Love to Love Her YAC (32 page)

It was around eleven-thirty when I finally
broke free. I left Jordan with her brows knitted together in
anger—probably a good thing, since it wouldn’t have been nearly as
easy to walk away had she been crying. I couldn’t wait to get back
to my truck so I could call Rhiannon—I almost sprinted down the
driveway. I’ve called her several times en route back to Carson
City, but so far no luck getting ahold of her. I stop at a traffic
light in South Lake Tahoe just before the state line and take a
moment to glance back at the pictures she sent me last night—I have
to bite down on my knuckle to keep myself in check.

When I still haven’t heard anything from her
by the time I get back to town, I make a snap decision to just pay
her a visit. Thoughts of her naked body mixed with the knowledge
I’m now one hundred percent free and clear of any and all other
obligations, misinformed or otherwise, have put me in a state of
euphoria, and I really can’t wait to see her again—although I know
I’m going to have to explain why I came back so early instead of
sticking around Sacramento the entire weekend like I originally
planned.

When I pull into her complex, her now
familiar white Civic is parked in the same spot as the last time I
was here two days ago. I run up the steps and begin banging on her
door just as her neighbor in unit 2B steps out onto the landing.
It’s a girl with dark hair and glasses I haven’t seen before; she
has an orange backpack slung over one shoulder. She locks her door,
then turns and looks at me like I’m a stranger in a small town bar.
I realize I might have been staring.

“She’s not home,” the girl says, sounding
bored as she passes by me. “I saw her leave like an hour ago.”

It takes me a moment to process that she’s
referring to Rhiannon, and my fist pauses mid-knock. “Are you
sure?” I ask.

“Yep,” she replies, popping the
P
. She
jogs down the stairs, leaving me standing there like an idiot. I
sigh, suddenly feeling very tired. This situation is eerily
familiar to me.
She’d better not have run off again.

I take out my phone and dial her number, this
time listening for the sound of her ringtone on the other side of
the door—maybe she just left her phone behind. All that meets me on
the other side, though, is stony silence. I scratch my head. Why
the fuck would she be avoiding my calls?

Well, I can’t very well just sit here until
she shows up again. Slowly I turn and descend the stairs, hating
the recognizable sense of dread rising inside of me.

Rhiannon – 9:00 PM

A
t one point during
our gallivanting this afternoon Ruthie very wisely suggested that
we treat ourselves to a nice steak dinner this evening. It will
take a pretty big bite out of our budgets, but today the splurge
feels worth it. Hence, here we sit around a plush booth at Duke’s
Steak House, a handsomely appointed four star restaurant located,
ironically, in one of the garish tropical-themed casinos. From the
elegant multi-tiered chandeliers and mahogany paneling, you’d never
guess the outside of the restaurant is festooned with neon-lit palm
trees.

Our hair is styled, our toenails freshly
painted, and we’re dressed to the nines and well on our way to
tipsy from the Bordeaux they had on special. We’re all drowning our
sorrows to some extent—besides my own lamentable love life, Ruthie
had a blowout with Patrick after they foolishly decided to give
“friends with benefits” a try, and Corinne has officially severed
all ties with the enigmatic Vince (although she is conspicuously
not
as broken up over this as one might have assumed she
would be). We’ve all taken turns offering ridiculous suggestions
about how to exact our revenge on each of our would-be suitors,
each more ribald and outlandish than the last, most involving their
genitals.

We have our fair share of laughs, but when I
stand up to use the restroom something Corinne said earlier takes
root inside of me and begins to spread. We had just finished at the
nail salon and were waiting for Ruthie to pay. Noticing my
quietness, Corinne had said, “Tell you what, babe, I can appreciate
how stinkin’ cute you and Blake are together. But have you
questioned whether the timing was really right? I mean, considering
the fragile state of his relationship coming in to all this, plus
the shit you’re going through with your sister right now… Maybe it
just wasn’t your time, you know?”

Her comment had come as a surprise, because
she’d just spent most of the afternoon trying to convince me that I
was jumping to conclusions, reminding me I can’t be sure if
anything even happened unless I ask Blake about it. Her suggestion
that maybe things wouldn’t work out after all left me with an empty
feeling that’s been building inside of me all night.

I rush to the ladies’ room, suddenly needing
to hide my face before its laugh lines are very quickly replaced
with tears. I’m standing at the mirror reapplying powder to my
ruddy cheeks when both girls walk in behind me, laden with our
jackets and purses. They look at my reflection, and I marvel at how
rapidly we’ve all gone from delightful drunkenness to complete
sobriety.

I turn to face them and let out a slow exhale
while they watch me. “Hand me my phone,” I say softly, and Ruthie
pulls it out of my bag and hands it to me while Corinne locks the
door. Before dialing I notice three more missed calls and a text
message, all from the same person.

The phone only rings once before Blake
answers. “Thank God, I’ve been worried,” he says in a rush, and my
heart squeezes at the genuine concern in his voice.

“Are you having fun in Sacramento?” I ask. My
voice comes out high and strangled, sounding foreign even to my own
ears.

“It was all right,” he says. “I came back
early.” He sounds tentative, as if he’s waiting for the other shoe
to drop. Blake may be more devious than I’d originally given him
credit for, but he’s not dumb.

I breathe in deeply, then force out my next
statement all in one breath. “Blake, I need a break from…whatever
this is between us.” I swallow, expecting a reaction, wishing for
once he wasn’t always such a good
listener
. When none comes,
I continue. “It occurs to me we may have leapt into this without
really giving it much thought, and that wasn’t fair to either of
us. I just think we could both use some time…alone.”

The silence from the other end of the line is
deafening. Finally, after maybe two or three hours, the response
comes. “Okay…” His tone is impossible to interpret from that one
word alone. Is that sadness I hear? Relief? Guilt?
Boredom
?

“I’ll see you around,” I say, just as he
begins to say something else.

“All right, Rhiannon. Have a good night,” he
replies, not bothering to complete his thought. He sounds,
just…worn out.

I don’t know what to think, let alone say, so
I mumble a halfway-intelligible goodbye and hang up. Tears cloud my
vision, causing everything to blur along with my muddled thoughts.
I wonder what he had been about to say.

Blake – 10:00 PM

I
let the line go
dead in my hands and continue to just sit there, not moving. What
the
fuck
just happened?

After a long time, I look back down at the
book I was reading. Numbness spreads through me, starting in my
toes and seeping upward until even my heart and brain are
sensationless. Sleep eludes me.

Rhiannon – 8:30 PM

G
iven the current
delicate state of my psyche, I haven’t really felt up to shopping.
This explains why I find myself now, at 8:30 on Halloween night,
tearing through my closet in search of something I can wear as a
costume. Against my better judgment, I’ve agreed to go along to a
house party someone in Corinne’s History of Rock and Roll class is
hosting.

I’m just about to throw in the towel when I
see, shoved to the very back of the closet, a box of miniature
multicolored Christmas ornaments. I had bought them in a sale over
a year ago with the intention of decorating one of those tiny, two
foot trees and adding some holiday cheer to my otherwise dismal
living room—but then I forgot. An idea strikes me, and I pull out
the box along with a lime green dress hanging in the forgotten
recesses of the far corner.

The dress has cap sleeves and a scooped
neckline. It’s form-fitting through the torso and hips but flares
out at the hem. It’s quite short—much shorter than I would
typically wear, but then again on Halloween I could likely go out
in just my bra and underwear and not garner more than the
occasional raised eyebrow or a comment like, “Isn’t it a bit chilly
for that outfit?” Best of all, the satiny fabric of the dress is
covered in delicate mesh netting that’s a slightly darker shade of
green.

Proud of my ingenuity, I shed my sweatpants
and t-shirt to slip the dress on and zip it up the side. Next I
gingerly lift the top off the box of ornaments and pluck a couple
of the glass balls from their packaging. I begin hooking them on
the netted material, continuing until I’m covered with various
shapes and sizes of the ornaments, then stand back to admire the
effect. The lime green color lends a bit of a Whoville look to my
Christmas tree costume, but overall I’m satisfied. I may be a touch
on the fragile side with all this glass hanging from me, but it’ll
have to do in a pinch.

I pair my outfit with a set of super tacky
flashing Christmas light earrings (compliments of my dear Aunt Liz)
and a coating of bright red lipstick. I’m sliding on a pair of pink
high-heeled pumps when a knock sounds at the door. I almost don’t
recognize Spencer when I go to answer. He is a very convincing
Magnum, P.I. in a ball cap, fake mustache and oversized pair of
aviator sunglasses. I start laughing when I notice the top two
buttons of his flamboyant Hawaiian shirt are undone. “Wow, you even
added fake chest hair. That’s commitment.”

“I don’t do anything halfway, you know that,”
he says, all seriousness.

“Obviously. You look even more like Magnum
than Tom Selleck does.”

“I just hope people get it,” he grumbles,
stepping into the kitchen. “The stars of the eighties small screen
are severely underappreciated by today’s generation. And anyway,
you look amazing! Turn around.”

I giggle, performing a slow spin. “Christmas
tree, get it?”

“I
do
get it, and it’s genius,” he
says with a smile. “Did my mom happen to gift you those god-awful
earrings?”

“She did, and now I’m so glad. The ensemble
wouldn’t be complete without these treasures.”

“’Treasure’ is one word for them,” Spencer
mutters as he escorts me out the door.

9:15 PM

T
he party is taking
place in an older two story brick house right next to campus.
Spence finds parking on the next street over, and we walk to meet
Corinne (Honey Boo Boo) and Ruthie (an ethnic Sarah Palin) on the
corner before entering as a group.

Enormous speakers have been set up in the
living room, and the entire structure is pulsating with the bass
from a DJ cover of “Titanium.” Costumed co-eds mull around with red
Solo cups, probably not yet drunk enough to join the mosh pit
that’s almost undoubtedly already in full swing somewhere within
these four walls.

We walk straight through the kitchen and onto
the back deck, where a crowd has gathered around somebody doing a
keg stand.

“Dude, Rhiannon,” says a thick voice. “Damn,
girl.”

I look to my right and see a guy dressed
rather unimaginatively as Mario openly ogling me. I recognize him
as Rob from my Spanish elective. He’s not bad looking, but he is
definitely drunk. Spencer catches my eye, and I recognize the
unspoken question in his eyes. I shrug to let him know I’m fine,
and he gives me a small smile before turning back around to watch
the guy who’s currently upside down over the keg.

Rob sidles up to me, the smirk on his face
probably intended to seem alluring. I bite my lip to keep from
laughing—his staggering gait and half-opened eyes make him look
more like someone just beat him over the head with a shovel. “Uh
oh,” he says. Now that he’s only a few inches away from me I can
smell the tequila on his breath. “Somebody doesn’t have a drink,”
he observes, looking pointedly at my empty hands clasped in front
of me.

“Not yet. Do you know where I can get one?” I
ask politely.

“Oh baby, you have come to the right person,”
he replies, his face lighting up with a smile. He grabs my arm,
perhaps more forcefully than he intended, and tugs me over to a
table covered with every type of alcohol imaginable.

“Pick your poison!” he says proudly, as if
all the booze had been his idea.

“She’ll just have a beer,” says Ruthie
suddenly from behind me. I look back at her in confusion before she
begins pulling me away again.

“I’m all for you having cheap, meaningless
sex tonight, but not with that creeper,” she says. She thrusts a
beer into my hands and I drink from it appreciatively; I’ve been in
a despondent stupor for days now, and as much as it still sucks,
I’m tired of it—I am definitely getting drunk tonight.

“I don’t wanna have sex tonight,” I tell her
as I wipe the froth from my upper lip. “I’m just here to lose
myself in the wonders of alcohol. In fact, don’t even let anybody
dance with me. I’m not in the mood to be touched.”

She snorts. “
Okay
,” she says, her
voice dripping with sarcasm. “How about this? I won’t let any
ugly
guys dance with you. This will be difficult considering
the drunkenness of these men and the hotness of you, but I’m
feeling up the challenge.”