Chapter Twenty-One
Hanky Panky was a few blocks from Good Vibes Only.
Based on my internet sleuthing, it was definitely not the trendiest of the local drag haunts on offer for drag brunch, but I was immediately charmed by the drag queen working the sidewalk to bring in street traffic.
She wore a shimmering teal bodysuit that matched her glitter-caked beard.
“Come on in,” she said in a sweet Southern accent. “You two might get lucky.” Then she looked to Eli. “Though it looks like you already have.”
It was just a line, but my cheeks still warmed as Eli held the door open for me.
We were seated and handed menus with bingo cards on the back and blotters stamped in the shape of eggplants. Very subtle.
The half-circle booth we sat in was small and cozy, positioning us close enough so that our thighs touched and we occasionally grazed elbows.
Without any explanation, Eli swapped my menu–bingo card for his.
“What’d you do that for?”
He shrugged. “Just making things interesting.”
The brunch was a set menu of chicken and waffles and it came with a bottomless pitcher of mimosas. The place was a bachelorette party flytrap, and I had no complaints.
“Good morning! Good afternoon! Good evening—depending on whether or not you made it to bed last night,” said the drag queen we’d seen outside.
Eli took a swig of his drink and draped his arm over the back of the booth behind me, the heat of his body pulling me toward him. As nonchalantly as possible, I leaned back and pretended not to notice how close he was and how it made my heart feel like it was skipping rocks.
The queen strutted through the crowd, purposefully running into people with very generously padded hips. “I’m your bingo hostess for today’s brunch. My name is Him Kardashian. You may have heard of my slightly more well-known sister, Kim.”
Eli’s breath danced across my neck as he chuckled, sending little sparks of electricity down my abdomen.
“I don’t see the resemblance!” the bartender shouted.
“Fuck you gently, Ryan,” Him Kardashian responded without missing a beat.
“Now, the rules of bingo are simple. First player to get five in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally wins bingo. You can pick a prize from our prize dumpster.” She pointed to a box that had a printed picture of the dumpster fire meme taped to it.
“And if you manage to get me vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, you’ve already won.
Lastly, if you cheat, we’ll give you a bad spray tan and send you on your way. ”
“You ready to lose, Vera?” Eli pulled his arm back and leaned over his bingo card.
“Look alive, Buckley.” I uncapped my blotter and stamped the top of his hand with bright orange ink as Him Kardashian began calling numbers.
Eli made a move to retaliate, but Him Kardashian was too fast for him to look away from his card.
Between numbers and forkfuls of food, we warred back and forth with our blotters until both of our arms were covered in eggplants. Eli admitted defeat when I managed to partially blot his cheek.
“Am I going to have to separate you two?” Him Kardashian purred as she sauntered past us.
“Miss Kardashian,” Eli pleaded, “she’s manhandling me.”
The drag queen winked at me. “I’d say he looks like a willing participant.”
The moment she turned her back, Eli blotted me right on the tip of my nose.
Unfortunately for me, it quickly became clear that Eli had the superior bingo sheet. By the time we finished our pitcher of mimosas, Eli was just one square away from a vertical win and two away from horizontal and diagonal wins.
My bingo card, however, was stamped randomly so that only one square connected.
“That was my bingo card,” I told Eli. “You sabotaged me.”
“These were randomly handed out, Stein,” he shot back as he blotted another square.
“And then you blatantly changed the randomization by swapping our cards!”
“Twenty-two!” Him Kardashian said into the microphone.
When Eli looked up for a second, I reached over and grabbed my rightfully owned bingo card.
Eli scoffed, but he couldn’t hide his delight at my willingness to play dirty.
“Just making things interesting,” I told him as I stamped the winning square. “Bingo!” I yelled, and then chugged back the rest of my drink.
“Hallelujah!” Him Kardashian sang. She reached into the box and tossed me a rolled-up T-shirt, but Eli caught it before I could.
“You can have it,” I said. “But only if you wear it right now.”
“Deal,” he said, unrolling the light pink T-shirt for us both to see.
There was a huge lifelike crayfish on it and then below that, it read: Craw Daddy.
He glanced over to me, and I dipped my chin toward him.
“Well, go on.” I twirled my finger instructively. “Fashion show.”
Begrudgingly, he pulled the shirt on over his vintage Hawaiian button-up.
With his arms raised, I noticed the sliver of abdomen peeking out from the bottom of his shirt and I was just buzzed enough from the mimosas to admit that I wouldn’t have protested to him removing his shirt again for a reprise of this morning’s show.
Him Kardashian whistled. “I’m no waitress, but I’ll take your tip!”
The hungover bachelorette party in front of us catcalled Eli to the point of blushing.
He stood and took a bow before reaching for his wallet and throwing down a couple twenties. “Let’s leave your business card at the bar. I think Him Kardashian would be a hit among the residents.”
“Is Eli Buckley a sore loser?” I asked. “And I don’t have a business card.”
He took one from his wallet and used the pen we’d written our names on our bingo cards with to cross out Dr. Eli Buckley and jot down Vera Stein.
He wrote it so quickly, and I got this strange sense of pleasure at seeing my name in his handwriting. It looked so right that it made even my own signature seem wrong to me.
Then after my name, he added Bingo Grifter and Activities Coordinator.
“Thanks for that,” I said.
“Just had to let them know who they’re getting into bed with.”
“You would know from experience.” Oh shit. I did not mean to say that out loud.
His pupils widened and then his lips curved into a devious smile. “Yes,” he said, “I would, actually. You never forget your first wedding night.”
I shook my head and swatted at his chest. “Let’s go, ex-husband.”
He held his arm out for me to take and we walked out onto the sidewalk. “Could I tempt you with a few boring errands?” Eli asked. “Grocery store, dry cleaning, et cetera.”
“You don’t have any prior commitments?” I asked. “Any dates to go on? As your ex-wife, I would hate to cockblock you.”
He snorted. “No dates today.”
I made a sad attempt at smiling. “And you’re okay to drive?”
“Yes. You monopolized the pitcher of mimosas.”
“For which I will not apologize!” As he closed the passenger door behind me, I asked, “So, there are other days when you do have dates?”
The time it took for him to walk around the front of the car felt like years. And then when he finally slid in behind the wheel, he buckled his seat belt in silence before saying, “I don’t really do casual dating.”
I didn’t find that surprising. Eli was the furthest thing from casual.
“I don’t really do dating,” I blurted.
He pulled out into the street, and after a beat, his voice dropped as he asked, “Because you were with Brody?”
I barked out a stiff laugh. “Oh my god, no.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. I was surprised to hear him bring up Brody to begin with. They had a fraught past, and I always felt like I was missing a few details.
“Why would it even matter?” I asked.
He turned his head to look out the window so that I couldn’t see the expression on his face when he said, “Because he never deserved you.”
Now it was my turn to look the other way, because what he’d just said brewed a war of emotions inside of me.
Anger, validation, frustration. “I was his secret.” The words slipped out before I could catch them.
“For years.” I didn’t know what Eli knew about us.
If maybe he’d heard rumors from other acquaintances, but I doubted it.
Brody was very good at keeping us a secret.
From the corner of my vision, I noticed the whites of his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel.
“That’s not why I quit,” I said. “It was just—he was going to replace me with two younger part-time assistants. A cost-saving measure.”
“Good,” Eli said with a grunt.
“What?” Did he really just say that? “What the hell, Eli? I take it back. You haven’t changed at all. In fact, you’re still a colossal asshole.”
“Oh, call off your troops,” he said. “You never would have left him on your own and you know it. Vera, you’ve gotta know that you can do much better than being Brody’s assistant.”
I wanted to tell him about Brody’s plan for a production company and how I was constantly troubleshooting scripts with him and helping him strategize career moves and how I was so much more than an assistant.
But it didn’t make a difference. None of those things amounted to career experience or opportunities.
“Yeah, because planning group activities for a ton of horny seniors is such an upgrade.”
“It is,” he said firmly. “Now at least your whole world won’t revolve around Brody’s every whim and need. More time for—writing. You’re a writer, aren’t you?”
I shook my head instinctively. People who wanted to be writers were often insufferable, but people who talked about being writers without ever actually doing it? The actual worst. Straight to jail. And me? I didn’t want to be a talker. Especially when I was already failing so hard.
Eli glanced over at me for a moment and then said, “You’re incredibly gifted at creating things for other people, Vera. But not everything you do has to be in service of other people.”
I didn’t say anything after that. He wasn’t wrong, but he had no idea how easy it was for him to say the right thing versus how incredibly difficult it was for me to do it.
EXT. BEACH TOWN STREET—EARLY EVENING
He’s walking backward, talking too much. They are both in work uniforms. She’s on her way from one job to another and is trying not to smile at Arlo.
ARLO
You’re very good at pretending not to like me.
It’s almost convincing.
POPPY
I’m not pretending.
He laughs, because she is.
August 9, 2018
Vera S.
What does Poppy WANT? Why is Arlo’s attention so special?