"So, how did you like Ira?" Theresa had finally asked Arianne the question she was dying to ask.
It was the middle of the week after the party and she had waited for this nice opportunity to pop the question only because her roommate had tests at college and she could have been killed if she pestered her in the middle of them.
It was Wednesday and they had unanimously decided against going to classes that day. Theresa was awake already, though still in her bed with her phone when Arianne woke up, stretching herself underneath the covers. After a while that they had wished each other a good morning, Theresa asked her the question.
Arianne stretched herself again and said, "nice. He seemed very genuine and generous and caring and courteous and polite. Very polite indeed."
Theresa smiled at her. For a long while.
"What?" Arianne snapped at her when it was hard to take any longer.
"Nothing," her friend smiled at her and got out of bed to give the day a start.
Summer was already in and it was just three more weeks to vacation. Both of the girls already had plans for the long break and they were looking forward to it.
"Hey," David met Arianne at the canteen, "good morning." "Good morning,  David," she wished him back and concentrated on the chart of breakfast available instead of concentrating on him. Though she had been seeing the same chart for almost four years now, and she chose the same sandwich and coffee every day, she preferred looking at the chart like she used to do at Starbucks back in Miami.
Soon, Theresa and her boyfriend Simon joined them. She stuck to her roommate as soon as she arrived and messed with her food and hair in a very childlike manner.
"What's wrong with you?" Arianne had to ask again.
"Nothing," she smiled mysteriously again,  "I just need to talk to you about something."
"What thing?" David asked, sipping on his milkshake.
"About my brother."
"Aren't your parents old enough?" the former asked.
Theresa rolled her eyes and said,  "my cousin, Ira, is that all right now?"
"What about him?" David frowned, feeling jealous already,  remembering how close the new guy and his best friend already seemed. "He likes her," she said.
Arianne stopped munching and looked up, "even I liked him."
Simon spoke up,  "We're not talking causal liking,  you know.  He's seriously into you. Are you into him too?"
David: "How can someone suddenly be into someone? He saw her just at the party."
Simon: "Isn't that enough?"
David: "Not really. What do you say, Arianne?"
Arianne gave the couple an awful look and said, "how did you guys know of this by the way?"
Theresa knew she'd be caught now. Her roommate had this amazing capability of catching people when they were lying. She rarely told strangers that she knew they were lying, but with her friends, she was frank.
"I called him," she still tried.
"And?"
"And, he told me he likes you."
"And, let me tell you that I know that you're lying."
"No," Theresa grabbed her phone from on the table, "look," and opened her phone's call log, "see, I called him and we talked for a nice hour."
"Well, you may," Arianne smiled, "but he didn't tell you anything like that."
And, she was caught.
True that she had called her beloved cousin. And, true that they had talked about the party and about Arianne for a long time. And, taking into account his concerned voice, she had taken it for granted that her cousin liked her roommate.
It wasn't nearly her fault. If Ira had resisted himself from wanting to know more about the girl he met and liked immediately, maybe Theresa could not have guessed. But, it wasn't his fault either. Arianne had been on his mind ever since he left the party and he was desperately looking forward to the Friday when he was supposed to call her for the next day's car-trip.
He wanted to see her and had even tried sketching her face on his canvas but he never seemed to be satisfied with it. Either her eyes seemed dimmer than the natural bright they were, or her smile seemed less elegant. And, all he was drawing from was the reference of his memory. Being a lover of natural beauty and art, he told himself that he could not do so injustice to someone like Arianne. So he waited for the next meeting to observe her again for a better portrait.
"You seemed like..."Theresa had said when she called, "like...I don't know like what. But, it was strange."
"Why strange?" he had asked, exhaling smoke of his recently lit cigarette.
"I mean, you always try to avoid girls I ask you to hang out with. But, you yourself spent time with Arin. It is strange, cause it's so not you."
"I liked her, that's it."
"You did?" there was both surprise and a stark pleasure in Theresa's voice.
"Yes, she's not like the other girls you've made me meet."
"Oh! Why didn't I get you two met earlier?"
"Only you know."
"Well...half of the time you were at Boston for your MBA right? And, after you came back...actually I never thought of her."
"Why not?"
"Do you regret not having met her earlier?"
Ira drew hard at his cigarette as he thought about it. What was there to regret? He had met her now and if it really had to turn out to be something it will now. If it is not meant to be,  it would have never. Not even if they had met earlier. "I don't regret," he said, puffing the gas out, "but, I wish I had met her earlier."
Theresa wanted to please her brother right away.
"I think she likes you too."
"Why do you think so?"
"Umm...you know...from her behavior," she lied, "she sometimes suddenly starts talking about you and asks me about you."
"And, what do you tell her about me?"
"Nothing. I tell her that she ought to wait to know about you from you, you know."
"Okay, good job."
Theresa had been waiting for a time like this to come up, when she'd be setting her brother's love story up. And, the girl being Arianne, she thought things would be easier. But, is anything at all easy with Arianne?
She sometimes felt sick and tired of her tantrums. Though her tantrums weren't loud, the way she behaved made her a bit irritating at times. Who gives a damn about shy people in America? With that kind of an attitude, Theresa believed Arianne wasn't going to go anywhere.
"What else did he say?" much to everyone's surprise, Arianne asked Theresa.
"He said, he wanted to call you. But, he cannot, as he's supposed to call on Friday and it may make him appear desperate if he calls earlier."
She nodded and let the conversation end there.
After 11:30, she went to the institution library and sat with a fat book of Psychology. And, as always, a few moments later, her eyes flickered up and her head turned to a co-student of her Biology class. And, again, her depression started setting in.
She turned the pages rapidly to keep the self-consciousness at bay. When she couldn't hold it any longer, she closed her eyes tight and started thinking of things that made her happy. Things that make her all the time or things that made her happy once, didn't matter. She thought of them all.
The things seemed to come out one by one, unfolding her own life to her, everything, just to make her happy. The beach, Granny's song, Mamma's cookies, every time Dad came home and picked her up to swirl her around, David, Vanessa, Father Lewis, the church library, Mr. Tuck's truck, forest trips with Dad to collect pictures of birds, her Biology teacher at school, getting the scholarship for WSU, the new friends, being the best, her photo on the laboratory wall, the college canteen, the library, the campus, picnics with her friend, the last party, Ira...
Ira? She opened her eyes immediately as an imagery of Ira Armstrong flashed inside her closed eyelids. She found it absurd that he appeared when she tried thinking about things and people that made her happy. Why? Just because they had a good time at the party? Just because he seemed man enough to talk politely and not straightaway try to flirt with her? Just because Theresa was constantly nagging at the same topic? She decided to call him later.
Ira had been very busy that day. He had to take his mother to the doctor and, although there, he had to take a couple of calls from the office and when his mother's turn came, she had to meet the doctor alone.
He was nearly out of breath and sweating when his mother returned from the chamber. "How was it?" he asked, still panting. "He asked me to continue with the iron tablets," she replied, looking at her son with stern concern, "you know what, Ira, you should make an appointment too." "Mom, I'm fine," he tried to persuade her as they walked out of the hospital. "Yes, I can see that," Mrs Armstrong scolded,  "your asthma problem isn't going to get fine, unless you look after yourself...or, maybe start staying with someone who'd look after you."
"What do you mean, Mom?"
"Either come back to stay with us or get yourself a girl. That's all I'm saying."
"Why is everyone so obsessed with the idea of me having a girlfriend?"
"Not a girlfriend, really! Get married. You're old enough."
"Mom, please. Can you please be a bit compassionate and sit in the car so that I can drop you home and go to office?"
Dropping his mother back at the house, he rushed to office to attend a meeting. The meeting ended before lunch but he had no scope of getting one. He was immediately called in for a conference call and when he finished that, it was an hour past lunch time. He sat with his stomach empty at his desk and looked through the files he had to arrange and the programs he had to update. "Oh Lord," he rubbed his eyes as he felt his breath jolting again. Sitting for a long while in air conditioned rooms always made him feel sick, specially after having worked so much.
He could not even go out and have a smoke. That would stimulate the breathing problem all the more. Finally, when his childhood best friend Dawson called, he got a reason to get distracted for a while.
"I'll call you back in two minutes,Daws" Ira said,  getting out of his cubicle.
He rushed out of his office and on to Madison Street, the road on which Grey House was. It had been a while since he had talked to his old friend.
"You sound like," Dawson said, after having talked for a while, "like something has happened and you're not telling me."
"What would happen?" Ira found it strange that everyone found him strange. Like everyone could telepathize and say what was happening in his life. And, what seemed stranger was, did Arianne make such a great deal of effect that everyone could make it out that easily?
"I don't know, you tell me. Have you met  someone recently?"
"I meet people every day."
"Of course you do. I meant someone special, you know, like a girl."
Ira kicked at a pebble and kept walking, without even thinking of an answer to Dawson's question. "Tell me," his friend urged again.
"I did meet a girl."
"I knew it," Dawson cheered from the other end of the line, "who's she? Do I know her?"
"No, I met her at a party Theresa had arranged last Saturday. She's her roommate at the college sorority."
"What's her name? Is she hot? Did you take her home?"
"Her name's Arianne and I'm not gonna tell you if she's hot and no, I didn't take her home. She's not that type."
"What type?"
"The take-me-home-right-when-we-meet kind."
"Is there any other kind of girls in America?"
Ira laughed out. "Well, she is."
"Hmm...what are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing at all."
"Let's catch up for a drink, what say? A treat from you for having found a kind of girl that rarely exists."
"Okay, you wanna come down at my place? I have a lot of unattended bottles we can finish off with." He laughed out again.
"Okay, I'll be there by 7:00, is that okay?"
"Perfect!"
That night, the two almost finished all the bottles in Ira's fridge and smoked till they could not anymore. When they fell asleep on the messed floor in the apartment, it was barely 9:00 pm.
They slept like logs - so soundly even loud ringtones could not wake them up.