Love and Other Things I'm Bad At (31 page)

9/29

OMG. OMG. OMG.

Went to Shop & Shop for groceries just now.

Was innocently pushing a cart down the middle aisle, where I had a dead-on view of customer service. Saw Grant standing off to the side, talking to a girl. She had short black hair, very cute. Looked familiar.

Then I realized—vet sciences study geeks—that was where I’d seen her before, at the Pythagorean Theorem Café. I also thought maybe she’d been at Grant’s house party, but I wasn’t sure—it had been kind of crowded.

I thought I’d march over and introduce myself, but then she snuggled up close to him.

And he didn’t resist. In fact, quite the opposite.

He snuggled up close to
her
.

Then they started kissing.

Abort, abort!
I thought, making a U-turn, steering in a completely opposite direction. Abandoned my cart in the cereal aisle. Ran out exit door.

Crashed on my bike on the way out of parking lot. Have giant scrape on my leg. All Grant’s fault.
I have W. Why do I care if Grant wants to snuggle with some girl at the Shop & Shop?

I don’t. Really.

Really.

9/30

Up early due to lack of sleep due to not being able to sleep. Just IM’d with Beth. Told her about Grant having a girlfriend.

shoe92gurrl: Really? And he didn’t tell you before now? Why?

crtveg17: ???

shoe92gurrl: what did she look like?

crtveg17: cute

shoe92gurrl: well, I guess that’s it then, you both moved on

crtveg17: I guess

Now, reflecting. Pausing before I call Mary Jo, Jane, Alison . . . That’s what journals are for, right? Reflecting? On what dumb things we do and how we can maybe, possibly not do them again? But then we do them again anyway and have to throw out a journal and start over and pretend like this was the first time and we didn’t know better, in case someone someday finds our old journals and, like, calls us to task on what we wrote and supposedly learned—

Anyway. Why was that whole Shop & Shop experience so incredibly hard?

Why did I run away?

Why didn’t I just walk over and say in a low, sultry, completely calm voice, “Well, hello there, you must be Grant’s new girlfriend. I’m his previous girlfriend, Courtney. You’ve probably heard a lot about me.”

We’d laugh uncomfortably and look for similarities in each other. We’d trade stories about how cute Grant was and didn’t she just love that scar of his on his cheek and did she know—

Well, anyway. That’s NOT what I did or how I acted. I ran. Like a petite, frightened mouse that has just spied DeathKitty coming its way.

So, OK. I guess I just can’t face that yet, the idea of Grant with someone new. Why not? I don’t know. I mean, I guess I was wondering if he ever got over me. And I kind of wanted him to and kind of didn’t.

OK, I guess in an egotistical way I wanted him to pine for me forever. But he isn’t pining. At all. He’s moved on, like I have. Which is so apparently mature of both of us that it feels funny. Not ha-ha funny. Bizarre funny.

Here I was, thinking he rigged this housing situation so we’d live next door because he wanted to, I don’t know . . . get back together with me?

He doesn’t, though. He has no interest in me that way anymore. Just like he said the other day: He doesn’t care about me or what I do.

And maybe the truth is, I never got over him, because I feel so horribly jealous I could throw up. Or maybe it’s because I ate some fake-crab salad samples at Shop & Shop before I saw him and her.

There’s a her now.

A her that is not a me.

What am I so upset about? I’m with Wittenauer now. End of story.

I think I’m upset because I gave him the perfect opening to tell me about whatever her name is. I told him about W, and he said how we didn’t have to tell each other everything. I was brave enough to tell him my own dating status. And was he? No. He let me find out by reading notes and crashing supermarket carts.

I definitely need more Band-Aids for my scraped leg.

Ended up borrowing some from Dara. They are skull-and-bones pattern. I look like a wounded biker.

10/1

Grandma came for a visit, wanting to see my new place, and once she met Shawna and Dara, she invited all three of us to lunch. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. She insisted on eating at Perkins because of her senior discount. She also kept saying she was going to the doctor for a brain density scan.

“I think that it’s called bone density,” Dara said. She read over the menu and uttered under her breath how she hated Perkins and bread bowls.

“They’re checking everything,” she said. “What’s really important is to maintain sexual health into your sixties and seventies.”

“We’ll work on that,” Shawna said, and giggled. And then I laughed, and then even Dara snickered and soon we were all cracking up and Grandma V. D. was shaking her head and saying, “Girls, girls, pay attention. These are the best years of your lives.”

That’s pretty much how it went. Grandma Von Dragen giving advice on how to go to college based on her experiences in the 1960s. She was into free love then; she’s into free love now. She has no idea what that even means anymore, how much trouble a person might get into. She’s like the antiabstinence voting bloc.

She started talking about Thanksgiving in Nebraska and how we all have to go. . . . I’ve been hearing this my whole life, I’ve been
going
my whole life. Is it really something we need to discuss at length? Turkey and trimmings? Anyway, I only care about the trimmings. She should know that by now.

10/2

Hated, dreaded words: “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

But let me backtrack. First, I was coming home from getting back my first Art of the Essay essay, which was not that artful, according to TA David.

“You didn’t do the assignment correctly. You need to work on this makeup assignment. You don’t know how to describe in depth. Go back to the first five assignments for this class—think you missed them.”

TA David is very good at describing, in depth, what is wrong with my writing.

As if I don’t write really great essays. Hello, I’m almost a journalism major. Or at least, I
thought
I was going to be one.

Maybe I’d written that one too quickly. Or maybe that was the paper I sort of wrote while I was on the phone with W. Maybe I’ll never catch up here, I thought. Maybe I should just give up. It was all too much and I started crying on the way home.

Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t run into Dara, who said, “Art of the Easy? You’re failing
that
?”

“I’m not failing! I just have to do some extra-credit type stuff.”

Dara says she can help, as a poet. She’s always starting sentences by saying, “As a poet, I . . .”

I told her it had nothing to do with poetry.

We got into an argument about what counted as writing. She said I had no idea how hard poetry was; I said she had no idea how difficult writing articles was. And even
that
wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t walked home and seen Grant sitting outside his house, so I had to go say hello even though I didn’t want to. I tried just waving, but he beckoned me over.

“Hey, uh, Courtney? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Then I noticed there was a girl sitting with her back to me and she turned around with this nice, friendly smile. Gah. Blindsided, completely blindsided. The girl from Shop & Shop. What am I saying? The
girlfriend
from Shop & Shop.

I mean, not that she lives at S & S or even works there, I just mean . . . I saw her there. In Grant’s arms.

“This is Kelli Barber,” Grant said, his face turning red as he introduced us. And I could see how hard it was for him, too. That made it better. Then he said, “Kelli with an
i
.” As if that mattered, like I was going to be sending her mail or something.

We exchanged awkward hellos.

But, sadly, how nice she is. How kind. How impossible to hate. Still, I manage.

Because I’m just that immature.

Felt too tall, too red-haired, too skinny, too everything around her. We made small talk about our majors, Grant’s housemates, and the weather. She went to camp in WI for a couple of summers. She thought that meant we had something in common. Besides the obvious: We have both spent lots of time with Grant.

Emailed Beth and Jane to give them the report. Jane wrote back, “No offense, Court, but I think you should probably be telling W this, not us. It’s not a secret that you once dated him, and it’s normal to have these feelings.”

Nothing at all feels “normal” about this. Just ate an entire pint of Häagen-Dazs while writing this.

Felt dumb because the more Kelli and Grant talked, the more I realized (a) they do have a connection, and (b) I know absolutely nothing about being a vet. Although I do a damned fine job of giving Oscar his meds every day.

Oops. Think I forgot this morning. Gotta go.

Art of the Essay Description #1: Kelli

Grant’s girlfriend has short black hair that has just the right amount of swishes and flips. But she can still curl it around her cute little ears. Her hair is the color of licorice whips. The color of a black car that is kind of new, you know, and shiny.

Not the color of a cat with evil eyes that stares at you every time you write in your journal and sometimes has green eyes, sometimes yellow, and that creeps you out.

Not that. Very very beautiful. As beautiful as a sunset over the mountains.

OK, so that IS a cliché. She’s pretty. She had on a silver necklace with a purple stone. Her birthday must be . . . I don’t know, but it’s amethyst.

She is petite but not wimpy. Skin a nice brown hue. She could be a Title Nine/Athleta model, which I only know from Mom’s current catalog collection.

Tank tee and jeans. The kind of toned shoulders that could probably go rock climbing with Grant, whereas I have the kind of shoulders that are good at scooping ice cream (which reminds me, I have to go to work soon). Where I am biceps, she is triceps.

She wears Keen sneaker-sandals, the kind with a bunch of openings and rubber soles you can wear anywhere and climb rock faces with.

Her tank top was purple, like grapes.

Her eyes are dark, dark brown, like black olives that come in a can.

Her smile is as sweet as a bowl of cake batter ice cream.

I think I have to go eat.

I am as hungry as a meat-eating lion in a vegetarian jungle.

As hungry as a person who forgot to pack snacks for an eight-hour plane ride.

As hungry as a celiac disease sufferer in an all-wheat-gluten world.

I don’t know why I have to do this extra-credit work. Obviously, I know how to
describe
things. Even new girlfriends of old boyfriends. I dare anyone else to try doing that without becoming catty.

Speaking of cats. DeathKitty attacked Oscar today when he tried to drink water out of her bowl. She sliced a chunk of fur off but drew no blood. That probably only made her madder. Oscar has been hiding under the bed. Must lure him out with hot dog in order to eat hot dog with embedded pill.

No wonder he needs to drink DeathKitty’s water. Hot dogs = sodium on a stick.

I should know. I only gave them up a year ago. Mostly. May have had a corn dog at Wisconsin state fair.

Ooh, speaking of WI—Wittenauer’s calling!

LATER

First, almost got hit by freight train in middle of town. Riding bike, late to class.

Then had to wait for train. Was late to class.

Then, class sucked because we had to do an in-class writing exercise and then some people got picked to read theirs out loud and I was one of them and mine was not very good.

Well, come on. Who can be inspired by the setup: “What if an Alien Walked into the Classroom Right Now?”

After I read it, the teacher just sort of looked at me. Was it that illogical and uncreative to suggest that the alien might not decide to stick around and would instead head to the Pyth for lunch?

At least I didn’t suggest the alien shoot up the place and take us hostage, like someone else did. I mean, was that supposed to be original? Anyone can put a gun in a story.

Then, Dara was supposed to give me a ride to work but she didn’t show up, so I had to ride my bike. It’s not that it’s far—it’s just the idea that I was waiting for her, and then had to scramble on my own to get there in time.

And then? Well, it was not a good night at work. Things were sort of slow, so Guy left. (That’s Guy as in Guy Nicollet the owner, Guy being a French name, not as in some guy.) I said, “You can’t, like—leave me here. Alone.”

For one thing, it’s not safe to have one person working in a retail place anytime, never mind ten at night. For another, our rush starts around quarter of eleven. So there was a line out the door and just me to ring everyone up, make smoothies and sundaes, etc.

Now there’s a lull so I’m sitting here recovering. Crowd has died down. Or actually, crowd is too busy eating and drinking and shouting to need me. Occasionally someone staggers up to the counter for a refill, apparently thinking we give free refills, which we don’t, only I’m so pissed at Guy N. right now that I feel like giving everyone free stuff.

This is, like, the worst week of my life so far. Sure, Bagle Finagle sucked, but this sucks more. It’s like a bad rip-off of Truth or Dairy and if it is doing well, it’s only succeeding because of stealing ideas.

I should have stayed at CFC. I should have written a bunch of IOUs to pay for college, like they did in California when the state ran out of money. CFC, I O U about $40,000. Give or take a thousand.

We are Generation B, for Bankrupt. We know how to make alternate plans.

10/3–10/4

Dear journal, I’ve missed you. But not that much.

Long story short: Worst week ever ended up being best week ever. Blissful. Kissful.

Friday night I got home at one in the morning, and W was waiting for me on the porch. Can you believe it? Well, you’re a journal, you have to believe everything I tell you. (Don’t you?) But still. It was so unbelievable that for a while now I’ve been wondering if I dreamed it myself. But no.

So there he was, like a vision. Just sitting on the brick wall on the porch. “You missed curfew,” he said.

“Shut up,” I said, running over to him. “Why are you here?”

Naturally we hugged and all that.

“Where have you been?” he asked, kind of into my hair.

“At work! Oh my God, what are you doing here, why didn’t you call me?”

“I just got here,” he said, “like, five minutes ago. And I was kind of worried when you weren’t here, and nobody else was home. Figured you were out partying.”

“Yeah, right. But—what about the football game tomorrow?” I asked.

He shrugged, looking unconcerned. “I got a sub.”

“There’s a sub for Corny? No. Impossible.”

“Sure. Baby Corn, remember? The understudy.”

I attempted to not roll my eyes. I mean, of all the ridiculous things about having a mascot . . . “How did you . . . what did you . . . fly?” I asked.

“I drove.”

“You
drove
? I talked to you and you were probably on the road and you didn’t even
tell
me? Why didn’t you tell me?” I shoved him and he nearly fell over the wall and off the porch.

“Ow! It was a surprise. Why didn’t you tell me Grant lived next door?”

“I know! It’s not a very good neighborhood, is it?”

“That’s not funny.”

“Well . . . yes, he does live next door. You must have seen him?”

“He just got home,” Wittenauer said. “Right before you.”

“Hm.”

“With his girlfriend,” said Wittenauer.

“Right. His girlfriend, Kelli.” This was all so mature of us that I almost could have puked. “So, you can obviously see, he and I are friends. That’s all.”

“Friends with benefits?” asked W.

“What? No! The only benefit at all is that he let me use his car once.”

“His car.”

“Yup.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Nope. He has a girlfriend and I have a boyfriend and it’s all very normal and boring.”

“Right. Wait a second. You have a boyfriend?” he asked.

Then we started kissing.

Fade out.

No longer
Les Misérables
.

Le Sigh of Happiness.