Sin With Me (Bad Habit)

by J. T. Geissinger

  “Me, too.”

  There’s something strange in Kat’s voice that makes Chloe and me look at her. She inhales a long, trembling breath, and then guzzles the rest of her margarita.

  “Kat?” says Chloe, reaching for her hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I’m not raining on your parade.”

  “My parade is your parade,” says Chloe. “Talk.”

  “It’s really not a big deal.”

  “Don’t make me beat it out of you.”

  “I’m fine, honestly—”

  “Cut the crap,” interrupts Chloe. “We’re family. Talk.”

  Her hands shaking, Kat pours herself another margarita. Then she blows out a hard breath, sweeps her hair off her face, and looks at us.

  “Nico and I have been trying to get pregnant. And it’s not happening. I got my period today. And I’m . . . because of what happened before . . . I’m afraid . . . there might be something wrong with me.” She looks at the tabletop. In a quieter voice she says, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to give Nico the family he wants, and then . . .”

  She trails off into silence. Her face is pale and somber. I feel every ounce of her pain, exactly as if it were my own.

  “And then you’ll adopt,” I say gently.

  She looks up and meets my eyes. She whispers, “That’s what he said. But—”

  “No buts. If he’s on board with that idea, there’s no problem. Have you seen a doctor yet?”

  Kat shakes her head. “I’ve been too freaked out to go. I know it’s stupid, but I’m worried what I might find out.”

  “We’ll make an appointment for next week and go with you,” Chloe declares.

  “I agree. Denial isn’t the way to deal with this, sweetie.”

  Kat looks at me. Her big green eyes flash with sudden anger. “Excuse me, but you’re in no position to be talking to me about denial, Grace!”

  I’m taken aback by the force in her tone. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this whole Brody situation you’re so determined to pretend isn’t happening!”

  Enunciating every word, I say calmly, “There is nothing happening between me and Brody.”

  “You can deny it all you want, but I’ve never seen you look at a man like that.”

  I can’t resist. I have to know. Even though this is dangerous territory, I’m going in. “Like what?”

  “Hopefully.”

  I laugh. “Honey, the only time I’ve ever looked at a man hopefully is right before I unzip his pants for the first time and I’m praying he’s packing more than five inches.”

  Kat shakes her head. “Fine. Don’t admit it. But it doesn’t change what I saw.”

  “Maybe you need to get your eyes checked.”

  In a flat, no-nonsense tone, Chloe says, “You realize we know you too well for you to get away with this tough-chick act you try to pull, right?”

  Kat and I look at her in surprise. Chloe rarely calls anyone out on their shit, and when she does, she feels so guilty afterward she always apologizes and says she didn’t mean it.

  Right now she doesn’t look guilty. She actually looks a little mad.

  Maybe being a mother is bringing out the tiger in her.

  “It’s not an act, Chloe. I actually am very tough.”

  She retorts, “Only on the outside.”

  Impressed, Kat blinks at her. “Go on, girl. Preach.”

  Encouraged by the traitor, Chloe leans forward. “I’ve seen the way you look at Brody, too. And not only that, but I saw the way you looked at Abby when you first held her. And the way you looked at her when you just came in.”

  She stares at me with a challenge in her blue eyes.

  I say drily, “Your large, beast-like child is uncommonly pretty, Chloe. I like pretty things. That’s all.”

  Chloe scoops up a handful of chips and chucks them at me. They smack me on the chest before I can duck out of the way. “Hey!”

  “Take that back!”

  I brush the crumbs off my shirt. “You’re right. That was unnecessary. She isn’t beast-like, she’s beautiful—”

  “Not that, you nincompoop!”

  Even though Chloe is trying to fry me with her eyeballs, I can’t help myself. I break into a grin and look at Kat. “Nincompoop? Oh boy, now she’s breaking out the big guns.”

  Chloe—aggravated to the point that she pounds her fist on the table, making the silverware clatter—growls, “Stop trying to pretend you don’t have a heart!”

  That stops me cold.

  I sit back against my chair and exhale. Blood pounds in my temples. “I’m happy, Chloe—”

  “You’re not happy. You’re safe. They’re two different things. You said that to me once, and it was totally true. So now I’m saying it to you, and I’m going to say something else that you’re not going to like but you really need to hear. Are you ready?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Chloe ignores that. She leans even farther over the table and looks deep into my eyes.

  “You didn’t die in that car crash with your parents, Grace. You just stopped living.”

  Sucker punch to the gut. My throat closes. I swallow, but I can’t find any air.

  Every once in a while Princess Buttercup pulls a gem like that one out of the clouds and knocks me flat on my ass.

  I look back and forth between her and Kat. “You two have already talked about this, haven’t you?”

  Kat remains silent. Chloe lifts a shoulder.

  Houston, we have a problem.

  “Well I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Tough shit,” says Chloe softly, holding my gaze. “We’ve let you get away with hiding for way too long. You’re my friend and I love you, and I’m sick of watching you use sex as a shield. You distract men with your friendly vagina so they don’t have a chance to get to know you, so you don’t have a chance to get attached, so you’ll always be alone because you think you should be. Well I’ve got news for you. That’s a shitty, empty, pointless way to spend a life. And you’re better than that, Grace. You. Deserve. Happiness. But the only way you’re ever going to get it is if you let someone in.”

  Kat leans toward me so now I’ve got two meddling harpies up in my grill.

  “Like Brody, for instance. Or Marcus. Hell, even Barney seems to have the hots for you!”

  I spread my hands flat on the table. I inhale a slow, deep breath, contemplating what I’ve just heard, and how much I should tell them.

  Finally I realize I have to tell them the truth. The whole, ugly truth. They want something for me that I can never have, and until I tell them everything, they won’t stop pestering me. Not since they both found their happily-ever-afters and decided I should get one, too.

  So . . . here goes. I take another breath and begin.

  “I love you guys. I love that you’re worried about me. I hear what you’re saying, I do. And now I’m going to tell you both to mind your own business because neither of you will ever—could ever—possibly understand what it’s like to wake up one day with no family, no memory, and no idea who you are or where you are or even what your own goddamn name is.”

  Kat says softly, “Honey—”

  I hold up a hand to stop her. “No. This is the last thing I’ll say, and then we’re not going to ever mention this topic again. It took me years after the accident to not want to kill myself. I lived through hell. And I made it out alive. But I could go back there any minute.”

  Chloe blinks. “Go back? What do you mean by that?”

  I blow out a hard breath. “With the kind of amnesia I have and the damage to my hippocampus, I could lose all my memories again. My new memories, the ones I’ve made since the accident. I could wake up one day and it would all be gone, like that”—I snap my fingers—“again.”

  Horrified, Chloe and Kat gasp.

  “Oh my God,” chokes Kat. “You never told us that!”

  “Well for obvious reasons it’
s not something I really want to discuss. It’s just . . . no one has a guarantee they’ll get a tomorrow. Anyone could die at any moment. People know that on an intellectual level, but unless you’re old the odds of death on any one day are low. But for me, there’s a good chance every day I could wake up in the morning and have no idea who or where I am. Every day, literally, could be my last.”

  Chloe and Kat are white, silent, gaping at me in shock.

  “So to fall in love . . .”

  I have to take another deep breath because I’m getting so choked up. “To fall in love would not only be pointless, but also possibly the cruelest thing I could ever do to someone.” I look at Chloe. “Imagine if A.J. woke up tomorrow morning and had no memory of who you are. No memory of Abby, or your life together, or even being in love with you. What if you were nothing to him but a stranger? How would you feel?”

  Her eyes well with water. She whispers, “I’d want to die.”

  “Yes,” I say quietly, holding her gaze. “Welcome to my world.”

  There’s a long, tense silence. Then, at the same time, Chloe and Kat burst into tears.

  Kat jumps up, throws her arms around my neck, and starts to sob all over me. Hugging me tightly, she wails, “Why didn’t you ever fucking tell us this before, you fucking selfish goddamn twat?”

  I have to smile. When Kat gets emotional her paper-thin logical side flies out the window and she starts to curse like a drunken sailor and emote all over the place.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” I say, my face smashed into her boobs. “Couldn’t be anything to do with the reaction I knew I’d get.”

  “Oh, Gracie. Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  Now I’ve got Chloe on my other side, hugging me and crying into my hair.

  I feel like someone should be filming this for a PMS commercial.

  “Oh, stop you two. You’re ruining my silk blouse.” I gently push them away. They sit, their wet faces and big, weepy eyes so depressing I have to down the contents of my glass in one gulp.

  Jesus, women are high maintenance.

  “My point of telling you this isn’t to make you feel sorry for me, but to try to get you to accept that the house in the suburbs and the two point five babies and the man of my dreams isn’t in the cards for me. And that’s okay. I have a full life. I have a job I love.” I glance at them sourly. “And I have you two dimwits. Quite frankly, I think I’m luckier than most.”

  Silence.

  Then Kat bursts into tears again. Which of course makes Chloe join in.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” I sigh, and pour myself another drink.

  By the time I get back to my condo, I’m mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. All I want to do is take a bath and a Xanax and crawl into bed. I drop my purse and keys on the console inside the door, flip on the lights, and go into my bedroom, where I notice the red light blinking on the answering machine. It’s a message from the concierge downstairs, saying they have a package waiting for me. I call down and tell them to send it up.

  Five minutes later I’m staring at an enormous bouquet of white orchids in a crystal vase.

  “What the hell?” I mutter, standing at the open door in my bare feet.

  “Would you like me to put it anywhere in particular?” asks Sheridan, the night concierge, from behind the flowers. He’s a big guy, but the bouquet is even bigger. I can’t see his upper body.

  “Sure, how about the dining room table?” I swing the door open wider and let him in.

  Sheridan walks carefully forward, peering through the flowers, trying not to trip on any stray objects.

  “Chair on your left,” I warn, just as he’s about to stumble into it.

  “Thanks. This sucker’s huge.” He manages to get it to the dining room without breaking any body parts or furniture, and sets it down on the table with a grunt. Then he stands back and examines the flowers with his hands propped on his hips.

  “Looks like you made a big impression on somebody, Miss Grace.”

  “Or someone heard I died.”

  Startled, Sheridan looks over at me.

  “Only kidding.” My gallows humor doesn’t always go over.

  I hand him five bucks and show him to the door. Once he’s gone, I open the white envelope attached to the flowers. It reads:

  Grace,

  Bring your date to my housewarming on Saturday. I need to get a look at the competition.

  Yours,

  Brody

  PS – I’ve made a list of rebuttals to your arguments of why we shouldn’t date. It’s pretty detailed but I’ll give you a little preview of #17, in response to your assertion that it would be awkward if it didn’t work out between us due to the inevitability we’d be forced to see each other because of the relationships of our mutual friends:

  No one has to know.

  PPS – I can’t stop thinking about you. I might need to seek therapy. Know any good therapists?

  PPPS – I know you can’t stop thinking about me, either. If it feels like this now . . .

  He leaves the rest unwritten, but the meaning is clear. If it feels like this now, before we’ve even touched—except for a brief, closed-mouthed kiss that I quickly ended—what would it feel like if I actually gave in and we got together?

  “Like trouble,” I say aloud to the empty room.

  Cocky son of a bitch.

  He signed it with a scribble, his phone number beneath. I hesitate for a moment, thinking, but then decide to call, thank him for the flowers, and offer another firm, polite refusal so this doesn’t go any further.

  I mentally don my strongest, steeliest armor and dial his number from my cell.

  He answers after two rings with a sleepy, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Brody,” I say briskly, all business. “This is Grace. I’m calling to say thank—”

  “Grace. Do I know a Grace?” he muses, his voice low, scratchy, and full of mischief. “Lemme think. Describe what you look like.”

  “Ha-ha. You know exactly what I look like. As I was saying, I’m calling to—”

  “Are you the Grace with the hump back and the hairy wart on the end of her nose?”

  “What? No! Of course not!”

  “Hmm.” He pretends to think. “The short one with the extra toe on her left foot?”

  “Oh my God. This is ridiculous. You know exactly who I am—”

  “Oh yes,” he sighs dreamily. “You’re the one with skin like fresh cream and hair the color of autumn and eyes like thunderclouds over the sea.”

  After a moment I ask, “Have you been drinking?”

  I feel his chuckle all the way down to my toes. “No. I’ve actually been napping. And having seriously dirty and wonderful dreams of you. Come over, I’m still in bed.”

  I put the phone to my chest, close my eyes, and inhale a big, calming breath.

  “Hello?”

  I put the phone back up to my ear. “I’m here.”

  “Did you drop the phone?”

  “No. Sort of. It doesn’t matter. Listen, what I’ve been trying to say is—”

  “I just want to get to know you better,” he interrupts with sudden intensity. “No strings. No expectations. No pressure. Don’t blow me off yet. Okay?”

  Dear God. This man is going to be the death of me.

  I turn my back on the flowers and walk slowly down the hallway into my bedroom. I go into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror.

  “You’re not saying anything,” he prompts. “What’re you doing right now?”

  I answer honestly. “Looking at myself in the mirror and trying to decide if I should hang up or not.”

  “Please don’t,” he softly begs.

  Something in the center of my chest melts. Warmth spreads throughout my body.

  Fuck.

  I whisper, “I have this really awful feeling that you’re going to be my Kryptonite.”

  “So you have a Superman complex. Interesting.”

  His tone has swi
tched from pleading to teasing, lightning fast. I wonder if it’s because he could sense I was about to not only hang up on him because it was getting too intense, but erase his number forever, move to the Amazon jungle, and join an all-female cult that worships cats and carbohydrates as divinities.

  But because we’ve moved to safer ground, I ditch that plan and stay on the line.

  “Actually Batman was always my favorite.”

  “Really? Why?”

  He sounds genuinely interested, so I tell him. “Because he’s not really a superhero. He doesn’t have superhuman strength, or amazing powers, or really any advantages other than money and technology. He’s just a man with a fucked-up past trying to do the right thing.”

  The silence that follows throbs with something I can’t describe. Then, in a husky voice that cracks more than once, Brody says, “On a scale of one to ten, how weird would it be if I told you I just fell in love with you?”

  I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh out loud. “Eleventy-seven.”

  He laughs, too. “Oh good. No worries, then.”

  After our laughter dies down, he says, “Moving on—you haven’t yet thanked me for the flowers.”

  I roll my eyes. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do this entire call?”

  “Pretend you’re not as into me as I am into you. Your usual MO. But that’s beside the point. Did the florist send the big drapey white orchids like I asked?”

  “They did.”

  “And are they as amazing as they promised me they’d be?”

  “They are.”

  He sounds smug. “Good. You can go ahead then.”

  “Go ahead and what?”

  “Thank me! Tsk. Where are your manners, Slick?”

  “Slick? Did you just call me Slick?”

  His voice turns practical. “I figure you’ve probably been called every variation of red, in honor of your hair color, so I thought I’d go with the general, overall impression you made the first time I saw you.”

  I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not. “You thought I looked . . . slick.”

  Without hesitation or artifice, he quietly replies, “I thought you looked like the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”