Broken Girl

by Gretchen de La O

  DOING MY LAUNDRY with Shane on Thursdays had become the moments I looked forward to most lately. Every other day of the week had become nothing more than an irritating pebble in the shoe I called my life. Thank God for Sybil; we got back to our normal and she forgave me for being an asshole. She was the one person who wouldn’t allow me to push her away. We may have lashed out at one another, because that’s what you do with the person you’re closest to and she is my person. Sybil cautioned me about spending too much time with Shane, that I was setting myself up for a big hurt. But, being with Shane, just hanging out with him and doing laundry had been the most satisfying part of my entire life.

  It was pretty sad that my happiest of moments were measured by the amount of dirty clothes I brought to a laundromat to be washed and dried. It was the simplest way Shane and I could remain friends in this awkward type of friendship. We’d fostered this kind of connection where neither of us really knew what to call it. I wasn’t fucking him for money or anything else and he wasn’t paying my way.

  I wasn’t kidding myself, even though I knew Shane wanted more than I was willing to give, he and I were finding a middle ground. A stage of some sort, a fucked up place that kept us trudging across the sun beaten earth in the hope of finding a place where we could drink from the fountain of trust and actually name what we were to one another. Until then, Shane and I were simply known as laundry buddies. Laundry buddies that kept certain information off limits, it could have been the way I chose to answer him when he asked me what I did for a living or why I scurried off before dark. I think he was convinced I was a vampire of some sort.

  Shane somehow persuaded me into having lunch together on Mondays at different Cajun restaurants. He said he wanted me to compare Boxing Room with other restaurants around the city. I knew he used it as an excuse to keep bringing me yellow roses. I agreed to it, but only on one condition, we chose places far enough away from the Tenderloin. The further away the better, the last thing I needed was another incident where I was confronted by a crazy fuck.

  It was our fourth laundry day together and as usual we were sitting on the washing machines. Not that I was really counting how many Thursdays we hung out . . . Okay, so maybe I was, but I had to, Shane was so sentimental I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t aware of how many days we were friends or the fact that this next Monday marked the fourth yellow rose he was gonna give me. Each rose saved and pressed between the thin pages of a back-breaking huge Bible my friend’s parents gave me right before they kicked me out of their house. It was the perfect use for a book I only cracked open once to come up with a name for the streets. I never ended up finding a name from the Bible, not one I wanted to use while making a living. I ended up with the name Twyla after reading about a female warden at some prison somewhere who always carried the Bible under her arm.

  The washing machines vibrated and whistled a loud tune on the spin cycle. It was my favorite moment with Shane, a moment where we just sat silent, nothing said, no cautious words, I didn’t have to watch what spewed from between my lips because he couldn’t hear me anyway. It was the moment I thought about telling him what I did and I visualized him accepting me for who I was and not what I had to do to make a living.

  “Hey, I was thinking—”

  “Well, there’s your problem right there. What are you doing thinking?” I interrupted, teasing him as I nudged my elbow into the side of his gut.

  “Hah, hah, hah, very funny. No, seriously, I want to take you somewhere special tomorrow,” Shane said proudly.

  “Special?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I was thinking, we’ve been friends for over a month and I have never taken you over to my favorite place to just hang out.” His eyes dropped to my hands in my lap as I scraped the dark-red polish from my thumbnail.

  “Shane, you know I don’t do surprises. Not like that.”

  “Well, come on, just this one time let me surprise my friend Complicated Rose with something unexpected. I’ve followed your lead, kept your rules, let me just have this one little thing. Let me take you some place that is very special to me.”

  He hopped off the washing machine, shuffled in front of me and wedged himself between my knees. His hands burned hot through my jeans as his fingers curled around my waist. It wasn’t uncommon that he’d find ways to touch me that told me he wanted more.

  I pushed him back and pulled my legs up crisscross, resting my elbows on my knees. I looked down at my fingernails; they looked so naked without polish.

  “I don’t know. Where is it? What time would we be back? It’s a Friday, and well, what am I going to tell Sybil? I . . . I . . . I just don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” I pulled my thumb up to my mouth and started chewing on my cuticle.

  I knew I looked crazy to him, but he’d never get it. I couldn’t do a relationship. I couldn’t even kinda go there. We’d already spent way too much time together as friends, now he wanted to take me somewhere special to him without me knowing where it was? Hell no, that wasn’t gonna work for me, not for the prostitute who couldn’t throw a rock in the Tenderloin without hitting one of her tricks . . . okay, that was a little dramatic, but still.

  “Rose, I’m not going to steal you away for the weekend. God knows the crazy hours you keep doing whatever it is that you do. I just wanted to take you over to the East Bay so we can go hiking, that’s all,” he groaned.

  “Hiking? Do I look like a girl who hikes?” I said trying to lighten the mood and change the energy that ramped up between us.

  “Yeah, I think you do! You look like a girl who should say yes to hiking with her best-guy-friend. Especially since he promises to have her back before her carriage turns into a pumpkin.” His eyelids closed half way in a lazy blink before his mouth broke into a sexy smile as he crossed his heart with his fingers pressed against his black T-shirt. If he only knew, if I’d let him into my head . . . he’d see the struggle I have had with having him as a friend.

  “Fine, I can’t believe I’m going to agree to this . . . I’ll go hiking with you tomorrow. Where do you want to meet?”

  “I was thinking I’d pick you up at your place.”

  “Shaaaane,” I moaned.

  “Rooooose,” he replied.

  “Why are you being so . . . persistent?”

  “Why are you being so . . . complicated?”

  “Because my life is complicated and we already established that the first time we met.”

  “And you know I like to get my way, we’ve already established that. So, instead of being so complicated, why don’t you compromise and let me pick you up? I’ll tell you what, let’s make a deal. Let’s say . . . I won’t even get out of the car. I will honk three times, keep the motor running and wait for you to get in. I won’t even open the car door for you. Now, if that isn’t compromising I don’t know what is.”

  “It’s you being persistent, that’s what it is.”

  “So, is that a yes?” he asked lowering his head to meet my eyes. I glanced at him, popped him in the chest before I nodded my head.

  Damn, I knew agreeing to this would open a whole different can of worms. Before this moment, Shane and I really just kept all the life drama outside of the laundromat pretty much on the down low. Minimal information about our childhood, work and where we lived was the best way to manage my lie. An unspoken rule I enforced that seemed to work for both of us . . . well, for me at least, up until now.

  A couple of Thursdays ago Shane asked me what I did for a living. I guess the cloudy, unclear, broad answers I brushed across the piece of shit canvas just weren’t cutting it for him anymore. I knew it was a matter of time before he’d push back at me to know why I couldn’t ever hang out with him after five o’clock at night. My whole life, I had to lie. My. Whole. Life . . . I had to do what I had to do to make it in the world. Who I was, what I was doing and how I liked to be treated were all made up scenarios. Lying had become second nature to me; I did it so much that I started to believe it wasn’t a
lie if they ate the shit up. So, when the subject of what I did for a living came up between Shane and me, I lied. I told him that I took online classes two nights a week and the other five nights I took care of people in their homes. It was the perfect excuse to justify my crazy hours. What person in their right mind who met me outside of paying me for a fuck would accept what I did for a living? Was it fair? Not really, but what part of life was fair? Honestly, it ate away at the back of my mind, lying to Shane; but I had to keep my reality in that place where I didn’t let anyone see, the one place that held my deepest secrets. No matter how much I prepared myself for his reaction I had no doubt in my mind that he’d never want to see me again. When I thought of him finding out that I was a prostitute . . . well, I just had to prepare myself, so when it did happen, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Unfortunately, even the deepest sting of abandonment still didn’t stop me from wanting to be near him and if I had to lie to have a sliver of him, so be it.

  Forty-five minutes, the time it took to dry my clothes, that was how long he babbled about Joaquin Miller Park. He was like a teenage boy who finally kissed the girl of his dreams. His eyes had a spark, a gleam that ignited his whole demeanor. His arms and hands, spastically flew as he talked about the beautiful trails with their bay views. The more he talked about it the more my stomach twisted into knots. I wanted to be excited about hanging out with him tomorrow, but there was dread brewing in my gut.

  “What time are you planning on picking me up?” I asked when I could get a word in edgewise.

  “I was thinking about nine thirty?”

  “A.M.? Like, in the morning?” I spat.

  “If we get over there in about forty-five minutes, that will give us most of the day. I’d like to take you to a couple of different places that have great views and I have this little dive of a place where we can have the best Mexican food before I have to bring you back to the rat race. Damn, I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Oh, yeah, don’t worry, I think this whole adventure is going to be very surprising,” I teased as I pulled a cart next to the dryer and emptied my clothes.

  “You know you’re like the master wrecker of surprises,” he said as he leaned into my shoulder and bumped me.

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”

  “But I’m the first to do something about it,” he retorted as he pulled a couple of Blow Pops from the bowl next to him and held them up between us. “Purple or red?” he asked.

  “Purple . . . I hate red . . . cherry sucks,” I moped.

  “What? Cherry’s my favorite.”

  “No it’s not, you told me last week that grape was your favorite, and the week before that it was lemon, then it was orange the Thursday before that.”

  “So, maybe they all are my favorite,” he teased as he pulled off the wrapper and shoved the Blow Pop in his mouth.

  “Maybe it’s the fact that you don’t complain about what you’re left with,” I whispered.

  “Why would I complain, when I get to be here with you and this . . . disgusting cherry flavored—how can you like these Blow Pops?” he asked before he stuck out his tongue slathered red.

  “I don’t like that particular flavor, but in general Blow Pops are good because you get a two-fer, more bang for your buck. You get to suck and then blow, I’ll do any flavor except cherry.”

  He didn’t miss the innuendos in my statement, his expression painted on like any thirteen-year-old boy’s libido on overdrive. He gave me a slight smirk before he pointed the Blow Pop at my nose.

  “You’re right, cherry sucks!” he said as he tossed it down onto the counter.

  I guess I should’ve given him props for purposely grazing over my comment. I watched as the glistening red lollipop cracked and busted into a heart shape as it left a trail of broken pieces in its wake.

  “I guess I’ll be calling you the cherry wrecker from now on,” I teased without giving my response a second thought.

  Shane’s eyes grew large and a sinful smile spread across his face. It seemed like forever crammed between us before he had a smart-ass remark that clung to the thick air between us.

  “I’ve been known to wreck my fair share of cherries in my life.” He smirked before he intentionally glimpsed down at my feet and shoved his hands in his front pockets.

  “Oh. My. God, you called me a surprise wrecker I only thought it was fair I’d call you . . . All right, okay, score one for Shane, the cherry wrecker.” I pushed my fingers in air quotes as I spoke about his new nickname.

  Fuck Rose, why not just put your foot in your mouth now. Cherry wrecker, really?

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one who came up with the name,” Shane teased as he pulled open the dryer next to me. “I’m just willing to own it, that’s all.” He collected his clothes in one huge bundle wedged between his arms and chin.

  “Oh, okay, now let’s not get too confident and start talking about conquests of virgins and shit.” I tangled my fingers into a pile of my panties and thrust them into the bottom of my laundry bag. I knew the minute I said it, it was a mistake.

  “Who mentioned virgins? What type of cherries are you exactly talking about Complicated Rose? Because, if it is those type you are referring to . . . let me clear the air now, curiosity never really killed the cat, it just took one of its nine lives.” Wisps of his brown hair brushed across his bedroom eyes. He flashed his bright pearly whites teasing me into instantly turning bright crimson.

  What the hell are you doing? Keep that boy at a distance. It is for his good as much as yours . . . You’re nothing but a two-bit whore.

  My inner voice filled my head, the one thing that kept my heart protected. Resistance flooded every cell in my body, changing my demeanor. When the walls of my life began to crumble and my heart started to beat at a different speed it was my intuition that blared the warning sirens when I was getting too tangled up; too close to feeling something I wasn’t supposed to feel.

  I snatched up handfuls of my clothes, unfolded and jumbled and shoved them it in my bag. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed he dropped the bundle of clothes he had on the folding counter. Listening to my intuition, I turned back and tied up my laundry sack. I need to get out of here before I get twisted into a situation I won’t be able to get out of, a road I wasn’t ready to travel with him.

  “You know, I better get going,” I deadpanned as I lifted my laundry sack and rolled it over my shoulder. My words didn’t go over well with Shane. I tried to leave but couldn’t, the pull of my muscles across my shoulders was strong before I shifted my weight and stumbled back. I turned around and saw that Shane had grabbed my laundry bag and held onto it.

  “I’ll walk you out. Come on, let me carry this for you,” Shane insisted as he pulled again on my clothes bag.

  “I have it. You know, I can do it on my own. I’m very capable. I’ve been very capable my whole life. I don’t need any help,” I argued as I adjusted the bag over my shoulder.

  “I know you’re capable, Rose. Besides, it has become somewhat of a routine for me to carry out your laundry for you,” Shane said as he muscled the bag away from me and flung it over his shoulder.

  “So now I’m Capable Rose. Make up your mind Shane, am I complicated or capable?” I fumed.

  “Whoa, where the heck is this coming from? I just want to help you out.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t need your help.” I dug out the rage that I’d buried deep within the seared crevices of my soul and plastered it across the space between us. Trying with everything I had to rebuild that wall he was tearing down.

  “I never assumed you needed my help. I carry your bag for you because that’s what friends do . . . I never thought you weren’t capable.”

  I turned and headed for the door. I wasn’t going to fight him, I’d let him carry my bag and walk out to my car. Hiking with him tomorrow was a huge mistake. I felt it in my bones.

  He shuffled behind me, up through the first flight of stairs of the parking g
arage. I was so determined that I didn’t slow down walking even when the back of my calves felt like they were on fire. When I got to my car I thrust the key into the lock of my trunk and pulled it open.

  “Thanks,” I barked as he dropped my clothes into the back.

  Shane stood staring at me. Silence stormed around us, his eyes not leaving mine. Waiting for something to stumble from his mouth, I just couldn’t stand there any longer and wait to hear anything he was going to tell me. I slammed my trunk, turned and walked to the driver’s side of my car.

  “So this is it?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re going to go because I teased you?” Shane snapped as he followed me.

  “I just need to go, that’s it. I’ll text you about tomorrow.” I didn’t turn around; instead I started to get into my car when his enormous hand crashed against the edge of the car door slamming it shut. He grabbed my arm, spun me around and pushed me back against the car. His eyes were filled with all the pain I was causing, all the confusion my mind-fuck was playing on him . . . it was the only thing I knew how to do when expectations were changing. It was time to shut him out.

  “I call bullshit, Rose. I think you’re scared of me.” The space between us vanished as he inched closer.

  “Scared? Scared of what, Shane? Scared to hear about the type of girls you’ve slept with? Please, that’s the least about you that scares me. I just need to go, get ready for work.”

  He pushed his face within inches of mine. Pinned against the car, he continued. “What is it then? I want to know . . . what it is about me that scares you?” he asked, caressing the back of his hands across my flaming cheeks. His eyes filled with storming tension, the same eyes I saw when I was with the only other man I let have my heart. My pulse thumped across my neck, keeping time with his.

  “This,” I said as I thrust my fists against his chest, attempting to push him back. “Expectations . . . your expectations . . . you have expectations of me . . . you expect me to be someone I’m not. I can’t be that someone you want me to be. I’m not that girl; I’ll never be that girl for you, Shane.” I turned away from him and fumbled with the door handle. His hands closed over mine, his body pushed against my back, his face pressed into the curve of my neck, his breath steamed against my hair as his nose goaded against the base of my head, the pressure sent me reeling.