LoveLines (4 page)

I chuckled.

“And the snorting and the gargling,” she went on.

“Gargling, huh?”

“Yeah. When they get that phlegm in their throats and sort of choke on it?”

I stifled a howl.

“A man sleeping is just about as disgusting as a fart,” Erica said.

I guffawed, then slapped a hand over my mouth when Annie shifted on my lap.

“You’re too hard on him,” I said softly. “You’re bossy and impossible, and he’s gonna divorce you eventually.”

Erica shrugged. “I’d never let him.”

I smiled then jerked my head at the sound of the front door. Noah trudged in with bags of groceries in his arms.

“You switched with him this time?” I asked.

“I didn’t think you wanted to accompany me to the grocery store,” Erica said.

“Yeah, but you’re psycho when it comes to your groceries. You have to know he probably got half the list wrong.”

Erica shrugged. “Eh. I think they call it compromise.”

“Erica!” Noah called from the kitchen. Both children instantly awoke.

“Honey, we’re in here,” Erica said patiently. “And you woke up the kids.”

Noah poked his head in the living room. “Oh, hey Bailey.”

“‘Sup?” I asked.

“Just finishing up my woman’s work,” he replied, grinning. “You know, picking up dry cleaning. Grocery shopping. Running to the post office.”

“Cute,” Erica said.

“Wait, I get the first two, but the post office? I think that’s gender neutral,” I said.

“Doesn’t involve a wrench, oil, or ladder, so it classifies as woman’s work,” Noah explained.

“Are you done?” Erica asked
patiently.

Noah approached his wife and leaned over, kissing her long and slow. I averted my eyes and covered Annie’s. I don’t know why, but I felt like it was too much passion for a two-year-old to witness. She wriggled out of
my arms and latched on to her father’s leg.

“Little Orphan Annie,” Noah said, picking her up and kissing her cheek. It was a thing they did. He kissed her cheek. She kissed his. And they went back and forth unti
l Annie tired of the game. She made it to five pecks before she was distracted by a toy on the floor. Noah set her on her feet.

“Why do you insist on calling her that?” Erica asked. “She’s
gonna grow up thinking she’s adopted and that we’re still unsure if we wanna keep her.”

“Huh?” Noah replied.

“Because you keep calling her ‘orphan!’” Erica explained.

I giggled. Then hiccupped. Noah took notice.

“Drinking on the job, you two?” he asked.

“I had one, honey,” Erica replied.

“And how many did you have?” Noah asked me.

I held up two fingers. He sighed.

“Let me go hide everything with sharp edges,” he said.

“No! That phase is over,”
I said. “Soooo over.”

The first two months after Brian broke off our engagement were really tough. I didn’t try to hurt myself, but my depression was so bad that my friends thought I might. They treated me like I was crazy—and perhaps, in a way, I was—because I didn’t feel like me.
I acted weirder than I normally do. I don’t know how I managed to perform my job at any kind of satisfactory level. I don’t remember feeding myself. I’m sure I was a terrible friend. The whole time period is a haze to me still.

Six months. It’s been
six months since the break-up. Six months since my dad invited me fishing with him and fed me as much alcohol as I wanted. Naturally, I got drunk and cried all over his neck and shirt. Six months since Erica told me I was brave. Don’t know what she meant by that. Experiencing a break-up doesn’t make you brave. Six months since my mother asked me what I did wrong.

“
You okay?” Erica asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I nodded. I wasn’t interested in discussing Brian or my OCD anymore. They were always the same conversations that led to no real understanding—why I do the things I do, why I drive away all the men I date, why I feel like a failure. No one wants a sad friend, and I didn’t want to be that girl. So I persevered, slapped a smile on my face, tried my hardest to exude happiness. For the most part I was good at it, but ev
ery so often, Erica would notice the cracks in my armor, and she tried to help me mend them. Because that’s what best friends do.

“Need any help with the
groceries?” I asked, walking to the kitchen before anyone answered.

***

Noah dropped me home sometime around nine. I’d stayed for dinner, thought I’d sobered up sufficiently to drive, but was told to keep my car right where it was—on the curb in front of Erica’s house. She’d drive it over tomorrow.

I live in a cul-de-sac in an old neighborhood f
illed with one-story brick homes. They’re small—no bigger than 1500 square feet—but the perfect size for a single woman tired of paying rent. I bought my house two years ago. I’d started saving for a down payment eight years before that. I thought my mother would be so proud of me for purchasing my first home—on my own—but she was more concerned about the people to fill it.

“Just me, Mom,” I had said
during my housewarming party. It included my dad, younger sister, some coworkers, a few friends from college, and Erica’s crew.

“Not even a roommate, B
ailey? At least get a roommate. I mean, what’s the point of two bedrooms if it’s just you?”

“Office space,” I replied.

“Office space for what? What do you need an office for? Do you take work home with you? Do they make you work nights and weekends at that place? Honey, let’s talk about the sales job. Remember that sales job I told you about?”

“Mom, I’d be working more in sales. Do you understand? We’ve been over this. Days. Nights. Weekends. Holidays. Vacations. That’s a sales job!”

“Honey, this job is different. Now I gave Archie your number. He said he’ll call you—”

“Oh my God! I just bought a house, Mom! Can we focus on the house?!”

Yeah. So that’s how most of the conversations went with my mother. God, my mother. What can I say about her? She’s your stereotypical, “When am I getting grandchildren?” mom. She worries incessantly. She carries around passive aggressive judgment and doles it out at just the right moments. I’m convinced she decided not to like me once she learned I inherited OCD from my father. Or contracted it. Yes, my mother would use the word “contracted,” like I have some filthy gutter rat disease.

But back to my ho
use. It’s a cute two-bedroom, two-bath place with hand-scraped hardwoods and a sink in my bathroom with two separate knobs. Makes washing my face a pain in the ass, but I like the vintage feel. I wouldn’t change it when I updated the room.

I’m your shabby chic kind of girl. Everything in my house looks like a flea market find. Most everything in my house
is
a flea market find, now that I think about it. I like to discover those discarded treasures, adopt them, bring them home, and clean them up. I think I relate to them in a way. No one wants me, so I understand how they feel. I mean, just because we’re quirky doesn’t mean we lack value.

I waved to Noah as he drove off, then made my way up the brick path to my front door.

“Bailey!” shouted my next-door neighbor. She was putting her trashcan on the curb.

“Hi, Soledad,” I replied.

She was a plump, little Hispanic woman always wrapped in an apron. Never failed. Every time I saw her, she looked like she was in the middle of baking. She wore her long, black hair up in a bun with the same silver earrings dangling from her lobes. She had nine children—
nine
. I didn’t think people still had that many children.

“
Esos niños me están volviendo loca,” she said. “Tuve que venir aquí sólo para alejarme. Usted probablemente se ha preguntado por qué estaba poniendo mi basura en la calle cuando no se recogerá hasta el lunes.”

“I had a really nice day,” I replied. “I visited my friend, Erica, got a little tipsy, cried about my ex-fiancé, then ate pizza.”

Soledad smiled. “Me gustaría tener tres niños de menos, ¿sabes? Sólo tres. Pero decir eso, no es una cosa común para una mujer hispana. Tenemos familias grandes, Bailey. Así es nuestra cultura.”

I nodded. “I should probably put my trash on the curb while I’m thinking about it. But I’m also OCD, so it’s not as though I’ll forget come tomorrow evening, right?” I giggled, and Soledad giggled, too.

“Usted entiende! Yo amo a mis hijos, pero a veces necesito respirar. ¿Entiende?”

These were typical conversations with my next-door neighbor. Soledad spoke very little English. I spoke even less Spanish. But some
how we had no problem communicating. I assumed she told me about her day. I always told her about mine. We had a mutual understanding, a mutual like for one another, so the words weren’t really important anyway. The longest conversation on record lasted thirty minutes, and I couldn’t tell you one thing she said to me.

I pointed to my door and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Adios, Bailey!” Soledad replied.

I walked insi
de and plopped on my couch. Usually when I arrived home from Erica’s house, I was grateful for the quiet, orderly stillness of my living room. But not tonight. Tonight I wish I hadn’t insisted on going home. Tonight I wish I still had Annie crawling all over me, staining my already-beer-sullied shirt with pizza fingers. Tonight I wish I were still tripping over toys on the kitchen floor and chatting with Erica and Noah about their “bad” parenting skills. It didn’t happen often—I trained myself to embrace solitude—but tonight I needed people.

“Hey, Bailey,” Erica said into the phone. “What’s up?”

“Umm, do you think you or Noah could come pick me up? Maybe I could spend the night?” I suggested.

A brief pause.

“I’ll call Noah’s cell. Have him turn around and get you,” Erica said.

“
You sure it’s all right?” I asked.

“Girl, you know it is,” Erica replied.

After we hung up, I packed a small bag, then sat watching the ticking clock, counting the minutes until Noah’s headlights shown in my living room window. I hurried through my leaving-the-house rituals: touch and test all the knobs on the stove in counterclockwise motion; walk twenty-three steps to the guest bathroom to check outlets; turn locks on both doors three times in rapid succession.

I climbed into Noah
’s car and nestled my bag on my lap.

“You checked the outlets?” he asked.

I nodded.

“The stove?”

“Mmhmm,” I replied. “And you’re not supposed to be encouraging me.”

“Hey, I’m just making sure your
house doesn’t burn down,” Noah replied, backing out of the driveway.

He was the only one
of my friends who didn’t get it. In a therapy session a while ago, Dr. Gordon told me to stay away from Noah—that he wasn’t being a good friend to me because he wasn’t encouraging me to manage my condition. I thought long and hard about the doctor’s words, trying to make sense of his advice when I knew Noah was the
best
kind of friend—the kind of friend who recognizes the faults in others but loves them anyway.

“Bailey, right?”

She looked up from her desk and blushed. The new guy. The cute guy.

“That’s me,” she
replied.

Direct gaze. She
wasn’t prepared for it. His green eyes sparkled, danced a little jig, like he knew a secret about her she didn’t remember sharing.

Reece
just stood there staring and grinning. He’d walked over with confidence, knew precisely what he was going to say, and then . . .

“Did you need something?” she
asked. It was pleasant, not pushy. She didn’t want to push him away. He could stay a while. Would throw her schedule off a tad, but she could deal.

Reece
shook his head and cleared his throat. His mind went blank. It was her heart-shaped face. It distracted him. Made him nervous.

“Um . . . yeah. I, uh . . .”

She looked at him expectantly. Suddenly he didn’t seem so confident. She wondered what happened in the course of three seconds that would have him so rattled.

She didn’t know what to do, so she picked up her
purple pen. An uncertain smile spread across her face. He kept staring at her—clearly at a loss for words—and now she started feeling the first uneasy tingles of anxiety. Damn anxiety! It was the trigger. The compulsion was guaranteed to follow.

Oh God. It’s happening.
No, no, no
, Bailey thought, but she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the pens lined up in a neat, little row.
Red, blue, black, green. Red goes first. Always. It always goes first. I use red the most. That makes sense. If I use it the most, then it has to come first. That’s not OCD. That’s common sense. I am in control of my OCD. If I want to move the red pen, I can. I have the power to move it . . .

Reece watched the con
tortions of her face, realization dawning that this chick may, in fact, like him. She was certainly growing more flustered by the moment. His chest swelled, and he found his footing.

Well
, well, well,
he thought smugly.
The tables sure have turned quickly. Look who’s making who nervous now?

He cleared his throat and watched Bailey snap her head up, staring at him with the most helpless expression.
He couldn’t know that it had nothing to do with him anymore. Once her anxiety set in, her sole focus was on her pens.

“
Sooo,” Reece said, basking in his newfound confidence. He whipped out his hand and leaned to his left, certain of catching himself against her cubicle wall. That was his goal: to go for an effortless, casual lean. Maybe throw in a smoldering smile. But he missed the wall altogether and dropped like a sandbag to the floor.

“Oh my God!” Bailey cried, stifling a laugh. “Are you okay?” She jumped up from her chair and offered her hand.

Reece, mortified, nodded and scrambled to his feet. He chuckled and shrugged, adjusting his collar for something to do to avoid her eyes.

“
Yeah, so
that
just happened,” he said.

Bailey
burst out laughing. It was the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard. Barring his complete humiliation, he was happy his mishap evoked that laugh. It was a singsong laugh. A bright melody. He realized she was the perfect person to go to when he had a bad day. She could laugh away his irritation.

“I’m sorry,” she wheezed. “I’m not laughing at you . . .”

“Yes, you are,” he countered, grinning.

“I just . . . how on earth did that ha
ppen?”

“Obviously my
peripheral vision blows,” he explained.

“Ob
viously,” she agreed, giggling.

He sauntered into her workspace and leaned against her desk. Her laughter ce
ased abruptly when he scattered her pens with his hand.

He didn’t do it on purpose, Bailey.

I know,
she thought.

Don’t. Freak. Out.

I’m freaking out slightly.

Don’t reach for the pens. His ass is right there.

But I think I can get to them without accidentally touching his ass,
she argued.

And what if you can’t? Huh? Then you’ve touched his ass. You realize how weird that’d be?

Bailey took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” Reece asked.

“Sure!”
Oh my God. I just screamed.

Reece raised his eyebrows and nodded. “I don’t think I introduced myself.”

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. My pens are out of order . . .

“I’m Reece.”

“Like the candy?”

He rolled his eyes. “Never heard that one before.”

I can be careful. If I just reach out . . . Oh, fuck! You had to move?!

“Sorry for the sarcasm,” he said when she didn’t reply.

“No, no,” she said. “I don’t know why I asked you that. It was stupid. I’m sure you hear it all the time.”

“It would have been nice if
my parents just named me ‘John,’ but what are you gonna do, right?”

“You can always change your name,” Bailey suggested.
I’m going for it. I have to.
I’ll die if I can’t fix them!

She swiped her hand as quickly as possible over the pens, grazing his ass in the process.

“That’s a peculiar thing to . . . Hey, now!” Reece exclaimed, looking over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you buy me a drink first?”

“I’m so sorry!” Bailey replied, gripping the pens in her sweat-slicked hand.

“I mean, not that I’m not flattered or anything,” Reece went on.

She cracked a smile.

“I could have just handed them to you.”

She didn’t think about that.

“You needed all of your pens this instant?” he asked.

She grimaced. Her mind split in two—two voices demanding polar opposites. Her OCD voice wanted those pens lined up. Her reasonable voice begged her to let it go. The OCD voice was stronger, louder, and it compelled her to place the pens on her desk, each end lined up perfectly with the edge of the table. Red, blue, black, green, purple. Evenly spaced. Just so. She had a sudden urge to listen to Radiohead’s “Everything
In Its Right Place.”

She kept her eyes glued to her desk, particularly the red pen that
screamed at her to get back to work. She was on a schedule. She wrote out a list, and she had to complete her tasks before she could leave for the day. And she had to—
had
to
—leave the office at exactly 6:00 P.M.

You’re a jerk, Bailey!

She looked up at Reece. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“My ass is all right,” he replied.

“No no. What I said about your name. It was so . . . flippant.”

“It’s okay. I hear
it all the time. I’m used to it,” Reece replied.

“No,” Bailey
said. “I don’t care what other people say. I care what I said to you. And I’m sorry. You should never change your name. People . . . people should never change, never change who they . . . I meant they should never change their names,” she finished. It was the clumsiest thing she’d ever said.

Reece studied her for a moment. “Okay. I see where you’re going with that.”

She nodded solemnly.

“But what if their name was Shithead?”

Bailey laughed all over again. “Point taken.”

“The
phablet,” Reece said suddenly, remembering his reason for popping by her cubicle.

She
tried to compose herself. “Yes?”

“You corr
ected the spelling of ‘fablous.’”

“Because it was misspelled,” she explained.

The side of his mouth quirked up. “It was supposed to be.”

She blinked.

“’The phablet. It’s fablous,’” he quoted.

She thought for a moment, and then she grinned. How did she miss that? “That’s cute.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“Doesn’t really translate on the page, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“It just looks like yo
u misspelled ‘fabulous,’” she said. “Look.” She pulled a clean sheet of notebook paper from the second drawer of her desk and wrote out Reece’s slogan. “See?”

He nodded.

“Now, if you spelled ‘fablous’ with a ‘ph’ instead, it would mirror ‘phablet’ and make more sense. And you should capitalize ‘Phablous.’ An even better mirror.”

“But wouldn’t that be too hard for people to read?” He plucked the pen from her hand and wrote out his slogan with the new spelling: “The
Phablet. It’s Phablous.”

Bailey chewed her bottom lip while she considered the altered spelling. She grabbed another pen and underlined the “
Phab” in each word.

“But see how clever that is? The letters are the same at the beginnings of each word. A mirror. Look how sharp and clean that appears on the page. Two words per fragment. Same number of syllables. The ‘P’ capitalized in both words. Visually, it’s perfect.” And then she added softly, “Stunning, really.”

He turned in her direction and watched her stare at the page.

“It’s so clever. So funny. Who wouldn’t get it?” she asked.

“You’d be surprised,” he muttered.

“Well, maybe this can be a smart campaign for smart people,” she suggested.

He chuckled. “The goal is to advertise to the largest number of people possible: smart and dumb.”

“
Makes sense,” Bailey said.

Reece
grunted. “I’ll show this to the team. See what they think. I like your suggestion. A lot, really.”

“Thanks,” she replied.

He really didn’t have any other reason to stay and chat, and he knew she had work to do, but he wasn’t ready to leave her quite yet.

“Hey, don’t you use Track Changes to proofread?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she replied. “Dan knows I’m old school, so he lets me get away with printing smaller documents to proofread with these—” She held up her hand “—as long as I’m not doing it all the time.”

“Hands-on gal,” Reece noted.

“I’m better at catching things on the pages then on a computer screen,” she replied. “I bet that sounds weird, huh?”

“Makes total sense to me,” Reece said, though he really had no idea what she was talking about.

They grew quiet. Reece opened his mouth to say “goodbye” when she spoke.

“So how do you like it here?”

“Oh, I like it a lot. This firm has a really good vibe. Really creative people.”

“Are you new to Wilmington, too?”

“Yep. A few weeks in.”

“I’m sure Christopher has plans to show you around town,” Bailey said.

“He’s got a schedule,” Reece replied.

She listened as he expounded on Christopher’s plans for the two of them this weekend all the while she studied his every feature.
He had soft brown hair that was slightly wavy—like the Atlantic on a calm, still day. She imagined her fingers in it, learning its texture and temperament. Hair certainly had its own temperament, and she knew this from her own, particularly the two cowlicks on either side of her head where she swore horns used to grow.

His eyes were green. She wasn’t sure what she thought of people with green eyes. The only ones she’d ever come across were either filled with greed or malice. But nothing about Reece’s demeanor suggested either. His just spa
rkled like he was up to no good—harmless tricks—and she could handle that.

He had high cheekbones
and cheeks that sported stubble. He trimmed his neck, though. Perhaps he was growing a beard, she thought, and she pictured his face with a full, short beard, deciding it would look handsome and rugged.

“Have you been there?”

“Huh?” she asked.

He smirked. “Front Street Brewery.”

“Oh sure. Order the beer sampler when you go,” she suggested.