Man Hands

by Sarina Bowen

  “Nice,” Ash says.

  Sadie demonstrates the burping technique with Amy. Then Ash pats Kate’s back until an enormous burp vibrates from the tiny body. “Ohhhhh. I like her,” Ash says.

  That’s how you bond with Ash. You burp or fart without fear, then you’re friends forever. It’s pretty easy. She turns her attention to me. “What bullshit were you saying? I was ignoring you.”

  I love her so much.

  “I’m not ready for a relationship.”

  “Why does it have to be a relationship?” Ash seems clearly confused.

  “Ash, come on. I’ve…” I can’t finish the sentence because I don’t want to say fucked in front of the infants.” So I whisper, “…boinked him two times.”

  Ash does not share my caution. “Two fucks does not a relationship make! Stop fucking stressing out about it!”

  Sadie and I shush her. I mean, we are in a public place, no matter how granola Marie Catrib’s is.

  “I actually agree with you on this,” Sadie adds. “You’re not ready. A relationship takes a whole lot of work. It’s exhausting. And when you have kids and he stops looking at you like you’re a sexually desirable woman and instead treats you as if your only purpose on the planet is to feed your babies, give him dinner, and whack him off, I mean, that’s a problem. Right?”

  We don’t reply. And if vinyl records were still a thing, and a needle-scratch could silence an entire restaurant of hungry people, that’s what would be happening right now.

  “I mean, hypothetically,” Sadie offers lamely.

  Ash and I share a troubled look. We know something bad is happening, but we also know that Sadie is so tender and fragile right now that if we push her one little tiny bit, she’s going to take flight. She’s in trouble, I think. Or at least her marriage is.

  I take Amy from her so she can at least eat.

  “Anyway…” she says, changing the subject while shoveling stuffed French toast into her maw. It’s enormous, that French toast. Crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, smothering a mound of creamy goodness, and topped with sweet yet tart strawberries.

  Ah. I think I just orgasmed right there. Again. My body is really on fire lately. I blame Tom. Sweet Tom. Sexy Tom. Tom of the man-hands and six pack and…

  Goddamn it. I can’t stop thinking about him. Even here, surrounded by food and my friends, my brain (and my loins) just keep thinking about him. The way he kisses. Smells. His throaty laugh. How we made love last night and then snuggled and then I…

  Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. We did not make love. We screwed. Banged. Whatever.

  This is bad. My subconscious is yearning for all those relationship perks. Maybe the fake engagement is the right move. It can feel like a relationship, but without any of the hazards. Such as a broken heart.

  “Maybe everyone should try a fake relationship at some point or other,” I reason.

  Ash gives me a look that doubts my sanity. “Tell me again why this is a good idea?”

  “No one wants to see an engaged couple screwing. It’s like watching your parents make out. So if we’re engaged, then that porn scene is legitimate instead of trashy. We’ll be fake-engaged until this whole thing blows over, okay? It’s not nearly as cuckoo as it sounds! I swear!”

  My credibility is tarnished, though, by a tear that leaks from the corner of one eye. Damned hormones.

  “So you’re fake-engaged,” Ash repeats.

  “I will be. I think so.” I doth protest too much.

  “And you don’t want a relationship?” she asks, pinning me with her laser stare, the same one that causes couples to buy homes above their price range.

  I nod carefully.

  “Wow,” says Sadie. “And this is good, right? Because you don’t have any feelings for him, and it’s totally okay with you to pretend a relationship so you’re not actually invested in anything. And this will fix everything?”

  I’m processing what she’s saying, and my head is nodding. I’m pretty sure Ash laughs. Yep. She is laughing, because Sadie is laughing too, and then I’m laughing, because of peer pressure or something. “I just got divorced!” I say. “And now I’m engaged!”

  We are howling. It’s not really funny, so I’m not sure what is wrong with us. Hive mind or something.

  After a minute or so, we all quiet down. I actually think I’m hyperventilating.

  Ash says, “You’re so screwed,” and then I start crying. Real tears. Not crocodile ones. Sadie reaches for my hand and she starts crying. The babies start crying. The old woman in the corner eating a breakfast burrito starts crying. Even the server with the mohawk starts crying. Ash just looks at us, utters, “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” and asks for the bill.

  25 Oh Honey

  Tom

  The only good thing I can say about the jewelry store is that it’s not in a mall. I hate malls, with their recycled air and the smell of buttered pretzels.

  And now I want a buttered pretzel, damn it. Ring shopping makes me want to stress eat.

  “What are you muttering about?” Braht asks he parks his car in front of the shop.

  “I hate shopping.”

  “You’ve mentioned that a dozen times in the past ten minutes. Stop whining. Get your big hairy butt in there and buy a ring, so we can golf.”

  “I hate golf.”

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t beat me so often.”

  It is true, but beating Braht isn’t all that tricky. And yet I’m nice enough not to say so. Much.

  Braht bleeps the locks on his shiny blingmobile and I trudge toward the nicest jewelry store in West Michigan. I wouldn’t want my fake fiancée to have anything less than the best.

  As I walk in, I am nearly blinded by the flashing brilliance of hundreds of diamonds displayed under halogen lighting. Ow. My eyes hurt. But let’s face it—that sting I’m feeling is really my ego. This is the same fucking store where I bought Chandra’s ring six months ago.

  It’s déjà vu all over again as I cross the rose-colored (ugh! pink carpeting!) floor toward the counter in back, where they keep the luxury gemstones. And because my life is a bad dream on repeat, the same salesman is waiting. I remember that pink tie, chosen to match the decor.

  And his nametag, which reads Maynard.

  “Good afternoon!” he says, clapping his hands. “How can I help you fine gentlemen? Are you shopping for an engagement ring today?” He directs this question at Braht.

  “Not me. Him.” Braht points at me, and I scowl.

  “But…” The salesman’s chiseled face frowns in confusion. “I sold you a ring in the winter. Two-carat, round-cut center stone, with a halo setting adding a half-carat total weight!”

  “That one was returned,” I say through a clenched jaw.

  “Oh, honey,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I snap. “I have bad luck with women. My mother cursed me, I think.” That extra bit just popped out, damn it. I’m probably jinxing my fake marriage by mentioning my mother right now.

  Wait, can you jinx a fake marriage? I guess it doesn’t matter.

  “Women aren’t the only choice, honey,” Maynard says. “Maybe you’re supporting the wrong team.” He gives Braht the side eye. “You and your friend here would be hot together.”

  Braht doubles over with laughter.

  “Not really,” I tell Maynard over the howls of snort-laughter. “He’s doing a vegetarian master cleanse. That gives you really stinky farts. It’s all that dried fruit.”

  “Oh,” Maynard says slowly. “What a shame.”

  “I know.” I clear my throat. “Can we just get this over with? I need a ring. Not the same setting as last time.”

  “No! Of course not,” Maynard agrees. “How about a solitaire for this go-round? Emerald-cut, perhaps.”

  “I was thinking a bezel setting,” Braht says. “Platinum, of course. Don’t show us any stone with a color rating below D, and S-range clarity.”

  “Naturally,” Maynard ag
rees.

  I just grunt.

  Maynard grabs a set of keys large enough to break into Fort Knox and disappears into the back room.

  “This is gonna be awesome,” Braht says, rubbing his hands together. “Bling makes the world go round.”

  “No it doesn’t,” I argue.

  “It’s an expression.”

  “No it isn’t.” I should have gotten fake-engaged to Braht, because we already argue like an old married couple.

  Luckily, Maynard comes back quickly. He sets a gorgeous velvet box on the glass counter. Then he puts one hand over the box and takes a deep, cleansing breath. “This is a very special diamond, men. Prepare to be dazzled.” I kinda want to choke him already.

  But then he opens the box, and I am dazzled. It’s really glitzy, this rock. The setting allows the expensive jewelry-store lighting to shine right through the stone, so the ring appears to burst with color even though it’s made from the whitest platinum and the iciest gem I’ve ever seen.

  It’s gorgeous. Absolutely perfect.

  I hate everything about it.

  Braht kicks me in the ankle, which is another reason we could never be a couple. “What’s the matter? It’s a great ring.”

  “Yeah. The greatest.”

  “So throw down the thirty grand, and let’s roll. We could tee off in—” He checks his Rolex. “Twenty minutes.”

  I’m still staring at the ring. He isn’t wrong. The simple setting means it’s tasteful in spite of its size. But I can’t look at this ring and not think about the last one I bought. Chandra’s ring was flashier, because she’s like Braht—she likes bling. It was a fucking rock. I’d wanted to make sure the TV viewers could see it clearly when we were on screen together. I’d really splurged on that sucker.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  My throat is getting weirdly hot all of a sudden. I must be dehydrated. “Let’s go,” I rasp. “I’m not in the mood to buy a ring.”

  “Oh, honey,” Maynard says. “Tissue?” He offers me a box.

  “Nope. I’m good. Thanks for your help.”

  I get the hell out of there.

  “What’s your plan?” Braht asks as he puts his ball on the tee. Then he does some weird stretches which are supposed to improve your swing. He dangles the driver behind his body until it hits him in the ass.

  It’s taking fucking forever.

  So I nudge him out of the way, step up to his tee, swing, and drive the ball about a million yards straight toward the flag. It flies through the bright blue sky for about a year before dropping onto the fairway and then bouncing onto the green.

  Braht’s jaw is dangling. “You hit my ball!”

  “I needed to hit something. Seemed like the best option.”

  “But…it wasn’t your turn.”

  We just glare at each other for a moment. I’m hanging onto my sanity by a thread here.

  And maybe Braht gets that because he shrugs, grabs another ball out of his golf bag and tees it up. “Do you want me to just buy a ring for you?” he asks as he lines up his shot. Finally.

  I wait until he swings, because that’s polite. “No,” I say as his ball sails toward…the water hazard. Shit. We’ll be here all day. “I got it covered.”

  “With what?”

  “A ring, Braht. I have one.”

  “Chandra’s?”

  “Nope.”

  “You can’t use a fake, Tom. The media will sniff it out.” He picks up his golf bag, and I do the same.

  “It’s my Great Aunt’s ring.”

  “Jesus. Do you really want to go there?”

  “Yeah.” But I’ll admit it’s a strange choice. The ring is the only thing I have that belonged to a family member, since I don’t have a family. Aunt Maddie and my grandmother were my only living relatives, and they both died when I was eighteen.

  “Why do you want Brynn to wear it?” Braht asks. “Kinda precious, right?”

  “Sure. But I’ll get it back after we break up. And if I’m going to be fake-engaged to someone for a couple months, I might as well get some use out of it.” I say this all glibly even though my throat is suddenly tight. Must be allergies.

  Braht shrugs. “Saves you the restocking fee you were going to pay to return another rock at the jewelry shop.”

  “Right.” I’d forgotten about that. Whatever.

  “You can buy drinks tonight, then,” Braht says, and I sigh.

  “Let’s just do some more damage to the little white ball.”

  “That’s not exactly the point of golf,” Braht warns, polishing his driver with a cloth he draws out of his pocket.

  “It is today.”

  26 Hormone Spike

  Brynn

  My suitcase is packed, and my girlfriends are blowing up my phone with advice-laden texts.

  Ash: Don’t even get dressed. Just stay naked the whole weekend.

  Sadie: She has to get dressed for good restaurants! And food trucks. Eating in New York is like consuming literature—go high or low. Michelin stars or street food. Skip all the stuff in the middle.

  Ash: How is that like literature? What?

  Sadie: Nabokov or 50 Shades.

  Ash: Ask Tom to get you tickets to Hamilton!

  Sadie: That’s sold out three years in advance.

  Ash: But he’s famous. Famous people can just snap their fingers and see Hamilton. It’s a thing.

  From time to time I glance at their stream-of-consciousness advice. But for once I’m not really listening. In the first place, there are a lot of places that needed waxing and shaving before my New York adventure. I plan to be as soft as an angel food cake.

  Now I kind of want a slice of angel food cake, damn it.

  I’ve painted my toenails an edible shade of peach, and styled my hair. I’m ready. And—this is the crazy thing—I’m excited. Even if this trip is completely bogus, it’s really nice to be taking a vacation from my own life. I could be sitting here this week worrying about finding a job, hoping I’ll get some responses to my job query emails and posts on those electronic application sites. The new semester starts soon, so I’m basically running out of time for finding a job this year.

  Deep breaths. Deeeeeeeeeep brrrrreaths.

  There’s nothing I can do about those applications now. If I stay home, I’ll literally be pacing in circles and occasionally posting new recipes to my blog. But instead of pacing and waxing neurotic, I’m flying to New York with my fake fiancé to have our picture taken for the tabloids. It’s ridiculous.

  It’s a blast.

  I’m making good choices.

  Goodish.

  Tom will pull up any moment to take me to the airport.

  Just because it’s a fake engagement, doesn’t mean we can’t have some real sex. When Steve proposed, we didn’t have sex that night because he had a cramp in his toe. He needed more potassium, he said, and he ate a giant banana, but that sort of doused the mood. So I’m going to do this engagement right.

  I put on some new lingerie that Ash and I shopped for. It’s basically made up of strings, but Ash assures me it’s very trendy. A girl can’t wear her granny panties to New York. I adjust my strings and slip on a wrap dress because Tom seems to like them. Or rather, he likes undoing them. It occurs to me that with the wrap dress and all these lingerie strings, I’ve turned myself into a big old present. Happy Birthday, Tom. I should jump out of a three-layer cake.

  Now I want three-layer cake.

  When I hear an engine outside, I slip on a pair of sandals and a little cardigan. I’m ready for adventure.

  Tom’s Big Shiny Truck has pulled up at the curb, and I practically gallop toward the door and wrestle my bag outside. I give him the finger.

  Wait, that sounds wrong.

  I hold up an index finger in the universal sign for “Just a minute, fake fiancé, I’ll be with you as soon as I lock my door.”

  But Tom doesn’t wait. He leaps out of his Big Shiny Truck and comes up the sidewalk.

&nbs
p; “Sorry,” I say, fumbling with my keys. “We’re not late, though.”

  “Of course not,” he rumbles, kissing my cheekbone. He looks at me and his fingers seem to move toward the tie at my side. He pats my body like he’s eager to unwrap me later.

  That one move makes me quiver.

  “It does, does it?” he asks, and I realized I’d said that out loud.

  I need to take an Ativan. Air travel, hot man, fake engagement, tabloid pictures, and New York have made my hormones spike.

  Tom picks up my bag and carries it to the truck for me. His arm muscles flex as he lifts it into the back seat.

  Oh.

  Wow.

  I could get used to this.

  On the way to the airport, I indulge in thoughts of hotel sex with Tom. The truck hums along the highway, and I’m humming right with it. Maybe it’s all that horsepower.

  Or maybe it’s Tom. He’s flipped some kind of sexual switch in me that I can’t shut off.

  “What are you thinking about so hard over there?” he asks.

  “Hotel sex.” There’s really no point in lying.

  “Mmm,” he says, and his tone approves.

  But then it occurs to me. “You’ve probably had lots of hotel sex.” For me this will be exotic. But if I understand his job correctly, he must be in hotels all the time.

  “Mmm,” he says again, and the sound vibrates in my chest. And other places. “But I haven’t had any hotel sex with you.”

  There are lots more vibrations now. Yowza.

  Tom parks the Big Shiny Truck in the parking garage at Gerald Ford International Airport. You can’t actually fly outside the country from this airport, but the name sounds better than Gerald Ford Small Potatoes Airport.

  I’ve already got my door open when Tom grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze, stopping my progress. Right away I’m thinking, Why not a quickie in the truck? I close my door.

  “Brynn,” he says quietly.

  “Yes, Tom?” I breathe. Take me. The wrap dress will make this easy. Just one little pull and I’ll unravel at your feet.

  “This is your last chance to bail out of the fake engagement before it starts making headlines. I’d understand.”