11.2

I saw Enrique today. Enrique isn't nobody. Enrique Iglesias sang songs when I was really young and gullible and pop music just because. Enrique is the name of the boy who apparently wears plaid shoes when he's not beating Ros at soccer. He stopped me in the hall of the Marianne Vargas building and asked
"Are you the girl?"


I usually don't answer cryptic questions from boys I don't know. I felt at that moment like it would have been better to have been a part of the wall, or the floor, or anything. I wanted to fake nausea. I wanted to pretend I didn't hear. I wanted to be hideous and have three noses growing out of my head so he would go away and talk to someone else. How did he still remember me? So I just said
"I don't know who."
"No, from after the soccer game. You remember, Razzmatazz and your friend lost, and I was there at the end of the game?"
He didn't accept my ignorance, so I offered him my back. He grabbed my arm as I turned and
"I know you probably think this is weird, but today is a weird day for me. I don't know why you won't talk to me, so just tell your friend that Enrique said hello."
I walked out of the Vargas building so fast my shoes almost came off.

I pulled out my phone and texted Ros "Hey, is Enrique a creeper?" She didn't reply. Enrique isn't nobody. I just hoped he wasn't a creeper, or worse.
I was across campus in class when Ros responded. I pulled my backpack out and put it on the desk and pretended to rifle through it for my notes. Instead, I looked at the text.
"No."
"No what? Is he a creeper? How do you know? Did you ask him? Is he reliable?"
"No. No creeper. Soccer, remember? Unless different enrique."
"Yeah, that's him. But he caught me after speech class this morning in the Vargas building and asked me to tell you he said hello." I caught my breath. "Or whatever. Anyway, total creeper activity."
The next text took forever to arrive. I crossed my fingers, and then my toes. And then I crossed my fingers through each other, which hurt my hands around the edges of my phone. I almost gave up and put my bag back on the floor before my phone finally vibrated.
"Not a creep. Cute. Cute boys aren't allowed to be creeps. So I declare."
I kept my bag on the desk for the rest of class, but I couldn't think of anything to respond. In high school, Ros had only dated guys who wore turtlenecks and sweaters and rolled their pants up when they couldn't hem them and had a collection of ties, not just one for fancy occasions. But then, that could have just been that she dated any boys at all. If she were to do so, he would wear ties and scarves and three more layers than he needed to; it was just the condition of the school. All the boys were preppy. But this was a shock to me. Enrique was wearing sweatpants to class and a hat in a building and spoke with a city voice hard and soft like the promise of butter left in the sun but right now it's straight from the icebox and it's rock-like. He was nothing like the boys I knew and he was terrifying to me. How Ros found him attractive I guess must have been because she was Ros and anything was possible. He wasn't nobody, after all. Maybe they could work. Maybe Ros could make it work.
Class finished and I stood up. Dr. Strimbu looked me straight in the eye and cleared his throat. He said very clearly to the whole room
"I would like to remind everyone that we have a strict no cellphones policy in this class. Thank you."
He finally broke eye contact and turned to walk briskly from the classroom. I cursed inwardly. Not fair. He didn't know that I had a crisis on my hands. How could he know that everything everything hung in the balance? How could he know I wanted so very badly to overreact and text Ros everything I was thinking and yell a little but quiet so only I could hear? He couldn't. So he called me out in class like I was using my cell phone just to annoy him and that was the only reason why. I made a mental note to perhaps look up more next time like the junior two seats down did when she used her phone, or to feign sleep (which was apparently ok?) like the guy (indiscriminate age. Twenty? Thirty? He was both) in the back who played on a gameboy most days.
I had to talk to Ros. Why didn't Ros have to talk to me? I asked.
"Ros, why didn't you tell me you thought he was hot?"
"Cute, not hot. Much different."
"Fine, but you didn't tell me! I should have known you liked Enrique, that would have made everything more!"
"Not a big deal. Is when you think so. Not me."
"I think boys are cute."
"Sophomore: nobody. Junior: benj. Senior: nobody. College: nobody."
"Not fair! I thought Nolan was hot too, and college hasn't even really begun."
"Nolan was my boyfriend, not a boy."
"Are you always right?"
"Just mostly."
Ros was my best friend, but she sure didn't think about boys right. She told me afterwards, when everything was over and he had asked her on a date while still dating another girl and she turned him down and then called his girlfriend and then watched the meltdown and then left to go to practice. I always told her as soon as I realized, when I realized that he wanted to be taken seriously in classes so he actually read the assignments and then of course the insightful questions of the teacher that just showed that he had so much going on in his head like how could he have known to ask that question if he didn't have so much pain and intelligence already and then it was that I noticed how long and perfect his fingers were and how he always kept them moving like his desk was a silent keyboard. It wasn't fair. Rosalyn of the fire and instantaneous reactions. Why did she get to not react, when everything I felt was a volcano?
My phone buzzed again. It was Ros. She sent me a picture of the face she made at her horrible paper-mache sculpture. I think it was supposed to be a head. It looked like a building made of bones. I laughed and everything was alright again.