Imaginary Lines Read Online Free PDF Page A

kissed. I didn’t know why that never worked out. And then there was Alan Kim, the French horn player that I drunk made-out with at the beginning of junior year, and then continued to drunk make-out with for several months. And I couldn’t forget Patrick, the guy I’d been somewhat hooking up with this last summer, after we’d both ended up teaching SAT prep courses.
    Though neither of us had been all that broken up when I got the Sports Today job. Patrick was like, cool, have fun, and I was like, yup. It was actually a bit of a relief to get away from his squirming tongue, though his hands definitely knew what they were doing.
    So, okay, fine, maybe I hadn’t technically ever had a boyfriend. So what? “It’s not weird.”
    “Yeah, it is.” She hesitated. “You’re not still hung up on that football player?”
    I swallowed the last of my water and slammed my glass down. “Can’t I just have not have had a boyfriend yet? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Or you know what? It actually does. It’s mean I’m pretty damn comfortable in my own skin, and I know exactly who I am. And until I meet a guy who’s just as comfortable with himself, I’m really not interested.”
    She stared at me, and then burst into laughter. After a stunned second, I joined her, and folded my head over to rest on my folded arms.
    Shoshi rubbed the back of my head. “Don’t worry, Tam. You’re twenty-three years old, you have an income and you live in the center of everything. Trust me. This is going to be the best year of your life.”
    * * *
    The thing was, I knew people thought like Shoshi.
    About me not dating, about me being hung up on Abraham, about everything.
    After a lazy dinner in front of Hulu, the airport people brought my lost luggage by, and I started unpacking. I found places for my miscellaneous books and papers. I’d also brought prints that I theoretically wanted to frame and hang, but for now I stuck them to the walls with white tacky clay. And Ellie the Elephant, of course, got her own place on top of my cheap wardrobe, where she could survey her new domain without interference.
    Mom called around eight, and I put her on Skype so I could keep moving around the room. She wanted to know all about my flight and apartment, so I gave her the full flood of details, including what family gossip I’d gleamed from Shoshi.
    “And what about Abe?” she said near the end. “Have you talked to him yet?”
    I moved out of the camera’s sight while I rolled my eyes. “Mom, I’m sure I’ll see him at some point, but I just got here.”
    “I know, but he plays football. I don’t understand why you don’t want to see him when he could help you with your job.”
    “Mom, I’m not going to use my childhood friend as a leg up at work. That’s weird.”
    Mom sounded long-suffering. “That’s networking, Tamar. That’s how people make connections.”
    Even so.
    When I stepped out into the living room a few minutes later, a girl sat on the sofa with a computer in her lap. She had dark hair and skin halfway in between mine and Lucy’s. I lifted my hand, and then felt silly for waving inside our own apartment. “Hi. I’m Tamar.”
    She looked up. “Oh, hi, I’m Sabeen. Nice to meet you.”
    I gingerly sat on the edge of a chair. “So how long have you been living here?”
    Her eyes flew up. “In America?”
    I shrugged, embarrassed she thought I’d call her out on her accent after eight words, but curious nonetheless. “I actually meant in this apartment, but yeah, both I guess.”
    She smiled a little. “Two months in the apartment. Four months in the States.”
    “Cool. What for?”
    “For a job. I’m an engineer.”
    I must have looked surprised, which made me hate myself a little bit, because she laughed and said, “Yes, that’s right. I studied at the University of Baghdad. College of Sciences for Women.”
    “Wow. And you just decided to move over here? Your job got you a visa?”
    She grinned,