#ch: gina lumetta

[motownfiction]

scallop

There are moments when Daniel wonders what the hell he’s been doing. Like tonight, as he lies in Gina Lumetta’s bed, all alone while she takes a very long shower. He tries not to think of that as an insult. Have sex with Daniel DeLuca, the quietest boy in the Class of ‘85, just to shower him off yourself and pretend like you didn’t. Come back for more in a week, a month, give or take how much attention you get from boys with letterman jackets. That’s how it’s gone from the very first night with the very first girl. And really, Daniel should be more used to it by now. The pendulum of desire and rejection. It surprises him every time it smacks him in the ass and lands him smack in the middle of an unfamiliar mattress or backseat.

Gina even went out of her way to assure him that it wasn’t because she was, like, ashamed to hook up with him or anything.

Really, she said as she rolled out of the bed without a second look at the boy by her side. If I wasn’t interested, do you think I would have put on “Up Where We Belong?”

Daniel snorts, still thinking about that line. If only Gina knew. In the past year, he’s hooked up six times to “Up Where We Belong.” It’s one of the most popular choices for popular girls, beating out even the likes of “Sexual Healing” and Yazoo’s “Only You.” As a matter of fact, Gina should know. Just last month, she played “Up Where We Belong” for him in the backseat of her LeBaron. He snorts again. Maybe she thinks it’s their song.

It’s all that assurance that makes Daniel want to get up and leave. He knows Gina won’t miss him, that she’ll just call up a friend and talk about what happened, that she’ll ask if someone more popular and less available (less willing) might be more interested in her now that it looks like she has her eye on other guys. That’s what they all do. Daniel is a stepping stone, in all senses of the metaphor.

But then, he spots her light blue nightgown on the floor, the one with the scallop edges on the very bottom. It looks just like a puddle, waiting for her to step back into it. And Daniel remembers how it felt to get her out of it … to pull both straps down one by one, to go slowly when she just wanted him to get it over with. It was a routine, to be sure, but it’s a routine Daniel is good at. It might even be the only thing he’s good at anymore.

It’s a reminder that for a second, someone wanted him enough to be vulnerable in front of him. It’s a reminder that maybe, one of these days, he’ll be vulnerable in front of one of them, too.

Is that not what it already is?

He hears the stream of Gina’s shower suddenly turn off, followed by the loud rushing of the rings on her shower curtain. For a split second, he thinks about getting ready to leave, but he can’t. It wouldn’t be right to leave her like she left him.

She appears in a stark white towel with a confused look on her face.

“Hey,” she says, “I thought you’d have somewhere else to be.”

Daniel’s heart drops a little into his gut.

“No,” he says. “I try not to, uh, do that.”

Gina smiles a little and crawls back into the bed.

“Good,” she says. “Because I was wondering if – like, if you’re really not busy – if we could maybe …”

She says a few things, but in all honesty, Daniel’s not listening. What does it matter?

Whatever it is Gina is asking for, he’s pretty sure he’s going to give it to her. Not because she means much to him. Not because he could see himself loving her.

But because he’s really not busy.

(part of @nosebleedclub june challenge -- day 5!)

[motownfiction]

college football season (again)

Whenever Sadie runs into someone from high school, it’s always college football season.

It’s probably more annoying in Michigan than any other state. When you graduate from high school, people don’t really give a damn where you go unless it’s Blue or Green. Sadie went Blue, sort of, and people remember. Right there, in the mall, people remember.

Like today. She’s trying to shop for a new sweater, just to look professional and pretty in her upper-level psychology classes, and she runs into Gina Lumetta. When they graduated a year and a half ago, Gina went Green. Apparently, it was a little too far away from home, so she’s back in town to finish up at Wayne State. She looks a little embarrassed.

“Don’t be,” Sadie says. “Wayne State is a great school. If I decide to get a master’s, that’s where I’ll go. It’s great.”

Gina nods.

“Either way, I wasn’t as good as you,” she says. “Hey, it’s college football season. Do you just love it over there at the Big House?”

Sadie feels her throat begin to close up, and she hates herself for it. This? Again? She thought she got over it early in the summertime, after she made the Dean’s List for the second time and declared psychology as her major. Hell, maybe she was over it before then. She’s not like Lucy. She doesn’t get wrapped up in prestige. But as soon as someone hears you’re going Blue, they get all these visions. And if you don’t quite fit into their visions, then they look at you differently. Weirdly. Worse.

“Well, I, uh, I don’t go there very often,” she says before she too meekly explains she chose a satellite campus over the flagship. She watches as Gina’s stare gets different, weird, worse. This always happens, and there’s nothing she or anyone can do to stop it.

“I know it seems a little local,” Sadie backpedals. “But it’s really great, and I love it. Lucy Callaghan goes there, too, so you know it can’t be too bad. She doesn’t settle.”

All the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Did she really just throw her best friend under the bus? In front of Gina Lumetta? And for what? Why is she embarrassed in front of someone who meant so little to her in high school, which means so little to her now?

“Oh,” Gina says. “Well, maybe you’ll transfer.”

Sadie sighs.

“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe.”

But she knows she won’t transfer. Why would she? She can’t afford flagship prices, and it’s not like her diploma will look any different. And why does she care? She loves her school. She loves her classes. She loves seeing her friends across campus, and she loves living in her neighborhood. Why would she give any of it up? Just so that ex-popular kids don’t look at her differently? Weirdly? Worse? She never cared before, but now, it seems important. It seems like she has something to prove.

It’s a good thing she knows she’s majoring in psychology now, she thinks. Maybe she can use her homework to figure out why she had to prove herself in front of one of the many, many girls Daniel slept with before he came around to her.

Or maybe she just figured it out.

It’s college football season (again). And Sadie’s out defending herself (again).

But in the end, she’s not sorry about where she lives, where she works, what she does. How could she be?

She’s happy.

(part of @nosebleedclub september challenge -- day iv!)