I’m standing across the bar from James when Brian comes out to talk to me about my latest slip-up. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I keep messing up the abbreviations.”
“No prob,” he says, coming around behind me and rubbing my shoulders. “Don’t let yourself get all tense. This is supposed to be fun.”
It’s slightly awkward, having my boss — a married father of two — standing in the middle of the bar giving me a massage. I meet James’s eye and begin blushing, wondering if this is getting filed in the same part of his brain that led him to tell Brian I look like a whore in my uniform.
I manage to escape Brian’s hands and go check on my tables, but I hear a bottle break behind me and look back. A very heated conversation has ensued between James and Brian, with James now towering over Brian, his face a study in focused rage.
It ends with Brian retreating angrily to his office while James stands there with clenched hands, looking like he’s just figuring out what to punch and how many times.
Kristy sidles over to me. “Well that was exciting.”
“That’s the kind of excitement I can live without,” I reply.
“So what’s up with you two?” she asks, a little secret smile beginning on her face. “Are you dating?”
“Dating?” I gasp. “God, no. Nothing is going on.”
“He looked awful upset for it to be ‘nothing’,” she cackles.
I glance toward him at the bar, still steely-eyed and angry and impossibly good-looking. Something flutters low in my stomach. “He sees me the way he sees Ginny,” I sigh.
A little light comes into her eyes. “Awwww … do you have a crush on our James?”
“No,” I lie. “He has a girlfriend.”
She bumps me with her hip. “It’s okay, honey. I’m practically engaged and I have a little crush on him too. I’d be suspicious of anyone who didn’t.”
“You’re not going to say anything to him, right?” I ask, a little desperately. “He’s sooooo not interested, and it would make things super awkward since we live together.”
She laughs. “I’m not going to say anything. But I wouldn’t be so sure about the ‘not interested’ part. He stares at you way too much for that.”
I wish I could believe her.
**
When I’m not working lunch, I go to the beach with Max, or Ginny when she’s not temping. James never comes. As far as I can tell, he divides his free time evenly between running, reading and looking off in the distance, his mind focused on something too far away to see and too stressful to be good.
“Why does James never go to the beach?” I ask Ginny over the weekend, as we head home.
She looks confused. “He does go to the beach. All the time.”
“I haven’t seen him go once since I got here.”
“He just went yesterday,” she says. “While you were at work.”
“Let me ask you something, Ginny: does he only go when I’m not going?” I’ve framed it as a question but already I know the answer, and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.
“No,” she says haltingly. She’s lying. Her eyes are too wide, too worried. “Of course not. It’s just a coincidence.”
“He acts like he hates me.”
“You’re imagining things,” she says.
“Then why am I not imagining those things with Danny and Max?” I counter.
“Not everyone is going to salivate over you like they do,” she says.
“They don’t salivate over me,” I argue.
She rolls her eyes. “Elle, I think you’re so accustomed to being worshipped by anyone with a penis that you don’t know what life’s like for the rest of the world. He’s just not treating you like you’re special, and no offense, but it’s probably time you experienced how the rest of the world lives.”
There’s something close to spite in her voice, and it surprises me. We’ve spoken a lot over the years but haven’t spent more than a week together since I moved from Connecticut. And this new, bitter version of Ginny is one I’m not particularly fond of.
I’m still mulling this over later as I fold my clothes in the laundry room. Naturally I’m holding a lacy pink thong in mid-air as James walks in, because of course I’d have to be holding a thong at that precise moment. There’s a flash of surprise on his face, and after it comes the inevitable look of misery, as if just seeing me here is enough to sour his whole day.
“I’ll come back,” he says, turning out of the room.
“I’m all done,” I call to his retreating back. “The washer’s yours.”
“I’ll come back,” he says again, without ever even turning his head.
That is not normal for James, or anyone else. What it is, for me — as pathetically infatuated with him as I was as a kid — is devastating.
Chapter 12
We are sitting on the deck, and it’s the relaxed version of him, the sweet version that makes it hard to remember how much he seems to dislike me during the day. These moments, us sitting on the deck in the darkness and the swampy heat, waiting for tendrils of a breeze to graze us, are my favorite. Not just my favorite of the day, but of the summer, of the year, of many years. There’s something whole and content in me. It’s only as I sit here with my skin buzzing and a warmth like laughter residing in my chest that I realize how poorly all the moments before this one fare by contrast. That, as Max suggested, each of them held something wistful and grasping, a desire to be other than I am or have other than what I have.
Ironically, Max does not share my contentment. He’s been texting people the whole time.
He jumps to his feet. “I’m out of here,” he says.
“Where are you going?” asks Ginny. “It’s 2 a.m.”
“If you’d ever acted like a normal college student rather than a 40-year-old soccer mom, you wouldn’t need to ask me that.”
He leaves and she grips the arms of her chair with quiet fury, her eyes blazing.
“He was just kidding, Ginny,” I tell her.
“No he wasn’t,” she snaps. “You know, what Alex and I have is what all of these people want.” Her voice grows angrier. “All these people flirting and hooking up right and left, acting like it’s so much fun. And telling me I’m missing out? All they want is to be where we already are.”
“Settle down, Ginny,” says James. “No one means anything by it.”
“Don’t you tell me to settle down!” she shouts. “You’re listening to him too. I know you are. He’s probably the reason you tried to break up with Allison.”
Whoa. My entire circulatory system seems to screech to a halt. They broke up?
“Max had nothing to do with that,” he says quietly.
“Yeah, well if she hadn’t talked you back to your senses you’d be doing the same thing he is,” she snaps. “When you already have something good.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. And who told you about that anyway?” he asks.
“No one,” she says, getting up and stomping indoors.
He lets out a tired exhale.
“I don’t know what her deal is this summer,” he says. “She’s so volatile.”
I struggle for a moment to focus on what he’s saying. It’s difficult with my brain gleefully probing the fact that he wanted to break up with Allison.
“I think she’s having a hard time being away from Alex,” I answer. “And she won’t admit it, but I think she’s starting to sense that she’s missing out.”
“She’ll get over it,” he says. “Ginny never veers off course.”
“Maybe she should, though,” I venture. “He’s the only guy she’s ever really dated. I think she needs to experience a few things first.”
He shrugs. “They’re pretty well-suited though. They have the same goals, the same political views.”
“You should write romance novels,” I tease. My voice goes low and breathy. “‘Oh, Fabio, I love the way you share my political views.’”
He laughs, but shakes his head. “When it all comes down to it, after all the infatuation shit goes away, that’s probably more than most people have.” I wonder if he’s thinking of his parents. I never saw them fight, but I also never saw them happy. They ran their home like a business they shared responsibility for.
“What you’re describing doesn’t even sound like something worth having,” I counter. “I’d rather be alone than just have some like-minded companion around all the time.”
He looks at me, and for just a moment it’s as if a part of him has really listened. And maybe hopes that I’m right.
I rise reluctantly. “I should go check on Ginny,” I say. I take one step before my toe catches on something and I fly forward. He tries to brace my fall but not before I’ve practically landed on top of him.
Oh my God. I’m literally smothering him with my cleavage. Not embarrassing at all.
He flinches, draws in a quick breath as if he’s been injured and is trying not to show it.
“Sorry,” I gasp, struggling to get up, to ignore his tight clasp on my hips and his breath on my skin. My hands are on his shoulders as I push off. His perfect, broad, taut shoulders. Even under extremely humiliating circumstances I can’t stop mentally molesting him. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he says, but the word is tight and controlled.
“My foot caught on something … ” I explain.
“Nails,” he says hoarsely as I stand.
“Huh?”
I’m the one who fell but he’s the one who sounds breathless, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded. He clears his throat. “There are nails popping up on the deck. That’s what tripped you. I’ll fix them.”
He jumps to his feet.
“You’re fixing them right now? It’s after midnight.”
“No,” he says. “I’m going running.”
My laugh is a little shaky. “It’s after midnight.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, and the look he gives me is tinged with anger.
“It was an accident,” I whisper. But he doesn’t hear me. He’s already gone.
Chapter 13
My days are still too empty. It’s a creeping kind of emptiness, a small tickle at the base of my neck that tells me I’m making a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be just … existing … this way. My life has always felt like it’s moving forward and now it’s completely stagnant. I will never turn into a Max, someone content just to take what life happens to send my way, but it sort of feels like I am. And I really could use a distraction right now, because James — his looks, his smile, his perfect shoulders and sudden dismissiveness — opens fresh wounds daily.
Aside from that one testy phone call when the whole story came out, I haven’t spoken to my father. It doesn’t surprise me, really. He’s always operated under the assumption that I was old enough take care of myself, even when I was barely old enough to know what the phrase meant. And I guess he has his hands full, what with his most recent tabloid cover, entitled “The Downfall of an Icon”, his girlfriend, future baby and job status.
But my mom too has been mysteriously absent, and that’s more troubling. I’ve been out of the house for nearly a year, so I shouldn’t still worry about her, but I do. When she finally returns my call I have to restrain myself from nagging her about how long it took.
“Hi honey,” she chirps. “How’s the beach?”
“It’s good,” I say mildly. The truth – one I’ve been ignoring – is that I feel sick with guilt for leaving her in DC with a complete disaster on her hands. It’s occurred to me more than once that maybe she was just putting on a brave face when I stopped by her house. Although that would be pretty out of character for her were it true. “How are things there?” I ask.
“Things here are fantastic,” she says.
“Really?” I ask. “That’s um, not what I was expecting to hear.”
“Oh,” she laughs. “I guess you thought I was holed up in my bedroom crying over your father?” she asks.
“Well, yes, sort of. So it’s not awful? Are there photographers camped outside your house?”
“Oh,” she says uncomfortably. “Well yes, I suppose but … ”
“What do you mean by ‘suppose’? Aren’t you in DC?”
“Well, not exactly,” she says. “I’m kind of on tour.”
“On tour?” I say, loudly enough that everyone in the room looks over.
“Yes,” she giggles. “Do you remember how I dated Tommy McPhee before I met your father?” Tommy McPhee is the lead singer of Thunder Jungle, this rock band that went through a brief period of intense fame in the late 80s/early 90s, before fading into relative obscurity. They still tour, and even put out a greatest hits album, although I can’t imagine what they filled it with since they had three or four hits at most. I’ve seen a few pictures of my mother with their squirrelly lead singer. It’s hard to tell if he was actually attractive or not — they all had such big hair back then.
“Yeah, I remember,” I say cautiously, wondering where this is going.
“Well, Tommy and I kind of rekindled our friendship,” she says haltingly.
“If he’s just your ‘friend’,” I say, biting down on the word, “then why are you on tour with him?” My housemates glance at me, sensing the change in tone.
“Well, I suppose he’s actually kind of my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to sound calm although I’m not actually sure I am. “So how long has this been going on?”
“A few months,” she says.
“A few months? But you and Dad only split a few weeks ago!”
“No, not really,” she says. “We split up when I found out about Holly. We were just waiting to tell you.”
“Waiting until when?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she says. “Whenever it felt right.”
In other words, they were waiting until he got outed by the papers. I hang up and sit there, stupefied, looking at the phone in my hand.
“Are you okay?” asks Ginny.
“My mom is dating the lead singer of Thunder Jungle,” I tell her.
“No shit?” exclaims Max. “Oh my God! They were my favorite band as a kid!” He then proceeds to jump on the couch and sing their biggest hit — “Night of the Dragon”, a song which largely involves screeching only those four words, again and again, with a sporadic refrain of “you won’t know what hit ya!”.
“Didn’t your mom date him, back in the day?” Ginny asks.
“Hey,” says Max. “Was that your mom in the video for ‘White Hot Love’?”
He runs to get his laptop, and is back 20 seconds later, trying to pull up the video on YouTube.
“You’re being a little insensitive, Max,” intones James, from across the room. But he’s trying not to smile.
“Found it,” says Max, watching me turn away. “Don’t you want to see it?”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I ask. “No, I don’t want to see my mother dancing like a skank all over a dude wearing a leather vest and no shirt.”
But both Ginny and James have crossed the room to watch over his shoulder.
“God your mom is hot,” whispers Max, no longer joking. “She could be your fucking twin.” At which point James shuts the laptop.
“What?” asks Max, bewildered.
“You want to be pervy about her mom, be my guest,” says James. “But don’t bring her into it.” And he storms out of the room.
The three of us look at each other, and only Max seems to find the whole thing amusing. Once again, it’s nice that James wants to defend my honor. But why does it seem that he’s angry at me for having to do it?
Chapter 14
If I needed further confirmation that this thing with Edward wasn’t going away easily, I receive it when Ginny brings a tabloid over to the bar the next night.
“Hey, just so you know,” she says, flipping open to the article about Edward and handing it to me, “your name is out.”
James slides the magazine away from us to his side of the bar and his face falls. I wait for his inevitable condemnation but it doesn’t come. “I’m sorry,” he tells me. “This just isn’t right.” He pitches the entire magazine into the trash while the protest is still coming out of Ginny’s mouth, and he cuts it off. “Ginny, don’t bring this shit in here again.”
“I just thought she ought to know,” she argues.
“You heard me,” he replies in a tone no sane person would argue with. Even Ginny.
When my shift ends I head to Brian’s office to check out. I’m still uncomfortable around him, but ever since his last altercation with James he’s been unusually restrained. I come out to do my tables — clean them, refill the ketchup, the salt, the sugar packets – and discover that they’re done.
“Did you do my tables?” I ask Kristy.
“No,” she says with a hint of a smile on her face. “James did.”
Why? Why would he do anything for me when most of the time he acts like he wishes I was a million miles away?
“Thank you for doing my tables,” I tell him.
He shrugs and doesn’t even look toward me. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Why’d you do it?” I ask.
He stills for a second, still bent over the dishwasher. “You seemed tired.”
“Well, thank you,” I say, my befuddlement clear.
“You probably would have done a half-assed job anyway,” he says.
Now that’s the James I know.
By the time we get back from work, Max’s 150 closest friends are just getting started. Ginny’s been cranky all night, and coming home to a full house hasn’t helped her mood any.
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