by Strong, Mimi
Dropping to a squat to be eye-level, I said, “What's wrong? Were you crying?”
“No.” Her little lips puffed out stubbornly.
“Just in a bad mood? What made you sad?” I looked around for a sign, but nobody was looking our way, and I couldn't spot her friend Taylor.
She grabbed the zipper of my hoodie and zipped it up and down like a toy.
“Not talking?”
Her mouth moved from side to side, like the truth was trying to come out, but she was fighting it the way she fought sleep when she wanted to stay up late instead of going to bed.
I took her hand and started us toward home, hoping the rhythm of walking would draw her story from her.
Like her, I'd also been a sensitive little kid, but not to the extreme that she was sensitive. My mother hadn't put up with much of what she called my “fussing,” so I learned to keep quiet while she washed my hair with the shampoo that burned my scalp and stung my eyes. That was when I learned that everything ended—every moment was temporary, and pain was like the train passing by on the railroad tracks. If you waited long enough, soon you'd be back to looking at the trees.
We got all the way home, and Bell still hadn't said anything, despite my attempts to coax a few words from her. Feeling defeated, I let us in the front door of the building. If she wasn't going to talk to me, maybe it was about time she found that cold comfort within herself.
She turned and looked up at me, her big, blue eyes brighter and more blue from the recent tears. “Taylor is mean,” she said. There was a trace of something blue at the corner of her mouth. I hadn't sent her to school with candy, so I figured she must have gotten a sucker or gum from another kid.
“Your friend, Taylor?” I fought the urge to argue with her, to say that Taylor wasn't mean, that she was nice.
It was my and everyone else's instinct to argue with the truth—to insist that some person we didn't even know had to be nice, because how could we keep going in a world where even our friends were mean to us?
Bell looked longingly at the elevator doors, but came with me when I opened the door to the stairwell. I'd lied and told her it was my exercise to take the stairs, rather than tell her the elevator stunk of vomit and disinfectant and gave me claustrophobia.
Up the stairs we went, and out came the truth about her day. In her meandering way, she explained what happened. Her new friend Taylor had invited another little girl to play with them at lunch time, to draw on the sidewalk with chalk. The other girl didn't like Bell, though, and said she smelled like beans. She changed the rules for the hopscotch game when Bell tried to play, and then she'd pointed and laughed.
“She pointed?” I repeated, the image vivid in my mind.
“Like this.” Bell pointed her small finger at me, her eyes scrunched up with derision—an expression of hate I'd never seen on her sweet face.
I might have laughed if the heartbreak didn't make me feel like crying for her.
We got up to the apartment and she decided to have Quiet Time in her room.
I debated for a good hour whether or not to intervene. My mother wouldn't have done anything. She would have told me to slap the other girl on the face, to “slap the mean right off of her.”
Great parenting advice for a seven-year-old. Really.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head at my “colorful” mother. No wonder she was always angry and feeling like the other mothers were judging her. How could they not be?
Finally, I decided to phone Natalie. I was going to be the kind of parent who stuck her nose in.
Natalie sounded happy to hear from me. I explained what Bell had told me, and asked what she knew about this other girl, the mean one. Natalie then told me the other side of the story, which was quite a bit different from what Bell had said.
According to Natalie, who heard about the incident from Taylor, some other girls had been playing with the chalk, and Bell went over and dumped out half the chalk on the concrete and took the bucket away. That wouldn't have been so bad, but she took all the blue chalk with her, and wouldn't share. The other girls had the second-grade equivalent of an intervention, and tried to get some blue chalk. Bell then started putting the chalk in her mouth, chewing it and spitting it out at them.
As I talked on the phone, I lowered my voice. Inside her bedroom, Princess Land, Bell wasn't making a peep, and I could feel her listening to my side of the conversation.
Because I'd seen the blue chalk in the corner of Bell's mouth, I had no choice about which version of events to believe. Was this just the beginning of behavioral problems with Bell? Aside from her tantrums, she'd been so resilient, and had no problem keeping up with the school work. Now that we were finally in a stable situation and life was looking good for a change, now this?
I sunk into the couch with the phone at my ear, wishing the couch would just swallow me up so I didn't have to worry anymore.
Into a pause in the conversation, I muttered, “Life is shit.”
On the other end, Natalie made a strange sound, and after a moment I realized she was laughing.
“Aubrey, it's not the end of the world.”
“Oh. You're right.”
“Let's hang out tomorrow, just the two of us for some girl-time. Then you and Bell can join us again for dinner, and the girls can cement their friendship.”
“Won't they just resist?”
“We have to try. If Bell feels more comfortable, socially, it should calm her aggression.” Natalie giggled. “I feel like a zookeeper.”
“It's like we're putting the monkeys in a cage together for their own good.”
“Good analogy. Anyway, I'm excited about this. We loved having you last week, and Dave enjoyed having someone new to tell his tree-planting stories to.” She kept going, making plans without waiting for my agreement.
I thanked her and we arranged for her to come pick me up at the apartment at noon, so I could help her with some shopping. Then we'd pick up the kids together at three and have dinner at her place. She stressed the fact that I wasn't obligated to bring anything but my “lovely self.”
After I ended the call, it beeped with an incoming message from Sawyer.
Right. Sawyer.
I was already proving myself to be a bad girlfriend by making other plans for my day off.
Sawyer: There's a report on the news about some shocking indecency.
Me: Huh? Should I be worried?
Sawyer: Apparently some guy was at the same beach we were at and he was flashing his wang.
Me: Wang!
I giggled and stretched out on the couch, cradling the cell phone lovingly. Getting messages from him and imagining him saying the words was almost as much fun as hanging out with him in person.
Sawyer: So obviously we can't go back there tomorrow. How about we go terrorize people at the mall? We can go to Zellers and grope each other in the underwear section. I don't know about you, but seeing all those giant ladies' panties hanging on their plastic hangers gets me so hard.
I knew he was saying it for a laugh, but the idea of him getting hard, even as a joke, made me feel so giggly and turned-on. I reached a hand between my legs and pressed down where I felt swollen.
Me: I'm going to wear giant panties next time I see you. So big they come out of the top of my jeans.
Sawyer: It's difficult to text efficiently with only one hand.
I didn't even have time to reply, when he sent a series of messages.
Sawyer: Msdiryey pantiesss ekewn daladdfjjjl!!
Sawyer: Uhhhhh..almost..there..morepantiestalkplease.
Sawyer: I hope you know I'm just kidding.
Sawyer: I'm at the grocery store picking up some stuff for the house, and people are staring at me, wondering why I'm laughing my ass off in the magazine aisle.
Me: I wish I was there with you.
Sawyer: You could come meet me? Bring your daughter and we can do some serious double-household shopping.
Me: Another time.
> Sawyer: They have Cheerios on sale. Those big boxes that don't fit in the cupboard, so you have to keep them on top of the fridge. Want me to get you some?
Me: I'm good.
Sawyer: I could bring them over tomorrow.
For a moment, I thought about making plans with Sawyer and then phoning Natalie to cancel. Then I remembered Bell's red eyes, and how important it was for her to have some stability. If we could have more play dates and she could feel comfortable in her friendship with Taylor, maybe it would help.
Eating chalk.
Good lord.
You have to laugh, or you'll cry.
I composed a message.
Me: Turns out I can't hang out tomorrow because I have a play date with another mother from Bell's school. We're meeting early in the day.
Sawyer: This means I won't get to see your giant panties? You are a tease.
I knew he was joking, but it still stung to be called a tease. Guys don't know how that comes across, even said jokingly.
We sent a few more messages back and forth, him being flirty and cute, and me trying hard not to embarrass myself too much.
I started making dinner, but kept getting distracted by his messages, so by the time the food was ready, Bell was cranky and giving me a hard time. You would think hunger would make the kid less fussy, but she seemed to become more picky whenever dinner was late.
She scowled at me and picked at the food with her fingers, trying to remove the miniscule dots of cracked pepper I'd accidentally put in. I'd been distracted by the messages on my phone and forgot she only liked the “tiny” pepper from the shaker, not the freshly-ground crunchy stuff from the grinder our grandparents gave us as in our apartment-warming gift basket.
“For heaven's sakes, it's just spice,” I said, exasperated. “It's not dirt or poison, so don't give me that look. If I wanted to feed you dirt, I'd disguise it better, and you'd never even know.”
I'd meant the comment as a joke, but her little eyes narrowed and she glared at me like I was the most rotten person on the whole planet.
She didn't know I'd just canceled a date with a hot, sexy guy so I could have a play date for her emotional well-being. Nope. To her, I was just the asshole who put crunchy pepper chunks on her macaroni.
What an asshole.
Chapter Nineteen
SAWYER JONES
Frustration.
Punch-a-hole-in-the-wall frustration.
Aubrey was so near, but so far away. I felt like I was dating someone who lived in another time zone, or on another planet.
She would text me, all the time, but if I tried to make plans to see her, there was always an excuse. She was either at work, or with her kid, or just plain unavailable. Sometimes I wanted to talk to her, but her cell phone battery would be dying. All the time.
I had to wonder if what she really wanted was a new cell phone with a Boyfriend App. Boyfriend App could send her interesting and informative messages throughout the day, and she could send back smiley faces in place of communicating.
I'd have my phone out all hours of the day, and Spanky made fun of me.
“Girls are like jobs,” he said. “If that one's only giving you part-time hours, maybe you should pick up a second one. Lemme know, I'll set you up.”
We were playing a game of pool at the house, and he was kicking my ass because my head wasn't in the game.
“One of your potheads?” I asked.
He grinned, his lips pale and pink against his yellowing teeth. Spanky didn't always look like a dirtbag with a mullet. When we were younger, he used to get his tips highlighted, so he looked blond, and he used to wear clothes that didn't look like they'd been stolen from a clothesline as he was running away from someone. Today, he had on a pair of jeans that were more holes than jean, and an extra-large shirt with a roaring tiger on it. His toenails looked like they hadn't been cut… ever.
He said, “Nothing wrong with a pothead girlfriend. The sex is great, and it goes on for hours, bro. You get tired, and bored, but it just keeps going. So you do one of these.”
He grabbed my phone and plopped it on the floor, then dropped down into one-handed push-up position.
“Yeah, baby, you like that, huh?” He moved forward and back on his toes, swinging his hips into the imaginary girl beneath him while also staring at my phone. He grunted, “Just checkin' my email. Just bangin' my pothead girlfriend who can't get enough, and checkin' my email.” He flicked my phone over to his other hand and switched arms. “Aw, baby, I can't even feel my dick. Everything's numb from the waist down. You sure it's still in there?”
I grabbed my phone back.
“There's more to life than sex and drugs.”
Spanky jumped up to his feet, red-faced and grinning. “There's rock-n-roll.” He punched me in the shoulder, hard.
“You choad.”
He grinned. “Choadsmoker.” His hand darted out and he got me in the solar plexus.
The instincts kicked in and my hands flew up. “You cock. Try it again when I'm looking, and I'll lay you out.”
He stepped back to remove the temptation. “You are wound up. Let's smoke an old fashioned and I'll call some girls over. This girl I know will suck your dick like it's cherry cola.”
“Huh.” Was he talking about the blonde with the dirty mouth or the brunette who always had to pee? One time, the brunette had brought over her own toilet paper, because she knew we were always out.
Those two girls were best friends, and they both knew Janine, my ex, through school or something. After Janine and I broke up, the two of them came over together with a pie to cheer me up. An actual pie that one of them had baked.
“Party tonight,” Spanky said, running his hand back through his hair. The smell of body odor coming from his armpit made me take a step back.
“I don't know.” I glanced down at my phone for the millionth time that day, hoping to see something from Aubrey. I hadn't seen her since Tuesday, when she'd shaken me to my core in her bedroom and then practically thrown me out of her place. Now it was Saturday, and I'd had nothing but text messages from her.
Not enough.
She was at work that Saturday. I wanted to go see her, but I also got the feeling she didn't want me to swing by the bar.
The only up-side to not knowing where I stood with Aubrey was that I felt more productive than ever with my art. The big piece, the commission for a new restaurant, was coming together better than I'd dreamed. Sometimes I'd walk into my room and it would take my breath away.
Not that I was getting conceited. It was the other way around. I wondered if someone more talented than me was sneaking in and fixing it behind my back. No way had I painted something so pure and confident as that piece.
If I couldn't see Aubrey, I wanted to spend my evening working on my art, not entertaining Spanky's new friends. Some of the girls who'd been coming over looked young, like sixteen. They made me feel like a creeper, and the pathetic ones just made me sad. The hot ones disturbed me for a different reason. They were so much more available than Aubrey. I worried that one day I'd slip up and grab for some low-hanging fruit rather than chase around a girl who seemed ambivalent toward me.
Spanky was sending out messages and chattering about the party. I put some chalk on the cue and tried to focus on the game.
An hour later, I was craving cherry cola so bad it was all I could think of.
Cherry cola I could do, so I walked to the London Drugs just up the hill.
When the first customer approached me and asked me where the store had batteries, I didn't think anything of it. When the third person came up and asked if “we” still did photo processing, I finally clued in. I was wearing the last clean shirt from my closet, a blue one with short sleeves, and people assumed I was in a store employee uniform. This had happened at least once before, and Spanky made a comment about it any time I wore the shirt, which was exactly why I didn't wear the shirt unless I had no other options.
After I helpe
d direct the gentleman to an actual employee, I dug out my phone and sent a series of text messages to Aubrey, telling her all about my hilarious blue-shirt adventure.
She didn't reply until I was back home with the cherry cola and some bags of snacks for the party.
Aubrey: I don't get it.
Me: I was wearing a blue shirt, and people thought I worked there. I would send you a photo, if you had a decent phone like regular people and could get photos.
Aubrey: :-(
Something about that frowny face set me off. What did it mean? Was she hinting that I should buy her a phone for her birthday? I didn't even know when her birthday was. Or how old she would be. I hardly knew anything about her, except that she drove me crazy.
I'd never been with a girl who seemed so unsure about having a relationship with me, yet so utterly confident about sex. Her naked body was as gorgeous and awesome as her face when she smiled. The way she'd sucked my cock had almost made my balls explode. I wanted her so bad, which is why I was so damn frustrated that I couldn't get near her.
As I stood there in the kitchen staring at her frowny face on my phone, my dick got heavy like a pewter candlestick holder suitable for bludgeoning intruders.
Maybe I wasn't lovesick, or even infatuated. I hadn't jerked off that day, or the day before, and it was time.
Back home, I ran up to my room and shut the deadbolt. I also had a key for the door's lock, and I'd use that later tonight to keep the partygoers from using my room, but for now speed was crucial.
Still standing, I unfastened my jeans and pushed them down. Catching sight of my boxer shorts confused me for a minute, like I was watching something on TV that wasn't me. I had on these ridiculous white boxers with black polka dots—definitely bottom-of-the-drawer, well-past-laundry-day stuff. I pushed them down and grabbed myself. Smooth, steady strokes, and I pictured Aubrey's mouth. Frowning. Smiling. In a straight line. Then opening and taking me in.
I thought about her tits and squeezing her nipples, rolling them between my thumb and forefinger. A heaviness rolled through me. I wanted to have her breasts under me, and to kiss in a trail down her stomach, then drop my chin between her legs and thrust my tongue into her. I wanted to grab her ass with both hands as I licked her up and down, taking my time, making her writhe beneath me. Her hands in my hair. Calling my name. Sawyer.