One Sweet Day

by Elle Tyler

  “Lest I remind you, I am a Cornell Weill med student. I think that means I am capable of reading fuckin’ labels on beer bottles.”

  He only laughed in reply, lighting up another smoke. “Anyone? Anyone?” He offered one to Everly and then to the other end of the table. Amelia “Sweet Kisses” Vanguard leaned over to pull a cigarette free, pool water rolling fresh off her back. “Thanks, Serg.”

  “Everly?” he offered. I glanced at Amelia as she lit up. She smiled as she took a puff, and then said, “Hey, Cal,” as she exhaled.

  “Hey.”

  I turned back to Everly as she shook her head at Nick’s Marlboros.

  “No one,” Tatum huffed, setting three grocery bags down on the table, “calls my husband Serg. Especially not half-naked wretches like you.”

  “I’m only being friendly, Tatum,” Amelia said. “It’s a stupid cigarette.”

  “We’re not friends, so there’s no being friendly. Piss off.” She looked at me, a frazzled, disheveled mess from the heat. “What? What are you looking at?”

  “I think it used to be my best friend. But I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, fuck off, Callum. Why in the hell would you bring her here? I thought you had a little thing for—”

  “Tatum,” I cut her off. “This is Everly. I brought Everly.”

  Her whole face softened. “Oh.” She looked at Everly Anne. “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry,” Everly said. “I won’t use any nicknames on your husband.”

  Tatum smiled and then looked back at me. “Then who the hell invited Barbie’s evil twin?”

  “Noelle. You know that sister I have?”

  Her eyes closed for a second. “Right. Noelle. Sorry, I didn’t see her before I had to trot my happy ass half way across the beach to find Nick his Nectar of Life.”

  He pulled her hips into him so that she sat on his lap. “You’re my Nectar of Life.”

  She kissed him before breaking out the six-packs.

  ***

  A pair of tongs snapped in front of my face as I sat with Everly on the patio. “Callum’s girl,” Nick announced. “I need to steal him away for a second. He’s on steak duty.”

  Tatum hollered, “Put Callum’s girl on plate duty!”

  Nick pointed the tongs at her. “Callum’s girl, you’re on plate duty.”

  “And leave her with Tot? No way. She can help me with the grill. You lovebirds can set the table together.” My father half-stood, his mouth open as if he wanted to say something, but then he sat back down. “Everything okay, Pop?”

  He nodded, and I took Everly over to the grill. She held a plate as I slid burgers and chicken onto it until it was piled high. Noelle snuck in with a few of her friends as we cooked. They over took the pool, and I noticed Everly watched them intently.

  “You can go swim with them. I can do this,” I told her.

  She looked at me. “I’m having fun here.”

  “Noelle’s not gonna bite you,” I joked.

  Everly turned toward the grill. “The blonde girl keeps staring at you.”

  “Yeah well...” I glanced quickly over my shoulder. “That’s Amelia, the girl with the cancer-fighting boobs.”

  “Right...” She was quiet and then said, “The girl you dated. From Face2Face.”

  My stomach lurched when she looked at me for confirmation. “I wouldn’t exactly call it dating. No.”

  She was quiet after that, and we worked in silence until it was time to serve. She sat with me near the pool; we were side by side on a couple of ocean-blue lounge chairs. Everly picked at her hamburger bun, eating mostly air, while everyone else scarfed and drank.

  “Topolina,” I said.

  “Looks like a burger to me, but fine, we’ll call it whatever you wish, Callum.”

  I smiled. “You. You’re the topolina.”

  “I prefer Everly, but fine, call me whatever you wish, Callum.”

  “The way you eat,” I explained. “Like a little mouse. A topolina.”

  She smiled shyly at her food, and then we fell back into silence for a moment.

  Everly was still quiet as she leaned closer and asked, “So, you don’t ever drink?”

  I retorted, “So, you don’t ever eat?”

  And she smiled and shoved her knees into mine.

  I was going to shove back, tell her another word I had reserved for her in Italian, but Amelia interrupted us with a barely-there hot-pink bikini and two shots of tequila.

  “I poured a shot for you,” she said, smiling bright. “Take one with me.” It was an order, not an offer. I felt Everly shift beside me.

  “I don’t drink.” I stabbed a bite of potato salad. “You know that.”

  She sat beside me for a moment, hip to hip, and leaned in to whisper, “It’s a holiday. Everyone is drinking and having fun. You’re just sulking and hiding in the corner. Just take one with me, Callum. For old time’s sake.”

  “Old time’s sake means I won’t be having a drink with you.”

  Her chin touched my shoulder. “Just one.”

  I inched away so her mouth wasn’t close to my face. “No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, though.”

  She lifted the glass to my lips. “It won’t even get you drunk. Just one.”

  I pushed it away. “No thanks.”

  She turned in to me, pressing her barely-covered breasts against my arm. “Just for tonight. Come on. Just one little shot.”

  I had called Everly a little mouse earlier, but her groan and words were not meek in the least when she spoke up.

  “He doesn’t like the word ‘just’. For the love of our Savior, pick another way to plead him into drinking with you.”

  Amelia stood so she could see around me. “Do I fucking know you?”

  And so it began.

  “No,” Everly said. “I’m just trying to help you out.”

  I could not deny my grin.

  “Well, I’m doing fine, so shut up while I talk to Callum.”

  “Amelia,” I said, “I don’t want to drink. I’m not going to drink. You’re wasting your time, love. Go hang out with Noelle and drink to your heart’s content. She has no problem with all the joys of being a drunken monkey. I do.”

  “I don’t know what the big deal is.” She sighed. “It’s one drink. What—you think you’re gonna be a drunk like your pop because you had one little shot of tequila?”

  And. So. It. Began.

  “No, I think I’m going to be like you if I have one little shot, and quite frankly, I’ve worked way too hard to become anything remotely resembling people like you.”

  “People like me? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Just go back to Noelle. Please.”

  “No,” she argued. “You tell me what that means. I sure as hell was okay to be like and to like last year... Wasn’t I? You weren’t drinking, so I know you can’t blame it on tequila amnesia.”

  “Spell that last word for me, love.”

  “You better watch your ego, Callum. That Cornell shit is going to your head.”

  “Yes,” I chided. “I certainly wouldn’t want to develop an ego that leads me to believe a skimpy bikini and an encouraging smile will change someone’s moral compass. We definitely wouldn’t want that. We won’t even discuss the egotistical hypocrisy of flirting with me in front of the girl I brought home for a holiday weekend.”

  “Noelle told me that you told her you and this girl weren’t dating.”

  “Wow. You are a point-proving champion, Amelia Vanguard.”

  “And you’re a boring fuck.” She turned away but then glanced back. “And I mean that in every way possible.”

  “And you’re sloppy as hell when you’re fuckin’ drunk.” I pointed my fork at her. “And I mean that in every way possible.”

  She called me a “limp dick mother-sheep fucker” in Italian, and then huffed back to Noelle’s side of the patio.

  I laughed. “You see,” I said shoving a bite of potato salad in my mouth, wavi
ng my empty fork. “This is why you don’t drink and deal with your problems at the same time. You end up mutilating the beautiful language of my parents’ homeland.”

  “What did she say?” Everly asked, all topolina-like.

  “Something too impossible to be true. Because in order to be an actual mother-sheep fucker, you could not, in fact, have a limp dick.”

  Everly’s eyes widened, and then she treated me to my favorite laugh. “Oh my.”

  I smiled at her. “Oh my indeed.”

  “Italian tempers.” She tutted and then laughed again.

  “Don’t blame the Italians when the outspoken Georgia Peach brought on the ire.”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” she said.

  I looked over at her, reaching for my Coke. “Yes, you were.”

  She hid her eyes by looking at her food.

  “And you know what?” I continued. She looked up at me. “I like that about you.” I took a sip and offered her my glass. Everly took a small sip and passed it back. My mouth touched where she’d drank from, and I took a long drink of something so much sweeter than a cold glass of Coke on a smoldering summer day.

  “She’s just angry you’re not paying her attention. Anyone could be sitting where I am, Callum.”

  “So we are clear,” I said, “while I enjoy you standing up to Amelia, I wasn’t talking about what you said to her. I meant she is jealous of you. You.”

  “Amelia and her life-saving silicone could put a super model to shame. She has no need to be jealous of anyone.”

  I leaned closer. “Spell amnesia for me, Everly Anne.”

  “And she doesn’t know me, so she doesn’t know if I’m dumb or smart,” she replied.

  “But you’re here. Demure and shining. Sober and sweet. Knees to mine and knowing how much I fuckin’ detested the ruthlessness of the word ‘just.’”

  She stared at me for a moment and then said, “A-M-N-E-S-I-A.”

  And I gave her my reserved Italian word that Amelia had interrupted. “Farfalla.”

  Her eyes remained locked with mine. “I pray it’s not a farm animal with ill-equipped sexual offerings.”

  I pressed my thumb to her chin. “It’s a creature destined to live for a short amount of time, but in that time they live so beautifully, so delicate, so ethereal, that even though you want to touch and revel in such a wondrous little thing, it would be a crime to do so, because all beautiful things should live wild and free, even if just for one day.”

  Everly stared at me, her eyes searching mine. “All of that fits into one little Italian word?”

  “No,” I said. “All of that fits into one little mouse.”

  ***

  Her foot was tucked behind her head. “You see?” Amelia said, as we all sat around one of the shaded patio tables. “Flexibility is my special gift. Pay up.”

  Noelle laughed. “Anyone who has ever been to Club 447 knows that. I’m not paying jack.”

  Amelia untucked her leg but not before looking at me. “People uptown know it, too.”

  Noelle looked at Everly. “What about you? What’s your special gift?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  Noelle laughed way too loud, taking another sip from her wine glass. “No, but really. Do it. Blow our minds. Beat Amelia’s lame attempt to get my brother upstairs.”

  “I can’t share the gifts of my body with Callum,” Everly replied, glancing to me once. “He’s being graded on them. It would be cheating.”

  “I would very much like to cheat in this moment.” I smiled. “Please, share at will, Everly Anne.”

  “No cheating, Callum Andrew,” she reminded with a laugh.

  “Then show us another gift,” Amelia chimed in, her voice bitter. “What makes you so special?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet,” she said softly.

  “Someone has,” Amelia mumbled.

  Tatum leaned in and shoved her whole fist into her mouth.

  Nick applauded her and then said, “I’ll take this over legs behind your ears any day of the week.” Tatum freed her mouth and then leaned in and kissed her husband, too long for anyone’s comfort, too hotly for anyone’s comfort. I tossed a potato chip at her to break them up. Long time apart or not, it was the equivalent of watching my sister—maybe even more so—and I didn’t want any part of it.

  “Sure ‘bout that, Sergeant Petros?”

  He squinted as if to think. “Eh, the tequila wants the fist, and the beer wants the legs.” He touched her cheek and eyed her head to toe. “Your legs.”

  Everly laughed at their interaction. I leaned in to her ear. “Where’s my wild farfalla?”

  She glanced at me and smiled timidly. “Okay, I’ve got something.”

  I drum rolled on the table and then waited.

  “I can predict the future.”

  They liked this one. I loved it.

  “Do me!” Nick said. “What’s in my cards? What’s my next mission?”

  She thought for a moment. “Conquering a mouth without a fist.”

  Nick rested into his chair, nodding as he smoked his cigarette. “So far this girl wins. She can have my money.” He tossed a twenty dollar bill on our table.

  Noelle and her never-empty wine glass were up next.

  Everly rubbed her temples. “I’m seeing porcelain. Lots of white porcelain.”

  “Do Amelia!” Noelle laughed. “That should be a bumper sticker. Or your ring tone!”

  “Ha-fucking-ha.”

  “Do her,” Noelle repeated.

  Everly looked down but then lifted her eyes to Amelia. “I see you with a boy named Peter. He’s your one true love.”

  I took a long sip of Coke to hide our secret joke.

  “What about Callum?” Tot asked. “What’s his future?”

  Everly looked at me, shy and beautiful on our first Fourth of July weekend, and told me as if we were alone, “He’s going to save someone’s heart.” But then she squinted, rubbing her temples. “But... I’m also seeing farm animals longing for his expert touch... It could really go either way.”

  Nick lurched forward, choking on his beer. “Oh shit,” he coughed. “She wins. This little peach puff girl Cal conjured out of thin air wins!”

  I looked at her, leaning forward on my elbows. “She’s not a peach puff. She’s a farfalla.”

  “Good,” Amelia chided, “because dumb fucking butterflies die soon after they’re born.”

  I tipped my glass to her. “Congratulations on passing the second grade.”

  Everly mused, “Butterfly.”

  Nick stood. “Why don’t we jump in the pool and play some goddamn Marco Polo so I can chase my wife around while seeming like I’m interested in being around my friends.”

  Tatum smacked his arm. “Be nice. You’ll hurt Callum’s feelings if he thinks you don’t want to chase him around the pool.”

  “Oh I do want to chase him around the pool. Look at him in those little black shorts. Who wouldn’t wanna chase him?” He leaned across to pinch my face, but I punched him away.

  I shook my head. “Thought the military made you hard?”

  “Oh I am, Cal. Just For You!”

  “God, I wish you came home with PTSD and just rocked quietly in the corner or something equally silent.”

  “Never gonna happen,” he said with a thump on his chest. “I am all that is man.”

  “Well, in case you forgot, so am I. Go chase your wife around the pool and stop flirting with my black shorts.”

  He laughed and pulled Tatum from her chair, slinging her across his back.

  “Want to play?” I asked Everly.

  “I think I should stay in the shade. But you and your black shorts should go have fun.”

  “No way. I invited you here. And I have no desire to chase Nick’s ass around the pool.” Louder, I added, “No matter how much he longs for me to do so!”

  He bobbed his fist back and forth toward his mouth.

 
“Not even then, sweetness. Not even fuckin’ then.”

  Everly laughed, her cheeks flushed pink. “I’m okay. Go. Have fun.”

  “Yeah, come,” Amelia said. “Have fun, Callum.”

  Everly nodded, even though her eyes did not seem to agree. So I followed a group of drunken monkeys into the pool and pretended with my eyes closed to find Amelia and not feel her flexible leg on me under the water when I did. She hopped on my back when it was my turn to be Marco, and by then, I’d had enough. She slid in front of me as I tried to leave, splashed my chest, playful, hopeful, but she was no little mouse, no fleeting butterfly with ethereal gifts. She was only a neon light that hurt my eyes, sewed to a selfish heart that tested my temper.

  Everly smiled at me when I came back to the table; I flicked a bit of water at her from my fingers before I towel-dried.

  “Having fun, peach?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Because you enjoy me being tortured?” I sat down and dried my face. Everly stared at me for a moment, her eyes shifting to my wet hair before she replied, “I like watching you smile.”

  “I could have sat right here and found plenty of reasons to smile.”

  “And I don’t like keeping you from things you should be doing just because I can’t.”

  “Ah, that word, peach. You know better.”

  “It’s true. So this time the ‘just’ is... justified.”

  “Why can’t you swim? Will your skin fall off?”

  “Not from swimming. No.”

  “So what’s the big deal with swimming then?”

  “No cheating, remember?”

  “Fine.” I nodded. “What can we do together?”

  “We could swim under the shaded part of the pool—I’d actually like that very much right now. But I don’t like people looking at me so… undressed.”

  “No one is going to say anything. Ignore Amelia. She’s drunk. Who cares?”

  “I care. And it’s not Amelia I’m worried about.”

  “Me?” I said, surprised. “You think I’m going to judge you?”

  “I think I don’t want to find out.”

  “No? My farfalla doesn’t want to live wild and free for one day? She’d rather be the little mouse?”

  She looked to the pool for a moment, then back to me. “Okay, but only in the shade, and you have to tell me if... You need to be mindful of me... I need you to make sure I present well. Do you understand?”