Drift (Lengths)

by Steph Campbell

  “Mezcal,” Papi announces, clapping his hands together. “This calls for a celebration!”

  I watch, my mouth hanging open from total shock as my father gets up to retrieve his special alcohol so we can all celebrate the fact that Richard and I are over.

  “I’m sorry, niña,” my mother clucks from across the table, her mouth folded tight with worry.

  I shake my head, trying to lose the floaty feeling that leaves me feeling set adrift. “I guess I’m just shocked. I thought he was a good idea. I mean, he was so successful. He was handsome. So smart. Going places.” I thought we were going places together. Someday, at least.

  Mamá pads over and puts her arm around me. “Lydia, we love you. We want to see you happy. Happy. It wouldn’t matter what kind of job or looks the man you chose had, as long as he cherished you.” She kisses me on the temple, and I feel this weight I never realized I’d been carrying around slide from my shoulders. “The same way we cherish you. It’s the only way you deserve to be treated.”

  “Muchas gracias, Mami,” I whisper. Before things get too sappy, Papi is doing a shuffling dance back into the dining room, a bottle of dark amber liquid with a scorpion on the label in his hand. He gathers shot glasses and pours a generous shot for each of us. Mami starts to protest, but I urge her on. “C’mon, Mami. This really is something worth celebrating. No more Richard wrinkling his nose at everything we eat on the holidays.”

  “No more Richard bragging about his fancy car with the heated seats,” Papi grumps, a spike of envy in his eyes.

  “No more Richard throwing tantrums when he gets sand in his shoes at the bocce ball pit,” Cece says, her eyes bright as she grins.

  “No more Richard period!” I hold my glass up and everyone clinks.

  “Salud!” Caro cries, and we all share a laugh and throw back the fiery alcohol.

  “The celebration cannot end here,” Cece declares. “Come on, Lydia. You’re putting on something sexy and coming out dancing with us after the exhibit.”

  “I don’t know.” I run my finger around the glass, catching one last bead of strong liquor on my fingertip. “I’m not sure I’m up to it.

  “Si te caes…te levantas,te sacúdes el polvo y te vuelves a montar!” Papi declares, pouring himself and Mami another glass.

  Mami drinks and nods. “Your father is right. A gorgeous young woman like you? You need to get right back to dating. No wasting time pining over someone like Richard.”

  Cece comes over and tugs me under the arm. “C’mon. Genevieve left a bunch of her clothes in my spare room. There’s got to be something ridiculously sexy in there.”

  I bite my lower lip and picture our gorgeous little sister, Gen in her crazy, too-tight, too-revealing get-ups. So not my usual style. But tonight isn’t going to be a usual night for me. It will be a night to shed a little of the bad that permeated my mostly good former life.

  When I’m ready to go back and start new, I don’t want to make the same mistakes. I don’t want to be shallow and waste my time with guys who I pick based on their career motivations.

  I want to be cherished.

  Definitely cherished, just like my mother advised. Just like my mother is.

  “Okay.” I shrug. “I guess I don’t really have anything to lose.”

  “That’s a girl.” Cece kisses my cheek, then we both get up and say goodbye to our parents, who are already on their third shot of mezcal. Papi has that gleam in his eyes that means they’ll put on the Jose Alredo Jimenez records they love to dance around the living room too.

  I take a second to watch them, my mother’s dark head bent low next to my father’s salt-and-pepper one, their fingers entwined, my father whispering something—probably shockingly dirty—that’s making her blush and giggle. How I could have grown up with this kind of love staring me in the face and fallen for someone as cold and unromantic as Richard is beyond me.

  Caro and Cece head to campus and I follow in my car, just trying to wrap my mind around how much admitting that one little truth about Richard has freed something in me. I roll the windows down and let the balmy, salty air blow my hair all over the place, not giving a damn that I spent half an hour straightening it to perfection this morning. It feels like there was space in my brain and heart that I roped off for Richard and, even though I’d broken things off with him definitely, I’d never really cleared all the old feelings and hang-ups I had with him out.

  Now all remnants of him are gone and there’s this new, wide-open space, I find that it’s not staying empty. Instead I keep picturing the gorgeous eyes, dark with sexy need and surrounded with spikey lashes that belong to Isaac.

  Professor Ortiz.

  I wish I knew what was happening with work. What was going to happen with classes. I wish my life wasn’t so unmoored right now, because I want to see where this little flirtation of ours might go. I respect the fact that he saw me and decided he wanted more. I have no patience for shy looks and quiet crushes. I like someone who goes after what they want.

  Funny, since I seem to be all about holding back right now.

  I try to tell myself it’s for good reason.

  I try to tell myself I could really screw things up for myself.

  But I’m doing a really crappy job of listening to the rule-following side of myself. Trying to always follow the rules led to this entire disaster. Maybe it’s time to attempt a new tactic.

  These thoughts are on my brain as Cece unlocks her apartment door and leads me to her spare room. Usually neat and uncluttered, it’s now overrun with silky, glimmering, sequined dresses of every color and style you could imagine.

  “It looks like a little girl’s dress-up trunk got a NC-17 update,” I remark, pulling out what I thought had to be a neon pink bikini. I quickly realize it’s a dress. Or one-sixteenth of a dress. “What the hell is this?”

  Caro runs her fingers over the few ribbons of fabric and sighs. “Genevieve can pull of the sexiest styles. I just don’t have the confidence to wear a dress with cut-outs. And that color just makes me look even paler. And like more of a ginger. But this,” she breathes, pulling out a beaded black dress with flapper-style fringe. “I could wear this, couldn’t I?”

  Cece takes the hanger and shakes the dress out, holding it against Caro’s slight frame. “You would look incredible in this. I love it.” Cece hands Caro the dress and starts shuffling through the options. “You know me. I’m more a cotton and paisley prints kind of girl, but I think we should all go freaking crazy tonight. Oh, holy shit, look at this, Lyd. What do you think?” It’s a deep plum dress with electric blue lacework over the top.

  “Not many people could wear those colors. They’re going to look amazing on you,” I declare.

  Cece and Caro shed their everyday clothes and shimmy into their sexy outfits, each one exclaiming over the other. I think they both look amazing and tell them so. But nothing in my sister’s collection makes sense for me. I don’t want to look too young. Or too sexy. Or too desperate.

  Definitely not too desperate, and that’s what so many of them bring to mind. On my young, carefree sister they would look like the perfect accessory to her natural sexiness and confidence. On me? They would scream ‘Trying too damn hard!”

  Just when I’m about to give up, a green sparkle catches my eye.

  I tug on the sleeve and see that it’s a whole shimmer of emerald sequins. Long sleeves. A surplice neckline. A ruched pencil skirt. Barely thinking, I lay my jeans and tunic on the arm of the loveseat and pull the dress on. The room is completely quiet.

  Caro finally lets out a little squeal. “Oh, Lydia! You look like you should be walking the red carpet. Seriously, you look amazing.”

  “How does my ass look?” I ask, turning to look in the mirror as I hold the zipper closed.

  Cece comes behind me, sighs, and tugs the zipper into place. “How many times have I told you that it’s not good to pick your body apart like that? But, if you want a true answer, your ass looks like some hot
young buck will probably have his hands all over it tonight when we go dancing.” She slaps my ass and laughs. “Unless, of course, it’s all young, shy guys who aren’t ready for this jelly.”

  “You’re such an ass, you know that?” I ask her, but I’m grinning at her. She hands me a pair of nude heels and points to the hall. “I have black eyeliner and that crazy mascara Mami buys off the back of the truck in that border town in the summer.”

  “She gave you a tube?” I whine, rushing to try it out.

  “I stole it!” she calls. “And some of that crazy red lipstick that’s probably ninety nine percent lead!”

  “Can I try it?” I hear Caro ask.

  “Sweetie, I’m sorry. You have to accept that you have gorgeous, milky skin and Celtic princess hair. No black and red for you. You’ll look like a vampire,” Cece answers.

  I line my eyes, goop on generous amounts of Mamá’s secret mascara, and do my lips up like a vixen. I tousle my hair a little and stand on my toes to try to get a better look of myself in the little bathroom vanity mirror, but I can only see bits and pieces.

  Luckily, ever bit and piece looks pretty damn fine to me.

  “Are we ready, girls?” I call.

  Caro and Cece throw their hands over the mouths to squash back their squeals. “You look freaking amazing!” Caro yells.

  “Sex. On. A. Stick!” Cece says, taking my hand and turning me in a slow circle. “You are so getting laid tonight.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ll be glad enough to get tipsy tonight.”

  Cece shakes her hair, her curls bouncing all over. “This is so not women’s studies pc of me to say, but you know I can’t keep my mouth shut: you are getting dirty, down-low deliciously screwed left and right until your eyes cross tonight! I can feel it!” she cries. “I’m happy for you. I always imagined Richard as kind of a cold fish in bed.”

  “Like frost-bitten fish sticks,” I mutter. Every part of this evening so far has been completely foreign to me. The clothes, the makeup, the sex-talk with my sister. But I have no other choice than to roll with it at this point. It’s that, or go back to my lonely apartment and sulk. I’m done doing that. “Well, let’s go out on the town, girls.”

  The showroom is only a few blocks from Cece’s apartment, so we walk it. If I had any doubts about the possibility of taking a guy home, it evaporates after the half dozen cat calls, proposals, and sexual innuendos I have to ignore from guys hanging out their car windows.

  “Who the hell thinks, ‘Hey, maybe that pretty girl will chase my car like a rabid dog if I yell, ‘Nice ass!’ out the window?’” Caro gripes.

  Cece sighs. “It’s pathetic. I hope it’s a sign that all the brainless assholes are going in the opposite direction we are. It’s right up here.” She points, and I see a gathering of nicely dressed men and glitzed up women standing near bistro tables set up with glasses of wine in a small, fenced-in outdoor garden. Twinkle lights sparkle from the trees, and I can hear the slow glide of a sultry jazz singer from inside.

  Caro and Cece see their theater friends and rush over. And then I think I might see Samantha’s lustrous gold mane and panic. Cece knows about me and Richard, but she doesn’t know the whole sordid story of how I fucked up at the law offices. I guess I could tell her that I’m just taking a night class, but she knows everyone and everything.

  Shit.

  The mezcal and shiny dresses made me lose my mind for a few minutes.

  I consider my options and decide that tonight, for once, I’m going to put my brain on auto-pilot and deal with things as they come. If they come. I’ve done enough worrying for three lifetimes already. Time for something new.

  I stroll, sipping a light, bubbly champagne with a little bite and enjoying the sexy height of my heels. The bubbles go right to my head, and I love the weightless feel of my limbs as I glide from painting to sculpture to installation piece. I catch the video Cece and Caro are in, both of them dressed in heavy black robes, their faces chalked ghostly white with only a bright heart of red marked on their mouths like a geisha’s lipstick.

  I feel a swell of pride for my intelligent, free-spirited sister who is always so willing to do new things, try new ways to express herself. I wonder if I would I have been happier as a professor. Or a lawyer in a different branch of law. Or running a startup. Or taking a few years off to travel.

  Am I happy now?

  I think about what happy means, and, like it’s answering me, my body fills with a solid, blissful warmth that seems to radiate from my spine like heat from a radiator. I close my eyes and let my stiff shoulders relax, drinking in the moment.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” a soft voice whispers against my ear.

  6 LYDIA

  I don’t startle. I don’t jerk or try to run away. I turn around. And am staring into the green eyes of Professor Ortiz.

  “Isaac,” I say, my voice heavy and sweet as a ripe berry on my tongue. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I hoped you would,” he admits. Over his shoulder, I see Samantha shake her head and stalk away, arms crossed tight over her chest. “I didn’t realize your sister worked on campus.”

  I take a sip of the champagne, letting it trickle down my throat slowly. “That’s because you and I don’t know each other very well. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  “I heard you didn’t like many people knowing you had a sister who worked for the university.” He chooses each word cautiously, and my mind connects the dots from him to Samantha, the only one who I told I’d rather not let Cece know about my enrollment.

  Not that I gave her reasons as we chatted idly back and forth in class. But some people know how to twist information.

  “How about this? If there’s something you want to know about me, you come on over and get your information firsthand.” Heat waves ripple over my skin as I imagine him acting out on my bold words and asking me things I’ve only dared to imagine men I’ve been with asking me. I turn back to the screen, then decide to move to another piece.

  I’m standing in front of a sculpture of a half-horse, half-octopus when I feel his heat against my back. “I always like firsthand information best. But, on the off chance that I’m told ‘no,’ I’ll throw my morals to the wind and dig out what I need to know from any source I can find.”

  I smile at the statue’s tentacles, coiling over the horse’s strong hind quarters and make it a point not to look back at Isaac. “You must have a pretty low moral threshold then. Unless you don’t hear ‘no’ all that often?”

  “I’m not bragging, but not many people—not many women in particular—tell me ‘no.’” He leans closer. I can feel the warmth of his breath at the side of my neck, and the movement prickles goose bumps to life up and down my arms. “Not that I mind being told ‘no.’ I respect it, always, but I do love a challenge.”

  “I think I realized that the second we met,” I confess, my voice higher than I want it to be. I grab the horizontal railing in front of me and hold on for dear life. “Maybe it’s why I keep saying ‘no’ to you.”

  “There has to be a line, though?” He angles his body close to my side. I can see his profile and the neat knot of his tie, hiding all that caramel skin under its precisely wrapped silk.

  I swallow hard, and remember the glass in my hand, almost empty. There’s just enough to wet my suddenly parched throat. “A line?”

  “A line between how much you like telling me ‘no’ and how much you want to say ‘yes,’” he explains, his low voice cradling my nerves and rocking them from side to side. “I’m nowhere near tired of hearing you say ‘no,’ but I think you’d enjoy yourself so much more if you said ‘yes.’ Even once.”

  I turn slowly, my eyes focused on satiny black of his tie because I know that face, those eyes, could change my mind in half a second. I’m not that good at resisting temptation though, so I flash my eyes up and back down, hardly more than a wink, and it’s almost more than my defenses can stand.

 
He watches me, his eyes racing over my curves and drinking in my face. The dress shimmers, tight on my body. My breath is champagne-dipped and carried on the remnants of all those heady bubbles. “You sound sure of yourself.”

  “I’m a risk worth taking,” he assures me.

  One of his hands reaches out to where my hand trembles at my side. He pulls his index finger from the delicate bone of my wrist, down the back of my hand, over the bump of my knuckle, along my finger to the tip of my fingernail, and, by the time he gets there, my blood is already racing.

  Before I can answer, my sister bursts next to me and throws an arm around my shoulders. “Lydia! Did you see me? I’m famous!” She giggles, and I realize she has a champagne flute in each hand.

  My sister is a notorious lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and she definitely doesn’t need to wind up drunk at a party with peers and students all around.

  “You’re a star, sweetie. No more drinking, though, or you’ll go from Oscar-nominee to washed-up celeb in rehab over the course of a single night.”

  Cece doesn’t respond to my gentle scold because her attention is already harnessed to a pair of intoxicating green eyes.

  I get it. I so get it.

  “Isaac Ortiz? I’m Cece Rodriguez,” she says, handing me her empty champagne glasses. I put them on a passing tray, my heart thumping as I watch my sister and my—what is Isaac to me, exactly? Professor? Lust interest? Friend? Nothing feels quite right—shake hands. “Of course you’d be here. Is any of your work on display tonight?”

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Cece. Thank you for asking, but my work won’t be displayed until the fourth rotation,” he answers, so polite, it’s almost hysterical. And very appealing. Definitely. “It’s wonderful to have all that extra time, but it is a little hard to keep morale up in the face of all this brilliant work.” He gestures around, but Cece doesn’t look at the other pieces.