Attach ments(24)

Of course, Headphone Boy already had a faraway look in his eyes, which my friend Lynn attributed to “breakfast with Mary Jane.”

<<Jennifer to Beth>> And then …

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I know what you’re thinking now. You can’t believe I would knowingly get involved with a drug user.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I knowingly got involved with a guy who plays the tuba. Finish the story.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Well, at first, I was sure that he would feel the cosmic forces pulling us together. I wanted him so badly, I could feel my heart reaching for him with every beat. It was destiny.

“He was a magnet and I was steel.”

This started in September. Sometime in October, one of his friends walked by and called him “Chris.” (A name, at last. “Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.”) One Tuesday night in November, I saw him at the library. I spent the next four Tuesday nights there, hoping it was a pattern. It wasn’t. Sometimes I’d allow myself to follow him to his 11:30 class in Andrews Hall, and then I’d have to run across campus to make it to my class in the Temple Building.

By the end of the semester, I was long past the point of starting a natural, casual conversation with him. I stopped trying to make eye contact. I even started dating a Sig Ep I met in my sociology class.

But I couldn’t give up my 10:30 date with Headphone Boy. I figured, after Christmas break, our schedules would change, and that would be that. I’d wait until then to move on.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I love this, you actually have me believing that all hope is lost. Tricky.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> All my hope was lost.

And then …the week before finals, I showed up at the union   at my usual time and found Chris sitting in my seat. His headphones were around his neck, and he watched me walk toward him. At least, I thought he was watching me. He had never looked at me before, never, and the idea made my skin burn. Before I could solve the problem of where to sit, he was talking to me.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Did he say, “Stop stalking me, you psychopath”?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Nope. He said, “Hey.”

And I said, “Hi.”

And he said, “Look…” His eyes were green. He kind of squinted when he talked. “I’ve got a 10:30 class next semester, so …we should probably make other arrangements.”

I was struck numb.

I said, “Are you mocking me?”

“No,” he said, “I’m asking you out.”

“Then, I’m saying yes.”

“Good … ,” he said, “we could have dinner. You could still sit across from me. It would be just like a Tuesday morning. But with breadsticks.”

“Now you’re mocking me.”

“Yes.” He was still smiling. “Now I am.”

And that was that. We went out that weekend. And the next weekend. And the next. It was wildly romantic.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Wow, what a cucumber. (Cool, I mean.) Did he know all along that you were watching him?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Yeah, I think so. That’s just Chris. He never hurries. He never shows his cards. He always hangs up first.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> What does that mean, he always hangs up first?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Like when we first started talking on the phone, he would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> That sounds excruciating.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven’t eaten for a day and a half. Like you’d sell your soul for it.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’ve never not eaten for a day and a half.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Not even when you had the flu or something?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Maybe once. What happened to your Sig Ep?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Oh God. It was terrible. I didn’t remember to dump him until Sunday afternoon. I had two boyfriends for like nine hours. Not that I called Chris my boyfriend then. I didn’t want to spook him. That first year was strange. I felt like a butterfly had landed on me. If I moved or even breathed, I thought he would float away.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Because he always hung up first?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> That. And other things, too. I never knew when I would see him or when he would call. A week might go by and I wouldn’t talk to him. Then I’d find a note slid under my door.