by Liza Palmer
I’m petting Solo when I see it. A little bed made up on the couch. A couch pillow was pulled down, and the blanket that usually hangs over the armrest is also pulled down as if someone has just climbed from beneath it. I look to Solo for answers.
The phone rings.
“Hello?” I’m suffering a tad from vertigo as I answer.
“Hey, Maggie? Were you sleeping?” It’s Domenic. For the love of God, it’s Domenic. Is this like the urban legend where the phone call is actually coming from inside the babysitter’s house? Is he still here?
“No,” I say.
“Tomorrow is the big day and I was just checking in about the time. And . . . and I wanted to know how you were feeling after last night . . . just minor details.” Domenic laughs.
“Oh, are you still up for the move?” I ask. My face is flush with embarrassment.
“Why wouldn’t I be up for it?”
“I don’t know, I just figured . . . I don’t know.” I don’t have a reason that wouldn’t sound completely insecure and childish. So, best to act like I’m put out and horrified that he doesn’t know why I’m asking. If he doesn’t bring up last night, then I won’t, either.
“How are you feeling? You had quite a night.” Shit.
“I just got really drunk. I never drink, so I just didn’t hold it that well, I guess. But I can’t remember anything.” A flash of Domenic sitting on my bed hits me like a ton of bricks; he’s looking down at me lovingly. The warmth of his chest. I bite back the memory.
“Oh, well. You just said some things. I didn’t know if . . . you . . . um . . . meant them . . . but I guess . . . you . . . Anyway, see you tomorrow?”
“You want to stop by around eight, we can get everything over to the new house by nine or ten and then you can be on your way by eleven, if all goes well.” I speak quickly. I get that Domenic wants clarity about last night. So do I. Why bring a date to a party if you like another girl? It’s simple, really. You don’t.
“I’ve set aside the whole day, so don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, then,” I choke.
We are silent. The shock of Domenic holding my hand floods my brain. I can’t believe how stupid I am. Did I call him Lloyd Dobler? Here’s where I have to prove to myself that he loves me, that last night was all about me and Erin is now completely out of the picture.
This is where I become my worst enemy.
“So who was that girl you were with?”
“Erin is actually pretty nice. For being a friend of Christina’s, she’s pretty intelligent.”
“That’s an achievement.”
Domenic is silent.
“Erin seems like a nice girl, if you like that sort of thing,” I blurt out.
“Yeah, well. At least I remember my night.” I hear a pencil tapping in the background.
“Oh, I remember my night. Yeah, I may have said some stupid stuff, but at least I . . . you know . . . I was there with people I could talk to.” What does that even mean?
“You were completely drunk. You weren’t talking to anyone. You slurred and spit through conversation after conversation, and they slurred and spit back . . . I don’t think you do remember your night.”
“Oh, is that right? Well, then it looks like we have ourselves a difference of opinion.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we have.”
“Well, then,” I stammer.
“Well, then.” The pencil is now almost deafening.
“See you tomorrow?” I yell. I can’t think of any other way for me to come out on top of this conversation. I’m so humiliated. I feel like the stupidest person in the world.
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” Domenic hangs up the phone slowly. I call Peregrine before I can think better of it.
“Hey, there,” I say.
“Hi,” Peregrine says.
“I made the appointment with Sam.” I am openly sobbing.
“Aw, button, what happened?” I can hear Inez in the background asking after me. Peregrine is shushing her.
“It was this perfect night and now it’s all gone. Wherever we were last night—it’s awkward history. I just think I’ve messed it up. But I didn’t, you know? Why can’t he make a move, huh? Why is this all on me?” I ask.
“Men are idiots, lamb. He probably convinced himself that you were so drunk, you didn’t know what you were doing.” I can hear Inez again. Peregrine puts her hand over the phone and I can hear her retelling the uneventful story.
“So what do I do?” I sniffle.
“Target practice, love. Until you find a man who can really step up, just think of all these other men as practice,” Peregrine says.
“Okay. Target practice,” I repeat. Target practice.
I hang up once again and put my head in my hands. My whole life is packed up in thirty-six boxes. I feel like I’m right back in fourth grade—sitting atop the monkey bars. Waiting. Waiting. I can’t face this day right now. I am having flashbacks of last night. I’ve never felt so embarrassed and frustrated. I’ve been up for approximately eight minutes and already I’ve had enough. I decide to sleep off last night. I fall back into bed and try to erase any memory of last night.
I pull the sheet over my shoulder and press my head deep into my down pillow. I will my brain to turn off. The last thing I feel is my hand twitch with exhaustion. The last thing I hear is Solo growl at my movements.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pink Pastry Box o’Magic
My first kiss took place on a stage at my high school during my senior year. His name was Brody Schroeder and he had psoriasis—but just on his hands. Olivia had talked me into trying out for the Christmas play that year. I got the part of Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. The drama teacher told me Ma Joad was a major part and I should be honored to get cast for it my first time auditioning for any type of play. All I saw was that I was playing an elderly lady who didn’t have to be young or vibrant at all. Who better than a fat girl to play someone ageless and sexless? The director wanted Ma and Pa Joad to kiss good-bye at some point during the play. It was supposed to be a peck on the lips to show the bond between the parents during their trials and tribulations. I remember Brody and I sitting in the rehearsal hall while the director mapped out the scene. We both stared straight ahead, not comprehending what was about to happen. We got up to start blocking and the crowd fell silent. Line. Blocking. Line. Blocking. Then it was time. Brody slumped his shoulders, took a step forward, and kissed me softly on the lips. Later that year, he told me it was his first kiss, too.
I wake up from a restless sleep. I kept waking up over and over again thinking that I wasn’t going to be up early enough. I decide to go pick up doughnuts and take Solo to the huge dog emporium for her grooming/test drive.
I hand Solo off to one of the emporium employees. She is barking and chewing her own leash. I wish I had the balls to act like Solo sometimes. No second-guessing, no fears—she is who she is. The employee gingerly walks her behind the counter and gives me a nervous wave as he is tugged uncontrollably off balance. Then I pick up a dozen doughnuts. I laughingly tell myself the doughnuts are for Domenic and my “moving team,” even though my “moving team” (read: my family) isn’t meeting me until lunchtime at the new house, thereby negating the need for doughnuts. I ask for a maple bar and a twist on the side. That way I can eat the two extras on the way home and it will look like I haven’t opened the pink pastry box o’magic.
I have a theory about pink pastry boxes. So much joy comes from those boxes. When someone walks into a room with a pink pastry box, joy immediately fills the room. World peace? Three words. Pink pastry box. I get a big cup of coffee and finalize my plans for world domination.
I pull up to my house and Domenic is waiting for me. I wave and push my shoulders back. This move is in the same category as the coy head tilt—makes you look thinner. Now, exiting from your car with a dozen doughnuts while angling out to make the departure look smooth: That makes you look fat.
“H
ey.” Domenic looks tentative.
“I’m sorry. I drank a lot and then I acted like a complete idiot. I’m sorry. It’s really nice that you still want to help.” I am almost crushing the box with my fists.
“It’s okay. Do you want me to carry any of that?” Domenic is trying to commandeer the pink pastry box o’magic. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it? You like that?
“Sure. Let me just grab my coffee.” How do I reach back into the car without shoving my ass in the face of my beloved? “Check out the doughnuts. Do you see anything you like?” I ask. He peers into the box; I dive into the car and grab my coffee.
“Did you get any of the little cake ones with the sprinkles on top?” I am taken aback. He is picking past legendary bear claws and humongous jelly-filled bundles of joy to look for the reject cake doughnuts, which I, of course, didn’t bother purchasing. Leave those secondhand doughnuts for the suckers who don’t have a say in the dozen they buy.
“No, I . . . uh. There’s a twist in there? Did you see that one? There’s a bear claw?” I beg. We are awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s because we’re trying to remember or forget last night.
“Yeah, I don’t like those. I’ll just take glazed.” Glazed. Fucking amateur.
We squeeze past the bulldozer. He goes first. I make sure of that. I open my front door and set the pink pastry box o’magic on the counter and watch as Domenic enters my house.
“Here we are again,” Domenic forces.
“Yep.” Target practice. Target practice.
“Nice.”
“Thanks. I tend to decorate in modern, forty-eight-hour Eviction Notice style. Saw it in this month’s Architectural Digest.” I let out a nervous laugh, and my coffee spills on the rug. I make no attempt to wipe it up.
“So what does your new place look like?” Domenic mills throughout the house.
“Cute as hell.”
I realize I’ve never seen the new house from the inside. The man who repainted the living room is leaving the key under the mat. Today will mark the first time I enter the house in which I will live.
“Well, then. Who can argue with that?” Domenic picks at his doughnut. The two secret doughnuts are sitting in the pit of my stomach.
As we drive to pick up the rented moving truck, I sneak side glances at his arms and his knees. I back the moving truck into The Sacred Driveway right behind the bulldozer as Domenic guides me with hand signals (backing vehicles into tight spaces is a hidden talent I have). I believe this might finally make him like me. I mean, a girl who can back a moving truck into a tiny residential driveway? Mother of your children? I think so.
“Nice shooting, Tex,” Domenic says.
Well, that’s a nice masculine comment. Maybe he’d like to arm wrestle?
The next forty-five minutes are spent carrying various boxes from my house, past the bulldozer, and into the rented moving truck. I watch as my entire life is carried out and loaded into the back of a moving truck. This is what it would look like if we moved into our own place.
I see Faye poke her two-week-old hairdo around the corner. The curl in front looks exactly the same as it did that blessed day at the salon. Everything else is a mangled, blown-out rat’s nest. Oh no, not now. Not in front of Domenic.
“What the hell is that?” Domenic whispers. He’s standing close. Is he wearing cologne? Those tingles are back.
“That’s my ex-landlord. Please don’t judge me by the following interchange.” I skulk toward Faye, who has now come out to the driveway.
“You killed my roses,” Faye dribbles.
“Of course I didn’t.”
“When is this going to be out of my driveway?” Faye asks, pointing to nothing in particular.
“The truck? The moving truck?” I ask.
Faye is staring back at Domenic. “Where’d you find him? Is he a cousin or something?” She untucks a rogue bit of bathing-suit ruffle that has lodged itself in her abdominal rolls of flesh.
I hear Domenic pulling down the door to the back of the truck. Then I hear him closing the front door to my house. He squeezes past the truck and opens the door to the front cab, flipping the keys in his hand.
“No, he’s not my cousin, but thanks for the back house and . . .” I look back at Domenic, who is fiddling with the truck’s AM radio. “Why don’t you cover your shit up, for chrissakes.” I’m waving my hand indiscriminately around her exposed nether regions.
I climb into the cab with Domenic, give Faye the middle finger, and tell him to drive. He puts the truck in gear. Then, and only then, do I exhale.
My relationship with my body is like that of an egomaniac with a self-esteem problem. Mostly I think about myself and how much I suck. But there are rare moments when I walk around for hours and think I look amazing. Either I feel great about myself or I’ve decided some guy is checking me out. Then I catch a side view of myself in a store window or a department store mirror and I’m plunged into despair. If I could always live in a place with no mirrors or disapproving glances, I would think I was the prettiest girl around.
I find the key under the threadbare mat of my tiny English cottage. I stand on the little porch and see mornings with coffee and the LA Times.
“Is this it?” Domenic stands behind me.
“Yeah, isn’t it beautiful?” I hold the door open for him as I step inside. The curtains on the many windows are a drab smoky yellow color. Those will have to be dyed. This is a job for Stubborn Workshop—a Thompson family phrase, meaning everything will fit and anything can be improved with a fresh coat of paint, new drawer pulls, and some brute force.
Domenic walks in and begins milling around. He fits so perfectly it hurts. My little Craftsman cottage and Domenic. His black flips of hair fit so right.
“They left it pretty nice,” I hear Domenic say from the other room.
“I guess,” I slip.
“You guess?” His eyes are narrowed as he comes back into view.
“Well, I haven’t actually seen the inside until now.”
“You rented a house you’ve never been inside?”
“It’s not like I never saw anything. I looked through windows. And did you not see the outside of this house?”
“Do you know if the plumbing works? The electricity? Um, little things like hot water? Heater? None of this is ringing any bells, right?” Domenic is resting his arms on the top of the doorjamb into the bedroom. I know his mouth is moving, but I can’t quite make out the words over the roaring fantasies of him standing like that.
“Okay, um. Once again, did you not see the front of the house? This is a cottage. The porch is dripping bougainvillea and little purple clematis? Did you see that? Can you not envision for one minute a cup of coffee on that porch?” I say.
“Clematis? Can’t you get that from a dirty toilet seat?”
“It’s a type of flower. And no, I believe it’s sexually transmitted.”
“The flower?” He is breezily smirking. How do you learn that?
“No, chlamydia. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Well, let’s hope the water works, so you can make your coffee. Let’s hope all those clap vines haven’t choked some mechanical system like, I don’t know, the electrical service?”
“You like it.”
“I like it for you. Your dog is going to love this place. Are they okay with the dog?” Domenic turns around and opens the windows in the bedroom. I almost fall over from my imaginings. I can see the muscles in his back shifting in and out. Who’s golden now?
“Well, we kinda had to fib a little on her size.”
“By how much—and fib? What’s that? Are we using words like fib now?”
“The management company doesn’t have a problem with Solo. It’s the landlord who thinks dogs are the downfall of land barons everywhere. So Mom did some research and we settled on a weight that seemed to be okay in most rental situations. I put that number down. And fib makes it sound a little l
ess harmless, don’t you think?”
“And how does that weight relate to your dog’s actual weight?”
“Well, we put down twenty-five pounds/one small dog.” I let that hang there for a while. In our heads we are both envisioning the Hound of the Baskervilles.
“Certainly, no one will be the wiser. I’m sure you’ll have nothing to worry about. Shall we?” he says, leaving the bedroom.
I explain that we should put the contents of the moving truck toward the middle of the house. I plan to paint the “Anchor Pieces” and dye the curtains, so we need to be able to get to them easily. Sometime during the morning’s activities, I have taken to calling the fireplace and the built-in buffet my “Anchor Pieces.”
“Are you allowed to just paint stuff?” Domenic asks as he undoes the latch on the truck.
“As long as you have it back the way it was when you move out. I figure I’m never moving out, so . . .”
“You’ll never put it back to normal,” he says, pulling out a small blue rocking chair from the back of the moving van.
“Normal is such a relative word.” I smile.
It’s eleven o’clock in the morning and I have officially moved.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He Never Threw Scissors
Watching Domenic help my mom serve lunch to the exhausted moving team ripped out every thread I’d stitched over the pain of the other night. The normalcy of that one simple act and how deeply it spoke to me makes me realize how hungry I am for someone to be in my life. Outgrowing the fantasy of white horses and long, slow gazes across impossibly formal occasions brings me here—to the simple beauty of watching someone I have feelings for become real. Seeing the simplicity of what it would be like in my day-to-day life and never taking one thing for granted—not even passing out paper plates and plastic cutlery.
My worldly belongings are bunched in the middle of my new house so they don’t impinge on my “Anchor Pieces” and their upcoming transformations. It is now past two in the afternoon. Domenic stands on the porch talking with Vincent about a novel they are both reading. Mom and Russell made their appearance, brought lunch for everyone, then drove off up the coast for an afternoon in Santa Barbara. Kate and Vincent have been a great help. They are now getting ready to go home.