The Leftover Club

by Voight, Ginger

  He ran a finger along the pull string of my top. “Take off your shirt.”

  I gulped hard. Had I really chosen dare? Was I a total, freaking idiot? “Dylan…,” I started but his lips cut off all protests. He kissed me. Soft at first, but then harder and more urgently. My head tipped back as he explored my mouth brazenly with his tongue as his hand cupped the swell of my breast. I gasped again so Dylan broke the kiss.

  “Take off your shirt, Roni. Let me see you.”

  I shook my head. He was asking the impossible. “You’re high,” I dismissed.

  He nuzzled my neck. “I’m always high around you.”

  And for some reason, this comment struck me as funny. It was like we were stuck in some bizarre afterschool special about a girl who went too far because she got too high. I started giggling and I couldn’t stop. I had to pull away from him entirely. I kept trying to apologize as I sat up. He was frustrated, even angry, but I couldn’t stop laughing if my life depended on it. “I’m sorry,” I eked out as I made a beeline for the bathroom.

  I splashed water on myself to try and regain my composure, but it felt like an eternity had passed before the last of the laughter subsided. By then I was much too mortified to face Dylan. I stayed exactly where I was until someone finally knocked on the door.

  It was Bryan.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, I could tell Dylan was long gone. And who could blame him?

  “What happened?” Bryan wanted to know.

  “Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m still president of the club. Leftover, tried and true, till the day I die.”

  He pulled me close, planting a kiss on my forehead before taking me into a big hug. “Hey,” he said after a minute or two. “I made, like, a hundred bucks. Let’s blow this joint and head to Hollywood.”

  I nodded. He wrapped his arm around me and escorted me to his car.

  16: Breakaway

  September 28, 2007

  I kicked through the heap of carelessly discarded clothes covering my entryway as I shut my front door behind me. I was in no mood to deal with chaos after spending two hours in Friday afternoon rush hour traffic on no fewer than four Los Angeles freeways. “Meghan!” I hollered.

  “What?” she bellowed from her room.

  I rolled my eyes and counted to ten. If I had ever said that word in that tone to my mother, there would be no time out or discussion. I’d have had my butt grounded but good, and lucky to get phone privileges back within a month.

  “Your clothes are all over the floor!” I snapped as I waded through the mess to deposit my briefcase and purse on a nearby table.

  Meghan was out of breath when she finally emerged from her room. “Dad called. He’s on his way over. He wants to take me to Phoenix with him for a business trip.”

  So nice of him to call and ask me, given it’s my weekend. “What about Sasha?” I asked, referring to his current live-in girlfriend, who was 24, a size-2 and yet another impressionable intern from his office.

  “She’s coming, too,” Meghan retorted, sensing my tone. “It’s a spa weekend.”

  Whoopie. “Just pick up your stuff before you go.”

  “I don’t have time!” she exclaimed before stomping back to her room.

  I sighed as I bent to retrieve her discarded belongings. It was understandable for her to be excited. Ever since Wade jumped back in the dating pool, his weekends with Meghan became low priority. I was lucky if I could get one weekend out of him these days, so I wasn’t going to stand between Meghan and her father regardless of his douche-y, disrespectful behavior. I saw what being without a father had done to Dylan, and I was wholly committed to ensuring the same fate never befell my daughter.

  If he was willing to spend time with her, I was willing to let him.

  I kept it to myself how convenient it was that he called last minute. A business trip, I thought. That meant he wanted to project an image of family to impress potential clientele. It was such a dick move, but I wouldn’t say that in front of Meghan. She idolized her father, I wasn’t about to tear him down… even if most times it would have been to defend myself. He had no qualms trashing me in front of her. In his mind, he was simply making sure she never grew up to be like me.

  And so far his campaign had been successful. She loathed me so much she would have never willingly followed my example. I had the misfortune of being the primary parent, which meant I was the bad guy who enforced rules and said “no” on a regular basis. I was the one hovering over her shoulder to make sure she did her homework, performed her chores and lived up to the rules of the house.

  Wade, on the other hand, was Santa Claus. He showed up once a month with a fat wallet and sympathetic ear eager to hear how awful I was making her life. He commiserated while he filled all her gaping emotional holes with physical stuff. She had the newest phone, the newest laptop, every single game system, a full closet, cosmetics galore, shoes, jewelry and all the pocket money she would ever be able to spend, all kept in a purse that cost more than all my petty cash combined.

  He had even promised to buy her first car, after I told her she needed to get a job and earn it for herself.

  Though I had tried my best to enforce good behavior so she could earn a meager allowance, she never needed my money. The First National Bank of Dad was only a phone call away. I tried to encourage her to live gently, but she was every bit as competitive as her father. She was driven to win, because she wanted a life that in no way resembled mine.

  I was in a sour mood as I opened the door for my ex. “She’s almost ready,” I said before I turned back to my living room to pick up the mess Meghan left for me.

  “Nice housekeeping,” he sneered as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  “Your house would look like this too if you had a teen living with you for more than two days a month,” I muttered.

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Always blaming someone else. You never change.”

  I turned and faced him. His hair had begun to gray, which of course made him more distinguished to the world he had conquered. He was aging gracefully and well, no doubt feeding off the blood of an endless supply of bimbos who treated him like a god because he drove a fast car and sat atop a ginormous bank account. “What do you want from me, Wade?”

  He looked me up and down before he finally said, “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Except for a place to store your kid whenever it’s convenient,” I snapped.

  He was wholly indignant. “I love Meghan.”

  “Yeah, sure you do,” I mumbled. “Try proving it when it actually inconveniences you or doesn’t benefit you in some way.”

  He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Meghan trotted into the entry way to plant an exuberant kiss on his cheek. “Hi, Daddy!”

  “Hey, princess,” he greeted as he hugged her close. “Ready to get pampered?”

  “So ready!” she said before she threw me her own contemptuous glance. “See you Sunday night.” She virtually pushed him out the door, eager to get away from me and her ‘real’ life as quickly as possible. I sank with a sigh onto my sofa. It seemed like only yesterday that she’d clutch me tight before a visit with her dad, kissing my cheek and telling me how much she loved me and how much she’d miss me.

  Now I didn’t even warrant a ‘goodbye.’

  I knew I wasn’t the first mother to be scorned by her daughter. I just wondered if I would be the first one who actually died from the pain.

  It was utterly heartbreaking to be so hated by the one you loved most.

  Maybe it was time to get my own life, as Meghan often screamed at me during our knock-down, drag-outs. In a few short years, she’d be gone and I’d be on my own. I certainly didn’t want to end up on the evening news, being airlifted from a cluttered home overrun by cats.

  At this point it was only a matter of time.

  I made two calls and by ten o’clock I was at Eleete with Bryan and Olive.

  Olive was jus
t like Bryan. Once she burst from her closet, there was no way to miss her now. She was loud, she was boisterous, and she never sat still. Her dance card was full from the moment we entered the joint, be they male or female. There was something about her that made everyone want to join in and have fun.

  Obviously.

  After the club, we hit an all-night hipster diner in Santa Monica. Olive was knuckle-deep in her vegan nachos when she said, “This reminds me of the day we met. Remember?”

  Both Bryan and I chuckled as we nodded. “Food’s better,” I quipped as I shoved more of my omelet into my mouth.

  Our cute waitress stopped by the table to refill everyone’s water glass. “So is the view,” Olive said with a wink. “Remember when the best we could do was Dylan Fenn?” She laughed, because apparently she thought this was an embarrassing aberration of our youth. “Why were we all so hung up on him?”

  “He was beautiful,” Bryan murmured wistfully.

  “He was so popular any of his attention validated you by default,” I added.

  “And he was completely out of reach,” Olive concluded. “Nothing safer than wanting someone who can’t possibly want you back, is there?”

  “He got over that at the ten-year reunion,” Brian confided. “When he infiltrated the crew.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “If it is either one of you bitches I’m going to kick you right in the leftovers.”

  Bryan shook his head. “No, we’re members of the crew tried and true.”

  “Then who?” she asked before ticking each of us off on her fingers. Finally she put it together. “Charlie? Are you fucking kidding me? How is that even possible?”

  I shrugged. “She lost a hundred pounds, bleached her hair and showed up looking like Baby Spice. He was a goner.”

  Olive snorted. “Figures. Once a dog, always a dog.” She toyed with the straw in her glass before musing, “But no longer an unattainable one. Interesting.”

  “That’s a look of pure evil if I’ve ever seen one,” Bry teased.

  “What can I say? I’ve always loved a challenge.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I figured out a way we can make this twenty-year shindig a little more exciting. I think it’s time that all the Leftovers got their chance to sail away on the S.S. Fenn.”

  I shook my head. “You’d have the best shot of any of us. I’m still nowhere near his type.”

  “And I’m an outy, not an inny,” Bry reminded.

  “Trifles,” she dismissed. “The bigger the obstacle, the greater the victory. You guys still talk to Fenn, right?”

  “Roni does. She works at the agency that represents him.”

  “Perfect! Lemme see your phone.”

  “No way,” I protested immediately.

  “Don’t be a chicken. This will be fun. Isn’t this the one thing you’ve always wanted?”

  Well…

  “Come on, come on, come on,” she insisted as she held out her hand. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” Then, with an arched eyebrow, “Have I led you astray so far?”

  I sent a beseeching glance to Bry, but he was no help at all. He just shrugged. “It does seem kind of unfair that Charlie had all the fun. If she cracked the code, who’s to say we couldn’t?”

  I shrugged. “The plan is inherently flawed. I’m fat and old, she’s a lesbian and you’re a guy. Even if we make the cut by default of our gender, you might not. I don’t think he’s bisexual.”

  Another arched eyebrow from Olive. “Neither are you.”

  “I don’t think he even knows I’m gay,” Bryan decided suddenly.

  “Good,” Olive said. “Let him come to you.”

  “How can he not know you’re gay?” I asked. It had been obvious to me even before I knew what gay was.

  “One: people see what they want to see,” he told me. “Two: we only hung out together in high school, when I was pretty far back in the closet by necessity. Three: whenever he sees me now, it’s usually as your date.”

  “Perfect,” Olive said again. “People are easier to manipulate when they’re jealous.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You’re not really seriously suggesting that we make this some covert operation.”

  “Operation: Fuck Fenn. I like it,” she grinned. “Now gimme your phone.”

  I shook my head. “This is childish. We’re not in high school anymore. We’re all adults. I have a child, for chrissakes.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Revenge sex can be a lot of fun. Just ask Bry. I’m sure he’s bedded a guy or two who used to call him ‘fag’ in high school.”

  “She has me there,” he grinned.

  “And nobody here has to sleep with him. You just have to make him want to sleep with you. To finally win the desire of the one who got away. You can reel him into the boat and throw him back immediately, kind of like he did to everyone in high school. Call it poetic justice. And you, my friend,” she said to me, “need to finally figure it out that you’re more than worthy to sit at the cool kids’ table.”

  Bry nodded. “She’s right, Roni. You’ve been measuring yourself by his ruler long enough. Isn’t about time the tables turned?”

  I shook my head. This was lunacy.

  “You don’t know how liberating it is to defeat the fears that have chased you from your childhood. Bryan and I had big fears, about being accepted for being different. It was a more dangerous world for us to finally embrace and ultimately celebrate what set us apart. In your head, sleeping with Dylan is that mile you never ran. That trophy you never won. Imagine how much your life would change if you could finally figure out the only obstacles you have in front of you are the ones you’ve put there all along?”

  I hesitated. She was right about that. Being singled out by Dylan had shaded my whole identity as I came of age. If he didn’t want me, who would? It was probably why I settled for so much less than I deserved with Wade. And it was neither Dylan’s nor Wade’s fault that I did so.

  I decided a long time ago I wasn’t good enough for the ultimate boy, so it was okay for others to shortchange me as well, including my very own daughter.

  “Come on. I don’t have cable. Throw me a fucking bone,” she added with a grin.

  I sighed. “Fine. You win.” I handed her my phone.

  She was mighty proud of herself as she scrolled through my contact list, landing at last on the object of our new, weird, impossible mission. “And that, my friends, is how you get someone to do what they don’t want to do. Take notes. There will be a test.”

  She stuck her tongue out at us before she texted something to Dylan and handed the phone back to me.

  I glanced down at the screen.

  “Some old friends are treating me to dollar beer at the Karaoke Klubhouse tomorrow night, eight sharp. You are cordially invited.”

  It only took a minute for Dylan to reply.

  “Sounds like fun, count me in.”

  I half-glared at Olive, who returned once again to her heap of nachos with a wide, shit-eating grin on her face.

  If only they knew that the real source of my insecurity was not rooted in the fact I couldn’t get Dylan Fenn into bed.

  It was that I did, and it had ruined everything.

  17: Kissing a Fool

  June 24, 1988

  “Veronica!” my mother hollered from the living room. “We’re leaving in ten minutes!”

  I rolled my eyes as I stuffed another outfit into my overstuffed suitcase. We were going camping for a week, but I was taking enough to last me a month. It was my first independent foray into the wilderness and I wanted to be prepared.

  I didn’t want to get caught literally with my pants down in the middle of BFE, with no one but the Moms and Dylan Fenn to witness it.

  Since we both were leaving home in the fall, me, to UC Fullerton to pursue a business degree and he to NYC to study drama, our mothers, whom we had long ago affectionately dubbed ‘The Moms,’ had decided we all needed to get nice and cozy o
ur last summer together as a family unit.

  It was a fitting farewell to our twelve-year living arrangement. We didn’t look like other families, but we had long been operating as one. Dylan and I divided the chores between us, and generally fought over the bathroom and the TV in the den just like actual siblings. The Moms found support in their friendship, to fill the gaping holes left by their husbands. Not only did they share the expenses, they shared the experience of parenting teenagers while juggling full-time jobs.

  They were sisters by choice, bonded with love and respect rather than shared DNA.

  And now that the baby birds were due to leave the nest our Moms wanted one last family vacation before we all went our separate ways. We were traveling up north to the Sequoia National Park to camp for a week in our own private cabins.

  Honestly I would have preferred to stay home. Bryan and I had a lot left to do before we started college in the fall. The first and most pressing order of business was to find an apartment to share.

  After the rigors of high school, I didn’t particularly care to live in a dorm with strangers. I’d much rather share a two-bedroom apartment with my very best friend in the world, the only other human being alive that I knew I could trust implicitly.

  I’d saved enough money to pay for my half, and I knew he had plenty of money for his. We just had to find a place and furnish it, which, frankly, was the most exciting prospect of all.

  My own space.

  I couldn’t wait.

  But since I had yet to spring it on my mom that I was moving in with a boy at the end of summer, I thought I’d add some good karma points and go along for the trip. I could only hope it would soften the blow.

  If nothing else I would remind her that she used to watch Three’s Company religiously. She already had a good grasp on co-ed, but strictly platonic, living arrangements.

  Besides, she had to know that I was still a virgin. My love life was non-existent all through high school. I never socialized unless it was with my Leftovers or with Dylan. If I could live in the same house with one of the most desirable boys in my age group for a dozen years straight, I felt we all could be relatively sure my chastity belt was bolted solid for the immediate future.