1.
It didn’t seem likely that he was going to finish on time. It was already 12:45, he had to leave by 12:53, and no matter of combined stalling and frenetic energy would help him finish this monstrous task at hand. The task at hand, of course, was a giant chicken burrito. The ladies had put in way too much rice and beans which hardly compensated for the scarce amount of meat that had unfortunately accumulated at the bottom of the burrito and it was now his mission to reach it before lunch break was over.
Work was okay, save for the random guy in the cubicle behind him who would mutter and sing to himself and then randomly shout out fruit names as if they were expletives: “What a son of a prickly pineapple!” “Figs and durians. FIGS AND DURIANS.” were among his favorites that week. Often times, the days passed by extra slowly, as if the work environment itself were suddenly melting under the scorching Washington D.C. heat, and he would find himself heading over to the water cooler far too many times than what his bladder could handle, which would then result in him heading over to the men’s room far too many times than what was considered work-appropriate...or manly, for that matter. But being an intern and finding himself at a loss for work, particularly between the hours of 1:30-4:30 PM, he couldn’t help it. He had too much of a conscience this time to do his usual slacker intern routine from the past two summers: Gchat, Facebook, ESPN.com, maybe the Wall Street Journal if he was feeling particularly ambitious and intellectual that day — not to mention, he was secretly paranoid about having his computer monitored by the government...not that the government would really care about reprimanding a lowly unpaid, overeducated, and underappreciated (UOU?) intern enough to do a search on his computer and scrutinize what websites he had been on all morning. In fact, he doubted the government actually cared enough about any employee (paid, overeducated, underappreciated = POU?) to do such a search on their computers. In fact, half of them seemed to be too techno-phobic to even bother with time-wasting websites. Although, you also couldn’t really put it past young and needy Congressmen to refrain from sending R-rated (for “R”aunchy and “R”idiculous) emails to their female constituents in order to feel young and needed. Good thing he wasn’t working on Capitol Hill — the takedown of that one Congressman’s computer could result in the takedown of everyone’s computers, and that would only make him more anxious anytime he opened Firefox to check his email for an absurdly brief five minutes.
He glanced at his watch — 12:50 — and back down at his burrito. He was about ⅞ done, which meant that a lovely ¼ of the chicken had been waiting for these next triumphant three minutes. Fighting all gag reflexes, he stuffed the remaining eighth into his mouth, grabbed his cup of water (too cheap to buy a real drink, plus, soda was filling), and walked briskly (not running, as to give him indigestion) out the door. He marveled at his dine-and-dash abilities, only to be stopped by a police officer and a line of slowly waddling ducks.
“Seriously?” he asked the officer. It made sense that the ducks were singlehandedly holding up vehicle traffic, but couldn’t the man let pedestrians pass on through?
The officer rolled his eyes and glared back at him. Apparently not.
The duck parade delayed his trek back to the office by about two minutes, which meant he would have to sprint. Normally, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but today was the first day he’d be able to sit in on a meeting — and not just any meeting, but a very important meeting, as denoted by the High Priority Red Exclamation Point next to the email inviting him to said meeting. He was now rather aggravated by the fact that he had chosen to get a burrito for lunch: why that location? Why that type of cuisine? Why did those ducks walk instead of fly? Those ducks deserved to be in his next burrito. Chinese-Mexican fusion, anyone?
He arrived in the office by 1:03 PM and to his great relief, the majority of his department was still sitting at their desks, presumably getting ready to saunter over to the conference room. He was panting, extremely sweaty and flushed, feeling that foreboding sensation of unhappy organs (namely stomach and intestines) cursing at him for rushing over so quickly after eating. The fruit-forsaking neighbor stared at him plainly.
“Yeah,” he breathed in and out, dabbing at his temples in a forced attempt to appear collected...and somewhat dry.
Now it was his turn to stare back at the slightly balding and slightly more rotund bespectacled man.
The man caught on and laughed. “Is that why you look like a bloated kiwi? They must’ve sent out the email while you were out at lunch.”
-------
“And the meeting was unbelievably boring. Mad food coma set in by then, not to mention, my intestines were in absolute knots. So I was both falling asleep and in desperate need to use the bathroom.”
“A little bit of TMI there, but thanks, I get the picture.”
“No seriously though, I was legitimately upset about the whole fiasco this afternoon.”
“Especially the ducks, right?”
“Especially the stupid ducks! And that policeman! Why didn’t he just let me cross? Was he afraid I’d run over the ducks with my monstrous human feet or something?”
“No, he was afraid that the the ducks would run over you.”
“Geez.”
“At least it makes for a semi-interesting intern story, right?”
“I guess...not really.”
Lisa “mmm”ed from the other end. “At least you didn’t spend your afternoon putting stickers on twenty-five box-fuls of media kits.”
Talking with Lisa at the end of the workday was a habit that got started a few weeks ago, about a week into their respective internships. Something about having virtually no other interns to talk to throughout the day brought them a bit closer, though it was pretty odd to hear his own voice at the end of a long day of very few utterances save for, “Here you go,” or “Thank you.”
He didn’t know too much about her to begin with, having only taken one class together in the spring semester, but the weeks of conversations helped with his accumulation of Lisa knowledge.
For starters, she really liked Thai food, which she seemed to have every three or four days in Philadelphia.
“The pad thai was absolutely amazing today. Just enough sauce to keep it flavorful, but it wasn’t drowning.”
“Red curry is God’s gift to mankind. Seriously.”
“Can you guess what I got today?” “Nope.” “ALLIGATOR SOUP.” “Um...congratulations?” “I know! I felt so exotic.”
She was also a huge fan of a mainstream country singer he was completely unfamiliar with.
“I am in love with her. I really, really am. I just want to be a man so I could date her and break up with her and then have her write a song about me that totally cut me down, but it wouldn’t matter because she would have written a song about me!”
“I can’t believe she is going all the way to London, but she somehow can’t come to Philadelphia this summer. What, is Philadelphia too dirty for her precious cowboy boots? Really?”
And for all intents and purposes, she was a proud citizen of Ohio.
“There’s nothing in Ohio, Lisa.”
“Are you kidding me? Ohio is the land of the free, home of the brave!”
“I think...that’s America as a whole...”
“I know, but Ohio should be its representative state of such a statement.”
“There’s nothing to even see in Ohio, Lisa.”
“Um, there is definitely a really fabulous mall a few miles from my house.”
“...?”
Lisa was enthusiastic (an understatement) and he liked that she had such particular interests and preferences. That made her easy to talk to, and in some senses, those small but easy-to-recall tidbits made striking up conversation easier because he felt like he knew her, and it didn’t take that much effort, which removed the initial awkwardness factor.
“But you don’t know really know her.”
“I mean, we’ve just started talking more regularly recently, so that’s not that unusual.”
“Yeah, but the problem is you think you know her.”
“Why...is that a problem?”
Reese’s care was excessive, other times it was just right: this was one of the instances in which it was a bit excessive.
“So...you’re worried about me because it feels like I know her? Because...you think she’s going to go all Fatal Attraction on me and murder me after reeling me in with her easy-to-remember quirks?”
“So you admit that you’re attracted to her.”
“No, I’m just saying you’re worrying for no reason.”
“Then why the Fatal Attraction reference?”
“Because I like making movie references?”
“That’s a lie, you haven’t even seen that many movies.”
“Whoa, okay, just because I haven’t seen any of the Matrix movies—”
“Or the Harry Potter movies...”
“Or the Spiderman movies.”
He sighed. “At least I’ve seen Silence of the Lambs, okay?”
“You clearly only like old school movies.”
“No, old school is more like Citizen Kane or Twelve Angry Men.”
“So, you’re ultimately saying that I don’t need to worry about this, right?”
“I don’t see why you would anyway.”
A pause. He could visualize her nodding her head slowly at this moment, thinking it over, seeing if there’s anything smart or straight-edged to say back. “Okay then.”
--------
Two weeks passed by, the temperature often reaching into the 100’s (the news of which just as often made the front page of those Metro-distributed newspapers), and he had only been to one more Very Important Meeting, which again, had been so dreadfully dull that his fruit fanatic coworker fell asleep and exhaled an obscene snore that disrupted said meeting for three very long seconds before the director returned to the issue at hand.
Lisa didn’t seem to be faring much better, having been yelled at by her not-supervisor-who-was-still-a-(well dressed)-authoritative-pain-in-the-neck for failing to write a sufficiently captivating product description.
“She plopped a stack of catalogs in front of me and made me read all the product descriptions and submit a report to her at the end of the day about which ones were the most persuasive - can you believe it?”
“Wow.”
“I know. And then she asked me to shop around for a baby shower gift that she was planning to send to a client! And not just any kind of gift, but a very specific request: a wooden stool with the alphabet carved into it. Like, seriously? How many different kinds do you think are out there?”
“How many of those are out there?”
“To my great surprise, four!”
“So, you found one she liked?”
“No! She wrote a short, ‘I see. Thanks.’ and never got back to me about whether she wanted me to order one or not! Did she want me to make her one myself or something?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. Lisa could be a mile-a-minute talker when she was excited, but he had never heard her this indignant before.
“You know what, I’m so done. I am so completely done with this job. I don’t need it for my resume, and I definitely don’t need it for the experience, because all I am learning is that everyone in this industry is obsessed with their own supposed greatness!”
“It’s just this one person though...you like the other one, right? What’s her name...Gina? Gabby?”
“Gabby is really nice, but I think she wants to quit herself. This is just not a positive environment for nice people.”
“Yeah,” he laughed again. “I’ve never heard you this wrathful before.”
“Well, to be fair, you don’t really know me know me.”
“I’m not your therapist. And I sure as heck am not a mind-reader.”
“Okay, I know. But Reese, you’re good at reading people, right?”
“Yeah, but do you really expect me to go off of that one statement? Didn’t I say that to you myself?”
“But I mean, was that a casual statement, or was that like a ‘stay away, don’t pretend like we’re closer than we actually are’ type deal?”
“I think it was a ‘you’re a creeper and I loathe talking to you’ statement.”
“Really?”
“No.”
She could be so frustrating sometimes. Almost unbearably.
“Reese.”
“Honestly, I think she just said it on a whim. Maybe it could just mean that she wants to get to know you better and become closer to you, which, I’m sure, would cause you to have a party in your mind if she ever admitted that.”
He thought about it. Maybe. Maybe not. In some respects, Lisa wasn’t really his type. But he also knew that attraction never really fit the rules of type-ism anyway.
“You don’t think she would admit that?”
“I mean, sounds a little strange to say, ‘Hey, I want to get to know you better — your blood type and Social Security number and list of ex-girlfriends from the past five years.’”
“You did that.”
“But I’m not a girl.”
“Well, you're not a guy either.”
--------
He tried to remember the last time he had talked to Sumi, his one and only high school girlfriend. Maybe it was a brief exchange of pleasantries around Christmas of last year, but the last time they had shared a meaningful conversation was undoubtedly eons ago. But now she was coming to visit the nation’s capital during the Fourth of July holiday, and of course, her tour guide of choice was him, or so she hoped?
The text message that had started it all was harmless: “hey! how’s your summer going so far?” Typical for a 160-character-limited blip of electronic communication after six-and-a-half months of silence.
Good
Great!
It’s all right
“not bad, thanks. how’s yours?” was what he settled on.
“it’s been fun! i’ve been traveling a bit”
“sounds a lot more fun than what i’ve been up to”
“oh, what have you been up to?”
“just working in dc”
“dc! no way, i was thinking of going there this summer!” He mentally slapped his forehead; he wasn’t sure whether to be accommodating or hands-off.
“yeah? that’s cool, you should”
“maybe i’ll come for july 4th? i bet it’s really crowded then”
“yeah probably” was his ever-eloquent answer that sought to make it not extremely obvious that he didn’t really want to see her while hinting at the fact that yes, if she came, he would try his hardest to slip away in the crowd of patriotic Americans and wide-eyed-but-apathetic foreign tourists.
But she didn’t get the hint — he admitted it was a bit too subtle — and cheerily replied, “but i should be able to manage with a great tour guide :)”
He didn’t really get it. What was she trying to do? It was now approaching the three-year mark since their more-than-inevitable separation (which she instigated on the grounds of, “But we might become different people in college, and I want to be able to meet new people without feeling guilty, you know?”) and he had long since healed from the relationship, but now her very imminent reappearance was threatening to open up old wounds.
Their final argument was so readily available in the archives of his memory, it was like hopping down to the basement and locating the exact disc to pop into his mental DVD player.
“I just don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Never mind, I feel like I don’t even know you, let alone get you.”
“Okay, what exactly are we talking about here?”
“Are you even committed to this relationship at all?”
“What are you talking about, Sumi? Of course I am —”
“Well you sure are doing a crappy job of showing it.”
“What? Are you serious? Seriously, Sumi? Seriously? ‘Cause you know —”
“Know what, Mark, know what?”
“I pick you up and take you wherever you need to go because your parents won’t let you drive. I hear you out whenever you’re frustrated, I take your side whenever you’re hurt by that horrendous so-called best friend of yours, I spend hours on the phone with you at night even when I have early morning practices the next day. I’ve planned fun things for you when you were stressed about college apps, went to the various school dances as your date even though you know how much I hate formal functions like that. I’ve done my best to make you happy and make you feel loved — what more do you want from me?”
“I never asked for my boyfriend to become my personal servant.”
“Oh come on, don’t put it like that, okay? I was being sincere.”
“Were you? Do you even know what sincerity means?”
“I’m not an idiot, you don’t have to use that tone of voice with me.”
“You are an idiot, okay?”
“What? Seriously, Sumi, what is this all about? You’re honestly coming out of nowhere with this.”
She inhaled sharply before: “I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time with Angela Lee.”
Angela Lee was a lanky AP US History classmate from the previous year. They had worked on a project together for that class, but after proofreading her college essays in senior year (he was the writing tutor in the tutoring club), she had asked to treat him to a meal in return for all his help. It turned out that they had more in common than they thought and the meal they shared ended up being three hours long. But realizing that they had tread into dangerous territory, their relationship didn’t go beyond occasionally studying in the school library with other friends.
“Define a lot of time.”
“So you admit to it.”
“Come on, all I was trying to say was if you define ‘a lot of time’ as spending a handful of minutes with Jay and Maansi in addition to Angela, in the library, at 8:10 in the morning, then man, you sure are spending a ridiculous amount of time with Patrick.”
It was a low blow, but he had wanted to bring it up at some point. And since it was she who started the confrontation, he felt it was only reasonable to seize the opportunity.
“What?”
The truth was, his friends had been commenting on Sumi and Patrick’s closeness for a few weeks now. But he didn’t want to be the Boyfriend Who Lost His Cool Over Any Of His Girlfriend’s Male Friends, so he kept quiet. There weren’t too many changes in Sumi’s behavior that betrayed any shadiness — save for random angry outbursts like this: for showing up 10 minutes late due to traffic, for forgetting their 500th day (seriously, they lived in America; who kept track of days rather than months or years?), for not giving her a long enough hug. He later realized in retrospect — quite a while after the relationship had fizzled out — she had been trying to hide her own guilt for falling out of love with him.
She had gotten quiet then, turning around to face the other side of the parking lot.
Part of him wanted her to confess — yes, I’m growing closer to Patrick. Yes, the time I said I got food poisoning, I was actually out at the mall helping Patrick buy a wedding gift for his older sister. Yes, the reason why we don’t talk on the phone every night anymore is because I’m talking to Patrick on our off nights. The other part of him wanted her to just get mad at him again, for being so untrusting, for turning accusations around on her when he should be the one apologizing for the misunderstanding. He wanted to pick things up again, move on and grow stronger together; he wanted to end things where they were, move on and grow stronger separately.
She did neither, instead saying, “He doesn’t think you’re the right guy for me.”
The nerve...of them both! was his initial reaction.
“And he is?”
“Not necessarily. At least, I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“Well, you can be pretty clueless sometimes, even when other guys are clearly expressing interest in you.”
“Maybe,” she conceded for the first time. “But I’m not clueless about other girls liking you.”
“This isn’t about me, Sumi.”
“Yes, yes it is.” Her voice was damp.
“No, it’s not. It’s about you right now. I still like you a lot; that hasn’t changed since we first started dating. You’re the one who’s having doubts and hanging around other guys who are trying to change your mind.”
“I like you a lot too.”
“Okay, then that’s all that matters, right? Do you agree with him?”
She stared blankly ahead, but her nose that was getting increasingly pink betrayed the tears ready to fall, as always.
“Do you?”
Silence.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“Yeah.” She sighed, signaling that her voice had completely disappeared by then and the conversation could continue no more.
“Okay, well let me know once you do know, all right? I’ll drop you off, get in.”
He couldn’t really say that she had cheated on him or anything of that sort because all his hypothetical confessions didn’t play out — Patrick didn’t have an older sister who got married and the real reason they talked on the phone less was because her dad changed their family’s cell phone plan and she was trying to be as economic as possible with her minutes. But it did leave a bitter enough aftertaste to know the future over-privileged and underachieving frat boy had said such a thing to her and possibly thereby encouraged her to break up with him. There were many times during the next year after their separation when all he really wanted to do — instead of avoiding any meaningful communication with her in every form and fashion — was either fly down to Alabama and show up at her dorm or at least text her every hour or so to tell her how much he missed her. College was fun, but it wasn’t busy enough to distract him.
Eventually he had gotten to the point where something inside of him turned off and he was able to go one day, two days, five days, ten days, months without sparing her a single thought. The near-overnight change made him stop and think: were all human attachments just like that? What about all those “I’ll love you forever”s and “I’ll never forget you/what we had/our amazingly-wonderful-love-that-honestly-no-one-on-this-earth-could-ever-replicate-or-even-try-to-imitate”s he saw all over the place in popular culture?
-------
“Mother melons,” his co-worker exclaimed, “I wish my high school sweetheart would visit me.”
“You actually had one?” the secretary — the one armed with hunting gear and a fierce love for red pandas — said incredulously, giving the man a critical look up and down.
“Of course, her name was Trinidad.”
“Caribbean beauty?”
“No, I’m fairly sure her legal name was Darlene Tillman, but she wanted to become the next Madonna. I felt so sorry for her when her music career died and she decided to join the circus instead. That’s why she had to end things and leave me after our graduation.”
“So she was as crazy as you...” the secretary muttered.
-------
Lisa didn’t really want to hear about Sumi that much, or so it seemed, as she quickly turned the conversation around to her own Fourth of July plans: a family reunion at her uncle’s place in Connecticut. Their family had the tradition ever since she was three years old and her favorite part was when her three uncles and her father got together to do a barbershop rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.” No Thai food, but definitely a lot of good burgers, hot dogs, and potato salads.
Reese wasn’t surprised at Lisa’s reaction — she herself didn’t want to hear much about it either.
“I think it’ll be good for you.”
“Why?”
“Closure, I guess.”
“More like ripping open wounds...”
“I think you’re blowing it up in your mind, calm down.”
“Don’t you want to talk me through this?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“What happened to your motherly instincts? Now would actually be a good time to show them.”
“Mama Reese is on vacation. It’s almost Independence Day, you know.”
“You really don’t want to—”
“Nope.”
She went on to chatter about her trip to Argentina planned for the winter, then how much she loved Actor A’s new movie and hated Actor B’s new haircut, and then her preoccupation with Greece’s crumbling economy, which, in her eyes, was far more tragic than his potentially painful reunion with Sumi.
-------
The air was thick from the July humidity and the tons of carbon dioxide emissions from hundreds, no, thousands, of tourists and locals gathered for the weekend. He was afraid that it was going to rain from all the evaporated sweat that was sure to add to the moisture of condensing clouds. Gross, but also totally possible in his mind. And then rain would undoubtedly mean no fireworks, which would undoubtedly mean that the thousands-not-hundreds of tourists and locals would be quite disappointed. But maybe rain would also mean Sumi would reschedule for an indeterminate date, perhaps five years into the future when he would be dating someone else so her reappearance wouldn’t be as confusing for him.
He looked around at the swarms of patriots clothed in red, white, and blue and sighed. Why the ultra-crowded Washington Monument of all places? Whose brilliant idea was that? Naturally, it was his.
Sumi had professed her complete lack of direction when they were still dating and he had figured she hadn’t changed too much in that regard, thus: the Washington Monument was virtually impossible to miss — because he did have a friend that went to the “wrong” White House, the reason for which was beyond him — and there was a Metro stop leading fairly close to it. But with bodies to his left, bodies to his right, bodies in front and in back, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to find her — which, again, honestly wouldn’t be too terrible either.
And there she was.
There was a large (Swedish? Finnish? he couldn’t identify the flag on their t-shirts properly) couple standing between them, but the tilt of her head, unintentionally but nonchalantly angled at 15 degrees to the right as she scanned the mob surrounding her, was unmistakable. She had that tilt whenever she was trying to focus, be it while taking an exam, playing a video game, or perusing the deli menu to figure out which cold cuts to get for lunch. His throat was suddenly too dry for him to state her name in a more audible tone than what he was currently doing. Luckily, the Swedish/Finnish couple heard him and traced his line of vision to tap this unsuspecting girl and make her turn around to face him.
She was prettier than he remembered, or at least, what he had occasionally seen on Facebook in the past year. Wearing white and her hair pulled back, she appeared to be a breath of fresh air and familiarity in a muggy city full of strangers.
“Mark!” she beamed at him. The couple moved to the side and they both awkwardly paused before she put out her arms for an even more awkward hug. “Sorry, I’m sweaty. I got a little bit lost on the way here — go figure, right?” He laughed nervously; it was so surreal to see her in front of him.
She talked a little differently from what he recalled about her voice, maybe with a slight Southern accent that hadn’t been there in high school despite living in Georgia for most of her life. Plus, she was Asian, so he didn’t see how it was possible.
“You look great! I like your hair like this,” she gestured. “Did you wait long?”
He barely stammered out a “no, not really.”
“Well, we have a lot to catch up on! Any way we can grab a cab from here and get something cold?”
And with that, they were off to get frozen yogurt in Georgetown.
The cab was filled with her ringing voice asking him questions and making excited comments about her travels as they squeezed through the increasingly crowded streets. He couldn’t help but keep his eyes focused on the meter, not only because he was averting his eyes from her but also because the fare was becoming pretty ridiculous due to traffic.
Only as she pulled out her wallet for the fee (“It’s on me! No, really! For all those times you drove me around”) did he suddenly recognize the demure yet unquestionably glittery stone on her left hand.
They got out of the car, and as he stood there, staring at her quite openly, she followed his gaze and laughed.
“Oh dear, I forgot this thing was bad at keeping secrets.”
He was glad he had an order that was his “the usual”; his mind was far too frazzled to make even the smallest decisions.
Sumi was married?
-------
“I’m not sure what you were expecting, Mark.”
“Me neither.”
“So why so bummed?” Reese was visiting from Boston (“Aren’t you so grateful to have a loving best friend like me?”).
“I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe I do know.”
“What do you know?”
“I think you wanted to rekindle things with her in a sense — not necessarily get back together, I guess ‘rekindle’ is the wrong word, don’t look at me like that, but at least reconnect in a way where you could reflect on old times, the good times, and share one last good memory together, you know, as supposed ‘adults’ or something.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Okay, then maybe you were hoping to show her how well you’ve been doing without her, but turns out, she seems to be doing infinitely better than you with the whole marriage thing. Pride issue?”
“Don’t know.” He looked out the window with a heavy expression that weighed the muscles of his face down. “Why did she have to make it sound like she was coming to see me though? She could have just told me she was just in the area once she got here, the end. I feel like I was waiting for her arrival for weeks on end, only to just be met with the most unbelievable, weirdest news of my life.”
Reese rolled her eyes. “She did...she told you she was thinking of visiting anyway, and what kind of person, no matter how estranged from you, would say that they’re going to be in a certain city and then not even ask to see you? Isn’t that weirder?”
“I still feel like she tricked me. Like she was deliberately trying to sock me in the gut when I was the most vulnerable. Girls are evil like that.”
Reese snorted.
“I’m being serious! She could have at least warned me; it’s like she was Paul Bunyan and I was Elmer Fudd and while she clearly saw the bear trap ahead from her monstrous height, she still let midget little me walk right into it and emerge with one less leg!”
She raised an eyebrow at him and then burst out laughing. “You should consider majoring in creative writing rather than IR, I really recommend it.”
“Are you just going to keep laughing at my misery?”
“As long as you keep sounding like an eight-year-old. Didn’t you get over her two years ago?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Didn’t you get good closure then? This kind of finalizes things, doesn’t it? No chance of you guys trying to restart anything because, you know, she has a fiance and everything.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re overjoyed about this?”
“Oh look, our drinks. I read the sangria here is to die for.”
-------
Lisa was relatively unavailable for the remaining weeks of their respective internships. He felt somewhat abandoned, somewhat confused, but overall, he was okay with it. It was nice while it lasted, though he wasn’t sure that their interactions were weighty enough to be referred to so seriously as an “it”, as if it were a “thing” between them. They were just friends.
He felt like he needed some time to himself anyway. There had been a lot going through his mind ever since he saw Sumi, who was now out of the country visiting her grandparents in Korea (she had sent him a friendly text message before boarding her plane), and it just seemed like too much mental noise for him to be able to follow Lisa’s thought jumps coherently enough to be a good, maybe even attractive, conversationalist. Although, the thought that kept coming to mind recently (and made sense of her seemingly-casual-but-not-actually-casual statement weeks ago) was that perhaps he hadn’t shared enough about himself when it came down to it. He shared about his day, yes, but about his genuine interests? Dreams? Past experiences? Rarely. Not because Lisa didn’t want to hear any of it (which he had assumed when it came to talking about Sumi), but because he was reluctant to share. He could be too serious sometimes, too “intense” for those who saw him from afar, so he had liked riding on the air of Lisa’s chatter.
But that wasn’t really him. It wasn’t really him at all.
-------
THE CONVERSATION
M: So...
S: (smiles down into frozen yogurt cup) This looks amazing. Did you remember to get mochi? Best part.
M: Yeah.
S: I like this place. What’s the name again?
M: [name redacted]. It says so on the cup.
S: Oh right. (laughs) Duh, Sumi.
M: So...
S: What? (laughs again) You’ve been saying “So...” over and over for the past fifteen minutes.
M: I just — (rifles through hair with right hand, spoon carefully angled away from head as to not get frozen yogurt in hair) — wow. When was the wedding?
S: (loudest, most earnest laugh yet) It won’t be happening for at least the next two years, Mark! Goodness, I just turned 21, that would be ridiculous.
M: Oh. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Since you’re not Mormon or anything.
S: (smile) Nope, just your average Southern belle.
M: I guess I should congratulate you then, huh? Is this old news or new news?
S: Two weeks ago, actually. It was a pretty wild surprise.
M: Do tell.
S: Really? I know girls can gush about these things to other girls, but I’m willing to spare you.
M: Well, if you would be that gracious, then...
S: (scanning his face) Are you okay? (touching his left wrist lightly) Are you mad?
M: (casually lifting wrist to bring frozen yogurt cup to his mouth) No, of course not. (short exhale and/or forced laugh) What kind of guy is he?
S: (hums a bit) A good guy. A very good guy...(trails off). He’s going to be a 3L at Georgetown in the fall.
M: Ah. (off-handishly) I just took my LSATs in June.
S: Oh, really? How did they go?
M: Not exactly my target score, but it should suffice for now.
S: Good for you, Mark. Really. That’s great — I had no idea you wanted to be a lawyer! Weren’t you always planning on becoming a professor?
M: I gave that up a while ago; I don’t think I could stand academia.
S: I see...(settles into a lull, having finished cup)
(uncomfortable silence)
M: So...
S: (laugh) Yes?
M: It’s just weird...to see you here. It’s like, you’re a part of my past and yet, you’re clearly sitting in front of me, in the present.
S: (brows furrow briefly before straightening out) I guess so. But I’m happy to see you!
M: (shakes head slightly) I don’t want to sound like I’ve been living in the past but...
S: Yes?
M: (face growing darker) Why...did you decide I wasn’t the right guy for you?
S: (tilts head 15 degrees to the right, staring intently at fire hydrant in front of them) It’s kind of funny actually.
M: Funny?
S: Yeah, funny how I ended up with Gabriel. He’s pretty similar to you in some aspects. (Mark coughs.) He really likes soccer — goes absolutely nuts for Argentina during the World Cup — and he makes pretty absurd analogies, like you; he takes tomatoes out of salads and sandwiches but religiously douses things in ketchup whenever he can, like you.
M: (wryly) Quite the coincidences.
S: (sensing his sarcasm) Sure, but I don’t know; I think he’s ambitious and competitive, but with a good heart, just like you too.
M: But that doesn’t explain why you decided I wasn’t the right guy. In fact, that just makes it sound like I could’ve been the right guy had I dated you later in life.
S: It’s true though. I did meet Gabe at a better point in my life. And who knows what I thought the right guy would be like back in high school? I’m not much older, but I’ve definitely lived and learned since then to find that I was deeply insecure during that time when we dated and all the things that could have eventually made you the right guy made me feel...all wrong for you.
M: What do you mean?
S: You were — still are, it seems (light laugh) — so smart, Mark. I knew it right away, growing up in the same neighborhood for six years and seeing you win the district spelling bee in fifth grade. Of course, dating you in high school made me forget that because you could be so adorably awkward and clumsy around me (smiles). But then it hit me: you were going to graduate salutatorian of our class, head to an Ivy League school, with plans of becoming a political science professor and working with a non-profit because you had all these ideas for promoting world peace or something. And me? I wasn’t anything special like that. I didn’t have many plans for myself, I didn’t dream big at all because I was afraid to. I was afraid you were going to go off to college and meet girls who were a lot more talented and driven than I was and I’d have to hear the whole, “It’s not you, it’s me,” schpeal and then spend my first year moping about what a failure at life I was. As much as I loved letting the whole world know that you were my boyfriend, I just started to feel worse about myself around you as senior year was coming to a close. It wasn’t that I didn’t know you; it was that I didn’t know me.
(a brief silence covers them as red, white, and blue-clad crowds shift by)
M: (starts to speak, pauses, wets lips) I...am really sorry, Sumi. I...had no idea. You're a smart girl, I never doubted that.
S: I know you didn’t, and you were more than supportive. I just wasn’t seeing myself clearly. And luckily, with time to focus on myself, I found something that I really enjoyed and was good at in my first year, got an internship, and that’s how and when I met Gabe.
M: I see. I really...didn’t know. It seemed like you were just having the time of your life without me.
S: Of course not. But how could I say to you plainly — sorry, despite everything you’ve done for me, you make me feel like a purpose-less piece of crap?
M: Well, I would think you wouldn’t say it like that.
S: (laughs) True, I wouldn’t have. But not only that, I really didn’t know what that was or how to voice it. For a while after we broke up, I wasn’t really sure whether it was all in my head and I was just looking for a justifiable excuse to move on from you and not be tied down going into college, or if it was something serious that I needed to address. Turns out my gut instinct wasn’t wrong (smiles).
M: (glances up at the sky, then exhales deeply) Yeah, I guess it wasn’t...
S: So, don’t hate Patrick, if you still do.
M: I don’t.
S: (lightly pushes his shoulder) Are you sure?
M: (nods while still thinking) Yeah.
S: So...(laughs) The word of the evening! So, so, so. Are you going to congratulate me?
M: (pauses) Are you happy?
S: Yes (breathes in and out very deliberately) — very.
M: (forcing a smile) Congratulations then, Sumi. Really.
S: Thanks so much, Mark.
M: So...what now? Are you meeting him tonight?
S: Well first thing’s first: you’ll come to my wedding, right?
[© 2011 Sarah R.]
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