stuck my new earphones in, and cleaned the house. By five a.m., the house was museum spotless, but I had exhausted the sole source of entertainment originally saved for the now-looming, lonely weekend.
At work, I was a speed demon with my new music blaring in my ears. By the time lunchtime came around, I looked at the cart of scanned books in horror—it was already full. I would have a hard time trying to explain that much evidence away. I decided to take an extra-long lunch to think about what I’d done.
Lunch bag in hand, I walked out of the library, careful to take the stairs and do a quick scan of the perimeter so that I wouldn’t run into another awkward moment with Jeremy … or his cute blonde.
It was humid outside. The sun was beating down on the abandoned university grounds; the smart people were hiding in the air-conditioned cafeteria. I considered doing just that myself, but that would be tempting fate with more Jeremy-awkwardness.
I settled on a table that sat under the shade of a maple tree, took my peanut butter and stale bread sandwich out, and opened the book that I had borrowed from my scanned stack. Dummy Variables for Stata —it turned out to be not as interesting as it sounded.
My life was marred by events of turmoil and self-mutilation. When I was five, I played hairdresser with Barbie before turning the scissors on myself. When I was done, Barbie looked like a model walking into rehab after a couple months of hard partying. I looked like the lopsided top of a carrot muffin.
In third grade, Tyler Brown convinced me that everyone had freckles but that they hid them with paper Wite-Out—it made perfect sense to an eight-year-old. So I spackled it on before I went to bed and left it overnight, to make sure that the paint was well embedded before my big reveal at school in the morning. At least I got to stay home from school for a week while my skin recovered from the paint thinner that the maid had to scrub into my skin.
It was hard being the kid who just wanted to get lost in the crowd when my head was like a flare being set off in an ocean of blondes and brunettes. People were always drawn to the girl with the fire-engine hair, in the same way that they couldn’t help themselves from slowing down to stare at car accidents on the side of the road—hoping that it was as bad as it looked, wanting to witness some shocking thing that only an elite few have ever seen up close.
I also wasn’t blind to the attention that I reaped from the opposite sex. It had started with the boys in grade school who would dare each other to run up to me and pull my hair; those boys would later grow up to be frat boys who were looking to do more than pull my hair. I was a rite of passage for most of the male species, at any age.
But, as an almost adult, I was getting a little better at singling out the guys who were looking for the red-headed experience. So when a man with red-rimmed glasses approached me, my red-radar was up right away.
“Excuse me,” he said, standing across the table.
I sighed through my nose, looking up. He was rail thin and tall. His spiked hair, which was sporadically present, made it ever more obvious that his hair was thinning at the crown and that he was trying very hard to hide this.
“Would you mind if I sat here?” he asked pointing to the bench across from me. “There are no other tables in the shade.”
I gave a nod and went back to my dumb variables while he sat down.
But he didn’t get my cues of indifference.
“I’m Anthony Francesco,” he started, though it had sounded more like a question.
I glanced over the edge my book. He was staring expectantly at me, obviously waiting for a response.
“Emily,” I said without emotion and tried to go back to my book; but I somehow knew that he wasn’t done. I instantly regretted my decision to not bring my earphones.
“No last name, Emily?” he said, nervously chuckling. “Are you like Madonna or something?” I