American Babe (11 page)

“Pardon?”

I repeated the exact same sentence verbatim but slower.

“Ohhhhh. At the pool?”

“Yes, at the pool. The site of the accident.”

“Did we meet? You look super familiar.”

“There were glances and unnecessary but welcomed smiles.”

“Right. That was you. Well, I'm fine, yeah. It was scary, though.”

“And now you're what, like, the walking dead? It's not clear.”

“No, I'm okay. It's happened before. It's a nerve thing. I don't know, I'm bad at going to the doctor. D'Angelo gave me mouth-to-mouth. It was wonderful to wake up to that face. Those kinky curls. You know.”

I looked at him for a while, contemplating what to say
next. I'd never spoken to a real live dead person before. Ghosts, yes. I was even molested by two ghosts in New Orleans once—long story. But never the living dead.

“You're hot even though you're dead.”

“Still trying to make this dead joke work. Okay. Bold move, I can respect that.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

He gave me a look that let me know he had no idea what
I
was talking about.

“You know what?” I said, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Let's start over.”

“I like that plan.”

“So.”

“So . . . you're Babe? This is your actual name?”

“Yes. And you're really not dead? You swear on your own life?”

“Swear on my family's life, and I happen to genuinely like my family.”

“Okay. I mean, this is gonna take some getting used to because to be quite fucking honest, I initially walked over here because I was so fascinated by the hot zombie boyfriend in our presence and I wanted to see what the vibes were. But now you're saying that you were resuscitated. So you're just, like, alive, I guess? Like me?”

“Yep.”

“That's boring.”

“Sometimes it is. Yes, sometimes being alive is very boring. That is correct.”

“Most of the time it is. Like right now I'm a little bit bored. I was expecting much more from a Back to School Night. Growing up, my dad would always come home wasted from my schools' Back to School Nights.”

Scotts looked a little confused. “Well, tonight is actually parent-teacher conference night.”

“What?” I asked, shocked, disappointed, and more bored than before.

“Who are your kids? Maybe they're in my class.”

“Oh, no. No no no no no. I don't have kids. Cara and Knox are my cousins, and I'm just here filling in for their mom, Veronica. She had to work late. I'm from LA. I'm a writer. This is not my life. I'm here as a joke, basically. But I did think this would actually be cute and fun but I was clearly wrong. Okay. I'm gonna stop talking now 'cause you don't care and I definitely don't care. Okay, so you can say something now.”

Scotts chuckled. “Ah, I see. I have Cara in my English class. She's a super bright kid. A little dark. She's bright and dark. As a lot of teenagers are.”

“Um. Okay. Cool?”

“I'm an English teacher here. Pretty thrilling stuff.”

“So you're saying I'm not here to drink and talk shit about kids and then leave?”

“Well, typically on conference night we go over each kid's progress in their respective courses with their parents. But I wouldn't hate if we went for a drink after. Thoughts?”

“I like your style,” I said with a real smile. He liked me.

“Is that a yes?”

“It's a ‘not no.' ”

“I can work with that. I'm Scott by the way.”

“Stop.”

He looked around the room, extremely confused now.

“Stop what?”

“Before we met tonight I called you that in my head because you look like a cross between Scott—”

“Speedman and Foley.”

“Yes!”

“I've gotten it before. And thank you,” he said, smiling, “I take that as a huge compliment. They're babes.”

“They
are
babes. So am I. I'm a Babe.”

We both laughed.

“Good one. Funny,” Scott said.

“Thanks. I'm one of the quickest people I know. Just a heads up.”

“I'll consider myself warned. So.” He glanced at his watch, not a vintage Rolex, but okay. “I have to go to my
next appointment. And I believe I'm actually supposed to have my conference about Cara in fifteen minutes with, well, I guess with you? So, see you then?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah, see you then.”

“Okay!” Scott said and started to walk away.

“Hey, Scott? How do I know which teacher to go see now?”

He pointed to a board on the wall with a big grid on it.

“Have a look at the schedule over there. See you soon, Babe.”

“Ciao.”

After dying a little for saying ciao (I don't know, it just came out), I found my schedule of appointments on the board and made my way over to room 2054, Earth Sciences. I was going to meet Cara's biology teacher.

Mr. Young was an extremely tall and pale thing. His look/body/aura was serving me raw wax bean. Even his outfit was beige and his shoes were white and surely orthopedic. Halfway to his desk I stopped.

“You know,” I said to the man, “I think I'm gonna pass. I'm not even Cara's real mom.”

Mr. Young looked baffled even when I assured him that this was fine with Cara's mom and that “I simply just needed to do me.”

Before exiting the brick dungeon that was that school
(honestly, no wonder this country is so fucked up if that's where children are expected to learn to be cute), I found Scott's room and slipped a note under his door.

Scott,

I left because I hate it here. I'm sorry this is your place of work. I'm sure you're a wonderful teacher. Let's make out before I leave town? 323-XXX-XXXX. Text me, zombie.

xo,

Babe

“S
cott,” I said as he sat down at the table across from me. “Scott, Scott, Scott. You're super lucky I didn't say fuck it and leave.”

“Why's that?” he said with a smile. Gorgeous. I was even a little nervous for him to get there, which was weird but cute, I guess. I'd ordered a glass of rosé, which I'd almost finished already, which is not that cute, I guess.

“You're twenty minutes late.”

“I'm five minutes late.”

“That's not true,” I informed him, holding up my phone to him so he could see the time for himself.
Scott's eyes widened, and he started laughing as soon as he looked.

“What?”

I turned the phone to me and to my horror, there was an enormous pink dick staring back at me.

“Fuck!” I shouted. Oh my God. It was a dick pic from Genevieve that she must've sent at the exact moment I was turning my phone to Scott. “Fuck. Fuck. Ew, God. I'm sorry.”

“It's fine,” he said through laughs, which were becoming more of a nervous, confused giggle. Straight guys don't know what to do around dicks. I can appreciate a beautiful vagina. It's weird that they can't just appreciate their natural beauty, but hey, to each his boring and straight own.

“It's nice,” he managed to say. “Very pink.”

I looked again.

“Very pink. So true.”

Maybe Scott was a cool straight guy who actually appreciated dick. Like, as art.

“Well, sorry I'm late. We had a town meeting at school this afternoon that went on about three hours too long.”

“You have town meetings here? So cute. So
Gilmore Girls
.”

“No, no. That's just what the principal at our school calls them. They're long, drawn-out faculty meetings with
an open-floor policy. This basically just means that Kath from the art department can talk about the healing faculties of pottery for as long as she wants. And Jackson, the music teacher who's never not high, never ceases to amaze us with his annual suggestions for ways to make the school more ‘tie-dye.' ”

“Jackson sounds funny. I used to know a Jackson. He was a thorn in my fucking side, and his breath smelled like something made with almond milk that might be served in a mason jar.”

“Yuck.”

“Extreme levels of yuck. But he meant well. And Kath just sounds like a bitch.”

“She's miserable. I really wish someone would do something about her already. I think about how to do it all the time.”

“Kill her?”

“Kill her, yeah. She has no family. It wouldn't even matter.”

Hot. I took a long sip of my sparkling water while holding eye contact with Scott.

“Are you a murderer?” I asked, serving him my best
Law & Order: SVU
, which I believe is a show where cops ask people questions like that.

“No. I was kidding.”

“Ah . . .”

“Sorry, bad joke. Kath is lovely. Odd thing going on with one of her toes on the left foot. It's literally the color of a green apple. Couldn't tell you why. But otherwise she's lovely.”

“You're funny,” I said. I didn't mean to. I never compliment guys that I like. It's not cute. Dammit.
Just run with it
, I told myself.
He doesn't have to know you're horrible. What if he thought you were nice? That might work.

“I was excited to hang,” Scott said.

“You know, I was, too. I didn't expect to go on any dates while I was here, but I'm learning quickly that this trip is just a series of weird but welcome surprises.”

“Tell me more.”

“Okay.”

I ran my hand through my hair, mussing it, letting Scott know that I was totally a normal person that he should be attracted to. To be honest, I knew nothing could work between us because I would never move here, but I did need to have sex and he was a cross of Speedman and Foley.

“So I didn't meet my mom until I was about twenty-four, which is a long story that maybe I'll bless you with when I'm drunk later. So yeah, I basically don't know the crazy bitch. And she
is
crazy. She may seem put together because she's a supermodel who's still working in her late forties,
but trust me, she's a mess. But she invited me here to come to her dad—my grandpa's—eightieth birthday. I accepted the invitation after much delibs because honestly, I needed to get out of Los Angeles and work on finding a mantra.”

“What's a mantra?”

“Google it. So while I'm here I'm staying with Veronica—my aunt and Knox and Cara's mom—all of whom I'd never even really heard of until a week or so ago. It's just a lot of newness, a lot of wondering how I'm related to these people, and a lot of deep, deep, deep introspection.”

Scott shot me the warmest of smizes and was about to tell me how he's been thinking of nothing but our upcoming date for the last day and also that my hair looked effortlessly sexy and I smelled amazing when—

“Hey, guys. What can I get you to drink, sir?”

The waitress who'd gotten me my wine was standing over the table and grinning at Scott. She put a glass of water in front of him.

“Hey. Thanks. Yeah, I'll have a beer. Whaddya got?”

“We've got Sam Adams, Bud, Bud Light, Heineken, and Yuengling on tap and Natty Boh and Modelo cans.”

I touched Scott's hand.

“I don't really love when people drink beer around me. It's so burpy,” I said quietly but with a sternness to let my date know that I wasn't requesting, I was insisting.

“Oh man, really? That sucks for you,” Scott said with a squint of the brows to feign sympathy. He looked back up at the waitress whose name was 100 percent Quinn. Blond. Teeth. Scrunchie. Etc.

“I'll take a Yuengling, thanks so much.”

“You got it, darlin',” Quinn said and left.

“You think
I'm
funny?” Scott asked.

I knew what he meant.

“You're the funny one. Jesus!” he said.

“I'm nothing if not honest. And I honestly needed you to know that if a beer was ordered, then my comfort level would plummet. But you seem to be fine with that.”

“I think you're stronger than you realize. I think you can manage.”

“I hope so.”

Quinn was back with Scott's spiteful beverage. That was fast. Did everyone hate me today?

“So,” Scott said after licking a thin coat of beer foam from his upper lip, “speaking of you being funny.”

“Look,” I stopped him, “I'm feeling very attacked by both you and Quinn at this point and I just don't think I can take much more bullying.”

He looked like he felt bad. But then he said, “Who's Quinn?”

“Our waitress.”

“Her name is Beth.”

“How the fuck do you know that? Did you guys used to fuck? God, this town is unbearably small. I don't know how you cope.”

“She's wearing a name tag.”

“Oh.”

“It says: BETH.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine. That's probably her name, then, you're right.”

I wrapped both of my hands around the glass of rosé in front of me and lifted it to my face like I was sipping a hot mug of tea and trying hopelessly to catch some warmth in the cold wilderness of this now very awk lunch. He was so cute and probably had the most handsome of dicks that he took great care of and I was fucking it all up. Fucking it all right up. So typical of me. I thought I'd learned this lesson. Why must I ALWAYS self-sabotage? As soon as I'm attracted to someone I immediately—

“Babe.”

Scott's voice was a distant echo in my head. But it was booming.

“Babe.”

It grew closer. He was pulling me out of my shame spiral.

“Babe. Are you all right? What the fuck?”

I broke out of my paralysis.

“I'm . . . I'm sorry, I just spaced out hard core.”