I blast the AC and set off to find Kit Isley. A staged run-in, maybe a little private conversation to turn me off. After all, Della and I have completely opposite taste in men. I can get this shit out of my system once and for all. I’ll be back to normal by Monday, coasting down the highway of my smooth, well planned out life. Neil in the driver’s seat. Neil. Neil.
Neil
Neil
Neil
Kit works at Tavern on Hyde. I walk in at six o’ clock and park myself at the bar. It’s trendy, and not what I was expecting as his place of employment. Maybe something more dive-ish. I know, I know, I’m a judgmental asshole. I order a glass of wine from a female bartender with facial piercings who tells me her shift is over, and Kit will be taking care of me.
“He’s not here yet,” she says. “Should be any minute.”
“Do you have any Butterbeer?” I ask as she’s walking away. She doesn’t hear me, and that’s a good thing.
I send Neil’s call to voicemail, and sit up straighter when I see him walk into the bar. He’s wearing a white button down, black pants, and suspenders. He’s not my type, but the getup is pretty sexy. Like, put your brother in suspenders and he might become hot too. Okay, that was too far, and I need to stop watching Game of Thrones. Kit goes straight to the computer and clocks in. Before he can turn around and see me, I spill wine on my shirt. Leaks right out of the corner of my mouth, per usual. I really need to see a doctor about my gappy lips. I’m scrubbing at my top when he says my name.
“Helena?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s me.”
He leans on the bar in front of me, watching. I’m wiping incessantly at my boob. I stop.
“You’re so awkward.”
“Maybe because you say really awkward things,” I point out.
“This is why we can’t have nice things,” he says, handing me a cup of seltzer and a rag.
I’m getting really weirded out by all of his “we” comments.
“It was on sale,” I say. “Twelve dollars at Gap.”
“See,” he says, walking over to another customer. “That was awkward.”
I shrug. I have bigger problems, like my gappy lips.
The bar gets busy after that, and Kit comes around a couple times to give me new drinks. He doesn’t ask what I want; he just brings me things. First, a martini that has a slimy white thing floating in it.
“It’s a lychee nut,” he says. “You’ll like it.”
I do. He switches back to wine at some point, white this time. Food that I didn’t order arrives: scallops on mango quinoa. I’ve never eaten scallops, but he tells me they’re his favorite. They have the texture of a tongue, and I briefly consider that he’s sending me a message. By the time I’m onto dessert, the bar stools are mostly empty, and Nina Gordon is playing over the speakers. I’m way buzzed. I’m thinking how fun it would be to dance to this song in the empty restaurant. Since I am not a good dancer, I know this is an unreliable boozy thought.
Kit comes to sit on the barstool next to me. What I really like about him is that he has never once asked why I’m here. Like his girlfriend’s best friend showing up at his job, and getting wasted alone, is completely normal.
“We close in an hour. May I drive you home?”
“I can Uber,” I say. “It’s no big deal.”
He shakes his head. “I’m just afraid for you,” he says. “If the Uber driver sees how dirty your clothes are, he may think you’re not good for the fare.”
“That’s true,” I say. There are several glasses of flat seltzer on the bar in front of me. He stacks up the plates left over from my dinner. I pull out my wallet, but he waves me away.
“I fed you tonight.”
I’m too lightheaded to argue.
“We can leave in about an hour-thirty. That okay?”
I nod. When he leaves, I summon the Uber, and scribble a quick note on my napkin. I slide it under my empty glass, along with a twenty.
I should never have come. I should never have stayed. I should never have written the note. I almost go back, but I’m uncertain on my feet, and the driver is looking at me like he’s thinking about leaving.
I wake up on my couch. My couch smells like patchouli. I fucking hate patchouli. I cover my nose and roll onto my back. I didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Which is cool, because I also threw up on one of my throw pillows, and no one likes vomit in their bed. I stumble over to the trashcan and stuff the throw pillow inside. Then I take a shower. I’m halfway through soaping my hair when I remember the note I left for Kit at the bar. I groan. I jump out of the shower, not bothering to grab a towel, and run for my phone. God. A gazillion missed calls from Neil, and my parents, and Della, and my job. Blah blah. Soap is running down the back of my legs. I scroll through the texts until I see Kit’s name.
K: WTF
That’s all it says. I cover my mouth with my hand. What did the note say? I close my eyes. I remember how clumsy the pen felt between my fingers. How the nub ripped the napkin in some places, and I had to pull it taut to write.
I HAD A DREAM. DON’T MARRY DELLA
I groan. Suddenly, I need to throw up again. Instead, I take a selfie. My hair is globbed up on one side of my head, and there is mascara streaking down my face. I put the photo in an album called Mortifying Emotional Moments, and I title it Soggy Napkin Note. The last selfie I posted in there was of me on the day I graduated college. My perfectly made up face is happy … relieved. I called that one: Sallie Mae Can Suck It.
I finish my shower and feel more hopeful. I’ll never see Kit again. That will solve all the problems at hand. Somehow I’ll find someone better for Della, someone taller, with a less satirical face. She’ll be happier with a doctor or an investment broker anyway. Someone to fund her lifestyle, who wouldn’t infringe on her independence. Or I could find a new best friend. Elaine, from college, always liked me. I liked her hair.
Neil wants to go to the beach. He says “just us,” but you know how that goes. Always seeing someone you know when you’re in a bikini and your stomach is bloated from all the drinking and eating you did from the night before. I go anyway, and wear a monokini. I still feel whoozy when I step out of my shorts and lay on my towel, my head underneath an open book. Neil’s been talking about his job for the last forty minutes. He hasn’t asked me a damn thing about my job. When he takes a break to laugh at his own joke, I tell him about my flat, and he balks.
“Why didn’t you call me? I would have come to get you. They let me take thirty minutes extra for my lunch break because they think I’m really good.”
I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. “I called Triple A. Plus, Kit saw me and pulled over.” I added that last bit without thought.
“Kit? Della’s Kit?”
“Well, she doesn’t own him,” I say, annoyed. “And how many other Kits do we know?”
“You don’t think that’s weird?” he asks.
I sit up. “That the guy dating my best friend sees me stranded on the side of the road and pulled over to help?”
Neil huffs. “Well, I guess when you put it that way…”
“There’s no other way to put it.”
He looks all crestfallen and lamby. I am about to lean over and kiss him when his phone lights up to tell him he has a text. I don’t mean to look; I’m not like that—a snoop. But I see a girl’s name. He grabs for the phone, but I’m faster. It’s automatic. My hand punches in his passcode and …
all
I
see
are
tits
“Helena…”
Why is he saying my name? Why is he even saying my name? We are both standing up now, me still holding his phone looking at the tits. The pictures are still coming. I didn’t know tits could be selfied from so many angles. I’m shaking. The phone drops from my hand, into the sand.
“I have to tell you something,” he says. He’s advancing on me, slowly. Like I’m some a-bomb about to explode. BOOM!
“You’re a cheating douchebag?”
“Helena, let me talk.”
“Hold that thought,” I say. Then I punch him. Right in the eye, and like my dad taught me. Pull back, throw forward. His head rolls, then snaps forward like a bobble head. Boing, boing, boing on his skinny turkey neck. He lifts his hand to his eye, and I slap him so that he has a hit on each side of his face.
“Helena!” he yells, holding out his hand for me to stop.
I like the shock on his face. I like that we’re both shocked.
“Let me explain,” he tries.
I raise my hand to hit him again, and he flinches back.
“How long has this been happening?”
His face blanches.
“Not long.”
“How long?” I yell.
“A year,” he says, dropping his head.
“A year,” I whisper. Suddenly, there’s no more hitting in me. Just wasteland. My shoulders slump forward.
“Why?” I ask. And then as a noise rises from my throat—a sob—and I say the most pathetic thing. “What did I do wrong?”
Neil drops his head. “Nothing, Helena.” And then, “She’s pregnant.”
I can’t stand. I drop hard onto the sand and look at the surf. There are no waves in this part of Florida, so instead of surfers, you get little kids in Dora the Explorer swimsuits.
“You’ve been busy,” he starts. “It just happened, and it was a mistake.” Saying it was a mistake doesn’t make it hurt less; in fact, it feels starker underneath all of this sun, and heat, and sand. It’s like they’re punishing me too.
“I’m sorry,” he says. But there’s not a sorry big enough for a betrayal like this. A year. Neil was the one I was making plans with. Talking about the future with. After the initial shock, the hurt surges forward. I stand up. I can’t be here. I can’t look at him. He has a zit on the side of his neck: bright, and red, and bulbous. I’m so revolted that I ever dated him.
“Please, Helena,” he says. “It was a mistake. I love you.” But I’m not having it, and his use of the word ‘love’ makes me laugh. Love is faithful, love is kind, love is patient. Love is not—I wasn’t thinking. I grab my things, stumble away. The dream, I think. This was in the dream. And her name is Sadie.
“Avada Kedavra,” I whisper at Sadie.
I walk home. Not because I can’t call someone. Hell, Della would be there in a second with a machete. I just need to think. I take a selfie while I wait at a red light and send it to the MEM folder. I call it, Fuck Love.
Neil doesn’t want to be with Sadie, though Sadie wants to be with Neil. Isn’t that a funny thing? He wanted her enough to risk my heart. I hear this all through phone messages, e-mails, texts, and Della. Apparently, during my quarter-life crisis, Della and Neil became close. I’d feel betrayed, but Neil already took care of that one. Sadie is keeping the baby, of course, because her dad is a minister, and she is pro-life. Not pro-abstinence. Neil says he will be in the baby’s life as much as Sadie will let him. He wants to work things out with me. I don’t like working out of any kind. Not the body or the heart. Just thinking about working things out makes me tired. I am sleepy for working things out. I tell Neil to go to hell, and then I cry for two days. Was it me? Was I too cold? Too inexperienced? Not pretty enough? Not good enough in bed? And when disloyal, seed-sowing scum buckets slept with other girls, why did women look inward to find fault in themselves? It wasn’t my fault. Actually, maybe it was. Fuck it. What did it matter anyway?
I go get drinks at Tavern on Hyde. I haven’t heard a peep from Kit in weeks. His girlfriend, on the other hand, has been camped out in my bed, this time in support of me. She still asks me to make her snacks, even though I’m the one with the broken heart. She even tells me that it’ll keep my mind off things. “You need to stay busy.”
I am avoiding her tonight, though apparently not her boyfriend. All I can think about is Kit and the dream. How he was almost warning me. Perhaps in my subconscious, I knew. Neil hadn’t been Neil for a long time. In hindsight, we hadn’t connected in … a year.
I stumble into Tavern on Hyde with a severely tangled braid, and dark circles under my eyes. Kit is talking to some of his customers on the other side of the bar when he sees me. He does a double take, and I wonder how rough I look. You look rough in a vulnerable, pretty way, I tell myself. Though I should probably start combing my hair again.
“Hello,” he slides a drink in front of me before I’ve even had the chance to sit down. “How’s your heart?”
“I feel sober, and I want to feel drunk,” I say.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” He wipes the bar down with a rag, then leans on his elbows and studies me. His eyes are really lovely and sad. “The sadness comes in waves, yes? It’s like you feel something different every ten minutes.”
“Yeah,” I say, wondering who broke his heart. What a cunt. I drink my purple drink and stare at my phone. But every time I stare at a phone, I see tits in my mind. You can’t get those things out of your head, you know?
Della is texting me. We should get dressed up and go out tonight!
To dance with men who will later break my heart?
D: You have to be positive, she texts back.
Fuck that.
D: I’ll meet you for drinks then, she sends.
I’m already drinking. I just want to be alone.
She doesn’t text back, and I know her feelings are hurt.
I put my phone away. Aside from the unbearable heart pain, feelings of inadequacy, sporadic tears, and hopelessness, I kind of like being single. You’re not responsible to tell anyone where you are or who you’re with. It’s freedom and loneliness, exhilaration and inner calm. You don’t have to shave. It’s the best high and the worst low. The motherfucking pits. I choose to ignore Della and my parents, and there’s not a thing they can do about it.
Kit doesn’t mention the note I left him, thank God. Maybe he’s forgotten, or maybe he thinks I was too drunk to know what I was doing. We make small talk between his other customers, and I check out his suspenders when he’s not looking. He has really broad shoulders; he could be too stocky, but everything narrows out at his waist. He’s not my type, but it’s okay to notice things. I don’t want to be the type of self-centered person who only notices things about themselves. So, really I’m practicing being a good person by checking out Kit’s suspenders. And that’s what it’s about—the suspenders. He sings me a song about cheating and tells me that it’s on Carrie Underwood’s album. When he hits the high notes, he closes his eyes and points a finger in the air. It all reminds me of Mariah Carey, and that’s a bit uncomfortable.
When he’s in the kitchen getting someone’s food, I leave cash on the bar and sneak out. I don’t like goodbyes, especially when they’re directed at me. I think I’m clever until I get to my car and see Kit sitting in my front seat.
“You think I don’t know you by now?” he asks. He gets out to make way for me.
“You were busy,” I say. “I have things to do.”
“Like what?”
I lick my lips because they still taste like lemon.
“I have to wash my hair.”
“Clearly,” he says. He closes the door once I’m in and bends down to lean his elbows through the open window.
I am shaking I’m so nervous. He’s going to ask me about the damn napkin, I just know it. I’ll say I don’t remember, and who is he to argue?
“Helena…” He smiles. “Goodnight.”
God. Fuck. He steps away, grinning. A terse smile, and I throw the car into reverse, trying not to look at him in the rearview as I cruise out of the parking lot. It’s not until I’m home and getting out of the car that I notice the napkin on my passenger side seat.
I pick it up. It’s the same kind they keep at the bar.
Give me a reason not to
I groan. No, no, no, no, no. I stuff the napkin in my purse and head inside. Della will be here. Della is here.<
br />
“Where have you been?” she asks when I walk through the door. She’s in pajama pants and a bra—both mine. I resent her large tits. They remind me of bad texting times.
“I was at a Harry Potter convention. Why? Do you need a snack?” I ask.
“I was worried.”
“Dells, you could go home, you know. I appreciate all the love, but I don’t need a babysitter.”
“People commit suicide all the time after breakups.”
“I’m not going to commit suicide. I stopped for a drink at Tavern on Hyde,” I tell her.
Her face lights up. “Did you see Kit? Is he still hot?”
“I did see him; he was wearing suspenders and a long-sleeve shirt in this weather. Super hot.”
“He doesn’t like me to go in when he’s working,” she says. “He says it’s not professional to have your girlfriend drinking at your place of employment.”
I nod. Della was a sloppy drunk; she always ended up fondling a stranger and singing En Vogue at the top of her lungs. Kit was probably just trying to save himself the embarrassment.
“He’s really nice, Della,” I say. “A good guy.”
I hate using the good guy cliché with Kit, but what else is there to say. It’s true. Della beams. She’s so happy with this she makes me a snack. She’s already named their children, and has a board on Pinterest for their wedding. As we eat our snack, she pulls it up and shows me the new centerpieces she’s found.
“A winter wedding,” she says. “Because they’re much more romantic.” In Florida, winter is sixty-five degrees, but I don’t say this. I nod and approve of her lantern centerpieces. Fucklovefucklovefucklove.
Give me a reason not to
I kiss the top of her head. There isn’t a good reason. They are cute together. It doesn’t matter that I already know the name of his daughter. That was just a dream.
F*ck Love Page 5
