Rex is looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and concern. Probably coming out in a snowstorm to pick up a guy he barely even knows wasn’t high on his list of pre-date activities.
“I’ll just get my stuff,” I say, and duck back into the car.
When I turn around with my bags of books and my backpack, Rex is right behind me. Even in the swirling snow I can feel his heat. He closes his eyes like he’s trying to get himself under control.
“Hey,” he says, looking into my eyes, “Sorry if it sounded like I was lecturing you. But every year a tourist freezes to death or gets caught in a snowstorm up here because they don’t know the weather.”
“Okay.” I nod.
He shoulders one of my bags and I follow him to the truck.
I’m soaked to the knees, so we head to my apartment so I can change and drop off all my books.
As we walk through the door of my apartment I’m suddenly struck with a familiar feeling. This apartment, like every one I’ve ever had, is run-down and musty, with garbage furniture, milk crate shelves, and floors that stay dirty-looking no matter how many times I wash them. I wish Rex would wait outside and never see my unmade bed, its mismatched sheets in a nest where I left them, my stove gummed with oil and dust and god knows what—not that I use it for much anyway—and my dresser with the drawers that sag out of their tracks from what must have been years of someone—Carl?—jamming them in and yanking them out, though dissatisfied with what they contained or the life that surrounded them I don’t know.
It’s a dump, depressing even with every light on. I’ve gotten used to it the last few weeks, since it’s become my haven from work and from a town that seems to know what I do before I do it, but now, looking at it through a stranger’s eyes, I once again see it for what it is.
“So, I’m just going to grab a shower,” I tell Rex. “Do you want some…?” I glance around the kitchen. Do I have anything to offer him?
“I’m fine,” Rex says.
“Wine,” I say, “or water?”
He shakes his head.
“Okay, well, make yourself comfortable. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
I grab the Ginger-approved outfit and duck into the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself as I run the water, and make a mental note to buy a heavy winter coat, like, now. My lips are almost blue and my cheeks are dead white against the black of my hair, which my hood has squashed into an unattractive helmet around my head. I look tired.
“Great,” I say to the Daniel in the mirror.
As I step under the mercifully hot water, I think I hear the opening notes of Wish You Were Here from the living room, but then the hiss of the water is all I can hear.
IT’S NOT entirely true that I’ve never been out on a date, though I never told Ginger about it. Richard and I went on one date before falling into the pattern that I thought was dating and he apparently thought was just getting his rocks off. It was soon after we met at a lecture on campus. Richard was a grad student in the chemistry department, done with coursework and writing his dissertation like I was. The lecture was dull and the question and answer portion that followed downright painful, and I caught him smiling at me when I accidentally rolled my eyes at some pompous nonquestion that the chair of the history department asked like he was a king bestowing a knighthood.
We chatted. He was handsome and funny and incredibly smart and so not my usual type. He was very clean and well dressed, like a perfect ivory tower Ken doll. But there was something about him that made me feel… grateful that he thought I was interesting enough to talk to. He asked me to dinner the next night and I looked up the menu online in a panic to see what I could order that wouldn’t wipe out my cash for the whole month. Not much.
It was, I suppose, a good date, if a good date is interesting conversation, common tastes, and an appreciation of each other’s senses of humor. But the entire time we sat there, I could tell he was half listening to me and half planning what I was useful for. There was a cold, calculating air to him that made it feel more like an interview than a date. I was dressed all wrong for the restaurant Richard had chosen, I picked a wine that was (he informed me) a terrible choice given what I ordered, and when it came time to pay and I pulled out cash for my half, he slid the check from under my hand with a subtle shake of the head, as if I were embarrassing him. He paid the check, I realized later, the way I’d seen the fathers of fellow students pay checks when they took their kids out to dinner: with absolute knowledge that the person across the table wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for them, and with the gratification of being able to lift that person out of their sad world of cafeteria food and ramen noodles for one special night.