9 Ginger
9
Ginger
All my clothes were on the bed. Dozens of garments I had tried and rejected, because none of them looked right on me. Or at least not insanely sexy , to use Rhys’s term. And for once, I wanted to think that when I looked in the mirror. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I just wanted to see myself looking like that.
I scowled as I looked at my dresses and opened my closet again. I put on some tight black pants with zippers on the side and a see-through top that showed off the dark lace bra I bought a week before on an impulse as I passed by a lingerie shop. I liked it because I’d never treated myself to anything like that when I was with Dean. It was nice to do something for myself. I threw on a pair of boots too. Then I took a deep breath.
I didn’t look elegant, but I did look insanely sexy .
I smiled, trying to decide whether to pull my hair back or leave it down. I went for the second. Kate knocked at my door. I grabbed my bag and opened up.
She looked me up and down, smiling. “Man, you look amazing. Gorgeous!”
“Thanks. You too. Shall we?”
“Yeah. I parked right outside.”
I followed her, and she brought me up to date about all the people who were going to the late-night party. It was outside of town, at a house with a big yard that belonged to a former student. Kate kept her eyes on the road.
“How are things with that friend of yours?”
Lately we sat beside each other in all our classes, so she knew all about Rhys and his emails. She was a nice girl, the kind who always saw the glass as half-full, and she didn’t assume she knew who I was based on past experience. We both had made an effort to start from zero, as if we hadn’t already passed each other in the hallways at school dozens of times that year.
“Rhys? He’s good. He’s in New York right now.”
“That’s not what I mean, Ginger. I’m asking, are you really not planning on telling him you have feelings for him? You talk every day. That has to leave a mark.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then?” she asked.
“Okay, I do feel something for him, but I can’t explain it. Our relationship is perfect like this, platonic, with our emails and each of us on a different side of the world. I don’t know. It’s nice. It’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not about to screw it up, especially because there wouldn’t be any point.”
“Who knows? Maybe he would stop flitting around and move to London. He’ll have to do it one day, right? Hit the brakes, I mean?”
“You don’t know Rhys.” I smiled and sighed.
I was starting to understand him, from one email to the next. But I still had the feeling, after three months of daily contact, that I’d only seen the tip of the iceberg. I didn’t care though. I liked him. With problems or without, with love or without it. I couldn’t explain to anyone else what we had, how hungry I was to reconnect with him through email when nighttime came, our closeness, how easy it was to talk about everything, the important stuff and nonsense too. Even intimate things I wasn’t used to sharing. That meant Kate thought I was in love with him, and my sister did too. But they were wrong.
I was only in love with the young man I’d met in Paris. With a fleeting memory. Because that young man didn’t exist. He was just a tiny piece of Rhys. I repeated that to myself every day under the covers, remembering the feel of his fingertips on my wrist, looking for my pulse, his caresses. Those hours together had been special, and I had the feeling they’d never return, and that I’d better keep them tucked away in my memory, where I could cherish them, let them out from time to time, polish them, savor them. And I asked myself if he would ever do the same.
“It’s that house over there, with the lights in the garden.”
“Jesus, it’s huge. How many people are there?”
“More than I thought. Half the college maybe? There’s barely even anywhere to park.” Kate giggled.
I didn’t remember the last time I’d gone out, and I felt something funny in my stomach when we crossed through the doorway and greeted a few people we knew. The Killers were playing loud, and all over there were people dancing, laughing, drinking, acting stupid. I smiled without thinking.
“There we go,” Kate said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, looking content. “It’s about time you take your life back, isn’t it, Ginger?”
“I think so.” I sighed.
I hadn’t tried yet. For three months, I’d taken refuge in my studies, Rhys’s emails, and the library, where I looked for books as if they were drugs, because any distraction was welcome. Plus Dean had been going out, having fun, and enjoying himself the whole time. That didn’t bother me; it was more the feeling that I was left behind. The whole time we’d been together, I had focused on him and him alone; he had been the axis my world spun around, and without him, the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. Maybe that was what was hardest: losing all the things Dean held together probably meant more than losing him. But now I was finding myself…
“Let’s go grab a drink,” I said.
“Sure. Look, that dude over there has a keg of beer.” We walked over to the group around him. “Hey, you don’t happen to have two extra cups?”
He lifted his brows and his friends laughed.
“Yeah, in exchange for your names. And a joke.”
“A joke?” Kate frowned.
“Which of you is up for it?” he asked.
I could barely talk with all those strangers staring at me, but then I forgot the whole thing and stopped worrying about if I looked stupid or if I was falling victim to some new prank popular among college students.
“So there’s two grains of sand that are walking through the desert. And one says to the other, ‘Hey, you know what? I think they’re following us…’”
It was silent as a grave. Then the guy with the beer started cracking up, covering his stomach with his hand, eyes half-closed. That reminded me of Rhys. The gesture. The wrinkles around his eyelids. He resembled him a bit, tall and blond, but this guy was muscly, with a broad back.
“Jesus, that’s terrible! What’s your name?”
“Ginger. Where’s my beer?”
He smiled at me again and served two more beers while one of his friends chatted up Kate, asking what year we were in. I grabbed the plastic cup and walked off to look around. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and I liked being a part of it. I took a deep breath. Then I took a few sips and watched a group of girls dancing and fooling around in the middle of the living room. They didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of them. And I envied them. And I wanted to join in. And…
“You want to dance? Come on!” Kate tugged at me.
I don’t know how, but we ended up with those girls, and they accepted us without even knowing our names. I started laughing when I saw the faces Kate was making. And I just let myself go. I danced, I sang, I shouted, I got excited, I chanted along with that group of strangers when I heard the first notes of “The Time of My Life.”
“Will you take a picture of us?” Kate asked a couple walking by. She handed them her phone, and we mugged for the camera. “Thanks.”
“We look amazing!” I said when she showed it to me.
“It’s great. You should send it to Rhys.”
I hesitated. We hadn’t sent each other any photos yet. We hadn’t even exchanged numbers. I guess we had gotten used to our routine, doing things our way, and neither of us wanted to ruin it.
But that night I felt happy. I felt like myself.
“Why not?” I shrugged.
When Kate sent me the photo, I gave it one last look, then attached it to an email to him. No subject line, no text. Just an image.
Someone bumped my shoulder, and I almost dropped my phone. He raised his hands as if to say sorry, but then he saw me and smiled.
“Ginger! The girl with the bad jokes…”
“The beer guy.” I put my phone in the back pocket of my black pants. “You still never told me your name. You’ve got one up on me.”
“True.” He reached out to shake my hand. “James Brooks.”
“You the host?”
“I am indeed.” He smiled.