by Rucy Ban
“Who’s Michael Bolton?”
Mom doesn’t say anything at first but after a few seconds, she lets out a deep sigh. Then before shutting the door, she drops the bomb. “Dinner tomorrow at 7 sharp. Invite him home.”
She shuts the door and I cover my face with the blanket. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Chapter Ten
“What’s eating you?” Tatiana whispers during our History class.
I smile and shake my head. “Nothing.”
She leans in closer. “Then maybe I should ask who’s eating you?”
I make a face at her. “That was completely unnecessary and let me just say…eew.”
“Gecko! It’s one of the few privileges of womankind! And the fact that you’re getting grossed out tells me you’ve never been blessed with the joys of cunnilin…”
I shush her worriedly and look around hoping no one heard her. A guy sitting behind us winks and gives me a knowing smile. Oh no! I immediately turn back and sink in my chair.
Later during lunch, Danny joins us again in his usual inimitable style. Plop on the chair, steal the tastiest treat possible from both our trays and then avoid eye contact for the next few minutes. When he washes down our food with Tatiana’s soda, he looks at us as if he suddenly realized there were other people on this planet besides him.
Then he gives a loud kiss on Tatiana’s cheek, grants a chin raise to me and finally starts with the food piled high on his own tray.
“Pig,” Tatiana mumbles as she watches him fork through his towering pile of pancakes. But the adoration in her eyes is obvious. For a change it doesn’t bother me. Instead, it makes me smile. I remember Neil’s palpitating hand gesture from yesterday and my smile turns into a full-blown grin.
“Who died?” Danny’s voice shakes me out of my thoughts. Then I realize both of them are looking at me with curiosity.
“Oh…my…God! I want all the details!” Tatiana squeals and I wince.
“It’s nothing, really,” I say, shaking my head.
“My girl here only smiled like that twice since I’ve known her. One, when I asked her to marry me and second, when I gave her the head for the first time,” Danny pauses for effect and then asks, “So which is it?”
Jeez. What is it with these two and oral sex?
“None of the above,” I state firmly and then try to deflect their attention by pointing excitedly to a couple sitting on the other end of the cafeteria. “Oh, look that guy just dropped his soda on his girlfriend!” I snigger and slap my hand on the table in exaggerated amusement but I ain’t fooling these two. Neither of them even blinks in response, they just glower me down with a dogged stare. Suddenly, I realize the significance of what Danny has just said.
“You guys are getting married?!!” I shriek.
“After we finish college,” Tatiana concedes happily and Danny places a wet smack on her hand for effect.
I beam at them both. “Congratulations, guys!”
“Though eloping would be a better word for what we have in mind,” Tatiana says with a smirk. “His Mom decided to go bat-shit crazy on me!”
“Why? She doesn’t like you?”
“She’s a first-generation Italian,” she offers as an explanation and when I raise an eyebrow she clarifies, “She thinks any prospective wife for her one and only son should be able to whip out a four-course dinner in an hour. Tart-aaalle, paaysto, caaneloni, manjia, manjia! I went to a dinner at his Mom’s place and Kari, I tell you, it was like being on the sets of Man vs. Food! His family is as loony as they come!”
Danny raises his head up from his tray and pouts through a mouthful of food, “Hey! That’s my Mamma you’re talking about!” Then he turns his attention back to his tray and mutters under his breath, “Though the rest can go to hell. Fucking bastard!”
My eyes widen in surprise and I throw a questioning look at Tatiana. She rolls her eyes. “Danny thinks his cousin Titto was hitting on me. I think he was just being sweet.”
Danny lets out a snort and Tatiana throws her hands up in response. “Of course he was, Danny! In between your Aunts trying to turn me into an obese cow and your mother trying to put me down for my lack of culinary skills, he was the only one being nice to me.”
Danny glares at her. “He was not being nice, he was trying to dive into your skinny jeans, woman! All boys are pigs, when will you learn?!” He shakes his head and shoves an impossibly big bite straight in his mouth. Tatiana gives me a look full of woe and drowns her disappointment by downing her soda.
Sitting there for the rest of the lunch hour watching Tatiana and Danny fight it out amongst themselves, I feel a strange melancholy drift over me. I feel envious of Tatiana. Sure, it looks like she’s got a psychotic future Mom-in-law but everything in her life seems so normal, so perfect while my life has been anything but.
Thankfully, the afternoon classes are hectic enough to keep my depressing thoughts at bay.
It’s almost evening now and I’m sitting behind the counter in the shop, nervously scraping the label of my water bottle, trying real hard not to pay attention to the grunts coming from across the shop floor. Jesus! Why do people do this to themselves?
For reasons best known to her, a girl walked in today wanting to get her nipples pierced.
A particularly loud whimper and I leave the water bottle to cross my arms over my boobs. It hurts to even think about it. Thank goodness, Nalini has put a screen across her bed table. I’d faint if I actually saw it happening. I could’ve left the shop and gone outside but there is no one else to man the counter and the phone. Neil’s taken Agnas to the hospital for her HAART sessions.
Last night, I googled everything about it. Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. Effective in prolonging life but with tons of side-effects. My heart went out to Agnas as I read through the long list of side-effects written on the wiki page.
I’d also spent the night googling my name and its various combinations. Kari sex video, Kari video, girl Kari first time. My mind couldn’t stop coming up with the various permutations and combinations. Finally at 3 am, I couldn’t take it anymore and snapped my laptop shut.
I woke up in the morning to the ping of Neil’s text asking me to meet him in front of the 63rd Precinct. An hour later, I’d gotten off two stops earlier and walked with increasing dread towards the gloomy brown building of the precinct. The intimidating NYPD cars parked in the front hadn’t done much to appease me. But then I saw Neil leaning against a tree, waiting patiently for me and my nerves settled down a bit.
I walked hand-in-hand with him to meet the officer on duty. Neil told me he’d already spoken to him. His name was officer Browne and he was a part of the criminal investigations department.
For the next hour, I recounted each and every detail of that horrible evening to officer Browne as he filed my written complaint. Thankfully, it was just him and me. Neil waited outside.
Then the officer took a back-up of my cellphone data because it contained a history of my calls with Eddie and some text messages that he’d sent me earlier. After all the formalities finished, he promised me swift action would be taken against Eddie.
He told me they’d get all the records of the video from Eddie, even take it off from the internet if he’d posted it somewhere. He also told me I had no reason to worry. It was all in my favor. I had been underage and this was a serious offense. He assured me that there was no escape route available to Eddie. All I had to do now was to sit back and wait. And…that’s about it. That was really it. It was that simple.
The only thing I feel now is guilt and self-loathing. Am I really this stupid that I went through a whole year of hell, of paying my money to that jerk, when the whole time I could have just ended it by walking into a police station? I’m the lamest, stupidest fool in the whole universe.
“That was harsh!” I hear the girl’s voice shriek and my mind snaps back to the present. Then I hear the piercing machine being switched off and after a few minutes, Nalini and the girl both come o
ut from behind the screen. The girl’s nose is all red and her eyes puffy. I don’t even want to think about what it might look like below her neck.
“That girl’s got cojones,” Nalini declares after the girl leaves. The door dings right then and Neil enters the shop. “Hey girls.”
“Hey!” Both of us yell and as he turns to hang his coat on the hanger, Nalini whispers in my ear, “Though I bet his are bigger and…better.” Even as I gasp in shock, she nudges my shoulder and asks, “Are they?” I don’t know if anyone’s ever died of embarrassment but I’m sure if I stick around Nalini, I’ll be the very first registered case.
I glare daggers at her as I walk up to Neil and throw my arms around his waist, hugging his back. He grasps my hands and turns around to face me. I’m relieved to see he doesn’t look too bogged down by the hospital visit.
“Anyone for coffee?” Nalini shouts as she walks off towards the coffee machine.
I shake my head and Neil shouts back, “No, thanks.” Then he lowers his head and brushes the tip of his nose with mine. An Eskimo kiss! Christ! Now I can die happy. I’ve gotten all I ever wanted in my life.
“Hi, Angel,” he says and I feel something inside me melt away.
“Hi,” I reply softly. A moment later, I ask him about Agnas. “Is she doing good?”
He nods his head and grins. “She’s decided to have a night out with some of her girl friends. They came to give her a surprise at the hospital today.” He shakes his head and says fondly, “Crazy bunch of women.”
“Well, guess what? You’ll be having a night-out of your own too!”
Neil’s eyes gleam with interest. “Really?”
“Yup. You’re invited for dinner at seven sharp, as per my Mom’s instructions.” The gleam fizzles out of his eyes and I stifle a chuckle at the nervousness that washes over his face.
“She doesn’t like me.” He says it like a statement and I rush to negate it.
“Of course, she likes you! And she’ll love you once she gets to know you better!”
Neil looks at me skeptically. “Yeah.”
I nod firmly. “You’ll see.”
I have no customers lined up for the evening so I leave an hour early, planning to help Mom with the dinner preps. She’d told me this morning that she’d come back by 6 today. But when I open the door and walk into the kitchen, I find it distressingly empty. Right then my phone beeps. It’s a text from Mom.
Runnin late. Boil the pasta. Will come & make the rest.
Sighing, I dump my bag in my room. I know Mom’s work keeps her on her toes but I can’t help but feel pissed. What was the point of inviting Neil for dinner when she didn’t even plan for it in advance?! Then I shrug off all the melodramatic thoughts and roll up my sleeves. I have no time to waste.
I boil the water for the pasta. Blitz the tomatoes and garlic for the sauce. Dice some veggies for a stir-fry. Set up the heavy frying pan for grilling some sausages.
The bell rings just as I’m setting the wok for starting my stir-fry. Thank God she’s here! It’s just ten minutes to seven now. Neil will be here soon and the whole kitchen looks like a bleeping war zone!
I open the door and am greeted with the vision of Neil standing there looking like he’s just stepped off a ramp. Bootlegged blue jeans, crisp white shirt and the most wickedly handsome smile. Holding a bunch of flowers in one hand he suffers my full body appraisal and scratches his forehead self-consciously.
“Slumming it, huh?” I quip.
He gives me a shy smile in response. Jesus.That smile. I’m already done for and the evening hasn’t even started!
“Am I early?” he asks, scratching the back of his neck.
Grinning, I clasp his hand and pull him in. Then I reach around to shut the door and give him my best seductive smile.
“Hmmm…I wonder how to reward you for your punctuality?” His eyes crinkle and then widen in surprise as I push his back to the door and wind my arms around his neck. Maybe the fumes of all that food have gotten to my head because I’ve never had the courage to act this femme-fatale before.
I lean forward to close the distance but he immediately leans away.
“Where’s your Mom?” he asks warily.
“Not back yet. I’m all alone,” I say, pouting my lips. Christ! What has gotten into me?!
Neil’s eyes dip down to my lips. Then in one swift motion his hand snakes around my waist and crushes my body to his.
“Don’t tempt the tempted, Angel,” he breathes over my lips and then waits. His pause gives me a chill that runs down my spine. When his lips meet mine it’s like we’re kissing for the first time. And the craving? It’s ten times worse. I think that’s why people often compare love to drugs. It’s like a perpetually unfurling, growing yearning. The more you taste it, the more you crave it…wait a second…taste?! Oh my God! My pasta!
I jerk away from Neil and make a mad dash towards the kitchen. Jheezus! The pasta looks horrifying. A giant overcooked clump bobbing around in boiling water. But it might still be salvageable. I take it off from the burner, drain the water and run cold water through it. Then I send a heartfelt thanks to the heavens above as the farfalle start separating out under the deftness of my ladle. Once it looks more presentable, I breathe a sigh of relief and place the colander on the side. When I turn around, I see Neil watching me from the doorway, a smile hiding somewhere in his lips.
“Can I help?” he asks, arching up an eyebrow.
“You were invited to eat dinner, not come here and make it!” I say with indignation, feeling pissed at Mom for still not having turned up, mad at myself for depending on her, but basically irritated as hell at Neil. Damn his mad kissing skills! He made me forget my pasta! I have it bad. Really bad.
Suddenly strong hands grab me from under my arms and I’m lifted up in the air. Neil carries me like an errant toddler and then places me on one of the dining chairs. Then he dons an apron hanging in one of the corners of the kitchen and I watch with my mouth agape, as he deftly stir-fries the veggies, places the sausages on the pan that I’d completely forgotten all about and starts reducing the tomato-garlic sauce for the pasta.
Makes sense. Apart from being insanely hot, he is kind, considerate and a culinary expert. What a jerk!
I twiddle my thumbs, hem and haw until I’m so fed up with just being a spectator that I risk getting up once again.
“Butt on the chair, Angel” he mutters under his breath as my aforementioned butt is hovering just six inches above my chair.
Christ! Did he have eyes on the back of his head? I disregard his instructions and march off to the fridge to grab a can of coke. Then I march right back and plant my bottom back on the chair.
“You know when you mix butt and Angel in the same sentence, it becomes an insult,” I say before I take a big gulp.
With his back to me, he says, “Trust me, I would never dream of insulting your butt. I’m sure it’s way better than anything I’m cooking out here.”
Pfffffff!!!!! The soda comes spewing out of my mouth and all over the kitchen table. Chirst! Did he just say that?! Then I watch gobsmacked as he saunters over and throws the kitchen towel on the table, giving it a quick wipe. I give him a stink-eye as he walks back looking very smug and pleased with himself.
Mom walks in half an hour later, just as Neil is putting down the last bowl on the table.
As soon as I open the door, she starts apologizing, “Honey, I’m so sorry. So, so, so sorry. The traffic today is not to be believed.” I forgive her immediately but then she lowers her voice and whispers loudly, “Is HE here?”
I roll my eyes as I help her with her bag and the usual overflowing pile of folders. I go to her room and put it all on her table. When I walk back into the kitchen, I find Mom laughing and hugging Neil with her arms wrapped tight around his torso. WTF?!!!
The scene is so totally unexpected that for a few seconds I just stand there with my mouth open. Then I try to process it. But I realize it still doesn’t make an
y sense. Mom looks delusional with happiness while Neil is looking…uncomfortable? I repeat…WTF?!
“Mom?!!” I say warily and Neil finally notices me. Well, hello to you too. He gives me a shy smile and then gives an awkward pat on my Mom’s back. Like she’s a pet or something! Down girl!
“Mom!” I exclaim louder and this time she hears me. She opens her eyes and shrieks from across the room, “Honey!! You never told me!!” she says but still doesn’t let go of Neil.
“MOM!!!” I raise my eyebrows till they hit the roof and she finally gets it. She drops her arms and backs away from Neil but just by a reluctant few inches! Jeez! What’s the matter with her?!
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says, batting her lashes and blushing crimson. “I guess I got a little carried away.”
“It’s okay, Ma’am,” Neil smiles obligingly at her and then gives me a worried look. Okay. Seriously, what in God’s name is happening here?!
“Kari, you should’ve told me Neil Mars was coming for dinner to our place tonight!” She says Neil Mars like it’s a saleable entity or something. “I would’ve certainly planned better for this evening…” Mom stops abruptly and looks around the kitchen like she’s seeing it for the first time. “This looks like a pigsty!”
Then her eyes fall on the table and on the apron tied around Neil’s waist. “Oh my God, you’ve been cooking?!” Mom turns to fix a glowering gaze on me. “Kari! Why did you make him cook?!” she shrieks like I’m some kind of a slave driver. “He’s our guest!” Then she turns back to him and starts wringing her hands like a crazed person. “I’m so sorry, Neil…Oh! This is horrible. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll just go freshen up and be right back.” Then this woman who’s no longer related to me, hurries out of the kitchen before whispering loudly in my ear, “Entertain him!”
I stand there in the kitchen in total silence wondering how my Mom expected me to entertain my own boyfriend in the bloody kitchen! A lap dance before the meal or after?
I look across at Neil. “Did you smell something on her? Smoke, alcohol…weed?”
