Like You Mean It

by Jillian Liota

  “Is there an option to do a payment plan?” I ask, my voice wobbling slightly. “I can’t afford this all in one go, but it’s barely moving as it is and I can’t find a job if I don’t have a car.”

  He gives me a sympathetic look and I want to scream at the heavens. I know he’s trying to be helpful but when will the sympathy end? When will I be back on my feet and no longer in need of charity?

  “We don’t do them often, but sometimes we can make an exception,” he says, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. “Let me grab the owner, since he’s the one who typically handles this end of things.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Alex disappears back into the shop, and I see him wandering towards what looks like offices along the back wall.

  I take my spot back at a seat along the front, my eyes glued to the total at the bottom of the paper in my hand. It’s just my luck that the cost of repairs is likely more than the cost of the car itself. But that’s literally my life right now. One step forward, ten steps back.

  If my mom had warned me or something. Or if I had thought things through before jumping at the chance to sell the Jeep. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it. I should have wanted to keep it, right? But all I could see was Andrew when I looked at that car.

  He was so excited to buy it, said we would take camping trips and drive into Wisconsin to get lost in the wilderness. But it turns out those were just more empty promises on top of the ones he’d already given me. He used that car mostly to just drive into the city for work. I don’t think it ever saw anything other than paved roads the entire time we owned it.

  So getting rid of it was top of the list. Along with the house and furniture and the stupid boat he took out on the lake twice. Purchases he wasted money on, then used an excuse to work more, so he could keep us in the lifestyle he wanted.

  But I didn’t want any of those things. I just wanted him to be around. For me, yes, but mostly for Jones.

  “We’re good.”

  My mind falls away from Andrew and my past when I look up at Alex, who is standing behind the counter again with a small smile on his face.

  “Huh?”

  He laughs a little bit, then focuses on the computer to his right.

  “Lets get you scheduled for all of the work we need to do. When you come in for it, I’ll have a payment plan schedule for you to sign.” He clicks the mouse a few times, then looks back at me. “We can do all of the work on Sunday, if that works for you?”

  I’m still sitting in my seat with my mouth open.

  “I’m sorry.” I stand and walk to the counter. “I’m just a bit confused. I assumed you’d have to like, run a credit report or something, considering how much work needs to be done. Your boss said it was okay?”

  He nods. “Yep. For overhead reasons he can only do so many payment plans at a time, and we don’t have any on the books right now, so you’re solid.”

  I’m still mute.

  “So does Sunday work?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Sunday is great. Perfect, actually. What time?”

  Alex gets me all scheduled for 8am on Sunday for a complete overhaul. It feels like I won the lottery, even though I know I’m still going to lose a ton of money in getting this thing repaired. But having something work out in a way that helps me? Right now, I’m cherishing it.

  «««« »»»»

  “I still don’t understand why you won’t just leave him with me,” my mother says when I pick Jones up after wrapping up my auto appointment. “Imagine how much money you’ll save by not having to pay a hoity-toity daycare. I’d love to spend time with my Jonesie.”

  I glance at the cigarette she has in her right hand, that she’s been waving around as we talk in the backyard.

  She guffaws. “Oh come on, Annie. I only smoke outside and I only do it when he’s napping.”

  “It’s not about the smoking, mama. I just happened to glance at it. Although, now that you’ve mentioned it, you should totally quit.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “It’s not about the smoking,” I say adamantly. “I want him to be interacting with other kids. He starts kindergarten next year, and I want to make sure he doesn’t have a social deficit. Hopefully he takes after Andrew and I’ll be able to breathe easy. But on the odd chance he takes after me, I want to make sure he has every chance to begin making relationships early.”

  “You didn’t have a social deficit,” she says, taking another puff. “You were just insecure.”

  “I was not. I was terrified of talking to anyone. It wasn’t until I met Andrew that I really started to come out of my shell.”

  But she shakes her head as she stubs out her Marlboro Light in her limited edition David Bowie ashtray.

  “You were just fine as you were. There’s nothing wrong with being an introvert, or being independent. You did start coming out of your shell a little bit around high school. Remember that girl you started spending time with, Lindsay something or other. But when you met Andrew, he promptly put you back into your box.”

  She reaches over and grabs her pack, lighting up another cigarette and watching me.

  All I can do is scrunch up my face in confusion.

  “Wait… what?”

  She shakes her head and takes another drag.

  “He wanted you all to himself, put you into a little box that only belonged to him, like a toy he didn’t want to share. But then he didn’t actually pay you any attention.”

  I clench my fists.

  I think my mother always hopes she’ll be able to say something to me that will make me have some big epiphany about Andrew, as if I didn’t know he was treating me like shit for our entire relationship. The issue isn’t that I didn’t know.

  It’s that I didn’t know better.

  I didn’t know I needed to be brave in a relationship.

  Brave enough to put my foot down and demand he pay me attention, that he stop screwing around and commit to our family. Brave enough to call him out when he made me feel like I was nothing. Brave enough to value myself enough to leave if he wouldn’t give us what we deserved.

  So when my mom makes comments about how he used to treat me, I usually tune her out. Because she thinks she’s being helpful in some way when really she’s being hurtful. But – again – I’m not brave enough to tell her that.

  Maybe it wasn’t just a problem with Andrew. Maybe it’s a problem with me.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” I say, pushing her comment aside, not wanting to talk about Andrew or the past. “I just want to make sure Jones is learning how to make friends and how to compromise. Especially with the guppy coming in a few months. It’s important that he gets some of that the world revolves around me mentality out of his head. The sooner the better.”

  My mom laughs.

  “You know you don’t do anyone any favors when you indulge him, right?” I say when I see that glint of mischievousness in her eyes,

  She laughs again. I love my mother’s laugh. She might use it to playfully mock me or poke fun, but it’s beautiful, and a complete reflection of who she is on the inside.

  Marybeth McAllister is a pretty amazing woman. She found out she was pregnant with me when she was in college. I don’t think college was ever really going to be her thing – she told me once that getting pregnant was the best thing that ever happened to her because she realized she didn’t want to be a student. She wanted to be a mom.

  It’s a pretty cool feeling to know that even though you’re an accident, you weren’t a mistake.

  She dropped out in the mid-90s and got her real estate license. She barely scrimped by when she was first starting out as an actual realtor, since I was just an infant at the time. She worked two jobs on top of getting her license in order to afford putting me in daycare.

  But she had charm, and she was great at sales. More than that, she was genuine. She is genuine. And even though it was us against the world from the moment she found out about me, and we never had much, I
’ve never regretted my life or wished it was different. And when I think about the type of woman I want to be, I think about my mom.

  So when she laughs at me, I usually laugh too. Because it always comes from a place of love and sweet teasing. From a woman who would sell her soul away if she thought it would make me smile.

  “You know who I’d be happy to have indulge me is that very tall, very handsome man that brought you dinner the other night,” she says, a smirk on her face as she inhales from the cigarette in her right hand.

  I roll my eyes. Here we go.

  “Mom, he’s just my neighbor.”

  “Oh yes, and I bet he’s very neighborly.”

  I laugh. If anything can be a sexual innuendo, expect my mom to be the one to rub it in your face.

  “Yeah, I’m sure I was totally turning him on with my sexy stained pants and gross teeth and sewer smell and huge belly that contains a baby.” I give her a wink. “I’m surprised he hasn’t sent me a “you up?” text already!”

  She points her cig at me. “Don’t mock, young lady. No man brings over dinner for a single woman and her child without some level of interest. It just doesn’t happen. Trust me, I know these things.”

  I roll my eyes again.

  “Alright, your majesty.” Standing up, I grab my purse and swing it over my shoulder. “I need to get Jones home so we can get him some dinner.”

  I lean over and give her a smooch on the cheek, and she holds her ciggy far from her body so the smoke is less likely to hit me.

  “Love you mama.”

  “Love you too, baby. Call me if you want me to watch Jones again, okay?”

  I nod and head into the house to grab my kid, who is passed the hell out in a guest room, likely a crash from the sugar rush my mother inflicted on him.

  Before I wake him, I just watch him for a minute. I hope all parents do this and not just me, because sometimes I feel like a creeper. But he’s getting so big so fast that I worry if I don’t take a few minutes here and there to just take him in, all of a sudden he’ll be leaving for college and I’ll wonder what happened. Every time I look at him now, something has changed, and I don’t want to miss it.

  His jet-black hair is a shocking contrast against his pale skin, but his green eyes are so bright when he looks at you, that it’s impossible to pay attention to anything else. When I look at him, I can’t help but see so many pieces of Andrew. They have the same sloped nose, the same broad forehead. The same eyes.

  I sigh.

  I love my Jones so much it hurts. But every once in a while over the past few months, he’ll look at me and I feel a punch in my gut. Because those eyes are so sweet on his little face, but they’re the same eyes as the man who looked at me like I was a piece of gum stuck to his shoe. The man who stole a beautiful life from me.

  “Mom?”

  His sleepy voice draws me over to the side of the bed.

  “Yes, baby.”

  “Can we go swimming when we get home?”

  I laugh. Like, really laugh. And it feels good. I don’t laugh enough anymore, but Jones always seems to be able to drag it out of me with the simplest things.

  My first instinct is to say no, which is what I’ve been telling him every single day since we left Cole’s on Sunday evening. But he blinks open those beautiful eyes at me, and it’s one of those times that makes my heart sing.

  “I’ll ask Cole when we get home, okay?”

  His eyes shoot open, and he’s suddenly wide-awake and ready to go. He hops off the bed and runs to me, latching onto my legs, leaning back so he can see me over my large tummy.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Yes!” he shouts, his little fist raised in the air, then goes shooting out of the room.

  I laugh, but make sure to shout out a, “Go say bye to Mimi,” before grabbing his backpack and wandering around the living room to pick up his stuff, which is everywhere.

  When he comes racing back into the room, he barely looks at me and goes flying towards the front door.

  “Come on mom!” he cries, turning the door handle and pulling on my mom’s heavy front door with all his might. “Come on, come on!”

  I shake my head.

  “Bye mom!” I shout towards the back door as I follow Jones out the front.

  The entire ride back to our house, which is about fifteen minutes from my mom’s place in Alhambra, Jones does nothing but talk about swimming. I don’t know how a person can talk about swimming for fifteen minutes, but he definitely manages it. And there’s no stopping his little body from practically vibrating through the front door once we get home. The kid is absolutely wired.

  “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m gonna ask Cole if we can go over, and if he says yes we can put your suit on.”

  He nods so hard his teeth chatter together, and I head back out the front door and over to Cole’s.

  I feel some trepidation at seeing him again. I mean, I know he was incredibly kind and welcoming when I needed him on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean I should take advantage of his kindness.

  Wait… when I needed him?

  No. That’s not what I meant.

  I meant… when I asked for his assistance.

  Yes, that sounds better.

  After knocking, waiting, then knocking again, I assume he’s not home. I don’t relish the idea of going home to a child that’s hopped up on excitement, only to tell him we don’t get to go swimming. But them’s the breaks.

  I take a step away from the door, ready to head back to my place, when the sound of a motorcycle hits me. I’ve heard it a few times on our block since we moved in, and I always wonder who it belongs to.

  And my question is answered when it pulls into the driveway of the house I’m currently standing in front of.

  Shit.

  Of course the massive badass nice guy next door has a motorcycle.

  He turns off the big machine before taking off his helmet and giving me that head nod.

  I just give a little wave and stay standing at his front step. I wait for him to lift his garage door and push the motorcycle inside, and close the door again. Then he makes his way towards me.

  “Hey,” I say, giving a little wave again.

  Idiot.

  “Hey, Annie,” he replies. “How was your day?”

  I give an awkward laugh. “Well, if you’d asked me this morning? I may have had a slightly more depressing answer. But it looks like karma was finally on my side and decided to give me a little bit of love today.”

  He smiles at me, and I smile back.

  “What about you?”

  He flips through his keys and steps past me to unlock his front door.

  “Had a pretty good day, all things considered,” he says over his shoulder.

  “Good, good,” I add absently.

  “So… what’s up?”

  He’s standing in his doorway, leaning against the frame like he did on Sunday evening. He is such a nice guy. Suddenly, I know I can’t ask him to use his pool. I don’t want to take advantage, especially because I know he’ll say yes. And my mom always taught me that you never ask for something from the people who you know will always tell you yes. Because it isn’t fair to them.

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” I finally say. “You know, for the other day. Dinner and everything.”

  In reality, I’d hoped we could both never mention it again. But, hey, he deserves a thank you. He deserves a million thank you’s and a million thank you cookies.

  He gives me a nod, glancing over briefly at my house, a small smile blooming on his face. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I knew you would say something like that,” I blurt out. “Not to worry about it, I mean. But I just wanted you to know how much it meant to me. I don’t really know anyone around here. Everything is so different and new now, and I just… I just really appreciate what you did. So… thank you.”

  He nods again, his eyes hitting me with a warmth I’v
e not experienced from a man in a long time once I finally find the nerve to look back up at him. “No problem. I’m glad I could help.”

  I give him another tight smile and turn to walk away when I hear him say, “And you can let Jones know that when he’s ready to come over and go swimming, I have some pool toys he can play with.”

  I look back over my shoulder and see him still leaning against his doorway, a mischievous smile stretched across his face. And when I let my eyes snap over to my own house to see what prompted Cole’s comment, it takes everything in me not to slap my hand against my forehead like a cartoon.

  Jones is standing on the front porch in his swim trunks, wearing his arm floaties, his hands clasped together, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, a fat, cheesy smile on his face.

  It’s so adorable and so embarrassing at the same time that I can’t help but let out a laugh.

  Then I look back at Cole.

  “How about I handle dinner this time?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  COLE

  “Can you believe it? I mean, where did they go?”

  Well, if I didn’t want a spoiler to that movie, too bad. It’s my own fault, though. I hate sitting in a theatre in the dark and dealing with a bunch of people I don’t know. Is it just me, or are people in public a lot more rude than they used to be?

  I feel like it’s just easier to wait until a movie comes out on Blu-Ray. Then I can sit back and enjoy it at home, in silence and with a beer, and without having spent nearly $30 on my ticket and some popcorn just to deal with chatterbox children or annoying people who talk to each other about what’s happening on the screen at full volume.

  So much better.

  It does come with some downsides. Like spoilers, for instance. And this little 4-year-old has just spoiled the end of the new Avengers movie for me. I’ve been waiting patiently for it to come out at Redbox and have asked my friends not to talk about it in front of me.

  But I never saw this little ninja coming.

  “Sounds crazy,” I say back. “Who’s your favorite Avenger?”

  Jones’ favorite pool game is to just be thrown into the air. We’ve been at this for close to thirty minutes. He swims to me, I ask him a question, he answers it, and then I throw him across the pool where he lands with a plop and splash. Then he breaks the surface and coughs and laughs, and swims back over to me.