I knew that I was never as charming as the sun, with its ability to make most plants turn to meet and linger in its gaze. Nevertheless, I never thought I could be as offensive enough as to put my arm around a date, and have her run to the bathroom to wash her hands.

She sat perched on my bathroom counter, running a bar of soap over her hands as the faucet ran. In her hands, the soap looked smaller than I remembered it looking when I had been shaving in the morning. Leaning against the doorframe, I watched the level of foam rise, and found myself wondering about the next water bill. The smell of cedar was getting stronger in the room, and seemed to be coming from the sink. Our eyes met in the mirror hanging above the sink, but then she went back to scrubbing her hands.

�I didn�t think I was that repulsive. Took a shower before, too,� I said.

She turned off the faucet, returned the soap to its dish, and hugged her knees against her chest, her dark hair falling over her face. I walked towards her, and reached out a hand to push back her sepia-colored curtain of hair. But then I remembered it was my arm around her shoulders that sent her bolting from the couch to her current encampment in my bathroom, and let my hand drop. Despite the row of illuminated light bulbs above the mirror, I stood before her in darkness.

�Andrea had some kind of problem with a guy in the past,� reported a mutual friend of ours, when I left Andrea in the bathroom to call her.

�What kind of problem?�

�I never got it out of her. Good luck, Nick.�

Luck. She and my other friends had always said that I liked the complicated over the simple. I had decided to major in philosophy, which had a reputation among the students of having the hardest professors. Not only that, but philosophy didn�t exactly offer a lot of job opportunities to those who actually studied it. Then there was the issue of girls. My friends said I always went for the less approachable �thinkers,� even though they assured me I wouldn�t have trouble with a cheerleader or sorority girl. They claimed that even the most image-conscious girls would find my wavy hair, which was the color of dead grass, and my algae-green eyes attractive. They would be waiting for me to tell them that this date was a failure tomorrow morning.

When I got off the phone, Andrea had jumped off her perch in the bathroom, but moved her roosting place to the window ledge in my living room with potted plants. She lifted the largest pot and ran her fingers over its gray-green leaves that resembled elongated spearheads.

�Aloe vera,� she said, raising the pot in my direction. �Good for the juice inside its leaves. Just break off part of a leaf and rub it on burns.�

�Good to know. But what was that just before in the bathroom?�

Andrea curled her lips inward and set the plant down, folding her arms over her chest. I sat down on the indian red couch we had abandoned, my back facing her. Muffled strains of jazz music came in through the wall I shared with my next door neighbors. It could have helped set a scene for romance, but given the events that had already happened that night, the possibility of romance seemed just as likely as getting a lifelong meat eater and lover to convert to vegetarianism.

There was something about this girl, who had sat across from me in ethics, that made me want to look at her more carefully. She rarely spoke in class, so when she did, twenty heads, including mine, swiveled in her direction. The other people in our class nodded in her agreement to her points, but someone else was always so eager to talk that no one else, but me, noticed the little smile that concluded her arguments. I felt that I was only seeing her silhouette through a closed curtain, but I wanted to see more. More of that smile. I wanted to hear that voice more. So I knocked harder on the window, instead of getting discouraged and retreating.

�How do you know so much about plants?� I asked, turning to look at her.

�You don�t need to be a botanist to tell that it�s an aloe vera plant. I volunteered at a local botanical garden two summers in a row when I was in high school, though. Did some weeding, pruning, watering, and got to learn some stuff about plants.�

�Sounds awesome.�

Andrea sat on the other end of the couch, wringing her thin hands on her lap. Her lowered eyes, if I tilted my head enough, looked like the color of my morning coffee, just the way I liked it, with only a teaspoon of cream. She turned her head and pulled her hair from behind her ear, letting the curtain fall between us again.

�Why only two summers?� I asked.

�I didn�t feel comfortable going back after that second summer.�

I saw a small opening in the curtain, but I was afraid that it would shut on me again, and that she would hole up in the bathroom again.

�I wish you weren�t so uncomfortable with me. I�m not from that summer.�

�You�re not,� she agreed.

Andrea looked straight at me, and for the first time, when our eyes met, she did not look away immediately. I opened my mouth to say something, but so did she. I bowed my head slightly and motioned for her to speak. She looked down at the couch and rubbed at a nonexistent stain on the fabric.

�Sometimes I wonder what�s it like for the weeds. Must be like I�m terrorizing them, yanking on them, trying to get them to yield. Sounds dumb, I know.�

�Not any dumber than some of the interpretations some kids in our class make up about our readings.�

She slid a little closer to the middle of the couch, glanced at me for a moment, but then looked down.

�There was this guy who used to come and watch me.�

The opening in the curtain was widening. I nodded, leaned towards her, but then pulled back, not wanting to seem overly persistent. She squirmed and shook her head from side to side repeatedly, as if this would erase whatever memories she had.

�Nick,� I remembered my friend Pete telling me once, �If you�re going to keep going for the brainy neurotic girls, you can�t tell them they�re pretty, like you could with normal girls. Sometimes you just gotta be quiet and let them ramble.�

Pete seemed to have a different girl in his arms every month, so he had to be somewhat knowledgeable. I, on the other hand, usually kept my arms to myself, so I kept quiet, like he said. But I couldn�t help watching her. My eyes must have been round like camera lenses, eager to take her in. I focused on the hemp bracelet on her left wrist, made out of braided hemp. I recognized it as one of those wish bracelets mall vendors sold�you were supposed to tie it on, make a wish, and when the bracelet fell off, it meant that your wish had come true. What did she wish for?

�I don�t even remember the half-assed excuse I gave him, about not seeing him,� Andrea�s voice blurted out.

I blinked. I looked up at her face, trying to appear as if my mind had not wandered off on its own intermission, and that I had been paying attention to her story all along. Andrea hugged her knees to her chest again and rocked back and forth.

�I don�t understand,� I said.

She shook her head. I remembered a time when my parents sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and poring over the newspaper, a Sunday morning tradition. I had been sitting on the tiled floor, with my pack of crayons and coloring books. My father started arguing with my mother over whether homosexuals should have the right to do something or another. He then looked in my direction. I asked him what a homosexual was. He said he�d tell me when I was older.

But I didn�t want to wait. I tried looking up the word my father used in my children�s dictionary, but it wasn�t there. Now I felt as if I were sitting on the kitchen floor again, eager to learn, but the person who now looked down was Andrea, not my father.

�I can�t do this,� she said, finally.

A better guy would have stopped, helped her into her jacket, grabbed his car keys, and drove her back to her dorm. He may have even walked her into the building, and then gone up to the floor she lived on to make sure she got into her room all right. But I wasn�t that saintly person.

�If you can�t do this, are you willing to go around the rest of your life thinking every male you come into contact with is some Big Bad Wolf?�

Andrea turned red. She bit her lip.

�Go to hell,� she said.

I continued. �Will you make every person out to be a bad person? How can you go on living like that?�

She reached for her jacket, which she had draped over the back of the couch. I imagined an open dictionary, but next to Andrea�s name, it was blank. I pictured my friends exchanging knowing looks the next day when I would tell them that the date was a flop.

�Forget about her, Nick. We�ll find you someone else,� they would say, patting me on the back. Maybe they�d even buy me a beer. But I didn�t want that beer.

�Go ahead,� I said. �Take your jacket. Leave.�

Andrea took her wool peacoat into her hands. But then she set it back down. Wringing her hands, she said that the Wolf had been at least ten years older than her. He told her she was pretty. He wanted to know what time she got off of work, so they could talk more.

�I was so stupid. I didn�t realize what he was getting at until he asked that. I made up something, said I was busy with something or another.�

�Did he leave you alone afterwards?�

She buried her face into the valley between her two knees. I clenched my fists. When I asked her, in the soft voice I used as a child whenever my mother made souffl�, if he had hurt her, she shook her head. I sighed, and opened my fists.

�But he kept on coming back. I started dreading going to work every morning. Even so, I just kept on going. But I was so glad when summer ended. And I said I�d never work there again, so I�d never have to see him again.�

The curtains descended on the story. As the audience, I had to react. All I could do was repeat what I said earlier.

�I�m not from that summer.�

Andrea nodded, pushing away the hair from her face.

�I was just so angry�at him, at myself�him for what he did, myself for what I didn�t do. I didn�t react more strongly sooner. How stupid was I? Didn�t my parents tell me not to talk to strangers? They did, and yet��

I leaned back against the couch and smoothed out my shirt collar. I cleared my throat. I wondered how I would have felt if my father had explained that word to me as a child. I scratched my chin. Would I be feeling like this? I stretched back my arm and rested it on top of the couch behind her, wanting to lower my arm and put it around her. But I didn�t. How would she react now? Where could I go from here? Where could we go?

The cushion underneath me sank a little lower when she inched closer to me. Her hands still smelled like my cedar soap. I looked at her. Her eyes were actually looking at me. Not at her hands. Not at the floor. Not anywhere else.

Maybe I wouldn�t have been ready for my father�s explanation back then. But I was mature enough now. And, more importantly, this time, the information I had wanted to know so badly directly dealt with someone I was interested in, as opposed to being some lofty topic.

She had just opened the curtain for me. But I couldn�t walk through it, yet. I rose from my seat and went to the windowsill lined with potted plants. I tore part of an aloe vera leaf and returned to the couch. Now I was ready. Andrea looked at me and reached out, putting her hand into mine, the aloe vera leaf sandwiched between our two palms.

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