by Jill Cox
Too schmaltzy? Ah. Just you wait, my friend. You’re gonna need that schmaltz to read the rest of this story. Yes, you will.
On the second Friday in December, Brooks convinced me to take her to some new micro pub near the Highgate campus called Heritage. I figured I’d hate it, not only because I was a teetotaler, but also, just… come on. “Heritage”? Is there anything worse than using a subjective noun as your one and only title? It’s so pretentious.
Brooks was reading me The Heritage Story from the inside cover of the menu – those posers grow their own hops in a rooftop greenhouse – when someone cast a shadow over our table.
Two someones, actually.
“Hey, Sutton?” Dan Thomas barked over the music. “What’s the likelihood that the Cheshire Cat would show up in Portland on Friday the Thirteenth?”
“Slim-to-none.” Drew flashed his best Ken doll grin at Brooks, then back at me. “But if this isn’t Pete Russell, he’s got a twin in the world with a very cute Girl Friday.”
And just like that, three sets of eyes were on me: Dan’s and Sutton’s, because they couldn’t believe I was there, and Brooks’, because… well, I’m pretty sure I looked like an eggplant.
Dan narrowed his eyes at me long enough to send a chill up my spine, then turned to smile warmly at my date. “Hey, Brooks,” he said, like they were jolly old pals. “You look nice tonight.”
“Thanks, Daniel,” she grinned back. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“No. I guess you haven’t. It’s been at least a couple of years.”
“More like three. It was the day you guys stole Gigi’s cheese fries off the kitchen counter and took off in Pete’s car without so much as a thank you. You owe me ten bucks, Russell.” She smirked at me, then gestured toward Drew. “Who’s your other friend?”
“That’s Drew Sutton,” I interrupted before Dan could respond. “He also went to Highgate.”
Drew lifted an eyebrow at me – way to crunch that truth to its smallest denominator, his look said – and offered Brooks his hand. “Nice to meet you. How do you know Pete?”
“School,” she grinned. “We teach together at St. Francis Prep.”
Guess who else knows how to downsize the truth? Brooks for the win. But while Sutton looked perfectly content to accept her version of our story, Dan knew enough about my complicated past with Brooks to interpret what was brewing right before his very eyes.
“Teaching?” He barked at me over the indie music blaring from the speakers above our heads – less of a question than an accusation. “Both of you teach? Since when?”
“Pete’s a long-term sub for our French teacher,” Brooks explained. “I teach Geometry.”
“Geometry?” Dan frowned. “Really?”
“Oh, don’t tell me. You assumed I studied art history in college since my mom’s in the D.A.R.?” The knowing smile on her face drew thin. “I studied Math, Daniel. Just finished my Master’s last spring.”
“Huh. Good for you.” Dan plastered on his best fraternity recruitment smile – warm yet distant. “So, listen, Brooks, would you mind if we borrow Pete for a minute?”
“It won’t take long,” Drew added, the Sutton charm oozing out his ears. “We just need to catch him up on some fraternity news. We wouldn’t want to bore you with it.”
“Oh.” Brooks gave me a pained look across the table, like she knew she needed to save me and didn’t know how. “Um… sure, go ahead. I can entertain myself, no problem.”
And then, I kid you not, she pulled a book out of her purse. A book, Sully. Brooks Darby never had the patience to read a tweet, let alone a novel.
I’ll give you three guesses what it was.
Okay, forget guessing. It was Les freaking Misérables.
What?! Who did she think she was fooling? Like, oh, don’t mind me over here brushing up on my Victor Hugo. Why yes, I did notice this book was nine hundred pages long. It’s the unabridged version.
WHO BRINGS VICTOR HUGO IN THEIR HANDBAG?
A math teacher trying to impress a French teacher, that’s who. But I didn’t have time right then to unpack the subliminal implications because Dan + Drew + me equaled bigger fish to fry.
I followed the guys out the front door and up a side street. Dan was wound so tightly you could have used him to propel a rocket into space. Sutton, on the other hand, kept casting sidelong glances my way as we walked. Like I was an extra-terrestrial. Or a real life boy-band member he’d only seen on the small screen.
Halfway up the side street, Dan skidded to a halt. “Brooks Darby? Are you freaking kidding me right now?”
“Come on, man,” I clapped him lightly on the arm. “Can’t we at least bro-hug it out before you start jumping to conclusions? It’s Christmas.”
“Shut up, Russell.” His glasses glinted in the moonlight. “I don’t care what time of year it is. You do not get to pop in and out of people’s lives without a single consequence.”
I rolled my shoulders back. “Is that why we’re standing outside? You want to give me a consequence?”
“Step back,” Sutton commanded. “Both of you, take two steps back. Right now.”
I don’t know what that guy learned in his first semester of law school, Sully, but Dan and I both obeyed. And then we looked at each other, because holy crap, we’d just taken orders from Andrew Sutton, former douche extraordinaire.
Sutton took a deep breath, then placed his body between us. “Okay, let’s start over.” He turned to me. “Hi, Russell. Good to see you back on American soil. When’d you move home?”
My eyes drifted to Dan for a moment, then I shoved my hands in my pocket. “A couple of weeks ago. I came back around Thanksgiving.”
I don’t know what was worse – the Dan Thomas shouting at me moments before, or the one gaping at me in silence. Wait, yes I do know. It was the latter, because while I deserved to be called every four-letter word in the book, it was the hurt in Dan’s eyes that nearly killed me. I knew why he was so steamed. I’d ghosted everyone who ever cared about me except James and Brooks. And for Dan, knowing that I’d been in the same city for so long without calling him was one step too far over the line.
Which is probably why he turned on his heel and stormed away.
After a long, painful minute during which we both stared at Dan’s retreating form, Sutton cleared his throat. Then cleared it again. “Your, um, teacher friend seems nice.”
“She’s not just some friend, and you know it, Sutton.” Stomach churning, I ran a hand through my hair. “Brooks and I have history. It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” Drew quirked an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, I think I’m vaguely familiar with that concept.”
Oh, Sutton was good. He was very, very good.
“Speaking of,” he gestured for me to walk with him away from the large group of drunk cretins who’d just gathered ten feet away. “Meredith’s not here anymore. In Oregon, I mean. Actually, she’s not even in the States.”
“No?” I could see by the look in his eyes that his grandmother hadn’t told him I’d stopped by their house on Black Friday. “Everything okay?”
“Um… allegedly?” He attempted to smile. “Jamie and Molly bought some B&B back in their hometown last winter. Meredith followed them to Ireland right after finals last May.”
“Wait a minute. The world’s biggest school nerd skipped her college graduation?”
Something in Drew’s eyes flickered. “Well, yeah. With Ian gone… I guess I don’t need to tell you how that feels.”
Guilt kicked at my gut from the inside, Sully. Of course I knew how it felt to graduate without your people there to witness. But then it dawned on me that Sutton also knew – that he’d lost his mom too. And the churning in my stomach settled itself into a hard knot.
Which one of your exes turned out to be the bigger jerk in the end? Not Drew Sutton, that’s for sure. And there he was, looking at me so kindly that I wanted to hug him.
“You should call her
, Russell,” he said with a sad, faraway smile. “Her Skype address hasn’t changed, and I know Fee would love to hear you’re teaching.”
Ugh. Fee. Do they teach reverse psychology that first semester of law school? Because he’d just shot me twice between the eyes, and I hadn’t seen either bullet coming.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, man,” I muttered. “What would I even say to her?”
“How about you start with Happy Birthday? Despite everything that’s happened, I know she misses you, Russell. No doubt you miss her too.”
Your birthday. It was your birthday, Sully, and here I was, on an unofficial date with a counterfeit Victor Hugo fan, shooting the breeze with Drew Sutton instead of you. Without trying, I’d shifted back to Bizarro Pete’s timeline. But I had literally no clue how to make things right.
I took in a ragged breath. “Is she happy? Tell me she’s happy, Sutton.”
He reached over and patted me once on the shoulder. “Call her. You can ask her yourself.” Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, turned around, and walked away.
Later that night after I’d dropped Brooks off, I sat in front of my laptop, Skype on the screen, with my finger hovering over the track pad for what must have been three hours. I wanted to talk to you so badly that my heart actually ached. Like, my chest was literally sore for two days afterward, because I needed to know you were okay.
But the longer the night dragged on, the more I realized that if I’d hurt Dan badly enough to make him storm away, your reaction might be infinitely worse. In the end, I decided my heart couldn’t take another blow. So I closed my laptop and walked away.
Waffles
In the Sullivanized version of Brooks+Pete, you probably imagine our couple story began by lindy-hopping down Gigi’s street while Rogers and Hammerstein played in the background.
Nope. Not even close. With Brooks, there are no epic moments. You just ride the waves until she suddenly decides it’s time to level up.
The Saturday before Christmas, I was sitting in my hotel suite grading finals. You read that right – I lived in a suite, which I know sounds ridiculous and extravagant, but hear me out for a second. That particular boutique hotel has a hard time booking their luxury suite more than a handful of times each year. The one-time cash price I negotiated for December through the summer was basically the amount they normally make on that room per year, plus a little extra, just to sweeten the deal.
In truth, renting a hotel suite long-term didn’t cost me anymore than a luxury apartment would cost in that same amount of time. In fact, it was cheaper, considering I got free maid service, free room service, not to mention gym access, cable TV, and Wi-Fi.
I know. It’s wasteful and irresponsible. Wait until you read the rest of this story.
So, earlier that week, the maid in charge of my floor told me that her boyfriend’s family owned an AKC-certified English cream golden retriever, and that ten weeks earlier, their best female had given birth to five puppies.
“They have one left,” she explained as we crossed paths in the hallway. “She’s the runt, and she has an overbite, so no one really wants to buy her. Would you be interested?”
Now look, Sully, I may be a hot mess, but I am somewhat self-aware. That was just a few days after your birthday, so my hot-messiness was at an all-time, inferno-level high. A sweet little runt needed a home just as I needed unconditional love? Surely Waffles and I were meant for each other!
That’s her name. Duchess Waffles Von Wartburg of Dunthorpe.
Don’t laugh. The purebred pedigree police have very strict naming rules. I did my best.
Heidi (the cleaning lady) delivered Waffles to me on Friday after school, and by the time I was grading my tests on Saturday, I already had buyer’s remorse. Yes, Waffles was sweet. Yes I loved hugging her and playing with her. I didn’t even mind taking her outside forty thousand times an hour. But DUDE. The constant wailing! The razor-sharp, baby shark teeth! The non-stop destruction!
I couldn’t take it anymore. And I had no idea what I should do.
That Saturday afternoon, Waffles had just fallen asleep in her crate hidden in the very darkest corner of my very dark bedroom, when I heard a knock at my door.
Surprise, surprise. It was Brooks. The only friend I had left in Portland.
She looked… well, I believe extra is the right word. Her manicure was fresh, her hair was recently blown out, and her eyelashes were… um… you know those caterpillar-looking things Meg Green used to pay someone to add on top of her lashes? Extensions, I think they’re called? Well, I guess someone told Brooks her eyelashes were lame, because suddenly, she looked more like a Hollywood party girl than herself.
“Hey,” she said, smiling wide. “You busy?”
“Not really,” I said softly. “Just grading.”
“Why are we whispering?” She asked, mimicking my voice as she stepped inside my room.
“I like to keep things Zen while I work,” I whispered back. But I’m not one hundred percent certain she caught my sarcasm, because she kept her voice dialed down to museum-slash-library levels of respectability.
We sat down together on my hotel suite’s sofa. “So, were you just in the area? Or did you need something?”
“Well, neither, really.” She flashed me her flirtiest grin, which is when I noticed she’d whitened her teeth. “I was just running around, finishing up my last minute shopping, and I thought I’d stop by to see you before you drive down to California. When do you leave again?”
“Hopefully Monday? I wanted to get my grades posted first so I could enjoy Christmas break without anything hanging over my head.”
“Oh, haha! Right, right.” Her laughter came out a little bit like a series of loud barks, which made me sit up a little straighter. The last thing I needed was Waffles the Sabre-Toothed Tiger to start howling again. I had exams to grade, sister. Nobody has time for puppy pity parties when they have sixty tests’ worth of spelling and grammar errors to fix.
“Well, listen,” she said, lowering her voice again as she began to rummage through her handbag. “I just wanted to stop by and give you your Christmas gift before you leave.”
At which point she presented me with a perfectly wrapped, rectangular box.
Now listen, Sully, Brooks and I have never been the gift-exchanging type of friends. I don’t think I’ve ever given any female friend a gift except for you, and that’s because I was trying to win your undying love and affection. When Brooks handed me that box, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. So I did what I do best: I improvised.
“Oh!” I said, taking the gift from her hand. “Wow, thank you, Brooksie. Do you, uh… do you want me to open it now, or should I wait until I’m at the Logans’ house on Christmas Eve?”
It was kind of dark in my suite, but that didn’t keep me from noticing the girlish flush spreading into her cheeks. “You can open it now,” she said softly. “I saw this today while I was shopping and it just screamed Pete Russell at me. I can’t wait to see if you agree.”
I slid the thin gold elastic band off the edges, then gently removed the wrapping paper and popped open the velvet-covered black box. For a second there, I thought Brooks had bought me some kind of ridiculously expensive watch. She’s a low-key type of trust-fund baby, but she’s a trust-fund baby all the same. And she does appreciate the finer things in life.
Like a three-hundred-dollar ball-point pen, which is what I found inside.
“It has blue ink, black ink, red ink, and a pencil,” she said, taking the pen from the box to show me the clicking mechanism. “I know you prefer to grade things in green, but I figured this way, you could just carry one pen with you at a time instead of having five in your front pocket like you’re president of the Nerd Herd.”
“Wow, Brooks. This is just… wow.”
Her face crumpled right before my eyes. “Oh, no. You hate it.”
“No, I don’t!” I protested, even though I absolutely did. “I’m
just… you know, surprised or whatever. We’ve never bought each other gifts before.”
“I know that,” she frowned, the blush on her cheeks flaming bright crimson red. “But we were never really in the same place at the same time before, were we? I mean, you know, existentially speaking.”
I watched her watching me for a few seconds and suddenly realized the subliminal reason behind the hair and the eyelashes and the nails. For whatever reason, Brooks had picked that day to cash in all her chips. Like, would you look at me, you big dumb lug? I am totally into you, and I want you to see me as girlfriend material, not just the girl next door.
Which is when it dawned on me that giving gifts is a two-way street. But apart from the nice-smelling bath products the hotel left in my bathroom every day, I had nothing to offer Brooks Darby.
Or maybe I did.
“Stay here,” I smiled, grabbing the pen from Brooks’ hand and all the wrapping from the table as I headed into my bedroom. “Don’t move, okay? I’ll be right back.”
When I walked back in the room holding a perfectly adorable English cream golden retriever puppy, Brooks didn’t notice the blood dripping from my finger or the scratches on my face from where Waffles had just mauled me on the way out of her crate.
She didn’t notice the relief on my face as I passed that demon spawn into her arms.
The only thing she noticed, in fact, were the puppy’s eyes. “Aw, look! She has your eyes! Wait, did you buy this little sweetie for me?”
“Of course I did!” Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar. “Her name is Waffles. Do you like her?”
She was too busy staring into Waffles’ eyes to hear my question. And maybe what they say about dogs is true – that they have a sixth sense about humans – because Waffles never shot me a look of betrayal as she nuzzled into Brooks’ neck. She didn’t wriggle around or bite her ear. She just hung her head over her new owner’s shoulder while Brooks closed the distance between us and kissed me.
