Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (31 page)

“Oh, you want me. So, so bad.” He and Shawn laughed.

I stomped off, leaving them laughing behind me. I
was fuming over what John might have been telling
people. And wondering how many people he’d told.

* * *

The week after Barrister’s, I was walking down the
street from the law school to Astoria’s apartment at the
undergrad dorms. She worked in residence life and was a
head resident for one of the dorms. We were on the
phone, talking about our spring break plans, or lack
t
hereof. I was going home for the week and Astoria was
going on a mission trip with a group of people from her
church. We had carefully avoided talking about anything
that had to do with Erich, John, or anything related to that whole mess since the night of the dance. We had come to an unspoken truce.

Suddenly, I felt a hard tap on my shoulder; almost a punch. I whirled around, annoyed, and came face-to-face
with
her
.

“Sasha,” I said blankly, wondering where she had
come from and what she wanted.

“Yeah. I’ve been followin’ you. Trying to decide
whether to come up to you or not. But I have to say this,”
Sasha said, out of breath. Her face was red and it starkly
contrasted with the platinum blonde hair swirling
around her head.

“Yes?” I said coolly.

“You need to stay the hell away from John!” she
snarled. My heart was pounding, but I was trying my
hardest to keep my face impassive.

“John and I broke up. I don’t see him except for
around school,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t expose my
lie.

“Yeah? Well, I saw you two talking after Barrister’s.
And I heard you two were at a hotel together that night.”

What
? I thought, but I said, “I don’t know what
you’re talking about. And please stop screaming in my
face right now.”

“Stop lying to me. You slept with my fiancé, didn’t
you?”

“I never spent that night at any hotel with John,” I said. That much was true.

Sasha glared at me, nostrils flaring. I was still holding
my cellphone in my hand. I absently put it in my purse,
not knowing if Astoria was still there or not.

“If you don’t tell me the truth right now—”

“What? What, huh? You already have the man I want.
You’re engaged to him. You won, okay? You and those
harpies you set on me. What else do you want from me?
I don’t have anything else for you.”

“Tell me the truth, you liar.”

“I was there, okay? But I left before anything hap
pened. That’s it.”

Her chest heaved. And, if it was possible, she was getting even redder. I wanted her to make a move. I couldn’t
wait to pop her in the face.

“I don’t want to ever hear you’ve been near him ever
again,” she said in a somewhat normal voice. She’d
stopped yelling anyway.

“Then you better stop having your little crew spy on
me.”

“Whore.”

I was ready for that first punch. I had never hit
anyone in my life, but I was ready. It couldn’t be but so
hard to make a fist and punch someone. I wasn’t going to
back down from her. Not after she had taken everything
from me. And every time I saw that ring flash, it made me want to hit her even more.

“You don’t know anything about me. And it’s not my
fault he can’t stay away from me.”

S
he screamed and drew back a tiny, white fist. A dark
hand wrapped around that fist.

“
Oh,
no. I don’t think so,” Astoria said. “I heard you
two on the phone. And I ran down here.” Astoria let go
of Sasha’s hand.

Sasha’s face was contorted with disgust and anger.
“We’re not finished. This isn’t over!”

“Yeah. Okay. Get out of my face.”

“You just wait. You got lucky!”

“No, you did. Go!” I roared.

She elbowed me aside and stalked up the sidewalk,
toward the law school parking lot. I glared after her,
shaking my head.

“That girl is not right,” Astoria said. “That’s why you
shouldn’t have been fooling around with those white people.”

I whirled around, turning my anger on her, “You really
think that’s what I want to hear right now? Really? Do
you? Astoria, can you just be a friend now? John’s gone.
You should be happy. I don’t wanna hear it anymore.”

Astoria shrugged, looking a little put off, but she
knew she couldn’t say anything. She knew she was wrong.

“So you still want to come over?” Astoria asked.

“As long as I’m not going to hear another word about
this,” I warned. She looked down at the gold bracelets on her wrist. “Astoria.”

“No. Okay?” she said, shifting her weight to one of
her yellow pumps.

“Let’s go,” I said, walking off. She fell in step beside me silently.

“
So I guess you don’t want to hear about what
Erich—”

“Astoria,” I said through clenched teeth, “I thought
we were past this. No, I don’t want to hear anything
about Erich ever again.”

“Just wanted to let you know he says he’s sorry for being so mean to you,” Astoria said.

I said nothing. I guess she took that as approval to
continue.

“I mean, he meant what he said. And he knows you
two would never work. He just said he shouldn’t have
been so harsh. That it’s obvious he’s not what you wanted
and that’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” I replied stonily, still staring straight ahead.

“And I guess—the same goes for me. I’ll leave you
alone about this relationship stuff. I guess you just need
time to heal and figure out what you want. Not someone
trying to force what she wants for you on you. Even if she
means well,” Astoria said.

I nodded. That was a start at least. If she meant it.

I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU

Well, it turned out John wasn’t spreading rumors
about me. The roommates had just figured out John and
I had met up after Barrister’s. And Sasha had found out
because of her spies. But it didn’t make me feel much
better to know either of those things.

I tried my hardest to put it all behind me. I fell to my old defenses with a renewed vigor. I put so much into
school, activities, and friends that I passed out every
night from exhaustion for the few hours I set aside for
sleep.

Astoria, Suse, and I had joined an amateur roller
derby league because we got bored easily with the gym
and we wanted something we could all do together. Also,
I thought it might help Astoria get some of her aggression
out. Well, that spring, it was helping me with the aggression. The team had been pushing me to be more aggres
sive since I joined, and I was finally getting the hang of
it. We’d won two games in a row and I was a local hero.
They’d let me play a lot more after seeing me at practices
after Barrister’s Ball.

One afternoon in March, Astoria, Suse, and I skated over to the side of the rink after practice. Our teammates s
lapped us on the shoulder as they passed by on their way
to the locker room. I pressed my hand gingerly against
the top and then the side of my thigh, wondering if I’d
have any bruises from my particularly firm hip-checks
that day. I was learning how to be a back-up jammer. The
jammer is the point scorer. The jammer’s job is to bull her
way through a pack of girls during a two-minute jam
without getting knocked out. Fun, but a little hard on the
body. All three of us were regularly blockers, which meant
it was our job to block the other team’s jammer and help
our jammer get through the pack.

“Denise, you were really killing it out there,” Astoria
said. Suse agreed. Another thing that was funny to me
about Suse. You’d never know she was aggressive until it
came to contact sports and killing defenseless animals in
the woods.

“Yeah, well, I think I’m getting the hang of this roller
derby thing,” I said. I’d been the most reluctant to join
the team out of the three of us, but that spring, it seemed I had become the one having the most fun.

After showering and changing, we walked outside
into a roaring March wind. It was still early March, just
before spring break, which was the second week of the
month, and so spring hadn’t really kicked in yet and
probably wouldn’t until some time in April.

“That was our last practice before spring break,” Suse
said.

“Yeah,” I said. Spring break meant little to me. It was
just an opportunity to put the finishing touches on my
note before the deadline for consideration of publication.

T
he law review board would choose which of the staff’s
notes would be published in our school’s law review
shortly after spring break. I didn’t have high hopes with
Lindie behind it all, but I was going to try anyway.

“I can’t wait. Charles, Daddy, and I are going on a
fishing trip,” Suse said. She was gushing. It was a big deal
for her that her dad no longer wished Charles would
drop dead. Her dad should have trusted his first instinct.

“I can’t wait to get back to New York, man. I don’t
know how being out in the country like this doesn’t
bother you two,” Astoria said. “Denise, I wish you would
just come with me. You could work on your note up there.”

“Nope. I’ll get more done at home, in the country,
with no distractions,” I said, affecting a deep Southern
drawl. We laughed.

“Anyway, I have to come back early for dress
rehearsals. When are you coming back to town?” Astoria
said. We stopped in the parking lot by her car.

“I can come back early and meet you. Let me know
when you get back. Oh, yeah. How is your play going?”

Astoria shrugged. “Okay. I mean, the leads can sing.”

“Why didn’t you audition for anything?” I asked.
Astoria was part of the stage crew and she was helping
out with costumes.

“A musical?” Astoria snorted.

“What? You can sing.”

“In a church choir surrounded by people.”

“Maybe next year,” I said as they three of us got into
Astoria’s car.

“
Maybe. I’m trying to convince them to pick some
thing that’s not a musical for the fall. I dunno, though.
Our self-proclaimed de facto leader loves those things.”

“Okay.” I grinned, strapping on my seatbelt. Things were much better. I had my friends, my life, and everything else that mattered back. I was finding my way back
to the old me and wondering why I’d ever thought devi
ating from that was a good idea.

* * *

I plotted my way through O’Hare, weaving my way
through streams of impatient bodies, each rushing off in
a different direction. My plane from Richmond had
arrived an hour late and, in theory, my next plane would
leave Chicago in a half hour. I wondered why they were
all hurrying—O’Hare having a plane on time is almost
newsworthy—but I was doing it, too. I guess airports just
give you that feeling. Like you should rush.

I was on my way to a trial team competition in New
York, and the flight the law school booked for me had me
connecting through Chicago. My teammates were
already in New York. I’d had to catch a later flight
because of another obligation. I’d had to see the speaker
I’d booked for a lecture the day before off to his train. I’d
organized a lecture series for the International Law
Society. I’d basically put together the whole lecture series,
and so it was a duty I had no desire to delegate to make
sure our speakers got to the law school and on their way
home smoothly.