Monkey Business

“No.”

“Even if you don’t tell her?” Nick asks, eyebrow raised.

“Never have.” Nope, never cheated on Sharon. And since Sharon was my first real girlfriend, that means I never cheated on anyone.

She wasn’t thrilled with my plan to come to the States. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t go to B-school at home. There are some great schools, like Western and U of T, but I’ve always dreamed of going to an American top ten. I promised her I’d come home after I graduated. Go back to my old job or get a better one in Toronto. She’s not a big fan of living in the U.S. Hates the health-care system, thinks the corporations run the place. Her family is all in Toronto, and she wants to buy a house next door to her sister, get married and have kids. Lots of kids. There are pictures of other people’s babies all over her apartment.

I take a longer look at the hot chick’s cleavage. What if I come across a BBD (translation: Bigger Better Deal)?

“What’s your girlfriend like?” Jamie asks, making me feel like shit.

“She’s…she’s great.” Then I lower my gaze from the cleavage to the clock on the bottom right side of the screen. What kind of jackass am I? I’ve been in school for one night and I’m already looking to trade up? Did Clark Kent try to trade up Lois Lane when he became Superman? Don’t think so.

I stay slumped on the floor for the next while, imagining myself metamorphosing in a phone booth. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s B-schoolboy!

One-eleven. Shit. Sharon’s going to murder me. “I gotta go.”

“See you tomorrow,” Jamie says.

Nick continues clicking on his female classmates’ attributes. He zooms in on the breasts of a woman named Lauren. “I heard this babe is bi. Later.”

When I return to my room, I immediately pick up the phone and punch in Sharon’s number. One ring. Two. Three. Clank, clank. Smash. Clank, clank. “Hello?” She sounds more drugged out than I am. Not that she would ever smoke pot. She hates when I get high, even though she’s the one I tried it with in college. She thinks that now that I’m a professional I should act mature. I haven’t smoked in a long time, and probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t met Nick. Thing is, it relaxes me. Stops me from worrying. Helps me sleep. I’ve got to keep my voice steady so she won’t be able to tell. Luckily she’s not here. My thumb and index finger still smell of it.

“I woke you, eh?” Of course I woke her. Sometimes I’m such an ass.

“What do you think?” she murmurs.

“Sorry, hon. Go back to sleep.”

“No, wait. How was your day?”

I lie back on my unmade bed. Crunch my head against a pillowcase stuffed with T-shirts. I forgot to bring a pillow. I don’t know how I did since pillow was definitely on the Do Not Forget list that Sharon made for me. Sharon makes a lot of lists. They’re taped all over her apartment. Floss is also on her list. Which I didn’t forget because my dentist made me promise I’d floss every night. Unfortunately, I did forget to do it last night and tonight.

“Good,” I say. Voice remaining steady. “We had orientation. Hung out with the same guys I met last night. Took a campus tour. A library orientation. Set up our Internet. Got our class schedules.”

“Yeah? How is it?”

“Monday and Wednesday I have Organizational Behavior at nine, Accounting at ten thirty, Statistics at one…one…one-thirty.” My body has sunk into the mattress, and I feel numb again, but I continue talking. “Tuesday and Thursday it’s Strategic Analysis at ten-thirty—that’s a sleepin. Economics at one-thirty, IC at three. But IC is a half-semester course, so it only runs until the end of October.”

“What’s IC?”

“Integrative Communications. Presentations and stuff.”

“Sounds fun.”

She’s being sarcastic, but the truth is, I’m excited. “Fun, fun, fun.”

Silence. “Did you smoke?” she accuses me.

Oh, man. “No.”

She sighs. “You swear?”

“No.”

She sighs again. “You have to stop. You know what pot does to your attention span. School’s for real now.”

“What?”

“Your attention span, Russ.”

“I know, I know. You’re right.” She is right. What am I doing? When I smoke I have no attention span. I can barely remember five minutes ago. Where was I five minutes ago?

“So no more?” she says.

“No more,” I promise. She’s right. I can’t screw this up. She’s always right and I’m an idiot. “How was your day?”

“Good. I prepared. Tomorrow is my first day of school. I’m giving my grade-ten class a surprise pop quiz on the details leading up to Confederation. They’re going to thrilled.”

At sixteen I wouldn’t have cared what test a hot teacher like Sharon gave me as long as I could keep looking at her. Thank you, miss, may I have another? With my zit-infected face and scrawny pipe-cleaner body, watching her teach would have been the most action I’d get. “But it’s only the first day,” I say, regaining my senses. “A test already?”

“If I don’t whip them into shape at the beginning, they’ll walk all over me.”

“Wanna come over and whip me into shape?”

She laughs. “Is that an invitation?”

“What do you think?” Don’t think she’d be too impressed with the saggy single bed, shit decor and hike to the showers.

“You miss me already, don’t you, Russ?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I figured. Okay, I’m going back to bed.”

“Good night,” I say. “Good luck tomorrow.”

“You, too.”

“Thanks. We meet our Blocks in the morning.”

She yawns. “Good. And, hon?”

“Yeah?”

“Can’t you call me slightly earlier tomorrow?”

I knew I was going to get flak for that. “But you told me to phone before I went to sleep.”