He used to be my orthodontist but that was a long time ago. I mix a Mudslide and a shot of 99 Berries at Skiffy’s house, and things get off to a good start between us. This is the night I decide the lampshade would look better on my head, try to tattoo his name onto my arm, and bet that I can go the whole week without sleeping with him.

He claims he hooked me by grabbing my ass and asking, “Pardon me, is this seat taken?” Yep, the things you go for when you’re laughing from almost passing out. I vaguely remember The Big Lebowski and White Russians and play-fighting over the radio stations in his car. Then there are several steps up, and he carries me.

He’s not fumbling and over-excited like Gerald and Steve. Dress sinks to the floor, a melting witch, forgotten. Here’s a true man, undoing his necktie with ease.

He is talented at undoing my bra with one hand. That’s when you know it’s love.

he smells like Old Spice aftershave
so goose bumps on my arms
amber eyes and
blonde hair feather light
those tightly coiled shoulders
let me undo you
first fingers thumbs then
tongue then
More
Tell me where you want
Don’t forget the condom because
Oh
It’s so
Pregnancy
Oh my God
Doesn’t have herpes, does he?
Wow…
Forgot to check
That was
“Hello, Angel.” He’s looking up at me
Good

I am breathing so hard and we stay there one more moment, and I am filled, sealed together, sweaty and alive. Then we roll away, gasping.

He puts his lips to the top of my head. Maybe next time, he whispers, we’ll use the handcuffs. I get hot and move closer. He radiates heat like an open oven. I scrunch the damp hair on his chest between my fingers and nestle under his sharkskin chin, but he is already asleep, one heavy arm over my neck. My elation evaporates. Didn’t he even want to talk? I consider punching him in the stomach. This seems like an excellent idea. I think about it for several minutes.

I will definitely have a hangover in the morning.

I wake up in the middle of the night to his rumbling snore, and tug my rumpled dress over my head, and go. I collapse in a bush and wake up with dirt in my hair and leaves in my mouth, the sun blasting my face and the expected throbbing head and stinking aching inner thighs. I’m not too far from my apartment. I could be a compass.

I still owe him fifty bucks from that ridiculous bet.

Sara and Michelle exchange looks when I come back and hit the shower. But they aren’t my keepers. I don’t tell them that much about him because they might think it’s weird how he’s thirteen years older. I can tell they’re dying of curiosity.

“Come on, when are you going to introduce me to Dalton?” Michelle says, hanging over my desk chair, enunciating his name in a fluttery pixie-dust voice.

“All in good time.” I wave her away so I can study.

One night I meet him in this crazy nightclub. He seems to be following a few of the waitresses at the bar with his eyes, but only to ask for another drink. We have a great conversation about the best music to listen to while drunk. Dalton swears it’s Pink Floyd or Metallica, but I know it’s really Cracker.

I find myself in his bed half-clothed the next morning. I want to take two Advil red M&M pills, but instead I rest my head on his Tide-smelling crunchy pillow. The jackhammer drills through the front of my skull, the dim room sparkles nauseatingly above my eyes, and I wonder why people never want the things they think they do.

Then I know I am going to vomit. I fling aside the starchy sheet and stagger across the room, my forehead still pulsing like a heart pounding sickly. He only watches, so I look for the knob, fling the bathroom door open, and throw up crackers and water into the clean white bowl. I lean over, gasping and coughing on the thready bathmat.

“Cranberry juice?” he asks helpfully.

I nod, and he hurries to the kitchen.

“Sorry for the mess,” I say, flushing.

His condo is ugly as I stumble back to the bed. I am a ball of candle wax burning into a puddle of nothing.

I really ought to be more productive. Getting drunk on the weekends is really not helping my memory or my migraines.

He doesn’t seem to be too disappointed when I feel well enough to leave.

Ohhh my God, I just sit there and do nothing. I just sit there and do nothing for four hours. Sara has some friends over and they watch Legally Blonde in her room. I don’t want to feel all girly and squealy so I don’t join them. I read random people’s websites which talk about playing guitars and hiking and going to church and meeting soul mates. It can’t be five o’clock. It can’t be. I am not one of those gray people who sit in their room and say how bored they are, not because they are boring, but because there is nothing to do.

It’s going to take at least ten hours for me to read those four chapters of Italian Renaissance history I’ve been putting off since last week. Fuck.

Skiffy’s throwing another bash Friday night. Maybe I shouldn’t go, but Dalton will be there, and if I don’t he might think I’m not interested and he’ll start flirting with some plush-lipped broad in a tight burgundy mini-dress with couchy breasts and then he’ll start to think I’m just an immature cutie who collects too many Sanrio stickers and Pearl Jam CDs.

So I go, and Misty, Skiffy’s living mate, is cool and lets me mix my own drink, and I get even more plastered. All these sophisticated older people and my former orthodontist.

This time Dalton’s kind of concerned, because I’m dizzy and start to get really irritable. He’s talking to this woman named Susan who’s wearing a practical blue pantsuit, making me feel like a kid with skinny legs and ridiculous silver top.

“Why don’t you talk to me?” I whimper. “I’m a nice girl.”

He pats my hand. “Honey, sit down. You’re drunk.”

It is disconcertingly like the times he sat me down on the automatic chair that leans back with a remote. “Open wide, honey. I’m just going to put a new wire in those. Wider!”

The wire gouges my cheek and I wince. Closer he leans to me with the cutters. I can see his wide straight smile through the Plexiglas mask. Closer…

“She’s not more interesting than me, right? I can talk about Lithuania and Marxist-Leninism. I’m more interesting, right? I think youuuu’re sexy, baby.” I poke him in the stomach for emphasis. I am incredibly clever.

Dalton smiles and walks away and leans closer to Susan. Everyone seems to be having a good time, some of them playing Monopoly, some of them eating ripple-cut cheese and chips off a platter, and Misty coming over and trying to talk to me except I don’t remember anything after that, what she said or what I said, but Skiffy gets mad because I throw up on the rug and they have to prevent me from gagging on my tongue.

I am a wonderful person when I don’t drink. I am even more wonderful when I do, except when I am gagging on my tongue. But I won’t gag on my tongue anymore. I’ll just drink enough to give myself a good buzz and then I’ll stop. I get into an argument with my history professor because that essay really did deserve an A. I write so much better after an Irish Car Bomb or two.

Happy people are annoying. Beautiful people and smart people are only annoying if they are also happy. The part-time job at Mervyn’s folding sweatshirts and hanging up things that don’t fit is not really what I need for personal fulfillment.

“Can you work the shift from one to four?” Jamie asks me on the phone. “I can’t make it today.”

“Yeah! Totally,” I say. “Hooray.” I act as though I am one of those annoying happy people today.

“Okay…” she says, alarmed at my enthusiasm. “Uh, thanks! Bye.”

I have a little drink before I go to work so I will not be too snappish with the customers. I fall asleep as I am putting away some jeans but fortunately this little giggling boy kicks me in the thigh for no reason and wakes me up before the manager sees.

Skiffy doesn’t want me at any of the parties anymore. I apologize but I guess carpet bills are expensive. Dalton doesn’t call. I wait a week and then I look up his number in the phone book. Busy.

Five minutes later I call back. His answering machine kicks in, but I know better than to leave a long-winded message. Michelle comes in the room and looks at me quizzically. I hang up and go back to staring at the same paragraph by Jacob Burkhardt: “For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no State in the world possesses a document like the magnificent description of Florence by Varchi. In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides, yet another model is left to us, before the freedom and greatness of the city sank into the grave.”

I read this several times and wonder whether Dalton made a call and then left the room, or went to the grocery store.

I hit redial.

“Who are you calling?” asks Michelle, the nosiest roommate in the history of the world, including the Italian Renaissance period.

“Dalton!” I cry. “Can I get some privacy?”

“Whoa, dang,” she whistles, “I was just leaving.”

“Dalton,” I say into that heartless piece of machinery which is his message machine. “It’s me. What’s going on? You just forgot to call, right? Anyway, I’ll talk to you later. Everything’s okay, right?” Everything is not okay, but I figure I’d better check, just to be sure. If he really cares, he will tell me how alcohol isn’t healthy for teeth.

I never really expect him to call back. In his orthodontic yellow-pages ad there are five rows of satisfied smiles.