20

Twenty
“Everything has it’s wonders, even darkness and sadness, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” –Helen Keller
March 9 Keolwulf 14
Adrienne let out a sharp sigh as she turned in her exam envelope. Yet somehow the stress didn’t disappear. True, she only had one final. One final and four papers to be exact. She’d rather have a million papers and no finals. But nobody asked her did they? The papers weren’t what stressed her out. One of her talents was pulling papers out of her ass. The stress came over the anxiety over what she would get on her transcript as a result. Her watch beeped twice; she didn’t have to look at the purple plastic watch emblazoned with glitter. Two beeps meant 9PM. Birth control time.
Adrienne reached in her purse and pulled out her orthotricylen—she had painted the dial pack with metallic purple nail polish. Obsession? Of course not. Artistic boredom. She swallowed the light blue pill with a hot Pepsi One that had been in her purse since the beginning of the exam. She glanced down at the watch to check the date. Monday. She had a tendency to lose track of what day it was. Hourly time didn’t mean much to her. Neither did calendar dates. It was the days of the week that were more important.
Adrienne had certain days reserved for certain things. If she were going to pick a day in which to be a complete and absolute bitch about something, Monday was a definite candidate. Many people had been saved from an all out tirade based on the fact that it simply wasn’t a Monday. In the beginning she had felt bad about having sex on Sundays. Originally it was because she felt as though it was because she was having sex that she wasn’t going to Mass. She proved herself wrong one month that she was celibate. Apparently she didn’t go to Mass regardless. If that didn’t prove anything, her relationship with Hadassah did. She’d have sex with Hadassah no matter what day it was.
The forest green of the oak leaves stood out vibrantly against the orange painted tips; she stood like the oak against the late autumn haze of evening. Or perhaps the evening stood against her, for the ferocity of the colors painted against the sky ran along her spine like a hammer against each bone. Her thoughts danced speedily along the rising wind, as if they summoned the element itself. It was unclear as to the veracity of the wind’s existence. There seemed to be a great gust of energy, hot from her soul that rushed through the autumn haze and the orange dipped leaves. Each vertebra seemed to vibrate in succession. Each muscle seemed overly tight. Adrienne breathed in the dried leaves, the newly turned soil. Anxiety wracked her body like a violent scent.
Just then her purse began to vibrate. She rummaged through its random contents to find her cell, which had been placed on vibrate during the exam. She stared blankly at Deshawn’s number as it appeared on the screen. She almost didn’t answer it, but thought better of it. “Yeah,” she answered flatly.
“Hey beautiful. Are you finished?”
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“Do you want me to come get you, or do you want to meet me?”
“I’ll meet you; I don’t want to have to come back to get my car.”
“So where you want to go?”
“Ruby Tuesdays. The one closest to my house.”
“Alright baby girl. See you in a few.”
The street signs flashed by without much meaning. It didn’t really matter much; Adrienne could make it to Ruby Tuesdays with her eyes closed, for everything stood out starkly against the autumn haze. Colors attacked her and beat against her brain like the pounding of a drum.
Deshawn was leaning against the side of the restaurant when she began to walk toward him. Adrienne walked slowly, balancing her steps with the pounding of the world around her. She fixed her eyes on the way his black t-shirt defined each of his upper body muscles perfectly at the same time that it hung loosely over his oversized jeans. In her opinion, Deshawn’s attractiveness stopped there—mostly because his boots were practically hidden by his jeans. It might just be because she had a boot fetish, but Adrienne thought that if one was going to wear boots, they should be visible.
She could feel his eyes upon her, wandering around her figure the way hers had his. Her low rise jeans began at her hips, and the patches of violet velvet sporadically traveled down the legs to her combat boots that had been painted with indigo and lavender glitter. She ran her fingers through her garnet ringlets, inadvertently causing her lilac tank top ribbed with threads of silver to expose her midriff.
Deshawn slid his sleek arm around her waist, running his fingers almost absent mindedly along the hem of her top. He knew better than to guide her to her seat. Instead he simply rested his arm in the curve of her waist. Adrienne chose a booth toward the end of the non smoking section in the corner at the edge of the room. She slid across the table from him and began to arrange the sugar packets in erratic block patterns. He watched her intently, as if he thought the intensity of his stare would grasp her attention. It didn’t.
“May I take your order?” the waitress in black spandex pants asked for a second time. Adrienne looked up suddenly from her sugar packets. “Two sex on the beach. Chocolate tall cake,” she answered rapidly, in an almost automatic tone. Their server turned to Deshawn, who replied, “Two Corona, chili cheese fries,” without removing his gaze from Adrienne.
Adrienne guzzled both her drinks down before Desawn was finished with his first Corona. He eyed her carefully as she ate the whipped cream off her tall cake. Abruptly she stood and reached out for his arm. “Let’s go. Get a box,” she demanded, grabbing his wrist. He rose and signaled the waitress for a to go box. “What about my beer? This isn’t New Orleans; I can’t take it with me.” Adrienne grabbed his unopened Corona and walked up to a blonde man sitting at the bar. “My boyfriend bought you a drink,” she whispered into his ear as she placed the Corona in front of him. She turned around before a perplexed look crossed his face.