Chapter 9

GAINESVILLE, While taking her before-class shower, Jessica decided she was spending too much time with Jesse and not enough time with people who still had flowing blood and a pulse.

Then again...did they not have a pulse?

They did have a body. She had seen  it on her FaceTime screen. Jesse had a head, shoulders, eyes, ears, tongue. All that stuff.

From what she understood, it was all more of an illusion. Jesse once compared it to special effects—CGI stuff. You see it, although it's not exactly there.

It wasn’t just the living who saw it, though. The dead saw and felt it too.

Jesse once said that he felt as if he did have a body. He explained it as: "Well, it's like how you feel when you're in a dream. Your body is in the bed. Right? But you still feel like you have a body in your dream." 

So…Maybe a pulse was there as well. She decided to ask Jesse about that later.

She finished rinsing her hair; then turned off the shower and grabbed her towel. She sniffed it. 

It smelled not-so-fresh. She would need to visit the laundry room. Soon.

With the towel wrapped around her torso, she looked in the mirror. 

She liked what she saw. She usually did. And she was kind of ashamed of that. It seemed like there was some kind of law that required women to hate their bodies. She never had, which made her worried that she was vain. Maybe even narcissistic?

Right now, she was going to avoid worrying about that and instead stick to worrying about her social life. 

Maybe the problem wasn’t spending time with Jesse. Maybe it was more about being lonely for living people. Her family was super far away in Australia. Her roommate had gone home, and to Jesse's surprise, she sort of missed Taylor. Even the annoying, sort-of anorexic version of Taylor.

Most of her friends had gone back home for the summer. She talked to some people in her summer classes, but nothing had really clicked yet.

"Give it time," she told herself.

She also had the yogurt shop. She had Frankie. He was fun. They made fun of each other's accents. His was very southern.

She had given him a lesson on words that were innocent in America and had quite a different meaning in Australia.

Fanny.  In America, it referred to your behind. Add pack to the word and you have that thing some dorky American tourists used to carry their hotel key, camera, and credit cards.

In Australia, fanny meant vagina.

Then there was rooting. In America, you root for your favorite team. In Australia, rooting was having sex. Frankie had laughed at all this. Then they both remembered there was also the opposite. In Australia, you wore thongs on your feet; what Americans called flip-flops. In America, thongs were skimpy underpants. 

Thinking about Frankie, she decided she should take things up a notch. Maybe they could be friends outside the yogurt shop. She should ask him to dinner. Maybe? What if he thought she was asking him out on a date? Not that there was anything wrong with Frankie.  She just wasn't interested in him that way. She just wanted to be friends.

She didn't find him attractive.  

Yes, maybe that was shallow, but everyone had their own tastes. He wasn’t bad for looking the way he did, and she wasn't bad for not being attracted to the way he looked.

 Maybe he was gay.

He could be.

Jessica hoped he was. It would make things easier.

Jessica put on her shorts and thongs (on her feet not her arse).

She worked at the yogurt shop in the afternoon. She'd talk to Frankie then.

 ***

 In class, Jessica was full of confidence about asking Frankie out.

When they were together at the yogurt shop, she was suddenly self-conscious about the whole thing.

It wasn’t just about him thinking she was lusting after him. She worried about rejection in general. What if he didn’t even want to be mates? What if he was happy enough keeping things business-only?

Still, though. No point in being a coward.

That's not who she was.

So she asked. "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner tonight. I mean after we close the shop." She said it quite fast and worried he might not have understood.

He looked surprised. In a positive way? Negative?

Jessica couldn’t tell. She waited for a response.

Why was he taking so long?

 "It's really nice of you to ask."

"But…."

"I'm supposed to talk to my mom tonight. You know. Online."

His mom was dead? Did she know that? Or maybe she wasn’t dead. People still talked to their living relatives online. "Okay," she said.

"Sorry," he said.

"No worries." She smiled and then gave her attention to the customer who had just come in.

*** 

Jessica ate dinner alone in her room. Ramen noodles.

She flipped through Netflix. Maybe she needed a new show in her life. That could fill the void.

Nothing caught her interest. She wasn't in the mood.

What happened in the shop today? Did Frankie have a real reason for saying no. Did he really have plans to talk to his mum?

Maybe.

Then why hadn’t he suggested another date? Why hadn’t he said, "Not tonight, but how about tomorrow?"

Maybe he was a very busy guy. 

Maybe he didn’t like her.

That didn’t make much sense to Jessica. They got along so well in the shop. Maybe he thought she was being too forward, and he didn’t like that in women.

If that was the case…well, then he wasn’t worth her time.

 

 * * *

 After eating, thinking, and trying to study a bit; Jessica was tired of being by herself. She FaceTimed Jesse. They talked for a bit. Then she turned on some music. They danced alone. Together.

Continue to Chapter Ten

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