Truth or Dare, page 13
The two keep at it, lip to ear, giggling, drinking.
“Hey, I’ll be right back,” I tell her because I’ve decided to walk around near the entrance even if that means losing my seat at the bar.
Excuse me. Pardon me. Can I get through here? Thanks.
When I reach the door and step outside, the breeze is so energizing. A car splashes past. Roads are glistening from piles of salt, mirroring the glare of headlights. Shops are open, illuminated, and warm.
Then I hear my name. It’s panting behind me. When I turn, I see a puff of breath bobbing before Ryan’s face registers. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she tells me.
I just shrug. I need to get to work on a distraction. “Listen, the line’s out the door, kid. It’s a madhouse. We won’t have a table for a while. Say we hit the mall for a few…kill some time?”
“Sure. Let me run in and tell Brie I’m here. She’s here with you, right?”
Oh, this is not good.
“You’ll never get back out,” I lie. “Seriously. Can’t we just? I really need your opinion.” We link elbows, and I (forcefully) guide her down the walk.
She’s clearly conflicted. Another puff of breath settles between us. A man and woman bolt past us heading for Hops. Voices barrel out the second the door opens. “I’ve got to defrost,” she tells me with a tug and in no time my arm is being dragged between two doors and they slam on my heels.
The girl’s fierce, barreling into the crowd, and I’m in tow, my pulse off the chart at the thought of what she might discover. What’s going on with these two? From the look on her face—hopeful and, dare I say, gooey-eyed—I have a sinking suspicion she’s not anticipating the scene I just walked away from. Unless she’s into threesomes, which would be news to me given she’s morphed into that annoying jealous type with this particular girl. More than once, she’s jumped to conclusions even when there’s no conclusion to make.
She beelines for the bar. I bow my head as an apology to those I’ve bumped until I ram headfirst into her back not ten feet from Brie.
I glance up at her shoulder and then catch her expression, which is empty and drained of that childlike giddiness going on a few seconds ago—and she’s transfixed.
Let’s face it, this doesn’t look good.
It’s like a slow-simmering nightmare. That woman’s working something on Brie. This scene’s going to get ugly if I don’t get Ryan out the door, which I do.
And then she cuts loose on me. “What the hell’d you do that for?”
“Because I’m your friend.”
“Like hell. You could’ve warned me.”
“I tried,” I say. “You wouldn’t let me.”
“How do you figure?”
“Dude, quit the yelling. I’m trying to help you here. Don’t let off on me when you know damn well you’re mad at someone else in there. Shouldn’t you be yelling at your girlfriend right about now?”
“That was the plan.”
I bring it down a notch. “Which is why I pulled you out. Can’t you see that? Don’t make a scene. What kind of friend would let you loose in that frame of mind? Think rationally for a moment.” She’s just stiff. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.” I don’t get any kind of agreement back. She’s trembling. “Let’s take a walk,” I say.
We head toward the center of town. Our path is narrow, so the side-by-side thing isn’t working. I wait for a green. That’s when she shoves both hands in her pockets like she’s cold.
She wants a line by line. There’s not much to tell. Did she talk about me? We talked about art. Was she mad? No, she was pleasant.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she finally says.
I want the rest.
“It’s like we broke up. But where’d it come from? Do you know?”
“When?” I ask.
“Today, I guess.”
I rewind.
“I wanted—I thought she wanted—something lax, you know,” she says with a grunt. “The thing you do.” She swallows, to stop from choking up, apparently. It works. Then a few steps back. What’s astounding is through her broken speech, I get what she’s getting at.
“What I do never lasts a year. They don’t move in,” I tell her.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” And then we’re walking again. “I meant to tell you, but…” Her head drops. She’s just heavy. She’s too unhappy. “This wasn’t the girl to stick around, anyway. How do you do that, Jess?”
“Do what?”
“Not let anyone get to you,” she says.
“You are kidding, right?”
“They never faze you.”
“They do get to me. Trust me on that.”
“She’s flipped on me, won’t talk, won’t tell me anything, pushes me away. I’m trying to be supportive, you know? It’s fucked up. It went too fast. From day one and I took her home. That, right there.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I chuckle.
“Heh. Not this one, I told you that…consider—”
She just lets me hang.
“Never mind,” she says eventually.
We pass the courthouse. A drugstore. A closed bagel shop. And then the shoe shop. But I walk away without showing her the pair I want. We crush heaps of slush along our path, never pausing to look at the imprints.
“You want her back?”
“Who wouldn’t?” she says.
“Give her space, then, time to figure it all out. That’s what you do.”
It’s not just a brush-off nod I get back.
We pause at those bulky doors. I look over at her. Then I give her an elbow. I get a crooked grin. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Nine: Ryan and Brie
Ryan
I’m starving—correction, absolutely famished—and I realize I haven’t had a real bite to eat all day. It’s nice when the grilling and frying and sautéing bring back those cravings. Admittedly they also send my patience out the door.
I’ve spent most of the day paralyzed, pondering my girlfriend’s misery—with me, with life, with everything. And it makes no sense. Not long ago, I was the venerated adventurous girl she went out of her way to please. What gives?
Just look at me, dressed to impress in her favorite getup, the cuffed denim shirt, the khakis, the Fluevogs, the paste that lifts, the leather-strapped watch. And sandalwood.
But as doors part open, some serious doubts set in. That I just may not pull this off. That I might not get her back. And this lump in my throat just recalling that display, her giggling like that, desired like that. I consider her insecurities and want to throw them at her like darts.
“Be right back,” Jessie says. She heads over to Hadley, who’s busy at the hostess stand. I back into the corner and hide on the bench. I’m beholden to her for yanking me out before I made a humiliating spectacle.
Still there’s no sign of my girlfriend from here.
It’s nice being tucked behind a menu stand beside this cooler full of take-out brew. I don’t know how I’ll react when I see her.
Jessie pouts her way back. I must look pitiful, feet flat on the floor, an elbow on each knee, fingers woven.
“Ten minutes and she’ll have a seat,” she says, intentionally bumping elbows as she lifts my half of the bench like a teeter-totter.
“I can live that long.”
“Hope so,” she says.
I grab a menu from the stand and start flipping. I’m ready to try something new. Something super bad for me. Something my highly reserved girlfriend would never even consider. I deserve one night of debauchery, if you could even call it that.
How well, I wonder, do I even know this woman I’m revolting against? She’s a puzzle I can’t ever finish. There are too many missing pieces.
I glance at my nails, now filed, and rub palms on either thigh.
But a hostess rushes over just then with a, “Hey guys, follow me.”
Jessie’s hand is warm on my knee as if to repeat her mantra, It’s going to be okay. Boy, I must look like an inconsolable wimp right now. So I toughen up on the outside and swagger to the table like I own the joint. Like I couldn’t care less. Like life is glorious.
We’re seated at a small table less private than I’d prefer. We occupy two of its four chairs. And while I’m pleased to soon be ordering, I can’t help but wonder where my girlfriend might be hiding, or if she’s even here.
She could be in her truck in the parking lot, windows steamed up. She might not be alone. I know how she operates, how she did with me, at least. Is it wrong to assume? It makes me angry again. Maybe I should take a walk, find that truck. But I’m too afraid I’m right.
I scan the noisy backdrop, landing across the table on Jessie, who’s uncharacteristically pensive. My girlfriend says I’m selfish. Tonight she might be right because look at how long it’s taken to recognize someone else exists.
“So how’s life?” I ask, attempting to save some face.
“That’s a loaded question. You know, same drama, new girl.”
She can see I’m waiting for details. Then her lungs swell and she answers with a shrug.
“Alicia?” I ask.
“I can’t go into it here. But if you see her and she asks about me, not a peep, comprende?” Hand language tells me I should change the subject. Then I catch her little visual excursion across the room. I follow around past open mouths and licked-off lipstick. She leads me to Hadley behind the counter fingering an order on a screen. The girl’s oblivious, but my friend’s fixated.
I squeeze lime into the water glass and take my first sip. I wonder where Brie is.
* * *
Brie
Get used to it, Mom would say. It comes with the territory. But really, these overly insistent, arrogant, bullheaded sorts—they like polite. Well-mannered girls feed their ego. They steamroll nice.
A pinch of apprehension would do wonders to your attractiveness quotient. It’s like fine art. Sharp needs blur. A dab opaque, a touch transparent. I should be grateful, but I’m not. They only understand rude. Or at least passive-aggressive, which is what I chose tonight.
And I’m relieved to see my extra-long visit to the powder room has worked exactly as intended. I meander past bar stools now swiveling with new billfolds. Pushy is nowhere to be seen. I share a nod with the bartender and find myself swooped into Hadley’s arms.
Just beyond her shoulder, my dinner companion sits at a table scarcely large enough to support the rose vase, let alone dinner. My ex is there, and I watch from a distance as they break bread, taking in a lungful of courage before making my way toward what will surely be my second most uncomfortable encounter of the evening.
And I’m tables away when my ex catches on, dragging a chair—a we’re still together tactic. As gazes turn to me, I have to wonder what words were said in my absence about you-know-what.
“Hi, guys!” I announce.
Given my ex’s chivalry has always been something that’s appealed to me, I’m a bit swooned, I admit, and the flush of those drinks, they’ve done nothing for my self-restraint. So it’s good she doesn’t even catch me trailing down her shoulders to thick thighs in pants that hug those curves too well. She looks so good. I can’t help but notice. Then I chastise myself for such a thought and huddle into Jessie. “Why didn’t you save me?”
“From that? I didn’t think you needed saving.”
“I hope you two haven’t been waiting long.”
“Long enough to order,” Jessie says handing over a menu. “What’ll you have?” she asks, flagging down Hadley.
“Anything you’d recommend?”
I’m taken aback by her response, a moan of debatable interpretation though, I’m certain, unintentionally sensual. I study her features, which are surprisingly girlish given her posture, which is quite the opposite. She nods as she gushes about the dish, lips describing it in far too much detail. So I lean in. “You spend a lot of time here, don’t you?”
“A lot…that’s relative.”
“Well, you seem to know a great deal about the menu,” I say.
“That’s because my wife over there is the manager.” She motions to Hadley. “And it’s takeout or canned Campbell’s at the moment.”
“I need to show this girl her way around the kitchen. The way to Jessie’s heart is through her—”
“Sh,” Jessie says, putting her hand over Ryan’s lips. “G-rated. Please.”
“You can’t live on takeout,” is followed by, “and how do you stay so thin?”
“Cooking? Oh, she’s horrible in the kitchen,” Hadley interrupts, flipping her pad.
And Jessie’s water glass makes for a weak shield, though I’ve got to hand it to the girl for trying. “Harsh,” she says. I watch as her lips pucker around the curved rim before she crunches down on a small piece of ice. Her eyes flit over to me. “Order, just go ahead and order already.”
“I’ll try the Veggie Hop.” I smirk. “It comes highly recommended by your wife here.” That’s when I catch a moment between those two. Their restraint, it’s almost painful to watch.
“Won’t be long at all.”
As she leaves with my order, my ex dives in with, “How’d you two make out without heat?”
“Blankets. Lots of them.” If things were so innocent last night, why’s she smirking like that?
“I see.”
I stay out of it, creating a pretty intricate origami figure with my straw wrapper.
“Oh, but listen to this. She’s quite the Girl Scout.”
“Girl Scout…our Hadley?”
“Yes,” begins Jessie, now hunched over adolescent style. “So picture this. We spend a few hours catching up. You know, that sort. Alicia comes by.” She grunts. “Then we decide we’ve had it, crash. So here I’m in bed. She’s on the couch. And the next thing I know, no power. In the middle of the night, mind you. So we call it in, and as you know, the whole damn town’s down so they don’t even have a time. We figure we’ll go back to bed and tomorrow things will be normal again, right? Wrong. So she tells me this cockamamie story about how she made a homemade heater to get some Girl Scout badge and she wants to try it. I’m thinking, lovely. We’re nearing frostbite and this kid wants to make a heater. But no, she gets way excited and goes on this hunt through the apartment, searching drawers. Tells me she needs tea lights and a brownie pan—”
“What the—”
“I know, right? So oddly, I actually had it all. And she lights this candle under a pot. Shuts us up in the bedroom with this contraption. And hey, I mean, it works.”
That’s when I get the nod, which means she wants my input.
“Didn’t you think so? I mean, it’s not a heater, but…”
For some reason, my ex really likes this story and she gets this half smile going, you know, I guess just one side of her mouth is happy. That’s when the Girl Scout herself leans between their shoulders to offer coasters and mugs. Still crouched over the table, our storyteller follows her around, though nobody notices but me.
They both grab their beer. Conversations swim around us. Then the Girl Scout visits the next table and Jessie tries to center her mug in the circle pattern imprinted on the coaster. I’m taking her as rather introspective now and a bit smug. “Here’s something we talked about last night,” she shares. “Give me your take on it. It’s kind of trivial. I don’t know. I mean—”
Ryan cuts her off. “We get it. Just get on with it.”
Hadley, Hadley, Hadley. Can we talk about anything else? I guess not tonight. It’s better than the weather.
But Jessie goes on about their Twenty Questions, which start with, “What’s the best part about winter?” She laughs, taking another swig. “Besides the obvious.” She levels palms on the table in a Don’t look at me or I said too much way. “There are perks, right?”
Then I get the look, which means she wants my answer first. And I try to push away a few unwholesome thoughts jumping at me when I catch her peering from her drink, raising an eyebrow as if to proposition me. I just shouldn’t have had that second drink.
I guess I pause too long (or make my ex uncomfortable) because she jumps in. “I could answer that one for her.”
“No, I got it. Nothing, nothing at all.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Why she hasn’t moved to Antarctica is beyond me.
“Nope.”
Jessie leans in, her posture telling me she thought Portland girls were born with boots on their feet. I tell her Portland girls could surprise you. We lock eyes, and seconds feel like minutes. I linger on that soulful expression, the way her hair falls unevenly on her forehead, the green tinge in her eyes. And then I grow rather self-conscious when I drop to her lips and I sense the start of what will soon be a full-fledged blush on my face.
“One Veggie Hop,” I hear from behind, saving me from the consequences of one too many inebriating beverages. Maybe the warmth on my cheeks isn’t a blush after all. I raise my finger, relieved for the distraction, and he sets a plate in front of me on what’s now an incredibly crowded tabletop. Three drinks, three waters, three place settings, and not an inch of space left for three plates.
“Let me get you girls some elbow room,” he offers, dragging a vacant table our way.
We shuffle seats and spread out. I savor a bite of finger fries. As he leaves, he carries with him a surplus of condiments but ignores two small candles, a pepper mill, a saltshaker, and this half-empty plastic bottle of catsup.
Ryan takes this opportunity to scoot beside me, and though I’m mildly perturbed by her lack of respect for my personal space at this particular point in our relationship, I’m too famished (and polite) to do anything about it. And whereas the downside of a few drinks is that inappropriate glance at a platonic friend, the upside is a rather okay-with-it attitude toward the still-in-denial ex-girlfriend.
We watch everything except each other. Catsup is squeezed. Mugs emptied. Eventually I thank Jessie for the recommendation.
