And the Next Thing You Know . . .

by Chase Taylor Hackett

  “I wouldn’t make fun of people’s names,” said Madison. “Theo.”

  “If one more person says that to me—”

  “Oh, I’m so disappointed in you, Madison. Really?” Fern was completely on my side. “Just look at that boy’s face—” I let them see my big-eyed-waif face. “And you wanted to slip around with some floozy named Tanner? How could you do that?”

  Now that’s more like it. I wanted to lean my head on her motherly shoulder—but I had more to tell.

  “You haven’t heard the best part. After an entire day of watching his show—and trust me, it’s not that good—and watching him swooning over sexy Tanner, Madison turned to me and told me that he literally couldn’t bear to have me in the same state, and he insisted I get the next train back to the city.” The quartet looked at Madison, unified in their horror that this viper had somehow crawled under the edge of the tent among decent people.

  “Now really, Madison,” tsked Fern. “How could you?” One more gesture to my sad little face.

  Billy patted my forearm, comfortingly. I guess with all the elbow-bumps, we’d sort of bonded.

  “I’ll tell you this, Madison,” said Louisa, sternly delivering her final words on the subject. “I, for one, will not be seeing your new musical, I don’t care what the Times says.”

  “Sing out, Louisa.”

  “You know? I’m just going to eat my eggs,” said Madison.

  “And,” I added, “he’s never even apologized.”

  “Okay, now that’s just a lie. I’ve done nothing but apologize ever since!”

  “You’ve pestered me with a million texts because you want to get back together. That’s not the same thing.”

  “Well, Madison—” Louisa started.

  “I don’t want to get back together!”

  “No?” My disbelief was apparent in the arch of my right eyebrow.

  “No!”

  “Then why have you been bugging me to meet you somewhere, hmm?”

  “Because I didn’t want to break up with you in a text!”

  “Ohhhh.” It was like the chorus in Oedipus Rex. Four heads turned slowly to me.

  “No…way,” I said. “No way in hell are you breaking up with me. The only reason I came here today was so I could break up with you!”

  “Serves you right, too,” said Billy, giving Madison the stink eye.

  “No one likes a cheater, Madison.” William and Billy were a united front.

  “But I never touched the guy!”

  “Of course you never touched the guy!” It was my turn again. “That was obvious. You never had a chance!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Tanner’s way out of your league, Madison.”

  “Oh gee, thanks.”

  “You should see this guy,” I explained to the gayboys. “Unbelievably pretty, and totally into himself.”

  “One of those,” Billy nodded, knowingly.

  “But wait,” said Louisa, a firm voice of reason. “Doesn’t that sort of solve everything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want to break up and you want to break up. You finally agree on something.”

  “True.”

  “So break up! Walk away! Get on with your lives!”

  At this point, Fern let out a small shriek. We all jumped. The passing busboy jumped. People out on 73rd Street probably jumped.

  “Louisa! Look at the time!”

  “We have to run or we will never make curtain. Check please!”

  They were scooping up their things.

  “We should get going too, doll,” said Billy.

  “It was so charming to meet you all,” said Fern. “And best of luck to you Theo.” And she pinched my cheek. What is it about my face, women of a certain age just have to pinch it?

  “What are you seeing?” William asked.

  “What’s it called, Louisa?”

  “American Psycho. The musical.”

  “I’ve heard it’s funny,” said Fern. “I do hope it’s funny. I so love it when they’re romantic and funny.”

  I looked at Madison, and then at the boys next door.

  “I’m not telling her,” said Billy.

  Credit cards were flashed, checks sorted.

  “Oh, Louisa, do you think we have time for one of those selfies?”

  “No!”

  The women were gone and the boys waited for their charge slip to come back.

  “I have to say,” said William, “I’m so glad you guys worked this out.”

  “Doll, they’re splitting up.”

  “That’s what I mean. I never saw two people who didn’t belong together as much as you two guys don’t.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Madison said.

  Billy pulled on a leather jacket with a very genuine fur collar.

  “Best of luck to you, Theo. The right guy is out there, you’ll see.” He looked adoringly at William.

  After another round of exit lines, they headed for the door, hand-in-hand. Nothing will make you appreciate your boyfriend quite so much as brunch with me and Madison.

  I turned my attention back to my sausage. On my plate, you perv.

  “So we’re done, right?” I said cheerily, digging in.

  “Theo,” said Madison leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. “Now that that little circus has finally headed out of town—and thank you so much for starting that by the way—”

  “Don’t even, Mads, you were eating it up—”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure—but we should talk.”

  “About what? What’s left to say?”

  “For your own good, Theo,” he answered, “and, I’ll admit, for my own personal satisfaction, I’d like to set a few things straight.”

  “Oh good.” Total sarcasm, by the way.

  “Theo, you know what your problem is?”

  “Me?!” was my devastating retort. “You were the world’s worst boyfriend, Mads!”

  “I know, I know, because I couldn’t satisfy this enormous hunger you have to be the center of attention at all times.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not like that.”

  “No—you’re right. You need to be the center of attention at all times—until you don’t. And woe to the poor chump who doesn’t intuit the mood swing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “But I understand. I may be the only one who does, which is why I held out as long as I did.”

  “Understands what?”

  “You! Or at least I understand a little bit.”

  “Oh great, tell me all about me then.”

  And he did, pissing me off more and more as he went, and ending with an anecdote.

  “See, when I was a kid,” he said, “we had this little mutt terrier dog, cutest thing in the world, but he was terrified of everything, scared all the time, and occasionally he’d bite somebody.”

  “Fear-biter,” I said. I know about dogs. I was much more comfortable talking about dogs. “Very difficult to correct.”

  “Exactly, Theo. That’s you. You let people close, but when they get too close—chomp. I just haven’t figured out—what are you afraid of, Theo?”

  * * * *

  So that had been my farewell brunch with Madison. Some fun, huh. And it was obviously still in my head. Leastwise that last bit.

  I was so upset, I realized later, that I hadn’t even eaten all my bacon. Can you imagine!

  So.

  Fine.

  So yeah, sometimes I said harsh things to people.

  And yeah, I’d made a guy cry in the songwriters’ workshop. Once. Hadn’t been my intention to make him cry. I was totally surprised when he did.

  And the second time it happened, it was absolutely not my fau
lt.

  But did that mean that I needed to change? Or that these people just needed to man up some?

  And I wasn’t afraid of anything. Okay, I’m not crazy about snakes, but other than that…

  In any case, none of this was helping me when it came to finding the perfect rhyme for a girl who didn’t give two farts about broken hearts.

  And then—the weird bloopy noise of the door buzzer.

  “Who is it?” I asked at the box on the wall.

  Someone said something, two syllables, but it was otherwise unintelligible. Sounded like ‘oil can.’ Too funny. Should I buzz the Tin Woodsman in? Maybe not—he does carry an axe. Then it occurred to me. Two syllables, sounds like: ‘mail man.’ Made considerably more sense than ‘oil can.’ I hit the magic button to buzz him in and went to the door, waiting. Waiting. Staring down the hall at the elevators. Arrrgh. How long can it take to get an elevator up four flights? You might never guess this about me, but patience is not really my thing. Any day now! I thought. Finally there was the elevator door opening. The mail-guy looked down the hall, and saw me.

  “Five-oh-five? McPherson?” he said, reading off the package.

  “My sister.”

  “Your sister’s name is Theo?”

  “Wait, no, that’s me!”

  It was for me??!! That had never occurred to me. I just figured I was doing Beccs a favor and getting her package for her. Who would send me a package? Our mom maybe? Care package from home? Brownies imported from Iowa?

  No, it was obviously Amazon—who actually delivers on Sundays for some reason.

  I signed, the mail guy headed back to the elevator and I closed the door.

  I ran to the kitchen to get a knife to cut the box open. Inside the box, another box. Adidas. I pulled it open. Sneakers. Real Adidas, not fake ones. Size six-and-a-halfs, too. White, and the stripes were red.

  Wow. They were—perfect.

  There was a gift note.

  “In case of Clarice. I hope these are watertight. Jeffrey.”

  Ohmygod. He sent me shoes. The perfect shoes. He’d actually been—like—paying attention. Too bad about the laces, but I knew a place where I could get red ones, because it’s so much sharper to have red laces.

  Then I realized there was something loose sliding around in the bottom of the box.

  I looked.

  One pair of red shoelaces.

  I can’t even.

  Some guys send flowers. With some guys, it’s probably jewelry. I got gym shoes.

  What kind of guy gives you gym shoes?

  And you know what? I was really glad nobody else was around, because the smile on my face was so absurdly, preposterously, colossally stupid, and I couldn’t stop it. I’d shake myself, and make myself stop smiling like a baboon and in ten seconds or less—Baboon City. Half an hour later I was still staring at my feet in my dazzling new shoes, and

  grinning,

  grinning,

  grinning.

  Chapter 33

  The Parents

  Jeffrey

  Dinner had gone fairly smoothly. No one had been hit, anyway, and I always booked that as a win.

  I’d picked an Italian place just off West End Ave., far away from my office and hopefully far away enough from any potential complications.

  “I know you have plans for your birthday, honey,” said my mother over her espresso and tiramisu, “but it would be really nice if you could figure out a time we might do something together? Maybe some friends over? I bumped into that nice girl you used to like, Aurora? Such a beauty. She was asking after you, and I’m sure she’d love to see you again. You two got along really well, didn’t you?”

  “She’s fine, Mom,” I said. “I’ll see how work goes.”

  “The boy needs to concentrate on his job,” pointed out my father.

  “Yes, I know, but he should also think about settling down. You know you want him to settle down.”

  “Yeah, sure, but he’s seeing Jennifer Caputo right now.”

  “Actually, Dad, I thought—”

  “Jennifer who?” asked my mother. “These Italian names!”

  “It doesn’t matter Jennifer who,” said my father, “but he’s not going to mess it up by seeing the Ferrari girl.”

  I figured it was smarter to let them bounce it back and forth between themselves, than step in and try to clarify things I couldn’t clarify.

  So I sat there with cold coffee, while my parents traded views on the various candidates for the job of Mrs. Jeffrey, when I saw Theo come into the dining room, looking around.

  Icy fear shot through me.

  I swear, if Freddy Krueger had walked in snapping his fingers, it wouldn’t have scared me half as much as seeing this five-foot-six Iowa farm-boy glancing around the dining room.

  He saw me, and his face—and those eyes—lit up in greeting.

  Beam me up, Scotty.

  I gulped my coffee on the off chance someone had tossed in a shot of something—like Jameson’s. Or strychnine. They hadn’t.

  “Hey, Jeff! So these must be your parents?” said Theo coming up to the table. And I thought—This time I really will kill him. I won’t have a choice. “I’m Theo,” he said extending his hand.

  My father looked at him like he was from Alpha Centauri. Which he obviously was. My dad was not accustomed to this great Midwestern hello-ness, and he didn’t trust it. My mother was just a bit overwhelmed.

  “Theo,” I said, improvising and gently pushing his hand down. “Did you finish those edits I left you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Theo is my new assistant,” I explained to my parents. And to Theo.

  Just go with it, Theo.

  “What happened to Darlene?” asked my mother. “She seemed so nice.”

  “She’s still there, still nice, but I’ve been so overworked. I’m desperate and I really need Theo’s help right now. Awful, isn’t it Theo?”

  “Sooooooooooo awful,” he said looking at me. “I can’t keep up.”

  “I know being my assistant is still really new, and I can’t tell you how I appreciate your pitching in and helping me out like this.”

  “No problem?”

  “It’s late, Theo. Go home.”

  “What did you just—”

  “But you know what you could do for me that would be a huge help,” and I pulled a receipt out of my wallet. “If you could pick up my dry cleaning on your way in in the morning, that would be fantastic.” I handed him the receipt, which he stared at, open-mouthed.

  It was a first.

  I had stunned Theo into speechlessness instead of the other way around. Somehow I didn’t feel much like celebrating the milestone. I knew I was being a shit.

  “Are you kid—”

  “Excuse us a second,” I said getting up in a hurry, grabbing Theo by the elbow and walking him toward the door.

  “Ow,” he said about the tight grip on his arm.

  “Theo, please, I’m begging you, just go. Please, they’re my parents. This isn’t funny. Don’t make a thing.”

  “What is all this about?”

  “They want to think I’m—successful—”

  “I thought you were successful, isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

  “Yeah, I am. Please, just go along. Please? Just go and I’ll talk to you in the morning. Okay?”

  “You’re like Madison all over again! Am I that embarrassing that nobody can introduce me?”

  “No! Of course not! It’s nothing to do with you.” I knew my dad’s back was to us, but I also knew my mother could still see us if she wanted, and she would definitely want. I should have done this out on the sidewalk. “Please please please, Theo, I’ll make it up to you, I swear it. I’ll take you to lunch someplace really nice. Or dinner
, you name the place.”

  He looked at me for a second, one of those horrible, humiliating, sneering Theo-looks.

  “I’d starve first.”

  I stood there and watched him walk away, and I felt like the world’s biggest heel. I suppose I probably was. I stared after him, and then at the door he’d gone through. What? Like I was hoping he’d come rushing back, saying “I understand! It’s all okay!” ????

  Of course he wasn’t going to understand—and I couldn’t explain it to him. He was just going to be pissed.

  Fuck.

  I went back to my parents.

  “Nice looking boy,” said my mother.

  “Is he? I hadn’t noticed.” What a lie.

  “Where’d you find him?” asked my dad. “Wouldn’t last two minutes in my office. Not very bright, that one.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said. Another lie. “But he means well.” Ha! Maybe the biggest lie. I never met anyone as malevolent as Theo McPherson.

  “I thought he was nice,” said my mother. “I think you should hang on to him.”

  “Don’t think I can, Mama. Don’t see how I can.”

  Finally, a bit of truth.

  Chapter 34

  …and into the Streets!

  Theo

  I was back in his office, in his chair, with my feet—in my beautiful new shoes—on his desk, flipping through the Internet, waiting for Jeff to come in.

  I had gone to the restaurant the night before to thank him for the shoes—and when I got home from the restaurant, I had been this close to shoving these lovely shoes down the trash chute. Thing was, I had already shoved the old shoes down the trash chute, and I wasn’t going barefoot, not even to spite what’s-his-face.

  In my fury, I’d spent half the night looking out the window at Rebecca’s street, alternating between contemplating just how much I hated Jeff Bornic; kicking myself for wasting my time hating Jeff Bornic; and trying to figure out what that had been about, that ridiculous thing with his parents. Then it suddenly seemed so obvious what it had been about, that I felt positively dim-witted.

  I was also really glad I hadn’t thrown my beautiful new shoes away.