“It’s all right.” Esben claps a hand on Chea’s arm.
Chea sniffs and shakes his head. “But then this kid in my class . . . I don’t know why, but he started sitting next to me at lunch. Andy. He gave me my first potato chip, and that was also the first American food I liked. He would point to things and name them in English, and I would repeat them. And, at some point, I understood that he wanted the Cambodian word, too. He was lousy, I tell you. Horrible accent, but he tried. Andy taught me to read better than the ESL teachers. He was my only friend that year. The other kids didn’t understand why Andy would hang out with a loser like me, and they gave him a really hard time.” Chea looks right at the camera. “But he didn’t seem to care. He was my friend, and that was it. So, it was the two of us against the world.”
“You’re still friends?” Esben asks. He has been listening so intently. Not just interviewing someone, not just asking questions. He is present and connected and genuinely interested. It’s beautiful.
“Yeah, yeah, for sure!” Chea nods adamantly. “He goes to Harvard. Can you believe that? I’m so proud.” He claps a hand to his chest and smiles. “Harvard! Damn, I miss that kid.”
Esben has written #bestfriend #andy on the whiteboard, and he gives it to Chea to hold up while Kerry takes a few pictures.
“Thank you for this,” Chea says. “I should tell him more how much he did for me. And what he still does. There’s nobody better.” Suddenly, Chea throws his arms around Esben and claps him heartily on the back. “Thanks, dude.” Then he adjusts his hat and takes off.
I’m rather slack jawed. Holy. Crap.
Esben whips around. “Not a bad start, huh?” Then he begins strolling in search of his next subject.
I walk with Kerry. “He’s magic . . . ,” I breathe out.
“I know, right? It gets me every time.”
The next five interviews go well enough, but they’re mostly girls cheering for the sake of the camera. Still, we hear some warm shout-outs, and Kerry gets some good shots. She calls it “filler,” but I still think it’s nice to hear about friendship, and I think about Steffi and how much I would have to say about her if I were a subject today.
Another four interviews in, Esben is getting visibly frustrated. He wants more intensity; I can tell.
“Allison? You want to pick someone out for me?” he asks.
“Me?” I have no idea how to do anything like this.
“Yeah. You’ll be good, because you’ve got fresh eyes. A virgin consultant.” He winks.
Oh, Lord. He has no idea how right he is. But I agree.
The three of us survey the options around us. There’s such a blur of students out today, and it takes me a moment to start looking at them individually. Not far ahead, I see a white-haired older man in a long wool coat, with a plaid scarf tucked in neatly under the collar. He walks with an elaborately carved cane, although he doesn’t appear to rely on it much. I suddenly very much want to know who this older gentleman’s best friend is.
“Him.” I point subtly.
“Professor Gaylon? Bold choice.” Esben exhales. “Wish me luck.” He throws back his shoulders and marches ahead.
“Who’s Professor Gaylon?” I whisper to Kerry.
She’s trying not to laugh as she holds up the camera. “He’s an econ teacher not known for his affable nature. I’m soooooo glad you picked him!” Kerry scurries to catch up to her brother.
When I reach them, Esben is trying to cajole the professor into talking. “C’mon, you don’t have a best friend? You’d really help me out here. Just a few words?”
“Wouldn’t your time be better spent studying instead of engaging in this video nonsense?”
“How about we make a deal?” Esben is throwing out every bit of charm he has. “You do this really quick interview, and I’ll put in two extra hours of studying tonight.”
Professor Gaylon narrows his eyes and pokes his cane in Esben’s direction. “Deal. Make it snappy.”
Esben gestures to Kerry, and she moves in to film.
“So, tell us about your best friend.”
“I don’t have one. There. That’s your interview!” snaps the professor.
He starts to leave, but Esben stops him.
“Hey, hey, wait! You don’t have any friends? Who would you call in a crisis?”
“911.”
“Are you married? Any family?”
“No. Never wanted to deal with a wife. Family’s all dead.”
Esben rubs his lips together. “Okay. Who do you call just to talk? When you need someone to lean on? When you want to go out to dinner?”
The professor is suddenly silent. For too long. Esben looks unusually uncomfortable.
I may not be as cranky as this man, but I do know bitter and hard. Without thinking, I step forward. “What about a former friend? Who did you used to call?”
The man jabs toward me with his cane. “That girl’s smarter than you.” He repositions his cane, then stands tall.
I step in closer. “What was his name?”
“Jerry DuBois. That son of a bitch.”
Esben drops his head to hide his smile. “Oh my.”
“You had a falling out?” I ask.
The professor’s voice is sharp. “Falling out? I cut that man out of my life.”
“Why?”
“I made a mistake. I got into business with DuBois. Went in on some real-estate deal he said would make us a fortune. I had my doubts, but Jerry was my good friend. I trusted him. And he screwed me over. Lost it all.” He shakes his cane. “Never do business with a friend, kid.”
“What happened? He took your money and never gave you your profit?”
“What? No, nothing like that.” The professor searches for words. “It was a bad deal. The market didn’t behave the way we thought it would. I was broke after. My fiancée left me.”
“But it was just a bad deal. It wasn’t intentional . . . ,” I offer.
“I still lost everything,” he snaps.
“What about when things were good?” I want to know. “Why was he your best friend?”
“We played cards, went drinking. Jerry liked a strong whiskey sour, and I always had a martini. Straight up with a twist.” He makes a spinning motion with a finger. “Jerry was an English professor at the University of Maine, and he was always trying to get me to read Shakespeare and whatnot. I tried, for him . . .” The professor smiles a bit. “He made me go to see As You Like It once. Guess what? I actually liked it! Jerry told really bad jokes and had terrible taste in women, but he . . . he was my friend. When my brother died, Jerry was in Chicago, and he drove across the country to be with me. Stood next to me when we buried him.”
“So, Jerry wasn’t all bad,” I say.
Professor Gaylon looks at me. “No, he wasn’t all bad.”
“How long has it been since you’ve spoken?” I ask.
“Oh gosh . . . probably thirty-some years.” He thinks for a long minute. “Thirty-six this June.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I do.” He speaks more softly now, thoughtfully.
“Can you forgive him?”
“We were young. Not smart with money. And he was right when he said my fiancée was a money-grubber. He said she should have stayed no matter what. That was true. So, maybe I could forgive that bastard.”
“Would you like to call him?” Esben asks.
“Kid, you are somethin’ else.” The professor clearly finds this idea amusing. “I wouldn’t know how to find him. He could be anywhere now.”
Esben can type on his phone faster than anyone I’ve seen, and it takes him all of ten seconds to hold up the screen to Professor Gaylon. “Jerry DuBois. Professor of English at Boston University. Phone number is 617—”
“He’s in Boston? Well, damn, he always wanted to teach in Boston.” The professor’s face lights up, and he touches his hand to the screen. “Look at that. He’s got more wrinkles than I do.”
r /> “Should we try his office?”
Professor Gaylon nods.
Esben calls the number and hands the phone over, while we all wait anxiously.
“Jerry DuBois?” the professor barks. “This is Carter Gaylon. So, you’re in Boston now, you old bird. I called to say that if you buy me an expensive surf-and-turf dinner I will forgive you.” He frowns and listens. “Fine . . . we can negotiate. Yes, fine. Saturday, it is . . . No, I don’t need directions. I know how to Google Map.” He thrusts the phone back at Esben. “Maybe you’re not so dumb after all.”
Kerry points at the whiteboard, and Esben hurriedly scribbles #jerry #bestfriend on it and snaps a picture.
Without another word, Professor Gaylon turns and leaves. There is, however, a slight jauntiness to his step.
CHAPTER 17
SPECTRUM
I’m stretched on my stomach on Esben’s bed, with a textbook open to one of the most boring chapters in the history of textbook chapters, but I am forcing myself to pay attention. The November weekend weather is dreary and miserable, the sound of the rain pattering against the window, so it’s a good day to snuggle up inside and work. Esben is sitting in his chair, with his feet kicked up on the desk. He has been engrossed in a book for one of his lit classes, and he’s barely looked up in the past two hours since we came back from lunch. So, I’m startled when he suddenly drops the book and slides the chair the few feet it takes to reach the end of the bed.
“Allison?”
I can’t tell if he’s mad or what, but there’s a somewhat confused look on his face that I’m not able to read. “Yeah?” I ask nervously.
“We have to talk about something,” he blurts out.
Exasperated. That’s what it is. Esben sounds exasperated.
Here it is. I knew whatever was going on between us wasn’t going to last. “All right.” I shut my book and stare at the cover rather than him.
“Are you seeing anyone else?” he asks.
It’s a good thing I’m not prone to snorting, because this is the most ridiculous question ever. Now I look at him, because I have to know if he’s swapped bodies with someone wearing a straitjacket. “Am I what?”
“We haven’t . . . talked about that. Or about us. Or if there is an us. And . . .”
He’s right. We haven’t. And I haven’t known how to bring this up. Or maybe I’ve been scared to.
“Esben, good Lord, if either of us is likely to be seeing anyone else, it’s you. You’re the one with half the planet dying to get a piece of you.”
He laughs. “I think that’s a slight exaggeration.”
I move in front of him so that his legs rest between mine. “Maybe slight. But you know what I mean. You could be with a thousand people other than me. And probably girls who would be more . . . would be more . . .” I really don’t want to have to say this aloud.
“More what?” he prompts.
Over the past weeks, I’ve spent hours and hours with Esben. We study, we talk, we have meals together. We do almost everything together. We kiss, we embrace—sometimes for longer than others—and then we say good night. And go to our own dorms.
If he is not already about to dump me, I’m very afraid that I’m about to blow this all apart. “When you walk me home, at night, you have never asked to stay over.”
Esben smiles with a little embarrassment. “That’s true.”
“You’ve never . . . tried anything.” The awkwardness of this unexpected conversation is nearly crippling.
“That’s also true.” Esben takes my hand. “Do you know why?”
“Because you’re getting routine, nightly sex from Twitter followers who have stalked you to this very room, so you’re not interested in me?”
He laughs. “No. Allison, I am crazy attracted to you, and I haven’t so much as looked at another girl since I met you.”
“So no Twitter lays?”
“Not a one.” He takes my other hand in his. “It’s not a secret that you’ve had a rough time, and I know how hard it’s been for you to let me in at all. I don’t want to push you into anything physical. I figure if you’re ready for something more, you’ll tell me.”
I have to think about how to answer this. “Every time we kiss good-bye and you leave my room, I want to ask you to stay. But I also don’t. I’m not sure if that makes sense.”
“I think so. But keep talking.”
“Look, I assume that you’ve got a lot more experience than I do, and you’ve probably had sex all over the place, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m pretty sure I haven’t exactly blown you away with my risqué behavior, and I’m not getting why you’re putting up with this. Why you haven’t tried to . . . to take off my clothes or cop a feel or whatever.” I free my hands from his and toss them up in the air. “I’m not exactly an expert on messing around, but I think it’s kind of an all-or-nothing deal, yeah? And right now you’re pretty much getting nothing. So, I’m kind of wondering if you’re dating other people and we’re just friends who kiss a little, but if that’s the case, then we have to stop kissing, because I don’t think of you as just my good friend Esben.”
“You’re really going to need to take a few breaths here.” He looks very cute as he pushes my bangs back. “I thought I was the insecure one with the questions. But let’s straighten out some things. First of all, I don’t think of you as my ‘good friend’ Allison.”
“Okay.” That alone makes me feel a bit better.
“Second, I have not, as you wildly put it, had sex all over the place.”
“So, you’ve had lots of sex in a limited number of defined and well-thought-out locations, then.” It’s jarring how much the idea of Esben with anyone else makes my chest hurt. “There’s no way you’re a virgin. You’re too hot.”
As he moves to sit on the bed next to me, he shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you?”
As a temporary answer to his own question, he turns my face to his and kisses me. It’s a long kiss, but not a greedy one. It is also—I will allow—a loving one.
“In fact,” he says. “I am a virgin.”
“You are not.”
“I am,” he says very comfortably.
“How could you, famous Esben Baylor, not have had sex? You’ve got girls teeming all over you.”
He shrugs. “I’m not saying I haven’t done other stuff. I’ve dated and fooled around and all that. You know, everything but actual sex.”
I’m very confused. “Why’s that?”
“It’s just never felt right. Sex is important, and I haven’t been with someone who I’ve wanted to be that kind of close with. And, to be honest, I can’t always tell if someone likes me for me or for what I do online. I’ve been burned a few times that way, so I’m cautious.”
“I can understand that. But you know that’s not me, so you just . . . don’t want to sleep with me?”
It’s hard for him to kiss me while he’s smiling, but he manages to make it work. Then he says, “Quite the opposite, you nut. Let me be very clear. I want to sleep with you. Like, really, really want to sleep with you. And, by the way, you said before that it’s an all-or-nothing deal? The physical stuff? There’s a whole bunch to do between nothing and everything, a wide spectrum, in fact. Just as a side note.” Now he’s really smiling. “Allison, everything about you turns me on, and if the day comes when you’re ready for us to have sex, I’m not going to complain. Like, seriously not complain. At all. But I don’t think you’re at that point. Am I wrong?”
“No,” I say quietly. “But that doesn’t mean that . . . I don’t think about it. Or that I don’t want to.”
“But just not now, right? And that’s fine. I get it. We only met a few months ago; you’ve got some understandable trust issues. There’s no rush.”
I take hold of his hands again. “You’re a good guy, Esben. A really, really good guy. Remarkable, actually. I just need some time.”
“I’m going to give you that, okay? Don?
??t worry. And, one day, you’ll stop looking for this—for us—to fall apart.”
“But, still . . . Esben, you’re a college junior whose girlfriend won’t sleep with him. What if you explode?”
All of a sudden, Esben gets the most pleased look on his face.
“What?” I ask. “I just meant that—”
His hand goes to the back of my neck, just below my hairline. “You called yourself my girlfriend.”
Ohmigod. I did. “That just slipped out. I didn’t mean to assume, er, that we were . . . that you are my . . .” I try to breathe for his sake. “We haven’t used that word, or even talked about it. I’ve just been rolling along, being all grateful that I haven’t had some crazy meltdown and that you haven’t figured out that you could probably have more fun with someone whose past isn’t a battlefield of trauma. So, that word just slipped out. That’s all.”
“I want you to be my girlfriend. I don’t want nameless, undefined, figuring-it-out stuff. We’re past that. And you just proved it.”
I ease in and whisper on his lips. “So, you’re my boyfriend, then.”
“Yes.”
“Another first for me.” I can almost taste him.
“How’s it feel?” Esben’s mouth barely touches mine, and, for just a second, his tongue runs over my lips.
“So, so good.” I take him by the collar and pull him over me as I drop against the bed.
Esben props himself onto his elbows and holds his chest above me so that he’s at the perfect height to sink his tongue into my mouth and kiss me with an intensity that nearly knocks the wind out of me. And I can’t get enough. His fingers knot into my hair while our kissing continues, and I drink in the flavor of him—and of us. Intuitively, my leg goes over his, and I realize that I’m tightening our fit together, that I’m comfortable enough to do that. There’s a full-body urge that sweeps through me, a heat and a longing that are new. For a moment, I am lost in our closeness and how the weight of his chest and waist pressed into mine is not nearly enough.