“She’ll Do”, Part 2

This is a series. Read Part 1 here first!

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“So then what happened?” Maryann asked me, eyes wide with childlike curiosity as we sat on her couch watching old episodes of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

“Well, he got a cookie. I got one too, and we chatted the rest of the evening.”

“Chatted about what?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know, the usual things that pretentious college students talk about. The meaning of life. The futility of capitalism. The equal futility of trying to destroy it. The injustice of inflation in the cafeteria, the inhumanity of paying three dollars for a chocolate-chip cookie—”

“Did you get his number?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“I put my number in his phone. But he hasn’t texted me yet.”

“Oh, Claire, how stupid could you be?!” Maryann slapped a palm melodramatically against her forehead and slumped against the couch.

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“I’m just saying that you always have to make sure you walk away as equals, or at the very least with the upper hand! Why didn’t you make him put his number in your phone?”

“Because I was the one who suggested exchanging numbers, and I didn’t want to sound desperate.”

“You wouldn’t have sounded desperate!” Maryann closed her eyes and took a breath. “Well anyways, I hope he texts you soon. And I can’t believe my hotometer actually works!”

“Your — hotometer?”

“Yeah, isn’t that a good name for my device?”

“Maybe if you were in middle school. But surely you’re more creative than that—”

“Oh, stop being a hater, Claire. My device is literally a meter for determining whether or not people think you’re hot. What else could I possibly call it?”

“I don’t know. I just hate the word ‘hot’. It’s so overused.”

“How about the sexyometer then?”

“Even worse.”

“Well, I’ll sleep on it and see if a better name comes to me in my dreams. But if nothing does, then hotometer it is!”

“Whatever.” I turned back to the show with a shrug. Her name would be on the patent, not mine — though I doubted she had the patience to go through the official patenting process, and it was probably best to keep it an under-the-table invention anyway.

As for Luke, I stayed up practically all that night waiting in vain for a pocket vibration, and feeling my excitement levels sink lower with every hour. Maryann had been right; I should have gotten the upper hand. But then I still might wait in vain for him to text me back. What was so difficult about texting someone you genuinely had a good time with? 

Then came the worst thought: He might have been putting on an act the whole time, and the hotometer had been utterly wrong. He probably felt sorry for me and pretended to flirt just so I had some hopeless hope to carry me through the rest of the week. A pretty cruel thing to do, but no one was beyond cruelty. Especially when it masqueraded as niceness. 

Suddenly I felt a vibration in my pocket. I scrambled for my phone even as my body seemed to go in slow-motion. My brain warned me of inevitable disappointment, and I fought back hard. Please don’t be my mom, please don’t be my mom! Or Maryann, or my abnormal psych professor, or anyone who’s not Luke!! 

But to quote Freddie Mercury, “Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth—” I looked down at the screen.

“hey claire! its luke from the cafeteria, thx 4 chatting today, fun convo!”

And that was it. 

Seriously?!

I waited a few seconds for a followup vibration, but none came. Was he just texting to get me off his conscience? Or was he bad at asking questions and was putting all the burden on me? He’d seemed good at asking questions when we were in person. Maybe he was just a bad texter. 

I could have asked Maryann for her advice, but she probably would have made me feel worse. When you want to feel better about your situation, always go to a stranger, never a friend. A friend loves you too much to lie, whereas a stranger will tell you exactly what you want to hear. 

But is there a world where what you want to hear is also the truth? If there is, no one’s discovered it yet. And I was the kind of person who wanted every stranger to be my friend anyway, which kinda ruined the whole point. I’d have to ride out this torturous ambiguity alone.

But then my phone vibrated again. Sure enough, Luke had sent me a second text a whopping five minutes after the first one. This one said, “hope to c u around the cafeteria :)” 

He’d left the door open. Kind of. But was it that damn hard to ask me out on a date like a real gentleman? Or even a cowardly non-date akin to the “I’m hitting up Jackie’s Ice Cream at 3:00 tomorrow, you’re more than welcome to join me” vibe. 

I know — I know! — I should have interpreted this as optimistically as possible; he was probably as scared of rejection as everyone else, even though I was the one who asked to put my number in his phone. And it was still possible that he thought this was simply a friendly gesture and was wary of jumping to hopelessly romantic conclusions. 

I could understand that. 

And that meant that the only reasonable thing to do in this moment was text him back and ask him on a cowardly non-date. But what would that look like? “I’ll be in the cafeteria around noon tomorrow, feel free to grab a chocolate chip cookie with me”? Too obvious?

Or I could choose to not respond at all and leave him to wrestle with the ambiguity for a bit. Two could play at that game, right? But no, I needed to be more merciful. 

So I drafted a text to him that said, “Haha, hope to see you around the cafeteria too Luke! i’ll be there around noon tomorrow if you want to join :))”. Nah, scratch that, two parentheses in a written smiley face emoji would come across as too desperate. I amended it, “i’ll be there around noon tomorrow if you want to join :)”. And sent it. No going back.

But how much longer would I have to wait for a reply? Five minutes? Five hours? Five years? 

Five seconds actually: “haha, i might be there then 2, mayB see u :)”. Who the hell says “mayB”? Why not just put the “e” after the “B”? This dude had no idea how to use texting lingo properly, and I began to suspect that he was actually the type who longed to text in complete, grammatically correct sentences but was too afraid of being judged. 

I glanced at the clock and groaned. I needed to get some sleep; I couldn’t keep overanalyzing like this, or I’d be in no shape for the cafeteria tomorrow. 

As promised, at noon the next day I was back in the cafeteria, looking around for Luke while pretending that I wasn’t looking around for anyone. I had the hotometer in my hair again just in case this mission was a complete failure. If somebody else found me attractive, I could transfer my anxious neuroticism away from poor Luke.

But I shouldn’t have worried; Luke soon appeared in a pretentious Fleetwood Mac shirt, carrying a chocolate chip cookie in his hand.

“You beat me to the cookies,” I remarked.

Luke flushed. “I wasn’t sure you’d be there.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I thought you said you were trying to lose — never mind.”

He’d dug himself into another hole, and I found myself wildly turned on. Not that I was a dominatrix or anything; embarrassment was just so human, and I’ve always been attracted to raw humanity. Honesty truly is the best policy, after all. 

“You’re right,” I said with a grin. “You know the Weight Watchers logo is my phone’s screensaver—”

“Shut up.” Luke cringed. “I’m sorry, I often talk faster than I think.”

“As most men do.” I felt my grin widening. 

“Hey!”

“No offense.”

Luke looked at me with a widening smile of his own. “You know, whenever someone says ‘No offense,’ I usually end up feeling even more offended.”

“Then you shouldn’t be so sensitive.”

“I can’t help myself. It’s one of the side effects of being a hopeless romantic.”

My heart literally flip-flopped. He’d just used the word romantic! Somehow I kept the banter going as my head started to buzz. “Yeah, I get that.”

“If you get that, then why are you telling me to be less sensitive?”

“You know how it goes: ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’”

Luke’s eyes looked even greener when he laughed. “We’re all hypocrites, aren’t we?”

“I’m afraid so.” Where was all this wit coming from? Was I trying to impress Luke, or was it just a by-product of being a pretentious Freudian psychology student? 

“Anyway,” Luke said, “there are still some cookies left. You should go get one.” And he took a big bite out of the one he was carrying. I have to say, I was impressed. Luke was pretty good at digging himself out of holes, after all.

“Maybe I will,” I said.

“Why ‘maybe’?”

“I’ve never been very good at making up my mind.”

He shrugged. “I’ve found lately that the right thing is to just make a decision, even if it ends up being the wrong decision.”

I paused a minute, taking that in. “You know, you’re deeper than you look.”

“Thanks. I think…”

“Oh, it’s a compliment. Most men look pretty shallow. Especially when they’re good-looking.”

“So you think I’m good-looking?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, now.”

“Impossible.” He grinned as he took another bite of his cookie.

Oh, damnit, now I was legitimately attracted to Luke. I’d only been potentially attracted before, which is a much easier situation to be in. But then, just as things were escalating in just the right way, the hotometer started ringing louder than it had ever rung before. 

“What’s that?” Luke’s eyes went wide as I blushed like crazy.

“Oh, just my phone.”

“Then why is it coming from your hair?”

I had no time to explain; my curiosity had already gotten the best of me, and I just had to look to see who found me so attractive. Turning to my left, I saw what was perhaps the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen smiling in my direction. Without thinking twice — hell, I was lucky if I thought once — I ditched Luke and ran towards this gorgeous man. 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked, trying to hide how desperate I looked.

“I don’t think so,” the gorgeous man replied, his smile waning. 

“Then why were you smiling at me?”

His tone turned condescending as he said, “I just like to smile at girls to let them know they’re enough. Hope you know that. Have a nice day!” Then he turned and headed toward a gorgeous girl waving at him on the other side of the cafeteria.

Damn you, hotometer! I might have tossed it across the room in a rage if I thought no one would notice. He didn’t even think I was hot. He’d just thought, “She’ll do.” 

But no, I realized, he hadn’t even thought that. He’d felt sorry for me! My face flushed. So much for meeting Prince Charming.

Then I remembered poor Luke standing in the corner, wondering why I’d just ditched him for some random jock with a savior complex, and felt my face flush hotter. Sure, Luke wasn’t a textbook Prince Charming. But he still might be my Prince Charming. And textbooks always bored me anyways. 

“Sorry about that,” I said as I returned to Luke. I hoped he wouldn’t require a further explanation.

“No worries. Did you know that guy?”

“I thought I did, but I—I guess I didn’t. He just had that face, you know?”

Luke gave a small chuckle. “Yeah, all jocks look alike. Not that I’m judging or anything—”

“No, you’re absolutely right. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

“Yeah.” Luke was silent for a moment, and he looked down, biting his lip and blushing a little. Clearly something was on his mind, so I waited. “This is totally random,” he finally said, “but… how do you feel about people sending grammatically correct text messages?”

I almost burst out laughing, but smothered it just in time. I knew it! “Totally random,” I agreed. “You mean, do I think it’s weird to text complete sentences and all that?”

“Yeah. See, I used to do that, but girls constantly ghosted me afterward. I figured it must have scared them or something. Now I’m careful not to capitalize anything and I barely use punctuation, but I’m not sure I’m doing it right.”

I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and laughed out loud. This was so adorable! “Aww, Luke, if texting in complete sentences is part of who you are, you shouldn’t change that. If other girls haven’t liked that — well then, you’ve just been meeting the wrong girls.”

“Thanks.” Luke’s eyes locked with mine as he smiled. “I guess you’re right. I have been meeting the wrong girls.”

“But not anymore,” I said.

The hotometer started ringing again, but I had no further interest in it. Luke was enough. In fact, he was more than enough.

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