by Lucy Kevin
“Look, I’m going to have to keep the job until they find someone new.” But then, feeling sort of bad about the whole thing, I added, “But thanks for calling, Mom.”
I put the phone on the coffee table and lay back against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling, wishing it was easier to make everyone happy.
Especially myself.
*
The next day, while I was sitting in the back room with Sandy and the other girls before our shift began, Dillon came back to pick up a stack of towels. The room went silent as he walked in. Everyone ogled him. He turned to leave, but just as he got to the door, he turned back around and winked at me.
As he disappeared into the bar, one of the girls said, “Isn’t Dillon hot? I bet he’s great in bed.”
The other girls nodded in fervent agreement.
Per my awful habit of saying too much, too soon, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Maybe one of us should make it a point to find out.”
They all stopped smoking for a minute and looked at me. Really stared at me. Finally, after everyone left the room, Sandy and I remained behind. She looked genuinely upset.
“Georgia, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go after Dillon.”
“Really? Why not?”
“I know him pretty well. We’ve worked together for a couple of years and I think that either you’re going to break his heart, or he’s going to break your heart.”
I stood up and brushed out my uniform. “What makes you say that?” I was trying to act like it didn’t really matter either way, but the truth was that suddenly it did matter. In a far wimpier voice than I intended, I said, “But I kind of thought that he was acting like he had a thing for me. Don’t you think?”
“Honey, I’m sure he does,” she said in a very warm and maternal way. (Well not maternal by my mother’s standards, but you know what I mean.) “But apart from the fact that he’s already engaged to someone else, can’t you see you’re not good for each other?”
I cocked my head to one side in silent question.
She took a final drag of her cigarette and then threw it to the ground and crushed it out with her heel. “I don’t know you very well Georgia, but I can tell you come from a different world than the rest of us here.”
I immediately took this to mean that I wasn’t cool enough, or sexy enough, or just plain enough, and all of a sudden, instead of sexy Georgia Fulton, flitting about the bar in my short shirt and tight top, I was back in high school, feeling geeky and left out and pathetic.
Now I’m not sure if I’ve made it clear to you just how little I fit in with the Harborside locals. For the most part, as I had quickly figured out, people who live on the beach and work at the casinos, are either coked out, boozed up, or doing so much pot that they stumble around in a daze all day.
People came to Harborside to surf for a season and ended up there for decades, still in a crappy apartment with barely enough money to keep up their two big habits — drugs and the water. In a way Harborside was more like a homeless shelter than a city. If you had nowhere else to go, the town would take you in, give you enough money to live and surround you with people just like you who will be your surrogate family.
Right off that bat I realized that if I wanted to fit in, I needed to talk the talk and walk the walk by seeming a whole lot dumber than I actually was.
No wonder why my mother didn’t want me working there. Honestly, I wouldn’t want me working there either if I were her.
My face started heating up, which Sandy must have seen, because she waved her hands in front of her as if to clear the air and cool me down.
“Honey, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. You’re a doll. I just want you to know that Dillon is used to hanging out with a certain kind of crowd.”
Curiosity got a hold of me, which quite effectively launched me back from high school into the present. “What kind of crowd?”
Sandy looked longingly at her box of cigarettes. “I don’t think you’d like them much at all.”
I was disappointed that she had totally sidestepped my question, but since I could see how uncomfortable the conversation was making her, I tried to gracefully let it go.
Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to say to any of her advice, but all of sudden I was flashing back to what Seth had said that morning about not catching any diseases.
She took in my silence, knowing damn well what it meant, but I could tell she wasn’t judging me. Sandy wasn’t like that.
“You’re not going to listen to me are you? You’re not going to keep your distance.” The last bit was said as a statement, not a question.
I didn’t want to lie to her, so I shook my head. “I can’t, Sandy,” I said. “I don’t why, but I just can’t.” Even though a part of me really wished that I could.
But something in me wanted, desperately, to see how the story was going to turn out. Even if she was right about Dillon and me, even if we were as well matched as a lion and a lamb, he was something I had to experience for myself.
“That’s too bad,” she said as she reached for the door. “I really like both of you.”
I stood alone in the back room, mulling over what she had said. How could she be so sure that Dillon and I were going to break each other’s hearts?
Right then and there I decided to be mature about it: We were just going to have a simple fling.
I was simply going to flex my new hot-babe muscles and then call it a day after sampling the merchandise.
It didn’t need to be some big romance. Nothing wrong with another notch on my headboard, right? Men did it all the time.
Suddenly, the feminist in me popped to the forefront and starting ranting about how a woman’s right to her own sexuality is vital, and how sexual exploration is healthy, and so on.
I’d been to enough Take Back The Night rallies on campus to know a thing or two about how the issue of women and sex was all fucked up. About how men had created a patriarchy to make us feel guilty about owning our clits, while at the same time expecting us to submit to their every whim.
My brain started spinning and it wasn’t the most pleasant sensation, so I pushed my musings way into the back again.
For the next couple of days, Dillon was almost effusive with me. No one would ever call him a chatterbox, but we managed to talk here and there while he made my customer’s drinks. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him as a person. I was a little surprised by this. I had thought my attraction to him was surface only, but once I started getting beneath his surface, I was starting to wonder if buried underneath his grungy façade was a guy I could actually relate to.
Dillon was cocky, and a daredevil — like he thought he was immune to ever getting hurt. I heard that sometimes he went kayaking alone in the middle of night when the wind was up. And of course, although people didn’t come right out and say it, I caught wind that there might be some pretty heavy drug activity as well. Not that I was going to judge him without finding out the truth however.
The more he opened up to me from behind the bar, I started to see more and more about him that was funny, and sweet and insecure. I was letting myself fall for Dillon.
No matter the consequences, I was a slave to my heart.
*
I rattled off my drink order for the large party in the back room and Dillon said, “You’re getting pretty good at this.” He lined up glasses and started filling them.
“Thanks.” I was pleased he had noticed my cocktail waitressing acumen. Ready to know more about him, I blurted out, “So, tell me. What’s your big dream?”
He didn’t look up at me, but the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “Getting a little personal now, aren’t you?”
Maybe I should have backed off, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he liked where I was going. “Well, since I’m guessing you don’t plan on working here forever…” We both looked up at Kirk on the other side of the bar.
Dill
on laughed softly, but not unkindly. Opening his mouth, and then shutting it, he looked up at me as if he was trying to figure out whether or not he could trust me. I guess he decided I was on his team, because he finally said, “Actually, I’m planning on going to film school.”
“Wow. That’s awesome.” I was really impressed. He was sexy. He was artistic. And best of all, he was into me.
I was in heaven.
He un-corked a bottle of Merlot. “I was gonna go last year, but my girlfriend…” Mid-sentence he stopped talking and I realized he was finished with my drink order and one of the other waitresses was waiting for hers.
Immensely frustrated that we had been interrupted at such a crucial point in out conversation, I loaded the drinks onto my tray and headed over to the table to deliver them, all the while wondering when the hell I was going to be able to get Dillon to open up again like that.
The rest of the night, I went out of my way to make it perfectly clear to Dillon that my interest in him had changed from purely platonic to something so much more. I upped my flirting to amazing new highs. I made sassy comments about the customers in the bar. I let my fingers gently rub against his as I took my orders off of the bar.
And in his own quiet way, he did the same. I’m not sure how I managed to get drink orders taken and delivered, given that I was totally focused on everything that Dillon said and did each time I went to the bar. Ya know how you’re driving and your mind is working on a problem, and then when you finally get to your destination you can’t remember any of the trip?
It was just like that.
We both worked until closing, and after calculating my take I went into the back room to change out of my uniform. Sandy and I were the only servers left by then. Saturday night was, after all, not a particularly popular shift if you wanted to have a social life. She was all packed up and ready to leave, but was sitting on a stool smoking a cigarette, clearly waiting to talk to me.
“Looking forward to your day off?”
I was uncomfortable with the additional advice I thought might be headed my way and was desperate to stave it off with small talk. But she would have none of that.
“Be easy on him Georgia.”
I stopped halfway through taking off my left shoe, and looked at her with my mouth hanging slightly agape.
She blew out a ring of smoke. “I’m not blind, you know.” She picked up her bag and headed for the door. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
I grunted something that I hoped would pass as a response. She was a hell of a lot more sure than I was that something was going to happen between me and Dillon. Not only had he not even asked me out yet, but he hadn’t even hinted at the possibility of being alone together. Besides, shouldn’t she be worried about him being easy on me and not the other way around? I was the innocent one, wasn’t I?
I wasn’t surprised to see him waiting for me by the front door when I stepped out of the backroom.
“I’m closing up tonight. You got everything?”
I nodded and stepped out into the cool night air and he locked the doors. Alone in the parking lot, we became really coy with each other all of a sudden. Not because he was engaged and was suddenly getting a conscience and not because I knew he was engaged and was suddenly getting a conscience.
It was simply that neither one of us knew the right move to make next.
What do you say to the person you’re falling for? Do you reach for them or do you wait for them to reach for you?
“So, Georgia,” he said, looking more nervous than I had ever seen him. “You want to go for a walk or something?”
It felt a little bit like déjà vu from earlier in the week with Max, but I shook off that sensation. I told myself that if I was ever going to experience true love, I needed to stop being so afraid of fucking up all the time, so I forced the memory of Max and Steve and Lola and Kyle out of my head. Hopefully being with Dillon would forever purge them from my mind and heart.
I nodded. “Sure. I’ve got about an hour before I need to head over to the radio station.”
I was trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing, but my heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest.
We walked side by side for several minutes in silence. But given that I’m a talker by nature, I couldn’t help myself from asking the very question I should be leaving alone. “So, you’ve got a fiancée right?”
He glanced up at me from underneath his absurdly long lashes. Why do men always get the perfect lashes, whereas I always have to curl mine and they still never look just right?
Anyway, Dillon said, “Yeah,” and then tried to act like there was nothing left to say.
But I wasn’t going for it. “I take it things aren’t going that great with her?”
He sort of half-smiled, I’m assuming at my immense and unflagging nerve.
Or maybe he was just wishing I would shut up.
“We’ve been together for, like, ten years. And we’ve been engaged for five. We’ve been talking about splitting up.”
“You have?”
I didn’t want to sound too overjoyed about his impending break-up. But I was. Completely over-fucking-joyed.
“Yeah.”
No doubt about it, Dillon was a man of few words. But at least he didn’t call me baby every three seconds.
In any case, I was willing to let him get away with his crappy answer, because I felt like I already knew everything I needed to know. He and his honey were breaking up, so it was perfectly alright for me to swoop in and pick him up before anyone else got her hands on him.
Out on the beach, in front of the Taco Stand which had shut down for the night, he grabbed me and we went for each other like starved dogs. His kisses were pretty hot. No, scratch that. They were really hot. I felt his erection pressing against my stomach and felt satisfaction well up inside of me.
Georgia Fulton was a wanted woman, thank you very much.
But as we were groping each other, I felt something funny on the inside of his arm.
I ran my fingers from the inside of his elbow to halfway down his wrist. “What are these from?”
He had a whole bunch of little marks puckered up on his skin, and they were just slightly red.
He said, “It doesn’t matter,” and as he bent down and licked the corner of my mouth, where my upper and lower lips connected, I let it slide. But I was bound and determined to find out what was wrong with his skin.
After all, if I was going to be his new girlfriend, he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed about a weird skin condition.
*
That night I scrapped my original idea for my show–What Are The Worst Pick-up Lines You’ve Ever Heard?–and went with the question that had been dogging my heels for the past couple of days.
“Good evening and welcome to Seattle Girl with Georgia Fulton. As always, us girls may be talkin’ trash, but we always wanna know what’s on the mind of all you boys out there, so call in, one and all, and we’ll have a nice little chat.”
“For tonight, my question is this: Have any of you ever been the other woman? And what if the guy you’re seeing says he and his wife, fiancée, or even girlfriend, are on the verge of breaking up? Does that make it easier?”
The phone lines immediately lit up. “Looks like this is a popular topic. Our phone lines are jammed! Let’s see, who have we got on Line 1?”
“Hey Georgia, my name’s Julie and you’ve really touched a nerve with this one.”
“Hi Julie. Thanks for being a part of Seattle Girl. So, talk to me about your raw nerves.”
“I had been dating this guy for, like, five years. We were talking about getting married and buying a house together. And then one day, I get this phone call from some girl who says she’s looking for my boyfriend. Turns out he told her I was just his roommate.”
“Scum,” I said.
“No kidding. Anyway, even when I told her that he was already taken, she didn’t seem to care. She said something like, ‘W
ell, he sure doesn’t seem taken to me,’ and then hung up on me.”
“Did you confront him?”
I could hear her sigh into the phone. “This is going to sound sort of sad, but I didn’t, not at first anyway. I guess I was hoping there was some sort of mix up. You know, like the girl called the wrong house and our boyfriends both happened to have the same name.”
“Are you still with him?”
She snorted. “No way. We were out to dinner one night and his girlfriend, who I’m guessing had enough of his bullshit too, totally confronted him about being such a two-timing, lying bastard.”
“Wow. That must have been intense.”
“It was. But you know the funny thing was if it hadn’t been for his girlfriend spying on us and getting in his face, I’d probably still be with the bastard. Pretty sick huh?”
“Yeah, pretty sick,” I said, but really I was thinking about myself.
I mean, what the hell was I even thinking about getting involved with someone with a fiancée?
To put it bluntly, what kind of skank does something like that?
And was I destined to be the stalker girl in the restaurant?
*
Over what was becoming a regular morning meeting for my roller-coaster love-life updates, I filled Diane and Seth in on what had happened with Dillon the previous evening after work, while trying to keep my mind off of my disturbing on-air conversation.
“And then all of a sudden we were totally making out. I swear to god, when I told Sandy and the other girls at work I was going to have him, I was like, ‘Oh shit, what have I just gotten myself into? What if he’s not even interested?’ I hadn’t expected it to happen so fast, you know?”
“Sounds like he was pretty damn interested to me,” Seth said. “And it sure looks like our little Georgia Fulton knows how to work her thang!”
Feeling immensely cocky, I said, “If people could only see what a sex goddess I’ve become, they would be so impressed. I am no longer the girl who hid behind her glasses in high school. I am no longer the girl who barely managed to get asked to the prom by a geek in her math class. Take a look at a woman who sees what she wants and then pounces on it, devouring it whole.”