Landslide

by Jenn Cooksey

Still facing the cigarette machine, she stands up, and with a single, irritated toss of her dishwater blonde hair over her shoulder, a bulldozer comes right the fuck out of nowhere and slams straight into my chest, forcing my heart to stop beating and my lungs to seize. Without even thinking, I wrap my hand around the shot glass and down whatever is in it. My taste buds malfunctioning like the rest of me, I don’t even taste it. She turns around and I’m done. Exactly like I knew I would’ve been if I’d attempted to see her one last time even from afar. My whole entire life up to seven years ago is standing right here, living and breathing in the same room as me, and it’s as if not a single second has passed since the last time I saw her. Everything I once felt and thought I’d completely put behind me comes rushing right back and plows me down. Everything, that is, except the anger.

  You sure about that there, buddy? You’re content now and even happy most times, and you’re an excellent actor the rest of the time, but even you can’t pretend you don’t remember why you up and started a new life; that it doesn’t still cross your mind once in a while, and when it does, you can’t deny being left with a slight aftertaste of bitter resentment.

  Okay, so maybe I’m not one hundred percent over flaccid Captain America getting to her first. And yeah, so what if for a couple years or so I fantasized on and off again about how he and/or she could meet their end in the most off the wall and outrageous of circumstances because it made me feel better than admitting how I could be at fault for all that happened in the first place? That minuscule, grudge-holding percentage is nothing compared to the rest of what I feel and it doesn’t diminish in the least the reason why I wanted my forever to be spent with her. I just never thought I’d see her again so I moved on with my life and accepted it would be lived without her in it. I didn’t have to be on guard anymore and I stopped plotting a course of action for how to handle crossing the finish line because I’d forfeited the race altogether.

  But now… Shit. There’s so much to consider now…so much time has gone by. So much has happened. I honestly don’t know where to begin or if I even should.

  I don’t know if you should either. She already hurt you once, and coming back from it in one piece was shy of a miracle.

  Yeah, well, I think intentionally being a grandiose douche and then abandoning her for seven years without even once reaching out to let her know I’m alive probably does more than make us square.

  True. But hey, maybe you’re spinning your wheels yet again. You know, she might not even remember you after all this time.

  The hell? She BETTER fucking remember me!

  Her eyes begin to cast a net over the room at large and unable to take the rapidity of severe anxiety building over whether she’ll recognize me or not, or if I’m gonna have to go to her, and if that’s the case, whether I should or if I should just keep on pretending she was devoured by a deep sea behemoth no one’s ever heard of before that only eats girls who answer to her full name, or my more recent Christmas time fallback of her being flattened into a snowdrift by Santa’s reindeer-driven sleigh, I snatch Ryan’s last cigarette and light up for the first time in something like three years.

  “What the hell you doin’, man? That was my last one and you don’t even smoke!” he gripes and throws the empty pack down on the table, highly displeased because now that he knows he’s out, he wants one—bad. My predicament is far more serious than his though so I win.

  Like riding a bicycle, I inhale deeply and let the nicotine try to do its thing to chill me out. “I need it more than you so quit your bitching. I’ll buy you a carton tomorrow,” I mutter, leaning back against my barstool’s doweling backrest, exhaling almost pure relief in the same breath, realizing how much I’ve truly missed this, and watching her face for any teeny sign of recognition while praying like I never have before that I’m not getting all worked up for nothing.

  Her gaze sweeps past our table and not more than a millisecond later, her questioning eyes find mine.

  Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit! Fuck. Happy now? She recognizes you. Now what are you gonna do? You can’t dive under a table after the fact and take cover like I know you want to, but…you gotta do SOMEthing, idiot! But don’t stand up and go over to her. Or smile. And don’t look happy to see her. You know, because we’re not sure we are. Don’t do any of that stuff, but do…like, something.

  Right. Something. Got it. I think. Shit.

  My eyebrows raise to answer her query from across the room as if I were to say, “Nope. Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you…” Like part of me wishes mine were. I look down at the table and flick a short head of ash into the tray before bringing the death stick back to my mouth for another lung-full of incendiary addictive succor. Glancing back up through my lashes though, I see her smirk and start forward, which of course not only incites further pandemonium within me, but quiet hysteria now erupts around me as well.

  INCOMING! INCOMING! Forget what I said and take evasive action, you tool! There! There’s a spot under that table to your left!

  “Oh my God, you guys, she’s heading this way,” Jerry worriedly yet excitedly whispers, even though no one aside from the three of us can possibly hear him.

  Oh my God, are you not even looking for a place to hide?

  I’m trying to! And would you stop yelling at me, please?!

  I can’t help it! Seriously, she’s getting closer! Where’s that jolly brick wall when you need him?! You could hide behind him and she’d never see you again!

  “Shit. Be cool, be cool,” Ryan counsels, again, in a whisper.

  He’s still taking a goddamned leak! I mean, he does have seven umbrellas to take home. Eight if you count the one floating in the drink the waitress just brought.

  “Yeah. Cool like Fonzie. Guys, can you visibly see how much I’m sweating?” Sean asks. Unfortunately, he’s asking for one of us to actually check his pits for visible wet spots.

  Oh! Drink that shit. Now! Maybe it’ll help!

  “You better not screw this up for us, Hastings.” This last bit just before she reaches our table and might be able to actually hear the calamity she’s causing is hissed out the side of Ryan’s mouth, and it comes with a kick to my shin under the table.

  It has a pink straw!!

  Damn it, you’re right, you can’t drink that. Better make like a master mason and build a wall right quick then. Time’s up, she’s here…

  “Erica.”

  Oh. My. God. I said build a wall, not channel your dad!

  Once her name comes out of my mouth, in my peripheral vision I see the mouths of my three friends become slack and I feel the weight of their stunned eyes as they stare at me, all having been one hundred and ten percent oblivious to my internal panic attack because apparently, I’m just that good.

  28

  “Mama’s Broken Heart”

  —Erica—

  I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me right away; however, my brain kicked in and informed me that cell phones have this state of the art ability to save more than one phone number per contact. So, I added both possibilities, wiped with the napkin, and then tried to do something with my disheveled appearance in the foggy mirror before rejoining the cast from what I can only picture as a deleted scene in Road House.

  Actually, before I left the bathroom, I called one of the numbers and got an answering machine, and unless an older woman with a thick Chinese accent is handy with a tire iron, I’m guessing the one is actually a seven. I would’ve tried that number in the echoing quiet of the ladies’ room too except that just as I hung up on Mrs. Wu, two women burst into the bathroom. They stumbled straight into the lone stall, together, and without even bothering to close the door, one of them dropped to her knees and began puking up her gin and tonics and buffalo wings. I know this because the other woman who was holding her friend’s hair back reproved her friend for eating and drinking as much of both as she did. Being that I felt those sound effects wouldn’t exactly endear anyone to coming out tonight and giving a
desperate girl a hand, I figured I’d either wait pukey out or just brave the acid rain outside to make my call in somewhat peace and quiet.

  On my way back to the flannel infested bar, I ended up having to do that awkward side-step dance with a gorgeous, brick-house of a guy as he was heading the way I’d just come from. Insanity took over for a brief moment and I considered dropping to my knees and clutching the surely capable hands of He-Man, Master of the Universe, while groveling and begging him to put off his bladder to help little ol’ me, but I came to my senses in time. I did smile at him though. I think I was aiming for my best “I think you’re hot and I’m single” smile because the man is seriously smokin’, although it was a wasted effort because he barely even glanced down at me when he apologized and edged around me to get himself to the bathroom.

  After that disappointing encounter, I come face to face with my nemesis once again. I mean, the thing took my money, so it shouldn’t have been surprised that I would be back, pulling on its knobs again and groping around in its dispenser tray to get what it owes me. All it gives me though is more irritation, which coincidentally only makes me feel like smoking even more. Fed up and getting that uncomfortable sensation again of having my butt visually fondled, I stand up and choose to this time see if I’m just being paranoid, or if some creeper redneck is actually trying to use x-ray vision to see through my jeans.

  My eyes begin roaming and at first, they don’t really pick up on much aside from the bar’s apparent dress code. But then, my gaze sweeps over a table tucked in the corner across from me. And honestly, the only reason I even look twice is because he stands out from the herd in a white, waffle-knit thermal undershirt and over it is a black t-shirt with an unfamiliar logo on the front. I mentally give the guy props for having the courage to have not drank from the town’s well of plaid Kool-Aid, but that’s where any polite thoughts stop. Actually, that’s essentially where all thought stops.

  I literally cannot believe my eyes and who they’re being held utterly paralyzed by. So many differing emotions go winging through me one right after another…

  One: Enormous relief. Two: Fury. Three: Envy, because he’s got a cigarette and I don’t, as the ancient keeper of nicotine obviously hates me. Four and five have me back to alternating between wanting to tackle him to the ground with the hugest of bear hugs imaginable, or, tackling him to the ground and then standing on his chest with one foot while I use the other to repeatedly kick him in the ribs, kidneys, head, and any place and every place that’ll inflict the most long-term damage. Six finds me wanting to let out the shrillest of screams at the top of my lungs in the hopes that, including the windows, all the glass in this place shatters as a reflection of how my heart did when he broke his promise to me.

  Seven then is me telling myself to hold it together and for the love of sweet baby Jesus, don’t let anyone see the crazy I’ve clearly got going on, because eight comes out of freaking nowhere with me suddenly wanting to just kiss his face. A lot. Like, I actually want to make-out with the arrogant son of a bitch. And I say arrogant because recognizing me without a single doubt, he raises his eyebrows in the most imperious of ways, as if he’s daring me or something, but regardless, it’s clear he’s not about to get off his damned bar stool or cocky ass to even come greet me. And then, his highness takes another regal drag off that fucking cigarette.

  Checking to make sure my freshly manicured fingernail polish didn’t get chipped in the subzero war my fingers had with the zipper of my jeans a few minutes ago, and being grateful for having the forethought of removing my wayward makeup from under my eyes, finger-combing out the wet tangles in my hair and fluffing it up a smidge, and knowing I’m wearing my good boob bra under this fitted V-neck sweater and I also have on nice butt jeans, I therefore feel somewhat confident in my appearance when I begin walking over to his table. He just sits there and I smile to myself about both slapping his smug face and, only a teeny bit, remembering what it was like to kiss it all those years ago.

  “Alright then, game on,” I all but accept the challenge out loud. There are a million and one things I feel like saying to him and although I’m still torn on which to lead with, most everything I’m considering is instantly forgotten, being no match for what comes out of his mouth when I reach his table…

  “Erica,” he says, all self-important, my name coming out of his mouth sounding almost but not quite condescending.

  Rather than calling him a bastard to his face for once or throwing myself across the cluttered table to show him just exactly how happy I am to see that he’s alive, all I can think of is standing in his kitchen the morning after Holden’s funeral.

  “Mr. Hastings.”

  It just slips out and before I have the chance to have any feelings at all about my prosaic rebuttal to his impersonation of his high-handed father, I catch his lips flash a lightning-quick smirk. It tells me he knows exactly how he sounded, but not whether it was intentional, which means he could either be playing with me or has succumbed completely to the egotistical DNA he was born with, even though his dad was the last person on Earth he ever wanted to emulate. Then the pompous jerk takes another long hit off his cigarette and sort of squints at me through the veil of smoke, waiting for me to say something else even though it’s his stupid turn, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why he’s making me work so hard for…well, anything.

  “So. You’re alive.”

  “As you see,” he says, inclining his head just barely and raising his eyebrows again, but this time it’s not as if he’s daring me. Instead it’s like he could be shaking his head and muttering, “Really? That’s all you got?” and I feel like slamming my palm to my forehead in shameful agreement. Of course I don’t do that, though, because I’m not about to give him the satisfaction, especially in front of all his friends who, of course, are hanging on every word we say, few as those words have been.

  My palms itch and my mouth starts watering when he brings the cigarette back to his lips and I can’t help it… “Can I have one of those?”

  For a brief, contemplative second he looks at me, exhales, and then without breaking eye contact, he decidedly smashes the cigarette out while saying, “I don’t smoke anymore.”

  “Humph. Clearly.” The sarcastic remark is shot out with the acknowledgment to myself that the passing of time more often than not changes people and that’s perfectly fine, but based off the kind of person I used to know him as and the kind of person he seems to have become, I’m not entirely sure I like this new Cole. He’s kind of a dick.

  “And you never should’ve started,” he adds but punctuates his statement with a quick wink, which brings me back to being at an utterly complete loss as to how either of us is feeling about this unexpected meeting.

  The sound of one of his friends clearing his throat has me turning my attention from Cole’s face and forgetting what I was going to say again though.

  “I, uh, take it you two know each other…”

  My eyes flick back to Cole to see him nodding and giving me another contemplative look, except this one is considerably longer than the first and it’s something close to accusatory. “Mmhm. Erica and I go way back, don’t we…?”

  It was weird; the way he said it. As if he left something out there at the end or cut himself off from saying anything else.

  I’m trying to figure out what more he could’ve said that he would’ve had to stop himself from, although I immediately reply without giving the answer much thought. “Yeah, we do…back to the beginning of time, right?”

  “That we do,” he agrees and nods again.

  “But it’s been how many years now? Si—”

  “Seven, sweetheart,” he immediately corrects before glancing down and plucking the straw and an umbrella out of a piña colada to take a huge gulp straight from the glass, “It’s been seven years.”

  And that’s when it hits me. Why his question sounded so strange. He’d left off any of his typical terms of endearment and
he did it on purpose. When sweetheart came out just now, I think it was habitual, but it also became clear by how he said it that, at this specific moment in time, he isn’t all that happy with me. And well, I guess I don’t blame him; although, I have just as much reason to not be all that thrilled with him in return.

  “Right, seven,” I mutter and decide to forgo berating him like I first wanted to. However, bygones can’t always be bygones even when we want them to be nothing else. “You know, I went ahead and had a funeral for you,” I tell him, but I don’t say it in a punishing way at all; it’s more like I’m trying to find the humor in actually doing something like that in the first place and admitting it out loud.

  In retrospect it was a pretty immature thing to do, but at the time, I was so hurt, angry, and convinced he wouldn’t survive that I thought it would be easier to just get saying goodbye out of the way and go on with my life by believing he was already dead. It was almost as if I was freeing myself of the future pain and grief I would go through. The kicker and what ultimately had me going through with the event was that just the idea of having to wait for the eventuality of his certain death was unbearably suffocating. So, after I called countless times to take what I’d said back and sent I don’t even know how many texts that went unanswered, I buried him, mourned his loss for a while, and then I forced myself to live my life.

  Hearing the self-deprecating laughter hidden within my words without having to strain himself in the slightest, he sort of chuckles at me. “Hope you’re not holding a grudge or plan to hit me again for missing another funeral, ‘cause I didn’t even get an invite to that one.”

  “You would’ve if you had ever answered your phone.”

  I’m trying so hard to keep all bitterness from my tone, facial features, and body language, because mixed in with my sucky attempt at appearing as unaffected as he seems to be by seeing me again could possibly underscore my crazy this evening, I was thinking I shouldn’t mention some of these things to him quite so soon, if ever. At the same time though, I feel like he should at least know that the second I hung up on him, I felt remorse for that and for what I said right beforehand. And to some extent, I also want him to have an inkling as to what his leaving did to me.