13. Dottie
13
DOTTIE
Stephen
So, Dorothea. I have a question.
I may have an answer, Stephen.
Stephen
Since we’re friends again and all that jazz, what do you think about meeting up with Daisy May and me at the tree lighting on Friday night?
Hmm. I think that could be fun. Does the town still do all the food stands and the bonfire? I can’t remember the last time I had a peppermint white hot chocolate.
Stephen
Does the town still do the food stands, she asks.
I think all that sun out in Malibu must have gotten to your head if you think the Fox Hole Bitties would allow a holiday to pass without a bit of fanfare. This past Arbor Day they brought in a Ferris wheel and four different cotton candy stands.
Somehow, I think you might be exaggerating…
Stephen
You got me. There was no Ferris wheel. But Old Man Carter was giving tractor rides down Main Street until someone realized he had whiskey in his Hydroflask
Now that I can believe. Do you remember the sixth-grade field trip to his farm? He was supposed to be teaching us about irrigation. But no, we all ended up in the mud pit with his pigs because he was too drunk to watch us.
Stephen
Remember it? Sweetheart, I still have the scar on my elbow from when that fat ass sow knocked me into the trough. I had to get a tetanus shot.
Lol, you were such a baby about it, too. You wouldn’t stop crying until I gave you the last Butterfinger from my Halloween candy stash.
Stephen
You know that I've always had a sensitive soul, Dorothea. What would I have done without you to nurse me back to health with your chocolate and your company?
Somehow, I think you would have managed. And to answer your question: yes, Stephen. I would love to meet you and Daisy May at the tree lighting. I would be especially thrilled if there happens to be a peppermint white hot chocolate with my name on it waiting for me.
When Stephen first proposed another meetup on Friday night and I accepted, I was afraid that the week would drag on with a sense of impending doom and dread hanging over my head. I mean sure, the coffee shop ended up okay in the end, but it could have easily been a fluke. It was afternoon coffee. It doesn't get more casual than an afternoon coffee.
And Friday night is… well… night. Things are different at night. It's dark. It's chilly. There will be romantic, stupid, twinkling lights everywhere.
I decided early on I would be bringing Kira as backup. Nothing stupid or romantic can happen with Keeks on the case.
It turns out I didn't have much time to wallow and worry about what may or may not go down tonight. Monday rolled into Tuesday, where I spent the day with the McKenna men, helping them chop wood for the fireplace and sauna while Kira drank hot tea and critiqued my axe-swinging skills.
On Wednesday, we made good use of the wood in the sauna, soaking and sweating and easing my aching shoulder muscles. As it turns out, chopping wood isn't as easy as the sexy mountain men on the internet make it look.
Thursday morning, I slept in while the McKenna family went to pick out their Christmas tree. I didn't want to intrude no matter how many times I was invited, because picking their tree is an important family tradition. Jay and Keith were very receptive to my decoration ideas after the Douglas Fir was up in the family room.
The Mountain looks fantastic with their nostalgic ornaments and decorations mixed in with some more modern pieces scattered throughout. The whites I suggested blend beautifully with the ornate silver menorah that sits proudly on the fireplace mantle, which was passed down to Keith from his bubbe. We drank the night away, sipping through bottles of Sauvignon Blanc while judging the hotness of the male love interests in a bunch of different cheesy Christmas movies.
And now it's Friday, and the wallowing and worrying has come back in full force. I know Keeks can tell, because she's tugging my hair a little too tight as she twirls strand after strand around the hot curling wand.
"I don't even know why I'm bothering to do this. The second you walk outside you're going to flatten the hell out of these gorgeous tresses with a beanie. It's a total waste of my time," she whines, but she picks up another piece and continues to curl anyway.
"Okay first of all, Keeks, you're curling my ends. The ends do not go into the beanie, they will not be flattened. Second, you begged to curl my hair. Your exact words were 'I will die like a Victorian woman succumbing to Typhoid right here on this couch if you don't let me sink my hands into your luscious lion mane'. I remember exactly because it made me pee my pants a little out of fear for your future spouse. God save the person who has to put up with you for the rest of their life," I mutter the last sentence under my breath, hoping she didn't quite hear me. Don’t bite the hand that currently has a four-hundred-degree dildo-shaped rod near your scalp.
"Well, it seemed like more fun when I started. You've got too much hair. You gotta stop taking those biotin vitamins and start using one of those 'wet to straight' flat irons after you shower. Kill of some of this extra protein, you know?" She finger-brushes the back of my hair as she talks, loosening the curls from Shirley Temple-tight to soft waves that flow down my back.
She gives my roots a zhuzh with her fingertips and then twirls the piece in the front into a tight coil–the one that is still too long and too short after a year of trying to grow out my ill-advised bangs phase–and pins it back by my ear with a light-gold bobby pin. "Perfect," she says, leaning over and digging through her makeup bag.
"What are you looking for?" I ask her. I already did my makeup. I went light on the stuff, opting for a monochromatic, pumpkin spice-y look, with orange and brown tones from my eyelids to my lips that highlight my tanned skin without being too ‘look at me! I'm wearing hundred-dollar blush!’
"Aha!" she exclaims, pulling a crusty looking tube out from the bag. There's caked on product stuck to the side, and I'm pretty sure the tiny white spots I can see are mold growing inside the plastic container.
"What the actual fuck is that?" I ask as she pries the lid off the tube, dry flakes flying everywhere as she finally yanks it off.
"It's my old lip kit! If you want to give Stephen to the full 'Dottie in High School' experience, you're going to need the over lined lips or he won't recognize you. Actually, let's find a shot glass you can suck on for a bit, really plump these babies up."
She circles the wand towards my mouth, circling it and cooing like a mom trying to get her toddler to 'open up for the airplane'. I hit her hand, and the wand goes flying, smacking into the opposite wall and cracking in half.
"Bitch!" She yells. "I was saving that!"
"For what?" I ask, taking the tube from her hand and tossing it into the trash can before the fumes from the toxic mold kills us .
"For when the 'fish who just sucked a dick' look comes back. I think I could really make it work this time around," she harrumphs, crossing her arms across her chest. When I snort, she breaks, and we fall into hysterics. We both know that look is never coming back, and even if it does, Keeks will not be 'making it work'. She’s stunning, but overlined lips have never been her look.
"Thanks, Keeks," I say when my laughing calms down and I catch my breath. "But as much as I would love to contract some brain-eating amoeba from your moldy lipstick, I think Adult Dottie's makeup will be just fine for a casual meetup with an old friend."
"Casual meetup with an old friend, my ass," Kira mutters under her breath as she leans over my shoulder to adjust her own lipstick in the mirror. I step on her toes, making her yelp.
"Wanna say that a little louder, Miss Ma'am?"
"I said CASUAL MEETUP WITH AN OLD FRIEND MY ASS!" She turns and screams into my face, piercing my ears. I forgive her though, since she punctuates it with a quick little kiss on my nose. "Don't worry Dottie girl, I promise not to embarrass you in front of your ‘old friend’ while you ‘casually meet up’ with him under the twinkling snowflake lights and sip the sexiest non-alcoholic beverage known to man."
I furrow my brow at her.
"Peppermint white hot chocolates are sexy?" I ask her, and she nods furiously.
"Of course they are. Not only do they make your lips taste like sugar and sin, but the peppermint also freshens your breath. They're an aphrodisiac, everyone in town knows that."
I can't decide if that statement makes me want to drink one more or less…
"Come on," she says, picking up my new Prada cashmere beanie and fixing it on to my head. "It’s time for a little skip down memory lane.”
Stephen was not wrong when he said the town would be going all out for this tree lighting. I shouldn't be surprised. Linda Parker has been the town mayor since I was in diapers, and she is nothing if not a fan of an over-the-top celebration for the most mundane things. She once wanted acrobats brought in to celebrate the burying of our elementary school time capsule. Seemingly fitting, since the theme was 'Flipping Over the Future', but the town budget only allowed for one performer.
It wouldn't have been so bad if said performer hadn't gotten his bookings mixed up and showed up ready to do a police-themed striptease for a bunch of bachelorettes and not a gymnastics routine for a room full of fifth graders.
It seems like the budget for fanfare has since been expanded, because the town square looks amazing. Snowflake shaped lights hang from every tree and light post, intertwined with tinsel and strings of popcorn and cranberries. They look so real that I have to assume that they are and also wonder how the hell Mayor Parker is managing to keep the town's notorious tricky raccoons away.
Food stands have signs boasting everything from caramel apples to kettle corn, hush puppies to cider donuts, fried pickles to the famous peppermint white hot chocolate. The high school choir is adorned in red, silver, green, and gold robes, standing in formation on bleachers and singing the classic “Carol of The Bells”. There's a machine blowing fake snow towards the children's play area, and even the weather seems to have gotten in on the merriment, having dipped to a frosty forty-five degree–numbers that Fox Hole, Tennessee usually only sees on early January mornings.
The tree is huge. Not giant like the hundred-foot monsters they put up at The Grove every year, but it's a decent size. Bigger than I remember the ones of my youth being. It's still dark, of course, the lighting ceremony hasn't yet begun, but it’s decorated with a myriad of ornaments. I can see the glitter of the large balls of red, green, and gold, as well as the silvers and blues of menorahs and dreidels. That is new, and it's nice to see the Fox Hole decorating squad including some more holiday diversity, if not a century too late. I know Keith had been complaining about a lack of Hanukkah-based celebrations in this town for most of my childhood, so it was about time.
Kira and I walk arm-in-arm through the crowd of families and townspeople and she points out some of the newer town additions I haven't yet noticed, like the gazebo that was moved six yards to the east after a heated town meeting regarding the town's septic system. I didn't ask for more information. I really don't need to know how the gazebos position has anything to do with what the people of Fox Hole flush down their toilets.
I try to listen as she tells me about the drama involving last year's Nativity reenactment, where the fourth-grade brat playing a Wise Man punched the Virgin Mary in the face. She’d accidentally stepped on the bottom of his costume, tugging it loose and exposing his Batman boxers to the crowd. I manage to do what I think is a pretty impressive impression of a person who’s listening intently while slyly scanning the square for a six-foot mountain man with a brunette bun and the world's sweetest dog at his side. You'd think he'd be hard to miss, given the sheer size of him, but I don't see him anywhere.
I think back to the text he sent me this morning. Seven thirty by the corn dog stand. It's seven thirty-five, and there is no one by the corn dog stand besides Dean and some girl I vaguely remember from high school. I feel my stomach start to somersault as worry slams into me.
Stephen is never late. Not even by five measly minutes.
And then on my next breath, I realize that I don't know if that's true. Teenage Stephen may have lived and died by the watch on his wrist, but adult Stephen? I'm not sure.
I try to think back to the other day at the coffee shop. Was he wearing a watch then? I can't seem to remember. I try to picture him, but when my mind's eye sweeps down to his arms, the traitorous thing focuses in on the thick vein running out from underneath the sleeve of his cuffed flannel, leading down to the hands that I used to know so well
"Are you even going to pretend to listen to me?" Kira interrupts my train of thought with a hip check, nearly knocking me off balance in the process. I just shrug a shoulder. There's no point in lying.
"I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it," I say, and she scoffs.
"Not even close, honey bear. You're looking in the wrong direction, by the way."
That gets my attention.
"What do you mean?" I ask, following her finger as she points towards a lemonade stand, where Stephen and Daisy May are standing with Mrs. Danfield, the oldest and pushiest of the Fox Hole Bitties. I see him cast a gaze towards the corn dog stand where we're supposed to be meeting, and then just to the left of where Kira and I stand. He gives me an ‘I'm so sorry,’ look that is so cute I have no choice but to laugh, or else I will swoon right here where I stand. There's no need for apologies, though. Every single person in this town knows that if Mrs. Danfield gets you in her conversational clutches, it's nearly impossible to escape .
"You'd better go save your casual meetup," Kira whispers in my ear as she pats my butt, nudging me in their direction. I turn to ask her to join me, but she's vanished into the crowd.
That bitch just left me here, on my own. So much for my aromantic safety net.
I start towards them, and when Daisy May spots me, her little dog ears perk up. She jumps up when I reach them, her paws landing softly on my thighs. I'm going to have little muddy puppy prints on my leggings all night, but I suppose I'll live.
"Mrs. Danfield," Stephen says an octave louder than is necessary, butting in to whatever story she was telling him. "You remember Dottie Lynn Hart, don't you?"
I prefer when he calls me Dorothea, but I know he went with Dottie for Mrs. Danfield’s benefit.
I smile and hold out my hand.
"Hi Mrs. Danfield, it's good to see you again."
Mrs. Danfield looks down at my outstretched hand, and then back up at me. Her nose wrinkles up as she regards me like I'm some sort of alien life force that also happens to smell like day-old sushi.
"Yes, I remember you. I'm surprised to see you here, Ms. Hart. I thought you and your hoity-toity mother were too good for this town," she sneers, tapping her cane on the ground next to her. She has a point, about my mother at least. I never thought I was "too good" for Fox Hole, I just wanted somewhere better than the lonely home I was living in.
Mom, on the other hand, hated this place with a passion. She thought the town, me, and the man who knocked her up were all beneath her, despite having grown up here herself. The woman felt stuck because of me. She had a house to raise me in, courtesy of my late grandfather's will, and that ain't nothing for a single mom to sneeze at. Keeping that house until I was old enough to leave was probably the smartest thing she ever did.
But still, she was stuck. I think that's part of why she drank so much. So that she could pretend that she was anywhere but here. Me, I wrote in journals, drew pictures, and created secret places in my mind that I could escape to when I needed to. Mom? She found her solace at the bottom of a bottle of gin.
Be that as it may, I am in no mood for Mrs. Danfield's shit. She might be my elder, but do unto others what you would have done to you and all that crap, right?
"Yep. Okay. Well Mrs. Danfield, Stephen and I have some hot chocolate to drink, so I will be saving him from you now. It was not a pleasure, and I hope I don't see you around while I'm here," I say, looping my arm through Stephen’s, leading him and Daisy May away from Mrs. Danfield's gaping fish face.
I head right to the line for hot chocolate a few stands down and huff out a breath when we queue behind a few families.
"That was… god damn, Dorothea. No one ever talks to Mrs. Danfield like that. Would it be inappropriate if I say that was hot as fuck?" he asks, pulling me to his side by my elbow. It's only then that I realize we've still got our arms hooked together, but I make no moves to disentangle myself from him.
Neither does he.
Hot as fuck.
That’s something I’ve never heard out of Stephen’s mouth. Not when describing me. Not even the time he went on a twenty-minute diatribe on why Kathryn Hahn is the most underrated beauty in Hollywood. No, he’d called me pretty, beautiful, even gorgeous, but not hot. Hot feels different. Hot is grownup. Hot is sexually charged. Hot is a little degrading in a delicious way that makes my stomach do a somersault.
I mean, technically he was calling my actions hot as fuck and not me, but it feels like a sexy compliment just the same.
"That crotchety old bitch has had it coming for a long time," I say, rolling my eyes and ignoring the tingling low in my belly.
"Hey, I'm with ya. Remember our sophomore year when she caught us under the bleachers when we were supposed to be working the ticket booth at the soccer game?" he asks. We had signed up to volunteer at the girls’ soccer team playoff team in exchange for a 5 percent increase on our next pre-calc test, since the coach moonlighted as our math teacher.
"Oh, I remember, alright. She already had that cane, even back then. Though I don't think she needed it, she was just a fan of corporal punishment."
"Yeah, and she whacked me in the ass with it when she noticed my hand underneath your hoodie, like it was any of her business that my hand was on your boob," he laughs.
"My right boob, if I recall."
"Well that one was always my favorite," he deadpans.
"Then she told your mom that we were ‘publicly fornicating’, and your mom promptly grounded both of us for two weeks."
"And the next morning I woke up to a box of condoms on my nightstand with the infamous Post-it note," he says.
" Don't have sex. And when you have sex anyway, please for the love of god, use these. I'm too young to be a grandmother." I repeat the note that both mortified us and made us laugh for what felt like hours when he told me about it that same night. We had snuck out to our field after midnight to commiserate together–grounding be damned.
"The joke ended up being on her. Those condoms were long expired by the time we found ourselves in need of one," he says, cooly.
I don't miss the pink blush creeping over his cheeks, though.
One of the teenagers working the stand calls us over and Stephen orders for us, asking for extra whipped cream and an extra candy cane in my drink without me having to ask for it. He insists on paying, and I let him without putting up a fight.
"Want to give Daisy May her pup cup?" he asks after we've found an open bench and taken a seat. I squeal and take the cup of whipped cream from him. As I go to offer it to the dog, Stephen leans in and speaks quietly into my ear.
"Tell her to sit first," he says quietly.
"Sit, Daisy May," I say, and she plants her bottom right on the ground.
"Now ask for her paw," Stephen says, and it feels like he's gotten even closer.
"Give me your paw, Daisy May."
She puts her paw right up on my lap.
"Now," Stephen breathes against my ear as I feel his arm slink around my shoulder. He sets it on the bench, close enough to touch me but still leaving space, so that I'm not actually caught up in his embrace. His voice drops to a raspy whisper. "Tell her she's a very good girl and give her the treat."
I swallow a lump in my throat as a shiver works its way down my spine. My core tightens. I know he's talking about his dog for Pete's sake, but hearing Stephen whisper 'good girl' into my ear does something to my body that I haven't felt in a long, long time. It makes my skin feel unbearably hot and tingly, especially the spot on my neck where I can still feel the ghost of his breath.
I do as he says and hold the cup out to Daisy May, trying to steady my own breathing as she devours her whipped cream. My mind is experiencing some sort of wild emotional whiplash. I can't quite figure out if I feel awkward, nostalgic, friendly, or turned the hell on .
Stephen hums in my ear.
Turned on. I am most definitely turned on.
Daisy May finishes her treat and I take a sip of my drink, allowing the sweet chocolate and fresh peppermint to sweep my senses and distract me from the fact that Stephen still hasn't moved his arm. Although we're still not touching, the heat radiating off his skin makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
"Do you have any tree lighting ceremonies like this out in Malibu?" Stephen asks, sitting back but keeping his arm behind me. I'm thankful for the reprieve from my racing thoughts.
"If anyone tried to light a real tree in Malibu, they'd set the entire coast ablaze. We mostly wrap our surfboards in tinsel and put Rudolph noses on the front of our G-Wagons. There is a giant Christmas tree at The Grove in Los Angeles, though. And the Santa Monica Pier usually gets all festive. I've spent a lot of Christmases up in San Francisco with Keeks and our friend Rachel. At least up north the weather gets chilly, so it actually feels like the holidays."
"So, this must be nice, huh? Fox Hole is like a cheesy holiday movie this time of year," he says, gesturing vaguely towards the crowd of people congregating. It's almost eight o’clock, which means the mayor will be doing her speech and lighting the tree any minute.
"Yeah, it's exactly how I remember it being when we were younger. Over the top. School kids forced to volunteer or sing or reenact the manger scene from the bible. Feels like this place is exactly the same as it always was."
"And you never did like it that way, did you?"
I show my agreement with a low laugh, though there's no humor behind it. "I suppose I didn't. I used to sit at these town events and wish that you and I were anywhere else."
"And what do you wish now?" He asks.
That we were seventeen again so your arm would be around my shoulder instead of five centimeters behind it.
As I try to formulate some kind of appropriate answer to his question, I start to feel that indescribable stickiness that happens when you know you're being watched. Like the eyes of the people watching are all over you, their essence coating your skin. It's just like at Noble Brews the other day, or at Liquor World my first day in town. It seems that inquiring minds of Fox Hole can't help but wonder what's happening between Stephen and I this week.
Guess what, Fox Hole folks? I have no idea.
Though when I look around, the eyes on us are not inquisitive, nor are they on us. Nope. They're all directed at me, and every single one of them is full of scorn.
"Stephen," I say, leaning in and giving him my best stage whisper, "Why is our fifth-grade teacher staring at me like I killed her puppy?"
He sucks in a breath, then clears his throat, pointedly.
"Yeah, about that. There may have been a whole thing back when you left, and everyone found out we were…no longer together. People took sides. It was weird and uncomfortable."
"People took sides when we broke up? Does the whole town hate me?" My jaw drops as I interrupt him, and my stomach sinks. I knew the people in this town could be petty–just look at Mrs. Danfield's uppity ass earlier–but to take sides on a breakup? Even worse, to still hate me for something that had nothing to do with them? I should've stayed in Los Angeles. At least all my fake friends there pretend to like me and would only talk shit about me behind my back.
"No one hates you. I think this town just has its fair share of judgmental creeps who spent too much time invested in the goings on of two teenagers almost a decade ago, and now those creeps don't know what to do with themselves seeing us together and friendly again. And for the record, the people who matter, like my parents, the McKennas; none of them took sides. Except Delilah. She never forgave me for letting you go."
He gives me a half smile, but there's nothing behind it. The painful indifference crushes me.
"And what about you? Did you hate me? Do you have an ugly doll named Dorothea that you stick pins in when you’re pissed? Is that why I get those random cramps that feel like someone is punching me from inside of my uterus every so often?" I place a hand on my lower stomach as I feel one of those pains hit me just now. It's probably psychosomatic, but I look to see if Stephen is fiddling with a needle and ribbon in his pocket anyway. His arm finally finds its way off the bench and fully around my shoulders. He squeezes gently and pulls me a little bit closer to him.
"No. There is no doll. There was never a doll. I hated the whole charade. It was mortifying. Everywhere I went, people asked me about you with no regards to my feelings. Nobody seemed to give a shit that you and I had gone through something. It was hurtful. And I didn't like the way they talked about you, especially when you weren't here to defend yourself."
That catches me off guard. Sure, Stephen is being kind and friendly to me now, but we've got years between what I did to him and who we are now. It's hard to imagine him hurting for me, even after I left.
"And now?" I ask softly.
"Now? I don't give a fuck what any of those bored wine moms think. I'm just happy you're here." Our thighs brush, and he starts to move his hand up and down, gently caressing my arm. It's all too much. The stares, his words, his hands on me. I look up at the sky, blinking back tears as I take deep breaths, trying to swallow my emotions.
"I have a hard time believing that" I say, and my voice breaks. My eyes betray me, and I feel the lone, hot tear start to roll down my cheek.
"Truth or dare, Dorothea?" He reaches out with his free hand and brushes the tear away with his thumb.
"Dare," I answer, still looking up. I can't bring myself to face him, but he doesn't seem to care. He captures my chin with his thumb and his forefinger, bringing my gaze to meet his. His green eyes glisten, reflecting the millions of twinkling lights surrounding us.
"I dare you to believe me sweetheart, because it's the truth. You were my best friend, and you're back. You're here with me, and I never thought I'd get this again. They can't take it away from me." He smiles at me, a soft, slow curve of his lips that sends shivers careening down my spine. Our faces seem to inch closer and closer to each other, one millimeter at a time. His hand on my shoulder stops caressing and starts gripping, creating tension like a rubber band ready to snap between us.
I watch his eyes darken, pupils widening as they peer into mine, and then his gaze drops lower to my lips. I feel it in my stomach, a heady warmth building inside of me as I watch his tongue peek out, wetting his own lips as the gravity between us pulls us closer, closer, closer.
My vision blurs, and the bubbly warmth in my belly turns into a shameful heat. From a potent thrill to an embarrassing, unsettled mess. I can feel the eyes of the town on us as we sit here, and it's wrong. It's all wrong. I shouldn't be doing this. Stephen isn't mine to be close to. He isn't mine to embrace. He isn't mine to kiss. I shouldn't let him soothe the festering wound I inflicted on myself all those years ago. Not here, not in front of Fox Hole.
I turn, shoving my hand into my purse and rifling around for the only thing that I can think of to break the tension and bring us back to reality.
"Butterfinger?" I ask, holding the candy bar I grabbed from the market this morning up between our faces. He raises a brow at me, but quickly shakes it off and grabs the chocolate out of my hand. He snorts as he tears open the wrapper, and just before taking a giant bite, I hear him mutter, "Damn, Dorothea."