by Joey Bush
“Maybe you too need to take a vow of celibacy and then women will start to find you irresistible.”
“So, is that it for you? Your summer of no sex is officially over?”
“Well, seeing as I’ve had sex ... yeah.”
Todd grinned. “Bring on the ladies.”
“Nah, it’s not like that. I’m still not looking to get involved with a bunch of other women. Just this one.”
He widened his eyes. “What? Am I hearing you correctly? In all the years I’ve known you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that you were interested in just being with one girl. In fact, I think the only time you tried anything even close to resembling that it was with that psycho Danielle.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” I said, grimacing. “But Chloe is nothing like Danielle. She’s sweet. She still sees the good in people, in things, she hasn’t been all fucked over by the world yet.”
“She’s sheltered, is what you mean,” Todd said. “She’s a sheltered, rich girl.”
“Her parents have money, yeah.”
“So she hasn’t been all fucked over by the world yet, because people like that never are. You know how it is—they just get shit handed to them on a silver platter. The world is their oyster. Which is a totally messed up saying, if you ask me, because oysters are fucking disgusting.”
“Supposedly they raise your libido.”
Todd shuddered. “Fuck that shit. I’d become celibate before I’d eat an oyster. A raw one, anyway. Who the hell wants to bite into something that’s still alive?”
I personally liked oysters a great deal, though they weren’t something I indulged in very much.
“Anyway,” he said. “I’m not even going to attempt to disguise my envy that you are getting laid and I currently am not.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“Everything is a competition. Life is a competition, and one I feel I’m completely sucking at, big time. Help a bro out. You must know someone.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
After the ride, I went home, showered, and then hopped in my truck to meet up with Chloe for our date. I’d told her she could choose where we went, figuring that it would probably be somewhere I’d never been before, somewhere fancy that might even require me to wear a tie. But no; she ended up suggesting this little hole-in-the-wall place that I was a little surprised she knew about, right on the outskirts of town, not too far away from The Finery. Lorraine’s, it was called. It had a homey feel, with calico curtains and pine-paneled walls that were mostly obscured by the hundreds of decorative plates that the proprietress—Lorraine—had adorned them with.
Fine dining it was not, but the food was good and I sure as hell wouldn’t have to be concerned with whether or not I was dressed appropriately.
She was just getting there as I pulled in, and I parked right next to her car. “Hey, you,” I said. She looked great, in a fraying pair of cut-off jean shorts and an old, white t-shirt she’d cut the sleeves off of, her hair pulled back in one of those messy buns.
“Hi,” she said. She came right over to me and gave me a quick kiss. “I’m starving. This place has the best burgers.”
Any sort of food after a ride tasted good, but there was something particularly satisfying about a burger, especially one loaded with bacon and cheese. We went in and got seated at a corner table.
“I’m surprised you knew about this place,” I said, glancing at the menu even though I already knew what I was going to get.
She had the menu in front of her, obscuring all of her face but her eyes, which flickered over to me. “I’ve never actually been here before,” she said.
“Yeah? How’d you know about it?”
“I ... looked it up online.”
Before I could say anything, our waitress, Denise, came over, a girl I’d actually gone to high school with. She’d been one of Trisha’s friends, actually, and had supposedly been the person Trisha called immediately after calling the police after Kurt had left that night.
I could tell Denise hadn’t realized it was me until she was already at our table. We didn’t dislike each other, but things had always been awkward after Kurt and Trisha had broken up, even all these years later.
“Oh, um, hi. Hi, Graham.” She looked at Chloe. “Hi there. What can I get you to drink?”
Denise didn’t really look my way again as she wrote down Chloe’s request for a lemonade and mine for an iced tea.
“Do you know what you want to eat?” I asked. Chloe nodded. “Maybe we should just order our food now, too.” I figured this would at least save Denise an additional awkward encounter.
“So, you two obviously know each other,” Chloe said after Denise had left. “What’s the story there?” She leaned forward, a smile on her face. I imagined she expected me to tell her some funny story about a date that didn’t go quite right.
“That’s Denise,” I said. “We went to high school together. Never dated.”
She raised an eyebrow. “She must’ve liked you then. I think she still might! Did you see the way she blushed when she came over here?”
“I can say with one hundred percent certainty that she does not like me like that.”
I hoped that she’d drop it after that, because I’d have to make up some story to tell her if she didn’t. No way in hell I was going to tell her about Kurt.
But my answer seemed to satisfy her, or at least she didn’t ask me about it any further. She looked over my shoulder, taking the room in, the people. The place was fairly busy, and random snippets of people’s conversation floated over.
Chloe leaned across the table toward me again. “I want to talk to you about something.” There was a serious note in her voice.
“Okay. What’s up?”
“I know this is going to sound a little weird. So, please don’t take it the wrong way.” She brushed a few wisps of hair back from her face. “But I’d like it if we could maybe keep this ... just keep it sort of between the two of us.”
Denise appeared then, with our drinks.
“Here you are,” she said, looking only at Chloe. Chloe kept looking at her then at me, as if trying to say, See? She likes you so much she can’t even make eye contact!
“Thanks,” I said. Denise ignored me and walked off. I looked at Chloe. “So, what is it you want to keep a secret?”
She fiddled with the wrapper on her straw. “Us. You and me.”
“You want this to be a secret?”
“Um, something like that.”
I nodded. “Okay. Are you embarrassed by me?”
I asked it as a joke, but Chloe widened her eyes and shook her head vehemently. “No!” she said. “Oh my god, please don’t think that. It’s just ... my parents have been giving me a hard enough time about art school as it is, and I’m just not sure how they’re going to react to me seeing someone. I don’t want to give them any more reasons to give me shit.”
“Fair enough,” I said. I decided not to mention that it would actually save me from getting shit from my own family and friends as well.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind, though, than the door opened and my mother and Wade walk in. I looked down at the table, hoping we were sitting far away enough from the entrance that they might not notice me, but no such luck. My mother saw us and made a beeline for the table. Wade looked far less enthused.
“Well would you look at that!” my mother said, loud enough for most of the people in the restaurant to stop what they were doing and look over, as though they might actually see something worthwhile.
“Oh, hey,” I said.
Chloe looked at my mother and then at Wade, who had slowly made his way over. He grunted at me in way of greeting. Chloe had a smile on her face, waiting for the introduction.
“Chloe, this is my mother, Janice,” I said. “Janice, this is Chloe.”
“May we sit? So nice to meet you, Chloe. Graham hardly ever introduces us to his friends.” Chloe had
slid over in the booth and my mother sat down beside her, leaving me with the choice of sliding over for Wade, and him with the option of actually sitting down next to me. We both thought better of it though, and neither of us budged. “Now, Chloe,” my mom was saying, “I don’t think I’ve heard anything about you. Tell me everything!”
“Well,” Chloe said, looking only the slightest bit uncomfortable, “there’s not a ton to tell.”
“Oh, stop being modest. I can tell, a girl like you, you’ve probably had quite the life now, haven’t you? What do you do? Do you work?”
“I’m in school.”
“School! Now that’s wonderful. What are you going to school for?”
“I’m going to art school.”
My mother could be hard to read sometimes; now was one of them. Sure, her tone sounded friendly and luckily she hadn’t gotten started on her own personal career choices—yet—but I couldn’t be completely certain that this line of questioning was benign.
“Jan,” Wade said with a cough. “Why don’t we go get a seat.”
For once, I was actually glad for Wade’s presence, though my mother showed no signs of actually listening to his suggestion.
Denise appeared then, with our food. Wade looked at the plate longingly.
“Denise,” my mother said. “I didn’t realize you still worked here.”
Denise gave her a tight smile. “Still here, Janice,” she said. “I stopped working on Mondays.”
My mother nodded. “Ah,” she said. “Well, nice to see you.” Denise nodded and hurried away. “I come in here every Monday,” my mother said to us. “And I’d always sit in Denise’s section. I wondered what had happened to her. She used to be friendly with that girl who dated the boy you were in a band with, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing full well that my mother knew exactly who she was talking about. I looked over her shoulder, across the restaurant. “Oh, hey look, there’s a free table over there, and I think it’s got your name on it.”
Wade brightened. “Great,” he said. “Come on, Janice, let’s go.”
But my mother completely ignored him. “Now tell me,” she said. “Are you two ... an item?” She giggled conspiratorially, as though she and Chloe had been friends for years, not people who had just met each other.
“We’re not,” I said quickly.
“You know, it’s so funny, because I had just stopped by Graham’s work the other day to tell him that I was supportive of his decision to not—”
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said loudly, shooting my mother a look.
“Yeah, come on, Janice,” Wade said. “I’m starving. Let’s give these two their space.”
For a second, my mother looked like she was going to flat out refuse, or ask if they could join us. But maybe it was something on Wade’s face, or perhaps my own, that finally convinced her to remove herself from the booth.
“Well, it was very nice to meet you,” she said, holding her hand out.
“You too,” Chloe said, shaking her hand.
My mother then made a big show of coming over to give me a kiss on the cheek, which both Wade and I rolled our eyes at.
“Enjoy your food,” Wade said before they walked off. Luckily, all the seats within talking-distance were taken, so they ended up across the room.
“Err, sorry about that,” I said. I rubbed my eyes, wishing that we had gone to another restaurant. I didn’t even realize that she and Wade actually went out to eat together.
“It’s okay,” Chloe said. “I just ... it’s kind of weird.”
“What is?”
“Well, how we were just talking about keeping things between us a secret and then your mom shows up and we tell her that nothing’s going on. It just felt kind of weird. Not to be up front about it. Especially because she asked. It was like we lied to her. I just met her and I’m already lying to her!”
I had to smile. “Don’t feel weird about it. Honestly, the less she knows, the better.”
“She seems nice.”
“She has her moments.”
We started to eat, and I tried to ignore the fact that I could feel my mother’s gaze on us from across the restaurant, even though I wasn’t looking in her direction.
20.
Chloe
At least once every summer, my parents hosted a big party and invited everyone they socialized with during the summer. It was mostly my mother’s thing, but my father would help out a little by contributing a bottle or two of good Scotch, and I was expected to dress up and play the role of good-natured hostess. The majority of the people were from the yacht club and my dad’s golfing buddies, and it was usually boring, but there was good food, so at least in that regard, it was worth going to.
And of course I wanted to invite Graham, except I knew my parents would flip out if I did. I would have much rather hung out with him, but I’d never hear the end of it from my mother if I bailed.
Tara’s family always attended, and this year, so would Riley and his parents. Most of the other people I didn’t really know, despite being introduced to them on many occasions over the years. They all looked the same to me, with their expensive shirts and deep suntans, the women with their jewelry and impeccable nails. The men talked about finances or how they’d done on the golf course; the women gossiped or complained about their live-in help. It was so stereotypical and exactly what you’d expect to see in a movie or something. I didn’t want to grow up and be like that.
The large dining room table had been cleared off and the caterers had covered it with all sorts of dishes. There were crab cakes and oysters on the half shell; several types of cold pasta salad, some sort of meats on a skewer with an assortment of glazed vegetables. Lots of salads, both of the fruit and vegetable type. Vegetarian sushi, although if you were going to have sushi it seemed pointless to have it without the fish. And, of course, plenty of alcohol. Champagne, wine, even some beer, and my dad’s Scotch.
I put a smile on my face and did my best to mingle, though I’d never been any good at just inserting myself into a conversation that had already been started. Not like Tara, whom I saw across the room, talking with a few guys who I didn’t recognize. She had an animated expression on her face and both of the guys were laughing at whatever it was she was saying.
But other people didn’t seem to have much of a problem coming up to me.
“So, what is that you do?” This question had been posed to me several times tonight, this time the person asking was a man whose name I forgot, who was in real estate.
“I’m in art school,” I said.
“Oh?” He actually looked somewhat interested when I said this, which was a bit surprising. Most of the other people just smiled vaguely and said something along the lines of, “That’s nice, dear,” before moving on to talk to someone else whose ambitions might be set a little higher.
“And are you enjoying it?”
“I am. I’ll be starting my senior year next year.”
“Art is a very subjective business,” he said, frowning, as though he was genuinely concerned that I had chosen a subjective business to be interested in. “Not like real estate.”
“I’d think real estate is very subjective too,” I said. “I mean, just because one person likes a house doesn’t mean everyone will, does it?”
The man smiled. “That’s a very simplified way of looking at it. Yes, we all have our own personal tastes, but there are some things everyone can agree on. A waterfront property is always going to be worth more than something located in the bad part of town.”
“There are no bad parts in this town,” I said, even though I understood the point he was trying to make.
“Exactly.” He swirled his wine around in the glass. “Your parents have an impressive wine collection. Anyway, my point being—art can be a difficult career to find success in.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. He was acting like he was telling me some great, earth-shattering revelation.
“But if it’s something that you’re passionate about,” he continued, “you should pursue it. See my son over there?” He nodded his head and I turned to look. “That’s Parker. He’s around your age. He knows he wants to be successful and he knows he wants wealth, but he hasn’t found his passion yet. Some people go the majority of their lives before they actually find their passion.”
I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be an inspirational talk or what, so I just smiled and nodded. What did I care what another of my parents’ rich friends thought? They all thought they knew best, they all thought that money was the sole marker of success. I thought about Graham, who wasn’t wealthy, but was doing pretty well, but more importantly, doing something that he really enjoyed, on his own terms.
“I know someone, actually,” I said, “who isn’t rich but he’s happy. And he knows what his passion is, and he gets to live it every single day.” I could’ve stopped right there, but I didn’t. “He’s a tattoo artist.”
The expression on the man’s face changed, but only for a second, and so quickly that I might’ve imagined it. Of course friends of my parents wouldn’t approve of a tattoo artist, but I didn’t care.
“Well, he sounds like one of the lucky ones, then,” the man said. “Where does he work?”
“It’s called On Point Tattoo, I think.” I realized that though I’d seen the sign plenty of times now, I wasn’t completely sure what it said. I could see the black lettering, the sans serif font, and I was pretty sure it was called On Point, but I wasn’t one hundred percent positive. “His name’s Graham,” I said. “Graham ...” Shit. I didn’t even know his last name.
“Walker,” the man supplied. I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face, almost as if he were recalling a fond memory.
“Do you know him?” I asked.