He listens attentively, the cigarette forgotten in his hand as he looks at me with the merest hint of a smile.
“I had a friend who died . . . of leukemia, so young. You only live once, and you never know how long you’ll have to do anything, really.”
“I’m all for going all in,” he agrees.
“Me too. Or, I suppose I was all for going all in until a few failures made me a little less enthusiastic about it,” I admit. “Like my first crush! So, my first crush was at camp, on a counselor. Mike Harris. He was older and of course so mature, and he swam like a shark. One day I decided to go for it and I kissed him, and he gently turned me down. Listing all the reasons why we shouldn’t when all I wanted to know was if he wanted me back.” I laugh. “We’re still friends.”
“Are you?”
“Why do you ask as if the concept is alien to you?” I burst out laughing. “Yes! We’re friends. Guys and girls can be friends. I did camp every year, and he was there for several. I’m even friends with his wife, it was just a crush.”
“Have you had many crushes?”
“A few.” I laugh again. “But not another big enough to go after him like I did with Mike.” I eye him. “You?” My voice goes soft, as if the mere word you is something intimate.
He takes a drag from his cigarette, frowning, as if trying to decipher the answer to my question. “I suppose I never let my infatuations run that long. When one starts, I nip it in the bud.” He uses his free hand to make a scissor-like movement in the air.
“How so?”
“After a night or two.”
“Just enough to get it out of your system? That’s really dickish of you.”
“Dick is the best word you have for me?” His laugh is low and deep and so very pleasant it makes me quiver.
“You seem to have a pretty big one on you—”
“I don’t make any promises, though—”
We both speak at the same time and stop when we realize what I said.
My cheeks start to burn.
I can’t stop thinking of his package now under his pants.
“Are you thinking about it now? It’s liking the attention.”
“Shut up!” I laugh and shake my head. “My mouth is always getting me into trouble. When I was a little girl and one of my mom’s friends came to visit, I asked her flat out why she had the voice of a turkey. It wobbled!”
He reaches out as he simultaneously peers into my face, and when I realize he’s going to brush my hair back so he can look at me as I tell my story, I nervously push it back and keep going.
“My mom couldn’t apologize enough,” I add.
Why did I do that? He was going to touch me and I stopped him.
I got too nervous about it . . . by the way he was looking at me.
I fall silent and drop my gaze to my feet, letting my hair fall back in a curtain as I hope recklessly that he’ll try to do it again.
He doesn’t.
“So why did she talk like a turkey?” he asks with a puzzled frown.
I laugh, and he laughs too.
It’s weird. He makes me feel like he is so interested, like it’s important for him to know.
“Are you this curious all the time?” I ask.
“Curious? I’m not curious, in fact I’ve zoned out this whole time.” He makes a dismissive move with his head. “Zzzzz, heard nothing.”
I push at his chest, and he laughs and catches my wrist, and then my laughter traps in my throat and I can’t breathe, because his touch zips down my body like a bolt of lightning.
“So, you wanted to know about my crushes,” he says. “You were curious too. Do you have any lives left?”
“Only one, I think.” I grimace and then grin.
“One’s enough if you make the most of it, isn’t it?” he asks softly, then passes me his cigarette, which is about done.
I thank him, but shake my head, declining, touched he was saving the last drag for me.
I want to ask him if he’s doing anything this weekend. I want to see the sights, but I don’t want to go alone and I don’t want to be a constant burden to Tahoe and Gina, or the few interns I’ve met who seem about as lost as I am. But I don’t. Instead I say, “Well, I guess I’d better get home.”
It’s only until I’m riding down the elevator that I realize I didn’t ask him about his interview, or call him names because he stole my red hairband.
I suppose I wanted to have an excuse to talk to him again.
That weekend, Gina takes me out to lunch to meet her friends, Rachel and Wynn. They all ask about me, how I’m doing at Carma, and whether I’ve met Callan.
“No, but I’m happy I haven’t. I warned Tahoe I wanted to do this on my own,” I tell them.
“It’s funny. Callan is such a good guy, but in business he’s very intense. He’s like an apocalypse,” Wynn says.
It makes me a little nervous just at the prospect of meeting him.
The conversation turns to them forcing me to eat a Chicago-style hot dog—no ketchup, they say. I chow down on one, the best hot dog I’ve ever had, and they insist I also must try a deep-dish pizza soon.
Gina confides in me she has a bet going on with my brother.
“Livvy, don’t go to any clubs. I have a bet with him that if you go, as he suspects you will, he’ll shave his beard. And I don’t want him to shave it.”
“I really don’t care what my brother does with his beard, but I promise you if I go, he’ll be the last to know.”