by Mimi Strong
“I see.” I nodded. “Let me see your underwear.”
“What?”
“I just want to know if you were coming over here to talk to him, or seduce him.”
“Just to talk, I swear.”
I reached over and flipped up the hem of her skirt. She pushed it back down and slapped my hand.
What happened next was kind of a blur. Let’s just say I did some things I’m not very proud of, but things that needed to be done. I don’t appreciate being lied to, and it was in Keith’s best interests that I found out if Tabitha was planning to seduce him, which meant determining whether or not she was wearing slutty, ridiculous underwear, with matching bra and panties.
What Keith saw when he came out of his bedroom to investigate the ruckus wasn’t pretty. I was pinning down Tabitha on the couch, my head up under her top, yelling, “I knew it! I knew it!”
He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Tag.”
I pulled my head out from under Tabitha’s shirt and whipped around to face him. “What? Tag?”
He was grinning, looking his usual sexy self in just a pair of shorts. “Yeah. Tag. I guess we’re doing this threesome thing here?” He laughed, very clearly making a joke and not at all serious. “Kind of rude of you two to start without me.”
“Hilarious.” I crossed my arms.
Tabitha had already jumped up and was heading for the door. “You two are both nuts,” she said. “I came over to apologize to you, Keith, but I can see you’re having way more fun without me these days.” She opened the door. “Have a nice life.” She left and slammed the door behind her.
Keith turned to me. “I can’t believe I was going to ask her to marry me.”
I steadied myself, not reacting to this revelation. “You could do better,” I said.
He frowned my way. “What were you doing to her, exactly?”
“Market research for my brand. Just wanted to see what kind of underwear she likes.”
“Worn-out gray sports bras and granny panties.”
Ah. Theory confirmed.
“Grilled cheese?” I jumped up and went to the kitchen.
“I really should eat something with more protein, since I just worked out. I’ve got some turkey breast in the freezer.”
He joined me in the small kitchen area and bumped me out of the way with his hip. He got a foil package from the freezer, opened it up, and pulled out thick slices of roasted turkey breast.
I moved aside and watched as he grilled the turkey to thaw it, then put the turkey inside the cheese sandwich I’d started.
“Not bad,” he said after the first bite.
“Smells like Hot Pockets.”
“I’ve never had one of those.”
“They aren’t bad, but stay away from the one with the broccoli because it tastes like Satan’s bunghole.”
“Good to know.” He took a seat at the kitchen counter on one of the stools, eating and watching me clean up.
“I prefer the Philly Cheese Steak flavor. All of them are improved by a sour cream dip, of course.”
He grinned. “Of course.”
I ran some hot water into the sink. “Tabitha’s really skinny.” He didn’t respond to this statement of fact. “I suppose dating her is less of a hazard to your career than dating me.”
“I can eat a little cheese now and then, Peaches. I am an adult.”
“You never told me that you and she were on a break when she allegedly ripped your heart out and ran it over.”
“There are plenty of things I didn’t tell you, like how we had an accidental pregnancy and miscarriage in January, and she shut me out. She spent all her time with Katy, and I was the awkward third wheel roommate.”
“Hmm.”
“The situation wasn’t healthy.”
“When did everyone move out?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Not that long ago.”
I looked up, meeting his gaze. The look in his brown eyes confirmed what I thought: the void in Keith’s life had literally sucked me in to cork up the energy draining away. Yes, I was a girl-shaped cork. A rebound. And he was mine. And that was okay.
Keith pulled out his phone. “Too late to go to Anaheim today. I guess we’ll have to go tomorrow.”
I clapped my hands together, visions of princesses dancing through my head. “Disneyland? Are you for real? You would take me there?”
“You’ve never been, so I’m practically obligated to take you. I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t.”
I hugged him so hard, I nearly knocked him off the stool.
The funny thing is, I’d joked about going to Disneyland on my trip, but I hadn’t seriously considered going. I didn’t know I wanted to go so badly, until that moment. Like how I hadn’t wanted to be an underwear model until the opportunity came up. How many other things did I secretly desire and not even know?
CHAPTER 21
On Sunday morning, while regular tourists were still in their hotel rooms, adding non-dairy creamer to mugs of coffee made on dressers in those mini-carafes, Keith and I lined up outside Disneyland Park half an hour before the rope dropped.
As soon as we were admitted, Keith grabbed my hand and hauled me through the empty park toward Adventureland and the Indiana Jones Adventure.
The ride was thrilling and every bit as corny and fun as it looks in the ads. As I screamed at the mummies and the insects in the creepy Bug Room, I mulled over the question posed at the beginning of the ride. The temple deity had offered us one of three gifts: earthly riches, eternal youth, or seeing into the future.
When we disembarked at the end of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride, I asked Keith which of those things he’d choose.
“Eternal youth, of course,” he said. “The opportunities for models get slimmer with age.”
“Then you’d be a model forever.”
“I guess I would. A model with a big mansion and an amazing garden. I’d spend my downtime splitting plants and getting dirty.” We both laughed. “What about you?”
I had to think. Earthly riches, eternal youth, or seeing into the future.
“Not riches, because I’d rather earn them. Eternal youth… sounds good, but I wouldn’t want to have all my friends aging while I didn’t. I guess I’d pick the visions, because who wouldn’t want to see the future?”
“What if you could see the future, but it worked like TV, and you could only see one channel?” He pointed in one direction and started hauling me that way. “New Orleans Square. We’re going to hit the Pirates next.”
“Pirates are fun.” I skipped to catch up, glad I was wearing tennis shoes with a favorite outfit I’d brought from home: olive green cargo shorts and a ruffled pink blouse, which I think of as my Barbie-meets-G.I.Joe outfit.
Keith continued, “What if you can see the future, but just the weather? And only right where you are. Not even globally, so you can’t prevent human deaths from natural disasters.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re very unusual, Mr. Raven, guy-who-doesn’t-have-birthdays?”
He blushed. I’d seen him blush once or twice before, but not like this. He looked like he was trying to act natural, but failing.
Something was off. Something I’d said had triggered a reaction.
“Keith, is today your birthday?”
We kept walking, him looking around and waving at Disney characters.
If I remembered correctly, he prevented birthdays from happening by insisting on doing only regular-day things. Going to Disneyland didn’t fit the profile of regular-day things, not even for someone who lived nearby.
“Keith, squeeze my hand once if today is your twin sister’s birthday.”
He squeezed my hand.
We walked on in silence, until I said, “I’m honored that you’d choose to celebrate your birthday with me. And if anyone asks, I’ll lie and tell them we did boring everyday things.”
He stopped walking, stepping in front of me so we were face to f
ace, him looking down into my eyes. The morning sun was behind his head, giving his dark hair a glow, like a halo.
Without a word, he leaned down and kissed me. The park had started filling up and people flowed all around us, and he kept kissing me. When he finally pulled away from me, he said, “You inspire me with your enthusiasm for life, and your honesty, and your passion. Peaches, you make me want to grow up. So, Happy Birthday to me. I couldn’t have picked a better way to spend today, and before you say it, oh, yes, there will be cake.”
“With ice cream,” I added, nodding. “Because someone was a bad boy on Thursday night and promised he’d pick up ice cream, but then he did not. Unforgivable.”
“I told you, the stores were all closed! Stupid Tabitha throwing my phone down a mountain. Tonight there will be both cake and ice cream.”
“Birthday candles? How many? Eleven?”
He grimaced.
“Okay, no candles,” I said, laughing. “Enough personal growth for today, right?”
He grabbed my hand and got us walking again. “Pirates! And then the Haunted Mansion. Oh, and Space Mountain.”
“It’s your birthday,” I said, smiling. “You get to pick everything, because it’s your day.”
“I like the sound of that.”
He got a big grin on his face that didn’t quit the whole day, and it was a long day. A very long day. We crossed over to Disney California Adventure at mid-day and crammed in as much as we could there.
As we toured the attractions and went on rides, I discovered that I did have the magical gift of being able to see the future, and it wasn’t limited to the weather. I could see returning there in a couple of years with my whole family, or maybe just me and Kyle.
Kyle, my baby.
Kyle came home a few days ahead of me, because the doctors weren’t sure about my mental state. I insisted I was completely fine for someone who’d eaten a whole pizza and gotten indigestion.
They told me I’d had a baby, and I rolled over and stopped talking. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking, because those thoughts are scribbled out in my head to this day, probably to protect myself.
Finally, I told the doctors I’d known I was pregnant, and I’d kept meaning to come into the hospital for pre-natal care, but I’d been scared and pushed it off one day at a time. They bought the story. I told it so many times, I started to believe it myself, these new lies overwriting my actual memories with every re-playing.
At home, my parents barely let me in the house before they sat me down to talk about adoption papers. My father had gone into problem-solving mode the minute they’d returned early from their trip, and once he starts, he’s like an unstoppable cargo train.
The funniest thing about that night was that the two of them couldn’t stop smiling. I honestly thought they were going to be furious with me as soon as we all left the safety of the hospital, but they weren’t.
It’s hard to be anything but calm when a newborn is sleeping in a laundry basket next to you, his tiny hands curled up like rosebuds.
All babies should be so lucky, to be as wanted as Kyle. I hadn’t known this at the time, but my mother had tried for years after my birth—tried to have a younger brother or sister for me. She says she would have had four kids, if it had been possible. She had an abnormality in her uterus that they didn’t discover until she was in the hospital having me, by emergency caesarian. The abnormality didn’t show up on the ultrasound, but the doctors said she would have difficulty bringing another baby to term.
She chose not to believe them. But medical problems don’t care what you believe.
They tried and tried in secret, and it wasn’t until after Kyle came along, and we sat together at the table with him slumbering in the laundry basket, that she told me all the details about the miscarriage heartbreaks she’d suffered.
At last, I finally understood why she’d cried for two weeks, all during Christmas break, when I was twelve. I’d gone onto the internet that holiday and thanks to Dr. Google, diagnosed her with Seasonal Affective Disorder. I printed out some information about special lights you can get to combat the dark, rainy Washington winters.
She’d lost a baby on Christmas Eve. A boy. They named him Kyler and held a small memorial in January. I thought they were going to the funeral of a distant uncle.
And then, three years later, there was a healthy little blue-eyed surprise who needed a lot of care, and a name. Their hearts were so full. Their prayers had been answered, and, unlike the doctors, they believed me that I hadn’t known. My parents were concerned, but they weren’t angry. They were overjoyed.
“I love the name Kyler,” I told them, glancing over at his little red face. He just looked like a baby, not a person, so what did I know? “I would name the baby that, but isn’t that a girl’s name?”
My mother started crying, the tears falling into her smile. “Sweetie, it’s a boy’s name.”
We talked some more that night, and over the next few days, about responsibilities and care of the baby, now named Kyler—Kyle for short.
I’m not going to lie and say my parents were saints about the whole thing. We had moments. When my father was bleary-eyed from baby duty all night, he said a few cross things to me about certain clothes I was wearing and accused me of being “prone to whimsy.”
I took his comments in the worst possible way; I heard him say I was a fat slut. Those weren’t the words, but guilt has a way of twisting and balling things up to torture you.
My parents are smart people, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out my friend Toby, who lived down the block, was the other half of the surprise baby equation. Toby was uninvited from “homework sessions” behind closed doors, and after a few tense meetings with Toby’s family, he agreed to the terms of the adoption.
Toby’s family claimed that there had been a job offer across the country in the works before all of this “baby daddy drama” had started, but none of us believed it. They moved away before Kyle’s first birthday. Toby came over once (supervised) and held Kyle. The whole time, he looked like he was about to vomit.*
*Coincidentally, that’s not dissimilar to how he looked the first time we had sex.
And now I will answer the questions I’m sure you have:
1. Yes, I knew how babies were made. I was fourteen and went to public school, people. But I looked up a monthly ovulation chart, and it made perfect sense to me, so naturally I felt I could outsmart the main force that has altered women’s destinies since the beginning of time.
2. I continued to get what I thought was an irregular period. I don’t have the same abnormality my mother did, but there’s a little uterine weirdness going on, for sure.
3. There’s no such thing as a food craving that I would find unusual in any way.
4. Any body changes, I attributed to puberty, given I was going through puberty at the time.
5. My parents absolutely didn’t know or suspect, not consciously. They wouldn’t have gone on a three-day trip to Arizona and left me to go into labor at home alone if they had.
6. Except for the part where I nearly died, the delivery wasn’t too bad.
“Thank you for an amazing birthday,” Keith said as we ate our cake and ice cream at a neighborhood cafe near his apartment.
It was nearly midnight, and I felt twitchy with nerves, as if I had bug bites all over me instead of just one on my shoulder. Being outdoors in the sun all day makes my skin sensitive, even if I don’t get sunburned.
My commercial shoot started the next day, Monday, and finished on Tuesday. I’d gotten myself through the print photos the week before, barely, but now I had movement and my voice to mess things up.
I’d been assured that the horrible, rude model, Sven, wasn’t a part of the commercial, but I couldn’t shake the idea he’d be there anyway, and they’d say “too fucking bad” if I didn’t like it. They had a lot of money riding on the new product line, and they had to pay me my modeling fee no matter what. Dee
p down, I worried the whole thing would be a colossal failure, and everyone would think I jinxed it with my jiggly ass.
“Stop it,” Keith said.
I looked up from my cake and ice cream, confused by his words. Stop eating cake? But there was still cake on my plate. What kind of cruelty was this?
“Stop worrying about the shoot,” he said. “Everyone on set tomorrow is there to make you look good. Think of them as your people, your team. If you’re not sure about something, ask. And take your time. They’ve scheduled two days to shoot a thirty-second commercial.”
“It’s actually splitting into a couple different commercials.”
He used his fork to separate his chocolate cake from the ganache. “A couple? In that case, you should definitely freak out. You’re toast.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Wait ’til we get home. I’ll undress you and take your mind off your worries.”
I smiled and took another bite of my treat, which was a lemon cake with white buttercream frosting and raspberry sauce. I’d opted to not get the ice cream, but only because I wanted to enjoy the flavors on their own, and not because I thought skipping ice cream would magically make me shed ten pounds before an underwear shoot the next day. I may be “prone to whimsy,” but not straight-up insanity.
Back at Keith’s place, we did something I’d never done with a guy before. Something intimate.
We sorted out our clothes into lights and darks and did laundry together. Hot!
My jeans mixed around in the washing machine with his jeans, inside the stacking washer and dryer units that had been retro-fitted into a storage closet.
When the clothes were dry, we took them out of the dryer, dumped them all on the bed, and folded them. I’ve never lived with a guy, so this was all incredibly novel to me, and made me feel like a sexy housewife—the way cooking for Keith made me feel.
He slayed me when he experimented with folding my panties, forming them into tidy squares or triangles. He was so serious about folding, and I couldn’t stop laughing at him.
