Expiration Dating (5 page)

After staring out the windows for a few seconds, s
he looked at me, flicking her eyelashes. “However, Andrew’s a good guy, so if you want to go for him, I support it. He’s not my type, believe me.”

             
“Mine neither.” I grinned. “Mine is tall, dark, handsome and
Italian
.”

I leaned back and
we sat in contemplative silence for the rest of the cab ride home. I barely noticed the cab driver ignoring all red lights. Apparently the streets were free game after midnight, the stoplights mere suggestions.

We attempted to
be discreet entering the apartment, a major failure. Emilia clomped around in her five inch bedazzled shoes and I raided every cupboard in the kitchen looking for a single, measly cookie. There were none anywhere, so I had to settle for plain old bread.
I really needed to go grocery shopping.
I stumbled into bed.

Chapter
Eight

E
ight a.m. rolled around. I resisted waking up, reaching to my face to see if there were actual sandbags on my eyes. There were none, but it felt as if my eyes were glued shut. I finally coaxed them open and saw Emilia standing near the foot of my bed.

             
“Let’s go.” she shook me awake. “Five minutes until we leave.”

             
“How do your lips look like that?” I asked, conscious that I looked like a witch. Literally, my hair stuck out in all angles, I had a mascara smear on my cheek, and there were splotches of glitter on random body parts. Emilia tisked, she had no patience for my moans of agony.

             
“We will leave without you,” she said. I thought we had bonded last night, but apparently her fun side got tucked away with the light of day.

             
We arrived to class, and I poured myself into the same seat as yesterday. I didn’t even care anymore that it was front and center. I just wanted to sit. Crowded subways are not fun with a pounding headache. I put my head down on the desk between my hands.

             
“You had fun last night, huh?” Andrew sounded amused.

             
I peered at him through day old mascara, opening only one eyelid. It was all I could manage.

             
“Is that sarcasm?” My voice sounded like a dying frog.

             
“I’m just saying, you were quite the dancing queen.”

             
“Oh yeah, and how would you know?”

             
Andrew was silent for a minute. “Never mind.”

             
I sat up, now alert.

“What did I tell you?” I asked, memories of
Andrew at the club flooding back to me. I guess I’d had more to drink than I’d thought. At least that explained my mangled state of existence this morning.

             
“I just hope you found your Italian man.” He smiled at me. His teeth seemed so white they hurt my eyes, all the way through to the back of their sockets. I leaned over to retort, but only managed to grunt in dismay as the teacher began lecturing. I had to watch out for the invisible alcohol from now on. When it came time to partner up again, I grudgingly turned to Andrew and accepted his offer to be partners. With our disastrous Italian, it was impossible not to laugh at our conversation attempts.

             
“I think this is asking what you like to do,” I whispered to Andrew. I was cheating, speaking during ‘no English time.’ Andrew raised his hand innocently. The teacher came over.

             
He looked up and asked, “How do you say drink?”

The teacher showed him in
the book where it read ‘bere.’ There was a picture of a glass of orange juice. It made me sick to even look at the cartoon. Andrew nodded as if absorbing a profound statement. She began walking away and Andrew said, “Dana ti piace bere mucho.”

I rolled my eyes.

              “Andrew non é fun,” I said. The teacher of course heard
my
comments and gave me the evil eye.

             
“Italiano!” she roared.

Class ended
and we meandered slowly into the hallway. I stood with Andrew, waiting for Emilia’s class to let out. My stomach growled.

             
“Coffee shop?” Andrew asked. A tradition was born.

We
headed across the street with Maggie hovering behind us like a lanky shadow. She seemed to be part of our world about twenty percent of the time. The rest was spent somewhere in daydream-land. I ordered a caffé and a croissant. The barista delivered my food to the table, and I paused for a second to admire the handcrafted heart on top of my cappuccino.

I instantly
knew I’d discovered my new hangover cure; the warm croissant was filled with oozing chocolate while the outside edges flaked off as they touched my tongue, melting like butter. The cappuccino warmed my insides as it washed everything down, accompanied by the added bonus of a caffeine jolt. I moaned, basking in the gloriousness of the warm, gooey chocolate. Andrew gave me a funny look.

             
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I warned. “Let a girl eat in peace.”

             
Andrew cleared his throat and stirred some sugar into his bitter, very tiny, cup of espresso.

             
“So, do you have plans for lunch?” Andrew asked. I gave him a look, partly because my mouth was full and partly because I was surprised at the question. I kept chewing and looked down at the remainder of my food in response.

“I mean real food,” he said
. I did a head bobbing motion saying neither yes nor no. I then spotted Emilia across the street and waved. She headed in our direction.

             
“I should probably head back,” I said through a mouthful of crumbs. “I haven’t really set up my room yet.”

              I swallowed and took another sip of the heavenly foam.

             
Andrew nodded. “Sure, well do you have a number? It’d be fun to meet up one of these nights, on purpose.”

Again, I was slow to respond. It was the c
roissant; I couldn’t stop eating it. He took my response as a negative. “I mean, bring Emilia, bring whoever, it’s just that none of us really knows anyone here.”

             
“No, absolutely!” I swallowed again. “I mean yes, but no I don’t have a phone yet.”

             
“Ok, well-” Andrew began.

             
“Hey, guys! Dana, wanna head home? I have a Skype date I need to make,” Emilia said.

             
“Sure.” I got up and hurried out behind Emilia, waving goodbye to Andrew. Maggie must have wandered off somewhere, I realized after getting on the metro.

             
We disembarked, and I dragged my feet into the apartment complex. Emilia flounced in ahead of me, the picture of well-rested and energized. I admired her endurance. I crawled under the sheets of my bed and closed my eyes.

I was just drifting off as I felt a piece of paper under my fingers. It was crumpled and showed signs of
dried sweat, but nevertheless I could make out the name Giuseppe and a foreign phone number. I rolled over and realized the bartender from the previous night had given it to me, and I must have slept with it clenched in my hands. I lifted up my pillow and saw a pile of scattered European change. The left over cab fare. I had been so exhausted coming home I didn’t even bother to let go of the phone number or the cab fare!

I closed my eyes and slept.

              When I awoke, it was dark out. I heard Emilia cluttering around in the kitchen as I reoriented myself with the world. I slowly shuffled in and joined her. I peeked over her shoulder and saw an array of lettuces, grains, mushrooms, all sorts of tasteless, green healthy things.

             
“Good morning, sunshine.” Emilia didn’t even look up.

             
“Whatcha cooking?” I ignored her comment. 

             
“Vegetarian quinoa salad.” She glanced at my cupboard, which was bare except for my last container of Pringles from America. “It’s
healthy
.”

             
“Right.” I grabbed a muffin from the counter.

             
“So, did you hear from Andrew about tonight?” Emilia asked.

             
I stopped chewing. “What’s tonight?”

I swallowed.

              “Le Banque,” Emilia pronounced in a beautiful French accent. “It’s a dance club in the Fashion District. It’s not very well known, but it’s supposed to be very chic.”

I nod
ded, digesting the information. I wondered why Andrew hadn’t asked me during class.

             
“When did you talk to him?” I asked.

             
“Just now. He texted me… on my new Italian phone!” she showed it off, wiggling it around in my face. There was already a bejeweled cover on it. How did she get her shite together so fast? However, the news was at least slightly promising. Andrew could either be mad at me for blowing lunch off, or he didn’t know how to get a hold of me. I chose to believe the latter.

“Do you wanna go?” she
asked again.

             
“I slept like ten hours today. I don’t really have an excuse not to.”

             
“Excellent.” Emilia smiled. “I just bought my first real Italian Louboutins, and I absolutely
need
to try them out.”

             
Later that evening I poured wine for Emilia and myself, as we lounged around post dinner. After some precursory channel surfing, we realized that not one channel was in English. However, there were some MTV shows broadcast in the English language. It was funny to watch Jersey Shore dubbed over in Italian; it
still
didn’t make the show any more authentic. In fact, they were the opposite of Italians, only with the good fortune to have inherited an Italian surname. The cast members were orange, trashy and overly made up. True Italians, I had discovered, were well-kept, minimally made up and generally very thin.

             
Emilia finally urged us from the couch, and we spent the next forty minutes curling hair, trying on outfits and gossiping about the others in our program. If I was honest, that’s how Emilia spent her next forty minutes. I spent mine lying on my bed, refilling my wine glass and trying to get a last nap in.

             
“You need to get ready,” Emilia said. She flicked my calf. I continued to watch her apply fake eyelashes.

             
“I never understood how you do that,” I said, lazily scratching the area where she’d poked me.

             
“If you spent more time and effort on your appearance, you’d find it wasn’t so difficult,” Emilia said. “You know, jeans are not meant to be a punishment. They’re
comfortable
.”

             
“Maybe if you’re a guy and you can wear them baggy and sagging halfway to your knees.” Emilia threw a pillow at me and I managed to sit up and start thumbing through my closet. Emilia had graciously given me half of my closet back.

             
“Will Andrew actually be there?” I asked.

             
“I don’t know, I assume so,” Emilia said, then stopped moving. “Why are you so interested?”

             
“Just curious.” Emilia held my eye contact for another second, and then turned back to her lipstick application process. We finished the last touches and did an examination in the mirror.

             
“Here’s to Italy, new friends, new experiences, new… everything!” I announced over a shot of cheap Russian vodka in the kitchen. Emilia and I caught the last metro, barely, and arrived at Le Banque shortly after midnight. We had taken a plastic, cocktail filled water bottle for the road, which had gotten us quite giddy on the metro ride. I stood in line, not quite able to stand still; I already could feel the beat inside the club, and I wanted to get in there and dance.

W
e made it past the door guards, the only mishap being a brief argument where Emilia forced me to hand over the spiked water bottle to Security. Clutching our two drink tickets like a lifeline, we quickly checked our coats and headed for the bar. Emilia and I leaned against the counter, trying to get the bartender’s attention. An Italian with greased back hair, a button down shirt complete with chest hair hanging out, and dark shades on, indoors, sidled up towards us.

He glanced at
Emilia, attempted to smile, failed miserably and settled on a smirk. He bobbed his head to the music. A five-year-old hit, a pop song, pumped through the stereos. I tried to ignore him, glancing out at the dance floor and seeing the first few brave souls start crowding onto the platform. I turned back just as the Italian leaned in towards Emilia.

             
“What is your name? I want to say your name – over and over again,” he spoke in heavily accented English. I let out a snort of laughter. Apparently Italian pickup lines were song lyrics regurgitated in various forms. Emilia tried not to smile, but was also unsuccessful.

             
“No,” she said, turning to the bar. She then saw a new friend from class, waved, and hurried off saying she’d be back in a minute. As soon as she left, the bartender turned his attention to me.

Emilia
had left her drink ticket with me, so I took the liberty of ordering us both the dreaded invisibles. I handed over my drink tickets, and I suddenly felt an unfamiliar body behind me, too close for comfort. I tried to turn, but then realized the person’s arms were on either side of me, trapping my body against the bar. I squirmed around, but the crowd was too close, forcing me and this stranger together. I felt the warm breath against my ear before I heard the voice.