Today I Met a Boy

Part 1: Heather
Today I met a boy.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
We looked away, me to a weed pushing itself up through a crack in the sidewalk and him--my eyes noted out of their corners--to a smear of gum bleached in the sun. Stealing a quick glance, I thought the slick white streak looked like a snatched piece of satin wedding gown. Maybe the bride had been late because she wanted everything to be perfect and that one last curl just would not behave--
“Hey,” he said, jerking his chin. Brown curls licked high cheekbones. “Your turn.”
My empty cardboard box slid through the sweat on my palms; it landed on the nearest card table. Behind it and a clipboard, a hot tired voice wanted to know my name.
“Heather,” I said.
He smiled and pulled a string somewhere below my navel so the bottom of my stomach fell out and left a gaping hole of possibility. “Pretty.”
Heather WHAT, the voice really needed to know, as approximately seven HUNDRED Heathers were on the list--
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean--Cooper. Heather Cooper. Cooper comma Heather.”
Yes yes, the voice got it, Cooper comma Heather, taking these courses? Please--I looked over the list.
“Yes, that’s me,” I said. Checked-off books plopped into my box and laid my academic future bare.
“Intro to Stats?” he said. Azure eyes flickered with interest and plucked my heart until it quivered. “Me too.”
“Really?” I said, trying on astonishment. “Awesome.
NEXT! Name.
“Paul Roberts,” he said.
Paul Roberts, I thought. “I’m no good at math.”
Curling his left hand around a pen from a cargo pocket, he scribbled on a stray piece of paper and held it out to me. “My cell phone number. In case you get stuck--I’m pretty decent--on the homework--or, like, want to do something…whichever.”
“Okay,” I said. The scrap of writing I tucked between texts before I picked up my box full of books, extremely conscious of my unshaven legs and unwashed hair and undigested lump of lunch, but unable to not grin at him. “I will.”

So I sit on the bed in my dorm, surrounded by old things in new places, listening to the people rush through the building’s arteries in a pulse of excitement.
Glamorous girls, all of them, possessors of hair straighteners and strapless bras under deceptively simple dresses and liquid eyeliner and mango-scented hand lotion and boyfriends--I can hear and smell and see them getting ready to go out.
His number floats through my head--soon I will be one of them.
I practice in front of the mirror first, but it does no good. “Hi Paul, it’s Heather, the girl you met in front of you in the book line today? Hope you got everything you need--they told me two of mine wouldn’t be in until Monday--anyway--um, I guess your phone picked up this number--it’s mine--so--Heather Cooper--just wanted to say hi--well, bye.”
Snapping my phone off, I allow myself to picture our future: coffee to lunch to dinner and a movie; holding hands to French kisses to good-night gropes; awkward pleasantries to “no way you’re into that too?” to three-hour conversations of meaningful silences.
My roommate has left, too, for pizza with old friends. She invited me, but I declined. I have a new life to build.
I wait for him to set the next brick in place.

Part 2: Paul
Met a girl today, standing in line for books.
It was hot as hell and nobody really wanted to be there. But she was cute, enough to sort of glow through a couple layers of grime, so I gave her my number and a wink. She’s already left me a message.
I think maybe I’ll call her back, if I don’t end up having anything else to do tonight.