by Dalya Moon
While you might expect me to be upset about this new development, I was actually pleased. Dinner had turned out well enough and it seemed Marc and my dad loved each other. What girl doesn't want her guy to get along with her family like that?
Marc wasn't technically my guy yet, but I figured it was only a matter of time. I ran up to my room to call Courtney with a quick update, then took the socks out of my bra in anticipation of second-base action. My dress top looked empty, so I did a complete outfit change, jumping into a pair of yellow jeans and a flattering shirt with a draped neckline. The outfit said I'm casual; I'm authentic; would you like to put your hands on my waist and kiss me?
Someone knocked on my door. My heart danced as I opened the door to find Marc. “Welcome to my boudoir,” I said, waving him in.
He remained just outside the perimeter of the room, surveying the pale pink walls. “I'm probably not allowed in your room.”
“You can come in, as long as we leave the door open.”
“I have pickles in my car.”
“You didn't get enough dinner?”
He smiled and kept looking around my bedroom, like he was searching for clues at a crime scene. “Pickles. She's my dog. She's a little Shih Tzu.”
“You should have brought her in!”
“She's little, but she's tough on hardwood floors when she hasn't had her nails trimmed.” He took one step in and poked at the decorated piece of driftwood I had on the wall just inside the door. It was a talking stick, a gag gift from one of my parents' vacations, when they used to go on exotic trips together. The instruction card reads that only (s)he who holds the stick may speak.
Also adorning my walls were three shadow boxes, containing the Forgotten Creatures I made back in art class, using only discarded objects. Their stuffed bodies were made from socks and other articles of clothing from the Lost'n'Found at school, and their faces were made from things I found on the beach and sidewalks, plus metal and plastic parts from a bunch of old kids' toys my mother found in the back yard while gardening.
My brother Garnet had really loved the Forgotten Creature I made with a red sock and sea glass eyes, so I gave it to him for Christmas last year, leaving me with just three on my wall, which was a more pleasing number for composition.
Besides the pale pink paint, I thought my space looked pretty cool and not like a little girl's room. Over the head of my four-poster bed was a circular wreath made of fallen tree branches.
“Is my room how you pictured it?” I asked.
He let out a short laugh that was half-cough. “I don't think I have pictured your room, but now that I see you here, with your family, things make a little more sense.”
“What do you mean sense? You don't even know me, except as your waitress. You've barely asked me anything about myself. All you have to go on is my appearance.”
He leaned against the door frame. “You don't know much about me either.”
“What's your favorite color?” I asked.
“Not green.”
The way he said it, I felt like I'd just been slapped. He'd come to my house, eaten my food, monopolized my father, and then insulted me.
“That's mean,” I said.
He smacked his forehead. “Oh, right, Peridot is green. I didn't mean you. I don't know why I said that.”
I took a big breath and let out an enormous sigh.
“Green's okay,” he said, then he yawned.
Yawning was not a good sign. There would be no second-base action that night. “I guess I should walk you out,” I said.
“Do you want to come say hi to Pickles?”
I grabbed a warm hoodie from my closet. “Sure, why not.”
Chapter 11
Pickles was adorable. She had that little underbite most Shih Tzus have, soft brown ears, and a cream-colored body. When Marc picked her up out of the back of his hatchback, she snorted excitedly and licked his face. He petted her vigorously and said sweet nothings to her, which I'll spare you the verbatim description of. I wished he'd pat my head and talk to me that same sick-sweet way. I'd wag my tail.
“Do you want to take her to the park?” I offered. “There's one a block away. It's not an off-leash, technically, but you can let her run around and people don't mind.”
“Sure,” he said. “Unless I'm keeping you from something else.”
“No, Marc, I invited you over to my house for a date, but secretly I'd rather be doing laundry.”
He clipped the leash onto Pickles' collar. “Oh.”
“Though I guess it wasn't much of a date, was it? You came over to pick my dad's brain for career advice, which was, after all, what I offered you. Never mind.”
We walked together along the sidewalk, toward the park. The sun had set already, and the night was chilly.
Sneaking a quick glance at me, he said, “I'm not very good at this.”
“You think?”
When he didn't respond, I started to feel terrible. How had things gone so terribly wrong? He'd been so sweet and relaxed on Monday after catching me in his arms, and by Tuesday night, he was back to being Crossword Guy again, quiet and simmering with something unknowable.
“I really liked the flowers,” I said. “I guess having dinner with my family was a lot of pressure for a first date.”
We got to the park, where Pickles snorted and cavorted in the damp grass.
“Sometimes it feels like spring will never come,” Marc said.
“And it'll be dark forever.”
We sat on a park bench and watched Pickles sniff for treasures.
Marc said, “I just got out of a long-term relationship, and I haven't been myself. I don't think I'm ready for dating.”
“We'll start with being friends,” I said. “If green's not your favorite color, what is?”
“Sometimes I say the opposite of what I really think. I actually do like green, a lot. I almost wore a green shirt tonight, but I didn't want you to think I was sucking up.”
“Wait, you say the opposite of what you think?”
“Sometimes.”
I tried to imagine what that would be like, but couldn't. “I always say what I think, sometimes even before I think it.”
He made a laugh that sounded like heh.
I didn't feel cold, not really, but my body was on the verge of shivering. However, I didn't want to get up and leave the park bench, ending the night, so I tensed my muscles to create some warmth and tucked my hands in my kangaroo pocket.
I asked Marc some more questions, more personal than favorite colors, and he opened up a bit, telling me about growing up in a small town in Alberta, and how he missed his parents since he'd moved to Vancouver for school. He did not, however, miss the rednecks, the country music, and small-town life, where everybody was into everybody else's business.
Pickles came to our feet and put her front paws up on Marc's legs until he picked her up and held her on his lap. “You're Daddy's lap dog tonight. A-wubba-wubba-wubbs.”
“Have you had her for long?” I petted her wagging back end while she tried to lick my hands. “What made you pick this one?”
“She picked me. I found her behind my apartment building last year, bone-skinny and filthy. I thought she was dark brown, not this pretty light cream.” He leaned down and kissed her ears.
“She was a stray? Did you put up posters and stuff?”
“First I gave her a bath and a big bowl of food, then I took her to the pound, where they checked her for a microchip, but she didn't have one. They said I could leave her there, but I couldn't. I took her back to my place. Nobody claimed her.” He grabbed her ears and waved them around like propellers. “Wubba-wubba. And that's when Daddy's troubles started.”
“How? Did she chew on all your furniture?”
“Nah, just got me evicted. No dogs allowed in my apartment. That's why Pickles and I live in our happy shithole!”
“Your what?”
“I shouldn't say that. It smells a lot better now. W
e live in a basement suite below Cooper, my friend that you met. We love Cooper, but he's a very loud walker, isn't he, Pickles? And he stays up too late.”
“I'm sure your dog appreciates the sacrifices you've made for her.”
“She sure does.” Pickles was getting a little bitey, so he set her back down on the grass to nose around for good smells. “She shows her appreciation by farting in my face.”
“My best friend Courtney does the same thing.”
Marc laughed loud enough for other people out walking their dogs in the park to stop and stare our way.
This could be our life, I thought. We could take Pickles for walks in this park every night. I wasn't happy, exactly, but I was content. If only he would hold my hand or kiss me, I'd be happy.
He said, “Those dolls up in your room were odd.”
“My Forgotten Creatures?”
“Yeah, the little nightmare teddy bears.”
“You should have come into my room and gotten a better look.”
“Right,” he said. “I just had dinner with your father. I wasn't going to barge into his little girl's pink, frilly bedroom.”
“My room's not frilly.”
“No, you have those demons on your wall,” he teased.
I laughed. “They're sort of an ongoing project, but I haven't made one in a while. Whenever I'm out, if I see an interesting washer or kids' toy, I'll pick it up and put it in my pocket to make eyes or teeth or something.”
“I collected some stuff as a kid,” he said.
“Like animal bones? I found a whole dead bird once, it was pretty cool.”
He laughed uncomfortably, his eyebrows tenting up at in a triangle. “No animal bones. Just, like, unusual beer caps.”
“I could work with those.”
“We have something in common!” He held his hand toward me and I realized—too late—he was holding an imaginary glass for me to clink, but I was already attempting to give him a high-five, wrapping my hand around his and shaking it.
“Friends,” he said, and it sounded more like a statement than a question.
“Totes,” I said.
He yawned and raised his arms over his head, then rested one arm down on the back of the bench, behind me.
He said, “That wine I had at dinner is making me feel like kissing you.”
That did not sound like something a friend would say to another friend.
Pickles barked, and a second later, Marc stood and shook out his legs. “Best be getting home or Pickles will miss her bedtime,” he said.
That was it? What a tease.
“See you around,” I said, waving.
“Come on, I'll walk you back to your front door.”
“That's okay. I'll sit here for a bit, with my thoughts. I'm feeling introspective right now.”
“You're sure?”
“It's a block. I'm a big girl now and I know my way home.”
“Thanks again for dinner, buddy,” he said, walking away with his dog.
I sat on the bench for a long time, growing cold enough to shiver.
Marc liked me, but as a friend, or so he said. Wasn't that something girls were supposed to do to guys? Put them in the so-called friend zone? Since when did guys do that to girls?
I bet most guys think a girl can get a boyfriend any time she wants, just by virtue of being a girl. But what about the homely girls, like me? Yes, as I sat there shivering on the bench, I'd gone from believing I was a seven out of ten to thinking of myself as homely. I usually had a decent sense of my own attractiveness, but I was starting to have doubts.
If everyone thinks they're above-average attractive, then where are all the below-average people? Statistics don't allow everyone to be in the upper half.
I must be ugly and not know it, I decided.
In the dark park, I watched people in sweatpants and untied shoes without socks taking their dogs for the last pee of the evening. I ran my fingers lightly over my face, trying to visualize my features. I wished my eyes were further apart, and the tip of my nose were smaller. My cheeks felt chubby and huge, my forehead was oily, but my chin was dry and flaked. Classic combination skin.
I wondered how much plastic surgery it would take to make me look like Megan Fox. Rumor is, it even took her a few surgeries to look like Megan Fox, though honestly, I've seen older photos of her and she was always stunning, even in high school.
Looking down at my body made me depressed. My thighs were spread out and enormous on the bench. Marc must have seen my big, fat, squishy thighs next to him and gotten scared off.
An older woman walked past me, lighting her cigarette with a match. My mom used to smoke, but she quit a few years ago. I wondered what she was doing in LA at that very moment … besides hanging out with rock stars and making my father lose his mind.
My phone buzzed with a message: Dad wondering where I was, since he'd noticed Marc's car was gone from the front of the house.
I texted back: Losing my virginity. Call back later.
He replied: Don't be asshole.
You have to laugh at a father who tells his daughter to not be an asshole, don't you?
He texted again a minute later: I meant “Don't be asinine.” Damn you, autocorrect!
I giggled like a fool over the text and sent a screencap copy to Courtney.
I'd wanted to sit on the bench until I had everything figured out, but instead I got up and went back home to face the mess in the kitchen.
So, the date was Wednesday and then Thursday at work was unremarkable, unless you're interested in what I overheard when I walked into the kitchen. Toph was rapt, listening to a story from Donny, who was saying, “There was a piece of corn, right on the end of my dick.”
I turned and walked straight out again.
Unfortunately, when you work in a restaurant, the group of guys in the kitchen can get crude. What I just told you was not even anywhere near the worst thing I'd heard at work.
Here's a little tip for you: if a group of guys in the kitchen tell you to come quick and look at something, just don't. I can tell you from experience, it often involves a scrotum, and it's nothing you want to see. Watch the movie Waiting if you'd like a fairly accurate facsimile of the real-life experience. Actually, simply watch it if you like Ryan Reynolds or funny things, because it's great.
At The Whistle, we usually had two, maximum three dudes in the kitchen at once, so luckily things didn't get too outrageous. Donny's stories, however, would put you off food.
Friday and Saturday were my days off, as well as Courtney's.
The little monster tricked me into going shopping with her and Britain. How she did it was by offering me a free ticket to see John Carter at the big mall, Metropolis at Metrotown, in Burnaby.
I took the Skytrain there, and when I got off at the Metrotown station, I realized I had forgotten that rule of teen couplehood: the new love interest will ALWAYS be there as part of group outings, unless otherwise explicitly noted. Had I learned nothing from the Haylee-Andrew debacle of Spring 2011? I'd been through more than enough of our other friends getting their first boyfriends to know this rule. Little had I known, it also applied to girlfriends.
Britain stood like a skinny tree next to my friend, her short brown hair defying gravity and swooping up.
“Courtney!” I yelled and gave my friend a huge hug. “Britain!” I held my arms out and dared her.
She called my bluff and gave me a hug, complete with a back-pat. Oh, she was good.
“Britain wants to get her eyebrow pierced,” Courtney said.
“They do that here?”
“I can't see why not,” Courtney said. “It'll give us our special mission.”
I clapped my hands and jumped enthusiastically. “Eee!”
Whenever we go shopping at a mall, before we get there, Courtney and I think of something challenging to hunt down. Our mission could be finding cotton candy, or rainbow-striped toe socks, or day-of-the-week underwear, such as the ones I owned
two complete sets of. I didn't like the idea of hanging out with Britain, but having a fun mission would make it bearable. Also, she was going to suffer pain and discomfort, and possibly bleed or cry. I can't say I wasn't looking forward to that part.
Britain said, “Maybe we should save the eyebrow piercing for when we're downtown sometime. Today could be a scouting mission for jewelry.”
“No,” Courtney said. “Piercing is our mission. They have a thousand stores here. They have to do piercing.”
I said, “Get me something sharp, plus a potato, and I'll do it.”
Britain scowled and tugged Courtney's arm, leading her into the mall. I followed along behind them, as a third wheel does.
Breathing that sweet, chemical mall interior air got my shopping-adrenaline going. Metrotown doesn't have a thousand stores, as Courtney had said, but it does have over four hundred, spread over three levels. It's the second-biggest mall in Canada, bested only by West Edmonton Mall, which is a whopping ten times the size and includes a water park.
Someone walked by with Beard Papa's cream puffs, and I knew what my secondary mission would be. The girl eating the enormous cream puff wore orange platform boots and matching bright orange hair, impeccably styled.
From all my time on Main Street, where people wear a lot of polar fleece and ironic ugly sweaters, I'd almost forgotten how dressed-up people are inside Metrotown. I swear people put on their best clothes to go there and buy more best clothes.
My wallet began to jump up and down excitedly inside my purse.
In front of me, Courtney and Britain held hands. I opted to continue following behind them rather than walk three abreast and disrupt traffic, so I was able to observe people's reactions to the couple. People looked their way, noticed the held hands, then glanced back up at their faces. To my surprise, a lot of people smiled, as if to say, ah, young love.
I wondered what my friend Marc was up to. I'd requested he add me as a friend on Facebook the night after our dinner, and he still hadn't approved me. I wondered if he was busy, or avoiding me. No, I didn't wonder. I knew he was avoiding me.