Free Seattle Girl by Lucy Kevin

better, more worthwhile person?”
    But, of course, I would never say any of this to her because she would just look at me as if I were speaking French and then tell me to get something done with my hair so that it didn’t look like a rat’s nest all the time.
    God, how I wished I could skip all of this family togetherness time. Why hadn’t I gone to school on the East Coast, if for no other reason than to get away from the rain...and my family?
    Stupid, stupid me.
    And then my dad walked in the room and his face lit up when he saw me. “Georgia! My favorite daughter!” He hugged me and kissed the top of my head and suddenly it didn’t feel so bad to be home.

    * * *

    For several weeks after The Incident at the exotic erotic party, I took an extra long time getting dressed in the morning, even going so far as to borrow some of Diane’s clothes to up my sexiness quotient. I could hear my mom’s voice in the back of my head telling me to “put my hair back with a clip” and to “always paint your toenails if you’re going to wear open toed shoes.”
    If you can believe it, I actually did paint my toenails red. I told myself I was doing it to make Kyle regret kicking me out of his room if he ever saw me on campus. Like I thought he’d take one look at my bright and shiny toes and fall head over heels in love with me.
    I was being a complete and utter idiot.
    More than anything I wanted to rock his world. Here was a guy I knew less than nothing about, and I was putting all of my energy into impressing him.
    Hell, I probably would have even started drinking diet soda’s if that’s what it took.
    Pretty stupid, huh?
    I probably don’t have to tell you this, but none of my brilliant little tactics made a whit of difference. Go figure.
    Kyle and I ran into each other at Café Café one day, but it was as if he didn’t even recognize me. What scum, huh?  
    Every time I thought about how naïve and stupid I had been in his bedroom that night at the party, I wanted to scream. Trust me, Diane and Seth were even madder about it than I was. I even overheard them discussing castration-tactics late one night when they thought I was asleep on the couch.
    I had to face facts. When it came to men, I clearly had no idea how to operate.
    Fortunately, I was countering all of my bad relationship energy with good radio karma.

    * * *

    Bill asked me to meet him for coffee and I was really looking forward to it. Even though Bill didn’t count as a guy , it was nice to have made another friend. Particularly one who understood my ever-growing passion for talk radio. I wasn’t mad at Diane and Seth for getting all glossy eyed when I talked too much about my show, but their disinterest was frustrating nonetheless.
    I had been so focused on Mr. Fire-Eyes and then doing my show, with the odd bit of class work thrown in, that I hadn’t seen Bill for several weeks. He was already waiting for me at a table on the sidewalk when I got there and my first impression was that he had gotten a haircut since I’d last seen him. My second impression was that it looked really good.
    Weird.
    He stood up and said, “Hi Georgia,” with a goofy grin.
    I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else about him was different. And he seemed a little on the nervous side. Maybe he’d already pounded a couple of espressos, or something.
    Also, I could tell that he didn’t know if he should hug me or shake my hand or do nothing. It was really geeky of him, but also kind of endearing.
    “Hey Bill,” I said, quickly hugging him before sitting down.
    “I, uh, got you that,” he said, pointing to the to-go cup in front of me. “You said you liked mocha’s, right?”
    I grinned, somewhat taken aback by both his chivalry and his memory for a little detail that I couldn’t even remember having told him about. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”
    Now I was feeling uncomfortable too, so I took a sip of coffee and wondered what to say next.