“I’ll see him in the morning,” I say, resolved. “How do I navigate this, Whit?”
“I didn’t think you’d use the app, to be honest. I love that you did, but I’m surprised.”
“Yeah, me too. Surprised, I mean,” I clarify. “Not loving that I did it.”
“Let’s start there. Why did you do it?”
A sense of calm settles over me, like when you’re in trouble and finally accept that everyone knows it was you who did it. You go through the motions of telling the truth because it’s only going to delay the inevitable if you dance around it. You just want the conversation to be over and the fallout realized.
“I was sitting here one night right after I heard about Chrissy being pregnant.” My throat is scorching as I put the thoughts I’ve kept to myself into the universe. “And I guess I kind of broke down, you know. Not crying and all that, but more of a pity party. Wondering if there’s something wrong with me. Considering adopting a cat.”
She drops her jaw in mock horror.
“Anyway,” I continue, “I just needed that confirmation. I just wanted to know I could still reel a guy in. That I wasn’t lame.”
“You can’t believe that. I won’t sit here and let you say you think you’re lame.”
“You know what I mean.”
She scoots her chair closer to mine and kicks at my foot. “I know you thought you’d be in a different place right now, but you aren’t for a reason.”
“I’m fine with that. Really,” I insist when she looks at me like I’m lying. “I’m happy I’m not with Eric. But it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have some nice, sweet, cute guy want to be with me.”
The words don’t make it past my lips before Lance’s face pops back into my mind. It’s the image of him at my car, his arms stretched overhead, a soft look in his eyes that is such a contrast to the playful one I often see.
“Like Lance?” she asks carefully.
“The end of that story would be a happy one,” I laugh. “That excludes him.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“It does.” Getting up, I head to the oven and get it pre-heating. “He’s the most woman-hopping man I’ve ever known. Ever seen. In my office alone he talks to a different woman on the phone at least three times a week.”
“But he’s single, right?”
“Yes. He’s single. His goal in life is to be single.” The words cause a little ache to spread across my chest. “I don’t fault him for that. That’s not what this is about. It’s about me knowing I have no desire to compete with other women for a man’s attention and this guy plays that game as hard as it can be played.”
Sugar and butter go into my mixer. My hand shakes a little as the vanilla is added, but I choose to think it’s because I haven’t eaten today and not from anything else.
“Fine.” It’s a simple response with no indication she’s going to argue with me. This annoys me, but I try to hide it. “Guess you’re going to have to figure out how to balance this then.”
“That’s what I said from the beginning,” I grimace, busting an egg with a little more gusto than necessary.
“You said some, what, sexier things on line than you would’ve said in person?”
“Oh, a little.” I told him I wanted him to come on my chest. “I want to die.”
Whitney adds the lemon juice to the mixer and turns it on. “But you felt comfortable enough with him to say them.”
“Because he wasn’t standing in front of me, Whit. It’s so much easier to tell him I want him to slap my ass or make me get off on his face when his face isn’t there. When I think I’ll never have to see his face.”
“You said that? I’m impressed.”
The dam is broken so I just roll with it. “I typed worse.”
“He’s probably going insane right now,” she giggles. “And I doubt he’d qualify them as worse.”
Putting a face, his face, to those words makes me almost moan in the middle of my kitchen. Typing them out was one thing when the point was to feel powerful. Knowing it was him on the other side has the opposite effect.
“I have to quit my job,” I say gravely.
“You do not.” She turns off the mixer. Leaning against the counter, she crosses her arms over her chest. “How does it make you feel to think he knows it was you who typed those things and he still wants you?”
Biting my lip doesn’t help the smile from cracking across my lips.
“It feels good, right?” she asks.
“Yes. Fine. It feels good. But he’ll tease me about it endlessly.”
“Because he’s a boy and boys do that.”
There’s nothing boy about him.
The pre-heat alert dings and Whitney glances at the oven before speaking again. “You should’ve considered this before you met up with him. I could’ve pointed that out if you would’ve told me your super-secret plans.”
I should’ve considered a lot of things before I met History Hunk. Or before I used that stupid app.
“For some really, really dumb reason, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Yes, most of our conversations were sexual in nature, but it was good-hearted. It was fun. Our banter was great …”
My finger presses into the butter as I turn away. Just thinking of Lance and the easiness of our chats fills me with a gooey sort of feeling.
“Like your banter at work?”
“Ugh. This is not helping.”
At all. At work, Lance treats me like an intelligent, respectable, attractive woman. History Hunk made me feel downright sexy. Alluring. Wanted. They are two very different sides of … the same coin? With the same guy? Processing this doesn’t get any easier as the minutes tick by.
Digging around the cabinet and then the dishwasher, I find my nine-by-nine pan for the lemon bars.
“Meeting this guy didn’t seem like I was meeting him for sex,” I say, searching for more butter. “It felt like meeting a friend for the first time. There weren’t expectations and I wasn’t afraid, like I thought I’d be. It was just easy. Nerve-wracking, but easy.”
The butter in hand, I spread it around the pan before I turn my attention back to Whitney. There’s a knowing look aimed my way.
“I think everything between you two is easy, Mariah.” She takes the pan and sets it next to the mixer. “Don’t you see that?”
Yes, I see it. How could I not? But therein lies the problem—it’s too easy.
The boiled-down truth is sitting on the tip of my tongue. There’s a peacefulness that goes along with finding it in the rubble of everything else.
With one last reconsideration, I go for it. “Before this weekend, Lance was Lance. It wasn’t hard to compartmentalize him in a box in my head. We’d flirt or whatever at work but there was a line and it wasn’t crossed. It started at eight and ended at four. His personal life was his thing. It didn’t involve me. His conquests didn’t matter.”
“But they do now?”
I consider her question. Neither answer, yes or no, is right. It doesn’t matter because I’m still the girl from work. But it does matter because it doesn’t feel like he’s the guy from work anymore. All of that is muddied up now because the guy I told I wanted to feel his tongue on my pussy while his cock was halfway down my throat is the same guy who hugged me in front of my mother.
Whitney laughs when I rest my head against the cool counter. “You should’ve just fucked him. That would’ve eased some of this tension.”
“Right.” Standing up straight again, I go back to my lemon bars. “I’m going to have to pretend it didn’t happen. Erase this entire weekend from my brain.”
My friend looks at me like I’ve officially lost it. “You can do that?”
“I’m going to have to.” With a cup of flour balanced in the air, I look at Whitney. I should just make the lemon bars and be done with it, but I don’t. With a hefty sigh, I just stop pretending like it’s not going to happen. “Want to make some red velvet cupcakes?”
&nb
sp; Fifteen
Lance
She’s always early on Monday mornings. It’s one of the few parts of her schedule I can predict and one the nerd in me loves. Most people struggle on Mondays. Mariah is at the school at least an hour early on the first day of the week.
While I don’t always start the week on a low note, today I was late. I could say it was the extra two minutes it took for the shower to warm up or the fact that I didn’t sleep last night. I could even situate the blame on Machlan’s shoulders for coming over and making me some rocket fuel shit that went down way too easily, but did help the story of the afternoon come together with less prompting.
Truth is, it was intentional.
The staff meeting about homecoming festivities would’ve put Mariah and I across from one another in a room full of people. On the surface, that seems like the perfect way to break the ice. Assumptions are often wrong.
The third rule of history is silence is not louder than words. When things get too quiet historically, they’re forgotten. The chaotic moments, the ones filled with passion and emotion—they’re the ones remembered. When I see her again, it won’t be in a room full of people. I won’t be forced to be silent. The words I’ll use aren’t formulated yet, they likely won’t be until the moment comes because I’ve tried to find the right thing to say since I left her yesterday and I keep coming up empty. But they’ll come. They always do with her.
“Make sure you finish this tonight,” I tell the sophomores as they gather their things. “I will take this for a grade tomorrow. You’ve been warned.”
“Have a good day, Mr. Gibson.” Two girls, who are going to cause some poor boys a lot of trouble, wave as they strut past my desk.
“Bye, ladies.”
It takes everything I have not to get up and shoo them out the door. Glancing at the clock, I have four minutes until I usually trek up the stairs and slip into Mariah’s room while she’s getting her lunch. On most days, I’d slide my phone out of my pocket and see what my inbox looks like. Today, I slip it in my desk.
I toyed with deleting the app last night. Machlan pointed out there’s a chance she could message me and if I answered that, I wouldn’t be out of line. So, I didn’t. But I haven’t checked it since the parking lot of Peaches.
My hands undergo a quick sanitizing with some gel. I’m getting up to go upstairs when I see Ollie head away from the cafeteria. Puzzled, I go to the hallway and watch him take a long drink from the fountain. The clock ticks to ‘go time,’ but my feet remain in place.
“Hey, Ollie. Can you come in here a minute?”
He spins around, looking surprised. “Sure, Mr. Gibson.”
Stepping by me, the same tattered shirt he wore on Friday hanging from his thinning frame, he stands next to a bust of President Kennedy.
“It’s none of my business,” I say. “But why aren’t you in the cafeteria?”
“I, um, I eat by myself. The cafeteria is too loud.”
He looks at everything in the room besides me. The clock flicks past another minute and I suck in a breath, knowing this situation likely just stole the moment I’ve been anticipating since yesterday.
“Okay. Fair enough. Where do you usually eat?” I ask him.
“Just wherever.” His hand goes in his pocket as resignation settles over his face.
“You can always eat with me. Even if I’m not in here, you can come in and flip on the television if you want. Okay?”
“Thanks, Mr. Gibson.”
The location isn’t the problem and we both know it. Racking my brain for a way to fix this without making him feel bad, I tap my fingers against the desk. “I had an ulterior motive for asking you to come in here.”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “What’s that?”
“I need a favor.”
“From me?”
Nodding, I try to bring this together as smoothly as possible. “I’m on a panel of teachers the school board put together to analyze the cafeteria food. It’s not something they really want spread around because of politics and stuff like that. Anyway, I’m supposed to pick a student to get a tray every day and then report back on what they think about it.”
“Okay,” he draws out, smelling bullshit.
I need to fortify my story. “Ms. Malarkey is selecting a freshman and I thought you’d be a great upperclassman.”
“I’m not sure, Mr. Gibson.”
“Look, all you have to do is get a tray,” I say, forcing a swallow. “The school will credit your account for a tray a day for the rest of the year.”
He eyes me curiously. There’s an element of pride sitting behind his sleepy eyes, one that makes my heart drop. It also worries me that he won’t go along with my plan.
“If you don’t want to eat it, you can toss it in the garbage,” I add. “Just give me something in May that says how you liked it and what you hated and, just, whatever you think.”
“All I have to do is get a tray and give you a paper on it in May?”
“Yes. It’s not for a grade or anything. I’ll even give you extra credit or something because I know it’s kind of a pain for you to do this. I could ask someone else,” I say, going for the guilt factor, “but I really need someone who’s truthful who’ll give me the report.”
The relief is visible. I want to give the kid a fucking hug.
“I’ll call down to the office now,” I say, having to look away. “You can get your tray and start today, if you want. No pressure.”
“I could do that,” he says eagerly.
“Great.”
He heads to the door. “I’ll go now. Thanks, Mr. Gibson. If you need anything sooner from me before May, just shout.”
“Yeah. Will do. Thank you.”
Using my palm, I wipe at an eye that must’ve gotten some dust in it. I buzz down to the office and the secretary picks up.
“Hey, this is Lance,” I tell her. “Does Ollie’s lunch account have anything on it?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you that,” she says. “But …” There’s typing on the other end. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Can you stick twenty bucks on there and I’ll come down this afternoon and talk to you about it?”
“Sure can.”
“Thanks.”
My head goes into my hands. On some level, this is why I got into teaching in the first place. But it’s also the part no one explained to me beforehand. Mouthy kids, errant students, even ones who don’t give a damn—I can handle that. Hungry kids? Neglected ones? Kids who don’t have a pot to piss in? Those I can’t.
A knock raps at the door. When I raise my head, I can’t look anywhere else.
Mariah is standing there in a yellow dress that’s belted around her waist. Her hair is down today and in her hand is the little bag she carries her lunch in.
She’s prettier than ever and I realize that’s probably some sex-deprived colored glasses kind of thing. But as she tries to decipher whether or not to say something, I want to storm across the room and plant my lips on hers.
“Hey,” she says, switching the bag between her hands. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was getting my lunch and sort of overheard a part of your conversation with Ollie.” She smiles sheepishly. “Don’t even start with the eavesdropping stuff.”
“I was in my room this time,” I say, getting to my feet. The sun didn’t change positions out the window, but it sure feels a lot brighter in here now. “I do find it interesting you’d go out of your way to listen in on my conversation, even when I don’t come to you to have them. More adorable than strange, if you’re wondering.”
She grins. “I think it was my name that stopped me in my tracks.”
“Still eavesdropping,” I tease. “Would you like to come in?”
The grin falters. Reality settles in, creasing the lines on her forehead. “Should I?”
“The door is open. Pun intended.”
Her eyes roll, but it’s enough
of a joke to get her to move. She comes inside and does a full three-sixty of my room. “This looks nice.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Your room looks nice.”
“So nothing about the shirt?” I ask, tugging on the neckline of my button-down. “I wore it thinking it was the color of my balls.”
“Lance …” She gulps. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I do.”
Pacing around my desk, I lean against the front. She fidgets with her bag. Her nails are a shade of pink which is weird because she usually doesn’t paint them. But I don’t ask. Now isn’t the time.
At around four this morning, as I was watching a cooking show on television, I came up with a half-assed plan. I don’t want to make her so uncomfortable that she doesn’t want to see me. While I’m trying hard not to touch her, I have no intention of ceasing to see her. I haven’t lost my mind.
“I won’t mention the app if it makes you uncomfortable,” I promise. “I will say I loved seeing that part of you—now that I know it was you—and I find it hysterical that we were messaging all this time and didn’t know it. But I’ll let it go.”
“You will?”
“I will. But if I get a paper cut, I’m coming to you for those nursing skills you promised to show me.”
She swings her lunch bag and it hits me in the arm, but there’s a happiness on her face that’s priceless. Keeping a side-eye on her, I head to the door and swing it shut.
“What day do we go to your mom’s?” I ask. “And do we get to meet the sister? Because if she’s anything like your mom, I’m gonna get a drink before we go.”
“We aren’t.” She opens her bag and takes out a baggie. “I’m not going.”
“Can I ask two things?”
“Yeah.”
“First, and most importantly, what’s in that baggie?” Raising a brow, I hold out my palm. “It looks like dessert.”
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