down at us. She wore a long, gauzy skirt skimming her ankles and grazing the floor, a sleeveless top accentuating her dancer’s frame. Her hair was wound up on top of her head and she looked, as usual, radiant and ethereal.

She sidled on up to Gabe and immediately began to run her fingers through his
hair, reconstructing it as I had longed to do when he first walked into the coffeehouse. “Everyone’s looking for you downstairs,” she said. “They need you to once-over an article before they can put it to bed.”

Gabe stood, smoothing out the front of his pants in vain, and straightening his glasses. “Sure thing,” he said.

“Um, so, about the animation fest—” I started hesitantly.

He thrust the press release at me. “Here you go. You should call beforehand to let them know you’re coming, and who your guest will be.”

“You’re going to cover that? Perfect,” Kyra cooed. “Gabe asked me, but I really can’t stand cartoons. It’s too hard to take them seriously.”

“Um, right,” I agreed, for lack of anything better to say.

Kyra linked arms with Gabe. “Come on, babe,” she said, turning on her heel and dragging him with her.

Each put one foot in front of the other, and they were off.

I sat, alone with my scrunched-up pieces of paper, my personals ad, and my
nondate with Gabe. I felt like the least desirable female this side of the I-95. I turned to the target—umm,
boy
sitting one couch over. “Do you like animation?” I muttered halfheartedly.

He glanced up at me briefly, then looked back at his book. “Nope.”

Great, then.

9/13, 5:45 p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected], [email protected]

re: 11 down, 19 to go …

Yeah, I’m going to an animation-fest. Alone.

—xx

9/15, 9:42 a.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected], [email protected]

re: coed naked hijinks

So, just popped into the coed bathroom for a shower and, um … accidentally walked in on one of my coed neighbors in his birthday suit. Fun times. I’ve never seen a human being jump quite so high into the air save for sporting events and the like.

Does that count as Target #12? Survey says: sho’ ’nuf.

“So, uh, what are you taking this semester?”

“Huh?”

I snapped out of my reverie to find my dinner companion, Cameron, snagging yet another fry off of my plate.

For the record: I sincerely dislike it when people take from my plate without asking.

Of course, that was but one of the various ways in which Cameron had managed to irk me, big-time, since he and Troy had arrived to pick me and Charlie up for our ill-fated double date.

I blamed myself, of course. Charlie had met Troy at the gym. Something to do with their eyes meeting across a valley of treadmills. Anyway, he’d asked her out and she’d said yes before hearing the catch. The “catch” being Cameron, his best friend in from Amherst for the weekend. Charlie had begged me to come along, and I had foolishly agreed.

It started when they arrived fully twenty minutes late with nary a phone call, text message, or smoke signal to indicate that they were running behind schedule. Lack of punctuality: another huge pet peeve of mine. Then there was the fact that when they did arrive, the very first thing Cameron
did upon our introduction was unabashedly look me up and down, his gaze sweeping across my body like some kind of high-security surveillance camera, only to then step back, slide his tongue out of his mouth ever-so-slightly, and murmur, “Dude …” with a wry thumbs-up in Troy’s direction.

I mean, gross.

I tried to explain my position to Charlie on the car ride over to the restaurant. “This is a problem,” I whispered fervently. “I do
not
blow out my hair for boys who use the word ‘dude’ as an adjective!” She shot me a dirty look that I took to mean that she wouldn’t have me ruining her night with Troy, and leaned forward, asking Troy to “crank up the tunes.”

Dude.

Of course, I was soon to learn that I needn’t have been flattered or even surprised by Cameron’s behavior. The minute we walked into the restaurant, he immediately cast his oh-so-discerning eye over the female members of the waitstaff. I fled to the ladies’ room for a brief respite. There was only so much “dude” I could take in one night, after all.

Fast-forward to the dinner, where Charlie was sitting across the table practically in Troy’s lap, having basically left me for dead, while I picked listlessly at a burger and tried my best to appear at least marginally interested in Cameron’s prattle. Which was harder than you might think.

“I asked what you were taking this semester,” he repeated, sounding slightly annoyed.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t
exactly
trying my best.

“Um, I’m taking …” Suddenly I couldn’t for the life of me remember my own schedule. Was it possible that in talking with Cameron my IQ had actually shot down ten points? Was he
that
toxic?

Without warning, his hand slid up my leg.

Question answered.

“Do I make you nervous?” he taunted.

He had little bits of french fry sticking to the corners of his mouth.

Nervous, no. Nauseated, yes.

I scuttled over to my own corner of the booth. “I’m taking computer science, and intro to pop culture, and, uh, child development, biology, and women’s history,” I rattled off.