by Sarina Bowen
Chapter Eight
May
“How was it?” Griffin asks as I come through the kitchen door forty minutes later. He’s sitting on a stool at the kitchen table, flipping through a seed catalog and sipping a pint of cider.
“Fine.” I can hear the strain of the lie in my voice. Sorry, Alec.
He was so much better than fine. But how crazy am I? Attacking Alec was an insane thing to do. I am acting just as nutty as my family expects me to.
My brother is staring at me, waiting for more details. And I realize that I left my brain in Alec’s truck, along with my dignity.
“Um…” What were we talking about? “The dean gave a very boring speech.”
“Was the bitch there?” That’s Griff’s name for Daniela. Nobody misses a chance to trash her. They used to say these things behind my back, but now they don’t bother to hide their disdain.
What they don’t understand is that I feel like a bigger idiot every time they do.
“Daniela was there. We didn’t speak.”
“And Alec?” Griff peers at me over the rim of his cider glass. The amber liquid is screaming my name. “Did he have fun?”
Did he ever. “Alec was cool,” I say, hoping my face doesn’t turn bright red. “He got the bartender to make me a mocktail.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“Uh-huh.”
I unzip my only sexy pair of boots and turn my attention to wiggling out of them. I can’t believe I just boinked Alec in the front seat of his truck. Who does that? “Why are you hanging around the kitchen, anyway?” I ask my brother. He should be home at the bungalow with Audrey. It’s almost like my family is taking shifts, and it’s his turn to look in on me.
“Our washer isn’t working, so I’m doing a load here.” He jerks a thumb toward the utility room.
“Oh.” Then again, maybe I’m a wee bit paranoid.
“Want to watch an episode of Mrs. Maisel?” my brother asks. And there’s my proof that the whole family is worried about me. Griffin never volunteers to watch anything without a space ship or Hobbits in it. He’s basically martyring himself right now.
“Kinda tired,” I say. Riding your friend in his vehicle was exhausting. “I think I’ll just go read.”
“Goodnight, May,” Griffin says. “Sleep well.”
“Thanks, you too,” I mumble, making my escape.
After I tuck myself into bed, I don’t even bother opening my book. I shut off the light, instead. Unfortunately, sleep doesn’t come easily. I lay there in bed, just cringing from embarrassment.
Worse, I’m also turned on. That was some sweaty, desperate sex we had tonight. It will be hard to forget.
Sex with a dude. Now there’s something I never thought I’d do again. Am I on the rebound or what? Men aren’t part of my life plan.
Then again, my life plan never works out.
My phone buzzes with a text, the screen casting a sudden bright beam into the dark.
Naturally, the text is from Alec. Hey. Did you make it home okay?
Uh-oh. I don’t want to talk to him. But if I ignore that friendly text, it’s just rude.
On the other hand, I don’t know how to compose a reply. If I thank him for a wonderful time, it sounds like I planned the sweaty truck sex. If I apologize, that’s weird, too.
What to say?
Yep. All is well, here. Thanks for checking on me. That’s the best I can come up with.
You were pretty quiet on the way home. Hope I didn’t complicate your life.
No, sir! I do that pretty well without your help. I’m trying to decide on a further response when he texts me again.
Anyway, here’s a goodnight joke for you. Ready?
Ready, I reply. I want to kiss him for changing the subject. Except I kissed him earlier and look what happened next.
The Barman says, “We don’t serve time travelers in here.” A time traveler walks into a bar.
Oh, man. :) That is the worst joke ever, and I still prefer it to discussing our earlier activities.
Goodnight, May.
Goodnight, Alec.
* * *
I spend the rest of the week making saner, wiser choices. I get up every morning, extract a set of lawyer’s clothes from my cramped closet and head to work. But I must be acting a little loopy, because my office mate and mentor—Rita—gently asks me if there’s something on my mind. “Yo! Chickie! Where is your brain? You keep staring out that window like you’re waiting for the aliens to come back and return you to your home planet.”
That’s Rita at her most polite.
“Sorry!” I yank my attention back into the room. “Did you need something?”
“I’m referring another real estate closing to you,” she says, kicking her hiking boots up on the desk and pulling a nail file out of her bag. “Check your inbox. Closing date is in January.”
“Thank you! I’ll get right on it.” We both think real estate closings are dull, but Rita is semi-retired and has the luxury of passing them to me. Whereas I have to take every little job that comes my way.
When Rita decides to retire permanently, I’ll get a lot more of her business. But it won’t be worth it. She’s too entertaining.
“So what’s your damage, anyway?” she asks me. “Besides your breakup woes. You haven’t heard from her, have you?”
I shake my head. Rita knows the whole story. In addition to being my mentor and my landlord here at the office, she’s also my AA sponsor. We always attend the Thursday-night meeting together.
“See, I wondered if you guys were getting back together or something. Because you’ve had a faraway look in your eye these past three days. Kinda like this.” She lets her face go slack as her tongue hangs out of her mouth.
“I do not look like that,” I complain, picking up a used sticky note, balling it up, and tossing it at her.
Rita cackles. “But you do! Ever since that law school thing you’re acting weird. I didn’t hear you deny it, either. Did you get some make-up nookie, at least?”
“We’re not getting back together. And there hasn’t been any nookie. With her,” I add quickly.
Rita’s face lights up. “With who, then?”
“It’s nothing. Just, uh, a hookup. Someone I asked to be my date to that law school event.”
My friend’s face sobers quickly. “Why do I not know this already?”
“Maybe because it’s so embarrassing? And it’s not like it’s happening again. We just got, uh, a little carried away after the law school thing. Maybe I was trying to get Daniela out of my system.” Or maybe Alec is super-hot and his kiss made me temporarily insane.
“Do I know her?” Rita asks.
“Him.”
She makes a gleeful squeak.
“Are you asking me these questions as my helpful, nonjudgmental sponsor?” I prompt.
“Nah!” She throws the nail file down. “I’m asking as someone who lives vicariously through a single twenty-six-year-old. So who is this fine fellow that seduced you?”
I snort. “He didn’t have to seduce me. I pounced on him.” I’ve spent the last three days trying not to think about the feel of his hands on my body, or the heat of his kisses. It would be a nice memory, except it’s tinged with mortification.
We did it in his truck. I’m lucky the law school dean didn’t wander by that dark corner of the parking lot. It’s a good thing that Alec is one of those men who always parks far from the other cars so that nobody will scratch his baby.
“You’re killing me, here,” Rita complains. “Who is it?”
“Alec Rossi. He’s five years older than I am. He owns the Gin Mill.” Rita’s eyes widen at the mention of the bar. “Yeah, I know. Not exactly a great pick for me. It will never happen again. He’s sort of a family friend, I guess.”
“The guy who helped you move out of Daniela’s?”
“Yeah. Same guy.”
She looks thoughtful. “But you enjoyed yourself? And you were safe
?”
“Of course.”
Rita shrugs. “Then why not? So long as there isn’t any alcohol involved, a little rebound lovin’ isn’t the worst idea.”
“I guess. But you know I’m going to run into him five times in the next two weeks. It’s the law of small-town hookups.” If I spot him in the grocery store, my face will turn bright red. Because every time I come upon him I’ll be remembering the time I…
“You should see your face right now,” Rita says with a giggle.
“Next topic, please.” I slap my laptop shut. “When I was moving out of Daniela’s house, I found my knitting stuff. And I realized I hadn’t been knitting in a long time because Daniela used to tease me about it.”
Rita nods, listening. But she doesn’t leap in and skewer Daniela, the way my family would.
“So I’m going to go blow some money on yarn now. Before the meeting.” Maybe a new knitting project will keep my mind occupied.
Rita puts her reading glasses on and looks at her computer screen again. “I’d go with the sex, instead. But that’s just me.”
“Later, Rita,” I say, going for my coat. “See you at the church?”
“Of course, chickie.”
The yarn shop in Montpelier beckons to me, and I spend a long time wandering the aisles. I ought to be saving all my money so I can rent an apartment for myself. But I finger the gorgeous yarns anyway, because splurging at the knitting store is still better than buying a screwtop bottle of wine and drinking it alone in my room.
That would only cost seven bucks, but it’s not worth it. Daniela doesn’t get to do that to me.
I admire a mohair that tickles my hand and an angora that’s meltingly soft. But that’s not what I’m looking for. Then I find some balls of cognac-colored merino wool. The strands are smooth but thick, and it’s priced for a closeout.
There are eighteen balls left. Enough for a sweater.
I buy them, trying not to look at the total on the credit card slip I’m signing. It’s a splurge, but not for me. I’m going to make Alec Rossi a sweater. It will be my way of saying thank you for all the help he gave me in my time of need. If by “time of need” you mean “period of temporary insanity.”
The color will look smashing with his big, dark eyes.
* * *
The week grinds to its inevitable conclusion. I knit with fervor over the weekend, because my family is driving me crazy.
They’re still worrying about me every hour on the hour. And it’s not like they don’t have better things to do. Griffin is busy bottling cider and preparing for the birth of his child. Dylan has barn repairs to make and finals to study for.
My grandpa has a TV to yell at. He doesn’t fuss over me, for which I’m grateful.
My mother, though. She sounds like a second-rate therapist. “Time heals all wounds,” she says to me at least once a day. And, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
I’m knitting the early rows on Alec’s sweater while she’s saying this, nodding along as I count stitches in my head. Knitting is very Zen.
Unfortunately, I’m not feeling Zen enough to keep my mouth shut when Mom attacks Daniela again the following day. We’ve just had dinner, and Mom and Dylan and I are sitting on the sofa in the TV room.
I’m knitting row number seven when she starts up again. “There is something broken inside that girl,” she insists as she stirs honey into her tea. “That’s the only reason someone could ever mistreat you. I’m glad you can see her now for what she is.”
“There’s something broken about everyone,” I grumble. “I took a risk on her, and it didn’t work out. But if I held out for the perfect person, I’d be single for the rest of my life.”
My mother sets the spoon down and frowns at me. “She didn’t deserve you, and I don’t know why you would even disagree at this point.”
“Because I’m not blind or deaf,” I shoot back, my voice getting high and angry. “You guys walk around here explaining to me how bad Daniela was, like I was always too dumb to notice that she wasn’t always good to me. News flash—I knew that already.”
“Then why on earth did you put up with it?” My mother’s face is incredulous. Dylan is eyeing both of us warily, wondering how he can make his escape.
“Because,” I squeak. “People can change. She’d been good to me once, she could have done it again. I didn’t want to give up too easily.”
But that’s only half true, and that’s why my throat is closing in on itself. Because there’s another reason, too. There’s something broken about me—something a little too needy. The minute I let myself really want someone, I always wreck it.
Maybe Daniela could sense my desperation. She stopped being attracted to me because I wasn’t feeling very attractive.
I stare down at my seven rows of knitting with a critical eye. The first few rows of every knitting project look horrible. Every time. There’s no way to see the beauty that will emerge. It’s always just a little snake of nothingness at this stage. You just have to hang in there until it takes a real shape.
Pushing the needle through the next stitch, I loop the yarn and pull it through. Knitting is a lot like sobriety. One painstaking little loop at a time. The whole is more beautiful than the sum of its parts.
On the other end of the couch, my mother is struggling not to say anything more. She’s angry at Daniela for hurting her baby girl, and she doesn’t care who hears it. But she is a woman of great restraint, so all she says is, “Have you called Dr. Reynold’s office?”
“No. Why?”
“You should get tested, honey. Anyone who discovers that her relationship wasn’t monogamous owes it to herself to check her health.”
“Annnd I’m out,” Dylan says, leaping out of his seat and dashing from the room.
My neck gets hot. Although I want Mom to talk about something other than my relationship failures, I didn’t realize that a segue meant we’d move on to my vag instead.
Also, she’s right, damn it. I owe it to myself to get tested.
And to poor Alec.
“I believe that Dr. Reynolds is on a cruise around the world,” my mother says calmly. “But there is probably another doctor who can see you.”
“Okay.” I sigh. “I’ll call them tomorrow.”
* * *
It takes me two days to call, because I dread it. But when I finally get around to it, the receptionist confirms that our usual guy is on vacation. “I can get you in with him two weeks from now, or you could see our newest nurse-midwife tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow would be great,” I tell her. And I’m almost relieved to be seeing someone who doesn’t know me or my mother or my sister. It’s not that I don’t think Dr. Reynolds would keep my patient confidentiality. It’s just that I don’t want to look him in the eye.
So I end up telling my sob story to the fresh faced Miss Goldman instead. “I just broke up with a girlfriend who was cheating on me,” I tell her as she hands me a cotton gown. “So I’ll need a full battery of STD tests.”
My voice doesn’t even shake. It’s only my ego that quivers with fear and frustration.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she says, patting my hand. “You’re really smart to get tested. Not everyone has the courage to walk in here and face it.”
“Thanks.” I swallow hard, because I really needed to hear that. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Put that on and I’ll be right back to examine you. Should we take care of your pap smear while you’re here?”
“Okay, why not.”
She makes a note on a clipboard. “One more question—should I be asking you about birth control? If your last relationship was with a woman, the topic probably didn’t come up. But do you anticipate having intercourse which could lead to a pregnancy?”
For a moment I just blink at her. She has lovely blue eyes and exactly the sort of nonjudgmental face that someone working in a gynecologist’s office needs. “Well…” I take a breath. One t
hing you learn in AA meetings is to be brutally honest with yourself. “It’s possible that I should be thinking about birth control.”
She smiles. “Oh, goody. Birth control is my favorite part of the job. Have you ever taken birth control pills?”
“Yes—in college. But not for the last five years. I wasn’t very good at remembering to take them.”
“What about an IUD?” she asks. “They’re effective for at least five years, and basically foolproof. We’re seeing a lot of young women choose them, especially now that the future of their health insurance seems a little unstable.”
Hmm. “Tell me more,” I say.
Chapter Nine
Alec: Did you hear the one about the dyslexic?
May: Hi Alec.
Alec: Hello! Just checking in. You doing okay?
May: Still embarrassed.
Alec: It wasn’t that hard of a slap. I didn’t see your handprint on her mean little face.
May: Not about that!
Alec: :) I don’t have any idea what you should be embarrassed about. I’m not.
May: Good to know.
Alec: Do you want to hear a bad joke about a bar now?
May: Sure
Alec: A dyslexic walked into a bra. (That’s the whole joke.)
May: I like that one. Short and sweet. Also, I like bras. And everything inside them.
Alec: **Waits for more descriptive details.**
May: Perv.
Alec: Hold out.
May: Why are you texting me?
Alec: Just to see if you’re still talking to me.
May: But we weren’t chummy before.
Alec: That seems like a mistake.
May: You’re looking for a repeat.
Alec: Not opposed to that idea. But I promise that even if we didn’t recently have spontaneously combustible truck sex, I’d still be texting you right now with my bad jokes.
May: Why?
Alec: A) Everyone else has already heard them. B) I think you’re fun.
May: That is nice of you to say.