Weird Girl and What's His Name

by Meagan Brothers

  “Lucky me, two lovely ladies on my arm.” He and my mother kissed. I looked away. “Hey there, sport. Did you two have fun together?” He gave my shoulder a little punch.

  “Yeah, we had fun.” I sounded a little too chipper.

  “Come on in,” he opened the door for us. “Our table’s ready. Now, I won’t tell you what to order, but I believe they’ve got the best tamales in town.”

  The dinner was indescribably boring. My mother kept talking to Walter about some guy they knew who was divorcing his wife and who would get the gallery they coowned and the wife was having an affair with some artist who blah blah blah. Walter just nodded and chewed his tamales. Which were insanely good, by the way, but it wasn’t like I’d eaten a lifetime of tamales for comparison. I kept wishing I was with Rory; we would be at Federico’s Pizza right now, going insane, already planning on going back to the Saturday matinee. I wondered where Rory was right now, who he was seeing the movie with.

  “Did your mother tell you that the oldest-known church in America is right here in Santa Fe?” Walter said when she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom. “You’d think it’d be in Boston or some such, but it’s just a few blocks away, matter of fact. Spanish explorers came up here through Mexico, years before the Pilgrims.”

  “Huh.” I tried and failed to sound interested.

  “I figured that’d be right up your alley. You’re looking for religion.”

  “Who says I’m looking for religion?”

  “You did. Didn’t you?” Walter leaned back in his chair. I shrugged.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I admitted, and it hit me how true that was. All of a sudden, though, I felt like I was going to cry. My mother came back from the bathroom and sat down, shaking her napkin out like a matador and landing it in her lap.

  “Should we order dessert?” She looked at my plate. “Are you finished? We could get them to wrap that up.”

  “Don’t rush her, Chris.”

  “It’s fine. I’m done.” I wiped my mouth.

  “Walt, you wouldn’t believe this movie we saw. So gruesome.”

  “Huh.” Walter swirled his beer bottle around and took the last swig. “I thought it was an adaptation. Something off TV.”

  “You remember that show, X-Files?” Mom tried to jog his memory. “Mid-nineties? FBI agents investigating UFOs? Kind of Twin Peaks meets All the President’s Men.” Walter squinted, trying to remember.

  “Sounds familiar . . . sorta like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but with a guy and a girl, right?”

  “Right. Same cast, but this time, instead of UFOs, it was about a serial killer who turned out to be decapitating girl’s heads so that he could attach the head of his dying gay lover to their bodies and re-animate them.”

  “Shoo,” Walter winced. “That’s gruesome, all right.” He cocked a look at me. “You like horror movies?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “What would you call that, then?” my mother challenged. “It was certainly horrifying.”

  “But it wasn’t about—I mean, it was really about them. About Mulder and Scully, working together again. If you were into the show, that’s all that matters—”

  “Is it?” My mother arched her eyebrow. “So you’re postulating that plot has nothing to do with your overall enjoyment of a piece of cinema, as long as you like the main characters? That’s interesting.”

  “No, I meant—”

  “Because you have to admit, it was not a pleasant viewing experience. It was dreary, visually unappealing, credulitystraining at every corner—you have to admit that it simply wasn’t very good.”

  “Why do I have to admit anything?” I felt my stomach knot up. Walter picked at the label on his beer bottle with the edge of his thumbnail. “Why can’t I have my own opinion? I mean, yeah, I would’ve liked it better if it’d been about the mythology arc, but whatever. They used to do stand-alone episodes all the time. They call it Monster of the Week. Maybe you just don’t understand—”

  “Then enlighten me, daughter.” My mother sat back and folded her arms. “What do I, after a lifetime of working in film and theater, fail to understand that you, in your infinite fangirl wisdom, fully comprehend? I mean, I’ve seen the posters on your bedroom walls, and I gotta say, kiddo, I don’t have a lot of faith in your ability to give a fair, objective critique of anything that involves an hour and a half of David Duchovny’s puppydog eyes.”

  I stared down at my half-empty plate, willing myself not to cry. Okay, so this is how it was going to be. We weren’t going to bond. We weren’t going to go to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum together and stand arm in arm in front of the big flower paintings. She wasn’t going to be impressed by the endless Internet articles I’d read on Stanislavski and method acting or Ingmar Bergman’s use of Jungian dream imagery or magic realism in the plays of Sam Shepard. We were going to sit here in a crowded restaurant with the forks clinking against the plates and hate each other silently, one of us for leaving, one of us for showing up.

  “Christine,” Walter whispered. “It’s just a movie. Take it easy.”

  The waitress came with her tray. “How we doin’ over here? You guys ready for some dessert?”

  “I think we’ll take the check,” Walter told her.

  I stood up and pushed past the waitress, walked out of the restaurant, to the sidewalk outside. This line from one of my mom’s books came into my head. From the Liv Ullmann book. To return is not to revisit something that has failed. It was underlined. I always hung on to that line, thinking it meant that someday, somehow, my mom would come back. Now it dawned on me that I could take it for my own. That maybe it meant I should go back home. It would be mortifying, for sure. But maybe the embarrassment would hurt less than this.

  I FOUND RORY OUTSIDE, SITTING ON the low brick wall that edged the patio, texting somebody on a brand new phone. Maybe the Brocks bought it for him. Maybe Seth was texting him right now. Dude, your friends are weird. Or maybe he was texting the old guy from the bookstore again. Planning another secret rendezvous.

  “There you are,” I said.

  “Here I am.” He snapped the phone closed.

  “The enigmatic Theodore Callahan. Hey, nice Exile Beard.”

  “This old thing?” Rory smiled absently, rubbing his chin. “I was getting all broken out from the chinstrap. On my helmet. I’m gonna shave it as soon as the season ends.”

  “It makes you look older,” I said, not wanting to admit that I preferred clean-shaven, baby-faced Rory. I noticed his pinkie finger, wrapped in strips of white tape. “What happened to your finger?”

  “Oh.” He flattened out his hand as if he was seeing the taped finger for the first time. “Got dislocated.”

  “You dislocated your finger? You’re allowed to play with a dislocated finger?”

  “I don’t block with my pinkie.” He laughed softly. “Anyway, it just happened tonight. It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal?” I jammed my finger playing basketball in gym class once, and it hurt like a bitch for at least a week. “I guess they’re making a tough guy outta you yet.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that much, that’s all.” He opened his Gatorade bottle and took a drink. “Having fun?”

  “Yeah, it’s been, ah—” Okay, all sarcasm aside, yes, I was having a good time. Some of Seth’s church buddies started a huge game of Uno, which I hadn’t played since I was, like, seven. I know. Uno. Go ahead and laugh. I’m uncool, whatever.

  “It was fun. Seth’s friends are nice. Seth’s nice. We had a weird, um—” I hesitated. For some reason, I felt like I shouldn’t tell Rory. But, what the heck. We used to be best friends, once upon a time. “He told me about his brother’s testicles, and then he hugged me.” I stopped at telling him about the song, or Seth’s melancholy trees and musings on the nature of love.

  “He gets pretty emotional about Donnie,” Rory agreed. “The first night I lived here, he told me the whole story, and he was crying a
nd everything. Then we stayed up till, like, 3 a.m. listening to Guided by Voices. I don’t think his parents like to talk about Donnie dying, so it’s like any chance he gets, you know?”

  “Makes sense.” I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. “How’s it working out? Living here?”

  “It’s nice. It’s different. Seth’s folks are cool. They’re older.” Rory looked up at the house. “It’s nice that everything stays the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the furniture doesn’t move.” We both laughed. “You know what’s weird, though? I miss her.” Rory sniffed. “I miss my mom.”

  “Patty the Pickle? Come on,” I sighed. “Even without being a crazy inebriated homophobe, she’s nuts. Remember that time she wouldn’t let you throw out the shower curtain because she thought the mold pattern looked like the silhouette of Dick Cavett?”

  “I guess no matter how old you get, you still want a mother,” Rory mused.

  “You can have mine,” I offered. “She totally ruined the X-Files movie for me. We were supposed to be bonding or whatever, and we had this huge fight afterward because she was, like, adamant that it sucked.”

  “She seemed pretty hardcore.”

  “She was. She is.” I kept forgetting that Rory had met her. This conversation was making me nervous somehow. “So, did you go see it with, um, with Andy?”

  “No. We broke up. I saw it alone.” Rory twisted his Gatorade cap again.

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that. That you broke up.” Was I sorry? Not really. I didn’t even know the guy. I hadn’t even known Rory was in a relationship, for Pete’s sake—how could I feel sorry? But I wished I’d been there for him. I was so far out of Rory’s life, I didn’t even know how long it had been since the breakup.

  “It probably would’ve happened anyway,” Rory shrugged. “He’s moving to Salt Lake City to be closer to his kids. He already sold the bookstore and everything.”

  “Geez, that’s . . . that sucks.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Um. Anyway. I’m gonna head home, but I just wanted to say, you know, if it doesn’t work out over here, you can always come stay with me at Janet and Leo’s. We’ve got the pullout bed and you know how Janet loves to cook, so.” I cleared my throat. “Of course, we don’t have Sexy Seth sleeping in the next room. Just raggedy old me.”

  “Just you, huh.” Rory looked at me. Good gravy. He and Seth must get together and practice their Intense Stares on each other.

  “Yeah. Just me.” I said. “Well. See ya ’round, Rory.”

  “See ya, Lula.”

  I started to walk away, then I stopped. I wondered if Seth was telling the truth, if Rory really did talk about me all the time. I kicked at the edge of the patio wall. Dammit.

  “Rory, hey. I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m sorry. I really am sorry about you and Andy breaking up. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you after Andy, or when your mom threw you out. I’m sorry about leaving and not telling you. I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your emails or call you or anything. I was really angry that you didn’t tell me about Andy. I was mad that we fought about it. But that’s no excuse.” I stopped. Faint voices drifted out of Seth’s basement, laughing, a whole other world.

  “It was a shitty thing to do, for me to leave like that and not tell you,” I went on. “And I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry, and I wish that I hadn’t acted like I did. I wish I’d confided in you. I wish I’d been honest with you about leaving. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to send you an email as soon as I left, and tell you not to worry, that I was okay. But . . . it wasn’t. You don’t have to be friends with me if you don’t want to, but I just want you to know that . . . I’m sorry I hurt you. Okay?”

  Rory stared straight ahead.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said finally.

  twelve

  I WALKED HOME TO CHECK IN with Janet and Leo, but they were sleeping already. I didn’t feel like trying to sleep, so I got on my bike and rode over to Jay’s. When I got there, Jay was standing on the front porch with a fat woman I’d never seen before. Not that I’m like, size-ist or whatever—I mean, look at Rory, he’s huge, and he’s adorable—but this woman was, like, noticeably fat from a distance. And way bigger than Jay. Jay was a little on the skinny side, but standing next to this woman, she looked like a pipe cleaner with a head.

  I stood there in the shadows across the street, not really spying on purpose but just hanging back because I could tell, even from far away, that they were in the middle of an intense discussion. Then, they hugged. The fat woman kissed Jay’s hair and pulled away from her, and Jay reached out for her hand. And I realized that this must’ve been Carol, the infamous Carol, the one who’d wrecked Jay so much she had to drop out of school. I waited until Carol’s car was all the way down the street before I clicked my bike across and knocked on Jay’s door. When she came to the door, her face was puffy and wet from crying.

  “Hey—is everything okay?” I asked. Jay looked at me for a second, her eyes filling with tears again. She shook her head and sort of crumpled, and then she was crying into my shoulder. Really sobbing, her entire body shaking with it. I held her in the doorway for a few minutes, then I took her over to the couch. There were two wine glasses on the coffee table, still full. A ring, a thick band of silver with a notch of a diamond chip in it, sat on the table next to the bottle of wine.

  “She said she had to see me,” Jay said, swallowing and sniffling. “Carol.”

  “That was Carol?” I asked, still not quite believing it. I’d been picturing someone . . . less plus-sized.

  “You saw her?”

  “She was driving away—” I backpedaled, not wanting Jay to think I was spying.

  “Yeah, that was Carol.” Jay narrowed her eyes at me. “So what?”

  “So . . .”

  “I mean, you say her name like you’re all surprised. Why, just because she’s black?”

  “What?” Like I’m supposed to be shocked that Jay prefers ladies of color? After her endless Beyoncé monologues? Not to mention the fact that the only decorations in her whole house were a poster of the cover of Janet Jackson’s janet album and a framed one-sheet from the movie Foxy Brown. Nah, I was just trying to get my mind around the physics of the whole thing, given Carol’s substantial mass and Jay’s considerable lack thereof. “No, I don’t care if she’s black. But I thought she . . . lived all the way up in Massachusetts.”

  “She flew down here. She called me from the airport.” Jay crossed her arms. “I thought maybe she was finally—I thought she’d changed her mind. But she—” Jay blinked up at the ceiling, trying not to cry. “She flew all the way down here just to tell me that she finally worked everything through in her head. Once she had some time to think. She wanted to say goodbye and give me my ring back in person. She wasn’t even here long enough to drink the wine.”

  I stood up. Jay grabbed my hand.

  “Where are you going? Don’t leave yet, okay?”

  “I’m just going to get you some Kleenex.”

  “I don’t have any. There’s toilet paper in the bathroom.”

  I went into the bathroom and emerged with a roll of toilet paper. Jay had already downed one of the glasses of wine and was halfway through the other when I came back. I handed her the toilet paper roll. She put the wine glass down long enough to blow her nose loudly.

  “You want some?” She handed me the bottle. “It’s really good wine. Really top notch stuff. No sense in letting it go to waste.”

  I had a glass, and then another one, just so that Jay wouldn’t drink the whole bottle herself, but I didn’t feel like drinking. We sat there on the couch for a while, Jay talking about Carol and Kendra, Carol’s kid. The things they did together. How much Jay wanted to have a family, since she’d pretty much been kicked out of hers for being gay. After a while, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. And for a break. I’d been listening
to Carol Stories for nearly two hours, and maybe it made me a crappy friend, but what I really wanted now was to go home and go to bed.

  “So why were you out and about tonight, anyway?” Jay drifted into the kitchen.

  “I went to a football game. Back at my old school.”

  “You went to a football game?” Jay snorted. “How was it? A totally vile display of pseudo-masculinity?”

  “It was a veritable who’s who of people I never wanted to see again,” I sipped my water. “But I ended up going to a party with Rory and his quarterback. This guy Seth. He told me all about how his brother died, and now he sits in his brother’s old room and listens to his music. And then we—” I hesitated again. “We had, like, a moment. He hugged me. It was weird. But it was really nice. He’s nice.”

  Jay laughed softly, slouching in the doorway. “So now you’re making out with the quarterback. Next in the line of completely unattainable people you fall for. That makes sense.”

  “We weren’t—”

  “Lula, you’re so dumb,” Jay said. I was too surprised to say anything. “Why did you come over here tonight?”

  “I—I dunno, I thought we’d hang out.”

  “I don’t think you know anything. You don’t know what you want. Why don’t you go back to the quarterback’s house and get knocked up?”

  “Gee, that’s nice. Who said I wanted to get knocked up by a quarterback?”

  “You think you’re so outside everything, but you’re so typical,” Jay kept on talking. “You’re just too scared to act on it. You’re too scared to feel something real for a real person. I mean, for somebody who’s not a movie star on your wall.”

  “I’m going home,” I muttered. I was too tired for this.

  “No, wait a minute.” Jay grabbed my arm again. I waited for her to make sense. “When did you realize you were in love with your gay best friend? Before or after he’d come out to you?”

  “What?”

  “And your little come-on to your teacher. You think it’s a coincidence that it happened on the same night you saw your gay crush with his real boyfriend? You honestly think that what you did had anything to do with real love? You just needed to find somebody outrageous, to get What’s His Name’s attention. You needed to cause a scene. You found the safest possible person—married, straight, your teacher—the most unavailable. You knew she’d rather keep her job and not be ridden out of town on a rail than sleep with you. So it was easy. You acted out, but you didn’t have to act on it. I mean, really act.”