Ask Helen to Lunch, Alone

“Hey,” you say, catching Helen’s attention as you begin to walk up the steps. “Want to grab lunch now?”

“You mean just the two of us?” she asks, and seeing your nod: “Sure, but Jack’s going to kill you, you know that right?”

“It’s half the reason I’m doing it,” you grin.

“Mmm…” Helen muses, and then she spins to face you abruptly: “Then what’s the other half?”

“Some things are best left to the imagination,” you say, which earns you your second shoulder-punch of the day.

“Oooh, Helen, have you got a lunch date?” a red-headed girl next to Jack calls out.

“Shut up, Mallory,” Helen says. “You realise middle school ended eight years ago?”

“Oh, so it’s Mallory now and not Mal,” she says, acting affronted, but she waves the two of you goodbye and blows a kiss - it’s unclear whether that’s meant to be directed towards Helen or you. Jack, meanwhile, is positively stewing, and you can tell he’s not happy about this situation. Oh well, that’s a problem for another time.

Lunch is at the dining hall, where they’re serving up lasagna with some suspicious looking mystery meat. While you go for it, Helen opts for the safer vegetarian version.

“So you’re a chem major? What are you doing in this econ class then?” Helen asks you.

“I’ve got distributional requirements to get out of the way,” you say, “but also, it’s good to keep an open mind, right? Isn’t that the whole point of coming to a liberal arts college? To meet new people and learn new things?”

“That’s an admirable attitude,” Helen says. “Maybe it should be mine as well.”

You shoot her a questioning look, and she shrugs: “I mean, I pretty much know that I’m going to go into management consulting after college, so I don’t feel that much of an urge to explore a bunch of different things. But you know - you have a point. If I already know where I’m going, why not learn some cool things and meet some cool people along the way?”

“Exactly,” you say. “Imagine if I hadn’t joined your class. Then you would never have met me.”

“The horror,” she says. “Stuck with Jack and Mal for an entire semester, what a fate.”

“Mal seems pleasant to hang with,” you say. “Jack, on the other hand…”

“I feel like you’ve got a skewed perception of him, he’s usually much better behaved,” Helen says. “And anyways, they’re both looking to do investment banking after college, so there can’t be that much of a difference between them.”

“Uh-huh, they’re so similar that I practically can’t tell the two of them apart,” you say. “Which one of them was the red-head, and which one of them was the guy again?”

“The two of us are going to go shopping for glasses tomorrow,” Helen says. “You, so that you can see, and me, so that I can get a wine-glass to cure this headache that I’ve got from talking to you.” The smile on her face lets you know that the jest is in good faith, and you take it in stride.

“I’ll do you one better,” you say. “I’ve got wine and chocolate in my room, so why bother going out when we can stay in?”

“Hey, as long as you’ve got actual wine-glasses, so we’re not drinking straight out of the bottle like animals,” Helen says.

“How’s Thursday night?” you ask, going out on a limb.

“It’s a date,” Helen instantly replies, and the two of you shake on it, only half-ironically.

The conversation moves from there to sports, where you tell her about your attempts to get onto the soccer team, fingers-crossed for co-ed, and she tells you that she played volleyball through high school and is planning to play club here.

Before long, you realise that you have your check-up for the parasite at the hospital in a few minutes, so you hug Helen and goodbye and get going.

Mallory +2
Jack -15
Helen +15