Arthur played me?
… Arthur?
+
Cora’s not so bad after the initial shock wears off. She’s like the anti-Kristy. I mean, I’m pro-Kristy all the way, but it’s refreshing to hear so many sentences that don’t have the word ‘totally’ in them. Plus, I find out that she’s playing Magenta in a production of the Rocky Horror Show, which makes her countertop actions seem, if not sane, then at least justifiable. Plus, we have a jolly good time hating on all the stupid crap we sell. Oh, it’s blissful, especially after spending four days marveling at all this nonsense in silence. Like, I’m sure someone somewhere once upon a time thought a Paw Pals Furry Friendship Bracelet-Making Kit For Your Dog Or Cat was a swell idea. And that does nothing besides make me sad for them.
“But,” I say, after I eloquently describe the concept of beaded jewelry for your canine companion as ‘on crack, yo,’ “don’t tell Kristy I said that, ‘kay? Because she seemed to be under the misguided but adorable impression that that thing was awesome.”
“Sure,” Cora says easily. “You’re not into her, are you?”
I don’t say anything. Silence has a certain manly stoicism that, say, stammering and blushing bright red tends to lack.
“Yeah, figures.” Cora snorts. “The cute blonde with great tits. How original of you!”
“Can’t hate on a classic,” I reply, shrugging.
“Right.” Cora rolls her eyes. “Well, don’t get your hopes up, babe. She’s—”
Luckily, I’m spared the ‘way out of your league’ speech – a thing I know well – because Arthur comes downstairs to make sure we’re closing in a timely manner. We’re not.
Cora grabs all her stuff and gets out in like two seconds; as a result, it’s just me and my favorite chamomile-imbibing nemesis on our way out the door. The cold is even nastier today. It bites down on you as soon as you step outside. I linger a little, watching my breath come out in clouds while Arthur locks up.
“Hey,” I say, almost by accident. It’s just – I dunno, I can’t not say it, I’m still weirdly stupidly mad about this morning. Whatever, it’s his fault for a) being a sly bastard and b) threatening to develop a personality. “Earlier.”
“Mmhmm?”
“You were messing with me.”
He doesn’t even turn to look at me. I watch as his mouth quirks up in a smile. “Maybe a little.”
Maybe a little? That’s it? No denials? No stuttered apologies filled with shame?
I can’t really think of anything to say – well, anything nice – so I abide by a timeless classic and don’t say anything at all.
Well, until I’m a few feet away. Then I mutter a hearty “Fucker” under my breath.
“’Night, Howard.” He heard me.
“’Night, Artie,” I retaliate, because it’s cold and I’m irritated and so, yeah, I went there.
+
“Hey, hon,” my mom greets me when I come in. She’s lounging on the couch, a composition notebook open in her lap. “How was work?”
“Okay,” I reply. I don’t really feel like going into it. I go into the kitchen and start rummaging through the fridge. Doesn’t look like there’s anything on the agenda in terms of dinner. My dad was the one with the cooking skills in this family, and my mom hasn’t exactly striven to pick any up since he died. Whatever. Could be worse. If she did start doing the fifties housewife thing at this point, half of the restaurants in town would go out of business. We are connoisseurs of takeout. But apparently even that would’ve been asking for too much tonight. I wish I’d stopped for burgers.
“Dennis called earlier,” Mom reports as I come into the living room, toting a Coke and a cup of tapioca pudding from the back of the fridge. Meals are for the weak. “He’s thinking about bringing this Emily girl home with him for Christmas.”
“Great,” I say, maybe not so enthusiastically. I love my brother and all, but there’s something depressing about being around someone who looks just like me but happens to excel at life. Not to mention that Dennis bringing This Emily Girl home won’t exactly equal happy holidays for Amber.
“It sounds like he’s doing well,” Mom continues. She’s starting to get but-maybe-I-shouldn’t-be-talking-about-your-brother-lest-it-scar-your-delicate-soul face. My favorite.
“Great,” I say.
“He was glad to hear about your job.”
“Swell. I bet he was real jealous, too.”
“Howie,” Mom begins, her eyes threatening to turn concerned.
“Not bitter, though,” I’m quick to add. “Just acerbically witty.”
Mom gives me her time-honored Don’t Bullshit Me look.
“Seriously, I’m good,” I insist, because it’s not like I’m ever gonna tell her anything else. “I work with a girl who has a tongue ring. And a nose ring. And a coat that’s probably made at least partially from yak. Really, Mom, I’m living the dream.”
“Sounds like,” she says wryly.
We sink into silence. I start wondering about the chances of Kristy wanting to tag along for Christmas dinner. Just gotta play this right. For once.
My mom is pretending to watch the news, in a way where she keeps sneaking worried glances at me. I take this as a sign that it’s time to brighten up this evening. I point at her notebook. “Dare I ask?”
“Gwendolyn and the Pirate King,” she informs me with a wicked smile. “Hot love on the high seas.”
I make a face. “You’re lucky I keep you around.”
“Shut it, you.”
+
Kristy works the next day. The sun shines, birds sing, flowers blossom and renewed dreams of her plus me minus clothes fill my head.
But then I get a look at her close up, and I realize that she’s not draped provocatively across the counter to come-hither me over there, as I first suspected. It’s more like she’s splayed across it because the effort to keep on standing is too much to ask of her. Like she’s being steadily pressed down by the universe. And – wow, she does not look like the Kristy I know. Her ponytail’s kind of droopy, with strands flying out of it here, there, and everywhere. She looks majorly sleep deprived. Also majorly makeup deprived. And it’s not like she looks appalling without it or anything, but … wow. Maybelline really gets it done.
She heaves a great big sigh at the sight of me. My stomach does a discouraged flop.
“Oh,” she says, morose, “hi, Howie.”
“Hey,” I say, lowering my voice a little. It seems appropriate. “What’s the matter?”
Wow. That sounded … sensitive. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this day of downtrodden not-so-hotitude will just help to bring us closer together. And it’s not like she’ll never wear makeup again. I bet the prospect of hooking up with me will make her so happy she’ll bust out that mascara and … lipstick and … I dunno, bronzer or whatever it is girls use. Enthusiastically.
“Oh, nothing,” she says, blinking rapidly. “I’m okay.” This declaration is followed by a squeak of woe that totally contradicts it.
Okay. Don’t push it. Just … let her know that you’re there for her.
“Well, I’m here for you,” I say, resting my elbows on the counter and meeting her eyes. Sensitively, I like to think. “If you need to talk.”
“Thanks,” she sniffles, and then – get this! – she reaches over and takes my hand.
Score.
Her fingernails are chipping, I can’t help but notice as I look down at our hands. Man, did her kitten die or something? (Kristy strikes me as the type to own lots of kittens. Just, all the time, all over the place.)
I squeeze her hand, feeling pretty daring. But, hey. It’s not like I’m the one who initiated this little palm-to-palm shindig.
“It’s just,” she begins, and I look back up to find her staring at me really intensely. Even without makeup and her eyelashes all pale, she does have great eyes. I wait as she pauses, imagining ways she might finish this little proclamation. Right away, my favorite can
didate becomes, ‘Oh, I just want to remember how to feel again. Howie, take me now! In the supply closet!’
But then what she says is: “Aren’t boys the worst?”
Disappointing.
Really, I’m not sure how to answer that one.Then I realize, looking at her, that I know this look. I’ve seen Amber like this. Kristy, like Amber, must like some ass who doesn’t give a damn about her. She’s probably feeling pretty down about herself. Pretty pathetic and lousy. It’s always hard to see Amber this way. It always makes me want to beat the crap out of Dennis, if only for a couple seconds.
And so I let Kristy win this round. “Yeah,” I say, nodding compassionately. “Yeah, boys can be bastards.”
“Right? Thank you.” She squeezes my hand tight. Really tight. Jeez. How can someone so tiny be so – ow, ow, fingernail in the flesh, fingernail in the flesh. But there, finally, she smiles at me, and that makes the new and surprising pain worth it. “I knew you’d understand.”
“Of course,” I say chivalrously. She’s still looking at me with those eyes of hers, and all of a sudden the moment has this now-or-never quality to it. “Listen, seriously, if you ever want to, like, talk, or get together to talk … maybe even outside of work, then—”
Suddenly, her eyes turn huge and furious, Jekyll-to-Hyde, bam. It’s all I can do not to jump away from her.
“NO.”
Whoa. Wait. What? Shit. What did I do?
“Um,” I say, failure oozing out of my every pore, “okay, I, uh, didn’t mean—”
“Oh, no.” She yanks her hand out of mine, stands up, and glares out of the display window with that same bright fury. I have the genius idea to follow her line of vision. There, about to step into the front door, is a black guy my age with a bouquet of flowers, a contrite expression, and way more handsomeness than one individual should ever be endowed with.
“Don’t you come in here!” Kristy cries, just as the bells threaten his entrance with one faint little ringy noise. The guy freezes. “Don’t let him in, okay, Howie? Seriously. Don’t let him in, don’t even, he is not coming in here.”
I’m majorly confused, and all I can really figure out is that there’s something about this guy that gives me a bad, bad feeling.
“Who is that?” I ask dumbly. “Your brother?”
“It’s my stupid boyfriend,” Kristy replies, glaring at the door. And it’s just like – it’s like getting sucker-punched and drenched with icy water and being forced to listen to Joanna Newsom all at the same time, because I don’t care how bad Amber wants to convert me, it’s always going to be like getting stabbed in the ears hearing that chick. This, this is like getting stabbed in the everywhere. “But, whatever, it’s not like he cares about me. He wouldn’t even—”
“Boyfriend,” I repeat, dazed and useless.
“Yeah,” Kristy replies. She’s still frowning at the door, and I find myself pissed off that this isn’t doing to her what it is to me. She must have noticed, right? She was the one all, ‘come and get me, big boy, don’t mind me while I hold your arm,’ like, seriously, what the fuck? “Although apparently he’s comfortable with just throwing away everything two weeks before our one-year anniversary!” She shouts the last part toward the door.
“Sweetie,” Kristy’s boyfriend, Kristy’s boyfriend says. “Just let me in, okay, and we can talk about it.”
“No! You promised you’d go with me! Everyone’s expecting you to be there! And now you won’t be, and I’ll be there all by myself, just because you have to go to stupid work when those jerks said they’d give you the time off already, I told you that you should quit, they’re so mean to you, they can’t just control your life like that and I hate having to watch you so miserable all the time—”
“I know,” The Boyfriend says. He’s starting to shiver. Good, I say. Let the bastard freeze, I say. “Stuff’s gotten really hectic over there, that’s all. Maybe I can get the weekend off, but—”
“You better,” Kristy pouts. It’s like she’s forgotten I even exist. “Or I will never, never, never forgive you. You know you’ll regret it afterwards if you don’t go, Reddy, you know you will, you can’t keep sacrificing everything for that awful—”
“Kris, I’ll do the best that I can. I promise, okay? Just don’t be mad.”
“I am mad,” Kristy insists, arms folded adorably.
“I got you roses.”
“I’m mad.”
“Kristybee, it’s freezing out here.”
“I don’t care.”
“Oh, come on. Let me in.”
“No.”
It’s like watching a fight between a sitcom couple, to the point where I can almost hear the jolly roar of the laugh track, ha ha ha, domestic squabbling, isn’t it cute. Kristy’s starting to smile a little bit as Boyfriend keeps on begging to be let in, and, ugh, you know what, I don’t want to be here, here is a place that I don’t want to be, like, ever again, actually.
Boyfriend. Boyfriend? Boyfriend. Boyfriend.
Of fucking course.
Chapter Four
“Why haven’t you said it yet?” I ask at last, ‘cause I can’t take it anymore.
Amber looks at me. The swing creaks as she digs her feet into the snowy ground, stilling herself. It’s already pitch-black out, and cold as hell, but we’re at the park down the street from our houses. It used to be our hip hangout when we were kids, our place to run to when homework or, like, having to eat our vegetables got to be too much stress. Sometimes, on special super-sucky occasions, we still like to come down here, sit on the swings, and mope. You know, tradition. She sat here with me for awhile after my dad died, and it’s not like this can really compare to that.
But damned if I don’t still feel like shit.
“Huh?” I prompt, because she hasn’t said anything yet.
“You look so sad,” she replies, giving me a half-smile that’s equal parts pitying and amused. “I didn’t really have the heart.”
“Come on, woman,” I order, wrapping my gloved hand around the chain of her swing, shaking it a little. “I can take it.”
“If you’re sure,” she says, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“Okay then,” she says, all it’s-your-funeral. She takes a dramatic pause, then declares, “Told you so.”
“Here we go,” I mutter.
“Hey, you don’t get to get pissy about it,” she orders, swinging into me. “You forced me to.”
“It was a test. You failed.”
“Howwwie.”
“Now I don’t have to get you a Christmas present.”
“Howie, come on.” She latches onto my swing this time. “This was a dumb idea. Admit it. Somewhere in your sex-starved brain—”
“Yeah, it’s not really my brain that’s the issue here—”
“—you know it to be true.”
And, well, no matter how You Know I’m Rightly she looks at me, I’m not going to admit that. It could’ve worked, damn it. It had potential.
“You know what a lot of people probably thought was a dumb idea?” I ask.
“Don’t say the telephone.”
“The telephone.”
“Freak.” Amber laughs, the sound dwindling off into the quiet.
“I work at an arts and crafts store,” I say after a long silence. Just to get used to the reality, the sparse ugly truth of it, minus the Kristy-induced haze that camouflaged the many levels of bad.
“Yeah, you do,” Amber agrees bluntly. Blunt’s kind of her thing.
“Shit,” I groan.
“I’m so proud to be your friend,” Amber tells me, cracking up. “I’m gonna come in every day, just to watch you in action. I’m gonna take up artsing. And craftsing. Like a proper female.”
Oh, wow, that’s really encouraging.
“Captain Scrapbook!” she intones, in her best Mitch voice.
I point a stern finger at her. “Uncool.”
“Sorry,” she says, sounding ve
ry far away from sorry.
“Maybe I should quit,” I muse. I really dig the idea of marching on in there and telling Arthur thanks but no thanks, sorry, it ain’t for me, maybe I’ll try Holly’s instead. And then Kristy will watch as I walk out, never turning my back, never stopping to reconsider for a second, and she’ll let out a single wistful, delicate sigh, realizing in one grand sorry-too-late-baby epiphany exactly what she’s missing out on …
“Maybe you should,” Amber says, and it effectively shoots my awesome reverie to hell. “Do you want to?”
“Yeah,” I say. No point in lying to Amber. That’s what my mom’s for. “But, I dunno. Might as well stick with it, right? Since … it’s something.”
Because it’s true. Even though I like – nay, love – the idea of making Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts naught but a distant memory, there’s something in me, some heavy feeling, that just can’t let me do it. I’m so sick of walking away from stuff. And besides, at this point, if I did quit, I don’t think anyone would be surprised. Didn’t go to school in California even after getting in, getting the financial aid, that whole deal. Didn’t let go of that whole no-college thing and actually attempt to do something with his life anyway. Hell, if I stick around the store for a month, my mom will probably bake another cake. Even if it’s selling freakin’ ribbons to people from nine to five every day while wearing an apron, I just want to stick with something for a little while. Try that out.
“You should stick with it, then,” Amber says. I’m struck by the overwhelming urge to hug her or something, just for being able to … to do that thing she does, where she can be right there, know exactly what to say or do, and yet it always seems so effortless.
I do okay in some departments.
“Dennis might bring his girlfriend home for Christmas,” I say, because I figure she deserves time to prepare. I don’t really get how she deals with the Dennis thing, and, for all our BFF-ery, she’s never really set out to tell me. I think she gets that the whole he’s-my-brother-you’re-my-best-friend situation is kind of weird.
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