“Right?” Hartley gave me another smile so warm and devilish that I could not look away. Then he slapped a notebook onto his lap just as a professor began tapping the microphone on the lectern.
Professor Rumpel looked to be about 109 years old, give or take a decade. “Class,” he began. “It really is true what they say about economics. The answer to any test question is ‘supply and demand.’” The old man let out a breathy gust of air into the microphone.
Hartley leaned closer to me and whispered, “I think that was supposed to be a joke.”
The proximity made my face feel hot. “We are in serious trouble,” I whispered back.
But really, I was referring to me.
Hartley’s cell phone rang as class ended, so I gave him a friendly wave and rolled out of the lecture hall alone. Then, after consulting my trusty gimp map, I headed toward the biggest dining hall on campus. Harkness Commons had been built in the 1930s to accommodate the entire college at once. Slowly, I wheeled into the crowded, cavernous space. Before me stretched over one hundred wooden tables. After swiping my ID at the door, I had to watch the flow of bodies inside to determine where to go next.
Students flowed past me toward one wall of the room. So I wound my wheelchair through the tables toward what looked like a line. Drifting forward while trying to read a chalkboard, I accidentally bumped the person in line in front of me. She spun around quickly, a look of irritation on her face until she looked down and realized what had hit her. “Sorry!” she said quickly.
I felt my face flush. “I’m sorry,” I echoed. And why was she sorry, anyway? I’m the dope who ran into her.
This was one of the strange truths about driving a wheelchair. Nine out of ten times, anyone I bumped — or maybe even flattened — would apologize. It made no sense at all, and somehow it also pissed me off.
I found the end of the line. But then I noticed that everyone else in line had collected a tray already, and silverware. So I steered myself out of line, found the trays and cutlery, and then added myself to the end again. Waiting in line in my chair put me at eye-level with other people’s rear ends. It was the same way the world had looked when I was seven years old.
— Hartley
I swear to God, the guy who made my sandwich could not have moved slower if he had both wrists tied together. I stood there, my ankle throbbing, my good leg shaking. It didn’t help that I’d skipped breakfast. By the time he handed the plate over, I thought I might pass out.
“Thanks,” I said. I took the plate in my right hand, and then jammed my right crutch under my armpit. I tried to walk away like that, without gripping the crutch handle. My balance off, I swayed, and then had to lean against the service counter just to stay vertical. My crutch fell to the floor with a bang.
Fail. The only saving grace was that the sandwich didn’t jump ship, too.
“Hey gimp!” a voice called from behind me.
I turned around, but it took me a minute to find Corey, because I was looking for someone my own height. After an awkward second, I looked and spotted her. “Callahan,” I said. “Did you see that suave maneuver?”
With a smile, she took the plate out of my hand and set it on her tray. “Don’t kill yourself in the name of a…” she looked at the plate. “Turkey club. I’ll carry it for you if you can give me a second.”
“Thanks,” I sighed. I hopped aside, and waited while the same under-motivated sandwich guy made her lunch.
Several hours later (I might be exaggerating), our tray contained two sandwiches, chips, cookies, my glasses of milk and her diet soda. “I think I see a free table over there, in the next zip code,” I muttered, crutching forward. Corey wheeled our booty to the table, where I yanked one of the heavy wooden chairs out of the way to make a parking spot for her.
Then I collapsed into a chair. “Jesus, Mary and mother of God.” I rested my forehead against the heels of my hands. “That only took about seven times as long as it’s supposed to.”
Corey handed me my plate. “It’s a new injury, isn’t it?” she asked, picking up her sandwich.
“Is it that obvious? I did it a week ago at hockey preseason training camp.”
“Hockey, huh?” A strange look crossed her face.
“Sort of. See, I didn’t break it playing hockey, because that would at least make sense. I broke the leg falling off a climbing wall.”
Her jaw dropped. “Did the ropes break?”
Not exactly. “There may not have been ropes. Also, it may have been two in the morning.” I winced, because it’s no fun telling a pretty girl how big an idiot you are. “Also, I may have been drunk.”
“Ouch. So you can’t even tell people that you’re the victim of a poke check gone wrong?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you a hockey fan, Callahan?”
“Kind of.” She fidgeted with a potato chip. “My father is a high-school hockey coach,” she said. “And my brother Damien was the senior wing on your team last year.”