Squirrels, Cheeseballs, & Complicated Love Stories

The butterflies took flight in my stomach as soon I locked the door to my basement apartment. Who came up with butterflies to describe this feeling, anyway? That makes it sound soft and gentle--dainty butterflies with their thin powdery wings. How about bats? Big leathery-winged bats. Anyway, no matter the metaphor, I felt uneasy.

Which was not something that I was accustomed to feeling these days. Six months ago, before I moved here, this knotted-up nervousness was more the norm. Now, not so much. I paused at the top of the stairs and looked back at the string of colorful lights I had looped around my door. They were the faux old-fashioned big-bulb kind and they made me smile. Everything about my little apartment just below street level in the brownstone on the corner made me smile. I took in a deep breath of the frigid air.

A drink. It was just a drink with a friend before a holiday party. Never mind that I met this particular friend on the set of a now somewhat famous unscripted kissing video that was really a commercial (which we, the actors, knew from the beginning, just to be clear). We had kissed for the first time that day on camera as instructed, then later of our own persuasion. Then I discovered he was my advisor in the graduate program I had just been accepted to, and there had been no more kissing.

Okay, maybe there had been a little more kissing--he requested I be reassigned to another faculty member and we went out to dinner twice, but then the video went viral and the chatter started. New grad student, young-ish professor, special treatment. All the expected drama (fitting for a Theatre MFA program). So we sat down and had a very adult and mature conversation about not seeing each other anymore. I didn't want to complicate my fresh start. He didn't want to complicate his tenure. So we didn't and eventually the chatter subsided--everyone satisfied there was no story other than two actors in a commercial and a dash of happenstance. Things settled into a simple and unfettered routine.

Except sometimes I could still feel his lips curl into a smile under mine. Could still see the soft, up-close smile in his eyes on that cooler than usual August night. And as ridiculous as it sounds, every now and then some little silly thing would happen and I would find myself wanting to tell him. Like last week, when I was walking to class and saw that squirrel in the park eating a cheese ball (the neon-colored snack-y thing, not an actual ball of cheese) and thought, I really want to tell Jeff about that.

Coincidentally, that happened the same morning that he stopped by the Graduate Assistant office to ask if I wanted to meet for a drink before the party tonight. I'd almost blurted out the ridiculous story while he stood there, nervously shuffling his feet. It was that nervousness that was making the bats take flight in my stomach tonight. It's not like we never saw each other, never talked. We just hadn't been alone since very, very early in the semester.

I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck. Leave it to me to relocate to Virginia from New York just in time for the coldest winter they had experienced in years. Thankfully the Jefferson Hotel where we were meeting was just a few blocks from my apartment. Jeff had insisted on meeting here, despite my suggestion for somewhere closer to Dean Foster's house, where the holiday party was. He explained that he always went at least once a season to have a drink under the giant, over-the-top Christmas tree and hadn't made it yet this year. He went on to describe the taller-than-imaginable tree and its basketball-size ornaments in great detail. I didn't bother to admit that despite the fact it was super close to my apartment, I'd never been inside the historic hotel.

Tonight I was greeted by the twinkling lights strung around the empty fountain outside the main entrance. Cold air. Sparkling lights. Parties. Final projects for the semester turned in. Good stuff. Whatever this was with Jeff, whatever he had to say that was making him nervous--it would not derail me. I would keep things simple and uncomplicated. I took another deep breath and walked through the door.