by Julia Kent
While I describe my sex life.
Hmmm.
“No – Jeffrey stopped us.”
She frowns. “Did you seriously have sex in a limo, on a helicopter, and in a lighthouse?”
“Yes.”
“You can do it in a car. You can do it in a bar. You can do it with long hair. You can do it in the air. You can do it in a limo, you can do it—you’re a bimbo!”
“Hey!”
“You can do it in a lighthouse. You can…” Her voice trails off. “What rhymes with lighthouse?”
“Winehouse?”
She shudders, then laughs. “Day-um!” She stretches the word out like it’s taffy. “Declan has the refractory period of a seventeen-year-old if you had that much sex in one night.”
I blush.
“In a helicopter?” she squeaks. Squinting, she rolls her eyes up, as if trying to imagine it. “How did you not fall out a door or something?”
“It was, um…one-sided.” My face is as red as her painted lips.
“A one-sided helicopter?”
“A one-sided sex act. On the way home.”
“You gave him a—oh. Got it.” She gives me a high-five. I smack her palm back and feel a roiling sense of doom in my gut. Are we seriously talking about all the ways I had sex with a man—a very, very attractive man—while walking to a mystery shop in which we have to pretend to be married?
“So…I am guessing you didn’t go back to that Mexican joint to collect Steve. ”
I snort. “No. Though Declan was shocked when Mom gave him a big old stuffed bunny and his own basket that contained half of the Walgreen’s candy aisle.”
She nudges me. “It’s getting serious if Marie’s making Declan a basket.”
“And you’ll be proud to know I deleted Steve’s eleventy billion texts. He’s such an ass. Why did I ever date him?” Between her comment about Declan and Mom and my own feeling of detachment about Steve, I think I might be moving on. Finally.
She uses her hands to make it clear she agrees. “We’ve all been asking that question for years!”
“All?”
“Me. Josh. Greg. Amy. Your dad. Hell, even Chuckles would agree if he could talk.”
“Chuckles is an equal-opportunity hater, so his contempt for Steve isn’t surprising.”
“He was on Twitter and Facebook chasing you down. It was pathetic.”
“Chuckles?”
She makes a face. “Steve.”
I saw the tags and tweets briefly before he deleted them. I’m guessing someone got to him and convinced him that starting hashtags like #freeShannon and #billionaireaggression wasn’t exactly good for his business prospects. I’m too aglow with the newly emerging relationship with Declan, from yoga to butter lambs, to care.
“I know.” The air is crisp and clean after a morning downpour. A cold front came in and swept out a bunch of oppressive humidity, leaving this spring day for sunshine and that damp-around-the-edges kind of world that feels like its just been baptized.
“You really like Declan.” Amanda pauses and looks closely at me. My heart soars and sinks at the same time. She’s looking at me. Not through me. Open-minded and non-judgmental, my bestie is trying to tell me something.
“I do.” How can I explain how much he affects me, the longing inside even when I just saw him twelve hours ago at Easter? The sour taste of Steve’s “date” with me is washed away by the rain. Whatever bitterness I’ve been clinging to has dissipated these last few weeks. Steve is a non-entity in my life now. He let me loose.
I should thank him, in fact, because I would never have broken up with him, and if he hadn’t set me free I would never have met Declan. Never have succumbed to this attractive man. Never made love in a limo or basked in the afterglow in a lighthouse on the harbor. Never had Declan over for Easter, or had second dessert at his apartment long after the kids’ movie ended…
Never been Toilet Girl.
She squeezes my shoulder. “I’m really happy for you.” Amanda pauses, then mumbles, “Would a lesbian wear this shade of lavender?” Her hair is still black, lips bright red, and she’s wearing a conservative suit. It makes her look like something out of a 1980s music video. Her question throws me out of my thoughts.
“Would you stop asking me what lesbians do?” I throw my hands in the air and lower my voice as passersby start to stare. “How would I know?”
She seems chastened. “Fine. I just don’t want to blow our cover.”
“We’re pretending to be two women married to each other so we can apply for a mortgage using joint income. I don’t think Greg could find a more boring mystery shop if he tried.” The shop requirements were clear. The day after I came out of the hospital last week, Amanda and Josh had gone to a different branch of the credit union and posed as a married heterosexual couple. They were treated according to the institution’s protocol. Now the question is: will the bank officers treat a gay couple differently?
“Remember the vacuum cleaner secret shops?” she says in a voice laced with indignance.
I flinch. “Okay…so he could find something more boring.” Thirty minutes with a canister vacuum cleaner salesman demonstrating dual-level suckage action had the potential to be nice and porny, but instead it was like bad sex.
You just want to grab your things and get out of there as fast as possible and avoid having your feet sucked on.
My phone buzzes. “Let me guess,” Amanda says, closing her eyes and touching her head with her envelope, like some old talk show skit. “It’s Steve.”
I check. She’s right.
We should do dinner again. Without being rudely interrupted, he texts.
Okay, I write back, then indulge in a giant wave of self-loathing. Why did I say “okay”?What else should I say? This is the umpteenth text from him about that night in the Mexican place. Declan’s timely appearance and deliciously engaging pseudo-kidnapping makes my toes tingle right now, my body on fire with the memory. Like a cat in a hot spot of sunshine, all I want to do is stretch and purr.
Steve makes me want to hiss and claw something. And yet I still say “okay” when he doesn’t get the hint. Maybe my idea of a hint isn’t strong enough.
I haven’t told Amanda everything about Declan. How he seemed jealous, so possessive, coming straight from New Zealand and tracking me down, taking me by limo to his helicopter, then riding around the city until we landed on the island. How he was so charming and controlled at Mom’s yoga. The way he emotionally disarms her, but without being rude. The way he makes me feel so secure in just being true to myself.
I slow my pace a bit, wondering if I’m walking funny. I should be. More tingles. I share everything with her, so this is new. Keeping it all to myself makes it have more meaning. Savoring what Declan and I have, and our combined desire to have so much more of it going forward, isn’t so much a secret as it is private.
Personal.
Ours.
Mine and Declan’s, something we share with no one else. I want to hang on to that for just a little longer, before Mom starts booking reception halls and ordering roses dipped in dye that matches some obscure bra strap Kate Middleton wore at her third polo game with the future king.
“Why are you seeing Steve at all?” Amanda asks.
“Masochism.” It’s an old joke, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
She speeds up until we’re walking at a fast clip and almost at the main door to the credit union. The building looks like every other brick business building with white trim, and a discreet white sign with the name is centered above a bank of glass doors. Warnings dot the entrance:
Remove all sunglasses, hats and hoods. You are being recorded.
Sometimes I think about flashing my boobies for the poor schmuck whose job it is to sit in front of a bank of security cameras and keep an eye out for danger. A little light in a dreary job, you know? I made the mistake of saying this to Mom once. She did it.
Turns out my cousin Vito is a
mall cop and was nearly blinded by the sight of Aunt Marie’s tatas. He still calls her Aunt Antiviagra. She thinks he’s speaking an Italian endearment.
“Don’t flash the cameras,” Amanda hisses as we walk in. She really does know me too well.
“I won’t.”
Grabbing my arm, Amanda pauses in the foyer. “You okay?” The way she peers intently into my eyes makes me realize she’s really asking whether I’ve recovered from the bee stings. From the enormity of everything with Declan.
“Yes.”
“You came back to work kind of fast.”
“I needed to. You ever been bed-ridden with my mom taking care of you?”
“I thought Declan came by every day!”
“He did.” I smile at the thought. Mom was practically feeding me chewed-up food from her own mouth and giving me water from an eyedropper. That whole “Oh, my poor baby almost died” stuff required a rescuer. Declan had fit the bill. Except for his time in New Zealand on that business trip, he’d been by my side each day.
And then he’d swooped in on my dinner with Steve and taught me how much fun helicopters can be. I shiver with the memory.
“True love means having your boyfriend watch the The Sapphires and The Heat three nights in a row with you,” Amanda says with a sigh.
True love means being made love to above the city lights, I think, but of course I can’t say that. Or in his apartment, which smells like fine cologne, pine, and a special soap. Someone in a suit steps through the doors and ignores us. Then I realize what Amanda just said.
“What boyfriend?” I ask.
She looks confused. “Declan. What other boyfriend do you have other than that electronic bedside-table monstrosity you call Edward Cullen?” Her face scrunches up. “And it’s about as old as him, too.”
I grab her hand and lace my fingers through hers. “You’re the only boyfriend I need, sweetie.” Standing on tiptoes, I kiss her cheek.
She jumps back like I’ve poked her with a cattle prodder. “Greg better give us a bonus for this one.”
“He has to come with Josh and do the male-male shop, so I don’t think there will be any bonuses.”
“Poor Josh. They’ll look like a bear and a twink.”
My turn to jump like I’ve been electro-shocked. “Huh? What’s that mean?”
The receptionist is giving us nervous looks. Amanda nudges me. “Never mind. You really don’t watch enough cable television.”
“What does that have to do with—”
She puts her arm around me and pushes us both through the main door into the cool, marble-floored bank, the scent of money filling the air. “Let’s get this done and over with.”
“I agree. I can’t be married to you longer than one hour.”
Within ten minutes we’re ushered into a glass-walled room with no real door, filled with dark oak furniture, brightly patterned carpeting floors, and a no-nonsense balding man who looks like he eats entire rolls of antacids for fun.
Jim Purlman is the senior mortgage officer for the credit union and asks us how we met.
Amanda and I exchange confused looks. “You mean, like, how we were in the same class in third grade?” she blurts out.
Jim looks like he’s half Irish and half something else, with a beet-red nose and eyebrows that haven’t been tamed since 1977. The skin under his eyes is paper thin and baggy, and what hair he has is grey, grown in a combover style I haven’t seen anywhere other than in old square photographs from the 1960s in my mom’s photo albums. The physical kind that smell like old cigarette smoke and liver spot cream.
But he breaks out into a kind grin and says, “What a wonderful love story. Sweethearts since you were little. Found your soul mate young. You two have kids?” He leans his forearms against the glass-topped desk and waits in anticipation for our answer.
I’m struck mute. We’d been told this set of evaluations came at the request of the credit union’s board, a reaction to complaints. Jim’s response is absolutely not what we were expecting.
Amanda saves the day, reaching for my hand and stroking my wrist with her thumb. A tingling shoots through my body, and it’s not the last remnants of the EpiPen’s contents. Her eyes meet mine and holy smokes, ladies and gentlemen, we have some acting.
At least, I hope it’s acting. Because I am completely into Declan.
“Fate brought us together on the playground and we’re hoping it will be kind to us in the kids department.” She smiles so sweetly at me that my pulse races and my cheeks flush. There’s a settled passion in the way she carries herself, and Jim hunches slightly in his chair, as if relaxing from approval.
“I’m sure you’ll find the right man—” He shakes his head slightly. “Er, sorry. The right path to have the family you deserve.”
Amanda lets go of my hand and puts hers on my knee. Thoughts of Declan set my core on fire. Being touched at all like this, in a partner kind of way, seems to set my screwy wiring into ablaze mode.
“You look like you’re about to cry,” Jim says.
I reach up and wipe a watery eye. “We’re still overjoyed we were allowed to be married,” I answer.
“When was that?”
“Two weeks ago, at our town’s courthouse.”
“So you have a marriage certificate?” he asks.
“Do you need to see it?” To Jim, Amanda’s shift in personality can’t be noticed, but I get what she’s doing now. Legally married heterosexual couples don’t need to show a marriage certificate to apply for joint income mortgages, so if he asks, we must note it on the evaluation.
“Oh, no!” he exclaims. “I just meant it must be great to know you can be married and have all those legal protections.”
And just then, someone taps on the glass. I turn toward the sound and my entire body goes cold, frozen like a popsicle.
Standing before me is Monica Raleigh.
Steve’s mother.
“Shannon!” she exclaims. Thankfully, I’ve used my real first name on the application here for the mystery shop. But I absolutely cannot break my disguise, and therefore Monica can’t know we’re here on an evaluation. Absolutely not. No failed shop for this one.
Even if it kills me.
Chapter Thirteen
I stand on shaky legs and she gives me a half-hug, the kind where you can’t tell whether the other person has a pulse or not. A cloud of Cinnabar perfume fills my nose and the back of my throat, the taste like rancid cinnamon.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” she adds. It’s been a year, yes. But Monica never liked me. Ever. Not one bit. Her fakery should be lauded, because she put on a surface act about me. Doing the bare minimum was her form of liking me. A familiar, low-grade shaking begins inside my body, as if my bones were starting to rattle from the first signs of an earthquake.
She looks like a shrunken version of Steve, with the same slightly negative set to her jaw, as if the world has to prove that any shred of positivity is possible. Her default is suspicion and pessimism.
I used to think that was a sign of intelligence, as if being pessimistic meant you just had figured out The Truth long before everyone else did. Now I think it’s just a nice cover for being a bit of an asshole and not knowing how to find your way out.
She looks like Steve, except she’s a bird. All that’s missing are wings. Her waist is thicker than her breast, her legs are scrawny, her feet splay out, and her resemblance to a bird wouldn’t be so sharply distinctive if she didn’t henpeck everyone.
She also has eyebrows that lift perpetually, making me think she’s questioning everything I say.
“Amelia!” she exclaims as she turns to Amanda, who leaps up and practically curtseys. Monica does that to some people. She has the air of a queen and the snootiness of a social climber. Steve and I dated for how many years and the woman doesn’t remember my best friend’s name?
Amanda doesn’t correct her. It would be like trying to correct King Joffrey. You’d be beheaded in seconds.
“What are you two doing here?” she asks.
“Hello, Monica,” Jim says, standing and coming around the desk. He looks like he’s part wolf, predator eyes devouring her. Monica’s wearing something stylish from one of the boutiques near Neiman Marcus in the Natick Mall—oh, excuse me, the Natick Collection. Can’t call it a mall. Every other town calls their enclosed shopping center a mall, but Natick’s developers appear to wish they were designing Rodeo Drive.
And Monica acts like she lives on it, even though she’s really a suburban mom.
“Why, Jim!” she exclaims, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. I half expect to hear fiddle-dee-dee come out of her mouth and for South Boston to burst into flames. Have the Red Sox lose in the seventh game of the World Series and that might actually happen.
“Amanda and Shannon are here to apply for a mortgage,” Jim explains.
Amanda and I share a look of horror and professionalism, tenuously balanced at the half-and-half point.
“A mortgage? You’re buying property?” Monica’s eyes light up. “How ambitious of you, Shannon. I thought you’d stay in that dead-end job forever and never show any chutzpah. Steve taught you some good skills, didn’t he? I’m sure you appreciate everything he did for you all those years.”
Screech. Stop the merry-go-round, because someone needs to get knocked off her high horse.
I can’t let Jim know that I used to date Steve. Not, at least, until Amanda and I finish this evaluation from hell. I know I’m in hell because Monica is the queen here. She could marry Hades and have him whipped in no time.
Amanda’s all too aware of the predicament, but can also see smoke coming out of my ears, so she steps between me and Monica, opening her mouth, just as Jim says:
“The newlyweds are here to buy their first house together. Isn’t that something?”
You date a guy for a few years and you get to know his mother fairly well, even if she has a stick up her butt so long she could pick oranges with it. Monica won’t leave now because she’s a bulldog with her teeth in my calf, and the charade has to be held up. Blowing our cover means alienating Consolidated Evalu-shop’s other major client. Greg has held on to this long-standing contract for years, and while we all joke about how boring evaluations for banks, credit unions, lending companies, and insurance can be, it pays the bills and keeps the marketing company where I work afloat.