- -Hey, bay. It's your dad. We'll be coming down to visit.- -
Joanne looked down at the answering machine in confusion as she got ready for class. The parents hadn't come to visit her since she was at the dorms. Something was up or they had another reason for being in the area.
- - I thought I'd call and tell you. We'll be there to visit an old friend, so don't expect us to crowd you. Or, I won't anyway. You're mama's still worried bought you, though. You sounded a bit down, last night. Better put on a happy face, or she'll be on you.- -
"I bet she would," she sighed at the machine as she dawned her coat and sat on the arm of the couch. She had tried to sound cheerful, but it just came off as overly enthusiastic.
- - Just leave Friday night open for us to take you out to dinner. You should still have that dress we bought for New Years, right? I made the reservation for that French place my friend recommended. We'll see you soon.- -The machine said the time of the message and beeped for the next one.
'Wonderful,' she thought, 'I get to dress up pretty for the folks. I better drop my stuff at the cleaners today.' It wasn't as though she had anything special planned for the weekend, anyway. She looked forward to it really, because it was a chance to be somebody else for the night.
- -Jojo, you haven't returned my calls. I wanted to see my girl. - - 'Gary. Great.'
Jo mouthed, "my girl," as she put her coffee in the sink. It was bad coffee. Jesse had done the shopping without her and bought some strange flavored blend. She'd managed to drain it because Jesse said it would make her feel better. For the past few weeks, it had done nothing. She knew she'd either have to get used to the taste of coffee, or get over this funk that had passed over her. She regretted what she'd said to Danny. He'd been even more distant ever since. 'I shouldn't have told him anything.'
- -Give me a call.- - Gary had sounded worried.
Joanne hit the erase button and picked up her bag. After the whole dress thing, she'd been worried when he didn't call her to say he'd gotten home okay. Then, when he didn't call her back after her run-in with Jerry, she was resentful. Now, she didn't even care if he called. She looked out of the window. It didn't look like February at all. The sun was bright and people were walking down the sidewalk. If they weren't bundled up from the cold, she would have thought it was closer to April. She knew she should cut Gary loose before it got into February, but he didn't call on Valentine's Day. She figured he was done with her, so she didn't bother to clarify things. She picked up the phone to dial his number but hung up. She couldn't do it.
'What am I gonna say? I'd rather rip my fingernails out with rusty pliers than call him. Why do I care about what he thinks? He doesn't.'
She looked back toward the window. The wind whipped through the bare trees and made the twigs flutter in a pattern. The sight of Daniel's dark hair moving around his face came to her. Before she drifted off to sleep, his voice would fill her head. Her mind had started to run away with her in the daylight, now. She tried to shake him out of her brain, as she grabbed her keys. At school, Daniel would look at her with curiosity, but wouldn't approach. When she would try to talk to him, he wouldn't respond. Joanne stopped trying after the first few attempts. Her feelings were too raw, and he didn't seem to want to talk to her anyway.
At work, Dr. Samuels said they were the best team he'd ever had, because they worked like a well oiled machine. He even asked Jo if she was serious about considering graduate school. That may have been the main reason why Dr. S made out the new schedule the way that he did. When Dan was drawn into the conversation about Jo's future, he would decline the incentive to urge her to stay on. 'He was too busy working on his thesis to worry about some undergrad's problems.'
She opened her door and made sure she had her gloves. 'Hell, let 'em both go. You can get back to being yourself by yourself.'
*
Joanne got to class early and busied herself with her note cards. The mechanisms had to be perfect or she wouldn't do well on the exams. Dr. Samuels never gave any hints as to what would be on his mid-terms, so anything he'd ever mentioned was fair game. She was just about to re-read her notes when she caught a flash of green in front of her. She looked up at Daniel's army green shirt. She looked away. 'Is today the day he'll finally talk to me? He has to. It's only right.'
She got up and walked down to the front of the room, anyway. She figured, he might have seen the new work schedule. Dr. Samuel's had pretty much given her a duplicate of Dan's times. She wanted to see if he had a preference for certain days, so that she could give him his choice of new partners.
He looked up and snapped, "Whatever it is, it's not worth my time. Go bother, Reggie or Padha."
She froze. He'd looked her right in the eye and done that. She continued to look at him as he returned his focus to scribbles on a sheet of paper. He hadn't even wanted to find out what she wanted. She turned and went over to Padha as the room filled.
*
'Man, what is wrong with you? Why can't you just be normal to her?'
Dan watched her speak quietly with Padha. He wanted to apologize, but if he couldn't talk to her, 'How can I say I'm sorry?' He hadn't looked up until he was halfway through the first sentence. Then the words just spilled out of his mouth against his will. He figured it was better than babbling a series of platitudes about how her eyes and lips made his blood boil. It was definitely inappropriate to say something like that in a public classroom. He watched her face soften as she made notations in her book. She nodded and returned to her seat without looking at him. The old Joanne would have at least said something to him after he'd been that rude. She'd do that to a complete stranger. He'd seen her do it. He'd hoped she would call him on his attitude, but she didn't. She just turned away as if he'd just said nothing. 'Oh, well. We'll have time to talk later.'
*
Jo pulled out her planner and swiftly traded any days and times that corresponded to a time that Dan would be in the office. The dates Padha couldn't cover were easily given to Reggie. 'If he doesn't see me, we don't have any problems. Not anymore.' She wrote down the changes on a slip of paper and gave them to Dr. Samuels without a word. She wanted to yell at Daniel, but, 'What good would that do? I was the one that got my hopes up. This whole thing is stupid,' she scolded herself. She ran to the nearest bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. 'Don't you dare cry. He weaseled whatever he wanted out of you. Now I'm not even worth common decency? I can't walk into that anymore. I'm worth more than that. If I never see that man again, it will be too soon.'
***
As he worked the lunch rush, Dan was a literal mess. He'd gotten this pushy lady right in the faux fur ruff when he'd knocked into the counter with his tray. He didn't care that the woman sounded like a cawing crow right in his face. He couldn't do much but mutter a weak apology and retreat to the kitchen. His thoughts were still in Biochem, where he'd screwed up. Dr. S had made a note in his planner and simply handed the sheet of paper off to Dan. She'd switched every single day they had together. He'd asked specifically for those days and she gave them all away. Maybe, he'd been a little too harsh with her this past week. 'But, she never said a word. She just gave up. How's a guy supposed to know when he's being stupid?' When he figured out what she'd done, he tried calling her place. Jesse hung up on him more times than he'd like to admit before he got only the answering machine.
