Dana the dummy.

Dana the dipshit.

Dana the dimwit.

Dana who got upset over a guy who had told her categorically that he didn’t want her. Dana who’d had a meltdown in front of this guy in the ladies’ room. Was this a dream? Could I wake up and all this would have just never happened?

I had been morose since the bathroom incident.

I didn’t even want to go to Dad’s because there was a chance he’d be there.

I’d been rejected before. It wasn’t that. It was feeling like an object. He didn’t want anything from me but my tits and pussy, and maybe my mouth and butthole if he was into that kinda thing. He had had the gall to put his hands on me after we’d discussed it. It wasn’t that he’d rejected me. It was that feeling of complete depersonalization. He wanted everything about me but me.

I’d felt like that before. I’d been reduced to an object by a man before, my personhood dissected and selectively objectified. That experience had ended in charges being pressed and me relocating to San Diego. I’d felt like nothing, like a zombie. Like a ghost.

I had never wanted to feel like that again but here the fuck I was once more. Crying. Broken. Pathetic. Over a guy.

Mimi had given me a three-day period where I could mope unfettered. She wouldn’t try to stop me or convince me to buck up. It was my last day, and I was relishing my last moments of peace in bed before she came and declared it was time to get over it.

My phone buzzed.

I ignored it.

It kept buzzing.

I kept ignoring it.

It wore me down after a few minutes, and I picked it up without checking who it was.

“Hello,” I said hoarsely.

“Dana? Is that you? What took you so long to answer?”

“Jaden?” I croaked. The combination of crying and not otherwise speaking to anybody the whole day made me sound like an emphysema patient.

“What the fuck happened to you—you sound like you’ve been swallowing dicks for the last three days.”

Little brothers. God’s curse to older sisters everywhere.

“I’m hanging up.”

“Hey, come on. I’m sorry. I was kidding. What crawled up your ass and died?”

“Goodbye Jaden,” I lowered the phone, about to abort the call. I heard him asking me to wait. I sighed and put it to my ear. “Yes?”

“Shit, something really happened didn’t it?”

“Jay, you called me, so I’m going to guess it is because you want to tell me something.”

“What happened?”

I sighed.

“Dane... he didn’t find you, did he?”

“No Jay, he didn’t find me, he’s on probation or in a cell somewhere. I’m fine.”

“Then what is it?”

“Do you want something?”

“Yeah. I called to tell you that Chloe is moving in with me.” Chloe was Jaden’s girlfriend. My brother was sickeningly perfect. Therefore, Chloe was as well. She had shiny hair and straight teeth. She was the kind of girl that really got along with children and pets. The kind of girl that had a cute euphemism for her vagina, like her pie or her biscuit.

“That’s great Jay,” I said, already knowing what the next question was.

When I’d had to leave my apartment in Los Angeles, I had let Jaden take over the lease because he was looking for somewhere to live that was close to his school, but off campus. It was really a matter of me getting out of there; I didn’t care who took the house over, but I was happy Jaden did.

“Thanks. I just wanted to ask you about the books. Can you tell me your address so I can send them to you?”

It was like Jaden’s words were the missing pieces of a puzzle that were lying unfinished in my head. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara when she’s all mopey in Gone with the Wind; then she gets hit with the bright idea to go back to Tara. I’d go back to Los Angeles. Jaden needing me at this particular time to collect the last of my library so he and Chloe could move in together was the perfect cover story.

It was perfect.

Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

When at a loss, run away. I’d done it before, and it had turned out great… apart from the part where Adam had entered the picture.

“Oh, no need Jay. I was planning a visit up there.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. I miss you guys,” I lied.

“No, you don’t Dana, tell the truth.” It was because we were born so close together. It had to be. He could read me like a book, even over the phone. We were really close as kids. He had always been big and burly from sports, so he had used to beat kids up in school that bullied me. During Mom and Dad’s divorce, I had let him sleep in my room, neither of us particularly wanting to be alone.

“Jaden, I’m not having this conversation with you.”

He was silent.

“Have you told Dad about the—”

“No… no, I haven’t told him.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should. He deserves to know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Have you called Mom yet?”

“No. I haven’t planned the trip out yet. I’ll probably just stay at a hotel.”

There was a pause before we both burst into laughter. That was funny. Evangeline Weinstein would have a conniption if she found out I was in LA and had chosen to stay in a hotel instead of at the house with her.

“You should come back by the apartment to talk. Chloe really likes you… I mean, if you feel comfortable coming back.”

“I have to come back; I want my books.”

“I can bring them over to Mom and Frank’s.”

“Don’t. Stop trying to shield me from that place, Jay. I don’t need it. I’ll tell you when I get to LA, and we can figure out what day is good for me to collect my stuff.”

I heard him sigh.

“Okay. I’ll stop. See you soon?”

I told him I would and hung the phone up. I climbed out of bed, anticipating Mimi’s imminent arrival to rouse me from my catatonia. Just as I thought, she was in the kitchen, preparing her peace offering. My jaw dropped when I saw what it was.

“Ice cream?” I gasped. She looked up surprised when she saw me.

“I was just coming to get you. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“It still is. When did you even get this?”

“After we got back from the shop and you were in your room.”

She swirled a huge dollop of whipped cream into both bowls of ice cream, and I nearly screamed out for her to stop on her behalf.

“Miriam, are you really going to eat trans fats for me?” I choked out, pretending to get emotional. She put a spoon in each bowl and walked them to the dining room table. We ate all our meals there whether we were alone or together.

“Don’t worry, everything in here is dairy-free,” she said, sliding the bowl in front of me. Of course it was.

“What would I do without you Mimi,” I said, sitting and shoveling a big spoon of ice cream into my mouth.

“Probably be a hell of a lot fatter,” she said smiling. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay…” I covered the spoon in whipped cream and licked.

“Now that that lie is out of the way tell me how you really feel.” I looked up and saw Mimi’s eyes piercing mine.

“I feel like an idiot Mimi. The stupidest stupid girl you could imagine.”

“He walked in that bathroom after you, Day.”

“Yes, but I’m the one whose been here holed up like I just got out of a damn marriage or something. He’s probably out there with Leopard Print, or anybody else, fucking and having a good time which is what I should have been doing too dammit.” I shoveled more ice cream into my face.

“You know good and damn well that that would have just made you feel worse.”

I sighed.

“I know, but it would have been less pathetic than this.”

“I guess it’s a good thing that you don’t have to see him again then, isn’t it?”

The spark of joy warmed me for but a second before I realized the facts.

“He still has Janie.”

“He can drop the car off here without seeing you. I could talk to him.”

“He goes by Dad’s house all the time.”

“Stay here then.”

I looked at her, unimpressed.

“With you and Anthony?”

“Fine, fine,” she said rolling her eyes. “Just call before going to your dad’s to make sure he’s not over there. See. Easy. No need to move across the country or get a different job.”

“Oh, speaking of moving across the country, I want to head up to LA for a bit in a little while.”

She froze with the spoon halfway to her lips.

“Oh?” she asked. “What for? Any legal stuff?”

“No, nothing like that. I just want to see my mom and Frank. Jaden. His girlfriend.”

She watched me from across the table waiting for me to spill it.

“I sort of miss the shopping. You know… the culture.”

All lies and she knew it. She kept watching me. I never won this game.

“I’m just… I just want to get away for a little bit. The bookstore is nearly done. I can be back with plenty of time to prepare and stock shelves before the grand opening.”

“You don’t have to run away Dana. This guy isn’t chasing you.”

I hung my head a little. She was right. This one wasn’t chasing me… but I wanted him to. I had wanted him to say it then, on my bed when he was on top of me at Dad’s. How hard would it have been to concede to one date? Did he really not want to know anything about me besides whether my pubic hair was waxed or not? I hated thinking that that was all I had to offer because it wasn’t, goddammit. Fuck, I wanted him so much it made me want to scream.

“Am I a total loser because I still want him?” I asked my ice cream quietly. I heard Mimi’s chair scrape across the floor and soon after felt her embrace me into her chest like Iyanla Vanzant. I hugged her back.

“You aren’t a loser Dana. You just have a crush.”

“This one isn’t a crush Mimi. I’ve had crushes before and this guy… this guy knocks me on my ass; I don’t know what to do when I’m around him. I want him to do all those dirty things to me that you don’t like to hear.”

She looked down at me.

“Can you concede to the type of relationship he wants from you?”

“If I had to—”

“No, Day. Can you see this guy again knowing that he is as interested in you for as long as you are sexually available to him?”

“God, you make it sound so awful Mimi.” I dropped my arms and had some more ice cream.

“Am I lying, though? Isn’t that what he told you in more or less the same words?”

I shrugged.

“Okay, look at it like this,” she said, sitting down across from me again. “You obviously want him. If you see him again, you’ll have him but only as far as your genitals are concerned.” That got an amused smile out of me. “If you find you can deal with having only that part of him then knock yourself out. Go wild.”

“What about if we start something together, and then I find out along the way I can’t have a relationship with him that only extends that far?”

“Then you come running back here so we can eat some more ice cream.”

* * *

Deciding on who to call to tell them that I was coming back to LA for a visit was a much harder decision to make than it needed to be. I could call my mom and be put through the ordeal that was calling my mom. I could call Frank and have a nice, casual conversation followed by my question, which he would answer with a swift and generous ‘yes.’ The question, of course, being whether I could stay there for the duration of the visit.

I sighed; thinking about this was another situation in which I was asking someone to do something for me. Sure they were my parents. Sure they probably wanted me there. Sure considering what had happened, they would rather have me there than anywhere else, but nothing quite made me feel less powerful than calling my parents to ask them for something.

The phone rang a couple of times before Frank picked up.

“Dana,” he said gladly. I smiled.

“Hi, Frank. How are you?”

“Better now that you’ve called. What’s going on?”

Frank had never had children of his own, or rather he no longer had children of his own. He had had a child who had died in their teens, drunk driving. I had never asked him about it, but during the time I was spending at their house directly after the incident, we had gotten to talk about his personal life a little. It was only when I found that out that I realized why Mom had had us take his last name.

Because I only knew my mom and dad in the contexts of ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ it was easier to see Frank as an entire person, outside of his relationship with me. He was an exceedingly patient man, evidenced by the fact that he had married my mother about fifteen years prior, and they were still together.

“Nothing much. Uh, I deposited the final payment for the bookstore. Just a couple weeks now before the grand opening.”

“That’s fantastic.” I heard the muffled sound of my mother in the background. She must have asked who it was because I heard him say it was me. “Dana, just a minute, your mom wants to talk to you.”

There was some shuffling before Mom’s voice rang down the line.

“Dana dear. When were you going to tell me that you talked to your brother?”

“Mom that happened just this morning. I was going to tell Frank during this phone call.”

“When were you going to tell us that you were coming up for a visit? Were you going to come and not see us?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Mom. I was just about to tell Frank that I was planning a visit. Can you give him the phone back so I can tell him?”

“I’ve made the most gorgeous changes to your room sweetheart; when do you get here? I can call Jaden, and we can have family dinner like we used to… he can bring Chloe. Oh…

… can you bring someone along too, honey?”