Flat-Out Love (7 page)

–Julie

Julie clicked on Finn’s profile page. He had a bunch of online albums, and she browsed through tons of photos of him in one picturesque spot after another: posing in the foreground of a mountain range; wading through a river; surrounded by tropical foliage; bundled up in ski gear during blizzard conditions;
and kayaking on a pristine lake. And then there were pictures documenting his volunteer work, showing him unloading boxes of food from the back of a rickety truck, huddling with a group of children in a bare-bones classroom, and balancing on a ladder as he hammered nails into the beam of a house under construction. And her personal favorite, a tan Finn emerging from the ocean with a surfboard and wearing only a pair of swim trunks. She couldn’t help it. Finn was decidedly gorgeous, and anyone would have drooled a bit. Rugged, lean, perfect hair, adorable smile…

Her e-mail alert sounded. She had a message from Finn.

Hi, Julie–

Truthfully, I’m a little disappointed that you’re not a stalker. I’ve been doing what I can to lure one in, and I thought I’d finally succeeded. Oh, well. I’ll keep trying. Hope the monsters under my bed haven’t been keeping you up at night. (They tend to enjoy late night keg parties and loud doo-wop music.) If they give you any trouble, I suggest singing anything from 2000–2006. They don’t care for those years because it was during that time that the monster economy crashed, and they all had to cut back. Try a little Green Day (monsters don’t respond well to any pop rock anthem). John Mayer used to work, but after he said something about “the Joshua Tree of vaginas,” the monsters couldn’t stop laughing. Noisily. If all else fails, there’s a baseball bat in my closet. Don’t be afraid to use it
.

So Flat Finn hasn’t freaked you out too much? He’s a cool guy. Keep an eye on him, though. He likes to take the car out once in a while, and he never refills the tank
.

–Finn

Julie laughed and wrote back.

Finn–

Thanks for the heads-up. I had a feeling FF might have a sneaky streak. He has that look about him. Something about the way he refuses to make eye contact
.

I appreciate the tips. Ohio monsters can only be banished by showing reruns of “According to Jim,” but I’ve never been able to make myself do that
.

–Julie

She clicked on Facebook’s news feed. Both Matt and Finn had recent updates. Oh, good Lord. These were some weird brothers.

Matthew Watkins
I like Facebook more than I like conversations with real people because here I don’t have to wait until someone has finished talking before I say something else that’s really inane and tangential
.

Finn Is God
They say if your ears are burning then someone is talking about you. Is that true? Because I have a question about what it means if it’s a different body part
.

Julie could play weird too.

Julie Seagle
has a word in her status that doesn’t really flugh anything
.

She checked her Gmail account. Finally there was a message from her father.

Dear Julie:

What do you think about a trip to California for your winter break? Three weeks up and down the coast. Send my secretary your vacation dates, and we’ll spend Christmas together. Your
mother said this would be acceptable to her, so I hope that you’ll agree
.

Dad

Julie reread the e-mail. This would be more time than she’d spent with her dad since she’d been a little kid. But what about her mother? She would be upset not to have Julie home for the holidays, although she’d obviously already talked this over with Julie’s dad and agreed.
Of course
Kate had understood that this opportunity couldn’t be passed up. She was that kind of mother. Julie wrote her father back.

Hi, Daddy! So happy to hear from you! Yes! The trip sounds perfect. I’m so excited to see you! Call me and tell me more. I love you. Julie

She sent her father her cell number in case he’d misplaced it, as well as the Watkinses’ home phone number.

Julie closed the computer and picked out her outfit for tomorrow. Orientation started with coffee and bagels at eight thirty and ran until two fifteen. She stuck a notebook, a pen, a map of the school, and the directions Matt had given her into an oversized purse. As she fumbled to get everything into her bag, a paper slipped to the floor. Julie picked it up and laughed. Matt had slipped a map of the Boston T system into her things and had put gigantic skull and crossbones symbols next to T stations with escalators. Near the map’s key, he had added an identifying description:
Horrifying threat awaits. Be on high alert
. Julie laughed. But see? She really had no business questioning Flat Finn when she couldn’t even get on a damn escalator without having a total collapse. Of course, she’d rather faint in public than cart around a flat person.

She turned off the overhead light and crawled into bed, pulled the cool sheet over her, and easily fell asleep. For a few hours.

The noise from the two-fifteen train in Ohio used to wake her up. Even from across town, Julie could hear the horn and the rhythmic clacking as the train rolled by. It took months after the train schedule changed for her to get used to the sound and be able to sleep through it. She remembered when the sleep issues had started because it had been around the same time that her father moved out. Right now she missed that noise, and the silence woke her up.

Julie turned on the small lamp by the bed and took her book from the nightstand. Usually she could read until it was impossible to keep her eyes open any longer and falling asleep became inevitable. But tonight she was wide awake and unable to focus. It had less to do with being nervous about starting school and more about feeling antsy to get going. She dropped her book and picked up the picture by the lamp. She smiled at the image of Finn running across the backyard while carrying a young Celeste on his back. She had her hands over his eyes and her head thrown back as she screamed with delight. Julie guessed she’d been about five years old, and she was just as beautiful then as she was now.

Julie turned off the light and spent thirty minutes tossing and turning. She had to shut down her brain and get some sleep, but there was so much swirling through her head: college, where to live, strange and wonderful Celeste with her cardboard brother, Matt’s nerdy shirts, her pathetic near-collapse on the escalator, Roger’s shrimp, Erin’s strong opinions on nearly everything…

She pulled a pillow over her head and tried picturing serene scenes. Then she tried to bore herself to sleep by thinking about
things like yogurt and the structure of a gas pedal. It wasn’t working. It must be those damn monsters under the bed. Julie rolled onto her back, wondering how to clear her head. She had one idea. It was stupid, but she was getting desperate.

She started quietly singing. God, this was moronic. At least Green Day was Finn’s dumb idea and not hers. Julie ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath. Who the hell could fall asleep to Green Day? Julie hummed for a moment and then kept singing.

It only took one verse for Julie to lull the monsters under the bed into peace. As she drifted to sleep, she knew that she’d have to thank Finn.

Julie crossed her legs and tried to get comfortable in the hard auditorium seat. It just wasn’t going to happen. The seats had obviously been designed to maximize physical discomfort and prevent students from falling asleep during lectures. Effective, if not cruel. She’d survived a rather tedious breakfast reception during which students had quietly stood around awkwardly nodding and smiling at each other while they waited for orientation to begin. This welcome lecture had to be better. The tiered seats faced a lectern where a few people were struggling to get a Whitney orientation video to work.

“Sorry,” Julie apologized to the girl in the next seat as she accidently elbowed her while attempting to get her notepad from her bag.

“No problem. We’re like goddamn anchovies in these chairs, huh?” The girl smiled at Julie. “I’m Dana. I don’t know anybody here, and I’m hoping you’re a normal person and will be nice to me. Unlike the man on the T this morning who humped my leg. Although he seemed to think he was being nice.”

“I’m Julie from Ohio, and I promise not to hump your leg.”

“Thank God!” Dana said, looking upward and clapping her hands. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

The guy on Julie’s left leaned in to Dana. “I, on the other hand, might hump your leg. Apologies in advance. I really can’t control it. So sorry.”

Julie laughed. “Since you’ve given fair warning, maybe she’ll excuse you.”

He held his hand out. “I’m Jamie. I grew up in Milford, west of Boston.”

Julie and Dana each shook his hand. Dana’s shiny, jet-black hair was cut in a perfectly sharp bob, and her hair barely moved as she nodded to Jamie. “Milford boy, you’re much cuter than perverted T guy, so I just might let you hump my leg. For a small fee.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jamie said, his dimples appearing as he grinned. He flopped back into his seat, adjusted his baseball hat, and rubbed the stubble on his cheek. He definitely looked as if he had rolled out of bed about five minutes ago. “What dorms are you in? I’m in Thompson.”

“Actually, I’m living off campus in an apartment,” Dana said. “Julie, where are you?”

“Nowhere, actually. Well, somewhere obviously. I’m staying with some family friends until I can find a place. Do you guys know of anything?”

“Ugh,” Jamie groaned. “Family friends? Sounds awful.”

Julie shook her head. “No, it’s not so bad. They’re really nice.”

“I can ask around for you,” Dana said. “The dorms are totally packed, I know that.”

“Yeah, and the housing market around here is the pits. I’ll check the campus for signs, though. See if there are any roommate ads for you,” Jamie offered.

“That would be great. Thank you.” Julie gave Jamie and Dana her cell number and programmed theirs into her phone.
“Look. They got the video working.” She glanced down at her program. “A thirty-minute campus tour video, followed by a lecture from the head librarian on how to use the online catalogue system. Fun.”

Jamie slumped down further in his seat. “Wake me when it’s over.”

Dana leaned over. “I’ll hump your leg to signal the torture has ended.”

Jamie shut his eyes and smiled. “Nice.”

College orientation was about what Julie had expected it to be: boring, monotonous, and loaded with speeches that touted professors’ accomplishments and promised fascinating classes. They were divided into smaller groups and given a more personal, non-video tour of the school, and that had been fun. Julie did her best to memorize where department buildings were so that she wouldn’t have to walk around school with the embarrassing campus map in front of her face. One might as well carry a sign that said
FRESHMAN
.

Afterward, Julie took the T to Harvard Square and walked along the Charles River to get back to the Watkinses’ house. It was a bit longer route, as Matt had said, but it was worth it to enjoy the scene. This would be a great place to study. She could take a blanket and sit on the grass, bring a snack, bury herself in a textbook. Who knew if she’d end up living anywhere near here, though?

She let herself into the house with the key Matt had given her. The lock on the front door was a nuisance, and it took a few minutes to get it open. She went into the kitchen to grab a drink. The fridge was positively packed with takeout cartons,
and Julie had a suspicion that no one was ever going to eat the leftovers. Her phone rang, and she fumbled in her bag to find it.

She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“Julie? Hey, it’s Matthew. How was school?”

“Jam-packed with stimulating information. Where are you? How’d you get my number? Don’t you have to get Celeste soon?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Is there any chance you could pick her up? I’m really sorry. One of my professors is insisting on meeting with me about the research I’m helping him with. I’m sure I could get him to reschedule, but it would look better if I didn’t.”

Julie moved a container of Thai food and took out a bottle of sparkling water. “Sure, I guess so. Is it far from here?”

“Only ten minutes or so. This meeting is important, otherwise I wouldn’t ask. You can take the car. The keys are hanging on the wall by the phone base. There should be paper there too. I’ll give you directions. It’s easy. I promise.”

“You sure your parents won’t mind if I drive their car?”

“Not at all. They rarely use it anyway.”

Julie examined the large white pegboard on the wall. It screamed obsessive-compulsive. Hooks and small compartments held everything from pens and thumbtacks to business cards and the much-used takeout menus. She located the car keys and grabbed a sticky note and a pen. “OK, go.”

Matt gave her directions. “If you leave in ten minutes, that should give you plenty of time. Just pull the car into the drive-thru pickup in front of the school, and Celeste will be out there.” He paused. “And there’s one more thing.”