\u201cPeteable! I\u2019m glad I ran into you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had on a pink top Pete hadn\u2019t seen before and she looked fresh like she\u2019d just come out of the ocean, but Sophie brought a sour smell that must\u2019ve followed her from the cluster of blue recycling cans in front of the bar up the street.<\/p>\n
She sat at the cast iron table, tossed a leg over her knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to apologize for the other night, Peteable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way she said his name\u2014first and last mashed together, like the two ends of the university\u2019s accordion buses\u2014marked a change in the way she thought of him. Rather than someone she\u2019d slept with during orientation, and twice more their first semester, he was now the kid brother she\u2019d give life advice and hand-me-down Looney Tunes sweatshirts to.<\/p>\n
“The other night?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Mica\u2019s. Remember? You were telling me about your paper\u2014on British imperialism in literature. I got a call and just walked away. That was rude of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two girls\u2014so young they had to be freshmen\u2014flung open the caf\u00e9 door and tumbled out onto the sidewalk. They held Frappuccino\u2019s topped with whipped cream, the tall one with a wide mouth, the other tall one squinting into the glare of the sun. Sophie drew a bead on the girls. When they stopped at the bus stop, Sophie smirked, flipped her short hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you weren\u2019t offended, Peteable?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Not really.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Most of what he remembered of that night was feeling squirmy and staring up at the ceiling sprayed with popcorn finish like Albino crocodile skin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d said Sophie. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean anything by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes rested on the frat boy at the next table\u2014his popped collar, the spiky hair that\u2019d been styled to look disheveled. Just by his vibe Pete guessed he was the type to neg girls, exaggerate little flaws until the ones keen on being teased slap him on the knee and say, OMG, I\u2019m not that way at all!<\/p>\n
A car playing music from open windows stopped at the light. Sophie seemed bored. I should\u2019ve made something of her apology, Pete thought. Not that he was mad she took the call and walked away at the party, but because sitting beside him at the table she appeared ready to unhinge her jaw and let out a terrific mammalian yawn.<\/p>\n
Then Sophie did yawn.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cSo what\u2019s new? Anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
And in a blunder that\u2019d later cause his burgeoning Tourette\u2019s to flare up, (Shit! Fuck!) Pete blurted, \u201cDo you still want to hear about my paper? I just turned it in this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without waiting for a reply, he straightened in his chair, outlined the pro and anti-Empire factions, pointing out the authors who didn\u2019t care to understand African tribesmen or Hindu cultures, then quoted a line from A Passage to India, the theme he\u2019d hastily cobbled twelve pages around\u2014beyond the remotest echo, a silence.<\/p>\n
Sophie nodded and massaged the top fold of her ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s interesting, Peteable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the professor thinks so.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will, Peteable. It\u2019s really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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