by Jenn Cooksey
Most of all though, when Erica and I kiss, it means something. Every time and every kiss. It’s like we’re on a different plane of consciousness and we’re communicating in a language only she and I can speak. I know that no one else can possibly understand our conversation, and I’m not sure we even completely understand either, although that doesn’t negate what eavesdroppers might hear, and I don’t think I’ll ever be too fond of others listening in to Erica and me when it comes to what’s private and only meant for our hearts and souls to interpret.
The other thing is, Erica and I have yet to actually talk. We haven’t discussed what we’re doing and despite her willingness to go along with being more than friends privately, I still haven’t been given any clear sign that she thinks of us as anything more than that in actuality. Twice at the bowling alley she made it plain to me and everyone around us that we’re friends, nothing more. Even after that kiss. It’s frustrating to say the least. When she labeled our relationship for Violet, it was all I could do to bite my tongue. I downed a beer instead and then took five in the bathroom to get my irritation under control. Then she kissed me and I felt like I was flying, only to hit the ground hard when she called herself my friend again. I’m also finding that although I’m the one who said we shouldn’t rush anything, I don’t feel like I can be upfront with her about my feelings or anything else until she shows me that she wants to be more than what she obviously thinks of us as. And she needs to be the one to bring it up. Problem is, I don’t think she will. At least, not soon enough.
The weekend forecast was calling for heavy snow starting on Saturday so Erica chose to run down the mountain on Friday to see her grandmother for the afternoon in the hopes that she’d be back before the first flurries fell, and then I took her out for a real celebratory dinner that night. Although the gates were kicked wide open with force when I took her home, an emergency work call prevented me from even stepping across the threshold into her house, let alone into anything else of hers. Once Saturday rolled around however, things escalated quickly. And, waking up in jail come Sunday morning, I’m finally acknowledging how very little time I have left.
I dodged a small caliber bullet in my truck Saturday afternoon when she and I were on our way to pick out our Christmas trees, but it felt like IEDs were going off all around me at Henry’s surprise party. She was in a glorious mood and looked so vibrant and full of divine possibility, I could hardly take my eyes off her. That in itself caused a problem or two, but admittedly, I don’t think we ever should’ve done those initial shots. I had originally planned to stay one hundred percent sober; however, I couldn’t pass up the temptation even in the first round. We’d just sat down with our plates heaped high from the buffet when the tinkling of flatware being tapped on a glass was heard. Like at a wedding reception when the sound is heard, tradition says that the newlyweds should kiss, except at this party, it meant shots were going around and everyone was meant to toast the birthday boy and drink up.
Shots were placed in front of us just as they were for every partygoer, so Erica and I looked at each other speculatively and considered the contents of our one-ounce glasses, trying to make up our respective minds about what kind of night we were going for.
“Mmm…I don’t know. You get naked when you drink,” I joked. Come to think of it though, Erica does seem to take her clothes off kind of often around me. Not complaining, mind you, just realizing.
“True,” she agreed with a nod, “And you get handsy.”
We contemplated the shots and each other once more, and then simultaneously decided we didn’t give a shit. We clinked our glasses, toasted Henry, and downed our first shots. They were followed though by more shots interspersed amongst a white Russian or two for her and I don’t even want to know how many jack and cokes for me.
I was systematically getting blitzed; however, things for the most part seemed to be going decently, leaving out that Ryan was of course there, because that alone irked me. I could say my guttural reaction to his continued attention to Erica and flirting with her came from a place of wanting to protect her from all dangers; in this case, a friend of mine who wouldn’t know how to be faithful even if his life depended on it. That would be a lie though. I do want to protect her, but the plain truth is, I’m jealous. And probably a smidge paranoid. When it comes to Erica and a situation where’s there’s potential for her to run off with another guy—again—I go a little nuts in my head. I don’t show it outwardly, but it’s there, lurking in my imagination. The way I dealt with it at the party was any time she was invited to dance with anyone, be it an eighty-year-old man with nine great grandchildren, or one of the college guys who’d come into town with one of Henry and Violet’s sons, I would watch for maybe ten seconds or so, then get up and either get another shot or a drink, or I’d go to the bathroom or out into the alley for a smoke. It worked. For a while anyway.
The first real bomb that went off, though, was detonated by Jerry—or rather, Erica overhearing Jerry “encouraging” me. I’d lost track of her somewhere between a trip to the bar and her using the ladies’ room after she and I both had snuck outside for an illicit cigarette break and dark alley make-out session that was more or less interrupted before it ever really got started by a couple of the frat guys. They came bursting through the door and one of them started blowing chunks into the compacted snowdrift against the building the second his lungs filled with fresh air. After that, getting handsy or even remotely naked in a freezing cold, dirty alley lost its appeal, especially once the smell hit us. Anyway, I had my back against a wall next to the hallway leading to the restrooms when Jerry came up. He pulled me sideways making me put my back to the hallway just so that he could keep his eyes on the dance floor better and pester me at the same time he watched Marcy enjoying herself.
“So, what’s it been like not havin’ anyone to rush home to? Or, has Erica been waiting for you every night now? Huh? Huh?” His query was accompanied by a good-natured elbow to my ribs.
I gave him an exasperated look and basically ignored him while taking another drink, even though there were only ice cubes left in my glass at the time.
“Come on, take it from me…you gotta get in there and live it up before your time of livin’ free is over again, my friend. You got what? A week or so left?”
“‘Bout that,” I mumbled and continued to chew a piece of ice.
An uncomfortable sensation sank its teeth in me, and thinking it was just another PTSD leftover reminding me how vulnerable I was with my back unguarded, I turned around and saw Erica standing there. I didn’t know what she’d heard, but I shook my head and gave her a forbearing smile, hoping she’d just ignore everything that came from Jerry’s busy-body mouth. I didn’t want her to take what he’d said as implying that I should be looking to hit it and quit it, especially because that’s the very last thing I want to do in terms of Erica.
When she continued to look at me with concern, or more like something that might’ve been bordering on disgust, I leaned over and whispered, “Don’t listen to him…he’s just giving me a hard time as usual.”
My reassurance didn’t seem to have an affect and then she asked me something that almost made me choke on my ice. “Okay, but…did you happen to forget to mention having a girlfriend? ‘Cause that’s what it sounded like. And I know we’re just kind of messing around here, but if you are seeing someone, that essentially makes me the other woman. A despicable skank of the highest order. I don’t want to be that person, Cole, so you need to be straight with me now.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond. Inwardly I was irritated with Jerry for opening his big mouth anywhere in the vicinity of Erica and outwardly, I think I probably just looked like a moron, letting out quiet huff of self-deprecating laughter. “No. I don’t have a girlfriend, Erica. I don’t even know when I went on a date last or who it was with. That’s why he was giving me shit.”
“Well…why is your time of ‘living free,’” she said, using air quot
es, “up in a week? What happens in a week?”
My eyes rolled from hers to Jerry’s, just as Erica lifted her gaze to see that he’d apparently been listening in. “Oh, that. He’s talking about Payton.”
Jerry’s eyes got wide when he swallowed a mouthful of beer too fast, and he had to clear his throat when it got stuck. “Yeah, sorry about any confusion. Just givin’ our boy a hard time about the gay guy he’s gonna be shackled to again. Think he’ll be here for Christmas or is he gonna try to stick it out with his family for this holiday?”
“Stick it out with his family?” she asked, quite willingly accepting Jerry’s and my segue into another topic, and causing me to stifle the biggest fucking sigh of relief known to man. I settled for a sigh of irritation instead when I answered her question though.
“Payton’s family didn’t exactly handle him coming out very well.”
Jerry let out a disgruntled huff at that. “Didn’t handle it at all if you ask me. I don’t care who are, you don’t cry supposed tears of joy when your son finally comes home from war one minute, and then send him packing the next.”
“Wait, his parents kicked him out?”
I felt my mood turning dark and foreboding at that point, although I still nodded and explained further. “Yep. His parents are hardcore Southern Baptists and were expecting him to propose to his high school sweetheart. They’d been together for eight years, so it wasn’t a ludicrous idea. But his mom and dad hadn’t heard that he ended things with her the very day he got home, and he hadn’t told the girl why he was breaking up with her because he was afraid of exactly what ended up happening.
“His mom sat him down, pulled out his great-grandmother’s diamond ring, he refused it, told her that they broke up, she didn’t accept it when he said it was over for good, saying things like he’d change his mind, he wouldn’t find anyone better, she stood by him through a six year stint in the service, he owes her, blah blah fucking blah. So, he lost his temper and ended up shouting out that it ain’t gonna happen ‘cause he’s gay. Annnnd he kinda let slip that he’d thoroughly tested out his orientation theory to be sure. His mother wouldn’t speak to him and his father pitched all his clothes out onto the lawn, shoved Payton out the door and locked it. He called me up, told me what happened, and I told him to get his queer ass on a plane. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. He’s hoping to be back here before Christmas, and he’s gonna be staying with me again until he finds his own place.”
“Oh my God,” Erica murmured in upset shock.
“Yeah.”
“Why’d he go home at all then? I would’ve just stayed here…”
“He could only bring his clothes when he flew out the first time, and he’s got some things to take care of, like selling his motorcycle. If he can’t get it sold before too long though, he’ll just tow it behind his Jeep and we’ll park it in my garage next to the Impala until spring.”
It was then, during that conversation, that I started to truly feel the weight of this gigantic timer affixed to an enormous stick of dynamite just waiting to detonate and demolish everything in a fifty mile radius. I don’t know why it took so long, because I happen to have strapped the goddamned thing on my body myself and have been lugging it around since the moment she stepped back into my life.
The next incident wasn’t so much a bomb as it was a kind of hit and miss aerial assault in the form of a woman who’s fresh on the market again. She’s an attractive and nice woman, I guess; I don’t know her well outside of group events and little league games that I go to when my friends’ kids are playing though, as I try to steer clear of situations that could potentially put me in an awkward position, which is exactly what forming any kind of social attachments with married women would do. At one point during the party however, she sort of ambushed me when Erica and I were coming back from the bar.
Jeanette only acknowledged Erica’s presence by looking down her nose at her and then inserting herself in between Erica and me when she strolled up to tell me about her divorce being final. And not only that, but taking my drink from me, she sipped it and handed me her card with her number on it while giving me a mini-rundown of her new custody schedule, telling me that she won’t have her kids this coming weekend or the first weekend of the year, in addition to being free for New Year’s. And let me just say, blatantly snubbing Erica that way did not win Jeanette any points with either of us. Erica was pissed, and that of course pissed me off. She didn’t say anything, but over Jeanette’s shoulder, I could see the seething going on inside her based on Erica’s affronted expression and her ever-bristling body language. I kept picturing a volcano about to blow its top. For the life of me, though, I didn’t know how to keep it from happening or escape without getting caught in the dead-center of a pyroclastic cloud doubling as a chick fight between a woman raised to value Emily Post-style etiquette and this year’s overwhelmingly ambitious and so far successful PTSA President. Seriously, I never thought I’d be so happy to be dragged to a dance floor to do a couples line dance in my life.
Now, Erica and are I the cliché when it comes to dancing; she loves it whereas I can take it or leave it. I’m not necessarily opposed to dancing in general, and I can do it most often without looking like a jackass, I think, although when it comes to line dancing, she and I both don’t get it. We feel like idiots tripping on our own feet and why anyone would want to look like an idiot in public escapes me. But, I never passed up an opportunity to experience everything we had the chance to during the course of our road trip, and when we were in Texas that summer and went to a public, old-fashioned square dance, I had to practically carry Erica out to the floor and force her to participate in the shenanigans.
She argued with me about it then, even though she knew she’d end up having fun no matter how ridiculous we thought we looked, but this time when Brookes and Dunn’s “Neon Moon” started playing and couples began taking the dance floor, she practically bounced with glee, actually clapped, and made a mighty big deal of “reminding” me of when we learned the Cowboy Cha Cha and what a great time we had. I knew exactly what provoked her, and it wasn’t a love of dancing country style. However, I kept my mouth completely shut and more than willingly let her tow me out from under Jeanette’s rudely dominating presence and to the middle of the dance floor where we were swallowed from sight by all the other couples. Not surprisingly, Erica’s face beamed the entire time we tripped, schooched, shuffled, and twirled our way around the dance floor. We laughed, reminisced a bit, and it ended up being a highlight of the night for me.
The missile that caused me to erupt though and ultimately saw me ending my evening in the back of cop car was Ryan and my overly aggressive and intoxicated reaction to his hammered and unwelcome attempt to get in Erica’s pants. She and I were headed out back again for another smoke, but I had to take a leak first so I told her to go on ahead and I’d join her in a minute. I did my thing and while I was washing up, Jerry came in and decided that standing in front of a row of urinals, two of which were occupied by guys with their zippers down, was as good a place and time as any to lecture me.
“So, explain to me what that was about earlier. I mean, I don’t know what you’re thinking, buddy, but I’m seein’ how you’re lookin’ at her and I cannot believe you haven’t told her what’s up.”
“I know. And thanks for picking up what I was putting down. I’m gonna talk to her, I am. It’s just…I need to be sure.”
“You need to be sure. We’re not talking about a gray area topic here, Cole, it’s about as cut and dried as it gets, so how much more time are you gonna take? ‘Cause pretty soon, you’re gonna hit the point of no return, you know. And I’m not gonna say anything to her myself, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t. And besides, that girl trusts you and needs you to be straight with her. She deserves to have a say in whether or not she gets even more involved than what she apparently already is.”
“Yeah, I get it. I know what I’m doing, okay?” I a
ctually had no idea what I was doing because if I had thought about it at all, taking Erica anywhere in public where people know me was about the dumbest thing I could do and I’d done it multiple times in the last week, so I guess I’ve just been lucky. Or, really fucking blessed. “It’s way more complicated than you know though, Jerry, so please, tell everyone to keep their mouths shut. And I’m begging you, stop badgering me and let me handle my life my way.”
“Well…kinda my point. It’s not just your life we’re talking about anymore, now is it? She trusts you for a reason. Live up to that reason, my friend. Man up and tell her, sooner rather than later, because I think you know just as well as I do that you’re gonna have a huge damned mess on your hands and a lot of hurt goin’ around if you wait much longer.”
I nodded my agreement as he zipped up. Then he washed his hands and the two of us went out back. Just as we went out though, Erica was heading back inside. She seemed irritated and when I questioned her with my eyes, she simply shook her head and indicated Ryan without using words. He was standing with the one college guy who hadn’t puked earlier and they were sort of laughing together about something. But when Erica told me she was going to get herself some water and went ahead inside, Ryan’s eyes made a beeline to her ass, so I decided to stay out there and have what I felt was a long overdo chat with him.
I lit a cigarette and looking Ryan straight in the face, I told him flat-out, “You need to quit hitting on her.”