Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (7 page)

After graduating law school, I’d be able to support
myself and I’d be too busy being a lawyer to miss the
companionship much. And I could always get a dog. Or a fish. Or a Chia pet.

After our food came, I picked at it, but I suddenly
didn’t want it. I made myself participate in a miserable
conversation about something a Republican had said on
CNN that morning. That quickly turned into an argu
ment between Suse and Astoria. Overall, I was pretty suc
cessful in keeping the conversation away from myself.
Which only caused me to feel even more twisted and wrong inside.

But through all of those thoughts about not thinking
about John and not wanting him came the ugly truth. I
had made my decision about the hayride. I shifted in my
seat, realizing I couldn’t put off bringing it up any longer.
During a lull in the conversation in which everyone had
fallen into their plates, I said, “So, any Halloween plans
yet?”

They both shook their heads no.

I looked down at the half-wilted romaine lettuce
leaves on my plate. “What do you think about a
hayride?”

Astoria looked up at me, resting her fork on top of
the pile of pasta on her plate. “A hayride?” I could have
just suggested a walk on the moon, judging by the look
on her face.

“Yeah, sure, you know the one they do on that old
farm up the road. They advertise it on the radio all the
time.” I returned to staring at my salad as I said this. I
could feel their eyes on me.

“You really want to do that?”

“Well, John—”

“I should have known.” Astoria pushed her plate
away and threw her hands up.

I watched them both. Suse had become a lot less
enthusiastic about the John thing since she’d heard about
Sasha. Or so the story went.

“Well, it’s going to be a group of us. We’re all going,” I said defensively. I almost mentioned that he’d told me
to invite Erich, but I was afraid that if I did, Astoria
would insist he come along.

“I guess we better go then. Keep an eye on you if nothing else,” Astoria said. She and Suse laughed. Like that was actually funny.

H
alloween night, it was freezing out. The day before,
the high had been almost eighty degrees, which made the
cold even worse. Cruel, cruel. Virginia and its schizo
phrenic weather. I wore jeans, boots, two shirts under my
sweater and a jacket over it all and I still couldn’t stop shivering. Astoria, who hates the cold, outside, anything
that has to do with nature, grumbled all the way to the
farm. Of course, we were amongst only a handful of fools
who had actually showed up for the thing. Our breath
puffed out around us as we headed for the hay-filled
truck. I almost expected it to freeze in front of our faces.

“I hope you know nobody else could have gotten me
out here,” Astoria said.

“I know, I know,” I said, wiggling my nose to make sure it was still there and hadn’t frozen off my face.

A few minutes later, John and Ral jogged up to us.
They stopped, breathing on their hands and stomping
their feet against the cold. Ral had short blond hair and
blue eyes. He’d been an All-American on his college foot
ball team, and he still looked the part.

“Hi,” John said to me, his eyes making my stomach
drop. They locked on me in a way they hadn’t since that
day of the house building. Or maybe I was imagining
things. Or maybe it was the moon. Or my poor, frozen
brain malfunctioning. He then said hi to Astoria and Suse. Ral went over to Suse to talk about something
journal-related; they were both on the Technology and
Law Journal.

“I don’t see Erich.” John seemed a little too happy
about it, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to be sure.

I was about to brush that comment off and try to
change the subject when Astoria said, “I asked you about
him and I thought you said you were going to ask him to come. You didn’t, did you?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

Just then, I was saved by a bat. I think.

There was a fluttering of wings and an animal swooped
down near Astoria’s face and then flew away. Astoria
screamed and ran several yards away from the truck.

“What are you doing?” I called after her.

“What was that?” she said, her loud voice carrying
across the distance between us with ease.

“I dunno. A bird?”

“What? No birds out this late, are there?”

“What, a bat, then?”

“A bat? Are there even bats in Virginia? I don’t want to be out here anymore. I hate the country, man.”

She hadn’t wanted to be out there to begin with. I had
to laugh.

“What you laughing at? This ain’t funny. You know I
don’t fool with nothing that comes out at night.”

“Or during the day. Or that’s outside at all,” I said
before walking over and putting my arm around her.
“C’mon. Let’s get in the truck.”

She gave me a wary look.

“It’s okay. The sound of the engine will scare off all the outside things,” I said in a mock patronizing voice.

“Shut up, Denise,” she said as we climbed into the truck, but we were both laughing.

Astoria made a point of directing Suse to sit on the
other side of me. John and Ral climbed onto the bale of
h
ay behind us. I was disappointed, but I had no right to
be. Still, John kept tapping me on the shoulder and
leaning close to my ear to tell me a bunch of unimpor
tant things, and that made my frustration lessen a little.

Once, John leaned forward and placed his hand on
my shoulder to ask me something about registering for
spring classes. After I answered, he didn’t move his hand.
I turned to look at him. He motioned for me to turn
around and I did. I ran my hands up and down my arms and my teeth chattered. And it wasn’t all from the cold. I
was a bundle of nerves and uncertainty.

“You okay, Denise? You’re really shaking,” he said.
“It’s freezing out here.”

“What? You call this cold?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re from the Arctic.”

He laughed. “Connecticut is not the Arctic.” He
shrugged out of his jacket and put it around my shoul
ders. I stopped shivering. I stopped everything. “Better?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. His hands slipped from my shoul
ders to my elbows. I was sorry there were so many layers
of fabric between his hands and my skin. I suddenly
wondered what it would be like to feel his hands on my
skin. Sliding over my arms, down to my waist. Well, one good thing about the cold and the dark was that nobody
could see me blushing.

“John,” Astoria said. John and I both jumped at the
sound of her voice. “How’s your girlfriend? Sasha?”

John removed his hands from my arms. “She’s good.”

I wanted to kill Astoria. I tried to send her death
threats with my eyes. She kept her attention turned
t
oward John. I knew what she was doing. And I hadn’t
been doing anything wrong. Nothing illegal. No reason to bring up Sasha.

“Oh. Don’t you miss her? She’s all the way up in
Boston. She ever coming to visit?”

I didn’t listen to John’s reply. I cast a sullen gaze out
over the field, looking for the next tired farmer to jump
out of the woods or something so I could pretend to be
scared. That would give me something to do at least.

After the hay ride, I turned to say goodbye to John,
but before I could, he asked, “Did you drive here?”

I shook my head, wondering what he was getting at.
I wasn’t going to dare get my hopes up and make any
assumptions.

“You want a ride?”

“She came with me. I can take her home,” Astoria said.

“It’s out of your way,” I said, fighting the grin off of
my face.

“Out of his, too,” Astoria said.

“Not really. I have to go back to the school to pick up
my laptop. Denise’s apartment is right around the
corner,” John said.

Astoria glared at both of us, but I said goodbye to her
and Suse and they got into Astoria’s car. I could only
imagine what was being said about me in that car. And I
didn’t have to imagine too hard, watching shadows of Astoria’s hands fly while they sat in the car, waiting for it
to warm up.

I
stumbled into John’s car and lay my head back against the leather headrest, wondering how I would
keep myself from grinning like a fool.

John climbed in and started the engine. “Have fun?”

“Yeah. Great time,” I said, concentrating on his hand
as he pushed the scan button, flipping through radio sta
tions. I was afraid to look into his eyes any more that
night. Even if I didn’t see that confusing thing in them,
he might see the guilt and desire I was fighting against in
mine.

We sat in the parking lot, watching it clear out and
talked about the hayride, school, his brother, and other things I can’t even remember now for a long time. It was
the longest talk we’d ever had. And if I had to try to pin
point a moment now, I’d say it was that night I fell in love
with him.

“So you and Erich? A thing? Not a thing?” He put those awkward, conversation-killing questions to me.

I shrugged. “I don’t really know. Dating is a lot of
hard work. But he’s a nice guy.”

He laughed. “You’d make a great politician,
answering questions like that. Dating’s hard work? I guess
you’re right about that. I was wondering why you’re
single, though. Maybe that explains it.”

“Huh?”

“You’re beautiful. You’re a genius. I heard you’re
eighth in our class. I mean, I couldn’t believe some great guy hadn’t taken you off the market yet. I guess I just
assumed . . . I mean, I was surprised when Erich said
you’re single.”

T
here was silence in the car while I tried to get over
the shock of John calling me beautiful. Didn’t work.
Finally, I pulled enough words together to respond, but
my voice was shaky. “Yeah, well, I’m really busy right now. I don’t have time for all that. After graduation,
there’ll be plenty of time for that kind of thing.” I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t want to tell John I’d given up on
ever finding someone. I looked down at my chipped bur
gundy nail polish, but I could feel him looking at me.

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He was con
fusing me, and I was making me sad. “So you seem pretty
laid back. Every other second year is going crazy over
jobs,” I said.

He nodded. “You’re not going crazy, either.”

“Yeah, I already have one.” I told him about my job
offer from Dettweiler, a firm downtown.
“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. So what about you?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had my job since before I was born.”
“Really?”

“Dad owns me. When people ask when I decided I
wanted to go to law school, I tell them when I was con
ceived,” John said with a grin. We laughed.

I finally felt it was safe to look at him. I was wrong, and
so after getting stuck in his eyes again for a moment, I con
centrated on his shoulder. “Is it what you want to do?”

John took a while to answer. “I guess. I mean, I’ve never really thought about anything else.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I also wasn’t so sure I wanted to
push the issue.

T
he nearly bare trees bowed in the late October wind
gusts. The moon was so bright, I could see clear across
the empty parking lot.

“Yeah, I dunno. Everything’s just been kinda force-fed to me up ’til this point,” John said.

I looked up, startled. I hadn’t expected him to say
anything else.