by Hazel Parker
I drove the freeway in utter silence and decided to turn on the radio. I just needed something to distract me from my thoughts and concerns. When my phone began ringing, I turned the radio off and answered it.
“What’s going on Jake? You know I’m about to go out with Julia” I said without saying hello.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jacob said, “I never asked, where you taking her?”
“Shelley’s.”
“Shelley’s? I thought you hated that place.”
“I do, but that’s where she’s wants to go so that’s where I’m taking her.” I heard Jacob sigh before he shouted into the phone.
“Whipped!” I really didn’t want Jacob to kill my mood.
“I’d rather be whipped instead of at home alone jerking off” Before Jacob had time to come up with a comeback, I hung up the phone. “That’ll teach him” I said laughing.
When I finally arrived in front of the house, I took in a deep breath and exited my car. Whipped or not I had to make a good impression. When I knocked on the door and Julia opened it, I was at a loss for words.
She was gorgeous wearing a lime green short dress with black high heel shoes. Her hair and her make-up was done expertly. Her brown eyes scanned over my body in the same manner that mine did hers. She poked out her lip in a way that made me think that she was pouting. “You look good” she muttered under her breath and a wide smile spread across my face.
“Thanks, you’re always gorgeous so it’s not surprising that you look good too.” She told her mother that she’d be back later and closed and locked the door. We walked awkwardly back to my car and I held the door open for her. She said nothing as her slim body slid into the seat and I shut her door once she was all the way inside of the car. I walked around to my side with a goofy grin on my face like I had just hit the lottery or something.
“We’re going to Shelley’s right?” she asked once I began driving.
“Yeah, that’s where you want to go right?” I asked glancing at her from the corner of my eye. She nodded and sat back into her seat looking oddly out of the window at the passing cars. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I should start with small talk now or wait till when we were at the restaurant. The awkward silence was killing me and I wanted to make sure she was having a good time. I decided to break the silence, “So how have you been?”
“Fine” she said too quickly not even looking my way. Ouch! The coldness from her voice stung me a little bit, but I continued on.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is fine.” Julia turned and looked at the side of my face and sighed.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I’ve been miserable as hell, but don’t think that it means anything. I’m still pissed off” her high pitch voice cracked when she said that. She almost sounded like she was going to cry. I felt good that she was affected as much as I was about our breakup.
“I’m miserable too, but at least we get to see each other now.” I looked at her and flashed Julia a quick smile just as I pulled into the parking lot of Shelley’s. When we entered the restaurant, we noticed that it was packed, I was glad that I made reservations that morning.
“Do you two have a reservation? We’re pretty crowded at the moment and will not be able to seat people for another two hours.”
I honestly didn’t know why this restaurant was so popular; I found the place to be quite nauseating.
“Yes, my name is Michael Christianson.” The host looked through his list of names and smiled at me.
“Please follow me.” He grabbed two menus and led us to the back of the restaurant which was a little more secluded.
“I’m impressed,” Julia said once we were seated and the host was out of ear shot. “I’m surprised that you made a reservation. You normally made me do things like that.” I looked through the menu, unimpressed but still attempting to find something remotely interesting to eat.
“Well, I did it for you. I’m sitting in a restaurant that I hate for you.” I said and Julia blushed as she looked away from me. The restaurant got a bit noisier as a group of women made their way towards our direction.
“Dorian just irritates me so much sometimes” one of the women said and I looked their way because the voice sounded familiar. The host was sitting four women, two I recognized as being women from work. One of them being Elizabeth! My face turned pale as a ghost when her eyes landed on mine.
Chapter Three
“Are you alright?” Julia asked when she heard me gasp.
“I’m okay,” I managed to bite out. The waiter came back then and asked us if we’d ever been there before and what would we like to drink. I asked Julia as nicely as possible to order whatever she wanted and I excused myself to go to the men’s room.
I was thankful that no one was in it. “What the hell is she doing there?” if I had any more reason to hate Shelley’s, I had one then. I was glad that Julia had absolutely no idea who Elizabeth was, but I knew that Elizabeth would understand right away that the person that I was with was Julia.
I turned the faucet on and quickly splashed water into my face. I had to calm myself down; it wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong. I just didn’t want Julia and Elizabeth to be in the same place at the same time. I finally was able to compose myself and I went back to Julia. She looked at me in confusion.
“Are you feeling okay, Michael? Do you really hate being here that much?” I shook my head. Of course I couldn’t tell Julia the real reason why I was disheveled, but I came up with a response that was close enough to the truth.
“No, I thought I saw something gross which freaked me out.” I quickly changed the subject. “So what did you order?” Julia gave me a sheepish smile.
“I ordered Macon Blanc. I hear it’s a pretty good wine.” I knew that the wine varied in prices and I inhaled sharply. ‘I’m doing this for her so swallow your pride’ I thought to myself. “And I know how much you hate trying something new so I ordered something that had chicken inside of it. You really need to try different things.”
“I’m working on that every day.” That wasn’t a complete lie; I was working on things about myself that would entice Julia to come back to me. I looked around trying to see if Elizabeth was near us, but I couldn’t find her. Maybe they weren’t seated as close as I thought they were.
“Do forgive me if I am not as adventurous as you.” I said sarcastically and Julia smiled a sincere smile. She was quite adventurous with her appearance. She had long hair one day and would cut it short the next day. Julia was an artist and she looked at her body as a canvass presented to her from God to create new and beautiful things with.
“I can tell,” she said as a frown plastered onto her beautiful face. “I hate to admit it but I really do miss you.” I could see now that she was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about her. She chewed on her glossed lips and breaking one of her rules I reached my hand out to her. She hesitated to take it, but her small hand enclosed into my larger one.
“I know that I hurt you and that you don’t trust me,” I said clearing my throat. “But I need you to understand that if I didn’t truly love you, I wouldn’t have told you what I did.” I knew that didn’t make the situation better, it wasn’t like she caught me with Elizabeth but I told her and that had to count for something. “We can take it slow and start over new,” Julia stared into my eyes with an unreadable expression on her face so I continued.
“Let me make this right, I can earn your trust again and I can be the man that you want me to be.” I didn’t feel like a real man at the moment begging for Julia’s forgiveness, but it had to be done. She thought long and hard before she responded.
“Ok”, she said as the waiter brought us our food and poured the wine into our glasses. My heart leapt for joy and I completely ignored the rancid food that the waiter placed down in front of me. “This doesn’t mean that we’re back together. I’m not ready for that yet, but we can start over fresh.”
“I’ll take it” I said as I released her hand and I picked up my glass. “Let’s make a toast.” I said and she quickly picked up her glass as well. “A toast to new beginnings,” Our glasses touched and I downed my wine, I needed to be a little buzzed before I ate the “food”.
“Thank you for bringing me here” Julia said and began eating her food.
Julia and I laughed and told each other about what happened the week that we hadn’t seen each other and I was surprised that her week was just as awful as mine. She excused herself to go to the lady’s room after a while and I exhaled with relief about how well the night was going and that’s when she approached our table.
“So that’s her?” Elizabeth said and a frown formed on my face.
“Please, Elizabeth. I’m asking you nicely to leave us alone, please do not cause a scene.” I could tell that she was drunk because she wasn’t as collected as she normally was.
“She’s cute,” she continued, disregarding my pleas for her to just leave me alone. “If you’re into little girls I suppose.”
“She’s the same age as me” I said irritated. Elizabeth chuckled and her eyes rested unfocused onto mine.
“And does she drive you wild with desire like I did?” I could feel my face burning up. An image of her naked body flashed in my mind.
“You’re drunk, Elizabeth.” I said looking around making sure that Julia wasn’t coming back. I saw her walking towards the table looking into the hand held mirror she always kept with her. Elizabeth followed my glance and grinned.
“I guess I’ll let you go back to the little girl, at least for the time being.” Elizabeth grinned and stumbled back in the direction of her table. When Julia sat back down, she looked after Elizabeth in confusion.
“Do you know her?” she asked returning her attention back to me.
“No,” I lied. “She was just a drunk woman that thought she knew me”. I didn’t want to tell Julia that she was my co-worker. Julia was smart; she would have put two and two together and figured out that she was the woman that I cheated on her with.
“She’s pretty,” I hated that Julia said that and I definitely was not going to agree with her about it.
“I guess if someone’s into that type of woman. You’re more beautiful.” Julia flashed me that brilliant smile and continued eating.
When we arrived back at her place, she was completely back to her carefree self and not the cold woman that avoided me for a whole week. “I really had fun tonight. Thank you.” It was completely dark outside now, but I could see her eyes glittering.
“Thank you for coming out with me, I meant everything I said tonight.” I was about to cut the engine and walk her to the door when she stopped me with a hand on my hand. I looked at her and she smiled just before kissing me gently on the lips. I cupped her face with my hands and pressed my tongue inside of her mouth. She was sweet and her mouth was warm and when we pulled apart I could faintly see the blush on her cheeks.
“See you later” she said before she exited my car. I waited until she was safely in the house before I pulled off. I was so happy at that moment that I had completely forgotten running into Elizabeth. The way that Julia kissed me just then proved to me that she still loved me. I really felt like I had another chance with her and I just had to remain on my best behavior and she’d eventually come back home.
“This is looking good,” I said as I made my way onto the ramp for the freeway. A few more dates like this and she’d definitely open her heart to me again. I thought about calling Jacob and letting him know how the date went, but I knew that he wasn’t going to appreciate it since it didn’t end with us “in the sack”. I drove that freeway in deep happy thoughts feeling like I had acquired the world.
Chapter Four
“You’re looking a lot better these days, something good happen?” George asked me when I was on my way out to lunch. George was an older guy, somewhere in his fifties, and he was the man that everyone went to for their problems.
“Yeah, I’m starting to fix some wrongs that I made.” Normally I would’ve gone to George about my problem with Julia because he was a better judge of relationships than Jacob was, but since it had to do with a co-worker, I didn’t want to bring it up.
“That’s good to hear” he said patting me on the back and walking out of the door. Just when I was about to exit, I remembered that I had to copy some paperwork and give it to a senior attorney. I wanted to do it now because by the time I got back I would have probably forgotten to do it. I turned around and that’s when I saw Elizabeth approaching me.
“Wait!” she called after me when I started walking in the opposite direction. She was really starting to piss me off and make me regret that I still work here.
“What?” I asked coldly. I really didn’t want to hear anything that she had to say after the little stunt that she pulled last night. When she was an arm’s length away from me, she put this sad expression on her face.
“I wanted to apologize for last night,” she bit her lip. “I wasn’t in my right mind then and I know that I said some pretty mean things.”
“Apology accepted, now please leave me alone.” I walked around her and she called after me.
“She really is a pretty girl,” I chose to ignore her which made me believe that she’d finally catch a hint and walk away. I wasn’t lucky in that regards however. “But I think you need someone more in your life” I sighed. What was the point of her apologizing to me when she was still practically saying the same thing that she was saying last night? The only difference is she wasn’t a complete bitch about it.
“Look,” I turned around and faced her once my copies were complete. “I will say this one last time; it was just sex and nothing more. I’m trying to set things right in my life, but you are trying to make things difficult. I do not want you, I will never want you.”
“You’re lying!” she shouted showing her true colors. “You can tell yourself millions of times that you’ve only made love to me because you were drunk, but we both know the truth.” I looked away from her then and she reached her hand towards my face and forced me to look back at her. “You wanted me even before we had sex; you’re just too much of a coward to admit it.” I was glad that we were the only ones left on the floor because this conversation would definitely get us written up.
“Are you done?” I asked and her scowl deepened. When she didn’t say anything I pushed her hand away and walked towards the door.
“You need to stop lying to yourself” I heard her say before I walked out of the door.
“I’m starting to think that she is crazy.” I said as I made it to the lobby, I pulled my phone out and called Julia. She answered on the second ring.
“I was just thinking about you.” She said and I could hear the smile in her voice. I found myself smiling as well.
“Really? I hope it was good thoughts.” She giggled and I sat down in the lobby. I brought my lunch today; I just didn’t want to stay in the office a second longer.
“Always,” the last few days have been good for Julia and I. We constantly spoken on the phone and I took her out a few times. Things couldn’t have gone better if I prayed on it. “My mom is leaving for the night to go on a little trip with her friends. I was wondering if you’d want to come over and spend some time together.” I felt like we were in high school again and I was sneaking into her house when her mother was sleeping.
“Sure, I can bring some movies over. Any movies you want to see?” I know Julia was more into romantic dramas, which I hated, but I’d be willing to watch one with her if it’ll make her happy.
“Sure, there are not many movies out that I want to see so bring what you want.” I knew Julia well enough to know that was a trap.
She surely wanted to watch something that she was interested in and not vice versa. I definitely wasn’t going to fail this test. I might bring something cheesy like “The Notebook”. I personally didn’t understand why woman swoon over the m
ovie, it was depressing as hell.
“I know just the movie to bring,” she laughed.
“I hope so.” We talked for a few more minutes before she had to go. I was kind of sad because I wanted to speak with her for the duration of my lunch period, but I understand that she has a life too. I ate my sandwich in silence as I watched the people walk in and out of the lobby. I saw business men and women and I wondered was this something I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
“What are your aspirations? What are your dreams?” Julia’s familiar voice vibrated in my mind. I was only twenty-five years old and even though I was a grown man, I still haven’t found myself yet. When I finally do find myself, I’ll be more confident of my future. I also knew that I’d be a better man for Julia. I dumped my trash in the garbage and made my way back upstairs. I still hadn’t forgotten the conversation with Elizabeth because some of what she said hit home, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin the rest of my day.