Love Her Madly (8 page)

That night in the cafeteria, I staked out a seat facing the entrance. He appeared in the doorway, gliding in with his panther-like gait, stopping along the way to exchange an elaborate handshake with some guy in an Orlando Magic ball cap. He was laughing, his teeth flashing as he was introduced all around, shaking hands with every student at the table. Someone pulled up a chair and he was about to join them, but then he looked up and our eyes met. Whatever I'd felt at the pool was back with a roiling intensity that made my thoughts slow to a crawl and my mouth go dry. His dark eyes stayed locked to mine as he seemed to rise up in slow motion, murmuring something to the table and again pulling off the handshake, all without breaking our connection. He coasted toward me, wearing an embryonic smile that, as he approached, bloomed lotus-like into a spectacular grin. When he was a table away, he slyly lifted his hands, fashioned them into little guns, and fired them from the hip as he strutted toward me, fully aware, I was realizing, that this was a performance.

When he reached me, he concluded the act with an absurd little spin. It was all so unabashedly ridiculous that I was laughing, hard.

“What the hell was that? You're like . . . a big peacock!”

“Big peacock?” he exclaimed, dropping into the seat next to mine and shaking his head in dismay. “Those are my best moves.”

I did not want to be so charmed, but I was powerless. “If that's your best, you've peaked too early, kid.”

“Where's your grilled cheese?” he asked, his hands groping about in the space where my dinner should have been.

“I was waiting for you.”

He leaned back, the teasing expression fading, replaced by mild astonishment. “You waited for me?”

I nodded.

“For me? This guy?” He patted himself down, uncertainly.

“Yes.”

He kissed his fingers and held them up to the sky, like a football player post-touchdown. “I am honored. Truly. It's not every day that a mermaid deigns to eat with a common mortal.”

He stood, and formally offered me his elbow. “Shall we?”

I took it, and he escorted me to the hot line while we beamed at each other like Prom King and Queen. I glimpsed Lila paying at the cashier's station, and when she spotted us, her eyebrows flew up to her hairline.

Who is that?
she mouthed.

I just grinned.

What happened next was that, predictably, Raj became one of us. This was quickly followed by a sad and uncomfortable weekend in which Tall Tim, who had taken to trailing after me like a lovesick greyhound, asked me out. I think he thought he saw everyone pairing off; Max and Lila were officially a (fully ­dysfunctional) couple, and I guess he foresaw Raj and Cyn getting together, too. So he asked me out, and I turned him down, as gently as I possibly could, but perhaps without perfect grace.

I was impatient, that was the problem. I was in a hurry to get to the library, because wonder of wonders, that was where Raj and I had engaged in a torrid, aching, make-out session the
day before. Our seduction was both mutual and spontaneous. We'd made a date to study at the library after dinner one night when Cyn was working. I led him back to a quiet corner of the library with two big armchairs. Had I previously noted its potential as a possible make-out area? Yes. But frankly, I wasn't that optimistic.

We were still purely friends who flirted, and I would say out of the two of us, he seemed more interested in Cyn. He was always, always talking her ear off, trying to make her laugh. He made up endless variations of these convoluted stories about her, in which she went to India to find a lost ruby, or some other nonsense. She would just sit there and listen, occasionally shaking her head at his silly jokes, smiling this mysterious smile. He never made up stories about me.

But anyway, we were sitting opposite each other, very chastely, when I kicked off my sneakers and put my feet up on the little coffee table that divided us. He did the same, and soon enough, we were playing footsie. I shoved his feet off the table, then he shoved off mine. Soon enough, our battle escalated, and he snatched my book away. Trying not to laugh too loudly, I crawled on top of him to get it back. I was straddling him, and even though I was ostensibly trying to retrieve my book, I knew we were both transfixed by the sensation of our bodies touching. He dropped the book, and with that pretense gone, I was just sitting on his lap. So, I kissed him. And he held me there and we kept kissing. I don't know how long it lasted.

I hadn't told Cyn about it, even though we hung out for a few hours after the fact, and I was worried I might spring an ulcer overnight from the guilt and the stress. At the same time, I felt like I was literally pulsing with lust and joy. He had picked me! I really didn't know what would happen when I told Cyn, and I was too scared to ask Raj what he thought we should do. I was the happiest and most terrified I'd ever been.

We'd made plans to meet again that evening, and I was hoping we would pick up where we left off. I had raced through dinner alone and was rushing around, trying to collect the books that I would hopefully not be opening that night. I couldn't get ready fast enough. Then my door creaked open, and standing there was Tim, holding a bunch of daisies. He said they were for me.

I told him thanks and poured some water into a coffee mug to use as a vase, meanwhile explaining that Cyn loved daisies (an improvised fiction), so we'd both enjoy them, and that also, I was in a hurry to get to the library.

Could he walk me? No thanks, I'd be fine.

At this point, as I was grabbing my keys, he cleared his throat and said, “Gloria, I would very much like to take our friendship to the next level.”

Oh no. Had I felt anything for him, that “next level” line would have made me reconsider. It perfectly encapsulated the awkward formality with which Tim always treated me, and which I still hadn't figured out a good way to casually deflect. I looked up to see his face darkening in response to whatever he was reading on mine.

“Tim, that's so sweet. But I think we work better as friends,” I responded, the second hand in my head ticking away. I thought of Raj's smell, like pine needles and warm bread. Wonderful warm pine bread, if there were such a thing.

“Oh,” he said. Clearly, he had not anticipated that I would say anything but yes.

“Look, I'm sorry, I've got to run.” He blinked and then moved out of my way so I could close the door. As I locked it, I felt him looming behind me, quiet as death.

I stepped down the first two steps, then quickly delivered a smile and a cheerful “see ya later” to my erstwhile suitor. The last thing I wanted was this to become a big thing between us,
so I figured the more lightly I handled it, the better. This was probably not the best plan. Tim's face just remained frozen, his huge hands twitching uselessly at his sides. Not knowing what else to do, I turned and hurried to the library.

I found Raj waiting for me in our corner. I dropped my bag and sat on the table in front of him.

“What took you so long?” he asked, with a soft smile. Then, he pulled me close.

We eventually wandered back to my room. Our fingers occasionally brushed as we walked, but neither of us took the other's hand. I took that to mean that we were not yet ready to go public. Cyn had just gotten back, and we were going to watch
Hellraiser
together. It was on the tip of my tongue to say something to Cyn, but with Raj having a cigarette right outside the door, I just couldn't. Part of me was hoping that he would say something, but what was there to say, other than that we'd shared two steamy make-out sessions behind the foreign literature racks?

Before we got the movie started, and before I saw the daisies and remembered the other piece of news that I wanted to share with Cyn, Tim was downstairs, bellowing like a wounded grizzly. He was clutching a three-quarters-empty bottle of bourbon, a bad sign, since he was terribly sensitive to liquor and rarely drank. Max had seen him stagger through the quad, six and a half feet of pure inebriation being hard to miss, and followed him, trying to get Tim's attention. Tim ignored him. When Max attempted to slow him down via a brotherly tug on the shoulder, Tim paused long enough to shove him to the ground. The scene was very “drunken Frankenstein's monster on campus rampage,” according to Max's description. We got the full picture a few minutes later when he showed up at our steps.

Raj heard Tim coming before anyone saw him.

“Glo-ri-a, I think I've got your num-ber.”
He was shouting that old pop song that I loathed, over and over, his huge basso
echoing around the quad as he lumbered our way. That I didn't hear him in the room can only be explained by my ace ability to block out songs that I hate. He stopped short when he saw Raj and stood there, swaying slightly, glaring with an intensity that would have melted glass.

“You!” he roared at Raj. “What gives you the right?”

“Tim?” Raj was mystified. “What's the matter, dude? Are you drunk?”

“Fuck you!” Tim hollered.

The shout startled us. I froze like a prairie dog sensing a hawk passing overhead. Cyn went to the door and peeked out just as I registered the stupid mug of daisies by her elbow.

“Stay inside,” Raj murmured to us, his eyes never leaving Tim. Through the crack, I glimpsed Tim, rage pulling his features into unfamiliar planes.

“Tim, go home,” I called from the doorway. “We can all forget about this.”

Tim laughed. He pointed at me unsteadily, as if his finger would help his eyes to focus.

“Tim, please.” Cyn had stepped in front of me onto the landing.

“I wanna talk to you, Glo-ria,” he demanded.

“We're done talking, Tim. Go home! Go to sleep! You're acting like a jackass.” My voice sounded weak and tremulous, and I realized I was legitimately freaked out. Not just for myself, but also for Raj, who was standing there, so calm and collected, like a goddamn sentry. I felt myself flushing furiously, my whole body burning hot, and I started to really hate Tim.

“Tim, buddy, why don't you let me walk you back to your room,” Raj suggested.

Tim looked at Raj and unscrewed his bottle, slowly drinking a few slugs before clumsily recapping it. The action seemed to take forever. I hoped it might calm him down.

He looked up at Raj. “Why should you get them both?”

Raj paled, dismayed. Students were stepping out of their rooms to watch.

“Who the fuck are you anyway?” he roared, swinging the bottle recklessly.

Tall Tim waited for an answer, his jaw grinding away furiously. Raj didn't blink. I wanted to drag him into our room and lock the door before Tim weaponized his bottle, but I found myself glued to Cyn, barely breathing.

“She was supposed to be mine,” he snarled. “Not yours! You've got the stripper-er,” he slurred. In the moment that followed, no one spoke, and Tim's words seemed to echo against every wall. Max appeared from around the corner, followed by a spry cadre of other male students, clearly prepared to intervene. Tim regarded them warily and lifted his elbows in a gesture of harmlessness. He turned and half jogged away, the liquor inside his bottle splashing to and fro with each lurching step.

Wordlessly, the three of us rushed inside to the window and saw him careening through the quad. He suddenly spun and faced us, where we must have all been clearly visible in our brightly lit room. He saluted us with a vigorous “up yours” gesture, then added two well-articulated birds as a coda.

“I think I'm gonna lock the door,” Raj said.

“Yeah, let's do that,” I murmured.

I ducked into the bathroom, feeling Cyn's eyes on me as the door swung shut. My hands were shaking as I sat on the edge of the tub, trying to collect my thoughts. The spectacle of Tim self-immolating on the dorm steps—and destroying our friendships in the process—was minor compared with what might follow with Cyn when I opened the door. She had to know something was up, and I had no idea how she would react.

Feeling dizzy with fear, I rose, preparing myself for the worst. But instead of facing Cyn's recriminations, I encoun
tered only the back of her head, haloed in the glow of the television we'd picked up from the Salvation Army. She and Raj were sitting quietly, engaged in a game of Tetris. She was kicking his ass.

We spent the rest of the night watching movies. Raj suggested we begin with
Dawn of the Dead
, a fitting selection for the “us against the world” feeling that had settled in the room once we locked the door. We pulled Cyn's mattress to the ground and put it on the floor by my bed, then stacked pillows behind us to make a couch that could fit three. We all cuddled pretty close that night, me on one side of Raj, Cyn on the other. It felt so nice to be next to him that it didn't matter to me that Cyn was there. We all fell asleep on the couch. When I awoke, Cyn and I were on the mattress on the floor, and Raj had made himself comfortable in my bed. I stared at him for a long time, wrapped in my sheets with an arm flung around my pillow. I wanted to keep him there, in my bed, permanently.