“Can I drag you away to help out tonight?” He asked, laying a hand on her arm. The room felt instantly warmer.
“Putting me to work on Christmas Eve? Oh, all right,” Deirdre said all in one breath before waving goodnight to Paige and sailing off to gather her things. When the door closed behind them, the party began to break up. Paige awkwardly murmured her goodnights and busied herself with gathering glasses to bring to the kitchen.
The candles burned low, and Bryce threw more wood on the fire and flopped back onto the couch. He was feeling festively philosophical, and couldn’t stop pestering Al, who clearly wanted to relax and not be questioned about his life.
“I sort of go with where it takes me,” Al said, rolling his eyes and pursing his lips at Paige.
“Your first step should be to admit that you’re gay,” Bryce said.
“You think everyone’s gay,” Al said.
“Admit it,” Bryce said, taking a hit off stubby joint from the ashtray and giggling out smoke. “You think I’m hot.”
“Next you’re going to say he’s in denial,” Paige said.
Bryce rolled his eyes. “Denial, de closet…”
“Listen,” Al said, waving away the smoke in the air in front of his face. “If you must know, I’m trying to tap that.” He pointed toward Paige.
“You’re not trying very hard,” Paige mumbled, tucking the blanket she had dragged down from her bedroom over her legs.
Bryce kicked off his boots and stretched his legs under the blanket and over Paige’s lap. “Know what I think we should all do,” he said. “We should save up and buy a ranch, in Montana or somewhere. Just live off the land. Raise animals. Herd…Something.”
“I’m in,” Al said, grabbing a handful of pretzels from the bowl on the table.
“Fine,” Bryce agreed. “But you have to work, you can’t just sit on your tushy, cracking jokes all day.”
“Darnell seems nurturing, in a formidable way,” Paige mused. “He can take care of the animals.”
Bryce lowered his lashes, skeptically. “I don’t know if I trust him around the animals. He might eat them.”
“Well, Paige will hire someone to feed them, then,” Al said. “I don’t see the city girl doing it.”
“She’ll have to hire someone to feed Darnell,” Bryce said. “Seriously, we should become ranchers.”
“You just like thinking about cowboys,” Paige said.
Bryce nodded. “Who doesn’t like thinking about cowboys?” Then he sighed and stubbed out the joint in the ashtray. “Alright. I’ll leave you kids to clean up and hook up. I’m sleepy. I’m going to bed.” He slid out from under the covers and headed upstairs.
“Whatever,” Al said, getting up as well. He looked around the room, then at Paige. “Earth to rich white girl,” he called, clapping his hands. “Up and at em.”
Al poured them each a night cap from the bar and the set about half-heartedly moving dishes from the tables to the kitchen and blowing out candles. The house was quiet, but for the jazz music lilting from the small stereo. Al caught Paige watching him. Their eyes didn’t move from one another.
“Paige,” he said. His voice was low.
“What?” she asked, finally turning to wipe off the coffee table.
“Come here for a second.”
She dropped her rag and fidgeted with smoothing out her skirt. She cleared her throat and ambled over to him, crossing her arms.
“What’s up?”
Al took her by the arms and pulled her near to him, looking down at her face. They stood in silence. She stared up into his eyes, dark moving over the green, gold and amber like ink spilled and spreading in liquid, and his solid arms slipped around her, his hand moving up and down her back and finally pulling her into his chest into a hug. He kissed the top of her head. She tried to breathe normally. Then he released her and stepped back. “Good party. Why don’t you go up to bed, I’ll finish up down here.” He turned away and picked up his glass and swigged.
Paige let out a long breath. “Okay,” she said.
She tromped up the stairs, frustrated and wide awake. Preparing for bed in the tiny bathroom, she splashed the makeup from her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror, bare, pale as bones. “Don’t even think about that,” she told herself, sternly.
“Too late,” her reflection answered, and she went off to bed to toss and turn, fret and obsess. Finally lying on her side facing the wall, and finally half dozing, she heard her door open, and the floor creak under footsteps. She flipped over and saw Al standing beside her bed, pulling his shirt over his head. He kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt. She stared at the outline of his body, unable to speak or move. He shook his jeans to his ankles and stepped out of them, and climbed into her bed, lowering himself to his side, facing her. Their knees touched. He draped his arm across her waist, his fingertips trailing her back, sending shivers through her body. They inched closer to one another, lips parted, their breath mingling, his sweet and hot on her face. He moved so close that his lips touched hers, lightly. Then in one smooth movement he pulled her to him, rolling her onto her back. His hands were in her hair and they stared at each other for a moment. Then he kissed her, touching his lips lightly to hers, then hard and wet and she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips.
Just as she was running her hand down his hard, bare stomach he pushed her down and disentangled their bodies as if they were strands of Christmas lights. “Stop,” he barked, jumping out of the bed. “We can’t do this.”
“What?” she gasped. “What can’t we do? We are doing this.”
“No!”
“Oh, for god’s sake, just do it already,” Bryce’s muffled voice yelled through the wall.
Al cringed, eyeing the bedroom wall. Paige pressed her pillow over her head and groaned.
“What, you think this is easy for me?” Al demanded, pulling his shirt over his head inside out. He grabbed his jeans and hopped around, trying to yank them on. He stopped and pulled the pillow off of her face. “We have to go talk to Darnell,” he said, pants still down.
“What? It’s midnight. Talk to him about what?”
“This. This is way over our heads. He will help us. Get dressed. Now!” Then he was up again, hopping on one foot, trying to stuff the other into one leg of his jeans. He finally managed that and then stuck his other foot into the same pant leg. He continued to hop around, trying to pull his pants up, as Paige watched, mesmerized. Then, gaining momentum, he leaned too far to one side, and hopped clear out of the room. Paige heard a loud thud as he hit the hallway wall. He reappeared in the bedroom doorway a few minutes later with his pants properly on and belted. “It’s happening already,” he said. “Bad karma.”
Paige sat upright, smoothing down her hair. “I’m causing you bad karma? And what is your brother, anyway? The great Lake Guru? Why is everyone always whispering to him and pulling him into corners to talk to him?”
Al put his hands on his hips. “That is not the issue at hand. Just get dressed. And please, brush your hair.”
“How are we even going to get there?”
“We’re walking. Bundle up.”
The bar was warm and mellow. Paige peeled off her coat, hat and gloves and grumpily allowed Al to drag her to a seat at the bar. Al left his coat on. Darnell poured them coffee.
“Al, what is your problem, now?” He asked. “Other than drinking too much tonight.”
Al sniffed and jerked his head in Paige’s direction. “I nearly knocked boots with this one.”
Darnell began to chuckle. It grew into a snorting, sputtering laugh. He composed himself and looked at the two of them. Then he tipped his head back and let loose a great, deep rolling laugh. “Wooo,” he said, wiping his eyes after a few minutes. “Thank you, I needed that.”
“Darnell, this is serious.”
“Okay, okay,” Darnell cleared his throat, and fixed a serious expression on his face. He leaned forward on one elbow. “Conti
nue.”
“You don’t understand, man,” Al hissed. “We have a problem, here. I can’t seem to keep my hands off of her.”
Darnell looked at him expectantly. “And what, she doesn’t want that from you?”
“Come on.”
Darnell nodded slowly. “Okay. You continually…Have encounters. So?”
Al looked uncomfortable. “Do I have to point out the obvious?” He pointed a finger in Paige’s direction without turning his head.
Darnell turned to Paige and looked her up and down. He turned back to Al and nodded, knowingly. “She’s married.”
“Legally separated, actually.”
Darnell leaned his other elbow on the bar. “Ah-ha, she’s filed for divorce?”
“Pretty sure she did.”
“Well, that changes things.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Hey,” Paige interjected, feeling at once morbidly fascinated by the exchange and also rejected and ignored. “I’m sitting right here. Does anyone care how I feel about all this?”
The men looked at her, blankly.
“Okay, I get it,” she said, glaring at Al. “We’re not like that. But I wasn’t the one hopping into your bed, this time.”
Darnell held up a warning finger to both of them. “Kids, I suggest you work this out. Or Al is going to have to move out of that shack of yours, and he is not – I repeat not – moving back in with me.” He turned and headed for the kitchen.
Paige sipped her coffee. “Well, this is awkward,” she grumbled. “Merry Christmas. What a great holiday.”
“Shut up,” Al snapped.
Paige flinched, feeling slapped. “What?” The word came out like a puff of empty air.
“You heard me. All you ever think about is yourself. Are you finished? Time to get Princess home for her beauty sleep.” He was drumming his fingers on his mug, looking down into it.
Paige hopped off of her stool, needing to run away. “Definitely finished,” she said. “I’m just going to say goodnight to Darnell and Deirdre.” She took two steps backward. Al continued to glare down at his coffee. Paige turned and hurried away to the end of the bar and peeked through the yellowed plexiglass window in the swinging door leading to the kitchen. Her fingertips touched the door to push but she stopped herself, her soggy mind trying to process what she was seeing.
Deirdre was bending over a large stainless steel industrial sink, washing pans. Darnell walked up behind her, his great bear arms reaching under hers, pulling her into his body and burying his face in her neck. One of his hands moved to her breasts. The other slipped around her waist and headed south. Deirdre let out a shrieking giggle and Paige jumped away from the door and tripped back to Al.
“I’m ready to go,” she said, carefully forming her words. Her mind was fuzzy with wine, envy, holiday blues, wine.
“That was quick,” Al said, pushing himself to his feet. “Why didn’t you go in?”
“They were getting busy.”
“What?”
“They were busy!”
Al held out her coat and helped her into it. He picked up her hat and pulled it down onto her head, making sure her ears were covered. He wound her scarf around and around her neck and she wondered if he planned to choke her with it, but instead he tucked the ends into the top of her coat. Then, still unsmiling, he grabbed her arm and walked her home through the dark and the snow.
Paige awoke the next morning to voices downstairs. She blinked her eyes into focus and squinted at the clock. 10:32. She reached her hand to the wooden floor and felt around under the edge of the bed frame until she found some dust bunnies and her journal.
December 25th. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Crappy New Year.
“Facebook time,” Deirdre sang, poking her head around Paige’s door.
Paige jumped, startled, and shrank back fearfully.
“Come on,” Deirdre said, smiling encouragingly. “Age of social media, remember?”
Yeah, I’ll bet you’re in a good mood today, Paige thought.
Chapter 15
“Morning Paige,” Mindy slurred into the phone. Hackney was in court all day, handling a divorce that was not the Davenports’. She decided not to mention it, as just after Christmas a check had arrived in the mail from David. It was enough to cover the heating bills and rewiring the electrical system.
“Good morning, Mindy,” Paige sighed.
“Hi Paige…Sorry we couldn’t make it to your party the other night.”
“That’s truly okay.”
“Yeah…I was kinda tired so Howard tol’ me to go to bed.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you were, and it’s fine.”
“Is Howard there?”
“Nope, he’s out of the office all day in court. Didn’t he tell you he would be?”
A short silence ensued, broken only by the sound of swallowing. Paige cradled the phone on her shoulder and opened up Facebook on her computer. She entered her username and password to the sound of ice cubes rolling around in a glass.
“Mindy,” Paige said, finally, “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I…I was waiting for you to transfer me to Howard.”
“He’s in court all day. Remember?”
“No, I don't think he tol’ me that.”
“I told you that!”
Mindy sniffled and Paige felt a pang of guilt. “Listen, Mindy,” she began, glancing over her barren wasteland of a Facebook page. She was suddenly struck by an idea. “Are you on Facebook?”
“Yes, everyone is,” Mindy said, her voice momentarily clear. Paige realized sadly that those few words actually sounded sober.
“Well, me too,” Paige continued, trying to sound chummy. “Why don’t you send me a friend request, and then instead of calling me, we can send each other messages on Facebook!”
“Okay, byeee.” Mindy abruptly clicked off. Either the very idea of getting onto Facebook that day was too enticing to wait another moment, or she had wandered off of the conversation’s path into the dark drunk woods.
Paige glanced over her page again. One photo taken in college, no real personal information filled in because she had no personal information. Deirdre had showed her how to look up people from her past, and request their Facebook Friendship, thus compiling a list like a popularity contest. The age of social media humiliation, Paige thought. I have no friends or family. Let’s put that online!
Deirdre had waited for her to type in a name to search. Paige’s mind went blank. She shakily typed Chloe A., and was surprised when her Aunt and Uncle’s entrepreneurial young housekeeper popped up. Her hair was still white-blond, the chin-length bob grown out a bit and tousled. Her face had lengthened and freckled with age, making her more striking, with high, jutting cheek bones and golden glow. She was sunrise over a windswept cornfield. She was married, and holding a little blond boy on her hip in her picture.
“Well, go ahead,” Deirdre pressed. “Send a friend request.”
“I will, later,” Paige said. “I just wanted to see how to do it.”
“People can search for you and request your friendship, too,” Deirdre explained. “You’ll be notified when you get a request, and then if you want to accept it, you’ll have access to their page and you all can send messages and see each other’s status updates and all that.”
“Great,” Paige said. Status updates? What in the world would she have to report, she wondered. It’s Saturday! No work means more time to plan ex husband’s demise, seduce one roommate, and try to keep the other alive! She shut down Deirdre’s laptop. “I’ll go back on tomorrow at work. You can take your computer home.”
Monday morning Paige powered up her computer at the office and signed onto Facebook, once Hackney was safely tucked into his office and yelling to his doctor about his latest ailments. Luckily, she could hear her boss’s every move so it was not likely she would ever be caught dabbling in social media humiliation on company time.
To her ama
zement, she already had three friend requests! Her pulse quickened as she clicked open the window to see who on earth…
Up popped the pictures. Deirdre. Al. Bryce.
Paige returned home from work Friday night to find Al and Bryce assembling a long wooden table in the dining room. Up until then, the room had been an empty space, a crossway from the living room to the kitchen. Other than the Christmas party, it had never housed furniture. Paige was drawn to the simplicity of the table. It didn’t have turned legs, or any ornate detail, but it seemed to be made for her house. The boys were under the table turning screws, and Paige approached to skim the smooth surface with her fingertips. “Wow,” she breathed.
“We made it. Surprise,” Al said, crawling out and standing. “We’ve been working on it as a Christmas present but we didn’t finish it in time. So, it’s a New Years present.”
Bryce emerged and hopped to his feet. “You like?”
Paige nodded. She liked. “Wait a sec,” Paige said, suddenly suspicious. “What are we going to do with this long table? Why didn’t you make a table for the kitchen to replace the Ugly Table? You’re not moving some more people in here, are you?”
Al’s eyes narrowed. “Why can’t you just say thank you?”
Paige swallowed. “Thank you.”
Al gathered his tools and avoided looking her way.
“We’re going to have to have some people over,” Bryce remarked.
“No! I mean, we just did,” Paige added, quickly.
Bryce smirked at her. “But, honey, it’s New Years Eve.”
The afternoon of New Years Eve was icy and dark and Paige’s mood was equally so. She pouted and stomped around her room, tossing laundry into the air trying to find something to wear, before settling on the jeans and misshapen long-sleeved tee she was already wearing. As their only guests were Deirdre, Carmen, Carmen’s boyfriend and Darnell, and Deirdre and Carmen were supplying dinner, Paige decided that decorating and setting the table and all that was unnecessary. If anyone didn’t like it, they didn’t have to stay, she thought, angrily ripping her brush through her hair before yanking it up into a pony tail.
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