“I need a fucking saucer,” she snips.
Before Becker can reach over the little Mexican’s head again, I do it myself, fishing off a plate from the top of the pile and shoving it at the girl. She nods curtly and disappears out of the kitchen without so much as a “thank you,” the bowl of mashed potatoes clinking on top of the saucer.
“Well, hello, young pup,” Becker says to me when she leaves, the same easy grin still on his face. He’s so mellow it’s like he’s got the other kind of weed working for him. “Did’n expect to see you here.”
My dad glances over his shoulder at Becker’s words. “Anika,” he says, voice full of relief. Relief because I’m at the restaurant to help, relief because I’m safely home, relief because I’m his daughter and he loves me — I don’t know. There’s no time to ask.
My dad is the only person I know who pronounces my name the way it’s actually supposed to sound. My name coming from his mouth is both familiar and disconcerting at the same time. Familiar because it speaks of family, disconcerting because it means I’m indisputably home.
After uttering my name like it’s a prayer, he turns away from me and back to his basket of fried chicken, shaking the hot oil into the fryer before reaching for a set of tongs.
I pull the gym bag off my shoulder and point to the office door on the left. “Be right back,” I say.
Two minutes later, I’ve got on a hair net, an apron, and I’m sticking my hands under the tap at the hand wash sink. Two minutes after that, I’ve got a place on the line next to the Hispanic guy, taking over the artful slicing of carrots and cucumbers to free him up to do other things.
#
I don’t sit down again until almost eleven PM, when the fluorescent lights in the dining room flip on, the sweeping up starts, and the last customer leaves. I slouch into an empty chair in the dining room, sipping a glass of ice water and pulling the hairnet off my sweaty head.
The annoyed waitress from earlier is finishing up her side work, rolling clean silverware into clean napkins for tomorrow. The hostess is cleaning up, chatting with a bus boy as they clear the last few tables, and behind me, I can hear Becker laughing about something in the kitchen.
My brother Gerry plops into the chair across from me. He’s built like me — tall and broad (though not quite as tall as me) and naturally athletic. He’s grown a thin, trim mustache and goatee since the last time I saw him; the mustache is pencil-thin and winds around the edges of his lips in a style that’s way too Fu Manchu Asian stereotype for my taste. But then again, everything about Gerry has always been “way too [ fill in the blank with absolutely fucking anything ]” for my taste.
He grins at me, reaches across the table and slaps my shoulder playfully. “Hey, sis. You’re here. Your flight okay?”
“Yeah, it was fine. Got held up in Toronto for a while, but otherwise uneventful.” I stifle a yawn and rub at my dry, heavy eyes.
“Glad you found a way home from the airport. I guess you understand why I couldn’t leave to come get you right away.”
“Yeah. But it all worked out,” I say with a nod. I pause, then decide to address the elephant in the room head-on. “So you’re here. In Marcine.”
He sighs, glances down at the table. “I moved back home about six months ago. Been living with Mom and Dad.”
That’s surprising. The last I’d heard, Dad had basically excommunicated Gerry from the family and told him never to come home again.
“Nobody told me you were back home.”
Gerry chuckles. “No offense, Ani, but if I’m the black sheep in the family, you’re the dark grey one. And nobody tells you anything because you act like you don’t give a flying fuck. Not like you exactly make much effort to keep in touch.”
I take another swallow of my ice water and shrug.
It was true. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been the one to initiate a conversation with my parents or siblings. Other than occasionally liking their posts on social media, we didn’t interact much.
“So what’s changed? No offense, Gerry, but I thought you weren’t welcome around here anymore.”
He runs a hand through the dark, close-cropped curls on his head. “I got clean. Once and for all.”
“Once and for all?” I repeat skeptically. It was a line we’d heard before over the years.
“Once and for all,” he says again, nodding. “I can tell you later if you want to hear, but basically, I had a scary fucking experience in Oakland about a year ago, and that was it. I decided I was done. Went to rehab, took it seriously this time. Reached out to Mom and Dad and Dutch when I got out. And so…” He splays his hands palms-up in front of him. “Here I am. Clean as a whistle for a little over a year. Moved back almost seven months ago, and I’ve been working here in exchange for living rent-free at home. And I’m applying to school.”
I lift an impressed eyebrow. Maybe there was hope for my baby brother after all.
Maybe.
“Good for you,” I say, and when the yawn comes this time, I don’t suppress it.
Gerry laughs. “You must be fucking exhausted. Want me to run you home? I’m sure they can finish closing up without us.”
I push up from the table, swaying on my feet. “You get the car keys. I’ll get my bag.”
#
Fifteen minutes later, I’m flicking on the light switch in the basement bedroom that became mine when I finally got my own room around the middle of high school. My parents converted it into a guest room at some point in between my high school years and now, so the basketball and hip hop posters that used to decorate the walls are long gone, but there’s still a pile of dusty old plastic trophies and plaques on top of the bookcase in the corner. Maybe I’ll throw them away while I’m here. High school’s been over for more than twenty years, and it seems stupid to keep them.
I walk around the double bed, drop my bag between it and the book case. A framed snapshot catches my eye from amongst the dusty trophies, and I lean down to pick it up, wiping the layer of dust off the glass with my thumb.
It’s a selfie of Jenny and me from high school, our faces pressed close together as we laugh / scream on an Ohio State Fair roller coaster ride. The pic’s blurry and crooked; our hair flies out wildly behind us and the orange body of the roller coaster is visible rising above our heads in the background. Jenny’s got one hand wrapped tightly around a stuffed animal I won for her, and although the other hand isn’t in the frame, I know it’s in my lap, squeezing three of my fingers so tightly that it hurts.
I put the photo back on the shelf, face-down. Then I kick off my shoes, collapse spread-eagle onto the bed. I don’t even bother getting up to turn off the light. The last thing I do before I fall into a deep sleep is promise myself to bring a garbage bag down here as soon as I get a chance, to get rid of everything that no longer belongs. Trophies, plaques.
Pictures.
I’m fast asleep twenty seconds later.
Chapter 10: Why I’ll always have a soft spot for park benches.
Back to the future: Summer before my senior year in high school.
Jenny’s hand finds its way to mine, wrapping around three fingers as we wait in line for the roller coaster ride. My heart embarks on its own short roller coaster at her touch, because usually, she doesn’t like holding hands in public. And by “usually,” I mean it’s never happened before. But I don’t let my surprise show; I just give her a gentle squeeze back.
“I’m nervous already,” she says, looking up at me. “What if they don’t maintain it the right way and there’s some kind of freak accident? That happens, you know. You hear about people dying on roller coasters every couple of years.”
I shake my head. “Stop. You’re being paranoid.”
“I don’t know that it’s all that paranoid. It’s not like this is some place sophisticated, like Disney World. It’s the Ohio State Fair. And wasn’t there an accident at the Indiana State Fair just last year?”
“If there was,
I don’t remember hearing anything about it,” I lie.
“That’s because the only news you pay attention to is sports,” she says disdainfully. “It wouldn’t even surprise me if you don’t know who the current president is.”
I tap my chin thoughtfully. “It’s Al Gore, right?”
She bumps her shoulder into me. “Oh, stop it.”
I grin and then — daringly — I let go of her hand and wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a quick, sideways hug before I let her go. I know better than to try to keep an arm wrapped around her; the hand-holding was already at the edge of her PDA comfort zone. “It’ll be fine. If we start falling or something, I’ll just position myself under you to make sure that you land on me instead of the ground.”
Her eyes flash briefly with affection. “What about you?”
I shrug again. “I’m tough. Not breakable like some people.”
It’s a reference to the nasty fall she took a week ago at band practice — like the football team, band practice starts before the school year itself does. Jenny tripped over her own two feet walking off the practice field and into the parking lot, landing on her wrist and badly bruising it. The bruises are only beginning to heal now, but her pride is still wounded.
She makes a face at me. “That’s not nice. I didn’t break anything.”
“I know,” I say. “And I’m glad you didn’t.” I smile, because without her realizing I did it on purpose, I just successfully redirected her attention away from her roller coaster paranoia.
A few minutes later, with Jenny screaming with delight next to me, I pull out my phone and snap a selfie.
#
I’ve got the Ford Explorer tonight for our trip to the state fair, the one that I share with Dutch and PJ. Dutch usually has possession of it, because even though she already graduated, she’s still living at home and driving back and forth to community college, so she actually has the most legitimate need for a car. The other reason she usually has possession of the old Explorer is because she’s Dutch. But tonight, I’ve argued and bribed and pushed for use of the car, and so, like some sort of overgrown, Blasian fucking Cinderella, it’s mine until my midnight curfew.
Which is why Jenny and I drive around aimlessly around Columbus after we leave the state fair instead of heading straight home. It’s almost a two-hour drive back to Marcine, but it’s not even nine yet, and I can tell she doesn’t feel like going home any more than I do.
We end up at the Highbanks Metro Park thirty minutes later, wandering through an empty playground because the park officially closed an hour ago. Now that we’re all alone, Jenny holds onto my hand without hesitation, rubbing absent-minded circles over my knuckles while she leads me to a bench and chatters about some guy in band who’s been flirting with her recently.
“…And it’s like, I told him, ‘I’m with someone already,’ and then he was like, ‘Who?’ And I said, ‘Anika Singh. The basketball player,’ and he made this face and was like, ‘You’re dating a girl?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and then he said — I can’t believe this, Ani — he said, ‘Well, when you decide you’re ready to date someone for real, call me.’ As if being with you doesn’t count!”
I roll my eyes and pull Jenny onto my lap before brushing a strand of blonde hair away from her heart-shaped face. “Want me to beat him up for you? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I could take Jeremy Wheeler. In the dark. With one fucking hand tied behind my back.”
Her brow furrows and she sticks out a bottom lip. “Don’t be so violent, Ani. He can’t help being ignorant.”
“I was only kidding, Jen.”
Her lips twitch into a smile. “Halfway. If I’d said ‘yes, I want you to beat him up,’ I bet you would’ve.”
I press a kiss onto her forehead, taking in her smell of laundry detergent and flower-scented lotion. “Only because I’d do anything you wanted me to do,” I say.
She nestles down against my chest, using the hand that’s not pinned between us to trace a whisper of a line down my neck. “How did I get so lucky to meet my soulmate when I was just seventeen?” she murmurs. “Most people spend their whole lives looking for their soulmate, travel the whole globe looking for them, and all I had to do was register for trigonometry.”
I keep my face carefully blank, but my heart is thudding hard against my ribs. This is the first time she’s ever said anything like “soulmate,” and what the fuck are you supposed to say when someone springs that kind of shit on you without any warning? We’d already said “I love you” to each other a couple months ago, but somehow, “soulmate” feels like taking it to a whole new level.
I kiss her gently again, first on the corner of her tiny, dainty, perfect mouth, then brushing my lips against hers, letting our tongues find their way to each other.
When she pulls away, I clear my throat and say, “I think you’re my soulmate, too, Jen.”
She meets my eyes, and hers are extra-big, nervous about something. But she doesn’t say a word; she reaches behind her, takes one of my hands from where it sits behind her back, and pulls it around to the front, placing it on her breast.
My heart starts hammering even faster, jumping around inside my chest like a fucking puppy trying to escape a cage.
Slowly, still watching me with extra-big eyes, Jenny slides my hand down the front of her body. With only a thin, tight t-shirt between my hand and her skin, I feel every contour, every tense muscle rippling beneath the surface. She doesn’t stop until my hand comes to the place where the form-fitting t-shirt tucks into cut-off jean shorts.
I can feel her stomach rising and falling to the rhythm of shallow breaths beneath my palm. I swallow audibly, heat cascading in waves through my body.
She tugs my fingers forward until they rest on the top button of her jean shorts and presses them against the warm surface of the smooth metal. “You said you’d do anything I wanted you to do?” she asks in a breathless whisper.
“Yes,” I manage, just as breathless.
“Then I want you to touch me,” she says.
Another wave of heat floods through, flushing up my neck and face, coiling down into a tight knot deep inside my lady parts.
But you have to fucking hand it to my eighteen-year-old self because what I say in response, with a restraint I didn’t know I was capable of, is, “Jenny, are you sure?”
Because you have to understand: On this infamous night of the Ohio State Fair, we’d been together for about eight months. And in eight months, there was a lot of kissing, there was a lot of groping, and sometimes there were some clandestine meetings between boobs and nipples and tongues, but there was never any south-of-the-border action. Instead, there were a lot of late, post-date nights that involved me locking the door to my basement bedroom and flopping down onto my bed, shoving a pillow against my face while I let my fantasies and my own goddamned hand take me further than Jenny ever wanted to go.
But now, sitting on a park bench on the outskirts of Columbus, holding my hand to the top of her shorts, Jenny nods and closes her eyes.
“I’m sure.”
A tangle of nerves and inexperience, I glance down at where my hand sits at the top edge of her shorts. Acting on instinct and what little I’ve dared to look up on the Internet, I push my hand down along the outside of the zipper flap and into the hot space between her legs, then squeeze experimentally.
Jenny sucks in a breath, eyes still closed.
She grabs my hand by the wrist again, and at first, I think I’ve already done something wrong and she’s changed her mind, but instead of moving my hand away, she pushes my fingertips beneath the waistband of her shorts. And when my enormous paw doesn’t seem to fit in the tight space, she reaches down and pops open the button and slides down the zipper.
“Touch me, Ani. Please,” she says again, pressing her small hand against the back of my big one.
“Well, since you asked nicely,” I say, joking like a dumbass in an attempt to cover up my nerves, but the wor
ds sound half-strangled coming out of my tight throat.
I lean her back, one arm still behind her, holding her weight, while my other hand angles down against the flat plane of her stomach and slips beneath the line of her unzipped shorts, then her underwear. I stop breathing when the tips of my fingers encounter the thick mat of wiry hair, gasp in a sharp breath when my middle finger touches the top of her slit, then encounters the wetness pouring out from her.
Jenny lets out a soft moan, her back arching against my arm. “More,” she says in a pant, wrapping her hand against my wrist and pushing it further beneath the fabric of her underwear. My eyes flutter and close of their own accord as my fingers slide between Jenny’s slick folds. Still not knowing exactly what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing, I guess and do what I’ve only ever done to myself before in the quiet privacy of my bedroom: I start rubbing.
Just gently, tentatively at first, constantly checking her face to see if I’m doing anything she doesn’t like, savoring the wet, hot textures of her skin against my fingers. Gradually, letting her rocking hips and quiet moans guide me, I add speed and pressure. I lower Jenny down against the bench and shift until I’m basically above her, one knee digging into the bench beside her, my other leg slung over the side, foot trying not to slide through the mulch beneath. It’s not particularly comfortable, but the fuck if I’m going to complain.
Jenny’s hips buck and she slides her hand over mine. “Oh. More. Harder,” she breathes, pushing on the back of my hand.
And I, the girl who would forever do anything she wanted, obey. Her hand still on top of mine, I press up into her soft flesh, every bit as aroused and wet as she is, and try not to groan in pleased surprise when she pushes on my middle finger, sending it deep inside her. She tilts her head back against the bench, mouth falling open, and the sight of it obliterates the last traces of my nervousness because I realize in that instant that I was born to please this woman.
Anika takes the long way home up soul mountain: A lesbian romance (Rosemont Duology Book 2) Page 6