Chapter 35: Brotherly love.
Two rounds of drinks, one plate of nachos. Amy and I get the same booth in the shadowy back of Dillan’s that we had a few nights ago, get the same twenty-something waitress as we did before. It’s a lot louder tonight, though, because it’s a Saturday, and so we’re practically fucking shouting over the din of laughter and conversation to be able to hear each other.
We eat faster, drink faster, and when the second drink is drained, Amy turns to me and asks, “Do you want to get out of here?”
“And go where?”
I didn’t know it was possible for a woman’s eyes to go both smokey and shy simultaneously, but Amy pulls it off. “Back to my B&B…?”
I stand up. “I’ll pay our tab.”
#
I’ll be honest with you. Alex was right when she said that sleeping with Amy on the third date, less than a week after we’d met, was fast, even for me. But after drinks at Dillan’s and the invitation to go back to her B&B, I completely fucking admit that I’m hoping I’ll get to sleep with her on the fourth date, too.
It doesn’t end up going down like that. Instead, I ride with her in the rental car back to the B&B, chatting about the weather and Grace’s wedding. Somehow we end up talking about the restaurant’s debt problem, which leads to telling her about my blow-up with Dutch, which leads to Gerry’s speech.
“…and so I spent the afternoon at the basketball court, thinking about my life and my past and the mistakes I’ve made and what I want to do going forward.” I look out the window, watch the houses rolling past us. “It’s crazy how one little choice can set up a fucking chain reaction that changes your whole life, you know?”
“Like what?” Amy asks.
“Well, like Dutch had to bring up Rhianna Fucking Jerkins — this girl who — ”
“Rhianna Jerkins? Star center for UConn, ended up in the WNBA in Indiana before she blew her knee out?”
I grin, because I’d momentarily forgotten what a women’s sports junkie Amy is. “Yeah. That Rhianna Fucking Jerkins.”
“So — why was your sister bringing up Rhianna Jerkins?”
“Because… I slept with her. When I was still married to Jenny.”
It’s dark in the car, but it doesn’t escape me that Amy stares straight ahead, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “I thought you said Jenny was the one who cheated on you?”
“She did. About a year and a half after Rhianna… happened. That’s what I mean about how one thing can lead to a chain reaction of other things. I’ve always wondered if Jenny would’ve cheated on me if I hadn’t done it to her first. And then maybe… I don’t know, everything might’ve worked out differently. We might’ve stayed in Phoenix. Worked through our issues. Had kids together.” I glance at her. “But then I probably never would’ve gone to Switzerland. And met you.”
I reach across, squeeze her thigh and smile at her. She doesn’t return the smile. She still isn’t looking at me.
“When we were talking about sororities and college, didn’t you say you’d always been loyal to Jenny?” she says.
“I was. The thing with Rhianna… it was a messed-up, one-time thing that happened when my team played hers. Jenny was in Phoenix, I was in Indiana.”
Marty McFly snickers in the backseat. “You know you’re just digging yourself in deeper, right?”
Amy says nothing.
“It was… we’d been having problems,” I say, ignoring McFly. “I was on the road all the time for basketball. And even when I was at home, I wasn’t at home. We tried to fix things. But it was like, everything we did, we got further apart instead of closer together.”
Amy says nothing.
“Relationships,” I say with a heavy sigh. “They’re fucking hard. Right?”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “They are.” She looks over at me, gives me half a smile. “And we all make stupid mistakes in our relationships sometimes.”
I feel like she’s given me a reprieve for a moment, so I grab onto the first change of subject that pops into my head. “So this guy Grace is marrying — Kyle? What’s he like? He’s not a tool or anything, is he?”
Amy’s shoulders soften a bit. “He’s not bad. For a straight white man. He’s completely, insanely in love with Grace.” She smiles as if she’s remembering something from the distant past, lets out a laugh. “He’ll treat her well. He already does — dotes on her.” She shifts back in the car seat, lets go of the death grip she had on the steering wheel. Drops one hand into her lap. “It’s endearing, to tell the truth. To watch someone be so utterly attentive and loving towards someone else. And — look, I love Grace, she’s one of my best friends, and she’s been there for me at times when no one else has, but she can be…”
I glance over, watch Amy search for the right words.
“Overbearing?” I suggest. “High and mighty? Oblivious to the feelings of others?”
Amy laughs, and the last of the dark cloud that had passed over her face when Rhianna came up disappears. “I wouldn’t have chosen those exact phrases, but… yes. So I’m glad she’s found someone who accepts her as she is. Warts and all.”
I reach over, take the hand resting in Amy’s lap. I lace our fingers together, bring the back of her hand to my lips, give it a light kiss before resting our hands together on the center console.
“We should all be so lucky,” I say. “Given that we all have a few fucking warts.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”
A few minutes later, we’re lying on top of her neatly made bed at the B&B, each of us on our sides, facing each other, trading stories about childhood and college years and old crushes. One of my hands rests on the rise of her hip (which makes it sounds like we’re all close and cuddly, but you have to keep in mind I have the wingspan of a fucking albatross, so actually we’re a few feet apart), and one of her hands runs lightly up and down my arm as she talks.
I can’t remember whose eyes start to dip closed first, or which one of us is the first one to say, “Should we get under the covers?” All I know is that when I open my eyes again, it’s because sunlight is streaming in through the balcony window, filtering in through the gauzy white curtains that Amy’s pulled only halfway shut. Sunlight dots my bare arm, softens Amy’s sleeping face with a soft orange-yellow glow. Her back nestles into my chest, one of my arms is draped over her, the rest of my body curls around hers from above and below. Like Amy’s a lowercase c and I’m an uppercase C.
My other arm is trapped beneath her heavy head, and even though it’s uncomfortable with pins and needles and the feeling of cut-off circulation, I don’t move it. I don’t want to wake her. Or turn away.
Usually, when I wake up in a woman’s bed, it’s still dark outside, and I dress quietly and slip out before she can wake. If she does wake, I mumble something apologetic and completely fucking made up about an early morning basketball practice and then leave anyway.
So it’s been a long time since I’ve actually simply lain in bed and held someone. And it feels so fucking good that I kinda wouldn’t mind if it lasted forever. The thought makes me wriggle closer, as if there is space between us that still needs closing. There’s not, really. You couldn’t slide a piece of fucking paper between us, but it doesn’t stop me. The arm draped around Amy contracts a little, and in her sleep, she breathes out a contented sigh.
I let my eyes slip shut again, even though I know I probably won’t sleep. There’s still a lot on my mind. Sleep’s probably going to be scarce for the next few days.
Or years.
Or decades.
#
PJ’s in the kitchen when I get to Soul Mountain, shirt sleeves rolled up and a light sheen of sweat plastering his tight black curls to his temples.
“Hey, little bro number one,” I call as I walk to the office.
“Hey, big sis number two,” he answers.
He’s bending over our industrial-sized rice cooker when I walk back out in my serving apron, finger-combing my thick hair into a ponytail.
“So hey, Peej?” I say, handing him an oven mitt. “You planning on being here all day? ’Cause I was hoping to leave around four-thirty or five to go to Grace Adler’s wedding.”
He closes the lid to the rice cooker, wipes sweat from his brow with one of his thick forearms as he turns. He catches his breath for a second, hands on his hips, and I suddenly realize PJ has gone corporate. He’s not used to standing on the hot prep side of the kitchen anymore. When you’re the restaurant owner instead of the sous chef, maybe you don’t end up in the kitchen that often. Naw. You probably walk around the dining room, glad-handing and sucking up to your wealthier customers and people you suspect to be food reviewers.
“Grace Adler’s getting married again?”
“Yeah. At St. Pete’s today.”
He uses the collar of his fancy shirt to wipe the bead of sweat off his bare upper lip. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t.”
“So why are you going to her wedding? — which, yeah, I was planning to be here anyway, so no worries about leaving early.”
“Well, because I…” But an unexpected wave of shyness about Amy overtakes me. It’s one thing for Gerry to see me chumming around with her, to know I basically picked up the girl on an airplane — or she picked me up, whatever. But it’s different with PJ. Where Gerry and I have always been a little rough around the edges, Dutch and PJ are both smooth, refined, sophisticated. Like a grade of wine we would never sell at Soul Mountain.
And — I’ll be damned — I actually want him to approve of Amy.
“Wait,” he says, eyes narrowing. “Are you going because you’re hoping to run into Jenny?”
“What? No — no. Jenny’s — she’s — no, I’m not going because she’s going to be there.”
He takes the oven mitt off his hand. “So why are you going to the wedding?” PJ presses. “If you’re not going to see Jenny and you don’t like Grace Adler…?”
Gerry reappears, carrying a dishwasher rack of clean silverware. “I bet it’s her new girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” PJ asks.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say.
“Hmm… this kind of reminds me of high school. Or the Bible,” Marty McFly says, suddenly materializing next to PJ. “Your siblings ask you about Jenny, you deny it. They ask again, you deny again.”
“Hush,” I tell McFly. To PJ, I say, “Her name is Amy. But we only met about a week ago. She’s college friends with Grace. We’ve been… hanging out.”
Gerry snorts. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
I glare at him, but he and his silverware are already on their way out of the kitchen.
PJ turns back to the stove, stirs a big pot that smells like cumin and bay leaves with a giant ladle. “What’s the story with Amy?”
A desire to start gushing about Amy hits me out of nowhere.
I want to tell him about our second kiss when she launched herself at me hard just to give the middle finger to the rednecks coming out of Dillan’s.
I want to tell him about the way she weaseled her way into Pi Phi in college and nabbed Ohio State’s star soccer player.
I want to tell him about how she cut to the chase the other night, told me she’s getting too old for bullshit, and had me screaming into a superwoman pillow a half hour later.
I want to say all that, and I feel like, out of all three of my siblings, PJ would be the one who would actually listen. He would lean against the metal table behind him, and he would cross his arms against his barrel-sized chest, and smile slightly, and listen.
But I don’t gush. I just shrug. “She’s… I haven’t met anyone like her in a while.”
Even though I don’t gush, he nods, still wearing that empathetic PJ smile. Then the smile morphs into a thoughtful frown. “But wait. You said she’s in town for Grace’s wedding? So this is only a short-term type of thing?”
“I… maybe. We’ve talked about that. I think we’re both at a place in our lives where we’re open to, well, trying something. Even after she leaves Ohio and I… go wherever.”
“And what are you going to do next?” PJ asks. His voice softens. “Is it true what Dutch said — about your career being over?”
I think about the crazy plan I hatched shooting hoops the day before. The call I have in to my property manager in Phoenix, the meeting I’m planning with Jenny on Monday.
“I kind of wanted to talk to you about that,” I say. “But not right now. Maybe Monday?”
“Mom’s surgery is Monday, right?”
“Yeah, true. Tuesday?”
He nods. “Tuesday it is. Whatever you need.”
I take a step forward, give him a light, affectionate punch in the shoulder. Because I’m not exactly a hugger. “Thanks, Peej.”
“Sure thing, Ani.”
And thanks to PJ, I get out of Soul Mountain a little before five, which gives me more than enough time to get home, take a shower, borrow a tie and a dressy shirt out of Gerry’s closet, and make it to St. Peter’s a few minutes after six o’clock.