Jordyn's Army, page 16
“I hate you right now, you know that.”
I laugh at my best friend. “Yeah, well, you’ll get over it. C’mon, let’s go in.” Successfully, I maneuver her over to the line and strike up a conversation with two guys behind us. “Who are you? Did we know you?” With a graduating class of over a thousand students, our high school had a bigger enrollment than some colleges. “This is Rose. She’s single. Are either of you single?”
“And this is Des. She’s single, too.” Rose chimes in and with a wicked smile on her face, asks, “So, who knocked you up again?”
“Bitch.” I whack her in the arm.
“You two are funny. What middle school did you go to?” Three middle schools fed into our high school, and while we knew the people we were with from sixth grade through twelve, unless you were in a class with people from the other schools, you might not have known them.
“We went to Candle Creek,” Rose answers one of the guys who is not bad looking and wears no wedding ring. “How about you?”
“We went to South Hills.” Their school was the far side of the district and they were a cliquey bunch.
Entering the check in, I take a quick scan of the name tags still on the table “Kathleen was wrong. Looks like Josh and Two-Tits have already checked in. How the hell did she miss her?”
“This is going to be a very long night.” Turning from the table, Rose starts a beeline for the bar.
“Hey, wait for me,” I call after her, waddling a bit slower these days.
“What kind of white wine do you have?” Rose sounds desperate as she asks the bartender.
“Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and a Sauvignon Blanc.”
“I’ll take a glass of the Pinot. What are you drinking, Des?”
“Cranberry juice. Here, why don’t you take my drink tickets.”
Snatching them from me, she barks, “Good, because I’m going to need them.”
As we turn from the bar, there he is, regaling a group of hangers on, the tech king and his insignificant other.
“Oh, Jesus,” I lament.
“Let’s get this over with,” my wing-woman suggests. “Then you can enjoy the rest of your night.”
He sees us as we near, like he can smell my pregnancy hormones or something, but the moment my eyes meet his, my nerves are gone. This boy knew me better than anyone, besides Rose, that is, and the memories of what we shared are perfect. For memories.
“Look at you.” He stops talking to his admirers and begins to approach me. “You look… radiant.” He pulls me in for an embrace, both familiar and strange. As we part, his hand goes right to my swollen belly, that thing people think is totally fine to do to pregnant women, and it is anything but fine.
Swatting his hand away, I snarl at him, “Don’t corrupt my child.”
“I corrupted his mama.” His smile is knowing, and in this moment, all I feel for him is love. None of the crap that broke us up matters any longer. It dissipated the moment his smile reached his eyes. And with a clarity I can only imagine is fueled by my raging hormones, I realize something that has eluded me until this very moment, he is not history. He is my history, an inextricable ingredient in the formulation of my life, a life that I will now share with this child.
“She was born corrupted.” I know Rose’s eyes are rolling without even looking at her.
“Rosalita,” he addresses Rose with a nickname he gave her in ninth grade, giving her a hug.
“You remember my wife, Amber.” Two-Tits is now clinging to him.
“You’ve gained…” she responds and all I can think is, she really can’t be this stupid and rude, can she?
“It’s called approaching your third trimester,” Rose corrects her. Wing-woman on the move!
“Oh you’re…”
“Positively radiant.” He husband completes her sentence, reaffirming his initial comment. “Is your husband here?”
“He hates these things.” I shrug.
“He’s a fool to let you out of his sight.” His eye contact is beyond intense. What the hell, Josh?
“Sometimes men are foolish.” Yeah, I’m looking at you, mister.
He laughs. “Yeah, we think with our dicks. And…” He doesn’t complete his thought.
“Regret it later,” Wing-woman says in little more than a whisper, but we’ve all clearly heard her.
There’s nothing finer in life than a best friend, except maybe a group of hangers on who show up when you need them most.
“Josh, so glad you could make it. I totally love your new mobile money app.” I hear someone say, but he doesn’t look at their faces because his gaze is still steadfastly holding mine.
There’s a sense of validation and calm that’s come with this exchange and I know all our interactions forever more will be filled with laughs and warm feelings when we conjure the memories only we two share.
3
Rose
One down, one to go, I head to the bar for my second glass of Pinot, leaving Des deep in conversation with three other pregnant women. This single chick does not care about who has great prices on cribs, under any circumstance, and this one in particular, my first encounter with him. I wish Connor would show himself already so that I can finally get it over and done with, live through it, and say to myself, look, you survived.
I spy a set of glass doors at the far end of the room and wonder if it leads to a terrace or some kind of outdoor space to hang out. I need to be out of this room badly. Even if it smells like dead fish out there. Stopping for several quick hellos and hugs from people I have not seen in years, I quickly extricate myself with one goal in mind, fresh air and okay, maybe a second goal, knocking off this second full glass of wine. As I push the door open, I’m greeted by the fetid smelling, humid air, but even the gross fishy odor is a relief from being a captive of my own anxiety in a crowded room. The terrace on the other side of the door is immense, with large, irregularly cut slate flooring, bordered by waist-high, light-colored, rough stone walls. At the far end are two couples talking, but the rest of the space is totally empty. I walk toward a shadowed area, as far away from the couples as I possibly can get.
Leaning up against the stone, I sip my wine and take in the moon’s extremely bright halo. It was nice to see Josh looking happy to see a pregnant Des. Whatever bad blood that had trailed between them seemed to dissipate almost immediately, and I could feel the warmth from both their hearts, leaving behind a treasure chest filled with great memories.
I don’t expect the same positive closure tonight with Connor. Ghosting me after over six years together takes a special kind of creep. The lack of respect, hell, the lack of balls, as he was not even man enough to tell me it was over. Who does that?
And now, I just want to run into him and get it over with. Seeing him, and all the emotional baggage that brings, has got my stomach in knots and my stress level as high as that moon is in the sky.
“Quite a moon dog.” I’m snapped out of my reverie by a voice I haven’t heard, not even in my own head, for a very long time.
“I was just admiring it.” I can’t remember the last time someone called a lunar halo a moon dog, at least, not since we were kids. “Guess you’re back from Thailand, huh?” I continue to stare at the moon because I can’t bring myself to look at him yet.
When he doesn’t answer, I cave as the nervous need to fill the silence becomes the victor. “I always wondered if our paths crossed again if I would have a Marion Ravenwood reaction, you know, when she sees Indiana Jones for the first time again and decks him.”
“You want to punch me?” he asks.
I turn and gaze at him for the first time, his profile illuminated in the moonlight. He looks good, much to my chagrin. I wanted him to be bald… and bloated.
“No, you’re not worth it.” I shrug.
Turning to face me, I watch as he takes me in, and I hope my hair isn’t doing funky things in the dank night air. I look fabulous, I tell myself, delivering a jolt of confidence boost to an ego I once let this man destroy.
No more. I took that power back. It’s mine now. And you don’t get it again.
“I deserve that.”
“Actually, you don’t deserve anything.” My words come out harsher than I’m feeling, which surprisingly is now bordering on numb.
“You’re right. I was a shitty boyfriend. I shouldn’t have done to you what I did.”
Taking a sip of my wine, I can feel my eyes rolling as if they have a mind of their own. “A few years down the road here, and I’m glad you did what you did, and that I didn’t waste any more of my life on you.”
“I wouldn’t call what we had a waste, Rose.”
“Oh no? What would you call it?” Crap, I’m at the bottom of my wine glass.
“It was good. You were my first love.” He smiles at me.
“Nice way to treat people you love.” I take a non-existent sip from my now empty drink. “So, what was it? You just didn’t have the balls to tell me that you were involved with her.”
Shrugging, he looks back up at the moon, its light reflecting off the strands of his perfectly cut light-brown hair. “Something like that. I knew you disliked her, and you’d go off on me.”
“So, you just wussed out.” It wasn’t a question. It was the answer. “Well, you know what, you both got what you deserved, and I know what I deserve, and it’s a man who respects me and has the maturity to communicate, even when times get tough.” Good riddance!
I’m immediately distracted, glancing over Connor’s shoulder at the guy approaching us in this isolated corner of the terrace. He’s big, 6’2”, 6’3” tall and built, in dark, skinny jeans and a black V-neck shirt, he’s much more casually dressed than the other men here.
As he nears, I recognize him and can’t help but smile.
By far, the most successful graduate of our class was something of a derelict all through high school. He wasn’t very interested in attending class, maybe the one exception, was art class. This guy could draw and when he sporadically showed up, he was always engrossed in whatever it was he was sketching. He sat behind me in 10th grade geometry and made me more than a little uncomfortable.
With each step, I can see his smile grow wider and it is magnificent. As he reaches us, he extends his arm, tipping a wine glass toward me to take.
“Sorry, babe. They were all out of the Pinot, so I got you the Sauvignon Blanc. I know you enjoy that more than Chardonnay.”
Taking the glass from him, I smile. “Thank you.” How the heck does he know what wine I like and what on God’s great Earth is going on?
Parking himself against the stone wall next to me, he casually slings an arm over my shoulder and looks at Connor. “ I remember you, man.”
“Yeah, umm, Connor Powell. I’m a big fan.”
“Oh thanks, I appreciate that.” He plants a soft kiss on the side of my head and pulls my body so that I am leaning fully against him, and it feels damn nice. A little disconcerting, but damn nice. His scent is some kind of clean man soap and I really want to sniff him.
“So, where are you living these days, Connor? Are you still here in Jersey?”
“No. No, I’m in Atlanta these days.”
He’s looking at me for a reaction, but before I can speak, I’m preempted with, “Hotlanta. Good town… good town. We’re out in LA,” he informs Connor.
“Yeah, I figured you would be, with the TV industry and all.” Connor is practically stammering. “I didn’t realize you were out there as well, Rose.”
My wine glass is to my mouth and I’m halfway into a sip, so I just nod.
“Yeah, we love it there. This one needs to be near the ocean.” He’s referring to me. “But I’m sure you remember that.” Whoa, good zing.
“Yeah. I do remember that.”
“How’s Piper?” I finally find my voice again.
Connor shakes his head. “We’re not together anymore.”
Shocker! “Oh, what a shame.” I smile at him. And then I just can’t help myself. “Was she worth it?”
He pauses and his stare does not feel friendly. “We had some good times.”
“Well, good for you.” He just looks at me and emboldened by wine and a very handsome, famous, and successful faux boyfriend, who has now begun to play with my hair, which is really hot and I am dying, I add, “The grass always seems greener, but you really gotta watch out for crab grass, that crap grows everywhere.”
Connor and I just stare at one another. This was clearly not the first encounter either one of us expected.
Nodding his head, he steps forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek and extends a hand to my companion. “I’m going to go find myself a drink.”
I watch him as he moves away from us, crossing the length of the slate terrace.
What the hell just happened?
When he’s finally inside the ballroom, I turn to my companion. My look is questioning, my smile wide.
“Rosie-blowsy, do you even know who I am?” His smile is wolfish. Damn, he is handsome. His hair appears almost black, shining in the moonlight.
“The asshole who sat behind me in geometry.”
“ Good memory.” He looks seemingly happy that he made an impression on me.
“You tortured me.” What I’m not telling him is that beyond him calling me Rosie-Blowsy and drawing neon colored logos that said, Rose Blows, he tortured me when I was falling asleep at night. He was my dirty boy fantasy. He was hot even back then, but he was also a total derelict and I was an A-student and our social circles were not overlapping on the same Venn diagram.
“My social skills with the opposite sex were not very well developed in tenth grade.”
“Well, that never stopped you from having a girlfriend.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. But I wasn’t doing a lot of talking to them.”
“Lucky you.” I guess he was having a lot of sex while I was studying.
“No. Not lucky me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I couldn’t talk to you.”
“Talk to me? You freaking called me Rosie-Blowsy.”
“Yeah, I was kind of an idiot, huh.”
I nod. This handsome idiot who still has his arm around me is none other than that creator of the hottest animated show on TV about a group of high school misfits, aptly entitled Misfits. The merchandising alone has got to be millions, I muse. No one ever, in a gazillion years, would have ever guessed that he would be the Most Likely to Succeed in our high school class. No one actually thought he’d graduate.
“Let’s take it from the top.” He smiles at me. “Hello, Rose.”
“Hello, Danny.”
“It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too.”
“I was hoping you’d be here.”
“Me?” I wasn’t exactly someone who hung out with him.
“Yeah, you.”
“But we weren’t…”
“Friends? No, we weren’t. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like you.”
“You liked me because I let you cheat off me that one time.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely, that was a perk. Why’d you let me? You didn’t seem like the kind of kid who would.”
“You were cute and funny.” I shrug, feeling a little uncomfortable with my admission.
“You liked me.” His smile isn’t smug, there’s a hint of surprise.
“For a derelict, yeah.” I’m going to make him work for it.
“You liked me.” He appears satisfied with the knowledge.
“Is that a surprise?” If I had balls or a few more glasses of wine in me, I might admit to him that I fantasized about him kissing me and touching me and that a very vivid dream one night made it impossible for me to even look at him in class for the next two days.
“It definitely is.”
I just smile. I’m not quite sure what to say. “So, Danny, what was that all about?”
“Well, I saw you were out here and that you were holding a glass of white wine, I thought I’d grab you a refill and come and say hi. By the time I got out here, he was here talking to you and I could tell by your body language, the way your arms were crossed over your chest, and the look on your face, that you were really uncomfortable.” He pauses and takes a sip of his drink. “And I never liked him anyway.”
“What? You didn’t like Connor? I didn’t even know you knew him.”
“Since second grade, actually.”
“Really?” I’m surprised. Coming from a different elementary and middle school than Connor, I had no idea that he and Danny even knew one another.
“He was a whiny little ass even back then.”
“But why did you pretend to be my boyfriend just now? To fuck with him?” My 10th grade fantasy guy just used me for schoolyard vengeance against his grammar school foe.
“I guess, in part.” He’s clearly amused as he takes a sip of his drink.
“What’s the other part?”
“I told you, I was on my way out here to see you and bring you a drink.”
“A much-needed drink.” I laugh. “Thank you, Danny.”
“You’re welcome. So, I saw on the attendee list that you were living in LA. I wish I would’ve known that. We could have flown in together.”
“Yeah, except I’d be sitting back in coach.”
“Not if you were traveling with me you wouldn’t.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze.
“I’m proud of you, Danny. You always loved to draw, and you not only pursued it, you developed something that people can really relate to.”
Taking another sip of his drink, he looks me in the eyes. “Most everyone has felt like a misfit at some point in their lives, Rose. High school was particularly bad for me.”
“You were so popular. All the girls loved you and all the guys wanted to be you. I was the one who was a misfit, Danny. I didn’t have my first boyfriend until senior year. I had Des and a small group of friends, but I was kind of a geek.”
“A really cute geek,” he mutters. “Rose, you weren’t a misfit. Everyone always knew you’d go to college, do well, make something of yourself.”
