Drawn to You

by Natalie Vivien

  I turn to Brad and shake my head, laughing quietly. “This is incredible.”

  “Thanks, Mol. But you can see why I need your car.” He leans toward the window and points, sighing. “The dot of my question mark is missing. The Forbes up in 4-B were supposed to be home by now with their Aveo, but they gave me a call and said they got a flat on the expressway, so I’m one car short.”

  “Well, I would be honored if you used my bug in your marriage proposal, Brad.”

  He holds up his hand for a high-five, and we touch palms lightly, so as not to make a sound. “Awesome. You’re awesome.” He ruffles my hair and then leaps over to the door, my keys jangling in his hand. “Don’t let Paul look outside, all right? Not until I come back in. Promise?”

  “Promise.” I draw the curtains closed behind me, giving Brad a quick thumbs-up.

  Soundlessly, he opens the door and slips out—a mere second before Pauline comes striding into the living room, humming Bohemian Rhapsody now, with a steaming silver pot clutched between her purple-gloved hands. “Well, I tried Brad’s cell, but he didn’t answer,” she says, shrugging slightly. “So I guess he’s not out of his appointment yet. We can start without him. I’m starved.”

  “Oh. Um…sure.”

  Her eyes rest upon the drawn curtains, then, and she tilts her head at me, brown eyes narrowed slightly. “Sun too bright for you?”

  “No.” I bite my lip, stammer, “I just thought it’d be more cozy, you know, with the lamplight…” My feeble excuse is made extra-feeble by my inability to meet Pauline’s gaze, but she seems satisfied enough: she turns around and leads the way into the green-walled dining room, still humming.

  After Pauline places the pot on the table, I ladle no-chicken soup into two blue pottery bowls and sit down in my usual spot, on Pauline’s right. She pours tea into two large mugs and cuts into a loaf of homemade bread, offering me a slice.

  “Voila! The surprise. And it’s still warm,” she smiles, sliding into her seat and pushing the butter dish in my direction. “I stole the recipe, actually. One of the admin staff at work always brings in this killer French bread for our potlucks, and she refuses to share the recipe for it with anyone outside of her little office clique. But I noticed a recipe card on her desk one day…and made some quick notations on the back of my hand. Always keep a Sharpie in your pocket,” she advises seriously, spooning some hot soup into her mouth. Her brown eyes immediately widen and water, and she waves her hand in front of her lips, shaking her head. “Whoo, that’ll put hair on your kneecaps! Give it some time to cool off, Mol. I think I gave my tongue a first-degree burn.” She pours ice water from the pitcher into her glass and swallows big gulps. “Serves me right for being impatient. It’s my curse!”

  I smile warmly at her, leaning back in my chair. Pauline’s impatience is the stuff of legend. She once grew so tired of waiting in line to buy concert tickets that she started crawling between people’s legs to get ahead—and was kicked out by a pair of beefy, no-nonsense security guards. Out of solidarity, I skipped the concert, too, and we watched a marathon of B-movies in our dorm room together: two pigtailed undergrads in pajamas and bunny slippers, cackling at the bad special effects, gorging on Chinese takeout…

  I reach across the table and squeeze Pauline’s hand. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know,” she smiles, tearing into the soft bread with her teeth. “I love you, too. Hey, are you feeling any better? I mean, after being away from the scene-of-the-heartbreak for a little while. Sometimes a change of scenery works wonders.” She blows on her soup spoon determinedly, tests it with her tongue tip, then sighs. “Anyway, when you let me stay in your cottage after my breakup with Travis, I felt like I’d been given a new lease on life, like I finally had permission to start over again, you know?”

  I smile weakly, staring down into my bowl as if it’s a witch’s cauldron that might show me my future, or at least offer some consoling words, but all I see is an oily reflection of my face and a random collection of alphabet noodles: E, U, B, Q.

  The problem is that I don’t want to start over.

  I want a second chance with Ash.

  I want to tell Ash that I want her, only her, want to convince her that Juliette lied to her... But Ash won’t take my calls. And she could be anywhere by now.

  She could be hundreds of miles away.

  I remember my ex-girlfriends-on-Mars daydream and grimace. I know that Molly is worth fighting for… Really? Thanks, subconscious, for that painful reminder that Earth-Ash knows nothing of the sort.

  I bite into a slice of buttered bread and chew it slowly.

  An ear-piercing screech breaks the silence then, causing Pauline and me to fling our bread down to the table, our heads whipping in the direction of the living room. But I recognize that screech—my cranky old VW—and sink down a little in my chair.

  Sorry, Brad.

  “Wow, that sounded just like your jalopy,” Pauline chuckles, giving me a teasing wink as she dips her spoon into her bowl. “Take heart, Mol: you aren’t the only unfortunate chump cursed with a colossal clunker.”

  “Clunkers have character.” I smirk at her—for more reasons than one—and my eyes skip over the living room eagerly. Any minute now, Brad is going to step through that door…

  “Hey, listen, I don’t mean to get on your case, but if you ever decide to ditch the dead weight, you’ve got a car-shopping cohort right here.” Pauline points her spoon toward herself and accidentally flicks hot soup onto her face. “Ah!”

  “Oh! Don’t move…” I rise from my chair and dab a napkin—gently—over her reddening cheek. “Oh, Paul, are you okay?”

  “A-okay,” she whimpers, facing me with one eye shut tight. “Probably scalded my pupil, but two eyes were a little excessive…”

  “Oh, God. Let me get you some ice.” I hurry into the kitchen, slipping on the shiny tiles, and pull the ice cube tray out of the freezer. Then I grab the first tea towel I can find—a well-used yellow one printed with a handlebar mustache and the words I mustache you a question—and dump the ice cubes into it, tying it closed with a messy knot. I’m about to run out of the kitchen and back into the dining room when I hear Brad’s voice, a little breathless, asking Pauline to join him by the window.

  My heart expands: it’s happening! Pauline may be burnt and temporarily half-blind, but she’s about to get engaged to the man of her dreams, and the heaviness I’ve been carrying around with me for the past two days dissipates, replaced by a floaty, light-as-air joy. I feel like I’m hovering inches above the ground.

  I’m not, though, and as I edge toward the dining room, I slip again on the slick floor (Pauline has this thing about crazy-clean, glossy tiles; I think she actually oils them, or coats them in black ice), catching myself awkwardly on the oven handle and banging my chin against a pointy drawer pull.

  I taste blood in my mouth as I drag myself—carefully—to my feet, gripping the countertop like a staircase railing.

  “Why do you keep winking?” I hear Brad ask Pauline, and she laughs, recounting for him the hot-soup-on-pupil story, which is destined to become a classic after tonight.

  The icy tea towel still clutched in my right hand, I shuffle out of the kitchen at last, breathe a sigh of relief, and peer through the dining room doorway. Brad and Pauline are silhouetted against the now-uncurtained window, facing each other and holding hands.

  “What’s all this about?” Pauline asks him, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead. “Why are you shaking? You haven’t got a brain tumor or something, have you? Can dental x-rays even detect brain tumors? We should get a second opinion—”

  “No brain tumor, Paul. I didn’t even go to the dentist today.”

  “You… Why? What? You lied? What’s going on?”

  Brad ducks his chin, looking sweet and shy and altogether terrified. I watch his hand move into his shorts pocket, and I bite my lip, holding my breath. “I…I’ve got a question to ask you,” he squeaks adorably,
licking his lips and gesturing toward the window. “Um…I was kind of counting on you having two eyes to take this sight in, but I guess one will be enough.”

  “One will be enough for what?”

  “To see—”

  “See what? I thought you said you had a question—”

  “Just look out the window, Paul.”

  Her face shadowed with skepticism, Pauline lets go of Brad’s hand and shifts to regard the glass at her side. She presses her fingers against the pane, tilting her head down toward the parking lot below. “What the hell…” she begins, but then her voice catches, and she draws in an audible breath, turning back toward Brad and pressing a hand to his chest. “Is that…” She glances out of the window again, slowly shaking her head. “Is that your question? Are you asking me to—”

  “Marry me.” Brad drops to one knee before her and presents the black velvet box on his outstretched palm. “I’m asking you to marry me, Pauline. I love you—unconditionally. I want to spend my life with you. I want to grow old and grey with you. I want to watch a billion awful movies with you.”

  “Only a billion?” Pauline asks, laughing and sobbing as, with trembling fingers, she takes the box from Brad’s hand.

  “Two billion.”

  Pauline taps her foot.

  “Three, four, five!”

  She arches a brow, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Okay, an infinity of sickeningly bad sci-fi. How’s that?”

  “Now you’re talking my language.” And Pauline opens the box, and gasps, and falls to her knees in front of her soon-to-be fiancé, eyes aglow. “Oh, baby…”

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s… It’s… You’re…” she stammers, then throws herself on top of him so that they both tumble onto the carpet, giggling like children, kissing like soulmates...

  I inch back into the kitchen, swiping a tear from my eye. Pauline’s whole life is about to change, about to become the fairy tale she’s always deserved; I imagine her walking down the aisle, imagine her universe-wide smile on her wedding day, and I can’t help it: tears stream over my face, dripping off of my chin onto the too-shiny floor.

  After a few moments of hushed murmurs, “Yes, yes, yes!” Pauline shouts, and then she’s yelling my name, and I drop the tea towel and grab some napkins from the countertop, instead, and I run into the living room, where I find Pauline and Brad standing now, hands clasped. I throw my arms around both of them, weightless with happiness.

  “Congratulations! I love you both so much! I…I just… This is the most wonderful thing, and you’re the most wonderful people, and—”

  “And,” Pauline laughs, leaning back so that she can stare pointedly at me with her one open eye, “I think now is the perfect occasion for me to ask you a question. Will you be my maid of honor, Molly?”

  “It would be my…well, honor,” I tell her, voice cracking, squeezing the newly engaged couple so tightly that Brad makes a desperate, choking wheeze. “Sorry.” I hand Pauline and Brad one napkin each and use the third napkin to wipe away my own still-leaking tears.

  “Thanks for your help, Mol.” Brad presses my keys into my hand, grinning. “I couldn’t have proposed without you.”

  Pauline glances between us and feigns a longsuffering sigh. “Yeah, I saw that miserable bug down there…and realized that maybe I’ve been too hard on the old metal insect. I mean, she does makes a great dot.”

  I laugh. “Finally! A begrudging compliment for my poor abused car.”

  “Don’t get used to it.” Pauline smiles, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Look, Molly—my future husband has excellent taste.” She waves her be-ringed hand in front of my eyes, flashing her glittering ruby.

  “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” I sniffle, smiling. “You two were meant to be together.”

  The moment those words, meant to be, cross my lips, I cringe, not because they aren’t true for Brad and Pauline—they are—but because they bring my own less-than-romantic reality crashing back into my consciousness, popping my fragile, euphoric bubble.

  I sigh and wince—and then force myself to smile again.

  Face flushed, eyes brimming with bliss, Pauline glides into Brad’s arms, then, and I watch my friends kiss and coo over each as I begin to subtly back toward the front door.

  “Stop right there, Molly Mason.”

  “Eyes in the back of your head,” I mutter.

  “I’m a teacher. I’ve got a sixth sense for sneaky business.” When Pauline’s stern brown eyes meet mine, I almost shiver. But then I realize that I’m not afraid, only freezing; my teeth chatter together as I jam my hands into my jeans pockets.

  “I want to give you guys some privacy—”

  “You’re our dinner guest!”

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing.” Pauline disentangles herself from Brad’s embrace and steps before me, smoothing my hair back from my eyes. “I invited you here to give you a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, a helping hand…and other various and sundry body parts to do with what you will. You can’t just leave—”

  “But I have to, Pauline.” I peer into her warm gaze, smiling softly. “Best friend bylaw number 17. This is your engagement night. You should spend it with Brad, alone, doing nauseatingly romantic things—like sipping out of each other’s champagne glasses, slow dancing to saxophone music and Let’s Get it On—”

  “Your idea of romance is alarmingly ‘80s, Mol.”

  “Hey, that kind of stuff is timeless.” I soften, reaching for her hands. She’s still shaky, though her expression is one of grim obstinacy: the lioness awakened. “How about I take some of that soup home with me? That way, I’ll still be able to enjoy your fabulous cooking, and you’ll be able to enjoy some fabulous ‘80s-style sex.”

  “Molly!” Pauline pretends to be scandalized, clapping a hand over my mouth. “What do you take me for, a common slattern?”

  I tug away her hand and give her a sly once-over, winking suggestively. “Of course not. I’d say you’re as uncommon as they come.”

  Laughing gleefully, Pauline slaps my hand and then twirls around to head toward the kitchen, Brad following at her heels, nibbling at her neck. When they reemerge a couple of minutes later, Pauline’s face is as red as a tomato, and there’s a large pink love-bite forming just above her collarbone. She carries a Tupperware bowl over to the table and spoons some of the soup into it for me as Brad sits down and begins to butter a slice of bread for himself.

  “Are you sure you won’t stay?” Pauline glances at me worriedly. Her wounded eye is half-open now, though it looks red and swollen. “I feel like a reprehensible friend.”

  “I would be reprehensible if I stuck around.” One brow raised, I tap a finger on my chin thoughtfully. “But…”

  She clicks the lid onto the bowl and strides over to hand it to me, along with some slices of bread wrapped up neatly in aluminum foil. Her hand rests on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “But what, my-favorite-lady-in-all-the-world?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind borrowing The Venusian Triangle. You know, since my evening’s plans fell through. I could use a time-waster, a visual distraction…”

  “I’m on it.” And just like that, she drags a big cardboard box out of the coat closet and begins riffling through the contents: piles upon piles of DVDs and VHS tapes. “Hotties from Helios, no. Milky Way Maids; The Princess of Pluto; Battle Babes from Beyond the Stars—”

  “Wow. I suddenly realized where your love for alliteration came from.”

  “Took you long enough.” Pauline grins. “Ah, here it is!” She stands up and, making Vanna White-esque hand gestures, presents a colorful DVD case to me. Its cover art features one startled-looking, beehived woman in tight-fitting astronaut garb. She’s flanked on either side by buxom, scantily clad, green-skinned gals—who appear exceptionally pleased over the fact that they’re groping the shocked space girl’s naughty bits with their strange, three-fingered hands.

>   “Prepare to be entertained. And appalled. And offended. And mildly concerned. And incredibly confused. But mostly…embarrassingly titillated.” Pauline leers. “Hey, I’m as straight as a number-two pencil, and even I thought those ladies were hot. Didn’t I, Brad?”

  Caught with a mouthful of bread, Brad gives us two thumbs-up, grinning widely. Now that his proposal has been received with enthusiastic approval, he looks relaxed—and ravenous. The poor guy probably starved himself all day long. Pauline told me once that, despite his easygoing appearance, Brad suffers from a nervous stomach.

  “Thanks, Paul.” I take the DVD with my free hand and clutch it to my chest, smiling sardonically. “Nothing like some sexy escapist cinema to numb a broken heart.”

  “Sexy escapist cinema and my no-chicken soup. Promise me you’ll eat it?”

  “God, yes. I’ll guzzle it down in a very unladylike way. Your soup is my religion, you know.”

  “All hail the gluten-free alphabet noodles.” Pauline salutes, then draws me close for a hug, whispering into my ear, “I’m so glad you were part of my engagement, Molly. And give that rusty bug of yours a kiss on the fender from me, will you? Maybe we’ll be friends, after all.”

  “Aw, my two best girls working out their differences. Makes me have faith in humanity again.” I laugh lightly, half-choking on an errant sob. “Well…almost.”

  “Hey.” Pauline draws back, snaring my gaze with her fierce brown eyes. “You, Molly Mason, deserve nothing less than a happily ever after, and I hereby swear to make it my solemn duty to aid you in the attainment of said happily ever after—through whatever means necessary. Including but not limited to Cyrano de Bergerac-type window serenades, staking out LGBT bookstores for potential life partners, pretending to be a lesbian so that you can make your crush jealous… You name it, I’ll do it.” She presses her forehead against mine, smiling. “I’d do anything to make sure you’re happy, Molly.”