Page 11 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
She grinned. “Cool. Meet you at the parking lot at noon.”
I nodded again.
“You should go,” she said. “Don’t be late for your class.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I stepped out of the line. I didn’t even know her name. “What’s your name?”
“Doh! Can’t believe I forgot to tell you. It’s Ellery. What’s yours?”
“Magnolia.”
“Magnolia,” she said, and coming from her lips, it sounded sacred. “That’s a pretty name. I’ll see you later, Magnolia.” And with that, she turned away and spoke to the student behind me. “Can I see your course schedule? I’ll get your books ready while you wait.”
I felt both special and unspecial. She was working. She only saw me as a customer. But a customer she was taking to another bookstore, so not just any old customer. Unless she had a habit of taking every customer to other bookstores. Maybe this was just what Americans do. Maybe, when I got to the parking lot during my lunch break, I’d find a group of students waiting for Ellery.
In a bit of a daze, I went to my first class of theday—Calculus. When you go to college, dear, I highly recommend not starting off your day with calculus. That’s all I have to say about that.
Then it was Chemistry, and that was significantly more fun than calculus. I liked chemistry. I liked studying the periodic table, marveling at how much creativity and patience it took for scientists to build something like that. How many mistakes they must’ve made along the way, small ones and tragic ones. If you ever want to see how wonderfully complex the human mind is, all you have to do is take a look at the periodic table.
Here’s another complex thing about the human mind—most of the time, it doesn’t know what it wants. Other animals have it all figured out. Food, shelter, sex. But humans make everything so complicated. We don’t just want food, we want different kinds of food. Hell, most of the time, we don’t even know what we want to eat. And sex is even more complicated. I didn’t know this at sixteen, of course. I was a virgin—are you a virgin? You know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. And there’s no shame either way. I had this plan—I had it all figured out. I was going to save my virginity for my rich husband. Fucking stupid plan, I’ll tell you that much.
The other thing I didn’t know about sex was who I was actually attracted to. Because up until I met Ellery that very morning, I’d chugged along through life thinking I was straight. It was the kind of thing I never questioned, like breathing. Why do you breathe air? Who the hell cares? Everyone breathes the same air. Why was I straight? I was straight because I assumed I was, because I never knew anything different.
The girls back at my high school and I—we often had girl crushes. You know what they are.Doyou know what they are?Platonic little crushes that have more to do with “Oh, she’s so pretty, I wish I looked like her” than “Oh, she’s so pretty, I wish I could date her.” I don’t think I was ever conscious of the nature of my girl crushes. I simply assumed they were of the sort that everyone else had. Maybe I stared a little too hard, maybe my girl crushes lasted a tad longer than most, but none of it amounted to a discernible difference.
So when I met Ellery, when she took my breath right out of my chest, I didn’t think:Oh, I might like her in that way.I didn’t think:Maybe I’m not straight after all.I thought:Oh, this is just another girl crush because she’s so cool, who wouldn’t have a girl crush on her?
I see your eyes glazing over. I’m sorry, am I boring you? Should I stop? It’s no big deal, I’m just telling you the story of how I met the love of my life, that’s all.
Hmph, if you say so.
I reached the parking structure two minutes past noon. I kept checking the time on my watch. I was convinced that because I was two minutes late, Ellery would be gone by the time I arrived. That was what Iris would’ve done, anyway. Do you know what it takes to sprint from one side of campus to the other in two minutes? By the time I got there, I was panting hard and sweating bullets. Not a good look.
She was there, leaning against the wall, her hands in her pockets. Not pretending to read a book or a magazine like most people would be. She was just chilling. I’d never seen anyone so at ease in her own skin, so comfortable with her place in the world. When she spotted me, she smiled and waved.
“Hey, Magnolia. Wow, did you run here?”
I was so out of breath I could only nod.
She laughed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I was afraid you’d leave without me,” I blurted out. Then I gave myself a mental kick. How much more pathetic could I sound?
“Aww, what?” She sounded genuinely surprised. “I wouldn’t have done that.”
Something in the way she said it made it clear she really meant it, and without thinking, I said, “Really?”
Ellery laughed. “Really?” she said, mimicking me. “Said like a kid who was just told she’s going to Disneyland.”
My cheeks burned, but then she chuckled and said, “C’mon. My car’s parked right there.”
I hurried after her. She stopped next to a tiny gray Honda and unlocked the passenger door manually before going round to the driver’s side. I slid in, and once we were both inside and the doors closed, the silence was so sudden that I didn’t dare breathe in case it sounded thunderous. Then she turned the engine on and I released my breath. I thought I should probably say something. But what? I gnawed on my lip as Ellery navigated our way out of the parking structure.
“Did you just move to Pasadena?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Where from?”
