Cream of the Crop Page 17

  If someone had told me that I would have moved out of my parents’ home to go and live in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx with my boyfriend, to say fuck off to my mother when she told me this was a terrible mistake, and tell my father he was an asshole when he told me college was off the table if I did this, I’d have said they were nuts.

  And yet that September, when everyone I’d known since elementary school was off at Brown and Wellesley, I was standing in front of a two-burner stove, trying like hell not to burn toast because I’d never hear the end of it, wearing nothing but a plaid skirt and bra because that’s how he liked me best, and wondering how much it would cost to get a new air-conditioning unit for this piece-of-crap apartment, because ours had died last night and it was stifling hot.

  I’d never spent August in the city. We had a house in Bridgehampton, natch. I’m not trying to play poor little rich girl, but the city was murder in the heat. And the excitement of walking away from my life to play house with Thomas was beginning to wear a little thin.

  What wasn’t thin was my body, something that was the center of almost every conversation I had with him. Where he used to tell me how much he loved my curves, he now told me how flabby I’d gotten, and how much everything jiggled when he was pounding into me. Which was almost every night, and every day, pounding and thrusting and thrashing and hair pulling and get up on top like this and arch your back like that and why the hell can’t you figure this out for God’s sake why do I have to do everything?

  I’d been picked on, but I’d never been picked apart like this. Not by someone with love in their words, but not in their heart. I was beginning to see some cracks in his charm, in his words, in the promise of what it would be like, could be like, when it was just the two of us against the world.

  Any hope he might have had of working for my father someday was gone the second my grades went in the toilet. And any hope he might have had of building great things, huge things, in the city where my father knew literally everyone at every architectural firm, every construction company, every everything that had to do with building in this incredible city of architectural beauty, was gone the second I missed my father’s fiftieth birthday party to bring my boyfriend chicken soup because he was feeling under the weather, and I thought that was more important than anything.

  And with his world beginning to crumble when his thesis fell apart and his advisor told him he was way off base and in danger of not getting his master’s, my world was going to shit right along with it.

  The veiled hints that I might stand to drop a few pounds here and there had become aggressively rude and crude, with handfuls of fat grabbed during angry sex. Red fingerprints on white skin that folded and crumpled when forced to sit naked, hunched over in order to see just how many rolls there were.

  Do I really think that when he saw me across the street, those many months ago, that this was his plan? Maybe not. Regardless, he very likely already knew what he’d be able to get away with, considering who I was back then.

  When I saw my mother for the first time since I’d moved out, she burst into tears. I couldn’t cry, and not just because I was emotionally shut down, but because I literally didn’t have enough water in my body to do so. I’d lost sixty pounds in four months, and was so exhausted I could barely meet her eyes.

  I’d gone shopping downtown, taking the subway when Thomas was teaching his undergraduate class one afternoon and I actually had some time to myself. He was home so much more than he used to be, not making all of his lectures for some time now, staying in, with me. For the first time in a long while, I was alone, out and about, actually feeling myself relaxing for a change—coupled with exhaustion. And then she saw me, and I could see on her face just how bad I looked.

  If you lose that amount of weight in that short a time, there’s a slackness to the skin, a person within a person, almost. But factor in the stress, the lack of laughter, my poor health and well-being, and I knew I didn’t look myself.

  I let her take me home. I let her wash my face. I let her talk on and on about how much she missed me, how much she worried about me, how many times she’d tried to call me but Thomas told her I was busy. But when she tried to make me a sandwich and put some cookies on a tray, I left.

  And went back to the Bronx, where Thomas was waiting for me, wondering why in the world I’d been gone so long, and shouldn’t I have put on some lipstick if I was going out?

  But something happened that day—even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Just being in my home, with my mother, had opened the tiniest sliver of a door. She’d wept when she saw me, and she’d wept when I’d left, but she was so grateful to have seen my face, even though it was too thin and sad-looking. She was happy to see my face.

  And Thomas? He was never happy. He used to laugh, make jokes, and tell funny stories—but that night, as I lay next to him in that fourth-floor walk-up studio where our bed was a mattress on the floor, I realized that his humor always had a slant to it, a dark edge or a mean vibe.

  He never thought anything good about anything. There was always an angle, someone wanted something from him, or someone was going to try to screw him over for something, or he wasn’t going to be able to get something done because someone always had something more. More money, more power, more connections. Stripped down to the naked truth, he was mean.

  I used to think abuse was someone getting hit.

  Now I know it’s anything that makes you double over with pain, that makes you question anything and everything about yourself that you knew to be true. It’s anything that tells you that you’re only good if . . .

  I felt a drop of water splash onto the back of my hand, and I realized that while telling this story, which I rarely shared with anyone, my eyes had filled with tears. Shocked, I looked up to see Chad and Logan watching me, their own eyes filled with sympathy.

  “I’m so sorry.” I sniffed, snatching up a napkin and wiping my face. “I don’t know what happened there. Truly, I didn’t mean to go on so.”

  “You didn’t go on, it was—”

  “Seriously, I’m so sorry, I never talk about that stuff, it’s ancient history.” I hurried on, dabbing at my nose, horrified to find that it was running. What the hell was I doing, spilling my guts to two men I just met?

  “Natalie.” Logan covered my hand with his. “Stop.”

  I looked up at him through still-teary eyes, shaking my head. “I should have never—”

  “Shut the hell up and let two gorgeous men hug you,” Chad interrupted, no nonsense. Surprised, I laughed, still wiping my face and knowing I must look a fright.

  But I let them hug me. And I realized that sometimes strangers can make for the best company ever.

  When Chad and Logan dropped me off at Roxie’s a while later, I felt wiped out. Emotionally drained. Wasted.

  I hated revisiting that stuff, so I don’t know why it all came out today in a blubbery mess in front of two people I barely knew.

  I thought about Thomas from time to time, of course. Not intentionally, but sometimes he’d flash across my brain when something about old New York architecture would come up, or someone would be talking about their dissertation.

  Or the time I was sitting in a booth behind some couple and the guy started telling the girl that she’d had enough to eat and she shouldn’t get dessert, and by the way my mother is coming over for dinner next weekend and don’t you think it’s time you learned how to make a decent coffee cake?

  That time was bad. I had to leave the table to hide out in the bathroom for a few minutes while I got the shaking under control, and then I had to leave the restaurant entirely when I poured a pitcher of water over that asshole’s head and was asked to leave by the manager.

  But not before I gave the girl all the cash I had in my wallet and my card, and told her to call me if she needed a place to stay for the night.

 
She never called. I knew she wouldn’t. But I was glad I gave it to her.

  I stood outside on Roxie’s porch now, watching the taillights of Chad’s car disappear into the early evening, and took a moment to banish all bad thoughts from my head. I was good at it by now; visualization was the key. I could take about ten deep, cleansing breaths, visualize Thomas’s rotten stupid stinking face, and poof! Gone.

  I took the breaths. Poof. I opened the front door and let myself in.

  “Yo. Rox,” I called out, climbing the stairs two at a time. All bad thoughts gone, I was already moving on to the night ahead and seeing my best friend.

  She was just emerging from the bathroom clad in a towel, with a plume of steam following her. “Hey, girl, thanks for understanding about tonight. Sorry you had to take a cab over.”

  “No worries; what happened? Your texts were strange, to say the least. Something about wedding velvet?”

  “Kind of. If I didn’t think saying the phrase there was a cake emergency sounded as ridiculous as I think it does, I’d tell you about how my afternoon went.”

  “There was an actual cake emergency?”

  She nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Oleson’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. She always bakes for him—has baked for him each anniversary for the other forty-nine. But this afternoon her oven quit on her and she needed a red velvet cake like they had on their wedding day. What was I going to do?”

  “You’re a good egg, Roxie. You’re also dripping, by the way.”

  She looked down at the puddle that was forming and headed into her bedroom. “Come in, I just need to dry my hair and I’ll be ready to hit the town!”

  “I feel like if we actually hit the town, Bailey Falls may never recover.” I snorted, taking a running leap at her bed, displacing pillows right and left.

  Roxie slipped into a robe and started combing out her hair. “Your skin looks fantastic. I think it’s the mountain air. Or maybe the amazing water. Or it could be the altitude.”

  “Yeah?” I preened, smoothing my fingers over my cheeks. “That’s funny, Olga told me the same thing the other day.”

  “Who’s Olga?”

  “Esthetician. She’s been sucking my pores for the last five years and she said there was, and this is a direct quote, a sixty-six percent reduction in the amount of schmutz in my pores.”

  “Schmutz?”

  “Gunk, goo, toxins, pollution—you know, schmutz.”

  “So this is a good thing.”

  “This is a great thing.” I nodded, sucking in my cheeks and admiring my face in the mirror over her dresser. Then I looked back over my shoulder. “There’s a great view of the bed in this mirror. Please tell me Leo and you watch yourselves having sex.”

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  “That’s not a denial, Callahan,” I teased, enjoying the way she conveniently covered her face with her hair and began brushing it.

  Her voice, however, wasn’t covered at all. “Speaking of boning, maybe it’s not just the country air that’s making you glow. Care to share?”

  “Orgasms are great for the complexion, that is true.” I sighed, sinking back into the pillows and holding one like a teddy bear.

  She laughed, plopping down onto the edge of the bed. “I assume that means that you’re enjoying getting to know Oscar in the biblical sense?”

  “Honey, there is nothing biblical about what we’re doing. Trust me,” I said, fanning myself with my hand. Heat was rising to my cheeks from anticipation. When I first found out we were heading into town tonight, I was trying to remain cautiously optimistic. I didn’t want to presume that we’d be getting together every time I was in town. And by “didn’t want to presume,” I mean that was a lie that I couldn’t even sell to myself.

  I wanted to presume, dammit! I wanted to spend whatever time with him that I could. Biblically or otherwise.

  “Hey? You with me?” Roxie asked, waving her hand in front of my face.

  I laughed. “Sorry, my mind was with a certain dairy farmer.”

  “I asked how things are going? You seem to be enjoying the Bailey Falls experience.”

  I was. I couldn’t fully admit it to myself, but I was totally drinking the Kool-Aid. Not yet willing to admit how much I was guzzling, I said, “I’m exhausted from today. Your boys wore me out.”

  “I spoke to Chad earlier. He told me you guys went to The Tube. It’s incredible there, isn’t it?”

  I rolled over, full-blown dreamy sighing.

  Like a shark smelling blood, Roxie started circling. “Oh, and Bryant Mountain House?” She flipped her hair back up. “We’ll have to make spa appointments there soon. Wait until you see it. Incredible.”

  “Uh-huh,” I murmured, dreamily thinking about the day.

  “You know, we could even take a few day trips down to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Especially the cemetery, it’s awesome.”

  “I love a cemetery,” I echoed, mind elsewhere.

  “That’s what’s so great about living here. We’re driving distance or train accessible from everything. Great for families . . . very little crime . . .”

  “It’s a good town, Rox.”

  “It is, isn’t it.” She beamed, bouncing happily on the mattress.

  “And once my campaign starts running, people will be swarming this place to feel a little of the Bailey Falls Magic.”

  “Who knows? Maybe if they fall enough under its spell, they won’t want to leave . . .” She let the thought float out there while she stood and continued getting ready.

  In a fog, I rose and headed into my room. It was a magic fog that was singing all the praises of the town and its inhabitants.

  One in particular.

  Never a big fan of lying to oneself, I put Oscar and whatever this was between us on the top of the “pros” list for Bailey Falls. I didn’t know what would come of the relationship once the campaign was finished. When I went back to the city, would he visit more than just the weekends? Would I? Did he want me to do that? Did he want me, beyond the occasional weekend? There was something about being wanted. I’d never wanted to go beyond the confines of my island . . . for anything or anyone. Now, maybe. Possibly.

  Not wanting to spend too much time on an existential relationship crisis, I turned to getting ready.

  And I had just the outfit. Just in case a certain tall, dark, tattooed drink of water wandered across my path that night.

  There are dive bars, and then there are dive bars, and this was one of the diviest dive bars I’d ever been in. At the end of Elm Street, way down at the end, where the town practically gave up and ceded back to the trees, sat Roxie and Leo’s favorite Saturday-night bar. And judging by the amount of cars parked outside, it was all of Bailey Falls’ favorite Saturday-night bar as well. Originally called Pat’s, it’d been renamed Pat’s Nightmare sometime in the eighties, to now be forever known as . . . wait for it . . . Pat’s Nightmare on Elm Street.

  I’ll tell you what, people were pretty funny in the sticks.

  Hair metal screamed out of the speakers, peanut shells and sawdust carpeted the gouged wooden floor, and people stood elbow to elbow like sardines to get a cheap beer. If you were very lucky, you were able to nab one of the four tables in the entire bar; those seats were gold.

  Luckily for us, we got there just as the mayor and his wife were leaving with a few friends. Leo may have leapt the last ten feet to snatch the table before someone else got it, and now crowded around it were myself, Roxie and Leo, Roxie’s mom, and Chad and Logan.

  “So, wait, your mom’s in town? It’s too bad she couldn’t come out tonight, too,” I said to Leo, yelling a little to be heard since the music was so stinking loud.

  “I think this is one place you’ll never see my mother in,” Leo said with a laugh. “She’s not really a bar type. Besides, Polly’s staying up at the big h
ouse with her this weekend, and they’ve got their own grandma/granddaughter thing going on.”

  Leo’s family was very old New York, blood bluer than blue, banking dynasty. His family had a large estate on the outskirts of town that went back generations, including a huge old mansion that Leo referred to as the “big house.”

  “And we’ve got our own thing going on this weekend, if you know what I mean.” Roxie leaned against Leo and tugged at the top button on his shirt.

  “Yeah, we know what you mean. The entire bar is about to go up in flames from the sexual tension between you two.” Chad sighed, fanning himself.

  It was true; the amount of sexual energy being generated on that side of the table could have powered a small town.

  Just then another pitcher of beer arrived at our table, along with another bowl of peanuts, and the next thing I knew I was standing on the stage (plywood set on cinder blocks) singing the only song I knew in their twenty-song karaoke lineup.

  There are songs that are meant to be sung loudly and accompanied by a PBR and peanut buzz. Songs that make you think you can sing, and that you alone understand the lyrics the way no one else possibly can, and that the only way to do them justice is to leave all self-awareness and good judgment behind.

  Which is why when Oscar showed up at Pat’s Nightmare on Elm Street, he found me singing at the top of my lungs, finger-pointing and fist-pumping, giving my all to my performance of “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

  To be clear, if this song is on, you turn it up. You stop what you’re doing, you roll down every window within reach, you throw every care away, and you give yourself over to the genius that is Journey.

  And that’s what was happening when I saw Oscar from across the cheering, clapping crowd. You have a choice when you get caught doing something like this—especially in front of someone who’s currently blowing your socks off. You can run and hide, or you can sing louder.