Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [70]
Marcus audibly swallows once, twice, again. Each time, his Adam’s apple bobs up and down like a rubber ducky in high tide.
three
She’s testing me, Marcus thinks. And I’m passing.
Marcus is trying to prove he still has it in him, the ability to engage and enrage her in debate. He hasn’t been knocked down yet, but her oral and written exams have certainly worn him out in mind and body. And judging by Jessica’s languorous pose on the platform bed, she, too, must regroup before she can recommence the conversation.
No, not a test, Marcus reconsiders, shaking his head. That’s too onesided. This is an intricate partnership. A grandiloquent pas de deux. I’ve missed this, Marcus thinks. I’ve missed you.
“What?” Jessica asks.
“What what?”
“You were just shaking your head at me.”
“I was?” Marcus hadn’t noticed.
“You were.”
“Oh.”
Jessica is either too tired or too uninterested to pursue this line of questioning.
Marcus needs a shower. He hasn’t had a proper washing in a week. In New Orleans he stayed with the rest of Princeton’s volunteers in a tent city where conditions could be described as Spartan at best and squalid at worst. More accurately, it was the most basic of base camps, where running water and electricity were intermittently available but rarely used luxuries. Only now, in this hypermodern and sterile hotel room, is Marcus even aware of his own mammalian gaminess. He raises his arms to the ceiling and buries his nose in his own armpit. It’s surprisingly pungent, considering the source of the odor is trapped under multiple layers of clothing—the T-shirt, the dress shirt, the sweater. He doubts that his all-natural stench has gone unnoticed, even from afar. All afternoon Jessica has gone out her her way to avoid touching him—with the exception of their electric handshake, of course. Perhaps Eau de NOLA Outhouse, not emotional unease, is why Jessica has kept herself at a distance. This theory is far more encouraging than it is embarrassing. The odor, after all, can be remedied immediately through a rigorous scrubbing with a battery of rosemary-mint-scented bath products. Jessica’s psyche requires more complex care and attention.
She’s heaped on the double bed closest to the door. Marcus is surprised she didn’t bother whipping back the bamboo duvet cover first, assuming she’s the type to get all paranoid about strange body fluids and shared bed linens. Did you know that 93 percent of hotel bedspreads have tested positive for ejaculate? That’s just the sort of statistic Marcus memorized for his follow-ups to that first conversation with Jessica in the Caddie so many years ago. Conversational constructs, he called them. He had never resorted to such tactics with any other girl. No other girl had ever made him so nervous. No other girl had brought out his inner nerd. Only Jessica, whom he always knew was superior to him in every way. His only hope at holding his own—then and now—was to throw her off balance. Hence: Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green? Did you know that the mauve color on your walls changed the world? Did you know that 93 percent of hotel bedspreads have tested positive for ejaculate? He’s so tempted to ask, even though he’s unsure such a study of spunk exists. She might laugh with him in recognition of his old gambit. Or at him for his lame reliance on old ploys.
Jessica cocoons the duvet cover around herself. Perhaps her frequent travels have inured her to such hygienic transgressions. This would bode well for Marcus’s BO. However, even if Jessica does see fit to forgive him for his ripeness, Marcus is feeling increasingly claustrophobic under all those heavy layers of fabric and dirt. He needs to shed his filthy clothes, scrub his skin, and get clean, if not for her then for himself.
“I’m taking a shower,” Marcus announces. He is ready for her to accuse him of making this statement for the sole and inappropriate purpose of directing her attention to his impending nakedness. He has already decided to retaliate with