***
“Joel?” I asked hesitantly, knocking on the familiar dorm room door. “Uhh, it’s Shawna. I was hoping we could talk.”
There was a scuffling sound from behind the door, but I received no response. I sighed.
Was he honestly going to ignore me for something I had no control over? It wasn’t my fault that I forgot my own name on a regular basis as soon as Adam was in close proximity. He had some strange, dubious power over me, and for the life of me I don’t know why I’d told him I had a boyfriend just a couple hours ago.
“Look, there’s nothing going on between me and Adam,” I told the door, feeling a pang at the truth in my words. I also knew perfectly well that Joel could hear me and I felt like an idiot because he wasn’t opening. When there was still no response to my confession, I grimaced and continued, hoping to make him feel better about the whole situation so we could have a face-to-face.
“What you saw there in the café didn’t mean anything," I went on, "That was the first time I talked to him in, like, a week. I swear you have no reason to be angry. And I’m also here for Esther,” I mentioned, hoping maybe a speck of decency might make him relent.
Nothing. “Joel, dammit, stop ignoring me!” I said angrily after a long awkward silence.
There was definite movement going on in that room, and I was getting a bit tired of speaking to a doorknob. I struggled to remain patient with his melodrama, trying to be understanding. I would probably be pissed too, if I'd seen Adam having a conversation with another girl right after I'd been led to believe that I was meeting just him.
“Joel?” I asked, softening my voice, leaning my forehead against the crack in the frame and ignoring the odd look I received from a guy walking by, “It would mean a lot to me if you opened the door so we could talk.”
There was a loud sigh from the other side, and then it was flung open. I nearly lost my balance but I clutched the doorway, staring in bewilderment at a short, stocky Jamaican lady holding a laundry hamper and wearing a maid’s uniform, accompanied by a flat expression on her wide face.
“Can I help you?” she said shortly, looking me up and down and pursing her full lips.
“You’re not Joel,” I said unnecessarily. My arteries prepared themselves to baptize my face in red again, as I realized that I’d been talking to a door and Joel’s hired maid this entire time.
“Listen, lady,” said the woman in her rich accent, shifting the basket onto her hip, “You wanna find Joel, you wait fo’ him to find you here,” she said the word ‘here’ like he-ah. “I canna help you.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, feeling my face blaze as she waddled past me without another glance. “Sorry for the, uh, drama on the other side of the door.”
“Next time you wanna figure tings out wi’ a man, you make sure it is a man you talkin’ to,” she told me from the threshhold, raising her eyebrows knowingly. And then she left, snapping the door shut.
I stared at the closed door in confusion, then turned to Joel’s immaculate room. No wonder it was so clean – he had hired help, coming in to keep things neat and tidy for him. I rolled my eyes.
Rich people. The things they spent money on never ceased to amaze me.
It occurred to me then, that I was inside Joel’s room without any witnesses. Curiously, and also guiltily, I approached what I knew was Joel’s desk. It was littered with papers and I noticed a brown leather-bound journal lying beneath an old economics paper of his. He’d gotten an eighty, I noticed. That was a fantastic grade, for university.
I battled internally with myself – respect for Joel’s privacy should have won out, but unfortunately for him, I was too interested in his reserved, quiet nature.
My hand reached for the journal and I paused, listening for any sounds on the other side of the door. The hall outside seemed quiet enough, and I cracked open the journal’s pages feeling like a terrible sinner. I would repent later, I promised myself.
I stared in surprise at the scrawled lines inside it. I guessed this was the poetry that Joel had told Esther about, though it was certainly strange to find that he’d been telling the truth. Trying to decipher the fluid writing, I was impressed by what I managed to read.
“Wow,” I murmured, flipping through the written pages, “this is good.”
Joel had almost completely filled the thick journal, but there was space at the end for at least a couple more poems. I noticed that he’d begun one, but there was so much crossing out, that I guess he hadn’t finished it yet, not satisfied. Only four lines had survived his inky wrath.
What are the clocks always waiting for?
What does every wall hope to hold?
Why does my heart always wish for more?
What can shine brighter than gold?
I wasn’t quite sure what Joel meant, or where he was going with it, but it sort of gave me chills.
And then, I got another set of chills which had absolutely nothing to do with Joel’s poetry-writing abilities.
I heard Joel’s voice, quite distinctly, from the other side of the door. My heartbeat stuttered, fumbled, then completely stopped.
“I’m not sure, man,” he was calling to someone down the hall. A muffled reply wafted back.
My panic snapped me into action, the adrenaline coursing through me making everything feel a hundred times faster than normal. I looked down at Joel’s desk, and shoved the journal I’d been holding back underneath a pile of papers. And then I shoved myself underneath Joel’s bed.
I dove right in just as Joel opened the door and came into his room, still talking to someone over his shoulder. Then he gave a sigh and closed the door, walking up to his desk and dumping his bag onto his chair.
I squeezed myself further into the corner, pressing myself against the wall as I lay beneath his mattress, sarcastically congratulating myself on my ability to make a difficult situation even more questionable.
I couldn't have stood my ground like a normal person, oh no. Great going, I told myself scathingly. Way to panic. How the hell was I supposed to get out of this one?
I saw Joel’s feet as he stood a few inches away from his bed; I caught the edge of his jacket as he hung it on the back of his chair, and began praying that he wouldn’t decide to lie down on his bed. There was already next to no oxygen down here, and as immaculate as the rest of his room was, his maid had still missed several sizeable dust bunnies in my obscure corner and they were causing me to build up a colossal sneeze of monumental proportions.
And, on top of all that – no pun intended – my moment of panic had made me aware of my bladder’s increasingly desperate demands. I really, really needed to pee.
But the next moment, just my luck, Joel kicked off his shoes and plopped down on his bed, making the mattress cave into my face where his body created a dent. I was forced to turn my face sideways, one cheek glued to the floor, the other chafing against the mattress.
I bit back a growl just as the door opened and Joel’s dorm mate walked in, cheerfully landing as an additional thump onto Joel’s bed.
I had to struggle now to wheeze in a breath, mentally cursing the timing of everything.
“Dude, get off,” Joel complained, and I watched in helpless horror as his dorm mate fell off the bed, almost making eye contact with me from the floor. Thankfully, he didn’t notice me crammed down there, but all the same. I was not pleased with any of the latest developments.
But their conversation did make me perk up and listen attentively, even forgetting for a moment how much I had to sneeze and pee.
“Did you hear about the frat party tonight?” Joel’s buddy asked, before snorting. “Oh, right, of course you did. I keep forgetting that you’re still technically a part of them.”
“Not anymore I’m not,” Joel mumbled from where he lay on top of me. God, that had sounded wrong, even in my head.
But this was fascinating. Joel had been a part of the Epsilon fraternity? Why had he left?
“You’re crazy, man,” his buddy announced, agreeing with my thoughts. “The sorority chicks are hot.”
I could just picture Joel’s bored gaze when he didn’t respond but merely shifted in his bed above me.
“So are you going?” his friend persisted.
“Yep,” Joel finally grunted reluctantly.
“Sweet. Got a date?”
“Yep.”
“Who is it?”
I’d never heard Joel be this uncommunicative before. I worried to myself, thinking that maybe he was regretting taking Esther to the party. But I would kick him where the sun didn’t shine if he bailed on her tonight. I wondered if Esther had made it back to our dorm, or if she’d gotten lost on the way back again. She would be panicking about what to wear, no doubt, when I made it back.
If I made it back. Seemed like both of them were comfortable, and not intent on going anywhere anytime soon. I dedicated my concentration to stifling my sneeze.
“My date is Esther Hill,” Joel sighed in resignation.
His dorm mate’s reaction was the opposite; I feared he would burst something vital if he was any more enthusiastic. “DUDE! Esther Hill? As in, the Esther Hill? The goddess of love?”
I almost gave myself away there and then, but I managed not to snicker. Goddess of love – that was a new one. Esther would definitely enjoy that, as long as she didn’t decide to make me address her that way.
“She is so-o-o-o frickin’ hot. Dude!” There was a loud smacking sound, and judging by Joel’s grunt of pain, I guessed his friend had hit him out of excitement.
“You always get the hottest ones,” he grumbled enviously, but with plenty of admiration. “I was going to go to another party tonight, but wanna take me along tonight? Maybe she’ll agree to dance with me.”
The awe in his voice made me grin. Joel’s response cheered me up even more.
“No,” Joel replied bluntly. Maybe he wanted her all to himself. “She’s my date.”
“Fine,” he grumbled again, before brightening. “But if she dumps you, put in a good word for me, okay, friend?”
The smack, this time, was for the friend’s benefit. Vainly, I tried remembering Joel’s dorm mate’s name. Samuel? Daniel?
“Damn you,” he told Joel agreeably, not at all bothered by the punch. “I swear, you rich kids get the best of everything.”
Joel merely sighed above me.
I decided it was time to get out. Awkward situation or not, I was slowly beginning to lose feeling in my legs, and the oxygen down here was terrible. Grimacing at what I was about to do, I grasped the edge of Joel’s mattress, and yanked my head from underneath his bed.
My upper body popped out first, and Joel’s dorm mate saw me. I watched his eyes widen, and the alarm touch his expression.
“DUDE!” he shouted, jumping onto his desk and pointing at me. “Watch out! The- the- thing! There’s a thing on the floor! DON’T MOVE!”
Ignoring him, I wriggled the lower half of my torso out, then focused on getting my legs out. Joel’s surprised face appeared over the top of his bed, and our eyes met.
“Shawna?” he asked in complete astonishment.
My epic sneeze finally made itself known. “Oh hey, Joel,” I said sheepishly, inhaling deeply. “Wassup?”
I finally got my legs out, and I struggled to my feet, wincing at the pricks of blood racing back to my deadened feet.
Both boys were at a loss for words as they stared at me, Joel’s friend still frozen in his crouched position atop of his desk. Joel recovered first.
“Uh, Shawna,” he said, “what the hell were you doing under my bed?”
“Oh, that,” I chuckled awkwardly, “Long story.”
Both guys gave me a look that clearly told me that wasn’t enough. I sighed.
“Okay, so I ran into your maid as she was leaving your room, and I’d been talking to her from the other side of the door, thinking it was you,” I informed Joel. “She was sort of intimidating, and I may have offended her because I’d thought she was a man the entire time. Then she left me alone in here, and when I heard you coming in, I panicked and crawled under the bed.”
My explanation was met with judgemental expressions on both faces.
“Wow, she’s mental,” chuckled Joel’s friend, deciding it was safe to clamber down from his perch on his desk. I gave him a sour look.
Joel exhaled, running a hand through his wavy hair. And then he tensed, looking at me. “Shawna...” he said warily as something occurred to him, “What did you hear while you were under there?”
I had to think about that, because the need to pee was beyond distracting. “Um, something about you belonging to the fraternity, and how he thinks Esther is the goddess of love,” I aimed a peeved look at his buddy, remembering only now that he’d referred to me as ‘the thing’ when I’d emerged from underneath the bed.
He grinned at me. “You’re her best friend, aren’t you? Hey, want to introduce me?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
I disregarded that, turning to Joel who was still sprawled on his bed, half-sitting. “Sorry about crawling under your bed,” I told him contritely.
“Yeah, okay,” he replied cautiously, still not trusting in my sanity.
“I was hoping you’d be able to do a favour for me, though,” I looked at him pleadingly.
Joel gave me a bizarre look. “What is it?”
“Do you think you could get me an invitation to that frat party after all?”
“I thought you didn’t want to go. I’m taking Esther, remember?”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “And I’m still going to make sure she’s ready on time. But I kind of need to go, too. To straighten something out,” I explained guiltily.
Adam was bound to be there. And after the misunderstanding today, I owed it to him to set things straight. And, if I was being entirely honest with myself, I also missed him. Seeing him, arguing with him, getting that light, heady feeling I always got around him whenever he looked right at me, or if he was just plain being an ass.
I, Shawna Roberts, actually missed Adam Ferrell. A lot. It was sort of humiliating to admit, even if just to myself.
Joel gave a martyred sigh, nodding at his buddy. “Looks like you’re going to that party after all,” he mumbled.
His friend looked at me in pure terror. “With her?”
He said this like I had some horrifying sickness he was in danger of getting. I scowled. “Excuse me,” I snapped, “I don’t usually pop out from under people’s beds, I’ll have you know. I’m normal, I swear.”
“Shawna, meet Emmanuel,” Joel introduced us, with an aggrieved look at the ceiling. “And Emmanuel, meet Shawna. Your date to the frat party.”
Emmanuel considered me for a moment, before offering me an evil grin. I smiled angelically back.
Joel got off his bed. “Okay, great. Now if you don’t mind, Shawna,” he gave a pointed look at the door, and I got the hint.
“Oh, right,” I said brightly, beaming at Joel. “Thanks, you’re the best! Esther and I will be waiting at eight?”
“Fine,” Joel grinned, shaking his head. “See you then.”
Emmanuel sent me a wink as I closed the door behind me, wondering what, exactly, I was about to do.