OCTOBER
OCTOBER WAS RAINY AND COLD, and my team was on a four game losing streak. Not fun.
When I wasn’t chasing down the soccer ball, I took to jogging around campus listening to bachata tunes on my iPod. Alison hadn’t liked the Dominican music I listened to, so it was kind of funny that I now used her gift to play it constantly.
Ear buds firmly in place, I headed for an Urban Studies lecture. The class had remained an uncomfortable place in my life. Alison still shot me remorseful looks whenever I happened to glance at her. In contrast, Bella studiously ignored me. The longest conversation we’d had in the past two weeks occurred when I held our entryway door open for her, and she’d said “thank you.”
The lecture hall was nearly full when I slipped in, nabbing a seat against the back wall. “Let’s get started,” Professor Giulios called. “We have a lot to cover today. I’m handing out the final projects. This is for all the marbles, kids.”
At that, everyone got quiet.
“At the end of my course, I always hold a contest. The details change from year to year, but the rules remain the same.” He began to tick them off on one hand. “In teams, you will compete to redesign and redevelop half of a New York City block. The winning team will come up with the best concepts both economically and spatially. Without building a giant eyesore, you will maximize the square footage of your construction for the benefit of both the tenants and the neighborhood. But paying for your development is also part of the assignment. And twenty-five percent of the square footage must be set aside for affordable housing.”
I scribbled notes furiously as he spoke. This was going to be fun. I’d seen dozens of redevelopment projects rise over New York in my lifetime, right? I ought to be able to come up with something interesting.
“Last year I put my students to work on a block on the Lower East Side. This year? West 165th Street.”
I dropped my pencil. That was really close to my neighborhood.
The professor projected a photo on the screen at the head of the room, and a familiar facade came into view. It was a sketchy low-slung commercial building, with a parking lot beside it. I was pretty sure people often slept on the sidewalk there, because that side of the street didn’t have much foot traffic. At night, it was pretty dark and more than a little dodgy.
“Here we are,” Professor Giulio said. “This structure has been condemned, and you’ve got that parking lot beside it to play with, too.” He gave rough dimensions for the developable area, and I scribbled them down.
Someone raised his hand in front. “Do we need to include parking in our design?”
The professor shook his head. “This parking lot is too impractical to worry about. Any other questions? Don’t you want to hear about the prize?” He grinned. “Every year I have someone in the city government judge the teams with me. This time it’s going to be Mr. Jimmy Chan, the commissioner of city restaurant development. He’s also the guy who licenses food trucks in New York.” The professor rubbed his hands together. “The winning team will take the train down the Friday night before exams to have a food-truck dinner with Jimmy and his favorite vendors. You can even bring a date.”
At that, I sat up straighter in my chair. I’d been trying to convince my mother that Tipico, our family restaurant, should have a food truck, too. Food trucks charged higher prices than we could get in Washington Heights. Parking that sucker on Wall Street at noon? We could double our take.
But Ma listened to my uncles, who said that getting paperwork for a food truck was hard. And then there was the truck itself…
I was going to have to win this contest and meet the dude who knew all there was to know about how food trucks worked.
Professor Giulios was still talking about the rules. “Twelve teams, one for each house,” he was saying, “unless the houses are represented wildly unevenly.”
That got my attention.
“So, I’ll leave the last five minutes of our time today for breaking into our house groups.”
The teams were by house? As the professor continued his lecture, I eyed the room. From Beaumont House there was me, Bella and Alison. And also a junior woman I recognized from Alison’s entryway.
There had to be more, right? Oh, Dios. Let there be too many Beaumonters in the class, so I could join another team. I squinted at all the heads in the room, hoping for more familiar faces.
But I found nada.
At the end of class, my fears were confirmed. When the professor asked students from Beaumont House to gather in the front of the room, there was only me, my ex-girlfriend, the hook-up who now hated me and a single stranger.
Jesucristo. My chickens had come home to roost.
Alison cleared her throat. “I propose that we break up further.”
We did that already, girl.
“There should be two groups — one pair who looks at the design element and another that does the economics. I’m really more of a design person than a numbers person.”
“I’ll do numbers,” I said quickly.
“Fine,” Alison sighed.
The junior who I didn’t know looked at Bella. “I’d rather have design. But if you really wanted it, I’d take the economic stuff.”
Bella shrugged. “Okay. I’m not afraid of numbers.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m Dani by the way,” she said. “Short for Danielle.”
Bella smiled. “I know you are. I’m Bella, short for a name I don’t like. And this is Rafe,” she jutted a thumb at me, “and that’s Alison.”
“I guess we’re done for now,” Alison said stiffly. She hefted her backpack on one shoulder, taking care not to look at me. “Dani, let’s exchange numbers.”
Dani followed her toward the door, which left me alone with Bella.
“So,” she said.
“So.” I swallowed. “Can we walk and talk? I have a shift in the dining hall.”
“Sure,” Bella said. We walked outside together, and an awkward silence descended. “So,” Bella said once more. “We’re doing this project.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice low. “I need to win it, too.”
Bella turned to me with the first smile I’d seen directed at me in weeks. “Well, that’s the spirit. Are you sure you want to work with me?”
“Of course,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
“All right,” she said, hiking her bag higher on her shoulder. “That’s good news. Because I hope you’re not the type of guy who can’t look me in the eye after he’s seen me naked.’
My throat tightened. “Bella…” Dios. It was me I couldn’t look in the eye. Not her.
“That’s the worst kind of sexism, anyway. It’s not fair to have a one-night stand with someone, and then act like she’s trash because she had one, too. That would be hypocritical.”
“Um,” I said, helplessly. Once again, she had me at a complete loss for words. “It’s just… I think we got it backwards. I wanted to start over.”
Bella walked silently beside me for a second. “That’s still some misplaced guilt, though. If we went out on a date, then you could feel better about what happened.”
That shut me up for a second. Because there was a little bit of truth in there. But it wasn’t the whole truth. “I just wanted to have some Thai food. You can call it whatever you want.”
Bella swallowed. “I’m not a relationship kind of girl.”
I put my hands up in submission. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.” Wait. Did I just get rejected? Yes, yes I did. My neck began to heat uncomfortably. “Are you the kind of girl who can’t eat lunch with her Urban Studies partner, either?”
“No,” she said quickly. “We could do that sometime, I guess.”
She guessed. Dios. I always wanted to have lunch with a girl whose arm I had to twist to make it happen.
“Can’t we just talk about the project now?” Bella asked.
“Sounds good,” I said, my voice tight.
Bella sighed. “We’re going to have to work together for eight weeks. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” I snapped, proving the exact opposite.
“Right. Did I ever tell you that my father made his billions in commercial real estate?”
We climbed the staircase to the Beaumont dining hall before I worked out just what she was trying to tell me. “So… you know a thing or two about how to develop something in New York?”
“Yep,” she said as we stepped into the dining room, with its soaring ceilings. “Twenty-one years of boring dinner table discussion are about to come in handy.”
Finally — a little good news. “Well okay then.” I held out a hand to her. “This is going to work great. Let’s shake on it.”
She gave me an eye roll, but she also shook my hand. Hers was soft, and I didn’t really want to let go of it. “See you Thursday,” she said.
“Thursday,” I agreed. And before I could think better of it, I leaned down and gave Bella a quick kiss on the cheek. She smelled of fruity shampoo and soft skin.
Then I got the hell out of there.
