Diving In (Open Door Love Story)

by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  Liam sighs. “Shit, Brynn. Of course I’ll come home.”

  “Okay, good,” I say, relief washing over me. “At the very least we can have one final, horrible Christmas together.”

  That gets a chuckle out of him. “You seem to be processing this really well. How long have you known?”

  “Mom told me today after work.”

  “Oh,” he drawls. “Okay, so you’re still in shock. ’Cause I gotta be in shock right now. Did I just agree to come home?”

  “You did,” I answer, ignoring the shock comment. “No take backs.”

  “How’s Dad reacting? Or has she not told him yet?”

  “I don’t know. He’s next on my list.”

  Liam makes a sound akin to growling. “She didn’t ask you to break the news did she?”

  “No…”

  “But she knew you would.” He sighs heavily. “I can tell Dad. He’s already whatever about me, so if he gets pissed or breaks down and wants to blame someone, then he can do it on me long distance instead of getting to you face-to-face. God, his drinking is bound to go into overdrive.”

  “I’m slightly worried about that with you,” I say, my voice quiet.

  He snorts. “Don’t be. Dani and I haven’t had a drink since Thanksgiving and the great wine hangover from hell. I literally heard my brain rattling in my skull. Plus, she’s working on a new play and can’t write for shit when she’s drunk. She’s, like, the opposite of every other writer in the world.” He laughs. “I won’t go off the rails, I promise. Dani keeps me grounded. But who’s there for you? Gabe? Or is it not that kind of relationship?”

  I blush at my drag queen brother sounding embarrassed to be asking me that question.

  “No, Gabe is awesome. He forced me to talk it out with him immediately. I think that’s why I’m dealing so well, I don’t think I’m in shock anymore.”

  “Good, good.” He chuckles again. “Fuck, life is ridiculous. I want to talk to you more, but I have to go be Hollee and sing back up on an Adele song now.”

  “It’s fine. Work it out on stage or some such actorly thing people like you say to each other. Break your ass, or whatevs. And don’t worry about telling Dad. I got it.”

  “Love you, B. You’re a strong person.”

  “Strong smelling,” we say simultaneously – a stupid joke between us since forever.

  ~

  Telling Dad about Mom goes exactly how I thought it would. He says, “Thanks for letting me know,” like if I hadn’t, Mom would’ve just dropped dead and Dad would’ve been only slightly more confused than he normally is. After I finish and he retreats to the den to watch one of the umpteen History Channel shows he spends his evenings with while he absently grades papers, Mom comes down the stairs to the landing and nods at me.

  I say, “You’re welcome,” and then she turns and shuffles back upstairs.

  The next afternoon, Gabe goes with me to talk to Grandpa. We bring pumpkin pie and Cool Whip and Gabe gets him a six-pack of the Newcastle beer he likes.

  Telling Grandpa is hard on me and even harder on him.

  “She couldn’t tell me herself? What in the hell is her problem? Do you think the cancer made her this way?”

  I have a theory about the way she is being the cause of the cancer, but I don’t think it’s the best time to share that with anyone.

  Then, the telling is done and life carries on the same as it had before.

  ~

  “Uh, Brynn, could ya come here a sec?” I hear Gabe call from the front. He’s been working by himself for almost two weeks and only needs my help every once in a while. It is awesome. I am getting so much paperwork done and I’m able to actually get all the tickets for the next day processed by mid-afternoon – something that always took me right up to close.

  I set my coffee down and head to the front, customer service smile plastered across my face, ready to help Gabe get the line down quickly.

  To my surprise, however, there’s only one customer standing at the counter and my smile isn’t going to do shit to calm him down.

  “Hi, how can I help you?” I ask, sliding into managerial mode.

  “Well, for starters,” he huffs, accentuating his words by jabbing the air with his index finger, “it would be great if you could find the one hundred choir robes I need for the concert tonight over at St. Cecilia’s. And if they’ve actually been cleaned, that would be even better.”

  I don’t remember this guy bringing in a hundred choir robes or recall seeing that many garments being hung up and bagged. Three, sometimes four, people work here. Where the fuck are this guy’s robes?

  “Could I see your ticket please?”

  The guy nods at Gabe and Gabe hands it to me, the distinct look of panic in his eyes. Uh-oh.

  I look the ticket over and see that Gabe did in fact take in the robes. “You put these in a bin?” I ask.

  He nods emphatically. “I did. They weren’t stained or anything, just needed freshening up, so I didn’t put tape on them. I just put them in a bin and rolled it to the back and put it in line to be cleaned.”

  “Okay, that all seems correct.” I turn to the guy who is now leaning on the counter and tapping his middle finger against it like that’s going to make his shit magically appear. “Let me go look in back. There’s no way we lost your order.”

  Holding the ticket out in front of me as if it will somehow guide me to its contents, I start in the obvious place – where all the bins are.

  So, the bins are big white plastic containers on wheels and kind of hard to miss. We have ten of them and usually move them to the back when they’re full up with multiple orders. This order would’ve used up an entire bin. I count them and there are only nine, so there is definitely one missing, but it’s not like there is anywhere to hide them in the store or somewhere they could get lost – the office and bathroom have a door but other than that, the space is wide open.

  I look at Junnuen and hold ten fingers up, point to the bins, shake my head, and then hold up nine fingers. She looks taken aback and comes over to stand next to me. She counts them and then looks right and left and then turns all the way around.

  “Not in office?” she says.

  I shake my head. “No room.”

  “What kind of idiot loses such a big order?” I hear the guy shout at Gabe and then Gabe mumbling apologies.

  Junnuen elbows me in the side and then points to the far right corner where we keep the boxes of plastic garment bags. We bag every item, so we use a lot of bags and have them stacked almost all the way to the ceiling of the store.

  The last shipment we got, I signed off on, but had asked Gabe to help me bring them inside. I’d gotten pulled away to help a customer up front and then by the time I was done, Gabe had had the new boxes put away. I’d wondered how he’d made such quick work of hauling in twelve boxes and now I knew. He’d stacked them in a bin and left the bin over by the others, probably figuring I would take them out and stack them later, because duh, he could only stack them three high and all the other columns were ten high.

  “I’m so sorry!” I hear him wail and then he’s rolling into the back room on the verge of tears.

  “Hey, chill out,” I say, getting in front of him and putting my hands on his arm rests. “I found the robes. We both fucked up. It’ll be okay.”

  “I can’t talk to that guy. He’s too mad at me.” Gabe takes a couple of deep breaths and then thwacks himself in the head. “He’s right. I am an idiot!”

  I want to assure Gabe he’s not and that it’s a mistake and mistakes happen, but now the guy is making a huge scene. The bells on the door jingle. Great, and he’s got an audience.

  I hurry up front. “Sir, I found your robes. What is the latest you can pick them up this evening? I can get them cleaned for you immediately.”

  He holds his hands up like he wants to push me, but thinks better of it and curls his fingers into fists. “The latest I can get them? Well, now is the latest I can come pick t
hem up that’s convenient for me, but I guess someone else might be able to hurry the hell over here at five in rush hour traffic.” He turns to the man and women behind him in the lobby. “You believe this?” He’s back at me. “There’s no way we’re paying for this either. You’ve lost our business.”

  I want to tell this douche to fuck right off. I want to set his bin of robes on fire and push it at his stupid ass face. This mistake is going to cost us a lot of money and if this guy was the least bit Christian and the least bit not a total effing jackhole, I would’ve given him a very deep discount, but now I am going to have to be treated like shit and clean his robes for free so we don’t end up in small claims or on the 6 o’clock news’ Bad Business segment.

  “Of course, sir,” I say, mentally curling my fingers into fists too. “The robes will be ready by five.”

  He storms out and I smile at the other customers. The guy is a regular, Mr. Brown, and the woman is a new customer. Both smile back at me. Apparently, they think the guy is a jackhole too.

  “Let me go get Gabe to help you. He’ll be right up.”

  Gabe isn’t where I left him, so I go look in the office, and when I don’t see him there, I notice the bathroom door is closed. “Gabe? We’ve got customers. Can you deal or…?”

  I hear him clear his throat. “Yeah. Gimme one second.”

  I back up and the door opens. He rolls out. Gabe’s eyes are red and puffy and he’s blotting at them with a damp paper towel. “Sorry I fucked everything up. I’ll understand if you need to fire me.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to fire you. It was my fuckup just as much as it was yours.” I give him a quick kiss on the lips. “Now get up front and help the perfectly nice people that are waiting.”

  “Sure, sure. That’s what I thought about the last guy.” Gabe rolls off and I go to break the bad news to Junnuen that we’ll be working overtime to get everything we need done today completed, but she’s already loading the robes into the machines.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  She shrugs. “Happens everyone, you know? Okay? Even your mama.”

  I laugh. “Gracias, Junnuen.”

  She shrugs again. “Coffee?”

  “I’m on it!”

  Instead of going through the rear door, I leave through the front so I can check up on Gabe. He was dangerously close to getting overwhelmed and the last thing I need is for him to freak out and quit. I also need him to prove to his parents that he can be independent or I fear they’ll never let him really grow up. He’ll be stuck in this place where he has no idea what he wants besides me, and I don’t want to become a crutch or an excuse.

  Gabe nods at me, already finished with Mr. Brown and moving on to the woman’s order. “Check me out putting the clothes into the bin which I will then put in the proper place in back.”

  I snort and the woman giggles. “Employee of the month,” I say. “Seriously.”

  “You hear that?” Gabe says to the woman. “I hope there’s some sort of ribbon or plaque involved.”

  “Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “Just a DQ coupon for a kid’s cone, sorry.”

  Gabe’s eyes go wide. “And all the ketchup packets my heart desires.”

  “Hoarder.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Have a Merry Christmas, Randy! We’ll see you after the holiday,” Gabe says. I wait until I hear the jingle bells on the door before safely coming out of my hiding place.

  “You missed the most magnificent collection of men’s underpants I have ever seen.” Gabe leans over like he’s going to retrieve them from the bin. “Shall I show you?”

  “I think I’ll take your word for it.” I shudder, imagining what he could be talking about.

  “Ah, but I see that curiosity in your eyes. Just one pair. You will thank me.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, bracing myself for the horrors. “Fine. Show me.”

  Gabe gingerly picks up the undies between his thumb and crooked index finger and holds them aloft for me to see.

  “My eyes!” I shout and throw my forearm across my face, breaking into a fit of laughter.

  “In case you didn’t look closely enough, why, yes, that is plastic mistletoe glued to the ball sack area of these sparkly red and green polka dotted g-string unders.”

  I lower my arm. “Those are clearly not for everyday wear.”

  Gabe nods matter-of-factly. “Yeah, that plastic plant is pokey in all the wrong places. It’s gotta chafe the inner thighs.”

  “I totally bet Randy was one hundred percent committed to the look though. For whoever he was trying to impress.”

  Gabe smirks. “What if he hasn’t worn these? What if he just puts things in the bag that he thinks you’re into?”

  “Dude, no one is into that.”

  He scrunches up his face. “Hmmm. And yet they exist.” Gabe holds the underwear in front of his face and takes a tentative sniff.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, afraid of where this is headed. “You could be sending jock itch microbes straight up your nostrils.”

  Gabe shakes his head. “I don’t think he wears this stuff. It reeks not of ass or pee or ball sweat.” He grins at me great big. “I’m trying them on.”

  I block the way to the back. “You are doing no such thing!”

  “Oh, yes I am and you’re gonna looooooove it, baby.” He charges forward, knocking into my knees, causing me to fall into him. “It’s gonna be soooooooo sexy,” he whispers in my ear in some unidentifiable accent.

  “You sound like Borat.”

  “Sooooooo sexy.”

  I stand up and get out of his way. “Fine. Try them on. Crush my libido at the tender age of nineteen, you cruel, cruel, manchild.”

  “Sooooooooo sexy, baby,” he hisses as he rolls toward the bathroom.

  “I’m so not kissing you under the mistletoe!”

  A customer comes in and I immediately switch my smile from “goofing around with my boyfriend” to “customer service.” There are a lot of smiles contained in my one mouth.

  “How can I help—” I start before really noticing who the person standing on the other side of the counter is.

  “Hey, Brynn,” Izzy says. “Can we talk?”

  I don’t really want to talk to Izzy, not ever, but I figure if I don’t throw her a bone she’ll be after me until the end of time. I look over my shoulder. “Gabe works here, so we should make it quick.”

  She approaches the counter and sets her folded hands on top of it, like she’s walked up to a podium and is about to give a speech. “Okay. So, I guess you haven’t said anything to him?”

  “No, and I’m not going to. He’s happy with his life and himself as it is. I don’t want to set him back. I don’t want him to feel like it’s happening to him all over again.”

  “But that’s what’s going on with me.” She ducks her head and closes her eyes. “I can’t get it out of my mind, but all I have are these blurry images and this overwhelming feeling that I was a part of something awful. And then Travis comes up to me out of the blue, and I know I’m afraid of him, but I don’t know why exactly, and he’s telling me that it’s okay if I want to press charges against him!” She sucks in a shuddering breath and looks right at me. “Did he rape me? I would know if he raped me, right?” Her voice goes up an octave. “But I can’t ask him that and I can’t remember. All I know is that I was at a party at his house and I have flashes of the pond and of him kissing me and of Gabe being there, yelling. And then I’m in the woods hiding behind a tree and I watch you pull Gabe from the water and Travis says something to you and then you run and I guess I did too because I woke up at home in bed and have been pretending like everything is fine when it is so not fine for the last three years.”

  Her confession socks me in the gut. The fear of not remembering would have driven me insane. “He didn’t rape you,” I say, knowing I owe her more than that. “He was getting aggressive and you weren’t saying no, but you were acting like
no and Gabe had seen Travis act this way before and had come down to the pond to stop him. I’d been swimming and was hiding under the dock because I didn’t want to interrupt you and Travis doing whatever and I got stuck there. I wasn’t drunk, I was a little stoned I’ll admit. Travis and Gabe got into it briefly and when Gabe tried to help you walk away, Travis punched him in the jaw and he lost his balance and he hit his neck on the edge of the dock.”

  “Okay, but how’d he end up in the water?”

  I cringe, recalling the look in Travis’s eyes. “This is why Travis wants to turn himself in – I don’t think what went on between the two of you can really be considered anything criminal, but what he did to Gabe...” I suck in a breath and let it out. “Travis lost his shit and pushed Gabe in to make it look like an accidental drowning.”

  “Oh, God.” She shakes her head. “And you pulled him out of the water?”

  “Initially. When I told Travis that Gabe was alive, he went nuts and took Gabe from me and began administering CPR. He told me to get out of there and that he would handle it and that if I ever told anyone what happened that day he would spill my brother’s secret.”

  Izzy balks. “Which is out now and hardly anyone cares, lots of people think that’s really cool of Liam to be doing … you know, what he’s doing or whatever…” She trails off. “So, Gabe is who’s keeping you from talking then?”

  I nod. “Yes. Completely. Like I was saying, I don’t think it would be good for him to drag this all out. The outcome is the same. He’s still in a wheelchair and the three of us all need daily psychotherapy.” I smirk. “Of course Travis is the only one who can afford it.”

  Izzy apparently doesn’t find my sarcasm about our crumbling mental health all that amusing. “That’s the thing, Brynn. My dad can’t pay for me to go to rehab again and I’m so, so afraid of relapsing that it makes me want to relapse. I don’t know if you can understand that. These short little stints that I go for, two weeks at a time, a month if I’m lucky, they’re not working. And AA is a bunch of bullshit. It’s not for me. I just wonder if having some closure would help. If pressing some sort of charges against Travis, if having you tell someone what happened that day and just knowing that the fault is placed on someone besides me … think it would help me.”