Shane makes a disgusted face at that last mention, which pleases me an inordinate amount. Still, I can’t resist. “Come on. Are you telling me she never had her way with you? I sure remember her trying an awful lot.”
“Yeah. Because desperation and showing me at every possible opportunity how she can give a blow job to a pickle always get me going.” Shane gives a mock shudder. “No. I never got with Lily. I have standards, you know.”
“Standards? That diner waitress?”
He shrugs and gives me a lopsided smile. “I didn’t say they were particularly high.”
I roll my eyes. Probably I should be offended, but really I’m not. This is Shane, after all.
“So how are all these people fitting in your house?” Shane asks. “And how did you end up with this big bed, all to yourself?” There’s a teasing note in his voice, and he gestures to the bed as if inviting me to join him.
I take off my fake Uggs while I consider, which have been squishing with every step and are starting to smell like wet dog.
“Dad finally made that extra bedroom in the basement, for one thing,” I say. “And I also think he knew that if I had to share my bed with Lily—or anyone else for that matter—I’d be driving back to LA first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Anyone else?” He sits up and leans forward just enough to tug at my fingers. I let him pull me closer.
The truth is, I’m tired and still a little irritated and really just want to change into something dry and warm and sleep until the week is over. But maybe Shane’s right, maybe I have gotten a little prissy over the years. Old Anna-Marie wouldn’t have let a little mishap at the hot springs keep her from a good time with Shane.
And she definitely wouldn’t have let thoughts of another guy—a guy who is hundreds of miles away and surely having his own good times right now—keep her from doing so.
It’s really not a big deal, I can hear Josh say in my memory.
Right.
“Yeah, okay, maybe not anyone,” I say, stepping into his arms. And that’s all it takes. We’re kissing again, and his hands are up my damp shirt, and before I know it, that shirt is back to being a pile on the floor, along with my shorts and his jeans.
And then we’re on the bed together, his body tangled with mine, and well, this really isn’t a bad way to get warm, I suppose. His skin is smooth and his hands confident, and my blood heats up as it rushes through me. We’ve both learned some new things over the past few years, it turns out. Which is nice. But ultimately, it’s me and Shane, and we know our way around each other, our motions syncing up naturally, without thought or much in the way of effort.
We’re syncing pretty hard when I hear a rustling sound from my curtains.
I freeze. “What was that?” I squint in the direction of my window, but I can’t see anything. The light from my bedside lamp isn’t that bright.
Shane pauses just enough to groan. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
I grab him by his shoulders and hold him still. “That’s what you said last time.”
“Well, it’s not going to be Mr. Dart here in your bedroom, is it?” He’s clearly exasperated, but I don’t care. Especially once I hear the sound again.
“There it is again,” I say, cringing back.
“Come on, Anna, just a few more seconds, I’m almost—”
And then a furry black shape with an impossibly large wingspan launches itself across the ceiling and I have the barest moment to register the fact that there is a bat in my bedroom before I yelp and shove Shane away.
“Get it out, Shane, get it out!” I shriek, because that bat is huge and my room is suddenly very very small and confining and oh my god if I end up getting rabies in Wyoming I am officially done with life.
“It’s out,” he grumbles. “Trust me.”
“The bat, you ass! Get the—” My tirade is cut short when the bat swoops again, perilously close to the bed. I scream and roll off the side of the bed, landing on my knees on the carpet, painfully and with a loud thump.
Somewhere below me in the house, a dog starts howling.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
But the bat swoops again, even though Shane isn’t doing much more than sitting up naked in bed and glaring at it.
I’m all for feminism and women being able to save themselves, but when there is a clearly rabid monster-bat in my bedroom, I don’t care how sexist it is. This is a man’s responsibility.
“Shane, do something!”
“What do you want me to—”
And that’s when my bedroom door bursts open, and my dad comes in, wild-eyed and in nothing but a pair of boxers, carrying a baseball bat.
That sight gets Shane moving, at least in as much as he jumps off the bed and backs up a few steps toward the dresser. Which just means he’s standing there buck naked, condom still hanging from his penis while I’m on my knees next to him, also naked.
“Hi, Mr. Halsey,” Shane says.
My dad’s face turns a shade of purply-red normally reserved for cartoon characters before steam shoots out of their ears. But before that can happen, my uncle Joe is in the doorway, Aunt Patrice behind him.
“What’s going on?” Patrice demands. “Is Anna-Marie all right?”
“I’d say so,” Uncle Joe says with a chuckle, taking in the scene and scratching at his thick mustache.
“Get out!” I yell, scrambling for the nearest blanket on my bed. But the bat swoops across the room again, and I duck and shriek—as does Patrice, and, rewardingly, Uncle Joe—and at the very least, now everybody has their eyes on the bat and not me.
Everyone, that is, except Byron, my future stepbrother, who has somehow entered the room in all the panic and is staring at me, transfixed. And behind him, Lily, her dark hair a mess, and mascara smudges around her eyes, but still managing to look a thousand times more composed than me right now as she takes in the scene with visible glee.
“That’s it,” I hear Tanya announce from behind them all in the hallway. “Bill will take care of the bat. The rest of you, out. Now.” She pushes her small frame through the growing crowd and grabs Byron’s ear. “Especially you,” she says, tugging her son from the room.
If I wasn’t still huddled on the ground, tugging a blanket around me, I’d have kissed the woman, I am so damn grateful to her.
The others file out, Lily giving Shane one last long look-over that he is clearly trying to pretend he doesn’t see, though he does finally notice the condom and slides it off with one hand. Tanya closes the door with a definitive slam.
And then there are just the four of us: me, Shane, my weapon-wielding dad, and the bat, who is a dark blob on the ceiling beside my bookshelf. There’s a moment of silence, in which we all four regard each other, and then my dad finally speaks.
“Get your damn pants on, Shane,” he says. “And then help me with the bat.”
“Yes, sir,” Shane replies, and pulls his jeans on.
It takes about ten minutes and several failed attempts, as well as multiple times in which I burrow under my blanket to avoid getting swooped upon. But eventually, my dad traps the bat in my small desk garbage can (which theoretically means that the bat probably isn’t the ginormous vampire-legend monstrosity it seemed a few minutes earlier) and flings it back out the open window.
Then he glares at both of us—but mainly Shane—and walks out of the room, not saying a word. I groan and put my head in my hands.
“So . . . any chance you want to—” Shane starts, but I glare at him and the look on my face shuts him up. He nods. “Yeah, okay. See you, Anna-Marie.” He climbs out the window and down the tree.
I hurriedly close the window to prevent the return of either bats or ex-boyfriends. Then I crawl into bed and wish I wasn’t too exhausted to drive back to LA.
Eight
Anna-Marie
&
nbsp; Despite the events of last night being reason enough to never emerge from my bedroom ever again, I do manage to gather courage and dignity enough to do so. Sometime around noon, but still.
It doesn’t matter that my entire family has seen me naked now, I decide. Well, my entire family and several soon-to-be members of my family. And a whole troop of Boy Scouts. And my high school guidance counselor.
Honestly, at this rate I should probably just ride through town on horseback like Lady Freaking Godiva and get it over with.
When I get downstairs, I am cheered by the fact that my cousin Cherstie has arrived and is sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through a magazine—People, it looks like—with Ginnie. The younger girl is tugging on her braid and studying the pictures with a strangely intense concentration. Buckley the dog is a huge mop-like pile on the kitchen floor that barely stirs when I enter.
Cherstie grins when she sees me. “Anna-Marie!” she cries and jumps up to give me a hug, which I happily return. Cherstie may look a lot like her older sister Lily—same dark hair and big brown eyes, same scattering of freckles across her nose—but the two couldn’t be more different. For one, Cherstie has a nice habit of not being a total bitch. When she graduated high school she moved to Cheyenne, which is as far from her parents as she could get and still be in Wyoming, and that I had to respect.
“Hey,” I say. “How have you been? How’s cosmetology school?”
“Good! I’ve only got about two months left, and then I can finally start making some money.”
“Nice.”
Ginnie makes a little squeak and bounces in her chair. “This one,” she says, pointing at a picture in the magazine. Then she looks up at me and smiles shyly. “I think you’ll look beautiful like this.”
“Um . . . what?” I raise my eyebrow at Cherstie, who is clearly trying to hold in a laugh.
“So I heard about your . . . adventure last night,” Cherstie says, carefully. “And Ginnie and I thought maybe you could use some cheering up. And I remember how when we were younger, you and I always had fun when I would do your hair and makeup and—”
“The fashion shows,” I say with a groan, but one that is more amused than miserable. Those were always fun.
“Exactly.” Cherstie grins. “So I told Ginnie to flip through the magazine and find the very best hairstyle for you. And she has chosen . . . wow.” Her eyes widen and practically gleam with joy. I have a bad feeling about this all of a sudden.
Cherstie holds up the magazine and it takes everything in me not to cringe when I see the huge, hair-sprayed mass of teased hair. “Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, huh?” I manage. “How old is this magazine?”
“It’s so glamorous,” Ginnie says in a dreamy tone. I don’t know much about kids her age, but I don’t get the feeling she’s punking me. And really, if you’re going to do a fashion show at a family reunion in Everett, Wyoming, hair from the 1980s is probably fitting.
“Okay, I’m in,” I say, which prompts an excited squeal from Ginnie and a laugh from Cherstie. “Just let me get something to eat first.”
“There’s sandwich meat in the fridge,” Aunt Patrice says, sweeping in from the living room as if she’d been waiting all day for the chance to tell this to someone. She gives me a look like she’s trying not to judge me but can’t figure out how one goes about not judging. “You look . . . well rested.”
I have no idea how to respond to that, but before I can even take a stab at it, my dad walks in from the backyard, the screen door banging shut behind him. “Hey, Pumpkin,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes as he hurries through the kitchen.
Ugh. I can’t spend the whole reunion pretending last night didn’t happen.
“Hey, Daddy,” I say, striding into the hallway to catch up with him. He turns around, and gives a faint smile in a kind of “we’re really doing this, I guess” resignation. “I’m sorry you had to see that last night. It’s your house, and I should have warned you about Shane sleeping over—”
He lets out a chuckle. “Not that you ever did that before.”
But he seems legitimately amused, so I smile back. “Yeah, well. I probably should start at some point.”
“Look, Pumpkin, it’s okay.” He sighs. “It was awkward as hell, but it’s okay. You’re a grown woman. You’ve been one for a long time. I have to accept that you’re not my baby girl anymore.”
Well, if anything was going to make him finally come to that realization, it was last night—which is certainly not the first time he’d caught me in some compromising situation with Shane, but definitely the most flagrant. But I feel a pang of loss at his words, and I can tell by his expression that he does, too.
“Maybe,” I venture. “I can still be both?”
He smiles gently. “Sure thing, Pumpkin.” He gives me a hug and I realize how much I’ve missed my dad. How rare moments like this are, and always have been, even when I saw him every day. “Really, though,” he says, as he draws back. “Shane? Still? I’d hoped you’d be on to a higher quality of man by now.”
I laugh, though suddenly I wonder what Dad would think of Josh. Which leads to me thinking about that phone call again, and about missing him—no. I can’t and I won’t.
“Old habits are hard to break,” I say.
Dad pats me on the shoulder. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Bill,” Aunt Patrice says, leaning into the hallway from the kitchen, brandishing a pack of lunch meat. “Has the UPS fellow come by yet? The reunion shirts are supposed to be in today.”
“Reunion shirts?” I ask as Dad shakes his head.
Patrice’s eyes narrow in irritation. “They have that fancy tracking thing on the internet, and it says they’re in Farson, which is close enough, if they’re actually doing their work and not sitting around eating donuts.”
I’m fairly certain she’s confusing UPS driver stereotypes with police officer stereotypes, but that hardly seems worth mentioning to her. “Reunion shirts?” I say again. “Like the matching kind? Are we going to Disneyland or something? Ooh, are we finally taking that family tour of Everett’s two auto-parts shops?”
Dad laughs, but Patrice doesn’t seem amused. “I thought it would be nice. For the Grillmaster Championship.” She purses her lips. “I should call UPS. Here, Anna-Marie, make a sandwich for yourself. You looked a little pale last night, you probably need the iron.”
I take the package of sliced roast beef from her and only roll my eyes once she’s taken off to go track down her missing t-shirts.
Later that afternoon, I’m back in my room, sitting in my desk chair, while Cherstie begins the process of turning me into an eighties style nightmare. I remind her not to do anything damaging to it, and fear I sound like Josh’s client with the volumizer, but Cherstie shakes her head at me and tells me that she remembers how picky I am about my hair, and besides, she’s now a professional. Ginnie bounces on my bed as she watches. Cherstie and I chat, and I flip through that People magazine, which as it turns out is a brand-new issue that just happened to be featuring a retrospective of Melanie Griffith’s Hollywood career.
Lucky me.
I turn to a page talking about the recent breakup of Blake Pless and Kim Watterson, Hollywood super-couple with a six-year marriage during which they gushed regularly about each other, and their adorable little kids, and about their “perfectly normal” marriage.
Well, I suppose it ended up being pretty normal, after all.
“Isn’t that sad?” Cherstie says, peeking over my shoulder. “I really thought they had a chance.”
“Really? You saw how gorgeous their nanny is, right?” The article doesn’t specify that she factored into their divorce, but I’ve seen pics online of Blake standing awfully close to their nanny, and from the way she’s smiling back at him, it’s pretty clear she’s been taking care of more than just the kids.
Cherstie tugs at my hair, as she teases a big chunk near my crown. “You’re just cynical.”
“I’m a realist. Who knows you don’t hire a nanny who could be Sweden’s Next Top Model and not expect this to happen.”
Cherstie chuckles and starts teasing another section.
RIP, Watterpless, who have officially joined the ranks of Brangelina and Bennifer and all the many, many others. Even my beloved Joss Whedon, for all his talk about respecting women, couldn’t keep it in his pants. Maybe I am cynical, but I’d rather be that than an idiot who thinks these things don’t inevitably end in total heartbreak.
Cherstie finishes teasing my hair and sprays the contents of an entire can of extra-firm hold hair spray over it (we open the window so as to not choke to death during this part, and I pray the fumes will ward away future bat attacks), and then Ginnie begs to do my makeup. Cherstie has a huge case filled with every color of eyeshadow and lipstick imaginable, and Ginnie and I have way too much fun picking through it, though I tell her she can choose what colors I wear. She takes her time, chewing her lower lip and studying each bright little eyeshadow pot and eyeliner, narrowing down the choices seemingly based on quantity of glitter. It’s pretty cute, actually—so much so that when she finally chooses two very sparkly eyeshadows named “Indigo Revolution” and “Screaming Pink” that should never be combined outside of a drag queen show, I compliment her on her impeccable taste and happily submit to the rest of the makeover.
Makeup takes a long time, with Ginnie fussing adorably over blush and lipstick just as much as the eyeshadow. It’s already past dinnertime by the time Cherstie tells Ginnie she should pick out my runway outfit. She starts rifling through my closet, which unfortunately for me still holds all sorts of outfits I didn’t feel the need to bring with me to LA when I left years ago. My cheerleading uniforms, prom dresses, graduation gown, that sort of thing. Practically a little girl’s costuming dream. Ginnie eventually emerges with an emerald green spandex number from one of my old dance recitals. The sheer number of sequins are blinding, and the short skirt has honest-to-god fringe.
The Girlfriend Stage Page 8
