Landslide (29 page)

Tina, our overwrought, forty-something waitress sets another hourglass-shaped drink on the table in front of Payton’s empty bar stool and asks if we want another pitcher of beer. A minor debate breaks out in regard to who paid for the last one, and then Jerry gets overly excited about something behind Tina, sort of brushing her aside and out of his line of sight so he can see better. A pile of napkins falls from her tray, and precariously stacked, empty glasses threaten to do the same until she steadies them with her free hand. The glare she gives him goes completely unnoticed by everyone at the table aside from me.

“Sorry, sugar,” I say, bending down to pick up the napkins for her and then throwing a ten dollar bill on her tray for Payton’s waste of a fruity cocktail, “Hey, Jerry…you gonna apologize, or what?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry about that, hun. Guys, check it out though…she’s back from the bathroom. Finally.”

Tina shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him, but then turning to smile at me, she sets down in front of me a shot glass filled with indistinguishable clear liquor.

“I didn’t order this.”

“I know. It’s on the house. Consider it a thanks for having manners,” she tells me with a wink and walks off.

With no intention of drinking it, I push the shot more towards the center of the table while the guys are talking amongst themselves about doppelgänger Jen’s ass as she bends over to check the receptacle of the cigarette machine. Because I’m a guy and it’s innate, I find myself checking her out just like the rest of them. A weird sensation, like an uneasy tingling, springs up out of the blue and travels almost my entire body before settling in a knot in my stomach. The guys are carrying on about how she’s too curvy for one of them, not curvy enough for another…all that important evaluation of qualifying criteria that none of them would ever adhere to if they actually thought they had a chance, and I’m just sitting here trying to figure out why in the hell some chick’s
ass
of all things is familiar to me.

Still facing the cigarette machine, she stands up, and with a single, irritated toss of her dishwater blonde hair over her shoulder, a bulldozer comes right the fuck out of nowhere and slams straight into my chest, forcing my heart to stop beating and my lungs to seize. Without even thinking, I wrap my hand around the shot glass and down whatever is in it. My taste buds malfunctioning like the rest of me, I don’t even taste it. She turns around and I’m done. Exactly like I knew I would’ve been if I’d attempted to see her one last time even from afar. My whole entire life up to seven years ago is standing right here, living and breathing in the same room as me, and it’s as if not a single second has passed since the last time I saw her. Everything I once felt and thought I’d completely put behind me comes rushing right back and plows me down. Everything, that is, except the anger.
 

You sure about that there, buddy?
You’re content now and even happy most times, and you’re an excellent actor the rest of the time, but even you can’t pretend you don’t remember why you up and started a new life; that it doesn’t still cross your mind once in a while, and when it does, you can’t deny being left with a slight aftertaste of bitter resentment.

Okay, so maybe I’m not one hundred percent over flaccid Captain America getting to her first. And yeah, so what if for a couple years or so I fantasized on and off again about how he and/or she could meet their end in the most off the wall and outrageous of circumstances because it made me feel better than admitting how I could be at fault for all that happened in the first place? That minuscule, grudge-holding percentage is nothing compared to the rest of what I feel and it doesn’t diminish in the least the reason why I wanted my forever to be spent with her. I just never thought I’d see her again so I moved on with my life and accepted it would be lived without her in it. I didn’t have to be on guard anymore and I stopped plotting a course of action for how to handle crossing the finish line because I’d forfeited the race altogether.

But now… Shit. There’s so much to consider now…so much time has gone by. So much has happened. I honestly don’t know where to begin or if I even should.

I don’t know if you should either. She already hurt you once, and coming back from it in one piece was shy of a miracle.

Yeah, well, I think intentionally being a grandiose douche and then abandoning her for seven years without even once reaching out to let her know I’m alive probably does more than make us square.
 

True. But hey, maybe you’re spinning your wheels yet again. You know, she might not even remember you after all this time.

The hell? She BETTER fucking remember me!

Her eyes begin to cast a net over the room at large and unable to take the rapidity of severe anxiety building over whether she’ll recognize me or not, or if I’m gonna have to go to her, and if that’s the case, whether I should or if I should just keep on pretending she was devoured by a deep sea behemoth no one’s ever heard of before that only eats girls who answer to her full name, or my more recent Christmas time fallback of her being flattened into a snowdrift by Santa’s reindeer-driven sleigh, I snatch Ryan’s last cigarette and light up for the first time in something like three years.
 

“What the hell you doin’, man? That was my last one and you don’t even smoke!” he gripes and throws the empty pack down on the table, highly displeased because now that he knows he’s out, he wants one—bad. My predicament is far more serious than his though so I win.

Like riding a bicycle, I inhale deeply and let the nicotine try to do its thing to chill me out. “I need it more than you so quit your bitching. I’ll buy you a carton tomorrow,” I mutter, leaning back against my barstool’s doweling backrest, exhaling almost pure relief in the same breath, realizing how much I’ve truly missed this, and watching her face for any teeny sign of recognition while praying like I never have before that I’m not getting all worked up for nothing.
 

Her gaze sweeps past our table and not more than a millisecond later, her questioning eyes find mine.

Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit! Fuck. Happy now? She recognizes you. Now what are you gonna do? You can’t dive under a table after the fact and take cover like I know you want to, but…you gotta do SOMEthing, idiot! But don’t stand up and go over to her. Or smile. And don’t look happy to see her. You know, because we’re not sure we are. Don’t do any of that stuff, but do…like, something.

Right. Something. Got it. I think. Shit.

My eyebrows raise to answer her query from across the room as if I were to say, “Nope. Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you…” Like part of me wishes mine were. I look down at the table and flick a short head of ash into the tray before bringing the death stick back to my mouth for another lung-full of incendiary addictive succor. Glancing back up through my lashes though, I see her smirk and start forward, which of course not only incites further pandemonium within me, but quiet hysteria now erupts around me as well.

INCOMING! INCOMING!
Forget what I said and take evasive action, you tool! There! There’s a spot under that table to your left!
 

“Oh my God, you guys, she’s heading this way,” Jerry worriedly yet excitedly whispers, even though no one aside from the three of us can possibly hear him.

Oh my God, are you not even looking for a place to hide?

I’m trying to! And would you stop yelling at me, please?!

I can’t help it! Seriously, she’s getting closer! Where’s that jolly brick wall when you need him?! You could hide behind him and she’d never see you again!

“Shit. Be cool, be cool,” Ryan counsels, again, in a whisper.

He’s still taking a goddamned leak! I mean, he does have seven umbrellas to take home. Eight if you count the one floating in the drink the waitress just brought.

“Yeah. Cool like Fonzie. Guys, can you visibly see how much I’m sweating?” Sean asks. Unfortunately, he’s asking for one of us to actually check his pits for visible wet spots.

Oh! Drink that shit. Now! Maybe it’ll help!

“You better not screw this up for us, Hastings.” This last bit just before she reaches our table and might be able to actually hear the calamity she’s causing is hissed out the side of Ryan’s mouth, and it comes with a kick to my shin under the table.

It has a pink straw!!

Damn it, you’re right, you can’t drink that. Better make like a master mason and build a wall right quick then. Time’s up, she’s here…

“Erica.”

Oh. My. God. I said build a wall, not channel your dad!

Once her name comes out of my mouth, in my peripheral vision I see the mouths of my three friends become slack and I feel the weight of their stunned eyes as they stare at me, all having been one hundred and ten percent oblivious to my internal panic attack because apparently, I’m just
that
good.

28

“Mama’s Broken Heart”

—Erica—

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me right away; however, my brain kicked in and informed me that cell phones have this state of the art ability to save more than one phone number per contact. So, I added both possibilities, wiped with the napkin, and then tried to do something with my disheveled appearance in the foggy mirror before rejoining the cast from what I can only picture as a deleted scene in
Road House
.

Actually, before I left the bathroom, I called one of the numbers and got an answering machine, and unless an older woman with a thick Chinese accent is handy with a tire iron, I’m guessing the one is actually a seven. I would’ve tried that number in the echoing quiet of the ladies’ room too except that just as I hung up on Mrs. Wu, two women burst into the bathroom. They stumbled straight into the lone stall, together, and without even bothering to close the door, one of them dropped to her knees and began puking up her gin and tonics and buffalo wings. I know this because the other woman who was holding her friend’s hair back reproved her friend for eating and drinking as much of both as she did. Being that I felt those sound effects wouldn’t exactly endear anyone to coming out tonight and giving a desperate girl a hand, I figured I’d either wait pukey out or just brave the acid rain outside to make my call in somewhat peace and quiet.

On my way back to the flannel infested bar, I ended up having to do that awkward side-step dance with a gorgeous, brick-house of a guy as he was heading the way I’d just come from. Insanity took over for a brief moment and I considered dropping to my knees and clutching the surely capable hands of He-Man, Master of the Universe, while groveling and begging him to put off his bladder to help little ol’ me, but I came to my senses in time. I did smile at him though. I think I was aiming for my best “I think you’re hot and I’m single” smile because the man is seriously smokin’, although it was a wasted effort because he barely even glanced down at me when he apologized and edged around me to get himself to the bathroom.

After that disappointing encounter, I come face to face with my nemesis once again. I mean, the thing took my money, so it shouldn’t have been surprised that I would be back, pulling on its knobs again and groping around in its dispenser tray to get what it owes me. All it gives me though is more irritation, which coincidentally only makes me feel like smoking even more. Fed up and getting that uncomfortable sensation again of having my butt visually fondled, I stand up and choose to this time see if I’m just being paranoid, or if some creeper redneck is actually trying to use x-ray vision to see through my jeans.

My eyes begin roaming and at first, they don’t really pick up on much aside from the bar’s apparent dress code. But then, my gaze sweeps over a table tucked in the corner across from me. And honestly, the only reason I even look twice is because he stands out from the herd in a white, waffle-knit thermal undershirt and over it is a black t-shirt with an unfamiliar logo on the front. I mentally give the guy props for having the courage to have not drank from the town’s well of plaid Kool-Aid, but that’s where any polite thoughts stop. Actually, that’s essentially where all thought stops.

I literally cannot believe my eyes and who they’re being held utterly paralyzed by. So many differing emotions go winging through me one right after another…

One: Enormous relief. Two: Fury. Three: Envy, because he’s got a cigarette and I don’t, as the ancient keeper of nicotine obviously hates me. Four and five have me back to alternating between wanting to tackle him to the ground with the hugest of bear hugs imaginable, or, tackling him to the ground and then standing on his chest with one foot while I use the other to repeatedly kick him in the ribs, kidneys, head, and any place and every place that’ll inflict the most long-term damage. Six finds me wanting to let out the shrillest of screams at the top of my lungs in the hopes that, including the windows, all the glass in this place shatters as a reflection of how my heart did when he broke his promise to me.

Seven then is me telling myself to hold it together and for the love of sweet baby Jesus, don’t let anyone see the crazy I’ve clearly got going on, because eight comes out of freaking nowhere with me suddenly wanting to just kiss his face. A lot. Like, I
actually
want to make-out with the arrogant son of a bitch. And I say arrogant because recognizing me without a single doubt, he raises his eyebrows in the most imperious of ways, as if he’s daring me or something, but regardless, it’s clear he’s not about to get off his damned bar stool or cocky ass to even come greet me. And then, his highness takes another regal drag off that fucking cigarette.

Checking to make sure my freshly manicured fingernail polish didn’t get chipped in the subzero
war my fingers had with the zipper of my jeans a few minutes ago, and being grateful for having the forethought of removing my wayward makeup from under my eyes, finger-combing out the wet tangles in my hair and fluffing it up a smidge, and knowing I’m wearing my good boob bra under this fitted V-neck sweater and I also have on nice butt jeans, I therefore feel somewhat confident in my appearance when I begin walking over to his table. He just sits there and I smile to myself about both slapping his smug face and, only a teeny bit, remembering what it was like to kiss it all those years ago.