Читать книгу Flam Grub - Dan Dowhal - Страница 11

Chapter 7

On Monday morning Lucy failed to show up in the cafeteria to share a coffee before class. This was not unprecedented, but it still torpedoed Flam’s buoyant little fantasy of how the day was meant to unfold. He’d envisioned winning her over with the poem first thing in the morning, paving the way for a day spent at school together sighing over one another, and culminating in an evening of intimate discovery. Instead, he found himself waiting anxiously, and then rushing off to class alone.

Their first subject of the day was Psychology of Grief, normally one of Flam’s favourites, but he found himself growing progressively more apprehensive as the classroom clock’s minute hand reached the 9 o’clock zenith without any sign of Lucy. At two minutes after the hour, as the teacher, Mr. Wales, was outlining the day’s lesson on the board, Lucy slunk into the classroom, looking befuddled and dishevelled. Instead of seeking out her usual seat, which Flam had saved in the front row, she chose to slip quickly into a spot at the back while Mr. Wales wasn’t looking. Flam swivelled around and craned his neck, trying to offer her a sympathetic, inquiring look, but Lucy’s head was hunched over her knapsack while she busied herself in its contents.

When class ended, Flam rocketed out of his seat to chase after Lucy, whose long-legged strides were already carrying her quickly down the hallway.

“Lucy!” Flam called after her, starting to wonder if she was purposely avoiding him. She turned, her azure eyes and luminescent smile instantly melting away any doubts Flam had been harbouring. His heart, which had been beating frantically out of control, slowed down to a more sustainable disco beat.

“Oh, hey, Flam,” she greeted him casually, turning to walk beside him. She gave a little snigger. “I really slept in this morning. I’m like totally lucky Wales didn’t centre me out for coming in late.”

Now that he was beside her and able to talk, Flam didn’t know where to begin. He felt like dropping to his knees and simply blurting out adoration for her, but even a guileless romantic like Flam understood that, in rock-hard reality, such things simply weren’t done.

Their next lecture was only minutes away, and although he deliberately slowed down his pace to preserve their time together, Flam knew the poem needed a more appropriate moment for its debut. Still, he needed to break the silence, to set the stage for what he wanted to tell her.

“I went to that poetry recital on Friday night,” Flam finally offered by way of a lead-in. Lucy turned, looking surprised and delighted, the old intimacy suddenly restored. The questions flooded out of her: “Oh, my gosh, I’d forgotten all about it! How was it? Did you enjoy it? What kinds of poetry did they do? Were there a lot of people? Did you meet anyone?”

They had reached their next class, a double dose of Funerary Law, and Flam, bolstered by Lucy’s apparent gush of curiosity, opted to play it coy. “It was quite the experience . . . you really missed out on something,” he said somewhat evasively, not wanting Lucy to feel she’d made the right decision by not having gone with Flam. They were in their seats now, and the opportunity for intimacy was passing as their classmates filled in around them.

“Tell you what,” Flam offered, pretending to turn his attention to his texts and notebooks, “meet me in the cafeteria, and I’ll give you all the juicy details over lunch.” He held his breath until Lucy finally responded with a reticent “alright.” Flam exhaled, and began to mentally prepare for their noon rendezvous.

The rest of the morning dragged by for Flam, and when the bell finally rang, he had only the fuzziest recollection of what had been taught for the past couple of hours. All he could think about was Lucy, and how the moment had finally arrived when he could win her heart. How would she be able to resist him, once he was revealed to her as a newfound poetical light, and she the apex of his inspiration?

Flam stood up, ready to shepherd Lucy to the cafeteria, but before he could utter a word, she turned and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Go ahead and save us a seat, will you? I have something I need to do.” Flam felt the blood rushing to his face, as much from the warm sensation of her physical touch as from the frustration of having once again been sidetracked in his plans.

He managed a brave smile, and acted like it was no big deal. “Sure . . . I’ll grab a table by the windows. You want anything to eat?”

She shook her head. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” she told him, and took off in the opposite direction. He paused to watch her sway around the corner, and then dashed to the cafeteria.

Most of the eatery’s seating consisted of aisle upon aisle of long, barracks-style tables, but along one side, where a wall of opaque glass blocks ran floor to ceiling, was a row of tables for two. These choice seats went fast at lunchtime, and Flam wanted to ensure he got one, thereby guaranteeing some intimacy and eliminating the possibility some passing classmates could join them.

He was in luck. There was just one table left, and with relief he dropped his knapsack on the spare chair and plopped himself down. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry, making him briefly contemplate buying a drink—he was too nervous to eat—but the checkout line was already growing long, and he didn’t want to chance wasting any of their precious time together standing in the queue.

Flam realized his back was to the door, and he hurriedly switched seats so he would be able to wave Lucy down the instant she came into the cafeteria. The minutes crept by, each one noted on Flam’s wristwatch, and corroborated by the clock on the cafeteria wall, but there was still no sign of Lucy. By a quarter past, Flam was getting a sick feeling in his stomach, feeling his dreams being slowly crushed to death under the weight of Lucy’s cruel indifference. By twelve thirty, Flam’s despair had begun to morph into anger, directed as much at himself as at the latecomer herself.

He was getting ready to stomp out of the cafeteria, and was debating whether to tear up the poem first, when Lucy materialized in the entrance to the cafeteria. She spotted Flam and hurried across the crowded hall towards him, leaving behind a wake of admiring male heads, which swung around in rapid synchronized succession like cadets on parade.

“Hi, Flam,” she offered, smiling innocently as he stood up to grab his knapsack and allow her to slide into the vacant seat. “So, tell me about Friday night!” she began immediately without any preamble or a word of explanation. She sounded genuinely excited, and although Flam had thought of challenging her for being late, he quickly dismissed the notion and instead launched into his well-rehearsed, somewhat embellished version of the Friday night poetry recital. He finished up by relating how he himself had been mistaken for a poet, although he purposely didn’t mention it had been a woman who’d approached him, not wanting even a hint of possible infidelity to enter Lucy’s mind.

Flam concluded with the coup de grace, a carefully planned segue to the poem he had written for Lucy. “One or two of them weren’t bad, in a raw, shoot-from-the-hip kind of way, but frankly I think my own stuff is better.”

Lucy blinked as she absorbed the statement. Then she took the bait, her eyes widening with unabashed delight, so alluring it caused an instant tingle in Flam’s groin.

“Flam . . . you write poetry?” she squealed. “How come you never told me? All those times we were talking and learning about it, I didn’t realize you did more than just read it!”

Flam acted properly bashful, but his pulse quickened as he realized the moment had arrived. “Oh, I haven’t been into it long, and I’ve never shared it with anyone else. But, I’ve written a poem just for you, Lucy. Do you want to hear it?”

He didn’t allow Lucy the chance to refuse, and quickly slid a copy of the poem out from beneath his binder, and rotated the printout into place in front of her. As she glanced down, he began reciting the lines from memory. All the inner aching and pent-up emotion that had been tormenting him now poured out into each stanza’s reading. Even though the presence of students at the neighbouring tables made him keep his voice low, this only added to the poem’s sensual and intimate nature.

Lucy sat motionless throughout the recitation, her reaction impossible to read. When Flam finished, an uncomfortable silence spread between them, accentuated by the hub of the cafeteria crowd and the clanking of dishes, which now seemed surreally louder. The seconds dragged, and still Lucy sat deadpan, staring down at the sheet of paper. This was not how Flam had envisioned the climax. Perhaps he had been too subtle. She must have missed the crux of the verse, and didn’t realize the depth of his feelings. She clearly hadn’t understood how profoundly he longed for her.

He was about to blurt out, “Lucy, don’t you see . . . I love you!” when she finally spoke up, as if anticipating the words to come, and needing to intercept them, to prevent them from taking wing.

“Oh, Flam, it’s lovely. I’m really, really flattered,” Lucy sighed, her voice low, barely above a whisper. There was a sort of regret, almost a weariness, in her words, and Flam got the sudden impression she was speaking lines very familiar to her.

“Listen, Flam, I really like you a lot . . ..”

Please, God, no, Flam pleaded inwardly, anticipating the shoe that was about to drop, please . . . not the ‘F’ word.

“. . . as a friend.”

Thud. There was more about what a nice guy he was, and how smart he was, and how he deserved to find the perfect girl some day. It barely registered, as Flam stared down at the dull, institutional terrazzo of the cafeteria floor, which seemed to be spinning as he struggled to keep his mental equilibrium. He felt as insignificant as one of the stone ovals that made up the floor’s mottled pattern.

Flam had the urge to get up and flee back to his apartment, where he could hide behind his wall of books, cry, and lick his wounds. He realized he had been a fool all along to delude himself into thinking a woman so beautiful, so desirable, could possibly be attracted to a loser like him. And yet he clung to Lucy’s presence, even though everything was now a blur, and he felt like his insides had been torn out of him. Although she had rejected him, shredding his hopes and hurting him beyond words, he felt that as long as she was still there, across the table, he had not really lost her.

Lucy’s words dissolved into a meaningless drone, or rather, their overall meaning became so painfully evident to Flam that there was no need to dissect the individual phrases and phonemes. But then the tone shifted; the substance of what she was saying now began to register, and jolted him back from his mental haze.

“I wasn’t really looking to get involved with anyone,” Lucy was saying. “It just sort of happened. I’ve only been seeing him for a little while, but I think it might be serious.”

A boyfriend? Flam thought. Lucy never mentioned a boyfriend. Not that she had in fact told him anything at all about her personal life. Flam had never wanted to risk spoiling the magic of their precious moments together with nosy questions. Like a hiker who has a rare and beautiful butterfly light upon him and is afraid to move for fear of startling the creature, Flam had always avoided doing anything he thought might threaten his relationship with Lucy.

His continued silence, and the wretched look that had materialized on his face, evidently disturbed Lucy, and she reached over and placed her hand on his. Flam gazed up into her beguiling eyes, which seemed to be sparkling and shifting in colour as they caught the outside light through the glass blocks.

“Are you okay?” she asked, smiling encouragingly. The sheen of perfect teeth peeked out from behind glossy lips. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Flam mumbled, barely able to speak. The bell sounded and immediately the local din increased as students gathered their belongings and shuffled towards the exit.

Flam and Lucy stood up together and she hesitated a minute, as if seeing for the first time, in his slumped shoulders and tightly pressed lips, the full extent of the carnage her words had wreaked. She stepped forward and threw her arms around him in a hug. Flam was caught totally off guard, and holding his knapsack in one hand, had to fight hard just to keep his balance, let alone return the embrace. The closeness of her body pressed against his emanated a warmth that enveloped him like a layer of melting toffee, a feeling that lingered even after Lucy had swiftly pushed away.

“Are you coming?” she asked. He nodded, forcing a weak smile. Together they walked slowly to their next class.