by Strong, Mimi
“Two weeks?” That was funny, since I didn’t remember setting a date for my PR wedding. Fuck me like a pinkie finger in a powdered donut hole.
I really needed to get Shayla working for me on a regular basis. I needed someone to google me and filter out all the mean gossip while keeping me up to speed on my wedding dates and whatnot.
My mother asked, “Will Kyle be the ring bearer? I’ll have to get him a tuxedo. What are the colors?”
I couldn’t see her face, because she kept squeezing me, twirling us in a circle in her excitement.
“Mom, you’re making me dizzy.” I pushed her away and held her at a distance, my hands on her shoulders. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Of course I am. Furious. Can’t you tell?” Her flushed cheeks rose like apples on either side of a huge smile, and her eyes held happy tears.
“I’m getting married in two weeks.” Saying the words out loud didn’t make the situation any less surreal.
“We haven’t even met Dalton’s family yet, and your father and I barely met him that once. Why such a rush? Is there something else I should know about?”
She gave my midsection an accusatory look.
“Mom, I’m not pregnant, I swear.”
“You can understand why I wouldn’t take you for your word.”
“I’ll pee on a stick if you want.” I leaned in and whispered. “Aunt Flo is in town at the moment, so I’m pretty sure.”
“You probably didn’t tell us about the wedding because you thought I’d disapprove, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Now, you know I love your father—love him to pieces—but plenty of days I find myself wondering what might have happened if I’d married that famous actor, instead of just getting rogered by him.”
I looked around the street, feeling self-conscious about people overhearing us. “Mom, do you want to go somewhere a little less sidewalk-y to discuss getting rogered?”
“Good idea. My car’s back at the hairdresser’s.”
We walked up to her car and got in. She started driving, and told me there’d been more to the story of her affair with a famous art restoration client than she’d originally let on. The man hadn’t just rogered her at the art studio. He’d also flown her to Europe, and rogered her in the Swiss Alps, and in a small, very hot Venice apartment above a glass-blowing studio. Name a major city in Europe, and he’d rogered my mother there.
We pulled into a parking spot at the Barking Dog, an English-style pub near the edge of town. I begged her to stop talking about the specifics of her European tour.
“Mom, all this time, I thought you saw those museums and art galleries on a backpacking tour with your girlfriends.”
“That’s what your father thinks, too, so let’s not tell him. You know men. They get so jealous and possessive.”
“Be honest with me. Dad is still my father, isn’t he?”
“Sweetheart, you’ve got his brains. Isn’t that evidence enough? Besides, everything ended with (the movie star; name redacted to protect my mother from Scientologists) long before I even met your father. He’s the one who healed my heart, you know.” She popped open the car door. “Kyle’s with your father. Let’s get dinner here. I’d love to eat a meal I don’t have to cook or wash up after.” She gasped. “Lucky you, marrying rich. You won’t have to scrub anyone’s dirty gonchies. The maid will do that for you.”
We walked into the pub, me shaking my head as my mother listed all the things other people would take care of for me.
Once we were seated, I said, “Money isn’t everything. Aren’t you worried that we don’t know Dalton very well?”
“My first impressions are rarely wrong,” she said, sounding confident. “He seemed lovely at your cousin Marita’s wedding, and he was nice to Kyle, and he loves my beautiful daughter—though who wouldn’t—so I’m not worried.”
“What about Dad?”
“No boy will ever be good enough for his daughter, but he got over his fury about you parading around in your underpants, so he’ll come around.”
“He was upset about me modeling?”
“Livid. I had to give him a Time Out.”
“Wow.” A Time Out was something relatively new to the Monroe household, invented to calm down Kyle when he went through a tantrum phase. When you get a Time Out, you have to sit quietly with a blanket covering your entire body. You can wail and cry and rant as much as you want, but you can’t come out of the blanket until you’ve settled down.
I’m certainly no parenting expert, but speaking as the subject of a few Time Outs when I was a teenager, I must say there’s something very soothing about wailing and blubbering about the unfairness of life while under a fluffy blanket. You eventually get bored of your garbage and move your mouth to the edge of the blanket for more oxygen. Once you inhale that sweet, fresh air, you realize that’s what sanity tastes like, and you want sanity.*
*And you also want to eat your dinner, and not inside a blanket that smells like your breath.
“Your father eventually came around,” my mother said.
“I had no idea. He acted so calm when he was working on the contract.”
“Men guard their emotions. Their kind have many advantages in this world, from height and strength to writing their names in the snow, but they hide their feelings. Maybe it’s another advantage they have over us. I don’t know.”
The waitress came by to drop off our Diet Cokes and take our food order. We both asked for the beef dip with a side of horse radish. I never order the beef dip, unless I’m out with my mother. It had been too long since we’d gone out, just the two of us.
Once we were alone again, I asked my mother, “How do you get a guy to open up to you?”
“You have to listen. And what I mean by listen is you have to shut up on occasion.” She started to laugh. “I’m still working on that, but Aunt Gracie told me that trick on my wedding day, and she’s a wise lady.”
“You have to shut up?” I joined in with her laughter. “Sounds like more effort than it’s worth. I mean, how many feelings could they possibly have?”
She began laughing harder, tears at her eyes. “Men have plenty of feelings. There’s Sleepy and Grouchy and… wait, no, those are the seven dwarves.”
“Same difference.”
She howled with laughter. “Being sexist is so much fun.”
“Did I ever tell you about the he-man gorilla showdown, where Dalton cranked up the crazy airplane fans in his house?”
She wiped at her eyes with a napkin. “Maybe you shouldn’t. He’s going to be my son-in-law.”
“You should know what you’re getting into,” I said, then I relayed the entire story, including the bit where Dalton whispered something in Keith’s ear as we were leaving.
“Well?” Her eyes were big. “What did he say?”
“I don’t know.”
She sat back, crossing her arms. “That’s not much of a story, without the best part.”
“I’ll find out, Mom. I’ll tell you, unless it’s something gross.”
She made a face. “Now, about my dress,” she said, and we moved quickly into talking about wedding preparations.
The food came, and I was surprised by my hunger. The day of moving had been long, but sitting in the warm pub with my mother, as people came and went around us, pool balls clinking on the nearby pool table, everything in my life seemed to be working out for the best.
Basking in the warmth of my mother’s happy glow, I completely forgot the wedding was fake, and that I’d still be spending the rest of the week lugging around boxes of books with the other guy I was dating.
After the plates were cleared, my mother got out her phone to check for messages, and I did the same.
I had a new message from Dalton: Hey.
“Speak of the devil,” I said out loud.
“Is that your fiancé?” She put an extra-strong emphasis on the word fiancé.
“Yup, just my fiancé. Checking in.”
“Tell your fiancé I said hello.”
“I will tell my fiancé that!”
We went on for a bit, and the waitress who refilled our Diet Cokes must have thought we were crazy.
My hands were sweating as I wrote back: Your apology card was very sweet. I liked the frog.
Dalton: I took your advice about getting someone to help with my heartfelt speeches, but the card was the best I could do on short notice.
Me: I’m sorry I got so worked up in San Francisco.
Dalton: I need to ask you something.
Me: Ask me. Don’t ask me if you can ask me. You’re killing me with the suspense.
Dalton: Would you bring your family this weekend to a winery I have booked for us? I want your people to meet my people.
Me: Do you mean meet your family?
Dalton: Yes.
I must have started breathing funny and making a face, because my mother asked what was going on.
I explained, “Dalton wants to have you and Dad go on a trip this weekend, to a winery. We’ll meet his family. I don’t know what that means. His mother… well, she died a while back. And I didn’t think he was speaking to his father, but I guess they’ve sorted things out.”
She nodded. “A wedding, like babies, can bring people together. Weddings are as much for the extended family as for the young couple. If it wasn’t for weddings, we’d only see each other at funerals.”
“Dark, Mom. Really dark.”
“His father was in a lot of those adult movies. Do you think he’s proud that his son has done so well at acting? It can be difficult for a parent, when their child does too well. We all hope for the best for our kids, but… we don’t want them to be ashamed of us.”
“Please, Mom. Tell me you haven’t watched any of his father’s porno movies. Or his mother’s.” I made a gagging face.
She rolled her eyes and feigned innocence. “I wouldn’t even know where to look for such a thing.”
“When you meet him, don’t ask about porno stuff.”
“What if the wrong words slip out of my mouth? Like I try to compliment him on his pants, and instead, I say he has a nice penis.”
I smirked. “Easy. Just avoid all P-words.”
“What about C-words? Hey there, nice to meet you. That’s a nice cock you drove up here. How’s the mileage on that cock?”
“You know what, Mom? Maybe just pull him aside immediately and get all that out of the way. Tell him how much you enjoy getting rogered.”
She nodded along, oblivious to my sarcasm. “Perhaps he could give your father some tips.”
“Yes, Mom. Definitely ask my future father-in-law for porno sex tips on behalf of Dad.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want him to think I was weird.”
I swirled my straw in my drink and took another sip, patiently waiting for her to move on to other topics.
CHAPTER 25
Wednesday through Friday, I could hardly work up the effort to worry about the weekend, due to all the work setting up the bookstore’s new location.
We weren’t going to be open to the public until Saturday, and three days had seemed like plenty of time to get set up when we were planning, but reality is nothing like a spreadsheet.
Adrian and I worked non-stop, more worried about getting things ready on time than about unpaid overtime.
On Wednesday, while we were setting up shelves and trying to come up with categories and organization that would make sense to the customers, he started telling me the silliest, corniest jokes. They weren’t funny.
We stayed until midnight, and I knew I had to get home to rest when the jokes started to be funny.
Thursday, he brought me in an extra one of his Led Zeppelin shirts from high school. I thought he was making a joke, but he insisted I wear the shirt, because he was wearing one, and it was Led Zeppelin Day. I checked that the brown paper was covering the windows, then pulled off my shirt and squeezed into the black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, my peaches distorting the logo. Adrian nodded his approval, then clicked the button for the stereo. Led Zeppelin blasted from the speakers, and we got to work.
When the playlist circled around to Whole Lotta Love, we stopped what we were doing and sang along, playing air guitar and drums, screaming the lyrics as loud as we could. (Have you listened to the lyrics? That is a sex song if I’ve ever heard one. And the drum solo is fucking awesome.)
~
On Friday morning when I arrived, the store seemed almost ready. It looked like it was one hour of hard work away from being ready to open. Curse my optimism! We were still troubleshooting the computer system late that night, at ten o’clock.
“Get going, you still have to pack,” Adrian said.
“I’m only gone for the weekend. Just one night.”
“Don’t get married this weekend, okay? I still want at least one more date with you before it turns into adultery.”
“Ugh.”
He said, “If you don’t have the stomach for adultery, I understand. We had a good run.”
I turned my head to give him a sidelong look. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“Am I?” He rubbed his facial hair, looking tired but still sexy. He hadn’t shaved since the weekend, and had the golden-brown beginning of a beard. “My body hurts and I can’t think straight.” He rubbed his stomach. “When was our last decent meal?”
I checked my watch. “We had candy necklaces at six, which was four hours ago.”
He frowned. “Candy necklaces are not a meal.”
“I’ll stick around and order us some pizza.”
“No, you should go. Pack your bag and fly off in your private jet to meet porn stars.”
The contempt in his voice irritated me. Especially him calling the tiny plane a private jet.
“I’ll go. Have a nice weekend fucking your other girlfriend.”
He pushed aside the computer keyboard in irritation. “Have a nice weekend fucking Mr. Porn Dick.”
“Oh, I will. And I’m going to tag team him and his dad.”
As soon as I said the words, I regretted it.
We stared at each other for an eternity, then Adrian cracked up.
“You are just all kinds of wrong, Peaches Monroe. That must be why I love ya so much.”
In the silence that followed, I swear I could hear the sound of his eyelids clapping as he blinked.
“You love me?”
“Who wouldn’t love a girl who nails the drum solo for Whole Lotta Love?”
“Do you mean you love me as a friend?”
He looked irritated. “I’m not asking you to marry me, am I?”
I picked up my purse and started for the door.
He ran out from behind the counter and caught me in his arms.
“What I feel for you is real,” he said. “You’re my friend. You’re the smartest, coolest chick I know. And I love everything about you.”
I turned slowly to face him, looking up into those eyes so cool and blue they made me shiver.
“Adrian…”
“Go have a great weekend. Don’t give me another thought. Get me all the way out of your head, and if I make it back in there, into your head, let me know.”
“Kiss me. I won’t go until you kiss me.”
He bent down and kissed me, his beard scratching my upper lip and chin. The kiss traveled through my body with a buzzing ball of energy.
He pulled away, opened the door, and shoved me out.
I knocked on the door, leaning over to peer through the tiniest crack in the brown paper on the window.
He didn’t answer the door, so I knocked again and yelled at the glass, “I dropped my purse on the floor!”
A few seconds later, the door opened. Adrian had my purse in his hand.
We stared at each other for a moment, then he stepped outside the store, dropped my purse on the sidewalk and grabbed me in his arms. He turned me and roughly pushed me up against the storefront, mashing his lips into mine as he clutched m
y buttocks, lifting me up so my feet weren’t even touching the ground, pinning me to the wall.
Except… that last bit didn’t actually happen.
I’m sorry for lying, but Adrian didn’t step out of the store.
If something like that had happened, things over the next few days would have been much different.
What actually happened was I stepped outside the door and it locked behind me.
Finding myself in the dark, as well as in a different part of town from where my bookstore usually was, I felt like I was forgetting something. It must have been the surroundings, though, because my purse was right on my shoulder, where I’d put it.
I hadn’t dropped my purse when he’d kissed me.
I spotted a bus off in the distance and smiled at my good timing. I hustled across the street and got out my change for the short ride to my neighborhood.
As soon as I got home, I took off the Led Zeppelin shirt, hung it at the back of my walk-in closet, and put Adrian out of my mind while I packed for the next morning’s plane ride.
~
We hadn’t even boarded the airplane, and I was already regretting inviting my parents.
They didn’t bring Kyle, because he was congested with a summer cold. The doctor had warned against flying, because of Kyle’s history of ear infections, so he was staying behind at a friend’s. Also, and more importantly, Kyle was a seven-year-old kid, and (I suspected) my mother thought he might get in the way of all her wine drinking and vacation enjoying, plus the many porn-star questions she had in mind for Dalton’s father.
My father had a lot of questions about the plane, which Vern was happy to answer, but only to a point. I suppose that because of my father’s line of work—selling model helicopters—he felt he was an expert in all things aviation. He didn’t ask Vern questions just to hear the answers, but to show off his knowledge of aviation terms.
We stood on the dock next to the plane, and my father said, “What would you say is the absolute ceiling on this old girl?”
Then, I kid you not, he kicked the metal leg connecting the floats to the plane.