by Aletto, Anna
“If I had tried to be more involved in your life, you probably would have hated me for prying.”
“You’ve done fine, Mom,” I said.
Ariel glared at me, not commenting on my statement.
For our meal I ate chicken alfredo and my mother and sister both ate crab legs. For dessert Ariel had a small slice of chocolate cake and our mother drank a cup of coffee. “Hopefully my motherly intuition was good enough to get you something you’d like.” Our mother reached into her purse and then handed both Ariel and me each a small gift-wrapped package.
Ariel tore her present open first. Inside the box was a shiny silver cell phone.
I received the same, except mine was black.
“They both have service and should be ready to use.”
“Oh my god, this is great,” Ariel said, immediately starting to click through the phone’s features. “I was close to buying one for myself with my own money for a while now. I love it.”
I wasn’t nearly as excited but said, “Thank you.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I can’t be with you anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing breaking up with me?”
“No, I’m being honest. You’re probably the only female in my life I’ve ever cared to be honest with other than my grandmother.”
Ariel shook her head. “I don’t get this.”
“I can’t be faithful to you,” Terrell said. “Part of me wants to, but it’s something I’ve come to terms with about myself. I haven’t cheated on you but if we stay together I know I will.”
“I don’t satisfy you?”
“You do. I think you’re a perfect girlfriend and I love being with you, but it’s not about that. I’ve never been monogamous to any girl I’ve ever been with. Only you. I like the idea of being happy with one person but, even with you, I’ve come to realize I’m just not capable of it.”
“You’ve always seemed happy when we’re together.”
“Look, I don’t know how to explain this.” Terrell thought about it. “Let me try saying it like this: Every day I come into contact with women. Whatever the circumstance, even if just a brief encounter, they move in and out of my life. And since you’re not always with me, I know I’m going to end up fucking one of them at some point. I’ve resisted it ever since I got with you, but I’ve come to understand that’s just my nature. That being said, I would never do anything to disrespect you. That’s why I’m breaking up with you first.”
Ariel contemplated what he said.
“Are you upset?” Terrell asked.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Ariel said. “This just doesn’t seem right. I went into this not expecting anything too serious. But I did feel there was some sort of connection between us. I don’t know what. Something that meant something.”
“I think there was. And still is. I mean, I’d like to be friends with you. And I’m not just saying that as a nice way to break-up. I really would like to keep talking to you. Part of me considered cheating on you – just trying to keep it secret – so I could try and make sure you stayed in my life. On a selfish level it sounded good but ultimately I wanted to do right by you.”
Ariel nodded, then suddenly began weeping.
“Fuck.” Terrell wrapped an arm around her. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to do this to you. I don’t know what to say but I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel bad.”
“I know. I shouldn’t be crying,” Ariel said between sobs. “I don’t know why I am. It’s okay. I’d like to still be friends with you too.”
“Okay, good,” Terrell said, relieved. “Good.”
“I need to go,” she said. “I’ll see you.” Ariel returned home and lay on her bed and took a nap. By the time she awoke, I was at home. I noticed her eyes were slightly red and swollen. I asked if she was okay and she explained what happened. “I’m really not that upset that we broke up,” she claimed.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Really, I’m not. I am upset. But not about him.”
“What then?”
“Everything,” she mused. “I think I’m upset by life in general.”
“Well, that should be easy to solve.”
She exhaled a chuckle. “I just feel alone right now. I’ll be fine.”
“You have me whenever you need me.”
That evening Ariel came to me and said, “I feel like going out. Will you come with me?”
“To do what?”
“I feel like drinking.”
“I don’t know where we can go where we won’t get carded.”
Ariel shrugged, though I could tell she had already thought it over. “Terrell could always get us into the club if he’s working, right?”
“Really? I think he has a shift tonight, but you really want to be running into him right now?”
“I told you I don’t have any bad feelings about him. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Let’s find a spot at the bar and get fucked up together.”
Ariel sat in the passenger seat and I drove to the strip club. As we arrived, I texted Terrell using the new cell phone my mother had given me for my birthday. He met us at the door and said a quick hello to both of us. “I’m busy, but grab me if y’all need anything.” As we walked in, he pulled me aside briefly and urged, “Come talk to me before you leave.”
Ariel and I sat in a corner of the bar. “What are you drinking?” she asked me.
“Beer, I guess.”
“I’m going to order a J&B. Try one with me.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. A character in a book I read always drank it.”
We ordered and the bartender served each of us with a glass of blended Scotch whisky. Ariel and I talked about everything from our childhoods to our neighborhood to our mother.
“She’s impossible to talk to,” Ariel said. “At least in any meaningful way.”
“All you can do is try.”
“I can’t be close to her,” she said. “Not the way a mother and daughter should be … I think. Or maybe I just watch too many movies.”
I smiled.
“I have a feeling our dad would’ve been easier to talk to.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Nothing really. Just a fantasy that maybe he would’ve been more open and I could actually share things about my life with him.”
“I doubt it.”
We discussed finishing high school and going to college and our relationships.
“How are things with Cassie?”
“I’m in the midst of trying to figure that out.”
“You love her?”
“What exactly does love entail?”
Ariel laughed. “I don’t think I’m in a position to define it any better than you.”
I looked at her neck.
She still sported the necklace Terrell gave her.
I pointed at it. “How much longer are you going to wear that?”
“Ugh. I wore this in front of him, didn’t I? How about I take it off right now?” She gripped her hair into a ponytail and lifted it up, turning her back to me. “Can you undo it?”
I unlatched the necklace and handed it to her.
She dropped it into her purse. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”
After she walked away, I found Terrell.
He took a break and we stepped out the back door into the gravel parking lot.
“I met with Curtis,” he told me.
“What’d he talk about?”
“He’s interested in starting his own club. Something like this place. But a lot better.”
“Does he want you involved?”
“Curtis would own the place – in actuality – but he doesn’t want to be listed as the owner for legal reasons. That’s where I’d come in. He also needs someone who knows the basic operations to run the
place. I would be the manager and, in name only, the owner. The club could draw good money. It’d also be a legit business where he could launder money from his other endeavors.”
“Sounds like a big opportunity.”
“Exactly.” Terrell hugged me. “This is all I want – a club to design and then run.”
“This is your dream?”
“I’ve worked at strip clubs for years and there hasn’t been a day I didn’t want to come to work. And now I could make big money doing it.”
I smiled.
“The only side effect is that scantily-clad females don’t have the same effect on me they once did. Now it’s girls wearing clothes on that turn me on. Like, ‘Check her out in that sweater and scarf.’”
I laughed.
“I want you to be a part of it.”
“How?”
“You could start by bouncing. Learn the business some and I’d make you an assistant manager.”
I nodded. “If you’re in charge, I’m down for it.”
We shook hands and hugged again.
I returned to the bar where Ariel still hadn’t returned. I looked across the bar and saw her standing in the hallway right outside the bathroom. She spoke to one of Curtis’ dealers. After a brief exchange, she walked back to the bar and sat beside me.
“Sorry I made you wait,” Ariel said, a hint of anxiety in her voice. “There was a bit of a line.”
We ordered another couple drinks and started talking again.
I looked at her closely and noticed a trace of white powder under her right nostril. “What is that?”
She touched under her nose, glanced at the powder on her fingertips, and quickly brushed it off on her leg. “It’s nothing.”
I grabbed her by the wrist. “I’m serious.”
“Jesus. It’s nothing,” Ariel said. “A girl who works here offered me some coke in the bathroom. She said I looked kind of down.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s not like I do this shit all the time. I want to be happy and have fun tonight. Am I not allowed that?”
“Did you not just buy some more outside the bathroom?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Stop fucking playing dumb. The dude loitering around the back, selling to the strippers and whoever else needs to numb themselves.”
Ariel shrugged. “A small amount. Just for tonight.”
I shook my head.
“It’ll be short-lived. Don’t worry.”
“For someone as smart as you, this is incredibly stupid.”
“I don’t want to be smart right now.” She smiled at me, wide-eyed. “I want my mind to go away a while so I can just feel good.”
Britney calls me early on a weekday morning, around nine-thirty, and I wake up to answer the phone. “Hey,” she says, cheerfully. “What classes do you have today?”
“I just have a few.”
“Do you want to come over?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Um, sure. I’ll be there soon.”
“Great. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Puzzled by the call, I dress myself and brush my teeth and gargle some mouthwash. Angela is still asleep in the guest room. I drive my Toyota over to Britney’s apartment.
She meets me at the door and wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me. She’s wearing a light-blue halter-top with a yellow push-up bra and short cotton shorts.
We step inside and I ask, “Don’t you have any classes today?”
“Well, yeah, I’m supposed to.”
“So what happened?”
She glances downward guiltily and breaks a smile. “I decided to play hooky.”
Surprised I ask, “Really?”
“I’ve had perfect attendance so far, so I figured I deserved a day off. Plus I’ve been thinking about you. I thought if you came over we could have some fun.”
“Wow.” I step closer to her. “You’re skipping classes now? I must be a bad influence on you.”
“It’s hard being good all the time.”
“I bet.”
“Do you ever do any bad things?”
“Um … I might. If I did, would that scare you away?”
“No,” she says innocently. “I’m starting to think that everyone does at least some bad things. Some people are just better at hiding it.”
“Yeah? What bad things do you do?”
“I don’t know. I guess my thoughts are sometimes … impure.”
“Thinking can be a sin?”
“Sure, depending on what you’re thinking about. This woman came to our church a couple years ago. She was thirty-seven and happily married with kids. But she was terrified of how much she was sinning because she couldn’t stop thinking up pornographic images in her head.”
“Really. Do you ever think of anything like that?”
“Uh, well …”
I put my hands around her waist. “It must be hard being a reverend’s daughter. You have to appear perfect all the time. You can’t do anything wrong. You can’t even think anything wrong.” We’re now very close, face-to-face, our pelvises touching. “What are you thinking about right now?”
Her eyes glisten and she smiles.
I lean forward and we share a slow, soft kiss.
“I’ve tried my whole life to do the right thing,” Britney says. “It’s what I always wanted to do. Recently though, when I’m with you, everything has gotten confusing. I don’t what’s good or bad sometimes.”
“You think us being together is bad?”
“I still haven’t decided for sure. I just know, whatever it is, I like it.”
We spend the entire morning in bed. By one o’clock in the afternoon we’re lying beside each other and she perches her chin on my chest and looks at me. “It feels like it just keeps getting better every time we’re together. Is that normal?”
“Yeah, we have chemistry.” I part her blond hair out of her face.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“I have no idea.”
“Would you like to come over to my parents’ house to have Thanksgiving dinner with them and me?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell them I have a serious boyfriend. It would mean a lot to me to have you there with my family, all of us together.”
“Your dad still doesn’t know we’re dating?”
“I think he suspects it. But I haven’t come out and told him. For all I know maybe he thinks we’re just friends … Anyway, he already knows you a little. But my mom doesn’t. And y’all could talk and they could see what a great boyfriend I have.”
“What’s taken you so long to tell them?”
Britney sighs. “I don’t know. It’s just been my own issues since I don’t date that much. In a way, it seems kind of weird to me. Like, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad. I want you to meet the guy I’m having sex with.’”
I laugh.
“But I guess it’s doesn’t have to be like that. It can be more like, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad. This is the man I’m in love with.’ Because I really do love you.”
“I love you too.”
I visited Cassie at her home. I sat on her bed.
As she changed clothes, she asked, “Do you know Terrell broke up with your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you mad at him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I be?”
“Because she’s your sister. You care about her, don’t you? I thought you’d do something.”
“Do something like what? Go beat him up? I do care about her. But she knew what she getting into. Terrell probably told her himself not expect much from him. And if he didn’t, I know I told her. She was fine being in a meaningless relationship just for fun. I think they tried to make it into something more, but that’s all it turned out to be.”
“Yeah, because Terrell couldn’t
handle it being more so he just dumped her,” Cassie remarked. “He hurt her.”
“She told me she was upset, but she said it wasn’t even so much about him.”
“She was just saying that.”
“I don’t know. She seemed to mean what she said. I can only know what she tells me and then read so much between the lines.”
Cassie shrugged. “I just thought you would’ve defended her more.”
“If there was something to defend her from, I would’ve.”
“So you’re still going to hang around Terrell?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t that going to be weird?”
“Terrell and I were friends before he ever dated Ariel. And since he never treated her bad, we’ll be friends after. They may even turn out to be friends. They saw each other last night and said hello to each other – totally civil, nothing nasty about it.”
“It wouldn’t be that way if it were me. If I was treated like I was disposable, there’d be no civility about it. You can’t expect me to play nice after you just toss me aside.”
“I think you’re taking this a little too hard. Ariel’s okay with how everything went down. I think you should be too.”
“After Ariel told me what happened, it just got me thinking a lot. I like Terrell from the times I’ve been around him. But he played with her feelings.”
“I don’t think there was any malice behind it. Couples break up. People change. Or maybe they just learn something about themselves. He realized being in a serious relationship wasn’t going to work for him.”
“He made her think there was some future between them. Then, all of a sudden out of nowhere, he kicks her to the curb. I don’t care if he meant to or not. That’s what he did. If it were me, I would be pissed and I would make sure he knew it.”
“Anyway, their situation got me thinking too … About us.”
“In what way?”
“Whether or not we belong together.”
Chapter Twenty
Odd quirks began developing in Ariel’s behavior.
First, she started having sniffling fits. She kept Kleenex close by, needing to constantly blow her nose. When I asked her, she dismissed it as springtime allergies.
Next, her sleeping hours became erratic. We bought a television for our living room and she often stayed up all night to watch it, cutting into my own sleep when we both had school the next day. Ariel speculated that her insomnia could stem from anxiety. School work was stressing her out and her breakup with Terrell was still on her mind. But she assured me those issues would soon pass.