32.
Chloe
I left Graham’s place later that afternoon when he went to go meet up with a buddy of his for a bike ride.
I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face as I drove home, and I kept replaying the day back in my mind. It almost felt like this wasn’t my life—except it was, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. But that smile faded when I turned down the driveway and saw Parker’s car there. He was standing on the front lawn, talking with my mother, who had that charmed look of hers on her face.
“Chloe!” she said after I parked and got out. “Look who was just in the neighborhood and decided to drop by! Did you get my voicemail? I left several of them; I wasn’t sure where you went.”
“The art center,” I said immediately. I walked over, my inner thighs sore. “Sorry, the ringer was turned off on my phone.”
“That’s okay; Parker and I were just having a nice chat. But I’ll leave you two. Nice to see you, Parker!” My mother grinned at him and then turned and walked back toward the house.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just about to leave. Glad you showed up, though. What are you up to right now?”
I couldn’t keep this up. I had to tell him.
“Look, Parker,” I said slowly. “I think you’re really nice, and I appreciate you wanting to hang out and take me places. I know my mom gave you my number and everything, but ... I just think it’s better if we didn’t see each other. I mean, I know we’re not dating or anything, so ... so I feel a little weird having this whole conversation to begin with. It just seems like you’ve really gone out of your way to hang out and stuff and I don’t know, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s probably to be more than just friends, right?” I felt myself blushing because I knew how convoluted I sounded. What the hell was I even trying to say? It made sense in my head, but now that I was actually verbalizing it, the whole thing sounded pretty confusing. And was I really saying that I thought if a guy was trying to hang out with a girl it was to be more than just friends? What if I’d been wrong this whole time and Parker really just wanted to be friends?
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I hope you can understand.”
“Wow.” He nodded, but he looked surprised. “Wow. Um, okay.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I know you’re probably not used to being the one who gets turned down.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” It was hard to tell if he was annoyed or not. He looked confused more than anything else. Was he upset? He looked at me more closely, though he wasn’t quite looking at my face.
“Look, you know, if you want to just be friends, maybe we can hang out—”
“Nice hickey you’ve got there,” he said. I brought my hand up to my neck; I hadn’t realized I even had one. Parker walked over to his car. “Have a good one,” he said, and then he got in and drove away.
I knew my mother would come out any second and want to know why Parker left, and then she’d probably see that I had a hickey and want to know where that came from, so I just got into my own car and took off, even though I’d just gotten back. I called Tara.
“Oh, good!” she said. “I was just about to call you. I need a coffee. Meet me at Stacatto.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
*****
Tara was already there, sitting at one of the outside tables when I arrived.
“I got you an iced latte,” she said as I sat down.
“Thanks.”
“Um, wait a second, Chloe.” She leaned over and brushed my hair back. “Is that a hickey I spy?”
I pulled away. “It might be.”
She grinned. “Oh, you’re so bad! I love it. From Graham, I assume.”
“Yeah. Definitely not from Parker. He just happened to be at my house when I got home and I sort of broke things off with him. Except that we weren’t even dating, so it’s not like there was actually anything to end. It was kind of awkward and awful, actually.”
“Oooh.” Tara winced. “Did he take it badly?”
“Well ... not really. I mean, he wasn’t psyched or anything, but he certainly wasn’t brokenhearted. It was just a weird situation all around. I guess that’s what happens, though, when your parents try to interfere with your dating life. But things with Graham are going pretty well.” I tried to keep myself from grinning but couldn’t. “We slept together again. And it was so good!”
She squealed and clapped her hands and made me give her all the details. “I’m so proud of you!”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a sip of the cold drink. “I’m pretty happy about it myself, too.”
“Well, there was something I wanted to tell you too. Michael got in touch with me. Demanding to know if I was seeing someone else. Apparently, he’s coming to the Cape next week.”
“Are you?” I asked.
“Seeing someone else?”
“No! You’d know if I was. But that day I ran into Graham at the coffee shop, I
told him about the pictures and he said he didn’t care if I put them back up.
So I did. And Michael messaged me!” Tara looked positively gleeful.
“You’re not planning on getting back together with him though, are you?” I asked, trying not to feel horrified at the idea. I sure hoped she wasn’t going to get together with him when he got here.
“Of course I’m not. I’m not an idiot. But he was very curious about whether or not I’d ‘found someone to replace him,’ as he put it. So ... I might’ve stretched the truth a little and told him that Graham and I were seeing each other. You should’ve heard how upset he was! Acting like he was all wounded that I’d found someone else. It was really unbelievable. So I asked him if he was still together with that girl, whatever her name is, and he told me that he isn’t. And then he asked if I’d meet up with him when he got here, because he wanted to talk.”
“Please tell me you said no.”
Tara hesitated, and I knew that she’d agreed to see him. “I just want to tell him in person,” she said. “I want to tell him that he’s a piece of shit, and I also want to be able to turn him down when he asks me back out. Because I know he’s going to.”
“Tara.” I shook my head. “He is an entitled prick. He is not going to take no for an answer, and you’re really just antagonizing him. He is not someone who is used to hearing ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Well, he’s going to get used to it, because that’s exactly what he’s going to hear from me. Anyway. The other thing I wanted to tell you was there is an awesome party happening tonight. On the beach. And you should invite Graham.”
“He went out for a bike ride.”
“Yeah, but I bet he’s not going to be doing that all day. This party will be off the hook! If it sucks, we don’t have to stay, but I doubt it’s going to. Text him now and ask. We can meet up at his shop or whatever, and all go in one car. Come on, Chloe! This is the new you, and the new you is someone who goes to a beach party with the man she’s having sex with!”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “You’ve convinced me.” I grabbed my phone out of my purse and texted Graham, asking him if he wanted to go.
*****
It was hard to tell how many people were on the beach, but probably at least sixty or seventy. There was a bonfire and some sort of club-type music being blasted from someone’s speakers. There was also a row of coolers, with beer, wine, and even some champagne.
“Quite the party,” Graham said as we walked through the soft sand.
“This is a private beach, so we don’t have to worry about the cops bothering us,” Tara said, skipping ahead.
I scanned the faces of some of the people. It was dark, so it was difficult to see anyone too clearly. I recognized a few of the faces, but it wasn’t anyone that I would say I was friends with. I felt a flare of nervousness, but then Graham reached over and took my hand. He wouldn’t know anyone here either, and he seemed completely unbothered by this fact.
“Let’s get something to drink,” Tara said.
Everyone was quite friendly, whether because they were nice people or because they’d been drinking. As we walked over to the coolers, though, who should I happen to catch sight of but Parker.
“Oh, shit,” I said under my breath.
“What?” Tara asked.
I nodded. “Look who’s here.”
She saw him, but shrugged. “So what? There’s enough people here you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. What do you want to drink?”
Graham opted for a beer and I took one of the bottles of hard lemonade, figuring that that would be the least gross-tasting of all the choices. And it actually wasn’t that bad. I took a few sips and almost immediately felt myself start to relax a little. So Parker was here. Big deal. Tara was right; there were enough people here that I could easily avoid him. He was talking to a gorgeous girl who looked like she was probably a model or something. If he’d been at all upset about our conversation earlier, he certainly wasn’t showing it now.
*****
As the evening progressed, I had another hard lemonade, and then started playing Frisbee with a few people down near the water’s edge. Sports might not have ever been my forte, but I’d always been good at Frisbee, even in the dark, even a tiny bit tipsy. Graham was talking to a few guys who were interested in getting tattoos. Tara was off somewhere, probably looking for a guy to hook up with. And here I was, at a party, having fun. I couldn’t believe how good I felt.
Eventually, I wandered back over to the coolers, this time looking for water. I found more beer, a few bottles of whiskey, and some more hard lemonades, but no water. I was about to give up when someone brushed up against me as they leaned down to grab a beer out of the cooler.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, before realizing it was Parker.
“Hey there, you,” he said. He had a goofy smile on his face and was slurring his words, just a little bit. He came over and gave me a hug. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight.”
“Hi, Parker.”
He wagged a finger at me. “Now listen, I just want you to know that there’s no hard feelings, okay? None at all, and I mean that.”
I smiled. “That’s good ... I’m glad to hear it.”
“Yes.” He held up his beer bottle as if to make a toast. “No hard feelings at all. You know, you’re right ... I’m not the kind of guy who’s used to getting turned down. Not that I’m saying I’m perfect or anything, but ... girls don’t usually turn me down. So it was a little surprising. But it also doesn’t count, I don’t think now, does it?”
He took a big swig of his beer and then looked at me expectantly.
“Um ... I don’t know?” I said finally.
“Well, if you don’t know, let me tell you: it doesn’t count. Because for it to count, the person who turned me down would have to be someone that I was actually interested in. Someone that I was actually attracted to.” He leaned closer. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Not that you aren’t pretty. You are. But I’m just not attracted to you. You and I ... we just don’t have that je ne sais quoi.”
I took a step back. “Okay, Parker,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about it. It’s fine. I really wasn’t trying to insult you or anything, I just—”
“You didn’t insult me!” he shouted. “This is what I’m trying to tell you: I was never interested in you. So the fact that you are not interested in me is not insulting. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you.”
“Then why did you keep bugging me to hang out with you?”
“Because your father cornered me that night of the party! He said if I went out with you this summer, then he’d make it worth my while.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right. That’s ridiculous.”
Parker shook his head. “It might be, but that’s what we were talking about.”
“What was he going to do? Give you money? It’s not like you need money.”
“You’re right; I don’t need money. And if that’s all he was offering, then I would’ve said no.”
“What was he offering, then?”
“He was offering me a job.”
“A job?”
“Right. Job. J-O-B. Say it with me now. Jaaayyyy—ohhhhh—beeeeee—”
“So my father offered you a job if you would go out with me,” I repeated.
“Ding ding ding! We have a winner!” Parker clapped, sloshing beer over his hands.
“And how long were we
supposed to go out for?”
“The end of the summer.”
“Then what? What happened
at the end of the summer?”
“We’d just ... I don’t know. Go our separate ways. It wasn’t like this was
going to be something that would last.”
I nodded. “I see.” I tried not to think about what would happen if I had really ended up falling for Parker. I’d spend the whole summer, thinking that things were great, only to have us “go our separate ways,” as he so put it, once summer was over. “Well. Thanks for being honest with me, I guess.”
“It’s no problem. I’m
glad you know.” He held his beer bottle up and looked at it, as though he were
surprised to find he was still holding it. “I just thought you should know.”
And then he stumbled off. I watched him go, wanting desperately to not believe
a single word he just said. He was drunk!
He was just talking nonsense! I kept telling myself that even though I knew
it wasn’t true—my father had offered Parker a job at his hedge fund if he would
go out with me.
I didn’t know how long I stood there for, my feet buried in the cool, soft sand. Eventually, Graham came over.
“Hey,” he said. “Here you
are. Everything okay?”
I didn’t say anything right away. I felt if I were to actually speak those
words out loud it would make them true, so if I just pretended that the whole
conversation hadn’t taken place to begin with, then it could be like it had
never happened.
But it had. I could picture my father, the night of the party, talking to Parker, me and Tara standing across the room, giggling about whatever it was they were conversing about. That was probably exactly when it was happening.
“No,” I said. “Everything is not okay.”
“What?” Graham asked, a
look of concern on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“I just need to go home.”
“Chloe.” He placed his
hand on my shoulder, his eyes locked onto mine, searching my face. “What’s
going on?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I just ... I just found out something really shitty. I
don’t want to get into it right now. I just need to go back to my house. Would
you drive me back to my car?”
“Yeah, of course. And you don’t have to tell me what’s happening, but ... you’re all right?”
I knew it wasn’t fair of me to be so vague, but I didn’t want to say anything to him, or to Tara, or to anyone, about it just yet.
*****
Graham drove me back to my car. We sat there in the front seat of his truck for a moment, the engine idling. He reached over and held my hand.
“Well, call me if you need to,” he said. “I hope whatever’s happening gets straightened out. If I can help you at all, just let me know, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, staring out the windshield. He didn’t let go of my hand though, until I looked at him.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said. “Whatever it is.”
We kissed quickly and then said good night. I got out and he waited until I was in my own car and driving off before he left. I kept the radio off and drove in silence.
I thought that maybe I wouldn’t say anything, but then I realized there was no way I could just keep quiet about this. Then I thought that maybe I would wait to bring it up, I would think about what I wanted to say, I would be rational. But the more I thought about what my parents had done, the angrier I got. By the time I got home, I was fuming.
The lights were on in the living room, and they were in there together, drinking their wine and watching TV.
“Chloe?” Mom called. “Is that you?”
I slammed the front door.
“Darling! You don’t need to shut the door so hard!”
I stomped down into the living room. They were both on the couch.
“Good,” I said, “I’m glad you’re both here. There’s something that I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” My mother leaned forward and set her wine glass down on the coffee table. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” I said, barely able to keep my voice from shaking. “No, everything is not all right at all, actually. I just got back from a beach party.”
“That sounds lovely! Did you have fun?”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“Chloe!” My father looked at me sharply. “Don’t talk to your mother in that tone.”
“No, Dad, actually, you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore! Do you know who I happened to run into at this beach party? Parker. And do you know what Parker happened to tell me? He told me that the only reason he was calling me to hang out these past couple of weeks was because you had told him to! And you promised him that if he did, you’d get him a job. Is that true?”
My father looked at my mother. My mother looked back at him and then leaned forward to get her wine glass. Enough of an answer for me.
“I can’t believe you,” I said. “The two of you. Why would you do that? Why the hell would you ever think something like that would be okay?”
“Parker is a good kid from a good family,” my father said. “We thought the two of you might hit it off.” He held his hands up. “There were no bad intentions there.”
“No,” I said. “It’s so much more awful than that. It’s not that you two thought the two of us would make a cute couple; Dad, you offered him a job if he would go out with me! So you’re basically saying that I’m not good enough—you had to also throw in employment as part of the package.”
“You know I don’t think that at all, Chloe. You know I think the world of you.”
“Oh, really? I’m suddenly finding that really hard to believe, considering you don’t think that I can get a date unless you offer something else, too.”
My mother pressed her fingers to her temples. “It’s really not like that, Chloe, okay? It’s not. I know it might seem that way, but your father and I only want what is best for you. We don’t want to see you going down the wrong path. We also want to see you happy and succeeding. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“I just don’t understand what Parker has to do with any of that. Especially if he wasn’t even interested to begin with.”
“We were trying to help you, Chloe. We thought you needed a little bit of a ... nudge, I guess. You’ve never really dated anyone before, and I just didn’t want to see you getting involved with the wrong sort of person. It’s not as though we were necessarily expecting things with Parker to be a long-term arrangement or anything, but ...” My mother shrugged. “Your father and I both agreed that he’s an upstanding young man from an excellent family and he’d make a good first date for you.”
I shook my head and looked up at the ceiling. Was this really the conversation I was having right now? “We are not in some third-world country where the parents get to arrange their kids’ marriages!” I exclaimed.
My mother laughed. “We weren’t expecting you to get married! Goodness.”
“Just stop it! I can’t continue this conversation with you because you’re not even willing to admit what you did was completely messed up! Just totally wrong in every way. There is no way you can spin this to make it right, except you don’t even see that!”
“Chloe,” my father said sharply. “I don’t think I like the tone you’re taking with us. You can be upset if you want, but that’s not license to be disrespectful.”
*****
I went into the bathroom with the scissors and before I even left myself think about what I was doing, I started to chop my hair off. I thought about that girl, the waitress we’d had in Provincetown, with the short, pink hair. I wasn’t going to dye my hair pink—not right now, anyway—but I cut it as short as I could, except in the front. I left the front pieces about three inches long and brushed them to the side. I wasn’t a professional stylist and I used a mirror to see the back, so what hair I had left looked choppy, but not bad. I studied my face in the mirror. My head felt a lot lighter now. I turned to the left, then to the right. My neck seemed longer. My jawline looked different. I liked how I looked. Without all that hair, my cheekbones seemed more prominent, my eyes larger. I’d cut more than a foot of hair off, and it covered the bathroom floor. I did my best to clean it up, and then I hopped in the shower. I barely had to use any shampoo, and when I got out, instead of having to wrap my hair up turban style, I just rubbed my head a few times with a towel, ran my fingers through my bangs, and that was that.
My mother let out a shriek the next morning when I came downstairs.
“Chloe!” she yelped, her hand on her chest. “What have you done to your hair? I thought you were an intruder for a second! Oh, my god.”
She was standing there at the counter, in her bathing suit and sheer coverall, spooning sugar into her coffee. She let go of the spoon and it clattered on the marble surface. Her mouth hung open and she blinked at me several times. She looked over at my father, who was sitting at the breakfast table with the newspaper.
“You didn’t actually do that,” she said. “Tell me this is just some sort of optical illusion. Tell me you did not cut off all of your beautiful hair!” Her voice rose with each word. She almost sounded hysterical.
“It’s no optical illusion. I gave myself a haircut. It’s not a big deal.”
“It most certainly is a big deal! You look like ... you look like ...”
“What? What do I look like?”
“Well, I don’t know! Like you belong in the circus or something. Chloe, how could you do such a thing?”
She started to cry.
Not sobbing, but her eyes started to well up and a tear slid down the side of her face.
“Oh, god, Mom,” I said. “Stop it. It’s just hair. Would you be crying if I had cancer and had to go get chemo and lost my hair?”
“But you don’t have cancer! If you had cancer, there’d be a reason you had to lose your hair! You don’t have a reason! You just did this because you want to spite us! What is going on with you, Chloe? I mean, really.” She wiped at her eyes.
“Mom, you’re making something out of nothing. It’s just hair; it’ll grow back. If I let it, that is. I actually like it short like this. I’ve never had short hair before, did you know that? Of course you know, because you’d never let me have short hair when I was a kid.”
“That is not true.”
“Yes, it is. You were always saying how I had such long, beautiful hair and I should never cut it. And you know what? I never did. Because that’s what I thought you wanted, and I just always went along with what you guys thought I should do.”
My mother wiped at her
eyes again. “How can you say that? How can you say you never got your hair cut?
Don’t you remember the mother-daughter dates we used to go on? We’d go to the
salon, and then I’d take you out to lunch, and sometimes we’d stop by a
bookstore after. You don’t remember any of that?”
I sighed. “Of course I remember doing that, Mom. And it was fun, I’m not saying
it wasn’t. But those ‘haircuts’ were never more than just a trim, maybe adding
a few layers or something. My hair has never been above my shoulders, except
maybe when I was little and it hadn’t grown that long yet!”
“But I thought you liked it like that.”
“I’m not saying it was the worst thing. It’s more like ... it’s like, symbolic of everything else, too.”
My father grunted. He’d been quiet this whole time, but I could tell by the expression on his face how pissed off he was. “I don’t think symbolism has anything to do with the fact that you’ve just cut all your hair off. Where’d you do this, by the way? Your bathroom? I’d think you’d at least get it done professionally if you were going to do something so drastic. What this really is, Chloe, is you rebelling, because you’re upset. But really, your mother and I are the ones who should be upset. You’ve just been out of control this summer. First the tattoo, now the hair. Plus, this new attitude of yours, which is not appreciated. What’s next? What’s going on with you? This has to stop.”
My father’s tone was sharp, his eyes angry. Any other time I would’ve been apologizing, or slinking off to my room, but this time, I stood my ground. Maybe because I knew they were totally in the wrong, regardless of what their motives were, for offering someone a job if they’d take me out a few times.
“What has to stop,” I said, “is you two thinking that you can control my life. I’m not a child anymore. And you don’t know what’s best for me.”
My father opened his mouth to say something but didn’t; he stood up and started to walk from the room. “I’m done with this conversation right now. When you’re ready to have a rational discussion, I’d be more than happy to, but now is clearly not the time.”
He left. My mother wiped at her eyes again, shaking her head. “We just thought that maybe you’d like to go out with someone this summer, Chloe. I’ve talked to you about this before. You know that it’s something we want for you. You’ve never really had that experience before and I was just getting afraid that you’d keep putting it off until it was too late.”
“Mom!” I yelled. She jumped. “Are you kidding me? I’m twenty-one! There are some parents out there that would actually be glad if their kid was deciding to put off dating. But you guys are acting like if I don’t start seeing someone now, then I’m going to end up alone and miserable for the rest of my life, like some old maid. And I’ll have you know, Mom, that I am actually seeing someone. Oh, I doubt you’d approve of him, but he likes me for me, not because one of my parents offered him a job. And you can approve or not; I really don’t care.”
My mother paled. “That man? What was his name? The man that came to the house? With the facial hair? And all those tattoos?”
“Yes. That’s him. And he’s actually a really great person. And guess what? He wouldn’t take a job if one of you offered it to him anyway, because he owns his own business! He’s not some derelict drug addict or whatever the hell you think he might be.”
“But—”
“No.” I held my hand up. “I’m not going to argue this with you. It’s clearly something that you don’t want to accept, and fine, you don’t have to. But that’s not going to change what I’m doing.”
She started to say something else but I turned and walked out. I didn’t know where my father went, but I knew I couldn’t stay in this house right now. I ran upstairs to my bedroom and grabbed my purse and then left the house, ignoring my mother’s calls after me, asking where I was going.
*****
It took my mother almost two full days before she was able to talk to me without looking as though she were about to burst into tears. All because of hair? It seemed so over the top. Completely unnecessary. Was she really that concerned with appearances? Could she not see that I was still the same person?
Or maybe, in a way, I wasn’t, and she sensed that. I didn’t feel entirely different, but I did feel as though I was more aware of a way of life that had always been there but that I’d never been fully conscious of before. And that way of life wasn’t something extreme; it wasn’t like renouncing technology or going vegan, or deciding to live at a nudist colony or something. What it was, I realized, was the knowledge that I could be who I wanted.
Who I wanted on my terms, not my parents’. And for so long, I’d done what my parents had wanted, gone along with what they thought was best. I’d never really questioned it, until now. Why had I waited so long? In high school, when my fellow classmates were experimenting with drinking and dyeing their hair or staying out past curfew, I was dutifully completing my homework, studying at the library, doing extra credit assignments. Up until now, my greatest act of dissent had been going to art school.
But Graham liked my hair. When I showed up at his work, he’d done a double take, not recognizing me at first and then let out a low whistle. Even if he hadn’t liked my hair though, it wouldn’t have bothered me that much, because I liked my hair.
Now, though, my mother was doing her best to look at me without wincing. “Your father and I talked,” Mom said. “We’ve been quite troubled by all of this, Chloe, we really have. I know you might not believe that, but it’s the truth.”
“I haven’t been enjoying myself, either, Mom. I don’t like fighting with you guys. I also don’t like feeling as though you’re trying to control me.”
“We just want what’s best—”
“Yes, I know, you just
want what’s best for me, you keep saying that, but the thing is, I don’t think
you actually know what is best for
me. Because we don’t necessarily want the same things, and that’s okay. Can’t
you accept that?”
My mother took a deep breath. “Sweetie, I don’t want to fight with you anymore,
okay? Neither does your father. We both feel like this is escalating and we
want it to stop. I mean, look what you’ve done to your hair. Would you have
done that if we hadn’t been fighting? If this whole thing hadn’t taken place? I
highly doubt it. I don’t like this conflict. We are not that kind of family. We
love each other and we care about each other. So ... so we’d like to meet this
person that you’re seeing. The one with the beard and the tattoos. We were
thinking he ... he might like to come over here for dinner some night. What
kind of food does he like to eat?”
I could tell how difficult this was for her. I smiled. “I appreciate you saying
that, Mom. And ... Graham likes most things; I don’t think he’s that picky.
Whatever we had would be fine, I’m sure.”
*****
Before I went down to visit him, though, I had to stop by Tara’s because she had something very important she wanted to talk about.
I drove over to her house and found her out back, sun-tanning by the pool.
“So, what was so important that you couldn’t actually tell me over the phone?” I asked, stretching out in one of the lounge chairs next to her.
She pushed her big sunglasses to the top of her head and looked at me. “Guess who’s here,” she said.
I sat up and looked over my shoulder toward the house. “Here? As in right now?”
“No, here as in on the Cape.”
I groaned. “Michael.”
“You got it. And guess
who wants to get together?”
“I think I already know the answer to this.”
She grinned. “Got any
plans Friday?”
“I don’t know. Please tell me you’re not meeting him on Friday?”
“He messaged me and wanted to know if I was free, because he said he really wanted to see me. So I said yes.”
“I’m not going with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I paused. “Or maybe I should go with you, but sit at a nearby table or something. Just to make sure that everything is okay.”
She widened her eyes. “He’s not going to do anything. At least, I don’t think he is.”
“It just seems strange to me that all of the sudden he wants to see you.”
“It shouldn’t seem that strange,” Tara sniffed. “He now realizes what he’s missing out on, and that he shouldn’t have left me for that chick, whatever the hell her name is. I can’t even remember. But ...” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe you coming along but being incognito would be a good idea. It’d be fun at least. And with your hair, he won’t even recognize you!”
I doubted he’d recognize me anyway; he’d always struck me as one of those people who didn’t really see others, unless he was getting something from them.
*****
When I got to Graham’s work, a customer was just leaving, a woman my mom’s age.
I tried to imagine my mother coming down here to get a tattoo. She smiled at me
as she left.
“Graham here’s the best!” she said. “Can’t go wrong with anything he does!”
“That’s very kind of you, Linda,” he said as the door swung shut. He looked at me with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
“Well, I thought of texting you but then I figured I’d just stop by. I’m here to extend an invitation.”
“Oh yeah? What for?”
“My parents would like to have you over to the house for lunch.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“They would?”
“Yes. I’m looking at it as though they’re trying to extend the olive branch.
It’s a start. Do you remember the other night, when I told you about how my dad
basically bribed Parker into taking me out? I think he—I think they feel bad after this whole thing.
Which they should feel bad about, because that was completely messed up.”
“Then it sounds like I
should take them up on the offer. Yeah, sure, that’s fine. Just tell me when
and where.”
There was a part of me that wanted to put it off indefinitely, just because I
knew the potential there was for things to go badly. But maybe it wouldn’t.
Maybe my parents really were going to try to step out of their comfort zones
and be welcoming. There was only one way to find out.