36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You

by Vicki Grant

  “I sort of mean it,” he said.

  Hildy went, “Ahhhh…” and gave him a hug. “You need a shower, Gabe. Every day. You need to shower.”

  He pulled his T-shirt up to his nose and sniffed. Even he winced. He took the last half of the last Egg McMuffin and headed off to the bathroom.

  Six more texts came in.

  No.

  No.

  Sorry.

  Can’t help you.

  No.

  I used to work with a guy called Paul Durgan.

  Emmeline Mitchell. Flute-playing, poetry-writing Emmeline Mitchell. The very last person Hildy would have thought knew Bob.

  Where?

  Walmart. I had a part-time job there a couple of summers ago.

  I wonder if it’s the same one. The guy I’m looking for is a drummer and has a tattoo on his face.

  Sounds like him. Didn’t know he was a drummer but he has a tattoo and I know he was in a band. Asked me to switch shifts couple times so he could play.

  Know how to reach him?

  Got his email but not sure if still good. Pau.durg@sympatico.net. Say hi to him for me. He’s a really nice guy. Not at all what you think he’s like at first.

  I know. Thx!

  The coffee was ready but Hildy wasn’t sure she should have any. Her heart was having trouble staying in her chest as it was.

  She went to her room and wrote him an email.

  Paul (Do you mind if I call you that?)

  Emmeline Mitchell gave me your contact info. She told me exactly what I suspected: that you’re a really nice guy. I desperately need to talk to you. Any chance we could get together? We could even meet at Dunkin’ Donuts if you like. I’m around all afternoon. You just say the time and I’ll be there.

  Hildy

  She got an answer almost immediately. Short and to the point.

  Ok. Hows 2? Dunkin Donuts next to the Riverview Walmart?

  Great. See you then!

  Hildy was there at ten to two. The last thing she wanted to do was be late. She found a table midway back that gave her a good view of both doors.

  By five after two, she was beginning to panic. Lots of people breezing in and out to get their large coffees and dozen donuts, but no Bob.

  Maybe he wasn’t such a nice guy. Maybe he’d done this to her on purpose. See how she liked being stood up.

  By quarter after, she was picking up her satchel to go when she heard someone say her name. She looked up. There was a tall, skinny guy with a shaved head, large ear gauges, and a full-face tattoo.

  “I thought that must be you.” He sat down at the chair beside her and gave her a big smile.

  It was an honest mistake. This Paul Durgan was in a band—Decomposing Remains—and had a small but dedicated group of fans. He’d just figured she must be a new one. He was flattered she’d gotten in touch.

  Hildy was too startled to bluff her way out of it. What the hell. She told him the truth.

  Like Emmeline said, Paul turned out to be a really good guy.

  He bought a blueberry muffin for her and a cruller for himself, and she told him everything. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” he said when she’d finished. “It’s all about love.”

  “What is?”

  “This.” He motioned around the room. Hildy looked but all she saw were two old guys sitting alone at separate tables and, near the recycling bin, an aging goth couple fighting over who’s turn it was to buy the laundry softener.

  “Love,” Paul said again. “Here. There. Wherever. For real. That’s all that matters. See this? Beside the skeleton?” He leaned forward and pointed to his forehead. “Can you read it?”

  It was a bit difficult to make out. Most of his skin was tattooed a kind of dark green and there was a pentagon and an enraged lion entwined around the word, too.

  “Jocelyn?” Hildy guessed.

  “Jodilyn. She was my girlfriend for six years. I loved her more than anything on earth.”

  “Loved? What happened?”

  He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “The usual. I got a little too ‘intimate’ with one of my fans. She hooked up with my best friend. End of story.”

  “And now you have her name tattooed on your forehead for the rest of your life. That doesn’t sound like a good thing to me.”

  He shook his head and laughed. “That’s what I thought, too, but then I met Kit. The girl I’m going out with now. I laid eyes on her and wow. It was like lightning. Love at first sight. Next morning I booked an appointment at the tattoo parlor. I was going to have ‘Jodilyn’ turned into a serpent but Kit wouldn’t let me. She likes a man of passion, she said. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That’s her philosophy.”

  He put his hand on his chest. Each finger sported a large skull-shaped ring and several tattoos. “Take it from me. Love’s like anything else. You’re going to screw up a few times before you get it right. Just make sure you screw up big. Not worth it otherwise.”

  “Yeah, well. I’ve done that already.”

  “Great. So go out and screw it up again. You won’t regret it. Or actually, you might. But not as much as if you didn’t try.”

  They talked for over an hour about love and life, then he drove her home. Hildy’s dad must have had a mini heart attack when he looked up from shoveling the walkway and saw a big bald tattooed guy hug her good-bye, but, of course, he was in no position to comment.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Hildy felt encouraged at first by her meeting with this Paul Durgan. He was right. She’d regret it if she didn’t try. She started pestering distant friends and random acquaintances to see if anyone knew the other Paul Durgan, but no luck.

  Several days passed. Life carried on. Her father was sheepish and uncommunicative, but there was no more talk of selling the aquarium. Gabe was still thrilled about sneaking in after curfew and was quietly enjoying his victory in the stench of his room. It was year-end at the hospital so Amy was busy with reports or, at least, that was her story. They’d all retreated to their corners. They’d become one of those sad families where everyone ate dinner alone in their respective rooms in front of their respective laptops, but at least they weren’t fighting.

  The Bob thing was different. He knew how to reach her, but he hadn’t.

  He was mad.

  He hated her now.

  Maybe she’d already loved him and lost him and never even had the chance to enjoy it.

  Every day that passed made it a little worse. The door between them had been just barely ajar. How long before it clicked shut? How long before he locked it behind him?

  She took down the Barcelona poster she’d had on her wall since the junior high class trip and taped up the brown paper from the café. She studied the drawings like an Egyptologist studied hieroglyphs. The short-lived Bob and Betty Dynasty, chronicled in pictograms. She thought she’d figured out the symbols for fear and happiness and anger and maybe even physical attraction, but she couldn’t decipher an address.

  She thought about Bob constantly—when she was trying to study, when she was trying to eat, each time she saw one of those missing cat posters stapled to a telephone pole. Her thoughts of him had moved from the pain of longing to just plain pain. His pain, as much as hers. She’d let him down. She’d hurt him. She kept hearing Colleen say, “Hard life for a kid.” Colleen had the face of a woman who’d seen her share of bad things and yet that’s what made her sad.

  And now Hildy was the one letting him down.

  She was in the library trying not to think about stuff like that when Xiu messaged her about getting some lunch. The last thing Hildy wanted to do was join her in the cafeteria, but she no doubt needed food and Xiu could be a sounding board or, at least, someone to split a beet salad with.

  Hildy managed to nod and wave her way through the noon hour crowd, only to realize Sweet Baby James had dropped by the school and was joining them, too. She mentally groaned when she saw the two of them curled up to
gether at a table near the back. She was in no mood to meet anyone. Her hair was greasy and she had a cold sore starting. She looked like a bad mugshot of a white-collar criminal.

  Xiu bounced up and kissed her on either cheek. “James. This is she! The fabulous Hildy Sangster.”

  He smiled out of one side of his mouth. Hildy couldn’t tell if he was shy or cool or just a jerk who liked to look it. Handsome though. No doubt about that. Xiu coiled herself into the seat beside him. He rested his hand on her thigh.

  This was going to be agony. Xiu looked gorgeous, glowing. Her happiness was actually causing Hildy a kind of physical pain. A massage therapist with his thumb driving deep into a knotted muscle, acting as if it was going to help. That’s what it felt like.

  “Hildy is a wonderful singer.”

  No. Please. Not this. Hildy gave a downward smile and shook her head. “I’m not. Really. I’m, like, high school musical passable. That’s about all.”

  SBJ gave one of those noncommittal gestures somewhere between a shrug and a nod. They both just wanted it to stop.

  “Don’t believe a word, sweetie. She’s very musical. That’s why I’ve been dying to get the two of you together. So much in common.” Xiu adjusted the collar of his wrinkled, unadjustable plaid shirt. “And I don’t just mean your mutual love for me.”

  A little nose laugh from SBJ. Not even that from Hildy.

  “Oh, hey!” Xiu, all lit up, looked right at Hildy. “Maybe James will know.”

  Know what? This couldn’t be good. The thought of having to dredge up something like enthusiasm for one of Xiu’s brilliant ideas made Hildy feel like dissolving.

  “Do you know a Paul Durgan?” Since meeting SBJ, Xiu’s voice had gotten permanently husky. It made everything she said sound slightly dirty.

  “Durgan?” SBJ shook his head.

  “Phooey. Thought you might. He plays the drums.”

  “Don’t mean Paul Bergin, do you? B-E-R-G-I-N?”

  They both turned toward Hildy.

  “Um. Maybe?” She remembered Colleen at the café stumbling to recall Molly’s last name.

  “He played with us a few times. About my height. Little tattoo under his eye.”

  Hildy sat up straight. “Yes. Teardrop.”

  He got out his phone and scrolled through some pictures. “That him?”

  It was taken at some gig. SBJ was in front on guitar, leaning into the microphone. Bob was behind—head back, drum sticks raised.

  “Yes.”

  Xiu clapped the tips of her fingers together. Hildy tried not to explode.

  “Know how I can reach him?”

  “Sorry. Don’t think he has a phone. My buddy George always arranged it.” SBJ went through his contacts. “I’ll give him a call. See if he knows.”

  Xiu turned to Hildy and mouthed, “He’s soooo nice!” then bit her lip and scrunched up her eyes.

  Hildy sat on the edge of her seat, hands folded in her lap, heart drumming. Bob drumming. Maybe she’d found Bob. SBJ made various one- and two-word replies, then said thanks and hung up.

  “He doesn’t know the address but says it’s a white house with a purple door two up from the corner of Young and Cork. Paul’s place is in the back. Kind of tucked behind the Dumpster. Door to the basement. George used to put a note through his mail slot when we needed him. He’d usually turn up. Good drummer. I’m surprised he’s still in town. Thought he was leaving.”

  “Why? Where?”

  SBJ shrugged. “Just said he wanted to get out of town. Got the feeling he doesn’t hang around long. Bit of a loner. My impression at least. Not big on socializing.”

  There was so much Hildy wanted to ask SBJ about. Bob’s mother. His friends. Girls with an s. But Xiu said, “What are you waiting for? Go! Go!”

  Hildy grabbed her satchel and ran.

  “Make good choices!” Xiu called out after her, then went back to nuzzling SBJ’s neck.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Hildy didn’t know that area of town very well, but it wasn’t hard to find the house. Two doors down from the corner, just like SBJ said. Entrance to the basement apartment tucked in behind the Dumpster out back.

  She’d washed her hair and applied some subtle makeup and put on those little earrings Bob seemed to like, but she was relieved just the same when she knocked and no one answered.

  No one opened the door and looked at her with blank eyes.

  No one told her to get the hell out.

  No one laughed at her.

  It felt like a kind of Russian roulette. Pulling the trigger and realizing life would go on. She’d have another chance.

  She peered into the window beside the door. The apartment was tiny. Only the light above the stove was on. It lit up a single saucepan and cast a thin bluish line around the edge of a neatly made bed. The glimmer on the table, she realized after a few seconds, was a fish bowl. Kong, at least, was still okay.

  She leaned against the Dumpster and looked around the backyard. It was dark out but the security light in the parking lot next door flooded across the property line. There was a dingy crust on the snow, only broken where some dog had peed and some owner had followed. The remains of a bike was still chained to the fence. The Dumpster must have stunk in the summer.

  This is where he lived. Paul Bergin. She tried not to find it sad. (He hated it when she did that.)

  She didn’t want him to catch her here. She thought of Xiu calling SBJ “sweetie” and wrapping herself around him.

  She took the envelope out of her satchel, wrote Paul Bergin/Bob Someone on the front, and put it through his mail slot, quickly, before she changed her mind.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Dear Bob,

  This, if you can’t tell, is a picture of me imploring you to read the following letter. (Despite all the expensive lessons, I’m still a terrible drawer—but I’m desperate.)

  I know you don’t want to hear any excuses as to why I missed our meeting, so I won’t even try. Instead, I’ll just answer a few of the remaining questions in an attempt to win back your faith in me. (You did have a little faith in me once upon a time, didn’t you?)

  So here goes.

  QUESTION 29: Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

  Oh, boy. So many to choose from. But I thought you might like this one. A few days ago I was supposed to meet a guy in a café at the corner of North and Agricola. (You might know it. It’s called the Groundskeeper.) By the time I’d got there, they’d already closed and he was gone, but I lied my way in by implying I was the guy’s girlfriend. Based on that piece of misinformation, the owner let me take the papers he’d left behind. You might not find that particularly embarrassing, but that’s because you’re not a Good Little Girl who has a psychic posse of authority figures (her mother, various teachers, a former Brownie leader, and major deities of most global religions) following her around in her head. They were all bitterly disappointed in me for lying (except, of course, Eros, but you know those Greek gods. Incorrigible…).

  I embarrassed myself further by basically stalking the guy I’d missed. I harassed people for any information about him. I bullied my way into an old lady’s home. At a strip mall Dunkin’ Donuts, I shared “intimate” details of my feelings for the guy with the thirty-four-year-old lead singer of the deathrock band Decomposing Remains just because he had a strikingly similar name.

  I was worried I was becoming that staple of horror fiction: the delusional girl stalking the uninterested guy. But not that worried. It didn’t stop me. I carried on until an acquaintance mentioned he knew a drummer—a very good drummer—named Paul “Bergin with a B” and gave me his address. This led me to the embarrassing thing I’m doing now. Laying myself bare. Exposing myself. But you—the guy, of course, in question—must be used to that by now.

  QUESTION 30 (A DREADED TWO-PARTER): A) When did you last cry in front of another person? B) By yourself?

  A) It was just before the incide
nt relayed above. The reason I was late for my meeting with this very important person was because my younger brother had gone missing after an argument with my father. It was freezing out and I was afraid he’d run away. That’s why I cried in front of another person. (Several, in fact. But, hey. Par for the course.)

  B) I cried by myself because I woke up that night in a panic thinking my brother was still missing. Then I remembered we’d found him and he was fine and that got me started again. (I cry for both good and bad reasons—and also, occasionally, reasons in between.) I cried some more when I realized he wouldn’t be fine forever and, for the first time in my life, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  On a positive note, I didn’t cry about missing the meeting. It made me very sad but not as sad as my brother’s situation. I finally had some perspective on my life. And I think you know how much I appreciate perspective.

  QUESTION 31: Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

  I feel like we’ve already answered this question. (Sensitive, funny, very good-looking, etc., etc.) That’s why I’m going to tell you instead what I hope SOMEDAY I find I like about you, and it is this: your forgiving nature. I hope that you’ll realize there were extenuating circumstances holding me up. That you’ll understand I’m not just another person bent on disappointing you. And that you’ll give me another chance.

  If only so I can see how you answered these questions.

  And get Kong back, too, of course.

  QUESTION 32: What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

  If you asked Max, he’d say “zip” (or maybe nada—he’s kind of in a Spanish phase at the moment). His irreverence is one of the many reasons I love him. If you asked me, I’d say “a lot,” most of which (see below) won’t surprise you.

  -Race relations

  -The role of women and the variously abled in society

  -Mental illness