Chapter 4
Everybody was going to the Galway that night.
They were twenty-two and still feeling like they had to go out and drink legally every weekend just because they could—because
it’s what adults did. Adults drank in bars, not in dorm rooms and basements.
On Friday and Saturday nights, and sometimes on Thursdays, Cherry’s friends put on low-cut, high-cropped, slit-up-the-side
silky tops, and they went out to the bars.
Cherry was never the most enthusiastic participant—partly because she was too fat to pull off a crop top, but mostly because her dad was an alcoholic. Being around drunk people made Cherry anxious, not merry. And being drunk herself didn’t
improve the situation.
Cherry didn’t get drunk the way her friends did. She had to drink way more than they did to feel anything at all. Because of her weight, maybe.
Or possibly genetics. Cherry could pound shot after shot and never feel soft or silly. She’d feel persistently sober for a
couple rounds, then overheated for the next couple, and then—if she kept going—sick.
There was no upside to it. She didn’t take any pride in holding her liquor. Cherry didn’t want to be one of those women who
was always proving she could drink like a man. That seemed . . . expensive. And caloric. And sad.
However . . . it was Friday night. And everyone was going out. And Cherry liked to go out. The Galway at least had music . . .
She put on a tight dress with a low-cut neck and a full skirt, and offered to drive.
The Galway drew three types of patrons: Creighton University students, career alcoholics, and people who really liked Irish
folk music. It was downtown, shoved into a narrow gap between two office buildings. A bar this skinny didn’t have any business
offering live music. The musicians were always crammed into the back on a plywood riser, and there was nowhere to sit and
listen. There was hardly any place to stand.
Cherry dragged Stacia to the stage end of the bar so they could see the band. Stacia was drinking a Moscow Mule. Everybody
was drinking Moscow Mules that spring. Stacia didn’t care about music, but she knew that Cherry did, and regularly indulged
her.
Stacia was Cherry’s roommate and one of her closest friends. She was very pretty. On Friday nights, she was hot. Her breasts
were just small enough to skip wearing a bra, and even though she wasn’t tall—just a little taller than Cherry—she had the snakelike
torso of an American Idol contestant. She was still wearing low-rise jeans to show it off. (Low-rise jeans in 2010!)
Cherry had stopped wearing low-rise jeans the second it became possible. She wore skinny jeans and yoga pants during the week,
and on weekends, she wore one of two spendy rockabilly dresses that she’d bought online.
(The problem with rockabilly brands was that they were obsessed with cherries. Cherry hadn’t worn anything with cherries—or even fruit—since she was old enough to dress herself.)
Tonight she was wearing a yellow dress with a vintage cowboy pattern. It was Cherry’s favorite dress—even though the last
time she’d worn it out to the bars, some guy as old as her dad had offered to take her for a ride. Cherry always wore this
dress with a baby blue cardigan and bright red heels. Her friends told her she looked adorable.
You’d think that going out with her hot, skinny friends and watching them get hit on all night by law school students would be depressing for Cherry .
. . But she’d be a shut-in if she let herself get depressed by things like that.
Cherry had always been fatter than her friends.
She’d always been less attractive to guys.
Being mad or depressed about it would be like getting mad at the sun for rising.
It got her down sometimes . . .
It ate away at her, constantly, sure. Low-key.
But it didn’t get her down-down. It didn’t keep her from going out.
Cherry was drinking Coke. The band sounded like Mumford she’d remember this guy from class. He was good-looking in a way that Cherry
would have noticed. She liked his hair—short and wavy, but not clippered. Long enough to fall into his eyes. He pushed it
off his forehead. His eyes were dark and sparkling—he was probably drunk.
“I sat in the back,” he said. “When I came. It was an eight a.m. class—I wasn’t built for it.”
Cherry had taken ethics at eight a.m. . . .
“You sat in front,” he went on. “You’re fond of sweaters.”
“You are fond of sweaters,” Stacia said. She was standing behind Cherry, grinning.
The guy cut his eyes to Stacia, then back to Cherry. He held out his hand. “I’m Russ.”
Cherry took his hand. “Cherry. And this is Stacia.”
“Cherry,” he said. “Is that your swing-dancing name?”
“My what?”
“You know, like . . . rockabilly girl. With the dress. Susie. Dixie. Flo. Cherry. Is your real name Jessica or something?”
“Her real name is Cherish,” Stacia said, laughing.
Russ made a face like he hadn’t expected that. “Oh god, that’s actually sweet.”
“I’m not a rockabilly girl,” Cherry said. “I’m just a person wearing a dress.”
“I said I liked it.”
“I know you.” Stacia pointed at him.
Russ nodded. “We had econ together.”
“That’s right—your name is Russ.” Stacia was already a little drunk.
“So, do you swing-dance?” he asked Cherry.
She rolled her eyes back up to him. “You’re wearing round glasses. Does that make you a boy wizard?” (She actually liked his
glasses a lot.)
“Maybe. Why’d your parents name you Cherish?”
Cherry sighed. “Why’d your parents name you Russ?”
“It’s my dad’s name. And my grandpa’s.”
Cherry couldn’t figure out why this guy was talking to her. Guys didn’t talk to her in bars. Unless they were really drunk. Or really old. Or if it was getting close to last call and they were lashing out in every direction.
That wasn’t to say that guys never talked to Cherry . . .
She wasn’t untouched. Or even unloved. She wasn’t a virgin. Cherry had had two boyfriends in high school and one at the beginning
of college, and she’d slept with someone else since then. And at least two of those guys had been in love with her. Maybe
two and a half.
But none of them had hit on her out of the blue.
Cherry had to grow on boys. She had to wear them down, by being around and being charming.
By being surprisingly cute for a fat girl.
By smelling good. By brushing her hair against their shoulders when they talked.
By having breasts that sat so close to her chin that you couldn’t really miss them when you looked in her eyes.
Every guy who had ever dated Cherry had been her friend first—and probably thought at first that she was too fat to date.
But then she’d grown on them . . . and all the things that they liked about her had crowded out her fatness.
The point was, they hadn’t started talking to her in a bar. Or in the student center. Or at a party. They’d never actually
hit on her.
So this guy, this skinny, good-looking guy with the deep blue eyes, couldn’t be hitting on her. He wasn’t that drunk, it wasn’t that dark. Cherry wasn’t sitting behind a desk or standing behind a wall.
He could see all of her.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked. He glanced over at Stacia. “Both of you?”
“That’s okay,” Cherry said at the same time that Stacia said, “Moscow Mule.”
“Moscow Mule,” the guy repeated. Russ. He was looking at Cherry.
“She’s drinking Coke,” Stacia said.
“Coke and . . . ?”
“Just Coke,” Cherry said.
“She’s the designated driver,” Stacia said, like it was funny.
“That’s handy,” Russ said. “I could use a designated driver.” He pointed at Cherry. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
Stacia didn’t even wait for him to get out of hearing distance. “He’s cute.”
“Is he?” Cherry made herself sound skeptical.
“What?” Stacia shoved her. “Yes. You know I like skinny guys with dark hair. He looks like a poet. Or like he’s in a band.”
“You just mean he looks pale and underfed. He looks like the third-best-looking guy in U2.”
Stacia made a face. “You think he looks like the bald guy?”
“Are you talking about the Edge? No. I meant—he looks like a fictional member of U2, who would still only be the third-best-looking.”
“You just mean he looks Catholic,” Stacia said, tipping her copper mug up to empty it. “He’s cute enough for me.”
“You can have him.”
“I don’t know . . .” Stacia teased. “I think he likes youuuu.”
Cherry made a face. “You know how this goes. I’m just the approachable person who stands next to your intimidating exposed
torso.”
“Shut up, Cherry,” Stacia said. But she still laughed, which Cherry took as affirmation that she did know.
“Ladies.” Russ was back with three drinks—two copper mugs and a glass of Coke.
Stacia took a mug, and Russ swung around to Cherry, standing close. “Trade me,” he said.
Cherry took both drinks, and he took her empty glass, and Stacia’s, and pushed into the crowd again. A second later, he was
back, standing right in front of Cherry, taking his drink from her.
“Designated driver . . .” he said. Cherry was five-foot-four—almost five-foot-eight in heels—and he was a little bit taller
than her, but not too much. (Russ didn’t look like the Edge; he looked like Bono.) “Do you take turns?”
“Nope,” Stacia said. “Cherry’s permanently designated.”
“That doesn’t sound fair. That’s like when my older brother called shotgun for life.”
“Did it work?” Cherry asked.
He looked in her eyes. “Yeah. He was bigger than me.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Stacia said.