Flirtasaurus

by Erin Mallon

  “Think they have room service?” I ask as I flip through the welcome pamphlet on the desk.

  “Ha, probably not. I did see a pizza place down the road a bit, though, if you’re hungry.”

  “Nah, I filled up on Suzie Q’s spiral ham,” I say sadly. “I was just curious. Ooh...” I spot a tiny electric coffee maker on the dresser. It looks just like the one I kept in my dorm room illegally during my freshman year. “But they do have…” I check out the labels on the tiny packaging. “…decaf coffee and unrefrigerated coconut-flavored creamer.”

  “Sounds disgusting. Shall we?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a smile. “We shall.”

  I take the carafe into the bathroom to fill it with water, and when I come back out to the main room, he’s setting things up like he’s moving into the place. He’s pulled down the covers on one side, has his shoes off and tucked under the bed, and his laptop is charging on the nightstand.

  “Figured I’d let you take the left side,” he says when he catches me watching him.

  “Sure. Okay. Yeah. Why?”

  “I read an article once that people who sleep on the left side of the bed have sunnier dispositions in the morning. Figured you could use some cheering up.”

  “A gorgeous scientific mind like yours believes that kind of crap?”

  I fill the paper coffee filter with decaf and press the red button. Sounds of hissing and bubbling begin right away.

  “Gorgeous, huh?” He winks. I don’t think he’s ever winked at me before. When I wink, I look like I have dust in my eye. “I think they did some kind of poll amongst long-term couples.”

  “Left while you’re lying down, though, or left while you’re standing up and looking at the bed? Because those are two different things.”

  “True. I don’t—”

  “And if it’s while you’re lying down, well then you have to ask yourself if it’s left while you’re on your back? Or on your stomach? Because those are also two different things.”

  “You got me, Calliope. I clearly haven’t given the happy side of the bed hypothesis enough scientific thought to offer you a succinct summation.”

  “And for the record, what makes you think I plan to sleep in this bed with you?”

  “Oh.” His eyes widen a moment. “I can totally sleep on the floor if you’re… I mean, I didn’t mean to be presumptuous just because last night we—”

  “Ralph, I’m kidding. I’m not letting you sleep on this heinous carpet with scurrying bugs. Besides, last night I did do a reverse cowgirl on you in a public institution after role-playing like I was on Whose Line is it Anyway? and swinging from your member like a demented Tarzan impersonator. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not shy.”

  He laughs quietly. “Alright. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, I’m going to be completely uncomfortable, but it won’t be because of you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I pour the coffee and powdered creamer into two tiny paper cups.

  “It’s single serve, so I guess we each get half.”

  “Works for me.”

  We sit on the edge of the bed together and sip.

  “This is disgustingly delicious.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So,” he says.

  “So,” I respond. I know what’s coming.

  “At what point are we going to discuss what happened tonight?”

  “Which part?” I ask. “The part when you outed me as a dino porn writer? Or when I acted like a spoiled brat and told all my family members they are living pointless lives, and I am essentially ashamed to be associated with them?”

  “Would you call it dino porn, though?” he asks with a smile.

  “I wouldn’t, but some would. Some certainly have. Tracy Triassic has a thick skin, though. She doesn’t mind a snarky review. You gave her a google, huh?”

  “I did more than that. I read the entirety of Styracosaurus’ Secret.”

  “What?! OhmyGod.” I slap him on the shoulder. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “Eventually. But I was enjoying myself, seeing that other side of you.”

  “Which side is that?”

  “The one that believes in happily ever afters, and having fun, and generally letting go of being so serious all the time. Calliope, your writing is friggin’ delightful.”

  “Yeah?” I can’t believe how much his feedback means to me at this moment.

  “Yeah. I just got my pre-order for Tryst with a Triceratops.”

  “Are you serious?! Oh my gosh, you’re killing me with this right now.” I laugh.

  My face feels warm all of a sudden and not just because of the questionable coffee.

  “Subject change okay?” he asks.

  “Sure, yeah.”

  “Cool. You’re, uh… you’re a little…”

  “Go on, you can say it.”

  “…tough on your family. Particularly on your mom.”

  “Virtually no one in the world does what they say they’re going to do. Have you ever noticed that?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Think about it. Who, besides you and me and Dr. Knowles, do you personally know who has accomplished exactly what they set out to do? Who had a dream placed in them as a kid and then took step by step by step to live into that dream? To walk the exact path on the planet that was meant exactly for them? We have those impulses for a reason, don’t you think? And people just… they give up on themselves all the time, and it makes me sad.

  “And the kicker is they almost always do it for love. They meet someone and fall in love, then give up everything else they said they wanted. That’s not love; that’s a cop-out. It’s an excuse not to do the hard work to make something of yourself. And I absolutely refuse to let that happen to me. I don’t know if I want kids, but if I ever do? They’re going to get a far better example from me than the one I got. They’re going to see that they can have the exact life they want.”

  “And what if the life they want involves love? Comfort? Simplicity? What’s wrong with that?”

  “I mean… nothing, I guess, but—”

  “Because from my perspective? Those people around that table tonight seemed like genuinely happy, content people. Didn’t seem to me that there was anything missing from their lives. And I’ll tell you something else. Every one of them lit up when they saw you.”

  I have no clue what to say to that.

  “You know, for being a scientist…” he continues, “I’d expect you to be more curious.”

  “More curious? Ralph. You’re looking at the kid who memorized the entire Dinopedia when I was four. When I was seven, I took an entire month constructing a Cryolophosaurus out of clay. For Christ’s sake, just yesterday, I read five different articles about dirt because I wanted to understand how the soil during the Jurassic differed from the soil in the Triassic. I am curious as hell!”

  “About people, though?”

  That question knocks the wind right out of me.

  “What?”

  “Does that curiosity apply to people? To your family? Your friends? Me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re…?”

  “You assume you have everyone figured out the moment you meet them. You don’t allow for nuance, for surprise. And after observing things tonight, it seems like you’ve been assuming you know the inner workings of your family, even their innermost desires, for over two decades now.”

  “Holy psychoanalysis!”

  “Is it true, though?” he asks and patiently awaits my answer.

  I struggle for a moment. “I… I’m curious about people!”

  “So why don’t you ever ask me questions about myself?”

  “What? Come on. I ask you questions!”

  “Not real
ly. I ask you questions. We talk about you. If the topic ever shifts to me, it’s almost always because I’ve offered up something about myself. Not because you asked.”

  Is that true? God, can that be true?

  “If I’m so awful,” I say in a small voice. “Why do you even like me?”

  “Who said you were awful? And for that matter, who said I liked you?”

  “Oh. I just thought, since we’ve been—”

  “Calliope?”

  His warm hands cup my face.

  “Yeah?”

  “I really like you.”

  My eyes shoot to his. In panic? Fear? Hope? I don’t recognize this feeling.

  “Before you tell me that I don’t, or I shouldn’t, let me be clear. I do. I think the world of you. And I am fully capable of liking you and maybe even someday loving you while still being true to my… ‘path on the planet.’”

  I start to fidget. “Alright, ‘path on the planet’ was an overly dramatic way to describe it, I know—”

  “It wasn’t. I think it’s beautiful that you feel that way. That we all have a road meant just for us. I just don’t happen to believe that road is always as straight or as mapped out as you might think,” he says. “Or that following it means cutting yourself off from love.” He watches my face for a long moment before saying, “Night Callie.”

  Then he presses the sweetest, simplest kiss on my lips.

  “Night,” I say softly.

  With that, he switches off the lamp on his side, turns his back in my direction, and falls sound asleep on the cardboard mattress beside me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At some point in the middle of the night, I gasp myself awake.

  “Whoa, whoa, you okay?” Ralph’s soothing voice says as his hand rubs down my back.

  “Where am…? Who are…? What is…?”

  “Shhhhhh. You’re okay. We’re in that motel, remember?”

  “Right. Yeah. Okay.”

  It all comes rushing back to me. The reason we’re here. The things I said to my family. The conversation Ralph and I had before I fell asleep. Way before I fell asleep, if I’m being accurate. He slept like a baby almost instantly, but I stared up at the ceiling for hours before finally drifting off. At least it felt like hours.

  I notice the blue glow coming from the laptop resting on his legs.

  “Are you watching a movie?”

  “I was. Woke up and couldn’t sleep, so I switched something on.”

  I look closer at the paused screen.

  “Finding Nemo?”

  “Yeah, thought the underwater stuff might be soothing.”

  “You think having a bum fin, dealing with a dead mom and a grieving father, and then being separated from said father, being chased by an anglerfish, then being trapped by a psychotic Australian dentist is a soothing storyline?”

  “Well, when you put it that way… no. You know you’re very vibrant for having just startled out of a sound sleep.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty zero to sixty. What can I say? What’s up with your love of Disney movies anyway?”

  “I dunno, they make me feel… safe. What’s up with your hatred of them?”

  “Hatred is too strong a word. I do think they are highly questionable, though. I mean, why do they kill off all the moms?”

  “They don’t kill off all the moms.”

  “Yeah, they do!”

  “Come on.”

  “Bambi, Dumbo, Jungle Book, Beauty & the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Cinderella, Pocahontas, The Fox and the Hound, Tarzan, A Goofy Movie for chrissakes, Ratatouille, Lilo & Stitch, Finding Nemo…”

  “Dumbo’s mother is captured and incarcerated, but never killed.”

  “Oh, okay, wise guy.”

  “And are all those mothers you listed actually deceased? Or are some of them just never mentioned?”

  “Most are dead, Ralph, but yes, some of them are just erased from the narrative completely.”

  “Alright, I do see your point. I guess I just never thought about those movies as lacking mothers, so much as showing strong fathers. Certainly better fathers than the one I barely had. I would have given anything for a Marlin or a Mufasa. Hey, if it makes you feel better, in The Lion King, Simba’s mom, Sarabi, does just fine. It’s Mufasa who’s killed.”

  “Well yeah, it’s Hamlet for lions! They had to kill the dad for accuracy. Otherwise, I’m sure Sarabi would have been the one who bit it in the wildebeest stampede.”

  “The mom is also alive and well in Moana. And in Frozen, they kill the mom and the dad, so—”

  “Hey! Spoiler alert!”

  “No way! The statute of limitations on spoilers has passed for that one. Frozen came out like eight years ago!”

  “Your point? I’ve been busy! What you just did would be like if I assumed you’d already seen The Sixth Sense, so I casually dropped the fact that Bruce Willis had been dead the whole movie.”

  His entire face falls. “What? Are you serious?”

  “OhmyGod, you haven’t seen it?” I feel like a complete asshole.

  “Of course I’ve seen it! It’s The Sixth Sense!”

  “Don’t scare me like that, you doof!” I yell and hit him with a nearly flat motel pillow.

  We laugh together. He really has the sweetest, most genuine laugh.

  When we get quiet, we lock eyes and smile.

  Silently, Ralph shuts off his laptop and places it back on the nightstand, then lies back on the bed with one arm behind his head. He reaches his other arm out to me.

  “Come here, you,” he says.

  I find that there is an offer I can’t refuse.

  I nuzzle right into that spot between his shoulder and his heart. His heavy arm drapes across my back, and his fingers start to play with my hair. It makes me want to cry.

  “Do I really not ask you questions about yourself?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. What you said really hit me. I couldn’t sleep. Think I finally dozed off like an hour or two ago.”

  “You sure it wasn’t this luxurious cardboard mattress we’re sleeping on?”

  “No, it was definitely you and what you said.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. I think I needed to hear it.”

  He continues to play with my hair. I feel goose bumps rush all over my skin.

  “I know you may not always feel it, but you’re incredibly lucky to have the family you have.”

  “Not what you experienced, huh?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Can you tell me about it? Your family?”

  “Not much to tell,” he teases me.

  “What a punk! You tell me I don’t ask questions. Now I am, and you’re—”

  “Chill, Callie. I’m messing with you.” He chuckles. “What can I tell you? It… Well… it sucked. I don’t think my dad ever wanted kids. He never seemed into it. I could tell even as a little boy. He just always seemed to be phoning it in, like I was a distraction he’d rather not deal with at that moment. Or any moment, really. I think he mostly went along with starting a family to make my mom happy, which didn’t work. I mean, she loved us, but… that’s another story. Anyway, once my sister came along, things really got bad between them. I remember feeling relieved when they finally got divorced. At least the house got quiet again.”

  “Hm. I’m guessing it was good that you and your sister had each other through that, yeah?”

  “Sort of. She was just a toddler when they split. But the fun and fighting between good ole maw and paw continues to this day, so she’s certainly experienced her fair share of the dysfunction.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Eh. It is what it is.”

  “You two close now?”

  “No. Ye
s. Well, we were. Until I fucked it up.”

  “Somehow, I don’t believe that.”

  “What?”

  “That you fucked things up.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t imagine you fucking up any relationship. You’re like the sweetest, most thoughtful guy I’ve ever met.”

  “Well. I’m not so sure Lou would agree with you.”

  “Who’s Lou?”

  “Louise. My sister.”

  “Oh.”

  I peek up at his face, and he’s staring up at the ceiling.

  “Anyway, she’s in California, so distance is also a thing. And she’s pretty wrapped up in school stuff, as she should be, so I try not to bug her too much. She’s studying to be a marine biologist.”

  He’s giving off proud big brother vibes now, and it’s just a little bit adorable.

  “Sibling scientists, huh?”

  “Ha. Yeah.”

  “Your mom must be psyched!”

  “You’d think, right?”

  “No?”

  “Is she proud? Probably. But I think her disappointment that we both moved so far away from her sort of outweighs the potential pride. We come from this tiny town in Nebraska, where no one ever leaves, and if they do, they always come back when they’re ready to settle down and raise their kids. So Louise and I certainly aren’t the norm. I think it’s pretty telling, though, that we both chose professions that take us as far away from our landlocked little lives as possible. Easy to feel trapped there. But even more so in that house. Louise chose the ocean. I chose actual outer space.

  Seriously, I used to lie in my bed at night, listening to them yell downstairs, and I’d just stare at my glow in the dark ceiling stickers, praying for the day I could get away by literally rocketing myself to the moon.”

  “You’re so…”

  “What?”

  “Open.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “No. You are.

  “Open about what, though?”

  “Everything! I’m not used to that in guys. Not in the ones I’ve dated and certainly not from the ones in my family. I’ll be the first one to smack a bitch for perpetuating stereotypes, but the emotionally repressed Irish Catholic dude thing, at least in my experience, holds pretty true.”