She did not appear convinced. “This doll has nothing to do with you.” She stared down at Barbie with wary eyes. “Honey. She doesn’t even look like us.”
At ten o’clock exactly, Gretchen closed her chemistry book. “That’s it for me tonight,” she said. “You want to take a break? Help me figure out what to wear?”
I shook my head, my finger marking my place in the chapter. The D/L labeling is unrelated to (+)/(-). It does not indicate which enantiomer is dextrorotatory and which is levorotatory. “No, thanks,” I said. “Have fun.”
She was just standing up when the elevator doors opened, and Third Floor Clyde emerged. She smiled and sat back down.
I didn’t know Third Floor Clyde. I only knew his name because everyone did. He was a dorm celebrity, famous for being attractive in a shaggy-haired, dark-eyed way that made him seem like he should be out starring in pirate movies, not living among us in a dorm in Kansas. Back in August, on move-in day, the lobby was so hot and crowded that a lot of guys, and even one of the dads, took their shirts off as they carried rolled carpets and gaming chairs in from cars and trucks; but when Third Floor Clyde, waiting for an elevator with a large potted fig tree at his feet, took his shirt off, some smirking mother had elbowed her daughter and whispered, “Check out Adonis over there.” Only a week later, his real name was common knowledge, along with his floor number. Two weeks later, when I was brushing my teeth, I overheard one showerer tell another that Third Floor Clyde was not only beautiful, but an art major, and also a brave environmental activist. “He chained himself to a tree,” she shouted over the curtain, her voice full of reverence. “So he’s, like, beautiful, and he’s also, like, deep.”
His voice was certainly deep. “Hi,” he said now, the elevator doors closing behind him. His T-shirt read “5K Run Against Cancer,” and it fit snugly over his lean, lithe frame. He glanced at Gretchen, but he smiled at me. Sometime in September, much to my confusion, Third Floor Clyde had started looking at me with a friendly familiarity, his eyes lingering on mine for so long that I started to worry we did know each other, maybe from back home. But I surely would have remembered a face like his, even if he’d been two years younger.
“Hi,” I said, my voice as dazed and pleasant as I felt. I was just saying hello. Tim said hello to other girls, certainly. And some people just happened to be very attractive. That didn’t mean you couldn’t say hello to them. He continued to smile, so I did, too. Nothing wrong with that. Here was a person trying to be friendly. I should be friendly back. His forearms, somehow still tan, were flecked with white paint, as were his jeans and T-shirt. Both Gretchen and I watched him walk to the door of the men’s wing. When the door closed behind him, she turned to me.
“What was that?”
I was still smiling. “What was what?”
She didn’t say anything. She was annoyed.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know that guy.”
“Everyone knows who that guy is.” She looked back at the door to the men’s wing. “And he was giving you a look.”
“I don’t think so.” I laughed and shook my head. But it was flattering to think so, especially because I’d been sitting next to Gretchen, who was blond and, at the moment, wearing a scooped-neck shirt with a pair of smiling lips on the front. But he had looked at me. Not that it mattered. I had a boyfriend. I was in love with my boyfriend.
I looked back down at my book. A molecule is achiral if, and only if, it has an axis of improper rotation; that is, an n-fold rotation followed by a reflection in the plane perpendicular to this axis that maps the molecule onto itself. Whatever jolt I’d gotten from Clyde’s smile was already draining away.
Gretchen poked my arm. “So what are you going to do? Are you going to try to talk to him?”
I was confused for only a second. “Clyde?” I looked back at the door to the men’s wing. “No,” I said. “I have a boyfriend.”
She gave me a pitying glance. “You’re not married. Yet.”
“But I’m happy.” I smiled and poked her back. It was the truth and,