Girlfriend Material (19 page)

“Do you want to have lunch or something?” I asked.

“That would be so fun,” she said. “But I have to finish proofreading a pamphlet that’s going to the printers this afternoon. But do you want to go swimming later? Like at three? I should be done by then.”

“Sure,” I said, wondering what I’d do until three. “Maybe I’ll go to the library.” I was formulating the thought even as I spoke it.

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll call you when I’m done and we’ll go swimming.”

As I pushed open the heavy glass library door, I forced myself not to think about the time I’d run into Adam here. Libraries were, like, my place. I felt at home in a library. Novels, writers, readers. These were my people. Who needed boys when you had books? I’d even brought my notebook and pen, thinking I’d do some work on my story.

I sat down at an empty table by the windows. There was a video lying there that someone had taken off the shelf and forgotten to put back. It was called
Gorillas in the Mist
, and it was about Dian Fossey, an American woman who apparently had lived in Rwanda studying gorillas for years. That didn’t sound like such a bad life to me, being alone on a mountain with a bunch of apes. Let’s face it—if a gorilla says
I can’t stop kissing you
, your problems go way deeper than his possibly having a girlfriend you don’t know about. I opened my notebook and reread what I’d written so far, trying to imagine what direction Ms. Baker would tell me to take it in. But instead of Ms. Baker, I kept thinking about Adam. Where was he now? Was he thinking about me? I forced myself to focus on my story.
Details, Kate. Concrete details.
I gave the boy a baby sister he didn’t like. I gave him a best friend who’d wanted to come on the trip but had gotten sick at the last minute. I’d just given him a nail-biting habit when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Adam, and as soon as I saw him, I knew I’d only been writing with half my brain.

The other half had just been waiting for him.

HE HAD ON THE SAME OXFORD SHIRT
he’d been wearing the first time I ran into him in the library. I remembered how I’d wondered if I should take him seriously when he asked me out for a pop.

If only I hadn’t taken him seriously about anything. “Hi,” he said. “Hi,” I said. I tried to pretend it was two weeks ago and nothing had ever happened between us and he was just some random guy friend of Sarah’s, but it didn’t work. My throat still felt dry and my heart was still racing.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

What could possibly be tackier than a tête-à-tête with somebody else’s boyfriend? “I’m kind of busy right now,” I said. I gestured at the notebook in front of me.

“Sarah told me,” he said. “And she told me you were here.” His voice was tight.

“I see,” I said. I had no idea where those two words came from—I never say
I see
. But I liked how British it sounded.

“Can I just talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

Here’s what I was not about to do: let Adam know this was a big deal. Which is why I said, “It’s no big deal.”

“Can I just talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

“It’s no big deal,” I said again. Would I ever be able to utter a sentence other than
It’s no big deal
? “Really,” I added, louder than I’d meant to.

Barbara the librarian looked over to where we were sitting and frowned. Then she put her finger to her lips.

Adam knelt down in front of me, and it struck me as ironic that he was in the position normally associated with a marriage proposal.

But of course marriage wasn’t what Adam proposed. “Two minutes,” he said, his voice a notch above a whisper. “Just give me two minutes.” Then he added, “Please.”

Of course I followed him outside to the little gazebo on the library lawn. Neither of us spoke as we walked. When we got to the gazebo, I sat down on one of the wrought-iron benches, and Adam stood leaning against the railing.

“What did Sarah and Jenna tell you?” asked Adam finally.

Since I already knew I wasn’t going to emerge from this conversation with a boyfriend, it seemed to me the only thing I could hope to take from it was my dignity. “Just that, you know, you have a girlfriend,” I said, impressed that I could utter the word without choking on it. “I hadn’t known,” I added, just to state the obvious.

“Right,” said Adam. “So you’re thinking I’m your basic asshole, right?”

I almost smiled at how accurate his assessment was. “Well,” I said, “I’m not exactly fond of you right about now.”
Fond of you?
It was like I was channeling Lady Brett Ashley without even trying. I folded my hands in my lap and crossed my ankles as if I were wearing a gray flannel pencil skirt and not jeans with a hole in one knee.

If Adam thought there was something weird about how I was talking, he didn’t say so. “Look, just for the record, I’m not a total jerk, okay?” He ran his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his chin. “Molly and I are on a break this summer.”

“On a break?” I repeated stupidly.

“Seeing other people,” he explained. “We were having some problems, and she wanted to …” I finished the sentence in my head
and she wanted to break up with me, but I’m so madly in love with her that I convinced her we should take a break, not break up.
When I tuned back in, Adam was still talking. “ … Look, you don’t really want to hear this whole saga. But the point is, I wasn’t, you know, cheating on her or anything.”

The problem was this whole conversation was an out-of-body experience. I was watching myself talk to Adam, but I wasn’t actually participating. “I see,” I said.

“Do you?” he asked, coming over and sitting next to me. “Because I really like hanging out with you, and I got the feeling you liked hanging out with me too.”

Hanging out. Was that what we were doing?

“Sure,” was all I could come up with. He was so cute. Why was he so cute? His hair was damp, like maybe he’d showered right before coming over to find me.

To find me. He’d come to find me. He must like me.

Yeah, for now.

“I mean, I guess I should have told you. I’m really sorry I didn’t. But I didn’t think you were the type to want a boyfriend or, you know, some big serious relationship.” Was it my imagination, or did he say
big serious relationship
as if it were a repugnant political party I might be affiliated with.
I didn’t think you were the type to be drawn to Nazism.

What did he mean? What type of girl didn’t want a boyfriend?

Let’s see … um, probably a girl who’d announced that her role model was Lady Brett Ashley.

I mean, wasn’t the whole point of being an independent jaunty woman that you didn’t care about commitment or whether some random guy was your boyfriend? Hadn’t I always planned to have dozens of meaningless affairs as I traveled the globe pursuing my writing career?

Well, here was Adam—ready, willing, and able to be the first in a long series of guys who meant nothing to me in the long run. I wasn’t a victim, I was a good-time girl.

So what, exactly, was the problem? “I think … I mean, I don’t need to be serious,” I said. “Really?” he asked. He took my hand. “I mean, were you, you know, imagining this going beyond the summer?”

What did he honestly think I was going to say, given what I knew?
Yes, Adam, I fell in love with you the moment you quoted Hemingway to me. Ever since that night, I have dreamed of flying to New York the weekend of your senior prom, getting dressed with Jenna and Sarah and, draped head to toe in black
peu de soi
, descending the sweeping staircase of Sarah’s exquisite town house to you, clad in a newly purchased tuxedo, standing on the bottom step and extending a single white rose in my direction.

“God, no!” I said. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to influence your decision. The ball’s in your court.”

It was? How could the ball be in my court if he was the one with a girlfriend?

But he didn’t have a girlfriend; he had a girl he was on a break with.

Still, clearly he wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend.

But it wasn’t like I was in the market for a boyfriend.

Was I?

What I
was
, right at this particular moment, was a little scared I might be losing my mind.

Adam reached over and slipped his arm under my legs, then swung my legs over his. He put his arms around my waist. “Okay, I’m influencing your decision,” he said.

In spite of myself, I laughed. It felt so good to be sitting this close to him. I took a deep breath, smelling his shampoo and the clean sunshiny scent that must have been whatever laundry detergent his mom used.

I put my hands on his face and pulled him to me and we kissed. Kissing him was perfect. Who cared that he might be kissing some other girl come September?

Come September, I’d be halfway across the country.

We came up for air, noses bumping.

“You know what’s funny?” I whispered.

“What?” he whispered back, kissing the corner of my mouth.

“Since you’ve been gone, I’ve managed to tell off both of my parents.”

“Oh,” he said, kissing me. Then he said, “Wait, why is that funny?”

I kissed him, tasting something sweet, like he’d recently eaten a lifesaver. Then I laughed. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Oh.” He laughed too, then kissed me again.

It wasn’t until we’d made a plan to meet up at Jenna’s for a dinner the two of them were cooking and he’d dropped me off at home that I realized why it was funny that I’d told off both of my parents.

It was funny because the person I’d planned to tell off was Adam.

JENNA AND ADAM HAD BARBECUED
an unbelievable meal— everyone’s plate was piled high with tuna steaks, corn on the cob, and these amazing tomatoes and onions they’d grilled. We were sitting on Jenna’s enormous back porch, which was surrounded by woods that might have been creepy if there hadn’t been so many of us together and if there weren’t the reassuring presence of Jenna’s house behind us.

Adam had his arm draped casually over the back of my chair, and every once in a while he’d move his hand and touch my shoulder or run his fingers through my hair. I figured he must have told everyone about his and Molly’s “break,” because no one stood up and pointed a finger at him, shouting,
Get thee to hell, adulterer!
like some Old Testament prophet.

“This is delicious,” I said to Jenna, gesturing with my fork at the grilled tomato I was eating.

“Thanks,” she said. “But Adam made them.”

“Oh, Adam, you’re such a Renaissance man,” said Lawrence.

“So true,” said Adam.

My mom’s always talking about single men she meets in terms of whether or not they’re a “catch.” Not for
her
(despite the accusations I’d recently hurled in her direction); just in general. Like, last fall this doctor moved out to Salt Lake City, and he and my dad started playing tennis together, and my mom invited him to my parents’ New Year’s Eve party and then spent weeks—literally weeks!—trying to decide which of the single women she knew might appeal to him.

When I pointed out that women don’t usually go in for arranged marriages, what with our living in the twenty-first-century United States, my mom just said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Kate. He’s a catch.” She meant because he was single and a doctor and, I don’t know, not a convicted sex offender.

Even though when she’d said it I’d just rolled my eyes and left her to her matchmaking, I found myself coming back to our conversation all through dinner at Jenna’s. I thought of it when Jenna said Adam had grilled the vegetables and again when it was time to clear the table and Adam stood at the sink rinsing dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. And I thought of it right before we went home, when the lights went out and he went downstairs with a flashlight and found the panel with the circuit breakers and did whatever needed to be done to get the lights to go back on.

What I thought was,
Adam’s a catch
. And then I thought,
Too bad somebody’s already caught him
.

On the way to my lesson with Natasha the next morning, I stopped by the pro shop to get a basket of balls. I wasn’t exactly feeling chipper so much as I was feeling like a tree trunk that has been fed
through
a chipper, and when I saw Natasha sitting by the bench reading
The Fountainhead
and not wearing tennis whites, it didn’t do much to improve my mood.