Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo

by Heather Wardell

  Fiona twisted her necklace around her finger and Kegan's eyes dropped to her carefully displayed cleavage. I hated her for being so obvious, and him for falling for it. "Will you be hiring waitresses?"

  He raised his eyes to hers and smiled. "Absolutely."

  "I'll give a resume to Candice," she said, smiling back at him.

  Good luck with that.

  *****

  "Candice, knees to sink?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Need a new drink, I said."

  "Oh, sorry. No, I'm fine, thanks."

  Larissa went off to the bar, taking the long way to avoid getting too close to Kegan. She hadn't said a word to him since he and his friends had joined us, barely even acknowledging his greeting. I knew she was still angry with him, but I was embarrassed by her reaction.

  "Candy's always had something of a hearing problem."

  "Really? I didn't know that," Angela said, looking surprised.

  "I do not," I said, taking a mock swing at Kegan, which became slightly less mock due to my alcohol level.

  He grabbed my hand just before I hit him in the face and gave it a brief shake, his fingers on my skin sending shivers through me. "Behave yourself," he said with a wink.

  I took another swing with my other hand, and he caught that one too. Holding both my hands, he pinned my arms down at my sides, grinning at me as I giggled and tried, admittedly not very hard, to pull away.

  "What about this hearing problem?" Apparently Fiona didn't like Kegan playing with me any more than I'd enjoyed seeing him talking to her.

  Kegan squeezed my hands once and released me, and I made a show of rubbing my wrists in fake agony as he said to Fiona, "It's not a real one." Turning back to me, he said, "You just miss the odd word, right?"

  I knew where he was going, so I gave him a half-smile and hoped he'd move on to something else. No such luck.

  "The best one was the pelican story."

  "Pelicans? I love pelicans," Kathryn said dreamily, drunk almost to the point of not being able to stay atop her bar stool. "They're so adorable, the way they waddle around and look like they're wearing a tux."

  "That's 'penguins', kiddo," Angela said gently, and then laughed at Kathryn's obvious confusion.

  "Tell us the story!" Fiona beseeched Kegan, and he, naturally, obliged. Anything for Fiona.

  "Well, we were out at a bar, and of course it was loud. My buddy Anthony was complaining about crows and pigeons eating the vegetables right out of his garden. Someone suggested he could use a pellet gun."

  Kegan went on with the story, and everyone laughed at the right parts. I, however, was lost in memory. I had completely not heard 'pellet gun'. What I'd heard had been 'pelican'.

  I'd said, "With a pelican?" To my amazement, Anthony had said, "Yeah, with a pelican". I'd tried again, sure I was missing something. Again, I was informed that they would use a pelican to remove the crows and pigeons from Anthony's garden.

  Finally, in desperation, I'd leaned over to Anthony, and said, as clearly as I could, "Are you saying you're going to use a pel-i-can to get rid of the crows and pigeons?"

  Anthony had roared with laughter, and then filled everyone else in on what I'd thought he'd said. Of course, they'd laughed too. And so had I, because it was funny.

  Until I saw the look on Kegan's face. He was embarrassed. He was ashamed of me.

  I tuned back into Kegan's story in time to hear him saying, "Anthony said, 'How the hell would I get rid of crows and pigeons with a pelican?' and we laughed and laughed. Didn't we, Candy?"

  "We sure did," I said in as cheerful a tone as I could muster.

  Nearly everyone was fooled, but Angela, soberer than most, eyed me suspiciously, and I wasn't surprised a few minutes later when she announced that she had to go to the bathroom and demanded that I go along "for her protection".

  "What was that all about?" Angela said from the depths of a stall. "You didn't look like you enjoyed the story."

  "The story was fine," I said. "It was living through it that wasn't so fun."

  "I can see that it would have been a bit embarrassing. But still, it is kind of funny."

  "I know. It was hilarious. But the thing is, you didn't see how he was reacting to it back then. Like I'd humiliated him or something."

  "Really? That's stupid. It was just a mistake, and a cute one at that. It didn't make him look bad or anything."

  "Well, I think he thought it did."

  The toilet flushed, and Angela came over to the grungy sink. She made a face at its unsanitary state, but washed her hands carefully nonetheless and dried them on a paper towel, then turned to me.

  "He definitely didn't seem embarrassed tonight."

  No, he hadn't. I wondered why. Was it because so much time had passed? Had he stopped being so worried about how people saw him? Or was it just that before he'd felt that my behavior reflected badly on him and now he didn't?

  As we were about to leave, Angela caught my arm.

  "Be careful, okay? Larissa told me about him. He sounds like trouble."

  Larissa had a big mouth. I said, "I won't see him outside of work, and we've got so much to do I doubt there'll be time for anything but work."

  Angela grimaced. "I hope you're right. I have a bad feeling about him."

  If it had been anyone else, I'd have brushed off the comment, but Larissa had told me about Angela and her 'feelings'. The year before, she'd gone on vacation to the Dominican Republic. As she sat in the airplane waiting for it to take off, she suddenly had a feeling that something was wrong with the plane. Her husband, naturally, wasn't willing to get off the plane, or even ask a flight attendant what was wrong, based on his wife's 'feeling', no matter how accurate she'd been in the past.

  As they discussed in hushed voices what they should do, a flight attendant had made an announcement.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we have found a small problem with the aircraft's landing gear. We regret that there will be a fifteen minute delay while we make the necessary repairs."

  Angela was immediately calm and relaxed again.

  If she felt that Kegan was bad news for me, she was most likely right.

  He certainly had been in the past.

  *****

  "I think he's changed," Kathryn stage-whispered into my ear. "He's nothing like Larissa said."

  It certainly seemed like it.

  Kegan's cell phone rang and, with an apologetic wave, he headed outside so he could hear.

  Larissa looked at me with her mouth pulled to one side.

  "What's with the face?"

  "Just please be careful, Candy," she said, emphasizing the nickname that I wouldn't let her use any more but that Kegan was getting away with on a regular basis.

  "I told him not to call me that," I said, trying to sound like I thought that was actually the issue.

  "Candice. You're different when he's around. He's bad for you."

  "I know, I know. I'll take Ian to his restaurant someday and we'll all have a good laugh. Is that okay?"

  Larissa considered for a few moments, and then clearly decided she didn't want to have this particular argument right then. She laughed, threw her arms around me, and said, "More drinks? I'm buying!"

  When Kegan didn't come back in ten minutes or so, his friends left to find him, but we girls stayed at the club, dancing and drinking and laughing, until three in the morning. No further sign of Kegan. Not that I was looking, of course.

  To: ianw@buildaid.com

  From: ninjacatrocks@hotmail.com

  Subject: heeyb there!

  I juust got ho9me from my girlls niugt out. My ffinger s feel dru nk, :)

  AAnd i am too the tattoo type. Maybe i''ll get six bfore you get home. How abourt a beear with faanggs?

  Canndice

  Sunday, August 7th

  Ninja, the world's most accurate furry alarm clock, woke me up right at seven, the perfect time to get up on a work day. Unfortunately, it was Sunday. My favorite day to slee
p in. Not to mention that I'd gotten home at three-thirty and was so not ready to be up yet.

  As there is no snooze button on a hungry cat, I got up and fed Ninja and gave his litter box a quick tidy-up. Then I went back to bed and tried to fall asleep again. No luck.

  Giving up after about twenty minutes, I staggered to the bathroom. I'd drunk far too much the night before and it was having the usual effect on both my brain and my bladder.

  I reached for the toilet paper but found nothing but an empty roll. I vaguely remembered using the last few squares last night to scrape off my makeup, being out of cotton balls as well. I craned my neck to look into the cabinet beside the toilet. Not a scrap of toilet paper to be found.

  I actually started to call for Ian before I remembered. I considered calling for Ninja, but I had my doubts that he would be of much assistance. I briefly entertained myself with an image of Ninja, with a roll of toilet paper tied around his neck, the way Saint Bernard dogs go out to rescue people lost in the snow, only they have alcohol around their necks. (The dogs, not the people. If the people had alcohol tied around their necks, they'd probably be much less concerned about being lost in the snow.)

  What to do, what to do? I foraged in the garbage can and came up with a few sad-looking old tissues. They would have to suffice.

  After a brief search, I discovered Ian had stashed our last toilet paper purchase in the cupboard in the other bathroom, so I moved most of it over to our bathroom, then went back to bed. Even though I'd had less than four hours sleep, somehow I was now wide awake. My body was exhausted, but my mind was running a mile a minute, mostly along the Kegan track.

  After we broke up, I'd been devastated. I didn't go to school, take showers, or even check my email for days. I just cried. My entire self-concept had been based on his love for me, and I was alternately horrified that I had let him become so desperately important to me and crushed that I would no longer have him in my life.

  Once I'd recovered, I'd had a string of relationships that I had described frequently as "nasty, brutish and short", a Thomas Hobbes quote that was the only thing I could remember from my philosophy class. One guy in the middle might have been worth keeping, but we'd eventually just drifted apart. Then I'd met Ian, and everything had changed.

  It had been one of those 'huge group of friends' outings. I'd been there with my friends, and he'd been there with his, including a guy on whom I'd had a slight crush. When I first looked at Ian, though, something shifted inside me. I tried to brush it off as the effects of far too much peach schnapps, my drink of choice in my younger days for its low price and high alcohol content, but I knew it wasn't.

  I didn't even know him yet, but I knew he was the one.

  We spent the whole evening together, much to the disgust of my original crush-ee (who, it turned out, had only shown up because he was interested in me). Ian and I danced every dance, whether the music was fast or slow, as a slow dance, and we talked constantly.

  At the end of the night, we exchanged phone numbers and a hug that felt like it lasted forever, and I floated home. Ian called me the next day, and we'd been together ever since.

  I'd been thinking about that night a lot since his parents' death. Remembering how absolutely and utterly right it felt had gone a long way toward keeping us together. Knowing that Ian was a good man helped too. He'd lashed out at me in anger and pain, and I didn't really think he'd meant it the way it had sounded, didn't think he'd meant to hurt me as much as he had.

  But seeing Kegan again had thrown me for a loop, had awakened it all again. The pain he'd caused, yes, but also the passion he'd brought into my life, so different from Ian's calmer nature. Ian was my current love, and I wanted him to be my last one, but Kegan was my first. He was hard to forget.

  *****

  After a little more reminiscing, I decided to get up and shower, since I was clearly not going to be able to get back to sleep. I was meeting Larissa for our weekly 'ladies who lunch' lunch. We always wore our best and fanciest clothes, often giving a new outfit its maiden voyage, and had a fabulous girly lunch. "Sex and the City" with only two girls.

  I washed my face and spread it thickly with my favorite face mask, carefully avoiding my lips. The mask smelled deliciously of chocolate mint, but I'd accidentally tasted it once and it was not an experience I cared to repeat.

  Looking like a swamp monster from the neck up, I indulged in one of my favorite pastimes. I wrapped myself in a towel, grabbed one of the many books hanging around the bathroom, and settled down on the toilet lid. Many was the happy hour I'd whiled away in the bathroom throughout my life, just reading and relaxing. I couldn't relax unless I was doing something at the same time.

  A strange tight feeling in my face gradually drew my attention from my book. I was still wearing the face mask. The face mask that, the instructions made quite clear, should not be left on for more than ten minutes. I glanced at the clock Ian'd hung on the wall to encourage me to get ready quickly.

  Thirty-five minutes?

  My swamp-monster look had turned into an old mummy, all dried and flaking dirt, and my skin was starting to hurt. I clambered into the shower and turned the water on to a nicely hot level.

  The mask came off easily, but I could feel my skin was irritated. This wasn't going to be pretty. I'd look like a beet. A sunburned beet.

  I quickly finished up my shower ablutions, and climbed back out to face my face. Actually, not too bad. Certainly redder than I'd hoped but not as bad as it could have been. I dried off, pulled my hair into a ponytail, found some clothes that might pass Larissa's inspection, and gave Ninja a hug goodbye.

  I'd spent ages trying to pick the perfect car for me, and then I spotted the Tiburon and it was love at first sight. My beautiful black car (license plate NINJACAT, a birthday present from Ian) had served me very well, and I enjoyed feeling like I was driving a sports car. Since I rarely drove faster than the speed limit, I really didn't need a sports car, but it was fun to feel like I had one.

  Larissa and I were meeting at the Setherwood Café. I arrived five minutes late, and Larissa, naturally, had not yet arrived. I had learned from past experience. I pulled my emergency book from my purse and sat down on the curb outside the restaurant to wait for her. Thirty minutes later, she arrived.

  "Right on time!" I said, rolling my eyes.

  "Well, get up, get up," Larissa said, feigning impatience.

  I did, and we strolled inside and up to the scarily perfect-looking girl at the desk. Like a Barbie come to life. Only with bigger breasts and a smaller waist.

  "Candice, Candice, Candice..." she murmured, running an incredibly long metallic green fingernail down the list. "Ah, yes, here you are... you are a few minutes early, though."

  She looked up at me as though I had broken wind, started a food fight, or ordered red wine with chicken.

  "Yes, I'm afraid so," I said, trying to sound sorry. "We can wait."

  "Yes," she replied, and turned away to berate a hapless waiter who had wandered by with... horrors... two wine glasses on his tray. Apparently this was the height of inelegance.

  "What time did you make the reservation for?" Larissa asked.

  "I... 12:45."

  Larissa laughed. We had arranged to meet at noon. "You're on to me. Curses. I shall have to find a new way to foil your plans."

  "Foil my leftovers."

  "Foil your plastic wrap."

  "That doesn't even make sense."

  "Yeah, well, neither do you."

  We laughed, loudly for a moment then more quietly as scary Barbie girl's eyes raked us, and found ourselves two rather uncomfortable bar stools and ordered drinks. Naturally, as soon as they arrived our table was ready. We carried our drinks, a Fuzzy Navel for Larissa and a Killer Koolaid for me, to our table and settled down in some equally uncomfortable but highly stylish chairs.

  "So...." Larissa dragged the word out to incredible lengths.

  "Yes?"

  "So, Kegan."

 
"Yes?"

  "Oh, give it up, chickie. That was so weird, running into-- wait, did you know he was going to be there?"

  I shook my head. "How could I have known?"

  "You are working with him, right?"

  "Well, yeah. And I told him we go there. But no, I had no idea."

  Larissa looked at me searchingly. "How do you feel?"

  "Honestly? Kind of messed up. I wish I'd had some warning or something. It's bad enough seeing him at work."

  "Well, yeah... but hey, at least you looked great."

  "Did I?"

  Larissa sighed with the deep sadness of someone who spent most of her life telling me I wasn't hideous. "You did. I'm sure he was crushed. Bird that got away and all that."

  For as long as I'd known her, Larissa had never correctly delivered a saying or quotation. I was pondering what poor proverb had just been twisted beyond all recognition when our waiter arrived to see what "the lovely ladies would like to eat".

  We both ordered beef barley soup and small salads. This was not because we were trying to lose weight. Far from it. We were both planning to get two desserts, and we didn't want to fill up on the main course. Ordering finished, Larissa, like a fat kid on a free chocolate bar, returned to her favorite topic.

  "Are you really going to go check out Kegan's restaurant after it opens?"

  "I don't know. I'd have to see what Ian thinks, I guess."

  Larissa shook her head. She put on the fake high-pitched voice that she always used when she was pretending she was me. "Oh, Ian, let's go to Kegan's restaurant. You remember Kegan, the one who left me a total basket case who couldn't even accept a compliment without getting all freaked out? Yeah, that's the one. Let's go spend a few hours with him."

  "I didn't come here to be insulted," I said, knowing I was setting her up for one of her favorite responses and not minding.

  We chorused together, "Where do you usually go?" and then broke down laughing.