Strolling around the campus of Harvard, I couldn't believe it was our second year of college already...and then I realized exactly how funny it was that I was still referring to it like this, "our". I had lost touch with my friends from high school...even Karissa. She was going to Liberty University in Virginia, and the sheer distance and hard work that college involved kept us apart. Besides, we'd never been as close after I confessed my fling (that's all it was - a one-night fling). Despite all that, though, I still thought about her, and I hoped she still thought about me. Although I could easily track down everyone else, I knew they were busy. It worried me that I'd heard nothing about either Jesse or Dominic (both of whom I'd assumed would be famous by now), but, then, school had been my entire life for the past year and ecetera. I was determined to get everything, - academically speaking - out of college that I could, and I had decided that the less I socialized, the less trouble I was able to get into. My roommate made fun of me; more specifically, he said I was living under a rock and someone should commit me to McLean (only the psychiatric hospital that Sylvia Plath had been committed to after her first suicide attempt, and the one from Girl, Interrupted), which, he helpfully reminded me, really wasn't that far away. "Self-Enforced Hermitude," he called it, and wouldn't stop the discussion until I threw a textbook in his general direction.
"Oh, AJ," he sighed, "but aren't you miserable? Don't you miss...girls? Fun? Someone needs to perform an intervention. And I can't believe we're even sitting around talking about this."
"Yes," I agreed, "because we should be studying -"
"Or socializing!"
My temper had reached the combustion point.
"I don't party anymore, all right? I messed things up with my girlfriend, and she never took me back, but I'm still in love with her, and I may look like the golden boy, but inside I'm just a lovesick, pathetic, loser!"
Blake was silent. It's hard to retaliate when someone erupts, spewing uncomfortable truth in your general direction.
"All right," he said, picking up his copy of Candide (he was being tutored by his French girlfriend, but I suspected they were doing other things on the side) and walking out. I was surprised by how surprisingly good I felt...and decided to see if Karissa's old email still worked. This reconnect was too fragile for the public menace that was Facebook (and besides. I'd deleted mine. Ok, maybe I was taking this thing too seriously. Maybe I really was crazy.) A message popped up in my inbox the next morning.
Hi, AJ, Karissa had written. I've been praying for you. How's things? Maybe we should get together. You know everyone else is so busy.... It was nice hearing about her life (even the off-again, on-again boyfriend she had) I'd considered going to Liberty, but Harvard had been what would make my dad happy, and it was a phenomenal school. However, now I wished I had, and I hoped that we really would get together.
That's great to hear, I wrote back. Thanks so much. School's going great, and I'd love to see you. Actually, I've kind of blockaded myself from the outside world - in a futile attempt to stay out of trouble; I'd take it back if I could - so I really don't know how "busy" everybody else is, or even what they're up to at all. Terrible, right?
I could hear her laughing when I read her next message later on.
Oh, AJ....I admire your integrity. Well, then, I have the perfect thing for us to do together. How soon can you be in New York? This weekend?
"Blake, you'll be so proud when I tell you that I'm actually leaving campus this weekend. Karissa - she's the famous ex - and I are doing...something in New York. It's all very mysterious."
"Hmmm. Do you need condoms?"
I tried not to look horrified, and then burst out laughing. Blake's eyebrows crinkled.
"What? No, it's ok. I'm a virgin, too." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed it off, which only started me up again.
"I thought you and Gigi were hooking up in the library," I managed, and he howled.
"What, can't a guy and a girl modestly enjoy French satire?" Blake was holding his side, his eyes watering from pure hysteria, but he managed to make it across the room and clap me on the back.
"You go...and you have fun. I'm proud of you, man. Try not to have too bad of a culture shock, ok?"
"Oh, AJ, you've...." Karissa seemed lost, but then she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me.
"What, Karissa, have I actually gotten handsome?" I teased, and she rumpled my hair. (Ok, so we'd only been in each other's presence about five minutes, and already we were flirting.) She smoothed her full skirt printed with purple jasmine flowers (she was wearing real ones in her hair).
"Karissa...this isn't a date, is it?"
She looked shocked, then blushed attractively.
"I like Camden, but he's not you. We're taking an indefinite break." She sighed and fidgeted.
"Look, AJ, I was dumb in high school."
"But so was I," I argued. "You really didn't do anything than what was right." And then she placed her lips against my neck.
"Forget about high school," she whispered. "Let's just be two old friends enjoying...well, I can't give it away, now, can I?" We stepped into the taxi, and Karissa pressed against my shoulder - but that was because the cab was tight. I couldn't really believe she still felt the same way about me as she once had, after what I'd done then.... But maybe I was letting my mistake hold me back. Maybe it would just be better if I just let go, so I prayed silently and gave it up to someone bigger who could handle it, after which I instantly felt better. Our cabbie drove slowly, letting us enjoy the sights of the city, when we passed a big billboard. I saw it from the bottom up: high shoes, long, long, legs, impossibly narrow hips and waist....
"She's -"
"A Victoria's Secret model? And she lets them put up pictures of her in their underwear in the middle of the city when she's not even married to Jesse yet? I know, Lavender has no shame." I found Karissa's modesty ten times more attractive now than I ever had. She knew she was beautiful on the inside, and that satisfied her (although she had sufficient outer beauty, too.) We drove along a couple of blocks without any more excitement (though many more pictures of Lavender, all very different - she wasn't exclusively with the womens' intimates giant, Karissa explained; she'd still kept her contract with Harlequin that she'd recieved in high school.)
"Sweeney Todd!" I gasped, seeing the elaborate sign. "Does Jesse...." And then I suddenly realized - of course! Karissa laughed.
"You really did shut yourself in, AJ!" She chattered on about the show as the driver let us out, and she was pulling me through the theater door.
"....I've seen it twice since last year, and he just keeps getting better - I'm surprised we could get tickets because ever since the Tonys...and Jesse says he never get's a moment's peace at home, and he's got project after project lined up after Sweeney closes its run, though who knows when that'll be....It's the hottest revival on Broadway, and we all went together when it opened, though I couldn't get ahold of you, and that was before everything took off...." She bounced excitedly in her seat and laughed happily, flipping through her playbill.
"He hates that picture," she commented, paging back to the cast headshots, "but Lavender said, 'Jesse, Sweeney-mad teenage theater geeks are paying good money to get that picture blown up at photo shops and hanging it on their bedroom walls like you're Ryan Reynolds, and Jesse scowls and goes, 'Well, not with that picture!' It hasn't gotten to his head at all." We sat back, waiting and watching the overture. When Jesse came rising from his own grave, I got chills down my spine. It was a treat beyond words, and he was just so good, strutting around on that stage like he owned it and he'd have Judge Turpin's head on a platter by the end of it all. At the bloody bits, Karissa would shriek, and sink her fingernails into my arm. It was reminiscent of those very fun high-school horror-movie dates I used to go on with Erica, just better.
When the lights came up, our voices were hoarse from yelling as loud as we could manage, and we'd clapped so hard that our hands were tingling, almost numb.
"I knew you would love it," Karissa whispered, dabbing a stray tear from her eye. "We can stop back and see him if you want."
"How?"
"Oh, Jesse loves visitors. You'd think a full-length show every night would tire him out, but he's always back there waiting for fans for about an hour after." So I let her take me back, and the security guard let us through the door. Jesse's back was away from us; not even out of costume, he had his feet propped up on the table, reading a book. I could see the cover from where I was standing: Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and then I heard his laugh, so familiar, and then, yet, not, that it hurt.
"How old were you the first time you read it?" I called. "I'm taking a survey."
Jesse frowned, tapping his finger against the back of his other hand as he thought.
"Oh, I don't know - fourteen, fifteen? It all seems like ages ag - McCutcheon! Hey, AJ!" American Gods thumped to the floor, and Jesse raced over, just as excited to see me, as I was to see him.
"You were great," I said sincerely, and Jesse lowered his head, giving that same faux-shy, semi-crooked smile I remembered.
"How great?" he pressed, and I smiled. Still having to stroke Jesse's ego! After all this! Imagine!
" Legen - and wait for it; gee, I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the next word is DARY, great, Jesse."
He busted out laughing, then touched his heart in flattered mock-seriousness.
"You made a NPH reference? For moi? Oh, AJ...."
"So, Lavender got her fabulous career, and you're headlining only one of the greatest Broadway revivals...where's -" Seriously? His phone had to ring? I only had one more word to get out yet.
"Sorry," Jesse whispered, "I seriously have to take this - Hold on." He picked up the remote, flipped through the channels and settled back in his chair to watch the live concert on MTV. The camera panned to screaming fangirls, so I had no idea who was playing. Maybe Gaga or Britney, Jesse's longtime obsessions?
"Ok, so I'm watching it...." It was the unmistakable beat of "Thriller"...and then Dominic, busting out his best Michael Jackson moves and belting the lyrics into his mic.
"He lost a bet with Rosie," Karissa explained, but I was still trying to process everything....
"What? Have you been living in a cave for the past six months? Dominic's only more famous than I am because he's mainstream. Broadway never gets that fanbase. And ok, he's the best thing they've seen in five or ten years. But so am I. It's just a different business, y'know? No, I'm super-psyched he's famous. We go to parties and stuff together all the time, and I won't even bring up the music videos today. So Karissa knows this, AJ, but Tim Burton - couldn't you just die? - stopped by and he thanked me for bringing Sweeney back to the masses. I had to decline, of course - he was the one that did the movie, after all, and that's what plucked it from non-Broadway obscurity - but he said that this is the way it was meant to be seen and I was just carrying on a legacy and doing it brilliantly, and if I ever wasn't busy with the show someday.... SOMEDAY I'M GOING TO WORK WITH TIM BURTON!!!!! I mean, I never want this show to be done, but when the end inevitably comes.... Oh, yeah, and I'm taping an episode of Glee next week. You all have to watch it, ok? It's late, and I'm beat, but you should probably go, anyway. I mean, who wants to hear about me all the time?"
"Jesse, it's fine."...But he was right about the time.
"Oh, AJ, wasn't that great?" Karissa stood and looked at me in Grand Central Station (she had to take a taxi to the airport, but she wanted to say goodbye first.)
"You'll come down and see me sometime?"
"Yes," I promised. The plan was already being finalized in my head. It would take a little bit of time, and I had to really think it through first, but....
"I'm thinking about moving to Virginia," I told Blake a couple of months later, after countless phone calls and Skype dates from Karissa.
He looked up from his philosophy textbook.
"For the ex-girlfriend?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "Is that crazy? Am I a stalker now? Maybe she doesn't even like me that much...."
Blake sighed and tried to put his hand on my shoulder (before we both realized how awkward that was and fled to different sides of the room. I know that one brush of guy-on-guy contact won't make me gay, that it's a choice, and not the right one, but I've just never been comfortable with it with anyone but Max.)
"AJ, your rational side is just trying to make excuses so that you back out of it. Do you really want to go?" I did want to. I'd reactivated my Facebook, and Karissa sent me pictures of Liberty's campus, framed by rolling, green, Virginia hills. The rich mountain beauty appealed to a natural side that city-boy me had never accessed, but more than the physical scenery was being there with her. Sometimes love makes you do crazy things, like flying across the country to try and get her back (Annie Hall), or you hear his voice calling across the English moors (Jane Eyre), or you're dying and he's singing a song about your eyes and you see your dead friend at the light at the end of the tunnel and said dead friend tells you, "to turn around and listen to that boy's song!" (that was RENT, and I include it in this list at Jesse's insistence. He would if he was here, anyway, insist on it, or else something from Sweeney Todd, which is, surprisingly, a lot about love.) However, if you're me, it causes you to pick up your things and leave the Ivy League university you've been attending for a far stricter Baptist college that's more than a couple of states away. My parents would be furious, but they would have to understand....I did it all for love (which I think is from a musical, but you can Google that and check for me. No, it's "What I Did For Love". Sorry.)
"I'llmissyou," Blake muttered, slouching, as I packed my bags and sang along badly to my Billy Joel CD. It made me stop completely.
"You will?"
He shifted his shoulders.
"Yeah. You're a neat roommate, and I never have to worry about not being able to come in because you're banging some girl on the bottom bunk. Thanks for that, man."
"I'll write...or something," I promised, and slung my bags over my shoulders. I was doing the right thing, I was sure of it, and I stepped out jauntily, whistling. It felt like an old-time movie moment.
"Wait, AJ!" Blake looked confident and serious.
"You'll invite me to the wedding if it works out? Yeah?"
"And an extra invitation for the girl of the moment," I promised.
"AJ?" Karissa smiled widely when she saw me standing outside her dorm room.
"I can't believe you found your way! It's so big!"
"Harvard's big, too," I reminded her.
"Oh, I'm so happy you're visiting!"
I cleared my throat.
"Karissa, the thing is....I'm not just visiting. I realized as soon as I contacted you that I really missed you, and I'm still in love with you, and...."
"You transferred here for me?"
"And I always secretly wanted to go."
She burst into joyful tears, so I took her in my arms, and we kissed...finally together again. I hoped that nothing would separate us.
....A couple of years later (though not when our characters are old and gray. Not yet.)
Karissa was filling out our wedding invitations in the apartment she currently had (I was staying over for dinner), and I went by and grabbed two off of the table.
"Hey!" she swatted me playfully. "I have an order for those, hon...and what do you need those for?"
"Nothing," I smiled. "Just because." Now, what was the girl's name again...?