Blonde Chicks Preferred: May 27, 2013

Liam Nordstrom: May 27, 2013

Met Will last night for a burger and drinks at Mickey’s. It’s dark in there and the hostess, Teiki sat us in the back, like always. Will said he and Rachel Marrero spent all Saturday doing stills and an interview for some Australian magazine. It's a promo for their upcoming film and the article, most likely, wouldn’t be out until the end of summer.

“Is she as tight as everyone imagines,” I asked and he smiled. He had to have hooked up with her.

“Wouldn’t know. I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Why not? I would have. Is she with someone?” I looked up from my plate and met his eyes. “Honestly that shouldn’t matter. You’re doing a film together. There’s latitude when you’re starring in a film together. Isn’t that in your contract?”

Will laughed. “She’s not seeing anyone. She told me. And she would have gone back to my place if I had asked, but I didn’t.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

He stared at the wall behind me with a distant look on his face. “I don’t know.” He took a bite of his burger shaking his head.

“Whatever it is, get over it. Get on it and get in it,” I said and he raised an eyebrow to me. “What’s stopping you? Is it Mia?” God don't let it be Mia.

 He swallowed what he was chewing and then took a swig of beer before answering. “The Internet girl.”

“Seriously? Have you told her who you are?”

“No,” he said before taking another bite of his sandwich.

“Because you know that it will just fuck everything up and she’ll turn into some psycho superfan?”

“That's not it. She’s got this perfect little life and I don’t want to drown her in my cracked fishbowl.”

“How do you know she hasn't figured out who you are?”

“I can tell. We connect on a higher level."

I rolled my eyes. "You haven’t even talked to her on the phone. You don’t know her at all.” I wasn’t trying to piss him off. I just wanted to pull him back into reality. What did he want? Most actors would cut off their left nut for his life. I'm not saying that his life isn't fucked sometimes because of his fame, but it's a tradeoff. You can't have it both ways. He shut up about the girl after that and changed the subject to my "revolving door" of a love life.
Copyright 2014 Susan Schussler

Perfect Alli: May 26, 2013

Alli:  May 26, 2013

The rain started before breakfast and there was no sign that it would ever stop. Jeff and Thor searched the static on the television for a working channel while the rest of us cleaned up the breakfast dishes. So unfair. Exhausted from our night of drinking, we opted to watch a DVD, when we finished in the kitchen. Jessica picked the movie, Love Twice—a friends-with-benefits type love story where the characters fake it until they fall in love. She and Jeff had seen it in the theater and Jessica claimed it would be worth our time.

I settled in the oversized chair and propped my feet up on the ottoman. The couch had been claimed and I didn’t feel like sitting on the floor. As the opening credits ran, Thor squeezed in next to me. The chair stretched wide enough to seat us both but I wasn’t used to guys being that assertive. Most the guys, I dated, had to be told where to sit and where to put their hands. After last night when he asked me if he could kiss me, I guess, I expected him to ask before he made any sudden moves. I didn’t mind. I was just surprised. I sank into his warmth and he smiled that gorgeous smile. As the movie progressed to some very explicit scenes, his finger drew figure-eights on the back of my neck and he pulled my hand flat against his stomach. His rock hard stomach. I didn’t expect that either. And when did he get a shower? My hair still smelled like burnt wood from the bonfire, while his smelled clean and fresh and yummy.

When the movie ended Thor nudged me onto the screened porch. Closing the door behind us, he grasped my hips and drew me against him. I was sure he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t.  “Take a walk with me,” he said.

“In the rain?” I asked. “I’m not really a walking in the rain type girl.” I know it’s not very romantic but all I could think about was how my Italian leather boots would get wrecked in the mud and what the rain would do to my hair.

“Then, take a drive with me.” His voice almost hummed.

“OK,” I agreed.

Last night when I settled into my sleeping bag, I was positive all the girls were asleep, but Sarah’s voice whispered softly through the air. “Do you like him?”

“Yeah. He’s great,” I answered and then I regurgitated all of the problems that I’d been having with my parents, as if she hadn’t heard them before and how Thor was the perfect weekend distraction.

“Don’t hurt him,” she said, sitting up and glancing toward me.

“I’m not going to hurt him.” It came out of my mouth louder than I expected, and Megan groaned to notify me of my volume. Why would I hurt him?

“Just be upfront with him. If you don’t want a relationship, tell him. He just got royally screwed by his now ex.”

“Screwed how?” I asked.

Sarah paused the way she does when she’s not quite sure what to say. “It’s not my place to tell you.”

“Then why did you mention it?” blared Megan. Thank you, Megan.

“Just be honest with him,” added Sarah.

It all flashed through my head as Thor held me on the porch. And I was supposed to go for a ride with him without worrying about what his last girlfriend looked like or why they broke up or how she screwed him. How was I supposed to be honest with him when I didn’t know what I wanted? Really, it’s not like we’d even gone on a date. Why was I worrying about this?

We dashed to his pick-up truck and he stood getting drenched outside my door, waiting to close it for me. When we hit the paved road, a half a mile from the house, he cranked the heat and asked me to take the wheel. The farm road was straight, but I had to scoot across the bench seat to steer. With his hands-free, he reached back and pulled his rain saturated T-shirt over his head. Holy Crap! He was ripped.
 
He smirked at my expression and said, “Feel free to do the same. Wouldn't want you to get chilled.”

I know I was still gawking when he took control of the wheel again, but I managed to spit out, “No. I’m good.”

The smile grew on his face. “Tell me about, Alli.” The nerdy edge that I'd seen last night was completely gone and he wasn’t acting, at all, like he had ever been hurt.
Copyright 2014 Susan Schussler

Sarah's Journal: May 26, 2013

Sarah:  May 26, 2013

Here I am another memorial weekend without a boyfriend to snuggle with in front of the bonfire. I don’t know what Will is. Can I consider him my boyfriend? I feel like we’re dating. Neither of us is seeing anyone else, but how real can it be if we’ve never met?

Will and I connected online Thursday night and I shared my plans for the weekend up at the lake. I told him that it would probably be raining and cold like it always was on Memorial Day weekend. I would have given anything for him to say, “I’ll keep you warm.” No such luck. I told him I wouldn’t be able to meet up with him because there was no Internet at the cabin.

“How does that make you feel?” he asked. I knew he was making fun of me. One of my psych professors hammered that phrase into my head for two semesters and it slips out of my mouth more than I like to admit. It is really just an open-ended question to provoke discussion, but I must have written it more than once to Will.

“I’m screaming inside,” I answered.

Then he said something that really threw me off. “And that’s why I love you.” I stared at my computer screen in disbelief for a moment as I tried to figure out if his words meant anything. Normally I would have just let it go. People say stuff like that all the time. But that one line scrambled my brain and I didn’t know how to respond.

I must have paused too long because he added. “Just the reaction I wanted.” What did that mean? Was he being sarcastic? Was the reaction my hesitation or my screaming? Brain freeze!!! I decided that he must have meant my screaming and he was just clarifying his first statement. I moved on.

“What are you doing this weekend?” I asked.

“Working.”

“How does that make you feel?” I typed, trying to make him laugh.

“I’m screaming like a little girl inside,” he wrote.

“Now you’re mocking me.”

“Yep. How does that make you feel?”

“Shut up. Are you ever going to tell me what you do at your job?” I like that he gets my sense of humor. He seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

“Nope,” he answered after another long pause.

“Had to think about that one?” I asked.

“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do. I would still like you even if you cleaned bathrooms for a living,” I wrote.

“So you like me?” he asked

“Obviously.”

Then some idiot that was not invited to our chat wrote, “I like you too, Sarah. Can I get a BJ too?” What an ass! The guy continued vomiting disgusting comments, one after another, as if he had listened to our entire conversation. We’ve never been interrupted in a private chat room before and even after we changed sites I couldn’t get the guy out of my head. I didn’t feel as free to open up online as I had before. I guess people like him are the reason why Will never wants to share our phone numbers or emails over the Internet. I just thought he was being paranoid, but I wouldn’t want that guy calling me. How are Will and I ever going to meet? It seems impossible.
Copyright 2014 Susan Schussler

Perfect Alli: May 25, 2013

Alli:  May 25, 2013

I can do this. I can act the part for another summer. I’ve done it all my life—played the devoted daughter and perfect student. I’m really good at it. Most people believe I’m all that. They don’t see the real me. They don’t see my failures or the times when I do the opposite of what I’m told, just to push back. They don’t see that I’m barely holding on.

My parents know I’m not perfect. They tell me every day how lacking I am. They nag my faults and network for me, so their only child doesn’t embarrass them. Regardless of what they tell their friends and coworkers about how smart I am or how well I scored on my MCATS, I know I will never meet their standards.

I was thrilled to be able to crawl out from under their magnifying glass and escape to Sarah’s parent’s lake home for the weekend. Sarah calls it a cabin, but it's really a lake home. Megan and I drove up together, arriving after sunset. The cold night air chilled us when we stepped out of Megan’s Beetle. We followed the smoke trail to the bonfire by the lake. Perched in folding chairs around the fire pit, our friends were already a few drinks ahead of us and were laughing hysterically about some story Jeff had just shared. A clean-shaven prep-boy sat next to Sarah and I wondered if it was her Internet guy. As she got up to greet us, she said, “Why don’t you take my chair, Alli and I’ll grab a couple more from the boathouse.” She linked me and the guy with her eyes before disappearing into the dark abyss surrounding the fire.

As I settled into Sarah’s chair, Jeff introduced the guy as his ex-roommate from UW, Thor.

“Thor? Really?” I said with a chuckle.

And prep-boy laughed, a carefree, sexy laugh. “Ted,” he said, handing me a hard lemonade and lighting up the night with a gorgeous smile.

“We called him Thor because he wielded a giant mallet,” Jeff stated, waving his hand over his head as if he was swinging a massive hammer.

“Only when something wasn’t working. I called it my Persuader. Every engineer has his methods,” Thor added.

He didn’t really look like a Thor. His muscles ran long and lean, visible, but not bulky. He wore a black North Face jacket with jeans and an oxford. He was definitely my type, masculine with a slight nerdy edge. I could see why Sarah had pushed me to sit next to him. What I didn’t understand was why Megan started flirting with him. She tossed her blonde hair back and introduced herself. She asked him a few questions and sat down crossing her long legs, the way she does when she’s seducing a guy.

Normally, it wouldn’t bother me, but I was looking for a distraction—an escape from my parents, from the summer job that they forced me into at the hospital, and from the pressure of getting into medical school. I don’t usually seek out guys, relationships are messy and more work than I have time for, but I was fleeing responsibility and everything ordered, at least for the weekend. Besides, Thor was not Megan’s type at all. Didn’t she just break up with Peterson because he was too all-American for her? She liked guys with a dark crazy side and Thor was about as clean cut as they come. I knew she was toying with him on purpose, disregarding me because of my usual lack of interest. I could see it before me—she’d pour on her flirt and within minutes Thor would be putty in her hands.

Maybe I felt sorry for him or maybe I was feeling entitled when I leaned into Megan’s ear and whispered, “I want him,” like he was a piece of candy or a new dress. It’s not that I wanted to sleep with him and Megan knew that. She knows I’m usually PG-13 and that may have been what was behind the smirk she was giving me. But then, without a word, she stood, squeezed my shoulder and walked up the lawn toward the house. By the time she returned, a large chocolate bar in her hand, I was deep in conversation with Thor and had made my claim. She smiled at me as she sat down and began talking to Sarah.

Hours later as the fire dwindled and my friends started getting up to go inside, Thor and I sat silent, ignoring the others' banter about getting to bed. I don’t know what I was hoping for. I just wanted more time with him. When everyone had abandoned us and the fire was out, he said, “You look cold.” He reached for my hand and pulled me onto his lap. “That’s better. Can I kiss you?” he asked, his eyes dark and sincere.

I couldn’t believe he was asking. Couldn’t he tell by the fact that I let him pull me onto his lap? I nodded and his lips met mine so tenderly that it stopped my breath. One of his hands slid into my hair at the back of my neck, his other to my knee. His tongue swept my mouth, sending heat to my very core and releasing all the tension that had been trapped inside me for so long.

After several minutes, he pulled back and said, “I suppose we should head in too.” I didn't want to go in, but I didn't know what would happen if we stayed. We walked hand in hand into the house and before we each went our separate ways, he kissed me one more time.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. I can't wait to be imperfect.
Copyright 2014 Susan Schussler

Jessica's Way: May 25, 2013

Jessica:  May 25, 2013

Ohmygod! Did that really happen this morning? I thought that Jeff’s parents had already left for the lake. They usually go up to the cabin the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Why were they still here on Saturday morning? Jeff and I had gone out for dinner and a movie last night. The earlier movie was sold out, so we opted for the ten o’clock show and got back to the house after midnight. We’ve been dating since September and we’ve always stayed at my place on the weekends. But now that school is out and I no longer have my own place, he can’t stay at my mom’s house with me. I thought his parents were gone. How embarrassing!

Kate knocked on the bedroom door wondering if Jeff wanted to ride up to the cabin with her and his dad. He looked at me questioningly and I shook my head as I scrambled out of bed in pursuit of my clothes. I had my jeans on and my shirt in my hand when his mom said, “Open the door for me, please. I have a stack of folded laundry in my hands.”

I didn’t even have time to be appalled by the fact that his mother still does his laundry. I couldn’t find my bra. I was frantic. It was nowhere to be found, like a missing sock in the dryer. I slipped on my shirt sans a bra and glanced in the mirror at my untamable sex hair as Jeff calmly slipped on a pair of sweatpants and unlocked the door.

I stood covering my chest, my eyes darting around the room searching for the missing garment, while Kate stashed her son’s socks and underwear in the appropriate drawers. I wanted to run and hide, but I couldn’t leave the room without my bra. When Kate had emptied her arms, she turned and, of course, spotted it right away. Jeff broke out laughing as his mother pulled my red bra from where it had wedged itself between the bed’s comforter and footboard.

“Is this what you’re looking for, dear?” she asked, handing it to me. “Jeff, may I speak to you in the hall for a minute?”

Jeff rolled his eyes and followed her out of the room. I overheard their entire conversation. How could I not? The door was left open. It went something like this:

“I hope you know what you are doing, Jeffery.” She only uses his proper name when she’s angry.
        
“I’m twenty-three years old. I know this may be a shock, but she’s not the first girl I’ve had in my room.”

“Don’t. Don’t you group Jessica with those other girls. She’s like a daughter to your father and me. She’s special. You better treat her with respect or I will make your life hell.”

“I love her, Mom.” His words flowed freely and without hesitation. “I think she’s the one. I would never hurt her.” For him to admit that to his mother was huge. Jeff has never said the L-word to me.

I know he loves me. He shows me in every touch, every smile, every time he weaves his fingers through my hair. He tells me with his eyes every time he looks at me, but he has never said the words. And I won’t be the first to say them. I’m not like my father who declares his love to every woman he dates. I’m cautious. Telling a guy I love him means something to me. Maybe he is afraid to tell me, because he doesn’t want to scare me. He knows what I think about my father. Maybe he left the bedroom door open on purpose. Maybe he knew what his mother was going to say. Did he want me to know that he loves me? Or was I not supposed to hear it?

I want to talk to him about it, but we won’t have time to talk this weekend. Every Memorial Day weekend it’s the same at the cabin—mow the grass, push the dock back into the lake and replace the decking, push the boat lift back into the lake, launch the boat, launch the raft, wash the linens, clean floors, chop wood, catch up with the neighbors we haven’t seen all winter, etc. The list goes on forever. We’ll be too busy to have a serious talk. With Sarah in the backseat, we won’t be able to talk on the ride up there either, and once Megan and Alli meet up with us, we’ll never have a minute alone. I wonder when Jeff will bring it up, or maybe he was just pacifying his mom and doesn't plan on telling me. I wish I hadn’t heard him.
Copyright 2014 Susan Schussler

Megan's Blog: May 19, 2013

Megan:  May 19, 2013

School’s done! We’re officially seniors. We should still be celebrating, but no... It’s Sunday and we have to be out of the rental by five o’clock. The girls who are subletting the house for the summer are already moving in boxes. I get it. They’re anxious to get settled before summer classes start, but couldn’t they give us a chance to breathe after finals. I thought about staying in the house for the summer. It wouldn’t be the same without my friends though. One of the girls, moving in, says that she has a dust allergy and will be dusting the entire house every day. Really? Everyday? Does she realize how much dust is in a hundred-year-old house? Is she crazy? She seems a little too uptight for my sanity and I’m sure I would rip into her a couple hundred times before the end of summer if I stayed.

Still, I’m not looking forward to moving home. I keep telling myself that it’s only three months. I can do anything for three months. I could live at Sarah’s. I know her parents would let me. Or I could live in my car. Either option would be better than my house. I’ll move my boxes home to store them, to make it look like I’m living there, to put up a show. I know I can make myself scarce, like last summer, only going home when I need sleep. It will make everyone in the house happier if I’m a ghost.

I wonder if I’ll run into Chase while I’m home—not likely. He’s probably DEAD. I’d never know. It’s not like his parents would call me. They still blame me for what happened. But I think I would probably know in my heart if he was dead. I’d feel it. Or maybe that connection has been severed forever. I used to think that Chase was my home—what kept me tethered to this earth. Used to. Too much has happened since then. I don’t know what keeps me here now.

Sarah's Journal: May 18, 2013

Sarah:  May 18, 2013

Will took me to the Met in NYC for our date on Friday. I didn’t even know that was possible. It turns out you can tour the museum online. It wasn’t like we could touch the art, but we wouldn't have been able to touch it in the museum anyway, so what’s the difference. I suppose if we had been together, I would have been able to hold his hand or feel his arm as it curled around my waist. That would have been better. Instead, I sat on my bed, in front of my laptop, in my pajamas, while we simultaneously enlarged photos to see the art up close. We probably saw more different kinds of art than we would have if we were actually there. Sculptures, paintings, pottery—we saw it all.

He showed me a sketch of the Greek demigod Perseus holding Medusa’s head, penciled by a Swiss artist. It was just a black and white sketch, but he seemed enamored by it. Honestly, to me, it wasn’t as impressive as some of the colorful French paintings, but the depth and realism of the sketch made it look like the figures were carved in marble instead of drawn.

He asked, “So? What do you think?” He was so funny as if he was revealing a piece of his soul by showing me it.

Even though I didn’t give him the enthusiastic reaction he wanted, he didn’t get discouraged. He continued to explain the significance of Medusa’s head, how Perseus captured it and what he did with it after he got it. As Will shared Perseus’ history with me, most of which I already knew from literature, I was amazed by his take on it. It was fresh and updated, and he definitely knew more than I did about Greek gods. He asked me if I had seen the movie The Demigod.

“Of course.” I typed. “Everyone’s seen it. It’s our generation’s Titanic. Besides the actor who played Perseus is really hot.”

I’m pretty sure that was the wrong thing to say because he changed the subject after that and didn't make his usual hilarious comeback. I hope he doesn’t think that he has to live up to some intangible hottie, because I don’t really care what he looks like. OK, I care a little bit, but looks aren’t everything. A guy’s personality always shows through and outweighs his looks, either negatively or positively. I’ve seen guys who from across the room look god-like, heavenly glow and all, but when they open their mouths they morph into a hideous Neanderthal. And I used to think it was strange how some couples seem so mismatched in their looks. Why would a nine date a five? But in my vast experience (of twenty years) I’ve learned that the five’s personality makes them even or the other way around. Will’s personality makes him better looking than any guy I’ve ever dated and I don’t have a clue what he looks like.