Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  “Your mother went to Carnegie Mellon University and she helped me to round up the twelve final bagpipe players we’ll need.”

  “TWELVE?” Shannon roars. “Are you trying to have my wedding broadcast live to Scotland, without microphones?”

  “Twelve out of forty-one,” I swear Marie whispers. But that’s impossible. Forty-one bagpipes? It’ll sound like Godzilla with a vibrator.

  “My mom helped with that?” I ask faintly.

  “Yes.”

  Shannon turns away and picks up her phone. Within seconds she’s talking to Declan, her face turned down in a kind of dawning confusion, as if she wants to argue with her mother yet it slowly seeps in that maybe Marie has a point. While she speaks with Declan in hushed tones, I watch Marie’s hands manipulate all the paperwork she’s brought with her, writing check marks on some papers, shaking her head while reading others, and slipping estimates into folders marked Yes, No, and Maybe.

  Within minutes, Shannon’s off the phone, her face filled with shock.

  “Declan,” she says slowly, “agrees with Mom.”

  “Did he recently experience head trauma?” Amy asks, her face lined with concern.

  Marie gives her a sour look. “I do have good ideas sometimes.” She’s holding up a sample piece of McCormick tartan fabric against Chuckles’ haunches.

  Chuckles gives her a look that says, Not really.

  “He’s having Grace arrange everything,” Shannon adds as she descends, slowly, into an arm chair, sinking into the upholstery with the air of someone hearing bad news. “He said I just need to give her a few basic ideas and she’ll manage the rest.”

  “Told you.” Marie’s words are so smug. “Let’s make a Pinterest board for your rehearsal dinner party!”

  See?

  Pinterest really is the tool of Satan.

  My phone buzzes.

  “Is that Andrew?” Marie asks with a leer.

  I look.

  “Yes.”

  His text reads, simply: Tomorrow. Nine p.m. I’ll pick you up.

  My reply is one word.

  You can guess what it is.

  16

  The Pinterest board Shannon makes for the big rehearsal dinner party starts to look like every episode of Kitchen Confidential shoved in a blender and poured over mashed potatoes. After a while, I give up looking. At one point, someone pins a picture of a can of ball-sweat powder in there.

  Whoops.

  I spend the day alternating between freaking out about tomorrow’s date (hint: the word was yes), wondering how Shannon’s going to pull off a fancy dinner party (her idea of “elegant” is adding guacamole to her taco order at Chipotle) and thinking about Amy’s offer to move in with her.

  I mull over all this as I struggle to fall asleep, slumber finally overtaking me, my stupid naked-in-public dream—the one I’ve had for more than twenty years—making its boring old appearance, yet forcing me awake in darkness, clutching the sheet to my chest, my skin crawling.

  I look at the clock.

  6:13 a.m.

  I slump back on the pillow and will my heart to slow down. Remarkably, it listens.

  If only Andrew McCormick were so easy to tame.

  By 6:21 a.m., it’s hopeless. I pad downstairs in search of caffeinated relief.

  “What does your day look like today, honey?” Mom asks. She’s up and showered, drinking coffee in front of her tablet, which bodes well. Maybe she’s coming out of this pain flare.

  “Oh, the usual.” I grab my phone and look at my schedule. “I have to go on a date with a man who breeds German shepherds. Then I need to get the oil changed on the Turdmobile, talk with Greg about a new account we have at a hospital, and do a special sex toy shop with Marie.”

  Her hand twitches at that last comment, sloshing coffee onto the table, which she cleans up before I can even take a single step. Paper towel, wipe, in the trash—bam!

  Mom’s a cleaning ninja. An OCD cleaning ninja.

  “What about you?” I ask her.

  “Spiders.”

  “Spiders?”

  “My entire day consists of assessing spider bite and injury risks for a movie set that is using more than five thousand live spiders for a scene.”

  Spiders. I shudder and say, “Did you know that the average person eats eight spiders a year?”

  She sighs. “No. That’s not true. That’s one of those Internet memes someone made up and now everyone accepts it as fact.”

  “Whew.” I push the buttons on the coffee machine and wait for my morning cup.

  “However, you do eat ground-up cockroaches when you drink most coffees.” She picks up her mug and holds it out to me with a gesture of Cheers.

  My stomach lurches.

  “What?” Being the child of an actuary has its downsides. This is the single worst incident, though, by far. You will pry my coffee from my cold, dead, non-twitching hands.

  “That is true.”

  “You’re making it up!”

  She taps her tablet screen a few times and brings up a story from NPR about...cockroaches in ground coffee.

  If NPR reports it, it must be true.

  I let out a little scream. The scent of my freshly-brewed cup wafts across the kitchen like an instrument of torture.

  “But we’re fine.” Mom makes a point of taking a huge gulp from her mug. “As long as you use whole beans and grind them yourself, you aren’t eating bugs.”

  I grab my cup of ambition and take a sip. Ah, what the hell. Life is full of risk.

  “You have the best job ever, Mom.”

  She bursts out laughing. I like the sound. Her face turns ten years younger and she relaxes, her body changing. People have told me my entire life that I look like my dad. Mom is shorter than me and rail thin, with one exception: wide hips that mold into what a friend’s father once called an “ass that belongs on Jayne Mansfield,” whoever that is.

  “I think you do, Amanda. Massages and free oil changes and a free car and restaurants and hotels.” She pauses and squints. “Minus the, um...”

  “Dildo shops?”

  “Amanda!”

  I laugh. She’s so easy to embarrass.

  “What’s your evening like?” she asks. “There’s a sing-along for Grease at that wonderful old film house in Arlington.” Mom loves show tunes and for some reason, Grease and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are her absolute favorites.

  I freeze.

  “Amanda?”

  “I, um, have a date.”

  “Another doggy date? Or with Andrew? He seemed fine enough.”

  Do I lie? It would be so easy to lie right now. And fine? Andrew is so much more than fine.

  “With Andrew.”

  Her eyebrows go up. “An actual date? Not in a closet? He must like you. Or maybe he’s making up for lost time after ignoring you for so long.”

  Bitterness, meet Mom.

  “We’ve talked that through.” Not really, but a defensiveness is rising up in me.

  “Good. I hope if I’ve taught you nothing else, I’ve imparted the idea that you don’t let men walk all over you.”

  No. You let men walk out on you.

  I don’t say that. It’s one of those statements that cracks an emotional planet in half and you can’t find enough superglue to put it back together.

  Ever.

  I cannot think about this right now. I have work to do, mystery shops to manage, dogs to date...er, dog owners to meet, and for the next twelve-and-a-half hours I have to try desperately not to think about whether to sleep with Andrew McCormick tonight.

  That alone is a job. A pretty major one.

  The not-thinking-about-it part. Not the actually-sleeping-with-him part. That’s not a job. That’s a pleasure.

  And here I go...thinking about him.

  “Gotta run, Mom,” I say, stuffing all my emotions into my chest and trapping them there with a big, deep breath. They line up neatly on the shelf inside me, dutifully color-coding themselves and c
ategorizing. Compartmentalizing.

  Maybe Andrew and I aren’t so different after all.

  “Amanda!” Greg bellows as I walk into the office. He’s sitting in the reception area with Josh, who looks like someone made him stick his tongue in an electric socket. “You’re pregnant!”

  “I’m what?” That’s news to me, and I think I’d know long before Greg.

  He thumbs toward Josh. “And he’s the father.”

  I laugh. “That’s not possible, Greg. Josh is gay.”

  “Gay men can sleep with women,” Greg insists. “My Uncle Angus did for fifty-seven years while he was married to Aunt Joy.”

  “I’m Gold Star Gay,” Josh whispers.

  “They give out gold stars for it?” Greg asks, incredulous. “Like, a secret society?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s like the AARP. One day the card just comes in the mail and you wonder how they know you qualify.”

  Greg frowns. “We don’t get gold stars for being straight. I don’t understand.”

  Josh rolls his eyes and rallies, the shade of green in his face replaced by a healthy glow. “Gold star gay men are men who’ve never slept with a woman.”

  “Never?” Greg asks. I can tell he’s trying to keep his incredulity out of his voice. He accomplishes this by grabbing a donut from the box Carol brought in yesterday and shoving the entire thing in his mouth.

  Josh shakes his head.

  “Mmmmf evermmmmf?” Greg says. Or tries to say. I’m not sure what he actually says, because I’m dodging the spray of rainbow sprinkles coming out of him.

  “Nope. Never.” Apparently, Josh can understand the universal language of Donut.

  Greg swallows in one giant gulp, like a snake eating a mouse. He sniffs, then looks at me. “Does that make me Gold Star Straight?”

  “Huh?” Josh and I ask in unison.

  “If I’ve never slept with a man,” Greg says slowly, contemplating the issue while picking crumbs off his tie and licking them from his fingers, “then I’m Gold Star Straight.”

  “He’s got a point,” I admit, giving Josh a look that says, They don’t pay us enough for conversations like this. If any topic can cure me of my obsessive thoughts about sleeping with Andrew McCormick, it’s this one.

  “That’s not how it works,” Josh says in a grumpy voice.

  “Why not?” Now Greg is indignant. “You get gay marriage now. We should get our own gold stars. I want a gold star.”

  Josh is speechless. I am struggling to decide whether I would rather go on another date with Mr. Anal Gland Hands or spend one more minute hearing Greg talk about his sex life.

  Anal glands for the win.

  “You want a gold star for what?” Carol asks, walking in with what looks like a bag full of chocolate foil tractors, scarecrow lollipops, and hard candies shaped like ears of corn. She’s wearing denim overalls, a red and white checkered shirt, and her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail. If Hee Haw were still on, I’d think she was an extra on the show.

  I cock one eyebrow and look at her goodies.

  “Farming trade show,” she sighs. “You get the wedding trade shows, I get the cranky old farmers who want to talk about bursitis and soybean futures.”

  “Well,” I say magnanimously, stepping behind her and putting one hand on her shoulder, “you can take my place in this work conversation.”

  “Talking about gold stars?” she asks, a bit befuddled. “Is there a special reward system I don’t know about?”

  “Something like that,” Josh mumbles. “Let’s stop talking about my sex life.”

  “Sex life?” Carol snorts, really confused now. She grabs a foil-covered tractor and begins peeling it, taking a bite. The tire snaps off in her mouth. “What do gold stars have to do with sex lives? Now we have sticker charts for sex?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering!” Greg bellows, reaching for one of the chocolates. “How come Josh gets a gold star for not sleeping with women but I can’t get a gold star for not sleeping with men?”

  “I’m not sleeping with men or women,” Carol says sadly, eating the tractor’s engine now. “What do I get for that?”

  I reach across my desk and grab a sheaf of papers, sliding them to her. “You get the sex toy shops I took.”

  She looks at the chocolate in her hand. Glances at the papers. Then the pile of chocolate.

  “Why are you giving me those?”

  “Because Amanda’s pregnant,” Greg explains helpfully, his mouth full of a tractor.

  “Work pregnant or pregnant pregnant?” Carol asks casually. These conversations have become alarmingly normal to me.

  “Work pregnant, I assume,” I reply. “Because if I’m pregnant pregnant, then my vibrator has some explaining to do.”

  “Or maybe Andrew McCormick?” she adds with a leer.

  Josh and Greg give me chocolate-smeared looks. “You’re pregnant by Andrew McCormick?” Josh squeals.

  “No! We just kissed.”

  “You’re kissing Andrew McCormick?” Greg looks deeply uncomfortable, and it’s not his usual acid reflux look.

  “We’re...something.”

  “You’re somethinging?” We’ve turned that word into a verb. It’s funny when applied to Shannon. To me? Not so much.

  “We’re dating. I guess?” This is the first time I’ve had to define whatever Andrew and I are doing.

  “Openly?”

  “We’re not in the closet about it.”

  “Why would two heterosexuals be in the closet?” Josh asks.

  “Ask Andrew.”

  Greg frowns. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this, Amanda. Professionally, I mean.”

  A chill of shame crawls over my skin, completely unexpected. “What?”

  “He’s a client.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He’s our biggest client.”

  “You had no problem when Shannon was dating Declan.”

  “That’s different.” Greg’s discomfort takes on alarming proportions. “We were in a different phase of the corporate relationship with Anterdec then.”

  “You mean Shannon helped secure the contract by dating Declan.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I date Andrew you’re worried that...”

  “You could jeopardize some complex business negotiations.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Greg’s phone rings. He reaches into his pants pocket and walks away abruptly. I hear the words, “Hi, Doctor...” and then his words become indistinct. His wife, Judy, is a breast cancer survivor, and now I wonder if there’s even more going on under the surface of every single part of my life—work, home, friends, Andrew—than I ever imagined.

  It’s like realizing you’re perched on an island that turns out to be the tip of an iceberg.

  In a boiling pot of water.

  “What’s he talking about?” I ask Carol, who just shrugs.

  “Don’t ask me. I’m still the newbie here.”

  “You’ve worked here for more than a year.”

  “I know, but that’s my convenient excuse and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Why can’t you be the pregnant one?”

  She holds her fingers up in the sign of the cross and shouts to Josh, “Got any garlic? Cast thee out, demon. Don’t you dare talk about more spawn in this womb.”

  “I take it the baby factory is closed.”

  “The womb has been converted from a factory to an abandoned warehouse. Yours, on the other hand,” she says suggestively, “is about to become a playroom.”

  “Ewww,” Josh says from his desk. “I can hear you.”

  “What? You think we’re discriminating against you because you have a penis, but when we talk about vaginas you get grossed out.”

  “Yes.” He shudders.

  “Oh, he’s going to be a great partner in these childbirth classes,” I say.

  Carol snickers.

  “Why can’t you do the childbirth class shop
s with him?” I ask.

  She looks at herself, then at Josh. “Look at me. Look at Josh. Not only am I too old for him, but I could crush him like a bug. No one would ever believe we’re together.”

  She’s right. They pretty much look like they’d be each other’s beard.

  “Besides, I’d be the worst candidate for a childbirth class, because I’ve actually been through childbirth. Twice. I know how much bullshit they deal in those classes, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, honey,” she says. “The only part that really helps is the tour of the hospital, so you know exactly where you’ll feel all your pain. Contractions in the elevator. Vomiting in the trash can in Waiting Room #4. Actual shredding of your perineum in Delivery Room #3. Stitch popping when you try to poop in Room #535. The tour should be renamed A Map of Your Suffering.”

  Josh makes a strange gagging sound.

  “But they won’t tell you that. And they shouldn’t. Because what woman in her right mind goes through pregnancy and childbirth knowing the risks and the torture that’s coming? So they sugarcoat it and tell you that contractions are really just pressure you can use mind techniques to control, or that perineal massage for the entire pregnancy will thin out the tissues so the baby’s head doesn’t tear two holes into one.”

  Josh is now retching.

  “Or that when you’re on the delivery table and they tell you to push, you will end up with hemorrhoids the size of small Pomeranians.”

  Josh sprints out of his office for the bathroom.

  Carol looks over at his empty desk with cat eyes, her expression exactly like the one Chuckles has after coughing up an impressive hairball.

  “Why do people reproduce?” I ask, cringing.

  “Because it’s like making love with your body, but instead of being left with a wet spot, you get an entire human being who you get to love forever.”

  “Awww.”

  Josh staggers back, drinking a fresh can of soda from the machine outside the men’s room. His eyes are hollow.

  “And bonus! If you’re really lucky, the flesh donut that forms when your butt hole turns inside out as the head emerges goes back in place. Eventually.”

  Josh sprints again.

  I am really, really glad I’m just work pregnant.