Away From the Spotlight (9 page)

“So?”
Max
asked
suggestively
.

John was silent,
but
it was clear th
at he wanted to hear my answer.

Had he been single, John was the one I would have been interested in
as
he was the tall, dark and Irish type
,
though nowhere near as good-looking as Will.  H
is
shy
and brooding nature
had always
peaked my interest
.

“
When do
you
ever give me details about y
our dates?” 
I asked defiantly.

“Ours aren’
t new and exciting like yours. 
We’ve both been with our girlfriends for
years
.
”
Max
replied.
“Besides, w
e’re just watching out for you.
We know how
bad
men can be,” he
added
with a
mischievous smile
.

“I’m not saying a word
t
o the two of
you
.”

I sat at my computer and pre
tended to start to get to work.
Seeing that they weren’t going to get anything juicy, the two of them returned to their offices a few doors down from mi
ne.  The day dragged on and on.

I got home from work to find
my sister
back from the Bay Area. 
The only similarities between the two of us were the
color of our eyes and the fact that we both had Irish first names.  Kelly was
tall,
dark-haired,
a
nd tan.  She wasn’t as intelligent and intense as I was and I wasn’t as extroverted as she was.  At this moment, however, Kelly
didn’t say much other than
“
hello
”
as she was excitedly trying to get a head start on packing
for her move after graduation.  She was an
xious
to lose the l
ong-
distance
part of
her
relationship with her boyfriend,
Matt
.

I
flopped
down
on my bed with my Real Estate Transactions textbook and attempte
d to read.  It was impossible. 
I kept thinking about how I was
going to make it to Thursday.

At about
nine
o’clock, I heard a beep on my phone.
 
The message from Will read, “Still
@
work.
 
Missing u.
Get some rest
&
get ur
strength back – for Thurs ;-)
.
”

I
don’t know how he expected me to get any sleep anticipating
that
.

My response back was, “Miss u2.  Promise I’ll b ready 4 u Thurs.” 
Let him think about what I mean by “ready
.
”

Tuesdays and Thursdays
were much shorter days for me. 
I had the lecture portion of Trial Advocacy from 11-to-
Noon
and Real Estate
Transactions from 1
:30
-to-
3
p.m
.
I didn’
t work on th
o
se days and was grateful that I could dress more casually and comfortably.

A
t
three
on Tuesday
s
, I met with Nell, my Trial Advocacy Partner, to prepare for our Friday
performance class
.
 
This week, we were practicing closing arguments for our “real-world” case involving
a
car hitting a pedestrian, who may or may not have been in a crosswalk at the
time. 
We were on the defense side, arguing that the pedestrian
suddenly
had darted out in the street and
had not been in the crosswalk
when
she was struck by the car
.

Nell was a very quiet Asian woman a few years older than me
. 
She was very
intelligent
, but
insecure about her public speaking ability. 
I spent a good part of the time convincing her that she was doing a good job on her mock closing argument. We both practiced in front of each other and tweaked our arguments as we found good things the other had included in
her
argument.

I was home by
five-thirty
and was not in the mood to study.
 
I decided to distract myself by calling my friend Pam to
discuss our
trip to Europe after
my
Bar Exam.

Pam was one of my best friend
s from college.
She and I were of the same relative gene
pool. 
Pam was of Irish and Welsh descent whereas I was of
Scottish and English descent. 
We both had red hair and freckles, but her
hair wa
s more of an oran
ge-red and her skin more peachy-
brown colored
as opposed to
my auburn hair and pinkish skin tone
. She also was very slim
with more of a dancer’s body.  I was
fairly
slender,
but
had more of an hourglass shape. 
The two of us
already
had
turned heads in Europe on
a previous
trip
after graduating from college. 
There was something about two
redhead
s together t
hat caught people’s attention.

Pa
m
was graduating from the Master’s Program at
USC
and I
was graduating from
the
Law School
. 
Since n
either of us had yet entered the workforce formally
,
unlike most of o
ur
friends
,
we were
ab
le to travel for several weeks.

As with the las
t trip, I acted as the planner.
I loved to research and study
po
tential
places
to
visit
. 
Despite all the planning and effort, our last trip did not feel overly scheduled and I hoped that
this trip would feel the same
way
.

“Are you g
etting excited about the trip? 
We’ve got
less than
four months to get it together,” I told Pam on the phone, making it sound like it w
as a very short period of time.

“I’ve called
Jane
and she says that we can stay with her in London on the fr
ont and back ends of our trip. 
And, of course, we can stay with
Alex’s
brother in
Athens
.”

Alex
was Pam’s Greek
boyfriend, also a student in the Master’s Program at
USC
.
Part of his family lived in
the U.S.
and
part in Greece.

“It sounds like I just need to plan what’s in between
then
. 
Any preferences?”

“Not really.
Oh wait!
Ireland would be fun!
We haven’t been there.
I just don’t want to be on trains a
ll the time if we can help it.”

“I’ll see what I ca
n map out.” 
England to Ireland to Greece and back with a Eurail Pass for three of the
six
weeks we would be there.
It was going to take all my planning ability to get
th
at
accomplished.

After a long talk about various possibilities, I was tired enough to try to sleep.
Just as I was about to crawl in
to
bed, I received another text message from Will
.

“Just wanted 2 say good nite.  Wish I could b there w/u.”

My reply was immediate.  “Me
2.  Hope ur mtgs r going well.  C u Thurs.  Good nite.”

Rachael
and I initially had tentative plans to go out on Thursday, but since I had plans to see Will
that night
, she agree
d to move it back to Wednesday.

The
Royalist
was less crowded on a Wedne
sday night than it was Thursday-
through
-
Sunday, but there still was a good-sized crowd.
Rachael
and I headed to our favorite spot
at the high table near the pub’s entrance.  I
t was
Rachael
’s turn to buy the
round of drinks for the night.

Since I was now together with Will, or at least I assumed so, I really had no interest in meeting anyone.  Despite this fact and maybe because of it, I seemed to be more popular than
normal
. 
Rachael
was usually the one who drew a crowd around us on any given night.  Tonight, it seemed to be me.  There was no effort on my part
whatsoever.  I was dressed down
, wearing black jeans and a simple black top
,
and
did
not take a lot of care with my appearance.  I made no attempt to flirt with anyone and, in fact, did not go out of my way to talk to anyone.  It reminded me of how a cat always manage
s
to rub up against the one person in a room who either doesn’t like cats or is allergic
.  T
onight, I was the allergic person in a room full of cats.  I had no interest in meeting anyone so, of
course, I was like a magnet. 
Where were they all
a week ago?

“What is the deal?” I leaned over and asked
Rachael
at one point.

“I don’t know.  You seem different tonight.  Happier, maybe
.  A
little more lively than normal.  You kind of glow.  You sur
e you weren’t with Will today?”

“I haven’t seen him since I left him sleeping Monday morning to get to class.”
I probably sounded glum as I said this.

“Well, whatever it is, don’t lose it.  This is fun.  The quality of our entourage s
eems to have improved tonight.”

Although I did notice this, I responded,
“Like I care.”

“You may not, but I do.  Besides, you should stay open to it.  You’ve only known Will less than a week.  A weekend together does not a relati
onship make.  I ought to know.”

“Hmmm.”
  She was right, of course, but I
had no
interest
whatsoever
in an
y of the men that surrounded us despite the fact that I might have
the week before
.

“I’m sorry.  Maybe it will work out for you.  I’m just saying you don’t know that now so have
fun.  Keep your options open.”

I may have known Will for only a few days, but I did know that I didn’t want any other options and that
thought frightened
me.

As the evening progressed, I became more obnoxious as the efforts to get my attention with horrible pick-up lines increased.  At one point, I think I even told one of them that my father was in prison for assaulting a former boyfriend of mine.  I said it with such a straight face that I think the guy believed me.

I could feel my pocket buzz, reflecting that I had received a text message on my cell phone.  It was Will as it had been the pa
st two nights around this time.

“Miss u.  Don’
t study 2 hard.  C u tomorrow.”

“Not studying.  Out w/
Rachael
since I’m c’g u
2
morrow nite instead of going out w/her as originally planned.”

“Where r u?”

“
Royalist
.”

There was no response on the other end for a few minutes and I didn’t know whether he was
u
nhappy about what I was doing or just busy with his work
,
whatever that was.