11 Undeniable Chemistry #2
Once again, I chugged my drink. Ross looked slightly anxious.
His mom just smiled. I could tell she was in her element.
He tried to explain he’d just wanted to get a couple of boring people off his back, but his mother stopped him, telling him that was his private life, and she didn’t need to know the details.
We got into a conversation about the paintings.
She wanted to know which one I liked best. Seeing I was hanging in the wind, Ross butted in to say everyone’s favorite was a picture of a bicycle.
“Sure,” his mother responded, unconvinced.
I had seen it. It was in the main gallery. A red bicycle with a bright-colored backdrop. It was true that everyone stopped to look at it. I commented that it was fine. Ross’s mother prodded me with the question But…? And I admitted that I had preferred the one with the girl on the balcony.
From the look on her face, I got the feeling I had passed the test. The pressure in my chest eased a little. She smiled and pulled away to look at me better.
“Funny,” she said. “The girl on the balcony. That one’s my favorite, too.”
She’s not even your mother-in-law yet and you’re killing it , my brain told me.
“Aren’t you supposed to keep those judgments to yourself, Mom?” Ross asked.
“I’m the gallerist, Jackie. Don’t tell me how to do my job.” She pinched his cheek, and when he told her not to do that, especially not in public, she told me, “He’s still embarrassed by me. What do you think about that, Jenna?”
“Ross,” I said, “don’t be ashamed of your mother.”
He scowled as she started to walk off, remarking that she still had many guests to attend to, but that next time, we should try to talk more.
Next time? I wondered. Does that mean she assumes there will be a next time?
And my brain shouted at me, Dummy, even I know there’s going to be a next time.
She finished by telling Ross he should come to the house more, and he chided her, “I’m happier at my place. Maybe you should come see me.”
Ignoring him, she said, “Why don’t you come, too, Jenna? If I can get you on board, perhaps I can get my son to agree to the torture of coming to see his parents once in a while.”
“Mom…” Ross groaned.
“I’d be happy to. Thank you for the invite.”
“And tell your brother, Jackie,” she added. “I haven’t seen him in ages. How is he?”
“Same as always,” Ross said.
“Of course. Well, thank you for coming, and it was nice to meet you, Jenna. Now I’ve got to keep meeting and greeting.”
“Bye,” I said. “A pleasure meeting you, too.”
Ross frowned at me once she was gone and imitated my voice, repeating the phrase Ross, don’t be ashamed of your mother . Then he said, “I’m happy see you two got along. I hoped I’d have an ally, but I guess all’s fair in love and war.”
“Who said anything about love?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes and grinned before looking at his phone and remarking that it was getting late. “Have you seen Will, Sue, or Naya?”
“I haven’t,” I said.
We walked around a bit and soon saw them by the door looking for us.
As we approached them, Naya made a bored face, pointed outside, and dragged everyone out there with her, and I tried to hurry Ross out, too.
It had been interesting, I guess, but I was ready to go.
Just as we were about to leave, Ross’s mother reappeared, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
He seemed embarrassed, which I found funny, as she added, “Honey, I almost forgot to congratulate you. Now you have fun tonight, OK?”
As Ross tried to rub her lipstick off his cheek, she squeezed my shoulder and took off toward a group of friends. “Congratulations?” I asked Ross. “What’s up with that?”
“It’s my birthday,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I pushed him hard in the chest.
“What the hell is that about?” he protested.
“You deserve it for being a jerk! Were you just not going to tell me?”
“I was! When it was over, at midnight, and you couldn’t try to sing me songs or give me a present or bake me a cake.”
By then we had caught up with our roommates, who were standing at the car while Will smoked a cigarette. I yelled at him in an accusing tone, “Will, did you know it was Ross’s birthday?”
“Of course I did,” he replied. “You didn’t?”
“I didn’t either,” Naya said, and Sue, with her typical charm, interrupted us to say, “Birthdays suck.”
“I agree,” Ross said. “Birthdays suck, and, Jen, I’d prefer you not make a big deal out of it.”
“But it’s your day. You’re turning twenty,” I told him, and he corrected me and said he was twenty already.
I didn’t get it. He was only one year ahead of me at school.
But he explained that he’d had a little problem in high school.
Strangely, when I asked if he had to repeat a year, he and Will crossed glances, and he told me, “Not exactly.” I tried to press him, and he refused to say more, telling me he didn’t want me to have a bad impression of him.
We talked about how we should celebrate.
He was turning twenty-one; that was a huge deal!
Naya swore to me it was a lost cause. Ross said he was tired and wanted to go home; he’d already drunk alcohol a ton of times so it wasn’t anything special.
Will said he wouldn’t do anything till he’d finished his cigarette.
I announced there was no way we were going home without getting a few drinks.
I got into the car and felt my phone buzz.
I hadn’t noticed in the gallery, but Monty had called me several times and sent me two messages in a row.
One read: Why aren’t you picking up? And the other: Who are you with? I want to see a picture.
To hell with him. I wasn’t going to baby him because he was throwing a tantrum. Especially not on Ross’s birthday. More and more, I was telling myself there was no reason for me to ever deal with that kind of thing. I would need to have a serious talk with Monty about his attitude and about us.
When everyone else got in, Will drove us to the same bar where we had seen Mike’s band play before—the only bar where we could reliably drink without getting carded.
We grabbed a window table, and all of us ordered beers except for Sue, who stuck with her beloved water, and Will, who got a soft drink since he had to drive.
We stuck around an hour or two—long enough for me to have two and a half beers and Ross five.
I was tipsy, but he seemed fresh as a daisy, and I asked him, “Don’t you ever get drunk? ”
“I’ve got a good tolerance,” he responded. “Why? You’re not drunk, are you?”
“No,” I said, pushing half of my third beer toward him. “But I’m getting there. You can finish this.”
He drank it down, looked me in the eye, and said, “What?”
“What, what?”
“I know you want to ask me something.”
Damn him. It was like he could read my mind. And my inhibitions were low enough that I didn’t feel like holding back. “Fine,” I said, “I want to know what happened when you were in high school.”
He threw his arm over the back of my seat. I could tell he was uncomfortable, but that didn’t stop him. “I had a little problem with a classmate, and, uh, they threw me out. I think I told you, I’m a very different guy now from who I was in high school.”
“What did you do?”
“That’s a secret I’m keeping to myself. All you need to know is I got kicked out, so I had to repeat a year, and that’s why I’m a twenty-one-year-old sophomore.”
I wanted to ask more, but I thought I’d have to wait until he was actually drunk to do so, and it didn’t seem like that was going to happen that night.
And honestly, as the alcohol got deeper into my system, he started looking so good to me that I wanted to do something besides just talk.
I tried to suppress my urges since there were people around.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me it’s your birthday,” I said. “I didn’t even get you a present.”
“Here’s your present,” he responded. “Don’t ask me about high school again.”
“I won’t! I’ll just ask about your other girlfriend instead. You did say you’d had two, right?”
“I’m going to go smoke,” he said. “You’re welcome to come, but you’re not getting any details out of me.”
Since the other three were engaged in some boring conversation and didn’t even seem to know we were there, I followed him out, zipping up my coat and almost cursing the cold. There were benches outside by the parking lot, and as we sat at one of them, I told him he shouldn’t smoke so much.
“Here we go again…” He sighed.
“It’s bad for your heart, your lungs, your throat. It can give you oral cancer, and it can make you impotent. I saw it on the Net.”
“I think we can both agree I don’t have any problems in that last department, Dr. Jen. Anyway, I know it’s bad for me. I don’t need a reminder. We can make a deal, though. I’ll quit smoking if you quit watching reality shows.”
“I like my reality shows!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, and I like my cigarettes.”
He did stub it out, though, asking me if I was happy and protesting that it must be true love if he was willing to sacrifice half a cigarette for me. Then he grabbed my hand, pulled me close, and reached between my legs with his other hand.
My phone buzzed again in my pocket. Of course it was Monty. Ross had felt it and asked if I wasn’t going to answer.
“If it’s important, they’ll call,” I said.
But I was starting to worry about how angry Monty was getting, especially because he’d definitely get angrier if I didn’t respond soon.
I tried not to think about it. He had told me if I talked with Ross again, he’d leave me.
And there I was, obviously talking to Ross.
And picking up wouldn’t help. If anything, it would just make him act crazier.
I was going to lose him. That was a fact.
So better to forget about him for now and go on enjoying Ross’s company.
“It’s kind of funny that your birthday’s the day before Halloween, right?” I asked.