haven’t spent the last year of my life, studying eighty hours a week, to become someone’s possession.”
“Possession?”
“Calling a woman a babe diminishes her to a younger and therefore more controllable state—so, yes, a possession.”
“So what am I supposed to call you?”
“There are plenty of other terms of affection that don’t have the same degrading connotations, but I can’t help you there. It’s your job as my partner to choose one. You have to think of something that represents the complexities of my personality.”
“I’ll give it a hard think, princess.”
“And it shouldn’t be condescending.”
Steve and Jenny continued to the far side of the bridge. When Steve emerged from beneath it and was standing erect again, he stretched his back, popping a joint in the process.
Jenny, still crouching next to him, cupped her hands to her mouth, and shouted: “People! There’re some rad baby shoes under the bridge, if you’re interested!”
“We’re shaking!” Jeff called back.
“For real!” Jenny replied.
Austin said something, though Steve couldn’t hear what he said.
“Nice friend you have,” Jenny said.
“What did he say?” Steve asked.
“Not something I’d care to repeat,” she said, and started up the bank.
Steve followed, grasping shrubs and saplings for purchase, his glasses bumping against his chest on their cord. At the top, parked on the shoulder of the road, Jeff’s BMW was exactly how they’d left it: dark, empty, clearly not idling.
“So much for the legend,” he said.
The night was cold and getting colder, and Noah wished he’d brought a jacket, considering all he wore on his upper body was the shirt with the hand-drawn P. To make matters worse, an icy wind had begun to blow. It came and went in unpredictable gusts and was strong enough to tousle everyone’s hair and to rattle the skeletal branches of the nearby trees.
Shivering, Noah unfolded his arms from across his chest and produced from his pocket a joint he’d rolled earlier. He was not only cold but restless from the three-hour drive from New York City and wanted to unwind. Moreover, he had a feeling they were going to be in for one long slog of a night. Getting high would be the only way to make it remotely interesting. He wondered again why he had agreed to come. He wasn’t superstitious. In fact, ghosts and ghouls and all that jive didn’t interest him in the least. He didn’t watch horror movies, didn’t read Stephen King. Growing up, he hadn’t even liked Halloween. He’d appreciated the candy, sure, but the idea of witches on broomsticks and skeletons lurking in closets and Frankenstein monsters eating brains never did anything for him. He guessed he simply didn’t have a scary bone, the way some uptight people didn’t have a funny bone.
Noah sparked the joint, took a couple tokes, and passed it to Mandy, who was standing to his right. She took a mini puff and blew the smoke out of her mouth quickly, probably not inhaling. Noah had to make a conscious effort not to stare at her tits, which were practically bursting out of her top. He thought Jeff was crazy for not appreciating her the way he should. She was drop-dead gorgeous, a real sweetheart too, a rare combination. And she put up with Jeff’s bullshit. Someone “more on his level”—a phrase he’d been using a lot lately to describe his ideal woman—likely wouldn’t. They’d be clashing nonstop. In fact, they’d be just like Austin and Cherry, a recipe for disaster, each with one eye constantly on the big red nuke button.
Noah suspected Steve and Jenny had the best chance of sticking it out together. Even so, this was no guarantee either. They both had another two or three years of med school ahead of them, then equally long and brutal residencies. How much quality time could they possibly spend together? Then again, maybe their workloads would an advantage. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
The joint did the rounds and returned to Noah, almost finished. He took a drag, then ground the roach out under his shoe just as another blast of wind swooped through the trees, whipping everyone’s hair and clothes into a frenzy. Noah turned his face out of the worst of it and found himself looking at Mandy’s breasts. Her nipples poked against the thin Spandex of her costume.
Abruptly Jenny called to them from the far side of the bridge: “People! There’re some rad baby shoes under the bridge, if you’re interested!”
Noah could just make out Jenny and Steve’s silhouettes.
“We’re shaking!” Jeff called