by J. A. Wright
I knew I had to find a way to stop obsessing about Nick, so when Cory asked me to go with him to the store’s Fourth of July picnic I said yes. Cory was one of those guys who’s almost too nice. He was twenty-three, six foot four, skinny, and had lots of blond, wavy hair and light bluish-gray eyes. He knew Nick and I were together because he’d seen us in the back room making out a few times. He also knew I was mad at him because he’d heard me tell him to “fuck off ” a few times as well. I had to give him a lot of credit for asking me out.
I thought I was going to explode with anxiety as I walked from the staff room to my register. Was I cheating on Nick now? I knew if he saw Cory and me together he’d go crazy. But then I remembered that Nick wasn’t due back until July 6th, so I stopped worrying about it and began to allow myself to think about Cory. Maybe dating him would help me feel better about myself. The fact that Cory often worked at night alone and might be able to get me something from the pharmacy was a bonus.
We were the first ones to arrive at the picnic. Cory wanted to get there early so he could drive us around the lake in the store’s ski boat. It was fun, and I was having a great time until I spotted Nick and Sharon, right when we got back from our boat ride. They were standing in front of the store’s display of US flags, next to a food tent. Nick smiled and whistled at me like he was calling a dog. I didn’t respond, but I felt my insides whirl with excitement. I could tell Nick had noticed that Cory and I were together. That was too much for me to handle sober, so I headed to the picnic table that was hosting the open bar.
No one was at the beer tent when I arrived, which was great because Nick showed up just as I was deciding on what type of beer I wanted to drink and how many.
“What the fuck are you doing here with our stock boy?” he growled quietly as he walked up behind me.
“I didn’t have anyone to go with and I didn’t think you’d be back until next week,” I replied.
“I cut it short. Good thing, huh? I leave for a few weeks and you’re at it with anyone who’ll have you!”
“I’m not ‘at it’ with Cory. We’re just at the picnic together. There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s nice and he’s not married,” I sputtered, trying hard not to let him see how much my hands were shaking.
“What you need is a good fuck and a drug supplier, and I’m your man. As well as a nice guy!” Nick said.
“I can hear your wife calling you,” I said, and I grabbed a couple of cold beers and went to find Cory. We sat with a couple of cashiers at a picnic table far away from where Sharon and Nick were sitting.
I was careful not to drink too much, or to let Cory see me look around for Nick, though I couldn’t stop myself from doing it. When it came time for Nick to give a speech to the thirty or so employees at the picnic, he was so drunk he couldn’t stand up, so Sharon did it for him. It would have been fine if Nick hadn’t kept interrupting her with his slurry, “You tell ’em, honey. Tell ’em I’m a nice guy too, will ya?”
By the time I was ready to leave, Nick had peed on Sharon’s chair and then fallen down next to the big barbecue pit. Cory and a few other guys tried to help Nick stand up, but he was too drunk to stand, so they carried him to his car and put him in the backseat.
I was glad Cory hadn’t noticed me looking at Nick all day and that he talked about water skiing the entire drive back to the mall parking lot, where we’d met that morning, because I was afraid if I started talking I’d tell Cory something I wasn’t supposed to.
“Thanks for the great day. Maybe we should do it again sometime, huh?” Cory said as he pulled up next to my Fiesta.
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied and tried hard to give him a smile.
I had a feeling I was in big trouble with Nick, and I knew I’d never get any sleep unless I was drunk, so I stopped at the Hangout Bar and had a few rum and cokes on my way home. I can’t remember driving to the condo that night, and I didn’t hear Nick open the front door the next morning, either.
Nick shook me awake just after 6 a.m. “You’re a fucking slut!” he yelled. He was on me before I could even react, slamming my head against the wall. I heard the thud before I felt it, and I screamed at him to let me go as I struggled to get away.
“You’ll never get another thing from me!”
I wiggled out of his grip and ran to the kitchen, but he followed and knocked me down. I tried for a few minutes to get away, but he was getting meaner and I knew if I continued to resist I’d pay for it, so I gave up fighting. He made me have sex with him on the kitchen table with the blinds wide open so the neighbor guy could watch. I didn’t struggle and I didn’t say a word. I just kept my eyes closed until he was done.
I broke every plate and every glass in Nick’s condo that day. I also took the thousand dollars he had hidden in the freezer and then left all the doors unlocked before I took all my things and drove to Mom’s house.
I got there at noon and unpacked. I made a sandwich and watched General Hospital and then went to Mom’s room to see if she had any pills on her dresser. I found a brand-new prescription of Ativan, so I helped myself to one and shoved another in my pants pocket for later.
Mom was happy to see me when she got home from work. She didn’t even ask me why I was back, and when I told her I was planning to stay for a while she said, “Sure, honey, but remember you’ve got to pay me fifty dollars a week.”
Fifty dollars didn’t seem like too much of a price to pay to be away from Nick, and I was glad to be in my own bed. Rascal found her way onto my pillow that first night and purred all night long. I think I did too.
After two weeks of living at Mom’s, and avoiding Nick and work, I began to feel better—not so down and not so worried. I even took my résumé around to a few stores in the mall, but I only got one interview, and it was for mall security and I wasn’t qualified.
I found a note from Cory on my car window the same day as my mall security interview. “Call me please,” it said.
I crumpled up the note and put it in my pocket, a bit disappointed that it wasn’t from Nick telling me how sorry he was. The next day I decided to take a part-time kitchen hand job at the Hangout Bar.
The Hangout was the hippest bar in town, and everyone who worked there was nice to me. I felt like a real grown-up sitting at the bar after my shift and drinking with people who had interesting jobs and knew lots of things about the world. Best of all was that I hardly ever thought about Nick when I was there. I was just too busy.
About six weeks after I moved out of Nick’s condo and in with Mom, I found a note from Nick on my windshield, “Where the fuck is the thousand dollars I had in the freezer? Return it or else.”
I was scared when I read the note, and shocked that Nick had only just discovered his money was missing. I thought he’d known it was gone since the night I moved out. I couldn’t return it because I’d spent all of it. I’d used it to pay Mom two hundred for rent, buy rounds of drinks for some of my new friends at the bar, and score a bottle of sixty Valium from a guy who taught me to play pool.
I talked to one of the bartenders that night after my shift about what Nick had done to me and about the money I took. He said I deserved the money and that I should call Nick and tell him to go fuck himself and that he’d even dial the number for me.
Nick’s mobile phone rang ten times before he answered. “Go fuck yourself, you asshole!” I yelled.
Telling Nick to fuck himself felt great, but it had the surprising effect of seeming to get him interested in me like never before. He left another note on my car the next day: “I don’t care about the money. I miss you. Call me.”
I was a little bit happy about the note, but also suspicious and scared, so I didn’t call him. He continued to leave notes, pleading with me to meet him at the condo. The last one he left said, “You’re fired, BITCH.”
I was relieved, but a little sad, to read that note. When I showed it to my friends at the Hangout, two guys offered to kneecap Nick for me. I didn’t want them to, bu
t it was nice that they offered.
One night, at the end of August, almost two months since we’d gone to the picnic together, Cory came into the Hangout with a guy I recognized from the mall and sat down at the bar. He didn’t know I worked there, and when I saw him walk in, my first instinct was to hide. It took about an hour for him to spot me playing pool and by that time I was just drunk enough to answer his questions about me quitting the store and not calling him.
“It was a bad time. I lost my apartment and had to move back in with my Mom. I’ve been meaning to call you but thought I’d wait until I got my own place,” I lied.
“Okay then, question answered!” Cory replied in a happy voice and then asked me to play a game of darts with him. I wasn’t very good at darts, but I had fun and by the end of the night I had begun to find Cory attractive. When he asked me to go to dinner with him the next night, I agreed. “Will you pick me up in that square car of yours?” I asked.
“Sure will,” he replied and smiled big.
I loved his car, a teal blue 1976 AMC Pacer with tan leather bucket seats that went all the way back if you pulled a lever on the side of the seat. “My grandpa gave it to me,” he told me. “He said I could sell it and use the money to pay for school, but it’s such a cool car I decided to keep it.”
“The AMC Pacer is the worst car ever built in America, according to my dad,” I said when he picked me up to take me to dinner.
“Who’s your dad?” Cory asked in a real serious tone.
I thought about it for a few seconds before I answered, “He’s no one important,” and then we both laughed in an uncomfortable “conversation over” way.
We’d been seeing each other for two weeks when I told Cory it was okay if he wanted to have sex me. “I don’t mind if you want to do something other than missionary style. I could even get on top if you wanted. Have you noticed how your seats go all the way back?” I added as I lifted the lever and let the seat drop back until I was lying completely horizontal. I put my legs up in the air and opened them wide.
He pulled his head back and shook it from side to side a couple of times before he said, “Why would you say that, and why would you do what you just did?”
“Why not?” I grinned as I moved my hand up and slid it over his thigh to his crotch. “I’m pretty good at sex, even hand jobs.”
He pushed my hand out of the way, gave me a dirty look, and said, “You talk so nasty sometimes.”
“Is it nasty? I thought it was sexy,” I replied.
“It’s nasty! And you’re being nasty,” he said. His reaction made me feel dirty and stupid. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and when he dropped me off at Mom’s that night we didn’t kiss goodnight, or even say good-bye.
After that, Cory didn’t call me again. I never did get around to asking him to get me anything from Nick’s pharmacy, but I knew he wouldn’t have done it anyway. So I got a part-time weekend job in October at the other drug store in the mall. It was a big store and had a much larger pharmacy than Nick’s.
After a couple of weeks working as a relief cashier, I talked one of the store pharmacy assistants into letting me help out behind the counter on Sundays, but it was hard to get my hands on much because every pill and ounce of liquid was measured, monitored, and checked. Sometimes the pharmacist would break or spill a bottle of something good, but it wasn’t often I got to go home with anything.
I quit the Sunday pharmacy shift just after Thanksgiving, when I got caught taking two pills out of a filled prescription bottle. I didn’t get fired, but the head pharmacist told me off pretty bad. “I see people like you all the time, people who’ve been on their way to AA since they were born. Do yourself and everyone else a favor and join now.”
He scared me, and I thought about what he said every time I drank from then on. Sometimes I tried to limit my drinking, or I’d take a couple of pills before I started drinking so that I didn’t drink too much. It rarely worked, though, and by the end of the year I was drinking way more than I meant to all the time and staying at the Hangout Bar until it closed most nights.
When Mom told me on New Year’s Eve that Robbie and his new girlfriend were getting married, I almost laughed. It was funny to me that anyone would want to marry Robbie, and I was curious to learn more about her.
“Isn’t it great that Sarah Lizbeth and Robbie found each other?” she said. “She lives just up the road, in Cypress, and her parents are paying for a big wedding, bigger than Aunt Flo’s. I can’t wait.”
“Is Sarah a she/he, or a Navy Seal?” I joked.
“That’s not funny. Don’t say it again!” Mom shouted.
“I was just kidding,” I replied.
“No you weren’t. You do that all the time. Stop it.”
Sarah Lizbeth and Robbie had been dating for just six weeks when he proposed. They sent Mom an envelope full of their engagement photos, and Mom insisted on showing them to me while we sat at the kitchen table eating. I was surprised to see that Sarah Lizbeth was a blonde, blue-eyed Barbie doll, because I expected her to look like a grease monkey, like Robbie’s other girlfriends.
Robbie took a leave from work at his job in Sacramento and showed up a week later to stay for a few weeks so he could help Sarah Lizbeth with the wedding arrangements. I hated the idea of Robbie being around the house, but Mom thought it would be great to have us both home.
It was over dinner the first night that Robbie brought out a seating chart for the reception dinner and gave me a lecture about where I would sit, who I would be sitting next to, and how I needed to behave. “Don’t wear any of your slutty clothes, try wearing some deodorant, and maybe you could go home after the ceremony, huh?” he said.
“I don’t want to go to your wedding; it sounds boring, just like you!” I screamed as I got up and headed to my room.
The next morning Mom got all teary when she heard me and Robbie arguing in the kitchen about who would make the coffee. “I think your dad would be so proud to see us all at the wedding together,” Mom said as she walked into the kitchen.
I don’t think either of us agreed with her, but we both shut up, and the next day Robbie moved into Sarah’s place.
Robbie and Sarah Lizbeth’s engagement announcement was published in the local newspaper a few days later. It had one of those staged glamour photos with it, and Mom asked me to get a few color copies made so she could mail them to her sister and brother. That’s what I was doing when I ran into Sarah Lizbeth and Robbie at the mall. Robbie was talking on his mobile phone and tried to pretend he hadn’t seen me, but Sarah Lizbeth smiled and said, “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m just going to get copies made of your engagement thing for Mom,” I replied. “What are you guys doing?”
“A bit of shopping,” she said as she held up two bags.
“Have fun,” I replied, already turning away. I picked up my pace, and was about ten feet past them when I heard Sarah Lizbeth say, “Hey, I think it would be nice to have you in the wedding. Would you be a bridesmaid?”
I turned around just in time to see Robbie put his hand over her mouth. “She can’t be in the wedding. Look at her. She’s bovine-like and she’ll ruin the photos,” he said loud enough for anyone within twenty feet to hear.
I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, and I knew Sarah Lizbeth saw them too. I told Robbie to fuck off and practically ran all the way to the women’s bathroom.
Sarah Lizbeth called the next day to apologize for Robbie and practically begged me to come over to her apartment the next weekend to try on dresses with the five other girls she’d lined up to be bridesmaids. “I really want you in the wedding,” she said.
“I’ll think about it,” I said before I hung up.
After I told Mom about what had happened at the mall, she said, “You have to, honey. Do it for me. Okay?”
Robbie was right. Compared with the other bridesmaids, who were all blonde and beautiful, I was a cow, and there was no way I would get into
the size six dress Sarah Lizbeth had bought for me. “It only comes in size two, four, or six, and I don’t think there’s enough material to take it out much,” Sarah Lizbeth said after I tried to get it over my head with no success.
I knew she’d figured out she’d made a big mistake asking me to be a bridesmaid, but instead of letting me off the hook, she told me I was going to join her diet group—that she and her other bridesmaids would be my diet coaches.
“I don’t like to diet,” I said.
“You will by the time we’re done with you,” she said, laughing.
The bridesmaids were excited about helping me lose weight, and it went well for the first two weeks. But after my two-week weigh in, I started sneaking food and drinking beer. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself. By the end of the third week, the idea that I could lose enough weight to go from a size fourteen to a size six was becoming more depressing than hopeful.
Three days before the bachelorette party (a week before the wedding), we had a weigh-in at Sarah Lizbeth’s apartment, after which we were supposed to go out to a new Mexican bar. I didn’t eat a thing that day in preparation for the weigh-in, which told me I was still twelve pounds short of my goal weight, and still too fat to zip up the dress. No one said a thing about my zero weight loss, and I acted like I didn’t know why I hadn’t lost any weight.
By the time we got to the restaurant I was starving and thirsty. When the bartender started setting up tequila shots in front of us and said if any of us could do a dozen shots they were on the house, no one wanted to try it but me. I’m sure none of them thought I could or would, but I did. And it only took me about ten minutes. Even though I had to go the bathroom to throw up, I was still able to get back up on my bar stool afterward. I even downed a couple of margaritas.