“Maybe more, depending,” I offer.
We make small talk for a few more minutes, and then Edna whisks me away to introduce me to a bunch of other people whose names I won’t retain this time tomorrow.
Except James. I’m pretty sure I’ll remember James.
* * *
I checkmy texts when I finally get done with the intros and back to my car. It’s mid-October and already getting dark outside, even though it’s not even five yet.
Right away, I feel guilty.
Hey, how was your first day at the new gig?
Great! Everyone seems really nice, all that
I think it’ll be good. You?
Eh, same as usual
Almost beat my previous Sudoku time record though
Shit. Make it a holiday, even though Sudoku is bullshit and crosswords are the true test of intellect
Sorry you hate logic puzzles for smart people
Sorry you’re unrefined and prefer numbers to the glory that is the English language
Just like that I’m grinning in the driver’s seat of my car andalsofeeling guilty for… thinking someone else is attractive while also having an anonymous sex friend? To whom I’ve made no promises whatsoever and whose face I have literally never seen?
God, I’m a prude. Except for the things I do on camera with Max, my anonymous sex friend. Those aren’t prudish, even if afterward I always have to fight that tingle of discomfort I get every single time, because good girls don’t act slutty like that.
It’s persistent, though, that feeling. I grew up here, in a small, fairly conservative Southern town, with religious parents who had twelve kids. When I was fourteen I signed a purity pledge at church that said, more or less,I will only ever do it with my husband because otherwise I’ll go to hell, and that kind of thing really puts some ideas in your head at a formative age.
I'd never even kissed a boy with tongue until I finally transferred to a four-year college after two years at the community college, but once I did it was… yeah, my purity pledge didn't last. It was all very normal college dating—I've never even had a one-night stand—but for someone who grew up in the environment I did, I felt like I may as well let an entire frat run a train on me.
Anyway. Now I’m having some kind of internet sexual relationship with an anonymous guy—whichreallyfeels wild and slutty to me—who I like a lot despite knowing nothing about, and I’m also finding another person attractive, and I have all the guilt about it.
But at least I have a job, right?
* * *
A couple weeks later,I’m in the faculty lounge during my twenty-five-minute lunch break, and the microwave’s not working. It’s plugged in, and the display has the same random configuration of bright green numbers it always does, but the buttons do nothing.
I am going to lose my mind, because I amstarvingfor leftover chili and if I don’t get to eat lunch right now, that might be it for Einstein, the science hamster.
“Not working?” says a voice like whiskey and velvet and pretty sunsets, right behind me. It’s James, obviously. He should, like, narrate porn or something.
“No,” I say, mashing the buttons a little more and probably blushing. “It’s plugged in, so I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Is there another one anywhere?”
“Hmm,” he says, puts his hands on the table where the microwave is sitting, and leans over a little.
“I really did check.”
“No, I know,” he laughs. What a sound. “I was checking to see if the toaster is also… yeah,” he says, and sighs. “We gotta make a sign.”
“No toasting?” I guess. “If you need help with it, I'm great at clipart.”
“Might have to take you up on that,” he says, and waves at the outlet on the wall. “I think the building is older than the invention of the microwave oven, so if you plug both appliances into the same outlet, it'll trip the circuit breaker.”
