|
I leaned over the high-powered microscope and frowned deeply as I adjusted the
magnifications of the electron transmission.
"Okay, I did it. You see the phospholipids in all of their bi-layered
glory now."
My lab partner looked up and adjusted his thickly framed glasses. "Are the receptor proteins visible?"
"Of
course," I grinned, "and that's not all. We've got your adhesion proteins, your
recognition proteins, your passive and
active transporters--and we've even managed to beat the fatty acids at their hydrophobic game of hide-and-seek."
Giggle-snorting
erupted to my right. "Diana, you're so funny..."
This may sound like a scene in which two VERY big science nerds are
flirting innocently over a few dying eukaryotic cells. Let met assure you...it's not. Why, you ask?
Allow me
to introduce you to William Watts, my lovely lab partner in Advanced Microbiology. He's about 6'4" with big brown eyes and
a mop of very curly brown hair. However, he probably weighs less than I do, and I've never seen him in anything but a striped
dress shirt and a pair of brown wool slacks. Once, I saw him take off his glasses to clean them, but they generally serve
as his staple. They broke during the first lab of the year when he accidentally slammed the bridge into the microscope, but
he quickly patched them with a piece of Scotch tape that has yet to come off.
He's one of the funniest, most genuinely
NICE people I've ever met, but I have a strong suspicion that, aside from his long-distance, astrophysicist, online girlfriend,
I'm the only girl he knows.
"I think you might be the only person in the world who enjoys my nerdy science jokes."
"Nerdy
science jokes are the best," William insisted with a grin. "They might even be a step above nerdy calculus jokes."
I
arched an eyebrow in disbelief behind my own pair of glasses, and William giggle-snorted again.
"Kidding, Di. Scoot
over so I can see the phospholipids. If the picture is clear enough, we can print it out and start labeling the different
parts of the proteins." He winked at me. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can go back and start my problem sets."
William's
an aeronautical engineer. He decided to take Advanced Microbiology for fun. If my brain and his brain were to meet in a dark
alley in Brooklyn, his brain would take mine out in less than three seconds. No doubt about it. He'd leave my little neurons
splattered all over the back wall of some dingy apartment building, dendrites dangling forlornly.
Sometimes, I find
this intimidating. Then he giggle-snorts, and we're okay again.
"Yeah, well...I'd hate to get between you and your
math."
William chuckled. "I'd say that many girls have tried and failed, but that'd be a lie."
I was about to
retaliate with a jab at my own lacking love life when the digitized strain of "She Blinded Me With Science" echoed throughout
the darkened lab.
Did I forget to mention that William and I were the only ones in the laboratory? Yeah, we're that
nerdy.
He shot me a pretend look of disgust. "You're so popular. It's disgusting."
"Oh, please," I scoffed.
"Ten bucks says it's either my boss or my roommate. I lead a very boring life. You should know that by now."
"Hey!"
he cried in mock offense. "You spend most of your time with me!"
"Only the interesting hours," I returned with a grin
as I fished my cell phone out of my pocket. The caller ID read "unknown"--a surefire sign that Taylor was calling me from
AJ's phone. I rolled my eyes in good-natured annoyance.
"Hello?"
"Bills girl!"
I arched a doubtful eyebrow
in a vain attempt to conceal my surprise. "Nick Backstreet?"
"Hey!" he cried in what I hoped was mock offense. "What
happened to Bucs boy?"
He dated Paris Hilton, and now he's dead to me. Nope, wasn't going to say that.
"Were
you ever Bucs boy, or was that just wishful thinking?"
"I was definitely Bucs boy," he insisted, "once you stopped
calling me Nick the Cowboys fan..."
"Was this before or after you made fun of me for liking the Small World song?"
From
beside me, William clucked his tongue in disdain. "Ooh, man...definitely a poor choice. For Di, the Small World song is right
up there with Beethoven's Ninth."
Okay, so William and I might spend a little too much time together.
"Who
is that?" Bucs boy demanded.
"My lab partner," I explained guardedly. "I'm in the middle of an experiment."
"Oh."
Yeah,
oh.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to catch you at a bad time."
"It's okay," I laughed lightly, hoping against all hope
that I sounded more casual than I felt. "I didn't expect you to catch me at all."
I flinched. I backtracked. I mentally
kicked myself for the desperate, insecure tinge to those words.
"Yeah, well..." He sighed. "If AJ had his way, you
wouldn't be hearing from me
at all, but...I wanted to apologize for the other night at the awards gig. I was a terrible
date."
I hated how much his apology impressed me. "You were not."
"I was," he insisted. "I sucked. I spent the
whole night moping over something that doesn't even matter, really, and I hate that. I guess...what I'm asking here is a second
chance at a first impression. Can we do that?"
I blinked. Twice. Then I gulped.
"Um...listen, can I call you
back? There are these phospholipid bilayers that need to be labeled and these proteins that need to be identified based on
their..."
I would've continued to spout a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo at him had William not elbowed me. When I
stopped short to glare at him, he winked teasingly and mouthed "nerd" at me.
"Basically, this lab is complicated, and
I need to finish up so my partner can get home at a decent hour. Can I call you when I'm done?"
"Absolutely," Bucs
boy replied jovially. "You still have my cell number, right?"
"Yeah." Memorized and written in my notebook a few hundred
times. Pathetic.
"Awesome. I'll catch you later, then."
He hung up, and I flipped my phone shut with shaking
fingers. As soon as the phone clattered onto the lab table, William rolled his eyes at me expectantly.
"Who the hell
is Nick Backstreet, girl? Are you cheating on me?"
I couldn't help it. I took a page from William's book and snorted.
"With a Backstreet Boy? Fuck no."
"A Backstreet Boy?!" William hollered in disbelief. "You're unbelievable, Di!
How can you call your life boring if you're getting phone calls from a Backstreet Boy?"
"He's Paris Hilton's Backstreet
Boy," I muttered bitterly, "and believe me when I say that I didn't expect him to call."
"Yeah, I heard you tell him
that part," William chuckled. He paused to cast me a sideways glance. "He's not another one of your customers, is he?"
"No,"
I answered with a laugh, checking the microscope's image one last time before agreeing to print. "Why?"
"You deserve
better than that," he answered simply, moving towards the printer as it clicked and squeaked to life. "You deserve a guy who's
nice to you because he understands and respects how brilliant and funny you are."
With my usual grace and poise, I
jerked myself back to the microscope so that William wouldn't see my attempt at blinking back the one tear that threatened
to escape the confines of my eyelashes.
"You know," I told him seriously, "if you wore contacts, you'd be more popular
than Brad Pitt. Seriously, man. You'd be beating the women back with a flagpole."
I glanced up just in time to see
William shaking his head at me. "It's good for my
girlfriend that I can't stick my finger in my eye, then, huh?" He winced
at the thought. "Besides...I couldn't ever beat girls. I'd feel way too bad about it." He chuckled as he retrieved the phospholipids
picture print-out. "I don't even think I could say no if they asked me out on a date. The guilt would eat me alive."
"Thus
why I haven't asked you out yet," I replied with a wink. "Now, show me the adhesion proteins."
Having effectively ended
any serious conversation for the evening, the two of us bent our heads over our textbooks and began the tedious labeling process.
* * * *
*
It was just past midnight when I closed up shop in the lab and crawled into my
tiny, beat-up Saturn for a trip away from the city. As soon as I was safely tucked away in the car, doors locked and radio
politely spouting a piano concerto, I sucked in a deep breath and considered my options.
To call the Backstreet Boy
or not to call the Backstreet Boy? That was the question. Whether 'twas nobler to maintain my dignity and continue an aloof
game of "my life is more important than you" or, by opposing, abandon my independent quest to be nice and make good on my
word.
To sleep, to sleep.
I tried to ignore just how good sleep sounded as I stopped at the first of many red
lights. Fortunately, my quickly descending eyelids made the difficult decision for me. I wasn't going to stay awake
on my own. With Bucs boy prattling on in my right ear, though, I stood a chance at beating back the Sandman until I'd made
it safely to my apartment.
With a resigned sigh, I flipped my phone open and dialed the number I knew
far too well for my liking. He answered after two rings.
"Bills girl! I've been eagerly awaiting your call."
I
arched my eyebrow doubtfully. "You are such a liar."
"No, seriously. I'd just gotten Chinese take-out when I called
you the first time, and I've been sitting at home, eating dinner and channel-surfing while I pretended not to stare at my
cell phone." He paused to chuckle. "That must have been one hell of a lab, chica. It took you two hours."
"There were
lots of proteins," I sighed. "Trust me, no one was more annoyed at that discovery than William and I."
"Who's William?"
There
was just enough of a frown in Bucs boy's voice that he almost sounded jealous. Of course, that was probably just wishful thinking
on my part.
"My lab partner," I answered with a smile.
"Do you partner in things that aren't lab work?"
I
couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. "No! God, no. He's way too smart for me, man. He's an aeronautical engineer who's
taking Microbio for fun. If he didn't dress like a character from That 70s Show, I'd be petrified of working with
him." I paused to shake my head at the thought of William and I together. "Besides, he's dating an astrophysicist. They're
going to get married and have bobble-head children."
I could hear the smile in the Backstreet Boy's voice when he responded.
"Bobble-head children?" he repeated incredulously.
"Absolutely. Think about it! Two people with brains that large,
mating? They're going to be lucky if their kids can walk upright."
Bucs boy burst into hearty laughter on the
other end, and I allowed myself a satisfied smile. Maybe I couldn't entice him, but I could at least amuse him. We had hope
for a friendship, right? I mean, he called me.
"You crack me up, Bills girl."
"Nice to know I'm good for something,"
I chuckled. "I got sidetracked, though. You were going to tell me exactly why you called earlier."
"I was?"
"Eventually,"
I replied smoothly. "Better to get it out of the way now, right? What's up?"
"Not much," he admitted with a chuckle.
"I'm just chilling in Los Angeles and trying to get a suitable work schedule drawn up. I kept feeling guilty about our terrible
date, though, so I called AJ to appease my conscience and formulate a confession."
I smiled in spite of my growing
cynicism. "How'd that work out for you?"
"Well, it might've worked better if he had known what the hell I was talking
about," Bucs boy laughed. "As it turned out, Alex had no idea that I'd been a terrible date."
I sighed. "Nick, you
were not a terrible date."
He snorted. "I was. I know I was. I didn't expect to be, but I also didn't expect to see
her there, and I didn't expect you to be so fuckin' understanding about everything. Had you ignored my moment of vulnerability,
I probably wouldn't have mentioned her at all, but then you called me on my shit, and everything went downhill." He sucked
in a deep breath. "I haven't exactly talked to anyone about the break-up. There was a lot of stuff that got pent up, I guess."
For
some unknown reason, I slid easily back into the role of counselor and abandoned my usual routine of sarcasm for a concerned
question.
I have no idea what made me act all understanding and shit again, but I'm citing exhaustion.
"Why
didn't you say anything to Alex about Paris's indiscretions?"
"You know, I ought to ask you the same question," Nick
laughed ironically. "I was shocked as shit to find out that you hadn't mentioned any of my sob story to him."
I shrugged.
"It wasn't my story to tell."
That was partially true. I decided against telling Bucs boy that I'd originally intended
to spill the beans anyway. If I told him that I'd planned on ratting him out, I'd have to tell him why I'd decided not to,
and I hadn't exactly figured that part out yet.
"I know," he admitted. "I mean, I didn't tell you to keep quiet, but
I was kinda telling you secrets. Most people wouldn't have picked up on that, though. They'd just take one look at the press
version of the Backstreet bond and assume that the fellas and I know everything there is to know about each other."
I
had to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing bitterly. If there's anything in which I'm well-versed, it's secret-keeping.
For that very reason, though, I didn't take the bait and tell him why I knew to keep mum. I just settled on cliché, enigmatic
movie dialogue.
"I'm not most people."
"You know, with all the insight I claim to possess, you'd think I would've
figured that out," he chuckled, "and I had, I guess, but...you still surprised me. In a good way, I mean." He paused to laugh
hollowly. "You're the first person in a while that's done that."
For the first time in a long time, I didn't know what
to say, so I took the appropriate turn onto the bridge and kept my mouth shut.
"You know," he continued quietly, "I'm
sure you were miserable listening to me ramble about Paris, but I felt a lot better after I talked to you. It sounds ludicrous,
because that evening had all the makings of the suckiest awards show in history, but...I actually had a really good time with
you."
I felt the familiar smirk cross my lips. "So you didn't really call to apologize, then...you called to thank
me for a nice night."
"Nah. You make it sound noble," he laughed. "I actually called for a much more selfish reason
than that."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I wanted to know if you'd be willing to let me ramble again sometime."
I arched
an expectant eyebrow. "Are you telling me they don't have therapists in LA?"
I knew it would sound bitchy before I
said it, but that was the point. I was testing him. To my surprise, he didn't back down from the unofficial challenge.
"Not
honest, witty ones, no," he replied readily. "And definitely none that look that good in a ball gown."
"The flattery
is unnecessary, but appreciated," I acknowledged with a playfully guarded tone. "So, let's supposed for a second that I actually
agree to this proposition of yours. What's in it for me?"
"The freedom to ramble in return," he replied with a grin
in his voice.
I frowned. "This sounds like a suspiciously simple proposition, Bucs boy. I'm afraid there must be a
catch I'm missing."
"Really?" he teased. "My bad. Allow me to make myself clearer. What I'm proposing is a little thing
that the common folk call a friendship."
A friendship with the beautiful blonde Backstreet Boy? My near-frozen heart
leapt
hopefully at the possibility, but my brain was screaming in protest. Platonic relationship with the cute one?
Yeah fucking right. You might as well toss your fragile psyche right into Satan's jaws. This can only end in heartbreak.
I
sucked in a breath. "I don't know, man. I'm not as interesting as you might think. I'm also really, really busy."
"I
am too," he pointed out. "There is that whole make-an-album-and-tour-the-world
thing I do."
"Exactly. You meet a
thousand cool people every day. You're not going to want to stick around and keep tabs on some lonely little bartending academic
from New York City. I'm no more appealing than any other struggling student."
"Sure you are," he laughed. "You're real."
I
was about to make a sarcastic retort about the dictionary definition of reality when he continued unabashedly.
"I can't
believe I'm having to convince you to befriend me, Bills girl. I mean, I had you pegged as fearless...and now you're telling
me that a friendship with a Backstreet Boy is too much of a challenge? Where's your sense of adventure? Where's your integrity?
Where's that spitfire determination that fueled your feminist rant during our first conversation? I've gotta admit, I'm kind
of disappointed in you."
A wiser person would recognize his taunting as teasing and call it a night.
I never
claimed to be that wiser person.
"Fine, Bucs boy, you have yourself a deal."
|
