Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words
Page 8
*Sprays water*
“Don’t wanna get gross dry mouth. Especially since I have gross wine mouth already.
“Okay, we’re gonna try this again. Think sexy thoughts, don’t laugh, think sexy thoughts, don’t laugh…
“‘He tastes like peppermint and beer…’ That’s an odd combination. Wouldn’t the peppermint overpower the beer? That’s like drinking a glass of orange juice after you brush your teeth. That can’t taste good during a kiss. The last guy I kissed tasted like eucalyptus, because he had chapped lips and used medicated chapstick. I couldn’t feel my lips or my tongue for an hour after he dropped me off.
“Where was I? Oh, yes. ‘He tastes like peppermint and beer as he gently… sucks… my tongue into his mouth. His hips… press harder against me and I slide one of my legs around the back of his thigh, until I can feel his… his…’ Oh, God. ‘…his… erectionrubbingagainstthethinmaterialofmyshortsbetweenmylegs.’
“Good Lord. Whew!
“‘His tongue begins to move through my mouth, in tune with the motion of his hips against me. Push. Push. Push…’”
“I know, I know! I’m laughing. Why is this so funny? It’s not funny. It’s serious. We’re very serious. This couple is dry humping in public. That’s serious business. Anyone could walk in on them. How do these narrators read this? You guys! How do they read this?
“All right. Hold please.”
*Sprays water*
“Calm down. Think about the neighbor, think about the neighbor…
“‘He pushes his tongue deeper, and slowly grinds himself between my thighs.’ Wow, okay. That’s nice. ‘He takes his time exploring my mouth, and with each jerk of his hips against me, I can feel myself getting… wetter, and… wetter. The throbbing in my… my…’ Rhymes with flit. ‘…growing stronger each time the rough denim of his jeans rubs against my bare thighs and his tongue circles mine.’
“Mmmmmm, that’s nice. That’s really nice. You know, if something like that would ever happen to me with the neighbor. Which it won’t. Because he doesn’t see me like that. I’m just the dorky girl next door who can’t string together five words when I speak to him. I should maybe move on to the next part of my homework right now and save these other excerpts for later. I’m supposed to send him a text. How am I supposed to send him a text and act normal when I’ve got words like grind, wetter, sucks, and rhymes with flit swirling around in my brain?
“It’s fine. Everything is fine. I’m fine. Just jump off the cliff and do it already, Heidi. I’m pulling up his contact information. I’m starting a new text… uff da. Why are these buttons so small? Forget it. I’ll just use the voice-to-text thing. I’ll dictate it into my phone. Easy-peasy.
“Hey, Brent! How you doin’?
“There. My best Joey Tribbiani from Friends, even though text doesn’t have sound. Whatever. It’s simple and cool and flirty, just like my man, Joey. Wait. That’s not at all what I said, you stupid phone. Could you imagine if I actually sent that to him? Delete, delete.
“Oh, God. Oh no! Please tell me I did not accidentally hit Send!”
Chapter 12
“It’s not that bad.”
“Oh, it’s bad. It’s really bad,” I mutter to Aubrey as I pace around my living room, holding my cell phone to my ear with one hand and biting the thumb nail off my other hand.
Thank goodness she gave me her cell phone number in case of an emergency. This is a code blue situation right now. I’m pretty sure I died of heart failure and now my reanimated corpse is wearing a hole in my carpet.
“Read it for me one more time,” Aubrey requests, a hint of laughter in her voice that makes me want to reach through the phone and possibly punch her in the throat.
Who knew wine and bad decisions could make me so angry?
I pull the phone away from my ear and reread the text my stupid phone sent to Brent, where the word Delivered sits right underneath it, mocking me. With a sigh, I bring the phone back to my ear.
“Maybe it’s not even his number. Maybe he gave me a fake number like girls do at bars.”
Aubrey laughs. “So you’d rather Brent gave you a fake phone number because he thinks you’re annoying, instead of the fact that you sent him the best autocorrected text I’ve ever heard in my life?”
“Yes!” I shout. “Wait, no. I don’t know! Why did I let you talk me into this?”
“Because you’re being bold and confident. You drunk-texted him. Big deal. I once sent my father-in-law a picture of my boobs on accident, because his name is right under Jameson’s name in my phone.”
“Oh my. What did you do?”
“I didn’t speak to him for six months, because I was mortified. Are you kidding me? My father-in-law saw my boobs, Heidi. There’s no coming back from that. Then one time, we went over there for dinner, and my mother-in-law made chicken breasts, and as soon as she announced what was for dinner, I started choking so hard I almost passed out.”
“This is doing nothing to make me feel better,” I complain.
“Did you send Brent a picture of your naked tits?”
“No!”
“Then you’re fine. You can come back from this. If he doesn’t respond, it will be a great conversation starter the next time you see him. Oh, hey there, Brent! How about that text I sent you? Oh, jeez. Uff da. Wine. Am I right or am I right? Done any ice fishing lately? How ’bout those Twins this season, eh?” Aubrey says in her best Minnesota accent that sounds entirely too Canadian.
“I don’t talk like that,” I complain with a roll of my eyes.
“There’s a reason why my husband is the actor and I am the writer. Seriously, you have nothing—”
Aubrey stops talking abruptly when the sound of my doorbell chimes loudly through the house.
“Holy shit. Was that your doorbell?” she asks through a loud whisper.
“Holy shoot, that was my doorbell!” I hiss back. I stand in the middle of my living room, staring at my front door like it might suddenly come to life and start eating all the small children on my street, and possibly a few adults.
“It’s him! Oh my God, it’s him!” she squeals, which makes all the wine in my stomach churn until I have to press my hand there to stop myself from puking all over my carpet.
“There’s no way it’s him,” I mumble with a shake of my head as I slowly inch toward the door. “Why would he just show up at my door at ten o’clock at night?”
“Um, did you read the text you sent him? He probably thinks you have a brain aneurism and he’s making sure you’re still alive.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad?” I whisper-scream.
“What kind of a new friend would I be if I was completely honest? When we’re old friends, then I can bust out the truth bombs. Wait, what’s happening? What are you doing? You can’t just ignore the doorbell!”
“Shhh, I’m listening. I have my ear pressed against the door,” I reply as quietly as possible.
“What in the fresh hell are you listening for? Don’t you have one of those peephole things? Just look out it and see if it’s him!”
Oh yeah. That makes much more sense.
Lifting up on my toes, I close one eye and look through the peephole with the other, letting out a gasp when I see Brent standing on my front porch with his hands in his pockets.
“It’s him! He’s standing on my porch! What do I do?” I hiss, taking a step back from the door.
“Hey, Heidi, you know I can hear you, right?”
The sound of Brent’s voice filled with laughter from the other side of the door makes the phone slip from my hand. It drops right on top of my bare foot, which makes my eyes fill with tears as I shout at the top of my lungs.
“Son of a biscuit!”
“I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have just shown up like this so late. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I can’t have him thinking I was yelling at him! Without giving it a second thought, I quickly unlock m
y door and fling it open so hard it smacks against the opposite wall.
“You betcha, it’s fine! Everything is fine! Just dropped my phone on my foot and it hurts like the dickens,” I tell him with a big smile. “Why did I say dickens? I’m not a ninety-year-old woman. Let’s just pretend I didn’t say dickens. Oh jeez, I can’t stop saying it now. I apologize. I’ve had some wine tonight.”
This makes Brent chuckle, and naturally his dimples make me forget all about how mortified I should be right now. Until he pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, bringing his phone right along with it.
“That explains the text I got from you a little bit ago,” he says with a smile, looking down at his phone as he reads my text out loud. “‘Dick taste in my palm. Sleazy, sleazy. He bent your dong.’”
Kill me. Kill me right now. Someone please put me out of my misery.
So, it would be bad enough if my phone had only translated Hey, Brent! How you doin’? into He bent your dong. But no. Of course it couldn’t be that simple. I had to go and start recording too early and “I’ll dictate it into my phone. Easy peasy,” had to sneak its way in there.
Once more, for the people in the back: Dick taste in my palm. Sleazy, sleazy. He bent your dong.
“I didn’t mean to send you that,” I reply lamely.
“Are you sure? It sounds like something you’d say,” he tells me with a wink.
Is he flirting with me? What is happening right now?
“I’m a teacher. Was a teacher. I’d never have such atrocious grammar in a text. I mean, those aren’t even complete sentences.”
Oh jeez. Shut up, Heidi!
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bother you so late. You didn’t have to come over just to check on me, but thank you. As you can see, I’m good. I might not be able to look you in the eye for the next eight-to-ten weeks, but I’m good.”
Brent takes a few steps toward me until he’s standing just inside my doorway, with only a few inches separating us. I start thinking about that excerpt I read on my podcast and imagine him wrapping his arms around me, lifting me up against his body, and pushing me into the wall. My entire body flushes and there’s a strong tingling sensation happening down there in my general word that rhymes with flit area that makes me want to pant like a dog.
I could easily reach up and grab onto his T-shirt, yanking him down so I could kiss him, just like Aubrey did to Jameson earlier at work. Brent winked at me. He came over to make sure I was okay instead of taking the lazy way out and just replying to my idiotic text. That’s got to mean something, right?
Do it, Heidi. Just do it. Grab ahold of what you want!
“You could never be a bother, Heidi,” Brent tells me softly. “And I hope you keep looking me in the eye. You’ve got beautiful eyes.”
Whaaat is happening?
This would be so much easier if it was all happening over text. You know, minus the autocorrect. I could send him the heart-eyes emoji and a thumbs-up. I could take a few minutes to think about what I’m going to say so it comes out all cool and awesome and perfect. But this isn’t a text. This is real life and it’s happening right now in front of me. I could possibly try to make a heart shape using my fingers and my thumb and hold it over one eye, but that would take too long and probably be weird.
For the love of God, stop stalling and grab his shirt!
Before I can think about what I’m doing, which is absolutely a bad idea going by my recent track record, my hand flies up to latch onto his shirt and pull him toward me. Except my brain is still filled with wine, which then sends a drunk brain-to-text message to my arm, and instead of wrapping my fingers around the cotton material of his shirt, I just punch him as hard as possible in the chest.
Brent winces and his upper body jerks backward with the force of my blow.
“Oh, you!” I giggle a little too loudly, trying to play it off like I meant to do that, wishing I’d never taken that self-defense class my mother guilted me into when I was in college.
I just treated Brent like an attacker and put my whole body into that thing.
Brent laughs and shakes his head at me as he rubs his palm against his chest. I’m trying to figure out if this shake of his head is one that says You’re adorable or You’re certifiably insane and I’m putting my house up for sale immediately.
Before I can figure it out, he steps backward out of my doorway and I’ve lost my chance to grab him and make him kiss me. Actually, that chance flew out the window when I went full-on Fight Club on him.
“Don’t forget to lock your door. And take some aspirin before you go to sleep,” Brent instructs, giving me a wave before turning and jogging down my steps.
“Sorry for drunk texting you!” I shout after him, quickly shutting my door, turning the lock, and gently smacking my forehead against the wood a few times.
As I slowly turn away from the door, I notice my cell phone still lying on the floor where I left it after it dropped on my foot. Bending over, I snatch it up, saying a prayer that Aubrey hung up as soon as she heard the loud clamor of it falling and didn’t listen to that disastrous conversation.
“It wasn’t that bad!” she immediately chirps as soon as I bring the phone up to my ear.
Chapter 13
Have you ever had that dream where you’re being chased, but it’s like your feet are stuck in a pile of mush and you can’t move? You keep pushing and pushing and trying to run, and no matter how hard you try, you don’t go anywhere. I have that dream all the time, but it’s gotten much worse recently. It doesn’t take a genius or even Google to tell me what that dream means.
I. Am. Stuck.
I want more out of my life. I want fun and excitement and passion, and I thought I was taking the steps to getting all of that. I got a new job that has nothing to do with teaching. I branched out in my reading and stopped being a prude. I made friends with famous people. I started a podcast. I still only have a handful of listeners who continue to tell me how much I suck every time I upload a new episode, but at least I haven’t quit. I’ve done some fun and exciting things outside of my comfort zone, and yet, nothing much has really changed. I’m still afraid to tell my parents I never want to be a teacher again. I’m still petrified to tell Brent how I feel about him. I’m still walking through a pile of mush, not going anywhere. I’m still waiting for something to happen to me instead of going out and getting it for myself.
If last night’s interaction with Brent taught me anything, aside from making sure my phone is nowhere within my reach after I’ve had wine, it’s that I need to stop being such a wimp. What if I tell my parents I never really wanted to be a teacher, and they’re disappointed in me? What if I tell Brent how I feel about him, and he doesn’t feel the same?
I’ve spent my entire life constantly asking myself what if and worrying about the consequences of every potential decision I might make, instead of just doing what makes me happy. If my parents are disappointed in me, it will make me sad, but at the end of the day, that’s their problem, not mine. If Brent doesn’t feel the same way, it will really suck, since we live next door to each other. But that’s his loss, not mine.
“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in.”
My body jolts in surprise when I hear my mom’s voice and I give her a sheepish smile when I see her in the open doorway of their house. Standing on my parents’ front porch for the last ten minutes contemplating life probably wasn’t the best decision.
“Are you two gonna stand there all day air conditioning the entire neighborhood or are you gonna come inside and shut the door?” my dad shouts from somewhere inside the house.
“Get in here before your father has a heart attack.” My mom sighs, moving out of the way so I can enter.
It’s really no surprise I’ve come to a point in my life where I feel stuck. Walking into my parents’ home is like walking into a time warp from the 1970s. This house used to belong to my grandparents on my dad’s side, and when my parents
got married, my grandparents sold it to them for next to nothing and moved into a retirement community just outside of town. The only thing my mom has changed about this house over the years is the wallpaper. There’s got to be at least fifteen layers of wallpaper in each room. She never rips the old stuff down; she just papers right over it with something even more hideous than before. Every room is filled with some sort of floral design from floor to ceiling that will make you dizzy if you stare at it long enough. The kitchen still has the same yellow Formica countertops and dark brown laminate cabinets. The bathrooms still have the same little bowl of pink decorative soaps in the shape of roses on the sink that were there when I was little that no one is allowed to touch because they’re for “guests,” but the guests never use them, because they’re too pretty, so my mom just continues to dust them every week and puts them right back. I asked my mom once when I was a teenager why they never upgraded their house, got new carpet or new cabinets or new anything, and her reply was, “If it’s not broke, why fix it?” She’s never been a fan of change. And now here I am, walking in, ready to tell her that her only daughter is changing in a big way.
“It’s about time you got here. I’m starving.”
I come to an abrupt halt when I reach the living room to find Jameson sitting on the couch next to my dad with a huge smile on his face.
“Peggy, you have to tell me where you got those cute little retro, rose-shaped soaps in the bathroom.”
Turning around in place, I watch with my mouth dropped wide open as Aubrey comes up to stand next to my mother.
Forget what I said about a time warp. This has officially turned into The Twilight Zone.
“Am I still drunk from last night?” I mutter, looking back and forth between my mom and my new friends.
“If you would have checked your texts this morning, you would’ve known your mom asked us over for lunch,” Aubrey admonishes.
“My phone is currently in a timeout, shoved into the back of my nightstand drawer until it can behave,” I remind her. “What is happening right now? Mom, how do you even know Aubrey and Jameson? And how did you get ahold of them to invite them over?”