by Cassia Leo
“Are you okay?”
I offer my hand to help her up, but she stands easily on her own. “My ass hurts. And it’s your fault!”
I try not to laugh at this. She was complaining this morning about her ass hurting. I warned her before I took her from behind last night, but she insisted she could handle it.
I open the car door for her and she gets inside without further insult. Rounding the front of the car, I get inside quickly so I can crank up the heater. She pulls off her gloves and tucks them between her legs. When she looks up at me, the anger is gone.
“Do you really think it’s too soon for you to meet my parents?”
“No, it’s not. That was just an automatic response. I’m … sorry. I want to meet your folks.”
“You want to meet them?”
“Okay, maybe not yet, but I’m sure the nerves will subside. But … you should know that parents usually hate me. There’s just something about me.”
I try not to smile as I think of all the dicks I’ve had to deal with over the years: brothers and friends of girls I’ve dated who thought they could talk enough crap about me to change those girls’ minds. You can’t force someone to see that something is bad for them. You just have to sit back and watch people reach for the flame – sometimes repeatedly – until they finally understand that fire hurts.
“Yeah, there is something about you. It’s your asshole-y-ness.”
“His Asshole-y-ness. I suppose I deserve that title.”
She shakes her head as I pull the car out of the parking space. “My parents want to take you to a Salvadoran restaurant.”
“I like burritos.”
“You have so much to learn. Just let me do most of the talking. We’re not there to tell them about the baby. They just want to meet you before we go to Vegas. They still don’t know we’re living together.”
I pull onto the highway to head toward her parents’ neighborhood and I begin to feel an itch in the pit of my stomach, a restlessness that makes me want to turn the car around and forget all of it.
Suddenly, I’m reminded of the first time I met Ashley’s adoptive parents. They had taken her in as a foster child shortly after her appearances at Elaine’s house. She was completely broken and she even turned to drugs for a while, but they cleaned her up, adopted her, put her in a different school to get her away from her old friends, and she was able to pretend to be okay – until we ended up in the same art class.
Chris had quit school the summer before our junior year, so it was just Jake and I left at Athens Drive High School. Jake was a senior, so the only classes we ever shared at ADHS were elective classes. We didn’t get placed in any of the same electives during my junior year. But I recognized Ashley the moment I saw her sitting in the back of the class with her brown hair looking a bit disheveled and hardly any make-up, unlike the last time I saw her in that back bedroom with her black mascara streaming down her cheeks.
“You missed the exit,” Senia says. “Are you okay?”
“Just thinking about Molly.”
I want to tell her everything. I do. But the shame and disgust I feel for the things I did to Ashley nine years ago couldn’t be erased by years of perspective or thirteen months of her trying to prove that she did forgive me. I knew when she cheated on me that she did it to make it easier for her to go to college and leave me behind – to leave everything that happened between us behind. But you can’t leave behind the kind of demons that cling to your back, leaving you weighed down and misshapen.
Ashley’s friend, Beatrice, left me a voicemail message last year to tell me that Ashley had just come back from a fashion internship in Paris. For a few days, I considered returning her call, just to know why Ashley wanted me to know this. Then it dawned on me that she wanted me to know that she’s doing well. She had to get away from me to be okay.
“I think Molly should move in with us,” Senia says as I take the next exit.
“She doesn’t want to change schools. She doesn’t want to lose her friends.” And I don’t blame her.
After Chris dropped out and Jake and Ashley graduated, that’s where the endless stream of meaningless sex and relationships began for me. I don’t want Molly to go looking for something to fill the void once her grandmother and her friends are taken from her.
“But Chapel Hill is just forty minutes from her school. I’ve been driving forty minutes to get to school every day,” Senia continues. “And I’m sure Jackie would let her use her address so it looks like she still resides within the district lines.”
I’m positive Chris’s mom, Jackie, would allow Molly to use her address, but that’s not what I’m most worried about.
“What about Grandma? I can’t leave her alone in that house.”
“She could come too,” she replies without hesitation. “She could have our bedroom and we’ll sleep on a sofa bed or something. It will be … comfortable.”
“You have a warped idea of what constitutes comfortable living conditions.”
She shrugs as I turn onto the main road. “Whatever. I just think it would be good for Molly.”
And that itchy restlessness in the pit of my stomach is gone. I reach for her hand and she smiles as I give it a gentle squeeze. Maybe Senia understands more than I give her credit for.
The day our wires crossed,
You were broken, I was lost.
But I found my way to you,
To a place I didn’t know was true.
Now I can’t conceive of living without the sound of us too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We’re nearly at the restaurant when Senia’s phone rings. It’s her parents informing her that the restaurant reservation has been canceled. Dinner will take place at her parents’ house. I turn the car around – again – and ten minutes later we arrive at a large two-story stucco house in a country-club housing tract in North Raleigh.
I know Senia’s family does well with the family real estate business, but I did sort of fantasize that her family’s house would be a rundown shack I rescued her from. I reach for the door handle to exit the car, but Senia grabs my arm.
“Wait!” She holds my face and kisses me hard – the kind of kiss that melts your insides and makes you want to stay under the covers all day. “Just wanted to get it out of the way since I won’t be able to do that for a while.”
I chuckle as she lets go of my face and hops out of the car. We walk hand-in-hand toward the front door, passing under a bare bougainvillea archway that drips with melting snow. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but I’m thinking that this feels an awful lot like walking down the aisle. She reaches for the doorknob and, I swear, the next twenty minutes are a slow-motion blur of handshakes and hugs. I can’t really remember much of it, but I do remember someone grabbing my ass and the look on Senia’s father’s face when he sees me.
He’s wearing a gray suit and he’s in good shape for a man his age. His dark hair is cropped short and impeccably styled. I can’t tell if he looks more like a real estate agent or a mobster. His nostrils flare as his gaze takes in my shoulder-length hair, my gray jeans and the black sweater I’m wearing under my army-green twill jacket.
I hold my hand out to him. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
He cocks an eyebrow, exactly the way Senia does when she’s not impressed. “Aren’t you going to remove your jacket?” he says with a slight accent that makes me feel as if I’ve stepped into a scene from the movie Scarface. I begin to take my jacket off and he laughs. “I’m only kidding!” He holds his hand out for me to shake. When I take it, he pulls me into a bone-crushing hug, which gives him the perfect opportunity to whisper in my ear: “Keep it in your pants in Las Vegas, okay?”
I swallow hard as he lets me go and he’s still wearing a huge smile. He nods and I nod just enough for him to notice, then I try not to smile. We’ll only be in Vegas for two nights. I can handle two nights without sex. Good thing is, with Senia being pregnant, I don’t have to.
&
Senia’s three older sisters are a whole different story. They ogle me all through dinner and I catch Senia burning them with her laser eyes multiple times. None of them are as hot as Senia, but her sister Maribel, who’s just two years older than Senia, keeps glancing at me as she blathers on about her volunteer work at the local boys and girls club. It starts to make me a little uncomfortable, so I reach up and pretend to wipe something from the corner of Senia’s mouth.
“What is it?” Senia asks as she attempts to wipe her face clean.
“Nothing. Just a piece of pupu … sa. I got it.”
“You think that’s funny?”
“I think you’re smiling.”
I kiss her cheek and she pushes me away gently. “Stop.”
But Senia’s little sister Sophie, who Senia proudly claims to have named, is the most persistent of them all. She sits next to me on the couch as the family watches football and we draw pictures. She draws pictures of all the new friends she’s made in kindergarten and I draw a picture of Molly. She trades drawings with me and asks me to draw something on her picture. I think this is her subtle way of trying to get me to improve her drawing. So I add a sketch of Senia and me on the right side of the page and she makes me squeeze in a picture of her so the three of us are together.
Senia pretends to be playing on her phone the whole time, but I catch her stealing glances at Sophie and me every once in a while with a tiny smile curling the corners of her lips. By the time we leave her parents’ house, I’m confident I passed the test, if only for the blood-curdling tantrum that Sophie threw when I told her it was time for me to leave. After I’ve pulled my car into the garage and plugged it in to charge overnight, Senia and I take my tuxedo and her maid-of-honor dress upstairs and go straight to bed.
I don’t know if this is what it feels like to be in an adult relationship, but if it is, then I could get used to it. It feels good to be adored. But knowing that there’s only one girl who I adore is freeing. Unless the little sac of DNA inside Senia’s belly is a girl. Then I’ll have two girls to adore. In which case, the more the better.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I don’t know what I’m more nervous about today: being the best man in both my best friends’ weddings or the fact that Senia’s parents found out about the baby yesterday.
Senia wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I took a trip to the grocery store to replenish her supply of saltine crackers. I didn’t know that her oldest sister Claudia had come over to visit while I was gone. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have called out How’s my incubator? while approaching the bedroom. Between the incubator comment and the saltine crackers, it didn’t take long for Claudia to figure out our secret.
I’m trying not to panic now that the pregnancy is out in the open, but I have a million questions racing through my mind. Will her father insist we get married? And what about the tour this summer? Will I have to cancel? What will Chris think? I can’t leave Senia here while she’s eight months’ pregnant.
I wish Grandma and Molly could be here to see the wedding. They both love Chris and Claire, but Grandma’s in too much pain. I don’t want to think of the possibility that she may not make it to September, when the baby’s due.
I leave Senia with Claire so they can get ready for the wedding, then Chris, Jake, and I head out of the hotel to a tattoo shop in downtown Vegas.
“So you’re still not going to tell us what you’re getting?” Jake says with a laugh when I refuse for the twentieth time to tell him and Chris what I’m getting tattooed on my wrist today. “That’s weak.”
“That’s weak?” I reply incredulously. “I’m not the one getting Jay-Rae and today’s date tattooed on my wrist. That’s some weak shit right there.”
Chris and Jake are both getting their wedding dates tattooed on their wrists, but I’m not getting married tonight. I racked my brain trying to come up with something I could get tattooed on the inside of my wrist that was both small enough and significant enough to display so prominently. What I decided on was something that makes sense to me and only me. Maybe someday, it will make sense to the person I allow into my fucked-up world forever.
After we leave the shop with our tattoos conveniently covered in gauze, I get a text from Senia telling me to meet her in tent number six. The wedding is being held in the middle of the desert with Jake and Rachel saying their vows at 11.30 p.m. and Chris and Claire saying their vows at midnight. Chris insisted on paying for the entire wedding so that he would have the privilege of getting married as the clock strikes twelve. If I had half as much money as that asshole does, I’d probably do the same.
When the band broke up briefly last year, while Chris was recording in L.A., Jake and I used to get drunk and try to figure out the terms of Chris’s recording contract. It turns out our guesses were way off the mark, but I’m not complaining. Even if Chris does earn about seven times as much as Jake and me, I’m happy with the fuck-ton of money I made this year. And to show Chris that there are no hard feelings, I got him a wedding present that he will never forget and that I guarantee will top every other gift he and Claire receive today.
After I shower and change into my tux, I hop in a cab and head for the desert. It’s about 9.30 p.m. when the cab pulls into the sandy lot. The half-dozen tents they have set up for the wedding glow like paper lanterns on a blanket of sand. They’ve laid paths of grass and lights between the tents so no one gets lost. It’s freezing out here. I hope Senia’s wearing something that will keep her warm.
I can’t knock on the silk tent, but I can see silhouettes moving inside. “Knock-knock,” I call out and the sounds of shuffling come as a reply.
Senia appears at the entrance to the tent, still wearing a T-shirt and sweat pants and rollers in her hair. She takes one look at me in my tux and her jaw goes slack. “That is so fucking hot.”
“You’re not so bad yourself. The curlers really work with that ensemble.”
“Shut up. I can’t get dressed until all my make-up is done. I paid six hundred dollars for that dress. I can’t get make-up on it.”
“Why did you pay for the dress? I would have paid for it.”
“Uh, hello? You were standing right there when I forked over my credit card the other day at the bridal shop and you never said anything about paying. You were probably too busy trying to block out our conversation.”
“Sorry. I guess I was trying to tune it out.”
She reaches up and adjusts my hair a little. “Do you mind if I fix your hair later? I have to finish Rachel right now.”
I laugh at this suggestion. “Yes, I do mind. Is that why you asked me to come here?” She smiles sheepishly as she reaches for my hair again and I push her hand away. “You’re not doing anything to this hair. I’m like Samson: my hair is my strength. No one touches this hair except my hairdresser Kali. Understood?”
“Ooh, you do take your hair seriously. I like that.” She plants a soft kiss on my lips then turns around to head back into the tent. “Jake is in tent number five. See you in a couple of hours, best man.”
Jake and I hang out in tent number five for a while, taking shots of tequila as we wait for Chris to arrive. Chris isn’t a big drinker when he’s with Claire, but I can always count on Jake to get plastered with me. And I’m really fucking nervous right now. Not about the weddings; about the toast and the wedding gift, and I’m nervous about Senia seeing this tattoo.
By our fourth shot of tequila, Jake’s reddish-brown hair and beard are starting to look a little disheveled. ���Maybe you should slow down,” I suggest. I grab the bottle of tequila off the glass tabletop before he can pour another shot. “You don’t want to forget your vows.”
“I can’t believe I’m getting married to Rachel,” he slurs.
I try not to laugh at this declaration. Rachel has always been a supreme bitch – always saying what’s on her mind with no regard for anyone’s feelings. She has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. But despite that, I think Jake is lucky to have her. She’s dug him out of so many holes over the years. She even drove his mom to all her radiation appointments when she got skin cancer on her arm last year.
“You can’t believe you’re getting married? Or you can’t believe it’s Rachel you’re marrying?”
“I can’t believe she wants to marry me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re Jay-Rae! You’re gonna get your matching Jay-Rae pillowcases and she’ll give birth to two-point-five beards. And Jay-Rae will live happily ever after.”
He smiles reluctantly. “Show me that fucking tattoo.”
The tequila swirls in my belly at the sound of these words. I consider blowing him off, then I realize that there is absolutely no way he’ll know what it means. I pull the gauze and tape off my wrist and hold it up for him to see.
He leans forward in his chair and squints. “One, two, three. What does that mean?”
“Nothing important,” I reply, standing from the chair and taking the bottle of tequila with me toward the vanity area. I put the bottle down on the surface of the white vanity and proceed to cover the tattoo again. “Come on. You have to drink some water and try to sober up a little. You’re on in forty minutes.”
Once Jake and Rachel say their vows, I set off to find Chris to give him his wedding gift before his ceremony begins. I stop him just as he’s heading for the big tent.
“What’s up?” Chris asks as he tucks his phone into his pocket.
I feel nervous; like, so nervous I’m almost sick to my stomach. Why the fuck am I so nervous about giving my best friend his wedding present? Maybe it has to do with the sheer magnitude of the gift.
“I want to give you and Claire your wedding gift before everything gets crazy. Do you mind? It’s in there,” I say, nodding toward the tent where Jake and I were downing tequila shots earlier.
“You just can’t wait until later to give me that blowjob, can you?”
I shrug as we head for the tent. “Nah, that can wait until later. And this present is much better since I’m not nearly as good at sucking dick as you are.”
We enter the tent and I immediately head for the purple bag where Senia packed the present with her gazillion styling tools. That girl and her obsession with hair and make-up are going to make me go broke. I pull a thick, white envelope out of the bag and hand it to Chris.
Chris stares at it for a moment, trying to figure it out. “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s the deed to my house. I don’t want it any more. Senia and I are moving to Chapel Hill so she doesn’t have to commute to school next semester.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t want your house.”
He tries to push the envelope into my hand, but I take a step back and shake my head. “It’s done. I already gifted it to you. I already put a deposit on an apartment off campus. The house is yours.” He runs his fingers through his hair as he stares at the envelope in my hand. “I know you and Claire wanted a house with a good piece of land.”
He shakes his head in disbelief, but soon a smile comes over his face and his eyes light up as if he has an idea. “You can have my condo. There’s still eleven months on the lease.”
“Are you serious?”
“As serious as I am that this is the craziest fucking day of my life.” He tucks the envelope into his back pocket and looks me dead in the eye. “What about the tour? Are you bailing on me?”
I shrug as he continues to stare at me. Finally, I nod. “Yeah, I gotta stay here. My grandma will kill me if I let Senia have the baby alone.”
“Doing it for Grandma, huh?”
I try not to let him see the internal struggle going on inside me right now – the voice telling me that Grandma won’t be around long enough to know if I leave Senia to go on tour.
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