Chapter 7 – GLENNA
GLENNA
C ash wouldn’t leave until I agreed to go to Sunday dinner at his parents’. I was reeling from Toby and the moment in the kitchen and my stale beer stink and my fuzzy teeth. I got flustered, and I said yes.
Thank goodness, Cash didn’t drop by work on Saturday.
Toby was being weird, interspersing the cold shoulder with long, piercing looks.
He did that all the time when we dated. It made me so anxious.
I’d ask him what was wrong, and he’d say nothing, then ignore me, then give me the look again. Rinse, repeat.
I’d end up bursting into tears, and Toby would say I was being crazy and hormonal.
It’s strange how I recognized the pattern years ago, but I never could break it. I’d be outside of myself, peering in. Oh, here’s Toby stonewalling. Now my stomach hurts. Here’s the long look. I try to talk to him about it. Next, he gaslights me. Now, I lose it.
I knew exactly what was happening, but I danced to his tune anyway like a marionette.
Why?
‘Cause I’m that type of person? The easily susceptible kind, the weak-willed sucker who can be manipulated? Or because going along is easier than pushing back?
Like I’m going along with Cash?
Why the hell am I doing it?
Yeah, maybe fake dating Mr. Popular will improve the situation in town a little bit, take some pressure off Dad.
Going by the date at Birdy’s—I don’t know.
Maybe there’s something to it. Only Addison was straight-out rude to me.
That’s probably a much smaller number than if I’d gone out to a bar alone.
But how is dinner with his folks going to make things better for the Dobbs family? I don’t believe the Walls are behind any of the hate mail. They’re too classy. And churchy.
And whatever happened in the kitchen had nothing to do with fake dating. We were both sober. Nervous. Even though Cash was being his usual arrogant self, he wasn’t grabby. He was—careful.
And it felt—
Familiar.
Maybe because we did hang out a lot when we were kids. I never thought of it that way—that I was hanging out with Cash, too. Dina was my friend, but wasn’t Cash always around? I don’t usually think about the year or so before Mom died. It’s too close to the event.
I love thinking about when I was little and she’d take me to the park, swing me on the swings and sing, “Say, say, oh, playmate.” How she’d cut my peppers and arrange them in a flower.
How she set up a little desk next to hers at the newspaper with all my craft supplies and my own Rolodex which I used as a sticker book.
But I try not to remember middle school. All those memories have shadows.
Cash texted that he’d pick me up at five, and it’s only noon. It’s my day off, so I drove up to the mountain. I’m hiking my usual trail from Lowland Notch to Harrow Ridge. Mr. Henry said he saw Phat Thom out this way a few weeks ago.
I’m taking it slow, trekking off trail when the underbrush allows for it, looking for broken grass, scat, and feathers. It’s a cool day. There’s a brisk wind blowing down from the peak, and it smells like leaf meal.
It would be awesome if I could get some good shots of Thom. Prints would sell like gangbusters, especially this time of year. A close up could also make for a strong entry into the National Wildlife Photo Contest and the Nature Conservancy Contest. And I bet I could get a featured spot on PixiePix.
I think about that, and as I climb, my mind wanders.
Sometimes, when we were kids, Cash would bring Dina and I squeezie pops when we were hanging out in her treehouse.
He’d holler, and we’d come out and sit on the balcony, dangling our legs through the slats.
He’d offer the pops fanned out like a deck of cards.
I always picked grape, and Dina always picked lime.
Then Cash would launch into some long-winded story about a video game or a fish or something equally boring to pre-teen girls. Dina and I would pretend to listen patiently, swinging our legs and eating our ice pops since he did bring them all the way out to us.
Sometimes he’d mess with me by trying to knock my shoes off. I’d tuck my knees to my chin, and he’d laugh.
He wasn’t mean then. He was just teasing. Dina got annoyed, but she didn’t understand him.
I figured he was lonely.
I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? Even then, Cash was friends with everyone. He had four siblings. A twin. There’s no way he was lonely. Not like I was.
Grown-up Cash is nothing like he was when we were kids. He was hyperactive as hell then, but never arrogant, never a flat-out jerk.
He wasn’t arrogant Friday night.
I was as wasted as I’ve been in a long time, but I remember every moment in his truck. I think about it, and my insides squish. And thrum. It’s a ticklish feeling. Wobbly. Big.
I should be embarrassed, and a large part of me is, but I’m also fascinated by myself.
I rubbed my clit until I came, and he grabbed my ass, but he didn’t watch even though he urged me on. He was trying to respect some kind of boundary, and unlike Toby, I know for a fact that it’s not because Cash believes in boundaries in the abstract.
He was being careful with me.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I—Glenna Dobbs—masturbated on Cash Wall’s lap. It wasn’t me. It was some ballsy alter ego who has fun and lets loose and isn’t low-key depressed all the time.
I wish I were her.
I didn’t take my shirt off with Toby until I was out of high school. I went along with what he wanted. He was into kinky shit. Or, rather, he said he was into kinky shit, but we never got much past talking about consent and hard limits and soft limits and safe words.
Is it a kink to talk about kinky stuff and then have missionary sex and a microwave burrito?
Anyway, for all we talked about “scenes,” I never masturbated on Toby in a parking lot. Drunk. Can’t forget that detail.
All signs point to me having a breakdown. Or is this a rebound thing? It’s been less than two months since Toby moved out. I haven’t dated anyone else. The pool’s not exactly deep in Stonecut County.
Still, my high school bully is a really weird rebound choice. Very masochistic.
Was Toby right? Am I self-destructive?
I don’t want Toby to be right. Faking like we’re friends yesterday morning, acting all concerned about me—friends don’t move out on the last day of the month, sticking you with the whole rent with no warning, and on the way out the door, try to take your blow dryer, and when they get caught, lie and say well they were the one who paid for it.
That’s not friendly.
I pause on the trail and work my fingers into my sling to scratch my arm. It’s healing, and when I get hot, it itches like hell.
Why am I even thinking about men? I’m on a turkey hunt. If I’m gonna get serious this season about shooting Phat Thom, I might need to invest in a turkey call. Even if I find a feather, what am I gonna do? It’s not like he’s leaving a trail of them behind him wherever he goes.
I give my shoulder one last good scratch and start walking again.
Here’s the thing about fake boyfriend Cash. He acts like he likes me.
Not a little. A lot.
He’s watching me all the time. Like he used to when Dina and I were friends.
‘Cause he did. I’m remembering now.
He had a crush on me, didn’t he? So why did he shit-talk my boobs to his buddies?
Hell, why does a twelve-year-old boy do anything? I can’t ask him now. “So, Cash, were you hot for me in seventh grade, and if so, how come you called me the chairman of the itty-bitty titty committee?”
We’re grown now. That’s water under the bridge.
I shoo a gnat off my face and head back down the mountain. I’m not in the right headspace for shooting today. Honestly, Phat Thom could have strutted across the path just now, and I might not have noticed. I need to pull it together. I can’t rule out that this is an elaborate prank.
If it is, what I did Friday night was playing right into his hands.
Or maybe I’m paranoid.
If I am, it’s because he made me that way.
I stomp the rest of the way to the parking area, trying to get my blood moving enough to clear my head. It doesn’t work. I drive back to town in Dad’s van. It’s an automatic, so I can manage with one arm. We’ve traded vehicles until I get better.
I’m back home by three, and even though I take a long shower and shave everything twice, I have an hour to wait after I’m ready.
I’m wearing a gold hoop in my nose, a silky emerald green tunic, black leggings, and my Han Solo boots.
I feel respectable. The neckline’s high and the shirt’s long enough to cover my butt.
I sit in my chair by the window and watch for Cash. Jitters bebop around my stomach. This has so much potential to go wrong.
The Walls are best friends with the Willises. Everyone knows that. No matter how good their manners may be, his parents are not gonna like having me at their table.
Then there’s the fact I dumped Dina.
And they have to be wondering what I’m doing with Cash. Or what Cash is doing with me. We don’t make any kind of sense.
Why did I agree to this?
Oh, yeah. So he would get out of my house, and I could brush my teeth.
Finally, when I’m about crawling out of my skin, his nutless truck pulls up on the sidewalk in front of my building. He leaps out, disappears into the building, and in much less time than I expect, he knocks on the door.
As I open it, all my nerves go bonkers, and my face gets hot.
I am so dumb. This isn’t a real date.
I open the door with no ado. Immediately, Cash thrusts a bouquet of wildflowers at me. Orange roses, sunflowers, daisies, green trick, and baby’s breath. It’s wrapped in burlap and tied with raffia.
“Oh.” I take them.
He smiles, proud as a peacock. “You’re supposed to smell them.”
I do ‘cause I’m at a loss. No guy’s ever gotten me flowers before. My mom got me carnations whenever I displayed a photo in an art show or at the county fair, but flowers from a man—nope. Only seen that on TV.
Cash is waiting for me to say something.
“Nice.”