Bulky & Beauteous

by Mary E Thompson

  I immediately compared him to Joey. Brown eyes, not green. Broad shoulders, but not broad enough. Long legs, not thick tree trunks.

  I wanted to slap myself.

  Our earlier conversation slipped through my mind. He wanted to get together. He wanted to meet my friends. He wanted more.

  I didn’t.

  I told myself that over and over again, willing it to be the truth.

  Really the truth was I wanted someone who would put me first. My needs. My desires. I wasn’t sure Joey was that guy, I wasn’t sure there was a guy out there like that at all, but I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to find it in the stranger approaching me.

  “Hi,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth. He smiled bigger, looking me up and down with an appreciative gleam in his eyes.

  “Hi,” I said, wondering where my whit drifted off to.

  “I’m Jeremy.” He offered his hand. I glanced down at it then back up at him as I slid my palm against his.

  “I’m Addi.”

  “Addi,” he said, as though he was testing it out. His fingers brushed my wrist, making my pulse jump even though the rest of me wasn’t. “I like it. It suits you.”

  “Thanks,” I answered, unsure what else to say. “Who’re your friends?” I nodded toward the other two guys who were flirting with Sam and Charlie. They both looked adoringly at the guys they were talking to. I wondered if I looked at Joey that way when we’d first met.

  “Craig and Nicky. And your friends?”

  “Sam and Charlie.”

  “Good. Now that we got that out of the way… tell me a little something about you, Addi.”

  Really? He was going for that? He made it sound like he wanted to get to know me, like he thought we could be starting something. Is that how men picked women up? Was it bad that I had no clue because I hadn’t been hit on in forever?

  “Well,” I began slowly, “I teach high school chemistry.”

  “Chemistry? I think you could teach me a little about chemistry,” he teased, then he moved closer to me. “Then again, I’m pretty sure we’re figuring it out without the lesson.”

  Gag me. Was he really that cheesy? Seriously? I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I risked a glance at my friends. They both looked happy. Sam was dancing with Craig and Charlie was talking to Nicky. I couldn’t risk their nights because Jeremy was not very good at flirting.

  Good old Addi.

  “Why don’t we dance?” I suggested, hoping he would keep his mouth shut and we could just dance and not pretend like we cared about getting to know each other.

  Jeremy nodded and led me to the tiny space next to Sam and Craig. His body pressed against mine as he pulled me into his arms. He didn’t talk, but it didn’t help me like him any more. I told myself it was just a few minutes and then I could go get a drink or dance with someone else.

  When the song ended Jeremy held me tighter as though he knew I was going to try to get away. “One more dance,” he whispered in my ear. I shivered, not because I liked him so close, but because I didn’t. It felt wrong being in another man’s arms. Like I wasn’t being fair to Joey. Or like I was cheating on him.

  I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. But I didn’t feel right sleeping with him and being so close to another man.

  Sam was kissing Craig. Charlie and Nicky joined us on the dance floor. Between the other two couples I felt trapped. I couldn’t get away without it being obvious, and I knew if I left Jeremy would drag his friends off.

  I settled against him and let him guide me around our tight little circle. Once the song ended I was ready to make a break for it, but the band announced we were less than a minute to midnight. Excitement bubbled through the crowd. I caught the buzz and grinned, ready for a new year to begin, a year where I’d show everyone who I really was. A year where I’d get what I wanted. A year where I’d put myself first once in a while.

  We cheered together as a group. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Happy New Year!”

  I smiled and yelled with everyone else. The first few seconds of the year were with my friends. I was happy. I was ready.

  Then Jeremy pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

  Nineteen

  The next night as I was getting ready for my parents’ blind date I couldn’t stop thinking about Jeremy kissing me. It was horrible. I wanted to kick him when he kissed me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just endured the whole thing. His sloppy tongue, his less than pleasant breath, his roaming hands.

  Thankfully shortly after he kissed me Sam grabbed me and hugged me and said Happy New Year. Charlie joined our little circle, laughing and hugging us. Charlie and I quickly realized just how drunk Sam was and made excuses to get out of there. Jeremy asked for my number, but then Sam threw up. We got out of there pretty quickly, without trading numbers.

  But the worst part of the night was all I could think about was blowing Joey off.

  If I’d told him where we were going and had him meet up with us I would have avoided getting kissed by Jeremy. I wouldn’t feel so guilty for kissing another man, even though I didn’t initiate it.

  I shook my head clear of thoughts about Jeremy and Joey. I needed to focus on my parents’ relationship for the night, not my own screwed up love life.

  I’d reserved a table for them at Connections. Mom had gushed over the years about Dad taking her there on their first date and how impressed she’d been. He took her there again when he proposed. I knew it was the restaurant they went to for special occasions. Nothing was more special than reuniting.

  All I’d told each of my parents was that I wanted to get together for dinner. Cass was going to bring Mom and I was picking up Dad. That way they could both enjoy the evening, but not know until the last minute that we were setting them up.

  Dad was dressed up in a nice pair of gray pants, a neatly pressed charcoal shirt, and a pool blue and gray tie. I kissed his cheek when he got into the car. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going, honey?” he asked, trying again to get details out of me. I wasn’t giving anything away.

  “Nope. You’ll see soon enough.”

  I headed back into town straight toward Connections. Cass text me that they were on their way and I didn’t want us to be late.

  In the parking lot Dad grinned. “I love this place. What are we celebrating tonight?”

  I smiled. “New beginnings,” I answered honestly, knowing he wouldn’t understand until Mom showed up.

  The hostess took us to the table I’d reserved, in a private area, secluded from the rest of the guests. Cass and I were going to sit right outside so we wouldn’t miss them leaving, but Dad didn’t know that when we sat down.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I lied. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay,” my dad said, picking up his menu to decide on dinner as I walked out.

  I slipped into the bathroom and waited for Cass to text me that they were there. When she did I went back to our table, sitting next to Cass. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” she said when I sat. “They’re not going to be happy.”

  I waved my hand at her. “They’ll be thrilled. They love this place. Dad wants Mom back. She just needed something to put her in the mood.”

  “If you say so,” Cass mumbled, lifting her menu.

  I smiled to myself, happy that I’d managed to pull this off. By the end of the night my parents would be back together and things would be right again.

  Of course that also meant I’d be back on Cass babysitting duties.

  “How was your New Year’s?” I asked to be conversational.

  Cass shot me a death look, reminding me of her evening. “Oops. Sorry. I forgot. Wait. If you’re so anxious to get rid of Mom why aren’t you more excited about tonight? If she’s back together with Dad then she won’t be cramping your style anymore. You’ll be free to get drunk and go home with any number of random men again.”

  Cass rolled her eyes. “I know you don
’t approve of my life-“

  “Nope, I don’t.”

  “But it’s my life, Addi. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Seriously? You seriously believe that?”

  Cass blanched. “Of course. Why would it have anything to do with you?”

  I huffed out an annoyed breath. “I don’t know, maybe because I’m the one who’s always picking you up from strange places, dragging you out of asshole’s cars when you’re basically unconscious. I get woken up in the middle of the night to come save your ass. Do you have any idea the number of times you would have been raped if it weren’t for me? Any idea at all?”

  Cass glanced around the restaurant, checking that my raised voice hadn’t drawn any attention to her. She had the decency to look a little ashamed.

  The waitress came over and took our orders. We made sure she knew our parents’ dinner was to go on our check and that they had a bottle of wine already. When she left Cass sipped her water and looked out across the restaurant. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” I choked, nearly spitting my water across the table. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I’m sorry for the position I’ve put you in over the last few years. It wasn’t fair to you. I see that now. Living with Mom I’ve realized just how much I’ve gone out. My friends aren’t calling me as much since I haven’t been able to go out.” She laughed mirthlessly. “None of them have even asked how Mom is. It’s like they only cared about me if I was partying with them. Real shit though, they don’t want to know about it.”

  My heart flipped. I felt bad for Cass. I really did. She was still young, only 25, and it was the time to have fun.

  Then again, Cass had been having fun most of her life. Maybe for her it was time to settle down a little bit.

  “Thank you,” I finally managed. “I wish you had a group of friends like I do. We have fun, but we also have relationships that are about more than just drinking. It’s nice to have people to talk to, really talk to.”

  Cass nodded. “I’ve been so invested in finding a boyfriend that I never cared about the kind of guy I dated, or hooked up with. Mom has this pie-in-the-sky idea about my life. It’s hard to live up to. God, I hated when she said she wanted me to fix you up with someone. I knew I’d never find anyone worthy of her standards. I’m sorry about that first date. I wanted you to back out of the whole thing. I went overboard so you wouldn’t go out on any more dates. I knew if Mom knew you refused then she wouldn’t be mad at me for not finding someone for you.”

  I shook my head. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but for some reason I was. “You’re really something, you know that?”

  “I know,” Cass said softly. “I haven’t been a very good person. But I’m hoping to change that. I think I need to learn more from you than you need to learn from me.”

  “Maybe we can learn a few things from each other.”

  Cass nodded and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. I’d never seen Cass cry, even when she was manipulating me, she never cried. It shocked the hell out of me, until I heard the raised voices from behind the curtain.

  “Did you really think this was all you had to do for me to forgive you?” Mom yelled.

  “I didn’t even do this! Do you really think I’ve been sitting around pining for you this whole time?”

  A thud sounded then the curtain flew back revealing my parents. Dad was stalking out of the small room, his chair lying on its side. Mom was gaping at him. Neither looked very happy.

  “Dad. Where are you going?” I asked, chasing him down as he strode through the restaurant.

  “Home. I’m sorry you got dragged into all this, honey.”

  “I didn’t get dragged into it, Dad. I set it all up.”

  Dad halted his steps so quickly I nearly plowed into his back. He turned slowly and looked down at me, his eyebrows pinching together as realization dawned on him. “This is why you were asking if I still loved your mother. Why you wanted to know if I was interested in working things out? You wanted to trick us into a date?”

  My cheeks heated and tears pricked my eyes. “I was trying to help, Dad. You said you wanted Mom back. You said you were interested in trying again if she was.”

  I hated that I felt like a child being scolded for spilling milk on the table. Pressure welled up in my chest and I couldn’t breathe easily. Cass appeared at my side, standing with me against Dad. “She was trying to help, Dad. She didn’t want to see you and Mom throw away 35 years together.”

  “Maybe she should just stop trying to fix everything for everyone else,” Dad said quietly before he walked away.

  I stared after him only vaguely aware that I was surrounded by people. The restaurant was packed, but I couldn’t hear the sounds of other diners, the conversations or the scraping of silverware against dishes, or the excited squeal of the woman who had just been proposed to on the other side of the room. All I heard was the rush of blood through my ears.

  My dad, the one person who never made me feel like I needed to change, just told me to butt out. He didn’t want me fixing things. The person who’d taught me to fix things and had joked with me about it just a few weeks earlier.

  The room spun and I wondered if I was going to pass out. I felt Cass guiding me back to our table. No, she went past our table and into the private room I’d painstakingly chosen for our parents’ reunion. The reunion that blew up in my face.

  “Sit,” Cass urged, gently pushing me into Dad’s chair once Mom set it back up. Cass vanished. Mom hovered over me, but I couldn’t tell her what was going on. I couldn’t find the words to let her know that my heart had just been shattered. That Dad agreed with her, and Cass, and Sam, and everyone else I knew.

  I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t just sit by and accept that everyone I knew wanted me to get out of their lives. Sure, Cass and I had just made up, in a way, but I knew Cass still felt as though I could use some more excitement in my life.

  I wanted to rush out of there and call Joey. I wanted to lose myself in the bliss he provided. But I couldn’t. Calling him late on a Saturday night, especially after I’d just blown him off the night before, wouldn’t end well. It would cross the line from fling to something else. Something I couldn’t handle. Not when my emotions were this raw, this fresh.

  No, Joey had to stay squarely on the non-emotional side of me.

  “What happened?” Mom asked Cass when she came back in the room with our purses, jackets, drinks, and an extra chair.

  “She told Dad that she set this whole thing up. That she was trying to get you guys back together. Dad told her to mind her own business.”

  Mom clucked her disapproval but didn’t disagree with him. She simply said, “Well, there’s no reason to let this night go to waste. It’s rare I get a night out with both of my girls. Did you two order yet?”

  Cass glanced at me then nodded. Mom clapped her hands gleefully, completely oblivious to the fact that I was sitting there as my shattered heart slowly killed me.

  “So when is your next date, ladies? Oh, I wish you had one set up for tonight so I could meet the new guys. Cass said no one has stuck. You’re not being mean to them, are you Addi?”

  When I gawked at her Cass jumped in and said, “No, Mom. Addi is being great. I think I’m just having trouble finding a guy who’s worthy of her time. She’s always so busy and dating is not for the faint of heart. Addi needs someone who’s worth the time away from all the other things she loves. We’ll find someone for her though.”

  I flashed Cass a grateful smile, grateful for the sudden change. I needed it, and I truly hoped it would last. If I was going to make it through the rest of the night I needed all the help I could get.

  Twenty

  Cass shielded me from Mom the rest of the night and I left relatively unscathed. I spent the next day hiding from the world and second guessing every aspect of my life.

  By Monday I was still reeling, but also nervous about seeing Joey again. I hadn’t heard from him since h
e called New Year’s Eve and I was certain he was going to blow me off or be in a shitty mood. I’d decided I wanted to try to keep seeing him, but was still anxious about turning what we had into anything more than just sex. If it came down to either dating or nothing, I still didn’t know what I was going to do.

  The worst part was I really needed a good afternoon with him to put the horrible weekend behind me. But I wasn’t ready to examine why dating a hot man made me so nervous, but sex with him eased away all my tension.

  As my last class of the day finished up I knew I needed to make up my mind. Some serious groveling was going to be in my future and offering up sex was not going to get me anywhere with him. After all, that’s what we were fighting about.

  The bell rang and my students filed out, finally giving me a few minutes alone before I had to climb on the bus and face Joey. I was gathering my stuff to change into my snow gear when I heard my name.

  “Miss James, can we talk?”

  I turned to find Kendall waiting for me. “Sure, Kendall, what’s going on?”

  “Well, I wanted to ask you about something, well, something sort of personal. I’m not really sure who I can talk to.”

  Immediately I felt on edge. My students asked me about school, or pried into my personal life, but rarely did they ask me about something personal. Something that made one of them anxious.

  My palms started to sweat and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I said, “You can ask me anything Kendall.”

  “Okay, well, um, I was wondering how you know when you’re ready. You know. To have sex.”

  Deep breath. Push the panic down. Another deep breath. Holy shit. She’s going to have sex. My student is going to have sex. And she wants me to tell her it’s okay.

  “Um, well, Kendall, I can’t really tell you when you’re ready. Everyone is different and every situation is different. I’m sure your parents would love for you to wait until you’re married to be ready. The reality is that’s probably not going to happen.”