Somewhere Unexpected

by Suzanne Glidewell

  I waited to see how my mom would react to being pulled out of her comfort zone as a chronic middle pew dweller. She continued to smile. Being at Mass with Ethan seemed to be enough to weather any change in habit. We knelt down to prepare for Mass. Ethan, of course, looked the most reverent of the three of us, resting his head against his folded hands, his eyes closed. Typically, I mimicked his body language, but today I stared straight ahead at the altar, zoning out due to my lack of sleep. Then, just as it had happened at Easter, I saw the Michael O’Hollaren clan file in.

  I realized we were sitting in their typical area and my heart started to race when I saw Jackie walk in behind Michael’s family. They sat one row directly behind us. Jackie said a quiet hello to my mother. A few moments passed and I thought I had avoided having to see Thomas.

  I was just about to let out a mental sigh of relief when I saw Margaret’s family walk in, Thomas included. He was holding Margaret’s oldest daughter, making him look more appealing as a human, unfortunately. He caught my stare before I could look away. Good thing Ethan’s eyes were still closed because he gave me a cocky smirk. I felt my lips reflexively purse. He was probably thinking of a million ways to make fun of me for that stupid text. Before walking past, he winked at me. My visible annoyance only seemed to amuse him more.

  At least we were in front of the O’Hollarens. It made it easier to pretend like Thomas wasn’t there. That is, until the sign of peace. My mother was all over the place, treating it like social hour with Jackie and her family. After Ethan had kissed me on the forehead like he usually did, I decided not turning around to exchange the sign of peace with someone I knew would look suspicious. I turned around to see Thomas, staring directly into my eyes.

  “Peace be with you.”

  I held out my hand and shook his quickly before letting go and turning to his sister Margaret and her husband. I think I managed to look natural. I turned back around and grabbed Ethan’s hand, counting the seconds until the next part of Mass.

  Is this what those people who get caught cheating feel like? Wait. Did I cheat?

  I didn’t think I had. Then again, in Ethan’s eyes, I had questionable morals when it came to napping with people. What was I going to do if Thomas decided to be funny and bring up that stupid text? The thought of trying to explain to Ethan how I thought I was being clever put a knot in my stomach. He rarely understood when I was trying to be clever to begin with. God, I was stupid.

  Communion took forever and Father Jack made sure the conclusion of Mass would never end. The fate of my relationship with Ethan was dependent upon whether Thomas decided to be a smartass about my indiscretion. Maybe I was being dramatic, but I didn’t want to take my chances. I ushered Ethan out of the pew towards the side exit as quickly as I could, ditching my mom because I knew she was going to stop and talk to Jackie.

  Ethan turned to me when we were outside.

  “Where’d your mom go?” He looked around.

  “Oh, I thought she was right behind us,” I lied. “She must have stopped to talk to the O’Hollarens.”

  “You didn’t want to stay behind to talk to them, too?”

  “No. Why?” I made my best attempt to sound casual.

  Ethan gave me a half smile. “Maura, I never said you had to be cold to him. Do you want to go back in there and say hi?”

  “No, I’d rather find out what you did last night without me around to entertain you.” I straightened his tie as I changed the subject.

  “Nothing much. I mostly read.”

  “And here I thought you would be writing sonnets about me,” I said sarcastically.

  “Sorry, I’ve never really been the creative type,” he said unapologetically, but took my hand.

  “It’s okay,” I sighed. “I guess it’s a flaw I can overlook.”

  I made him smile. The knot in my stomach started to loosen.

  “Oh, well, how kind of you.” He kissed me on the cheek before he pulled out his phone.

  Good. I was back on track.

  “I have six missed calls from my boss,” he announced. “Would you excuse me for a second?”

  He let go of my hand and walked away as he made a call. I commanded myself not to analyze how formal he still was with me. He was a gentleman…and I needed to get it together before I blew it. I said hello to a few of my parents’ friends while waiting on the sidewalk for my mother.

  “I have to say I am thoroughly impressed by the efficiency with which you rush out of Mass when you’re here.” I heard Thomas’ voice behind me.

  There was that knot again.

  I turned around and hated that I noticed that he’d gotten a haircut. I hated even more that I thought it looked good.

  “Good morning, Thomas,” I said evenly with my arms crossed. “I’m surprised to see you here this morning; I would’ve guessed you’d be hung over.”

  “Me too, but Father Sean is apparently the type who likes to turn in early. He had some sort of Sunday morning obligation.”

  I looked over to see if Ethan was done with his phone call. Thomas noticed I was distracted and called my attention back to him.

  “I finally met your mother.”

  I nodded.

  “She said she’s going to invite me to be her friend on this new thing she just joined called ‘Facebook.’”

  “Did she?” My eyes grew wide with embarrassment.

  “No, she didn’t, but now I think I’m going to have to make that happen. She said she wants to help me find a girlfriend.”

  I sighed, knowing he wasn’t joking about that.

  “Sorry,” I apologized for her. “She likes to be overly helpful.”

  “Gee, I don’t know anyone like that,” he reflected teasingly.

  “Excuse me, I am the right amount of helpful,” I defended, making him laugh.

  Ethan joined us. He placed his hand on my lower back. Wow. This, on top of the kiss on my cheek, was significant post-Mass PDA for Ethan.

  “Thomas, hello again,” Ethan greeted, shaking Thomas’ hand.

  “Ethan,” Thomas nodded.

  “I hate to do this,” Ethan turned to me, “but I actually have to head into work. They’re having a huge problem with some of the code for a new program they wanted to launch this week.”

  I never would have thought a computer programmer could get called into work on an emergency. But whatever got him away from Thomas and the chance of finding out about that stupid text could only be a good thing for me.

  Shit. That was a selfish thing to think.

  “Say goodbye to your mother for me and tell her I look forward to seeing her next week for your birthday.”

  I nodded. He kissed my cheek.

  “I love you. I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Love you too.” Why did it still not feel normal to say that?

  “Good to see you again, Thomas. You should come out with us again sometime.”

  Ethan’s invitation surprised me. He was probably trying to show me there was no need for me to be unfriendly toward Thomas. Thomas simply nodded, not verbally committing to anything.

  “So, will you be giving him any sexy surprises tonight?” Thankfully, Thomas waited until Ethan was out of earshot to finally reference that God-forsaken text.

  “Maybe,” I lied, trying to save face.

  I crossed my arms again. He just stared at me with that stupid smirk.

  “What?” I asked defensively.

  “Nothing,” he shook his head with amusement. “It’s just that my imagination has been running a little wild with what kind of sexy prizes Maura McCormick could possibly be specializing in.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s a shame my sarcasm didn’t translate over text.” I tried to sound as unaffected as possible.

  There was a pause.

  “Using the
‘L’ word with Ethan now,” he observed.

  “Yep,” I said in a clipped tone, not inviting any further inquiries on the subject.

  He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Well, I’m supposed to come out here and try to get you to come to Sunday dinner again, but…” he sighed, “we both know you’re just going to turn down the invitation, right?”

  “Thomas, I’m sor–”

  “No, no, don’t be sorry,” he stopped me. “If anything, I think it’s good that my mom finally saw you with Ethan so she can finally accept reality.”

  I nodded, trying to determine how he felt about the reality he was referring to. Not that it would change how I felt about Ethan. He took a step towards the church.

  “But,” he grinned, “that doesn’t mean you still don’t owe me that sexy prize.”

  And he was back to being a smartass.

  THOMAS

  After kissing Ashland on Saturday, I couldn’t seem to get her off my mind. Hence the lame excuse of donating a box of my old paints and brushes to the youth center during my lunch break that Monday. I had been meaning to drop the stuff off for a while. It could have waited until Wednesday, but we would be replacing several parts of the engine that day and I wouldn’t have the chance to talk to her.

  The front desk was empty but I was pleased to see Ashland walk out after I rang the bell. The cleavage revealed by her fitted V-neck shirt made me even happier to see her.

  When she saw me, she tilted her head back and slumped her shoulders down. She accepted that she had to face the consequences of what she’d revealed Saturday night. There was nothing better than knowing exactly where I stood with an attractive woman, especially when it required very little work.

  “I thought I wasn’t going to have to deal with this mortification until Wednesday.” She smiled at me with chagrin.

  “I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied unconvincingly.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Then how can I help you?”

  “Is Maura here?”

  “No, she and Sydney are at court today until about one.” She gazed steadily at me.

  “Oh, well, Maura had said that you guys ran an art program here, so I have some stuff to donate. Mostly paints and brushes. I checked all the paints; they’re still usable.”

  She leaned in and looked down into the box I’d placed on the counter, giving me an even better view of her cleavage. I managed to shift my stare before she caught me looking.

  “Is all of this yours?”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t strike me as the artist type.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m donating it.”

  “No, my mom’s an artist, and these are definitely brands of someone who’s serious about it.”

  “What can I say? They were out of Tempera at the store.”

  She didn’t laugh but continued to look at me.

  “Well, thank you very much for the donation. I can let Maura know you stopped by.”

  I stared back, contemplating what else I could say to keep the conversation going.

  “So,” she started, “about Saturday…” She paused and laughed nervously. She was not used to being in the position of showing all her cards.

  “Yes, about Saturday…” I mimicked but stopped, waiting to see what she would say.

  “I feel like I should apologize for…” she searched for her words.

  “Claiming that baseball is for pussies?” I filled in the blank. Her eyes widened.

  “Oh, God,” she sighed, leaning in towards the desk. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  “Among other things,” I confirmed.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, clearly, I need to make it up to you. Do you have time for me to buy you some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  We stepped outside and began heading down the street. While we walked, I wasn’t sure how much teasing she would let me get away with so I kept quiet. At least I wasn’t the one who’d embarrassed myself.

  “Do you have the day off?” she asked.

  “No, just on my lunch break.”

  “No coveralls?” she said, referring to the t-shirt and jeans I was wearing.

  “Nah, I seem to get harassed when I wear them outside of work. I hear some people call me Man-chanic behind my back.”

  Ashland looked over at me. I grinned.

  “So, how long have you been a mechanic?” She coolly changed the subject.

  “Uh,” I paused, considering how to answer the question, “my dad started officially training me when I was fifteen, so if you go by that, twelve years...give or take a few years when I was living in New York.”

  I knew I only mentioned New York because she seemed like the type that might be impressed by it.

  “Oh, did you go to school there?”

  “No, I went here for school. I went to New York after I graduated because…” I trailed off. Talking about it now, I felt so removed from my past reasoning as a twenty-two-year-old.

  “Because it’s New York,” she said with understanding.

  “You ever been?”

  “No, but I’d like to someday.”

  I held the door for her when we got to the coffee shop. She ordered and brought me my cup, and I followed her lead when she sat down at a table. After a few moments, I decided to make my move.

  “So, Ashland the intern, what do you do when you’re not kissing volunteers you run into at bars?”

  “Not really much. Grad school has taken up all of my time lately.”

  “And I thought you were going to regale me with tales of winning beer pong tournaments and expert strategy for dominating at quarters,” I joked.

  “No,” she laughed. “It’s mostly been reading and writing papers when I’m not at the youth center or in class.”

  I looked at her with doubt.

  “Saturday was actually the first time I’d gone out with my friends in over two months,” she said and took a sip. She looked away, finally releasing me from her intense eye contact. Normally the amount of eye contact she made would make me nervous, but she was so attractive I found it appealing.

  “It’s a shame you’re so busy. I was going to take you out,” I said confidently. I sensed that was pretty much the only way to ask a woman like her out, at least when she wasn’t drunk.

  “Hmm,” she smiled coyly. “Well, I’ll have to think about it.”

  I nodded, unaffected by her pseudo-playing-hard-to-get.

  “We should head back,” she announced, glancing at the time. I grabbed my coffee and followed her out.

  “So, if you were to take me out, where would we go? What would we do?” she asked while we crossed the street and made our way back to the center.

  “Hmm,” I pondered aloud. “Probably Thai food. You look like the Thai food type. And I would spend the majority of the time explaining the rules of baseball in a drawn out, condescending manner. I’d say we could go to a bar, but you seem to get a little handsy when you drink.”

  “And that’s a problem for you?” she raised her brow, amused.

  “Well, yeah,” I said in an obvious tone. “It can be incredibly distracting when you’re trying to explain what a ground-rule double is.”

  “So, Thomas the Man-chanic, I’m thinking if we’re going to go out, I’m going to have to decide what we’re doing, because you’ve already shown inferior judgment when it comes to sports.”

  I followed her up the steps to the front door. I had seen Maura’s car in the parking lot and decided I would say hello to her before heading back to work.

  “You’re not the Thai food type?” I clarified, reaching above Ashland to hold the door for her as she opened it. She turned around. Her face was close and I thought she was going to kiss me again. She examined my face,
considering what she wanted.

  “Sushi,” she announced definitively. She held my gaze, evaluating my response. I hated sushi, but there were some things I was willing to stomach when it came to good-looking women...and trying to sleep with them.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Wednesday?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay then. I’m glad we figured that out.”

  She turned and sauntered into the building. I was about to follow her when I heard someone calling my name. Justin was standing at the bottom of the steps. He looked timid after getting my attention.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?” I greeted, walking down the steps towards him.

  It seemed like the best thing to do was pretend like the last time I saw him he hadn’t looked like he was going to kill somebody. Justin looked down at his feet and took a breath before looking back up at me.

  “I just wanted to apologize for last week.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more so I stayed where I was. He sighed again and looked slightly past me.

  “I...um, was kind of going through some stuff...my mom got involved in drugs again and she threw me out...and there was some stuff that went on with Eric that had to do with the drugs my mom’s boyfriend was dealing.”

  I nodded. The weight of his words registered as I realized he was only seventeen.

  I didn’t know how to respond and every possibility sounded awkward in my head. Should I tell him I understood when I had no life experience that would allow me to really understand? I stuck to nodding.

  “I know that’s no excuse for acting how I did...and I wanted to let you know that I hope I can come back to class.”

  “Sure...sure,” I agreed, but realized this might be outside of my jurisdiction. “Did you talk it over with Maura or Sydney?”

  “Yeah, we talked about it today on the way to court. Maura said she would meet with me and write up a contract before Wednesday, and if you were okay with it, I could come back.”