23. The Dishonorable Fairy Godmother
The Dishonorable Fairy Godmother
A banging on the door causes us both to jump out of our skins. Michelle’s furious voice comes through loud and clear. “Come out of there and explain yourself, you sicko!”
So much for a rational discussion with Michelle. She’s here. She’s pissed. She’s out for blood.
“Don’t worry.” My mind races through explanation after explanation. “I’ll fix everything.”
Rhys levels me with a quietly menacing simmer. “You’d better.”
I peer carefully at his steely, stoic expression. “Are you mad at me?”
He exhales an exasperated sigh just as the flimsy door rattles again.
“Come out of there, you degenerate!” screams Michelle.
Rhys narrows his eyes. “What do you think?”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Get behind me.”
“Why?”
“So I can protect you from getting your ass kicked.”
“By Michelle?” he squeaks. “She’s tiny.”
The door shakes, threatening to come off its hinges as if Michelle had somehow acquired a battering ram.
Rhys’ complexion turns to color of chalk.
“She’s three years into her kickboxing class,” I explain. “And she has a short fuse. You probably already know, given that she tossed a drink in your face during your blind date. Now that she thinks you sent her an unsolicited dick pic, you’re really in for it.”
Gulping, Rhys falls into line behind me. “And you think you can de-fuse her?”
“That’s what I do.” I swipe a ticklish tendril of hair from my face, wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. Taking another fortifying breath, I yank the door open, surprising Michelle with her fist in the air.
“Michelle,” I begin, in my calmest hostage negotiator voice, “please step inside. We need to talk.”
“You.” Michelle refuses to step over the threshold. “I should have known you were somehow involved in this.” Her accusatory gaze goes from Rhys, then me, taking note of our flushed faces. We’re huddled in a public bathroom, which we disappeared into for close to twenty minutes.
She nods, as if confirming her own suspicions. “Just as I thought. You’re fucking him.”
“What?” Rhys and I jump apart. “No!”
“I’m not — We’re not—”
“We’re not involved in any way whatsoever,” Rhys explains for both of us. “We’re just... We’re—” He eyes me uncertainly. “Are we friends?”
I suppose we are friends. It’s possible that, without our knowing it, our practical arrangement has taken on a strange intimacy that can be construed as friendship.
A tentative, fragile friendship that’s about to end after this dick pic incident.
I’m positive Rhys hates me now that I’ve ruined his chances with Michelle and sullied his good name.
Now she thinks he’s the kind of guy who sends pictures of his dick on the first date, all because I multitasked too close to the sun and failed to clear Rhys’ clipboard.
Stepping forward, I finally found my words. “We’re more like co-workers, to be exact.”
“Coworkers?” Michelle snorts. “You don’t even work at the same company.”
“We’re working on a special inter-company project.” I nudge Rhys in the ribs to corroborate my story.
“We’re ASSET specialist,” he coughs. I level an exasperated gaze over my shoulder at his unconvincing delivery. We look guilty. We sound guilty. He’s made us appear even guiltier.
It should be noted that if Rhys and I were ever co-conspirators in crime, I can’t trust him to talk us out of a corner.
We would go swiftly to jail on account of his inability to lie.
And the infuriating irony of it all: we’re telling the truth (in parts), but you wouldn’t know it coming from his lips.
Rhys Stiltskine could say his own name and have you doubting it.
Maybe it’s Rhys’ shifty delivery or just the incriminating situation of two coworkers jammed in a coffee shop bathroom, out of which a dick pic suspiciously materialized, but Michelle doesn’t believe a word we say.
“How dumb do you think I am?” Michelle snaps, then trains her fury on me.
“What kind of sick, twisted game is this? Setting me up with the guy you’re screwing...
” she glances around the bathroom, “sneaking off to have a quickie while our date isn’t even over.
Then taking a picture of his dick and sending it to me? Is this how you two get off?”
“Um...” I don’t know what to say. “No!” I turn to Rhys, my supposed lover.
“That’s crazy. This is not...” Frankly, I’m offended Michelle thinks I’m the kind of low-rent character who can get horny in a public bathroom.
I need ocean views and five-hundred thread count sheets to get in the mood.
“This is not a quickie.” I gesture to the toilet, a truly disgusting Exhibit A, as if its very presence is enough evidence of our innocence.
“This is a...” Oh shit. What is this? “This is a work meeting.” I swat Rhys’ arm again, urging him to step up and take up the mantle.
He’s mastered the ‘silent’ type, now it’s time to embrace the ‘strong.’ “Say something. She’s your date. ”
“I’ve ... I’ve...” He sputters, stunned stupid by her accusation. “That’s not my dick…”
Such a bold declaration warrants an explanation. Rhys never explains, just leaves his sentence dangling… the very definition of a penis-shaped cloud over our heads.
He defers to me to elaborate.
“It’s really not,” I say. “It belongs to someone else.”
Understandably, the truth is stranger than fiction. Michelle doesn’t buy any of it. She whirls on Rhys. “If it’s not yours, what are you doing with another man’s dick on your phone?”
“Well...” Rhys begins sheepishly. “It’s a funny story.”
“No! Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know,” she retreats, flaying us with one final scowl, “delete my number. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Either of you!”
“Michelle!” I follow her through the cafe with Rhys at my heels. “You have to believe us. We’re telling the truth.”
“I don’t have to believe anything you say! You’re a goddamn liar,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Michelle! Listen!”
“You cheated while in Girl Scouts, you cheated at work, everyone says I can’t trust you and what do I do?” She stops dead in front of the table of a man on his laptop. “You’re a manipulative nymphomaniac!”
I blink, gobsmacked. “But I’m not!”
Pot meet kettle. This accusation coming from someone who just propositioned Rhys for a ménage à trois with her third cousin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch laptop man checking me out. “You got a staring problem?” I snap.
He shakes his head, pretending to focus on his work. By now, we’re the center of attention. The cashier has stopped taking orders; the customers have stopped placing them. Every head turns in our direction, unabashedly watching our drama unfold like a live-action telenovela.
“What happened in Girl Scouts?” asks the old lady to my left.
I skewer her with a dirty look. “Mind your own business.”
“She was kicked out,” Michelle answers, eyeing me with a malicious arch of her brow, “for faking her cookie sales.”
“Hm.” The old lady shakes her head, all her assumptions about me confirmed.
Having fully tanked my reputation, Michelle points a shaky finger at Rhys. “And you! You think this tiny prick,” she waves her phone around on which is displayed the tiny prick in question, “you thought this would impress me?”
Rhys eyes the cafe, noting everyone straining to see the photo. Despite looking like he’d rather crawl into the nearest hole and die, he makes a second attempt to clear his name. “Michelle, that is not my dick. It belongs to Carina’s—”
“No!” Michelle covers her ears. “I’m done.” And drama queen that she is, stomps toward the exit and flings open the door.
She’s truly making such a big deal out of this. To be honest, I hate her right now and not because she managed to villainize me, but because she’s airing out her unverified assumptions in front of the entire cafe, making us look bad.
Okay… fine. I cooked the books on my cookie sales. How many times must I be reminded of that? I was ten years old, for heaven’s sake! Must I wear my dishonorable discharge like an albatross around my neck for the rest of my life?
Even if I rescued a classroom of children from a burning building, Michelle would still pop up at my medal of valor ceremony, “Yeah, but she’s a Girl Scout cookie grifter…”
Can I ask for a pardon? Not in Michelle’s book. She’s the Inspector Javert to my Jean Valjean, forever riding my ass about crimes committed when I was an opportunistic fifth grader.
And speaking of opportunistic… Michelle didn’t even come close to fulfilling her end of the bargain. I want my bag back.
Meanwhile, Rhys… Well, this will traumatize him for life.
Just when I’ve painstakingly lured him out of his shell, this public shaming will unravel all my hard work and send him scurrying back inside.
Not that it matters what these strangers think, but everyone now believes the sad little penis belongs to him.
Everyone is snorting and scowling, judging and jeering as if he’s whipped his dick out right now.
On the slim chance he ever dates again, he’ll remember this moment as his worst fumble ever. He may withdraw from the dating pool entirely and live out his days as an embittered incel, losing friends and angering people. He was just on the verge of becoming a datable man, and now it’s ruined.
All ruined!
All because Michelle has the mother of all main character syndromes and probably revels in all the sympathy she’s getting from waving the photo around.
All because Sam sent me a dick pic, not knowing that another man would be framed (and literally cockblocked in both body and spirit, possibly forever).
You see what trouble dicks do to your life?
Michelle and I were getting along splendidly, and now I don’t even like her anymore because Sam’s selfie got between us and stirred up years’ worth of resentment over Girl Scout cookie sales.
And all because Sam ‘accidentally’ sent me his dick pic on purpose.
This is all Sam’s fault.