Talk Dirty To Me

by Ali Parker

  When I walked in, they both looked up and smiled.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” My mother rose from the couch and gave me a warm hug. Then she took my hand and guided me down into the open spot between them. I had memories of being a young girl sitting tucked in the middle of the sofa reading a book of my own. It was our little ritual after dinner to sit with our books and a cup of tea and two cookies. Mom always had a pack or two stored somewhere out of my reach so they lasted more than three days after coming home from the grocery store.

  My father set his tablet on the armrest of the sofa. “How was your shift at the station?”

  “Good. A little long.”

  “Any interesting callers?” he asked.

  Interesting didn’t even come close to defining what the call with Rhys had been. “A little.”

  My mom popped to her feet again. “Cup of tea?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cookies?”

  I smiled. “Why not?”

  She bustled off into the kitchen, where I heard her filling the kettle. The element clicked as she turned it on.

  “Dad, can I get your advice about something?”

  He turned to me. “Of course.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I’m considering whether or not I should go to my high-school reunion.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I searched his face for a hint of what he was thinking and came up empty. “Well? What do you think? Do you think I’d regret it if I didn’t go?”

  “It’s hard to say, pumpkin.” He gave me a little shrug. “I never went to mine. And I didn’t necessarily regret it, but I did feel like I missed out a little. All my friends went. One even reconnected with an ex-girlfriend and they ended up getting married. Ralph—”

  “Westland. I know, Dad. You’ve told me. Dozens of times.”

  He laughed lightly. “Yes. I suppose I have. I think you’re the only one who knows if you’ll have regrets.”

  I sighed. I was so torn. I didn’t know what the right decision was. “I just… you know I didn’t have a good high school experience. And the thought of being surrounded by all those people who made my life a living nightmare is paralyzing.”

  My father was quiet for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “Do you think it would serve you better to protect yourself from them or to confront them with your chin held high?”

  I groaned and slumped into the sofa. “Well, when you put it like that, the choice is an obvious one.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course. I have to go.”

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a playful shake like he’d done since I was old enough to sit upright. “There you go, kiddo. I think that’s the right decision. And when the day comes, if you decide not to go, that’s also the right decision.”

  “My father, the cheerleader every girl needs in her life.” I grinned up at him.

  “It’s easy to cheer when you have such a good kid.”

  “You have two good kids, Dad.”

  “I do?” he asked innocently.

  I laughed. So did he. The laughter stole away some of the apprehension that had been building up in me for days and the tension I’d been carrying around since my call with Rhys back at the station. I felt a little more like myself, and even more so when my Mom came back into the living room with a tray carrying three piping hot mugs of English breakfast tea, a matching sugar and creamer set, and six chocolate chip cookies divided up onto their own leaf-patterned paper napkin.

  “Where’s Nannie?” I asked, blowing on my tea after Mom handed out the mugs and cookies.

  My mother glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantle. “She should be home soon. She was at the senior center this evening for Bingo. She’s getting a ride home from one of her friends’ sons.”

  With any luck, I’d be en route home by the time Nannie got here. I was in no mood for her fuckery and wise-ass cracks about my weight. She could keep her generational-age-gap opinions to herself.

  As if my life were written by a sadistic author who took the utmost pleasure in torturing me, the front door opened with a soft click. I froze, the chocolate chip cookie in my hand halfway to my mouth, and strained my ears for the telltale greeting Nannie always rattled off whenever she returned after a night of Bingo.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  “I don’t know why I bother going to those silly Bingo games anymore. They’re all cheats. All of them. I swear the extent Bernie Willard will go to win a buck is appalling. He should be removed from the games entirely.”

  My parents and I shared a look.

  Nannie talked about Bingo like it was the Olympics. Always had. And she would continue to do so because she made a point to go to “the games” every other week, regardless of whether she actually believed her competitors—all white-haired, ear-aid-wearing, cane-walking, toothless seniors—were cheats or not.

  I heard her coming down the hall and crammed the cookie into my mouth. I chewed a grand total of six times before washing down the still rough-edged cookie with a sip of tea.

  Nannie stopped in the hallway at the edge of the living room. She was wearing a matching lilac sweater and pants with a pink and purple floral-patterned shirt underneath. As usual, she wore her pearls from my late grandfather, and her nails had been painted purple to match her outfit sometime between now and when I saw her at her birthday.

  “I didn’t know you were coming over tonight, Vanessa.” Nannie looked between me and my folks. “Did you all have dinner together without me? How thoughtful.”

  My mother sighed and shook her head. “No, Mom. Vanny just popped by after work to say hello and have a cup of tea.”

  Nannie’s lips quirked and her gaze fell back to me. “Just tea? Or cookies too?”

  Wicked, wretched, smart-mouthed old crone.

  “Who could pass up homemade chocolate chip cookies?” Dad teased, shouldering me with his own. “Not me. That’s for certain. Help yourself, Nannie. They’re on the kitchen counter. Still warm, too.”

  Nannie shook her head like she still had a mane of youthful hair she could flip over her shoulder. “No thanks. I know the metabolism I’m working with. Sweets after six in the evening is no good for anyone. Especially women.”

  My mother rolled her eyes and stood to collect our napkins, which she crumpled into a tiny ball in her fist. “Two cookies won’t make your pants too tight, Mom. Live a little.”

  “I was just at Bingo.”

  My mother opened her mouth to say something and promptly closed it again. I made a mental note to ask her what she was going to say when we were in a safe place to do so. Nannie might have been old, but she had hearing like a predatory cat.

  Nannie took the vacant spot my mother left on the sofa beside me. Like the coward he was, my father made up some line about how he had to let the dog out and clean up the not so little piles of shit in the yard, leaving me in the company of my grandmother, who’d bullied me more than the blonde bimbos I’d gone to high school with.

  She stared pointedly at the right corner of my mouth. “You still have crumbs on your jowl, Vanessa.”

  Jowl?!

  I wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand, panicked. I hadn’t intended on leaving any evidence behind. But her eyes were as quick as her ears—and her tongue. I knew without a shadow of a doubt Nannie had been a mean girl in high school.

  Nannie put both her thin hands on my knee. “Child. When are you going to stop letting food have so much power over you? Your life could be so much more if you—”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Were a little thinner.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “You don’t think it’s true, or you don’t want it to be true?” Nannie asked. Somehow, she made the question sound innocent. But it was so far from that. “When I was your age, my full-time job was taking care of myself. I made sure I ate properly and exercised to stay trim. It’
s important. Your generation is calling it self-care. And it is, though I don’t like how indulgent the term is.”

  Of course, she didn’t like it. It was a positive instead of a negative.

  “I really don’t want to talk about this right now, Nannie.”

  “You never want to talk about it. You always push me away. I’m only trying to help you. Don’t you want a husband? And children? Vanessa, if you don’t start taking yourself more seriously, you’re going to end up—”

  “If you say barefoot in the kitchen with an excess hundred pounds on my back, I’m going to drown myself in this cup of tea.”

  Nannie blinked.

  I set my cup down and stood up. “I’m leaving.”

  “No, you’re not. Sit down. We’re in the middle of a conversation.”

  I rounded on her with my hands balled into fists at my sides. Heat rose in my cheeks and up my throat, and before I knew it, words were tumbling out of me that I couldn’t put back in no matter how hard I tried to swallow them. “This isn’t a conversation! This has never been a conversation. This is you taking every opportunity you can to shame me for my size. And I can’t take it anymore!”

  Mom came around the corner of the kitchen with a dishtowel in one hand. “Vanny, what’s going on? Is everything—”

  Nannie waved her off. “Nothing to worry about, dear. Just a little disagreement. Vanny is perfectly all right.”

  I blinked furiously as tears sprang to my eyes and clung to my lashes. “No. Everything is not all right. I’m so sick of this. You think I don’t spend every minute of every day wishing this wasn’t me?” I gestured down at myself. Then I pointed an accusing finger at Nannie. “I do not need you taking every opportunity to remind me that I have weight to lose. Now, if you don’t fucking mind, I’m going to go home and eat as many fucking donuts as I please, and the only one with any right to say anything about it is me.”

  I headed for the door.

  Mom was hot on my heels. She came jogging down the hall behind me. I heard Dad open the sliding door off the kitchen and call out if everything was okay. He must have heard me yelling.

  “Sweetheart, please don’t go.” My mother took my elbow lightly. “We can talk about this. I’m sorry. She’s insensitive. She doesn’t think before she speaks.”

  “Yes, she does.” I wiped at my tears and fished my keys out of my purse. Then I opened the front door and stepped into the cold night air. “She knows exactly what she’s saying. And she knows exactly how much it hurts. And she knows you’ll never say anything to her, and I can’t sit around and take this anymore, Mom. It’s too much. I’ll call you later.”

  My mother called after me as I stormed down the drive, but she didn’t follow.

  Chapter 21

  Rhys

  Vanny’s brother sat in the passenger seat of my Porsche, his cell phone engulfed in his big hand as he held it to his ear and talked to his daughter, Sandi, who had apparently lost her most precious stuffed teddy bear of all time. I could hear her wailing into the phone as Chris pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

  “Sweetheart,” he said evenly, “Toto couldn’t have gotten far. He’s in the house somewhere. Is Nana there? She’ll help you look.”

  I couldn’t hear the little girl’s reply, but based on the weary sigh that left my friend, I assumed she was in near hysterics.

  “I can drop you off at home?” I suggested.

  Chris looked imploringly at me as his daughter sobbed. His face briefly glowed green as we passed under a traffic light. “Yeah. That’d be good. Hey, Sandi. I’m on my way home, okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes and we’ll find Toto. Go splash some cold water on your face. Daddy will be right there.”

  She pulled herself together and the two of them exchanged some sweet words before he hung up and slumped in his seat. “Sorry, man. I was looking forward to this.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” I hooked a right, followed by another, and pointed the car back toward Chris and Vanny’s parents’ place. He and I had made plans to hit up one of my distilleries while he was still in town between games. We didn’t see as much of each other as we used to since he started playing pro ball, but we always managed to squeeze a bit of time in here and there. Tonight was supposed to be a night for the bros. But Sandi came first. Always and forever. And if she didn’t, Chris wouldn’t be the kind of man I could call a best friend. “So the bear’s name is Toto?”

  “Fuck off, man.”

  “It’s cute. You name it?”

  Chris gave me a side-eyed glare. “Maybe.”

  I laughed as we came to a red light. “Isn’t that the dog from—”

  “The Wizard of Oz. Yeah.”

  “Your age is showing.”

  “Your douche bag is showing.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Chris chuckled and rested his arm against the door panel. “Think we can reschedule this? I was looking forward to it.”

  “Definitely. Perks of being the boss is having access to the distilleries after hours. You just let me know when you have a free night.”

  “Will do.”

  I licked my lips and considered not asking the question that had been nagging me since Chris got in my Porsche fifteen minutes ago. Fuck it. “So your Nannie is a bit of a bitch, huh?”

  “Watch it.” Chris turned to me. “My Nannie might be a bitch, but only me and Vanny have the right to say so.”

  “She’s especially hard on your sister.”

  Chris nodded and his tone softened. “Yeah. She’s definitely gotten the brunt of it ever since we were kids. I’ve tried to talk to Nannie about it. To ease up. But she’s a stubborn old bird. She thinks she’s doing Vanny a favor but in reality…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I wonder if Vanny struggles so badly because of Nannie.”

  “Doesn’t seem like that far of a stretch. Your sister is a beautiful girl. Your Nannie talks to her like she’s—”

  “An ogre? Yeah. And for the record, where you’re concerned, you might as well consider her an ogre because she’s off limits. I don’t need you going around talking about how pretty my baby sister is. Got it?”

  “Just trying to figure out your family dynamics.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  I flashed him an innocent smile. “Would I lie to you?”

  “Yes.”

  My phone rang. It was linked to the Bluetooth in my car, and the caller ID flashed on the tablet display in my dash. I thanked my lucky stars I’d saved Vanny’s name in my phone as “Betrothed” for this very reason. If she ever called when I was around Chris, I didn’t want him catching on.

  Chris narrowed his eyes at the caller ID. “Who the fuck is Betrothed?”

  “A company I’m providing moonshine to for a party,” I lied smoothly.

  Chris dropped it. I let the phone keep ringing until it went to voicemail. I waited for the telltale chime that someone had left me a message but it never came. I’d just have to call Vanny back.

  I dropped Chris off in the drive of his family home. He reminded me that his daughter’s birthday party was this weekend at the house and that I was expected to be there. I assured him I would be. Sandi was waiting for him at the front door and I watched her engulf his legs with her little arms. He rubbed her head, sending her blonde locks askew, and then he waved over his shoulder at me before undoubtedly beginning the search for Toto.

  I called Vanny back as I reversed out of the drive.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Where are you right now?”

  “Pulling out of your parents’ driveway actually.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I was dropping your brother off. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I considered going in and asking to see your old high school photos, you know, so I could talk to everyone at the reunion about how cute you used to be, but I thought you might—”

  “Chop your balls off and barbeque them? Yeah. Good call.”

  I c
huckled as I palmed the steering wheel and pulled away from the house. “Come on, Vanny. You know I kid. What’s up?”

  “Are you free?”

  “For you? Of course. Where can I pick you up?”

  Vanny met me outside her apartment complex. She stood under a street light, her thick knit emerald-green cardigan drawn tightly around her body to ward off the chill of the night. She wore a burgundy scarf, dark blue jeans, and a pair of dark brown ankle booties, and she was glaring at the sidewalk when the Porsche came to a stop in front of her. She moved to the edge of the curb and I leaned across the passenger seat to push the door open for her.

  She slid across the leather seat and immediately pointed the heat vents at herself. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “No problem.” I waited as she put her seatbelt on. Something was wrong. I could feel it in the air around her, vibrating like a menacing electric fence invisible to the eye. “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t look at me. “Yeah. I’m fine. I just… I was visiting Mom and Dad and Nannie was there. You saw firsthand how much fun she is.”

  “If you’re in need of a distraction, say no more. I have the perfect night in store.”

  Finally, she looked at me. I wasn’t positive, but it looked like she might have been crying. Her nose was pink, either from the cold or wiping it with her sleeve, rubbing away her makeup, and her eyes were glassy. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for anything extravagant.”

  “It won’t be. I promise. You’ll like it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I drove to my original destination of the night, my distillery in downtown Nashville. It had closed over two hours ago, so when I parked in the lot out back, Vanny was a little confused. She let me open her car door for her, which was a surprise to me, and she accepted my arm when I offered. The parking lot behind the two-story modern factory building was broken and uneven, and I didn’t want her to trip. We entered through the back door, and I flipped on the lights. Then we made our way down the wide hallway pretty much only used by my delivery guys.