Let's Be Frank

by Brea Brown

  Betty signals for another round. “Here we go.”

  “Okay…” I reply warily. “He’s a genius. Nobody can argue that.”

  “Samuel Pembroke,” Frankie says with a sneer. “Samuel Fucking Pembroke. I’m not saying he’s not a great writer. If you like those sorts of books.”

  “Even if you don’t… I mean, I certainly don’t, but he’s a legend.”

  “Whatever! The point is, he wrote a few dozen bestsellers and a how-to on writing, so now it’s impossible to have a discussion about writing without his effing name coming up. ‘Samuel Pembroke says…’ ‘According to Samuel Pembroke…’ You know, I think if Samuel Pembroke wasn’t Samuel Pembroke, he’d tell Samuel Pembroke to go fuck himself.”

  Speechless, I stare at her.

  Betty flaps her lips and drums her fingers on the table.

  Frankie holds my eye contact, jutting out her chin for good measure. “I’m sorry,” she finally mumbles, looking away and shredding her cocktail napkin. “I just get so annoyed with the Samuel Pembroke references.”

  “I see that. His name was the first one to pop into my head, and it illustrated my point, that’s all,” I explain. “I don’t even like his books. They bore the crap out of me.”

  She puts her hands on either side of my face and plants a playful peck on my lips. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “That rant was probably so random.”

  “Kind of,” I admit, feeling like I’m riding the Bi-Polar Express, with Frankie as the conductor.

  She lets go of my face but takes possession of my hand. I squeeze it, but more to appease her than to show affection. It’s all I can do not to snatch my hand away from hers and put it in a safer place. I’m not sure she doesn’t bite.

  Instead, I use soothing tones when I suggest, “Sounds like you’d be the perfect candidate for a pen name.”

  I look to Betty for affirmation. She merely nods, like this is all something she’s said before to her friend.

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” Frankie replies. “It’d be different if I could hide behind a different name and a different face…”

  Another full beer appears in front of me, and I dive into the milky, smooth dark ale.

  Betty and Frankie exchange a glance that definitely means something, but I can’t quite interpret it in my fuzzy-headed state. Holding Betty’s gaze, Frankie says, “Women love it when a guy writes chick lit.”

  “Heck, I love it,” I agree, trying to control the slur creeping into my words. “It usually sounds just like all the other books, but it’s the perception it’s different that makes it great. ‘A dude wrote this? He must be so in touch with his feminine side.’”

  “Grrrowl,” Frankie says with a giggle.

  I laugh. “Exactly! Makes me wonder, how many of those guys are the actual writers of the books? Maybe their wives or girlfriends… or ghostwriters… are doing all the writing while the men are posing for headshots and making appearances in front of screaming ladies.”

  Frankie squeezes my hand to the point of pain… if I could feel pain. But I don’t seem able right now. I feel too warm and… happy. Mmm… beer. I love beer.

  “That’s just it,” she says with a pout. “I need a face. A man’s face.” Her hand lands on the inside of my thigh. High.

  “I can be your face,” I toss out carelessly.

  “Yes!” she cries. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  My eyelids are so heavy that it takes a while for me to focus on her face and remember what I said that could be eliciting such orgasmic agreement. The concentric circles she’s tracing so close to my Happy Zone aren’t aiding concentration.

  I give her a goofy smile. “What she said.”

  “No, what you said!” The hypnotic thigh-rubbing ceases. She taps me on the tip of my nose. My blinks feel about ten seconds long as I try to follow her finger… and the conversation.

  “What did I say?”

  Betty snorts. “I think it’s time you took Nurse Lightengale home before we have to carry him.”

  Frankie shoots her friend a dirty look. “No. He’s fine. I want to explore this topic a little more.”

  “He’s getting sauced!”

  “No, I’m not,” I claim, not wanting either of them to think I can’t hold alcohol any better than a skinny sorority girl. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine in a minute. I just gotta use the bathroom.”

  I make my way to the bathroom, managing to walk in a straight line (I think) and not bump into anything or anyone in the now-crowded bar, nodding and smiling at the people I pass, who either ignore me or bestow on me looks that convey everything from pity to disgust to— Hey, that woman was totally checking me out. Glancing over my shoulder at her while I pass almost destroys my precarious equilibrium, so I whip my head back around and focus on getting to the door with the correct silhouette on it.

  Inside the bathroom, I take care of business at the urinal, glad I’m alone (I have a shy bladder). When I look at myself in the mirror while washing my hands and silently singing the alphabet to make sure I’m washing them long enough, I note with surprise that I don’t look as drunk as I feel. I pull two paper towels from the dispenser by the mirror, using one to dry my hands and one to protect them from the door handle as I pull on it. There. I must not be too far gone, since I’m still worried about touching the handle that some jackleg touched after handling himself—and whatever—and not washing his hands.

  When I get back to the table, a huge glass of water sits in place of my empty beer glass. I slide into the booth and chuckle. “Geez. Your concern is touching, but I’m really okay. That last one hit me hard, but now that I’ve walked around, the buzz is fading. Why don’t we order something to eat, huh?”

  When my speech receives no response, I look from one woman to the other. Frankie’s lips are absent, sucked into her mouth as if she’s already eaten—a lemon. Betty laconically signs the credit card slip in front of her with a flourish, and slaps the pen on top of the tiny plastic clipboard.

  “Are we leaving? What did I miss?”

  I seem to recall everyone was happy before I left, but now… Something obviously happened while I was gone.

  “Nothing,” Frankie replies tersely. “Drink your water.”

  Like a chastened child, I start to do as I’m told, but a few gulps in, I stop and say to the silent table, “Seriously. What’s wrong?”

  As if I haven’t said a thing, Betty pushes the receipt holder toward the edge of the table and tucks her wallet into her purse. “Well, kids, I’m out of here. There’s a big shoe sale tomorrow at Younkers, and the doors open early.”

  “Yeah, fine. Bye,” Frankie dismisses her coldly.

  I tense, hating even the hint of confrontation, much less the uncomfortable aftershock of it, when I’m not aware of what actually went down. My body’s response to the psychological upset I’m feeling sobers me better than a head-dip in a cold barrel of water.

  I stand with Betty and say, “It was nice meeting you.”

  “Likewise,” she says, sounding sincere for the first time all evening. Her bright blue eyes soften around the edges. “Have a nice night.”

  “We will,” comes the firm assurance from behind me in the booth.

  Betty rolls her eyes and turns on her heel, waving at Rusty on her way out the door. “Left you a big tip, Russell. You’re welcome.”

  I watch her go, wrapping her scarf around her neck and sliding her hands into her gloves before she pushes on the pub’s door to reenter the cold, now-dark world.

  When I turn to sit back down, I bump into Frankie, who’s exited the booth and is standing right behind me.

  “You okay to drive?” she asks, sounding uninterested in the answer.

  “I will be in a few. Are you?”

  Instead of answering my question, she merely gives me a cold kiss on the cheek and says, “I’m traveling all next week, so do you want to do something this weekend?”

  Still thrown by the rapid change in the evening’s tone, I merel
y grunt an unsure, “Sure…” before recalling, “Oh, I told Mom and Dad I’d bring you with me to their place for lunch on Sunday, remember? But if you’d rather not do it this weekend, I’d totally understand.”

  Unfortunately, she brightens at the reminder. “I’m looking forward to meeting them. It just slipped my mind. Unless you’d rather not…”

  I’ve been putting it off for a couple of weeks now. If anyone’s waiting for me to want to do it, it’s never going to happen.

  I smile bravely. “I think my mom’s about to take matters into her own hands, and that’s always a dicey proposition, so it’s probably best if I take you to her. And Dad, of course. But he’s echoing whatever Mom wants, because—” I stop myself before mentioning anything about getting laid this century, since it comes too close to kicking the elephant in the room right between the legs. “—he’s a nice guy,” I finish lamely.

  “Apple must not have fallen far from the tree,” she purrs, pressing herself against my chest and leaning into my lips.

  Alcohol and biology conspire against the civilized, enlightened guy who usually controls things in my brain. “I can take a vacation to Doucheville, if you like it there.”

  Before her mouth makes contact with mine, she retreats, her face closing off.

  “Or not,” I mutter.

  She shrugs on her coat and pats my shoulder on her way past me. “Don’t forget to pay the tab,” she instructs. “I’ll see you Sunday.”

  Apparently, my trip to Doucheville will be via Wanktown.

  Chapter Six

  “Okay, so… um… here’s the thing. My parents…”

  “Yeah, I know. They’re psychologists.”

  “Psychiatrists.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  I sigh. This is going to be a long afternoon.

  She looks around the big brick porch, where we’re shivering as I deliver my final disclaimers before she meets Mom and Dad. “Nice house,” she declares. “‘Crazy’ pays well.”

  “They do okay,” I admit, trying to refocus her attention on me. Finally, I grip her upper arms and bend my knees so our eyes are level. “Hey. Just… Listen for a second, alright? I don’t want you to be blindsided by anything in there.” I bob my head over my shoulder toward the front door. “They don’t really believe in… boundaries.”

  “You’ve already told me they’re quirky. Trust me, when you meet my parents you’ll understand why quirky doesn’t faze me.”

  She tries to kiss me, but I pull my head back. I’m not in the mood for making out on my parents’ front porch.

  “Yeah, okay. Everyone says that. Then they meet my parents, who say and ask some pretty intrusive, personal things, and they get pissed off because I wasn’t more specific, so—”

  She laughs. “What? Are they going to ask us about our sex life?”

  My steady eye contact is all the confirmation she needs.

  It makes her laugh harder and louder. “Seriously?”

  I nod.

  “Well, that’s an easy one. I’m saving myself for marriage.”

  I gulp, not sure whether to feel relieved or devastated. “You are?”

  She shrugs like it’s no big deal nowadays. “Yeah.”

  “But you’re not…”

  Waving away her long-lost virginity like a pesky fly that’s managed to survive weeks of freezing weather, she says, “I have had sex before, yes. But…” Now she cuddles up to me, pushing me against the front door. “I think you’re special. And I think… I mean, maybe it would ruin everything if we had sex.”

  “I’m not so sure about that…”

  “Well, I am. Why do you think I haven’t already tried to jump your bones?” She twines her arms around my neck and breathes against my jaw. Her hot breath leaves a moist patch there.

  Lizard brain kicks in. “Uh… Well… I hadn’t thought much about it,” I lie. “I just thought, you know, we were taking things slow.”

  “We are. Really slow.” Her voice is little more than a growl. “And it’s hard. I think about it all the time. But I think the wait will be worth it.”

  She kisses me, soft and slowly at first, then hard and hungry. I moan, and she smiles against my lips, obviously aware of what she’s doing to me and enjoying it.

  Suddenly, the door behind me swings open, almost causing me to fall backwards into my parents’ foyer.

  “Oh, sorry!” Mom chirps. “I heard something out here and thought it was the Sunday paper being delivered.”

  “At 1:00?” I question, maintaining my balance by hanging onto the edge of the sidelight. I also have a handy counterbalance now sticking from the front of me, but I hope nobody notices… or at least they pretend not to notice.

  Frankie tucks her hair behind her ear and extends her hand. “Hi. I’m Frankie.”

  Mom shakes the proffered hand with a sheepish smile. “I’m Yvonne. And I didn’t really think you guys were the Sunday paper.”

  While I regain my footing, Frankie nods and bites her bottom lip. “Well, I see Nate comes by his honesty naturally.”

  I sigh, chagrined we couldn’t even get through the introductions before things got weird.

  “Oh, don’t start sighing already,” Mom implores on her way past me into the house. “Please, come in. Lunch is ready.”

  Frankie kisses my cheek as she follows Mom. “Relax,” she whispers in a husky voice that has the exact opposite effect on me.

  Thirty minutes later, over post-lunch coffees, Frankie listens raptly to Mom and Dad pontificate about birth order… and how it relates to Nick and me.

  “We tried to avoid all that middle-child rot by only having two,” Dad pipes in when Mom takes a breath. “But Nate’s thwarted those efforts, exhibiting many tendencies of middle children. He’s a blend-into-the-background guy, and he’s also the peacemaker.”

  Yes, I’d like to remind everyone here that I’m nearly thirty-three years old, and my parents still talk about me to people like I’m a child in a psychological study they’re conducting, like I’m not even in the same room. I prefer this, though, to the way they used to act when I was younger and would introduce them to girls I was dating. At least they haven’t asked Frankie to take a Myers-Briggs test or any other psychological profile quizzes, “just for fun.”

  Frankie squeezes my hand. “Well, I’m excited about having kids someday with someone special…” My heart lifts and races at this information, something she’s never shared with me before. Coyly looking away from me and back to my parents, she continues, “But I’m an only child, so the dynamic between siblings is fascinating to me. Psychology, in general, is really interesting.”

  “It’s a pseudo-science,” I mumble, earning a glare from Dad.

  “Being an only child comes with its own set of issues,” Mom says cheerfully, as if it’s such a wonderful thing there are enough psychoses to go around.

  I quickly intervene. “We don’t have to get into them today, though, right? We should save that for a special occasion, like Easter.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “Oh, Nate…”

  “I mean it. Why can’t we talk about the weather, like normal people?”

  “I think Nate’s worried we’re going to tell you something embarrassing, like about his bedwetting, which is actually common and not anything to be ashamed of.”

  “When I was a kid!” I hasten to clarify. “Not now.”

  “I think that went without saying,” Dad says, as if I’m the one being inappropriate.

  Frankie laughs behind her hand, then says to me, “It’s okay. I knew what she meant.”

  “What would you prefer we talk about, your brother marrying the woman you were going to marry a few years ago?” Mom asks, as if she’s been doing me a favor by talking about my need for plastic sheets well into elementary school. (I was a deep sleeper, alright? Like she said, and I know from my work in medicine, a real science, bedwetting is a widespread issue, especially with young boys.)

  “Oh, I already know all about
Nick and Heidi,” Frankie casually assures my parents.

  Mom laughs. “I should hope so. You’ll be Nate’s date to the wedding in May, right?”

  There are so many awkward assumptions in that question that I don’t even know where my pique should begin.

  Fortunately, nobody requires my participation in this conversation.

  Frankie winces. “My dad’s sixtieth birthday is that weekend, and I already have plane tickets to Arizona to visit them.”

  “What crappy timing!” Mom laments.

  Dad begins clearing the dessert dishes. “It’s probably for the best.”

  I’d love to ask him what he means by that. How could it be for the best that I go alone to the wedding of my brother to my former fiancée? How? I’m dreading it. And I can’t think of any way that it could be for the best. But I’d love more for this conversation to end, so I decide to table that discussion for another time, when he and I are alone. Now, I merely stare at his back as he walks away from the table into the kitchen to set the dirty dishes by the sink.

  Frankie sips her coffee, then says, “I know it’s going to be a hard day for Nate—”

  “Only because everyone’s going to be staring at me, waiting for me to make a scene,” I try to explain to a room of people apparently not interested in a single word I have to say on the topic.

  “I wish I could be in two places at once. It would take a lot of the pressure off you if you had a date,” she states the obvious.

  “It’s a long time from now.” I try to make it sound authoritative, like the last word. “We could all be dead by then.”

  “Nice,” Dad grumbles upon his return to the table.

  I laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound that hopeful. I just meant… it’s not worth worrying about right now. It’ll be fine.”

  Frankie gasps and grasps my hand. “Oh, my gosh! I have the best idea! You can take Betty as your date.”

  At first, I think she’s kidding, but as soon as I study her eyes, the laughter dies in my throat. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Who’s Betty?” Mom wonders, a grin spreading across her face. I can already tell she likes this harebrained idea… and that means I’m in trouble.