I felt someone standing at our table before I chanced a glance, thinking it would Gloria.
But it wasn't.
It was Evan.
"Hello, Emily. Hello, Leila. Mind if I join you?" the ass-hat had the nerve to ask.
"Sure," Emily chimed with a smile on her face.
"Sorry, Evan, we're almost done with our meal." I said firmly.
Emily shot me a glance and made a move to kick me under the table.
"Emily Hill, I swear to God that if you kick me under the table, you are going to be in a world of hurt. You get me?"
I watched as Emily just stared at me with her jaw clenched.
"Actually, Evan, I was just leaving," I said grabbing my purse and my jean jacket. "You can have my seat. See you around, Em."
I found Gloria at the bar, placing a drink order and gave her enough money for the meal with a nice tip. We shared a hug and I made my way to the garage across the street.
I remember wondering to myself if the world had gone crazy when I'd been busy over Spring Break.
Since Wednesdays were my day off, I did a lot of running around completing errands, which this particular Wednesday found me filing a report with the Grantham P.D. on the note from my car.
I got a lot of housework done which I'd kind of fallen behind on last week.
Which reminded me that I hadn't heard from Dex in a while.
I started working on my grocery list for the girl's night planned for Friday. I was really looking forward to having everybody over.
I had, at first, felt guilty at not inviting Emily but after that dinner on Tuesday night, I was glad I hadn't.
Remembering I needed to start having the colors filled in on my tattoo, I called Human Hiero, but the line was busy. No worries, I'd try back later or catch Crys on her cell.
I was finally able to make a sizable dent in my paper Wednesday night, sitting at my breakfast bar with my laptop and setting my Nano to one of the Dave Matthews Albums. I even poured a glass of red wine, thinking how much more I enjoyed it than a white.
Guess I wasn't just changing the outside, but changing my tastes as well.
Good to know.
Friday was finally here and I was just putting out the different platters of canapés, when my doorbell sounded. Everyone seemed to arrive within seconds of each other and my house was soon filled with gentle teasing and lots of laughter.
"So we are dying to know, Marianne," Caitlin began with a grin. "Who's going to win your heart. Ram or Paul?"
"Oh, girl, that Ram is fine!" Frank-kay exclaimed.
"But you haven't seen Paul's smile," Cait advised. "Turns the regular hot guy into smoking hot guy."
"You're really dating two guys?" Crystal asked with rounded eyes. Like she should talk since I'd seen her with three different guys in the last couple of weeks.
Marianne was suspiciously silent.
"C'mon, Marianne. Spill it," I said before taking another sip of wine.
She looked at the ceiling before glancing around our circle.
"Okay, I'll say this once, and I mean once," she finally said. "Paul's a nice guy, a gorgeous guy, but he's a player. And every girl should date a player at least once in their lives."
Frank's eyes widened and led the rest of us in our 'ooohs', before we succumbed to laughter.
The five of us seem to gravitate either in the living room by the fire or around the dining room table and we did it as a bunch, no one person left out or not welcomed into any of the conversations flying around the room.
But there were moments when the conversation screeched to a stop.
Like when Crystal began to explain what a Prince Albert piercing was.
And the reasons it was usually done.
And what having one was supposed to do for your partner.
You can look it up.
But don't say you weren't warned.
I mean, even Frank-kay was speechless. And he had just waxed rhapsodic for a full fifteen minutes on why older women tipped hairdressers better than the under thirty's.
Just saying.
We were all eventually settled around the dining room table and Caitlin and I were telling our versions of meeting up in Smithville which had the other three in hysterics, especially when Cait told of asking Jake again if she and girlfriends could use his gym.
"And then, and then," Cait said holding out her hand in a you won't believe this gesture. "My guy asks her guy if he's in love with her. And if he is, he better put his ring on it!"
Everyone was laughing but me.
Wait, what?
I had heard what Cait had said. I had even watched as she aimed her thumb at me when she said 'her guy'.
"Uh oh," I heard Crystal mumble looking at my face before reaching for one of my hands.
"What?" Caitlin said. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Ah, Dex and Leila broke up on Sunday," Crystal said still looking at me.
"Oh, honey," Caitlin said getting up and giving me a hug. "I'm so sorry. If I'd known I never would have told that stupid story."
Frank-kay got up too and moved to my other side, his hand on my shoulder, offering his support.
"Wait a second," Marianne said, studying my face. The room got quiet, very quiet.
"You didn't know that you were no longer a couple, did you Leila?" Marianne asked on a quiet note.
"Ah, to tell the truth," I said softly. "I didn't know we even were a couple to start with. We hung out a bit for a couple of days last week…"
I looked around the table at my circle of friends and sighed.
"He actually said that?" I asked Crystal.
She nodded.
"Huh," I said. "Good to know."
I got up to refill everyone's glass and put some dishes in the sink.
I know that they, my new circle of friends, weren't aware of how my heart was breaking hearing that Dex and I broke up last Sunday.
But you know, right?
I spent almost all day Saturday in bed.
Correction, I spent all day Saturday in bed, bawling my eyes out and going through an entire box of tissues.
And that's all I'm going to say about it.
*.*.*.*.*
By Monday, I was back to feeling more like myself, my new self, and was putting all my memories of me and Dex into the vault of my heart. Stuffing them in, shoving them in, catching all the bits and pieces that wanted to stay out and take up room and forcing them, cramming them into that freaking vault.
And double locking that bad boy for good measure.
Chapter Twenty Three
"What the fuck, Crys?" Dex yelled. "I asked you to do one fucking thing for me and you're giving me attitude. You need to sort your shit out now. You been a first class bitch since Saturday and I'm fucking tired of it."
"Don't you dare talk to me like that. If I don't want to do something to help you out, I don't have to explain why. I'm not your employee, Dex, my dad left me a third of this shop. So stop ordering me around like I was your fucking slave or your girlfriend."
"What? What the fuck is that supposed to mean, huh?"
"Nothing, Dex. Just forget about."
"No, Crys," Dex said quietly leaning his hands on the counter. "You were woman enough to say it, so explain what it means."
"Why did you tell me and Benny that you broke up with Elle on Sunday when you hadn't even told her?"
"Wait…what?"
"We were all at Leila's house on Friday night and Caitlin, you know Jake's lady, was telling a story about the four of you in Smithville and what Jake had advised you to do about Leila which had everyone in stitches except for Elle. I repeated what you told me and Benny and she got a funny look on her face and said that she didn't even know that you guys were a couple since you'd only hung out a couple of days. But there was something wrong with her face, Dex, something like hurt was in her eyes."
Dex was looking down at his hands that had a white knuckle grip on the edge of the counter.
"I don't think she knew that you'd scraped her off," Crys continued in a tight, soft voice. "That ain't right, Dex. You know that ain't right."
Dex sighed and stopped the movement of his hand from reaching up to his chest. Yeah, he knew it wasn't right and he was paying the price for taking the pussy way out with Leila.
And he was willing to bet that he was in as much pain as she was because every day he wasn't with her he felt like he lost a piece of himself, of something inside him.
And it hurt.
Hurt inside his chest.
He'd actually seen a bruise there this morning, that place that he rubbed when he thought about her, remembered being with her.
"Okay, Crys," he said softly. "Sorry for yelling. I'll try and treat you more like a owner and less like an employee. We about ready to open?"
She nodded and watched Dex walk back to his booth.
Her dad used to have a saying for just about anything that went down, whether good or bad. Crys thought he'd probably have said that Dex had cut off his nose to spite his face.
What she would say, though, was that Dex was seriously fucking stupid to let someone like Leila go, no matter how he'd done it.
*.*.*.*.*
I wish I could say that my life carried on as usual after hearing that Dex had gotten rid of me.
But it kind of, in a word, hadn't.
I don't know if it was me, but it just seemed like the whole world had lost its ever-loving mind during a really small portion of the calendar. At least, in my world it had.
When your home life or love life isn't working out, what do you turn to? For me, it was work and I loved my job.
Well, at least I used to.
The first evidence of the cracks in the surface of my career came about when I finally found the time to join my old lunch group and had just settled in at the table. I heard Evan asking Dr. Simpson, "If you had a choice, to have either brains or beauty in a life partner, which would you choose?"
I saw Dr. Simpson pull at the little bit of beard he had been cultivating the whole time I'd been at Grantham as he deliberated.
"No contest. Brains!" he exclaimed.
I saw Evan and Emily shoot me some sort of triumphant look that I really didn't understand.
Evan continued to hold my eyes as he asked, "And why is that, sir?"
"Because in the dark, I can imagine her to be Pamela Andersen!"
And the whole table laughed.
Except me.
"You don't find Dr Simpson funny, Dr McCarthy?" Emily asked a bit too loudly, too aggressively. Yep, she definitely had the whole nasal thing going on.
"Not really, no."
"And why is that, Dr McCarthy?"
"Because Dr Simpson is too good looking to simply settle for one or the other in a life partner," I replied diplomatically.
My friend, Emily, and my alleged boyfriend (not!), Evan, were the only two at the table that didn't laugh.
Which I found weird.
*.*.*.*.*
And it wasn't just at the University that I felt I stuck out like a sore thumb.
Even the next 'Girls Night' which was held at Marianne's apartment that next time, had me floundering.
Not from anything that my new friends said or did. Most definitely not from the surroundings as Marianne had really made her apartment into a home with lots of pillows, rugs, throws and everything done in different shades of blue which Caitlin said was Marianne's signature color.
I had never heard of a 'signature' color before. A color that defined you? Had never thought of color that quite that way.
Maybe it was just me, or that I knew that my heart was still hurting, still tender but it seemed like this second time that Crystal, Frank-kay, Caitlin, Marianne and I got together that the whole of what we talked about had to do with love, couples, etc., etc, ad naseum.
Crys actually cornered me in the tiny hallway between the kitchen and the bedroom after I came out of the bathroom to ask me how I was holding up.
I knew what she meant.
Holding up without Dex.
"Okay, I guess," I lied. "He's a nice guy and we had fun before. Hope he's doing okay now."
And the Oscar goes to…
"Yeah, you know Dex," Crys said, giving me the fisheye. Which I'd learned in Crys-speak was her way of calling 'Bullshit'. "Always the dickhead."
No arguments here.
*.*.*.*.*
I was shocked to have a voicemail from Emily regarding our standing Tuesday dinner since I had left so abruptly the week before, never mind the way she behaved when I joined the faculty table for lunch the previous week.
So do I ignore it or not?
Wanted to ignore it. Had more than a couple of reasons why I could, in good conscious, ignore it.
But I like to think I'm a better woman than that.
And, on a good day I like to sing into my hairbrush and think I do a heartbreaking rendition of Fergie's 'Big Girls Don't Cry' to a crowd of ten thousand screaming, adoring fans.
So, I simply left her a voicemail in return thanking her but declining.
Also made mention that I probably would be busy in the future. Didn't give a specific reason since none of the ones I thought of on the fly kind of held water.
Bubonic plague? Too extreme.
Reorganizing my sock drawer? Not extreme enough.
Just left it as I was unable to attend and probably wouldn't be able to attend anytime in the future.
Yep. Color me wuss.
*.*.*.*.*
I was early for the next English department staff meeting and luckily got first crack at the coffee urn. Usually by the time I actually made it in, the coffee smell in the room was about all I could count on in the way of hot beverages.
Turning to Dr. Leitch, who had an amazing knowledge base of fourteenth century poetry from Britannia (that would be Germany to you, me and the rest of the world), I asked her about her and husband's most recent trip to Northern France when Dr. Weatherby decided to join our conversation.
"Dr. Leitch? An interesting question was actually raised recently and I would very much like to hear your thoughts on it." Dr Weatherby could never say in one syllable that which could be said in multiples. Kind of like some of the singers in competition on TV--why sing it in two notes when you have octaves to trill through?
"Certainly," Dr Leitch replied and even wiggled her bottom against the hard chair preparing herself to answer the Head of the English Department at the University. You could almost see the capitalization happen over her head as she prepared to answer in what was sure to be her most enlightened, most studious and well-thought manner ever.
"If you had to choose between having a great body of work or simply having a great body, which would you choose?"
Dr Leitch, to her credit, actually gave this question a great deal of thought. Moments of great thought obviously were being performed with her great and oh so incisive mind.
"Why, Dr. Weatherby, do they need to be mutually exclusive?" the great thinking and most wondrous expert of fourteenth century German poetry asked.
"Natural selection, my good doctor. Natural selection." Dr Weatherby replied drolly and glanced around the table to ensure everyone in her department, everyone that attended this weekly meeting had caught onto her little joke.
And I watched as my department head turned her face to an unlaughing me.
*.*.*.*.*
I tried to keep on track with my day, my week, my life but I have to tell you it was so fucking hard.
Every day I had to talk myself into just getting up. And then there was the whole getting dressed and ready to go speech that I had with myself.
Some days it worked.
And some days I forgot what day it was and found myself on the way to University on, like, a Sunday.
Had honestly considered buying the day of the week panties just to keep up.
But even the thought of that seemed overwhelming.
Sigh.
Other people
survive this stuff, though, right? People survive a lot worse than this, if TV news was to be believed.
And people try to find comfort in familiar routines.
Like me bringing lunch and sitting at the faculty table, attempting to include myself in the discussions as they worked their way around to each of us around the table's rim.
I had just heard Dr. Marshall say something that I found especially witty and had added my agreement to the general consensus when I hear a loud and nasal, "I'm sorry, the only opinions that matter to the people of this table are those given to the ones not wearing heels. Oops! Guess that leaves you out of the study circle, Barbie! Or should we call you, Dr. Barbie?"
I looked around the table to see who Emily was referring to but it was, you guessed it, me.
Childish? You bet.
Effective? You better believe it.
That is until I found a pair of bright pink, high-heeled pumps on my doorstep the next morning.
Pumps that'd had their heels snapped clean off.
I called Grantham P.D. and they advised me that they would send a patrol unit out immediately which was comforting.
Being asked out by Officer Matthews, who obviously didn't remember me from his stint in my classroom four years ago, wasn't.
*.*.*.*.*
The next girl's night was at Frank-kay's, in the house he shared with Stan.
Talk about a showplace!
Frank took us on a tour describing the ten years of work that he and Stan had put into their former, practically falling down wreck of a house, located against one of the low lying hills that surrounded our town and offered the best views of the Grantham I'd ever seen. Amazing place in an amazing setting for a couple of amazing guys.
Loved it.
But I still felt like I was a sore thumb as I looked around the room.
Both Cait and Frank were so caught up in their really wonderful relationships to the point where you almost couldn't tell where one person began and the other person ended.
Marianne was doing a man-juggle and seemed to be enjoying it, although not quite as much as she used to.
Crystal was…well, Crystal. Still hadn't seen her with the same guy twice and though, I didn't ask, she seemed to be okay with it.
Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila Page 16
