Authors: Karina Gioertz
“So, Jason told me about your date last night. It sounded pretty awful,” Tara said, trying to sound both casual and sympathetic as she brought it up.
“Yeah, it
kinda was,” I nodded.
“Thank goodness Noah was there. Did he really knock the guy out?” she asked while holding up a pair of bright orange panties.
“Yup,” I said, staring at them and wondering if they would glow in the dark. Before I could decide however, Tara lowered her hands back down to the table and the neon lights that had shone from them so brightly seconds before, ceased to exist.
Sighing loudly she said, “Okay, what's going on?”
“With what?” I asked unsure of what she was talking about. Sure, the Noah thing still weighed heavily on the back of my mind, but I hadn’t decided whether or not I wanted to talk about it yet and therefore had pushed the whole situation out of my thoughts until further notice.
“With what? With you, that's with what. You're being so quiet. I don't think you've put together more than a sentence since we got here. Is this too weird?”
I glanced down at the orange underwear still balled up in her hands and said, “Crotchless panties? Yeah, that's too weird. I mean, I don't get them, I thought the purpose of panties was to cover the crotch. A thong I get, it serves a purpose, but really, crotchless panties? Why bother?!”
Tara looked down at her hands and when she realized I was right, quickly folded them back up and returned them to their spot on the display table.
“This is too weird. I'm sorry, I didn't know it would bother you to shop for lingerie for Jason.” She suddenly seemed to be uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.
I looked at her with wide eyes. “That's why we're here?”
“Yes that's why we're here. Who else would I be buying lingerie for?” Tara asked nearing exasperation.
I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I don't know, I thought you needed a new bra or something.”
“Why would I bring you with me to do that?” It was something between a whisper and a yell, and even though I had barely been able to make out the actual words just standing two feet away from her, Tara looked around to see if anyone had started listening in on what she seemed to feel was a rather embarrassing conversation. To me however, it had taken somewhat of an amusing turn.
“For the life of me, I haven't been able to figure that out.” I began to giggle. Seeing that one of the members of the sales staff had begun eyeing us from across the room, Tara took my elbow and started to maneuver me to another corner of the store where we would have a little bit more privacy. When she found a spot she liked, she began to whisper again.
“I thought you might know what he likes...but like I said, that's probably weird for you.”
“I don't care. I don't know much about what he 'likes', I do know that in general he's not a fancy panties kind of guy,” I replied in a perfectly audible tone of voice.
“He's not?” She looked surprised.
“From what I've gathered over the years, he doesn't care so much about what you're wearing, he's more interested in how fast you can take it off.” Truthfully, that had been the consensus among all three of the guys.
“Huh,” Tara replied, sounding stumped by my answer.
“If you want to wear something fancy, he certainly wouldn't mind!” I said trying to soften the blow.
“There's no point in spending sixty bucks on a nightie, if he wouldn't notice the difference between that and a t-shirt.” And as fast as she had whipped me into the store she had begun dragging me back out.
“Very true,” I said as I went flying past the panties one final time. Once we were back outside, she kept up the pace for a good twenty feet until she felt we were far enough away not to be seen by the sales girl’s watchful eyes. Thankfully we were approaching the food court, which housed a magnificent coffee shop. I was already thinking about making a pit stop when Tara said it out loud.
“You want to grab some coffee and window-shop?”
“Sure,” I said enthusiastically.
We strolled over to the shop and took our place in the very long line. The wait didn’t bother either of us since the coffee place was so strategically placed at the corner between the opening of the food court and main drag of the mall. The constant flow of people passing by from both directions, left us with an endless amount of entertainment as we anticipated what would be a delicious cup of coffee.
It wasn’t too long before we had our beverages along with some delightfully large chocolate chip cookies and were back to wandering the crowded halls of the mall. Stopping every few windows or so to take a look, we continued to chat about her and Jason’s newfound happiness.
“I 'm glad things are going so well for you and Jason,” I said genuinely. Having known both of them for so long, it would have been hard to miss the sudden changes in their behavior since their relationship had taken a turn towards the romantic side. Jason was constantly walking around humming some Beatle’s tune or another, while Tara had a perma-smile so wide on her face, I was starting to wonder if her cheeks would withstand it any longer.
“Yeah, me too,” she said thoughtfully. “I can't believe how fast things have moved along. I guess it helps that we've known each other for the past three years. We already know a lot about each other.”
I nodded in agreement. Then I added, “You know what they say, the best relationships come from couples who start out as friends.”
Tara got quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I guess that's why I always figured you would be the one to end up with Jason. I'm pretty happy it turned out to be me instead.”
“I'm pretty happy about that too,” I said, glad to see that her concerns about Jason and me had finally lifted.
“Now we just have to find you a man, so that I can be happy for you!” Tara announced with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm I was definitely lacking in that regard. I vigorously shook my head.
“Yeah, that's okay. I'm in no hurry to get back out there.”
“Just take Noah as your bodyguard,” Tara quipped, thinking she had made an innocent joke.
“Ha...yeah, I don't think that would be a very good idea,” I said as I tried to hide my face in my coffee cup.
“Why not?” Tara suddenly stopped. I had done it, I had opened my can of worms and now I was going to have to suck down every last one of them as a consequence.
“If I tell you something can you keep it a secret from Jason?” I wasn’t sure why I even bothered asking, given their new found bliss, I knew I had a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping this from Jason, once I told Tara. But she was eager to assure me otherwise.
“You're going to tell me something that Jason doesn't know? Hell yeah, I can keep it a secret!” So, eager to believe her, I filled her in on the details I had purposely left out when sharing the night’s events with Jason earlier on in the day.
“Ok, so, I kind of left some stuff out when I told Jason about last night,” I began as I guided Tara over to a bench away from the more heavily beaten path.
“Like what?” she asked trying not to show the extent of her curiosity and her excitement at being told a secret Jason hadn’t been privy to.
“Well, after Noah hit Trevor, D. took me into his office to talk to me. I was pretty upset, so I stayed in there for a while. By the time I finally made it out, the concert was over and most of the people had cleared out already. Noah was sitting at the bar drinking. I went over to talk to him and he was pretty drunk already and out of nowhere he told me...”
Now seated on the bench, Tara crept up to the very edge of her seat.
“What?? What did he tell you?”
“He told me that he's in love with me...” I let the words slide off of my tongue and then just waited for the reaction before I continued.
“No!”
“And then he kissed me,” I said, feeling almost ridiculous upon hearing it out loud, as though there was a way I had made some mistake, had misunderstood or even made it all up. Only I hadn’t.
“Oh my God!!” Tara’s jaw had dropped after my initial revelation and hadn’t returned to its proper place since.
“Yeah,” I said nodding, not sure what else to say. Then, out of nowhere, Tara’s expression turned from shock to inquisitive and her entire disposition changed as she sat back on the bench leaning up against it and looking at me with me big curious eyes.
“How was the kiss?” she asked, almost frothing at the mouth.
“It was fine, I guess.” I really hadn’t thought that much about it. The conversation leading up to it had been so hard to digest, I hadn’t even gotten around to the actual kiss yet.
“Really? I always figured he'd be a really good kisser.” She almost looked disappointed.
“Fine, the kiss was amazing! Out of this world! The best I've ever had! I'd probably still be kissing him, if he hadn't started throwing up,” I said as exuberantly as possible.
“That bad, huh?” Tara made a face.
“To be fair, he was drunk and I wasn't really expecting it.” I suddenly felt bad about the poor performance rating I had given Noah’s Kissing Skills. They couldn’t be all bad, given all the practice he was getting day in and day out.
“Hm...so what now? Do you have feelings for him, too?” Tara’s questions were starting to get a little more serious now. I shrugged my shoulders and purposely looked away when I answered.
“I don't know. I mean, it's Noah. He's that guy who is only after one thing and really good at getting it. As a self-respecting woman I've had to make a conscious effort not to fall victim to his charm and good looks. And believe me, that hasn't been easy!” I was getting louder as I spoke. Tara cocked her head to the side and looked at me in a way that made me feel as though she were searching for some tell-tale signs of my true feelings. Then she smiled.
“Aw, you do like him.” She put her hand on my arm, trying to offer me some sort of reassurance.
“It's not that simple. Besides, he may be rethinking the whole thing now that he's sober,” I said as though I could somehow will him to take it all back. Although, if I was honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that was even what I wanted.
“You haven't talked to him since last night?” she asked sounding surprised.
“I saw him this morning, but he was being kind of standoffish...it may be because Jason was there, too. I don't know.” I didn’t know anything. I hated that feeling.
“You need to get him alone and talk about it. You never know, you could be the one to change his bad boy ways....” Tara said with raised eyebrows and a mischievous grin.
“Yeah...maybe,” I replied, knowing full well what a stretch even the implication of that scenario was.
We sat there a little while longer drinking our coffee and watching the constant foot traffic pass us by. As much as I tried to put the thoughts of Noah and what had happened between us out of my head, I couldn’t help but wonder as Tara’s words kept creeping back through my mind. What if she was right? What if I was different from all the other girls? I mean, Noah had to be capable of falling in love, and if he had fallen for someone, it wouldn’t be that crazy to believe that it could be me. After all, we had been friends for a long time. Who knew him better than I did? And who accepted him whole heartedly in spite of it?! Whether or not I had fallen for him over the years wasn’t something I dared explore. The possibilities of that were greater than I cared to admit, and facing those potential feelings without knowing for certain that they would be returned wasn’t something I was up to doing. With that in mind, Tara and I rejoined the passersby and made our way back to the parking lot, at which point, we parted ways and headed to our respective houses.
The whole drive home, I contemplated what my next move would be. I decided that I wouldn’t press the issue, but instead would wait to see if Noah would broach the subject once more. Since he had seemed quite certain that his feelings would survive the night, there was a good chance that he would bring it up again himself. As my mind wandered farther and farther into the land of possibilities regarding Noah and I, I became more and more intent on getting home and seeing him face to face. After spending nearly the entire day avoiding these very thoughts, I was suddenly overcome with such an urgency to see them play out that I nearly took down our mailbox as I spun the car into the driveway. I glanced over at it in passing to be sure it was still intact as I raced up to the door and disappeared inside.
And In Front Of Grandma Pearl…
Once inside
the house, I stood there with my back against the door, frozen, as I listened for any sounds indicating whether or not anyone else was home. There was nothing but total silence. I exhaled deeply, and slowly moved away from the door with several shopping bags still in hand. I took a few tentative steps towards the kitchen and called, “Hello?? Anybody home?” My heart had begun beating so hard I could feel it thumping back and forth in my throat. The thumping sped up when Noah came walking out of the kitchen. I nearly swallowed my own tongue when I tried to speak.
“Oh, hey,” I sputtered trying not to choke.
“Hey,” Noah replied casually, clearly unaware of the anxiety I was stupidly feeling.
“Anyone else here?” I asked, trying to match his tone.