San Diego Reader

She was like a statue: beautiful and cold. She had dyed her hair so many times that I doubted that she could remember what the original color was. Her eyes were unusually dark brown. Her shirts always accentuated her bust; her tight jeans showed off the shape of her hips.

We were both first-year students at a community college, paying for everything ourselves. Twice a week we would sit together before class, complaining about whatever troubled us, talking about whatever amused us. I still remember the clove-tobacco smell of her clothes and hair.

The first red flag rose when “Rochelle” began speaking of...let’s call him Frank. I can’t remember his real name, anyway. She never had anything nice to say about Frank, but this faceless phantasm would pop up in our conversations like a weed. Frank was a lovable, thoughtless bastard, so she hated his guts and loved him to death.

Even so, she would smile and laugh at the things I said. She once rested her head on my shoulder before class when she had had a long morning at work. She would often place her hand on my knee and lean in for a conspiratorial whisper. I didn’t know what to make of it. My roommate advised me: “Go for it! What’s the worst that could happen — she says, ‘No’?”

So I went for it. Our professor, who was never easy to understand, was particularly unintelligible that day. The Botox had shrink-wrapped the old woman’s skull so tightly that she could barely move her lips. Half of the class had given up on trying to take notes, and our professor had stepped outside, presumably to try to massage the life back into her face.

I turned to Rochelle and asked if she wanted to “maybe go see a movie or something sometime.” I had carefully posed myself into a position indicative of nonchalance. I worked my vocal cords like a practiced opera singer, everything about me precisely tuned for optimal output of Confidence and Casual.

She smiled and shrugged. “Sure, sure.”

I had recently lost my job, but I managed to scrounge together enough for two matinee cinema tickets and a cheap lunch. She said to meet her at the theater because she would have to rush there from work to make it on time. I paced, tickets in hand. Ten minutes after the listed start time she sauntered up, talking on her cell. “I’m not too late, am I?”

Ah, the smell of clove cigarettes and vanilla. She had changed from her job uniform to the usual tight jeans and tank top. Of course I said, “No problem!” For the life of me, I can’t remember which movie we saw.

I’m no Casanova, but that afternoon I was about as charming and witty as I get. Her lips would brush against my ear when we she leaned in to comment on something. Her hand rested on my knee; my hand on her thigh.

We were halfway through lunch when she got a call: She had to go! My mind flooded with anguish over the wasted money, but she assuaged me, as I walked her to her car, with a suggestion that we go “someplace else.” She had parked her van so that it faced one of the cement pillars supporting the parking structure. The side and rear windows were tinted. Inside she had gutted the middle and back rows of seats and replaced them with blankets and pillows. I thought I spied a bottle of baby oil sticking out of the silken folds. Aromatic candles twinkled on the dashboard and on shelves installed in the back, oozing spicy scarlet blood onto little plates. Clearly, things were arranged for a specific purpose.

Rochelle inserted a CD of Spanish love songs into the stereo. She claimed to be fluent in Spanish and translated a few sensuous lines from one of the songs. I knew enough Spanish from high school to know that she was making up most of it. Then she stopped and stared at me in silence. Phrases that I had memorized in my first year of Spanish for situations just like this ran through my mind: “Bésame.” “Tus ojos son como estrellas.” “¡Hay un fuego en mis pantalones!” I said the first one.

“What?” said Rochelle. “‘Base on me’?”

Never mind. I leaned in.

Rochelle pulled back, her body going nigh horizontal. She was like a supernatural limbo champion. I blinked at her, testosterone boiling, utterly at a loss. Her hand flew to her pocket and she pulled out her cell phone. She flipped it open and carried on a brief conversation with mostly one- or two-word responses. She stared right at me the whole time. She flipped it shut. “Well, that was Frank. He’s, uh, throwing a party in Encinitas for a mutual friend of ours.”

This was blatantly a lie. “I guess I’ll take you home now. This was fun.” (Well, thanks for spending all that money on me. Now I’m going to have sex with someone else who doesn’t respect me as a human being.)

I never saw her again. This was over a year ago, but I will risk seeming petty by admitting that I am still a mite bitter about the whole thing. It’s not about the money. Every time I think about it I can’t understand why she would send so many obvious signals and then act repulsed when I responded — or why women like her are so often attracted to abusive, negligent men when a kinder alternative stands before them.

While writing this I have fantasized Rochelle accosting me about this article, a copy of the Reader rolled up in one angry little fist, and of the things that I would then say to her. This scenario is unlikely to happen, so I’ll just say it here: Your español is terrible. The class we took wasn’t difficult — you were too stupid and lazy to pass it. Your mother could have afforded to let you live at home a while longer if she had wanted to — she did not. And the acting jaded, the sex with strangers, and the drugs you take to try to forget it all don’t make you sophisticated or worldly.

Tell us the story of your breakup and/or date from hell and we will publish it and pay you ($100 for 500-2000 words).

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