10…Poetic Fancies
"Nooo!" Em says with a mix of wonder and mirth for the hundredth time since I started this story. She is sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed and I'm facing her, leaning against my forest green burlap headboard. "He did not say that!"
"Yes. Really." I repeat my refrain for the hundredth time, shaking my head at the memory.
After dinner, where I told the edited interview story, with no mention of the elevator saga, I dragged Em back to the Rambler to tell her this part of it.
"I'm impressed by him already. This story is so good it's almost worth you ruining those perfect shoes!"
"That's one of the many regrets of this whole incident. I loved those shoes, Em. Loved them! I'm so sorry."
I've relayed my mortifying elevator tale to her in an attempt to allay my humiliation; to turn it all into a cartoonish yarn so I can muster the courage to go back in there in a week and a half. And it's almost working; the more she exclaims with incredulity, the easier it is to imagine it as just slapstick buffoonery that happened to someone—anyone!—else.
The only part that's not working is I keep flashing to the feel of his hands on me. Um…and his eyes. His eyes are so real and compelling in my own mind's eye that they close the distance I'm trying to achieve in relaying this to Em.
"Speaking of shoes, you said you saw a ship embossed on his boots, right?" She reaches over to her purse sitting a few feet away on the bed and drags it over towards her. She pulls out her iPad and fiddles with it. "I'm pretty sure I've seen those before."
"Unless my mind just conjured it up to add to my sea-god vision, which I guess is entirely possible. But I swear there really was a trident on the handle of that mail cart, silly as it sounds. That other mailroom guy I met had an anchor on his cart, so I guess it's a Falk Atlantic thing, you know."
"Were they like this?" She turns her iPad to face me and I take it from her. Pictured on the screen is a Google images page with multiple photos of those exact boots.
"Yes! Those are the ones!" I hand the iPad back to her. "I guess I didn't conjure it in my head."
"Those are some really expensive Alexander McQueen boots," she says admiringly. "He has good taste."
"How can you possibly know this? About the boots?"
"How do you know all those languages? How does Bea know music? How does my mom know every aspect of interior design?" she shrugs. "I know fashion. It's just my thing."
"I guess," I mutter, in awe of her encyclopedic knowledge of all things wearable. "And I'm glad for it because you have to help me come up with at least a week's worth of business-y outfits."
She tucks the iPad back in her bag, then looks up at me with a devilish sparkle in her eye that immediately makes me uneasy.
"So," she says slowly, a grin spreading across her face. "Did the sea god make your wahjuva sing?"
I cringe, my expression probably looking as if I've eaten a crate of lemons. Em does not know any foreign languages even though she's taken classes in French at school, only because it was the language of Coco Chanel. But she does have her own sort of Southern-based language and very definite opinions on words. She despises particular words and won't let you use them in front of her without complaint.
I learned this within the first week of being her roommate in Palo Alto. It started when I said the word couch. Em flinched with distaste, her delicate features screwing up to look as if she'd eaten a crate of lemons. She'd primly correcting me saying, Please don't use that word. It's awful! But feel free to have a seat on the sofa. I didn't get that—what's the big difference between couch and sofa?—but I found she just doesn't like the way some words sound.
I have dubbed her particular version of the English language as "Southern Gothica"—a foreign tongue native only to Em…and maybe her mother, Allison.
"Gah!…I can't believe you've wahjuva'd me!" I protest, holding both my hands in front of my face.
Vagina is not a word she actually hates, but she doesn't think it holds up to the inherent majesty of the thing. She has renamed it "wahjuva."
"Well, too bad missy! You crotch'd me earlier when you were telling your story!" she giggles. Crotch is another word she despises and I saw her cringe when I used it, but she didn't kick up a fuss then as she was too engrossed in my tale of woe.
"What am I supposed to use instead of crotch?"
"Privates or private parts would do nicely, thank you," she primly explains.
"Alright then…I face-planted into his privates!" I say, emphasizing the word. We are both giggling now.
"So did he?" she asks gleefully. "Did he make your wahjuva sing?"
I pick up a nearby pillow and throw it at her, but this is really redirection. Because I am not about to answer this ridiculous question.Instead, I can feel red climbing up my neck and cheeks.
After Em bats the pillow away, I am horrified to see a dawning astonishment on her face. "You're blushing!" she exclaims. "You're actually blushing! I'm not sure I've seen you blush before."
"Only because you keep saying that word!"
"What? You have a problem with your wahjuva singing an aria to the sexy sea-god stranger?" she teases.
"Agh! Stop or you will force me to bring out the big guns," I say through my embarrassed laughter.
"Wahjuva! Wahjuva! Wahjuva!" She is relentless. "Wahjuva!" I cover my ears with my hands as she keeps on.
"Don't say I didn't warn you…Panties!" I screech. "Panties, panties, panties, panties!" This is probably her least favorite word. I laugh as I see her face scrunch up.
We are having a panties versus wahjuva duel.
"Okay, okay. I beg you, stop! Please!" She has curled up in a fetal position at the foot of the bed, putting her hands up to her ears.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a movement and look over to see Bea standing in the doorway gazing at us with the most wistful expression on her face, almost beatific.
"What?" I ask, trying my darnedest to dampen my mirth, but I can't.
"It's just that…it's not often I see you act your age. And with someone your own age. It's nice." She walks into the room.
Em protests, "I am two years older!"
Bea rolls her eyes, "Ahh…youth."
Em sits up, looking at me, "Tell Bea about the guy who made your wahjuva sing, what was his name? Oh yeah…Vince! Tell her!"
Bea sits on the edge of the bed, looking between us. "This sounds good." Bea knows the creative translation of "wahjuva." I taught her that word and explained to her about Em's Southern Gothica language the first time I came back from Stanford for a visit.
I slump over onto the pillows, pulling one over my head. Bea knows about the interview. "I can't repeat it again," I say, muffled. I point toward Em. "You tell it."
And she does, with rather more drama and giggling than when I told it and no use of the word, "crotch." But the facts are all there.
"Wow!" Bea says. "That was a good parting line. I'm impressed with this mailroom dude already."
I pull the pillow off and tuck it under my head. "But how am I going to face going in there again?"
Em smiles, "I have something that could help."
"What could possibly help this?"
"Remember when I said I had some news, too, but made you tell yours first?" I nod. "I was talking to James today about you having an interview and…"
I bolt upright, cutting her off. "You didn't tell James about this, did you?"
"How could I have? You just told me!"
Oh…right. Where is my brain?
"So…as I was saying…" she continues, "I was talking to James and mentioned Falk Atlantic as the company you were interviewing with and his closest friend works there, too."
I groan. "What if it's that mailroom god? I'll die!"
"You will not die, Miss Hyperbole, because for one, this is a long-time friend and Penn roommate of his. They're about to graduate from the MBA program at Wharton, and he did an internship at Falk last summer. They hired him for after graduation, but he hasn't started working there yet. Plus, when he does, I doubt he'll be working in the mailroom," she sniffs haughtily. "And second, and most importantly, his friend's name is Leif." She pronounces it, "Layf."
"Leif?" I snort. "As in Erikson?"
"Or Garrett," Bea adds.
Both Em and I turn to her at the same time asking, "Who?"
"Just…Never mind." She shakes her head, looking pained.
"I know, right?" Em says. "What kind of name is Leif? I bet he got beat up on the playground with a name like that."
Bea has put her head in her hands and is shaking the whole bed with her suppressed laughter. "What?" I ask her.
She looks up, still laughing. "I feel almost rude pointing out that you," she points at Em, "are named 'Emory,' and your parents named you 'Ellawyn,'" she jabs her finger to me. "Neither of you two are a Jane or a Jennifer or a Kate, so I'm pretty sure this is a pot and kettle situation."
Em waves it away, "No one our age is named Jennifer, but there are a hundred Alex's of both sexes. Besides, I think making fun of someone else is helping our little Ellawyn mitigate her shame, so let's just let it be for now." She draws a breath dramatically. "So…as I was saying…before I was interrupted… something that might help…You and I are having dinner with them both Friday night. And there is no getting out of it."
"But…" I start to protest.
"No." She fixes me with a look that has bypassed The Coordinator and gone straight up to The Controller. "No ifs, ands, or buts."
"How is that going to help?"
"Because you will have a friend at that company before you even start work." She gets a glittering twinkle in her eye that frightens me. "A friend in whose private parts you have not face-planted. Yet!"
"Ugh!" I drop sideways back into the bank of pillows again. I know I'll have to go to this thing. There will be no saying no to Em for this dinner and I do want to meet her new guy, but... "Alright," I grumble. "But just make the reservation for a place down this way—no upper east side or anything—and for later, so I can spend time with the O.G. beforehand, okay? I will be seeing a lot less of him with this job, you know."
"I've already thought of the criteria you might have and made a reservation
for nine-thirty at The Gotham." Yes, of course she would think of everything—The
Coordinator strikes again. I sigh loudly.
"You know what's odd about this little elevator encounter?" Bea asks.
"You mean, aside from every single solitary thing since the elevator doors opened?"
"There is that, but no…it's just that I've not seen you given to this kind of poetic flight-of-fancy before, especially regarding a boy," Bea teases, her eyes lighting up.
"Huh?" I'm confused.
"Well…calling him a sea god! Describing his coloring, his boots, his eyes in minute detail. Unless that was just Em adding onto the story when she repeated it to me."
Em huffs, "Oh no, that all came out straight out of Elle's mouth. She described his eyes as 'pools of deep ocean water,' or whatnot."
"I did not!" Okay, well…maybe I did.
"Uh huh." Em chides. "Yes you did! And Bea's right…I've never heard that from you either."
I'm embarrassed all over again with this turn in the conversation. "I can't help it. Maybe it was just all that kitschy mariner stuff that's all over the office, I don't know." Somehow a whine has crept right into my voice. "But I think if you were to see him, you'd both describe him that way too. There was just so much gravity to him. He was just so…so…I don't know…Male!"
Both Bea and Em are grinning at me like evil Cheshire cats.
"Stop looking at me like that!" This only makes the both of them smile wider.
"And another weird thing," Bea adds. "I've never seen you stumble or fall once since you mastered walking."
"Come to think of it, neither have I," Em chimes in. "Remember when you raced Dylan across the Stanford Oval?"
"So? That was only because he was being patronizing and chauvinistic to Lexie. Besides, he beat me in that race."
"Yeah, I know. But you were wearing those really high summer wedges—the blue ones with the braided rope clasp. I don't know how you didn't break your neck running in those. I would've."
"Only you would remember what shoes I was wearing, like, two years ago."
"And when we went camping up at Point Reyes with those design students and my hat blew off in the wind and you climbed down the side of that cliff to get it? It was like you were a mountain goat or something. And you had on flip-flops!"
"Again with the shoes! The only thing I remember from that trip is that you complained the entire time."
Em replies snootily, "To me, camping is staying at the Holiday Inn. I don't see the point of sleeping in a flimsy nylon cave on some windy hill where spiders live." I see Bea shaking her head at Em's high-and-mightiness and it makes me smile. "Seriously, though. When was the last time you remember tripping?"
"I don't know!" I shrug. But a hazy memory from a week ago drops into my mind. "Oh! When I first got to Henry's rehab from the plane, a lady who works on his floor was helping me find him and I stumbled into the elevator. I would've face-planted then, right into the floor, if she hadn't been holding my arm."
Bea gets up from the bed, heading toward the door. "So maybe it's just elevators!"
I don't say it, but, a little glimmer of an understanding comes to me in that moment. I think I've tripped both those times right when my life was about to change.
