11.13 making up with Jeanne

Celeste fumed all the way home, sitting by herself on the train. Damn, what an evening. Matt sends me mixed signals all night long, then I go and peck him on the cheek and he only wants to shake hands. She blushed with embarrassment. Then Jeanne leaves me six messages all acting like a mother, and she calls my mother. Then, she yells at me over the phone, treating me like I’m two, not twenty-two. I need a drink. Or ten.
She got off the train at her usual stop, but instead of walking over to the bus stop, she decided that a drink really would be appealing. There weren’t any bars nearby, but there was a very convenient Texas Roadhouse restaurant, with cheap beer, great margaritas, and good country music. Not to mention, the floor was covered in peanut shells, which was always a plus for a barbecue joint. Plus, they were open until two, and still serving food until midnight.
Texas Roadhouse was about a quarter mile from the T stop, up Revere Beach Parkway. There was always traffic, and no sidewalks for about half the trip, but there was a muddy path through the grass off the side of the road. The restaurant was located in the parking lot of a big shopping center. The shopping center was the classic suburban development – it had a Target, a Home Depot, a Bed Bath & Beyond, Bath and Beauty Works, a Michaels Crafts, and the crown jewel of them all, a Costco. In terms of restaurants, there were a Panera Bread, a Starbucks, the Texas Roadhouse, and a TGI Fridays that was always ridiculously packed, and was for some reason themed like Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Texas Roadhouse was kind of a lame place to go get drunk, but it was fun, it was there, and it would make Jeanne really annoyed. What could be better?
For good measure, before she walked into the restaurant, she called their apartment number from her cell phone, and left a message:
“Hi Jeanne, guess who? I’m in a bit of a pissy mood right now, so I’m going drinking. I’m at Texas Roadhouse and I don’t have any idea what time I’ll be home. If you need me, I’ll have my cell phone on. I’ll give you a call before I leave, so that you don’t worry.”
Celeste walked into the restaurant, and plopped down on a bar stool. The place wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t dead either.
She flagged the bartender down. “Hey, could I get one of your light Margaritas?”
“Shoa, honey, duh ya wan salt oah sugah wit’ that?” the bartender was young and her accent was straight North-shore of Massachusetts.
“Sugar, please.”
The light margarita was a Texas roadhouse signature drink, and Celeste’s personal favorite. It was consisted of one part Jose Cuervo Margarita, and one part Coors light, mixed and served in a margarita glass. Lots of people didn’t like it, but Celeste thought the beer really cut the unpleasant taste of the sour mix, and the margarita really enhanced the yellow water taste of Coors light. It was a great mix.
The bartender brought the drink over, and Celeste leaned back in her barstool, sipping on the margarita and occasionally munching on some peanuts and tossing the shells on the floor. She sighed a deep and miserable sigh.
The bartender looked at her curiously. “Honey, I don’t normally encourange people to talk about their problems, this isn’t Cheahs’ after all. But lemme just tell ya what I do when I feel like yoo’ah lookin and soundin. Theah have ta be times in yoah life when you’ve felt worse than yah do now. Just think about them, and it’ll make whatevah’s makin yah miserable right now seem smallah.”
Celeste smiled a little, and said, “Thanks. I’ll give it a try, but I think the drink will help more than focusing on other awful nights.”
“Yeah, well, theah’s that too.”
Celeste ordered another drink, then leaned back in her barstool. What the bartender said was true, she thought. There definitely had been worse nights in her life. What the hell, she thought, might as well give it a shot.
There was the night when she was little that her great-grandma died. Her parents left Celeste at her grandmother’s house while they went to comfort her other grandmother. The grandma she was staying with, her dad’s mom, told Celeste that she shouldn’t cry because her father’s brother had hung himself when he was only twenty-six and that was much worse than dying when you were old. All that did was make Celeste feel worse, because then she was not only crying about the great grandmother she had lost, but for the uncle she had never known.
There was also the night when she found out her parents were getting divorced. She was going through one of those uncomfortable periods in high school where she felt outside of eveything and close to no one, so she suffered through it all alone, spending a lot of each night crying into her pillow so her parents wouldn’t hear the sobs.
She shook her head. Focusing on this stuff wasn’t helping anything, all it was doing was encouraging her to be bitter about something else. At least Jeanne deserved her irritation now. Her parents or grandmother didn’t deserve her annoyance for events that had happened more than ten years ago.
Celeste ordered her third Margarita, and pulled out her cell phone. Good, Jeanne hadn’t called. And it was ten past twelve. She pulled out her credit card and gestured to the bartender that she would like to pay off her tab.
Celeste gupled her margarita while the bartender rang up the tab on her credit card. It was twelve ten, the last bus was at twelve thirty, so she’d have to hurry to get there in time, otherwise she’d be taking a cab. And having to take a cab meant that she’d have to stop at an ATM to get some cash to pay for it. Which was definitely a hassle that she’d prefer to avoid.
She finished her margarita, signed the credit card slip and quickly exited the restaurant. She didn’t quite take off running, but she definitely walked a lot quicker that she was used to in order to catch the last bus. Normally this wouldn’t be quite so much of an issue, but then normally Celeste would call Jeanne for a ride if she missed the last bus. Not that she was out after twelve-thirty all that often.
Celeste reached the bus stop at the same time the bus did, which was ideal timing. That way she didn’t have to wait for the bus, but she got a seat anyway. Once on the bus, she pulled out her “free time” reading book, a fantasy novel that Jessica had recommended. The cover was done in pastels, and had a white horse in the cover that was shaded in blues and purples. Celeste was guessing, just based on the cover, that the book would be some sort of Black Beauty story with fairy tale characters inserted somehow, but instead it was about telepathic horses and the main character was an unloved a mistreated young girl who runs away from home with one of the horses. The horse takes her to a training school for kids like her to learn to be a police force/judicial body/secret service with their horses. Typical fantasy novel, really.
When the bus pulled up the her stop, she had finally calmed down enough to feel like she could rationally talk to Jeanne. Except that Jeanne wasn’t there. There was a note on the kitchen table saying:
“Celeste, if you get this, call me. I’m going to Jessica and Scott’s because I’m going nuts just sitting here by myself worrying about where you are.”
Celeste checked the messages on the voice mail, and her message to Jeanne was still there, unlistened to. She deleted it, glad she avoided that little bit of trouble anyway. The second message on her voice mail was from Matt.
“I think this is Celeste’s number…if it’s not, please ignore this. Celeste, I’m sorry about tonight. I’ve never really…been interested…in a girl before. I…um… I’m sorry if I moved too fast. I…um…don’t really know what to say. I hope we’re still on for lunch Friday, give me a call and let me know. You have the number on my card. Um…sorry about tonight.”

[### I need to go back to the scene where Celeste goes to the library and meets up with Matt for her first day. The professor has to be there. He should be a lot like Jean Francois… Ugly, french, chain-smoker. He needs to be tall, and not really in shape, but able to over-power her. He should make some passing references to CSI and autopsy shows. He should be very flagrantly gay. Celeste should wonder in passing if Matt is gay as well. I’ll also have to go back and revise the starbucks/dinner scene to make some sexuality questions present but not too obvious. Then I can flip the “kissing” scene at the end so that it’s Matt that tries to go in for the kiss at the end of the night, and Celeste who holds her hand out to shake.###]

Celeste plopped onto the couch in the living room, feeling better than she had all night. She hadn’t messed things up. He thought he had. He thought she was conservative, not that she thought he was gay. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She relaxed for a few minutes, feeling better than she had all night, then she got up to get ready for bed. She had just changed into pijamas when she heard Jeanne’s key in the lock.
Jeanne walked into the apartment, and found Celeste sitting on the couch. She raised an eyebrow a little when Celeste said, “Jeanne, we need to have a little discussion about reasonable levels of worry.”
“I understand that the only reason you worry about me is because you’re my friend, and you care about me,” Celeste continued. “But when I’m not home and it’s earlier than…say one AM, I’d really prefer you didn’t flip out. Whether I leave a note or not, I’m an adult. And I guarantee that you don’t need to call my mom unless I’ve been gone without word for a full day. The same goes for calling the police.”
“Celeste, that’s not fair. I’m your roommate and I deserve some respect.”
“I do respect you. I do my best to remember to call or leave a note so you won’t make dinner for me if I’m not going to be here, or make plans around me. Generally you do the same. But, for example, if you get caught up at work during month-end, and don’t think to turn on your cell or give me a call until you’re on your way home at eleven thirty, I don’t call your parents and everyone else under the sun.”
Jeanne blushed a little, she’d done that very thing two months earlier. “But how do I know you haven’t been kidnapped, or raped, or murdered and left in an alley someplace?”
“Well, I’ve lived here, the same as you, for the past five years. I know, pretty well, which areas of the city are safe to walk in after dark and which aren’t. Plus, I’m a little far past the age that people are generally kidnapped. In terms of rape and murder, it seems like both would happen a little too quickly for a note left on the kitchen table to do much good.
So, I’ll tell you what – I give you permission to call whomever you want if I’ve been gone for twenty-four hours without getting in touch with you. But if it’s any less time than that, I’d prefer you relax a little and stop worrying.”
“Fine,” Jeanne snapped, a little angry, “but if I get a call from the police asking me to identify your body, it’ll be your own fault.”
“Well,” Celeste responded, laughing, “If you have to identify my body, I assume I’ll have had bigger things to worry about than you being worried about me.”
Jeanne stomped into her room, and slammed the door. It rebounded from the frame and bounced open again. She kicked it closed the second time, and again, in rebounded and flung open. The third time, she shut it firmly, with a muttered “Damn door.”
Celeste thought it had gone well, really. She’d actually won this one, it seemed, so Jeanne hopefully wouldn’t be leaving six “where are you, I’m worried” messages on her phone again any time soon. And Matt had called, so things weren’t nearly as bad as they felt earlier.
Celeste’s heart felt almost airy as she went to bed.

The next few days passed in a blur, with Celeste spending all of her free time re-reading Studies in Government with highlighter in hand. Jeanne still wasn’t really speaking to her, she was spending all of her time at the office, not getting home until ten or eleven o’clock each night, as if trying to make a point.
Thursday afternoon, Celeste called Jessica at Jessica’s office.
“Jess,” she said when Jessica answered the phone.
“Hi Celeste, what’s up?”
“Jeanne’s silent treatment is driving me nuts – do you think I should apologize?”
“I don’t think you should apologize, but maybe making a compromise? Give her cell phone a call and invite her out to dinner tonight. Tell her you’re sorry if she feels like you jumped down her throat, but it needed to be said. I don’t think you were wrong, but at the same time I can understand how uncomfortable she must be feeling.”
“Ok, that sounds good,” Celeste answered. “I’ll do that.”
They chatted about inconsequentials for a few minutes, then Jessica said, “Celeste, I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes that I need to get ready for. Give me a call tonight or tomorrow and let me know how it went, ok?”
Celeste hung up the phone with Jessica, and immediately picked it up again and punched in Jeanne’s cell phone number.
“Hi, this is Jeanne XXX, I’m not available right now but if you leave your name, number, and the time of your call, I’ll return your call as soon as possible.”
“Jeanne, this is Celeste. Do you want to go out to dinner tonight, I’ll meet you in the city and we can go for Italian in the North End, then dessert at Mike’s Pastries? I went overboard the other night, I didn’t mean to jump down your throat, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”
She hung up the phone and went back to work with her highlighter. Just as she started getting involved in the book, the phone rang. She set everything down, walked across the room to pick up the cordless where she had left it. The number on the caller ID wasn’t one that she recognized.
“Hi,” she said, wary of it being a tele-marketer.
“Celeste?”
“Yes…?”
“Oh, hi, this is Matt.”
“Matt, hi!” she said. I sound like an over-enthused teenager talking to my crush…
“I hadn’t heard from you about lunch on Friday, so I just wanted to make sure that meant we were still on.”
“Yup, sounds good. I was actually going to give you a call later on this afternoon to firm all this up. Where do you want to meet? And what time?”
“Well, I don’t have any classes on Fridays, so I usually just stay out in Cambridge. Do you want to meet at one, at say… Do you like Vietnamese?”
“Yum,” she said.
“Ok, how about the Elephant Walk in Kendall Square?”
“Sure, that sounds great,” she agreed.
“One o’clock,” he confirmed.
“One o’clock.”
Lunch was going to be a little weird, she thought. He’d be sitting there the whole time thinking Is she interested? But at least now she knew which way he swung, which would help the whole issue a bunch.

Jeanne called Celeste back at around four, and accepted dinner. She agreed to wait at her office until Celeste could get there, then they’d go to the restaurant for dinner together.
Celeste continued reading the fantasy novel that Jessica had given her on the bus and train, and finished it just as the train pulled into Back Bay station, the T stop closest to Jeanne’s office. It was five twenty five, so Jeanne should have had time to get mostly finished with her work for the day. And with all the extra hours she’d been putting in, she couldn’t have had much left to even procrastinate with.
Celeste called up to her office phone, and Jeanne answered. “I’ll be right down,” she said. Celeste found a seat in the office lobby, and waited. And waited. And waited.
Fortunately, Celeste had the foresight to expect something like this, so she packed another book. Scott had given her this one, and told her only that it’s about Nantucket going back in time. Sort of. So she was expecting a pretty good time-travel or alternate history. She settled into her chair, and started reading. She was nearly fifty pages into the book before Jeanne finally came downstairs.
“Hey,” Jeanne said to Celete, catching her attention.
“Hey! You ready for dinner? I’m starving…”
Jeanne looked surpised that Celeste didn’t make any kind of reference to her waiting for thirty five minutes more than expected. Jeanne had made her wait on purpose so as to make her own case about why she had a right to be worried and annoyed. And Celeste hadn’t really played along.
They took the train to the restaurant, mostly talking about work, and Celeste asking the occassional question about people that she knew that Jeanne worked with.
The restaurant didn’t have any wait, and served some of the most fantastic authentic Italian food in the city. The dining room was ridiculously small and crowded with tables, but it really wasn’t busy for a Thursday night. They sat, took off their jackets, and ordered a bottle of Merlot to split.
“I think we’re going to need it,” Jeanne quipped to Celeste.
Celeste shrugged. “I didn’t mean to worry you or hurt your feelings or insult you or anything else the other night. I really didn’t. But also, it feels like you’re not recognizing that I’m old enough not to have to report my every momement to someone. My mother doesn’t expect it, and I certianly didn’t expect to have to report everything to you.”
Jeanne sighed and then shrugged. “If that’s what you want, that’s fine. I wasn’t trying to act like your mother, and I wasn’t trying to go overboard or do anything that would bother you. I’ll do what we talked about the other day, and try not to be concerned until you’ve been gone for a full day without any word.”
“So are we ok?” Celeste asked. “Or are you going to keep working late at your office even though you can’t have much left to do?”
Jeanne laughed. “We’re fine. And you’re right, I’ve finished my work for the month in the last four days.”
They sipped at their wine, and ordered dinner. Celeste ordered the veal piccata, and Jeanne ordered the chicken saltimbocca, both dishes came with pasta with the most delicious red sauce in the world.
Just as Celeste was putting a large bit in her mouth, Jeanne got down to brass tacks. “How’s your grad student?” she asked. “That’s who you were with Monday night, wasn’t it?”
“He’s not ‘my grad student’ but he’s fine. And yes, that’s who I had a working dinner with on Monday night. We’re having lunch tomorrow.”
“Ooh,” Jeanne squeaked. “I knew it! So he’s not gay, then?”
“Apparently not. Dinner was pretty much professional, discussing the plan for doing the indexing of this book I’ve been working on. Then when we were leaving it was one of those uncomfortable, I don’t want to look like I’m rushing out of here, so we stand there uncomfortably with nothing to say, kind of things. Then just as I was holding out my hand to shake, he leaned over and pecked me on the cheek. But it wasn’t like a normal peck on the cheeck like a co-worker might do…it lasted a little too long.”
Jeanne nodded. “That sounds promising… you should ask him if he has any single friends for me!”
“Oh, and I forgot to tell you,” Celeste gushed, “he called on Monday night after I left, and apologized for, “she inserted air quotes, “moving too quickly. And he said that he hasn’t been interested in a girl like this before.”
“That sounds so great, Celeste. So you’re having lunch tomorrow? Where?”
“Elephant Walk, over by MIT. I’ve eaten there before, it’s pretty good. It sounds like it’s going to be a working lunch, though, which is fine by me. I’m still new at this indexing thing.”
Jeanne laughed and said, “You always underestimate yourself, Celeste. I’m sure you’re doing fine.”
They talked and laughed companionably throughout the rest of dinner and on the walk back to the train.

Celeste slept better that night than she had in a week. She and Jeanne had been friends for what seemed like forever, and even if Jeanne had her faults, there really was a lot to be said for a friend who knows your goods and bads.
She woke up in the morning refreshed and relieved that their fight was over. Humming a random country song, she made herself coffee and breakfast, and she lingered over both as Jeanne got ready for work and left.
It was almost nine o’clock before she finally settled into Jeanne’s cushy chair to read and highlight some more. She was about twenty pages from the end of her first re-read with the highlighter. It was really interesting because she found she started to read for keywords rather than for content.
It took her about an hour to finish reading and highlighting the twenty pages, at which time she put the book down and went in to take a shower and get ready for her lunch. She continued humming her country song through her shower, and as she picked out her clothes.
I feel like living dangerously, she thought to herself as she flicked through the clothes in her closet. She ran back into the bathroom to smooth some gel in her hair to give it a tousled, out of control, sort of look. She applied some eyeliner, and smoothed some liquid eye shadow onto her eyelids. A little bit of lip gloss finished the look that was almost innocent prettiness, but with just a step too far of overt sexuality. It was no where near slutty, but her ex-boyfriends made sure she knew how appealing she looked whenever she was made up like this.
After she had all her makeup on, and her hair was well on its way to drying in tousled dirty-blonde curls, she went back into the bedroom to dress in one of her favorite outfits. She smiled a huge grin of excitement. Her brand new silky champagne colored camisole fit like a second skin. The jeans she put on were tight fitting, low cut, and long, grazing the floor when she walked in three-inch heels. A lightweight, figure flattering black cashmere cardigan finished off the outfit. One of her ex-boyfriends referred to it as the “supermodel just rolled out of bed” look.
Quickly, Celeste got her things together and walked toward the bus stop. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to switch trains today, she could take a different bus and ride a direct train straight to the Elephant Walk.
She arrived about ten minutes early, and after a quick peek into the restaurant, she determined that Matt wasn’t there yet. Going for a short stroll didn’t really seem like much of an option in her three-inch stilettos, she instead she waited until traffic was clear on Monsignior O’Brian highway, and crossed to the bank of the Charles River.
She leaned against the fence separating the sidewalk from the running paths right along the river itself, and watched the sailboats drifting up and down the river, pushed along by a brisk chilly wind. One of her friends in college’s roommates had been on the Boston University sailing team. One of Celeste’s most entertaining memories from college had been Sara, her friend’s roommate, telling them about how she fell into the Charles at one of her first practices, and had been immediately rushed to the BU health center to be vaccinated against whatever diseases “that dirty water” might harbor.
The mayor of Boston insisted that the water was clean enough to swim in, but considering the color of it, not many people really took him up on the offer. Public sewers were probably cleaner, Celeste thought. At least not very many people try to flush dead bodies… and god knows what else, like they toss into the river in Charlestown and Everett.
She looked down at her watch. One o’clock exactly. Matt was probably inside waiting for her. Making an entrance was good though, and it was hard to make an entrance when you were the first one to arrive.
When Celeste walked into the restaurant, Matt was sitting on a bench just inside, kind of twiddling his fingers and looking impatient. She watched, silently amused, as his expression changed from bored and impatient to amazed to desirous. At his last expression, she felt a small surge of triumph.
He got to his feet, and walked towards her, almost in a hypnotized stupor. His arm closed around the small of her back, as he escorted her to the hostess and then to the table.
“Wow,” was the first thing out of his mouth, after they sat and the hostess walked away. “You look amazing.”
She smiled, and said “Thanks.”
“So how have things been going? Is the indexing coming along all right?”
“Oh yeah, everything’s been fine. I’ve incorporated some of the things that we talked about on Monday, and I actually just finished the first reading with a highlighter this morning. I don’t think the re-read should take too long, I’m definitely getting the hang of this. And once I finish that, it’s just a matter of playing with the software.”
“Mmm,” Matt responded, his eyes fixated at the lace on Celeste’s camisole.
“Psst,” Celeste hissed.
“What?” Matt looked up.
“Eyes up,” she responded.
Matt had the decency to blush. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that you look so…good.”
“By the way,” Celeste said, “the other day…I wasn’t, and am not, uninterested. To be honest, I thought you were.”
Matt let out an audible sigh. “That’s a relief. I thought I had pushed to hard or gone too fast or something. I’ve never been…the pursuer, I guess…before. Usually I’m too caught up in whatever project I’m working on to notice or care.”
While he was speaking, Matt reached under the table and put his hand on Celeste’s knee. Like before, all of Celeste’s attention flooded to the part of her body that he was touching. To her, he might as well have been touching her bare flesh, for all the sensations that flooded through her body.
She only completely regained her senses when Matt took his hand off her leg. “It appears,” he said, “that I can’t expect you to hold a thought in your head, much less an intelligent conversation, when I’m touching you at all.”
“Um, yeah, I’m having a problem with that,” Celeste responded. “I think we should practice some more.”
Matt put his hand back on her leg, but a little higher up this time, so that instead of resting on her knee, it rested on her thigh. Celeste allowed her attention to focus on his hand and all the many pleasant sensations that her body was experiencing related thereto. In the back of her conciousness, she recognized that Matt was taking the opportunity of her mental incapacity to offer up a lecture in advanced political science.
Celeste tried focusing on what he was saying, but was suddenly unable to when Matt started tracing shapes on the inside of her thigh with his thumb and index finger. He was very gradually moving higher and higher up her leg, and she desperately tried to decide whether she wanted him to stop or not. The question was made moot by the appearance of their waitress.
Their waitress was a tall, thin, Asian woman with a horsey sort of face and straight black hair that fell to her waist. Matt took advantage of the five minutes or so that she stood there at the end of the table explaining the specials and the entrees to move his hand the rest of the way up Celeste’s leg, his fingers still tracing magical, beautiful shapes.
Celeste froze, sitting as still as she possibly could, resisting the urge to squirm and melt with all her might.