—Ethan was there? I said, almost adding, That is so lame before remembering she’d gone to watch, too. What does an arch sing have to do with a summer job? I said.
—I was talking with Tracy about it on the walk back here. She lined up an internship over winter break and now I’m freaking out that I waited too long.
—For real? We’re supposed to figure that out now?
—I started looking over break, but haven’t nailed anything down yet.
—Oh, I said, trying not to freak out along with her. I haven’t started, if that makes you feel better.
—It doesn’t. But seriously, you better start looking. Seniors and juniors usually start looking in the spring, and they’ve been in school longer and have more connections and stuff. We’re at a disadvantage as rising sophomores, so we’re supposed to start early.
—So then how do you even get internships? What are you doing?
—I just went to work with my dad a couple of days and met the other partners there. Anything you find is going to be unpaid. It’s more about asking people, asking to just be around and get some experience.
I thought of the lab, of how I’d gone in every day that week despite the weather to work through the pre-lab exercises and to practice my sterile technique. I’d already begun growing the cultures we’d need for Monday’s work, had made a few extra as backups. Professor Kaufmann came in while I was working one night after dinner, and since I was the only person around, she showed me the part of the stockroom reserved for upperclassman researchers, walking me through her inventory check and letting me tag along as she looked in on some tests of her own in a nearby lab.
—Is there stuff for people who want to maybe do science research? I asked Jillian. Maybe a summer job here on campus where I can keep working in a lab?
—I don’t know, probably.
—How do I find out?
—You just ask people who know. You talk to people in your network.
She sat down and began pulling off her socks.
—My network, I said. My network is you, I’m asking you.
—Like for me, she said, a sock dangling from her hand, what I really want is this internship in entertainment law in the city that might happen through a friend of my mom’s.
So there was my summer: an internship babysitting Ariel Hernandez, or, if that didn’t work out, one ironing slogans onto T-shirts. Fuck, I thought, if this is how things worked, I was done before I’d even started and there was no hope of doing anything in a lab that summer. Jillian draped her socks over the heater.
—Probably I’ll just get a job down in Miami, I told her.
—That makes sense, she said. She brought her boots over to the heater, tucked them underneath it to dry out. Can I ask you something? she said.
She came over and tapped my right hand.
—So this can’t be an engagement ring, because that would be crazy, but you did have this on your left hand when you got back.
—Why would it be crazy? I said. My mom was seventeen when she got married.
—Your mom’s your mom. You’re here, you’re you, it’s nineteen-ninety – no, two thousand. It would be crazy.
—Cubans are different, I said, regretting it instantly. I mean, not all Cubans, but it wouldn’t be that weird, is what I’m saying.
—My point is, since the day you got lunch with that guy, it’s been on this hand.
She tapped the ring the way Ethan had, said, So what does that mean?
—Jillian, please. One, I have a boyfriend. And two, Ethan – he’s really not for me.
—Do you only date Hispanic guys? No offense, I’m just wondering.
—No, I – for now, yeah, I guess. But that’s not what I mean.
—It’s not a big deal if you only like Hispanic guys. I prefer Italian guys.
—Why are we talking about this? Do you want me to tell Ethan you’re interested?
—He’s really tall, she said. I think he’s cute.
—I don’t, I said. He’s too tall, too skinny.
—He’s not that skinny. Though he did look like he was freezing tonight.
I don’t know why, but I said it again: So you want me to hook you guys up?
—No, she said. He’s a senior. What’s the point? Besides, I met someone cool at the arch sing. He’s actually in the All-Nighters.
I really did believe what I’d said about not feeling Ethan was for me—the skin on his throat, which I’d watched as he swallowed his beer, looked to me like the raw skin of a dead chicken, and feeling bad about that association was not the same as not having it in the first place—but as Jillian described this new guy she’d flirted with, all I felt was relief that she wasn’t talking about Ethan anymore.