Old Fashioned

by Rene Gutteridge

  She put her hands on her hips. “Seriously. What’s your deal, stress boy?”

  He didn’t even falter. It was like he knew the questions were coming. “What happened to your hand?”

  “Fishing accident.”

  He nodded, but she knew he wasn’t buying her story. The question was, what was his story?

  He had turned, brushing a few leaves off the balcony railing.

  “Fine. I broke it hitting my previous landlord in the mouth for being too nosy.”

  He smirked. “I knew it wasn’t safe to be in there alone with you.”

  Well. Now he was just getting on her nerves.

  With a small sigh, he let down his guard a bit. “Look, don’t take it personally. I just . . . I made a promise . . .” He was scratching his face like he was anticipating hives. And then it seemed he’d lost all the words in his vocabulary. But she waited. Whatever game this guy was playing, she wasn’t impressed.

  Then Clay stood up tall like he’d found his way. He gave her a small, gentle smile, the kind that looked genuine enough to be followed by true words. “I made a promise to never be alone with any woman that’s not my wife.”

  “Oh . . .” Amber tried to nod, but it came out as an awkward rolling of her head and scrunching of her brows. “That’s, um, sweet. I think. She the jealous type?”

  “I’m not married.”

  Amber pointed down to the woman with the potty dangling from her hand, who had come outside to watch all this nonsense. “That’s not your . . . ?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Oh. Um, okay. Engaged?”

  “No.”

  “Living together?”

  He shook his head.

  “Dating?”

  “No. I don’t date. I have a theory . . .” His words trailed off into silence as loud as a freight train.

  “So,” she asked finally, “who’d you make this promise to?”

  He only shrugged again.

  Amber looked him up and down. This guy, she thought, was as perplexing as Latin. She’d seen the world and traveled to many places. Yeah, she’d made a few mistakes along the way. And paid for them too—she had the cast to prove it. Still, she considered herself fully able to read people.

  But this guy was sending off all kinds of signals. And she was having a hard time interpreting any of them.

  His hair was shaggy but not in a haven’t-taken-a-shower-in-days way, like one of her former boyfriends, Mac. Clay came across more laid-back. Kind of cool. Honestly, he seemed far too secure and casually seductive to possibly be this peculiar and uptight.

  And, man, those swimming blue eyes . . . destiny in motion.

  “Okay. Well, that’s different,” Amber said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Clay!” the woman with the potty hollered at him. “We gotta go! Cosie’s Chinese lessons.” She held up a paper sack. “Here’s the stuff for that shadow-box thing. Don’t forget. And keep it to yourself, got it?”

  Then she stepped out of Amber’s line of sight. She apparently made some sort of gesture that Clay waved off. When he turned back around, he had a bit of pink glowing from his cheeks.

  “What?” Amber asked. “Keep it to yourself”? He was getting more mysterious by the minute.

  “Nothing.”

  “So. Old Fashioned, huh?” The sign that hung over the door of his antique shop seemed more appropriate hanging around his neck.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a little on the nose.”

  “What can I say?”

  “You are a very, very strange man.”

  He only smiled, like that wasn’t the first insult he’d chosen not to dodge, and then he held up the key. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  “What about references?”

  “I usually have a pretty good feel for people.”

  “Ah. You won’t trust me alone in a room but you’re completely sure I’m not going to bounce hot checks.”

  He laughed. “I’m willing to give it a shot.”

  Amber didn’t want to frighten the poor guy, but she was going to have to open the door to get the key. He stepped back as she did and carefully dropped the key when she held out her hand. Then the screen door closed.

  “Well, if you need anything, all my information is on a piece of paper on the kitchen counter.”

  “All right.”

  She watched him walk down the stairs and out of sight. Mr. Joe circled her ankles, purring out his dissatisfaction.

  “I know, I know,” she said, picking him up. The tip of his tail softly brushed against her cheek. “He’s weird. He’s definitely weird.”

  Mr. Joe meowed in agreement.

  “But don’t you think there’s something kind of . . . interesting about him?”

  Mr. Joe leaped out of her arms and went to explore.

  Amber had a long day ahead of her, unpacking all her stuff. But for now, she needed a nap. She quickly fell into sleep on the couch and dreamed about screen doors.

  “DUDE, YOU OKAY? You don’t look so good.”

  “Headache,” Clay grunted, leaning against the arm of Brad’s couch and once again mentally cursing his friend for not hiring movers.

  “You don’t get headaches. You’re all Zen in the sawdust, right?” David—the third leg of their friendship stool—raised an eyebrow.

  “Funny. Actually I have a new renter in the apartment upstairs.”

  “So Lisa told me. I’m surprised. That place is tiny. And dull.”

  “And apparently not very soundproof. Let’s just say she likes her music. And likes it loud.”

  “Wow. I always envisioned a little old lady living there.”

  Clay grabbed the underside of the couch, his back straining against the weight. “Why are we doing this again?” he asked as he repeated over and over to himself, Lift with the legs, not with the back. This kind of thing would’ve been nothing fifteen years ago. These days he could throw out his back lifting a book.

  “Because—” David groaned as they simultaneously stood—“it’s the truest test of a male friendship. Most people think it’s buying a round of drinks. But it’s actually helping the brotherhood move.”

  “It’s the equivalent of slicing our hands with a knife and mixing our blood.”

  “No, man. This is much worse.” Sweat poured off both of them, running into their eyes. “Now start walking before I drop this thing on both our toes.”

  “What’s it made of? Dumbbells?”

  David laughed. “Don’t even get me started on that one. Brad probably bench-presses this sucker every night.”

  Clay walked backward and David forward. They managed well until they got to the doorway.

  “Lean to the left,” Clay said, but by the looks of it, they might have to cut it in two.

  “There is no way this is fitting through that door,” David grunted.

  “It fits!” Brad yelled. He was standing beside the moving truck, about to load a box with a basketball on top. “We got it in there, didn’t we?”

  “It’s so weird how things move in easier than they move out,” David said. “With furniture at least. Now, people—that’s another matter.”

  Clay sighed. “Come on. Just tilt it and angle it that way, and I think it’ll slide through.”

  After some maneuvering, they got it.

  David nodded toward Clay with that look in his eyes he got when he wanted Clay to spill the beans on something. And this time, they both knew what—his birthday gift. “Speak. I command you.”

  “Nope.”

  “Traitor.”

  “David, I’m sworn to secrecy. I gave Lisa my word. And you can’t tell me you don’t know how she would torture me if I let it slip. I’ve already had to hear the word tee-tee more times than any man without a kid should.”

  “Oooh. Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s a Cosie phase.” David gave a sad-puppy-dog face. “Come on, man. What’d she get me?”

  “No way. I’d be dead. You want m
e dead?”

  “Coward. You’re a coward and a traitor.”

  “And alive,” Clay said, shooting him a look. They loaded the couch into an already-crowded moving van, pushing it backward, smashing it against the boxes.

  “You couldn’t spring for something a little bigger?” David gestured toward all the boxes.

  “I’m saving for the mansion on the beach.” Brad grinned.

  “Well, that’s it for the big stuff,” David said, hopping off the truck and holding his side. Clay collapsed onto the couch.

  Brad climbed in to set the box on the couch next to Clay, then jumped out of the truck too. Clay grabbed the basketball, twirled it on his fingers a time or two. Then he gazed at the signatures. His. Brad’s. David’s. The rest of the intramural team. He gripped it, feeling the tiny leather bumps under his fingertips. In the hollow spaces of his memory, he heard the squeaks of tennis shoes. The thuds of bodies fighting for space under the basket.

  Brad bumped his arm as he climbed in again with another box. “Admit it. You’re three seconds away from sniffing that thing, aren’t you?”

  Clay laughed. “Just about.”

  He passed the ball to David, who held it up to the sun like it was the Lion King. “Nineteen-one.”

  “Should’ve been undefeated,” Brad growled. He and David passed the ball back and forth, recounting victories and game-winning plays long past, but Clay found himself sifting through the nearby boxes. Pictures. Trophies. More pictures. One picture in particular. He pulled it out, holding it tight against a building breeze.

  Now Brad and David were on the lawn arguing about the game that would never die. “I was wide open!” Brad yelled.

  Clay was glad they were momentarily distracted. He wanted to look a little longer. There she was, in his favorite picture of the two of them. Why Brad insisted on keeping pictures like this was beyond him, but it was good to see her face. Her bright eyes. Her wide grin, all teeth, hanging over the most delicate chin he’d ever seen, chiseled perfectly with a dimple right in the middle. And her hair . . .

  He decided to dig through another box. He opened one that wasn’t labeled and pulled out a postcard, laughing at the absurd picture on it. His and Brad’s large cartoon heads atop tiny bodies, with hands both trying to grab for a mike. It was about true. They did have big heads back then. And they were always fighting for the mike. Across the top it read Neanderthals, and in the background were five ladies in skimpy bikinis, partying it up. Clay’s attention wandered back into the box. Sitting on top was the DVD, Brad’s brightest shining moment until his job offer fourteen days ago. He threw the postcard back into the box and quickly closed the lid. But he could still hear the screaming girls, drunk on sunshine, sand, and attention.

  His attention.

  His thoughts were undone by the long, shrill honk of a car horn, and like they’d manifested themselves from his mind right into the street, he heard screaming and giggling. He glanced at Brad, who looked both excited and mortified—never a good sign.

  “This is a nice surprise,” Brad said and walked out of view. Clay looked at David, who could only roll his eyes.

  “A car full?” Clay whispered. When David nodded, he went on: “Let me guess. Mardi Gras beads, and it’s got to be a convertible.”

  “It’s like you’re psychic,” David said with a smirk.

  “Or I’ve just known Brad for almost fifteen years,” Clay said, hopping off the truck. He slid the picture into the front pocket of his shirt and walked to the other side of the truck to find a banana-yellow convertible filled with laughing women, probably none under twenty-five, all wearing bikini tops and flashing smiles like badges and credentials—hangers-on of the worst kind.

  The woman behind the wheel got out, her cutoffs so cutoff that the pockets hung past the ends of her shorts. David blew out a breath and Clay looked at the tires. Nice tires. Good tread.

  “Hi, baby!” she said, pushing her glasses up to the top of her head.

  “This is a nice surprise,” Brad said again.

  “After last night, I figured I owed you one. It was so good seeing you again.”

  “It was?”

  “Amazing.”

  Brad smiled smoothly while somehow managing to wink at the other females dangling out of the car.

  “What’s with the truck?” she said, pitching her thumb toward it.

  “I got a new job,” Brad said. “Isn’t that great?”

  David glanced at Clay, who could only shrug. When Brad said, “Isn’t that great?” it almost always turned out that it wasn’t.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Los Angeles. Hollywood.”

  Like makeup melting in high humidity, the flirty smile that had just seconds ago taken up most of her face slid right off the bottom of her chin and slapped the pavement under her feet. “What? You’re going to Los Angeles?”

  David smirked and cast Clay the this-oughta-be-fun-to-watch look.

  “Isn’t that great?” Brad repeated.

  Uh-oh. If it had to be said twice, it pretty much meant there was some cataclysmic emotional event about to happen.

  “When?” Her lips turned downward and she crossed her arms and her eyebrows.

  “Tomorrow.” And then Brad opened his hands and looked thoroughly confused. Except Clay knew one thing for sure: Brad was never confused. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

  “You told me last night I could move in.”

  “You can,” Brad said, his hands casually slipping into his pockets. “The condo is available, and I already put in a good word for you. Even told the landlord to keep my security deposit for your first month’s rent. It’s all yours.”

  David’s expression froze in awe. “He did not just do what I think he did,” he whispered.

  “He really did,” Clay whispered back.

  For a moment, everything came to a standstill. The wind stalled. The birds stopped chirping. The ladies in the car froze with their mouths open. Even the neighborhood dog quieted.

  It was hard to tell if the woman was going to scream. Cry. Explode. Pull a weapon.

  But slowly, methodically, she smiled, a cynical edginess oozing into a cool demeanor. “Well then,” she said, flipping her glasses back down, “keep in touch.”

  Brad winked and the convertible drove off. He turned back to David and Clay. “What? Some people are smart. Others are slightly more gifted. Then you have your Rhodes Scholars. And just above that is me.” He grabbed them by the shoulders. “Come on, boys. Let me buy you a drink.”

  The J-N-G, a pub four decades old, was hopping with its usual lively crowd. Bursts of laughter swelled and diminished and then swelled again, almost like an orchestra. Pictures and trophies and other things could be boxed up and stuffed in a moving van, but the memories Clay had in this place . . . there wasn’t a big enough box.

  The waitress swept in and served their drinks. As always, Brad drew the attention. They swapped smiles as effortlessly as people swapped germs.

  Clay stared into his drink, mixing it around and around with the skinny red straw. He couldn’t believe Brad was leaving tomorrow. It seemed a little surreal. The three of them hadn’t really left each other’s sides since college. Their lives had gone dramatically different ways, but it seemed they would have a missing piece of the puzzle.

  “Stop judging me,” Brad said out of the blue.

  Clay looked up just as Brad flashed another smile to yet another female passing by. “Did I say anything?”

  “The way you’re sitting—it’s judgmental.”

  Clay shook his head. Brad was like one running joke, but underneath the teasing was a simmering disapproval—going both ways, if he were honest.

  David, as usual, kept the peace. “A toast,” he said, raising his glass. “To going nationwide!”

  They all raised their glasses, clinking them the same way they had hundreds of times before. Back in the day, there’d been an endless amount of toasting. They toasted if they wo
n. If they lost. If the wind shifted direction. It was a little harder, the older they’d grown, to find quite that kind of satisfaction, but a big promotion, whatever the nature of it, was worthy.

  “Nationwide. Radio syndication, baby.” Brad winked at Clay, grinning from ear to ear. “Live from the City of Angels.” He was about to go on but got distracted by the blonde at the next table who stood, adjusted her jacket, and sat down again.

  Clay kept his glass raised. “My heart weeps for America.”

  “You’ll miss me,” Brad said, slamming his drink down with hearty enthusiasm. “So will whatserface in that nice yellow convertible.”

  Clay knew when Brad was trying to get a rise out of him. And it usually worked. But he’d learned to be more measured in his responses, and he was getting better at it, which was making Brad crazy.

  And with a little alcohol in his system . . . crazier. The waitress drifted by, dropped off the check. Brad stared her down, just to make his point even clearer . . . and sharper.

  Then his eyes shot up to Clay’s. “Why don’t you just crawl back under that antique shop and make up some more . . .” He waved his hand in the air. He also tended to lose common words the more he drank. “. . . theories you never test at the grown-up table anymore.”

  Clay measured out his smile. He was used to this now. It had become what they always ended up talking about when the day was done and Brad was on the verge of drunkenness.

  “Fun times,” David said and reached for the check, but Clay slid his fingers across the table and snagged it.

  “I’ve got it this time, buddy,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you got the heavier end of the couch.”

  David laughed but Brad was still rolling. “I didn’t do anything unto her, Clay, that I didn’t want done unto me.”

  Clay couldn’t even manage a smile now. He took his thumb and wiped condensation off his glass, then off the table, and then he tried to wipe Brad’s condescending tone off the radar. They’d been the best of friends when they were taking the same highway. But when their roads split, it got harder. They still managed, mostly relying on fun stories from days past (or Camelot, as Brad liked to refer to them).

  Clay pulled out his wallet, riffled through the cash.