by Alexa Land
That wasn’t what was troubling me, but I decided to go along with it, because it sounded a hell of a lot better than admitting I was jealous and insecure. “You’re right. So, when is Eide taking you out?” In my mind I added, that bastard.
“Tonight. He’s picking me up at eight and taking me to a restaurant called Elixir. It’s supposed to be nice, real fancy.”
“That sounds great.” That sounds really, really awful.
“I figured this would be a good evening for it, since you’re working anyway. I’ll probably get home about the same time you do, and then we can spend the rest of the night together.”
“Definitely.” Please don’t leave me for that rich, handsome hockey player, even if he is perfect.
“Want me to meet you at rehearsal? I’m going to stay for the church social afterwards, but I’ll be done by about one.”
“You don’t have to. We can’t build anything today, because Skye needs the whole warehouse to lay out a bunch of twenty-foot-long tentacles.” I couldn’t help but grin a little, because that sounded awesomely weird.
“Alright. Well, I guess I’d better get going.” He turned to the towels and folded the last one with the same precision as all the rest, carried the stack to his shelves in the bathroom, and put them away. As I walked him out, Duke asked, “Are you going straight from rehearsal to work?” When I nodded, he said, “I’ll see you tonight, then.”
I pulled him to me and kissed him. Then I tried to make myself say, ‘have fun on your date,’ but I just couldn’t do it. My heart ached. I wanted to believe Duke would choose me over Even Eide, but why would he?
My only hope was that the date sucked, and sucked bad. Maybe Even Eide would chew with his mouth open, or pick his nose at the dinner table, or hit on the bartender, the waiter, the busboy, and a group of seminary students at the next table. Maybe he’d turn out to be the biggest fucking dick in the history of big fucking dicks, and maybe that twenty-thousand-dollar date would crash and burn ten minutes in, preferably ending with Duke throwing a drink in Eide’s face.
I knew none of that would happen, though.
I shook myself out of my little date disaster fantasy as Duke left by way of the garage. It wasn’t news to me that I had to get a grip. But I was jealous and heartbroken and angry, all at the same time. I needed a drink, but it wasn’t even ten a.m.
I settled for coffee instead, which I carried into the living room with a piece of buttered toast. I flopped down on the horrible, unyielding couch and sighed at the white walls. Duke had given me an okay of sorts to paint them, but when I showed him some samples, he’d balked at all of them. The only one he liked was an almost nonexistent pale, pale blue at the very top of a paint chip. The color I’d actually been showing him on that little paper rectangle had been the rich indigo at the very bottom.
After a minute, a thought occurred to me. I finished the toast and licked my fingers, and then I got up and went to take a look at Duke’s tiny movie collection, which was in the cabinet beneath his modest TV. I sat cross-legged on the area rug and frowned as I dealt the DVDs out like playing cards around me. Most of them were sports-themed. There were baseball movies, hockey movies, and football movies, with names like ‘Any Given Sunday’ and ‘Miracle’. I hadn’t seen any of them.
Near the bottom of the stack, I actually found what I was looking for. It was a documentary called ‘Inspiration: The Even Eide Story.’ There was a portrait of Eide on the cover, looking handsome and sun-drenched with an idyllic, possibly Norwegian fishing village in the background. I turned the box over and discovered the movie had been released just three years ago. Since Duke had bought it, his crush obviously hadn’t been left in the distant past.
Even though I knew I was just rubbing salt in the wound at that point, I stuck the DVD in the player on the shelf beneath the TV and settled in to torture myself. I fast-forwarded through the part about his childhood in Norway. Oldest of eight kids, son of a poor fisherman, okay we got it, humble beginning. The next section was all about his hockey career. I flopped down on the rug and sighed dramatically while the narrator rattled off Eide’s accomplishments: one of the few people to play both offensive and defensive positions, recruited at nineteen, scored a bagillion goals, brought his team to victory…awesome. There were lots of clips from various hockey games, featuring Eide doing bad-ass stuff on the ice. Whatever.
But then the music took a turn for the dramatic, and I sat up and watched the screen. Footage of ambulances and hospitals accompanied a voice-over talking about the accident that ended Eide’s hockey career. His body was shattered when his Porsche was T-boned by a truck. The other driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel. Though the doctors told Eide he’d never walk again, he defied the odds. He spent the next two years in intensive physical therapy and fought his way back, but his injuries were so severe that he had to retire from the sport he loved.
There was one more chapter in Eide’s story. The last part of the documentary talked about how he’d opened a sports bar with a fellow hockey player. Then they’d franchised it, and the cash started pouring in. He went on to donate great, big, heaping boatloads of money to children’s charities and LGBT organizations. Eide was also supporting his parents and younger siblings. And why? Because he was fucking awesome.
I rolled over so I was face-down on the area rug and groaned. No wonder Duke had a crush on that guy. As if it wasn’t enough that he was rich and handsome, apparently Eide was also the nicest person ever and was going to be canonized into sainthood (I added that last part, but it seemed pretty goddamn likely).
And damn it, Eide had to be attracted to Duke, too. He’d paid a fortune to spend one evening with him! When he saw how determined I was to win that auction, he could have just let it go, then handed Nana a big, fat check, if all he’d wanted was to support the shelter. That way, she would have gotten my money and his, and the kids would have come out way ahead. He also could have contributed by buying up every damn thing in the silent auction if he’d chosen to, or dropping a bundle on the world’s most expensive gift basket, or whatever.
But no. He’d wanted Duke. And apparently, rich people always got what they wanted.
By the time the documentary ended, I was in a total funk. I rolled onto my back and stared at the blank, white ceiling for a while, but the longer I did that, the more depressed I became. After a while, I gathered up the movies and put them away, then decided to perk myself up with a little fresh air and sunshine.
I went into the backyard and sat on one of the swings. At first, I just rocked back and forth a little. But then I grasped the chains and started swinging as hard as I could, under the theory that no one could be unhappy when they were swinging. I kept that up for quite a while, until I finally had to admit my theory was unsound and stopped propelling myself forward. My path of motion got smaller and smaller, until I was at a standstill.
Storm clouds were moving in, which suited my mood. The only positive thing was a big, gray squirrel that came into the yard looking for a place to stash an acorn. I said, “Hey, buddy,” and watched him for a while as he scampered around, then found his ideal spot in the flowerbed and buried his prize. “Hang on,” I told him. “I think I have some nuts in the kitchen.”
I went inside and looked in the cabinet. All I had were chocolate-covered peanuts, but Duke had some dry-roasted, unsalted almonds (ugh, where was the fun in that?), and I raided his stash. When I stepped out the kitchen door, I found the squirrel darting around on the patio with his nose twitching. I sat on the stoop and rolled an almond over to him, and he grabbed it with his tiny hands, sat back on his haunches, and made a quick meal of it.
I placed the next almond right in front of me and was delighted when the little animal approached in fits and starts, then finally sat at my feet and ate the nut. He seemed friendly, so I put the last one in the palm of my hand and held it out to him. The squirrel sat up and stared at me for a long moment with his beady black eyes.
In the
next instant, the squirrel jumped at me, grabbed the nut, and scampered up my arm. I yelped in surprise and shuddered, because his tiny squirrel feet felt horrific as they skittered over my bare skin. He used my shoulder as a springboard and took a flying leap into the kitchen, and I yelled, “Oh, come on!”
I leapt to my feet and spun around, just in time to see the fluffy-tailed little jerk bounding down the hall. Great! I left the back door open to give him an escape route and ran into the living room, but I didn’t see him anywhere. I dropped onto my hands and knees and looked under all the furniture. Still nothing. After running upstairs and conducting a thorough search, I jogged back downstairs and looked everywhere. Twice.
I kept that up for a good half-hour, but the creature had vanished. Maybe it had run off when I wasn’t looking. I stuck my head out and looked around the backyard before closing and locking the kitchen door. Since I didn’t want to be late for rehearsal, I had to abandon my search.
Damn it! I scrubbed my hands over my face, then located a pad of paper and left Duke a note on the kitchen counter. It said: There may or may not be a squirrel in the house. Sorry. He was going to be thrilled. I sighed and went upstairs to get my backpack.
*****
It was raining when rehearsal ended, and I gratefully accepted a ride back to the city with Skye and Dare and their dog. We’d practiced for hours. I was pretty sure Dare and Haley were going to keep fine-tuning the choreography right up until the night of the performance. As a thank you for putting us through all of that, they’d bought the whole troupe beer and pizza afterwards, and we all ate together in the office before heading home. Or in my case, to work.
They dropped me off a few minutes after seven. Since I didn’t start until eight, I had a couple of drinks before I went back to the locker room to change. Appropriately enough, the theme that night was ‘Raining Men’. Preston had hung rows of silver streamers from the ceiling, and when the white and blue lights hit them, they really did look a bit like raindrops.
I’d been so happy when I pulled together my outfit for the Raining Men theme a few days earlier, but as I took the pieces of my costume out of my locker, I frowned. What I’d intended to be cute and playful just looked childish. I didn’t have anything else to wear though, so I had to go with it.
I stripped completely and pulled on a jockstrap, then shimmied into a pair of tight, yellow shorts, which were made out of the same plastic material as my matching raincoat. I stood in front of the mirror and tied the white laces that crisscrossed the fly, and then I bent and twisted to make sure I could actually dance in them. Good thing the answer was yes, since I hadn’t thought to pack a back-up pair. The shorts were a lot skimpier than I’d anticipated, too. They barely covered my ass and were cut so low in the front that I had to tuck in the jockstrap.
The next step was a pair of knee-high rain boots. They were bright blue and printed all over with yellow rubber ducks wearing rain hats. It was surprisingly difficult to slip them on. I ended up grabbing the top and jamming each foot in. I wondered how I was going to get them off again, but figured I’d worry about that later.
I grabbed my cosmetic case and went back to the mirror to apply a hell of a lot of iridescent body glitter. While I was doing that, three more dancers came in and changed into their outfits, which basically just consisted of tiny shorts and boots. One of them chuckled when he saw what I was wearing and said, “Only you, Quinn.”
Another said, “You’re only encouraging Preston and his stupid theme nights. Maybe if you stopped using it as an opportunity to play dress-up, he’d realize none of us want to do this shit and give up on it already.” I frowned at him in the mirror’s reflection, then leaned in to apply some lip gloss.
They left the locker room a couple of minutes later, while I stepped back, examined myself critically, and decided I needed to punch it up a bit. I applied black liner along my upper lashes, then some mascara, followed by a sweep of royal blue glitter eyeshadow, which matched the boots. That added a bit of pizzazz.
Sergei came in while I was doing that. He knit his brows and said, “You know this isn’t a drag show, right?”
I muttered, “Bite me,” and put on even more glitter before slicking my hair with gel to make it look wet.
The last two pieces of my outfit were a cropped yellow coat that barely grazed the hem of my shorts and a matching rain hat. When I put them on, Sergei said, “What are you, five?”
I ignored him and went to assess myself one last time in the full-length mirror. The overall look was fun, which had been the goal. I tried to smile at my reflection and failed miserably.
It was a few minutes before eight p.m. Duke would be getting ready for his date. I’d been trying so hard not to think about it, but there it was. Did he have butterflies in his stomach? Was he shaving for a second time that day and applying his cologne, which he reserved for special occasions? Did he change his shirt three or four times before finally selecting one, and did he fret over which suit to wear?
I muttered, “Fuck,” and rested my forehead against the glass.
Sergei appeared beside me and checked his reflection in the wide mirror. He was dressed all in black, as usual. The one good thing I could say about him was that he always embraced Preston’s themes. Along with his leather shorts, he was wearing combat boots, a long, black trench coat, and a fedora. He shot me a look and said, “You’re sad because you just realized you look like a slutty kindergartener, right?”
I whirled on him and snapped, “Could you give me a break, just for one night? Next time we’re both working, you can hate me and make fun of me all you want. But not today!”
I stormed out of the locker room just as two more dancers came in to change. Then I climbed up on the first empty platform I came to and started dancing with all I had. I usually toned it down at the club, but that night, I just went for it. I needed the distraction.
A minute later, Sergei took the platform directly across from mine and started dancing. He was making far more of an effort than usual, working the coat like a prop, dropping it off his broad shoulders, tipping the brim of the fedora while he swayed his hips. What the hell did he think, that this was a fucking musical and I’d challenged him to a dance-off?
I turned my attention from him and just danced. The club was pretty empty on a rainy Sunday night. There was no one to try to impress, but that didn’t matter. I danced to tire myself out and to try to stop thinking.
Good luck with that.
My brain was firing off questions like a game show host: was it eight o-clock yet? Had Eide arrived at the house? Did he bring Duke flowers, and was he invited in for a drink? Did Eide rest his hand on Duke’s back as they walked to the curb, then hold his door for him? What kind of car did he drive, and was Duke impressed by it? Was Eide being charming and witty? Did Duke laugh at his jokes, and did his heartbeat speed up when Eide smiled at him?
Damn it!
By the time Preston signaled me to take a break maybe an hour later, I was glistening with sweat, exhausted, and on the verge of tears. I jumped from the platform, not bothering with the steps, and was caught off guard by a round of applause. I’d been totally unaware of the small crowd that had gathered to watch me dance.
I ignored the offers of drinks and hurried to the locker room, where I threw aside my hat and coat and leaned against my locker as I caught my breath. Sergei burst into the room a moment later and growled, “What the hell was that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The way you were dancing! Are you so desperate for attention that you have to make sure all eyes are on you and nobody else?”
I turned to him and yelled, “Oh my God! Do you think I was dancing like that to take the spotlight away from you? Newsflash, I forgot you were in the room! And I don’t even sort of care if I had the attention of every man in the club. None of those people matter, not even a little! There’s only one person who does, my boyfriend Duke. And he’s not here, because—”
Without warning, I burst into tears. Sergei hesitated, and after a minute he asked, “Are you having some kind of nervous breakdown?”
“Probably!” I slid down with my back against the locker as jagged sobs shook me.
Sergei muttered, “Shit.” He paced around a bit, then crouched down in front of me and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. It just annoyed me that you were grandstanding, that’s all. Come on Quinn, stop.”
I yelled between sobs, “I’m not crying over that, and I wasn’t grandstanding! I was trying to take my mind off the fact that my boyfriend is on a date with a hot, rich, handsome hockey player right now! How am I supposed to compete with that? I’m just this weird, skinny guy who periodically infests the house with cats and squirrels!”
“You…what?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you trying to say your boyfriend’s cheating on you?”
“Of course not. He would never do that!”
“I’m confused.” Sergei looked around, then brought me a towel and said, “Here, dry your eyes. You’re making a mess of yourself.” I scrubbed my face with the towel before tossing it aside, and he muttered, “Yikes.”
I took a deep, shuddering breath and demanded, “What?”
“You were wearing a lot of eye makeup, and now it’s all smeary. You kind of look like a homicidal clown.” When I started sobbing again, he exclaimed, “Shit, sorry. Come on, stop crying, will you? I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything! Just go away.” I wrapped my arms around my knees.
“I can’t leave you like this.”
“Sure you can. You hate me, so it should be easy.”
“I hate everybody. You shouldn’t take it personally.” I frowned at him and dragged my hand over my eyes, and he said, “Now your makeup’s really fucked.”
“Good!”
“You should try to calm down.”
“I am!”
“Would a drink help?” When I nodded, he ran from the room.
