Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating - Christina Lauren Page 0,1
make this exception. And don’t worry, I’m not embarrassed. It’s not like I puked in your shoes or rolled around naked on your couch.
Josh
It was at this moment precisely that I knew Josh and I were destined to be best friends and I could never, ever mess it up by trying to sleep with him.
Unfortunately, he graduated, and sleeping with him wouldn’t be a problem because it would be nearly a decade before I saw him again. You’d think in that time I would have become less of a hot mess, or he would have forgotten all about Hazel-not-Haley Bradford.
You’d be wrong.
ONE
* * *
HAZEL
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Anyone who knew me in college might be horrified to hear that I ended up employed as an elementary school teacher, responsible for educating our wide-eyed, sponge-brained youth, but in truth, I suspect I’m pretty great at it. For one, I’m not afraid of making a fool of myself. And two, I think there’s something about the eight-year-old brain that just resonates with me on a spiritual level.
Third grade is my sweet spot; eight-year-olds are a trip.
After two years spent student-teaching fifth grade, I felt constantly sticky and harried. Another year in transitional kindergarten and I knew I didn’t have the endurance for so much potty training. But third felt like the perfect balance of fart jokes without the sometimes-disastrous intentional farting, hugs from kids who think I’m the smartest person alive, and having enough authority to get everyone’s attention simply by clapping my hands once.
Unfortunately, today is the last day of school, and as I take down the many, many inspirational pages, calendars, sticker charts, and art masterpieces from my classroom walls, I register that this is also the last day I’m going to see this particular third grade classroom. A tiny ball of grief materializes in my throat.
“You have Sad Hazel posture.”
I turn, surprised to find Emily Goldrich behind me. She’s not only my best gal, she’s also a teacher—though not here at Merion—and she looks tidy and recently showered because she’s a week ahead of me into summer break. Em is also holding what I pray is a bag full of Thai takeout. I am hungry enough to eat the little jeweled apple clip in her hair. I look like a filthy mop head covered in the fading glitter eight-year-old Lucy Nguyen decided would be a fun last-day surprise.
“I am, a little.” I point around the room, at three out of four empty walls. “Though there’s something cathartic about it, too.”
Emily and I met about nine months ago in an online political forum, where it was clear we were both childless because of all the time we spent there ranting into the void. We met up in person for venting over coffee and became immediate fast friends. Or, maybe more accurately, I decided she was amazing and invited her to coffee again and again until she agreed. The way Emily describes it: when I meet someone I love, I become an octopus and wind my tentacles around their heart, tighter and tighter until they can’t deny they love me just the same.
Emily works at Riverview teaching fifth (a true warrior among us), and when a position opened for a third grade teacher there, I sprinted down to the district with my application in hand. So desperate was I for the coveted spot in a top-ten school that only once I got out of my car and started the march up the steps to HR did I register that I was (1) braless and (2) still wearing my Homer Simpson slippers.
No matter. I was properly attired for the interview two weeks later. And guess who got the job?
I think it’s me!
(As in, it isn’t confirmed but Emily is married to the principal so I’m pretty sure I’m in.)
“Are you coming tonight?”
Em’s question pulls me out of the mental and physical war I’m waging with a particularly stubborn staple in the wall. “Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
I glance at her patiently over my shoulder. “More clues.”
“My house.”
“More specific clues?” I’ve spent many a Friday night at Em’s, playing Mexican Train dominoes with her and Dave and eating whatever meat Dave has grilled that night.
She sighs and walks to my desk, retrieving a hammer from my dalmatian-print box of tools so I can more easily pry the metal from the plaster. “The barbecue.”
“Right!” I brandish the hammer in victory. That little asshole staple is mine to destroy! (Or recycle responsibly.) “The work party.”