Chapter Three #2
“Doesn’t say much about you, then.” Zach is honestly fearless and he will tell you exactly what he thinks about you, right to your face.
It’s a quality I find nerve-racking when I’m on the receiving end of it, and right now I’m somewhere between reveling in watching someone stand up to Nicholas and embarrassment that my personal guest is about to ruin this party.
I forget to be an actress who pretends to be one hundred percent in love, and Nicholas glances at me, noting my silence, before turning his stare to Zach.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zach is a shark. “I mean that you choose asshole friends, and that reflects poorly on you.”
Across the table, Brandy fidgets with her Miss Scarlet figurine and Leon’s eyes flash to mine.
“Obviously, Melissa’s still upset about Seth cheating,” Zach continues.
“You could easily keep your mouth shut, since you know she has every right to be upset, but instead you rush to his defense. There’s a reason you’re empathizing with the asshole, and that’s because you see yourself in him. Ergo, you’re also an asshole.”
You could hear a fly land on the wall.
I’m supposed to reach for my poor fiancé’s hand. Tell Zach to shut up. Declare that we’re leaving. But Nicholas’s expression makes me pause.
His mouth is pursed as he prepares his rebuttal, and he looks around the room with palpable disdain.
He’s seeing himself as the successful son of two wealthy pillars of this bite-size community, rescuing the oversugared population of Morris one cavity filling at a time.
He’s seeing my coworkers as lowly maggots crawling through the detritus at the bottom of the trash heap.
They work at the Junk Yard, which sells alligator heads and novelty whoopee cushions with Whoopi Goldberg’s face on them.
Mexican jumping beans and mugs that say swear words when you fill them with hot water.
When he judges my peers and finds them lacking, he forgets that I’m one of them. To Nicholas, it’s Us versus Them.
Brandy looks anxious. She’s so sweet and bubbly that I doubt she’s ever seriously argued with anyone in her life, and people not getting along is the worst thing that can happen right in front of her.
“Zach,” I belatedly warn through gnashed teeth.
“Can you try to get along with everybody?” Brandy implores him. “Does anyone want more pizza rolls? I have cupcakes, too. Everyone have everything they need?” She half rises from her chair. “Water? Soda?”
Zach pushes her back into her seat with two fingers on her shoulder. “I’m getting along with everybody just fine. Your turn.”
Brandy’s hand trembles as she rolls the die, and Nicholas is all finished deciding what vulgar thing he wants to say to Zach.
“I understand why you’re so emotional. Having no real job security would put anyone on edge.
Your store doesn’t get more than, what, three customers a day?
You’ve got to be hemorrhaging money.” He flashes the same disingenuous smile that Zach has been giving him all evening.
“When you’re ready, I know a guy at the temp agency who can help you. ”
Zach raises two eyebrows at me, like we’re sharing a private joke Nicholas isn’t in on, then says to him, “You’re aware that your girlfriend works at the same place I do, right? If it closes, we’re not the only ones out of a job.”
“I make plenty of money. Naomi doesn’t need a job.”
Anger steams off me like ultraviolet rays.
“The store’s doing fine,” I say, which is a big fat lie.
The store’s on its last wheezes. It’s been around forever, since Mr. and Mrs. Howard got married in the seventies, and at one time was widely popular because we specialize not only in gag gifts but in bizarre curiosities.
People used to make our store a road trip destination.
But ever since the dawn of and eBay, you don’t need to go out of your way to find weird, cultish knickknacks.
With one click, you can have them delivered right to your door.
Mr. and Mrs. Howard know they can’t compete with online shopping, which is why our hours have been steadily scaling back and they finally sold their beloved Homer-Simpson-as-Elvis statue, who’s been greeting customers in the doorway since 1997.
They’re so kindhearted that they can’t bear to downsize the staff, even though two of us could easily be running the Junk Yard for them instead of five.
There’s barely enough work to go around for everybody, and we’re all desperate for more hours. The phrase last to be hired, first to be fired follows me around like the Ghost of Christmas Future.
“The store’s on the brink of collapse,” Nicholas says flippantly, waving his hand. “Won’t affect you, Naomi. You’ll be fine.”
Brandy makes a strangled sound. “What do you mean, it won’t affect her? Naomi loves the Junk Yard.”
Nicholas says nothing, just taps his cards into a neat stack. It’s the last straw.
“If the Junk Yard closes, I might ask the Howards if they’ll hire me to work at their diner.” Mr. and Mrs. Howard run a year-round haunted house up in Tenmouth as well as a diner for strange foods inspired by horror films, called Eaten Alive.
Everyone stares at me. The vein in Nicholas’s forehead pulses. “Isn’t that a long drive from here?”
It’s perfect timing that I get to roll the die while I dramatically say, “Two hours.”
His voice is deadpan. “You’d drive two hours to go to work. At a diner. Then two hours back home, every day.”
“Mm.” I pretend to consider. “If I move to Tenmouth, it would only be a five-minute drive. I could ride my bicycle, even.”
I’ve captured the whole room, and it’s magnificent.
A sparkle of the old Naomi Westfield appears, blowing off ten months’ worth of dust. At least, I think it’s her.
It’s been so long since that Naomi and I have been in the same room together that I’m not sure I’d recognize her if we passed each other on the street.
My minuscule Mrs. White is in the library now next to Leon’s Mr. Green, ready to accuse someone of murder. She’s got a length of rope, and I pick over my options to see who I’m going to hang with it.
My eyes fall upon the pompous little fucker loitering in the billiard room.
Bingo. Professor Plum.
This Professor Plum is a particularly hypocritical incarnation who warns children away from sugary snacks while letting Skittles pool all over his side of the bed on a nightly basis.
He’s a villain escaped from Candy Land. He’s the thief of my joy and future father of my children. Right now I love him twenty percent.
Nicholas’s tone is frozen solid. “My life is here. I’m not moving to Tenmouth and giving up my life for you to serve grilled cheese to truckers, Naomi.”
When he calls me Naomi, he definitely means Mrs. Nicholas. The diamond on my left hand is too tight, cutting off my circulation. The twenty percent shrinks to a ten, an all-time low that trips my self-preservation sirens. They’re flashing and spinning, Red alert! Red alert!
“I want to make an accusation,” I say at the precise moment he says with smooth authority, “I think we should call it a night.” But my guess might end the game, so he waits and listens.
I draw it out, just to antagonize him. He hates when I let two ends of a sentence drift apart. “I accuse . . .”
Nicholas leans forward.
I pick up his game piece and float him over to the library. He’ll like it there, where he can stock shelves with books about brushing your teeth in circular motions instead of from side to side. “Professor Plum.”
Brandy gasps. Melissa scribbles furiously on her detective notepad. Zach’s eyes glint with malevolent joy. Nicholas just looks annoyed. But Leon, I see, is smiling. Just barely, but enough that when my eyes rest on him, he gives me an interesting look.
It says So this is where you’ve been.
In a strong, bold voice, I march on: “I accuse Professor Plum of murder! He did it in the library, like a pretentious asswit, and he used the candlestick.” I know it’s not the candlestick because I’ve got that card myself, but I throw it in there anyway because: “It’s the stupidest possible weapon. ”
Nicholas stares deeply into my eyes for an eternal spiral of time, and it’s entirely possible that we are going to break up over a board game, which would be a hell of a way to go out.
His mother’s going to have a bonanza getting all her deposits back.
The opportunity to call up small-business owners and yell that they’d better not charge her for an ice sculpture of roses will be the cherry on top of her year.
“Go on, then.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he jerks his chin to the center of the board. I realize that I’ve fallen asleep on the color of Nicholas’s eyes, which for whatever reason I’ve been thinking are gray. Up close, fierce with challenge, they’re every color of the rainbow.
Oblivious that I’m having an epiphany, he glares and his irises darken from pale silver to forest green like a mood ring. “Check the cards.”
I do so as slowly and theatrically as possible, warming up to the old Naomi.
He wants so badly to knock over his Professor Plum figurine and cross his arms, but he’s trying to remain civilized.
Dentists already have a bad reputation with phobics and he can’t afford any more negative press, even among the crawling maggots of Junk Yard personnel.
I check the cards and let out a hiss. Zach looks at me knowingly.
Mrs. White, in the kitchen, with the rope.
“Well, wouldn’t you know it! Looks like I’m the murderer,” I say cheerfully. “Didn’t think I had it in me.” Nicholas casts me a distrusting look. I think he’s going to be sleeping with one eye open tonight.
–
The worst part about this whole evening is how quickly Nicholas forgets it.
We’re at home now, where I’m still irritated and he isn’t. The man is baking cookies, and he’s promised to wash up all the dishes, and now I have nowhere to point my anger because he’s Over It, which means he’s won.