May 2085: crazy for you, part 1

Benny is 22, Leo is 21, Sophia, Charlie, and Natty are 20 years old, Josh is 18.

Soundtrack: "Crazy for You," by Madonna.


Charlie was in trouble. He was getting straight-A's in Biology, but he didn't want to be a Marine Biologist anymore. He did when he was fourteen, but wasn't fourteen anymore, and who doesn't change their mind about what they want to do with their life in almost ten years? Who knew what the hell they wanted to be when they were eighteen even?

So now he was a biology major and he didn't know what to do. In his second year, he's wasted a ton of his parents money on tuition, and they were going to be pissed. He'd have to start all over, that is, if he started over at all. Maybe he would drop out, and Natty would go on to date doctors and lawyers and other people who actually finished what they started.



He saw how she was with her lab partner--or, how he was with her. People were fascinated by Natty, watching her in awe as she described the bone structure of the rib cage. She was so smart, and so pretty, and so nice. She was awesome, after all. Charlie, not so much.

He almost majored in technology instead, and no surprise, two years later he still found himself more drawn to that instead. After all, his dad was a high school history teacher, and Natty's dad was in the military. Why would he study biology? What sense did that make? Damn those high school career aptitude tests, they ruin everything. He even remembered the question that did it: "You feel compelled to care for animals, agree or disagree?" He should have said "disagree". Fuck the animals. Fuck them all.


In between classes, he asked her, "Are you going out tonight?"  By which he meant, Please don't leave me.

Was that desperate? Maybe, but sometimes he felt like he was losing her, and he couldn't lose her. She was his best friend in the world and the only good thing that had ever happened to him.


"Why, do you wanna come out with me?"

There was too much hope in her voice; that wasn't what he meant. "No, I mean, maybe we could go see a movie or something? We can sneak in some rum to spike our Cokes."

She sighed a little. He never meant to disappoint her so much.

"That sounds fun too," she said. "I'll see you after class, okay?"

He would have asked her so many other questions: Will you still love me if I change my major? If I have to start over from scratch? If I've screwed everything up? You can't really ask questions like that though. That would totally be desperate.

---

"I can't believe how smart you are," Benny said. "Where were you last year when I was failing Psychology?"

"Taking freshman Chemistry," Natty said.

"Because I think you're way smarter than I am. You're definitely smarter than Leo."


"Hey," Leo shouted without looking up from his data. "You should have majored in beer. Then you'd be acing it!"

"There are no right answers, just tell me what you see," Natty said.

"Okay," Benny mumbled. "Really?"

"The first thing that comes to mind."

"I don't think you want to know the first thing that comes to my mind."

"It's part of the exercise," Natty said. "You have to tell me what you really think."

"Okay, you asked for it," Benny said. "An orgy. It looks like an orgy. I'm counting twelve people—five dudes, seven chicks. That's what I see."

"Wow," Natty said. "I don't think we went over that one in class."

"You're not gonna tell everybody I'm some kind of weirdo now, are you?"

"I don't think you're a weirdo," Natty said. "They do kind of look like an orgy, you know. I just don't think anyone wants to say so."

"Right on," Benny said.


Then the front door opened to Benny's condo and Josh came through, standing awkwardly between coming out and running back in. At the sight of him, she nearly missed a step. Those arms, that chest. The thing about being in college was that Natty knew all anyone ever thought about was sex, pretty much all the time. It wasn't a wonder the Rorschach tests all looked like orgies.

"I was just..." Josh stammered. "I was going out."

"So go out," Natty said softly.


They began to walk again in the same direction. She made Josh feel nervous and scattered in a way most girls didn't. He'd been trying to figure out why. She walked sort of slow, her eyes locked on his, calm but intense, unflinching. Maybe that was what turned him into a giant mess.

"So, um, where are you going?"

"Home," she said. "You know, over there. Where are you going?"


She sort of stopped, looked toward her house, maybe waiting for an answer, maybe being polite. It wasn't like he wanted a girlfriend—he didn't. And he didn't want to mess with whatever she had going on with her boyfriend either, because it looked pretty intense, and Josh wanted something a lot less intense than that—as in, not intense at all. But he couldn't help but notice her. The whole eight months he'd been here so far, he'd been noticing her, coming and going from her car, getting lunch at the student union, until that day he finally had the courage to say something as he stuffed his pockets full of freebie candy bars and kicky bags.

He finally answered her. "I don't know, I guess the gym or something."


She laughed. "The gym is the other way."

"Oh, right. I meant, after I got something to eat. So burgers. Yeah. What about you?"

"Home," she said. For the second time, he realized.

"Right. You just said that."


"Good night, Josh," she said. "Have fun at the gym. And the burger place."

"I will. Good night, Natty."

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