“Are you fucking nuts?!”
Winnie sat on the sofa with her knees to her chest, staring at her three roommates on a video call on her laptop screen. Kat was in her parent’s kitchen, granite countertops and a double-wide, sub-zero refrigerator in the background. Jess sat on her screened porch in the humid Georgia night air. And Miyuki was barricaded in her bedroom wearing pajamas.
It was Jess that expressed such consternation. “You’re like on the edge of turning fantasy into reality.”
“Masturbation fantasy,” Kat added.
Winnie rolled her eyes and Miyuki expressed mock shock, but Jess readily agreed. “I would buy tickets just to put him outside my window here in Chicago. That’s what I miss the most. I am surrounded by my brother’s friends here, it’s like a video game convention.”
Miyuki chimed in. “What exactly did he say?”
“He said… ‘Summerfest is tomorrow night, my friend’s band is playing, do you want to go see them with me.’”
Jess added, “You’re sure it’s like “with me?” He didn’t just say, “you should try to see them?”
Winnie nearly laughed. “Can you not believe he’d ask me?”
“I can’t believe you said no!” Miyuki shrieked, still shell shocked.
The other two agreed. “I’m calling him now,” Kat said with an air of finality – making the motions of adding him to the video chat.”
“Stop!” Winnie laughed.
“I’m coming back early,” Jess finally decided. “If he’s asking you out, he must be really desperate,” she said with a mischievous grin.
“He leaves for grad school in the fall,” Miyuki added.
“You need to rectify this,” Kat put in. “Do you know where he lives? There’s still time.”
“If you see him, wear my yellow sundress. It’s in the closet, it’s never failed me.”
“I can’t wear that.”
“Don’t be so… prim,” Kat said.
“Prim?” Winnie questioned.
Much to Winnie’s dismay, both Jess and Miyuki were nodding in agreement.
“You have his phone number, right?”
“Do you really think I’m prim?” Winnie asked pleadingly.
“Yes” All three girls said in unison.
“You’re like a… librarian,” Jess said.
“A hot librarian,” Miyuki added encouragingly.
“I would do you,” Kat put in.
Winnie’s mind was already back in Yazoo: to the night Ronald Downing, star baseball player of their high school and darling of her father, had driven her home after their end-of-season loss at sectionals. He drove right past their house, parked the car, and promptly tried to put his hand down her pants. She fought him off and he called her a “prude.” She hadn’t forgotten that. “Prim” was slightly better, but people seem to have a special vault in their mind where they keep labels applied to them. She could never remember the capital of Delaware (Dover? Really?) but the word “prude” along with fifth-grader Doug Nissle’s opinion that her eyes were too far apart were seared into her mind forever.
Winnie put her face in her hands for a moment, thinking perhaps her roommates were right.
“He made it very clear to me that he was not interested in me last semester,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Kat pressed.
“He just did.”
“You’re imagining things,” Jess said.
“You know he’s kinda like our landlord,” Miyuki offered. “I mean he has the key to our apartment, so if he acted like he wasn’t into you, it’s probably because he doesn’t want to be sued for sexual harassment.”
“He can harass me any day,” Kat said.
“Fix this – make this right and report back to us,” Jess stated. “We’re giving you one week.”
“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to look at that man out the window and be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s my boyfriend,’” Kat said.
“One week,” Jess reminded her.
Kat was now lost in thought. She finally stated as if completely serious, “If you see his cock, report back to us.”
“Photo evidence,” Jess added.
Miyuki said nothing but let out an audible, “Mmmmm,” closing her eyes and dropping her head back a little and moaned like she had just taken a bite of the most sumptuous Devil’s food cake.
“Oh my God, go away!” Winnie laughed.
The girls were not usually this crude, but they knew how to get a rise out of Winnie, who was, by far, the least experienced with boys.
“I have to go for real,” Jess said.
“Okay, next Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Bye Winnie, bye Jess, bye Kat,” Miyuki offered while waving both hands.
The roommates said their goodbyes.
Winnie turned her phone off and the cacophony of company was gone. She longed to talk to Jess alone. She may have had a greater intellectual friendship with Miyuki, but Jess was her emotional confidant. She never felt satisfied with all three girls hanging up at the same time. If they were here in person, she’d be the one that stayed up late in the kitchen with Jess, but now she faced nothing but silence and loneliness. She stared at her empty apartment and sighed.