by Beth Rinyu
“At a bar.” Will responded. Really, Will, at a bar? You couldn’t have said at a coffee shop or something?
“Actually, it was at a restaurant. I was waiting for my table at the bar,” I said, trying to make myself sound a little more dignified.
“Oh.” His mother gave a slight smile, seemingly liking that answer a little better. “So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a nurse.”
“Oh, really?” Her smile became even wider and something told me I had just moved up on her list. “What type of nursing do you do?”
“Hey, Hope, this turkey is really good,” Will interrupted, squeezing my hand under the table. I gave him a quick glance, not having the slightest clue what his problem was. Why had he lied to his mother about how we had met?
“I work in the burn unit at New York Memorial.”
“Ah, fuck,” Will whispered. I turned my head and stared at him, trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
“Really? Isn’t that ironic? You work in a burn unit and Will’s a firefighter.” I glanced at Will, then at Jamie and Hope. All three of them had their heads down, and then it finally dawned on me. Will didn’t want his parents to know that he was in the hospital. That would explain why I never saw them visiting.
“Yeah, it is,” I said, giving an uneasy laugh, feeling a little bad for lying to his mother.
We finished up with dinner and, thankfully, any more talk of my job had ceased. Normally, I didn’t have a hard time playing along with “little white lies”, but doing it to Will’s parents just didn’t seem right to me.
I was having a great time hanging with Will’s family and playing with Grace. I was a little bummed out when it was time for her to go to bed and I was forced from the land of baby dolls and back into the adult world. I had managed to keep Will and his dad at a comfortable distance for most of the day. That was until Will, Jamie, and their dad began to talk about football which, somehow, turned into how Will would never make Captain because he was too lazy to finish the education needed for it. Will tried his best to just walk away and Jamie made his best effort to change the subject, but his dad wasn’t having it.
“Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like you need much of a brain for that job. It’s really all in who you know,” his dad said.
“You know what? Why the fuck do I even bother?” Will snapped.
“Even bother what? You call this bothering? Coming around every six months to spend time with your family because you’re too busy with your own life to care about what’s going on in anyone else’s?” Will’s dad snapped.
“Dad, just stop!” Jamie shouted.
“You be quiet, Jamie. Will is a big boy now. He doesn’t need his big brother fighting his battles for him anymore!”
Will looked at him and shook his head. “You know what, Dad? I’m not doing this with you anymore.”
“Doing what?”
“Every fuckin’ time I’m around, you have to start. You wonder why I never come around? This is why! It’s because of you!”
“Because of me? Don’t use me as an excuse for your self-centeredness!”
“I’m outta here!” Will turned around to his mother and Hope, who both looked understandably upset. We were all having such a nice time and then, out of nowhere, it all came crashing down. “Mom, Hope, I’m really sorry, but you know how it always has to go.”
“Will, please don’t leave,” his mother pleaded, shooting her husband a dirty look.
“Gabby, let’s go!” Will demanded. I looked at his mother and my heart broke over the tears pooling in her eyes. Here was a mother that actually loved her child and was clearly upset by someone causing him pain. I envied that.
“Nope!” Will looked at me and creased his forehead. “I didn’t get any pumpkin pie, and I’m not leaving here until I do! So you two stubborn men need to put your differences aside because I don’t feel like listening to your bickering and getting indigestion while I’m eating.” Will and his dad stood there, speechless, as Jamie stood laughing in between them. I raised my eyebrow at both of them, flashing them a sarcastic grin before turning around to Hope. “Hope, do you have whipped cream?”
“Absolutely!” Her smile was a mile wide.
“Now you two behave, or Jamie will have to put you in time out!” I said, getting up from the couch and following Hope into the kitchen.
“I think you deserve the whole pie after that one,” Hope teased.
“I don’t even like pumpkin pie,” I giggled. “I just had to think of something quickly. I didn’t want Will leaving that way. Now at least maybe they can try and make up a little.”
“You are a genius, Gabby! So how about a slice of this?” She took the lid off the most delicious looking chocolate cake I had ever seen.
“That’ll do!” I laughed.
Will’s mom came into the kitchen when I was halfway through eating my cake. “They’re in there watching a movie and laughing like nothing ever happened,” she smiled. “Thank you so much, Gabby!”
“No need to thank me. They just need to realize that they’re both so much alike and through all of the stubbornness in both of them, they really do love each other. Will is very lucky to have two parents that care about him so much.” Ouch, I should have quit while I was ahead. Both Will’s mom and Hope looked at me sadly, seemingly picking up on my lack of family in my life. “This cake is really great, Hope. Would you mind sharing the recipe?” I asked, trying to create a distraction.
“Oh, not at all!” she said as she rummaged through the drawer for a pen and paper to write it down for me. Crisis averted.
Gabby pulled the seatbelt around her and turned up the heat. “That was fun. Thanks for inviting me.”
I shook my head, and couldn’t help but smile at her feigned innocence. “You are a piece of work, you know that?”
“What?” she asked, popping a piece of gum into her mouth.
“You don’t even like pumpkin pie!”
“Oh, you remembered? How sweet, William.”
“Really…thanks, Gabby.”
Her eyes widened and she placed her hand over her heart. “Was that just a genuine ‘thank you’ from you, Will?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Well, I have a reputation to protect. Wouldn’t want everyone thinking I’m a nice girl, you know,” I teased.
“Okay. Thanks b -.”
“Hey, watch it!” she said with a smirk.
“Brat! Thank you, brat. What did you think I was gonna say?”
She shrugged her shoulders and giggled before turning up the radio and singing along, loudly, to Katy Perry. I didn’t think it was possible, but her singing was actually worse than Janelle’s. Funny thing, though. I didn’t mind it one bit.
Once we got home, Gabby immediately changed into her pajamas. “Good night!” she said, popping out of her room
“You’re going to bed?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty beat.”
“Okay. Good night.” She gave me a quick smile before turning around to head off to her room. “Hey, Gabby!” She stopped and turned around. “Thanks for being a buffer today and actually making it enjoyable.”
She moved closer. “Will, you really have no clue how lucky you are to have such a great family. Take it from someone who doesn’t have that and longs for it.” I immediately thought back to the day that Gabby had moved out of her old apartment and how her mother treated her. She was right. Compared to her mother, I had no reason to be complaining about my father.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just, me and my dad -.”
“You and your dad are so much alike that it’s scary,” she interrupted.
“What? Okay, you must be really tired because that is so far from the truth!”
I sat down on the couch and she took the seat next to me. “Your number in baseball was always ten. You pitched and played shortstop. In one season, you pitched three no hitters and hit a grand slam that put your little league team into the regio
nal tournament.” She apparently saw the look of confusion on my face. “These are all of the things I learned about you when I was getting to know your dad a little better today. That’s what a dad does who is proud of his child. They brag about them.”
I couldn’t believe my father actually remembered all of that stuff. I placed my hand on top of hers and rubbed her warm soft skin. “You’re the best, Gabby girl.” I pulled her into me and hugged her tightly, breathing in the familiar sweet scent that was Gabby.
“Well, now that I’m wide awake, whatcha watchin’? she asked.
“Oh, I was going to finish that movie from last night.”
“Sounds perfect.” She smiled.
It only took about fifteen minutes before Gabby was sound asleep. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, her head had flopped over onto my shoulder, and I didn’t want to disturb her. I sat there watching her sleep for some time. Every now and then, the corners of her mouth would turn up and look like it was forming a small smile, and I wondered what she was dreaming about. I traced my finger along the velvety skin of her face, and I couldn’t resist kissing her on the top of her head. A small part of me wondered what it would feel like to have her lips on mine.
Once the movie was over, I carried her into her room. “No, don’t leave me!” she cried, grabbing on to my arm as I placed her down on the bed. When I looked closely, I noticed tears rolling down her face. Her eyes were open, but I knew she was still asleep.
“Gabby, it’s okay,” I whispered as her cries became harder. “It’s okay.” She looked around in confusion, finally waking up enough to realize where she was, but it didn’t halt the tears that were gushing down her face.
Her whole body was trembling as she hugged me tightly. “Don’t leave me, Will. Promise me you’ll always be my friend.”
I lay down on the bed with her and pulled her close. “Gabby, I will be your friend forever. You don’t ever have to worry about that.” She let out a deep sigh and one last sob as she nuzzled closer to me before falling asleep once again. I closed my eyes and held her in my arms. For the first time in my life, I was actually going to sleep with a woman without having sex with her. I was learning so much about other people since Gabby had come into my life…my dad, my family and, most of all, myself.
I stumbled out of Gabby’s bed the next morning and walked out into the kitchen to find her cooking breakfast. She turned around and giggled at the site of me. “What’s so funny?”
“Was it good for you? Because I don’t remember a thing!” she teased.
“Oh, your loss, little girl.”
She shook her head and smiled, turning her attention back to the French toast that she was making. “How on earth did you end up in my bed last night?”
“Umm…you were having a nightmare.”
I watched as the smile and all of the color disappeared from her face. She quickly removed the French toast from the griddle and placed it on a plate. “Wait until you taste this, Will.” This was so typical of her. Whenever she wanted to avoid a topic, she would completely change the subject.
“What were you dreaming about?” She looked at me as if I caught her off guard.
“Damn!” she shouted as the spatula fell from her hand, again trying to create a diversion that I wasn’t falling for. I bent down to pick it up, waiting for an answer. “What?” she asked as I continued staring at her.
“What were you dreaming about last night that had you in tears?”
She bit her bottom lip and shook her head quickly. “No clue! Must have been a combination of that horror movie and all of the food I ate yesterday. Now, sit down and eat this before it gets cold.”
I stared at her a little longer, wishing that she would crack even a little and trust me enough to get into that cute little head of hers. But she was so stubborn and rarely let her guard down for anyone. I didn’t like knowing that something was bothering her or that she had something weighing so heavily on her mind that it haunted her dreams. Why couldn’t she see that I was here for her no matter what? She smiled up at me as she handed me a plateful of French toast. She definitely knew how to use that adorable smile of hers to make me forget everything else that was going on around me. I gave her a smile back, hoping that I was able to convey my thoughts to her: I would do anything in this world to help fix my sweet little Gabby girl.
“Gabby, it’s so good to see you again,” Dr. Leslie said as she opened her office door. I had been a patient of Dr. Leslie Ackerman since I was fifteen-years-old when my mother must have had a lapse in reasoning and decided that she wanted to act like a parent for a day or two, deciding that we needed to go talk to someone to help bring us closer. I didn’t need a shrink. I needed a mother who was around and actually pretended to care even just a little about me. I couldn’t believe that I knew that, even at fifteen, and my mother hadn’t a clue. I continued to see the doctor after my father’s death, and saw her a few times when I needed someone to talk to when I was home from college. It had been years since we had last spoken, but since the night that Will had witnessed my nightmare a few weeks ago, they were becoming more and more frequent.
She opened the door further, allowing me to enter. “Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the overstuffed leopard print chair that I remembered. I looked around her office. Nothing had changed…same pictures, same furniture. Everything brought me back to being a scared fifteen-year-old, feeling afraid to talk in front of my mom for fear of embarrassing her.
“Thank you for squeezing me in,” I said.
“No problem, Gabby! So, what brings you here today?”
I tucked my hair behind my ear and took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve been having these nightmares.”
“About -?”
I quickly nodded before she could even get the rest of the words out, feeling my eyes welling up with tears just thinking about it. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m missing my dad so much. The holidays are always a bad time for me. I miss him like crazy. I know I’m pretty stupid. It’s been so long and I should just be over it by now, but I just miss him so much.”
“Oh no, Gabby. Some people never get over the loss of a loved one, especially when they were as close as you and your father. Is there something that may be triggering these dreams?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure. They started on Thanksgiving. I spent the day with a friend and his family. Just seeing all of them interacting together made me wish… It made me wish that I could have that.” I looked out the window and sighed. “You know, even though my friend and his dad don’t have the perfect relationship, his dad is still there. I guess I’m just missing mine. I feel so alone sometimes. My dad was the one and only person that I knew I could always depend upon.”
She tapped her pen on the side of her head as if she were deep in thought. “What about your mom? Are you two not talking?”
I quickly shook my head. “No! I hate her.”
She creased her forehead at me. “‘Hate’ is a very strong word, Gabby. Are you sure about that?”
“Well, how would you feel about someone who thought that it would be better to stay with an abusive boyfriend just because he has money? Or tells you that you deserve the beating that he has given to you? If anything, it’s her who hated me first. She blames me for ruining her life when she got pregnant with me, which forced her to marry a man that she never loved.”
“I still don’t think that means she hates you, Gabby. Her judgment may be really off and her priorities completely out of line, and you have every right in the world to be angry at her for those reasons alone. But think long and hard before you start using the word ‘hate’.
I caught myself rolling my eyes before I could even stop myself. How the hell did she know what I was feeling? She had met my mother maybe three times. She hadn’t a clue as to what a bitch she could be or how she made me feel with the awful things that she would say to me. “Well, I can’t help how I feel and, right now, all I feel is hate toward
her.”
She nodded, totally switching the topic. “So, Gabby, tell me about this ‘friend’ of yours.”
“Will?” I smiled just thinking about him.
“Is that his name?” She smiled back and I nodded. “Well, I could see your face light up at the mere mention of him. He must be pretty special.”
“He is. He’s a really good friend. In fact, there are days that I feel like he’s my only friend.”
“Is that all that two of you are? Just friends?”
“Oh, yeah. Will and I never -.” I cleared my throat. “And we never will.”
“Well, why not?”
She caught me off guard with that question. How did we go from me facing my nightmares to me sleeping with Will? “I don’t know. It’s just not that way between us.”
“Is he already in a relationship?”
I busted out with laughter at the mere thought of Will in a relationship. “Umm, no! Will doesn’t do relationships.”
She nodded at me. “Well, are you attracted to him sexually?”
What the hell? “Uh, no… I mean, I don’t know.” Did the fact that I would get a little bothered on the nights that Will didn’t come home, surmising who he was with and what he was doing, or that I loved staring at him with no shirt on qualify as being sexually attracted to him?
“Well, Gabby, it’s obvious that you think the world of this guy, so why are you afraid to take the next step? Do you feel like you don’t deserve to be happy?”
“Umm…no. That’s not it at all! Look, Will dates…I mean, has sex with girls that look like swimsuit models and there are no strings attached.” I laughed at myself, realizing what I just said. “No pun intended.” She flashed me a smile over my quick wit. “What he and I have is much deeper than any sexual relationship, and I’m okay with that.”
“Well, you are a young woman with needs, and there is nothing wrong with fulfilling those needs with someone you care about.”
Oh, my god! I could feel my face turning red. She was telling me I needed to get laid?! I knew it was true, it had been four months since I last had sex and it wasn’t very gratifying, but with Will? Just hearing myself thinking such thoughts sounded ludicrous. “Well, even if there are tumbleweeds down there, Will certainly won’t be the one taking care of them.”