Great Girls(Victoria Pedretti)

C. 24🕰

I was headed back to my dorm to pick up my overnight bag to stay at my mother's house when I stumbled on Claudia and Paul on top of one another in their undergarments. The only thing emitting light was a small lamp on Claudia's nightstand.

"Oh, God! I'm so sorry!" I awkwardly scream, covering my eyes with my Dell and holding the door slightly open so I didn't have to invite myself verbally into an engagement that had nothing to do with me.

"No, it's fine! We were just—" "Ah! I am not listening! I am only going to..." I paused to lift my laptop in front of my view and grab my red duffle bag on the floor by my bed. "get my bag. Okay, I got it!"

"Wait, Salinger, let me explain!" was the last thing I heard when I shut the door and left Lilah Wing in a hurry.

I understand how I may have come off as an immature minor, who just walked on their parents having sex, but I just wasn't comfortable talking to my roommate while she was getting railed by a guy, who she supposedly broke up for cheating. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

I get that I came at an inopportune time, but she could've at least given me a forewarning.

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On my way to the professor's house, I stopped at a convenience store to get a bottle of cheap white wine and seaweed chips. While I was paying for my things at the register, I spoke to Luci on the phone. I apologized to her for canceling plans at the last minute, plans that she had made last week for us to do together.

It was nothing special. We were scheduled to paint and make sushi, but obviously, the shift in my day and mood had changed due to my notion that I had done poorly on one test in a class that I was getting straight A's until now.

"Hey, I'm sorry I couldn't make it tonight. Right now, I just need a steamy shower to help me forget about all of the mistakes I made on my math test this afternoon. I'm very much craving a homecooked meal made by the professor. That is if she is up to it. Otherwise, this girl's cooking for herself."

Luci laughed in the background as I scanned my first item at self-checkout. "No, it's totally fine. Um, I can bring you some nigiri tomorrow afternoon. Are you staying at your mom's till the end of the weekend?"

"Yeah, but if it's all right with you, I can just come by and pick it up, or we can eat it together at my house. My mom isn't going to be here tomorrow. She'll be volunteering at The Pantry, handing out perishable goods for Thanksgiving."

The Pantry was a spiritual church made up of six different religions on separate floors of an office building on Henry Road. Everyone was required to be respectful of each other's belief systems.

Every few weeks, the members and the leaders of each religion would gather and hold a meeting that solely pertained to the homeless, LGBTQ+, and minors who were independent, living on their own. The purpose of the church was to unite and not discriminate against any groups, and the purpose of the assemblage was for the church to give back to the community and not exploit them.

"Perishable?"

"Yeah, like kosher turkey or vegan ham."

"Oh. Um..." Luci struggled to find words when I picked up the conversation myself.

"You don't have to decide now. We can—"

"No. No, I'll stop by your house. Let's say, 2:30?"

"Yeah, 2:30 sounds perfect," I said.

I sensed that someone was standing over me hence the heavy tapping on the vinyl composition tile floor. O knew that I should wrap up the conversation and move along. "Listen, I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

Luci said goodbye, and with that, she hung up, leaving me an anxious twenty-one-year-old to bag her items and pay for them in an abrupt stride.

I shoved my phone into my beige wool blend-coat pocket and expressed my regret for holding up the person in the back of me while my back was to them. When I completed the scanning process, I placed the products in a paper bag with handles that I got off a rack.

I took my card out of my pocket because my wallet couldn't fit inside my coat pocket, and God knows that I despise carrying my bulky wallet in my hands.

I stuck my card in the machine and tapped the on-screen buttons. When my card was approved, I took it out of the device and put it back in my coat.

I grabbed my receipt from below the compact stand where you could enter your cash. I sighed in relaxation as my pulse slowed down because I was no longer drawing attention to myself.

Picking up my bag from the stand, I revolved my body around to apologize respectfully to the person waiting for me to be finished at checkout.

"I hope I wasn't too slow. Here you can..." My mouth had ceased to move when I recognized that the person behind me, waiting to scan their belongings, was the laundry boy with the chestnut hair.

"Hey, " I broke out in a friendly greeting as I waved.

"Hey, back to you."

"What are you following me now?" I joked. 

"If I were following you, what would you do?"

I raised an eyebrow in misgiving and replied, "I'd probably call the police. Then again, the police have a history of not believing women, abusing their authority, and targeting people of color. So, I guess I'd be a little leery of them."

The laundry boy stood there, mum, with an uncomfortable look on his countenance. I didn't mean to make him swallow a "hard pill, " but as the professor states, "once in a while, straight men need to walk on eggshells around women."

"Listen, I understand that that was a lot to take in, but to be genuine and frank with you, that's just the way the world works, " I said, departing him with that as I confidently strutted to the exit of the door.

"Wait, a second, " he exclaimed, compelling me to halt in my tracks and turn my head to face him. "If we're going to keep running into each other like this, we should at least know each other's name. I'm Robbie."

"Salinger."