by Claire Adams
Of all the things I thought I’d be doing tonight, this is absolutely beyond and outside what I could have imagined.
“All right,” I tell her. “Where is the bathroom?”
She points to a door on the other side of the pool.
“The showers are in there, too,” she says. “After you’re done peeing, don’t forget to at least give yourself a good rinse. You can drop your pants now.”
I laugh and do as I’m told.
The air is pretty warm in here, so I don’t make a bad showing. I can only hope that the shower water isn’t too cold.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Butterfly
Leila
It’s been a week since I left, and I’ve just been trying to keep my mind on my job.
While I was an intern, I figured that I was learning enough on top of my college education to just be able to walk onto any broker job without any adjustment period.
I was wrong.
My first day, I’m pretty sure I almost got fired when I gave a bad tip to a client. That may sound like a silly thing to get fired for, especially on one’s first day, and it would be silly if the tip didn’t lose my client about $350,000 in 20 minutes.
That was a tough explanation to my boss.
I think I’m starting to get acclimated to everything, but it’s a stressful job.
It’s not helping that I can’t stop thinking about Dane and the way I left things.
I wonder what he’s doing tonight.
Oh well. Tonight, I’m going out with Annabeth.
I’m a little nervous that, in preparation for our night out, she bought me a white cotton shirt and told me to sleep in it for three nights then put in in a sealable sandwich bag. While I’m not sleeping in it, she told me, I have to keep it in such a bag and store it in the freezer.
I really don’t know why I go along with these things.
The knock lands on my door around 8 o’clock, and I invite her inside to see the apartment.
“Nice place,” she says dismissively. “Have you been wearing the shirt?” she asks.
“Yeah, but I don’t know why—”
“Is it in the freezer?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her.
“All right, then grab it and let’s go,” she says. “We’re running late.”
“Before we go anywhere, I want to know why I’ve been stuffing a shirt in a freezer bag and then wearing it while I’m sleeping.”
“Just be cool, baby.”
I shudder. “You know it weirds me out when you call me that.”
“Whatever,” she says. “Just grab it and let’s go. I’ll tell you on the way.”
We’re in the car and she’s about two sentences into the explanation, and I’m ready to go home and call the night a bust.
Apparently, we’re going to something called a Pheromone Party. The object of the shirt is to capture one’s scent for the inspection of others. If someone likes the way your shirt smells, apparently, they have their picture taken with the shirt, which bears a number only you know. If you find the person attractive, you approach them and let them know the shirt they had a picture taken with was yours.
It’s farfetched enough that I’m clinging to some hope that she’s making the whole thing up, but this is exactly the sort of thing Annabeth would be into, so I’m not putting money on it.
“Where’s yours?” I ask.
“On the floor of the back seat,” she says. “Why?”
“No reason.”
The reason is that I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that this is all a ruse and I’m about to walk into some extremely humiliating situation. That is also the exact sort of thing Annabeth would do.
Sure enough, though, we pull up to a building in Trenton, and there, on a fluorescent sign by the front door, are the words: “Pheromone Party Tonight!”
I sigh.
This is going to be uncomfortable.
The reason, I guess, that I’m not telling Annabeth to take me home right now is that I really need to get my mind off of Dane. This isn’t how I wanted to do it, but I’m pretty sure this whole scenario is going to crowd out any other thoughts in my head. For that, I guess, I should be grateful.
I start feeling a little less grateful as we walk into the door and I see dozens of people smelling shirts out of plastic bags.
“This is too weird,” I tell Annabeth.
“It’s not that weird at all,” she says. “Before cologne, perfumes, and you know, running water, someone’s scent was a huge part of the mating dance.”
“You know, it sounds even worse when you describe it like that.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, trying to reassure me, “these are normal people just like you and I. You’ve done speed dating. I don’t see how it’s that much different.”
“Oh, it’s different.”
Still, I play along.
My number is 560.
“There aren’t that many people here,” I whisper to Annabeth as the woman with the clipboard writes down my name and number.
“They just do that to keep it more random, I guess,” she says. “Ooh, check this out.”
She pulls out her phone and pulls up the internet.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve got a gematria calculator,” she says. “We’re going to find out what your number means.”
I roll my eyes.
“560,” she says. “It means a few different things, but the one I like most is butterfly.”
“Butterfly?” I ask. “How does the number 560 mean butterfly?”
“In Hebrew, every letter is also a number. I guess the Hebrew word for butterfly adds up to 560.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I tell her. “How long do we have to stay?”
“Oh, we just got here,” she says. “Let’s get a drink and keep an eye on that wall.”
As we walk over, I watch the wall. Picture after picture of men and women, holding up bagged shirts with numbers flash across it, and I don’t know if there’s enough alcohol in this place to make that not seem a little creepy to me.
I guess we’re going to find out.
“So,” Annabeth says, “it’s not as bad as you thought it would be, is it?”
I’m not listening.
“Lei-Lei?”
I’m watching an older gentleman burying his face in the bag marked 560, and there’s a weird dichotomy going through my head at the moment.
One part of me feels kind of violated having a stranger sniff my very worn, very unwashed shirt. The other part of me hopes he goes over and takes his picture with it. I know it sounds weird, but I really don’t want to have to go through that kind of rejection.
I smell good, damn it.
The man puts my shirt back on the table where he got it, and I’m about ready to walk over there and ask him just what’s so unattractive about the way I smell when Annabeth puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He didn’t get his picture taken.”
She giggles.
“I told you you’d have a fun time,” she says. “Freak.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to get his picture taken with my shirt?” I ask. “I’ve got a good smell.”
“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “Different people look for different things. Sometimes, it’s just an instinct thing. What are you drinking?”
“Tequila,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she says to the bartender, “can I get a tequila sunrise—”
“No sunrise,” I tell her, “just the tequila.”
If I’m going to make it through this night and all the weird rejection issues it’s bringing up, I’m going to want to get pretty buzzed.
“What number were you?” I ask after she finishes ordering our drinks.
“68,” she says. “Don’t even ask me what that one means.”
“That guy’s holding up your bag,” I tell her, and point at the wall.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask.
“He’s got the stalker eyes,” she says. “Notice how his eyelids are a little too open and he’s just got that blank expression on his face? Yeah, I’m not going through that shit again.”
“Again?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Not really something I want to talk about right now, though. Hey, look at that,” she says, nudging me. “560! Go up and introduce yourself.”
I look at the wall, and there’s a tall guy with long blond hair holding my bag and giving the camera a thumbs-up.
“He’s way too excited about my dirty laundry,” I tell her.
She shrugs.
Our drinks arrive, and before the bartender can walk away, I order another one.
“You ready to go sniff out some hotties?”
“I’m nowhere near drunk enough to even handle that idea,” I tell her.
“Come on,” she says, “it’ll be fun. Let’s find someone who smokes weed and see if there’s a party to go to.”
“I didn’t know you’re a pothead,” I tell her.
“I’m not,” she says. “Stoners just seem to like the best music. Come on.”
I laugh and drink my second shot.
“Hold on,” I tell her. “I’ve got one more coming, then we can go.”
She waits—I can’t say patiently—while the bartender hands me my shot and I drink it down. When she’s not looking, I ask for one more and drink that down before I’m ready to go partake in something that I can’t claim to understand.
“How much B.O. should I be expecting here?” I ask. “On a scale from one to vomiting, what are we looking at here?”
“Well,” she says, “I’ve only been to one of these before, but most guys seem to take pretty good care of themselves hygiene-wise. You will get the occasional stink bag, but they’re not as common as you’d think. But hey, some chicks go for that.”
“Some women go for guys that smell bad?” I ask.
“It’s an evolutionary thing,” she says. “I don’t know. You’re supposed to be able to tell whether a prospective mate is healthy by the way they smell.”
“Well, thanks for bringing me to the Discovery Channel,” I titter.
“Just be cool, will you?”
We get to the table and Annabeth tosses me a bag with a blue number card on it.
“What am I supposed to do here?” I ask.
“It’s not brain surgery,” she says. “Open the bag and take a whiff. If you like what you smell, go up there and get your picture taken with it. If not, move on to something else.”
“This is too weird,” I tell her.
“It’s really not that bad,” she says. “Did you know that in Japan, they have vending machines that dispense used women’s underwear?”
“Actually, most places don’t do that anymore,” I tell her.
It’s a mistake.
“How would you know that?” she asks as she opens a new bag and gives it a deep inhale. “Ooh, this one’s nice.”
She hands it over to me, and before I even think about what I’m doing, I give it a sniff.
It’s heavy on the Drakkar Noir, but it’s mellowing out the lingering taste of the tequila, so I keep it there for a couple extra seconds.
“Not bad, right?” she asks.
“Meh.”
“What does yours smell like?” she asks.
I hand her back the one dripping with cologne and open the bag I’ve been holding. Yeah, this is still pretty weird, but it’s not nearly as creepy as I thought it would—“Okay,” I tell her. “This is one of the bad ones.”
I hand it to her, thinking she’s going to just put it back on the table, but even with my warning, she opens the bag back up.
“Shit, you weren’t joking.”
“I have no idea why you would think I was,” I tell her. “All right, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but the novelty’s starting to wear off. How much longer are we going to stay here and smell people’s clothes?”
“As long as it takes,” she says. “We are not going home alone tonight.”
“Is that what this is about?” I ask.
“What?” she asks, looking for another blue-tagged shirt to smell. She grabs one and hands it to me.
“Dane,” I say.
“Of course it’s about Dane,” she says. “You haven’t talked about anything else since you left.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“That’s good then,” she says. “So you should be open to meeting someone tonight.”
“Yeah,” I snicker. “Kids, did I ever tell you the story about how I met your dad? Well, I was at this shirt-smelling party and your dad’s sweat just got me right between the legs. It was love at first scent.”
“Hey, you never know,” she says. “People meet in some pretty strange ways sometimes.”
“You’re actually serious about getting me to hook up with someone here, aren’t you?”
She opens a bag.
“This one smells like beer and corn chips,” she says, putting it back on the table.
“You’re not answering my question.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not saying you’re going to meet Mr. Right by smelling his sweaty shirt, but you might just find someone who can take you for a nice tumble and remind you that there are other fish to fuck.”
“That’s easily the worst thing you’ve ever said to me,” I tell her.
“Just lighten up, will you? We’re here to have fun. Let it be fun.”
I open up a new bag, but it’s only a formality. After being smacked in the face by the garment whose owner never showered, I’m done putting my olfactory nerves in the line of fire.
Only, the smell wafting from the bag is a familiar one, even holding the bag open and nowhere near my face.
I close it up and walk to the picture line.
Annabeth’s behind me a second later.
“You changed your mind in a hurry,” she says. “What convinced you?”
“A long shot,” I tell her.
Of course the shirt smells like Dane.
The line moves fast, and before I know it, I’m trying to figure out what kind of expression says, “It’s not weird that I’m holding your dirty shirt because the smell gets me hot and bothered,” but it’s not that easy an expression to divine.
I don’t know what the picture looks like because I don’t look at the wall. The odds of Dane actually being here are so remote that I don’t even want to know whose shirt I’m holding.
Annabeth walks with me back to the table, and I set the bag down. Annabeth, though, just picks it right back up, opens it and puts her whole face in the bag.
“That’s not bad,” she says. “A little conventional for my taste, but it’s all right.”
“Excuse me,” a man’s voice comes from behind me.
I turn around.
It’s not Dane.
“I saw your picture up there, holding my shirt,” he says. “My name’s Will.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m kind of new at this, so I don’t really know—”
“Her name’s Leila,” Annabeth interrupts. “She’s single.”
I flash a glare, but quickly turn back to the man.
“I’m Leila,” I tell him. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Would you like to get a drink?” he asks.
“Only if you’re buying,” Annabeth answers for me.
I scowl at her again, but walk with the man to the bar.
“It’s all right,” he says. “It’s my first time at one of these, too. What would you like to drink?”
“Tequila,” I tell him. “Actually, make that a double with a beer back.”
“Hitting it hard,” he says, smiling. “I like that.”
He’s got a cute smile, but he’s not Dane.
I really thought I was doing the best thing for both of us by not dragging things out. Long-dista
nce relationships never work, and neither of us were ready to give up enough to stay together, so I shouldn’t feel this conflicted.
He orders my drinks and something for himself and we find a place to sit and talk. I could kill Annabeth for just leaving me with a stranger like this.
“So, what do you do?” he asks.
“I’m a stockbroker,” I tell him.
“Sounds exciting,” he says. “Are you one of those people on the floor of the exchange?”
“No,” I tell him. “I handle the portfolios of different clients, give them suggestions as to what stocks within their realm of interest and desired risk level might be good choices. I basically try to make people money.”
“That’s not a bad gig,” he says.
I hope he doesn’t think it’s rude that I take both shots and drink half my beer before responding.
“It’s what I do,” I tell him boringly. “What do you do?”
“I’m a fireman,” he says.
Oh shit.
“Really.” No, it’s not a question.
“Yeah,” he says. “It really takes it out of ya, but it’s pretty rewarding stuff.”
“I bet. How long have you been doing it?”
“About five years,” he says.
“That is fascinating.”
Firemen do something funny to me, and I know I’m not alone here.
“Yeah, so what got you into stocks?” he asks.
“Oh, you know,” I tell him. “Being a part of the financial system that runs everything has its perks—so what made you want to be a fireman?”
He smiles, and I’m starting to find that smile more than just cute.
“I always wanted to be a fireman,” he says. “When I was a kid, most of my friends would talk about being rock stars or movie stars or astronauts or whatever, but ever since I can remember, I just wanted to be a fireman. I wanted to be one of those guys that people look to at their most vulnerable times.”
And I think he’s just explained my infatuation with firemen.
“It’s not all heroics and daring rescues, though,” he says. “On the one hand, you spend a lot of time waiting, and when you do get a call, you just hope you get there before anyone’s hurt. I’ve run across some pretty terrible things. But we don’t have to talk about that. Where are you from?”