by Max Monroe
“I told you it isn’t the same shit. I haven’t been able to force a raft into the river for goddamn anything today.”
“Turn off the game and come in here, Jimmy,” my mom called, completely unfazed by my father’s TMI, as I laughed and Laura and Cam cracked smiles.
My dad was the kind of guy who embarrassed you when you were younger by coming out to meet your friends in his tighty-whitey underwear and farting during the school Christmas pageant. He did the same kind of stuff now that we were adults, but it was a whole hell of a lot easier to appreciate it for its comedic value. Though, if I’m honest, I always appreciated it—but I never cared what anyone else thought.
Laura had a slightly harder time tuning out everyone else’s opinions.
The squeal of the footrest retracting on my dad’s chair indicated his compliance, so I shoved a couple more carrots into my mouth while we waited for him to appear.
My mother smacked my hand. “Stop eating so many carrots. You’ll ruin your dinner.”
I barked a chuckle. “I’m sorry, but isn’t the point of putting out appetizers to eat them before consuming an equally delicious meal?”
I looked to Cam and Laura for validation, but the two of them knew better than to get involved. Cowards.
“Those are there for everyone, and you’ve had more than your share.”
“I’m a growing boy,” I argued. After all, maybe Lola liked muscle. I’d need my vegetables to grow it.
“Some parts of you are still a boy,” my father grumbled as he shuffled into the kitchen, cutting off my Lola daydream.
I didn’t think he’d ever stop telling me to grow up, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever care. Something about him telling me just made it feel like he still cared—wanted what was best for me. I didn’t happen to agree about what that was, but it really was the thought that counted. I smiled.
“Jesus, Jimmy!” my mom scoffed, catching sight of my dad for the first time that night. “Are you wearing swim trunks?”
He glanced down to check.
“I told you to dress nice for dinner.”
“They cover everything,” my dad argued. “We’re not at a five-star restaurant, we’re in our goddamn house. What’s the difference what kind of pants I have on?”
“Just be glad he’s wearing pants at all,” Laura muttered, and I smiled as I reached for another carrot. My mom’s warning eyes met mine, but the trajectory of my hand never slowed.
She just shook her head and went back to her business at the sink. My father was still trying to convince me to change. She put on a show with the initial reprimand, but overall, she was resigned to the man I was—and secretly liked him.
I guess she and Lola have that in common, I thought musingly.
“Everyone sit down at the table,” my mom commanded. “The lasagna is about done, and you’re all in my way.”
I rounded the island and placed a kiss on her cheek before reaching into the silverware drawer to get what I needed to set the table. We had family dinner nearly every Sunday, and I loved it—looked forward to it, actually. But I knew one day the frequency would dwindle, and things would change. My parents were getting older, and my sister and brother-in-law were about to have a baby. It was the way of the world, and I was okay with that. I just intended to soak up every moment I could now.
Laura saw me in the drawer and stepped up to the plate—somewhat literally. “I’ll get the napkins and plates.”
My mom didn’t say thank you, but she didn’t have to. We could see it shining in her eyes, and she didn’t owe us one anyway—it was the other way around.
Laura and I made quick work of the setup, working around my dad, who’d already taken his seat at the head of the table, while Cam hung out in the kitchen and waited to carry things in for my mother.
The garlic bread came out just as we were taking our seats, and I immediately reached into the basket to do what I always did. I pulled a piece out and tossed it to my dad, who caught it deftly before moving it to a secure location below the table. Laura clapped her hands like a quarterback, and I tossed a piece in her direction where she quickly executed a similar maneuver to my father.
It was then that my mother entered the room behind a lasagna-carrying Cam to find my hand once again in the basket.
“Reed Luca!”
I pretended to be surprised.
“Why am I always having to tell you to wait?”
I shrugged.
“For Pete’s sake!”
“Sorry, Mom. I guess I just never learn,” I apologized contritely. I wasn’t planning to learn in the future either, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was to get away with the con, and my mom soaked up butter like a roll.
Laura and my dad stared at their plates and chewed discreetly. This was how it always worked, and I’d never even considered ratting them out.
Though, I did find it funny how they never reprimanded me for lying for their sake, but all of my other lies were derived directly from the devil.
“I guess that’s just going to have to be the only piece you get,” my mom decreed. I shot eyes to Laura, and she promised telepathically she’d do me a solid and secure me another piece.
I looked back to my mom with my sweetest smile. “Okay, Mom.”
She huffed her satisfaction at my easy compliance.
Cam did his best to break the ice. “So, uh, Reed. Where are you working now?”
It was actually comical how much of a staple this very conversation had become of our family dinners. I changed jobs often, and at some point over the years, the discussion had finally morphed from When are you going to settle on something? to Tell us about what you’re doing now.
“Well, actually, I just got done with that three-week stint on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was absolutely incredible. The views from the top are unlike anything I have ever seen. The fog doesn’t even seem real.”
Their faces all said cool, but their silence said they couldn’t relate. And I truly got it. I’d imagined what it would be like so many times over the years, but even that hadn’t ever come close to what it was actually like.
“So what are you doing now?” my dad asked as he shoveled the first bite of steaming lasagna into his mouth. My mom still stood, scooping out pieces onto each of our plates individually. I was pretty sure it wasn’t as much about serving us as making sure I only took my share.
“I’m going to be writing a column for the San Fran Journal.”
“Seriously?” Cam asked at the same time Laura exclaimed, “How cool!”
Of course. The column in the paper got their attention, but working at the very top of one of the tallest bridges in the country was no big deal. I nearly shook my head.
“What’s the column about?” my mom asked, the patient one of the group.
“Dating, relationships, and sex.”
My dad choked, sputtering and coughing and banging on his own chest.
“Oh, my God! Jimmy!” my mom yelled, panicked.
Cam jumped to his feet, the first-responder instinct strong within him. He moved around the table swiftly and wrapped his arms around my dad, prepared to Heimlich, but my dad swatted him away.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Jesus.”
“Well, don’t scare us like that!” my mom reprimanded, like he’d choked on purpose just to garner some attention.
My dad ignored her. “What in the Sam Hill do you know about dating and relationships?”
“Pretty sure he doesn’t know about sex either,” Cam muttered under his breath, obviously still distressed by my earlier betrayal.
“Honestly, I only know my own experience and my observation of the world around me,” I admitted, and feelings of being in over my head washed over me. I really didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that reading Lola’s column was easy, and refuting it was even easier. Something about the two of us together, even when we were on rival teams, seemed right.
“Then why the hell did they gi
ve you the job?” my dad asked.
“Actually, it’s an opposing column to one that already exists at the Times.”
“Sex Says,” Laura shouted. “Oh my God, I love that column.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course she did.
“I’d never heard of it until a few weeks ago,” I admitted. “Anyway, I made a video about it, and apparently, a lot of people caught wind.”
I shrugged. Done with my explanation, I went back to my lasagna, but I looked up again when I heard no sounds. No talking and not the reverberations of a family scarfing down their meal.
When my eyes finally met Laura’s, she glanced to my dad and my mom before stating, “We’re going to need to see that video.”
I rolled my eyes. “Laura—”
“We’re just gonna watch it when you leave if we don’t watch it now,” my dad said. “I don’t know much about finding videos on the internet—”
My mom scoffed, and a mental image of my dad surfing for porn jumped unwelcome into my mind.
“Fine,” I interjected, before my brain could fully develop the idea of my dad one-handing it at the dinner table.
“I have my laptop with me!” Laura shouted as she jumped up from the table and ran, well, wobbled at a quick pace, for the other room.
She came back with it nearly instantly and shoved my plate to the side before I could even lay my fork down. “Here.”
I reached around her to put my fork on the plate and pulled up the browser to head to YouTube. The rest of the family pushed back in their chairs and rounded the table to stand behind me.
“It’s going to be out of context if you don’t read her column first,” I warned.
“I read it,” Laura said. “I read all of them.”
Of course she did.
“And we can look it up after if we need to,” Cam added.
I found my page and clicked play on the video. Immediately, my mom’s eyes went to the laundry. “What’s all over your shirt?”
“I’d just gotten done working down at the wharf.”
“Gross,” Laura mumbled and I chuckled.
“Seventeen million views?” Cam exclaimed. “Holy fuck!”
Laura reached over and pinched his nipple, and Cam tried to squirm away.
My mom smacked my head as I picked up a cigarette and lit it in the video. “Still smoking and doing it in your apartment! What’s wrong with you?”
“I enjoy it, and I do what I like in my own apartment. I don’t do it in yours,” I explained patiently.
“I’m your mother!”
“Hush, Linda,” my dad ordered. “I can’t hear the goddamn video.”
As I spoke, I heard the words I was addressing like a song in my mind. Lola’s voice and fervor as I imagined her saying them—and the way she reacted to mine.
The rest of their commentary faded out as the woman who inspired the video took up every corner of space in my mind and chest. Her quick wit and quirky smile and the way she’d been wound up as I left her apartment to head here—but mostly, what I was going to do to make sure I saw her again.
And soon.
I tossed a few goldfish crackers into my mouth and stopped mid-chew when I felt like I was being watched. Out of my periphery, I discreetly glanced toward Louie’s aquarium, and I could tell he wasn’t happy. His little fish eyes were pointed right in my direction.
Shit. I probably needed to rethink my snack food selections.
Eating actual goldfish—even if they were of the cracker variety—probably came across as a bit morbid to my finned roommate.
I made a mental note never to buy these crackers again, and when I thought a little harder about it, marked Swedish fish off my snack list, too.
“Sorry, dude,” I offered an apology as my eyes met his.
He gave no response.
Yeah, definitely pissed off. But who could blame him? He might’ve been a smart aleck, but it didn’t give me the right to spur paranoia that I’d one day turn cannibalistic and eat him for lunch. Actions spoke louder than words, and I’d get into Louie’s good graces again by going cold turkey on all foods that resembled him.
My phone vibrated with a text, and I opened up the never-ending group message with two of my girlfriends.
Abby: Ummm… Who the fuck is this Reed Luca guy?
Jen: Whoever he is…he’s not hard on the eyes. I mean… Holy hell…
Sigh. Everyone in my life had seen the asshole’s YouTube video, which was why Jen and Abby had been prattling on about it for the past twenty minutes.
With my feet propped up on my couch, I groaned. Reed Luca had even found his way into conversations with my friends. He was a real thorn in my side.
I loved Abby and Jen, I really did. They were two of my closest friends whom I’d met when we were freshmen at UCLA. Back then, they had been your typical California girls—bubbly, blond, blue eyes, and sun-kissed skin—and I was the weirdo in Doc Martens and baby doll dresses. I’d gone through a bit of a grunge nineties phase during my first two years of college.
We’d met at a house party, and honestly, it was still a tad of a mystery how we’d become friends. But somehow, my eccentricity meshed well with their conventionality.
And it still did, despite the fact that I wasn’t digging their current choice in conversation topics revolving around the one guy I’d rather fucking forget about.
Me: I hate Reed Luca.
Jen: I’m not sure I could ever hate a guy with those blue eyes…
Me: Enough of the ellipses, Jen. We get it. You think Reed Luca is sexy.
Jen: Tell me this… Do you think Reed Luca is sexy?
Me: That’s beside the point. He made a YouTube video that bashed my column. It went viral. Gained national exposure. And now, he’s writing an opposing column with the Journal. Reed Luca can lick my asshole.
Abby: So, you think Reed is sexy AND you want him to lick your asshole?
Me: The moral support occurring within this group text is staggering. I mean, honestly. I’m overwhelmed, guys. You’re the best.
Abby: Sorry, Lo. I take it back. Reed Luca is a dick. I hope his penis shrivels up and he never has sex again. I hope he sits on a parking cone. I wish him one hundred years of no sex and acne.
Jen: I wonder what Reed Luca’s penis looks like… Like, it can’t be small…
Abby: Jen, you’re not helping.
Jen: What? It was a simple question.
Me: Can we talk about something else besides Reed Luca? I feel like this guy is trying to ruin my life but, like, also won’t get out of my goddamn lifeboat. For the love of God, change the subject or I’m ignoring you guys.
Abby: Fine…um… Simone is back in town.
Jen: Oh. No.
Me: How do you know?
Simone had been our friend since our college days. And she was kind of a bitch. She was the type of friend who made it a point to constantly talk about herself and all of the wonderful things in her life while finding a way to tell you awful things about yourself.
I often wondered why we still considered her a friend.
Abby: I saw her out and about yesterday while I was running errands.
Jen: How many times did she passive aggressively offend you?
Abby: Ten, but then again, she didn’t have a lot of time. I made up an excuse of being late for a doctor’s appointment.
Abby: Oh wait, make that eleven. She got one final dig in before I all but sprinted away. “Oh, are you seeing a dermatologist for that horrid mole on your cheek? I’ve always wondered if you were getting that looked at.”
Jen: Jesus. Is she still using that British accent?
Abby: Yes.
Me: I don’t understand the accent. I mean, she grew up in SoCal. Her family is from Alabama.
Abby: Apparently, she just got back from Paris. Where she is currently working on a clothing line with Ralph Lauren.
Simone was also known for being a bit of a liar.
Hmmm… Sounds like someone else
I know…
Nope. Never mind. I refused to even think his name.
Me: God. Ralph Lauren isn’t even based in Paris. They’re in New York. And wouldn’t residing in Paris support a French accent?
Jen: I have no idea how she keeps up with all of the lies. I mean, the last time I saw her, she told me Bon Jovi gave her a ride home from the airport.
Me: That doesn’t even make sense. Bon Jovi is a band. The whole band gave her a ride home from the airport?
Jen: Do you think I even tried to question it? I didn’t want to be taken down that bottomless well of lies. I might never have gotten out. I mean, she would’ve ended up telling me she had afternoon tea with Jenny from the Block.
Abby: Dude. She goes by JLo now.
Jen: Whatever.
Me: I honestly feel bad how much I really can’t stand Simone.
Jen: That’s because you have this internal need to please everyone.
Me: I can’t help it. And plus, she always appears so aloof to the fact that she comes across as a complete asshole. I just don’t understand how someone could be so blind to the fact that they offend literally everyone.
Jen: You know she’s going to call you and want to hang out.
Me: I’m not answering her calls.
Abby: Liar.
Me: I’m not! And like you guys should talk. Last time she was in town, I met you guys for lunch and she was there. I know for a fact I didn’t invite her.
Jen: That doesn’t count. She just so happened to be at the restaurant and sat down at our table. She basically crashed our lunch.