I turned red, thinking about what I’d done last night in bed while imagining Zach’s body without that corporate uniform, what it would be like to peel back the layers: the trench coat, the dress shirt, the undershirt, the slacks, and more.
“Earth to Brooke!” Sierra shook her head. “Look, I know last year sucked, but I don’t see how being a nun all this year is going to make you feel any better.”
“And I don’t see how a guy like Zach Hutchison would be into me, even if I had any interest in him, which I don’t.”
“Ah,
now
we’re getting somewhere,” said Sierra. She pulled the ponytail holder out of her hair and retied it. Sierra knew some guys had a thing for red hair, and she was happy to work it. The most Sierra moment I can think of is when she once overheard two guys whispering and glancing in her direction, and she went over and asked them what they were talking about. They admitted they were speculating about whether her pubic hair was as red as the hair on her head. “Damn right it is,” Sierra had said. “Except when I shave it bare.” The two guys mumbled something and got out of there.
“Look, I don’t know Zach,” said Sierra, “but if he’s not into a gorgeous chick like you, with those boobs, he’s just not into girls.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re wrong, but thanks.” The fact is, I knew where I fell in the hierarchy of looks. Not bad-looking, by any means, but around here the prevailing standard of beauty was blonde, slim, and
sporty.
Wearing glasses, dressing the slightest bit punk, and having a few more curves than the average skinny bitch knocked me out of the running with guys like Zach. And while that was probably an un-feminist thing to even think, I found it reassuring to know where I stood. Besides, Evan had been a total hottie, and look where that got me. “Next year, I’m going to head off to grad school—”
“Harvard,” Sierra interrupted.
“Naturally. And I will meet a nice, reliable, decent-looking guy with no drama. Not another problem child.”
“Good for you. Sounds boring as fuck, but if it’s what you want, I’ll be cheering for you.”
I finished my sandwich and stole a French fry from Sierra’s tray. “What about you? Are you and Trevor serious, or is he another one of your boy toys?”
“I don’t know,” said Sierra, “and not knowing is kind of hot.” She lowered her voice. “After work yesterday I went back to his room and didn’t even say a word, just pulled down his zipper, took out his dick, and started suck—”
“Got it, got it, thank you very much,” I said. “I have to go to the financial aid office. I guess you need to go sit on Trevor’s face or something.”
Sierra laughed. “I like the way you think. Unfortunately, he’s in class, so maybe I’ll sit on my vibrator for a while.”
The financial aid office was the campus equivalent of the DMV. I could never figure out how, on a campus of less than 1200 students, there was constantly a line at financial aid. Or why they still hadn’t fixed that one flickering fluorescent light that made it feel like everyone was being X-rayed. Our bodies, not just our wallets. I needed to pick up my loan check and then walk it over to the bank to deposit it. That was another mystery: in a world of PayPal and direct deposit, why did they still cut us checks?
The whole thing smelled like a conspiracy. (It also smelled like industrial cleaning fluid.) Give us a four-figure check, bigger than most of us (except the rich kids) had ever touched before, then make us hike it over to the bank. Look at your account balance, start drooling about all the shit you could buy. Everyone on campus had their vice: alcohol, clothes, electronics, online porn, whatever. It’s so easy to blow a thousand dollars and then put tuition on your credit card. Besides, we were all going to graduate $20,000 in debt anyway, so what’s an extra grand? I hadn’t gotten myself into too much trouble, but this semester I resolved to get some serious jeans, like Sierra was always telling me to buy. (She was also always recommending a bikini wax, which was
not
going to happen.)
The line snaked around the perimeter of the office, and I played with my phone while waiting. When I looked up from Clash of Clans, I was close to the front of the line, and, to my surprise, Zach Hutchison was standing about ten people behind me. What was that guy doing at financial aid? I didn’t know a lot about the world, but I knew that briefcase + tie = money. Maybe he was giving a donation to his family’s scholarship fund or some shit. He saw me looking his way and nodded in my direction. I thought about stepping out of line to talk to him, but I didn’t want to lose my place, and what was I going to say, anyway? “Hi, Zach, do you still hate me? Also, how rich is your family? Just regular software developer rich or Goldman Sachs CEO rich?” He wasn’t on his phone, just standing patiently in line, which also annoyed me for some reason.
I finally made it up to the window, gave the woman my student ID, and collected my check. When Zach smiled at me again on the way out, I ignored him.
My favorite part of my job at the Shark is answering confidential questions from students. In addition to leading workshops, I work a two-hour afternoon shift, two days a week. The work study money is minimal, but I get a kick out of hearing about people’s problems. Students always assume they’re the first person to ever come in with their particular question, but it’s all pretty straightforward.
Like today. This sophomore, Jessie, came into the office and looked really nervous. I assured her anything she told was strictly confidential, unless she told me that she or someone else was in danger.
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” she said. She fiddled with her bracelet. “It’s just, when my boyfriend and I have sex, he always has an orgasm, and I...I haven’t. Do you think something’s wrong with me?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Do you have them by yourself?”
“Oh, jeez. Um, yes.”
“Good, that’s important. Have you talked to your boyfriend about it?” She shook her head. “Well, you should.”
“Maybe he doesn’t care,” said Jessie.
“Maybe,” I said, “in which case he’s an asshole and it would be good to know that now, right? But I think he probably does care, but he’s embarrassed to tell you that he doesn’t know how to get you off. So you need to show him.”
“Show him?”
“Yeah. Show him how to touch you. And feel free to touch yourself during sex, or use your vibrator.”
“I don’t know if I can do any of that. What if he thinks I’m, like, slutty?”
“‘Slutty’ is a word people use to demean women who have any interest in sex. Trust me, he probably wants you to come, and if you give him the grand tour and tell him what to do, it’s not going to be a turn-off. OK?”
“That makes sense,” said Jessie. “I’ll try.”
I stood up and shook her hand. “Good luck.” I sat back down in the chair and sighed. It’s so easy to tell other people what to do. How many times had I come with Evan? A big fat zero. And did he care? Apparently he didn’t care about me at all.
I went into the kitchen to get a cup of tea. On the way out, I almost bumped into Zach Hutchison, who was on his way in. He was standing well inside my personal space, and I didn’t ask him to move. My skin felt tight, and I was starting to sweat. “Are you following me?” I managed. Lame.
“How’s your shift going?” he said. I still couldn’t understand how such a sharp, masculine jaw could be visible through his beard.
“Good. You volunteering again?”
“Yeah. Sierra asked me if I could come in during office hours and answer guys’ questions. Apparently a lot of guys don’t want to sit down with a woman and pour their heart out about their love lives.” He stepped past me and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“So? What qualifies you to give advice?”
“Older and wiser. These bagels are stale, huh?”
“Toast them and they come back to life. So what do guys ask about?”
He put half of an everything bagel into the toaster oven. “Mostly, how to get girls. They think there’s some magic formula, like if they wear the right thing or play the right game, every woman will want to date them.”
“Oh, and you don’t play games?”
Zach shrugged. “Never learned the rules.”
I wanted to say,
Of course a guy who looks like you doesn’t have to play games.
But I didn’t, of course. “So your advice is ‘just be yourself’? Kind of hack, don’t you think?”
He took a sip of coffee. “My advice is not to try to trick women into having sex with you. I assume you wouldn’t disagree?”
“Are you just telling me about what a feminist you are to get into my pants?” I shot back. “Maybe that’s your game.”
Zach smiled. “You want to get a drink upstairs after this?”
“You mean like a date?” I said it like I didn’t give a shit, but the truth was, I wanted Zach Hutchison to ask me on a date. A proper dinner-and-a-movie date. And at the same time, I didn’t. The guy seemed
complicated.
Even more so than getting tangled up with any guy during the second semester of my senior year might be complicated. He put up a convincing wall with his corporate uniform, his perfectly groomed facial hair, his quiet confidence. But behind his eyes, I could see pain.
Or maybe he was just good at playing games.
“I mean we walk over there and get a milkshake or coffee.”
“You’re drinking coffee right now,” I pointed out. “If you call the watered-down industrial runoff they serve here coffee.”
“You must be from Seattle,” said Zach. “No one from around here is that much of a coffee snob.”
“I’m not a snob. I just know what I like.”
Zach finished his coffee, crumpled the cup in one powerful hand, and pitched it into the recycle bin. “Come on,” he said. “We can talk geology if you want.”
I tried not to walk too close to him as we left the Shark and headed upstairs to the main hall of the student union. The dining hall was off to one side, getting ready to open for dinner service, and the coffee cart, Grounds Keeper, was across the way. I stepped up to the counter, and told the guy working the espresso machine, “We’ll have two Depth Charges.”
Zach laughed, a deep, chesty laugh. “You’re ordering for me. I like it.”
“Paying for you, too,” I said, sliding a ten across the counter. When the barista gave me the coffee and change, I made a show of folding two bills and slipping them into the tip jar.
I handed Zach his paper cup, and our fingers brushed as he took it. My body was saying,
wait, don’t let him pull his fingers away, you want those fingers to....
“What are we drinking here?” he said.
“A depth charge is eight ounces of brewed French roast coffee with two shots of espresso. Used to drink them in high school in Seattle. Sometimes they called them a Red Eye, or Trucker’s Special, or whatever clever name they could come up with.” Zach took a sip. “What do you think?”
“I think it tastes like eating leftover coffee grounds out of the filter,” he said. “But I’m going to drink it, because you bought it for me and I’m polite. And apparently if I want to hang out with you, I need to be a cultured Seattle person who drinks sludge coffee.”
“Well, fuck you,” I said, then wished I could take it back. But Zach just smiled. I felt shivery all over, probably from too much caffeine. I took a deep breath. “Look, I just need to say, I don’t know if this is a date or what, but you and me, it isn’t going to happen. Okay? But we can be friends.”
He laughed again, and this time I noticed the way his shirt clung to the muscles of his chest. “Wow. You really know how to hit the fast-forward button, Brooke. I asked you for coffee, not to marry me.”
I tensed up and then relaxed. Okay, it was a ridiculous thing for me to say. “Sorry. It’s just, things went really bad for me last year, and...”
“You don’t have to explain,” said Zach. He took another sip of his Depth Charge and set it down. “For the record, this terrible coffee is starting to grow on me. And for the record, I did mean for this to be a date.”
He did? Oh, shit. I felt my cheeks get hot, and my forehead, and between my legs.
“But I get that I’m not your type, and I respect that, and I’m not going to go chasing after you like some asshole.”
I wanted to tell him everything, right then. About what happened on my birthday, about my plans for the future and how sexy business majors didn’t fit into them. I wanted to tell him that a rugged small-town guy who looks great in a suit but somehow has feminist leanings was
exactly
my type.
In my mind, I was leaning across the table to kiss Zach Hutchison, sliding my chair next to his, easing myself over onto his lap, right there in the middle of the snack bar. Hmm. Maybe Sierra had a point. What constituted “dating,” anyway? I didn’t have to
go steady
with Zach. Maybe we could just have some harmless fun.
Maybe I’d already blown my chance, though. I smiled at Zach. “So what’s your story, anyway?”
Zach’s eyes narrowed, and he sighed. “My dad’s retired. He and my mom used to run a feed store in town, until Mom passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a couple of years ago. But my dad’s a lot older than she is.” He shook his head. “Was. And I knew already that he was starting to forget things, but I didn’t realize he couldn’t look after himself. So I took some time off from school. He finally convinced me to come back and finish, so here I am.”