2. Two
Two
His body, too big for the space.
My laugh.
His smile.
My legs.
His lap.
Hungry mouths.
Bitten-off noises.
Hands on my hips.
Fingers in his hair.
Bunched dress around my waist.
A touch between my thighs.
His breathy, “Are you sure about this Pam Beesly?”
My desperate, “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
His belt .
The
single
condom
in
my
purse.
My cry when he fills me.
His smile against my skin.
My sadness when it ends.
My eyes fly open in the darkness of my bedroom as a new bout of pressure starts to build within me. The real-life minivan porn won’t stop replaying in my mind and a very real part of me doesn’t want it to.
In my limited experience, even in a minivan, it was the best sex of my life.
Fighting sleep all night, I crawl out of bed at four o’clock in the morning, resigned to the fact that this is how today is going to be: exhausting and exhausted.
A sleepless night and a distracted morning are my consequences for breaking my own damn rules. Ninety minutes of power yoga, a large omelet with pasture-raised eggs, and making lists for my day do nothing to stop the cruelty of feeling every way Bo touched me—I touched him—over and over again.
My plan of having sex with a stranger to help prepare me for the year ahead has completely backfired. I’m not prepared; I’m a train wreck.
Every single minute that has ticked by on the clock from then until now has left me a little angrier than the last for getting dealt such a shitty hand .
In a different life …I shake my head, not even letting myself go down that rabbit hole. Again.
Sam—a grouchy Vietnam veteran—is my Wednesday morning client. I usually show up with library books and breakfast from the local bakery for him, but today, nothing. I’m empty handed, and he notices, glaring at me like I killed a litter of puppies as I step into his living room.
I go through my usual list of chores—laundry, dishes, cleaning the floors—but I’m operating on autopilot. I fold his towels and feel Bo’s rough hands. I do the dishes and feel his tongue on my skin. No matter how many times I shake my head, I can’t shake him.
For once, I’m happy Sam repeats the same stories from Vietnam every week. Usually, I engage, but today it’s just nods and hummed responses. The plus side of being so clearly distracted is that his normally grumpy personality is extremely easy to deal with. Every, “Do you hear what I’m saying, Bonnie?” I casually respond to with, “Yep, and that’s still not my name, Sam.”
The hours either drag on or fly by at warp speed. It’s miserable.
Finally, at 3:55 p.m. , I park in the gravel driveway of my afternoon appointment, and my exhale could fill a hot air balloon. I just want to get through this meeting, crawl into bed, and forget what I did and how vast the feeling of either wishing it didn’t happen or could happen again is.
I lean toward the windshield of my minivan and study the small cabin that’s tucked in the side of the hill. The summer flowers—yellows, pinks, reds, and purples—that explode on the bushes around the porch that’s dotted with wind chimes and rocking chairs create the perfect balance of chaos and charm. It belongs in a fairytale more than rural North Carolina.
I double-check my reflection in the rearview mirror. Honey-colored hair in a bun, fitted white tank top with slouchy jeans, sandals, and a pair of dangly leather earrings. Somehow, my brown eyes look bright, not bloodshot from sleep deprivation like I’d expect. I look put together—the lie I’m selling the world today.
The appointment was scheduled just last week, but with the events of last night, my mind resembles applesauce. I barely remember a single detail about the woman I’m about to meet. I thumb through the file quickly to get my head on straight. Veda Monroe, seventy-nine years old, lives alone, has severe arthritis, help with daily chores requested by her grandson, Daniel Monroe. Skimming the rest, I close the file and shove it in my tote bag that’s already overflowing with papers and binders. I’ve been running my senior companion business for years, and these first meetings are either welcomed with open arms or stopped by a brick wall.
Another deep breath and I’m out of my van, crossing the bright green yard, noting a silver sedan and cherry-red Jeep in the driveway, and climbing the steps of the large wraparound porch. The door swings open at the same time I raise my hand to knock.
There, with the same stunned eyes as mine, stands Bo.
Seconds or minutes or hours later, a woman—who I assume to be Veda Monroe—fills the doorway next to him. If the world wasn’t spinning out of control, I would have noticed her mismatched beaded earrings, pink linen shirt, and white hair pinned in a braided bun. I would marvel about how she barely has a line on her seventy-nine-year-old face and be envious of the kind of beauty she has that the years don’t dent.
I can’t register any of that, at least not in a way that lets my mouth move. Instead, there’s only staring. Me at Bo, Bo at me.
Silence stretches like saltwater taffy across the doorway, until Veda’s voice hurtles me back to earth.
“You must be the babysitter,” she says, tone knotting amusement with annoyance.
My mouth opens and closes so many times without saying anything that I feel like a fish.
“Birdie.” My voice rivals that of a pubescent boy with strep throat when I finally speak. I force my trembling hand out. “Hawkins. Birdie Hawkins. Not a babysitter unless you have a baby.” My laugh is a weak ha ha ha.
She eyes me with skepticism before reaching her own hand out. I don’t look, but I can feel the way her fingers twist in one direction under her papery skin, no doubt from the arthritis.
“Veda,” she says. “And this is my grandson, Daniel, but everyone calls him Bo.” She drops her hand from mine and cuts her eyes to him.
Somehow we shake hands, Bo and me, and the familiar roughness of his skin is sandpaper against my own. While I’m completely dumbfounded, there’s amusement that lifts his lips. Lips that also have a toothpick pinched between them. “Nice to meet you, Birdie ,” he says with an emphasis that wraps around my spine. When I try to pull my hand away, his grip tightens. “You look like someone I’ve met before.” After all my efforts to stay alive in this life, this is where I’ve come to die.
“Does she?” Veda asks, eyeing me with a shrug. “Either way, come on in. Let’s get this over with.”
I yank my hand free of his and decide to never look at him ever again. This is a disaster.
Veda leads us into an eclectically cozy living space that smells like damp earth and lilac candle. The candle instantly makes me cringe, because carcinogens, but the damp earthy smell confuses my senses. It could be an indoor herb garden as much as a harboring of black mold. Wonderful or awful. Delicious or deadly.
Like Bo’s presence.
They sit quietly on floral upholstered chairs next to each other while I nervously take several binders full of papers, a notebook, and assortments of pens out of my canvas tote bag and spread them across the coffee table.
“Your home is amazing,” I manage to say through a mouth of cotton balls while sorting everything out into neat piles, relearning how to breathe.
Bookshelves covered with colorful pieces of pottery border the room like a hug with arms made of marbled blue pots and earthy red bowls. Even though they all look different, it’s evident the artist is the same .
The response they give is a mystery because the words are such a mushy sound in my ears around the loudness of my heart pounding. If I say something back, it’s a hum that means nothing.
Veda nods with narrowed eyes as she looks from me to the stacks in front of me. Bo just looks like he’s on the brink of a laugh, and that might be worse than the initial staring.
“This looks like more than it is,” I say, putting my shaky hands on my hips. “But I like to bring all the options of ways our days can look together so I can be most helpful to you. I have some sample schedules, lists of things I do at other clients’ homes, etcetera.”
Veda stares at me blankly, blinking.
“And I like to take notes on likes, dislikes, medications, any diet aversions. I’m happy to cook…” My voice trails off as I look through the open space of the combined living room and kitchen, spotting a box of vanilla wafer cookies on her kitchen table. Processed food, that means I’ll be bringing groceries. Noted.
I take a breath and smile again, clapping my hands together as I lower myself to sit on the purple velvet couch across from them. “Where would you like to start?”
Then we sit in a room of silence, blinking and breathing, that goes on for an eternity. I don’t look at Bo, but I know he’s staring at me while Veda stares at the table of papers and sticky notes.
“How about I get us some tea?” she finally asks. “Then we can go through all of this.”
I swallow my anxiety. There’s no doubt the tea isn’t organic based on the box of cookies. After the beer I had last night, and that disgusting triple sec, I can’t just put whatever I want in my body. I might as well drink a glass of melted down metals straight!
Her eyes narrow in my pause, turning almost into two little slits that have me squirming. Her beautiful face is now carved to a near point—a hungry hawk assessing its prey.
“Tea sounds great.” My voice is shaky. “I can get it, if you’d like.”
She’s already standing. “I’m slowing down, not dead!” she snaps with a glare before walking out of the room.
When I hear her banging around in the kitchen, the weight of being alone in this weird-smelling room with Bo nearly pulls me through the wide-planked wooden floor beneath my feet.
“Birdie, huh?” he asks, tongue in cheek.
I close my eyes and take a deep inhale before blowing it out, letting myself look at him. In this moment, I’m living two separate lives. One of them paradise, the other hell, and I don’t know how to tell them apart. He’s here! At the same time. He’s. Here.
In the light of day, Bo looks the same as he did in the neon lights of last night but amplified. His eyes that were dark last night are now brown with flecks of gold, one with a freckle beneath. His hair and beard are longer than I thought—almost like they need a trim—but somehow, they suit him. While his T-shirt clings to his chest for dear life, much like I did last night, the arms I had considered toned are now clearly muscular. Skin covered cords reaching down to his hands. Hands with knuckles which I now see are covered in faded pink and white scars.
“Please, Bo.” My plea is barely above a whisper. “Don’t. ”
His jaw tenses, toothpick still on his lips, as he stares at me in a way that strips me bare. As if he knows I have the kind of life where I need to pretend to be someone else but can’t talk about it.
Then Veda’s back, saving me with a glass of iced tea I don’t want to drink. When it’s in my hands, I look around the table I’ve covered with papers for space to set the glass, but it doesn’t exist. I settle on just holding it while repeatedly crossing and uncrossing my legs.
It’s like when Bo opened the front door a thick poisonous fog rolled out that’s paralyzed my ability to speak or think in complete sentences.
We are sitting around the coffee table covered in all my papers and lists and plans, and for the life of me, I’ve got no words.
“Well, Bo this is your big idea, why don’t you ask what you want to ask,” Veda huffs, cradling a glass of iced tea that rattles softly as her hand trembles and her twisted fingers work to maintain a grip on it.
He looks at her. “Gran, you act like I’m putting you in prison.” His eyes flick to me. “I can’t be here as much as I want—I try to stop by in the evenings after work, and I see her on the weekends, but I know there’s a lot to do around here and she needs help”—his eyes cut back to her—“even if she won’t admit it.”
She huffs again, and he shakes his head before looking back at me.
“Why don’t you tell us about yourself,” he says from his relaxed posture on the chair across from me. He’s the epitome of cool, wearing scuffed up work boots, faded jeans, and a plain T-shirt. His legs spread wide as he sits back and one arm drapes over the back of the chair.
He’s not touching me, not even close, but he might as well be sitting on my lap and tying a plastic bag around my head with how suffocating he is.
I sit up straight, clear my throat, and feign composure. “Well, I started Forever Fun seven years ago after nearly eight years working for the park district as the senior events coordinator. I loved my job but wanted more one-on-one time with the people I was working with. I have regular clients I visit, and sometimes we go on group day trips.” I hand them each a stapled packet of papers from the table without making eye contact. “Here’s a list of references if you’d like to call any of them, and some sample schedules I have with my other clients. I know you requested three days a week—another client I had just relocated, so I have Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays available.” I pause, swallowing through the dryness of my throat, then continue. “I’m prompt, hardworking, and fun to be around. I have no problem helping with housework or playing games. I like to cook, and use all organic ingredients, and I’m happy to clean—with nontoxic products of course.” The only person who laughs is me. “I drive a minivan.” My voice cracks when Bo poorly covers a smile that shows his dimples. “…for ease of entry.” Heat crawls up my neck as soon as the words leave my mouth. “So I can take you on errands or any kinds of doctor’s appointments as needed. And I’m first-aid and CPR certified.” After stumbling through my resume, I smile .
The only sound is Bo flipping through the papers too fast to be reading anything.
“Bah!” Veda huffs. “Bo, I don’t need this.” There’s desperation in her voice as she looks at him, tossing her papers on the other stacks. “I can make my own junk food, run my own errands, and clean with my own toxic chemicals!” Her palms and twisted fingers raise in outrage.
Tension knits Bo’s forehead when he looks at her, turmoil in his eyes. “Gran, please.” Then to me, “But she has a point. I read all that on your website before I submitted the application. Maybe not about the minivan…” He tilts his head slightly, lips twitching. “But who are you ? If I’m trusting someone to come here three days a week and deal with this battle-ax, I need more than that. I mean, you could be Pam Beesly from the Rockies for all I know.” He leans forward in his seat and props his elbows on his knees, a smile curling his lips.
My cheeks heat—again—at the reference. I clear my throat. “Of course. Right. Well, what would you like to know?”
“Why aren’t you drinking the tea?” Veda shouts before Bo can ask anything.
Ugh . I forgot about the tea. I cringe, eyeing the glass of amber-colored toxins with a wedge of lemon on the rim in my hands. I have to drink it. It won’t be the end of the world. I’ll take some activated charcoal when I get home to purge the poison from my body, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. My body will never know the difference. At least, this is what I tell myself as I take the first sip .
I hate how good it is.
They watch me, and before I know it, I drink it all.
“Delicious,” I say, forcing a toothy smile.
Bo snorts out a laugh before asking, “What do you do in your free time?”
I open my mouth to answer but Veda cuts in again. “Are you married?”
What does that have to do with anything?
“No...”
“Kids?” she demands.
“No.” My eyes narrow.
“How old are you?”
I scoff. “Thirty-seven, but I don’t see why—”
“Hobbies?” she barks.
“I go to the gym and—”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I—”
This time it’s Bo interrupting with, “Are you dating anyone?”
What?
“Are you dating anyone?” I shoot back.
I don’t know what they want to accomplish with their interrogation, but I’m close to snapping from the irrelevance of it all, the weird smell, and how good Bo looks in the light of day.
Finally, he’s quiet, leaning back into the chair, taking up too much space and grating on my last nerve.
“Ha!” Veda bursts out. “Bo’s married,” she says like it’s funny, sliding her gaze from me to him .
My jaw drops along with my stomach and the empty glass that I’ve been holding in my hands.
What?
The glass doesn’t break, but the ice spills, and I fumble to pick it up from the floor. Every cube shoots from my trembling fingers like a frozen missile as I try to grab them.
Married. Married? Married!
I hear Bo say, “Gran, we’re here to talk about Birdie, not me.”
When I work up the nerve to look at him, it’s with pure hatred, my own eyes turning into slits. Married. I want to puke or lie down or puke and lie down.
In yet another long stretchy silence, a switch flips. I don’t care. I can’t. It was never going anywhere, and the fact that he has no moral compass just makes it easier for me to accept.
I refuse to let this be the thing that stops me. I’m here for Veda, not him. He’s an inconvenience; she’s my priority. I will get through this meeting then let myself freak the hell out about my potential role in destroying a marriage later.
“Congratulations, Bo, that’s great,” I say, voice even. When I turn to Veda, lost confidence found, I square my shoulders. “Veda, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for. I’m happy to do whatever you need. Your married grandson here might have set this up, but I’m here for you . That’s my whole purpose, really. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, my personal life isn’t very exciting.” I give a weightless self-deprecating laugh. “But I love what I do, and I’d like to think the people I work with enjoy having me around. ”
Her sharpened features soften slightly, and she waves her hand as if erasing my words. “What are the tattoos on your chest?”
My throat pinches. I glance down and see my shirt has shifted and green tendrils of ink are peeking out of the neckline. I tug at the straps before looking at her.
“Wildflowers,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I like them.”
“Do they cover your whole chest?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes drop to my chest again before returning to my face. She notices.
“Why?”
I swallow hard but don’t look away from her and definitely do not look at Bo, who is still as a statue on his chair. Last night I managed to keep his hands distracted in other ways—he never once touched my chest. But now, in this shirt and this proximity, there might as well be a spotlight shining on me.
“Because even ugly things can be beautiful.”
Then, stretchy silence.
Finally, she nods.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” Bo asks, seemingly stunned as he turns to look at her, taking the stupid toothpick out of his mouth.
“You heard me, Bo, don’t make me repeat myself,” Veda says sharply, glaring at him .
I stifle a laugh. Despite her age, adorable home, and declining use of her hands, the woman keeps everyone on their toes with the way her mood switches directions like a boomerang.
She turns to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I eat breakfast at eight if you want to join.”
“Sounds great,” I respond, relieved, stacking up the papers that nobody cared to look at.
“And Birdie?” Veda says. “No more of this.” She gestures at all my unappreciated materials on the table. “The other old farts might like that, but not me. Just show up in clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.”
I nod and pack up my things in silence. I don’t look at Bo, not as he intensely stares at me or when Veda sends him to get something for her from one of the shelves. I only hurry to get out of there as fast as possible.
After a quick and cheery, “Bye, Veda, see you in the morning!” I’m out the door, taking my first full breath and scrambling to my minivan.
In the driver’s seat, the key is too big for the ignition. Like something in the weird-smelling house made it swell to the point of uselessness. I’m stabbing at the side of the steering wheel maniacally and to no avail.
I hear the front door open and close, the deep, “Birdie wait!” but I just keep stabbing my key and not going anywhere.
Then Bo is at the driver’s window pressing palms on either side of it looking at me with an unreadable expression.
“It’s not what you think,” he says, key finally clicking into place .
The engine starts at the same time my head turns to face him.
“You have no idea what I think!” I snap, shifting the gear into reverse.
He doesn’t move from his position. “You lied about your name. Where you lived!” he argues.
The laugh that bubbles out of my mouth is a frozen sound devoid of humor.
“I’m not even going to explain how that compares to what you did .”
He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but when our gazes clash he stops.
“I’ll make it easy for you. Bo, are you married?” I ask, calm.
He pushes off from the door and rubs a hand down the side of his face. “Yes, but—”
I cut him off. “Did you fuck me in the back of this van last night?” I demand, stunned at how effortlessly the question rolls off my tongue.
His eyes widen.
“Birdie, it’s not wha—”
I cut him off with a glare. “It’s exactly what I think, Bo.”
I back up slowly, throw it in drive, and leave him standing in the middle of the driveway.