Ten years ago, the frustrating, purposeless haze that Jake saw as the defining characteristic of his life was split with an alien s.p.a.cecraft-style beam of cornesearing light. He was set free of the Matrix, born again, enlightened.Because of a blonde.
Jake met her at an intramural softball game, the only one he ever attended. She was cheering and shouting the typical nonsense from among her friends on the sidelines, "Focus. Pay attention. Here it comes. Keep your eye on—Go! Go!"
Her hair wisped and waved around her in the wind as though she was at that moment posing near a fan for the cover of a chick magazine. Even her absurd yelling did little to alter that image.
Jake would never have dreamed of approaching her. He had been no cooler then than he was at present, and he had never been confident or successful where women were concerned. Zeus had once asked if it made Jake question his paternity, but Jake had looked so disconsolate that he"d never made the joke again.
But the Fates had either been in his favor that night, or they weren"t paying attention.
Jake"s roommate, Geir, had only been in the country a few weeks, and he had, without knowing it, brought a nisse with him from Norway. The nisse, who said his name was Asbjørn, was pixie-like or brownie-like in almost every way. He cleaned the room while the boys were in cla.s.s. He kept the room free of bugs. He made sure the alarm clock went off. But he was more than a little grumpy about being stuck in a dorm room when he was used to having a whole house and garden as his domain. Jake bought a large flower pot and filled it with an a.s.sortment of rocks and plants (Geir a.s.sumed it was a strange American custom), but Asbjørn was unhappy, and he liked to show it.
Before long, the nisse was sneaking into Jake"s backpack and peeking out in the middle of cla.s.s, jumping down to frolic in the gra.s.s whenever Jake went outside. Jake tolerated this since his room smelled considerably less like feet than the other rooms, but he had already begun to grow tired of the little pest before the day of the intramural softball game.
Jake was sitting with Geir and their friends Sam and Peanut. Asbjørn had hidden in Jake"s back pocket, and he dived out and into the gra.s.s at the beginning of the game. Jake didn"t pay attention. He was watching the girl with the long blonde hair, and he a.s.sumed Asbjørn could stay safe and out of trouble for an hour at least. And if someone stepped on him, it wouldn"t be the greatest tragedy.
But while Jake watched her and while she watched the game, Asbjørn must have grown tired of eating ants and making gra.s.s skirts. Jake didn"t notice that he wasn"t nearby until he saw the little vermin climbing up the back of the blonde"s t-shirt and into her hair. All the moisture in Jake"s mouth and throat evaporated.
The nisse had a tight hold, and as Jake watched, Asbjørn turned himself upside down, wrapping arms and legs around a thick section of her hair, and began nibbling the ends.
Before he thought about it, Jake jumped forward, grabbed Asbjørn, and stuffed him back in his pocket, half hoping his little neck would snap in the process.
Asbjørn had a grip on her hair, though, and Jake saw her head jerk back an inch before Asbjørn let go. She spun around and looked at him with confusion and mild annoyance.
"Can I help you?" she said.
"There was a…." Half of Jake"s mind berated his stupidity. The other half fought for something to say that would not make him look stupid in front of the world"s most beautiful creature. "A…." Brownie? Pixie? Imp? "Bug!" he said, as though it was a revelation. "There was a bug. In your hair. I got it out." He tried to breathe normally, and when that didn"t work, he tried to at least keep from drooling. "Sorry if I tugged your hair a little," he added.
"No," she said, giving him a small smile. "Thanks."
She turned back around and he returned to his place beside Geir, who was grinning widely at everything, Sam, who gave him a knowing nod, and Peanut, who had been focused on a spot above and just to the right of the game for about half an hour. Jake spent the rest of the game staring at the back of her head, trying to stay upright and taking deep, dry breaths of the gra.s.sy air.
Two weeks pa.s.sed before he saw her again, though he kept an eye out for her everywhere he went. Eventually he realized that he couldn"t depend on her to magically appear in the English building or the dining hall. He brought a stack of homework and two novels and spent every moment he could for three days outside the gym, unable to study because he was sure that when he saw her, he would say or do something to humiliate himself.
Day three of the stakeout arrived, and Jake slung his backpack over his shoulder and left his bench two minutes before his Renaissance Literature cla.s.s was starting. He had taken four steps away when he saw her out of the corner of his eye. His head turned one way, his foot stepped another, and he landed flat on his back in a puddle left by the sprinkler system. His spine made a loud popping sound as he landed on his backpack, soaking the contents.
He lay still for a moment, hoping she hadn"t seen and that she would enter the gym without noticing him, but a few seconds later, her face appeared in the sky. She leaned over him, frowning. "You okay?" she asked, reaching out a hand.
He tried not to pay attention to her short shorts and tight shirt with just the little straps distracting from the curve of her neck and shoulders as he stood, feeling the puddle water leaking from his backpack and drenching the back of his jeans.
He nodded. Nothing he could say could make him seem less like an idiot.
"Hey, you"re the bug guy, right?"
"What?"
"The guy at the game who pulled the bug out of my hair," she said.
He nodded again, not sure whether to be pleased that she remembered him or disappointed that she referred to him as "the bug guy." And then the often ignored voice made a brave suggestion, and he thought, what the h.e.l.l. Might as well….
He tried to fall into a cool guy pose and failed, then said quickly, "I think you"re incredibly beautiful. Can I take you to dinner this weekend?"
She took a step backward, her eyes widening like the blooming of a flower. "Who are you?" she asked, but she didn"t sound angry or scared, and he was prepared to take confidence from any little sign.
"Jake," he said. He wished he had something witty to add to it. He thought about doing a James Bond impersonation, but that could drastically backfire. Instead, he tried not to talk again and tried to keep breathing as he waited for her answer.
"I"m Rachel," she said, and her blonde ocean fell across her face as she took a pen and paper from her purse and wrote down her number.