Go Girl

Frankie

“Howdie, neighbour,” a familiar voice calls over the fence.

“Hi, Blake,” I return, leaning back in my patio chair.

“What brings you to your backyard oasis this fine afternoon?”

I chuckle because he’s so eccentric and ridiculous, it’s hard not to love him. Unlike his roommate. “Just out here with Brad. Finished up some work I had to get done for a lab tomorrow. You?”

“Oh, how I wish I could get some work done. I’m stuck, Frankie. And I think it might be my cause of death. Not disappointing Dear Ol’ Dad like I thought.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that one statement. I’m not sure if it’s just his dramatic personality or his relationship with his dad is really that bad, but I’m not ready to dive into deeply personal issues. Certainly not with any amount of reciprocity. So I stick to what I know best. “What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help.”

He hops up, trying to peek over the fence again, but aside from a couple glimpses of his hair, he’s unsuccessful. Finally, he replies, “If you can get me out of this funk, I’d marry you and adopt a hundred children from third-world countries.”

This guy is so weird.

“Not necessary. I have no intentions of getting married or having kids, so you’re off the hook. No promises I can help, anyway.”

Instead of gifting me with some other unpredictable response, he replies with something even more surprising. “Can I come over?”

“Um… like, over the fence?”

“I was thinking more like through the front door, but if this is my only option, I can get Oscar to give me a boost.”

Few people have come into my house before, and they either own the house or are my immediate family. Call me paranoid—because I am—but that’s a big step. So I surprise myself when I agree.

Two minutes later, Blake is standing at my front door, holding a wilted hydrangea he must have cut from the plant in front of their porch. “For the lady,” he says, holding out the flower and bending in a dramatic bow.

I’m learning quickly that everything Blake does is over the top. “Thank you… I guess.” Even if the gesture has me questioning my decision.

“Since marriage and babies are off the table, I thought I’d at least bring you flowers. Or… flower.” He claps his hands once and steps inside my front door, taking in the room. “Wow, I like what you’ve done with the place. Which is precisely nothing.”

I close the door behind him and turn around to look at my barren house. It’s intentionally plain and minimalistic because I knew if I had to up and move again, it would make a hard thing easier. I’m not going to delve into those details, though. “Yeah, less to clean. Brad’s in the yard. Come on.” I encourage him to follow me outside, because that feels like less of an invasion of my space. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Woah, Frankie. This is starting to feel a bit like a date, but I’m a long-term kind of guy. If you’re not putting a ring on it, don’t get my hopes up.”

My steps halt beside my fridge. Is this guy for real? “Oh-kay,” I draw out. I continue forward to open the back door and find my eager little dog waiting.

He immediately runs over to Blake but doesn’t jump up at his legs. This is progress.

Blake greets Brad, bending down to scratch behind his ears. After a minute, we settle at the patio table, and I call Brad up to sit on my lap, knowing he won’t be able to fit much longer. Blake leans back in a sideways chair, resting one arm on the table and stretching his long legs out in front of himself.

“Okay, what are you stuck on?” I ask again.

He explains that the majority of his screenwriting class this year hinges upon him completing a full movie script, but it has to address real-life issues in a fictional way and have an unpredictable or unresolved ending. On top of that, he has to have a pitch and outline submitted next week, so he’s really feeling the crunch. His ideas have all fizzled in the opening scenes, so he’s back at Square One with nothing to show for the hours of work he’s put in so far.

It’s all way over my head. “Wow. Suddenly my genetics class seems like a cakewalk. At least with most science courses, the answer is concrete. Either right or wrong. I’m not sure I’m cut out for creative stuff.”

Blake deflates and sinks into his chair. “Yeah, that’s what my roommates all said. I’m so screwed.”

I’m tempted to inspire him with my own experiences, but the thought of sharing that with him and giving the situation an unresolved ending in a fictional world will only make me more anxious about the limbo I’m living in. And based on Blake’s eccentricity, if he went with an unpredictable ending, that would probably terrify me even more.

Instead, we sit and chat for thirty minutes. He tells me Austin is on the mend and they’ve essentially quarantined him in the basement until he’s fully recovered. He doesn’t mention anything else about Oscar or our silent trip to the drugstore, so I assume Oscar never told him. Otherwise, Blake would have brought it up—I’m confident about that.

I grill him on where he normally finds his inspiration, which genre he wants to focus on, and his favourite films of all time. Turns out, I haven’t seen any of his favourite movies, and concepts for unpredictable thrillers that deal with real-life issues are not easy to come by.

By the time he goes home, he seems more defeated than he was when he walked in, so I feel terrible that I couldn’t help. But whether he realizes it, he helped me take a step I didn’t know I needed to, so I’m determined to return the favour.

Professor Childs opens the class by sharing a plagiarized assignment submitted by a student in one of his classes, including their photo and name. He informs us that if we don’t want to be the butt of the joke for his next group of students, we better play by his rules. I don’t know about everyone else, but it has me sitting straight and my eyes wide open. Not because I have any intention of plagiarizing anything, but because the possibility of being put on blast like that is terrifying.

Today’s lesson, in part, focuses on animals’ instinctual need to protect their young and the difference between creatures that abandon their young, like sea turtles, versus animals that protect their babies with an intense ferocity. He finishes the class with a story about poachers being killed by a pride of lions, and not a single part of me feels bad about it. I’ve always preferred animals to people, and while I wouldn’t wish death on anyone… karma.

I head to my three-hour lab, prepared to absorb everything in my class, but my mind is stuck on Blake’s assignment instead of my own.

My lab partner, Lynne, pulls my attention back to our task again.

“Sorry,” I apologize for the fourth time. I’m used to my mind being preoccupied by other things, but this is completely unnecessary. My focus should be on RNA extraction, not on writing an epic thriller.

Still, when the student radio station playing at a low volume on the lab speakers starts discussing the latest world news, I’m further pulled from my task. Between my class discussions and the most recent tragedy unfolding, I have a spark of creative genius that I’ve never had before. My brain has never thrived in creative spaces, and unless I was given clear direction for an art project, I floundered, unable to come up with something new. This excitement I feel over creating an idea that could help Blake has me rushing through my lab tasks to get back home.

Two hours later, I’m pulling my car up along the curb to park in front of my house. I don’t see any action at the neighbours’, so I go straight inside to let Brad out and unwind for a bit. My little dog is thrilled that I’m home and even more excited to be let outside. He roams around the garden as I listen for any sign of people next door.

Okay… maybe Oscar was right. I am being a bit of a creeper.

Yet, as soon as I hear Keith shout something from inside the house, I can’t stop myself from calling Brad inside, then walking next door.