Finals (21 page)

Many seniors, such as my roommates, weren’t as eager to join the workforce. After months of prepping for the GMAT, MCAT and other various challenging tests, the results were in and now it was time to decide. East coast or west coast; decisions were necessary so life at graduate school could begin.

The noble ones agreed to dedicate a year of their lives to service. Some joined the Peace Corps while others would do what they could to help the inner-city education system. The smart ones were taking a year off to backpack around Europe, climb the Andes in South America, or enjoy free cable television from the confines of their parents’ living room.

As I was bombarded with questions such as, “What are you doing after you graduate?” Do you have a job lined up? Are you going back home? Are you staying here?” I had no answers to provide. I hadn’t found a job, but I also hadn’t really looked. I wasn’t going to grad school, because my only child trust fund was not going to be replenished, nor had I taken the necessary exams. I didn’t have the desire to spend a year sleeping on a cot trying to make the world a better place, and I certainly didn’t have the dough to go on a fancy vacation.

Honestly, I had enough worries. I was living in the moment, day by day, one meal to the next. My finance assignments were becoming more difficult. I wouldn’t have thought understanding the various statements and disclosures in a 10-K could be so complex, but I was deathly mistaken. I also had to threaten a teacher, plan a successful car bomb, and have coffee with the dreaded ex. I had enough on my plate, without having to worry about my life after St. Elizabeth.

Presently, I wasn’t too worried about the Quinn situation. Part of me believed that Rogers wasn’t going to follow through with his end of the bargain, since during most of our time at IHOP he seemed like a shy Nancy-boy, unwilling to hurt a fly. Even if I did get the green light from him, bullying Quinn didn’t seem like a big challenge. Sure, she was an independent, outspoken woman who understood the complexities of America’s socioeconomics and didn’t take any bull from her male counterparts, but I was well rehearsed in mafia and Clint Eastwood movies, which meant I had the ability to become rather persuasive in particular circumstances.

With my homework finished, and my side mission on the backburner, my meeting with Hayley was the one pressing concern I had upon waking up Saturday morning.

As her former beau, I knew Hayley frequently overextended herself. Not only is she the editor-in-chief at
T
he
Gazette
, but she’s also the president of the newly created French club. Aside from her club involvement, she spends an unnecessary amount of time meeting professors, tutoring freshies, and taking a full course load.

Due to her bubbly personality and her gift for gab, one unscheduled run-in and she’s bound to be late to one or more of her appointments. During our brief liaison, we often had to reschedule or push back our dates because she was always running behind. This coffee date was no exception.

A day after our Easter holiday, Hayley and I had discussed grabbing a latte Tuesday afternoon, but as usual when Tuesday afternoon rolled around, I received the much anticipated, “I’m sooooo sorry, can we pretty please reschedule?” text, and I was forced to play the familiar role of nice guy once again. After a few text exchanges, we agree upon Saturday afternoon.

As the morning turned to midday, without a word or a text about rescheduling, I was starting to think I would have to show up to Starbucks after all.

With ten minutes to spare until our arranged 1:30 meeting time, my nervous energy was palpable. The butterflies in my stomach were flapping around like crazy, my hands were getting clammy, and my thoughts were rolling around in a frenzied fashion. I couldn’t believe I was doing it, but it was really happening. I headed to the car, started the ignition, and made my way to the nearest Starbucks in the St. John’s district. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I was actually going to meet Hayley.

Pulling into the Starbucks’s parking lot, I was surprised to find Hayley’s blue Volvo waiting for me. She was hardly ever on time, and with the present time being twenty-five past one, she appeared to be early, a feat I deemed nearly impossible.

I parked my Accord next to her Volvo, switched the engine off, and glanced over to the left to find Hayley perusing through a stack of index cards. My best guess was that she was reviewing her French vocabulary, not that she needed to do such a thing. Occasionally, when we studied together I would quiz her on French terms if my homework was finished. The girl had a memory like an elephant. It was sickening. After one or two run-throughs, she’d have the words etched in her subconscious as if they were dates of relatives’ birthdays. If I wasn’t so envious of her ability to absorb information instantaneously, I would have been impressed.

After a couple of seconds, Hayley caught my eye and began giving me one of her legendary grins as if I was the only one she longed to see. I was smart enough to know that this skillfully rehearsed expression was nothing more than Hayley’s trademark smile, but I was also dumb enough to believe she truly was excited to see me.

“
You’re here early,” I said, conveying my surprise, as we both exited our vehicles.

“
What can I say? I was eager to grab a delicious beverage with you,” Hayley said, approaching me. For one awkward second, I felt like hugging her, but the moment soon passed as we left the parking lot and entered the St. John’s Starbucks.

I knew I wanted a grande mocha frappacino, and since it was consistently phenomenal, I wasn’t willing to venture out of my comfort zone and try a different drink. Recalling our previous coffee dates, I thought Hayley was fond of skinny vanilla lattes (as well as nibbling off of my croissant or red velvet cupcake), but today she was having a tough time making up her mind.

“
With so many fantastic selections, what’s a girl to do?” said Hayley brightly, as she continued to scan the board.

“
Since the weather is rather lovely, why don’t
you
follow in my footsteps?” I said. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.” Really, what person in their right mind couldn’t be happy drinking an ice cold, coffee enriched beverage on a warm spring day?

“
Well, if you insist,” said the short blonde, beaming up at me.

Passing her decision on to the nearest barista, our order was placed and the total was calculated. Out of habit, I slipped the plastic out of my wallet before Hayley had a chance to get any cash out of her pursue. She gave me the old “Oh, you shouldn’t have” look pretending to be upset by my conviviality, but I knew that she was thrilled.

As I am about the majority of my decisions regarding Hayley, I was of two minds about this impulsive decision. In the back of my mind, I heard the voices saying, “You’re a hopeless romantic fucknut, you know that? Don’t you remember that she broke your heart like it was a glass menagerie?
You could have bought yourself another drink with that four bucks, but no…you just had to buy her drink didn’t you, dumbass?”

At the same time, another part of me felt as though I was subtlety communicating my unalleviated affection. As silly as it sounds, only children tend to place greater importance on material possessions, since their parents often fill the void of sibling companionship with Barbie dolls and gaming systems. I always experienced a sense of ecstasy, if just for an instance, when my parents handed me a new Playstation game or action figure. I guess you could say that because of my parents spirited gift giving, I found that buying a drink for someone was more than merely buying a drink. In my own weird way, I was telling that person that I cared.

Hayley muttered a “thank you
,”
again flashing her
pearly whites
in my direction as we stood near the end of the bar waiting for our drinks to arrive.

As our drinks were prepared, I asked about her classes, which in turn led to a twenty minute conversation about her projects, finals and her summer plans. Getting
Hayley
to talk was easy, the difficult part was getting a word in edgewise. Known ramblers need little ammunition before one topic strings to another topic and then to yet another topic. Before long, she was telling me about her plans to study for the GRE in the summer while getting a jumpstart on researching her senior project. She was also hoping to visit a few graduate schools if time permitted.

Despite her constant blabbing and desire for attention, I didn’t mind just sitting back and listening. Hayley’s stories were entertaining and I was impressed by her ambitious nature. Hayley was the work-hard, play-hard sort. I was the half-ass, scrape by with the bare minimum sort. I wasn’t lazy, but I just wasn’t going to make a name for myself. Hayley was bound to be a French professor at the collegiate level or a successful newspaper editor. I was going to be a mediocre financial planner at Wells Fargo or T. Rowe Price.
The only way my name would appear in the headlines was if my villainous nature caught up with me. In my opinion, earning the respect and acknowledgment from an organization or the general media was better than living forever in infamy. I had to hand it to Hayley; the girl had drive.

Once she was finally out of breath, her drink barely touched, I was given the chance to speak.

“
So Mr. York, can you believe this is your senior year and in two weeks your time at St. Elizabeth will be over? I can barely believe my junior year is almost finished. The time has gone by frighteningly fast,” she said, letting out a lighthearted laugh.

“
This year certainly has been chalk full of surprises. I can’t imagine what will happen when school’s over,” I said truthfully. To be quite frank, my college experience was similar to most. There were epic parties, all
-
nighters, hookups, breakups, ball games, study sessions, beer pong, and complicated homework problems. I had experienced it all. I was ready to move on.

What I hadn’t planned on was killing off my classmates and falling in love with a blonde from California. These were the two concerns constantly on my mind, but of the two circumstances, one of them I felt I could control. I didn’t know if was going to get away with two counts of murder but I was in dire need of closure. I had spent too many hours and too many sleepless nights dwelling over this girl. If there was a time to remove this massive weight off my chest and tell Hayley how I felt, this was that time.

As I sat across the tiny wooden table staring at this beautiful creature, I knew I didn’t have it in me to hurt her. I could give myself countless pep talks but no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to lash out at her. Badmouthing Hayley would be like kicking a puppy or stealing an ice cream cone from a child. You really had to be a ruthless asshole to do it.

Since my inner chicken was manifesting itself, I decided to ask Hayley another question hoping I would eventually find a little courage.

“
So how
will you survive without me next year? You’ll have to supervisor Vickie and Trevor all by your lonesome.”

“
Oh, I won’t,” Hayley said, beginning to giggle. “I’ll be in dismal shape without you by my side.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I stared into the girl’s baby blue eyes. As much as I hated to admit it, I was enjoying myself. I had badly missed sharing these little moments with Hayley.

“
To be honest,” Hayley began, once the chuckling died down. “I was thinking about abandoning my post after this semester.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes, I feel as though it will be too much with my other obligations. Also, I have to admit this year has been rather traumatic and of course, it won’t be the same without you,” she said, including this last comment purely to flatter me.

“
But you worked so hard to get that position, especially since it was at my expense,” I said, in a coarse tone. My darkness was notorious for destroying moods and with a mere sentence I had managed to do just that.

Gazing over at the ex, it was apparent I had hit a cord. You know the expression that you see at award shows, when the unannounced favorite loses for one reason or another to some up-and-comer? The camera pans over to the favorite, and despite the meager clapping and forced smile, you can see the anger and disappointment on their face. Hayley was displaying a similar look. I had only seen it one other time, and it came seconds after I questioned her about whether or not she had cheated on me.

Her eyes fell to the table, and as the seconds slowly ticked away, it felt as though time was frozen. It was also eerie how quiet Hayley had become. After the longest thirty seconds of my life, Hayley spoke, directing her statement to the table. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Wayne…”

The words left her mouth, not in the usual happy-go-lucky, cheerful manner, but in a solemnly grim tone, as if her grandmother had just died. It was painful to hear, but I honestly didn’t know what I wanted her to say. This whole process of confronting Hayley, wasn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. I had dreamed of this moment, about having an opportunity to insult her character, question her morals, and call her a bitch loud enough for everyone in this Starbucks to hear. I had envisioned throwing her a few insults and having her apologize or at least toss a few back at me, but as I watched Hayley shamefully stare at the table after only one mean-spirited quip, I knew I couldn’t go through with this plan. For once, I had to restrain my demons.