“I would never try to distill you down to anything, Sylvia.”
“May I interest you in some coffee or dessert?” the waitress asked.
“Yes,” Sunny said.
“No,” I said. “Check, please?”
“Another sudden conversational shift?” he asked.
“I can’t think straight in here,” I said. “I feel like I’m in a cave.”
The waitress set the check down in front of Sunny, but when he reached for his wallet, I grabbed it. Damn, that was an expensive lasagna! Maybe if I transformed Sylvia’s Supper so it looked like a cave, I could charge triple for things.
“What are you doing?” he asked as I reached for my purse.
“Paying my fair share,” I said, counting out the bills. “Your fish was more than my lasagna, but I drank more than you so let’s go fifty-fifty.”
His smile was amused. “I can assure you, I paid off my student loan fifteen years ago, and I can afford to treat you to supper.”
“And I can afford to pay my share. I thought we agreed: friends, right?”
“Are you scared at the idea of this being a date?” he asked.
“Friends,” I said pointedly. “Right?”
Sunny sighed as he set down his half of the money. “Friends.”
But when he walked me to my truck, even though he just pecked me on the cheek, my cheek didn’t feel like friends afterward.
Cindy
The beat of the bass seemed to pound up through the cheap carpet on the floor, like my body was one big conductor with my feet taking the pounding from there right through to my brain, and the ice in my club soda had long since melted. I was seated at a small front-row table of the Bar None with all the other girlfriends and wives from Eddie’s band. It was the last place in the world I wanted to be, feeling as I did, but Eddie wanted me there.
“You never come to the shows anymore,” he’d said earlier that night when we were still back at home. “What do you have to do tonight that’s more important?”
I had to study for my online classes, for one thing, and I had to get to bed early, for another, because the pregnancy was making me damn tired all the time. But I couldn’t say either of those things.
“I’m not feeling so good,” I’d said. “But maybe if I start feeling better, I’ll call Donna and catch a ride over with her? Then you can always drive me home afterward.”
“Oh, jeez,” he’d said, his face clouding with concern. “I didn’t know you were sick.” He put his hand on my forehead. “You do feel warm.”
I’d noticed the pregnancy made me warm, my temperature always running slightly higher than normal, but I couldn’t say that either.
“Do you want me to stay home?” Eddie’d asked. “It is a little late to cancel the show, but—”
“I’ll be fine,” I’d said. “You go on ahead. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
But as soon as he left, I started feeling guilty. He was right: I almost never did go to the shows anymore. So I put on my glad rags—in this case cropped jeans and a green halter top, because I knew the bar would be too warm—and called Donna and came. Not quite two months’ pregnant yet, my belly was still totally flat. But I could feel my body changing in subtle ways.
Now, despite the noise and the headache, I was glad I came.
As soon as Eddie’d seen me walk in with Donna, he stopped singing, motioning the other band members for silence.
He’d held the microphone close, addressing the audience, but his eyes were locked on me the whole while, compelling the room to follow his gaze. The men looked at me with curiosity, the women with envy.
“Now we’re going to ratchet it up, folks, because my lady, the love of my life, is in the house.”
And then they’d started to play again.
I’d been starting to take Eddie’s dream of the big time for granted, starting to doubt it would ever happen. But that time he’d played and sang at Lise’s party, I’d heard him through their ears, saw that what they were hearing was really good. And now I was hearing him through my own ears, like it was for the first time, and I heard they were right. There was no reason, other than chance and luck, that Eddie couldn’t be as big as the greats. He could be like that lead singer for Coldplay. And if Eddie could be that guy, then maybe I could be like Gwyneth, only I would never name our baby Apple, whether it was a boy or girl. I felt a tingle of excitement inside me. Maybe I’d finally tell Eddie about the baby tonight.
The applause was deafening as the band finished their final set.
“I hate this part,” Donna said, leaning in to me as she pointed to where the guys were coming off the stage, and I knew exactly what she was talking about. Immediately, they were engulfed by groupies. But the groupies all looked so young it was almost funny, like twelve-year-olds trying to look legal, and I wondered how they ever got by the bouncer at the door. I could see why Donna was bugged—her Ron, the keyboard player, had his neck encircled by eager young arms—but even though Eddie was listening politely enough to the young chickie who was bending his ear, I wasn’t bothered, because: 1) even Carly had to admit that “You never have to worry about Eddie cheating on you, Cin, he’s only got eyes for you”; 2) the young chickie had size thirty-eight breasts crammed into a thirty-four bra and Eddie always hated for girls to look sloppy; and 3) even as he was listening to her, I could see him looking around over her shoulder for me.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked when Eddie made it through the crowd, pulling my bag off the back of my chair and rising even as I spoke.
“What’s the rush?” he said. I could see he was still feeling high from performing, high from the audience’s response. He wasn’t ready to go yet, and I couldn’t really blame him. Who wouldn’t want to bask in the glow of people endlessly telling you how great you are before heading off into the night?
With the show over, the audience started drifting back to the larger room where the bar was, and Eddie drifted with them. He probably wouldn’t need to pay for his own drinks for the rest of the night. We girlfriends and wives started drifting back too.
In addition to the long bar that ran the length of the room, pockmarked by time and bottles slammed down in joy and anger, there were three pool tables and people were playing partners, it was that busy. Before I was with Eddie, I used to shoot a pretty good game. As I watched players take their turns shooting, I thought about which shots I’d take, how I’d set up the next shot, and I listened to the satisfying clack of ball against ball. I couldn’t remember why I’d ever stopped.
One of the guys on the table closest to me was down to shooting the eight ball for his team, but it was blocked from the easiest pockets by the scattered balls of his opponents, who frankly sucked. “Bank it long,” I said aloud without even thinking. “Cut straight between their three and their eleven and send it right back at yourself into the right corner.”
The shooter looked over at me. He was real tall, a good six inches taller than Eddie. There was something about his features—his eyes, nose and mouth—that struck me as familiar. But his brown hair was shorter than any of the guys I knew, not to mention his easy confidence, and he had on a business shirt and tie, like he’d come from some office. He and his partner both looked out of place in the Bar None. “You think?” he said, and now his voice sounded slightly familiar too, hazel eyes flashing friendliness as he raised his Heineken to me in salute.
“I don’t just think.” I couldn’t help but let a smile slip through. “I know.”
Without another word, he set his beer down, bent to the table, sized up the shot, and slammed that eight ball on a bank home straight to that right corner. I felt so good watching it go in, you’d think I’d made the shot myself.
“Play the next game with me?” he offered. He looked over at his partner. “He always needs to pee during rounds—no offense, Steve—and it takes forever for him to come back.”
A short time ago I’d felt exhausted, all the noise and the pain in my head,
but now my brain felt clear as a lake and I was excited too. I looked over to the bar where some girl was paying for Eddie’s next drink. I knew I had nothing to worry about. Whatever problems I might have from time to time with Eddie, I knew he’d never cheat on me. Never had, never would. But I also knew he’d stay at the bar as long as the drinks were free. What could be the harm in playing one round? It’d be good to feel a cue in my hands again.
We beat the challengers easily. My partner put two balls in on the break, followed by two more good shots before woofing on an easy tap. One of our challengers made a tough bank but then got cocky and scratched, putting the cue ball in, and I cleared the table.
“We make a good team,” my partner said. “Go again?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, propping my cue against the wall. “Isn’t the guy you came with back from the bathroom yet?”
“So?” He smiled, shrugged. “He’ll only be back there again in another few minutes.”
“Maybe just one more then.”
We won again. Tougher opponents, but still we won.
“We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet,” my partner said. “But maybe I should just call you Lucky?”
“It’s Cindy,” I said.
His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “Of course,” he said, “I already knew that.”
“Huh?”
“You really don’t recognize me,” he said, “do you? Have I changed that much?”
I squinted, as if, even though I didn’t need glasses, the act of squinting would make me see him more clearly.
I squinted harder. Then:
“Omigod! Porter? Porter Davis?”
“In the flesh,” he said simply.
But it was a far different flesh than the one I remembered. The Porter Davis I remembered had gone to high school with me. He’d been a band geek and a drama geek, with long stringy hair he wore so that a hank of it always covered one eye, like some old-time Hollywood actress trying to look mysterious. He’d always been tall, but even in high school he’d still carried a fair amount of puppy fat, nothing like the hard and lean look he had now. Oh, and back then he’d had a crush on me. Big time. And I’d just been considering going out with him, at least giving it a try just once, when Eddie came along; Eddie had been out of high school so long, he made being in high school seem like being from the wrong planet. Once Eddie came into my life, that was it for me and other guys. Still, it was great to see a face from the past. And it was even better to see that he was obviously doing so well.
Impulsively, I threw my arms around him, then quickly drew back, checking to see if Eddie was still talking to the girl at the bar: he was.
“It’s just so good to see you,” I said. “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”
“Well, it’s been eight years since you left school, Cindy. I sure hope I’ve changed. Everyone does, don’t they? Except for you, of course. You’re still as pretty as ever.”
I could feel the blush in my cheeks.
“God,” he said, “I can’t believe how good it is to see you.” Then he laughed. “That’s what you just said, wasn’t it? But it is, it really is good, and I’d love to catch up with you, find out everything you’ve been doing. Do you think maybe you could give me your number so I could call you sometime? Or, better yet, maybe we could go grab a bite to eat right now?”
I can’t say I wasn’t flattered. It had been, I don’t even know how long, since a guy other than Eddie had shown any interest in me. And, certainly, no one who looked like Porter ever had. Still…
“Thanks,” I said, “that’s, um, very nice. But you see, I already have a boyfriend and—”
I felt the hand on my shoulder spinning me around before I even heard the words.
“What’s going on here?” Eddie asked quietly.
Even though his words were quiet, I felt like there was an iceberg coming at me. I tried to smile.
“I was just shooting a game of pool while waiting for you. We were just—”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Eddie screamed in my face.
“Hey, pal,” Porter said, “back off.”
“Back off?” Eddie said. “Back off? I don’t fucking think so. What the hell you think you’re doing, hitting on my girl?”
“Hey,” Porter said again, “we were only playing a game of pool. I asked her out, she said no, that she had a boyfriend—which now I’m guessing is you—and that was that. No harm, no foul.”
“I’ll tell you what the harm is, asshole,” Eddie said, snatching the cue out of Porter’s hand. Eddie flipped the cue on its side so that he was holding an end in each hand as he pressed it into Porter’s chest, pushing again and again with it until he had him backed up against the wall. “It’s that you never should have even been looking at her in the first place.”
Porter started to push back but he needn’t have bothered because Eddie dropped the cue and grabbed my hand, hauling me out of there. “C’mon,” he said.
“Hey, maybe you shouldn’t drive with him when he’s like this!” I heard Porter call after me, but I didn’t turn back.
Out in the car, Eddie keyed up the engine and peeled out of the parking lot.
“Hey,” I said, “aren’t you going to at least help the guys load the equipment up?”
“Fucking assholes can do it themselves for a change,” Eddie said. Then he pounded the wheel with his fist. “Damn! I’ve got to keep an eye on you every second. If I just look away once, just once, someone tries to snap you up.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I tried to say. “It was just a game.”
“Don’t you get it, Cin? With guys like that, it’s never just a game.”
I looked out the side window, watching the night whiz by. How could I salvage the night? How could I bring Eddie down off his anger?
The car was really old, meaning there was no shift between us, so I undid my seatbelt and slowly slid over until I was next to him. Then I took my hand, traced it from the inside of his knee up his thigh until it came to the crease.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“I was just thinking,” I said, “maybe when we get home we could…or maybe we could even pull over to the side of the road here?”
“What are you talking about?” he said. “You’ve got your period.”
I did?
My hand froze.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You don’t think I keep track? I know exactly when you’re going to get your period. You’re like clockwork, every thirty-one days. A guy needs to keep track of these things so he can plan ahead, you know? You know how I hate wading through the red tide.”
It was true. Except for when we were first together, Eddie never wanted to have sex when I had my period. Still, the idea that he counted the days in his head somehow creeped me out. But it also explained why last month, when I missed my first period, Eddie hadn’t come near me that week, even though we usually had sex every day.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, though,” Eddie said, breaking into my thoughts. “Those little packages you usually leave in the garbage, I haven’t seen those around lately. And your tits are getting bigger. What the hell is up with that?”
Lise
“Tea?”
“Yes, please, Dean.”
I’ve always hated tea, but since I was being called on the carpet, I figured I might as well be sociable about it.
We were in the dean’s house, in his study, the mid-May sun streaming through the Victorian windows, casting wide shadows of the frames across the Oriental carpet. As he poured tea from the silver service, I studied his face for signs of what was to come.
Dean Jones had a long oval face and blue eyes that were friendly more often than not, and a horseshoe of black hair rimming his shiny pate. He always wore a three-piece dark suit, whatever the weather, whatever the fashion, and had manicured nails that were prettier than mine. When he smiled, his teeth were more equine than human, and
as he was smiling now, it was tough to discern just exactly what was coming my way.
“Milk?” he offered.
My dad always said that only sissies put milk in their tea, but I figured if the dean was going to take milk in his, I might as well go along for the ride; and if I was going to hate the tea anyway, I might as well hate it even more.
“Yes, please,” I said again, re-crossing my legs where I sat on the brown leather sofa.
Done with his host duties, the dean took a seat on the sofa with me. He was being too friendly, I thought. This couldn’t possibly be good.
He lifted his china cup and took a sip, nodding as though he approved. “You know, Lise,” he spoke, “this could all have been so much easier if you’d simply set up a meeting with me when I first requested one back in April.”
God, I’d forgotten all about that until he’d just mentioned it. What had been going on that day he’d sent the e-mail? Oh, right. I’d received that worrisome e-mail from Sara saying she was sick in Africa. And then, of course, there’d been the book. I was just too preoccupied to bother about the usual departmental bullshit.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I was very busy at the time and—”
“Too busy to answer a request from your boss? You do realize, don’t you, that I am in fact your boss?”
“Of course. It’s just that—”
“What’s going on with you, Lise?” And here he looked sincerely concerned. “Are your mother and father all right?”
“They’re both fine,” I said, “but my sister Sara—you know, the one who’s in Africa—became very sick there. She wound up in a Nairobi hospital for a month.”
This was true. I hadn’t said anything to Diana, Cindy, and Sylvia about it on the day of the party—Diana knew about Sara initially becoming sick but not about what came after—because I hadn’t wanted to ruin everyone’s good moods. And I hadn’t said anything since because I didn’t want to worry anyone else when they all had their own problems, but I worried every day about Sara.
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