Malena Lott - Dating da Vinci

Was Joel just seeking revenge when he took me as a wife?

Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” With all due respect to Lord T, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. It is far better to have never loved at all, for never knowing love means you will never know what you are missing. But then this is a Griever talking. I have a distinct feeling Alfred was a Normal when he wrote that. I doubted he would've said it just after he had lost the love of his life. In fact, he probably wrote it while in the throes of a passionate love affair and said it off-handedly to a Griever. It's just the type of smart-ass remark a Normal says to a Griever, believing he is making them feel better.

I knew I needed escape. I took Bellezza for a jog around the neighborhood when I really wanted to jog to the local 7-Eleven for a box of Ding Dongs. I had helped the boys with their homework and began putting away the mountain of clothes in my closet. I found pieces of apparel I had forgotten I even had. Brightly colored clothing. Blues, greens, reds, purples. I told my mother I didn't need help this week. I told Anh I was cutting off the organizational umbilical cord. I had to do it myself, for myself. If she and my mother kept cleaning up my messes, I would never learn. I knew I could not become Normal when my world was still so cluttered.

As I vacuumed the dust bunnies (how quickly they procreate) underneath the couch at 1 a.m., waiting for da Vinci to come home, it hit me: I deserved more than this. I had become a doormat with him-a highly sexual doormat, but a doormat all the same.

I had become da Vinci's security blanket, making America a little easier for him, just like he had made life a little easier for me. And I owed it to da Vinci, Panchal, and especially myself, to straighten things out.

So I implored Zoya, who was usually up eating a bowl of cereal with her pregnant appetite, to stay at the house with the boys so I could go fetch some Italian.

I had expected to find the frat house pumping with party music, but it was strangely quiet, the side door propped open with a large rock, making it all too easy to sneak in. I had no idea where I would find him, but I began climbing the stairs when a young freckled-faced frat descended the stairs with a beer in his hand. He immediately put the brew behind his back. I must look like someone's mother and he assumed he was in trouble. “Are you here to apply for the house mom job?”

My ego deflated, but fortunately, it wasn't that big to begin with. “House mom? Definitely not. I'm looking for Leonardo da Vinci.”

“Einstein? Oh, he crashed in Pickler's room.”

Einstein? Pretty rude, wasn't it? Just because a person doesn't know English very well doesn't make him dumb. “Could you show me the way?”

“Sure thing. Right this way. I really think you should consider the house mom thing, though. You get free room and board, and I'm sure the guys would like you. Our last one was a real old bat.”

I couldn't even get my own boys to clean their rooms, let alone a hundred hormone-crazed frat boys. I wasn't sure if I should feel complimented or insulted.

The frat boy-who told me his name was T-Bone, which seemed like an awfully big name for such a small man-led me through the stained-carpeted hallways, passing by the TV room with three guys asleep on the couches. The pungent odor was worse than da Vinci had described, a combination of alcohol, urine and gym socks.

T-Bone rapped lightly on the door, then peeked inside and turned to me with a grin. “He's busy,” he said taking a swig of his beer. “Sure you want me to disturb him?”

I shook my head, feeling hot tears rush to the surface. I should've left it alone. A few more weeks and da Vinci would've weaned himself from me. Why rush it? I heard moaning from inside the room and considered rushing in to surprise him and just end it right there.

“She's sick,” T-Bone said as he walked away. Intrigued, I stuck my head in and saw that a girl was throwing up in the trashcan next to the bed. Da Vinci lay on the bed, in the position I was so familiar with: one arm on his belly, the other above his head, in a deep sleep.

I entered the room to help the girl. I held her hair as she threw up and helped her to the bathroom to wash her face. “Jell-O shots,” she said, clutching her stomach.

I 'd forgotten all about those lethal jiggly things. Jell-O was strictly a kids' thing in my world. “Guys use them to wear down your resistance,” I told her, thinking it didn't seem like da Vinci to get a girl drunk to take advantage of her. A girl didn't need to be inebriated to want da Vinci.

The girl studied my face, the color returning to hers. “I'm Cheyenne.”

“I'm Ramona.”

Cheyenne's eyes widened. “ You' re Mona Lisa?”

I could hear da Vinci begin to snore. “That's right. How did you know?”

Cheyenne rolled her small shoulders back. “Leo talks about you all the time.”

“He does? But I thought… well, you were in here with him.”

Cheyenne shook her head. “Oh, that. Sorry. Passed out. I'm with Pickler, but he's still out partying at the Phi Delt house. Leo and I are just friends. He's crazy about you.”

“He is?” I looked back and watched da Vinci's chest rise and fall, and longed to touch him. He'd been so distant lately, so not the guy that had strolled into my classroom two months before.

Cheyenne nodded. “Yeah. And you're even prettier than he said you were. Younger, too. Not that I really know any thirty year olds.”

“He said I was thirty?”

“Think so.”

Bless him. He gave me six years. Then again, he didn't even know my real age. The only time he'd spoken of our age difference was to say that it didn't matter. “So he's never been with a girl here? Even when he's drunk and not knowing what he's doing?”

“What? Oh, no. The girls try, but he says he's with Mona Lisa. He's kind of become the big brother of the house. All the guys look up to him.”

“Really? Because he's been skipping his English class and not showing up to work.”

Cheyenne shrugged. “Dunno, but he helped one guy move last week, and then he fixed the plumbing in the sorority house next door when they had a huge water leak in the middle of the night and then he's always studying. Frats call him Einstein, which is kind of funny, since I think the real da Vinci was a bigger genius than Einstein, but that's just my opinion.”

“So they mean it as a compliment? But what about his drinking? Doesn't he party all the time?” God, I wasn't sure if I sounded like his jealous girlfriend or his nosy mother.

Cheyenne closed the toilet lid and sat down. “No way. Said he learned his lesson after he peed in your new bed. He doesn't hold much back. But he worries about his frat brothers. Makes sure they're all safe before he goes home.”

“ My da Vinci does that?” My heart swelled with pride.

Da Vinci rustled and opened his eyes and leaned up on his arms. “Mona Lisa? Is that you?”

Cheyenne kept the washcloth on her forehead and left us alone. I sat on the edge of his bed. “It's me. I'm sorry I bothered you. I was just worried. I'll go.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me down on top of him. “Don't go. I've missed you. I'm sorry I've been so busy. And as Americans say, a real prick.”

“ Cazzone,” I nodded. A prick I obviously couldn't stay mad at for long.

“Forgive me,” da Vinci said, then in one fell swoop, pulled the sweater off of me and kissed my black lace bra. I felt him stiffen underneath me, and I was instantly aroused. “Kiss me, Mona Lisa,” he said, and for the first time in my life, I made love to a frat boy in a frat house and did the walk of shame as the sun peeked over the horizon, yet I wasn't ashamed at all.