by Brea Brown
I sigh and make eye contact with each of them in turn. “Listen. It’s complicated. So you guys can call me whatever you want, alright?”
“Poop Head?” Remus suggests with a giggle.
“Penis Butt?” Percy chimes in with a four-year-old’s version of extreme profanity.
Laughing at their silly potty mouths (hey, they’re not my kids, so I don’t have to be a mature role model), I say, “No! C’mon! At least make it something cool. How about Captain Poop Head?”
They shriek and squeal at my joke, getting louder and louder as they throw out more outrageous, “illicit” names. Suddenly, from the top of the stairs, Hans’ voice booms at us, “What’s going on down there?”
I cover my mouth and widen my eyes, shaking my head at the rest of them.
After a suitable pause, Hans barks, “Cut it out, will ya? We’re trying to watch the game.”
When I’m sure the coast is clear, I stage whisper, “Who wants to talk to Grandma June again?”
Ten voices chirp, “Me!” as I set up the board once more.
Chapter Five
This is a test. I know it is. I get it. “Chicks before dicks,” and all that business. Or, as guys like to say, “Bros before hos.”
Whichever offensive, profane way you like to express it, the sentiment is the same: friends will be around after the inevitable breakup, so loyal friendship trumps romantic partnership every time. Or should. I suppose. Until you’re married. Then you’re supposed to reverse position on that and forsake all others. Is it any wonder we don’t have a clue as a society what we’re doing when it comes to all this shit? I mean, it’s confusing as hell!
I will say one thing for men, though: at least we don’t parade potential mates in front of our friends like some kind of premarital inspection.
I might understand if I don’t pass muster with Frankie’s best friend, Betty, it’s game over, but that doesn’t mean I don’t resent it. I do resent it. Why does this Betty person get the final say? And what if I don’t even want to move on to the next level with Frankie? It’s sort of presumptuous of her to assume that’s the case.
As a matter of fact, after a few dates, I’m starting to think she’s not worth the trouble. And I’m not only talking about sex. Give me some credit. I’m not one of those guys who thinks a woman owes it to me after a few dinners and drinks and my sitting through some godawful comic book movie (during which she moaned and drooled over every silicone-coated man in tights that flew, zoomed, and leapt across the screen). I don’t feel even close to the way I need to feel about a woman to go there with her.
But—at the risk of sounding like a misogynist asshole—she’s said more than one or two things about her past relationships that make me think she doesn’t have the same standards for sleeping with people that I do. There. I said it without using any ugly, judgmental words. I’m not judging her; I’m merely observing and comparing.
But that means I’m starting to wonder what about me doesn’t meet her seemingly low standards for sexual candidacy. And it’s messing with my head a little. And leading me to do uncharacteristic things. Like, obsessively checking my breath and chewing gum, even though it aggravates my temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ, or jaw pain, for those of you laypeople out there); dressing more preppy, then less preppy; experimenting with body sprays and colognes and deodorants… It’s costing me a fortune, all for something purely academic, since I don’t think I’d say “yes,” even if she suggested we did have sex.
And now I’m being evaluated by the best friend? I don’t know… It chafes, that’s all. Honestly, if I weren’t feeling so vulnerable right now, like I’m running out of chances, like maybe I’ve bailed too early too many times in the past, I would have already lied several times about being too busy to hang out with her, hoping she’d give up on me before I had to have that awkward “It’s not you… well, yeah it is” conversation.
“So, is she always late?” I ask Frankie as we nurse our second drinks and wait for Betty to arrive.
She rolls her eyes. “Yep. I have a feeling she likes to make an entrance.”
This insight makes me laugh. “Just a feeling? You’ve never called her on it?”
With a tiny shake of her head, she replies, “Nope. But when she gets here, you’ll see. In the meantime, I need to use the bathroom.”
Before I can object to her leaving me alone as her best friend is about to arrive, she practically climbs over me in the booth with a “Be right back!”
“But—” I sigh and watch her trot toward the bathrooms. “Great,” I mutter, facing forward and training my eye on the front door.
Not too much time elapses before the door opens. A black-haired woman in a black cashmere coat, red scarf, and matching red leather gloves blows in with the cold, snow-scented air. She pauses on this side of the threshold, stretches even higher in her three-inch heels, and scans the room, ostensibly to find Frankie and me. Since I’m in the first booth directly in her eye line and I’m only one of a half-dozen patrons in the place this early on a Friday, she sees me right away, but she takes her time acknowledging me with a regal nod and slow smile.
We have a live one.
She sashays toward me, as if she’s in slow motion. Drawing even with the table, she pulls her gloves from her fingers, one-by-one, and waves one of the gloves in the direction of the bar. “Cab Sav, Russell!” she bellows at the server, who’s kept his eyes on her every move from his vantage point, leaned against the bar.
Turning her full attention to me, she stands expectantly next to the table.
“You must be Betty,” I say, for lack of any better way to kick off the introductions, considering our mutual acquaintance has apparently fallen into the toilet. There’s no chair for me to pull out for her, but I slide from the booth and stand, offering her my hand to shake.
In a whimsical role reversal, she pulls my knuckles toward her face and brushes them against her blood red lips. “Enchanté, Nathaniel,” she murmurs, studying me through her thick eyelashes. She drops my hand so she can glide into the booth across the table from me.
As she unwinds her red cashmere scarf from around her neck, I retake my seat, covertly rubbing her lipstick from my knuckles onto my jeans. “Actually, it’s Nathan, not Nathaniel,” I casually correct her original greeting. “But everyone calls me Nate.”
“Nurse Nate,” she croons, touching her top lip with the tip of her tongue.
Russell arrives, setting a cocktail napkin on the table directly in front of Betty, then placing a large, round wineglass on top of the napkin.
She beams at him. “Thanks. You’re a doll.” The smile dies in her eyes but stays on her lips. “Now, scram.”
How did she…? Before I can marvel at the shift in demeanor and the speed with which Russell complies with her command, her laser beam eyes return to me. “I think I like Nathaniel better,” she declares.
Frankie returns to the table, and I stand once again to let her into the booth. “So, you guys have met?” she inquires, taking her seat and fishing the chocolate kiss from the bottom of her martini glass.
I watch her fingers, feeling a strange mixture of mesmerized and repulsed. Knowing what’s lurking on the average person’s hands—even someone with good hygiene—makes me shiver at her dipping her fingers in her drink, especially since she just came from the bathroom. I only hope she washed those hands thoroughly.
That being said, she has long, graceful fingers, and neat, short nails, painted a deep red that’s almost black, a color probably named something dramatic, like “Black Currant.” It immediately makes me think, “Deoxygenated Blood.” That’s not helping the queasy feeling her behavior’s prompting. Oh, and it’s probably a good thing cosmetics companies don’t consult me on names for nail polish.
Betty pulls my attention back to her by answering Frankie, “Yes. I was about to explain to Nathaniel how I like to come up with special names for people.” She pokes her thumb in our server’s direction. “Hi
s name’s Rusty, but I never call him anything but Russell, which I think is more dignified.” The smile has returned to her blue eyes, sparkling playfully.
Frankie rolls her currently unsparkly brown eyes. “She calls me Francesca, which I hate with a passion. Anyway, this is all just an act for her. She watches too many black-and-white movies.” Directly to her friend, she demands in a stern tone, “Stop it, Barracuda. You’re making Nate sweat.”
“No!” I quickly deny. “I’m fine. I mean, alcohol always does this to me. And it’s warm in here. I shouldn’t have worn a shirt under this sweater, but it’s itchy, so I don’t like to wear it without something under it.”
Betty arches her right eyebrow in a feat of facial flexibility I don’t think I could ever mimic, even though I suddenly have the urge to try. She says to Frankie, “You don’t normally go for the awkward ones, but this one is cute.”
I’d resent the “awkward” assessment if it weren’t true. I prefer to focus on the fact that she thinks I’m cute.
Beaming at her, as if she’s given me the biggest compliment in the world, I say, “Thanks!”
“Oooh, and eager-to-please, too,” she croons.
“That’s enough.” Frankie says mildly, wiping her fingertips on her cocktail napkin, then sliding her hand between my body and my arm, giving my bicep a squeeze.
I flex it so it’s not a squishy tube of toothpaste against her hand, but immediately feel like an idiot for doing something so transparent.
She either doesn’t notice or does a good job pretending not to. “Leave him alone. Gosh! You come in here, looking like Katy Perry and acting like Lauren Bacall—”
“I was named after her, you know. Lauren Bacall. Betty was her real name.” She sips her wine.
“Yes, you’ve mentioned it a few thousand times,” Frankie says.
“I was telling Nathaniel. Sorry!” For the first time since arriving, she seems like a real person, not a caricature, as she reacts to Frankie’s disdain.
Frankie sighs but raises her hand to flag down Rusty. She motions for him to bring us another round, then lets go of my arm. I relax it.
“You got any hot friends… or brothers?” Betty asks. “And when I say, ‘hot,’ I mean a tad edgier than you.” She punctuates this with a wink.
I clear my throat, running through a mental lineup of my friends to see if any of them fit the bill. Thing is, most of my friends are either married or about to be married. I’m one of the last single ones left. (And yes, I know what that says about me.)
She waits, gulping her wine while I think, then says, “If you have to think that long, the answer’s no.”
“My brother’s engaged to be married,” I explain, then want to punch myself in the crotch, since the last thing I need is to get on the topic of Nick’s upcoming nuptials. I quickly add, “And I only have one brother. Plus, he’s not edgy. He’s like me, only…” Where the hell am I going with this? “…richer,” I finish flatly.
She looks at me like she’s found out my IQ (or some other measurement), and I’ve come up woefully short. “Richer?”
“He’s a doctor. A surgeon, actually.”
“Doctors don’t do it for me,” she claims. “They seem to have a God complex.”
Rusty returns, sliding a new martini in front of Frankie and replacing my empty pint glass with a filled-to-the-brim glass of dark amber liquid.
“Big boy beer,” Betty approves with another wink.
“Am I going to have to hurt you?” Frankie asks. But she doesn’t sound all that upset by Betty’s shameless flirting… or my response to it. Not that I want her to be jealous. Or do I? I don’t know. Maybe a slight response would be nice, to show she cares.
“So, you’re a murse, huh?” Betty continues her questioning, trailing her index finger along the rim of her wineglass.
Her hybrid of “male nurse” makes me laugh. “Uh, yeah.”
“Sexy. Do you sport any tats under your scrubs?”
“No tats here,” I inform her unapologetically.
“Uh-oh. What are you, afraid of needles?”
“That would be a bit inconvenient, don’t you think?”
“But it would make you more interesting,” she muses.
“Oh, I’m plenty interesting in other ways,” I over-promise, which instantly erases any examples from my mind. Fortunately, she doesn’t make me back up my claim.
“Never mind. ‘Interesting’ isn’t one of Francesca’s requirements.”
“Well, I’ll keep my eyes open for fellow murses who like body art, and I’ll send them your way,” I offer.
“I’m not into ink,” she says with a moue and an impatient flick of her wrist. “I was just making conversation.”
“Can we talk about something that involves my participation?” Frankie demands in that baby-talk sulky voice that drives me up a wall almost as much as the duck-lips face that goes with it.
I clench my teeth but manage to turn it into a smile before facing her. “Yeah. You’re quiet tonight.”
“Didn’t want to interrupt.” Her tone and the way she’s now moved as far away from me as the wall will allow suggest otherwise.
There’s no point in being a jerk, so I cover her hand with mine and squeeze it. “Hey, I’m sorry.” She pushes my hand away but doesn’t say anything.
Rejected, I bury my nose in my beer glass and drain the rest of it.
Betty observes us for a few seconds. “This one’s really not your usual type, Sweetie. Good for you for broadening your horizons and stepping away from Doucheville for a while.” She leans back in her side of the booth, cradling her wine glass against her face and scrutinizing me like someone would an abstract painting.
“You’re one to talk,” Frankie snaps. “Do you really want to get on the topic of past relationships?”
Betty’s face pales. “Fair enough,” she mutters.
Willing to do anything to dispel the sudden cloud that’s descended on our table, I set down my glass, finger the coaster under it, and blurt, “Yeah, the guy whose former fiancée is marrying his brother in less than six months would appreciate steering clear of that conversation.”
Betty’s smile has an appreciative edge to it. She chuckles. “Gosh, I heard about that! Interesting family dynamic you have there.”
“Lots of material for a writer like Frankie,” I concur. To the writer, I say, “Make sure you change the names to protect the innocent. (That would be me, FYI.)”
“I’m not sure anyone would believe a book about you.” What would normally sound like a compliment somehow comes out like less than one when paired with the smirk on her face.
“I am too good to be true.”
I meant it sarcastically, but Betty hoots, “Smooth!” Before I can defend myself, she continues, “And speaking of smooth, what are your thoughts about body waxing? Francesca usually likes guys with less…” She pinches at the skin at the base of her throat, as if she’s fluffing an imaginary tuft of hair.
I instinctively finger the fuzz to which she’s referring. “I, uh…”
“Your body hair is fine,” Frankie assures me through clenched teeth while shooting her friend a wide-eyed warning glare across the table.
I can’t help but wonder, though… Is that the problem? Am I too hairy? You’d think a guy into chick lit would be all about manscaping, but except for the obligatory nose-hair taming and neck shaving, I’m an “If-it-grows-there-it-goes-there,” sort of guy. Part of it’s laziness. Another part of it is I’ve never considered it an issue. That was one of the few things Heidi never tried to change about me.
Anyway, it’s not like I’m sporting a hair sweater, or anything. But if Frankie really does like a guy who waxes his eyebrows, chest, back, and dangly bits (I hear it makes guys look bigger down there), then maybe it hasn’t been my breath or my clothes or my deodorant that’s been holding her back.
I stare into space while gauging the thickness of my eyebrows with my fingertips and trying to recall the
last time I examined them in a mirror. Too thick? Untamed? Not well-shaped?
Betty cuts through my mental measurements (my ’brows are bushy and huge, by the way, and I’m trimming them as soon as I get home tonight, since I’m sure it’ll be an early night, and I’ll be alone… as usual) by setting down her wine glass with a clink and saying, “So, you know about Frankie’s writing, yeah?”
Blinking, I try to remember what we were talking about before any mention of my body hair. “Uh… yeah. I think it’s… great.”
Hypothetically, of course. I still haven’t read a single word of it, although I don’t admit that to Betty. Something tells me she already knows, anyway. I signal for another round, despite starting to worry I’m not going to be able to drive myself home. This brand of beer is good, but it’s kicking my butt tonight. Lunch was a long time ago.
Betty nods her approval of my support but stares down at the table and mutters, “Her books are great.”
Frankie smiles tightly. “Thanks. I think I’m ready to publish, but… the thought of strangers reading my books… it’s like they’d be looking into my soul.”
“Your books are autobiographical?” I inquire.
Hmm… that might explain why she’s so opposed to me reading them. A glance in my peripheral vision reveals a squirmy Betty, who’s finding her final drops of wine to be quite interesting as she makes them chase each other around the bottom of her glass.
Frankie shakes her head and blushes. “No. I mean, maybe a little. Not all the time. But readers will assume they are.”
I make a face. “Who cares? And anyway, I don’t think that’s true. Do you think Samuel Pembroke has lived or thought all the things he’s put his characters through?”
“Uh-oh…” Betty mutters across the table. “You had to say that name?”
Frankie’s face hardens. I look from her to Betty and back again. “What’d I do? What’d I say? Samuel Pembroke? The guy who writes all those CIA epic thingies? Why’s that bad?”
“I get so tired of everyone thinking he’s the end-all and be-all of fiction writers.”
