Socially Awkward (6 page)

Plus, Noah just seemed so relaxed and… cheerful. It sort of made me want to walk over there and hug him.

Just as I was about to resume my search for Claire, Noah turned and spotted me watching him. We shared an awkward moment of eye contact across the gym and then he gave me a little wave. I waved back—careful not to
look like a child who’d
just spotted Santa at the mall—and used the moment as my excuse to move on. If I stood there any longer, he might come over and talk to me.

Right
then
, who knows how much I’d
have
be
en
gushing over him? I couldn’t be trusted.

So I wound my way around various pieces of gym equipment to the front desk where there was no sign of my sister. Since she was my ride home, it was kind of important that I find her. I checked the parking lot and spotted her car, so I knew she was somewhere inside still. Good to know I hadn’t been abandoned. I mean, leave it to Claire to ditch me in a gym as an extreme method of either fitness motivation or torture. Or both.

I checked all the little alcoves of the gym, anywhere that wasn’t within my direct line of sight, but I came up empty. I revisited the ladies’ locker room, careful to keep my eyes straight ahead as I walked past Noah again. The locker room was empty, so I poked my head into the men’s room to call out their names really fast. Nothing there either.

Just as I was about to give up, I turned on my heel and almost
crashed
into a sculpted male body in a navy blue t-shirt.

“Come here often?” Noah asked with one eyebrow raised.

I blinked at him a couple of times. “To the gym?”

“To the men’s locker room.”

Busted. “Oh!” I smoothed my still-damp hair down over my hearing aids and tried not to blush. “No, I was looking for my sister.”

“Does
she
come here often?”

My nervous laughter sounded forced, high-pitched. I cringed.

“It’s Claire, right?” As he said this, Noah stepped into the locker room to do a quick scan for me. He came out shaking his head.

“No, I’m Jennifer,” I said, utterly crestfallen at having my name confused for hers. Again.

“I know
that
. I meant your sister is Claire.”

“Oh…uh, yeah.” This cheered me a little bit.

“She comes in here all the time, works out with Tom, right? About 5-foot-8, dirty blonde hair?”

I nodded, impressed by his recall. And his tactful way of not saying “super-hot, lo
ng legs, big boobs
.
”
It was almost refreshing.

“Yeah, I know her. And I think I can help you find her.” He put his hands on his hips, considering me for a moment. And then he started walking.

I followed Noah back through a set of double doors labeled “Employees Only.” As soon as I crossed the threshold, I started checking over my shoulder, as though I could get arrested for trespassing or something. Paranoia is such a bummer sometimes.

“They come back here together, once in a while,” Noah said, thumbing toward a door that was Tom’s office, judging from the plaque. “They don’t know that I know that, though, okay?”

“Oh… uh, thanks,” I muttered. Noah waved to me again,
and then
headed back the way we came in, toward the men’s locker room. I watched him walk all the way back down the darkened corridor, mesmerized by his perfect form. It almost wasn’t natural, how good he looked.

The world of gym culture was a remarkable place indeed…

Shaking it off, I turned back to Tom’s office door and knocked deliberately. It wasn’t a habit of mine to interrupt or try to catch my sister in the act, so to speak, but I needed to get home in time to get my stuff together for class this afternoon.  When no one opened the door right away, I
held my ear close to it—not quit
e pressing it against the wood, because contact makes my hearing aids buzz
with feedback
—and listened.
Rustling, low voices, a chair scraping across the concrete floor. I couldn’t make out any words, or be completely sure who was speaking, thanks to my stupid hearing loss. But I could at least say there
were
one male and one female in there.

When the door finally swung open, I was faced with Tom’s
unusually
smooth forehead. Whatever he had been doing in there, it wasn’t a private training session.

“Oh, Jen, hi,” he said, forcing a smile. “Claire and I were just finishing up our training schedule for the next two months. I hope you’ll be joining us for
so
m
e
of the sessions.”

I didn’t miss the subtle way he drew a line in the sand with the word “
some
,”
for the record
.

He opened the door wider and Claire stepped around him into the corridor with me.  She looked a little flushed, but otherwise normal. It was hard to say for sure what I’d really interrupted, but I had my own opinions on the matter.

“Thanks again, Tom,” she said stiffly, her eyes daring from me to him and back. If Claire hadn’t been intimately entangled with that man just a few minutes’ previous, I was the Queen of England. “See you on Tuesday for the…”

“Race.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “You better watch out for me. I’
ll
be
waiting for you at the finish line. See you then!”

For the entire car ride home, I badgered my sister for information. She stoically resisted every attempt I made, her lips pressed tightly together.

“What’s really on Tuesday?” I asked, poking her in the arm.

“It’s a 5K, Jen. We’re running it for charity and we’ve got a little wager between us. Just some friendly competition.” She kept her eyes on the road.

“What’s the wager for? Huh? Sensual body massages?”

Without looking at me, Claire swatted my leg. “Stop it! It’s not like that.”

“Ouch! I don’t know why you won’t just tell me, Claire. What’s the big deal?”

When we finally pulled into my parents’ driveway, she turned to me calmly and said, “Tom’s just a friend. There’s nothing to tell.”

I’m sorry, but I had to call shenanigans on that.

****

After class
that afternoon
, I
met
with Dr. Chase to
outline
the parameters of my social networking experiment. I
’d
submitted a one-page proposal
a few days earlier
, detailing the real profile versus the fake profile experiment, as well as some of my early findings. The meeting was just a formality, or so I hoped, to get final approval to go ahead with my research study and start writing my final paper.

“You’re taking this in an interesting direction,” Dr. Chase said, unfolding my proposal paper and scanning it quickly. “Especially with the blind friend requests. What do you expect to achieve with that?”

“I’m hoping that will show the power of anonymity on the internet.
My theory is
, as long as you look good in your photo, people will blindly trust you and accept your friend requests. Basically, you can be anyone you want on the internet and, thus, control how people respond to you.”

“Did you come up with this?”

“It was a collaborative effort. My sister’s been dying to help me come up with something really daring,” I rolled my eyes, but smiled at the memory of my ‘photo shoot’ with Claire.  “She did the editing on my photo too.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dr. C
hase
continued, smoothing the hair into her loose
bun
. “
But
I took the liberty of looking up the profile for Olivia Saunders
when you submitted your write-up
. Interesting stuff there, Jen.”

I shifted nervously in my chair.

“Now, as far as the project is concerned, are you positive there won’t be any legal ramifications of friending at random and posing as someone else?”

“Well, the worst that can happen, from what I’ve gathered, is that the account would be suspended for adding too many strangers as friends.  But that rarely happens,
judging from some of the people I’ve encountered so far
.”

“No fines or penalties or anything?” Dr. C
hase
was just being cautious, I could tell from her tone.

“As long as I’m not impersonating someone real, I’m good.”

She nodded, then handed me the proposal back. “You should keep an eye on the main news sites. See if there are any real-life cases you can follow to further your study.”

“Actually, there are a couple already, mostly people posing as ex-boyfriends and stuff.  But I saw one report where the FBI was actually using fake Facebook profiles to watch and monitor known criminals. I’m not the FBI, obviously, but it makes me feel better to know law enforcement has been doing this too.” I tried to laugh a little to break the tension.

Dr. C
hase
smiled back. “You should learn more about that for the paper. Talk about how criminals post so liberally online and don’t realize how easily they can get busted that way.”

“So am I good to go?” I stood up, tucking the paper into the front pocket of my messenger bag.

“I think
so,” she said, eying me. “Just,
Jennifer
..
?”

I looked up at her.

“Try to remember
that
this is just a project. I’ve seen too many students get wrapped up in their research
and go over the deep-end
.
It’s just a project and your research is meant to be a temporary thing.
Don’t get carried away with this fake profile business, okay? Especially pitting her against
you
online, there’s a chance of losing yourself in the shuffle.”

“I think I can handle it, Dr. C. It’s only
for now, and then I’ll delete the entire thing
. I’m not actually
playing
Olivia;
I’m just using the name as a vehicle.” But even as I said the words, I heard the false note in my voi
ce.  Aside from talking to
Sean, I wasn’t actually pretending to be Olivia. Not really.

Dr. Chase seemed to hear the truth in my voice too, given her skeptical look. She watched me for a moment before nodding. “Just keep it in mind,” she said.

As I stepped out of her office into the main foyer of the sociology department, I shook her words off. I mean, it was only for a few months. And Olivia would stay strictly online. I’d pretended to be different people before and that hadn’t hurt anyone. How was this any different from a regular game of childhood dress up?

CHAPTER SIX

Meanwhile, back on the internet, another
influx of accepted friend requests wait
ed
for me in my notifications
that night
. Another five random men who had received Olivia’s friend request, taken one look at her picture, and accepted her as a new friend, no questions asked. They didn’t know her, probably didn’t have anything in common with her, but that didn’t seem to matter in the slightest.  A pretty face, hot body, and the protected anonymity of social networking facilitated the easiest friend-making process a girl like me had ever experienced. Of course, I was only experiencing it because I was hiding behind the shield of a made-up identity, but still. Easy peasy.

So far my alter-ego had collected a whopping 94 friends, without even breaking a sweat. The long—and growing—list gave me a quiet thrill. Was this how pretty people felt? Or was this so easy to do just because of the virtual aspect of this experience?  I grabbed my notebook and started jotting down some of these half-thoughts and questions, all fodder for my planned research paper. Less than two weeks into my project, this impromptu idea was already paying off.

I scanned through the list of my new acquaintances, or rather, the people I had snowed into believing my fake self was a live human being. Most of them were male, unsurprisingly, but there were a scattered few females throughout the list. While I was lost in a scrolling sea of headshot photographs and names that seemed just about as real as Olivia Saunders, my dinner grew cold beside me.

Then, out of the blue, an instant message popped up. It was Sean O’Dwyer, who hadn’t heard back from me
since his tour invitation
, but apparently, didn’t seem to mind being blown off. Or maybe he just didn’t take a hint very well.

His opening line was totally innocuous, and revealed nothing about
either
his hint-taking skills or feelings about being ditched. “Hey Olivia! How’s it going?”

I grimaced at my computer screen, then at my bowl of cold
health-food
sludge, and back at my computer screen. Talking to a guy in person was hard for me to do, but online? This would be a new experience for me. Email was simpler, because of the delay, but this live chat situation was sure to be a bit more stressful. It wasn’t like I could mull over my response for an hour or so. I was talking live. To a guy. Who was mildly attractive. And thought I was some
hot model he could rescue from the confusing streets of Boston
.

He was also a guy I’d been lusting over since I hit puberty.

As my impulsive brain fought to slam my laptop closed and bolt from my apartment, my rational brain knew this was an experience I would need to chart for research purposes. It was for this reason—and this reason alone
, obviously
—that I
engaged him in conversation, and then
copied and pasted our entire exchange into a Microsoft Word document. Thus,
it remains preserved in its original format
:

SEAN: Hey Olivia! How’s it going?

OLIVIA: Great! Keeping busy. How are you?

SEAN: Just got back from vacation.

OLIVIA: Nice! Where
’d you go
?

SEAN: Visiting my sister in California. She has a house near the beach—lucky bitch. LOL

Anyway, back to the daily grind for me on Monday. Not looking forward to it.

OLIVIA: Hahahaha. Landscaping, right?

SEAN: Yeah. I’m a project manager, so at least I don’t have to shovel anything. LOL

OLIVIA: It’s been so hot this
fall
, that would be awful. I bet you just sit idly by and drink spiked lemonade while they do all the work, right?

SEAN: I wish! Anyway, what are you up to?

Sitting at home on my computer, trying to pretend I have a life?

OLIVIA: Working on a play,
plus
a few
photo
shoots here and there.

SEAN: That’s great. It’s nice you can find so many jobs in an industry like that. I hear it’s tough.

OLIVIA: It can be. But not as tough as sipping spiked lemonade.

SEAN: Hahahaha. I’ll switch with you any time! So what else do you do with your time? That is, if you ever get any free time!

OLIVIA: I like to cook, I guess. And sometimes I visit my uncle’s farm where I keep my horse.

Lies, all lies.

SEAN: Awesome. I don’t really know anyone that rides horses. I always wanted to learn.

             
OLIVIA: Maybe I could teach you
to ride
sometime.

Sometimes I want to slap myself across the face as hard as I can.

SEAN: Is there any chance you’re free next weekend? I’d love a riding lesson.

It was somewhere around here that I had to step away from my laptop and walk a circle around my apartment. Sean was polite, seemed genuinely interested in my fake job and fake interests. We were chatting away like old friends catching up
, except for my deception
. Something in the pit of my stomach just didn’t feel right about all of this. He really wanted to be friends. How could I do this to someone?

I sat back down and typed as tactful a response as I could think of: “Sorry, Sean.  Have a shoot this weekend, out of town. Maybe some other time.”

His answer was equally nice and polite. “Have a great time! Hope it’s somewhere nice to visit so you can do some vacationy things!”

How cute was that? Fighting with myself not to encourage him any further, I made up a lie about needing to get to bed early and signed off. I dumped my mushy dinner into the sink, ran the disposal, and headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

My little two-bedroom apartment was the perfect size for someone like me, who didn’t do much in the way of entertaining guests. I had enough space for a couch, a couple of bookshelves for all my textbooks and related sociological reading, and a two-person table. My bedroom housed my full-size bed and one dresser, plus my comfy reading chair. It was all I’d ever needed and, aside from the fact that it was attached to my parents’ house, it was the perfect set up for me at that point in my life. Especially once I’d gotten my mother to stop coming in to tuck me into bed every night. I guess some old habits die hard.

Teeth brushed, pajamas on, I turned out the light and climbed into my bed. I really wanted to let myself get swept away in this Olivia thing, but I knew that in the light of day, I would still be Jennifer.

****

The next few days flew by in all the activity of gym trips, friend requests, and healthy meals.
After a full week of Claire-enforced diet and exercise, it was time for my first weigh-in. She’d made me climb onto a scale the previous Sunday and I still hadn’t quite forgiven her for the cruel and unusual punishment. Doing it again so soon was not something I was quite ready for.

“Can’t I wait another week so I can get a bigger result? I think that would really help to keep me motivated. I mean, if I don’t get a big number this week, what if I—”

“Cut the crap, Jen, and get on the scale.”

Claire has always had this weird ability to make me do things just with the power of her voice. I never understood it, and yet, I
never fought her
either. 

So I shrugged off my sweater, handed it to her, and stepped onto the scale. I closed my eyes tight
ly
, too nervous to look. If this number was too small a change from the previous week, I would probably just quit like every other time. It wasn’t that I expected immediate, overnight success. I just needed to know when I checked in with that scale that something was going to be different. To k
now that all of the pain and each
one of those Oreos I denied myself w
as
somehow worthwhile. Why couldn’t I just trade in a half-pound of weight loss for every donut I passed up? That would be so much
more motivating
!

The scale did its thing with Claire watching and me nauseous, my eyes still closed.  After a moment of painful silence, she slapped my arm.

“Open your eyes! Look, Jen!”

My eyes went to her first, and I was a bit taken aback by her look of total shock. Nervously, I glanced at the scale. Mostly out of curiosity. Had I
gained
weight after all
of that? No! A number almost four
pounds less than my previous week’s weight stared me in the face. I could hardly believe my eyes, so I rubbed them and looked again. Yup, that was right.

“Holy cow,” I said, a bit in awe.

“I know! Aren’t you excited?” Claire jumped up and down, clapping her hands. I stepped off the scale and hugged her. A moment like that, that’s what sisters are really for.

“Oh my God, Claire!” I had to wipe a few tears from my eyes, I was so overwhelmed. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

“See? It’s all gonna pay off. Stick with me, kid, and we’ll hit your goal in no time.
We’re already ten-percent of the way there!
” 

Slinging one arm around my shoulders, Claire guided me out of the bathroom and into the kitchen for lunch, talking about our next big plans together and how much weight I should expect to lose in the next few weeks
, now that I
’d
dropped some of the initial “water weight
.
”

It felt good to be here in this mental space again, to be working on the new me. To be working toward a goal. I was actually proud of myself for doing something for
me
. Not for a grade, not for a raise, not for someone else’s praise. Just for Jennifer Smith.

****

With all th
at
excitement and newness
sw
irling around me during those days, it struck me as odd to have to do something as mundane as go to class. It was kind of like being a kid again, watching a really awesome commercial for a toy you just had to have, only to have that commercial fade directly into the five o’clock news or something. Snore.

Still, as I thought this each and every weekday morning, I still managed to choke down an on-the-fly (but healthy) breakfast and go about my daily routine.
M
ost girls wake up and shower, style their hair, put on some makeup, and get dressed. But for me, mornings look a little bit different.

First of all, my alarm clock is
not the typical kind that most people wake up to every day. Mine has a special
bed shaking feature that helps me to get up in the morning. Being hearing impaired, I can’t just rely on the irritating beep of the alarm. While that noise grates on me just as much as the next gal, sometimes it isn’t loud enough to hear… especially if I’ve burrowed my way under the covers, as usual. So my alarm buzzes, shakes the bed, and all but shoves me onto the floor.

Sometimes I think I’d be better off trading it in for a “hearing ear” dog, as I call them, who could just lick my face or something. That would at least be more pleasant, if less hygienic.

Anyway, once I’m up, it’s not just coffee that I need to get going. If I want to hear anything at all, I’ve got to wipe down my hearing aids, scrape out the wax from inside those tiny ear holes, and test the batteries. Trust
me;
it’s worth testing them every morning. There’s nothing worse than having one hearing aid shut off in the middle of a class, while driving, at a movie, or somewhere else inconvenient—which is pretty much everywhere. Well, I guess, having them both shut off is the only thing that would be worse.

See, without my hearing aids, I sometimes feel like I’m in a crowded mall. Everyone is talking around me and it’s noisy, I can hear things, but I can’t quite distinguish any of the wor
ds or even the voices
. It’s all there, echoing around me, but too far out of my grasp. Or it’s traveling towards my ears, just landing somewhere around them instead of hitting my ear drums. I
can
hear, but it doesn’t sound very good at all.