Chris said, "This is probably one of her jokes. You should hear her once she gets a few drinks in her. She starts telling these jokes, and they are absolutely hideous!"
"Hideous." I repeated that word in my head wondering if nerd-boy was a closet queer. I didn't care. That was his business. Half of Atlanta was queer. Bunch of successful single people hooking up, no kids to waste money on, driving the economy, professional enterprise, and artistic vision of the asphalt city. Still, I didn't really see it in him, and decided it was too early to be finalizing the cover of his book on the first meeting. And for the record, I didn’t care either way.
I explained to everyone on Mags’ behalf. "W2, B3. My initials. 2 dubya's, and three B's. Waylon Willy Billy Bob Bowden."
Mags touched my arm lightly with her fingertip. "I’ll call you 'W2'." She added," 'Cause you need a better job."
Everyone laughed. Even Bo cracked a smile, and I nodded, willing to be the brunt of the job-jokes among these successful young urban professionals. Actually, I wasn't sure if Mags was a successful professional or not. I hadn't heard what she did for a living. I would later learn she was a Head-Hunter, helping people to find jobs. No college education herself, and yet a white-collar job. I shrugged. It seemed like a good fit for her personality. I wondered if she toned down the show when she was at work. I thought, maybe I should hire her to find out. She was right, I could use a better job. Especially if things worked out with Bo, and I started going out all the time. That takes money. And my backup car funds would only last for so long.
***
A few appetizers and drink-rounds had passed and we were all pretty buzzed and giddy. We hadn't learned anyone's life stories, but I knew that Bo was from Connecticut, and since she had come to Georgia she fell in love with Stuckey's Pecan Logs with all their cherry-infused nougat that smothered tasty local pecans. I did cringe when she pronounced it PEE-can, like a can your granddaddy would use to take a piss in, but I decided not to correct her. That’s what happens when you try to impress a girl. (But in case you’re reading this now, Bo, you’re STILL pronouncing it wrong! It’s pronounced puh’KAHN, ok? Georgia is the world’s leader in pecan harvesting. So… trust me. Ok? New England gets it wrong. Deal with it.)
Oh yeah, and just to be clear. You can’t get Stuckey’s in Connecticut (except by mail), which is also why they were so special to her.
Bo was from a reasonably well-off Yankee family that seemed to be missing a father. Amane was from Seattle, and her family had distant ties to the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. Chris was from California, had earned several scholarships in high school, and done internships with several leading software giants, but ended up in Atlanta, actively chasing some dream he refused to reveal. Mags didn't talk about her kin, but the others said her dad was a military man who had become a successful defense contractor. He was usually away on business. Her mother was a local girl, former baby-pageant queen; but no one had much to say about her except that she was often away as well.
Suddenly Mags raised her glass, and said, "A guy walks into a bar..."
Everyone perked, up. "Here we go!" "Told you so, as soon as she starts getting some drinks into her...", "Out come the bad jokes." "Get ready for this!"
Mags cleared her throat, and started again, "A guy walks into a bar, and says, 'why the long face?' Get it? 'Why the long face?'" She paused then explained to our baffled expressions, "Because he was an OSTRICH!"
We all laughed.
"No," Amane comforted, patronizingly, "I think you got that wrong."
"No," she argued. "Because ostrich's have long necks, like ice cold Buds. You know, beers."
Everyone was protesting. "You're mixing up the jokes." "That's a crocodile." "Or an alligator" "And the bartender is the one who asks..." "And it's 'how'd you like a long neck?" "To the giraffe."
Mags waved them off, undeterred, "Bless your hearts, the whole bunch of you. You don't understand anything."
"Ok, wait." Chris was taking his turn, nerd-humor alert. "What's the difference in two and two?"
We all scrunched up our faces, trying to think of some clever way that the joke might be comparing different versions of the word two, to, and too; or maybe even a tutu; and other possible solutions, but finally someone said, "Nothing." And we all chirped in, in agreement. Nothing."
He laughed, "That's right. Nothing!" No one got the joke, so he explained, "Because two is two, and two minus two - the difference - is nothing."
Mags tipped back another sip of her drink and reached absently into her purse for something. "And you say MY jokes are bad. At least I make people laugh."
Chris scoffed, "What about you, Way-wayland-willton-wuh..." Everyone started laughing.
Bo challenged everyone to try to say my name 5 times fast, with several drinks under our belts. Everyone tried at the same time. Even me. It was chaos and laughter. We were having a great time.
[ The Club ]
Several drinks later, Mags was sitting next to me, and seemed to be tuning out. She plugged some earbuds into her phone and smirked sadly to me, "My song." I glanced at the playlist. It was Kesha's "Dancing with Tears In My Eyes." I later found out that Mags loved Kesha. I wasn't really surprised, given her projected cover as designated trashed-out party-girl. What I didn’t realize at the time was that Kesha was literally the soundtrack of her life.
***
The next thing I knew we were in a dance club, the four of us, having more drinks, and coincidentally dancing to that same song of Kesha's with the bass pounding so loudly it made my bladder ache. I tried to dance with Bo, but Mags insisted on owning me.
"She's not yours," She whispered in my ear, as if she knew what I was thinking. Of course, her whisper was probably a shout in the noisy club, but at least the sound didn't cut out while she was saying it. I was the only one who could hear her sentence; that condemned me never to be with the girl that had brought me here. She dropped her head on my shoulder, already nine kinds of drunk. It didn't matter that the club was only playing techno remixes. She was in a slow dance now, the beginning of the end. Of the night. For her. I wondered how much she had had to drink before I had showed up at the restaurant. And if she had mixed it with anything else along the way. I remembered the pill container in her purse.
I looked for Bo. She was caught in a strange tribal circle with Chris and Amane. Nerd-boy was moving like a spastic marionette, hands and legs flying everywhere without any concern about how idiotic he looked. The strobes caught on his enormous beehive of a beard, which whipped sweat like its own version of Flash Dance. His thin smile was as wide as his face, and looked genuinely happy.
Emo-girl Amane was like a reed, swaying meekly in the wind of a meadow. She tipped side-to-side indifferent to the beat of the music, her head nodding, her eyes distant. It was hard to imagine her showing much more enthusiasm. She was like an antique doll that would crumble if it accidentally revealed it was alive. But I suspected she was enjoying herself.
And then there was Bo. Bo actually knew how to dance. She made the three of them almost look good. She was laughing, her eyes shining, her hair curling as it flew around her head. She looked at me and beamed a smile right into my soul. Then her eyes trailed down, following to Mags’ head resting on my shoulder. Bo seemed to have a sad, supportive understanding, as if she thought the two of us were hooking up and she begrudgingly understood. I pointed at Mags, and then shrugged, trying to say, "I don't know what to do with her. Is she ok?" Bo held up a finger, and excused herself from the others.
Amane and Chris tried to dance together, but seemed so out-of-place without Bo that they both decided to sit out the rest of the song and steal a bathroom break.
Bo came up to me and asked, "How is she?"
"Compared to what?" I asked. I didn't know her from a glory-hole-in-the-bathroom wall.
"I think we're all partied out," she said.
"She doesn't drive like this, does she?" I was concerned. Mags squeezed me tighter, as if she heard me.<
br />
"Sometimes," Bo admitted. "But not when she's with us. We'll give her a ride, and Chris can drive her car home. We came together, and he gets off on her car."
"I hope you're being figurative about Chris," I joked. I had a bad mental picture.
Bo laughed and her eyes lingered on mine for a moment longer, evaluating me. Then she looked at Mags again. She almost seemed jealous of Mags complete disregard for societal rules. Then Bo scrutinized me to make sure I wasn't too trashed. "How are you?" she asked. "You've had a few. Are you ok to drive?"
"Yep." Then I teased, "If your little nerdy friend tries to get off on MY car, I swear he's gonna be wiping up the mess with his own pocket protector."
Bo hugged me and Mags at the same time, laughing sadly. "I have terrible timing," she said obscurely.
"What?" I asked. The club was still loud. I only thought I knew what she was saying. She might have been saying she liked to eat at Denny's. (Who didn’t, after drinking all night?)
Chris and Amane joined us, Amane asking, "Is it time?"
Chris asked with enthusiasm, "Should I drive her car home for her?" Bo was right, he had a hard-on for that car. It was a new red Dodge Viper with black racing stripes. Her car made my car jealous.
***
On our way outside, Bo spotted a fountain with coins in it. Enthusiastically, and a little drunk, she insisted, "Let's make a wish!"
I dug out some coins for us, but we were the only two who felt like throwing away more money that night. We tossed our coins and watched them roll through the water and bounce off of stone decorations until they landed on the bottom over the soft covered lights.
Bo warned me. "Don't tell me your wish or it won't come true."
"I wasn't going to." How could I let her know that she was my wish? I was the cyber-stalker. I had to play it cool. At first.
Outside the club, we scuffled our drunken feet awkwardly, and shook hands and hugged, feeling as if some bond had been formed. Everyone was saying we had to do it again soon. Even Amane cracked something that almost resembled a smile, and said, "Nice to meet you." This time she seemed to mean it, not just an impersonal greeting.
Bo grinned at me, "Thanks for stalking me." Everyone turned and stared. That story had not been told. And it was not going to be told, at least not for now. It was too late, and we were tired.
"My pleasure," I said. I tried to be poetic. "I searched for one special friend, and found three. I must be the luckiest guy alive."
Amane made an "Awww" sound, as if she just had seen an internet picture of a baby kitten. She patted my arm.
Chris hugged me again, a big girly hug, then held up his hand for a high-five, and punched my arm with a limp fist. He was all over the place. I don't think he even knew what he wanted.
Mags looked like she might fall over at any second, her face dropping in a numb catatonic dream. She leaned against me. It was hard to say if she had lost her balance, or if she wanted to give me a hug.
"Take care of her," I told them. They promised they would.
If anyone had ever found out what Chris really did when he borrowed the car, we all would have puked biscuits.
We started to disband, then Bo stopped and called to me. "Hey!"
"Yeah?"
"You know ... tomorrow's Saturday." She stopped herself short, as if she thought it wasn't a good idea.
"Seriously?" I asked, fine-tuning my sarcasm. "You mean that STILL comes after Friday?"
Her shaky resolve convinced her to take a chance. "My mom is having a barbeque in our backyard tomorrow. All of us are going to be there." Again, a pause. I knew she was going to ask me, but she wasn't so sure herself. She stopped short of actually inviting me, but asked, "Interested?"
Amane and Chris agreed it was a great idea, and they loved the idea of having another chance to see me again so soon.
Mags broke her silence, and slurred her own version of an invitation. "Wanna cum?" She touched her fingertip to my lower lip and let it drag tiredly down my chest.
The weekends were for Robby and me, since college started. I thought he would understand if I went without him, but I wasn't sure. I took a chance. "I usually spend Saturday's with my friend, Robby. I don't see him much."
A chorus of the three began offering different versions of an extended invitation. "Bring him along." "If he's anything like you." "The more the merrier." I thought Mags might have muttered, "I can see right through the walls," but I wasn't sure and decided to let that one go. She was an interesting girl, and by interesting, I mean with a complicated asterisk following interesting. Interesting*. I wasn't sure yet what the footnote would say, but I had a feeling I would find out. And probably not like it. I was right.
"Sure. He'll like that." Then I paused and grimaced, feeling awful that I was suddenly feeling a little embarrassed about my friend. "Though, if it's at your mom's house, I have to warn you: he's a little more redneck than me. I mean, most of y'all aren't from around here, so maybe you don't know what you're offerin'." I flashed my smile and raised my eyebrows a few times for comical punctuation.
Bo reassured me, with an evil flirtatious grin, "Bring him along. We'll rent some pigs so you guys can have something to play with if you get bored."
Everyone "OHHHH'd!" Even Mags put a finger to her mouth, and made a sizzling noise. "Burn!" she slurred.
"Well, bless your heart," I laughed with resolve. "The Mason-Dixon line has been crossed and Yankee jokes are now fair game, God Bless you all."
"Bring it."
Despite the threat of a civil war, I didn’t think she really wanted to go there. I mean, that's actually a pretty sensitive subject around here still, so it could escalate pretty fast and actual feelings could get hurt.
But I liked Bo, so I was willing to cut her some slack. For tonight. And maybe tomorrow. I'd have to tell Robby to be on his best. No. Better than his best.
Bo said she would email me the directions, and I said, “Yep.” (I had given her my email already.)
It had been a pretty amazing night. Maybe the best of my life.
In hindsight, maybe it never really got better than that.
[ The Bar-B-Que ]
The more I thought about Robby going with me to the barbeque, the less I liked the idea.
Honestly, I wanted to invite him, but didn't really want the others to meet him until I had had a chance to solidify myself as part of their circle, or until I got Bo, whichever came first. Assuming that either was going to happen. So I told Robby about the Barbeque, but let him know it was going to be a ‘parent-supervised party’ in a ‘fancy neighborhood’ with some ‘nice people’ and a bunch of ‘random college kids’ we didn't know. Basically, I was trying to talk him out of it with some buzz words that I knew would make him hurl. I felt a little guilty doing it, but actually felt much better once he had officially declined. This wasn't going to be a 'get trashed and get in a fight' kind of party; leastwise, I wasn't expecting that.
I got the directions from Bo’s email and drove there alone in my Junker.
It was a nice upscale neighborhood. It had sidewalks and metal mailboxes that even had numbers on them. The houses were big, and there were neatly manicured green lawns as far as the eye could see. Nearly every house had a Lexus, BMW, Infiniti, or Mercedes in the driveway, or parked in the double-wide garage. It made me a little sweaty and uncomfortable to see all the money on that there street.
I pulled up in front of her Ma's house. I wasn't sure what happened to her Pa, but I knew he wasn't around. I tried using that website, Spook-Me-Out.com that looks up all kinds of info about random people, but it just listed Heather as her mother, and a small empty box that said 'male' as her father. It made me wonder if he were just a sperm donor. Male. A contributor to her birth and nothing more. Even if he had played a part in her life, apparently in the end, he didn’t amount to much more than that. Contributor to her birth. Male.
I remember the first time I heard the term “sperm donor.” I thought it was sper
m donut, and had all kinds of kinky images in my mind about how you pull off that move, like a circular cum pie or something. It sounded alright, as long as I got to be the one making the donut, and not receiving it.
Compared to other cars on the street, my home-made Junker was a bit ugly. And by “a bit ugly,” I mean completely out of place and probably an embarrassment to any self-respecting homeowner who was concerned about the value of their property suddenly going down. But I was proud of it. I had put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears - literally - into fixing it. I always used to say, "A repair isn't done until some blood has been spilled!" (Maybe that's why I was going into Communications, and not Mechanics.)
The other guests’ cars were in the big driveway, but I didn't want to block anyone in. The front door was closed, but I could hear sounds from out back, so I walked along the side of the house and saw a red picket fence with a gate that opened into a nice backyard, even bigger than the front. A grill was set up, the size of my sofa at home, and there were lawn games like darts and croquet. I didn't know people even played croquet anymore. A couple of big red picnic tables were set up next to a battalion of blue and white coolers with different drinks - mostly non-alcoholic. Bo and her friends were already there, as well as family or some of her mother's friends or co-workers. Everyone was dressed casual, but like Sunday-church casual on a sweltering day; not the kind of casual that Robby and I were used to. Bo saw me and waved. Then her friends did the same, gesturing for me to join them at one of the tables.
Food was being prepared and passed around: smoked pork and chicken wings with honey bar-b-q sauce, ribs and burgers slathered in devil’s spit, and, of course, hot dogs. There were bowls of chips and Cole slaw, potato salad, and some kind of spinach dip next to a platter of tortilla chips. It was nice.
"Hi," I said, happy to be there. Bo gave me a hug, and thanked me for coming, said she was glad to see me. Her friends hollered out hello, hi, how's it going? Mags was under-dressed, but somehow I expected that. She was wearing movie-star sunglasses, drinking lemonade from a red Solo cup, but I had a feeling there was more than lemonade in it. Amane, also not surprisingly, was over-dressed for a warm summer afternoon, wearing layers of light colored cloth that kept the sun off of her skin, but didn't attract the heat. Chris wore blue plaid knee-length walking shorts and a short-sleeved white dress shirt, buttoned at the collar. His skinny legs were white like a frog belly, but with too much hair. I was tempted to get him drunk and pay someone to wax his entire body, beard and all. But, as I thought about it, I was afraid there would be nothing left of him after the hair removal. As he had said, that was his disguise. He was probably hiding his insecure self under a kudzu invasion of hair.
Under The Covers Page 4