Easily Amused (21 page)

I
t was official. I was drunk.

Not falling down drunk, thank goodness, but definitely a little more than tipsy. When the valet brought the car around and Ryan opened the door for me, I had to think hard about the best way to get in. It was dark and the opening looked smaller than before. I managed, somehow, remembering at the last minute the general rule that legs go last.

As Ryan shifted into drive, he said, “That went well, don’t you think?”

“Very well.” I held my hand out to admire the ring. Ryan had said the center stone was three carats, and the diamonds on either side were a carat each.

“I think my performance was rather convincing.”

“Yes, very convincing.” I moved my hand, trying to get the diamonds to catch the light from the dashboard.

“Be careful with that,” he said, glancing over. “It’s on loan from the jeweler.”

“A jeweler let you borrow this?” How did that work?

He nodded. “I said I’d need it for a few weeks.”

I wasn’t sure why I felt disappointed. After all, I
knew
this was a con. Still, there was a small part of me that would have loved to keep the ring. “And they were OK with you taking it? How? I mean, why would they let you do that?”

“They were under the distinct impression,” he said, grinning devilishly, “that I might possibly be buying it.”

“So what will you say when you return it?”

“I will say that the love of my life turned me down.” He wiped away a pretend tear. “And when they see what a heartbroken, pathetic shell of a man I’ve become, they’ll gift me with some cheap cufflinks so I won’t have to walk away empty-handed. A consolation prize to ensure I don’t associate the jeweler with rejection.”

It sounded like he had experience in this area. I tilted my hand and looked at the ring from every angle. I could see now why newly engaged women kept their nails beautifully manicured.

He said, “I looked at dozens of rings before selecting this one. I know some might consider five carats a little ostentatious, but I thought for our purposes it worked. We want to make a splash.” He sounded pleased with himself.

“This will definitely make a splash.” A temporary splash. At least he’d end up with cufflinks, unlike, say, me, who would have only the memory of once having gotten a ring.

When we turned onto the interstate, Ryan put in a new CD, one of the Marsalis brothers. I forgot which one immediately after hearing the name. The music was nice though. In my inebriated state, it played like the soundtrack of a movie in which a movie-star handsome man drove his pretend fiancée home after having just made a fake marriage proposal to her at a restaurant. We were enactors, I realized sadly—like Civil War reenactors. No matter how convincingly the soldiers were dressed, with their authentic costumes and mutton chop whiskers, spectators always knew it was pretend. No one ever ran for cover during the fake battles. No one ever called 911 to help the injured. They looked like soldiers, and they acted like soldiers, but it didn’t ring true.

Because it wasn’t real.

And my relatives would know too, I realized, that Ryan and I weren’t real. We could stand in front of all the guests at Mindy and Chad’s wedding—Ryan looking dashing, and me a dressed-up version of the Lola they’d known forever—and even with this ring on my finger, the picture wouldn’t fit. We’d look like two people who’d just started dating, a couple who didn’t even know each other’s middle names or toothpaste preference. Frauds. It would be so sad and humiliating not to be able to pull it off. If only there was a way to make it convincing.

If only.

“Ryan,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had on your porch the other day. Do you remember?”

“Sure.” He reached over and turned the radio down.

“When we were talking about Mindy’s wedding, and you said people can tell if a couple has had sex or not.”

“I remember.”

“Do you really think that’s true?”

“Yes, I do.” Ryan exited onto the main thoroughfare that led back to our neighborhood. “Why do you ask?” He sneaked a glance in my direction.

“It’s just,” I said, “that I think I’ve come around to your way of thinking.”

“I see.” And then he said nothing for the longest time. The longest time. The jazz CD played to the end of the song, and then there was a silence before a new song began. His face was completely impassive, impossible to read. I looked out the window and watched the streetlights whiz past and reflected that I’d reached a new low. I’d just offered to have sex with a man and gotten no reaction at all.

We turned onto King Street, and I heard him humming along with the music. I turned my head to see his lips curled in a smile. “Here we are,” he said, pulling into his driveway and pushing the button to open his garage door. When the car came to a stop, he shifted into park, turned off the engine, leaned over, and said, “I guess I don’t have to ask if you’d like to come in.” The garage door closed behind us.

“No, you don’t have to ask.” Relief flooded over me. I wasn’t a complete reject after all. I reached over to open the door, but Ryan told me to wait. He wanted to do the gentlemanly thing, which was good because that consisted of helping me out of the car and across to the side door.

There was a short path between the garage and the house, partially shielded by shrubs. When we stood on the threshold looking toward the house, Ryan whispered, “This is where it gets tricky.” He slid his arm around my lower back. “We have to be very quiet because if any of the neighbors are walking by, they’ll want to stop and chat and we’ll be stuck out here forever.”

“I hate that,” I said.

“Me too. That one with the dogs is the worst.”

Ah, Belinda. He didn’t know the half of it.

Inside the house he led me through the dark to the living room. In the dimness I could see the faint outline of a couch and chair on one wall, with the television set in the corner. A pretty sparse setup, not even a coffee table or ottoman. The only light in the room came through the slats of the blinds on the window opposite the couch.

“Come here, you,” Ryan said, pulling me up against him. He put his lips on mine and kissed me hard.

I slipped off my bolero jacket and let it drop to the floor. Ryan’s face showed approval. “You’ve been holding out on me,” he said. “Wow, you look hot in that dress. I can’t wait to see you out of it.”

Yes, it was an old line, but it was the first time anyone had ever said it to me.

I slid my arms around his neck, still aware of the ring on my finger. We melted together, kissing so heatedly it was hard for me to tell where my mouth ended and his began. Like it was choreographed, we stopped to kick off shoes. He peeled off his socks. I started to unbutton his shirt, but my fingers fumbled and I couldn’t manage it. He took over, and his shirt fell to the floor.

My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. I ran my hands over his broad chest and felt like I was watching someone else. Lola Watson would never do anything this impulsive. My heart pounded, and my body experienced sensory overload.

“Shouldn’t we go to the bedroom?” I asked.

“No, it’s better here. My bedroom’s a mess.” His breathing was heavy in my ear. I thought of one of my former roommate’s favorite expressions—“hot and bothered”—and like verbs in French class, I came up with all the conjugations: he was hot and bothered, she was hot and bothered, I was hot and bothered.

He unsnapped the back of my halter dress, and the front fell to my waist. He reached down and tugged impatiently at the waist, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

“There’s a zipper,” I said, reaching back.

But before I could get it, he said, “Oh, the hell with it,” and maneuvered me back onto the couch. Once I was down, he lowered his pants. The answer to the age-old question was…briefs. Not tighty whities, thankfully, something darker. His pants and briefs joined the shirt on the floor.

Now he was completely naked on top of me. I was partially unclothed, but all I could think about was the way my dress was bunched up around my middle, making me feel bulky. Like I needed that.

He ran his hand up my thigh-high stocking and between my legs. “Someone has too much clothing on,” he whispered in my ear.

You think? I shifted beneath him. “Maybe if I could—” But before I could finish my sentence, he moaned gently.

“What do you think of this?” he asked, taking my hand and guiding it to him. I lifted my head to see my hand up against what could only be described as a Dodger dog. He smiled. “See what you do to me?”

I had a moment of clarity when I wondered if there was a condom in the vicinity, but glancing around the room, I doubted it. The man didn’t even have coasters—how prepared could he be?

He positioned my hand like I was going to shift into a higher gear, but who knew who’d driven this thing before? “Maybe we should be taking precautions?” I said.

“You aren’t on the pill?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t worry, I know how to handle it. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

In fact, I wasn’t doing much of anything. Just lying flat on my back, shell-shocked, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. I’d always envied the spontaneous, the free-spirited, but now I was second-guessing the whole situation.

My thoughts were interrupted by noises from outside—voices and hurried footsteps and what sounded like the static and squawking of walkie-talkies. “What’s that?” I asked, pulling my hand away.

“I don’t know. Just ignore it.” He’d moved down and was grinding against my thighs, his hand on my breast. “Feels great, doesn’t it, Lola?”

One of Ryan’s windows was definitely open. Outside the voices were louder, reminding me of the mob scene in the
Frankenstein
movie. I couldn’t ignore it. Even Ryan seemed a little distracted, pausing to look at the window. He finally said, “God, I wish they’d stop whatever it is they’re doing.”

And then I heard it—Belinda calling, “Baxter, Baxter. Come on boy, come to Mommy.” She sounded like she was right in front of the house.

“Lost dog,” I said.

“Dammit,” Ryan said, rearing up. “I’m closing that window.” He dismounted and crossed the room, giving me a good view of him from the back. Before he reached the window, a bright beam of light shone into the room through the gaps in the blinds. “Shit,” he said, dropping onto all fours. “What the hell are they doing out there?”

The beam of light swung in circles. Good God, it looked like an invasion. I sat up and pulled my halter top in place, snapped it securely, and then walked over to the window to peek between the slats. Gathered on the sidewalk I recognized Belinda, Brother Jasper, a few of the Chos, and two of the college girls who rented the house down the block. Belinda held a flashlight, one of those big industrial jobs that could have been used to direct plane landings. The group conferred for a minute or so and then broke into pairs, scattering down the sidewalk. “They’re going away,” I said, turning back to Ryan, who was still crouched on the floor.

“Too late now,” he said sourly. He stood up and I could see that, luckily for me, it really was too late.

“S
o he couldn’t get it up?” Piper asked. We were walking the mall, and she was pushing Brandon in his stroller. I’d just finished giving her the lowdown on the previous night.

“No, it was up at one point. Standing proud. It just didn’t stay up. There was this commotion outside. The neighbors were looking for a lost dog.” I stopped to pick up a board book Brandon had dropped over the side. Piper took it from me and stuck it in the diaper bag. “They were yelling and shining a flashlight. It broke his concentration.”

“That’s not all it broke.” She laughed and made a grunting noise.

“Oh stop, please,” I said, but I had to smile. Some things were a lot funnier in retrospect.

“So what did it look like?”

“What?”

She took a sip from her water bottle. “Don’t be so coy. You know what I’m talking about. What did his thing look like?”

“You know the button mushrooms they spear and serve in drinks? A lot like that.”

“I meant before it shrunk.”

“Sort of like a Dodger dog.”

“Oh, one of those.”

We stopped at a bench, and she handed Brandon a chunk of soft pretzel, which he chewed on enthusiastically.

“So what then?” Piper said. “You just went home?”

“Yeah, but get this. Just before I’m out the door he stops me and takes my hands, and I think he’s going to say he’s sorry for how things went or whatever, but instead he pulls up my left hand—” here I illustrated by raising my hand like stopping traffic “—and jerks the ring off my finger and says, ‘I better hold onto this.’”

“Really?” Piper looked fascinated. “Did he think you wouldn’t give it back?”

“Apparently. So then I just slunk home, talked to Hubert for a while, and went to bed.”

“Hubert wasn’t part of the dog search party?”

“No, he didn’t know anything about it.” I rubbed my forehead. Despite a liberal dose of Excedrin, I still had a killer wine headache. “He’d gotten back from playing racquetball and spent most of the evening in the kitchen reading my aunt’s diaries. He’s addicted to them.”

I’d only given Piper the bare bones of the Hubert situation. When I came home, he was sitting at the table reading. I must have looked pretty terrible after my ordeal at Ryan’s—all bleary-eyed and rumpled. Lacking a comb, I’d raked through my hair with my fingers during the walk across the street. I had a feeling it didn’t help much. When I walked into the kitchen, I was about to apologize for my appearance when he looked up and said, “How was the date?”

“A bit of a letdown, if you must know.”

“Ah, too bad.” But he didn’t look like he meant it. “But you look great anyway. Really beautiful.”

“It’s the dress. It’s a good color for me, or so I’ve been told.”

“No, it’s not the dress. I mean the dress is nice, but it’s you I was referring to.”

“Thanks.” I stood for a second. He looked so familiar and welcoming in his T-shirt and jeans with my aunt’s diary open in front of him. “Still reading that, huh?”

He grinned. “Your aunt was awesome. I wish I could have met her. I have about a hundred questions I’d love to ask her.”

“Like what?” I pulled out a chair and sat down, glad to have something else to think about.

“Just about her life and her travels and the people she knew. Did you know that Myra was a young woman with a husband and a baby when she moved into the house next door? Your aunt was the first neighbor to greet them. She took a cake. Wasn’t that nice? People used to do those kinds of things.”

I thought guiltily of my own King Street moving experience. That day, and for the rest of the week, at least half a dozen neighbors had stopped by, bearing everything from flowers to homemade pickles. I’d thought they were a nuisance.

“And then,” he continued, “I was reading one of her later diaries, and she wrote about Myra’s baby getting killed. That’s what she called her, ‘Myra’s baby,’ even thought the little girl was almost four at the time. It’s the saddest story. Myra was off visiting her sick sister for the day, and her husband was supposed to be watching their daughter, Janie. Janie ran out into the street and was hit by a car. They took her to the hospital, but it was no use. May said that Myra never forgave her husband for not being more attentive. She doted on that girl. She was their only child.” He looked away, as if he’d been there and was remembering it himself. “And then two years later, Myra’s husband took sick and died. At the funeral Myra kept saying, ‘I didn’t really mean it, I didn’t really mean it,’ and when your aunt asked what she was talking about, she said, ‘I wished him dead, but I really didn’t mean it.’”

“Hubert, you’re depressing the hell out of me.” I slid my feet out of my shoes and wiggled my toes. “Why read it if it’s so sad?”

“It’s not all sad,” he said. “Your aunt had a very complete life—good and bad—but sad times are part of life too, you know.”

“You can say that again,” I said glumly. I turned sideways in my chair to give myself some room, and then I reached under my dress to take off my stockings. I pulled each one off in turn and draped them over the back of my chair. What a relief. The elastic cuff that had held them in place had left ridges around my thighs like the edge of a dime. I rubbed at the indents with my fingers, but nothing changed. Just my luck to be permanently disfigured as a result of an elegant evening out on the town. I massaged the marks, which had the unfortunate effect of making them more pronounced. I looked up to see Hubert staring at me in fascination.

“Do you need some help?”

“No, I—” I realized then that I’d hoisted my dress nearly to my crotch. “I just had to get these stockings off. They were driving me crazy.”

“Lola, are you drunk?”

“Just a little bit.” I lowered my skirt over my knees.

Hubert regarded me carefully. “A little bit?”

“I had some wine.”

“How much wine? A lot?”

“I don’t know. I lost count.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I think it’s mostly worn off by now.” Why did he look so amused?

“So what went wrong with the date?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Not even a hint? The food was bad, the car broke down, the guy was a jerk? That was it, wasn’t it? The guy was a jerk.”

“I said I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?”

And that’s when I began crying. At first I thought I was just blinking a lot, a sort of psychological impulse, like trying to blink away the image of Ryan’s angry face when he told me it was too late. Or trying to blink away the thought that next week I would be thirty and the only diamond engagement ring I’d ever gotten was on loan and would soon be traded in for cheap cufflinks. Maybe moisture was forming in my eyes because I was tired and drank too much wine and my aunt was dead and I never really knew her and Hubert would have loved her. There were a lot of good reasons why my eyes might be getting so emotional. Whatever it was, though, once it started, I couldn’t seem to stop.

Hubert looked stricken. “Oh no, Lola, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push it. I won’t talk about it anymore.”

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “It’s not your fault,” I said, trying to choke back sobs.

“You’re being nice. It
is
my fault. I’m sorry.”

I could tell by his face we were entering that weird cycle where he felt awful because I felt terrible, and then I’d feel terrible about making him feel awful. Round and round it would go. “Just forget about it. It’s nothing.” I sniffed.

He leaned forward in his chair with a sad look on his face. “It’s certainly not nothing if you’re this upset.” He held out his arms. “Come here.” And then it was the easiest thing in the world to get up from my chair and crawl into his lap. “There now,” he said, stroking my back. I settled against his chest and closed my eyes. The feel of his hand between my shoulder blades was almost hypnotic. My breathing slowed, and I found myself relaxing into him. Such a good man. “See,” he said after a few minutes, “everything’s going to be fine.” Such a comfortable, reassuring man. I could see why the fourth graders loved having him as a teacher. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong? You never know, I might be able to help.”

“It’s too complicated.” His fingertips were making a circular motion on my back. I hoped he wouldn’t stop.

“Try me.”

“It’s just…” I exhaled wearily. “I’m just so tired of everyone. I’m really starting to hate people.”

“Not all people, I hope.”

“Well, not you,” I admitted. “And not Piper or my parents.” I tried to think of other exceptions, without success. “But pretty much everybody else.”

“I’m glad I’m on the short list, anyway.”

“And I’ll be so glad when Mindy’s wedding is over next week. I’m really dreading it.”

“Why?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “Because it’s all about Mindy and how beautiful she is and how in love she and Chad are and how they’ve been together forever. And then, compare and contrast, there’s me.” I stopped to sniff; Hubert handed me a paper napkin. “Me, the older unmarried sister, all big and frumpy.”

“Oh stop. You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t really think that.”

“Mindy will look stunning. And my dress—” I hadn’t actually seen my dress yet. She and Jessica had selected it, and I was picking it up from the mall the next day. “My dress will probably be hideous. Or very unflattering, anyway.” I blew my nose into the napkin. “It’ll probably make my ass look like it has a life of its own.”

I waited for Hubert to contradict me, to say there’s no way my ass could look like that. Instead he said, “Don’t worry about it, Lola. Mindy’s got nothing on you. And anybody who can’t see that is a complete idiot.”

OK, that was a good thing to say. “Remind me of that at the reception, would you?”

“I would if I was going to be there.”

I lifted my head. “You aren’t coming to the wedding?”

“No, Lola. For one, I wasn’t invited. And secondly, I’m helping with the block party that day.”

That damn block party again. “Can’t you skip it? Tell them something came up?”

“I promised Brother Jasper I’d be available all day. The proceeds this year are going to help a family whose little boy has leukemia. The mom has to take off work a lot, and they’re barely making it.”

“Oh, but I wish you were going to be at the wedding.” I could handle it if he were there.

His brow furrowed. “Piper told me Ryan was going to be your date.”

“That might not be the case anymore.”

“I see.” He kneaded my shoulder with his thumb. “Well, normally I’d love to stand in for Ryan, but I’m unavailable on the seventh. Sorry.”

I sighed. “I’d rather have you there than him any day.” I hadn’t realized it was true until I’d said it.

“There you go—if nothing else, you always have me. Small consolation I know, but at least it’s something.”

“That’s no small consolation. It’s huge.”

We sat for a little while, him massaging my shoulders like I was headed into the boxing ring, me feeling better. After a few minutes he said, “Lola, you better get up. My legs are falling asleep.”

I got up as requested, but we both knew it wasn’t his legs causing the problem. Another part of him was now wide-awake and standing at attention.

What I’d told Piper was basically true: I came home, talked to Hubert, and then went to bed. I just left out that one little sexually charged detail. It wasn’t like me not to tell Piper all, but I knew if I did this time she’d ask questions, probing questions that I wasn’t sure I knew the answers to. I’d tell her about it at some point—just not now, sitting on a bench in the mall.

“So your date ended badly,” Piper said, jarring me from my thoughts. “Does this mean he’s not going to be your fiancé at the wedding?”

“I’m not counting on it,” I said.

“But if he wants to, you will, right? You’ll say you’re engaged?”

“I guess.” At least Ryan made good arm candy. And we had the proposal story ready. The ring was gorgeous. Maybe I’d go through with it after all.

Piper broke off another piece of soft pretzel, handed it to the baby, and then glanced at her watch. “You know it’s almost two o’clock, don’t you? Isn’t that when you’re supposed to meet Jessica?”