I'm Your Girl

by J. J. Murray

  You remembered!

  In a flash, she whips out a glossy C’s booklet. “Let me tell you about diamonds.”

  “I’ve, uh, done this before. I’d like the highest-quality diamond that you have between one and one and a half carats.”

  She closes her booklet. “Certainly, sir.”

  Oh, now she calls you “sir.”

  Shh.

  “Are you sure about the round cut? We have Marquis diamonds that are just stunning.”

  I don’t want to put Noël’s diamond on another woman’s hand. “She prefers round.”

  “Okay.”

  I look at row after row of gleaming diamonds, afraid to touch them lest my fingers mar their brilliance. “That one,” I say, pointing to the one that hurts my eyes the most.

  She removes the ring from the velvet cloth, turning the price tag to me.

  With tax, that will come to…five digits!

  “This one is one-point-five with—”

  “I’ll take it,” I interrupt, taking out my checkbook. “Is it a size seven?”

  She slides the ring onto a long metal rod.

  I hope they clean that thing occasionally.

  “It’s a seven,” she says. “Would you be interested in an extended service plan?”

  While she rambles on and on about the benefits of the “ESP,” I think back to the first time I bought rings here. We added ESP to our rings, but we never brought them in twice a year to get them checked and cleaned, because Noël preferred to clean them more often at home.

  “Sure,” I say when she’s done.

  She smiles. “Okay. I’ll just…ring this up then.”

  She’s ringing up a five-digit ring. I’ll bet she didn’t expect to do that today. She just sold a five-digit ring in five minutes.

  I start writing out the check.

  You may have to go back to work soon.

  Yeah.

  First the Accord, and now the ring. I can still see the salesman’s face at the dealership. When you said, “Just throw in some floor mats,” he smiled. But when you wrote the check—

  His eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

  Kind of like this lady here, huh?

  “Okay, we’re all set,” she says, displaying the ring one final time before snapping the black velvet box closed and putting the box into a small gray bag.

  I give her the check and my driver’s license, for good measure.

  “Do you have an account here, sir?”

  “No,” I say, taking the bag.

  “Would you like me to set up one for you and your fiancée?”

  So you can make this lady’s day again and again.

  And Diane’s, too. Hmm.

  “Not today, thank you,” I say. “But I’m sure I will in the future.”

  I put the bag in one pocket and still feel the weight of my own ring in the other.

  Now it’s time to surprise Diane, right?

  Not yet.

  I drive to Evergreen Cemetery, and after sitting in the car for several agonizing moments, I get out and go to Noël and Stevie’s graves.

  You’re doing the right thing, Jack.

  The graves, festooned with freshly cut red and yellow roses, look immaculate, the marble a mirror to the dark green grass below. I crouch and touch the S in Stevie, wishing I had brought Mr. Bear.

  Another time. Mr. Bear is too good of a listener to leave out here with no one to listen to.

  What do you say to dead people who are still alive in your memory? I’m sure they already know my intentions. Why am I here?

  To talk to them.

  “Such a peaceful place,” I whisper. “Um, I’m sure you already know that I’m planning to remarry.” My voice catches. “It doesn’t…it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you anymore.”

  Love is infinite.

  “I know I’ll see both of you again.”

  In the infinite.

  “And, uh, Stevie, I’ll be sure to make you some brothers and sisters to play with in heaven.”

  You’re crying.

  As I should be. “Noël, honey…” Oh, God, this is so hard! “You’d like her, Noël. She’s down-to-earth and exquisitely patient with me, like you were.” Why is this so hard?

  Say good-bye, Jack.

  “I’ll…I’ll try to visit more often, but…” I bow my head. “It’s been so hard without you two, so hard.”

  You’ve made it through, Jack.

  “I’ll always remember you two as happy. Always.”

  Say good-bye.

  I take my ring from my pocket, pushing it into the soil until it disappears. “Good-bye.”

  Go see Diane.

  Not yet.

  Then rest here a while. Feel the peacefulness of this place.

  I’m done resting. I need to go to the grocery store.

  For Kleenex?

  No. For something much better.

  51

  Diane

  Even though I’m working the circulation desk, I’m smiling because…I’m engaged!

  I am engaged.

  I am engaged to be married.

  I now officially get to think this. I just wish I could say it to someone. I can’t tell anyone here. If Mama and Daddy come in Saturday morning, Francine and Kim will bust me out. Kim might start interrogating me today, though, because I have let every single fine slide. I am a genuinely, totally happy librarian working the circulation desk.

  The patrons must think I’m crazy! I need to settle down…but I can’t!

  I’m engaged!

  I could be thinking about Mama and how she’ll try to dismantle us this weekend. She’ll probably pick with me and with Jack here and there and make lots of strange faces, looking for what she thinks will be the wedge that drives us apart. She’s sitting in the backseat for sure on our drive up the Parkway. I might use the vanity mirror on the visor to spy on her. Daddy will probably fall asleep or just sit back there humming while Mama fumes.

  I look at the clock. Twelve-fifteen already? Lord, time sure does fly when you’re engaged.

  And I ought to know, because…I’m engaged!

  And in fifteen minutes, I’ll be an engaged woman sitting down to eat an engaged woman’s leftover salad and a peach, marveling at an engaged woman’s flatter stomach…and sighing at her empty finger. Two weeks. I can wait two weeks. I know I’m engaged, and that’s all that really matters.

  Though a ring would look nice—

  “Hi.”

  I look up. “Jack?” How did he sneak up on me?

  He pulls a long flower box from behind his back. “For you.”

  I blush. “For me?”

  “For you.”

  “Just because?”

  He nods.

  I untie the ribbon, open the box, and see…lots of orange. “Carrots?”

  “Count them,” he says.

  I count…ten. I roll my eyes. “Ten carrots. Funny.”

  He touches my hand. “Open the card.”

  The card is a little…lumpy? I pull out the flap, and a ring—yes!—slides out into the palm of my hand! Lord, forgive me, but damn! I close my hand. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  I open my hand to make sure it’s still there. Damn, that’s a diamond!

  “Put it on.”

  “But, Jack, I said—”

  He strokes the back of my left hand. “Put it on, Diane.”

  I look up at him. “You’re supposed to do it.”

  He takes the ring from my palm—give it back!—and slides it gently onto my ring finger. It slides on just like golden butter, and it fits like a dream! I am never taking this off. Never never never—

  Oh no. Here comes Kim bouncing down the stairs. I drop my left hand under the counter. “Hi, Kim.”

  Kim stands next to Jack, putting her hand on my man’s arm! “Jack, it’s so good to see you.” She’d better not—She squeezed his arm. Why does she have to touch people like that? “What have we brought Diane for lunch toda
y?” She looks at the carrots. “Carrots?”

  “For my salad,” I say quickly. “I told you I only needed one, Jack.”

  Jack throws up his hands. “I’m such a scatterbrain.”

  Kim taps the counter. “Francine will be down in a jiffy.” She squeezes Jack’s arm again and wanders off. He’s mine, you wench! Go feel up some homeless man’s arm!

  I look up at Jack. “But I don’t want anyone to know yet.”

  “I know you don’t.” He tries to look over the edge of the counter to see the ring, but I hide it farther in the shadows. “It looks good on you, what I saw of it.”

  I look down, and there it is, shining in the shadows. “Did you bring a peeler for the carrots?” Which is a stupid question to ask when I have this ring!

  “No.”

  “Then how am I supposed to—Oh, here comes Francine. Act natural.”

  Jack leans on the counter, his chin jutting high into the air.

  “With your chin down, Jack.”

  “Oh.” He drops his chin.

  Francine comes over and looks at the carrots. “Some lunch,” she says.

  I stand, my left hand sliding under the box. “Best lunch I’ve ever had,” I say, then carry the box around the counter to Jack.

  Francine takes my seat. “Has it been busy down here today?”

  I look at Jack, and he’s looking at me like he was last night with blue-eyed animal passion. “Uh, yeah, pretty busy.”

  But not nearly as busy as we’re going to get when we get to my house!

  “Um, Francine, I’m not feeling very well.”

  Jack nods.

  “I’m going to take the rest of the day off. You’ll tell Kim for me, won’t you?”

  Francine looks at me with a pursed-lip smile. “Sure, Diane. I’ll tell her you’re sick—again—but you owe me another one.”

  I’m almost out of breath by the time we get to my car. “Follow me home, okay?”

  He grabs my caboose right there in the library parking lot! But instead of getting angry about it, I get right horny and make a sound something like “ah-uh-huhnnnn.” I have never made this sound before in my life!

  “I’ll race you,” he says.

  “You’re on.”

  Some race. I hit every single light on the way home, and Jack is standing beside his car in the driveway. I park behind him and smile because…now he can’t escape because my car is blocking his.

  When we get inside, I take his hand and march him directly to my bedroom.

  “We might do something we shouldn’t,” he whispers, his breath so hot on my neck.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for….”

  Several frenzied moments later, zippers and buttons flying, we’re in bed hugging and squeezing and kissing and touching and feeling and—

  He stops.

  He just…stops.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, pulling him on top of me.

  “I, uh, nothing’s wrong, Diane.”

  I pull him as close as I can, and…oh yes, he’s ready! And I’m ready, too. I hope. “Then why’d you stop?”

  He rolls off me and gets out of bed, sweat glistening on his chest. “Diane, I’m practically a virgin.”

  What? “So?” I reach for him, taking a moment, you know, to look at my ring again. So many sparkles!

  “So…I want our wedding night to be glorious.”

  “It will be, Jack. I know it will be.” I rip off the covers and sit on the edge of the bed. Though, technically, a man who fathered a child isn’t a virgin, but I don’t want to discuss any of that. “But doesn’t the first time, um, hurt?” And won’t it make me bleed? Hmm. I don’t want to discuss that part, either. “If we do it now, I’ll be, um, more ready on our wedding night.” I just said “more ready” instead of “readier”? Sex must make your grammar go all to pieces.

  “I went to my wife’s grave today.”

  And now, my plumbing down there has completely dried up.

  “I hadn’t been there since the funeral.”

  I pull the comforter around me.

  “I, uh, I left my ring there, and, uh, before that, I dropped off all those pictures, the ones in the hall? I took them to Noël’s mother.” He kneels in front of me. “I’m not in my right mind today, Diane, not for this.” He looks down at his stuff, and he’s still right rigid. “My, um, appearance to the contrary.”

  Jack has had quite a day, quite an emotional day. “You want me though, right?”

  He nods. “I dream about you, Diane, and we, um, we really go at it.”

  I smile. “Yeah?”

  “You, um, you’re pretty voracious in my dreams.”

  “I can’t get enough of you, huh?”

  “No.” He laughs. “And I wake up exhausted.”

  I pull him to me. “I have a feeling we’ll both be waking up exhausted a lot.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Diane. I keep—”

  I put a finger to his lips. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I want to, God knows I want to.”

  I look down. “I can see that.” And, so can God. I immediately feel guilty and cover up more of my body. “Did you, uh, did you write out our love scene?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Well, where is it?”

  “I’ll have to e-mail it to you.”

  I lick my lips. “Is it hot?”

  He nods.

  “Is it nasty?”

  He nods.

  “Is it downright vile?”

  He smiles. “Let’s just say it’s…involved.”

  “Hmm. I like an intricate plot.” I sigh. “Jack, we have to get married soon, okay? I’m aching for you.”

  He frowns. “Me, too.”

  I run my fingers through his hair. “Come on. Let’s take a shower or something.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  I close my eyes. “No. I’m still horny, but I’m not mad.”

  “I’ll make it up to you.”

  I kiss his forehead. “I know you will.” I look into his eyes. “For the rest of our lives, right?”

  “Right.”

  I stand, but he doesn’t, his face millimeters from my stomach, and he starts kissing me hard, his hands gripping my caboose so tightly. I start to pant almost immediately. “Is…is this in our love scene?”

  He nods his head, but he doesn’t stop kissing on me.

  “Do I…I scratch the back of your neck?” I dig my nails into his neck as he nods. “Do I start to moan?”

  He nods his head, his nose rubbing just below my belly button.

  And in a moment, I’m moaning…and groaning…and lying back on the bed…and gripping the comforter.

  “Jack?”

  He doesn’t answer, but I don’t want him to. He’d have to use his tongue to speak, and I only want him to keep on doing…oh, Mr. Tickler, you’re about to be replaced….

  “Keep talking to me, Jack, just keep talking to me….” And right as I’m about to get my happiest happy on, I think, I am going to save a fortune on C batteries!

  Jack almost spent the entire night with me, but it’s just as well he left as the April sun started to warm up the horizon. If he had spent another second with me, I probably would have died. My death certificate would have read: “Death by Orgasm.”

  I would have died happy, but the mortician would have had quite a time getting my mouth to close again.

  And now this…sex scene in front of me. It’s not a love scene at all. This is far too erotic. I didn’t make it through the first page as the other pages were printing out before I started to sweat. Jack could be writing erotic fiction under another name and making lots of people sweat. He has such a vivid imagination, and while I read, I ride the whirlwind.

  And I’m horny again.

  I can’t go to work at a library horny! So, I call in sick—luckily, Francine answers the phone—and just sit around my house naked until I realize something: Mama is coming tonight.

  I have some s
tuff to hide.

  And you can’t be sneaky when you’re naked. I throw on a robe and flutter around the house, straightening, dusting, and wondering how to hide things that will give Mama a heart attack.

  I can’t leave these pages in the house. Mama will snoop around, find them, and die. And what will I do with this ring? And what will I do with Mr. Tickler, whose days are surely numbered anyway? Where won’t Mama look? Think!

  I could take it all to Jack’s house.

  No. You don’t take Mr. Tickler to your fiancé’s house. He might get jealous.

  I could put it in the glove compartment of the car. No!

  The freezer behind the ice cube trays? Yuck!

  Bury it in the yard? For the neighbor’s dog to dig up? Never!

  How do you hide a vibrator from your mama?

  Hmm. I look around my bedroom first. I could put it under the mattress in the middle, but they’ll be sleeping in here while I sleep on the sofa! What if it turns on in the night? Mama might actually like it, but…

  Oh, man, and I have to wash these sheets, too! They are so funky and—

  The trunk of my car! Yes, in the trunk under the spare tire. I don’t care if Mr. Tickler gets a little greasy. Oh, and I should remove the batteries first. One bump, a little hum, and then Daddy’s tearing the car apart looking for the problem.

  Vibrator problem: solved.

  As long as I don’t have a flat tire.

  The pages…I can hide them in plain sight in my library. Just stick them in a book…that Mama has already read? Hmm. That might work, but…No, I’ll just burn them. I can print them out again after Mama and Daddy leave.

  Nasty-ass sex scene problem: solved.

  That only leaves this…glorious ring. I should simply wear it with pride, and I’ve already vowed never to take it off. On the other hand, I’ll be wearing it for the rest of my life, so a few days won’t hurt. I slide it to the middle of my finger, but I can’t make it go any farther! It doesn’t want to come off, either! I slide it back down. I’ll just…I’ll just make that decision when the time comes.

  I look at my alarm clock. Shoot. I’ll have to make my decision in less than six hours; their flight arrives at 6:45.

  I know I’ll make the right decision. Until then, I have to air the funk out of this place. I look back at that naughty stack of pages.

  Okay, one more time. I’m young. I can handle it.