CHAPTER TWO
* * * *
She watches him as he walks into the bathroom at the party. He’s hasn’t been in any of her classes at Logan Valley High, but she’s seen him in the halls. She’s also seen him in the parking lot after classes end and everybody is going home. He’s one of the few students who has a car and drives himself to school, so she knows he’s old enough to be a junior. Yet, he looks so young, barely old enough to be a sophomore.
His youthfulness is probably because of his ethnicity. She doesn’t know what his ethnic background is because their paths have never crossed for her to talk to him. His skin is a reddish yellow color, almost brown. She’s never dated a non-caucasian before. It’s not that she hasn’t tried; it’s just that the opportunity has never presented itself like this and it’s not like LVH is a huge melting pot.
She knows the color brown represents simplicity but also quality. Brown implies friendly and approachable. This is why she wears brown clothes. She thinks there’s nothing wrong with having a boyfriend to match! Here he is at the party with some other boy who she knows does not go to LVH. Maybe he needs more LVH people to hang out with? She amuses herself by thinking he needs some #f5f5dc in his life. That’s the hex code color produced when you mix brown and white, which she has memorized because of all the webpages she’s designed for friends. She could make his webpage, but then she realizes he looks like the type of guy who could do it himself and build the computer. Yet, he doesn’t look computer geeky.
He looks masculine, but she’s never dated someone as thin as he is. He clearly does not play sports. He almost looks bony. No meat, and she mockingly wonders if his parents are feeding him enough. She won’t be with a guy whose body is not much bigger than hers and could possibly wear her jeans as jorts. He’s much taller than she is though. He’s just as tall as his Brad Pitt friend he came to the party with, and she definitely did not see his friend as an opportunity.
She still thinks #f5f5dc might be too skinny, but he can probably still open jars. So #f5f5dc it is then! Plus, she’s almost finished with her second beer and that’s gotten her to the point where she thinks it’d be hilarious to follow a stranger into the bathroom. She will have to leave her friend, Hershey, all alone but she’ll understand. So she tells Hershey she’s going to talk to someone in the bathroom and she’ll be gone only for a minute. She darts to the toilet before Hershey can protest.
* * *
Holy shit. What kind of complete nutjob comes into the bathroom with someone they don’t know and slams the door shut like that. She’s nuts or can’t handle her beer and is about to be sick . . . or both. She doesn’t look drunk though. There’s no crazy eyes like she’s nuts. She’s got that Sinéad O’Connor short haircut though, and we know how Sinéad turned out. So that can’t be good. Boy jeans? Are those boy jeans she’s wearing? I swear I got that same pair in my closet. Looks like she’s wearing one of my T-shirts, too. That unbuttoned safari vest she’s wearing over the top of it is dope though. Hmmm, the way she’s staring up at me with those eyes like a deer in headlights is making her kind of cute. What the hell. She’s just going to stand there silent and stare at me? I guess she’s waiting for me to get out so she can use the bathroom. Paralyzed and passive-aggressive. Another one of LVH’s finest, I guess.
* * *
Oh god now what do I do? Obviously I didn’t think this through and I obviously needed a third beer to get me though it. I sure wish I hadn’t shut that door. It’s not even a full bath. It’s a half bath. We’re both skinny as shit, but we just filled the room up like Fat Monica at that party on Friends. Hey, up close he looks like Enrique Iglesias. Not the old one now. The young one back when he sang Si Tú Te Vas. His hair looks exactly like Enrique’s did on that album cover. Oh lord, he’s got that little cleft in the center of his chin like Enrique. That’s the kind of dimple that makes smart girls stupid. I can definitely see this guy lounging around and watching sad, romantic Latin music videos with me. I can’t say that to him. I sure need to think of something to say right now. This awkward silence is making me look stupid. And I am stupid. Stupid beer making me look stupid and crazy!
* * *
“Umm, I’m pretty sure this isn’t how bathrooms work. But if you move over and quit blocking the door, I’ll leave and let you have it.” He tells her this, not really to be nice, but to make sure she knows she has blocked his only exit to safety.
“I’m not crazy,” she says weakly, and her voice was undulating enough that she thought she actually did sound crazy. “I didn’t know this was the bathroom.” She giggles and tries to make it sound innocent but somehow it sounded like a snort. She ponders how much worse it could possibly get. Then she remembers it’s her parents’ house and her older sister’s party, so she just completely lied to him about not recognizing the bathroom. She’ll have to figure out how to back pedal out of that one later.
“I’m really not crazy,” she repeats, but with more confidence this time. “I just saw you by yourself and wanted to come say hi. I see you around school in the halls sometimes.”
“Oh, you go to LVH?”
It’s a simple, short question he asks but it’s one that immediately stung. She’s hurt that he doesn’t recognize her from school.
“Yeap, graduating this year. I’m a senior.” She finally manages a smile and to stand up straight, after just realizing that she had been semi-hunched over the whole time. No, not a crazy, hunch-backed person at all, she thinks sarcastically to herself.
“Me, too. High school is killing me. I’m ready to get on with it. I already started two night classes at Jackson County Junior College.”
“What?” she asks, puzzled. “You’re already in college?”
“Yeah, I got to make up for lost time. I got pre-approved.”
“What time do you have to make up?”
“Long story short,” he begins, “I had to go to first grade twice and I started kindergarten a year later than I was supposed to. Not because of me and my brain though. Because of my dad. He wasn’t the best of guys. And it took my mom forever to get her head screwed on straight and move on to something better, which she finally did. I used to joke that back in the day my babysitters and daycare were a domestic abuse shelter.” He saw her grimace as he said this and immediately wishes he had not joked about his mom’s first marriage . . . or lack of one, so to speak.
“She got it all worked out though in the end. My stepfather is amazing and awesome to my mom.” He quickly recovers, and watches her grimace switch to approval.
“Oh that’s good. So how old are you?”
“I’m 19.”
“Shut the front door!” She exclaimed. “You’re really 19 years old?”
“Yeah, I’ll be 20 next month . . . probably the oldest guy ever to graduate LVH. I told you I got a late start. But I’m catching up. The funny thing is in my night classes I’m the youngest person there and no one comes even close to looking like me. It’s all old people at Jackson County. I guess because they’re working during the day.”
“Probably,” she agrees. “They work during the day and you go to high school during the day. That’s kind of funny. So how’s come you’re a senior but I’ve never seen you around school till now?”
“I went to St. Martin High my sophomore and junior year, but they wouldn’t let me cancel my study hall class or my PE class so I could leave early during the day. I needed to leave early so I could start Jackson County.”
“Study hall? Schools don’t really have study halls, do they?” Even though her school did not have one, she knew it was a “free study period” and a type of break between classes.
“St. Martin does, sure. Except they didn’t call it study hall. They gave it some kind of fancy name like Power 45 or something like that. My mom was spending all that money to send me to a private school to sit in a 45 minute study hall with a fancy name and then another 45 minutes of jumping jacks in PE. She had no problems taking me out and letting me go to LVH for my last year.”
“Wow, you took yourself out of St. Martin and put yourself in LVH? You switched schools in your very last year?” She was astounded and incredulous. The thought of leaving friends and an environment, even one she had inured to, was terrifying to her.
“Had to do it. Had to catch up. I’ve been playing behind since kindergarten. Only it took me until high school to figure that out.”
* * *
God, this guy’s already got a plan. He’s already working on his future. He says he’s behind, but he sounds like he’s moving ahead of everybody else. This guy sounds so smart. I’m going to have to start reading real books instead of romance novels.
* * *
Ok, maybe she’s not crazy. And she sure smells good. Kind of hard not to smell her since she crammed herself into this little room with me. Is that shampoo? I can’t tell, but her hair must be really easy to wash with it being almost completely gone like Sinéad’s. Bet she doesn’t have to worry about clogged drains in her tub when she shampoos. Too short to brush, so no hair in the sink drain either. No makeup? She’s not wearing makeup? Shit, I bet I spend more time in the bathroom than this chick does. She doesn’t need any makeup though. Hmmm.
* * *
She’s changes the subject. “Anybody ever told you you look like Enrique Iglesias?”
“No, but I get it. All us Italians look alike.” He smiles to her.
“You’re Italian?”
“My mom and father are. My stepdad’s not. But there’s still a ton of caffè latte and pasta in my house. I guess that makes me Italian. So I look like Enrique, eh? You flirting with me are you?”
“Well, I chased you and cornered you in a bathroom, didn’t I?” She looks down in embarrassment but her smile was too big to hide from him.
He doesn’t wait for her to answer. “Have you ever heard that song Si Tú Te Vas?” His question makes her shoot her head up and peep into his eyes.
“Shut the front door! I love that song. How do you know that song?”
“Enrique did an Italian version of it. My mom’s favorite song. It was a pretty big hit for him . . . not in America. But, yeah, I didn’t think my mom would ever stop listening to that song back in the day.”
“Well, I won’t make you listen to it then.” She winks at him.
The wink did it. With no more apparent red flags of crazy, he wants to know her name now. “Hey, you gonna tell me your name before people start knocking on the door to kicks us out.”
“Juliet, what’s yours?”
Everything becomes hushed all of a sudden. It’s almost like a dramatic pause, at first, but then the awkward silence lingers as he looks at her so impassively now that she feels she’s being inspected. Finally, he asks, “Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah. What’s wrong with Juliet? I’m nothing like that song Check Yes Juliet if that’s what you’re thinking.” It’s the only witticism she could come up with, but she knows the whole video of that song is about a girl whose parents don’t want her to be with this guy who is trying to get her to run away with him.
He still looks at her, pausing almost calculating. So she carries on, “Well, what’s your name?”
“Romeo,” he at last says something.
“Ha ha,” she replies. “Yeah, good one, I’ve never heard that one before.” She says it sardonically but begins to tense up when she doesn’t see him smiling. “Oh come on guy. Seriously? You’re parents named you Romeo? No one names their kid Romeo. Who does that to a kid?”
“I told you I was Italian. It was my father’s name and it was my grandfather’s name. I’m okay with it.”
* * *
Jesus Christ! I just insulted this guy’s lineage. Good one, Juliet. Things were going so well, too. God we were talking about Enrique even, and his mom sounds cool as shit. He’s got his act together, and I could technically be dating a real college guy if we got together. So did I just screw this up or what? Check yes, Juliet.
* * *
He takes his wallet from the back of his pants, opens it, picks through it, then slowly hands her a drivers license. She already believes it’s his real name, but she still takes the card and looks it over. She fights herself hard to show no expression as she reads his full name.
“Romeo Romero,” she slowly reads it feebly and aloud. “That sounds so . . . romantic.” She looks back up at him and smiles and hoped her smile looked honest. As he takes the card back from her, she says “I really like your name.” At this point, she thanks God she did not have a third beer, because she is certain she would have hard-laughed when she said Romeo Romero out loud.
“So, then, Juliet is your real name?”
She takes her learners permit from one of the pockets of her safari vest and shows him.
“You used to have braces,” he remarks after seeing the photo on the card.
“Yeap, I got them off just a few months ago!” She is not thrilled about him discovering her braces, so she quickly pulls the permit back and repockets it. She is euphoric, however, that he looked at her picture instead of her biographic. He was more interested in her face, and that pleased her for some reason. Apparently he was also moving past the ridiculing of his name. Maybe she was overthinking all this, but it made her happy nonetheless.
“I just thought of something,” Romeo said. “If we ever get married, we’d have to tell people we met in the bathroom. Our how did you guys meet story would be in the bathroom. Thanks a lot for that, Juliet.”
“I just thought of something, too.” She looks mischievously at him and waits for him to ask.
“What?”
“Why can’t you hear a ptetodpterodactyl in the bathroom?”
“What?”
“Why can’t you hear a ptetodpterodactyl when it uses the bathroom?” she asks him again.
“I don’t have a clue, Juliet. Why?”
“Because the P is silent. Ha ha!” She laughs, hoping she does not sound maniacal, and actually takes her index finger and lightly pokes it into his stomach to make sure he knows she just told him a joke.
* * *
Good Lord, this guy’s got great abs. I almost broke my finger. So he’s not really skinny. He’s just got like zero percent body fat. God why did I poke him. I hope he doesn’t poke me back and feel my pudge. My abs like to play hide and seek and he’s never going to find them. Please, please don’t poke me back.
* * *
I don’t know if it’s the beer or what, but this chick is definitely into me. She messed up my line though, damn it. I was about to transition from the marriage bit to asking her out, but she blew right by that with a dumb dad joke.
* * *
“Look at Juliet with a funny dad joke. I wish I had that kind of talent.” He winks at her as he says this, but he’s not sure why but remembers she winked at him earlier. He tries to get back to his original plan and his original bit. “So now I’ll have to tell people I met you in the bathroom and you told me dad jokes. Nice.”
“You won’t be telling anybody anything. We got to go out first before we get married.”
“Ok, Juliet. So you’re asking me out?” Romeo was surprised how quickly the conversation got to this point. He thought he’d have to use a few more lines to get her thinking about going out with him.
“Ha ha, no way friendo. That’s not how dating works. You’re supposed to ask the girl out.” Juliet quickly turned the conversation back on him. She literally has to pee now because of the beer she’s consumed, but she was also trying not pee from the excitement caused by Romeo apparently about to ask her on a date. She also mentally notes that she needs to stop saying “ha ha” and to not call Romeo friendo. That makes her want to laugh. And she really does have to pee.
“I see. Juliet doesn’t know how bathrooms work, but Juliet knows how dating works. Ok then, I’ll ask you out.” He paused, put his hands behind his back, brought his heels together, and slightly raised his head so that he was looking down past his nose at her. “Madam Juliet, may I please have your phone number so I can chat you up and get with you this weekend?” Romeo asked her in an overly sophisticated and proper tone.
“Sure thing bub.” Romeo barely had finished the questions before she answered. She’s certain she’s never used the word “bub” in her life until that moment. Either the beer has made her light headed or the fact that she’s about to date an Iglesias look-alike has. They take out their phones simultaneously. Juliet gives Romeo her number and as he types it into his phone she says, “Now let me get your number.” She knows if he gives it to her, then he is serious about wanting to get to know her.
“Sure thing bub,” Romeo said back with a crafty smile. “I just texted you a smiley face.”
“Hey, there’s a line starting to form out here.” Someone raucously knocked on the door.
“Sounds like Juliet is going to have to leave now.” Romeo is not sure when or why he started talking in third person but realizes he does not like the way it sounds, so he makes a mental note to not do it again. “I’ll text you later, Juliet.” Romeo promised. “I gotta go now anyway. I gotta go pick my sister up. Her car broke down and she needs a ride home. Plus, I came in here because I really needed to use the bathroom. But then you came in here to get a date.” He winked at her again. Romeo does not know why it started, but he is certain he has never winked at a girl before until this moment. He feels like he’s doing it too much, so he makes another mental note to not do that anymore either.
“Ha ha, bathrooms are the new Tinder. Everybody knows that.” Juliet winks back at him and tries to make the wink look exactly like his did. She starts to accept that she might not be able to stop saying “ha ha”. “But I’ve had two beers and I really needs to pee, too.” She makes a sad duck face and lowers her head in instant regret of having just shared her urination wants and needs with Romeo.
“Ha ha, your situation sounds more urgent. I’ll let you get at it then.” Romeo tries to make “ha ha” sound exactly like Juliet said it. He thinks he succeeded, and he miraculously restrains a wink. He also lightly pokes her in the stomach to let her know he was still flirting with her.
* * *
Son of a bitch. I hope his finger didn’t get stuck. He sounds so sweet. I can’t believe this. No way I’m telling anyone we met in the bathroom though. We’re going to have to get on the same page later with a different story about how we met. Too bad he’s got to leave. Kind of wish he’d invite me to ride with him to get his sister. I’d sure go with. Would even leave Hershey here by herself, too. She’d understand. Sisterhood unity and all that. What’s he doing now. Oh boy! He better not! I got beer breath!
* * * *
Romeo grabs Juliet by her elbows and moves himself half a step closer to her. He looks down directly into her eyes. She bends her neck back—out of habit or anticipation, she is not sure, but she hopes it’s not due to muscle memory. She has to tilt her head further back than she ever has before when kissing a guy. Looking up at him now, Juliet realizes Romeo is much taller than she had thought. And just like that, it was over. Romeo skillfully nudged Juliet to the side of the tub, released her arms, and began turning the knob to the door so he could leave. No kiss.
* * *
Oh, that bastard. He gave me goosebumps. He’s leaving and now I got to pee with goosebumps.
* * *
“One more thing, Juliet.” Romeo looks back at her just as he cracks open the door. He slowly says while peering into her eyes again, “If you go, you will take my heart with you. And I, without you. I don't know where to go. If you go, I will never be able to forget you.”
“Okie dokie smokey!” She laughs. “Romeo trying to be a real romeo. So how many girls have you used that one on?” Now she is laughing.
“Excuse me? You don’t recognize those lyrics?” He asks her with sincere puzzlement.
“What?”
“Girl, those are the opening lines of that Enrique Iglesias song Si Tú Te Vas. The English version, anyway.”
“Ohhhhhh, man, I didn’t know that. Ha ha, that was really sweet. Thanks.” That really was sweet, she thought, but it does nothing to decrease the imminence of her peeing. “Ok, let me lock that door behind you so no one comes in on me. I really do have to go.” She laughs.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want some nutjob to come into the bathroom behind you.” He didn’t say this ironically or sarcastically, but he knew she would get that he was joking. “Thanks for the number. Bye, Juliet.”
“Bye, Romeo. Text me!”
He opens the door and leaves. He hears her lock it behind him. He will definitely text her. . . right after he finds his friend and tells him how he just met a girl named Juliet in the bathroom.