Chapter 23: And now we’re back to tragic first girlfriend stories.
We post up at a small table in the corner of Dillan’s Bar & Grill a few minutes later, order drinks for each of us, plus a plate of nachos to share.
While we wait for the girl to come back with the drinks, I pluck up the corner of my shirt and sniff it. “Gah. I smell like a fucking restaurant.”
“It could be worse. When I was an undergrad, I worked at a place that was maybe half a step above a burger joint. Always came home smelling like a deep frier. It’s where I met my friend, Grace — the one who’s getting married this weekend.”
My brow dips as the name flashes me back to a green-eyed redhead, tossing her hair and swinging her hips as she sashayed down the halls of our high school, arm looped through Jenny’s. “Grace… She’s not from Marcine, is she?”
The waitress sets our drinks down in front of us, promises to be back with the nachos momentarily. I pull the maraschino cherry from the glass, pop it into my mouth.
“Yeah, she is,” Amy says. “Why — do you think you might know her?”
“Her last name isn’t ‘Adler’ by any chance, is it?”
Amy grins broadly. “You do know her! That’s so funny. Small world, right?” She takes a sip of her drink, sputters, nearly chokes it out back into the glass.
I reach over, slap her on the back. “You alright?”
“I’m fine, that’s just… stiffer than I expected it to be.”
“Dillan’s doesn’t skimp.” I chuckle. “You saying you can’t handle it?”
She meets my eyes, lifts her glass up before taking a long few swallows, runs her tongue over her lips when she finishes.
I raise an eyebrow. “I guess that’s a no.”
“So how do you know Grace?”
I think back to a New Year’s party twenty-one years ago, to a drunken Jenny and her even drunker red-headed friend.
“Like you said. She’s from Marcine. And she’s our age. Which means I’ve known her since more-or-less kindergarten.” I fiddle with the cherry stem, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, and decide to be honest. “Actually, you know my friend Jenny? The one you met briefly at lunch?”
Something changes in Amy’s face, and she nods.
“Well, Grace and Jenny were best friends in high school. They had a falling out the summer after we graduated, and they kind of fell out of touch for a while, but…”
#
Back to the future: Marcine, Ohio. Nine years ago.
It’s a sunny early evening, and I’m just arriving home from work, tossing my jacket on the back of the recliner with one hand as I swing the flimsy apartment door closed with the other. My gaze travels out the window, lands longingly on the basketball court in the park below. Both palms practically itch with the anticipation of holding a ball again, and I start unbuttoning my fancy blue work shirt, one of a half-dozen Jenny bought for me when we moved back to Ohio and her friend Mason helped me get my crappy job working for the crappy staffing company in crappy fucking Marcine.
“Jen?” I call as I work on the buttons. I suspect she’s in the bedroom, papers spread around her on the bed as she works on progress reports for fifteen kindergarteners. I turn towards our room. “Are you back — ”
But I stop because she’s sitting right there, on the couch, next to Grace Adler. Jenny’s eyes are puffy, her nose is red, and she’s clutching a Kleenex.
“Um, sorry, I didn’t realize you were…” I say.
One of Grace’s arms is slung around Jenny’s narrow shoulders, and she’s looking at me like I’ve done something wrong.
I’ve never particularly liked Grace Adler. She’s a catty gossip who I thought was out of Jenny’s life for good after high school ended, but over the years, she’s wiggled her way back into Jenny’s life, and now Grace is here, sitting on my couch in my apartment comforting my wife, but still has the gall to look at me as if I’m the intruder.
“Am I interrupting something?” I ask, looking from Grace to Jenny.
“No, not at all,” Jenny says hastily. She stands from the couch and crosses the room, greeting me with a light kiss and an embrace, both of which feel forced. “Grace and I just got to talking about the old days, and I started feeling… nostalgic, and we shared a few tears.”
“Oh. Okay.” I kiss the top of her head automatically, but I’m looking from Jenny to Grace, Grace to Jenny. Jenny’s prone to nostalgia and she’s prone to crying — so darn sensitive she even cries during television commercials she finds touching, so her explanation isn’t entirely suspect. But… they shared a few tears? Then why are Grace’s eyes completely dry?
Maybe I’ll ask about it later. After Grace is gone.
After I’ve had a chance to shoot a few hoops.
Except we don’t end up “talking” much that night. We scream and we cry instead. Because when I get back from the park, I head into the bathroom to take a shower.
And I find the pregnancy test in the trash can.
#
Back in the present
I drop the cherry stem, turn my palms face-up on the sticky table, and conclude lamely, “So, yeah. I’ve known Grace for a really long time.”
Amy cocks her head to the side. “Jenny’s best friend, huh?”
I nod.
“And I guess you were close to Jenny, so…”
It’s a leading question. And I can tell by Amy’s expression that she already suspects.
I sigh. “Jenny’s my ex,” I blurt. At this point, I feel like if I don’t just fucking say it, then I’m being dishonest. And I like Amy too much to be dishonest with her.
She nods slowly. “That’s kind of what I thought.”
“Why? You meet a cute straight girl with a baby asleep on her chest for all of two minutes and you’re just like, ‘Oh yeah, clearly that’s Anika’s ex’?”
She chuckles, shrugs. “I could just tell. Something about the way you guys move around each other. It was… like two people who know each other really, really well. So I knew you were either very good friends, or you had been… more than friends.”
I raise my glass. “I toast to your excellent powers of observation, Doctor Watson.”
She clinks her glass against mine, and we both take a drink. Fortunately, the nachos choose that moment to arise, giving us something else to focus on for a minute. After a bit of flirting that includes me wiping guacamole from Amy’s chin and Amy trying to toss black olive slices into my mouth, she asks the inevitable question.
“So when were you and Jenny together?”
I lick some sour cream from my index finger, buying time while I contemplate my answer. “Remember how you asked about my tragic first girlfriend story?”
Amy’s eyebrows raise as she nods. “So she was your first girlfriend? High school sweetheart?”
“Something like that.” I stick a tortilla chip in my mouth.
Amy waves the waitress over, orders us a second round of drinks. After the girl heads back, Amy turns to me belatedly and asks, “You’re okay with another round, right?”
I nod. “Only so long as you stick to your promise of letting me treat tonight.” I gesture at the plate of nachos we’re sharing. “So far, though, you’re a cheap date.”
“Maybe I should’ve asked for the top shelf stuff,” she says, bouncing her eyebrows up and down suggestively.
“I don’t know,” I tease. “Judging by how the first sip affected you…”
She pokes my arm. “You stop it. I can hold my liquor. What else do you think I do at all those schmoozing parties except drink?”
“Good question. What else do you do at those parties?”
This leads to some more poking, some more flirting, until finally our fresh drinks arrive and I eat my second maraschino cherry of the night.
But you-know-what is still bothering me, so I put on my big girl pants and say:
“Listen, Amy. Just to be honest about Jenny… She was a lot more than my high school sweetheart.”
The mirth fades from Amy’s face, and she leans back, twirling the ice in her drink with the little plastic toothpick impaling her cherry. “Okay. And what does that mean, exactly?”
“She was… we were married for a while.”
“Married. How long’s ‘a while’?”
“Well… we got married right after we graduated college. So if you count the year and a half we were together in high school, plus college, and then after… We were together for a total of thirteen years. And married for about seven of those years.”
Amy’s silent for a long moment. “Wow. I guess your ‘tragic first girlfriend story’ beats mine, huh?”
“Sorry, I didn’t plan on bringing it up. But I figured — well, I figured if you’re hanging out with Grace Adler, and just knowing the way Marcine is, you might’ve found out anyway. And I’d just rather you hear it from me than someone else… I didn’t want you to think I was hiding anything from you.”
She nods, a thoughtful look on her face. “Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.” She sips her drink. “Thirteen years, starting at the end of high school… and you’re thirty-eight… so that means you broke up when you were thirty? Thirty-one? It’s been over for seven or eight years?”
“Eight years. Almost nine, really. We’d just turned thirty when we split.” And because I think I know what she’s asking without directly asking it, I add, “Jenny’s been in the rearview mirror for a long fucking time, Amy. In fact, we hadn’t even talked in five years. Not until she showed up at the restaurant yesterday with her kids.”
Annie. Ani. I decide to leave that part out.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying that I’m glad to hear it,” Amy says. “Because I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you these last couple of days, getting to know you. I like you. I like you a lot, actually. And it’s been a long time since I met a girl I really liked.”
I drop my hand to Amy’s knee, give it a squeeze. “Same here.”
She smiles, puts her hand over mine. “I like you enough that I’m kind of hoping we might be able to keep in touch after I leave Marcine.”
I move the hand that’s on her knee slowly up her thigh, tracing the inner seam of her jeans as I lean in a little closer. “You’d better keep in touch. I wouldn’t want to have to track you down.”
Amy’s eyes flutter closed for a moment, and when she opens them again, there’s something smoky in the look she’s giving me. “You need to take your hand off my leg. Before I do something I regret.”
My mouth is almost on her ear when I reply softly, “What would you regret?”
“I’d regret inviting you to follow me back to my B&B tonight.”
“I don’t think — ”
But the waitress picks that moment to come over to check on us.
I straighten up, take my hand off Amy and scoot a few inches away, like a little kid caught goofing off by a teacher.
“You ladies okay?” she asks. “Need any refills?”
Amy glances at her watch, shakes her head. “No. If I had a third, I wouldn’t trust myself to drive home.”
“You can bring me the check when you get a second,” I tell the waitress, who nods and scurries away.
Amy reaches over, takes the hand that had been traveling up her thigh a moment earlier, squeezes it once before letting go again.
“Sex on the second date is something I reserve for the girls I don’t like that much,” she says. “I hope you understand. It’s a compliment that I’m not taking you home.”
“I’ll try to feel honored,” I tease.
“But hey,” Amy says, eyes lighting up. “Why don’t you come with me to the bachelorette party tomorrow night? You could be my date.”
“Are you supposed to bring a date to a bachelorette party?”
She shrugs. “Probably not. But a full night of straight girls shoving dollar bills into a stripper’s thong? I’m probably going to need a distraction at some point.”
“That’s all I’m good for? A distraction?”
“Oh, I’m definitely hoping you’re good for more than that,” she shoots back, and the smoky look is back in her eyes.
It’s enough to convince me that the only place I need to be tomorrow night is Grace Adler’s bachelorette party, which is a surprising fucking revelation, trust me. “Then I guess I’ll be there.”
“Bring an overnight bag.”
“An overnight bag?” I echo. “So sex on the second date isn’t okay, but on the third date, surrounded by straight girls and male strippers, that’s okay?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you wish. The party’s out of town, at somebody’s lake house cabin. I think everyone’s going to make it into something of a slumber party.”
“You are such a sorority girl.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t spend the night at a few sorority houses when you were in college.”
I raise both palms in defense of my innocence. “You’re forgetting — I just explained that I was with Jenny all the way through college. I was already spoken for. I had a very tame four years at Rosemont. Your hero Alex Woods is the one who used to wake up in sorority houses. Amongst other places.”
“So you say.”
“So I do say. I’m an extremely loyal fucking girlfriend.”
Something passes across Amy’s eyes, a look that’s hard to interpret but that definitely signals an end to the flirty banter. Instead of answering, she just nods. I pay our tab a couple minutes later.
“Walk me to my car,” Amy says.
And because I can feel an urge to obey whatever commands this brunette Tinkerbell gives me growing inside my chest, I follow her out of Dillan’s and back to the parking lot of Soul Mountain. Her car and my Mom’s, the one I’ve been driving since I’ve been back, are the only two vehicles left in the dark parking lot.
It takes nearly fifteen minutes and a whole series of increasingly sophisticated good-night kisses before we finally part for the night. My legs are actually trembling when I start the car, and I can’t manage to wipe the grin off my face.
Why do I feel like I’m in high school again, like an idiotic fucking teenager falling in love for the first time?
But I shouldn’t be thinking like that. I’ve known Amy since Monday, today’s only Thursday, and she’ll be leaving Marcine by next Tuesday.
Possibly permanently.