I shut the bathroom door behind me as quietly as I could, lifting the toilet seat absentmindedly. I pissed long and hard in Sofie's bathroom. I was in Sofie's bathroom.
Sofie!
After, I ran the water and pretended to wash my hands as I opened the vanity mirror. It was an old habit of mine, collecting information about people that others would miss. I knew nothing about her besides that she had amazingly smooth skin, looked incredible clothed and naked, and kept about a year's supply of Tums and Alka-seltzer in her vanity.
What in the world is Vagisil powder
? I wondered as I snooped around the cabinet. I figured it had been about twenty seconds, which is what I deemed to be reasonable time to run the water as if I was washing up, so I shut off the tap and walked back to her bed.
"Mmm, what time is it?" She didn't open her eyes.
"Sorry, did I wake you? It's about eight-thirty."
She rolled away from me and went back to sleep, leaving me with nothing to do but count the little moles on her back. She had a patch of dark-colored hair right beneath her shoulder blade and twenty-three dark moles that if I squinted my eyes just barely, looked like astronomical star shapes of Gemini or Taurus. I think she mentioned earlier that she was a Gemini.
Perfect
,
perfect, perfect.
The first time I saw her it was our freshman year in college at orientation. She had made me stare at her that day and every day since because of the way her hair hung down around her face, like a halo framing an angel. A fiery, red, burning, needing, wanting halo, around an angel.
A Halo around an angel? Great, now I'm starting to sound like a Hallmark card.
It only took her 3 years, two months and twenty days to notice me back, but she did notice me, and that's what mattered. She noticed me, and now I was in her bed, with her, counting the moles on her back.
Perfect.
I replayed the scenes of last night over and over again in my head, making sure to memorize every detail, every embarrassing little giggle, every sigh and every touch until it was engraved in my memory. A story I would keep inside me and maybe someday share with my grandchildren on my death bed. It would be poetry. It would be the stuff of legends.
She had noticed me for the first time, last night, at Moe's, the only campus bar that was worth going to. I usually stopped by there every Tuesday with some of my buddies for a few drinks to lubricate the rest of the week. And there she had been, sitting at the bar with her legs that seemed to go on for miles, smoking a cigarette and twirling her hair around her finger. She was surrounded by several other guys anxiously hanging onto her every word, mesmerized by her as I had been for the past three years, two months, and twenty days.
"Mike!" She called me.
Me?
"Mike! Come here! I never see you out!" She uncrossed her mile-long legs and got up to give me a friendly hug.
Me?
"Hey Madison! It's good to see you. How are you?" I stumbled slightly, I think, into her hug. I had already had a few drinks, but I didn't want her to think less of me now that she had noticed. The men around her stopped talking and just waited for her to resume her spot, eyeing me, trying to determine if I would be a threat to their goals.
"I'm grreeatt!" She half-sung. I could tell she had had a few also. "I can't believe you're here! You know, Dr. Fields pissed me off so much today. Could you believe he told me I was talking too much in class?" She frowned prettily. I could see the dark makeup shadowing her blue eyes and I think at that moment I became a man.
"I mean, I don't think I was talking too much! I had important things to say!"
She knew we had class together?
"Do you think that I was talking too much today?" She turned the full gaze of her shiny eyes on me and I stammered.
"Oh! Where are my manners? Here, this is John, Steve, and Phil. Guys, this is Mike, we have Philosophy together."
I shook their hands, and Phil grabbed mine a little too long and too hard. I could tell he liked her.
"Mike, would you like a drink?" Sofie touched my sleeve, sitting back down and taking a sip of hers.
"I'd love one, thank you."
I had come here with Peter, who was now standing in the corner by himself looking expectantly at me and half-cocking a smile. The next time I looked at him several minutes later he had left the bar and left me to my own resources.
This is the part where my memory begins to get a little fuzzy and I have to work hard to push past all the blackness. It all comes back to me in little snippets and flashes of time. I wish I could remember more than I am now, but just laying here, wrapped in her feather comforter, with her next to me, I am content to never remember anything more than this moment. I know that maybe in a few minutes, or if I am luck in a few hours, she will wake up and then she will remember everything – embarrassed me, the fuzzy night, the awkwardness that followed after. I wonder if she will think of me badly, if she will remember a different memory and see me with disgust. But I was here now. I tried to smell her hair without waking her. Lavender.
Perfect.
"You know, I think I have to tell you a secret".
"Oh, a secret? And so soon? But we've just met!" she joked, taking a swig of her drink. "Hey bartender, shots! Please!" she yelled across the bar. "What's the secret??" Her eyes were wide with excitement.
"No, Sofie, you're crazy. I am sooo drunk right now, and you want more shots??" The other guys had left us much earlier, realizing they couldn't compete with her attention to me. It made me feel good, knowing at least for one night she wanted to talk to me, even if it had taken her three years, two months, and twenty days. I was an adrenaline bomb. I was brave. And maybe a little stupid. "I have a secret. And you cant laugh, ok?" She was already giggling. "I kind of have a little crush on you".
"You do???" she was pretending to be serious. "How big of a crush??" Her eyes were big again.
"Just a small one," I squeezed my thumb and index fingers together, "not even this much."
She burst out laughing. "Only that much? That's wonderful! I think we should toast to that!"
Snippets and dark spots. Her laughing. Her playing with her hair. Each of us buying a round, arguing about whose father makes more and who therefore is responsible for buying the next round. I didn't tell her that these drinks probably cost more than what my father made in a week. Sofie was amazingly good at playing pool and holding a cigarette in her mouth while shooting. She was impressive. More snippets. Her holding my sleeve and laughing again. Sofie being serious while telling me about her childhood, her mother's tragic death, how she was somewhat glad she had died before she was old enough to hate her.
Last call. The lights came on and we had to leave. I didn't say anything.
Hoping, hoping, hoping.
We started walking in the direction of her apartment, talking still. It amazed me how much she could talk and smoke at the same time. She had said something earlier about an oral fixation, but I had taken it as her making a dirty joke. We were at the entrance to her building and we were still talking. She wasn't stopping. She held the door open for me, naturally, and we stumbled up her stairs. She tripped forward and hit her knee, ripping her stocking and cutting her skin. She only leaned over and laughed even louder, holding her knee, her hair falling around her head so for a minute I didn't think she was hurt.
"Sofie! You ok?" I blamed myself for not catching her. Now she would never want to be with me.
"Yea yea, I'm fine, come on before someone calls the cops. I'm starving. Can you cook?"
She slammed open the door to her dark apartment. "Whoops!" she giggled.
She insisted on crepes. Crepes from scratch. We stumbled around her kitchen breaking egg shells and accidently pouring flour all over the floor. I remember the flour because she mostly spilled it on me, and only after I shook it off did it end up on the floor. We never even cooked the crepes; she just took a drink and went to her bedroom, sitting in the dark on the floor.
"Ohh wow! Is there an earth quake? Because the floor is trying to fall!" She held her head between her hands, leaning her back against her bed.
I flipped on the light and shut the door behind me, hoping not to wake her roommate. If she wasn't awake by now, it'd be a miracle.
"Shhh," I grabbed her hands in mine and looked at her as she tried to focus on my face. I couldn't focus on her either, the only thing that kept me from drowning was the puddles on her face. "Are you ok? Do you need something?"
"Yea, just tell the floor to stay still!" She moaned. "Can you stay with me to make sure I don't fall again?"
We sat on the floor like that for what seemed like hours more. I told her about growing up in my small neighborhood and about my eccentric grandmother from Greece. Sofie said she had an eccentric uncle who made Ouzo in his cellar.
