by Ellen Mint
“I was more thinking you could return to finish your degree.” Eldon kept on his high horse, but Marty was used to it.
“Here it comes.”
“You were only a few classes from it. I don’t understand why you abandoned it to work in a shop.”
Because…I didn’t like it. Marty wasn’t the nose in a laptop, a planner for the planner type like Eldon or their mother. But they wouldn’t stop harping on him to go back to school, to cinch that degree and get a job doing business things. Eldon had always known he had an interest in chemistry and engineering, which somehow led to watching chocolate dribble out of machines onto assembly lines.
Marty had gone into college wanting to experience everything he could, which had left his parents picking his major. He’d muddled through, save the occasional class he hadn’t been able to charm a pass out of. But somewhere around junior year, the minor interest he could fake had vanished.
“I like working at the shop,” he said to his brother. “Today a kid came in—around Miguel’s age, so he’d barely graduated to chapter books. His mom left him in the anemic kids’ section and the poor guy was completely lost. But once I pulled the dinosaur books off the shelf, especially the pop up one we weren’t supposed to take the plastic off, his eyes lit up.”
“So you enjoy getting children books. Get your BA in business, then work to operate and own a children’s store.”
Marty groaned and glared at his phone. The urge to chuck it into the street like a boomerang rose, but he couldn’t afford a new one. So he kept it close enough to his ear to enjoy the rest of his brother’s haranguing.
“You cannot keep existing at minimum wage. That’s not a livable income.”
“How is that my fault? I put in my fifty hours. Fifty-five actually, and I like the job. Okay, not all. Inventory day is…ugh, and some customers I wish I could put in a woodchipper. But the rest is great.”
Eldon’s heavy sigh carried so loudly that people glanced across the street at him. “Whenever you do decide to behave smartly, the school funds are still in the account.”
“Is now when you brag about how you barely had to touch it?”
“Martin…”
“Thirty scholarships, twenty-nine of which were academic, and the last one for the chess team.”
“It was water polo, and the team disbanded two years in,” Eldon said, causing Marty to laugh.
The bookstore’s door opened to reveal Brandy hustling home. He tried to not leer at her whole badunkadunk popping out as she bent over to lock the front door. It was damn hard though, especially when she stared at her palm, then slapped whatever stained it on her ass.
Oh God, there was a perfect palm print across her khakis now. Look anywhere but there. Hey, check that out, the sun. That’s new. When did they add that to the sky?
“Marty?” her breathless voice asked, directing him straight to her. “I thought you’d already left.”
“Thought about it, but then I got to thinking ‘Self, it’s been ages since we wandered around this little treasure trove of shops. We should check out the medical equipment store. Or that proctologist’s office. And we have been needing to re-felt our billiards table for some time.’”
Her face lit up at his ridiculousness and he grinned back. Absently, Brandy brushed her hair behind her ear, causing him to stare at the long line of her neck. Had it always been so straight and thin? Delicate and in need of a tender touch?
“What about you?” he gulped, realizing he was close to leering. “Do you need to have your chakras realigned?”
“No.” Brandy shook her head. “But I do need to get going.”
“Oh?” His passing interest suddenly skyrocketing, Marty failed to move out of the way. She blinked slowly, and he blathered, “I was wondering when you were going to cash in your chip.”
“Chip?”
“Ya know, getting me to paint your apartment. Me dressed in overalls. You sipping a mai tai and telling me I missed a spot.”
Her cheeks pinked at that, and Brandy’s gaze drifted lower. She kept a tight grip on the strap of her purse with both hands. “You have that all planned out in your head?”
“Or I know I’m a shitty painter,” he answered, wanting to get another giggle from her.
But Brandy gave him little more than a single chuckle. “I have…this thing I’m doing with Mel tonight. So, it’ll have to be a raincheck.”
Ah, her best friend. That would explain it. Marty stepped aside and extended his hand. “Far be it from me to keep you from your appointment.” With all sincerity, he bowed at the waist. Brandy stepped past, her ponytail swishing with her walk.
“See you tomorrow, Marty,” she called, continuing the long stretch down the street to wherever Mel would pick her up. And as she went, that lone black handprint undulated on her round asset.
“Martin. Martin!” Eldon’s distant voice tried to scream at him. And here he’d almost forgotten he was trapped in familial hell. One of those nicer levels of hell, where it was always Thanksgiving, no one wanted to talk because they were all fuming over politics and the turkey was super dry.
“Yes, Eldon,” he said, placing the phone to his ear. “I’m here to listen to you in all your babbling glory.”
“Should I tell you how rude it is to ignore a phone call while in the middle of it?”
“I had to say goodbye to Brandy. She’s off on some girly get-together.”
To his surprise, the line went dead. Marty yanked his phone away, about to check to see if the thing had given up on life, when Eldon’s patented sigh rattled through the speakers. “You know it’s a date, don’t you?”
“What? No. She doesn’t… Why would she…? Brandy doesn’t date.”
“Really?”
“Yes!” he shouted at his brother. No chance. They’d talked not even fifteen minutes before closing the store. If she had a date, she’d have told him. She’d have told him if she was even thinking about dating.
“Then when I overheard her and her friend talking this morning about a double date, that was…what? Some new meme challenge where two people consume dates at the same time?”
No. She can’t be. She would have told me if she was ready. That, he was dead certain of. After he’d smoothly flirted with her before noticing the ring, then learned the whole story, she’d said that she needed time. And he’d been happy to give it—as friends.
She was already dating?
“What do you care?” Eldon’s pain-in-the-ass voice asked. “You have Janeth, after all.”
“Yeah.” Marty nodded, his stomach clenched in a knot as he stared down the street where Brandy had vanished. “Why would I care?”
* * * *
“If you’ll excuse me,” Brandy said, sliding out of her chair before anyone could argue. To her surprise, the man beside her stood as well. What did he want? Did he think she hoped for him to follow?
Staring at Grant like a rabbit backed into a corner, she bleated out the first thing to come to mind. “I have to pee.”
The smile strained and he folded back, letting her flee to the bathrooms with crabs on the doors. If Marty was here, he’d crack some horrible joke about how unappetizing the idea of crustaceans anywhere near the lower bits was. And why was she thinking of him?
Stumbling into a stall and locking the door, Brandy sat on the toilet and clenched onto her skirt just above her knees. An ache had begun rattling in the back of her brain when Grant and Joseph discussed their app. As they switched to their gains at the gym, it had blown up into a full-on migraine, leaving Brandy silently moaning into her shrimp scampi.
With the cool scent of urinal scrubs bleaching her thoughts, she stared numbly at her fingers. Why had she agreed to this? She wasn’t ready. She’d known it the second Mel had suggested this.
But she so badly wanted to be.
“Hello.” Mel’s voice reverberated through the blue-tiled room with fishing nets for décor. “You in here?”
“Yes,” she ca
lled, rising and about to exit the stall. Then she turned, flushed the unused toilet as cover and strode out to find her friend.
“So you didn’t climb out of the window?” Mel said.
Brandy hunkered over the sink and began to wash her hands. She lathered up like she was prepared to head into surgery, to buy more time.
“Why…why would you think I’d do that?”
Mel, in her flirty red dress, loomed above Brandy, arms crossed. “Who do you think you’re fooling? You looked like you wanted to chew your foot off to get out of there.”
“Is that a possibility?”
Mel shook her head and took up the space at the sink beside Brandy. While the mastermind behind all of this inspected her makeup, Brandy watched her fingers beginning to prune under the running tap.
“We can just leave if you want,” Mel said.
For a brief second, hope burst in her heart, but as she caught the slow blink in the mirror, Brandy backed down.
“No, no, it wouldn’t be… It’s not polite.”
“What is bothering you? You were the one who said ‘Set me up.’”
“I know, I know,” Brandy said, crinkling the paper towel into sections as she spoke. After the dinner party, she’d gotten home, poured herself a glass of wine and called Mel. Whether it was the running anger at being called out for her shut-in depression, or the alcohol, she couldn’t say. Probably both.
“It’s just…I didn’t think it’d be so date-y. You said it was casual.”
“This is. Splitting the check at a low-rent seafood place is the epitome of casual.” Despite her insistence, Mel touched up her lipstick, the ruby cream speaking louder than words.
“I thought casual meant like coffee or, I don’t know, bowling.”
“Bowling? Who the shit goes bowling?”
She sank deeper into herself, trying to not grow more despondent at how out of her depth she was. “It’s so weird. To sit beside a strange guy and act like I…like he’s…like I care about him.”
Her active dating life had lasted for exactly five weeks, when her cousin had tried to set her up with the brother of her boyfriend. It had been a disaster, Brandy trying to get him to talk with his face buried in his phone. Then she’d met Kevin during a football game and she hadn’t thought she’d ever have to date again.
Fate was cruel when it came to absolutes.
“The truth is, I’ve never even, um, been with anyone else.”
Mel slapped her compact closed so hard it caused Brandy to jump. “You can’t be serious.”
She shrugged, feeling more and more alien in her skin. Twenty-six and she had one sexual partner under her belt. One who had grown with her as she figured out her body, who she knew every button and position for. Then fate had taken him and Brandy had been left facing the unscalable mountain of figuring out more men without a single tool for how to do it.
“I haven’t felt like it. I know it’s been two years since he…passed, but—”
“What about before?”
“When I was fifteen?” Brandy snorted. “My parents would have suffered multiple aneurisms if I’d even looked twice at a guy.” Then they’d cut her out of their lives after she married Kevin for being too young. Sometimes she wanted to laugh at their dire predicament that it wouldn’t last. Though, they had been right—it was just that death had made the decision, instead of divorce.
The uncomfortable silence she’d marinated in since his funeral rose around her. Mel actively looked anywhere but the weird widow, leaving Brandy to fish for her phone. Her exhaustion at forever being the outsider walking through life was nothing compared to her terror at having to try dating.
Trying to use her phone for distraction, Brandy found her finger lingering over the Instagram button. Was he with her again? Probably. They had the whole night, after all. A brick thudded in her stomach at the thought, but she couldn't let well enough alone. Rather than scroll through her friends’ feeds, she went straight for Janeth Willows, with the fancy checkmark and everything.
Hm, no sign of Marty in the most recent pictures. There was that guy Marty had said was her editor. If someone did an image search of alpha-douche, his picture would show up. All scowls and beady eyes, but he was hot so he could get away with it. Odd that Marty wasn’t wherever she was taking snaps of flowers and makeup.
Maybe he needed time to work on his next elaborate date. Because Janeth wouldn’t feel like her skin was crawling when she walked hand-in-hand with a man by the river. Or like she was kicking over someone’s tombstone just by sitting together on a bench and watching the sunset.
In her angry scrolling, she swiped past all the sponcon to land on the pictures from Mrs. Dashwood’s party. There were filtered images of fireworks with Janeth’s pretty face in the foreground. One where she placed a churro to her lips, somehow making eating look attractive. Brandy’s heart stopped as she found a pic she must’ve missed.
Janeth was on the dance floor, the band blurry splotches in the background. And there stood Marty with one arm wrapped around her waist, another holding her hand, and the biggest smile on his face. He looked beyond happy. Joyful. Ecstatic. Like that was everything he could ever want.
“Well, I should head out there before they send a manager to fetch us,” Mel said, zipping up her purse. “Do I distract them long enough for you to run to the exit?”
She wanted to be better, to be normal. To no longer be that sad, bawling widow no one talked to, but a vivacious young woman about town. God, she sounded like her grandmother. Running back to her apartment and crawling into her sweats wouldn’t help.
“No,” Brandy said, silencing her phone for the evening. “I’m coming with you and doing the date right.”
Chapter Eight
He didn’t want to count the seconds between his knocks. Or lean close to the door to hear if there was anyone else inside. But concern had Marty tight in its grip and wouldn’t let go. It barely even let him sleep, his brain constantly churning over the idea of her with someone else.
What if he was a bad dude? She lived alone, in a less than savory part of town. If anything went down, would anyone come to help her?
Lifting the bag of muffins he’d snatched up on the run out of the door, Marty raised his fist for another knock when the door blew open. “What do you…?” she began, speaking around a foamy toothbrush crammed into her mouth. As her gaze darted down to find him, her eyes opened wide and she staggered back.
“Marty? You’re…oh my God, how late is it?” Brandy drifted away from the door to stare back at her microwave and he sidled closer.
Sticking a foot in, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m early for once. May I…?”
“Hm?” With her fears that she was missing work answered, she whipped her head to him, then down to her pajamas. Instead of a silk slip or sexy bra, it was a set of boxy cotton pjs with sloths all over them. That brought a smile to Marty’s face, until she shoved him.
“No! I mean, give me a minute. I’m not…gah!” Brandy pushed him back far enough to shut the door, then slotted the chain in. Marty’s gut dropped. He was left standing alone outside in the hall, only able to catch a glimpse of her shadow. Or was there more than one in her apartment?
Was that why she needed him out? Because she wasn’t alone?
“What are you doing here?” Brandy shouted, her voice bouncing from deeper in the chained-off apartment.
“I was in the area and thought I could take you to work so you didn’t have to bike.”
“That’s…weird. You’re never up this early.”
I was up at four a.m. because I couldn’t stop picturing you running away from a dangerous killer in your underwear. “Eldon,” Marty said instead, his brother always the perfect scapegoat. “Yeah, he had another of his ‘let’s go over your finances and tell you why you’re a disappointment to the family’ meetings set up. I got tired and left.”
“Oh.” Her soft voice carried in a circle around the apartment. At least she didn’t
seem to be in any pain. Nor was she basking in an afterglow.
Okay, you don’t know that. Not like you’ve ever seen her after… Not that he would. He was just keeping an eye on her, and feeling miffed that she hadn’t come to him first. He might be short, but he could swing a tire iron with the best of ’em.
Feeling two feet tall, Marty stared at the offering he’d brought. He’d thought they might be necessary to help smooth over any tears, but the longer she stayed behind her locked door, the more he suspected it was him who needed it. First night on the dating scene and she already had some guy in her bed. Points for efficiency and all.
“I’ve got muffins.”
An eye poked between the narrow crack in the door. “What kind?”
“Apple crumb and blueberry.”
“Did you eat all the apple ones?” Brandy asked, far more concerned with the muffins than dragging a stranger from her bed.
“No.”
“Are you sick or something? All that’s ever left of the apple ones are the papers…sometimes not even that.”
A frown itched across his face. He didn’t always eat them. Just, on occasion. When they were in front of him and he was bored. It was no wonder she’d only called Mel about the whole dating thing. He was a shit friend.
Another jangle of the chain whipped his head up. Brandy was finishing tugging her ponytail on as she walked out to him. Catching that the collar on her polo had slid up, Marty curled a hand over to tug it down. In doing so, his finger glanced across her warm skin. She paused in wrestling with her voluminous hair to stare at him.
“Want to look professional for book slinging,” Marty babbled, yanking his hand away.
“Uh.” Brandy curled her hand over her neck where he’d touched her and checked the position of the collar herself. “Yeah, as you say. So, show it to me.”
What? Did she leap straight from cloistered widow to red light district in twelve hours? Marty coughed, prepared to mention his girlfriend, but the flush racing from his cheeks straight to his crotch stopped him.
