9. The First Lesson
9
THE FIRST LESSON
ARCHER
Nobody could say I wasn’t clean for our interview.
If I’d been dipped in that orange goo they use in the hospital before surgery (Betamax or something) and then rinsed in the melted version of Antarctic ice cores from thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, I could not have been cleaner.
Not that it made that much of a difference.
“Do I dare ask what you smell like?” O’Connor asked after confirming that I gave my permission for her to record our call.
“It’s better,” I said. “I still smell like the dumpster behind a Chinese buffet at the beach in the middle of August, but now it’s like you’re standing a dozen feet away.”
She snorted—the haughty, arrogant O’Connor snorted, and then looked surprised. It gave me a kick to break through her icy reserve. “That’s an oddly specific image. What did you smell like before the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda?”
“Oh, like you were in the dumpster. ”
The snort became an actual laugh. “With the lid locked?”
“Absolutely. No escape. And we tried. We drove home with all four of us hanging out of the windows—not just to hopefully blow off the stink but also in a desperate attempt to find some untainted oxygen to breathe.”
She might have had a filter on her end, but from my end, it looked like her eyes were sparkling in amusement. Who knew that robots’ eyes could look so happy?
“How did you all manage to get hit so badly?”
“It turns out that a skunk can shoot, like, twenty feet. And that devil was upwind. Char went after the skunk, I went after Char, Ian and Mal came to see what happened—I swear, I’m going to have to get the BFT stripped down to base metal and then reupholstered or something. It makes me cry to think about it.”
“The what? Your car is called the what?”
“BFT. Stands for Big, um, Fancy Truck.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure that’s what the F stands for.”
“This call is on the record, so yeah. F stands for Fancy . That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
She grinned. “And now the Big Fancy Truck reeks of skunk.”
“Actually, I’m hoping it won’t be too bad. I made everyone strip before we got back in. Tried to wipe down Charlotte with the shirts and pants we then left abandoned and toxic at the campsite.”
“You drove home naked?” Her eyebrows were up.
“Well, sometimes Ian’s a boxers guy and Mal and I both wear boxer briefs, if you must know, but yeah. October in Pennsylvania, bunch of mostly naked guys hanging out the windows of a truck, howling, and a Great Dane drooling in the slipstream. For mile after mile. Some of us were happier than others. ”
She was snorting again. “I’m guessing Charlotte was the one who liked it?”
“Correction—she loved it. Those big jowls of hers flapping in the wind. I kept having to oversteer. She’s like a rudder in the water.”
O’Connor had stopped making any noise at all. She was laughing silently, her ribs shaking.
“And I was so sure,” she said, “that we could skip the ‘appearances’ lesson on personal cleanliness.”
“I am so clean,” I protested. “I squeak. My whole body has been abraded multiple times, and I’m thinking about shaving my head like Ian. I swear, by the concert tomorrow night, the reason I won’t stink is because I will have scrubbed off several layers of skin. I’m going to be a newborn baby tomorrow night.”
“I’m sure you’ll smell lovely.”
“Like the best possible marinara sauce. People won’t be able to resist me.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Was she blushing? What was it about the thought of a marinara cologne that got the girl bothered? Interesting.
She broke a suddenly awkward pause. “Where are you calling from?”
“This is Ian’s place. We decided we’d minimize the fallout zone by sticking together until we deskunkified.” Ian’s living room was remarkable mostly for the collection of guitars he’d hung on the wall. In fairness, they did look like art.
“And where are the others?”
“Ian’s washing Charlotte again, and Mal’s wiping down the bathroom. The peroxide and soap mixture isn’t as bloody as the tomato juice, but when Charlotte shakes, no surface is safe. It’s a two-man job at minimum to wash her.”
“I’m sure. Okay, so our first actual lesson is to talk about manners. Are you ready for my thoughts on the subject?”
“I think Ellie Armstrong might object to you teaching her son about manners in the belief that this is her job, but go ahead.”
“You can tell Ellie Armstrong that she did a good job. You don’t chew with your mouth open, and you’re not a slob. I’m talking about the spirit behind the principles of etiquette, not just the rules.”
“I’ll find pencil and paper to take notes. Go ahead.”
She paused. Gathering her thoughts? Then she launched forth. “There are lots of etiquette niceties that are unbelievably fussy. Which fork to use. Composing hand-written thank-you notes. Posture and decorum and walking with a book on your head.”
“I have to say, Ellie never got into any of that. Your mom did, huh?”
Her eyes tightened. Not a wince, exactly. More like a tell. “Stepmother, actually, and yeah. I know a salad fork from a dessert fork. But in my opinion, that’s all bullshit.”
Surprising. She definitely had Rich Girl Energy. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. The way I see it, all those rules are just so people feel more comfortable around each other. When you don’t know how to handle something, you fall back on the commonly understood rules. So even if it violates the rules, the heart of manners and etiquette is about making the other person comfortable.”
This lecture was not at all what I had been expecting. “Comfortable,” I echoed.
“Yeah. The best manners are the ones that make your date feel relaxed and happy.”
“Like what? Slipping her a Xanax?”
I didn’t get a smile out of that one. “Like maybe telling your date you were taking her for a stroll along Venice Beach so she didn’t wear an uptight suit and heels with an ankle strap.”
Huh. She had looked oddly formal for our date. “What does the ankle strap have to do with it? ”
“You’ve never worn an ankle strap. That’s fair, so I’ll tell you now. Ankle straps are gorgeous. They allow a shoe to be daringly bare and beautiful. But they are brutally uncomfortable. Even the most hardened wearer wouldn’t choose that shoe for much more than a stroll from the limo to the table, right?”
“Useful information,” I admitted. “So . . . why would anyone wear them? Why did you?”
“Because you’re Archer Armstrong—handsome enough to attract paparazzi attention. And because I’m Opinionated O’Connor and I bought you for nine thousand dollars at a charity auction. I assumed your goal was to be seen by the press, not that you wanted to wander the cheap souvenir stands at a tourist destination. Shit—I’ll have to edit out that the stands are cheap. I’ll say it again.” She paused for an unnaturally long time. “Not that you wanted to wander the souvenir stands at a tourist destination.”
I blinked. There was a lot to unpack there. My pause got unnaturally long until I settled on avoiding her self-editing prowess and went with the press attention.
“You’re right. I bet my new agent thought I was going to take you someplace fancy for dinner. And I guess I’m sorry that I didn’t. There was a lot I assumed. I’ve always wanted to go to Venice Beach, and we were leaving the next day. I just thought it would be fun.”
She flicked an auburn eyebrow up and opened her mouth to speak. Then her eyes went past me. “Hi, Ian,” she said.
I turned. Ian, dressed in nothing but a towel, was hovering in the doorway, uncertain. “Um, hi, O’Connor. We met when you interviewed us?—”
“I remember. And I think you should know that I’m recording this call.”
Ian yelped and leaped back to hide in the hallway. Out of sight, he called to me. “Can you ask Nicky to bring us more dishrags? Or towels, or something?”
I explained to O’Connor. “Nicky’s been manning the laundry since this whole thing started. She’s got her headphones on, Ian. You’re going to have to go in there.”
“Um,” he said.
O’Connor took pity on him. “I’ve paused the recording. You can pass through the living room, Ian.”
Ian was past us and into the kitchen in a blur.
“Too bad,” O’Connor commented as she turned the recording back on. “That would have been a popular sight.”
I laughed. “The scar doesn’t bother you?”
She shook her head. “Gives him character. And he’s handsome. I would have said dangerous looking, but what man actually looks dangerous while dancing uncertainly in a hallway in nothing but a towel?”
I’d tell Ian. He was still worried that the scar scared people off. Not that it had scared Nicky. Not in the slightest.
“So, how are you feeling about the concept of etiquette, Archer?”
I shrugged, eyebrows up. “You’ve given me something to think about. Was the shoe thing my only fail in the manners department?”
O’Connor pursed her lips. “Well, no, but it’s a good one. Another would be telling me you’d buy me anything I wanted as long as I didn’t spend more than a hundred dollars.”
“Wait. That’s not generous? I was trying to be generous.”
“And I can appreciate the instinct, but to me, it sounded like you were putting a dollar value on the date. It made the evening transactional, not personal.”
“I know I look like a million bucks, but in fact, I’m still on a budget. I don’t have thousands to spend. At least, I don’t yet.”
“I’m sure,” she said dryly, “that you’ll be able to very soon. We’re going to talk about that vanity. ”
“Hey—I meant to tell you. I really liked your podcast this week. I liked it when you said my honest arrogance was better than false modesty.”
“You heard it?” Her eyes flicked away from the camera briefly. Uncomfortable? “I’m glad you liked it. In a later lesson, we’re going to talk about ways you can deflate even the most honest arrogance. But about the hundred-dollar limit?—”
“All right, you tell me. How should I have handled that?”
“How about you and I stroll the path and enjoy looking at things? If I admired something that cost more than a hundred dollars, you could admire it with me and then we’d move on. Or I’d buy it myself. If I admired something less expensive, you could offer to buy it for me.”
“Huh. That’s pretty slick.” The girl had game.
“It’s not meant to be slick. It’s meant to be friendly and easy and comfortable. It’s meant to be—oh, hey. Archer, take a look behind you.”
Startled, I turned.
Just out of arm’s reach was a very large, very wet Great Dane, tail wagging in anticipation of a wonderful game. In her enormous jaws? My new and very beautiful Camino Evo hiking boot.
“Charlotte! No! Drop it!”
Both her front feet came off the ground in delight at my response. She wheeled and fled with me hot on her tail.
“Hello?” O’Connor called, but I couldn’t stop to explain.