We live in the Nerd Room.
The Nerd Room looks nondescript, even benign. Long and rectangular. Filled with thirty study cubicles. Creamy walls. Beige wall-to-wall carpet. Overhead fluorescent lighting that hums soothingly and rarely flickers. No windows to distract. No music pumped in. No-talking policy, which we ignore. Great location. Adjacent to the medical-school student lounge that’s loaded with good stuff—cracked and broken-in leather couch, basic cable, snack machine with the good candy, soda machine, Ping-Pong table, and a communal desktop computer that runs fitfully and often freezes due to the countless viruses that have infected it because of the amount of porn certain students keep downloading. I won’t mention names (Tim, Ricky).
Tim, Ricky, James, Daisy, and I descend on the Nerd Room every Friday night. Except for bathroom breaks, meal and snack interludes (none lasting over fifteen minutes), an occasional furious full-contact game of Ping-Pong to blow off steam, the periodic make-out session—I don’t participate; nobody does except for James and Daisy, who recently broke off her engagement to refrigerator repairman Clark—we never leave the Nerd Room. Crashing on the carpet in our soul-sucking cubicles, we sleep haphazardly and infrequently. We emerge from the Nerd Room Monday morning, blinking, sweating, smelly, irritable but prepared, primed to do battle against Dr. Gaw’s brain-shrinking, minutiae-laden gross-anatomy exams, or the weekly brain-crushing biochemistry tests that have already made Shelly pull out sections of her own hair, or the brain-teasing pathology open-book tests that Professor X seduces you into thinking will be a piece of cake but in fact have been designed to terminate you.
Overall, medical school means study. And then study some more. And when you finish all that studying, you will definitely feel the need to study.
I first studied in my dorm room. The stench of simmering khrua gling and boiling larb accompanied by the constant flushing of my neighbor drove me away. I tried then to study in the library, but I found myself distracted by the high volume of cute coeds roaming the stacks. I moved to the local coffeehouse, but I found myself distracted by even more cute coeds, some of whom worked there. Not only couldn’t I study, but I spent a fortune on espresso drinks just so I could get a closer look at them, not to mention the time I wasted thinking up clever pickup lines, none of which I found the courage to try.
Once I commit to the Nerd Room, I feel both at home and in a low-level state of constant panic. I’m home because this is where my new family resides. By now the four of us guys have become inseparable and growing closer with each passing study hour. I imagine our closeness compares in some ways to that of a platoon in a foxhole. There are similarities to war—the stress, the fatigue, the physical exhaustion, the mental exertion, and the fear of getting blown away, in our case not by an enemy (unless you count Dr. Gaw) but by the constant barrage of exams.
I also find that I have to learn a new way to study. Throughout high school and college, I applied a simple shotgun approach. I memorized every bit of information in the assigned chapters in our textbook as well as every note I took, going over and over it as many times as I needed until I had everything down cold. I can’t do that in medical school. There is too much material to comprehend and absorb. I have to adjust my technique. I have to learn to isolate what’s most important. As the hours in the Nerd Room whip by and I realize I have too much material to cram into my head in the time left before the Monday-morning exam, I panic. Well, first I freeze, then I panic. And then I despair.
“How are we supposed to learn all this stuff?” I moan to Tim as we scarf candy bars and wash them down with warm Mountain Dew. “There’s not enough time.”
“I know. It sucks.”
“Plus, all this junk food. I’ve put on about thirty pounds.”
“I can see. You’ve really ballooned up.”
I halt my Snickers bar halfway to my mouth. “Now I don’t feel like eating this.”
“I’ll eat it.”
I slap the remains of my candy bar into Tim’s waiting open palm. He two-hands it into his mouth. He smacks his lips, chews.
“We’re all in the same boat, you know,” he says.
I wait for him to finish what I realize was my lunch.
“We’re all crazy, dude. We’re all obsessive-compulsives. They know it. That’s why they make every course pass-fail. To take the pressure off.”
“So why do I feel so much pressure?”
“How should I know? You gonna finish your soda?”
Before I can say yes, he snatches my Mountain Dew and chugs what’s left. He burps and slaps me on the back.
“Good talk,” he says.
SLEEP-DEPRIVED, ADRENALINE pumping, sugar-charged, head down, locked in, I blast through the eight o’clock Monday-morning anatomy exam. I attack those one hundred multiple-choice and two essay questions like a warrior. A wounded punch-drunk warrior; still, a warrior. I destroy that test. I bolt out of the exam room, high, confident, proud. Within minutes, I second-guess every answer. I’m sure I messed up at least twenty and I’m positive I forgot a third essay on the back. Overhearing Shelly and her gunners shrieking, “So easy!” doesn’t help. I stagger back to Owen Hall, tumble into my room, crash completely clothed onto my unmade bed, pass out, wake up after dinner, shower, open a bottle of AXE or whatever the latest cologne I bought promising that women will swarm all over me and lock their legs around me until I cry for mercy, put on a gallon of the stuff with a roller, change into my best “playa” outfit, hop on my Huffy, and meet Tim.
In med school, Monday night is party night, and so we will, either at the USA Café or at James’s off-campus apartment. When it comes to women, James is miles ahead of Tim and me. Well, miles ahead of me. A month in, and he already has a girlfriend. A girlfriend who dumped her fiancé for him. Plus, James has gone out with other women. More than two. Doubling my output. My hope is that he’s convinced Daisy to invite a pack of her friends, attractive, smart, funny, willing friends, ones whose lives will not feel complete unless they hook up with me.
Tim and I arrive on our Huffys, each of us balancing a six-pack of Molson on our handlebars. Not as easy as it sounds. On the way, we swerve constantly and miraculously avoid crashing into each other. Inside, the party has begun without us. We pass around the brews. Scope out the talent. Nothing yet. In the living room, seven early arrivals dance the shopping cart. Bunch of posers. I’ll show them how later.
Tim peels off, honing in on a less than gorgeous coed who’s thumbing through James’s CD collection. He winks at me before he leaves. You have to admire the guy. I wish I had half his guts. I’d kill for a quarter of his confidence.
I shuffle over to the snack table, inhale a handful of nachos. Ricky, in Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and flip-flops, lands at my side. He frowns, a stricken look on his face. “What is that smell?”
Takes me a minute. “Oh, it’s my new cologne.”
“It smells like ox urine.”
“Really? Maybe I should wash it off.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
“And you are familiar with the smell of ox urine how?”
“Oh, Anthony, the places I’ve seen.”
A party of three enters, two hot unfamiliar women, undergrads, flanking a preppie jock type.
“Excuse me,” Ricky says, ogling the jock. “My date’s here.”
He moonwalks toward the trio. The preppie guy laughs. I make eye contact with one of the hot undergrads.
“Mine, too,” I say to myself.
I PITCH A shutout. Both of the hot new arrivals drool when I announce that I’m a med student. I lose one when I go into a little too much detail about my jaw surgery. The other bails when I rave about my mother’s cooking. I get them back momentarily when we go hip to hip in the “Achy Breaky” dance. I wow them with my moves. They laugh, they swoon, then the dance ends and they leave. I pound one beer, then another. I’m halfway through beer three when Tim and the not so gorgeous coed come out of a back bedroom. His hair’s flying all over, and she’s wearing his baseball cap sideways. I drop onto the floor, slide my back into the wall. I hold up my beer and toast Tim and this evening’s winner.
“I want you to meet somebody.” Tim to the coed, who wriggles into her coat. “This is Tony, my best friend and the coolest guy I know.”
“Hey,” I say, reaching out my hand. I look at Tim and see a blank stare. Clearly, he doesn’t know her name.
“Ingrid,” she says, squeezing two of my fingers.
“Ingrid,” I repeat. “Exotic.”
“Danke. Are you a med student, too?”
“Are you going to be a heart surgeon, too?”
The look of astonishment that slams onto my face, followed by my uncontrollable howl of laughter, causes Tim to practically shove Ingrid out the door. He sticks his head back inside. “Hey, Youner, you mind wheeling my bike home?”
“Yes, I mind. It’s a giant pain in the ass. Wheel your own damn bike home, dude.”
I don’t say this. Another beer or two and I might.
“No problem. You two have a good night.”
That’s actually what I say.
“Thanks, man. I owe you. Later.”
He whispers something to Ingrid that cracks her up. And then they’re gone.
How does he do it?
James, I get. James has movie-star looks. Young Redford. A Jonas brother. Handsome and vulnerable. We once went on a road trip to Toronto. We heard they had some crazy little women there, and I wanted to get me one. Particularly in this one bar, the Easy Rider or something. We walk in, order drinks, lean back against the bar to check out the scene, and a blond, blue-eyed Kate Hudson wannabe walks straight up to James and starts making out with him. No hello, no buy me a drink, no nothing. Just bang. Mouth to mouth. Tongue to tongue. Tonsil to tonsil. Stunning. Can it be just looks? Can looking like a movie star be all you need? I kind of look like a tall Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. So far that hasn’t been a big plus.
Tim has it going on, too, but in a different way. He has a gift. He doesn’t discriminate. He goes after women he knows he can get. And if he’s horny, he goes all out. He once drove from Philly to Saratoga to hook up with an easy girl he knew from high school. Nine hours for seven minutes of pleasure. You have to admire that. I guess. And Tim refuses to take no for an answer. He’s got the tenacity of a used-car salesman. I mean this as a compliment.
I need help. I want to be Tim’s wingman. I think about my turning point.
A week ago.
Friend of mine tells me about a party off campus. Frat party. Invitation-only. Bouncers at the door. My friend happens to be the president of the fraternity, so we have an in. He doesn’t invite us officially, but I convince Tim that we’re solid enough to crash.
We park our Huffys a block away. We’ve learned by now that riding up on our bikes juggling six-packs on our handlebars reduces our cool factor by at least half. I can’t afford to lose that much.
We hear the party before we see it. Loud, out of control, a future visit from the cops a guarantee. We turn up the street and see people spilling out of the house, filling up the porch, packing the sidewalk. We slide and squeeze our way to the front door. Two linemen blockade the door, shaved heads glinting in the moonlight. “We’re full. We’re not letting anyone else in.”
“Seriously? But I’m friends with Kal.”
Bouncer one pats a stomach the size of a barrel. “So am I. Like I said, the party’s full.”
“But we’re medical students.” Tim. Insistent, whiny, annoying.
“Medical students?” A female voice. Slurry. Sexy.
“Absolutely.”
“Over here.”
We follow the voice to the right of the porch. A girl, sorority type, way out of my league, Tim’s, too, hangs out of a first-floor window. She waves. Her long wild hair swishes. “Come on. We’ll let you in.”
Another girl fills the window. They extend their arms. Tim and I clasp their hands like we’re rock climbers and pull ourselves inside. We tumble onto the living room floor. A shriek, giggles, beers slapped into our hands. Cigarette smoke fills the room. The two girls who let us in laugh, sip fresh beer from glasses, grin. Dimples everywhere. Expensive white teeth. Hair for miles. Smoldering.
“Med students, huh?”
“Cool,” Knockout One says.
“I always wanted to marry a doctor.” Knockout Two, licking and slurping the foam off her beer.
“We’re not doctors yet,” I say, my glasses steamed up, blinding me.
“Hahaha.”
Tim elbows me a shot in the ribs. I double over. My beer sloshes.
“You guys get high?”
Knockout Two produces a pipe, starts packing it.
“Uh, nah, thanks,” I say.
Tim hits me with a look that says, I will kill you if you screw this up.
“You don’t indulge?” Knockout One. She pouts, allows a whole bunch of hair to fall over one eye. I follow her hair down and get a glimpse of her body. We’re talking Penthouse hot. She shakes her head at Knockout Two, who makes Knockout One look like a troll. Tim is going to kill me. I expect him to torture me first.
“Your loss.” Knockout Two.
Knockout One wraps her hair around three fingers. “We heard med students like to party, but I guess we found the only two who don’t.”
Knockout Two does a little hop, points off. “Look, Jerry and Dwayne got in! Jerr-eeee!” Giggling, waving the pipe, they bolt.
“And there they go,” Tim says.
“I’m sorry, man.”
Tim snaps his head back. “For what?”
“Wait. I thought when they brought out the pipe and I turned it down, you were pissed.”
“Not at all. Forget it. We can do better.”
“In this lifetime?”
“Maybe not. Hey, at least there’s food.”
We cruise the snack table, pile paper plates high with chips, dip, popcorn, cookies, doughnuts, and I think, Tim is right. At least there’s food. And Tim. And James. And Ricky.
And at least I have them.
BACK AT CHEZ James. Monday night a memory. We’re looking at Tuesday morning, two A.M. It all starts again in nine hours with biochem. Tim’s gone, and I remember I promised to wheel his Huffy home. A pang of depression gnaws me. Once again, I’m alone. My beer buzz gone, I feel wasted, a sexless blob. I melt into the warped hardwood floor that smells of cedar and spilled beer.
“Look at you.”
Ricky. Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, barefoot.
“Hi, Ricky.”
“Oh, Tony, baby. You’re upset, aren’t you? Sad. Horny. Frustrated. You didn’t get any action tonight, did you?”
“Ah, no, nope. I did not.”
“Well, here you go.”
He drops onto my crotch.
“Get the hell off me!” I sit up and toss him off my lap. He roars and races out of the room. He howls all the way down the hallway.
Yes, I’m over my gay “thing.” I love Ricky. He’s one of my closest friends.
But no offense, Ricky, I need a woman.
I ALSO NEED lessons.
I tend to obsess. Tim, I’m happy to discover, obsesses as much as I do. By our calculation, we spend one out of every two minutes of our lives in the Nerd Room plotting, planning, and cramming for exams.
We spend every other minute obsessing over women.
I admit to Tim that I need help. I tell him how crushed I feel when a girl turns me down. My already fragile ego feels ready to crumble into powder. “Why can’t I get a woman? What am I doing wrong?”
“It’s all in the preparation. The pregame,” Tim says. “You need to prepare with the same intensity and dedication as you do for an exam.”
We sit in the student lounge eating a pizza we had delivered to the back door. We scarf the slices almost whole, fearing that Shelly and her squad of gunners might discover us here, mug us, steal our pizza, and leave us for dead.
“I don’t know how to break the ice,” I say. “I say something ridiculous. Then it goes downhill from there.”
“I’m taking you under my wing,” Tim says.
“I’m game.”
“First, I want you to know that this is an outrage. You’re good-looking, you’re funny, you’re smart, you’re a great guy. No way you should be spending your nights alone, listening to the Chinese guy flush.”
“I’m with you.”
He rests a hand on my shoulder. “That’s about to change.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Three things. First, subscribe to Cosmo.”
I pause, wait for him to laugh. “You’re serious,” I say.
“Dead serious. Cosmo gives you an edge. I read it cover to cover every month. Just finished a very informative article. ‘Thirty Feisty Foreplay Tips.’ Must reading.”
“Thirty? I can only think of two. I guess my foreplay’s a little rusty. So’s my afterplay. My during-play could use a tune-up, too.”
“You can start with my old issues. But I want them back. Now, number two. You ready? This one’s gonna hurt.”
“Hit me.”
“Do not talk about your mother. Ever. I know you love her. I love my mother, too. But your mother must never come up in conversation in a bar. Especially when you are hitting on a woman.”
“I get nervous. I can’t help it.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to hear you telling some chick how much you love your mother’s soup. Swear to me.”
“Fine. I swear. What’s number three?”
Tim scans my face. He frowns, considers. He apparently wants to be sure I’m ready for number three. He kicks aside the pizza box. Wipes his hands on his shirt. “All right, Grasshopper. Number three. The secret to the whole deal.” Tim reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette lighter. He flicks it once. A thin blue flame shoots up.
“A cigarette lighter?”
I’m dubious.
“Surefire,” Tim says.
“I don’t smoke,” I say.
“I don’t, either. Who gives a shit? Get yourself a lighter. Carry it with you at all times. You see a cute girl about to light up, you whip out your lighter, cup her hands in yours, look into her eyes, and you’re in. Two moves. Lighter out, flick, deep soul-searching look. Bam. Phone number.”
I snicker. Reach for the last slice. “That is total bullshit. No way I’m buying a cigarette lighter.”
I BUY A lighter.
Nothing fancy. A Bic flick. A dollar fifty-nine at CVS. I lock myself in my room and practice. I walk around the room, try it out in different pockets in various pants and shirts. Front pocket, back pocket, shirt pocket. I settle on pants, left side pocket. Then I practice lighting it until I can whip that thing out and flick the flame up fast as an assassin.
Monday night. Party night. Tim and I hit a bar. I’ve read two issues of Cosmo, and I’m so good with my lighter I can twirl it and flick it in one motion. I’m ready.
We survey the room. Cute coeds abound. Tim spots his prey, a husky softball-player type sitting alone. Tim winks, sidles up to her, carrying two beers. He hands one to her. She blushes, laughs, touches his arm. Home run.
Leaving me, as usual, alone. Playing with my lighter. Doubting Tim’s training. I drain a beer, order another, down that one. Two beers. That’s all it takes for me to fall down a hole and crash-land into the town we call Pityville. I stare into the dregs of my beer and wallow. Hell, Ricky does better with women than I do. And he’s gay.
I need to get rid of these beers. I locate the line to the bathroom, which snakes ten people long down the side of the bar, around a corner, past the pay phone. What a night. I have to wait an hour to pee. And there’s Tim and the lady shortstop across the room, laughing, touching, gathering up their things, getting ready to head back to his place to play long ball. Any second now he’ll ask me to wheel his Huffy home. I have to face it. I’m hopeless.
“Is this the line for the bathroom?”
I tilt my head down slightly and see the face of an angel.
She’s ethereal. Beaming a smile up at me that could melt metal. Short hair. One dimple. Olive skin. Eyebrows that wave hello. A hint of Asian about her. Maybe Polynesian. I don’t care. I love Asians.
“Huh?” I say. So debonair.
Her smile fades. She leans her back into the pay phone. She looks away. Tim’s words dance through my head. Do not talk about your mother. Do not bring up her succulent octopus soup.
Focus, Tony.
Do not mention thirty feisty foreplay tips.
Or is it thirty feisty foreskin tips?
I’m losing it.
And then a miracle happens.
The angel pulls out a cigarette.
Time stops.
She holds the cigarette between a long lovely index finger and a long lovely middle finger. She lifts her knee and fishes around in her purse. “Damn,” she says. Still rummaging in her purse, “Do you have a light?”
Do I ever.
I slip my hand into my jeans pocket and, with mercurial speed, whip out my lighter, twirl it, flick it, whoosh. An inviting pale blue flame shoots up, tickles the air.
Two angel hands cup mine. The angel dips her head and lights her cigarette. She tosses off a cloud of smoke from the crinkled-up corner of her kissable mouth. “I’m Carly,” she says.
“Good name. Strong. Yet feminine. I’m Tony.”
Three minutes later, she gives me her phone number.
Two hours later, I call her.
We talk until dawn.
I never mention my mother.
We go out the following Monday night.
We date for four months.
We get through twenty-three of the thirty feisty foreplay tips before she dumps me.
Home run!
FIRST YEAR. SECOND semester. Six weeks to go. If I squint, I can make out a dim flickering light at the end of the long dark tunnel.
Most days and every weekend we hole up in the Nerd Room. Tim and I continue to schedule breaks to discuss women and plan our dating strategy. But with under a month to go, two seismic changes occur that throw us off our game.
First, Tim meets Jane. Jane is different from all the other girls I’ve seen him date or take home for the night. She’s pretty. She’s smart. She seems not at all desperate. She shakes Tim up. He’s no longer obsessed with women. He is now only obsessed with Jane.
“I’m going to marry her,” he tells me.
“Have you told her this?”
“No. It’s too soon. Things are still fluid. I’m not sure she even likes me all that much. Which makes me even more obsessed with her.”
“She may be too good for you,” I point out.
“I know. I thought of that. Just motivates me more. Makes me work harder.”
“So no more driving nine hours to Saratoga for a quickie?”
“Those days are over, my friend. I have a long uphill battle ahead of me. But she’s worth it. She’s the one, dude.”
“You going out with her Monday night?”
“You’re playing it cool. Masterful.”
“Actually, she hasn’t given me her number yet.”
I whistle low. “Think I’ll hold off renting my tuxedo.”
“Only a matter of time,” Tim says.
SECOND SEISMIC CHANGE.
I fall in love with anatomy.
It happens over time but begins as a result of my competitive nature.
Months ago. The day after Dr. Gaw humiliates me in class, I decide to fight back. I refuse to give her control of my life and of my medical-school education. My plan involves mental judo. I vow to make her not only change her opinion of me but to fall in love with me. This becomes my obsession.
I begin by asking myself a key question. Who is Dr. Gaw? Not sure I want to go there. I do know this. Dr. Gaw seems to despise the living. She’s clearly gaga over her cadavers, enthralled with her bins of body parts, orgasmic over her prosected organs. Therefore, I will pretend to love what she loves.
Day two, I motor from the back of the lab, where Tim, equipped with smelling salts, hides, and push my way to the front, where I rub shoulders with the gunners and ass kissers. I take notes like a court reporter, laugh along with the ass kissers at Dr. Gaw’s lame attempts at humor, and listen raptly as she gushes over her livers, spleens, and kidneys. I can play fascinated with the best of them. I share meaningful glances with the gunners. I ooh and ahh with the ass kissers. I smile with respect at Dr. Gaw. It’s all fake, a front. I don’t give a shit. I just want an A in this freaking class.
Then one day I do give a shit. It starts again with hands. For the second time, I walk by the open bin of hands, and I’m drawn in. Again, I see the humanity in those hands. I feel their humanity. My perspective shifts. I alter my entire view of this class and medical school in general. I don’t care about Dr. Gaw, or the gunners, or getting an A. I think about all the body parts in the lab, and I imagine them belonging to people I know or people I’ve seen. Then I wonder who these people really were. I wonder how they lived their lives, where they worked, what they did for fun, what made them afraid. I wonder who they loved, and I wonder who grieved over them.
I drift over to the bodies that we will study, some under tarps, some lying naked, their innards exposed, and certain details that I’d never noticed jump out—tattoos, dental fillings, scars—and I feel lightheaded. I am in awe of these people. Most of all, instead of feeling detached from them, as I assume most doctors do, I feel attached to them. Committed to them.
I can’t say that I feel this way constantly, every second of anatomy class, every moment of medical school. I will often lose this feeling of reverence toward these bodies, especially when I’m grinding through my notes, preparing for an exam. But I’m able to bring myself back, to locate the humanity easily.
Especially when I look into the bin of hands.
FIRST YEAR. THE last week.
I don’t want to scream it yet, but—
I HAVE SURVIVED MY FIRST YEAR OF MEDICAL SCHOOL!
I should make that into a bumper sticker and slap it on my Huffy.
Second year promises to be better. James and Ricky have invited Tim and me to share a house with them. According to Ricky, they’ve found a fabulous two-story colonial on Flower Street. So much potential. He’s already painting and decorating. “It’s going to be a showcase,” he says.
“It has to be a step up from Owen Hall,” Tim says.
“Hopefully,” I say.
“You two wound me,” Ricky says.
“I apologize,” I say. “Work your magic. You’re a male Martha Stewart.”
“If only.”
FIRST YEAR ENDS with a jolt.
Bianca.
Two days left. I pop into the admissions office to drop off a form. I hand the form to a secretary and head out the back door. I screech to a stop.
Leaning over a desk, arms slicing the air, speaking with deep-throated passion in a Spanish accent, her legs lined with runner’s calves bent and brushing the desk, her back arched, her ass tight in a short skirt swaying, stands the hottest woman I’ve seen this side of Gloria. A woman in a pin-striped suit sits at the desk, nodding like a mourner, as “Gloria” raises one hand to the sky. I blink twice to clear my head.
I shuffle forward to hear her voice. I see now that the vision is taller than Gloria, her cheekbones higher and cut like glass, her complexion off-white, her eyes aqua pools. What ruins me is her laugh. She roars, uninhibited, husky, gleefully, carrying away both the woman in the pin-striped suit and me.
Instinctively, I whip out my lighter.
“Sir, there’s no smoking in here.”
Pinstripe. She speaks like a principal over a loudspeaker.
“Sorry.”
The vision laughs. What teeth. They gleam. Dr. Schwarzman would hand her a trophy. I snap the lighter shut, return it with a flourish to the side pocket of my jeans. “Would you have a drink with me tonight?”
I can’t believe I say this.
She laughs. “Yes,” she says.
“Awesome!”
Pinstripe shakes her head. Can’t tell if she’s happy for me or thinks the vision is out of her mind.
“Well, sorry to intrude.” I start to leave. I’m about to hit the glass doors.
“Where?” Her voice so husky I can feel her breath from ten feet away.
“Ha.” What an idiot. Then cool takes over. “USA Café.”
“I’ll find it. Nine o’clock?”
“Great,” I say. “By the way, I’m Tony.”
“Bianca,” she says.
THAT NIGHT WITH Bianca, I’m in a zone. Every line clicks. Every joke kills. Every move devastates. And when I lead Bianca in the shopping-cart dance? Forget about it.
At our table, eyes trained on each other, hearts thumping from drink, the heat of the bar, and the closeness of our bodies, I say, “Tell me everything about you.”
We sip our drinks, beer for me, sangria for her.
“I’m pretty boring,” she says, which is such a lie. “I was born in Mexico, raised in San Antonio. I always wanted to be a doctor. I applied to about twenty medical schools to cover my bases. I had my interview today. I’m dying to get in here.”
“Is this your first choice?”
“Yes. But it’s so hard. Very competitive.”
“You’ll get in. I’m sure you will. It’ll be so great. The two of us. We’ll hang out all the time.”
“I know, right?”
“When will you find out?”
A shrug. A slug of sangria. Bianca slurps down to the orange slice at the bottom. She runs the back of her hand across her mouth like a slap. Leaves a heart-shaped red lipstick blotch.
“They mail me the result in six weeks. I have to go back to Texas. Unless I can move in with you.”
“Not a problem. My parents will love you. You can pass for Korean, right?”
“Sí.” Then she levels me. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“What?”
“I know.”
“That sucks.” I must scream those words, because the bar goes quiet. “Now what?” I say after a while.
Bianca presses her hand to my cheek. “I had so much fun tonight, Tony.”
“That’s it? We may never see each other again.”
“But if I get in here—”
Now I shrug.
“Well, it’s late,” Bianca says. “I have to pack—”
She stands, mouths “goodbye” to James, Ricky, and Tim, who grunt as a group, watching me carefully, concerned that I’m about to stroke out. I stand, nearly knock over my chair. “I’ll walk you home,” I say.
“It’s okay. I want to be alone.”
She kisses my cheeks European-style, one side and then the other, then lightly brushes my mouth with the tip of her finger. I watch her disappear out the front doors of the diner.
“I’ve never seen you operate like that, man.” James noogies my arm. “You reminded me of me.”
I crash onto my chair. “I’m never gonna see her again.” I barely croak out the words.
Three pairs of hands clamp down, massaging my back, mussing my hair, kneading my shoulders. Ricky kisses my cheek.
“Hey.” Tim lifts his hand off my shoulder and pushes over a plate of crispy, overcooked french fries drowning in ketchup. The way I like them. “At least we have food,” he says.
These guys.
Where would I be without these guys?