by Emma Nichols
Joe and I loved to be alone together every possible moment, but even we wanted real food and entertainment besides sex once in a great while. At those times, I tried to persuade Lacey to go out with Joe and me for dinner or a movie somewhere, but she almost always had plans.
She once jokingly claimed, “Even if I didn’t have plans, Clo, I’d rather go to the doctor than go out with you and Joe. The way you fondle each other and drool all over everything is utterly and completely disgusting.”
Fortunately for my still-guilty conscience, Lacey had dozens of friends. My defection truly didn’t put a dent in her social life and she was always busy. Plus, St. Martin’s a boarding school with strict curfew rules enforced with zero tolerance. Lacey often had hot pizza and cold Mountain Dews ready and waiting for us in our dorm when I slipped in right under the wire. We stayed up late eating, studying, and girl talking a few nights a week.
From my first day back at St. Martin’s through the next May, I was passionately, irrevocably in love at first, second, and all sightings of Joe Barrington.
Until he inexplicably dumped me on graduation night and ruined my life.
2
The Present
At least I’d done one thing right in the last few years. I stopped wandering and settled in the small, charming college town of Northfield, Minnesota. I’d put down some roots, made some excellent friends, and even had a kitty with one blue eye and one green eye named Skittles.
It wasn’t the hobby farm of my teenage dreams-- there was no handsome, ordinary man or zoo animals, but I was no longer that teenage girl, either.
It was a hot Friday afternoon. I was being decadent and enjoying cocktails while sunning with Bel and Jazy, two of my favorite friends, who were also sisters. I’d met Bel soon after moving into Northfield. She owned the bookstore and lived in the apartment above the store with her husband in the building next to my art gallery.
Once you’ve met Bel and become her friend, soon you’ll also get to know her entire family and other friends. Bel’s Bookstore has been a central hub of activity for the whole town for forty years, and was previously owned by her grandmother. Bel’s spacious apartment upstairs is famous for a dining room table that can seat twenty-four, and often does.
On my mother’s first visit to Northfield, Bel and Alexis bonded immediately over simmering pots and pans of delicious food in Bel’s kitchen, even though my mother’s tastes run more toward Coq Au Vin versus Tater Tot Hot Dish. Regardless of what recipe was being whipped up, everyone vied for an invite to Sunday dinner at Bel and Luke’s, especially when Alexis came to town. Honest to God, I’ve seen money exchange hands for a chair at the table.
It was Bel’s huge rooftop patio where we lounged today, a veritable jungle of lush plants and colorful flowers surrounding a sitting area and small Jacuzzi pool.
At Dr. Dread’s advice, I was practicing my newest habit of telling a couple of good friends my personal history. I’d never really done this with anyone so openly before. It was thirsty business.
“Geez, Clo, don’t leave us hanging. We’ve known you for what, three or four years now, and never seen you with a man named Joe,” Bel tilted her head quizzically, her long, blonde braid slipping over her bare shoulder, as she amended judiciously, “not that I’ve actually seen you with any man.” Bel’s royal blue bikini matched the color of her sparkling eyes, now alive with speculation. “I was really liking regular Joe. Why did he dump you? What happened next?”
Behind Bel’s pretty, sexpot exterior was a sharp, calculating intelligence I’ve come to learn is always thinking ahead and analyzing. I had no doubt she’d already drawn her own correct conclusions about what happened next.
On a lounger a few feet away, auburn-haired Jazy had been vigorously applying suntan lotion onto the areas of her slim, enviously toned body exposed by a tiny, bright orange bikini. Capping the lotion, Jazy drawled with a wide smile, “With sexual chemistry like that, I hope whatever happened still involves fucking each other blind for years.”
Into the charged silence, I was aware of both women’s gaze on me as I took a long drink of my icy cold vodka tonic before carefully setting the sweating glass down on the teak table in front of me.
I leaned back in the cushioned chair and lifted my face to the afternoon summer sun. “I don’t know why.”
Jazy’s flat tone clearly indicated her disbelief when she asked, “What do you mean you don’t know? If you don’t, who effing does?”
“Jazy!” Bel laughed ruefully, shaking her head at her sister’s bluntness.
“No, she’s right.” I didn’t mind Jazy’s straight-talking manner. “Let me rephrase because I don’t mean to be intentionally dramatic, my brain’s just tired. It’s true; while I literally did not know the real truth of what happened with Joe and me for over ten years, I found out about a month ago. After Joe dumped me on graduation night in 2008, I left Linwood and never looked back. I swore I’d never return to St. Martin’s or speak to anybody from that a-hole school ever again, and I’ve kept that vow.” I looked from Bel to Jaz. “I didn’t burn all my St. Martin bridges, I fucking annihilated them.”
Jazy lowered her sunglasses to peer up at me with a frown. “Even Lacey Coldwell?”
“Especially Lacey Coldwell. Next to Joe, I despised her most.” I sighed. “But Lucy and I have squared things away. She was wronged, too.”
“Now I really want to know what the heck happened to you. It’s like in that old Stephen King novel, Carrie. We’re not talking mean kids and buckets of blood here, are we?” Bel’s eyes were opened wide, but her lips curved in a snarky smile after her question.
“There’s always mean kids in stories about high school,” Jazy stated lazily while noisily attempting to slurp up the last of her frozen strawberry daiquiri with a straw. When that didn’t work so well, she leaned her head back and put the cup to her mouth, pounding on the bottom to get the last of the red drink into her mouth.
“I’ll report back after this weekend and share the full story with the final ending. But there were no buckets of blood.” I adding dryly, “Just buckets of heartbroken tears, and then extremely sluttish behavior in my desire to pay back a certain kind of man for existing.”
“Ooh, sluttish behavior. Now she’s talking.” Jazy’s wicked smile flashed while she concentrated on pouring more frozen daiquiri into her cup from a pitcher stored in a cooler.
I laughed. “Let me start from the beginning, or in this case, the ending so I’m making sense. I received a packet from my dad a month ago with a report enclosed from a private detective. After interviewing several people involved, the detective outlined the facts of what actually occurred the night Joe and I broke up.”
“That’s very interesting,” Bel commented, and then tossed her vodka shot back in one gulp. She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut while shaking her head side to side, braid flying.
Losing my train of thought while watching her strange behavior, I inquired, “Um, what kind of vodka are we drinking here? I don’t recognize the name on the bottle.” Bel had stopped shaking her head but now her body shuddered instead. Concerned, I leaned forward, stretching out a hand toward Bel across the table. “Are you okay?”
“She’s training,” Jazy replied cryptically.
I started to ask what that meant, but Bel opened her eyes and stared back blankly at me for a second before smiling crookedly. Relieved, I sat back in my chair.
“I’m fine, Clo, just practicing my shot technique. I didn’t look like a kitten lapping up cream from a saucer, did I?”
I laughed at her odd question before responding decisively, “No, you did not look like a kitten lapping up cream in any way.”
“More like a nutjob getting electrocuted,” Jazy said with a chuckle.
“Yes!” Bel exclaimed triumphantly and poured another shot. “This vodka is called Khor and it’s the good stuff from the Ukraine.” She set the bottle down. “Luke and I are invited over to dinner with Elena and her family
next Saturday.”
“Oh. Have fun?” I offered helplessly, not sure who they were, but I’d also learned Bel generally had good reasons for saying the things she said, even if it took an average person awhile to understand why.
“Oh, I’m going to have fun, alright.” Bel picked up the full shot glass and motioned to me. “You were saying your dad hired a detective and sent you his report?”
“I did, and you said that was very interesting,” I replied. “Why did you say that?”
Bel tossed the shot back. Her body went through same gyrations, although this time she shuddered even longer.
She carefully set the glass down and then peered over at me with a playful smile. “Your dad is very cool and very handsome. I think I’d do him in a nanosecond if he wasn’t your dad and married to Alexis.” She hesitated, cocking her head. “Strike the part about him being your dad. I could be made to forget that fact, no problem. Hmm, maybe I could forget Alexis, too, but only if she had a wasting away disease that made having sex painful and she begged me to take her place. Then it would be my duty to take one for the team.”
Okay, there was no good reason for saying that. “Uh,” I cleared my throat, alarmed at seeing the musing expression on Bel’s face, “didn’t you forget to add that you’re married, too?”
“Did I?” Bel smiled innocently. “Maybe I forgot to add these are only my private porno thoughts. As an old married woman, isn’t it only fair that I be allowed to lust in peace with my porno thoughts without moral or legal constraints hampering all my fun?”
Erupting into laughter, Jazy spit out a mouthful of strawberry daiquiri and red slush sprayed everywhere.
When she was done choking and could talk again, Jazy informed me, “Oh my, Bel’s drunk if she’s talking porno thoughts out loud.”
Bel’s dark eyebrows rose in twin arches. “So sayeth the woman with disgusting red slime dribbling off her boobs.” She glanced over at me and mouthed, “I’m not drunk.” In a normal tone, she asked, “What in the world prompted Barrett the Beautiful to hire a private detective to get a report about a night happening over ten years ago?”
Heartily relieved to move on from the topic of my parents as sick, sex objects, I answered quickly, “When I left Linwood that night, I hid my break up with Joe from my parents.” I rolled my eyes. “I worried if my dad found out what I thought was the truth at the time, he’d go beat the crap out of Joe and end up in jail. A few days later, when I was calmer, I lied and told them we were taking a break due to going to separate colleges.”
“Perfectly understandable at the time,” Bel agreed. “What teenager wants to talk about true love with adults? They’re old-- what could parents possibly know of love? Even your lovely dad and mom probably would have freaked if they had a clue you planned on marrying Joe and living on a goat farm at eighteen or nineteen.”
I laughed. “You’ve got that right. But about two years ago, I decided to go see Dr. Dread because I was pretty messed up and not liking the woman I’d become.”
Bel’s nose wrinkled, even as she responded sympathetically, “I’ve always thought you’re pretty great, but you must have come to a real low spot to look up Dr. Dread.”
“Yeah, we all think you’re a badass, Clo, no doubt about it,” Jazy agreed, swearing under her breath as she dabbed with a beach towel at the red ice chunks melting into sticky pink rivulets on her body.
“Thanks, ladies, your good opinions mean a lot to me.” I shrugged a shoulder. “But I was at a real low spot. I’m not a natural sharer. I internalize rather than verbalize, you know?”
“Ha!” Bel snorted. “Do we know or what, Jaz.”
“Hell yes, we know,” Jazy replied readily. “Who wants to talk about feelings and crap all the time? If everybody went and rode a horse instead of talking, they’d feel a helluva lot better.”
“That’s so true, and I’m doing healthier physical things like that now to get over myself.” I took a fortifying breath and plunged on, “But Dr. Dread encouraged me during that session to stop my self-abusive sexual behavior by going celibate, at least until I got my head on straight. She also encouraged me to be honest with my parents about my break up with Joe.”
Bel nodded slowly at my revelation, but Jazy stopped mopping up droplets of red slush off her chest to exclaim in horrified accents, “Good God, Clo, are you saying you haven’t fucked for two whole years because some dried up head doc told you it was a good idea?” Before I could reply, she smacked her forehead with her hand and laughed. “Oh, wait a minute, I get it now. Excuse my outburst, but you scared me for a minute there.” She looked at me with a quick, apologetic smile. “By self-abuse you meant like not getting hairy palms from excessively playing with yourself kind of celibate, right?”
Bel giggled and spoke to the patio at large, “Ah, my poor little sis. To think, right this very second she’s living her worst nightmare.”
I stared at Jazy’s hopeful face for a long moment before replying slowly, “No, I meant what you first thought about self-abusive behavior. I’m like a nun celibate.”
Jazy stared at me for a full five seconds before muttering under her breath and waved her arms around while moving her fingers. She then crossed herself several times, although I know for a fact she’s not religious.
Bel was on my same wave length as she murmured, “Don’t pay attention to her. Either Jazy’s found God or she’s doing a protection spell in case your celibacy is contagious.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “You guys, come on. It’s been cathartic. Sex was all about anger and punishment for me.”
I think I heard Jazy mutter, “So?” but I forged on, “I couldn’t believe I’d been carrying around this hardcore rage at men for so long when I thought I’d gotten over Joe’s betrayal years ago.” I turned to Bel. “It was hearing the truth about Joe that prompted my dad to have him and the other kid’s involved at St. Martin’s quietly investigated. Dad trusted Joe and he was going to be extremely pissed if his instincts were wrong.”
Bel crossed her arms and leaned on the patio table. “And were Barrett the Brave’s instincts wrong?”
“No,” I answered quietly. “His detective discovered a group of mean girls played a series of terrible, elaborate hoaxes on Joe and me to deliberately break us up. Other people were in on it, too, but the main mean girl who’d orchestrated our break up was Trish Westinghouse.”
“Wow,” Bel breathed out, shaking her head in disgust. “Real live mean girls plotting serious shit to mess people up. We don’t have many of that bad breed left in Northfield now that our ex-cousin Candy’s left town.”
“That’s one of the reasons I love it here.”
“Trish Westinghouse.” Bel had stopped laughing and her blue eyes had gone glittery cold as she rolled the name off her tongue like she’d tasted something nasty. “Did you hear that name, Sister?”
“Sure did,” Jazy replied, and then repeated in a grim tone, “Trish Westinghouse.”
“So, Cloey, you’ve had this detective report for a month. I don’t even know what’s in the report but I can guess.” Bel’s eyes narrowed in question. “Do you have a plan to make this Trish Westinghouse pay for what she did to you and Joe?”
“I’ve been thinking on that question real hard, Bel. Since Joe married Trish Westinghouse ten years ago and she had his baby it makes it a little trickier to make Trish pay.”
“Whoa, didn’t see that one coming,” Bel exclaimed softly, a hand against her heart. “Although, I don’t like Joe so much now as I did.”
“Makes two of us.” I slung back the last inch of my vodka. “But it just so happens I’m leaving tomorrow on a plane for Philly. I’m showing up tomorrow night for the formal dinner party at the Hilton for the St. Martin Class of 2008 Ten Year Reunion.” I smacked my sadly unhairy palm sharply on the table. “I’ve got some bridges to rebuild and some bitches to take down.”
“But most importantly, I hope you have a sexy dress to wear to the party?” Bel inquir
ed with a laugh.
“Oh yes, I have the best slutty dress ever-- very low in the neck, short in the hem, and tight as hell everywhere else.” I put a hand to my purple bikini top over my full breasts and batted my eyelashes. “Plus, it has a zipper down the front and a zipper down the back.”
Bel did a little shimmying seat dance. “Men go freakin’ crazy over one zipper, two will have them...”
“Pre-ejaculating all over their chicken breast dinner?” Jazy finished, her smile made even fiercer by the ring of red daiquiri stain encircling her mouth and dyeing her tongue magenta. “Where do we sign up to help? I wouldn’t mind taking down some bitches.”
Bel gestured toward Jazy’s mouth. “Oh my God, if you gnashed your teeth and growled, the mean girls would probably think you’re a bloody werewolf and pass out.”
As Bel and I laughed, Jazy sat up straight in her lounger. “I have those fake teeth that look real sharp. I could wear those effers and scare the living…” Her voice trailed off and then she snapped her fingers. “Hell, I could probably sharpen them and really bite them with those teeth!”
I wiped my eyes. “Listen, I appreciate your willingness to go into battle for me, especially the teeth, Jaz, but this is something I have to face alone.”
“Are you absolutely positive because you mentioned several people and we’d have your back, girl. We wouldn’t have to come inside to the party, either,” Jazy pointed out reasonably. “There’s gotta be some woods around there we could hide out in or something. We could round up a big pack of women, too, and patrol the grounds to catch any squirters.”
“Squirters?” I repeated, intrigued in spite of myself.
Jazy shrugged. “It’s what we call the ones that attempt to escape by making a run for it to get away.”
“Oh.” I eyed her to see if she laughed, but she didn’t. It would be fun to have a pack of women along to have my back but I said rather reluctantly, “Thanks again, but I’m going to have to pass.”