CHAPTER 9

EVERYONE WOKE UP hungover, except Judas, who arose at about eight and promptly went to the gym for some cardio. He was built for nights like the night before. Jonathan awoke on the cot in his office still in his bathing suit, upper thighs smelling of pre-mildew, spooning Tim the CPR dummy. His head pounded between his hands as he made his way to the indoor pool and sat on the ladder leading into the deep well area. After a dip, he went to the sauna to try and sweat the evil out. Instead, he barfed on the hot rocks, sending a putrid burst of steam into the chamber. That actually made him feel better, so he went to the on-campus Dave & Buster’s and played skee-ball, then walked to the campus dining hall.

Jonathan sat amongst the students, dark sunglasses on, eating scrambled eggs made by Deena, the cafeteria lady. Her recipe was a campus hit: a little bit of cream cheese in the mix, a lot of love, and a medium amount of Maryland seafood seasoning. As he ate, Jonathan wondered what in the heck he was going to do about Chris and the wedding and his mother.

Charlie slept on the floor of his small living room. He used a pool towel as a blanket. Roheed nudged him awake; Charlie grumbled.

“Why does my body hurt so much?” Roheed asked through squinted eyes. “My brain feels like it’s dry and my stomach feels like I have to poop vomit.”

“Welcome to your first hangover,” said Charlie, an old pro in that realm.

“This is awful. Why would anyone repeat the behaviors that cause this?” Roheed was sincerely confused.

Charlie didn’t know, but grumpily offered, “Because we’re idiots.” He picked himself up and exited the room, returning with mason jars of tap water and a couple of aspirin.

“Drink this.” He handed a jar to Roheed. “Take these, we’ll make BLTs later.”

Roheed didn’t know why, but BLTs sounded like the exact antidote to his self-poisoning the night before. He drank the water thirstily as Charlie checked his phone, squinting through just one eye. Both of his eyes bugged open as he read a text.

“Jill texted me. She wants to grab lunch. Will you be cool here for a few hours if I go?”

Roheed lowered himself onto the couch. “I don’t trust myself to go anywhere right now. I only feel comfortable staying on this couch and watching numerous episodes of a Netflix-produced show for several hours in a row.”

“You’re going to binge-watch Bojack or something?”

“Pardon me?”

“Never mind,” Charlie said, and went to shower to try to make himself presentable.

• • •

Charlie drove to the coordinates he had agreed upon with Jill. It was a Case Of The Mondays restaurant within spitting distance of Brown State University. Charlie had grown up going to COT Mondays; there was one in Greenbelt down the road from Beltway Plaza, after all. It was an office-themed chain restaurant where the female servers wore secretary outfits and heels and the guys wore short-sleeved button-down shirts with a pocket protector and neckties. Office paraphernalia was hung on the walls: calendars, productivity signs (Hang in there, baby!), charts, graphs, and Dilbert strips. They had gone all out to make their restaurant look like a “fun” office, like anyone who spent an entire workday in a cubicle would want to go get drunk with their coworkers or have a meal with their family at a place that sort of resembled their office. Nonetheless, COT Mondays was popular enough to have several locations in the Tri-County area.

That particular COT Mondays was packed with Brown State students in their bowel-movement-brown Brown State University sweaters and hats and such. Charlie was annoyed for just a moment until he saw Jill sitting sideways in a booth, a book resting on her smooth, tan legs. She was wearing a low-key Brown State polo shirt. It wasn’t doo-doo brown like her classmates’ apparel, but grey with a small, brown BS on the breast. It was size S for the Small heart attack it was giving Charlie. He breathed, approached the table, and sat.

“You didn’t tell me we were meeting at a Brown State hang.”

Jill folded the corner of her current page in the book and closed it. She tucked a piece of her mostly pulled-back hair behind her ear. She had it in a ponytail, but loose, and there were a few stragglers making a break for her cheekbones. Charlie thought it was cool that she dog-eared instead of bookmarking. To him, books were meant to get beat up and show their wear. You could tell a good book by its mileage, much like you could tell a life lived well by one’s scars and tattoos and wrinkles and laugh lines. Did the reader really read the thing or did it sit on a shelf? Was it reread? Was there a passage in there that you just had to look up every now and then to explain how you were feeling at a moment in time? Were there notes in the margins? Did you highlight anything?

A bookmark was a truce flag, a surrender to an activity other than reading. A dog-ear was a promise—hold my spot; I’ll be back with reinforcements as soon as I can.

Jill looked up. “What do you have against Brown State? What has Brown done to you?”

“Brown State, Brown Town,” Charlie shrugged. “They’re Yellow County’s rivals.”

Jill smiled. “In what?”

“I don’t know—swimming and stuff? I’ll admit it’s not the most rational disdain, but Brown has always left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Jill laughed. “Ew, what?”

Charlie realized how that sounded and joined Jill laughing. He smiled and looked into Jill’s eyes. He felt like they had changed color since he had known her those summers before, or at least the color had deepened and there was more behind her eyes now.

“Thanks for texting me,” he said.

“It was apparent you weren’t going to.” Is there a hint of a smile? Charlie wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, I should have.” Charlie looked down at the menu, which was made up to look like a spreadsheet, detailing the item, the ingredients, the calorie count, and the price. So weird. Why would anyone respond to this? Charlie thought.

Just when it was getting to the point where no one had said anything and it was about to get awkward, Jill smiled and looked away from Charlie, playing with her hair with her pointer and middle fingers. When she smiled Charlie noticed a small chip in one of her teeth. He liked it. It was a small imperfection on a smile that otherwise could be used on an “after” poster in a dentist’s office. An exception that proved a rule.

“It’s funny that we’re here,” she said, the strands of hair dancing between her fingers like a single feather of a rare bird caught in the wind, blowing around a lush meadow. Charlie snapped out of whatever had made him think that series of words and images, and brought himself back to the present.

“Huh? Yeah.”

Jill nodded. “You know, I had such a crush on you when we worked in the snack bar.”

“Oh really?” Charlie responded sarcastically.

“You knew?” Jill was genuinely surprised.

“I think one time you said you were saving yourself for me.”

Jill laughed, embarrassed. “I guess it was obvious. I was a mess back then, so immature.”

Charlie grinned. “You landed on your feet.”

They shared another moment. The conversation was getting easier. Jill cocked her head down slightly so that she had to look up just a few degrees for her eyes to meet Charlie’s, her voice soft as baby cheeks.

“So what have you been up to since our summer in the snack bar, Charlie Heralds?” Charlie’s name melted away as it left her lips.

But Charlie was embarrassed and hesitant. “I take a couple credits per semester at YCCC. I work at Popcorn Movies, which is on the brink of bankruptcy, and the only thing I’ve ever written was stolen by Jerd McKinley.”

“Wow,” Jill chided. “So you’re really winning right now.”

“And I’m not seeing anyone currently, obviously, and maybe it’s because I’m too honest like this on dates.”

Jill’s face straightened. “You think this is a date?”

Charlie got flustered, “Oh, I uh . . .”

Jill cracked. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, “it is.”

Charlie was relieved to see the server approaching, dressed as a sexy, but still PG, administrative assistant with a tray with their water cups on it. The cups, though, were the annoying cones that you get from a typical office’s water cooler, very impractical for a restaurant. Each paper cone could only hold a couple of ounces of water and came with a metal support ring—it was the worst idea.

“Welcome to Case Of The Mondays!” the server said with forced enthusiasm. “Would you like to start off with any Application-tizers?” She cupped her hand to her mouth like she was letting them in on a lil’ secret. “That’s what we call appetizers here at COTM.”

“We’re ready to order,” Jill said, which sent Charlie scrambling to figure out his order as he hadn’t even glanced at the menu, too taken with his former crusher and current crushee’s remarkable, dare he say, beauty.

“I’ll have the Corporate Ladder Sampler as my meal,” Jill said.

“Marinara for the mozzarella sticks?”

“Please.” Jill handed the server her menu, a three-ringed binder that said REPORTS in big letters then the name of the restaurant underneath.

“And I’ll have the Resume Builder Burger with the, uh, Files? Is that what you call fries? Files?”

The server nodded, wrote down their orders, smiled, and walked away.

“This place is so stupid,” Charlie said, looking around the room.

“Yeah, what a terrible idea for a restaurant theme,” Jill said with a smile.

Charlie laughed. “Whoever thought of this place is an idiot.”

As they continued chatting, the words flowed effortlessly. They caught up on each other’s lives over the past handful of years, laughing about the time they spent during their summer together.

Jill and Charlie were so absorbed in each other’s words and eyes that neither realized Scott was sitting in the next booth over, a Brown State knit beanie pulled down low over his eyes (well, singular “eye”), his back to Jill’s, listening to every word.