Missed Connections Box Set

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Also: He wanted me to call him.

  I pulled on my Cookie Monster robe, glad I didn’t have to worry about how I looked, and went to pee. Then seriously debated whether I could just sneak back to bed. By the delicious smells, Julie was making waffles. And I could hear her talking to Ice. All those times it had been me, hanging out on Saturday morning, chatting with whoever was up, waiting to see what kind of guys came down the stairs, making mental notes on what to tease his hostess about once he left. Now paybacks would be certain hell. I listened intently, but it sounded like only Ice and Julie. Charley would have really loved dishing some of that back to me.

  And I’d have deserved it. Though I doubt she’d ever felt this tender and self-conscious. I searched myself, nudging through my heart for sore spots, searching for regrets like checking for bruises after a fall. But I felt none. Instead I was happy. Incandescently happy, like Lizzie asking to be called Mrs. Darcy only then.

  I was too happy to caution myself to pull back. I knew Damien wasn’t Prince Charming. I wouldn’t be meeting my new husband for a honeymoon breakfast on a lanai overlooking a lagoon, like I’d fantasized, but this feeling was better than any dream. Even if, by the feel of it, a bitter wind was blowing, chill air leaking through the cracks. Hopefully Damien would be warm enough on his bike.

  Making myself be bold, I went firmly down the stairs, making noise, not sneaking at all. “Good morning!” I called out. “Waffles smell delicious.”

  Ice, sprawled on the couch, tablet in her lap and a mug cupped in her hands, gave me a slow, salacious smile. “Well, well, well. Look who’s all aglow.”

  I refused to check my cheeks and went straight to my purse, fishing out my—thank God, intact—phone. About a thousand texts and missed calls from my mother. I quickly texted that I was fine and would call in a bit.

  When I looked up, Julie was in the kitchen doorway with a grin to match Ice’s. “How are you?” she asked. “And the waffles are praline, to celebrate.”

  Okay, they both knew. No use hoping otherwise. The door blew open, Amy with it. Not fresh from jogging, but carrying paper bags. “I’ve got the champagne!”

  “Champagne?” I echoed dumbly.

  She embraced me, one-armed, bouncing us from side to side. “For the finally party.”

  “No,” I groaned and she gave me a smacking kiss on the cheek.

  “Yes!”

  Ice held up her empty mug. “Champagne,” she demanded.

  “Uh-uh.” Julie grabbed the bags from Amy and hustled them into the kitchen. “We’re using flutes and doing this properly. Get off your lazy ass and set the table. This is a celebration.”

  “This is not a celebration,” I protested.

  “You mean, with all that noise, you still didn’t bust your cherry?” Amy looked aghast.

  “I thought maybe you were being murdered in your bed, but Ice said no,” Julie called from the kitchen.

  “I know a scream of pleasure when I hear one.” Ice had gotten up and shook out a yellow silk tablecloth.

  I picked up the throw pillow and buried my hot face in it. “I hate all of you.”

  “We know.” Amy patted my head. “Just count your blessings that Charley isn’t here.”

  Believe me, I was.

  * * *

  “To Marcia.” Ice lifted her flute. “Finally!”

  “Finally!” Amy and Julie crowed with broad smiles, clinking their glasses against mine.

  “Finally,” I agreed, meaning it, sipping at my champagne judiciously. We hadn’t had that many finally parties. We did when Charley got her first paying role and when Ice got a high enough score on the MCATs—on the second try, which hardly counted as “finally,” but she’d declared it so.

  “Now,” Ice said, forking up some waffle. “Tell us everything. Oh my God, Jules—these are ay-may-zing.”

  “No,” I replied, quickly stuffing my mouth. The waffles were incredible, more candy than breakfast, melt-in-my-mouth delicious.

  “Okay,” Julie replied easily. “We can make up the details.”

  “Who was it?” Ice tapped her chin thoughtfully. “We saw the motorcycle.”

  “Really.” Amy leaned forward, absolutely titillated. “A Harley. Our baby girl lost it to a Hell’s Angel.”

  “No,” Julie said. “It was a custom bike.”

  “You know the weirdest things,” Amy commented. “Then it was the bad boy, the one who got you drunk.”

  Julie and Ice had their penetrating gazes on me, too. Why had I even bothered? At least it seemed none of them had seen him on his way out. “Damien, yes.”

  “Ha!” Amy pumped a fist in the air. “Pay up, bitches.”

  “Why, who did you think?” I asked them, kind of dumbfounded.

  “I had my heart set on that Gabriel, from the train,” Julie said.

  “And I said that guy from the office,” Ice said, handing over a twenty. “What’s his name—Todd?”

  “Tad??” I nearly choked on my waffle. “Why on earth would I suddenly do Tad?”

  “Why would you suddenly do this leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding, tattooed boy with piercings?” Ice returned, widening her eyes knowingly. Dammit, she had seen him. “I like his hair by the way. Think I could pull that off?” She scooped her hair off the left side, pulling it tight over the top and making it fringe over her right eye, answering Amy and Julie’s excited questions about what else Damien had looked like.

  “So,” Julie prodded, when they’d worn down their hilarity. “Why him?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered with some of the frustration I felt. “It felt right. I can’t explain it.”

  “A five-pointer is like that,” she agreed, nodding.

  “And it was good?” Amy asked.

  “You heard her,” Ice said placidly. “It was good.”

  “Really good,” I said. A little sigh escaped me and they all beamed at me.

  “Marcia no longer a virgin,” Amy said, twirling her flute. “My how things change.”

  “Charley should be here,” Ice commented. “She’d love this.”

  “She’d tease me mercilessly,” I corrected.

  Ice gave me a funny look. “She’d be happy for you.”

  “She’d hog all the champagne.” Amy poured us all more, from the second bottle, though I was carefully still on my first glass. So far as I could tell.

  “Yeah, but it feels like things are changing.” Julie poked at her waffle. “Like everyone is growing up and moving on.”

  “No kidding. Charley practically engaged and our baby girl having multi-orgasmic screaming sex.” Ice pretended to wipe away a tear. “They grow up so fast.”

  Julie threw her napkin at her. “Okay, okay—I know I’m sentimental. So, Marcia, are you bringing Damien to Thanksgiving?”

  “Ooh, yes!” Amy rounded on me, too.

  I had to swallow some champagne, to ease my suddenly tight throat. Damien, at Daniel’s chrome and glass condo, with my friends. “I’m not sure he’s the Thanksgiving type.”

  “Nonsense,” Julie assured me. “All boys like food. It’s half the Y chromosome.”

  “Ladies,” Ice inserted, “we don’t even know if she’s going to see him again.”

  Amy and Julie gave her identical exasperated expressions. “This is Marcia we’re talking about,” Amy said.

  Ice had her quiet, knowing gaze on me, though. “Well?”

  I didn’t know. My fingers closed on the note in my pocket, and I absurdly felt like Bilbo Baggins, wrenching his destiny into whole new pattern, feeling that cursed ring in his pocket.

  “We’ll see,” I said. Amy and Julie broke into protests, but Ice just gave me a slow nod and smile.

  I did feel more grown up.

  * * *

  No one was in the penalty box, so we three did the dishes and cleaned up, since Julie had cooked. It was my week to clean the house, so I started the towels in the laundry and sorted my own clothes to do next, then got to straightening up. Ice had g
one to a study session and Amy out on errands. Julie puttered with recipes, planning the next week’s menu like a general plotting world domination.

  The note burned a hole in my pocket.

  I called my mom and we had a reasonably polite conversation. She took it well—totally unsurprised when I said I’d stay in Chicago for the meal with my friends—and was really happy, I mean, silly-happy, that I said I was looking forward to meeting George at lunch on Tuesday.

  Ugh. I had no idea how I’d get through that.

  I didn’t call or text Damien, though. How soon was too soon? It made me wish I’d given him my number, so I could be stewing about him not calling me. Stupid of me, but I knew how to do that. Of course, that had always ended with them never calling me. Which is partly why it was against the Rules to give it out unless they specifically asked. What if I texted Damien and he never replied? My heart already shivered at the edges, just contemplating it.

  If that happens, then you will be chill and deal. This was for fun, not forever.

  I couldn’t even find him on Facebook or Twitter without knowing his last name, so I couldn’t stalk his posts and see what he was doing. Not that I usually did that. At least, not all the time.

  Julie had set up camp on the couch, covering the coffee table, the cushions beside her, and the floor with cook books, torn-out articles, her laptop, tablet, plus no less than three notebooks. She had a movie playing, but I doubted she even noticed, muttering at her recipes like that. I dusted around her, then paused in that fascinating task to watch Kate Hudson tease Kathryn Hahn about driving men away with her clingy ways.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “Who’s you?” Julie put a finger on the cookbook on her lap and blinked fuzzily at me, then focused on the screen. “Kate Hudson?”

  “I only wish! No, Charley is Kate Hudson and I’m the fat friend who has to be shown how her destructive clingy behaviors drive men away.”

  “I guess the afterglow wore off, huh?”

  “Oh…go back to your recipes.”

  “Was Damien supposed to text and didn’t? Also, neither you nor Kathryn Hahn is fat.”

  “I’m going to be fat if you’re seriously cooking all of that.”

  “Obviously I’m not cooking all of this—this is the fine-tuning process. And Amy is already talking about us all doing a three-day detox starting Friday. That will help.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “So. Damien?”

  “He doesn’t have my number.”

  “Good girl.” Julie licked a finger and scored an imaginary point. “Keeping to the Rules.”

  I pulled the note out of my pocket and held it up. “But he left me his.”

  “Ooh!” Julie clapped her hands. “Did you Google it? Let’s cyberstalk him.”

  “No!” I didn’t mention I hadn’t thought of that, just social media. “I’m trying to be—” I waggled my hand at the sniffling Kathryn Hahn, “—not that.”

  “Oh honey, you are never that,” Julie said solemnly. “We live in Chicago, not New York.”

  “Bitch.” I whacked her on the head with the pillow I’d been plumping, but she only laughed at her own joke.

  “Seriously,” she said, when she got over herself. “When are you going to call him?”

  I chewed my lip, staring at the number. “I don’t know. When should I? Charley would say make him come to me. Amy has that firm rule of twenty-four hours, to keep from looking desperate. This should be in the Rules. We need an amendment.”

  “Marcia, darling, you know I love you.”

  I braced myself and put the note back in my pocket. Julie only said this when the truth was going to hurt.

  “Just, please, be your own damn self. Forget about what Charley would do or any of the others.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts’! This is your relationship, your romance. There are no rules for this. You found him on your own, so you keep or discard him on your own. Contact him when you—hey, this is an interesting thought—when you want to contact him.”

  I stared at her. She made it sound so simple.

  “Now, go away,” she said. “I’m creating art here.”

  “Fine, I can’t dust around this mess anyway.”

  “I love you too,” she called after me.

  * * *

  So, I texted him. Low pressure. Casual and perky. Being myself. Right.

  Hi! Thanks for the note. Sorry I was sleeping and didn’t say goodbye

  Simple, to the point. No demands. You wouldn’t have thought that would take thirty minutes to compose. One version mentioned that he missed praline waffles, but I decided that was too clingy, too full of morning-after expectations. I typed it, hit send, and then promised myself I’d put the phone down and walk away.

  But those three little dots popped up immediately, wavering with the lure of some missive to come. Something sweet about how last night was great. Or how glad he was that I finally texted. The bubble solidified.

  Who is this?

  A squeak of horror escaped me. Shit! I’d totally forgotten he wouldn’t know it was me. I should have said that right off. But no, I’d made a rookie texting mistake and now I deserved this, that Damien wasn’t even sure which girl, which person might have been sleeping when he left a note and—

  My phone whistled.

  Kidding!!!

  I know it’s you, Marsha. At least, I *hope* it’s you

  Hello?

  C’mon, Tigger. Put away the claws. It was a stupid joke.

  I started giggling when he sent me a chain of emojis, including hearts, kisses, and a tiger face. Okay, a lot of that came from sheer relief.

  Yes, it’s Marcia. Hi.

  Shit. And I misspelled your name. I’m 0 for 2 here.

  I don’t know. Last night was pretty awesome. You have bonus points to pull from.

  It was pretty awesome. Want to do it again?

  I squealed. Then stuffed Ulysses in my mouth so Julie wouldn’t hear.

  Sure. When?

  Nicely nonchalant. Right? He asked, so I could say yes. Already the prospect of seeing him again had me getting hot. A boyfriend. I might have an actual… well, no. Charley and Ice would say, he still counted only as a fuckbuddy. But that was okay! Fun with a double underline. I realized the answer dots had been wobbling way too long. Ugh. I should go clean the bathrooms. I should have temporized, acted really busy or something.

  Can’t today. Working. Tomorrow night?

  I made myself count to ten before replying. There, not too eager.

  Okay, but I have work Monday morning

  Promise to have you home by bedtime

  Ha ha

  Pick you up at 4?

  Here? Hmm. I could watch for him and run out before anyone could grill him.

  OK

  ♥

  A heart. He sent me a heart. I resisted doubling down and sending anything back. That was me, all elusive and mysterious and emoji-withholding.

  Giddy, I went to finish cleaning.

  ~ 10 ~

  Sunday morning I virtuously helped Julie shop for groceries. She likes to do it then because the stores are quiet. I’m okay going with her, because it’s a good excuse not to go to mass. Not that I went much anyway, not since my desultory attendance at the Newman Center. Besides I shouldn’t take communion without confessing my sins of lust and fornication, and I was still too happy hugging the whole experience to myself to want to tell Father Romero about it, as if being with Damien had been the wrong thing to do.

  If I eventually came to regret it, I wanted to come to that on my own terms.

  Technically we’re all responsible for our own groceries, but Julie doesn’t mind getting things from everyone’s list, especially with me to help with the cart. She has a car, so she gets the carriage-house garage gratis in return for her cheerful hauling of all the things. This week, of course, no one wanted much, and the mile-long list on her tablet was mostly for Thanksgiving. Daniel had given her a wad
of cash, saying he could at least buy the food, since we were doing all the work.

  Even though she’d been at the restaurant until two, Julie bounced along the aisles like Amy Adams’s princess in the city, hyped up on the lattes and donuts we’d started with, going on about being able to buy quality and how the quality of the ingredients is key to the final dish.

  I spent most of the trip dreaming about what Damien might want to do to me next.

  Once we got home, she started in on prep, and I…well, I did prep of my own.

  I’m not a slouch on regular personal hygiene. I keep my legs shaved in winter, because you never know, and good thing, too, it turned out. But for this I did the full works. Oil bath, shaving, exfoliating, moisturizing, facial, nails. It didn’t count as obsessing if I spent the time primping. I could burn off the nervous energy and Damien wouldn’t notice anything in particular.

  And if I did a little internal dance thinking about seeing him, well, no one else needed to know that either.

  As the time drew near, I hovered in Amy’s room, since she was out with Brad, and her window overlooked the street. The weather had settled into a chilly gray, with the wind at least a little less cutting. Amy’s room is like everything you’d imagine from looking at her—perfectly designed, immaculately neat, artistic. She has an eye for art of all kinds. The framed grayscale photographs on the walls, precisely aligned, showed Chicago’s buildings and skylines in new and interesting ways. She’d taken them herself, when we all went on the architectural boat tour one lovely spring day, ditching our afternoon classes to do it.

  The roar of Damien’s bike filtered up the street, so I slammed shut the window I’d had cracked so I’d hear, and then ran down the steps. I already had on my coat and a scarf of my own, head band to cover my ears, mittens attached—I was ready.

  “Bye!” I yelled, and slammed the door before anyone could reply, or quiz me.

  Dammit, though, there was Amy, two blocks down and walking up the street from the L stop, blond hair and fashionable black trench flapping in the wind. She spotted Damien parking his bike at the curb, and quickened her step. I could beat her.

  I raced up to Damien—probably looked too eager, but fuck it—who was pulling off his helmet. “Hi,” I called. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”