Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

rafi, career counselor

I got home about an hour before Rafi was supposed to show up and help me reorganize my life. I boiled water for ramen, washed the stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and looked to see if my brother was home (thankfully, he wasn't).

As I cooked my packet of ramen noodles, I tried to remember a day I did not eat them for at least one of my major meals. When I couldn't, I began to wonder if my high-sodium diet had caused my Buzzfeed hallucinations. The fact Abby experienced them was no consolation. I wondered if she was actually the Abby I had grown up beside, and not an especially realistic mirage of a friend I once had. There was no way someone as cool as she was could be stuck in the same hell I was.

In an attempt to cut back the sodium, I skipped the beef seasoning packet, drained the noodles, and drenched them in soy sauce and Chinese mustard. It was all very pathetic. I, pathetic, sat at the kitchen table eating my pathetic ramen, alternatively watching the microwave clock and my iPhone.

At 40 minutes before Rafi's ETA, I texted my pothead prince.

You'll be here at 9, right?

Within a minute, he had responded.

You got it dude 👍👍 

At 35 minutes, I scrambled for the plastic bag full of black magic I'd bought from Janice's store. I pulled out the love potion bottle and reread the directions four times.

At 31 minutes I unscrewed the love potion's lid and took a whiff. It smelled like diluted rose water. I was willing to bet that it was actually diluted rose water.

At 30 minutes, I dabbed the diluted rose water on my wrists and neck and chanted the incantation Rafi, like I was a medieval heretic, or an 1980s Satanist about to draw a pentagram.

At 15 minutes, I felt a familiar anxiety gnawing at the pit of my stomach.

At 5 minutes, I frantically scrolled through Instagram, liking memes I didn't even find funny.

At 1 minute, I heard the doorbell ring. At 30 seconds, my phone buzzed.

A text message.

I'm here.

***

"So what you're saying is that you've got research experience." Rafi couldn't stifle his grin. "Employers love that shit."

"I didn't publish anything," I shook my head. "I don't think it counts-"

"What do you mean it doesn't count?" Rafi crossed his arms, "you won awards for original scientific research you did as an undergrad. You already know how to use scientific principles to answer technical questions. That's like, 90% of engineering."

"Physics isn't engineering," I said.

"True," Rafi said, "engineering is watered-down physics. You're more qualified to do my job than I am."

I blinked.

"So this is what I'm going to do," Rafi took my laptop and turned it toward him. I waited for him to finish his sentence, but he did not. Instead, he tapped the keyboard furiously. I watched him. Sometimes, he'd stop typing and I'd watch his gaze move back over his work. He'd read, smirk a small, satisfied smirk, and then tap furiously again.

After about ten minutes, he turned the laptop screen toward me.

The template he had sent me was no longer the sparse apology I had created in my first attempt a few days ago. It looked like a real resume. I was shocked. It had to have been filled with lies.

"Summa cum laude recent grad with strong technical background and research experience. Original thinker, dependable teammate, and skilled communicator who can tell a good joke," Rafi read the summary aloud.

Beneath this was my education, GPA and major. Courses I had taken in my major (all were cross-listed with engineering), and then a section about my research project and the awards I won. I hadn't published it, mainly because my mom's illness took up too much of my time to revise a 50-page thesis for publication. And the awards were all university-granted prizes that never occurred to me could impress an employer. None of any of my background had seemed employable. But now that I saw bolded phrases like "created models" and "designed research" and "Mechanics 361" and "collaborated with engineering department" and "first-place" spotted all over the place, I felt differently. It seemed, all of a sudden, that the version of myself that Rafi had cut and pasted and edited onto paper could still be somebody.

Maybe, I thought, if a person like Rafi thought I could be somebody- maybe I really could still be somebody.

"Well," Rafi said. His gaze bounced around my face. "What do you think?"

I realized I hadn't said anything.

"I like you," I squeaked.

He laughed.

"I like you too."

"How did you do this? You made me sound so smart and cool and employable?" I squeaked again.

"Easy," Rafi said. "I just told the truth."

I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. My heart hurt. It was over. I was done. I silently prayed to whatever God existed, to whatever force still controlled the universe, that the diluted rosewater on my pulse points would make him fall hopelessly in love with me.

***

I don't know what I expected to happen. I guess I wanted evidence my black magic worked. I wanted Rafi to behave differently than he had any other previous day. But he didn't. After we finished putting together my LinkedIn and watching a few episodes of DS9 on Netflix, Rafi just put his arm around my shoulder and talked about his favorite strain of kush and how first thing he wanted to do when he got back to California was to drive up to Fresno and go to a Triangle Burger, because a friend of a cousin out there had said it was better than any In-N-Out.

And when we went up to my bedroom, he held me just as he had before. Like I was very dear to him. But not someone he couldn't live without.

And, as pathetic as I had become, I decided that wasn't good enough for me.

After he fell asleep, I rolled on my side and picked up my phone. I hatched another plan. The first thing I needed to do was learn how to get on the dark web.

I needed something more potent than black magic.  

***