First Meeting, Vadim’S Perspective #2
Honestly, I don’t know what a girl like her sees in a guy like him.
A blond giant nearly six and a half feet tall, with a bovine stare and a bull’s neck, an oversized jaw, and a shriveled-up brain.
A thick-headed brute who only knows how to argue with his fists.
What do they even talk about? Which of their daddies made the most money this month?
Which of their mansions has the best security?
Whose pool they should swim in today? Did you see how many points I scored?
Did you see how good-looking I am, how strong I am, how perfectly groomed I look even when I’m working out?
If I actually gave a shit, they’d make me want to puke.
“So, what should our film be about?” I ask. “A top athlete who gets injured in a stupid accident the day before a final? He has to have an amputation, his life is ruined, he gets into drugs and ends up a total loser because he doesn’t know how to do anything other than play ball?”
“Hilarious. What about a pseudo-artist who thinks wearing a leather jacket and skipping class makes him a tough guy, but who whines like a baby when he doesn’t get the partner he wants?” She tips her chin a little in my direction, just in case I didn’t understand who she’s alluding to.
“Not bad, but I’ve got something better! A young woman who lives in a gilded cage. They want to force her into marriage, but she falls madly in love with her handsome professor, twenty years her senior, who ends up dumping her the day she gets disinherited.”
I just wanted to stop talking about Wallace. And, anyway, I’m sure she has a thing for Abrams.
“How about a misanthropic type who finds himself paying ten women alimony before he’s even twenty, after he knocks up all the girls who agreed to snuggle up to him because he felt lonely at night?”
She actually manages to make me laugh. I’m pretty sure that’s a first.
“You’re getting into something you have no clue about, Lancaster…”
“And you’re spouting bullshit, Arcadi. We still haven’t found a topic.”
“Hey, Alma! What are you doing out here?”
Speak of the devil. Suddenly, the least intelligent member of the pack parks himself beside us, and Alma practically jumps, as if she’d just been caught red-handed.
Doing what? Who knows…
She scrambles to her feet and throws her arms around Timothy’s neck before saying hello to the swarm of basketball players forever trailing in his wake.
These guys only move as part of a pack. They don’t exist as individuals, only when they form part of a unit with their buddies—who are always ready to defend them—or their girlfriends, who are prepared to drop everything the moment their man shows up.
Wallace drapes his steroid-pumped arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders, but it’s me he looks at as he asks his next question. I’m still sitting on the grass. I’d rather die than even raise a hand to greet him.
“Don’t you have class?”
He has the smug look of a cop who already knows the answer to his question.
“Yes, we’ve got to go back in half an hour,” Alma says, jumping in before I have time to say anything. “We were trying to find a topic for our first-semester project.”
“Don’t they give you a classroom in film studies?”
Tim’s little joke clearly goes straight to his head. He basks in his friends’ mindless laughter.
“You know that students are free citizens who can roam around this beautiful country as they please, right?” I reply, flashing him my best smile.
“Arcadi, Arcadi… now that doesn’t sound very American, does it? I reckon it must be much nicer here than in Poland.”
“Tim!”
I don’t need Alma to come to my defense. I stay calm.
“I’m of Russian descent. And I was born in the United States. But it’s nice of you to care, Wallace.”
He can joke all he wants; I can see his jaw tightening and his fists twitching. If I push him a little further, he might just lose his temper… and that could be fun. But the problem is, when guys travel in packs, it’s often six against one, and the game gets a lot less entertaining.
Wallace chooses to ignore me and pulls Alma a little closer.
I get the feeling his massive arm is gripping her so tightly to release some of the frustration he feels from not having smashed my face in.
And something tells me she isn’t particularly enjoying this public display of affection.
But he continues to practically hold her hostage, with a lovestruck look on his face that makes me sick.
“Well, if you don’t have anything to do for the next half hour, I was going to grab a bite with the guys. Do you want to come?”
“I’d love to, but I don’t know if I have time.”
“We need to work, Alma,” I state, interrupting their nauseating love-fest.
“Do you mind? I was talking to my girlfriend.”
Alma’s head swings from him to me. She looks lost, trapped. Her smile twists into an uncomfortable grimace.
But I’m not going to beg her to stay here with me.
And I’m certainly not going to give Wallace the satisfaction of seeing that I want what he has.
I don’t play those little games. If she is incapable of making a decision, I’ll make it for her.
Taking my time, I get to my feet, pick up my bag from the grass, and plant myself in front of them.
I need to lose this habit of running my hand through my hair.
“Forget it, Lancaster. If you need a bodyguard and you don’t want to put time into this, we can each work on our own. You can tell Abrams that all the ideas were yours. Or that you want to change partners. I really don’t care.”
***
I’m not going to set foot on campus again today.
I don’t know if Alma trotted off after her boyfriend, and I don’t care, but she definitely went back to class at some point.
I don’t know if she waited for me until the very last moment or what she told herself when she realized I wasn’t coming back.
I have no way of knowing what her nosy friend might have said to her, either.
And I’ve got no idea what she might have told Abrams when he asked her about our short film topic and what happened to her partner.
Did the professor gloat when he realized we’ve already imploded?
Did he tell her to stay away from me or not to give up?
It shouldn’t matter.
I don’t need some college professor running little experiments at my expense.
Alma Lancaster’s world and mine simply cannot meet, period.
I’m not in the mood to have a failed filmmaker try to prove me wrong and challenge me to work with my exact opposite.
I don’t have time for a rich kid who’s afraid of everything: afraid of the professors’ opinions, afraid of her boyfriend, afraid of what people will say if she doesn’t do exactly what’s expected of her.
Afraid of me, even. I’m sure she’s afraid of me.
I hate her a little for that.
So, why am I thinking about her? The blades of grass between her fingers as she tried to keep her composure.
Her amused look when I challenged her. Her scathing comebacks when I thought she was going to fall apart instead.
The smile she didn’t try to hide when I imitated her accent.
The way there’s something entirely unique about her, despite her classic beauty.
The arm that held her prisoner and that I wanted to break.
Her lips kissing him and not me. The descriptions of me she came up with, thinking she had me figured out: a tortured artist who’s also a petulant brat, a wannabe rebel full of prejudices, a loner who keeps company with fakers.
That isn’t me. She doesn’t get me at all.
So, why do I want to talk to her again? To start over.
With no one around to interrupt us. Without the pressure that comes from Abrams giving us an hour to find some common ground.
If I think about it, we have plenty. Cinema, first of all, even though she’s probably a fan of movies that make you cry.
Next, verbal sparring. I’m sure I saw a spark light up in her green eyes when she was trying to shut me up.
And like me, she isn’t a fan of labels that cling a bit too tightly to the skin.
That isn’t her. She would like to be someone else…
So, who is hiding behind the good girl in the front row?
What’s going on in the mind of the half-English, half-French girl who doesn’t want me to call her by her last name?
Why does she defend her obnoxious boyfriend when, deep down, she seems to hate him as much as I do?
Why does she hesitate, all the time, about everything?
And why, damn it, why do I want to see her again so badly?