I decided to look sweet and innocent for my appointment, hopefully to offset the fact that I was coming in for a VD screening. After class, I planned to head to Cool Beans, a coffee shop where I allegedly had a job with Corabelle, and see if our boss had canned me completely or if he could be swayed into giving me hours.
I’d only been to work one day in the past month, and not much more in the previous ones. Frankie had needed me as he geared up for his premiere. I couldn’t be expected to stay out half the night and then get up and grind beans at some ungodly hour.
It had made sense at the time. If I was fired, I’d have to find something. My dad paid my tuition and my mom paid my rent. But anything else I needed in life, I had to pay for myself.
I knew I had it lucky. And I’d do the right thing. The whole Hollywood experience had definitely gone to my head. But it was over. I hadn’t heard from anybody about a job, and the more days that passed, the less likely it was that I would. LA had a short attention span. Graduation was just a couple months away.
I straightened my navy blue beret. It gave my dreadlocks a bohemian effect rather than alternative-edgy. I pulled on a simple hunter green sweater and a soft blue and green plaid skirt. I looked positively schoolgirlish as I finished the look with suede flats.
The hair was still a little wild, so I tamed the dreads into a loose low ponytail that fell over one shoulder. Perfect. That small change aged me up to a model from a college Benetton ad rather than prep school.
I was probably overthinking this.
I drove over to campus. I headed to World Lit in a fog and probably didn’t pay any more attention to the lecture today than I had on Monday. Corabelle would help me when it came time for finals. She was ace at this stuff. As long as I had the reading list, I would be fine.
When the class finally ended, I was the last to leave my seat. I felt sure the doc was going to tell me I had sixteen diseases, half of them incurable.
The walk along the paths felt long. It seemed happy couples were everywhere, all twitterpated or whatever with spring. The thought of the movie Bambi and the love-struck animals made me miss my mom. I hadn’t called her or told her anything. It seemed weird to involve her in my grown-up problems. But maybe I needed a mom right now.
Just not to talk about the VD screening.
I slowed down as I approached the glass door of the health center. Even if nobody cared anymore, and surely no one was stalking me by now, I looked around to see who might be watching.
I considered limping or coughing so that my visit would clearly have some other cause. Then I realized I was being ridiculous and just walked in.
The waiting room was busy, almost every seat full. Great, I would probably have to sit there forever. I checked in and plopped into a seat that was uncomfortably close to a boyishly cute basketball player holding a ball in his lap.
Normally I would have come to attention and tried to chat him up, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. Besides, I’d probably no more strike up a conversation than they’d open the door and ask Jenny Gillespie to come back for her VD test.
He must have given off some manly testosterone vibe, though, because sitting by him made me think of Chance again. Probably the only reason I was so hung up on him, well, other than his outrageous hot factor and the way he sang “When a Man Loves a Woman,” was because he hadn’t been hung up on me.
He ditched me like I was nothing. I could still see Vanessa Price’s greedy paws on his arm.
But if I thought about what I’d do if Brad Pitt propositioned me, I got it. How often does stuff like that happen to us plebes?
Still, it smarted. And now I was here, checking for God-knows-what on my privates.
I pulled out my phone, catching up on everything I’d avoided while my butt was viral. Instagram. Snapchat. Two new sites nobody seemed to really be using. I was tempted to check the gossip rags online, but decided not to get my heart rate up before they checked my blood pressure. Still, I typed in Frankie’s name to see if he had gone public with his new boy.
Most of the hits were still about his broken heart, but one made me click. A small sidebar mention showed Frankie laughing with another man. The text said he was “sealing a new deal” with a screenwriter, but I knew better. His face was radiant. This was the guy.
Frankie had never looked at me like that. In fact, I wasn’t sure anybody ever had.
I sank a little lower in the chair. Where had my moxie gone? I was usually impervious to self-doubt. The one-two punch of ending things with Frankie and this singer knocking me off-center was having its effect.
Basketball Boy got up when his name was called. I stared at his butt as he walked away, but I wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I pictured Chance, running after me in the waves, thinking I was so crazy for dashing out into the freezing water naked.
“Jenny?”
My head popped up with cold fear when I heard my name, certain some reporter had discovered me getting VD screened at the health center.