The next morning, the sexy swing in James’s step was gone. He arrived at work with wrinkled white jeans from the previous shift; black bags weighed down his beautiful eyes. His wet, tousled hair had lost its perfect part and feathery bangs. I kept my eyes on a check presenter, as he brushed past me in the bus stand and grabbed a cup of chicken-artichoke soup. While I filled water mugs in the main bus stand, I noticed Ashley, one of the cute new hires, wildly stuffing straws in Bloody Marys. Ashley had just dropped out of University of Florida. She liked to talk about Gainesville life with James, who was eager to become a Gator. She also loved partying until dawn and smoking marijuana. I’d always steered clear of her. Dropouts were bad news, and I wanted to be surrounded by focused, responsible people like me—people like James.
Ashley slid the highball glasses onto a cork tray. “That party was off the hook.” She was chatting up Krista, the bartender with porcelain skin and black-painted fingernails. Ashley’s ponytail was cockeyed, her eyes bloodshot. A crooked, striped tie fell between her big boobs. She continued gabbing about Fat Cat nightclub. “They” didn’t leave the club until eight in the morning and “they” had to be at work for the brunch shift by nine thirty.
The blender in my head started churning a recipe for drama. My fists squeezed the full mugs of water in both hands until my knuckles turned white.
“Behind you!” I charged out of the bar area toward my station. My lips forced a smile at every table while “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms played over and over in my head; I tried to distract myself with my customers’ needs—who didn’t have bread, who needed a coffee refill, etc. Ashley and James—the party-all-night duo—were always close enough to me to smell my perfume, punching orders and delivering cheesecakes. My obligatory smile remained. I felt like someone was stealing my brand new car in front of my face, and I could do nothing about it. Only lame girlfriends whined about the friends their men hung around. I always wanted to be the cool chick that never got jealous; I thought that was a big reason why guys end up falling in love with a girl.
I grabbed a pot of coffee and marched over to James’s table nineteen. I smiled and refilled all six mugs while his customers thanked me. It was a peace offering. We were just finishing the appetizer course of a new relationship. We hadn’t even had “the talk” yet. If I played it cool, we could make it through the rough patch. Scrubbing the dining room floor with a toothbrush would have been easier than telling James I didn’t approve of his choices in friends or nightclubs.
“Do you want to come see my new apartment?” I asked James, slurping the last of my high-octane smoothie at Fat Tuesday. A little crowd in the bleachers of my psyche was still cheering because James had agreed to get a drink with me after work. My eyelashes batted at him, as I sat on the barstool in my white work jeans and post-shift tank top. I’d daydreamed about us spending half the week sleeping at my place and the other half at his.
James stared into his plastic cup. “Not tonight.”
“We can go to your place then.” I pulled the scrunchie out of my long, curly hair. Looking back, I can hear the lead singer of Frente! calling out to me. I wasn’t sure how I’d bent what he said into what I believed he meant. I didn’t really know anything.
“Have you seen James?” I asked Dan, the ponytailed bartender, a few nights later. We stood outside Cheesecake’s back office, holding cash register drawers in our arms, waiting to turn in our banks to the closing manager. James had quietly serviced his tables in the back corner of the veranda all night, while I’d been stuck with the bar station on the other side of the restaurant. It was almost impossible for me to tend to James’s tables for him. Three shifts had passed since James had called me Wheels and delivered a single plate to my station. I felt like the Funky Bunch without Marky Mark.
“He left with Ashley twenty minutes ago,” Dan replied with the black box of cash tucked neatly under his arm.
My jaws clamped, grinding my teeth. Resentment poured over my white-clothed body. I wanted to shove her pretty head, gigantic boobs and skinny legs in a bus tub. Ashley’s body was way better than mine, but her priorities were whacked: She smoked weed. She had no plans to go back to college. Someday, I’d be as refined as a bottle of French Chardonnay but she’d still be a strawberry wine cooler.
James stumbled into the back hallway of CocoWalk looking like he’d been doing keg stands for six hours. He dropped his backpack on the spare milk crate next to his—the milk crate he used to save for me. I stomped into Cheesecake’s ornate dining room in my freshly pressed whites, thick ponytail bouncing in my wake. Every forty-eight hours, the cycle repeated: go to work, see James, get brushed off, drink, sleep, work, hear about James’s partying with the lead pussycat. Alicia assured me James and Ashley were only party pals, but it didn’t matter. He’d left our table. My new life with James was crumbling before the foundation had finished drying.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” I whispered, my head hanging over a cup of soup. I looked down at an artichoke heart and sliced it with my spoon. “He’s a far better match for me than Chris.” I glanced over at Linda, standing across from me in the back hallway behind Cheesecake Factory wearing her whites and a polka-dot tie. She twirled a straw in her mug of Diet Coke. The word “confrontation” was still as foreign to me as churros, so I’d asked her to do some snooping. Linda was the oldest daughter of a police captain in Tampa, who ran their house like a cadet academy. She’d fully embraced the secret investigation project. I pressed my back against the scuffed white wall to take the weight off my aching legs.
Linda rested her mug on the concrete floor, then draped a white napkin over a milk crate neatly. “You shot craps, Wheels.” She sat down on the makeshift seat. “You slept with a guy who’s leaving for med school, and you did it before you’d moved out of the apartment you shared with your boyfriend.” She took a precise sip of her soda. “That’s borderline cheating, and cheaters never get respect.” I looked down the hall to make sure no one was listening. Plates banged and voices shouted from the kitchen.
I grabbed a milk crate with both hands and flipped it upside down. Her words felt like spears of asparagus pelting my face. Or maybe just rotten eggs. “It was over with Chris.” I dropped onto my crate and sunk my head in my hands. “James knew that. James and I have lots in common. He won’t be leaving for months, so we have plenty of time to figure out if we’re right for each other.” We’d been “dating” only weeks, but I believed James was the right guy for me because he was the polar opposite of Chris, and we were sexually involved. My dating pendulum could swing farther than Tiger Woods with a nine iron.
“His idea of the right girl is the one he’s fucking right now,” Linda said. She never pulled any punches. “The guy is twenty-two years old and has eight months of freedom before med school, Harley. A serious relationship is the last thing on his mind.” I glanced down at my white sneakers, feeling dirty and alone. James had tossed my heart into the trash like a bag of expired lettuce. James, his guitar and his diploma fit neatly into my world. I placed the half-full cup of chicken-artichoke soup in an empty bus tub on the concrete floor. She’d nailed me.
I sighed deeply. “But we slept together five times.” I leaned back against the wall and banged my head in frustration. “I woke up with his arms around me. He kissed me in the morning. He invited me back again and again.” I couldn’t imagine sex being meaningless to someone. Sex wasn’t just physical to me. A bond formed. The guy had to feel that emotion too. When it came to understanding how men were wired, I was still wearing training wheels.
“It was a fling. You gotta move on.” She straightened the crease on her apron without raising her eyes to mine. My shoulders caved. Her brutal honesty made me feel like a freshly sliced fillet on a fishmonger’s table. She was always insightful, and accurate.
I reached for my mug of water, feeling the shame roll down my long face. “I must be terrible in bed.” I’d spent days wondering what would happen if we ever had sex wi
th the lights on. I thought of Ashley’s big breasts and slammed my eyes shut.
“He wouldn’t have kept screwing you if it sucked,” she replied, leaning forward on her milk crate. “Look on the bright side. It wasn’t a one-night stand.”
I couldn’t look on the bright side; her use of the word “screwing you” made my ears ring. His song started playing in my head. The lead singer of Frente! could have been talking about James and me. I was the fool. I’d fallen for it all. I couldn’t see right through him. He’d clocked my card. Five times! Sex was all he’d ever wanted. But sex had jumpstarted almost every long-term relationship I’d ever had. James shouldn’t have been any different. I returned to banging my head against the wall.
Linda readjusted the headband in her brown, wavy hair. “You’re not in Kansas anymore. You need to watch out. Marriage is the farthest thing from these guys’ minds. College guys think with their dicks. And dicks are trouble.” She raised her soda to her lips. Her hazel eyes stayed fixed on my face. We sat in silence listening to plates bang in the kitchen. I felt as dirty and used as oil in a deep fryer.
She shoved a finger at my face. “And cut back on the alcohol. It’s bad for your legs.”
“Huh?” I asked, puzzled. “What does it do to your legs?”
Linda rolled her eyes and leaned closer to me. “It makes them spread.”
The heat of embarrassment flushed my cheeks. I tugged on the straw in my water mug. “Thanks for making me feel like shit.” I took a long drink, soaking in her comments. I stood up from the milk crate and straightened my blue-flowered tie. Her sharp words were still seeping through my skin. It was my first real dose of dating reality as a Miamian.
“I’m always here to help,” she said, primping her hair.
Our laughter rippled through the empty hallway. Maybe I’d lost James, but I’d found a great new friend in Linda. My life wasn’t a falling stack of dirty dishes. I was living in Miami on my own, wearing shorts and tank tops in November. A handsome guy found me desirable—even if for only a couple weeks. I’d learned a valuable lesson about ending a relationship and giving myself time to heal before jumping into another man’s bed. With a few more pep talks from Linda, I could grow some dating balls and build the kind of confidence that would help me see through guys with one-track minds—the perfect weapon for a labor of love.
ROBERT
“LAID”
James
REWIND: Robert tugged me toward the shore, his blonde hair glowing under the moonlight. “Trust me. It’s worth it.” His smooth hands gripped mine. The thrill of his touch surged up and down my arms, as a gentle breeze swayed the palm trees. “You haven’t lived until you’ve been here.” Words flew from his mouth. I smiled and bounced behind him, feeling grains of sand pouring into my sandals. This can’t be happening. My heart pounded. I looked down at our laced hands and prayed my palm wouldn’t get sweaty. A few yards ahead, the Key Biscayne lighthouse sprayed a fuzzy beam into the starry sky.
Robert lifted his muscular arm in the air. “You see those tiny red lights? That’s Stiltsville.” His skin was a deep, golden tan from countless hours spent boating and rowing. Golden ringlets bounced around his head, as he described the 1930s community that lived in overwater shacks one mile offshore. He looked like he’d just left the set of a Nautica photo shoot in his yellow golf shirt, white dress shorts and boat shoes. It was the same Ivy-league look that had attracted me to James, and seemed so foreign to a girl who grew up wearing camouflage. I nodded my head and tried to keep my jaw from dropping whenever I looked at him. The moon reflected a glistening strip of white on the water’s surface. The horizon was bright and dark at the same time, as only a Miami beach can be under the light of a full moon.
We flipped off our shoes, and wet sand squished under my toes. I rolled the cuffs of my Gap jeans above my ankles and squinted at the horizon. My thoughts raced with my pulse. It was supposed to be a typical Thursday night off. Five hours and three drinks later, I’m standing with a gorgeous guy at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, wearing a sleeveless top and jeans … in December. I had found my parka-free paradise, and it was filled with hot men and beautiful beaches. The lighthouse’s rotating beam of light flashed over the calm, endless bay.
“What’s that blobby thing?” I pointed to an iridescent, pinkish-blue bubble floating a few inches off the beach.
“Jellyfish. Portuguese Man O’Wars.” Robert clicked his tongue. “They’re regulars here. Watch out for the tentacles.” He raised his arms two feet apart to demonstrate the length. My eyes danced around Robert’s face. Robert had grown up in Miami and knew more about the city than any of my co-workers.
My head bobbed, as I arched my back. “I used to go night fishing with my dad. I can hang.” I needed to sound as cool as possible. The matchmaking cards were stacked against me. When Robert wasn’t waiting tables, he modeled for a small agency on South Beach: men’s suits, underwear … the real shit. I couldn’t believe such an Adonis had just swooped into my life a few hours before. I’d crossed over into Robert’s world with a fearless move: buying him a drink. Staring into the cloudy bottom of my third White Russian, I couldn’t think of a more empowering way to show my interest. A few cocktails made me feel confident enough to approach guys rather than wait anxiously for one to approach me. It was the kind of confidence I’d never displayed with Chris or James—the kind of confidence that gets a man’s attention. With attention comes intention, and I was too young to understand that.
Robert’s teeth sparkled in the light of the moon. “Glad you know your way around the water. Most girls don’t.” His hand grabbed mine for the third time. Tiny currents bolted through my arms and chest, as he tugged me toward a nearby jetty. I scuttled right behind him like a Chihuahua trying to hump his leg.
“How did you ever find this place?” I trailed him past a thatch of palms. A secluded wall of boulders jetted out from a sandy shoreline. The wet rocks sparkled in the moonlight.
“Driving around one night in high school with my friends,” Robert said. “Trying to find trouble.” He turned to me, and we exchanged smiles. “Kind of like tonight.” He winked. I grinned, my hair blowing in the wind. Buying a stranger a drink wasn’t standard operating procedure for a small-town girl, but I was no longer a country bumpkin. Besides, the world of food and beverage was my green zone. I felt totally at home, twirling drink straws on a barstool. As a kid, my favorite place to spend Sunday afternoons was at the American Legion with my dad and his hunting buddies. I was in my element.
I tossed the hair off my shoulders. “I’m not trouble.” Busboys and line cooks had been bathing me in compliments. Every body part I’d written off as hopeless—the curvy hips, thunder thighs, small breasts—Latin guys praised. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Midwesterners were rare collectibles in Miami. No one seemed to notice my scars. My confidence was growing faster than Barry Bond’s biceps. My step finally had some swagger.
Robert pulled his body effortlessly onto the rocks, then reached down to me with both hands. I raised my arms to him, lifting my black top and exposing my flat belly. I sucked in my growling stomach and thanked the stars I’d skipped dinner. The fashion statement in Miami was always less is more—less fabric and more skin—which had motivated me to drop another five pounds. I felt sexy for the first time in, well, forever. The moonlight and vodka probably helped. I watched Robert bounce from rock to rock like Agent Mulder chasing paranormal bad guys in The X-Files. What a stud. MacArthur Causeway’s neon pillars looked like light sabers in the distance.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the tallest tower, covered in purple lights. Skyscrapers splashed shades of lavender and pink onto the bay—back when the only high rises in downtown Miami were banks and a couple Brickell condo towers.
“That’s the CenTrust building.” Robert rattled on about its lights changing color according to holidays, sporting events and festivals. “Gloria Estefan just shot a music video on the roof. Now I bet it’ll become a historical l
andmark.” He jeered and turned his back. I took the opportunity to discreetly smooth the creases in my jeans, then tousled my long, wavy hair.
Perched on the mammoth rock, I looked up at Robert’s face, the square chin, high cheekbones and glittery eyes. Robert’s green eyes were like tractor beams, and I couldn’t fight the pull. You’d expect to find a guy like him on a deserted island, swimming in a blue lagoon. Instead, he was taking off his work apron at the service bar of Dan Marino’s Bar & Grill, steps from the front doors of The Cheesecake Factory. My mind kept hitting the replay button on the entire evening. My eyes anchored to his full lips, focusing on every word rolling off his tongue. The guy had the kind of face that could grace Ocean Drive magazine, and I’m talking the Roberto Cavali ads, not party pics, people. And he was standing on a rock in the middle of the night with a girl named after a motorcycle who used to run the drive-thru at McDonald’s. I crossed my legs at the ankles and tried to look demure. A cool breeze blew locks of curls around my face.
Robert glided from rock to rock like Baryshnikov, his toned calf muscles flexing. The calm lapping of water against the rocks filled my ears. When Robert reached the last rock in the jetty, he turned and waved his arms like a maître’d ushering me to a table. “You need to see Miami from here.” He stamped his foot. I stepped toward him gingerly, watching my sandals touch each wet rock. Robert rattled off the names of every lit building and bridge on the mainland. We stared out into the inky water, listening to the occasional car whiz by on the causeway. A pink glow began to form on the horizon.
“Do you have any beer in your trunk?” He waved his arms. “I need a drink.”
I looked off into the horizon. “No.” I tucked my bottom lip under my teeth. I didn’t want him to know I was underage.
THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country Page 7
