June and Ezra didn’t talk. Not in class, or in the hallways, or at the library, or anywhere on campus, anyway. Instead, Ezra would call June late at night when she was too delirious to study, checking on her progress with assignments, asking if she’d handed in this or that paper. June’s invariable reply: “Not yet.” June never gave Ezra her number, though she supposed one of their classmates could have passed it to him. At first, she thought Ezra was bragging every time he beat her to a deadline, but he was so matter-of-fact about reporting to her that it soon ceased to feel pointed.
In the interest of besting Ezra, June killed herself to be the first to hand in her finals. For once, she called him, catching him off guard to deliver the blow when his defenses were down. She couldn’t suppress a smug smile as she strained her raw vocal chords (an end-of-semester bout of strep throat) to squeak out the news that she had surpassed Ezra right at the finish line. A long pause preceded Ezra’s unenthused reply. “Good for you,” was all he said before hanging up.
Saturday
The long weekend cottage trip was meant to be just the girls: Em, June, and Mavis. The week before they were set to go, however, Em and her boyfriend Trevor had a big fight and makeup and suddenly couldn’t bear to spend three days apart. Not wanting to be the only guy in the house, Trevor invited Ezra, which no one but June seemed to mind. As a guest, June didn’t feel it was her place to object to this late addition. Besides, she didn’t want anyone to know she was bothered by Ezra’s presence, least of all Ezra.
There was some consternation over the accommodations. The math didn’t quite work splitting three rooms between five guests. It was guaranteed that Em and Trevor would room together; couples always take priority in vacation sleeping arrangements. What was unclear were the remaining rooming assignments for Mavis, June, and Ezra. What seemed natural at first was for June and Mavis to share the room with the twin beds and Ezra to take the room with the double. No one felt quite right about it though, giving Ezra a double room all to himself simply by virtue of his gender. Besides, they were all adults, boys and girls could room together without incident.
“I don’t mind,” Ezra assured everyone, “I grew up with sisters.” June couldn’t put her finger on why this explanation vexed her. She didn’t want to be the one to room with Ezra, but she also didn’t want to impose on Mavis by insisting on any particular sleeping arrangement. Perhaps Mavis sensed June’s apprehension when she went ahead and insisted on taking one of the twin beds. “Decide amongst yourselves who takes the other one,” she said, exasperated by the hand-wringing. “I’m going for a swim.” June tried not to sound too eager volunteering to take the second twin.
“I’ve never seen a mosquito bite swell up like that.” Em and Trevor were debating the cause of June’s foot injury. June lay in the space between them in the grass, unable to walk. Without much medical knowledge among the group, their only recourse was to carry June to her bed, throw an ice pack at her, and feed her a couple of antihistamines. The pills had a near-instantaneous sedative effect, plunging June into a dizzy, blurry haze, which wasn’t helped by the two hard seltzers she’d consumed earlier. It was in this state that she was left alone to recover, dipping in and out of consciousness on that little twin bed.
June was at the Grad Club with friends, enjoying a pint before Christmas break. Ezra happened to be doing the same. Members of June’s party went over to say hello to members of Ezra’s party until the lines between parties blurred and everyone converged at one of the big round tables. Ezra and June sat across from one another, too far apart to engage in conversation. June stole glances at Ezra all night long, which Ezra seemed oblivious to, though he may have been wilfully ignoring her.
Much to June’s chagrin, Em and Trevor lagged far behind her and Ezra on the walk home. Long-legged Ezra strode fast and June felt obligated to match his pace. As they walked, she kept thinking, when we pass that fire hydrant, he’ll have to say something. He’ll break the silence once we cross this intersection for sure.
“Hey.” June woke from her narcotic slumber in a sweat. Ezra stood in the doorway at the foot of her bed, bending a bit to fit into the frame.
June fixed him with what she hoped was a withering glance.
“Are you angry with me for some reason?”
“You never called me back.”
Ezra cocked his head. “Sorry?”
June sat up in bed. “You never called after you handed in your final.”
“Oh that,” Ezra said. He swung the door back and forth on its hinges, kind of dancing with it. “I didn’t think you cared.”
June adjusted her bra under her shirt. “Of course I care. I’m a woman, we care about things; men especially. It’s what we’re trained to do.”
“Once finals were over, it didn’t seem like we had much to talk about anymore. Here, I brought you this.” Ezra held out a can of Diet Coke. June’s favourite, but also the favourite of many so maybe just a lucky guess on his part. He walked over to her bedside to hand her the can. June felt a chill, not just from the condensation on the cold beverage.
Sunday
June roamed around the narrow aisles of the general store while Mavis struck up a chat with the owner at the till. She cast her eyes here and there, not really taking an interest in anything, until she arrived at the frozen aisle: the back of the little store suddenly feeling like the farthest reaches of the universe. Ezra stood peering into a freezer, intent on the bags of frozen peas.
“Oh,” June said, averting her eyes as if she’d caught him with his pants down. “Sorry.”
“How’s your foot?” Ezra said.
June looked down to check it was still attached. “Better, thanks.”
“Good.” Ezra nodded and looked around. “Good.” June was about to slip past him when he took her by surprise, reaching out and grazing her hip with his fingers. She stopped and turned to him, their eyes meeting for the first time that day. Her breath caught. What was going on here? What was he doing? What was she doing in response? She leaned into him and was about to press her lips to his when Mavis called her name from the next aisle over. Remembering herself, June pushed Ezra away harder than she intended to, sending him stumbling back into the freezers. “Sorry,” she mouthed before rounding the corner to reunite with Mavis.
Mavis suggested they stop at the bookstore on the way home. “I love a country bookstore,” she said, “you never know what you’ll find there.” The detour was meant to cater to everyone’s interests. June typically would have jumped at the chance to browse the shelves for something obscure but found herself uninterested on that day. Ezra also demurred. “I don’t need to stop,” Mavis told them, “we can just go right back.”
“No,” Ezra and June said in unison, catching each others’ eyes in the rearview mirror. And as soon as they were alone, they were on top of one another. Or, rather, June was on top of Ezra, straddling him in the backseat of Mavis’ car.
There they were again, June and Ezra, the last two standing – or rather sitting – around the campfire at the end of the night. Appraising him in the glow of the dying flames, June thought she had an objective view of her academic rival at last. He was on the handsome side of average, she decided, though gaunt and severe, especially around his furtive brow. His quiet manner would be taken for awkwardness if his appearance of self-possession didn’t temper his gawkiness with an air of quiet contemplation. Whether he was a true intellectual, June didn’t know. Ezra had certainly read a lot and could recite a great deal of what he’d read, but June didn’t see much evidence of him being an original thinker. She had to hold herself back from further assessment when she realized she was grading Ezra. “What do you think you’ll do now that school’s over?” she said to stop herself from thinking these thoughts.
Ezra looked into the fire as he answered: “I don’t know, probably take a break for a while. You?”
June stretched her arms out wide. “I need to find a job. Do you think you’ll go for your PhD?”
“I doubt I can,” Ezra said. He looked up to the sky, perhaps beseeching the stars for expedience in this conversation. “I failed everything.”
“What?”
He looked June in the face now. “I failed. I failed all my finals.”
“All?”
“All. Well, I got incompletes on all of them. I didn’t feel inclined to finish after you handed in your finals. I have a problem with internal motivation, competition keeps me driven.”
“And you’re not going to go back and finish?”
“I doubt I can. I’m not sure I really want to be a librarian anyway. It’s not the most respected profession, you know.”
“So what now? Law school?” June couldn’t help but laugh. Ezra looked stricken with genuine hurt at this last comment. June had no idea she had it in her power to hurt him. She stood to leave, very tired all of a sudden. “I’m turning in.”
“Want me to come with you?”
June just shook her head.
Monday
Ezra announced at breakfast that he planned to depart earlier than the rest. He didn’t give a reason and no one asked. Trevor and Mavis had boxed him in and had to move their cars. Em took charge of clearing the breakfast dishes, which gave June and Ezra one last moment alone. Standing with him on the front porch, she slipped a folded up piece of paper into his hand.
“Here,” she said, “it’s my new phone number. I had to change it and I never let you know. Not that I thought you would call, but…” She didn’t know how to end her sentence but felt content to allow the semi-expressed thought to just hang there. Ezra shocked her for the second time that weekend by throwing his arms around her and hugging her tight. “You’re a good friend,” he said into her shoulder. June’s arms hung limp at her sides for a moment as bewilderment passed through her. Finally, she reciprocated. If a friend was what Ezra needed, a friend she could be.
Em said to June after Ezra had gone: “I didn’t know you two were so close.” She had spied their embrace from the kitchen window.
June said to Em: “I didn’t know either.”
About the Author
Some people are just spineless. Some people are weak, mealy-mouthed neurotics and I want to know what makes them tick.
Hi, I'm Spencer. I'm a writer obsessed with the inner lives of people who have three deadbolts on their door, who won't take the subway for fear of the tunnel collapsing, and who would rather die than have sex with the lights on. spineless is my fiction newsletter that explores how we become these people and the forces that compel us to change our ways. In my stories you'll read about characters fighting with everything they have to maintain or reassert the status quo, even when the status quo is anything but normal.