by Cynthia Dane
“Oh, nothing but! I hear she’s trouble, too!”
“You really have no idea,” he mouths in my direction.
We eat dinner half an hour later. Although I offer to get up and help Irene serve the ribs and peas, she insists that I am her guest and I should stay seated. Drew, however, is recruited to help before he has the chance to sit down. Grandma and grandson bicker about what a lazy ass he probably is (although he isn’t, says the subtext.) I brush pea remnants off the table. By the time I’m served dinner, I’m hungry enough to eat my hand.
Drew sits next to me. He shoots me a glance as I help myself to the iced tea with lemon.
“You know,” Irene shakes a spoon full of peas in our direction, “you two ain’t so bad looking together. Almost as nice to look at as my ex-husband and me.”
“Do you mean Mr. Benton?” I say.
“Mr. Benton! Ain’t nobody calling him that around here. I called him Charlie. So that’s all I know him as.” She takes a bite of her ribs. Sauce dribbles from her fingers as she nods and hums at how grand of a cook she is. “Anyway, no. I had another husband before him. Now that was a nice looking fella. Married him for his looks, though. Turns out that’s a terrible reason to marry somebody. Looks fade, kids.”
“Marrying my granddad for his money worked out great?” Drew dryly asks.
“Who said I married him for his money? I was in it for the big dick.”
Drew spews his iced tea across the table. As I fall into a fit laughter, Irene says, ignoring her grandson’s mess in favor of her own cooking, “The money was a bonus, especially in that divorce. At some point, a woman realizes the dick ain’t worth it.”
I’m still laughing, although Irene says that while looking in my direction. Oh, come on. She can’t know this about us. Was the quip about marrying for looks directed at Drew? Is that why we’re together? This whole time, I thought it was about his money. And his dick. Guess I’m not better than Irene, although she clearly wanted the respectability of marriage to go along with her pursuits. I think I’d be better off jumping into the Willamette like my ex-boyfriend Preston’s current woman, but whatever.
We all have our reasons for doing what we do. Some are less glamorous than others. Some make our grandsons spew tea onto the dinner table and exclaim, “Oh, come on!”
“Never underestimate the power of good dick,” Irene says before another chomp of ribs. “By the way, do you think these need a little more salt? You know what, I’ll go get it.”
Drew has completely lost his appetite by the time his grandmother leaves. I’m still snickering in my seat when he turns to me and says, “Glad you think it’s so funny. That’s my grandpa she’s talking about.”
“What? I don’t know your grandpa.” My chuckles finally die down as he continues to glare at me. “At least I know where you get it from, though.”
“Get what?”
He instantly regrets asking that. For good reason. “Your big dick,” I mouth at him.
“Come the fuck on.” That’s what greets Irene when she returns to the table. Things don’t get much better for Drew after that.
You know what? Irene’s fun. I like her. Think she likes me, too, because we spend most of dinner and the dish cleanup afterward making light fun of Drew and his “tragic” taste in women. Irene regales me with tails of his high school and college girlfriends, one “floozy” after another who were either too stupid to realize they never stood a chance in his family or were only too familiar with who he was. When she asks me which one I take myself for, I honestly tell her, “Not sure why I can’t be both. I’m a pretty big floozy, but I’m smart at it.” For a moment, Irene looks like she’s about to kick me out of her house. Then she erupts into uproarious laughter, like there’s nothing else so funny.
“Woo, Drew, I think this one might be a keeper!” That’s what Irene says as she heads upstairs later in the evening. “Although that doesn’t mean I condone you two having premarital sleep in my guest room. Drew, you take the couch tonight. Guest gets the guest room, that’s how it works.”
Drew is already half passed out on the couch in the living room. He drags the afghan down and acts like he’s about to fall asleep. I know better, of course. He’s simply avoiding me.
“So, uh…” I lean over the back, strands of my hair falling down and tickling his cheek. He doesn’t move. “Your grandma’s fun. Best kept secret in Washington.”
“Best kept secret of the Bentons, you mean?” he shoots back.
“Hmph. I wouldn’t know about that.”
His gaze lingers on mine. “Why are you really here, Cher?”
While I understand his doubt, I can’t help but be mildly offended by his tone. “I told you the truth. I wanted to know more about you. Meet this mysterious grandmother of yours you like to talk about. Does she know what you do for a living?”
“No, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”
“Wasn’t gonna, but what does she think you do?”
“I have a ‘consulting’ firm in Seattle.”
“Consulting what?”
“She doesn’t ask, so I don’t make up shit to tell her.”
My elbows dig into the back of the couch. Fingertips touch my chin as I entertain contemplative thoughts. “You think she was telling the truth about your grandfather’s dick?”
“Don’t you think you should be going to bed?”
Messing with him has never been so much fun! Now, if you could guarantee that we’d be feeling like this for the rest of our lives? I might believe that I have finally found my true match.
Too bad we both know exactly where this is going after this. I really am better off going to bed and pretending none of this has happened. Otherwise, I risk liking Irene a little too much and missing her when I inevitably leave Drew’s life. And I might end up liking Drew a little too much, too.
Chapter 26
DREW
Can we fall back for a moment and address what the hell happened yesterday?
Even if I expected to see Cher at my grandmother’s place – which I didn’t, by the way – there was no way to anticipate the absolute shit show that was my dinner. So glad they could yuck it up like they had known each other for a hundred years. I don’t get it. Cher should have offended my grandmother no fewer than five times during dinner alone. Yet everything she said only made my grandma laugh or chide her for being a little too blunt. Let me assure you, though, that wasn’t her truly scolding Cher. She was basically encouraging her. I dunno. I have no idea what kind of conspiracy blossomed between them, but I don’t like it.
You’d think I would, though. The feelings I’m developing for Cher lend themselves to wanting her to get along with my grandmother. She’s hated every girl I’ve dated since high school. Then again, she’s never met the ones I was working for a client. If my grandma really knew what I did for a living… I’d never hear the end of it. Hell, she’d probably never talk to me again. My grandmother can be sensitive like that. I don’t blame her. She’s had a lot in life to be sensitive about.
Cher leaves early in the morning. She doesn’t hang around for one of my grandma’s stellar breakfasts of sausage and eggs. Yet she lingers for a few minutes outside of her rental car, allowing me a chance to ask her what’s going on between us.
“What are you talking about?” she snorts, arm looping over the top of the car door. “Thought we were dating. Let’s keep it simple, Drew.”
“So you still want to meet up soon?”
“When will you be back in Portland?”
Is she really asking me that? With that cheeky smile and those sexy, grabbable legs poking out of her cotton shorts? “What day do you want me to back there, huh?”
“I’d say today, but I overheard your grandmother giving you a honey-do list.”
“I can be back tomorrow afternoon. Early.” I hold back the door so she can’t yet close it and be on her way. “I’m taking you out for a date. Whatever you want.”
She glances at my jeans and bites her lip. “You know what I want, Benton.”
Really? We’ve gotta bring that up again? I haven’t had my breakfast yet.
Cher pulls out onto the highway. I stay outside long enough to watch her car disappear in the distance. Upon my return to the house, my grandma hands me a list and makes it clear I’m not going anywhere until the garden fence is reinforced and her downstairs toilet unclogged.
Sometimes, I wonder about the power some women have over me.
***
“But do you know the unipiper?”
The air conditioner keeps the mall a cool seventy degrees, although I hear tales that it’s eighty-five outside. A draft blankets my arms as I whirr down the empty aisles. Well, near-empty. We all know how America’s malls are doing these days. It takes savvy marketing and an iron will to get lazy online shoppers into a giant box full of people. It takes more to get them to spend money. My tender heart remembers the days of stuffed stores and departments galore. Those were the days when my mother bothered to shop at the mall. She’d grab me, my sister, and her BFF of the moment for a day of shopping in a busy mall. Now? I can swerve my giant animal scooter around a kiosk selling customizable baseball caps – yes, please – without worrying about a soul.
Even if it means spinning a full lap and almost knocking the head of my bull into the ass of Cher’s tiger.
She glances over her shoulder. Giant, round sunglasses adorn her scalp, but it’s the dangly jade earrings and the sleeves of her green and yellow kimono that have me wagging my eyebrows. Okay, so maybe it’s the sultry look, too. She’s painted some fantastic makeup onto her face. Yes, I notice these things. I die for a pair of eyes lined in black.
“The unipiper,” she repeats. Her fingers remain wrapped around the handles of her mighty plush tiger. Way down at the other end of the walkway is a four-year-old riding around on an elephant. You know, the target audience for these things? “Do I know him?”
“That’s what I asked, yes.” I scoot my bull forward, its butt tapping her tiger’s butt. Cher jerks in her seat, cheeks puffing and foot sliding off its rest. Yeah, that was a serious impact. Whoops. “Do you know the unpiper?”
She looks like I’ve put the spotlight on her. Naturally, she doesn’t know that I’m really the police and this whole mall is our interrogation chamber. I want to know her affiliations. Her hobbies. Her haunts. Who has she bribed, and for how much?
This all started because we had a friendly “who is more Oregonian?” fight that began at the frozen yogurt shop and ended by the ice rink, where I spotted these beautiful specimens of the animal kingdom. Speaking of bribes, I basically had to bribe the guy selling the rides to let our adult-asses go for a ride. “You see that babe there, my dude?” I asked the young man who had been eyeing Cher ever since she walked over exactly one step behind me. “I’m trying to show her a nice time today. If you know what I mean.” My hearty wink came with a very nice untaxable tip for him. He definitely spoke my language after that.
Cher and I have gone from talking about who used to call potato wedges at the deli “jojos” to who remembers when the Pearl was a shady, shady place. I’ve definitely been here longer than she has, but I continue to be surprised by her knowledge of the area and her memories of going to school not too far away from me. Color me surprised that she went to a private, all-girls’ school downtown. I spent ten minutes listening to her talk about the MAX’s Green Line construction back in the day. Since that line doesn’t run anywhere near my stomping grounds, new or old, I learned a few things from her.
Now we’re discussing some of the human staples that Keep Portland Weird. She started with the guy who styles herself in blue from head to toe and hangs around Pioneer Square. I countered with the “guru” who sold stolen shoes down by the waterfront. Would you believe me if I said he used to be my dad’s classmate in his private school in Beaverton? ‘Cauuuuse he totally was.
The conversation has come back to the unipiper. That’s when you know I’m getting desperate.
“Do you mean personally know him?” Cher is nothing but knowing smirks as she turns her tiger in slow, tight circles. “Because I definitely know of him. Saw him up in Northwest only a few days ago. Spooked quite a few people out having their cocktails on the sidewalk.”
“Duh, I mean personally. Why would I be asking if I didn’t mean personally? You’re not real Portland unless you know the unipiper by his first name and occasionally get brewskies together. Could tell you his favorite IPA.”
I begin a sloooow pursuit of her tiger past two boarded up windows. Geez, more stores are gone now? This place is turning into a veritable ghost town. Pretty soon, it will be nothing but ice skaters, janitors, and security guards.
“So what’s his name?” Cher sweetly asks.
My eyes are transfixed on her ass when she asks that. Is it inappropriate to think about fucking while riding around on a child’s toy? I mean, I’m pretty much an overgrown child, so it pans out, but I don’t think most of the children feeling like bosses on a bull three times their own size are thinking about what I’m contemplating right now. Mm-mmm. Cher has a great ass.
“Are you alive back there?” she asks. “Or is that hat on your head the only thing keeping you from keeling over?”
Just for this ride, I’ve turned my cap backward. More aerodynamic that way. “D… Drew. His name is Drew.”
She cocks one finely trimmed eyebrow. “Are you saying that you’re the unipiper?”
“I do own a Darth Vader mask.” We come to a stop in front of Hot Topic. I sit up straight in my bully seat, while Cher continues to lean against the tiger’s head. “Although, you’ve caught me. I don’t have a set of bagpipes. Or a unicycle, for that matter.”
Her little bouts of laughter make me grin like an idiot. “That’s silly.” She pulls away on her tiger. “You’re silly.”
“Not as silly as Darth Vader riding around on a unicycle and playing the bagpipes!” As I said before, though, at least he keeps Portland the fun kind of weird.
We play this whole date by ear, never knowing what’s coming next or where we might like to go. Us coming to this mall nowhere near where either of us lives was the first of many surprises. I took Cher out for brunch at what I consider to be the place to get authentic crepes. She told me she wanted to stroll the nearby mall, so that’s what we did, until we ended up in our pissing contest that lasted our allotted time on the animals. As sad as I am to say goodbye to my new favorite bull in the world, I’m more excited to take Cher’s hand and let the whole mall, from the teenagers hanging out to the fifty-somethings likewise passing the time, that she’s my gal from now until she decides she’s done with me.
I’m not going to press her to give me an answer about our status. The fact she showed up at my grandmother’s house – let alone that my grandmother liked her – says enough. For now. It may be a matter of time before she completely breaks up with me. Until then, I’ll appreciate these halcyon days full of flirting, hand-holding, and pretending that we’re actually compatible.
Doesn’t she have the best smile? You know you’re doing good when she turns to you and smiles like that. It’s not her fake fall-into-my-web smile that so many guys see before they lose their minds or wallets. It’s a smile that tells me she’s having a good time, and that I’m this much closer to having her love me.
If that’s what I want. I might not get a choice.
We stare at window displays, discuss what kind of style I would have if I were a woman, and promptly decide that I would either be a massive tomboy or the girliest girl to every outgirly Cher. “You’d look great in a romper.” Cher points to the outfit hanging on a mannequin. All I can think about is that mannequin having to pee. Seriously, how do you go to the bathroom in those things? What really is the price of fashion? Because my bladder isn’t one I’m willing to pay. “Maybe a little denim one with daisies stitched on the front pocket. Get you a cute straw hat or a cross-body bag for you to ho
ld your tampons.”
“I like how this hypothetical female version of myself is already on her period.”
“There’s nothing sacred left between us, Drew. You’ve already seen my blood. It’s only right that I’d see yours.”
“On your sheets, I should hope.”
She nudges me. I deserve that.
We can’t stay at the mall forever. Since it’s later in the afternoon, I’m thinking cocktails downtown. I convince her to come with me to one of the top-floor lounges that give us a fantastic view of both rivers dividing Portland into its traditional five “quadrants.” Cher quips that she can see her quadrant of Northwest from where we’re sitting. I point out that I can literally see my building down at the South Waterfront. Our server is a guy who also happens to be named Drew. The moment we see his nametag and I out myself as a fellow Drew, we’re already having laughs and asking each other if Nancy is our favorite Drew. From the way we both laugh like it’s the funniest joke we’ve heard, you’d think we’ve never told it to anyone else before. Cher merely rolls her eyes and says she’d love to meet “the” Cher for once.
“Which one?” I ask, as our waiter goes to get our drinks. “The queen of retirement, or the queen of plaid?”
“I’ll have you know that Cher Horowitz is a fashion icon,” she informs me. “Also, she got to have a really weird relationship with Paul Rudd, so we can’t fault her for that. Actual queen and living legend.”
“Right. Wasn’t he like her stepbrother in that?”
“And in college, while she was sixteen.”
“How badly has that movie aged, again?”
Cher props her head up on her hand and wistfully stares out the window. The early evening sun glistens against the glass. It’s enough to keep my eyes averted, but Cher continues to stare. I’m not convinced she’s actually looking at anything. Probably a forgotten memory.
