Pug Hill - Alison Pace [45]
As I head in the direction of the sink, I try to give off an air of only the utmost normalcy, as I walk by Elliot. And then, of course, I’m done with washing my brushes and my hands and done with drying them, too, and I have to walk past him again. I wonder how long, how inhumanely, can this go on? And I know, from past experience, all too well, the viciousness of the circle that is unrequited love for me. I know how long these kinds of circles tend to keep me trapped inside them. I try not to think so long about the answer, because in the end, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.
“Good night, Elliot,” I say on the way back past him, pausing before I say it just to be sure something else doesn’t slip out, something along the lines of, “Are you quite certain then that you aren’t in love with me, and are you quite certain then that all this time I’ve spent, and continue to spend, mooning over you is really all for nothing? And do you maybe want to tell me that Claire really isn’t your girlfriend? Do you maybe want to tell me that Claire doesn’t really exist at all?”
And then, just like every other night, instead of “Hope, let’s you and I run away together and leave this crazy Conservation Studio that’s really just a basement behind,” he looks up from his easel only slightly, smiles even more slightly and says, “Good night, Hope.”
I enter Room 502 a few minutes before class is scheduled to start: an improvement on last time. I take a far less vulnerable seat: not on either end, nor right in the middle (which I feel could be dangerous, too) but a few seats into the horseshoe, on the side closest to the door, you know, in case of an emergency.
I can’t help thinking it will surely be another improvement. I look around and notice there seem to be fewer people here than last time. The serene girl who wore a wrap dress isn’t here, which I think is too bad, because I liked her, or at least I thought she lent a calming influence to the room. One of the two pantsuit-girls, the one who was supposedly here for her friend, but then ran from the room, isn’t here. Alec, so tall, so well-dressed, so good-looking isn’t here, either. That’s too bad, too. I mean what are the odds of there being a completely attractive man, who is also public speaking impaired and not only that, in your public speaking class? To beat all those odds and then have him show up only once doesn’t seem fair. It makes the absence of the serene woman in the wrap dress seem like nothing. I picture Alec, think of how he said he gets hot under the collar. Hot under the collar, I think, I’ll say. And then as soon as I think that, it’s pretty clear, seeing as my goal here is to embrace class and pay attention, that Alec’s absence might be for the best. Then Alec walks in.
“Uh, sorry,” he says, even though we haven’t started. Amy looks up from a notebook she’s been writing in and scowls at him. He sits down directly across from me. That makes me smile, in spite of the voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I don’t need to lust after any more guys, that Elliot, really, until I somehow manage to get over that, is enough. I have to agree. The voice in my head is right; I simply cannot spend my time in public speaking class the way I spend too much of it at work, staring across the room at a cute guy. As it is, even without Alec, I’ve been starting to wonder if somewhere along the way I have become a stalker. It’s not a nice thing to contemplate. I drag my attention, as completely as possible, away from Alec.
I rescan the room,