Magnolia Blossoms (10 page)

“Knock yourself out,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips. I laugh, so he opens them. “If you’re good at this, I might touch your boob. It’s just a habit.” I give him a playful shove, and he laughs heartily. “Come on. Make my toes curl.” He closes his eyes again, and though I’m still nervous, it’s not nearly as bad as before. I do my best to emulate what he’d done with me, and then in a rare moment of bravery, I do a couple of things that feel natural to me. His hand leaves the back of my neck, and slowly drifts towards the front of my t-shirt. Once he has a handful of bra and breast, he gives a gentle squeeze, and I give him a firm swat. He laughs as he pulls away. “What?”

“You know what,” I say with a smile.

“I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone. Now you can say you’ve gotten to second base. And to think, just five minutes ago, you’d never been kissed. You’re making great strides pretty damned quickly, Magnolia Berrybush,” he teases.

“Did I really do okay?” I ask, my voice laden with uncertainty.

“You did better than okay. You’re quite good at it, actually. You have nothing to be nervous about the next time you kiss someone.” He gives me a wink then stands up and brushes the dirt and leaves from the back of his running shorts before extending his hand to me. The familiar jolt sends shockwaves through my body as soon as our palms make contact, but I’m getting better at hiding it.

“Thank you for…you know—everything.”

“Thank you for listening and for confiding in me. I hope I helped.”

“Oh, you helped a lot,” I say a lot more enthusiastically than I intend, and it earns me one of his killer smiles.

“You take care of yourself, Mags,” Jace says, stretching briefly before jogging away. “Oh, one more thing…” he says, turning toward me as he jogs in place. “Don’t pay a person for any of your firsts. You deserve much better than that.” And with that final thought, he disappears down the trail. My fingers drift to my lips, and I can’t help but smile. I feel more alive than ever! I want to sing, shout, and dance to celebrate the momentous event, but a quick shot of reality sobers me quickly. I still have to go home and tell my parents about the incident with Nick. Crap.

Big Daddy is nose deep in a newspaper when I come into the kitchen. There are voices coming from down the hallway, so I figure Sunny must be teaching class. I open the fridge to get a bottle of water before taking a seat across from Big Daddy at the table. It’s his day off, so he’s in the only other thing he wears besides his trademark seersucker suit, a track suit. I hear the fabric
swish
as he uncrosses his leg and plants his feet firmly on the ground.

“Is there something you’d like to discuss with me, Magnolia?” he asks without putting down the paper.

“Yes, sir. There is.”
How does he know!
My stomach does a flip flop. I can’t tell anything about his mood as long as he has that paper in front of his face.

“Interesting news today,” he says, finally folding the paper and placing it on the table top. His fat finger slowly taps at an article close to the end of the page. I glance over to see what he’s pointing out, and staring back at me in big, bold letters is my name. Slinking down in the seat, I cover my eyes with my hands.

“I was arrested, but wrongfully so. I never wanted sex from the guy.”

“Hmmm. I see. Care to explain why you were in Merryland Heights at three in the morning talking to an undercover cop who just so happened to be posing as a male prostitute?”

“Not particularly,” I say, hanging my head.

“Too bad.” He rises from the chair so he can slip into full melodrama mode. After pushing out a long exhale, he heavily smacks his palm against the countertop. He points at me. “How can an undercover police officer possibly mistake your intentions if you were in the middle of a high crime neighborhood made famous by the sheer number of
whorehouses
encompassed in the area? If you weren’t looking for sex, Magnolia, then what in God’s name were you looking for?” He throws his hand skyward for effect.

“A kiss,” I admit even though I’m humiliated. My answer throws Big Daddy off of his game because he takes a seat across from me.

“Did you say a kiss?” he asks in as soft of a voice as I’ve ever heard from him.

Refusing to look at him, I begin picking at my thumbnails. “I’m thirty-two years old, and until recently, I’ve never been kissed. I was curious about what it would be like, and a friend of mine suggested that I find out from someone with experience. Paying someone to kiss you isn’t a crime. She told me I should offer him five dollars, but I could go as high as twenty dollars if need be. He totally misconstrued what I was asking for. I was talking dollars while he was talking hundreds of dollars, and even though I tried explaining to him what had happened, he insisted that I was lying and arrested me.”

“Until recently?”

“Sir?” I ask.

“You said that you hadn’t been kissed until recently. Did the undercover officer kiss you?”

I shake my head. There’s no way I’m ruining my memory of Jace so I tell Big Daddy that it was some random guy from the park.

“Pity. I wish I had known you were so bad off, Magnolia. Sure you’re introverted, but I had no idea that it’s to the point that you don’t live life. We desperately need to work on that. Desperate times call for desperate measures. You said something about a friend, right? The one who suggested that you hire a pair of lips. Are you two still friends?”

“I believe so,” I reply, though I have no clue where this is going.

“Fine news. I want you to go stay with him or her.”

“Her, and why?”

“Magnolia, the only way for you to truly experience life is to
live
it. That’s not going to happen as long as you’re holed up in that garage apartment. I’ve done you a huge disservice, and I intend to fix it. I’ll represent you at your trial, but you must leave here effective immediately. Consider it a dose of long overdue tough love.” My head is still reeling from the news when he walks into his office, and returns quickly with a stack of cash. “Here’s seven hundred dollars to get you started. Offer your friend some rent money, and use some to buy yourself some clothes or whatever else you need. It is not to be spent on kisses or anything of the sort. Do you understand?”

“I can’t believe you’re kicking me out over this.”

“I’m not kicking you out, Magnolia. I’m making you grow up.” He kisses my forehead. “Call if you need money or advice.” My mouth is still agape when he sits back down at the table and snaps open the paper.

“Am I allowed to pack a bag?” I ask.

“Sure. Take what you need, but make haste with it. No dawdling.”

With a huff, I turn on my heel and stash the cash in the pocket of Honey’s jeans that I’m still wearing from the previous night. There isn’t really much for me to pack. All I have in my closet are articles that Honey forbade me to wear. I do, however, take down the boob wall and pack away all of the pornographic movies and sex toys. I also deflate the blow up man, and he tops the pile of boob pictures. Now that I’ve experienced intimacy, even though it was just a kiss, with a living, breathing human, I’ve garnered enough experience to know that there’s no comparison.
Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Loverboy. Time for me to have a fresh start, and I’m gonna to try doing it the right way.
I make a final sweep around the garage apartment, but aside from my laptop, there is nothing I want or need.

It’s close to three in the afternoon when I knock on Honey’s door. I hear her hollering, but can barely make out what she’s saying. “Hold your damned horses! Can’t a person take a shit in peace?” The door flies open, and a startled Honey finishes drying her wet hands on her jeans. “Maggie, whatcha doin’ here? I wasn’t expectin’ to see you again.”

“Big Daddy kicked me out, and I have nowhere else to go,” I say, choking back the tears.

She lets out a sigh. “Every bit of my being is telling me to send you packing, to tell you to go back home and plead with him to take you back, but seeing you standing here like a little lost puppy… Come on in. Where’s your bag?”

“I don’t have one. You said I’m not allowed to wear the skirts and turtlenecks anymore, I have no makeup, and all of my underwear is the kind you made fun of... Big Daddy gave me some money. He said I should give some of it to you if you let me stay. How much do you want?” I ask holding up the wad of cash.

“Okay. Put that junk away. We’ll talk rent some other time. I don’t usually hit the street until eight or so. Let me get my keys, and we’ll find you something to wear.”

“Oh, thank you, Honey!” I say throwing my arms around her neck. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! My life has been so much more exciting since meeting you. I thought the solicitation arrest was the end of the world, but it landed me a first kiss with the most amazing looking man! Is this how life usually works? A bad thing happens, but something good comes from it?”

“That ramble is missing some details, Maggie. What do you mean you were kissed? I was watching the entire time, and Nick the Dick never… Did something happen with him when you were behind bars?” Honey asks while unlocking the passenger door of the beast.

“No! He’s so mean! No way. This guy is just as good looking, and he’s a paramedic,” I say with a squeal. The car struggles to start, but after a few tries, smoke infests the neighborhood, and it rumbles down the driveway.

“Tell me everything, because this story is making zero sense. A paramedic?”

“His name is Jace, and he’s the guy who keeps showing up whenever I get hurt. Well, I wasn’t ready to go home after getting released from jail, so I went to the park at the end of Beckingworth Drive, the one with the nice walking trail through the woods. I’m not paying attention to anything but my upcoming demise, and all of a sudden, I’m flat out on the ground. It was Jace. He smacked right into me because he wasn’t paying attention either. I was stunned for a while, so he lay next to me on the ground, and we started to talk. He’s real easy to talk to, and before I knew it I’d told him everything—about meeting you, the arrest, having never been kissed. He was really sweet about it, and he offered to kiss me for
free
!” I squeal.

“I’m assuming it was good?” Honey says with a smirk.

“Oh, it was sooooo good! His lips were soft, yet strong, and he was tender, but firm. It made my toes curl. Does that make sense?”

Honey laughs. “Yes. Yes, it does. It’s nice to be around someone so excited about the things most people tend to take for granted. So what does this Jace guy look like?”

A goofy smile spreads across my face. “His hair is short and dark blond. He’s tall, but not too tall. Maybe around six feet or so? But his eyes. Oh, my gosh! The most gorgeous shade of blue I’ve ever seen. And his smile. Makes me feel…” I bite my lower lip as I struggle to find the right word.

“Like you want to see him naked?” Honey asks.

“Exactly!” I shout. “But there’s no way I could ever let him see me naked. Not that he’d ever want to, but…”

“Why do you say that? I saw you last night. Now that you’ve tidied up a bit, and once those battle wounds the razor left behind heal some, you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, if I had your body, I’d probably start stripping again.”

My eyes grow wide, but I stay silent. There is no way in hell that I’ll ever feel confident enough to take off my clothes in a room full of people.

“So, finish telling me about Jace,” Honey prompts.

“There’s not much more to tell. He kissed me and before he jogged off, he told me that I should never pay for any of my firsts.”

“He said that?”

“Sure did.”

“I like him,” Honey says with a grin.

“That’s good to know, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s so far out of my league that it’s not even funny. Plus, he likes to date people in his profession. He told me so.”

“You just never know…” Honey says as she parks the car in front of a thrift store. She turns sideways in her seat to face me. “Lookie. I could take you to the mall or some boutique and you can get maybe an outfit or two with what you have in your pocket, or you come with me in here and get about fifty outfits for two hundred bucks. The choice is yours, but if you want my opinion, I say we start here.”

I nod, so Honey gives her door a swift kick to open it. Once we’re inside, I’m amazed by the variety of clothing available. My previous wardrobe was all mail order, so seeing a plethora of choices in one place makes my head spin. Luckily, Honey is a pro at digging through the maze, and before I know it she’s handing me a stack of clothes to try on. I feel completely intimidated and uncertain.

“Go. I’ll bring you more as I find them,” she says, shooing me towards the dressing room. I give the pile a wary look. There are short skirts, dresses, shorts—things I’ve never even considered wearing. She notices my hesitation and barks, “Go!”

Filled with diffidence, I slowly head to the dressing room. Honey picks up on my hesitation and tosses down the dress she has in her hand. “You’re trying on clothes, not going in front of a firing squad. Give me those,” she says, bustling toward me to snatch the pile from my arms. “You’re trying this one on first.” With the majority of the bundle in one hand, she starts throwing garments over her shoulder until she finds what she’s looking for. “Here. Go put this on. If you don’t like the way you look in it then we’ll leave.”

“You promise?” I ask, cautiously optimistic that the shopping trip might be over. As hard as I try, I can’t fathom people enjoying this.

“Yep. Ain’t no point in trying to help someone who don’t want to be helped. I got plenty of other things I could be doing right now,” Honey says, obviously miffed.

“I’m sorry, Honey. I’m being rude. Of course I appreciate your time and your advice. It’s just that this is all new to me, and to be honest, it’s pretty overwhelming.”

Honey looks around the store, her face contorted into a look of disbelief. “What part of this is new to you?”

I stare down at my feet. “All of it.”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? You’re not seriously going to stand there and tell me that at thirty-something years old,
this
is your first time shopping for clothes.”

“Until I was in my late teens, Sunny made my clothes. After that, everything came from…”

“Virgins Forever?”

“Ha. Ha. No, but they just showed up at my house once I ordered them. If they didn’t fit, I sent them back and they mailed back the right size.”

“These catalogs that you looked through for clothes, their only options were the crap you wore?”

“It’s what I like. People didn’t even give me a second look when I wore those clothes.”

“And that’s good?”

“It is if you’re protecting yourself from the insults of the people who do notice.” I plunk down on the chair next to the dressing room and put my face in my hands. Damn it if I don’t start to cry. Honey sets the clothes down beside the chair and softly rubs my back.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m too abrasive. It’s one of my faults. You have to ignore most of what I say.”

I shake my head. “It’s not you. I’ve never admitted the things I’m telling you to anyone. I did my best to pretend that the comments didn’t bother me, or that I didn’t hear them, but I heard them and they bothered me terribly. In school, I tried being the funny girl, the sweet girl, the hell raiser—no matter which persona I put out there, the teasing and picking never stopped.