by Strong, Mimi
I knocked on his door. “Charlie T—. Um. Charlie?” Nice. I’d almost called him Charlie Two.
His voice muffled by the door, he replied, “Did I leave a burrito in the microwave again? Sorry.”
“No, I was wondering if you wanted to have a drink and talk about your day. I got that beer you mentioned, and one called Headless Horseman.”
He opened the door. “Headless Horseman?”
“I’m a girl. I just buy the kind with a cute label. I think it’s pumpkin.”
He came out of the room slowly. “Are you kicking me out?” he asked warily. “Got some new boyfriend moving in?”
“I told you. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He looked over at the two six-packs of beer on the coffee table, then back at me, and I swear a little light went on in his eyes.
Charlie Two thought I was trying to get him drunk and take advantage of him. He had shaved recently, and he wore a corduroy button-down shirt that bulked up his skinny frame just a bit, and for an instant, I had to wonder if subconsciously that had been my intention. Two six-packs?
We took a seat on the couch. I turned on the TV, changed it to the cooking channel, and turned the sound down.
He pulled an enormous set of keys and tools from his pocket and used the beer opener to open two bottles. He left mine on the coffee table rather than handing it to me, and tipped his back, draining half the beer.
I grabbed my bottle and took a sip. I don’t like beer, and this flavor was no exception. At least I wouldn’t overindulge, like I had with the champagne, that night at The Cedars.
“You sighed,” he said. “What were you thinking about?”
“A swimming lesson.”
He grinned. “Must have been a good one.”
“Where did you say you lived before?”
“Around. Here and there.” He finished the beer and opened another one. “Usually with roommates. I don’t like to be alone.” He glanced over at me. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“That’s a sweet flatscreen. It’s high-def?”
“My big splurge, from Christmas. I watch a lot of dancing and study the choreography. It’s almost paid off.”
“Not bad.”
“Christmas before last.”
He winced. “Ouch. C’est la Vie.” He waved his second bottle over to mine and crossed the necks, like swords in a joust. “A toast. To our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet.”
I giggled. Charlie Two made a joke?
“What’s your toast?” he asked.
In all seriousness, I said, “Cheers, big ears,” and clinked the bottle necks again.
We drank some more, and the beer started to taste better by the third one.
He still wasn’t opening up to me with any details about his life, and now the curiosity was driving me crazy.
Two hours, several bottles of beer, and one pepperoni pizza into our evening, I finally offered him a deal. “You tell me about your last girlfriend, and I’ll cuddle in for a photo of us together that you can upload for your forum profile.”
“No way. That would be awesome.”
My words slurring, I said, “You bet yer fuckin’ ass.”
“You’re pretty drunk, aren’t you?”
“Yesh-I-am. Yesh. Yessssh. So you tell me now about your girlfriend whatshername and I’ll forget tomorrow.”
Staring ahead at the chefs on the TV screen, Charlie Two told me his sad story, about dating the receptionist at his office for six months, only to find out she was sleeping with everyone there but him.
“Not everyone,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Impossible.”
“Two other guys.”
I put my hand on his leg. “I am so sorry. I feel terrible. I’m going to your office tomorrow and I’m going to slap that bitch until my hand gets sore.”
He winced. “She’s not that bad.”
“Fine. I’ll just take her purse, and I’ll put it in the microwave and melt all her makeup. That slut! She can’t treat you like that.”
He took off his glasses and stared into my eyes.
I started to get the warning tingle that he was going to try to kiss me. I started to turn my face away, presenting him with only cheek, but I was too late, and his lips landed partly on my mouth.
For such a skinny guy, he had surprisingly full lips.
I started to get a feeling. Not a sexual feeling, exactly, but a curious feeling.
What would it be like to kiss a guy I wasn’t attracted to? Would it feel like kissing my hand? How much of kissing was about the lips, and how much of it was about your brain, and knowing who you were kissing?
I kissed him back. For several minutes.
This experiment felt a bit like an intrusive version of an optometrist exam—where the eye doctor leans in so close to your face that you can feel the breath coming out of his nostrils straight onto your cheeks.
Charlie Two had nice lips, but his tongue felt cool, like a piece of steak straight from the refrigerator. And he just stuck it straight into my mouth and back again, like a lizard trying to get Nutella out of a jar.
As we were kissing, his hand moved across the short distance between our bodies and landed, palm-down, on my breast.
I pulled back quickly, gasping.
He turned back to face the TV, picked up the remote control, and turned up the volume.
Without a word, I angled my body away from his and rested my arm on the armrest.
We watched the rest of the show, and then the next one, without speaking.
Finally, he broke the silence. “Sorry about that,” he said. “My bad.”
“At least it’s out of the way,” I said.
“Totally. You want another beer?”
“Thanks, but no. Help yourself.” I stood and stretched. “I’m actually ready for sleep.”
“Do you mind if I stay up for a bit and watch this?”
“Of course not. It’s your TV, too, as long as you’re paying rent.”
“Right. Hey, sorry, I haven’t gotten you that stuff yet. I still have to get checks from my bank. I’ll get right on it.”
“Okay. Um. Good night.” I made my way to the bathroom to get ready for bed, steadying myself with my hands on the walls as I went.
~
The next morning, I was sitting in the office at work with my head in my hands when Gloria came in.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked.
A half-empty bottle of blue-hued sports drink sat on the desk in front of me, next to a bottle of Tylenol.
“Not really. I’d like to wipe last night from my own mind, not talk about it.” I took a few gulps of the blue drink. Wiping my mouth, I looked down at the worn surface of the desk and began to confess, despite saying I wouldn’t. “Having a guy as my roommate isn’t going to work out after all. He’s barely been there a week, and we kinda made out last night. His tongue was all meaty and weird, like a corn dog. The worst part is, he’d probably make a good boyfriend. I think he’d be loyal and sweet, and faithful, but Gloria, I don’t want to marry Charlie Two and have his little nearsighted babies. Not that there’s anything wrong with people needing glasses, but every time I think about him now, I imagine these small versions of him coming out of my vagina and then following me around like little minions, and that’s weird, right?”
Gloria stood still, one impeccable eyebrow arched high.
I kept going with the awkward rambling. “Do you think those women who are still single in their thirties have something wrong with them, or are they just too picky? What if I’m one of those women? Do you think I’m difficult? You always joke around about my serial killer apartment that’s too orderly, but do you think maybe I’m sick in the head because of how I was raised, and now I’m doomed to reject every guy before he rejects me? Do you think it would be okay to marry someone who wasn’t very good at kissing, and just get him to do other stuff, instead? Not at the wedding, of course. Well, closed-mo
uth kissing would be okay.”
Gloria pulled up a chair and took a seat across the desk from me. “You kissed your nerdy roommate? Damn. That means I owe Teena ten bucks.”
“You guys made a bet on me? That’s not funny.”
“Teena washes her armpits with salad dressing, and you kissed a guy you describe as a neutered hamster. C’mon. You have to laugh. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is the show, right here, and it’s a comedy, girlfriend.”
I frowned at my blue drink. “He’s got to move out. How about you move in and sublet your new place to him? I can’t throw him out on the street.”
“Skye, I love you.”
“But?”
“I love you, and I like you, but I can’t live with you.”
She didn’t offer any further explanation, and I was grateful for that. My hungover ego couldn’t take a detailed listing of my character flaws.
“Gloria, when you came in here, you knew I did something bad. How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I came in here because I got a call about the car, from some insurance investigator guy.”
“Who?”
“I wrote his number down, back in the admin office. He said that a white Toyota Tercel had been in a minor accident in a parking lot and left the scene, and he was trying to track down the owner to get a statement. I know it wasn’t me, because he said it was a white girl driving, plus I would remember something like that.”
“I wouldn’t leave an accident. Especially since the car’s in your name. I would never.”
She looked down, blinking rapidly. Her voice husky, she said, “I should have known that. I’m sorry I even thought it was you. I’m a bad friend. I shouldn’t have made that bet with Teena. That was just mean.”
“Yes, you’re in deep trouble.” A smile on my lips lightened the weight I’d been feeling on my shoulders. “And you’ll make up for it by taking my roommate out for a date to take his mind off me.”
“That investigator really made me think it was you. He said the driver had great legs. A dancer’s legs.”
I rubbed my chin, my dehydrated brain trying to make sense of the clues. Gloria had been thinking about selling her car a year earlier to save money, and I’d been thinking about getting into a car co-op, so we’d started sharing. She wouldn’t share an apartment with me, but the car thing had been working out well enough.
“Gloria, I drove the car over to The Cedars that day. You don’t think it was that guy, Cute Charlie, looking for me, do you?”
“That’s not something regular people do.” She reached over and pulled the pen I’d been chewing out of my mouth and returned it to the jar. “You need to find out more about this guy. How long has it been since he rocked your world? A month?”
“Too long,” I sighed.
“If he hired someone to look for you, he’s not a regular person. That sounds like something rich people do.”
I snorted. “The Cedars might pay better than the community center, but I’m sure their maintenance workers aren’t rich.”
“You said he was a problem solver, though. So, I’m thinking maybe he’s management.”
“No way. He’s young. Like my age.”
Gloria grimaced. “That’s not too young. If he’s from a well-to-do family, and he’s good looking, they’d promote him right up there.”
“He has a tattoo on his arm. Rich people don’t get tattoos.”
“Is that a fact? And you’re an expert on rich people?”
“Yes. Rich people don’t get tattoos, because they’re classier than that. They think they’re entitled to the best of everything, and if something costs more, it must be better. Rich people suck, and they suck hard, except for when they’re still little kids. When they’re young, they think everyone is equal.”
“Someone hurt you real bad, didn’t he?”
I scowled and wrung my hands, resisting the urge to chew my fingernails. “I could never, ever like a rich guy. I’d rather marry my roommate and have his hamster babies.”
“That’s what’s going to happen if you keep living with him.”
“I’m broke. I have no choice.”
Gloria stood up and headed toward the door. “There’s always a choice somewhere. You just have to be willing to bend.”
“Bend? You mean break.”
Shaking her head, Gloria walked out the door.
~
The girls arrived at three-thirty for class, drinking their juice boxes and hurriedly eating their after-school snacks.
I didn’t get to visit with them before class, because the center had cut back on janitorial hours, and I had to sweep up all the dirt left behind by the low-impact aerobics class.
Bianca’s mother rushed over to help me, pushing the second floor-cleaner along behind me.
Mrs. Winfield and the other rich mothers glanced around, looking disgusted and also worried someone might ask them to help clean something.
Most of the parents stuck around until class began, then left to pick up groceries or run errands until it was time to pick the kids up again. Bianca’s mother often stayed straight through, using a needle and thread to mend the holes in a seemingly endless supply of white sports socks—supplied by her daughter and two teenaged sons.
“How are things going?” I asked, thinking of how Bianca had mentioned her mother losing her job.
“Fine, thank you,” she said, smiling with her mouth, but not her eyes.
“We’re probably losing Adele and some of the other girls in the fall, but we’ll be fine.”
She kept sweeping, her eyes down. Across the gymnasium, Adele and Bianca were holding their hands in a swing formation and giving the other girls rides.
I explained, “What I mean by that is I’m going to cover Bianca’s tuition myself. There will be no change for her. She’ll keep coming, but maybe on a different night if we merge two age groups.”
Bianca’s mother shook her head. “We can’t accept that.”
“I don’t want to lose Bianca.”
“You worry about your business, I’ll worry about mine.”
After all my efforts, it came down to this? Pride?
I looked down at the dirt being swept along in front of me. Everything was being taken away from me again. My favorite students. My security. My life. It was happening all over again.
~
I taught the class, and the girls worked hard, which made me push myself.
I landed hard after a turn, and pain shot through my knee and up my hip. I crumbled to the floor, my palms slapping the thickly-coated wood that always felt to me like plastic, slightly sticky. I hated touching that floor with my hands. I hated falling.
Two of the girls helped me up, and I finished the class early, limping on my good leg.
“This is why we always do a good warmup,” I told the girls. “I hurt myself once, dancing on a night I didn’t stretch properly, didn’t take my time.” And also because a jealous redhead named Cherry Pie tripped me out of jealousy. “I hurt myself, and now it’s like a crease in a piece of paper. Always there. Easy to fold again.”
I looked up from my leg, which I’d been rubbing through my tights, and saw that I’d scared the girls.
“But I’ll heal up again,” I said. “With a healthy diet, including all the good foods.”
“You can eat kale,” Adele said. “I had a kale smoothie at The Cedars.” She turned to Bianca and said, “You know, they’re actually really nice there. Once you get to know them.”
I clapped my hands. “Chop chop, ladies! Let’s get cleaned up. I’m not paying you all overtime.”
After they’d all run off with their parents, I took a shortcut back to the office by cutting through the outside courtyard.
The homeless man who keeps his shopping cart under the back stairs was there, searching through the trash can. I wasn’t in the mood to get yelled at, but luckily he was in a good mood. I didn’t know his name, because he wouldn’t tell anyone, but we all called him O
scar, on account of his usual grouchiness.
“You’re limping,” he said to me, his voice like gravel in a tin bucket.
“Hurt myself dancing.”
He whistled. “And I thought I had problems.” Oscar cackled at his joke, revealing his yellowed, pointy teeth.
“You got me.” I dug into my coat and found some change to hand him.
As I limped my way back to the office to get my purse, I thought about how I was the rich person, compared to Oscar. He never seemed ashamed to take my money. The guy had this funny confidence about him—as if he had a gift to give the world, even if his gift was just sarcastic observations—and he’d earned whatever he got.
I got back to my desk and flicked on the computer monitor.
A new idea was forming.
The idea scared me.
Why not do what Oscar did? Why not put my hand out and ask?
Chapter 11
Charlie
I had tempted fate.
That was the only explanation.
I’d lied to a beautiful stranger, Skye, and now I was being punished.
Everything went wrong on the last day of April, from a computer server failure in the payroll department to someone flooding the staff break room kitchen by putting liquid soap in the dishwasher. I knew it was fate, and not just random headaches, when I got the third problem call of the morning: someone’s kid had thrown approximately two hundred coins into the pool. At the deep end.
Fate had teamed up with my father, and things would only get worse.
As I got changed into my swimming trunks, I grew more and more certain my father was behind this new emergency. The night of the Open House, he hadn’t believed me that I was naked in the pool that night to retrieve coins, and this was his subtle way of letting me know that he knew.
Some people would have had a conversation. Talked about it. Not my father. Where I choose to attack problems head on, he sneaks around the side.
I dove into the still water and swam one lap to loosen up before diving for the coins. Once I’d collected them all, I’d need to return them to their rightful owner, of course. I could dump all the pennies and nickels into his car, through the sunroof he always left open.