The comedy club, I mean.
“It was a date,” she says, breaking into a wide grin. “Went horribly wrong as usual.”
“Why are you smiling then?”
“Well the comedian, he wasn’t famous or anything, but he was funny as hell,” she says. “Actually I think a comedy club is a great place for a first date. You can have dinner and drinks before the show and during the show you have something to laugh at if your date has turned into a total douchebag. Which mine did. Plus, you can see the type of humor your date has. If they don’t have the same kind of humor as you, you’re pretty much fucked. And he didn’t.”
She’s got a point there. Lucky for us and our fake date or whatever the hell this has morphed into, we’re always laughing at the exact same things.
We sit down at our table, close to the stage, and are soon ordering dinner and drinks. Marina wastes no time in getting down to business.
“Okay, so tell me what to do,” she says after she has a sip of her dirty martini.
“With what?”
“You know what. If this is our first date, what should I be doing to keep you interested.”
I stare at her for a moment, drawing a complete blank. She’s assuming I wouldn’t be interested in this moment, but of course I am. How could any man not be? She’s sitting close to me, close enough that I can smell her sweet honey scent, see the faint freckles across her nose. Her lips look soft and I know they’d be heaven to kiss. Her hair shines golden under these lights, lit up like an angel. Her blue eyes are even more vivid tonight, watching me with so much hope and worry that I’m absolutely captivated by her.
“I’m already interested,” I say, my voice coming out low and hoarse. “Any man would be.”
A flicker of something comes across her eyes, something bright and joyous. Then it’s gone. “You’re just saying that because you’re Laz. What if you didn’t know me at all. Remember, the game?”
I swallow and busy myself with a sip of beer. “Right. Well, it’s hard for me to be objectionable here because right now, you’re asking how to keep a guy interested and I’m looking at you, darling, and thinking any man who isn’t captivated by what I’m looking at, isn’t worth your time.”
She stares at me openly, as if she’s struggling to accept the compliment. Normally I don’t lay it on so thick…and normally I don’t think I’m leering at her either. Shit. I hope I’m not leering.
I look away, eyes scanning the room, hoping that I wasn’t being too much right now. I normally flirt with Marina and she flirts back, but it’s always in this joking way and both of us know it comes from a friendly place, nothing more. But for some reason, tonight, everything we say to each other seems to carry more weight. Maybe it’s because we’re already evaluating what each of us are doing.
“Captivated,” she repeats softly. “Are you usually this charming with your dates?”
“I hope so,” I say, looking back at her. “Either that or you’re just easily charmed.” I clear my throat, pushing past the awkwardness that surely must be in my head. “So, back to things…”
“Back to things.” She has another sip of her martini, coughs a little. “This is some strong shit.”
“Which reminds me,” I tell her, “if you need to know how not to act on a date, rule number one would be to not get shit-faced.”
Her cheeks go tomato red.
“What?” I ask.
“That happened with Doctor David,” she admits warily. “I was chugging wine, you know, to counteract all the caffeine I had. Then I choked on linguine. David had to give me the Heimlich maneuver in front of the whole restaurant. Then after I spat it all up, I proceeded to give everyone a demonstration of the waggle dance.”
I stare at her, my mind trying to process. “The waggle…what? That’s what happened on your third date?” I ask incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Is that what always happens on your third date because if so, then we definitely know what the problem is.”
She glares at me, looking pouty. “No that doesn’t always happen. There are often variations.”
I raise my brows. “Marina…”
She shrugs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I told you I’m not good at this.”
“Okay, well now we have two things we know not to do, talk about bees and get wasted. Why are you drinking so much anyway?”
“I told you,” she says defensively. “I get nervous. And now you know why I get nervous.”
Drinking is a delicate topic for the both of us. We do drink, naturally, but we’re also very aware of the way our parents are, or at least were. In my case, my father was a drunk and a gambler, which may have been one of the reasons why he left. I still don’t know the real reason and probably never will. Maybe it’s the same reason why my parents sent me off to boarding school to begin with.
As for Marina, her father has always been an alcoholic. He killed her mother in a drunk driving accident when she was young and the two have had a tense and fragmented relationship ever since. Her father is on and off the wagon often, so sometimes Marina has to take care of him. Sometimes her aunt will help out but usually it comes down to Marina which, in my opinion, is highly unfair. It’s a stress that she doesn’t need to deal with, and considering everything she’s gone through, I’m amazed at how positive and selfless she can be.
Though I have to wonder how much of that is a mask. I know she takes medication, I know she sees a therapist, I know that sometimes I see this darkness creep over her, rob her of her heart and joy. When that happens, I wish there was something I could do for her, but all I can really do is just a be a friend, whether she needs it or not.
“You’ve got that look on your face,” she says in a low voice.
“What look?”
“The worried look. The disapproving look. The look that usually precedes a lecture.”
“No lectures,” I tell her. “We both know it’s a sensitive subject and I totally get why you’re nervous. But drinking too much on a date isn’t going to help anyone. So why don’t we attack the reasons why you’re nervous.”
Her eyes roll up to the ceiling. “You know why. Do I have to spell it out again?”
“Because you’re a virgin.”
“Keep your voice down,” she says in a harsh whisper, shrinking in her seat, her eyes flitting around the room. “I don’t want it advertised.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re very much not one.”
“I don’t think I appreciate the very much part. I could tell you how many women I’ve slept with. Do you want to know?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She opens her mouth to say something then snaps her mouth shut. Her shoulder lifts up in a half shrug. “No reason.”
“Thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two!” she exclaims. People turn to look at her.
“Oh, so I can’t talk about your virginity but you’ll go and yell this out loud?”
“Thirty-two,” she repeats, wide-eyed. “Oh my god.”
“You think that’s a lot?”
“Compared to my big fat zero, yeah. You think that’s low?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s low per se…but I’m not into one-night stands and a lot of guys are. So if that were the case…”
“Stop,” she says, showing me her palm. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Why not? We’re just friends.”
“Well you definitely would not talk about your number on a date.”
“Maybe not the first date…”
“You mean to tell me you’ve had thirty-two girlfriends?” She looks off and starts counting on her fingers. “And you’re thirty, so, what, in the last ten years at least you’ve had three point two girlfriends a year?”
“See, that’s really not much. Anyway, I have had a couple of quick shags, back when I was in Berlin, drunken mistakes, that sort of shit. Let’
s call them the point twos. But yeah, I guess that’s what it equals out to be.”
She shakes her head, looks away.
“Hey,” I tell her, leaning across the table to catch her eye. “What is this? You’re mad?”
“I’m not mad,” she says.
“You aren’t looking at me.”
She gives me the death glare. “Do I always have to be looking at you?”
“Yeah, why not? I’m handsome as fuck.”
She snorts. Again, adorable. “You’re also modest.”
“Exceedingly so. Look, I told you my number and I know yours and that’s that. This is a no judgement zone.”
“Who said I was judging?”
“Oh I can tell. Your face gets all squidgy.”
“Squidgy?” she repeats, scrunching her nose.
“See, like that.”
“Why are we talking about this again?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” Every time I try and get us back on the right track, we just fall into our friendship again.
But before this conversation—or another inappropriate one—can continue, the food comes, filet mignon for me, roast chicken for her, and we’re thankfully distracted. We eat, have another drink, then the opening comic comes out, followed by Norm McDonald.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him live and even though he’s just as abrasive and controversial as before, I find myself spending most of the show watching Marina. Just the way her eyes light up, the sound of her laugh as it shoots across the room. She has a really distinctive laugh, infectious and full of joy, the kind of joy that seems…pure. And when you’re the one who causes those eyes to sparkle and laugh to spill out of her lips, there’s no feeling like it.
Not that Norm would care or notice. Everyone in the club is laughing their heads off, including myself. When the show is finally over and we’re walking down Sunset back to the car, my ribs are hurting from laughing so hard.
“I’ll have to remember that chickpea joke,” Marina says between giggles as we stroll beside each other. “I don’t know if I have the deadpan delivery, but I can practice.”
“Might I suggest saving that joke for the third date?”
She grins at me. “No promises.” Then she turns to the passing traffic and opens her arms at the cars. “I love you LA!” she yells at no one in particular. Someone honks.
I grab her arm and pull her along the sidewalk. “What was that for?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a laugh. “Nights like this I just love this city. Where else can you go see a show like that at the last minute? Where else has these palm trees and this warmth and this feeling that you can be anything, do anything, the sky’s the limit. It’s a city of dreamers and I get to dream alongside every one of them.”
“And I’m just another dreamer, sweet girl.”
“Sweet girl?”
Yeah.
Where the hell did that come from? “It just happened. I can go back to calling you Bumble if you want.”
“You can call me anything tonight.”
“I know you’re high on adrenaline from laughing for hours and I don’t want to ruin that but are you okay with the fact that we haven’t really done anything in the, how did you call it again, the art of seduction?”
“I think I’ve learned enough for tonight,” she says, her brows knitting together. “There’s always date number two…if you think I’ve earned a second date.”
“It was always a given.”
“I mean, I stopped at two martinis and I didn’t mention bees once.”
“You’re practically a new woman.”
We reach the car in the parking lot and I pause beside the passenger door. “Need a ride home, blondie?”
“As long as you don’t try anything foolish,” she says.
“Foolish?” I say as I open the door for her and she gets in. I climb in the driver’s seat. “What would be foolish?”
“Trying to kiss me goodnight,” she says.
“My god, woman. You are a bloody challenge, aren’t you?”
She smiles, sarcastically sweet.
“How about this?” I say, leaning over and opening the glove compartment, bringing out a Magic 8 Ball. “I’ll ask the ball and see what it says I should do.”
“Oh my god!” she exclaims, taking the ball out of my hands and turning it around and around. “You really do have one!”
“I told you.”
“I thought you were joking. Who the hell carries around a Magic 8 Ball?”
“I don’t carry it around.” I snatch it out of her hands. “I have one in the car and one in my room.”
“Laz,” she says slowly, looking me over like I’ve suddenly morphed into a circus freak. “You know this makes you really weird, right?”
“I’m aware.”
“So, like, my whole obsession with bees, which by the way, is totally justifiable when you consider my career, seems kind of normal by comparison. I mean, you don’t have a career in…fortune telling.”
“You could have said professional billiards player.”
“Do you tell your dates about this?”
I give her a dry look. “What do you think?”
She sighs. “Oh what does it matter, I bet if they did know, they’d still sleep with you.”
“Maybe. I haven’t dared to show anyone.”
“So even someone like Simone never knew about this.”
I laugh. “This. You make it sound like I keep locks of hair from all my ex-girlfriends in a shoebox under my bed or something to that nature.”
She looks horrified.
“Which I don’t,” I go on. “It’s sad that I had to clarify that right now. Anyway, it’s just for fun. It keeps the pressure off and no I don’t blindly do what it says. I’m not that daft. But it helps in a pinch.”
Her eyes study me intently for a moment. The she nods. “Yeah, it’s still weird, I don’t care how you justify it.”
“Then I guess we’re just a pair of fucking weirdos aren’t we now?” I stare down at the ball, then close my eyes and say. “Should I kiss Marina goodnight?”
I shake the ball vigorously, open my eyes and take a look.
A blue triangle that says LOL floats to the surface.
Marina bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, it has a sense of humor! Is it sentient?”
“Obviously this is the upgraded version. I have the old-fashioned kind at home,” I tell her as I stick the ball back in the glove compartment and shut it. I know I should probably feel like a bit of a wanker or something for showing her that, let alone actually asking the bloody thing if I should kiss her or not. But I have zero regrets.
So far…
“Well, sorry to tell you then but if the 8 Ball says it’s a laughable idea, it’s a laughable idea.”
“Fine. But if you’re willing to accept the answer tonight, you should be willing to accept whatever answer it gives me on our next date.”
“Since when did dating turn into gambling?”
“When you agreed to go out with me, Bumble.”
“Guess I should have seen that coming.”
Laz
“Walking in My Shoes”
* * *
I wake up feeling inspired.
I have to thank my dreams for that.
I don’t exactly remember them but I remember the feelings they gave me, imprinted somewhere inside. It was warmth and happiness followed by self-sabotaging and despair. Something beautiful and wonderful had happened to me and then I ruined it all, more comfortable being cold and alone. I wear misery like a worn coat and in my dream it was no different.
It sounds slightly morbid, but it’s the best kind of dream I can have. You know, from a creative point of view. Emotions at a high, swirling inside me, based on nothing. Nothing in my real life is at stake, everything is the same, and these feelings are fleeting. Harmless. So I immediately grab my pen and paper beside the bed and start writing.
I end up filling s
ix pages full of one whole poem, something I can easily break apart later into sections and then parcel it out on Instagram. I’ve been posting so much old stuff lately that I think people might be getting sick of it.
I could actually write more but my phone rings and just like that, all the creativity is drained out of me, like it was never here to begin with. I know it’s my mother calling, she’s the only person I know who doesn’t text.
I stare at the cell for a moment and rally together the strength to talk to her. It would be so much easier for it to go to voice mail but I hadn’t talked to her in a few weeks now, which I feel guilty about, even though she hadn’t called me either.
“Hi mum,” I say into the phone.
“Lazarus, sweetheart,” she says. “It wouldn’t kill you to call would it?”
More than a decade outside of Manchester and her accent is as strong as ever.
“Sorry mum, just been busy. How are things?”
“Oh, you know. The same old. Listen, I have a favor to ask you.” She got to the point fast, as usual. “Noah has been…hard to manage lately. You know he won’t talk to me and he absolutely refuses to talk to Daryl. So I was wondering if you’d be able to come by and take him out for ice cream or something.”
The way she’s talking about Noah, it makes him sound like he’s an eight-year-old kid, not fourteen. Then again, that’s the way she always talks about him. I know it isn’t easy for stepparents but my mother has been with Daryl for thirteen years now and it’s like Noah and Jane are still Daryl’s kids and not her own.
Then again, I’m my mother’s son and she sent me off to boarding school for most of my life, so being parent of the year isn’t exactly her forte.
“Noah doesn’t mind?” I ask. I get along really well with Noah but I also don’t want to stick my nose in where it’s not welcome and considering how volatile he’s been this last year, I don’t want to encourage any teenage angst if I don’t have to.
“He’s lonely,” she says. “He needs a friend. I’m not sure he has any…good ones.”
Take Me To The Beach Page 33