The Do-Over(8)
Author: Suzanne Park
My new roomie’s eyes rounded when she noticed one of the clear plastic stackable containers Mia had placed on the floor by her feet, packed with tampons, pads, essential K-beauty products, and, of course, condoms. She’d put the four boxes in plain view. Thanks for that, Mia.
Mia wheezed in Beth’s arms, “I’ll be visiting often, don’t you worry. So chicken raincheck?”
Beth loosened her grip and Mia took in a deep breath of relief.
“Abso-freakin-lutely! If I know you’re coming, I can make a feast for all of us too. I love cooking for a group! I make a mean bread pudding. I love baking pretty much everything, except for popovers. Or Yorkshire pudding, depending on where you’re from.”
“How can you be anti-popover?” I asked, mildly horrified. Popovers were so crowd-pleasingly simple.
“Well, they’re beige, flavorless, and as boring as my uncle Jude. And, most importantly, they’re too light and airy. I hope you two love butter, it’s a Beth Reynolds staple!” She lightly punched Mia in the upper arm.
Mia looked at me and shrugged. “I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love butter?”
Indeed. God bless butter.
“Alrighty! I have to run to the bookstore real quick to grab a workbook, but holler if you need anything. I can help you unpack when I get back. And by the way, everything of mine is ours to share. Well, except for my boyfriend, who goes to Georgetown and who I plan to marry, he’s strictly off-limits. But other than him, what’s mine is yours! Mi casa es su casa, literally! Oh, and except for razors, deodorant, and toothbrushes, because sharing those would be downright nasty. Nice to meet ya both!” Beth and her ponytail swished past us, leaving Mia and me standing in the entryway, mouths agape, as the front door closed.
I pointed to the doorway. “It’s going to take me a while to process what just happened there.”
Mia’s eyes bulged. “That was like listening to a podcast at 2X speed.”
I laughed and clapped my hands. “Okay, let’s find my bedroom and start unloading before it gets dark.”
The entire apartment was decorated farmhouse shabby chic, in true Beth Reynolds style, with heavy emphasis on farm and shabby. Although there was an absence of hay on the floor, the living room and kitchen had a vintage quality that paid homage to an older era. Beth was clearly an aspiring antiques collector or, maybe more accurately, an old junk amasser. Old wooden milk crates were used as bookshelves and side tables. Glass milk bottles and mason jars doubled as drinkware. Cow, pig, and rooster wooden art populated the walls, as did metal John Deere tractor signs. It was more kitschy than tacky, but barely.
This was no time to throw stones at any glass house, even a tacky farm-themed one, because I could relate. In my college days, and even a few years after, I used to browse and buy all of my decor and furniture in thrift shops and consignment stores to save money and to blow off steam through low-end retail therapy. The thrill of finding my next “trash treasure” was incomparable to any pleasure I derived from grown-up purchases I’d made in my more successful years. I still had my greatest finds somewhere in storage: a vintage Nirvana shirt, a hand-painted porcelain rooster, and a set of cast-iron skillets that were heavy as fuck to lug home but were only ten dollars thanks to a red tag special. These were my most prized possessions.
Mia pursed her lips, like she needed to say something or she’d explode. Then she finally did.
“How in the hell are you supposed to invite anyone over with all that crazy country crap all around? You could hang a box of condoms with a FREE SEX! sign around your neck and get them to the door, but they’ll one-hundred-eighty-degree spin when they see all that fucked-up farm fuckery inside. You’re not seriously going to live here, right?”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge later, if it ever comes.” We entered my large square bedroom as she ended her rant. I put down my satchel and phone by the door. “Aha! Now I know why you had me buy all those condoms. You want me to be an STD lure, to which I must say no thank you. But as for your main concern, I think it’ll be fine. Beth’s got a boyfriend, and I can just focus on my studies, get my stupid credits, and get the hell out of here after one semester. I don’t need to invite people over and be social.”
Mia cocked her head. “Seriously? You’re doing this all wrong. That’s why you’re lucky to have me here as your orgasm oracle. The condoms are strictly for just-in-case use, like if you hook up with another student from class or have a party and want to get all naked with some dude. Maybe this is just the thing to get you to date more and put yourself out there.” She dropped the bags of snacks from the store onto the carpeted floor. “This is your second chance to do college! Surely there are things you’ll want to try again this time around. Or do for the first time. So many of my friends are jealous of this opportunity.”
I pulled the closet door open and flicked on the light. “You’re all jealous of me screwing up my life so badly that I didn’t get enough credits? Jealous of me being in danger of looking like a fraud if anyone exposes me before my next book comes out? My life right now is hardly enviable.”
She took the boxes of condoms from the container and stacked them in the empty dresser’s top drawer, all nice and orderly. “Noooo, chingoo, that’s not what I meant. College is the last stage of metamorphosis before becoming a real adult. Then you get burdened by loans and mortgages and 401(k)s. Everyone we know is getting married or is already married. They’re having babies. Some are peaking at work and some are hitting plateaus in their jobs. You’re getting a chance to relive a time when most people have no worries.”
Most people. But you know as well as I do that wasn’t true for me in college.
She patted my arm. “Okay, aside from the fact that you almost failed out of two classes and then messed up the whole major pass/fail thing to graduate, remember some of those fun times we had together? You’d dumped your shitty and boring long-distance high school boyfriend, the guy who would make a stick in the mud look interesting. We went all Beyoncé ‘Run the World (Girls)’ right after that—we went dancing and had those fake IDs and went to diners on the weekend at one A.M. to share cheese fries.” She sighed wistfully. “And you even dated that cute guy for a while . . . Jake. Jake Cho from ASA? The guy who always wore summer clothes, even when it was snowing?”
Yes, he was in the Asian Student Association with Mia and me. Jake and I were club officers our sophomore and junior years. We had both broken off long-distance relationships and then we started dating the night we went out of town to attend Columbia’s Korean Student Association culture show. But it was supposed to be just a casual thing, with my friends egging me on to hook up with him because he was available and looking for a good time, and we had both broken up with our high school sweethearts. We actually started dating but things were not perfect, and it led to mutually assured emotional destruction.