“I knew it!” she says triumphantly. “I told Zoe there was an electric current between the two of you strong enough to light up the greater Chicagoland area. Ha! I love it when I’m right!” She faces the mirror and reapplies her lipstick. “So… when you say ‘hanging out,’ do you mean ‘hanging out with your clothes off’?”
“That,” I reply, “is none of your business. But no. Just hanging out.”
“Do you want it to be more?”
I blush. “I guess.”
“I don’t blame you. He’s a cutie.”
LFW is open for business again. Only this time, Fantasy Jude is pretty much the same thing as Real Jude. I have to fill in the blanks sometimes on things I don’t know about him, but there’s no longer an Oxford-educated, tennis-playing, MG-driving, gleaming-toothed, satin-tongued Brit residing in my mind. The Jude in my fantasies plays rugby, uses weird terms and phrases that I don’t really understand all the time, drives a car identical to mine, loves Psycho, and makes me laugh. He’s… well, dreamy.
There’s a knock on my apartment door. I open it and there’s Jude, standing in a pool of light that has no obvious origin. But it makes the blondish highlights in his light brown hair stand out. And it makes him look like an angel.
“Hey, Libby. Can I come in?”
“Yes. How did you know where I live?”
“Corporate directory. I just had to see you tonight. I’m sick of talking on the dog and bone all the time like two spotty teenagers.” He walks in and looks around. “This flat is the business!”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Well, I didn’t come here to compliment your apartment. I came here for a bit of a snog, actually, to be quite honest.”
“Oh. If you insist…”
“…I say, ‘good for you!’ This is exciting!” Lisa trills over her shoulder in a silly soprano, breaking into my daydream as she pushes the door open and exits the bathroom.
I must say, beaming at myself in the mirror, that I agree with her wholeheartedly.
It used to be that I dreaded the weekends. Even more than weekdays, which I also didn’t really enjoy. So, in other words, it used to be that I hated my life. But especially weekends. They were long, boring, and—yep—lonely. And then after suffering through two full days of doing nothing with no one, I’d have to go to work and endure everyone asking me, “How was your weekend?” or “Did you do anything fun this weekend?” You can only say “Fine” and “No” in so many ways. Then, after surviving the Monday inquisition, I’d have three measly days of peace before people would start asking, “Have anything fun planned this weekend?” Two hundred times a year (at least), I’d find myself answering something having to do with my empty weekends.
Well, not anymore. I have (dare I say it?) a boyfriend. Well, kind of. In a sort of Victorian definition of the word. He’s definitely a boy, and I’m pretty sure we’d consider each other friends. Okay, so I’m a little confused about what we are to each other, since I’m not very experienced with this sort of thing, but what I’m getting at is that Jude and I make plans to do things together. And then we actually do them. That’s called “dating,” right? I’m almost certain it is.
Only… don’t people our age who are dating do more than hold hands? Well, Jude and I don’t. I think once he may have given me a peck on the cheek when he dropped me off at home at the end of the night. But it was a kiss very similar to the one my brother gave me when I took him to the airport to return to the University of Florida last semester. And since the pillow-fight/“I’m-a-virgin” fiasco, I haven’t set foot inside his apartment again. Neither has he been inside mine. I think I’m destined to turn thirty without ever having been French kissed. What a dismal prospect!
I’ve determined that if anything’s going to be done about this, however, it’s going to have to be my doing. It’s obvious that Jude’s taking things slowly (what’s a word for “so-slowly-that-three-toed-sloths-are-passing-us-while-making-out”?) because I’m a virgin, and he doesn’t want to freak me out. How nice. But it’s just a kiss, right? Am I missing something? The only thing stopping me from going for it is that I may be missing something. Now would be a good time to have real girlfriends.
Tonight we’re sitting in a bar (not a gastropub) after seeing a movie that almost required a meeting of the Geneva Convention for us to agree on. Jude didn’t want to see a chick flick. I didn’t want to watch an action/adventure/thriller/mystery/the-end-of-the-world-is-here blockbuster. Neither one of us wanted to sit in the middle of a bunch of kids and their parents watching the latest animated piece of fluff. So, after researching our choices all week, we decided to see an independent drama at one of the smaller art-house theaters. It seems, after talking it over, that we both actually liked it, although Jude criticized it for being somewhat pretentious and a little too earnest.
Now he’s in the restroom, and I’m plotting how I’m going to plant one on him before the end of the night. Easier said than done when you’ve never done it before. My strategy so far is:
Drink enough to lower my inhibitions without getting drunk (I actually want to remember my first kiss ever).
Eat and drink things that don’t make me self-conscious about my breath (I had Junior Mints at the movie; I’m drinking fruity girl drinks at the bar).
Picture some of the most romantic kisses in my favorite movies (unfortunately, though, most of them were initiated by the men, so it’s difficult to reverse
