by Hazel Parker
When they had arrived, Mike had introduced both of them to his new work friends, whom they didn’t mesh with at all. Unable to hold a conversation about the things people do at church or children, the two had agreed to come up with a drinking game that would make the party more bearable until James got there.
So they stood in silence in the corner, watching the room and listening to the small groups around them make small talk. For each mention of an engagement, promotion, or raise at work, or a “remember when we were in college” story, they would take a drink. If, and when, someone would mention a pregnancy, they would finish their drinks.
It had been about an hour and both Teresa and Liz were feeling light-headed and had to brace themselves while they walked around the room to keep the conversations fresh. They had hit the jackpot early on with one group of accountants who couldn’t help but try and one up each other’s promotions. As they made their way across the room, Liz nudged Teresa to tell her something.
“So, one or two more hours and I’m out of here. I can’t be around these people too long. All this talk of babies is drying my vagina up.” She looked into her cup and made a beeline for the cooler. “And all this drinking can’t be good for me. I mean, why people can’t just be happy to be unemployed, like me?”
As Teresa and Liz reached the cooler, the door opened and in walked James. He carried in a paper bag, the top of a bottle of liquor protruding from the top, the cap nowhere to be seen. Mike jumped up from his seat and caught up to him as he began to walk into the room, tossing his keys into a bowl that sat on a table next to the door. Mike quietly whispered in his ear and James took a step back as if he was shoved.
“And you’re only telling me now?” James started to look around the room, eyes landing on a few different girls until he met the gaze of Teresa. Without breaking eye contact, he raised the brown bag to his lips and took a long pull of liquor. “Well, let the shit show begin.” He took another step back and stared intently at her outfit. Turning his head like a dog, trying to understand a noise. With a look of understanding, he slowly shook his head and took another drink.
James pushed past Mike towards a door in the back of the room, leading to his bedroom. Liz had poured herself a new drink, but instead of saying anything, took a few more sips. As the door closed and Teresa didn’t move, Liz leaned over to Teresa and drunkenly whispered:
“Do you think he noticed the sweater?” Teresa didn’t say anything so Liz tipped the cup back, finishing her drink again. “Things can only get worse. I’ll need more booze.” Mike walked over to Teresa as Liz made her way back over to the cooler of alcoholic mystery.
All of Teresa’s dreams and fantasies about seeing James again quickly were becoming nightmares. She had been prepared for something a little more... erotic.
“Hey, listen, he had a tough day at work. You know how teaching can be. I mean, its high school, so all those hormonal teens can wear just about anybody down.” Mike stood there and spoke with hopeful eyes, trying to make Teresa feel better. Teresa placed her cup on the coffee table and motioned for Liz.
“This was a stupid idea, guys. Thanks for the invite, Mike, but I realize how dumb I was being.” Liz walked over and placed her cup beside Teresa’s. Mike apologized on behalf of James and walked them to the door.
As Mike went to open the door for the girls, James’s bedroom door slammed open. Out walked James in jean shorts, a black graphic tee shirt that had a bald eagle on it and the sleeves cut off, and a cowboy hat. He raised a bottle of whiskey in one hand and hollered.
“Let’s get this shit started!”
*****
James and Teresa sat together on the couch; Mike and Liz stood together on the other side of the room, ready to step in, just in case they started throwing punches. Where they had left off, it was unclear of how this would go, but from across the room they could only see smiles and laughter.
“No, I know it wasn’t our first date party, but these are the only clothes I still have that were from any of those parties. I thought it was a good tip off that I wasn’t too mad or anything.” James took a small pull from the bottle while Teresa sighed and sat back on the couch. Her drink balanced carefully in her lap.
“Well, you clearly noticed the sweater then.” Teresa motioned at her sweater and James nodded.
“Yeah, third anniversary. If I recall, we had some pretty great sex after I gave you that. I think you gave me a map, right?” He reached over and tugged on the sweater a bit. “I always liked how it made you look like you weren’t wearing pants.” He laughed slightly under his breath. “Especially when I found out you weren’t wearing pants.” They both laughed and slumped into the couch.
“It’s been so long; I missed this, James,” Teresa put her hand on his shoulder and James coughed quietly and pulled away from her. She sat up quickly and apologized. “Sorry. It was muscle memory and the alcohol, it’s—” James reached out and grabbed her arm. She immediately stopped talking and James shifted a bit in his seat.
“It’s not that. You don’t need to apologize.” He sat back in the seat and he took another swig from the bottle of whiskey to settle his nerves. “Being here, with you and our friends, it’s everything I’ve wanted for the past two years.” He looked over at Mike, who smiled and waved while drinking with Liz. “It’s just that as soon as I relax, I hear you breaking up with me all over again. I hear all the terrible things you said. I can’t keep putting myself through that.”
James stood up, his hand lingered on her leg for a moment. He walked away though, leaving Teresa on the couch, watching as he moved. Liz jogged across the room, bumping into a few people, to fill in James’s seat and Mike followed James into his room. Teresa looked down at her cup and back up at James as he closed the door to his bedroom.
“Well, let’s get drunk.”
That was the last thing Teresa remembered saying.
*****
Teresa certainly didn’t enjoy the feeling of waking up in a strange place, but it wasn’t something she was completely unused to either. She slowly lifted her head as the pounding headache started to throb; she laid back down. Carefully, she started to take in her surroundings one piece at a time.
She wasn’t naked, but these certainly weren’t the clothes she came in. She looked at the ground and saw her sweater and leggings folded up neatly. The sheets smelled strange; not off putting, but strange. And she was thirsty. Incredibly thirsty. She looked over at the bedside table and there was a chilled, unopened water bottle on it. She crept towards it, careful not to move her head too much.
After taking a drink of water, she rolled onto her back and took in the room a bit more. It was sparse, with some dirty clothes scattered around the room and a desk in the corner had a desktop and a laptop sitting on it. There were four or five legal pads stacked on the desk as well. The desktop had the time on the screen; it was 10:24 in the morning.
Teresa collected herself and stood up. She noticed that on the legal pad that was on top of the others had a note scrawled on it: “Advil is in the top drawer of the bedside table. Take as many as you need.” She padded back across the room and grabbed a few Advil out of the drawer, threw them back, and drank some more of the water. Absently, she flipped through the other legal pads and came across a poem:
Brown eyes that I once teased
Haunt me now in my dreams.
Her thin hair that I once ran my fingers through
Dances just out of my reach.
Pale skin that I once caressed
Is now covered with ink,
Ink that I know means the world to her,
But means nothing to me now.
Drunken nights that were once filled
With movies and laughter
Are now filled with questions
Of what if.
Years have passed
But I’ll always wonder
If we can come back from this.
Teresa looked down at the tattoos on her arms, showin
g through the thin, white shirt and sat down on the bed. He knew the story behind two of them, but her arms were covered now. She never thought of that. As she went to read the poem again and to read the other poems that were in the pad, the door to the room opened. She tossed the pad under the bed as James walked in, his hair disheveled and bags hung low under his eyes. He held up his car keys and a pair of sunglasses.
“Breakfast? I know a place.”
*****
After quickly getting dressed and taking a short shower, Teresa sat next to James in his aging car; trash clattered around in the back seat as she fell back into a strange rhythm. She immediately fell back into the memories of the car. The car they drove back and forth from family vacations to college. The same car he had driven her to her internships and the airport in. It was a car she knew well and didn’t realize she had missed.
“So, like I said, after I went to my room, I hung out in there for a while until Liz came and got me. I didn’t want to ruin your party experience more than I had, but I guess I did.” James looked over at Teresa, who was staring out the window. “You had gotten pretty drunk by the time Liz got me and you were hitting on one of Mike’s priest friends.” James chuckled and adjusted his glasses. “You kept whispering, just because God is playing goalie doesn’t mean I can’t score.” Teresa laughed at her own joke and slumped lower into her seat.
“Christ, I don’t remember that.” They both paused for a moment. “Well, not Christ. Shit I suppose.” They laughed together until Teresa realized where he was taking her for breakfast. He was taking her to the coffee shop she worked at. She had the day off, but surely someone would give her grief for being there. Especially looking like how she looked and being with the man she’d avoided a week ago.
“Hey, so, uh, where are we going?” James looked over at Teresa with a smile on his face.
“We’re going to that little coffee shop we used to go to when we were in college. I heard it’s only gotten better since I’ve left.” James turned and pulled into the parking lot, his car rumbled slightly as he parked in a parking spot in front of the shop.
“Well, I’m not feeling so great, so can you just grab me a coffee to go?” James leaned over and opened her door.
“Nonsense; we’re going in.”
James got out of the car and walked around to her side of the car where he stood, waiting for her to get out. Slowly, she stepped out, accepting James’s hand to help her out. James led the way and held the door to the cafe open for her as she removed her sunglasses and walked inside.
She scanned the workers at the registers and knew each and every one of them. She strode up to the register and whispered to the young girl working there, the same girl she had made cover for her when James came in a week ago. “You don’t know me,” she whispered quickly. James stood behind her and leaned forward.
“Order what you want; I can pay.” The young girl behind the register looked at James and then back at Teresa. “Oh, hey, how are you? You were my barista last time I was here. How are you?” The girl looked back at Teresa like a deer in the headlights. She began her spiel timidly.
“Have you been here before or would you like a minute to look at the options?” Just then, Teresa’s manager emerged from the back room and stepped up to the register, taking over for the young girl, who sighed loudly.
“Come on, you know Teresa. One of our best employees.” Teresa’s eyes screamed for her to stop and she panicked for a moment, waiting for James to respond. James merely leaned forward, his hand rested on the small of her back and he pushed her forward a tiny bit.
“I know you’ve gotta know, what’s the best thing to cure a hangover?” Teresa let out her breath and turned around, shocked.
“You know I work here?”
*****
“I honestly didn’t mean for it to be a malicious joke,” James said in between chewing his egg and bacon breakfast sandwich. Teresa sat back in her seat, sipping on her coffee; she had put her sunglasses back on to avoid his gaze. “I came in here a week ago looking for you actually.”
“When did you find out?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee, ignoring the scalding heat.
“When I was thinking about moving back, I heard rumors that you were working here and that the other job fell through. I didn’t really know what happened and I wanted to reach out, but you were with someone at the time and it didn’t seem appropriate.”
“You could have said something.” Teresa looked away and saw her manager standing nearby, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation. “I mean, that job was the reason we... you know.”
“Well, every time I thought about reaching out, I would think of how badly I was hurt and I would talk myself out of it. But last night, Mike reminded me of something.” Teresa sat forward in her seat and took her sunglasses off. “He reminded me of what I told him the first day I saw you.”
James took another bite of his sandwich and put it back on the plate, using a napkin to wipe away some of the crumbs and butter from his hands and lap. As he finished chewing, he took a sip of his iced coffee and sat back.
“The first day of school was the first day I laid eyes on you. One of those goofy orientation events. I was in a group with Mike and you walked by us as we were talking about god knows what and I told him: that girl is going to ruin my life.” Teresa leaned back, offended.
“The hell, James? Why’re you doing all this then, if you think I’ll ruin your life?” She turned in her seat as if to stand up, but James reached out and grabbed her hand.
“Because I told him that I couldn’t wait. To love unconditionally means that sometimes you get hurt. We both acted stupid. We were young though. We made some poor decisions, but we both still had so much growing to do.” He reached out with his other hand and grabbed her hand off her cup, intertwining their fingers. “I know now that I just want to continue growing with you.”
Teresa glanced over at her manager who gave her a small thumbs-up and walked away, smiling. She looked down at her coffee and looked back up at James.
“I was hoping you would say that.”
*****
James could not have driven fast enough to get back to his apartment as fast as they actually wanted to get there. Teresa had often wondered about the benefits of teleportation and if it would make sense, but after they had decided to give it another chance, the only thing she wanted was to immediately be in bed, naked, with James. It was obvious he felt the same way as well because yellow lights might as well have been green lights at the speed he was taking them, and the tires squealed on each turn, as if they were driving a race car.
They got back to his apartment complex and sped towards a car that was backing out of a spot near the front of the building. By the time he had thrown the car into park and engaged the parking brake, Teresa was already out of the car, standing by the door to the building, waiting. She was dancing slightly, like a small child that needed to go to the bathroom. She smiled widely as he ran towards her.
He grabbed her as he ran by; his arm caught her on the lower back pulling her along, his other hand held his keys and fob, which he waved in front of the door. Hitting the handicap door button, he spun around and kissed Teresa as the door opened. Walking backwards, lips still locked together passionately, he pulled her inside.
Without looking, they blindly stumbled towards the elevator, hitting both call buttons. Her hands unbuttoned his top as his hands were firmly planted on her ass, squeezing and massaging. The elevator bell dinged and he pulled away, shoving her inside. Teresa playfully threw herself harder into the back wall of the elevator and James pounced inside, following her as the doors closed.
The doors shut and Teresa jumped into James arms, her thighs wrapped around his waist; her arms pulled his shirt off his back and she threw it into the corner. James pressed her against the wall of the elevator and passionately kissed and bit her neck. Teresa loudly moaned and asked for more; his hands travelled up her back from her ass and pulled her
hair. She moaned his name and the elevator bell dinged again. But this time, the doors slid open.
James and Teresa stopped abruptly. Teresa looked over his shoulder to see an elderly woman standing in the doorway, the elevator still in the lobby. With Teresa still wrapped around his waist, James slowly turned around and looked at the lady as well. She chuckled and leaned into the elevator. She pressed the door close button and waved at them.
“Don’t forget to hit the floor button, you two,” she called after them as the door closed.
They both laughed and James walked to the elevator panel; Teresa let go of him with one hand and pressed the button for his floor. The elevator shook for a moment and began to ascend. They laughed for a moment to themselves before James gently slammed Teresa back into the wall, his hands now back on her ass.
James’s teeth pulled at her shirt and kissed her neck as the elevator rose. Her nails created a topographical map of passion on his back until the elevator stopped and the door opened; thankfully it was on the correct floor this time and no one was waiting for them on the other side. Teresa let go and jumped down, snagging his shirt from the corner of the elevator. James pretended to chase her through the halls until they reached his door.