11.9 reading then Starbucks then drinks
Jeanne had just left for work, and Celeste got ready to start her first day at work.
The book was tough, there was no getting around that. She found that it helped to realize, though, that she was indexing it, not studying to take a test. That meant that instead of focusing on completely understanding all the ideas in the book, she focused on learning what the keywords were, and what the overall thesis of the book was.
By noon, she was about a third of the way through. She had a few pages of notes and questions, so she decided to take a break for lunch, and then type up the notes and questions to email to Matt.
As she was fixing herself lunch, the phone rang. She continued making lunch with the phone cradled in her neck.
“Hi Mom!”
“Sorry I didn’t call you back yesterday, honey. Things were crazy at work,” she apologized.
“No problem. Guess what! I got a new job!”
“Yeah, I got your message,” she said, “and Marie told me what you told her about it. That’s so great, it sounds like something you might really enjoy.”
“I started on the book this morning, and it’s really interesting. And it’s especially nice becausing I’m reading to index, not to memorize.”
“That’s wonderful, sweetie. Did you talk to your father about it?”
“No, he hasn’t called me back yet, I’m sure he will though.”
“Yeah, he was on a trip to Toronto for work, so I don’t know if he’s been checking his work voicemail or not.”
“Mom, you know very well that he hasn’t been checking his work voicemail. He never does. Someone might leave a message that he’d have to answer.”
Her mother laughed. “That’s true, I suppose. Well, sweetie, I’m going to have to go, I just wanted to give you a quick call between meetings so you didn’t think that I forgot about you. And by the way…”
“Yeah?”
“Both your father and I are very proud of you.”
Celeste hung up the phone, feeling very good about herself. It was nice of her mother to call, and even nicer to feel proud of her for getting a job. She flipped on the TV as she was eating her sandwich, flipped past MSNBC and CNN to the Food Network, where Rachel Ray was preparing a savory yet healthful meal in thirty minutes or less.
After she finished her lunch, and the Thirty Minute Meals episode finished, she flipped on her computer. She typed up her questions and notes into an email, and went back to her purse to look for the email address on the business card that Matt had given her.
Not finding it, she went into her bedroom to check the pockets of the slacks that she had worn yesterday. In the back pocket was his card. What she hadn’t noticed when he’d handed it to her, though, was that written in heavy black ink on the back of the card were the words “Call me!”
She read the card:
Matthias Johnson
Northeastern University
Graduate Fellow in Political Science
Phone: (617) 555-4215
Email: JohnsonM@nu.edu
“Should I?” She thought. She sighed. “Do I like him? God, I don’t know.”
She pulled up a new file in Microsoft Excel, and set up a spreadsheet with a “T” on it. On the top of each of the two sides, she wrote “Yes” and “No”. In other words, yes she liked him and no she didn’t.
For “Yes” she wrote,
-he’s cute
-he seems nice
-he’s obviously smart.
For “No,” she wrote:
-don’t reall know him.
-he’s my boss
Since “Yes” had more reasons than “No,” she decided to compromise. Instead of following the “call me” directive on the back of the card, she sent him an email:
Matt -- Is there any way we could meet up at Starbuck or something tonight? I’ve started reading Studies in Government and I’ve got a couple of questions. I’d like to make sure I’m on the right track before I finish reading through the first time and start highlighting.
Within five minutes, a response popped up on her computer.
Celeste – Sure. Six pm. at Starbucks. You bring the coffee and the croissants, I’ll supply the computer watching, conversation, and jobs.
Celeste suddenly felt nervous. What if he thought her questions were dumb? God, what was she thinking?
She rolled her eyes at herself and at the thoughts running through her head. She wasn’t even sure she liked him.
She plopped back on the chair, and picked up the book again. If she was nervous about meeting him, and nervous that her questions would look stupid, the only way to fix that would be to work harder. Supposedly, there were no stupid questions. However, Celeste had noticed that when she did have to ask what she thought of as a stupid question, it was always received better when she had done a lot of work even though she had a question about it.
By four thirty in the afternoon, she was about a hundred and twenty pages away from completing the first read-through of the book. She had scribbled some more notes, and some more questions in her notebook, and added somre more items to her list of notes and questions.
By quarter to five, she was in her bedroom frantically trying to find something both professional and attractive to wear. She finally decided on a pair of dark colored, boot cut jeans, and turqouise silk blouse that wrapped around her waist and tied on the side. The jeans made the outfit look casual enough so that she didn’t look like she was trying to impress, but the turquouse blouse fit her just right, and flattered her blonde hair and blue eyes.
She zipped up a pair of leather boots with three inch heels, and grabbed her purse. This time she remembered to make sure her T-Pass was inside. She carefully tucked Studies in Government into her bag, along with a printout of her questions, and her notebook.
Celeste walked into Starbucks at five thirty-five. The bus was unusually quick for rush-hour. She ordered herself a coffee, and then grabbed a table by the window. She had just gotten engrossed in Studies in Government, when Matt tapped her shoulder.
“Hey Stranger, long time no see!” he greeted her.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she responded. “Sorry I had to drag you out here tonight, but I’m almost finished with my first read-though, and I wanted your opinion before I started highlighting.”
“Oh, I’m just kidding,” he said. “I’m here just about every day during the morning, I normally don’t have class until three, so I do all my work here beforehand. And I just live up the street, anyway.” He gestured with his chin to one of the house-turned-apartment buildings that lined the streets.
“Wait – you live all the way out here, and you commute into Northeastern every day? Are you nuts?”
“Well, that’s thoroughly debateable…”
“I didn’t quite mean it like that,” Celeste said quickly.
Matt laughed. “No, I know how you meant it. I was joking. I actually drive in, a parking spot goes with the fellowship. It’s like nine miles from campus, but it’s better than taking the T in, and I don’t have to pay for it, after all.”
“Ah – that makes sense, then.”
They sat in silence for a second, both smiling stupidly. Celeste’s brain felt frozen, and she felt like her hands were shaking a little.
Suddenly, they both cleared their throats at the same time. Matt coughed, a little uncomfortably. Celeste let out a small nervous giggle.
“Um, anyway, how far have you gotten in the book?” Matt asked. His face was flushed bright red, and he was still smiling a slightly goofy smile.
Celeste latched onto the conversational life raft, and said, “Oh, hang on just a second, I’ll get it out.’
She fumbled through her purse, a little more slowly than usual, letting Matt get his poise back. When she saw that he had more or less recovered, she pulled out the book and her notes and questions. She placed them on the table in front of him, and said, “I’ve gotten to the bookmark in the book. I’ve written page numbers for any questions or notes related to specific passages. I’ll let you look through the list, and I’ll go get you some coffee. Just regular? Or…?”
“I’d like an grande iced coffee, actually,” he said. “Half and half, and five sugars.”
He started reaching for his wallet, but she waved him off. “You can get it next time,” she said.
He started to protest, but she cut him off, syaing “Look, it’s only a cup of coffee.” Then she shocked herself by adding, “If it’s that big a deal, you can take me out for lunch or something.”
She immediately flushed from head to toe, and quickly turned to walk toward the counter. As she was waiting for his coffee, she turned around to sneak a look at him, hopefully without hm noticing.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that. He was staring at her with a dumbfounded look on his face, and when she turned to look at him, their eyes met. She shrugged, trying to pass off the invitation as a casual comment, but they both knew it hadn’t been.
Celeste mentally kicked herself for saying anything, much less something so obvious – and so tacky. “God oh god oh god,” she thought, “when will I learn to keep my mouth shut?”
She fixed Matt’s coffee, and walked back to the table with it. “So,” she said with a brittle little laugh, “you like coffee with your sugar, huh?”
She put the coffee down on the table in front of him, and sat down herself, pulling her chair a little away from his.
“Ahem,” Matt cleared his throat again, and pulled the list in front of him. “For this first one…”
Celeste allowed her mind to wander a little – Matt was writing the answers to all of her questions on the back of her list, anyway, so it hardly mattered.
“So what kind of mixed signal is it, anyway, to write ‘Call Me!’ on the back of your business card, but not want to go out for lunch? I don’t get it,” she thought.
Matt had finished explaining what he was explaining, and was now writing everything he had just finished saying onto the back of her page of questions.
Finally they finished going over all of the different points, and they were both just sitting there, savoring the last sips of their coffee, as Starbucks hummed around them. Celeste started gathering her book and all of her notes, and she said “Well, I think I’m going to take off for the night.”
“Come have a drink with me,” Matt blurted out. “Just one drink,” he said quickly, “just to relax before we go home.”
“Uh, ok?” Celeste responded, more than a little confused by this further example of mixed signals.
They went inside the pub next door. Celeste had walked by it fairly often, but had never been inside. It was dim and dingy inside, with some men playing darts in the back. They grabbed a booth across from the bar.
“What would you like,” Matt asked.
“Um, just a beer, I think,” she said. “Coors Light, if they have it. Bud Light, if they don’t.”
Matt went up to the bar, and came back very shortly with two thirty-two ounce beers. “One Coors Light,” he handed the beer to her.
“Thanks,” Celeste responded. Se took a large sip of the beer, and put it back down on the coaster.
“So what do you do for fun, Celeste?” Matt asked. “I know that you’re obviously responsible and studious, but I don’tk now anything about you, really.”
“Well,” Celeste responded, “I enjoy reading – I usually read general ficition or Fantasy if I’m feeling like something fluffy. Um… I go running, now and hten, for relaxation and exercize. I’m not craziy about it, but I go a couple times a week, usually. And I like learning new things --- I have an easier time learning something new, and getting the hang of it, than I do sticking with it and getting really good at it,” she said. “What about you? What do you like to do?”
“I’m rather obsessive, “ he answered. “My work is my play gneerally. I come in here in the morning to get my coarse-work done, then after class, I go to the library to work for a few hours, then usually I’ll either come here or to my apartment or to Starbucks, and read some more. The only days I really have any free time are the weekends, and then I usually play a pickup game of basketball with some of the other gutys in my building, or go hiking. I’m originally from Montana, so there’s a whole lot fewer mountains and hills here than there are at home.”
F”Well,” C3elest5e responded, “ there’s gotta be some disadvantages to living in the city, I suppose.”
They each nursed tehir beers some more, and after the third time Celeste picked her beer up with her coater attached to he persperation on the glass, she decided to rexsolve the problem. She put the lgass aside for a second, pured a few shakes of salt onto the coaster, an put the glass back on the coaster. Voila – non-stick.
“that’s a cool idea, Matt said, gesturing toward her coaster. He did it himeslf.
“Copy-cat,” she responded.
“So,” Celeste said, “you come here often?”
“Every now and again,” he responded. “it’s close and they have decent beers on tap. Their food is pretty good, also.’’
“Mm,” Celeste said, “Its too bad that you just at out o fhere through , I’m starving.”
“Do you want to order something?” he asked
“Hm… how do you feel about boneless buffalo winks?”
“That sounds ok, I don’t know if I’ll have many, but sure.”
They placed the order, and continued talking about meaningless politenesses. At one pont, Matt’s knee brushed Celeste’s under the table, but he moved it as quickly as she felt it.
When the wings came, the waitress set them in the middle of the table. Celeste stabbed one with a fork, and put it on the appetizer plate in front of her. Matt followed suit. Celeste scooped out some blue cheese dressing from the little tub onto her plate. Matt did that also. Celeste took a celery stick, swirled it around the bleu cheese, and drizzled dressing on the wings. Once again, Matt did the same.
“Why are you copying me,” she asked.
“To be honest,” he said, “I’m not really that used to eating dinner out with anyone. I didn’t want to be rude, but my table manners are truly terrible. I was hoping that I’d be able to copy you wihtout you notising.”
The book was tough, there was no getting around that. She found that it helped to realize, though, that she was indexing it, not studying to take a test. That meant that instead of focusing on completely understanding all the ideas in the book, she focused on learning what the keywords were, and what the overall thesis of the book was.
By noon, she was about a third of the way through. She had a few pages of notes and questions, so she decided to take a break for lunch, and then type up the notes and questions to email to Matt.
As she was fixing herself lunch, the phone rang. She continued making lunch with the phone cradled in her neck.
“Hi Mom!”
“Sorry I didn’t call you back yesterday, honey. Things were crazy at work,” she apologized.
“No problem. Guess what! I got a new job!”
“Yeah, I got your message,” she said, “and Marie told me what you told her about it. That’s so great, it sounds like something you might really enjoy.”
“I started on the book this morning, and it’s really interesting. And it’s especially nice becausing I’m reading to index, not to memorize.”
“That’s wonderful, sweetie. Did you talk to your father about it?”
“No, he hasn’t called me back yet, I’m sure he will though.”
“Yeah, he was on a trip to Toronto for work, so I don’t know if he’s been checking his work voicemail or not.”
“Mom, you know very well that he hasn’t been checking his work voicemail. He never does. Someone might leave a message that he’d have to answer.”
Her mother laughed. “That’s true, I suppose. Well, sweetie, I’m going to have to go, I just wanted to give you a quick call between meetings so you didn’t think that I forgot about you. And by the way…”
“Yeah?”
“Both your father and I are very proud of you.”
Celeste hung up the phone, feeling very good about herself. It was nice of her mother to call, and even nicer to feel proud of her for getting a job. She flipped on the TV as she was eating her sandwich, flipped past MSNBC and CNN to the Food Network, where Rachel Ray was preparing a savory yet healthful meal in thirty minutes or less.
After she finished her lunch, and the Thirty Minute Meals episode finished, she flipped on her computer. She typed up her questions and notes into an email, and went back to her purse to look for the email address on the business card that Matt had given her.
Not finding it, she went into her bedroom to check the pockets of the slacks that she had worn yesterday. In the back pocket was his card. What she hadn’t noticed when he’d handed it to her, though, was that written in heavy black ink on the back of the card were the words “Call me!”
She read the card:
Matthias Johnson
Northeastern University
Graduate Fellow in Political Science
Phone: (617) 555-4215
Email: JohnsonM@nu.edu
“Should I?” She thought. She sighed. “Do I like him? God, I don’t know.”
She pulled up a new file in Microsoft Excel, and set up a spreadsheet with a “T” on it. On the top of each of the two sides, she wrote “Yes” and “No”. In other words, yes she liked him and no she didn’t.
For “Yes” she wrote,
-he’s cute
-he seems nice
-he’s obviously smart.
For “No,” she wrote:
-don’t reall know him.
-he’s my boss
Since “Yes” had more reasons than “No,” she decided to compromise. Instead of following the “call me” directive on the back of the card, she sent him an email:
Matt -- Is there any way we could meet up at Starbuck or something tonight? I’ve started reading Studies in Government and I’ve got a couple of questions. I’d like to make sure I’m on the right track before I finish reading through the first time and start highlighting.
Within five minutes, a response popped up on her computer.
Celeste – Sure. Six pm. at Starbucks. You bring the coffee and the croissants, I’ll supply the computer watching, conversation, and jobs.
Celeste suddenly felt nervous. What if he thought her questions were dumb? God, what was she thinking?
She rolled her eyes at herself and at the thoughts running through her head. She wasn’t even sure she liked him.
She plopped back on the chair, and picked up the book again. If she was nervous about meeting him, and nervous that her questions would look stupid, the only way to fix that would be to work harder. Supposedly, there were no stupid questions. However, Celeste had noticed that when she did have to ask what she thought of as a stupid question, it was always received better when she had done a lot of work even though she had a question about it.
By four thirty in the afternoon, she was about a hundred and twenty pages away from completing the first read-through of the book. She had scribbled some more notes, and some more questions in her notebook, and added somre more items to her list of notes and questions.
By quarter to five, she was in her bedroom frantically trying to find something both professional and attractive to wear. She finally decided on a pair of dark colored, boot cut jeans, and turqouise silk blouse that wrapped around her waist and tied on the side. The jeans made the outfit look casual enough so that she didn’t look like she was trying to impress, but the turquouse blouse fit her just right, and flattered her blonde hair and blue eyes.
She zipped up a pair of leather boots with three inch heels, and grabbed her purse. This time she remembered to make sure her T-Pass was inside. She carefully tucked Studies in Government into her bag, along with a printout of her questions, and her notebook.
Celeste walked into Starbucks at five thirty-five. The bus was unusually quick for rush-hour. She ordered herself a coffee, and then grabbed a table by the window. She had just gotten engrossed in Studies in Government, when Matt tapped her shoulder.
“Hey Stranger, long time no see!” he greeted her.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she responded. “Sorry I had to drag you out here tonight, but I’m almost finished with my first read-though, and I wanted your opinion before I started highlighting.”
“Oh, I’m just kidding,” he said. “I’m here just about every day during the morning, I normally don’t have class until three, so I do all my work here beforehand. And I just live up the street, anyway.” He gestured with his chin to one of the house-turned-apartment buildings that lined the streets.
“Wait – you live all the way out here, and you commute into Northeastern every day? Are you nuts?”
“Well, that’s thoroughly debateable…”
“I didn’t quite mean it like that,” Celeste said quickly.
Matt laughed. “No, I know how you meant it. I was joking. I actually drive in, a parking spot goes with the fellowship. It’s like nine miles from campus, but it’s better than taking the T in, and I don’t have to pay for it, after all.”
“Ah – that makes sense, then.”
They sat in silence for a second, both smiling stupidly. Celeste’s brain felt frozen, and she felt like her hands were shaking a little.
Suddenly, they both cleared their throats at the same time. Matt coughed, a little uncomfortably. Celeste let out a small nervous giggle.
“Um, anyway, how far have you gotten in the book?” Matt asked. His face was flushed bright red, and he was still smiling a slightly goofy smile.
Celeste latched onto the conversational life raft, and said, “Oh, hang on just a second, I’ll get it out.’
She fumbled through her purse, a little more slowly than usual, letting Matt get his poise back. When she saw that he had more or less recovered, she pulled out the book and her notes and questions. She placed them on the table in front of him, and said, “I’ve gotten to the bookmark in the book. I’ve written page numbers for any questions or notes related to specific passages. I’ll let you look through the list, and I’ll go get you some coffee. Just regular? Or…?”
“I’d like an grande iced coffee, actually,” he said. “Half and half, and five sugars.”
He started reaching for his wallet, but she waved him off. “You can get it next time,” she said.
He started to protest, but she cut him off, syaing “Look, it’s only a cup of coffee.” Then she shocked herself by adding, “If it’s that big a deal, you can take me out for lunch or something.”
She immediately flushed from head to toe, and quickly turned to walk toward the counter. As she was waiting for his coffee, she turned around to sneak a look at him, hopefully without hm noticing.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that. He was staring at her with a dumbfounded look on his face, and when she turned to look at him, their eyes met. She shrugged, trying to pass off the invitation as a casual comment, but they both knew it hadn’t been.
Celeste mentally kicked herself for saying anything, much less something so obvious – and so tacky. “God oh god oh god,” she thought, “when will I learn to keep my mouth shut?”
She fixed Matt’s coffee, and walked back to the table with it. “So,” she said with a brittle little laugh, “you like coffee with your sugar, huh?”
She put the coffee down on the table in front of him, and sat down herself, pulling her chair a little away from his.
“Ahem,” Matt cleared his throat again, and pulled the list in front of him. “For this first one…”
Celeste allowed her mind to wander a little – Matt was writing the answers to all of her questions on the back of her list, anyway, so it hardly mattered.
“So what kind of mixed signal is it, anyway, to write ‘Call Me!’ on the back of your business card, but not want to go out for lunch? I don’t get it,” she thought.
Matt had finished explaining what he was explaining, and was now writing everything he had just finished saying onto the back of her page of questions.
Finally they finished going over all of the different points, and they were both just sitting there, savoring the last sips of their coffee, as Starbucks hummed around them. Celeste started gathering her book and all of her notes, and she said “Well, I think I’m going to take off for the night.”
“Come have a drink with me,” Matt blurted out. “Just one drink,” he said quickly, “just to relax before we go home.”
“Uh, ok?” Celeste responded, more than a little confused by this further example of mixed signals.
They went inside the pub next door. Celeste had walked by it fairly often, but had never been inside. It was dim and dingy inside, with some men playing darts in the back. They grabbed a booth across from the bar.
“What would you like,” Matt asked.
“Um, just a beer, I think,” she said. “Coors Light, if they have it. Bud Light, if they don’t.”
Matt went up to the bar, and came back very shortly with two thirty-two ounce beers. “One Coors Light,” he handed the beer to her.
“Thanks,” Celeste responded. Se took a large sip of the beer, and put it back down on the coaster.
“So what do you do for fun, Celeste?” Matt asked. “I know that you’re obviously responsible and studious, but I don’tk now anything about you, really.”
“Well,” Celeste responded, “I enjoy reading – I usually read general ficition or Fantasy if I’m feeling like something fluffy. Um… I go running, now and hten, for relaxation and exercize. I’m not craziy about it, but I go a couple times a week, usually. And I like learning new things --- I have an easier time learning something new, and getting the hang of it, than I do sticking with it and getting really good at it,” she said. “What about you? What do you like to do?”
“I’m rather obsessive, “ he answered. “My work is my play gneerally. I come in here in the morning to get my coarse-work done, then after class, I go to the library to work for a few hours, then usually I’ll either come here or to my apartment or to Starbucks, and read some more. The only days I really have any free time are the weekends, and then I usually play a pickup game of basketball with some of the other gutys in my building, or go hiking. I’m originally from Montana, so there’s a whole lot fewer mountains and hills here than there are at home.”
F”Well,” C3elest5e responded, “ there’s gotta be some disadvantages to living in the city, I suppose.”
They each nursed tehir beers some more, and after the third time Celeste picked her beer up with her coater attached to he persperation on the glass, she decided to rexsolve the problem. She put the lgass aside for a second, pured a few shakes of salt onto the coaster, an put the glass back on the coaster. Voila – non-stick.
“that’s a cool idea, Matt said, gesturing toward her coaster. He did it himeslf.
“Copy-cat,” she responded.
“So,” Celeste said, “you come here often?”
“Every now and again,” he responded. “it’s close and they have decent beers on tap. Their food is pretty good, also.’’
“Mm,” Celeste said, “Its too bad that you just at out o fhere through , I’m starving.”
“Do you want to order something?” he asked
“Hm… how do you feel about boneless buffalo winks?”
“That sounds ok, I don’t know if I’ll have many, but sure.”
They placed the order, and continued talking about meaningless politenesses. At one pont, Matt’s knee brushed Celeste’s under the table, but he moved it as quickly as she felt it.
When the wings came, the waitress set them in the middle of the table. Celeste stabbed one with a fork, and put it on the appetizer plate in front of her. Matt followed suit. Celeste scooped out some blue cheese dressing from the little tub onto her plate. Matt did that also. Celeste took a celery stick, swirled it around the bleu cheese, and drizzled dressing on the wings. Once again, Matt did the same.
“Why are you copying me,” she asked.
“To be honest,” he said, “I’m not really that used to eating dinner out with anyone. I didn’t want to be rude, but my table manners are truly terrible. I was hoping that I’d be able to copy you wihtout you notising.”
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