Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROB
Conversation with Travis
You’ve got it bad for Pollyanna.
She orchestrated this whole thing so she could help with Emil.
How does it help you with Emil if your caseworker thinks you’re banging your brother’s fiancée?
You mean dating my brother’s ex, fuck you very much, and it’ll help because it’s an explanation for why he’d go scorched-earth and have his friends call in a bunch of BS complaints about me.
I dunno. Sounds like a mess.
Probably. We don’t all have alphabetized spice cabinets.
I’m not even confident you own salt and pepper.
I’m totally not changing the subject. But let’s talk about the way you were arm wrestling with the fiery redhead…
Let’s not stereotype.
Uh-huh. You have a thing for women who can sing.
I love peace more.
That woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
By the way, I’m not purposefully changing the subject either, but one of my friends called to ask if we wanted to play some ’80s covers at the Orange Peel in a couple of weeks.
They’re having a dance party.
It’s on your biiiiiirthday. What do you say, bud? Dance it up?
Are you serious with this?
Don’t kill the messenger.
Over my dead body. Not my thing.
No, fun isn’t your thing.
But your brother’s girl is.
I start to set my phone down, then change my mind and shoot off a text to Sophie. She’s my fake girlfriend, after all. Got to get used to pretending, and girlfriends expect check-ins. Or so I’ve heard from Travis, who’s in the off phase of an epic on-and-off relationship that’s lasted for years and is the reason Bixby says he’s never going to date anyone for longer than three weeks.
Goodnight, Sophie. Wish on a star for me, would you?
That’s awfully presumptuous.
I’m laughing, tapping my fingers against the side of the phone in a tic I can’t kick, when her next message comes through.
Please use that cream Dottie gave you.
I will.
Goodnight, Rob. Thank you for everything.
Wait, am I allowed to say that?
Sorrys, I have no use for. Thank-yous, I will hoard.
But I’ll still spare one for you. Thank you for making me special drinks tonight. That was thoughtful.
And here’s another: thank you for wanting to help Emil.
I’m smiling as I set my phone down. Humming as I spread that cream all over my face. It’s thick and herbal smelling.
In the morning, I wake up from a dream about Sophie with a rock-hard dick.
It’s not her, I tell myself. It’s morning wood. No big deal.
I go to the bathroom to take a piss, but I’m distracted by the image in the mirror.
My face is blue . Not blue as in slightly pale with a blue undertone, but actually blue. Like a ripe blueberry. My pillowcase is too.
I fumble for the little container Dottie gave me, but the only label is a whimsical line drawing of a flower. That’s not going to help me figure out how to make my face a normal color.
I bolt back into my bedroom and go for my phone, pulling up Dottie Hendrickson’s number.
It rings three times and then goes to voicemail.
I try her again.
Same result.
Well, shit.
If I believed in karmic punishment, I’d have to wonder if this was a direct result of me breaking my vow to the truth last night.
I don’t, but I can’t escape the feeling that it’s a kind of natural consequence.
I scrub my face with hot water and soap, but the color only fades a little. I still look unnatural, to put it mildly, and it hurts to touch my nose. Not good. I need to call Nelly, but I’m blue and have a bruised face. It seems like those two problems may outweigh my newly acquired fake girlfriend on her is Rob worthy? scale.
I check my phone. There’s a text from my dad:
Call me. We need to talk.
And a repetitive, uncreative threat from Jonah :
You’re going to regret you were ever born, fuckstick.
I avoid the childish impulse to respond that I already regret he was ever born, and opt for not responding to either of them. My face is blue, and that’s the only thing I can focus on right now.
I google allergic reactions and blue faces and get a whole lot of nothing. So I try Dottie again.
She picks up this time, thank God.
“Hello, my dear. I was just thinking about you.”
“Yeah, same…I’m blue, Dottie.”
“Oh, you might not believe it, but I feel blue sometimes too. Even though life gives us wonderful gifts, it can take away things that are precious to us. But we have to focus?—”
“No, I used that cream you gave me, and now my face is blue.”
“Oh, dear,” she says. “You know, I was in such a hurry to get you my restorative skin treatment last night, it’s possible I made an error. Is there a cornflower on the label or a calendula?”
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to keep my temper under control. “I missed that day in gardening class.”
She clucks her tongue. “Why don’t you come to the tea shop? We’ll get it sorted out for you. And then I’ll make you a nice, soothing cup of tea.”
I don’t want a cup of tea. But I also don’t want to still be blue when I show up at The Missing Beat on Monday afternoon. I have a feeling the teenagers in our program would never let me live it down. I’d probably be called Blue Balls until our middle schoolers graduate high school.
So I suck it up, pull on a baseball hat that doesn’t do a thing to hide the fact that my face is blue, and roll out to Tea of Fortune.
I have to grab street parking a couple of blocks away, so I’m treated with a bunch of stares as I walk toward the tea shop. Might as well embrace it, so I grin and wave, either terrorizing or exciting a huge group of tourists speaking Italian.
They’re excited, I decide, when they start singing, “Blue (Da Ba Dee).”
A few minute later, I reach the storefront. I walk in, and dozens of eyes find me. Two older women in particular are staring at me from a table near the front of the shop.
Dottie Hendrickson, who was pouring tea for a customer in one of the booths, clucks her tongue and starts toward me, nearly beaning someone with the kettle of tea in her hand.
“Oh goodness,” she says as she reaches me. “It must have been the cornflower. My vision isn’t what it used to be, I’m afraid. Bear keeps telling me to wear some readers, but I confess I can’t keep track of them.”
“What does the cornflower mean?”
“Oh, it’s my hair dye. Homemade.”
“You’re saying I put hair dye on my face?” It makes sense, given the state of my pillowcase, but it’s certainly not good news.
“Here, sit,” she says, leading me to the table near the entrance where the two septuagenarian women are seated. There are a couple of empty chairs—one for me, apparently. “Drink some tea and try to relax.”
She turns over the teacup on my table setting and fills it with whatever’s in that kettle. I sure as hell will never know. Her cream turned my face blue; I won’t be drinking her mystery tea.
“We’ll get you sorted, dear, not a problem,” she says, patting my shoulder encouragingly. “And I must say, blue is your color. Wouldn’t you say so, Constance?”
The older woman seated next to me looks up from her crocheting project—either an ugly sweater for a dog or a kid’s sweater gone wrong. The stitches are all different sizes, some too loose and the others much too tight. Her hair is crisply styled, her face wrinkled in a way that suggests she smiles more than it would seem based on her current demeanor. Despite the sweater she’s crocheting, she doesn’t give off a warm, fuzzy vibe. “No,” she says, and laughs before returning to her crocheting.
Dottie gives a can’t please everyone shrug and tells me in an undertone, “This is my Wise Women Group. Penny’s not here, of course, given she’s on her journey, and the group does feel incomplete without her. Odd numbers, you know. Still, we meet twice a week to share our wisdom. I was going to invite you to join us before you called me. It’s kismet! But let’s get your face sorted first.”
Turning from me, she raises her voice and asks the room, “Does anyone here have baby wipes? This young man has an emergency, I’m afraid.”
“Happens to the best of us,” says the woman across the table from Constance. She has dark, barely lined skin, rainbow-rimmed glasses, thick false lashes, and a hearing aid. “My friend had so many accidents he started wearing Depends. You know, in the advertisements they use fine young men such as yourself. It was the first I’d heard of it happening to young men.”
Fantastic. A roomful of women think I just soiled myself.
A young mother at a table in the back lifts up a packet of wipes. Dottie hurries over to her, praising her in the highest terms imaginable, and then comes padding back over to the table. Every person in the shop watches as she takes out a wipe and starts cleaning my face as if I’m her toddler child.
To my shock, the blue crap is coming off, appearing on the wipe. “I can do that,” I say, taking the wipe from her.
“Use a circular motion,” Rainbow Glasses says a little too loudly, getting into the swing of things. “That’s it. You’re doing it.”
I scrub at my face, wondering why Dottie didn’t just tell me to buy baby wipes.
But I don’t need to ask, because she sits in the open chair across from me and says, “Now, we were just discussing what you can do to make Sophie realize your interest in her is genuine.”
The baby wipe drops from my fingers into my lap.
“Who says my interest is genuine?”
Crocheting Constance snorts. “Who do you think, Einstein? I’ll give you three guesses.”
I fix a level gaze on Dottie. “Dottie, I don’t want to discuss my personal business with a couple of—” Old gossips. “Ladies I don’t know.”
“Oh, my dear boy,” she exclaims. “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”
Is someone handing out Pollyanna juice? I glance skeptically at the tea in front of me, and Constance gives another of those deep laughs. “That’s what Ted Bundy used to tell women too, you know,” she says. “Some strangers are friends you haven’t met yet. Others are psychopaths. It’s like playing the lottery.”
I think I like her. I still don’t want her to know that I’m fake-dating my brother’s ex-fiancée.
“Uh-huh,” says Rainbow Glasses. “It’s exciting, isn’t it? Like that movie about the simple boy and the shrimp. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
Glancing up at me, Constance points to her nose. “You still have some right there, son.”
I start wiping again, groaning at the pain that radiates through my nose.
“Dear me, that’s a real bruise,” Dottie says. “Well, I have just the cream for that. We’ll clear it up in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“Let me stop you right there.” I lift a hand. “I don’t need cream. I don’t need advice.” I hold up the container of baby wipes. “This right here is all I need. So thank you.”
“Have you been carrying the calcite?” Dottie asks, in the way of someone who knows I haven’t. Rainbow Glasses leans over the table to get a better listen. “On your person, I mean.”
“Did you break into my car and check my glove box for it?” I ask, feeling a surge of annoyance. This woman is well-meaning, obviously, but she’s also disrespectful of boundaries. A busybody.
“No, but I can sense you haven’t been carrying it.”
“Then you should get a job at that psychic place in the strip mall.”
She smiles beatifically at me. “Perhaps, because there’s something else I see.”
I sigh. “Give it to me. I can tell it’s going to be good.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, she says, “My dear boy. You may not know you have feelings for Sophie yet, but I can see it. We all could see it at the brewery last night. Pink light practically beamed from you. Why did you think your brother was so upset?”
“Because I kissed his former fiancée right in front of him?”
“Yes, that did upset him,” Dottie says. “But if you ask me, what really upset him was that the kiss made Sophie breathless. Now, I’ve lived next door to that girl for over a year, and I’ve seen your brother give her many goodnight kisses, and I must say, her breathing never seemed the slightest bit impacted by any of them. Kissing him seemed to be as exciting for her as finding a good coupon.”
Crocheting Constance sets the ugly sweater aside, giving us her full attention. Apparently I’ve been deemed worthy of notice. “Speak for yourself,” she interjects. “I’ve never met a man as exciting as a coupon.”
“But you have that dreamy paramour,” says Rainbow Glasses.
“Yes, Ann, and I still prefer a good deal. A coupon doesn’t need any blue pills to carry out its intended purpose.”
“Neither do I,” I put in, because it seems like a good time to interject.
“Give it another thirty years, son,” Constance says. “You’ll be singing a different tune.”
“ Sophie is a romantic,” Dottie says pointedly. “And she just realized it last night.”
I can’t deny she’s saying exactly what I’d like to hear.
Honestly, I don’t know what I want to happen. I worry this whole fake-dating, for-real-wanting Sophie business is a bad idea. Messy, just like Travis said. It’s possible I made my life a lot more difficult by deciding to play along last night.
This deal with Sophie might very well save me from having to engage in those miserable dinners with Jonah, Patricia, and my dad. But at what cost? I’m still lying, something I pledged not to do anymore.
I’m not going to back down, though. I refuse to let Sophie or Emil down.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some advice?” Dottie stresses, giving me a knowing look.
“Advice about what?” I say.
“About your situation,” Dottie says.
“I don’t have a ‘situation.’ So I don’t need advice about it.”
“You’re going to get the advice whether you like it or not, son,” Constance says. “Might as well tear off the Band-Aid.”
She may be bad at crocheting, but she raises a good point.
“Okay,” I concede. “What would you do in my position, Dottie?”
“Well, a young man and a young woman who are pretending to be in love need to know each other very well, wouldn’t you say? Spend quality time with her, dear. Ask her questions about herself.”
That seems pretty obvious and straightforward. Definitely not worthy of the trip over here. “Yeah,” I agree. “That’s the plan.”
“And the universe didn’t bestow you with the voice of an angel so you could sing in that garbage band,” Dottie continues. “Sing sweet music to her.”
My lips twitch up as I think about the boom box last night. “We’ll see. But, yeah, I figured I’d take her out.”
“Would anyone else like to share advice?” Dottie asks the others, making an encouraging gesture with her hand.
“Be useful,” says Constance of The Bad Crocheting. “No woman wants to spend all day working and then have to wait on a man. Show her that you’re not afraid of getting your hands wet.”
“You said get his shirt wet?” asks Ann, adjusting her hearing aid. “Yes, I see your point. He does seem to fill it out nicely. A wet shirt might seal the deal.”
“Not what I meant, but you may have a point. Might even want to take it off. Especially if he has tattoos.” Constance turns to me. “Do you have tattoos? My granddaughter’s boyfriend has at least a dozen. I thought they were a lot of fuss and bother, but she can’t seem to get enough of them.”
“Maybe you should invest in a few if you don’t have any,” Ann suggests, as if a tattoo is as easy to acquire as a haircut.
“Oh, yes,” Dottie says, taking a little notebook and pencil out of the pocket of her apron and scribbling furiously. “That could be effective.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to pick up a pack of temporary ones the next time I go to the drugstore,” I joke. I have a few real tattoos, including the band’s logo on my arm, but something tells me they might ask me to take off my shirt and give them a show if I tell them.
Constance snort-laughs, but Ann is nodding quickly, as if she thinks putting on a variety pack of fake tattoos is a grade-A strategy for seducing a woman. “And get her some scratch-off lotto tickets,” she adds.
Constance harrumphs. “We all know what makes you drop your granny panties.”
Ann shrugs, looking unoffended or possibly mis-hearing her.
“Well, all right,” I say, pushing my chair back. “If I want to romance her, all I have to do is buy her some scratch-offs, do the dishes, and then pull off my shirt. If she doesn’t have me arrested after that, I’ll consider myself lucky.”
“Above all, be yourself,” Dottie says, rising to her feet. I stand, keeping the baby wipes, because I still haven’t looked in a mirror.
“If you’re an agreeable sort of man,” Constance adds. “If not, you’d be better off pretending to be someone else.”
Yes, I definitely like her.
“Is that for a dog or a kid?” I ask, pointing at the sweater.
“It’s for Bertie.” Which doesn’t answer the question.
“A dog,” Ann says, “but she treats him like a little king.”
Constance makes a dismissive gesture. “If he shit scratchers, you’d treat him like a king.”
Shaking my head in amusement, I take a step away from the table.
“Wait,” Dottie says, her tone almost frantic. “You haven’t drunk your tea.”
“And I won’t,” I say, honestly. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Suit yourself. But I feel, very strongly, that you need to carry the calcite everywhere. Please .”
How could I say no to that? I can’t, so I smile and nod.
“Try wearing that hat backward,” Constance says. “Women love a backward cap.”
“And a doorway lean,” Ann pipes up. “My granddaughter told me that’s why she married her husband.”
“Because he can’t stand properly?”
“Because he’s tall,” she explains. “He’s nice enough, but he has a face like a bunched fist and is about as smart as one. You seem much smarter, son.” She winks at me. “Don’t forget the scratchers. You may get lucky in more ways than one.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, smiling. “Good day, ladies.” I wave to the woman who gave me the wipes, and she waves back, a confused look on her face.
I’ve made it only a few steps from the tea shop before Dottie rushes out, stopping me.
“What is it?” I ask, turning toward her. Something in my heart softens. It’s been a while since I’ve received this kind of regard for my well-being from anyone but Mother Hen Travis.
She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Help her realize it wasn’t her fault, my dear. She needs to know.”
It feels like a bolt of lightning just split me in half, leaving both sides charred and burned.
I know she must be talking about whatever happened to Sophie, the event she’d like to erase from her past.
“Do you know what happened to her?” I ask.
She nods once, her chin firm. “And she’s been treated abominably, if you ask me. I hope you can change that, dear heart.”
“It’s a fake relationship, Dottie,” I say with a resigned sigh. “She’s just doing it to help me.”
“Oh?”
A few people step past us with aggravated expressions. New Yorkers, probably. Tons of them have moved here from the big city and brought their big-city mentality with them.
I lead her over to a bench on the sidewalk. We sit, and I tell her about Emil.
To my surprise, Dottie blots her eyes with a little napkin she retrieves from her apron. “You’re a good boy,” she says, squeezing my hand. “My great-nephew didn’t have the best childhood, but his mother left him with me when he was a teenager, and he grew to be a wonderful , upstanding man. He has a beautiful family of his own now. Sometimes, all a child needs is one person to believe in him. We all want the people we love to have what we didn’t. If you need a character witness, you have one, my dear. I will stand up for you, and so will all of my friends.”
She hugs me, and I let her. Then I walk back to my car, lost in thought. Because she was right. I’m trying to give Emil what I never received, and I didn’t realize it until this second.
I take a few minutes to collect myself, and then I check the time—after nine thirty—and send a message to Nelly instead of calling, telling her about Sophie.
Five minutes later, she calls back and asks to meet my girlfriend.
This is happening.