Summer Apart (6 page)

“Oh my god, oh my God,” Ollie says with disgust as he bursts through the door of his office and storms into the lobby. I’d been playing a game of solitaire on the work computer, and his outburst almost made me knock my cell phone off the counter.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He holds up two coffee boxes in his hands, making a show of dumping them upside down and grimacing when nothing falls out. “We’re all out of coffee!”

“Ollie, it’s not that big of a—”

“Yes, it is,” he cuts me off. “The city planner is on his way over so I don’t have any time to get more coffee and I haven’t had a single cup today. I could probably manage on just one cup, but I haven’t even had that.”

I close the game of solitaire and turn to face my boss, giving him a look that bosses usually give to their employees. “Ollie, I’m happy to go get some coffee for you.”

He stops right in the middle of whatever grumbling thing he was saying. “I didn’t think of that.”

“It sounds like you didn’t think of anything besides ‘oh no, the coffee is out so I’m going to panic!’” I flail my arms around as I imitate his voice and he puts a hand on his hip and then playfully throws an empty coffee box at me. “Fine, Miss Smarty-pants. Maybe I did panic a little. Take some money out of the register and go get some coffee. I can hold down the front desk until you get back.”

Duh
, I think. Ollie is the one who taught me how to work the front desk so obviously he can take it over for a little while. There’s a grocery store within walking distance of the shopping center at work, and suddenly taking a break from staring at a computer card game, and getting some fresh air sounds like a great idea. I grab a twenty from the register and practically skip out of work.

The good thing about all the time I’ve spent away from Park (if it can be called a good thing) is that I rarely check my phone now. Sometimes I’ll go an entire day at work and not even look at it until I’m getting in my car to home. Usually, I’ve only missed a text from Bayleigh or my mom and I can pretty much always count on some stupid Facebook notification. The disappointment in not hearing from Park has slowly gone away, though.

In fact, I don’t even get that clenching pain in my chest when I look at my phone anymore. That’s how over Park I finally am. Once your heart stops hoping for a text from someone you know won’t text you, you can start calling yourself cured of heartbreak.

It’s because of this reason that I don’t bother bringing my phone with me on my walk to the grocery store. It’s daylight, and there are people out shopping. So if some crazy emergency happens and someone needs to call 911 to save my life, I can be sure it’ll still happen without me having my phone.

Something tells me life was easier back before everyone had phones with them all the time.

Okay, so this is how good of an employee I am:

When I arrive at the coffee aisle in the grocery store, I don’t even have to stop and ponder which type of coffee to buy. I just head straight to the Starbucks blonde roast and grab two boxes. Ollie is a specific type of coffee drinker and this is his favorite for the time-being. His tastes change, but I know him well. I should totally get a raise.

I grab a pack of Twizzlers just because I know Ollie won’t mind, and then get into the ten items or less line behind a woman who is buying what looks like fifty cans of cat food. Seriously? Who does that?

Someone steps in line behind me and makes a little
hmph
sound. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that all fifty of that woman’s cats are starving to death right now and they’re lives are literally on the line and that’s why she feels the need to hog the express lane.”

I turn and find a guy smiling at me and I smile back at him. He’s a little older than I am, at about my height. But he has black hair that’s cut short and gelled so that it’s pointy on top. He’s wearing jeans that are all beat up and a dark green button up shirt with a landscaping company’s logo embroidered in the corner. “That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.”

He nods. “Well the other reason is that she’s selfish and thinks the world revolves around her, and well that reason just pisses me off so I’ll pretend that’s not the case here.”

“You’re a good person,” I say.

He leans forward and replies in a whisper. “That’s because you don’t know me well.”

I laugh and roll my eyes. “I’ve definitely heard that one before.”

One of the cans of cat food doesn’t ring up properly, and the woman presents a shopping ad to the cashier, demanding that he lower the price. But apparently he doesn’t know how to do that, so he calls for a manager over the loudspeaker.

The guy behind me sets the two items he’s purchasing—a case of soda and a bag of chips—on the floor with a sigh. “Looks like we’ll be here for a long time. Maybe even years,” he says, holding out a hand to me. “We should get to know each other. I’m Mark.”

I shake his hand and glance nervously back at the cashier and his manager. I’m pretty sure they can hear us, but who cares. “I’m Becca.”

“Is that short for Rebecca?”

I nod.

“How many people call you that?” he asks.

“Just my mom when she’s mad at me,” I say. This makes him laugh.

“Okay then, Becca it is. Well it’s good to meet you.” He gestures to the coffee in my hand. “Looks like we’re both here for some energy.”

“This is actually for my boss,” I say. “But he’s got me hooked on it too, so I can’t complain.”

“Where do you work?”

I turn around and point to my shirt, where it has the C&C BMX logo really big. “Ahh, you’re an extreme sports chick. Cool.”

I start to disagree, to tell him I only took the job in order to break out of my shell. But then he wouldn’t think I’m as cool as he does now, so I keep my mouth shut. “I see you work in landscaping?”

“Assistant manager,” he says. “Pretty good for someone who dropped out of college.”

I don’t really know what to say to that, so I just smile. Luckily, the woman’s million cans of cat food have now been scanned and bagged and she leaves, making me next in line. As soon as the cashier rings up the Twizzlers, I rip open the bag and start eating one.

“Bye, Mark,” I say as I grab my bag of coffee and opened candy. “It was nice meeting you.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” he says, waving.

As I walk out of the store, I wonder what would become of me if I succumbed to the pressure of college and dropped out after my first year. Sure, my art class was amazing, but there’s so much more to college than just taking the classes that are fun. There’s math and chemistry and history and government—ugh. It’s the worst.

But I don’t really want to be an assistant manager of C&C for the rest of my life. Of course, art doesn’t need a degree; it only needs imagination. I think of the canvasses at home and the empty shipping boxes that I’m too scared to use. I’m not sure if I’m ready to take the leap into being an artist.

“Hey, Becca!” I stop on the sidewalk and turn back to find Mark rushing up to me, carrying the case of sodas on his shoulder.

“What’s up?” I ask, wondering if I left something back at the register.

He smiles and shifts on his feet. “This might be weird but, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t ask.”

My eyes narrow and my mind thinks of every possible thing he might want to ask me—for a free pass to C&C, to join his pyramid scheme—everything except what he does ask. “Would you want to go on a date with me sometime?”

My heart leaps into my throat. “Um,” I say as my eyes go wide. Did he really just ask me out? And why am I so surprised? I mean, it’s what I’ve been wanting ever since I started dressing up more. And here’s the weird thing—lately when someone had asked me out, it was easy for me to turn them down because I was so hung up on Park. But now Bayleigh’s words come back to me and in the split second it takes me to answer him, I’ve made my decision to follow her advice. “Sure,” I say. “That sounds fun.”

When I get back to work, I’m not feeling like I’m floating on clouds the way I felt when Park first asked me on a date. I mean, I’m happy and all, but it’s just weird. I can’t imagine myself going out with another guy even though I’ve already decided that’s exactly what I should do. It just doesn’t feel the way it should feel when a cute guy asks you out.

After giving Ollie his coffee and hearing his praises about how I’m such a great employee, I duck under the front counter and look inside my purse. Sure enough, my phone is glowing with a new text message. Since I didn’t have my phone with me, I had given Mark my number and told him to text me so I’d have his.

Mark:
Hope this wasn’t a fake number to ditch me…

I know it’s a little messed up to get excited by the fact that a guy thinks I’m cute enough to have given him a fake number, but I’m excited anyway. I type out a reply.

Me:
Nope, it’s me, Becca
.


Mark:
Awesome. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Me:
What’s tomorrow?

Mark:
I’m hoping it’s the day you’re free for dinner and a movie…

This might be completely lame, but the fact that this guy I barely know just used the correct “you’re”, in a text message no less, kind of makes me like him a thousand times more than I did just one minute ago.

Even better, tomorrow is Sunday and I am off work. I tell him I am free tomorrow and he says he’ll pick me up at six. But the idea of having a guy who isn’t Park show up to take me on a date and meet my mom and everything makes me sick to my stomach. So I tell him I’ll meet him at the movie theater.

Mark:
Meet me at the Cinema 18?

Me:
Sure. See you then.

I try not to think about how the last several movies I saw at the Cinema 18 was with Park. I also try not to think about how very similar the name Mark is to the very same person I’m trying to forget.

Bayleigh doesn’t answer her phone on Sunday morning when I try to call her so I can freak out about my date. Strangely, when I don’t have anyone to hear me freak out, I don’t freak out as much. Instead, I spend the morning painting two more canvasses and then I get really ballsy and take photos of them. You know…just in case I ever decide to sell them online…

I wait until five o’clock to start getting ready for my first date with Mark. The cinema is a fifteen minute drive from my house so I’ve only left myself forty-five minutes to get ready and I’m not sure if that’s because I am a confident woman who knows I shouldn’t have to spend hours just to please a man, or if I’m just not putting much effort in because I don’t expect to get anything out of it.

It’s just a date, after all.

With a guy who probably isn’t Prince Charming.

But at least I’m putting myself out there, right?

Mom believes the lie that I’m
meeting some friends
at the movies and that I’ll probably be home well before midnight. She doesn’t even ask who the friends are, and that’s just a testament to how much she believes and trusts me.

My hands don’t even shake as I arrive at the movie theater and step out of my car, wondering where I’ll run into Mark. Is it a good thing to be one hundred percent
not
nervous when you’re on a first date? Is that what true love is supposed to feel like? Because I feel that way now. This isn’t the craziest thing in the world, after all. It’s just a simple date. If it doesn’t go well then I haven’t lost anything and if it does go well…well I’ll think about that later.

Yep. I’m feeling awesome as I trek across the parking lot toward the theater’s massive entrance. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I glance around wondering if Mark can see me from wherever he’s calling. There are too many people standing around the ticket booth, so I can’t tell if he’s one of them. I take out my phone and go to answer it. And then my heart stops.

It isn’t Mark calling me. I stop right there in the parking lot, where someone could easily drive right over me. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I even turn the phone over, then look at it once again, hoping I saw the first letter of the caller’s name wrong.

But it’s there, plain as day in the pixels of my phone screen.

Park is calling.

A car honks and I jump. I look up to find a man in an SUV staring at me over his steering wheel, his arms flailing around gesturing for me to get the hell out of the road. My expression is blank as I force myself to take a few steps out of the way and then the man speeds by in annoyance, flipping me his middle finger as he passes. I don’t care about any of that.

Park just called me.

After two months of silence, he called out of the blue. Maybe it was an accident. I watch the phone screen, waiting, hoping, for a new voicemail message. After a few moments, nothing has appeared on the screen.

“Hey there,” a familiar voice says. I look up and find Mark jogging toward me wearing a clean outfit of jeans and a black button-up long-sleeved shirt. “I already bought our tickets, so there’s no need to wait in line.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say with what I hope is a genuine smile. I shake my head to clear it but no amount of mental or physical shaking is helping me get Park out of my mind. What an asshole. How could he do this to me? Two months of radio silence and one week of me finally feeling like I am totally and completely over him, and then he calls as if he had some psychic ability to tell that I was going on a date with someone new. Now my entire afternoon is ruined.

Luckily, Mark doesn’t seem to notice that my mind is somewhere far away from here. “I hope you like the movie. I didn’t want to be cheap and go to the Cinema six down the street. That place is crappy.”

I nod. The Cinema six sells half-price movie tickets but what you save in price you make up for by sitting in raggedy old chairs and walking on super sticky floors. Park and I went there once to see a movie that wasn’t playing in the nicer theater. Park doesn’t ever worry about money. It was never a topic worth bringing up when we went to the movies together. Of course Mark isn’t a professional motocross racer so I guess it’s extra sweet that he took me to the nice theater. Trying to look on the bright side of things, I decide to give him extra bonus points in my mind. “That was really sweet of you to get my ticket, thank you,” I say with a smile I have to practically sew into my face. Forcing my happiness right now is the hardest thing I’ve ever done at a movie theater.

“Should we go in?” I ask. It’s weird looking at my date from eye level. Park was always so much taller than I was.

Mark shakes his head and reaches into his pocket. “I need a smoke first.”

“Oh okay,” I say, watching him take out a cigarette and light it up. Inwardly I’m cringing. A guy who smokes? Gross. Couldn’t he have just waited until after our date to do such a filthy habit?

We lean against the outside wall of the theater for what feels like hours as he puffs away on his cigarette, asking me random questions about myself. By the third time the smoke accidently blows in my face and he apologizes for, I am finally convinced that Mark will not be my next true love.

I kind of don’t even want to go through the rest of the date. But I’m also not going to be rude to him and he already has the tickets, so I tell myself to suck it up and go on with the date. It’s not the worst thing in the world, right? And it would have been a whole lot better if I didn’t have a cell phone in my pocket right now, driving me crazy with its one missed call.

When the movie is over, I do something really bad. I clench my stomach, squish up my face, and lie.

“I’m so sorry to ruin our date tonight, but I’m starting to feel a little sick.”

“Oh no,” he says, his eyes peering into mine with worry. “Do you think it was the popcorn?”

I shake my head and then shrug. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t really want to risk eating dinner when I feel so bad. Could we maybe finish this another time?” And just like that, the lie got even bigger. I am so not finishing this another time. Not only was the movie awkward because I’m pretty sure he kept trying to hold my hand across the armrest, but he had to leave in the middle of the movie to take another smoke break. When he came back, he reeked of the stale stench of smoke and I had to breathe into my sleeve for the rest of the movie.

“Sure thing,” Mark says, placing his hand on my lower back as we walk out of the theater. “I hope you get better soon.”

If this were Park instead of Mark, and if I were actually sick instead of faking sick, I would have leaned into his arm as it wrapped around me, letting my head fall on his shoulder as we walked. The scent of his cologne, mixed with the soap he uses in the shower would have lulled me into a calm serenity. Instead, I’m walking uncomfortably close to a guy I barely know and he reeks of smoke and popcorn butter.

This can’t possibly be what Bayleigh was talking about when she told me to settle.

Mark walks me across the parking lot to where my car is parked, and once I push the unlock button on my keys and see my headlights light up, a wave of relief washes over me. This terrible date is almost over and I am this close to being in the safety of my car, which smells like mountain spring air freshener.

“Get home safely,” Mark says. He steps in front of me and pulls open the car door for me.

“Thanks, you too.”

I lean into my car, drop my purse in the passenger seat and stand back up so I can proceed with the awkward first date hug. Just a few seconds left and I’ll finally be done with this.

The moment I turn around, my stomach clenches up and flips over. Because the first thing I see is Mark, leaning in close,
way
too close, with his hands reaching toward me. Before I can move or dodge or swerve to avoid what’s happening, Mark grabs my arms and kisses me. I freeze—like a deer in headlights. I don’t stop him and I don’t move backward like I want to. I just stand here, letting it happen to me because I don’t want him to feel bad.

He is cute and all, and he was trying very hard to make the date fun and to get to know me. But as I stand here, my back pressed against my car, my lips being gently pried apart by two lips that taste like an ash tray, all I want to do is gag. This is not at all like kissing Park.

When it’s over, he gives me this sideways smile, like he’s been stricken lovesick from my kiss. A few seconds pass and his eyebrows furrow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, a little too eagerly. “Just…sick.”

His warm hand slides behind my neck and he pulls me toward him, placing a kiss on my forehead. “You take care of yourself, and I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I manage. Now I’m feeling like I’m going to throw up for real.