Tart (21 page)

This information does please me, but I try to hide my pleasure with a highly skeptical stare.

“What?” he demands. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Don't you agree that getting involved with you is a terrible career move on my part?”

He leans back in his chair and considers this. “Not really. I mean, unfortunately—and I do apologize for this—you became the other woman in Monica's mind the day you rolled into town. I know I should've said something right away. It's just that…I really liked you. Like you, I mean. I didn't want to scare you away.”

“Clay…”

“And if you're thinking that it's a low-return risk for just a careless little rebound-fling, forget it. I don't know what your intentions are, but I have a distinctly long-term plan in mind.”

I scoff. “That's a little bold, don't you think?”

“You're a very naughty girl, Ms. Bloom. If I take you on as my pupil we'll have to be very committed. There'll be rigorous lesson plans, and spankings will be administered regularly. Probably hourly, based on what I've seen.”

I almost choke on my beer. When I've regained my composure and finished my last bite of taco, I ask, “What are we really talking about, here?”

“Your education. So, what do you say?” He drops a couple of bills on the table, stands and offers me his hand. “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

Looking up at him, all of my carefully constructed reasons for resisting Clay Parker dissipate and float away like ocean mist. When it comes down to it, that hot little command central between my thighs makes every last decision for me.

“Sure,” I say, taking his hand and following him to the door. “I live for spankings.”

“I guarantee you'll get more than you ever dreamed of,” he says, opening the door for me and resting the other hand firmly on my hip.

“Mmm,” I murmur, walking so close I can smell the salt water on his skin. “I feel a terrible bout of naughtiness coming on.”

I
t's April Fool's Day, and Rose insists we celebrate. We actually have plenty to be giddy about. Spring quarter's just begun, signaling the home stretch leading straight to summer, with its promises of laziness, debauchery and unemployment. Clay and I have been shamelessly, deliriously happy for one week and five days now. We're drunk on each other's flesh, floating in that anti-gravity state that Hallmark cards enshrine and pop songs worship: love. It's a terrible, embarrassing thing. If I weren't so intoxicatingly happy, I'd have to shoot myself.

And Rosemarie has been promoted this fine Thursday from gofer girl to receptionist at Wabi Sabi Tattoo. There's a nominal raise involved, increased access to learning the trade, and it's the first job she's held down for three months straight in her whole life, so I'm really proud of her. She looks good tonight, dressed in the retro polka-dot halter top and the suede skirt we found her at a consignment shop last week. She's finally reversed the frightening trend toward skeletal and has put on enough pounds lately to soothe my anorexia alarms.

We're sitting at a table toward the back of the Poet and Patriot Irish Pub, sharing shepherd's pie, French fries with vinegar and a couple of pints of Guinness. I've resurrected my Cleo wig from my underwear drawer. Rose is determined that we should get quite drunk tonight, and I've decided that going out undercover is the only way I can comfortably get shit-faced in this town, where there's a student or colleague lurking under every rock. So I'm fidgeting with my slick black bob, and Rose is attempting to explain to me how she and Miranda managed to break up before they even made it to their first kiss.

“Okay, let me start again,” she says, stuffing another fry into her mouth and downing it with a swig of beer. “You know how when you're in a relationship with a guy, you sometimes get the urge to talk about heavy stuff—analyze why he dreams about his mother, that sort of thing?” I nod. “And he wants to watch football?”

“I don't sleep with guys who watch football,” I say. “But I know what you mean. Women are more verbal. We like to talk shit out. Guys are generally monosyllabic.”

“Exactly. Now, imagine a relationship where nobody wants to watch football. It's pure, twenty-four-seven analysis. There's no, ‘you think too much, let's fuck' here. That's why Miranda and I didn't get anywhere. It was all conversation, no action.”

I have to say this comes as a bit of a relief to me. They'd been meeting for breakfasts and lunches and post-work cheese-cakes (probably the reason Rose has put on pounds) for weeks now, and I dreaded the moment when Rose would waltz through the door with a Cheshire cat grin plastered all over her face. It's not that sex between women is unsavory; it's sex between Rose and Miranda that unsettles me. Somehow my favorite cousin getting carnal with my favorite student seems incestuous, and I worried that Rose's inevitably detailed recapping would make me profoundly uncomfortable.

“But if you weren't even
in
a relationship, what did you spend all your time analyzing?” I ask, still mystified.

“You see, that's the thing, we were too busy discussing what we might theoretically be like if we were, theoretically, to have a relationship. We dissected the whole thing before it happened.”

“I still don't see how—”

“I'm telling you, we seduced, became disenchanted, betrayed each other and broke up before we'd even gotten around to holding hands. It was pathetic.” Rose shakes her head, and then I watch the canvas of her sweet, expressive face go from disappointed to spellbound in under two seconds. I look over my shoulder to see what she's staring at; there's a monstrously tall, tattooed guy with a shiny, shaved bald head and a dimpled smile taking a seat at the bar. I look back at Rose.

“What? You know him?”

“Oh, my God. Claudia. I'm tingling all over. What's wrong with me?”

“Soul-mate radar activated?”

“Don't tease. I'm serious,” she whispers frantically. “Do I look okay? Is my nose all shiny?”

“You look fantastic.”

“Do I look edgy enough for him?” she says, messing up her hair a bit.

“Wait a minute, I thought you were determined to get with a girl.”

“Kismet,” she says. “Out of my control. What do I do? Should I go talk to him?”

I sneak another covert look over my shoulder. “What's the tattoo of?”

She sighs dreamily. “It's a giant bat biting the head off a goat.”

“And the radar's still…?”

“He's perfect. Look at him. He's got to be huge. Check out the hands on that guy. And the feet. Christ…”

“If it weren't for the dimples, I'd say he looks dangerous, but he does have a very sweet smile.”

“I'm going to talk to him,” she says, yanking the neckline of her dress an inch lower. “Otherwise, I'll kick myself for years. You don't mind, do you?”

“Of course not. Who am I to interfere with kismet?”

She kisses me quickly on the cheek and stands up. I shift my chair slightly so I can watch her stalking the bar out of the corner of my eye. I try not to be too obvious, but through undercover glances I'm able to confirm that giant goat-eating-bat-tattoo guy is obviously delighted.

It's at this moment that everything shifts drastically. One second I'm filled with a subtly blossoming Guinness buzz, indulging in French fries, watching my cousin make the moves. The next my heart is sliced in half and is flopping around sloppily inside me.

Clay Parker walks in the door.

With his arm around a girl.

And not just any girl. Wouldn't you know it? The shoulder his lovely brown hand is cupping would have to be the shoulder of my nemesis: Little Miss Practically Rain from the Anti-Valentine Party. She might be twenty-one, no more, and her hair is just as long, just as glossy-black as Rain's, her teeth just as impossibly white. Her lips are painted with ruby-red gloss and her eyes are shining with the pleasure of a girl whose twenties are still stretched out before her like an endless, shimmering highway. She's smiling as if she knows she's getting laid tonight. Or perhaps this is a postcoital pint, the nonsmokers' version of a cigarette in bed.

I wait in paralyzed horror for Clay to see me and either vehemently deny my existence or stammer lame excuses at me. He does neither. His eyes slip over and past me casually, without hesitation. Then I remember I'm wearing a wig and horn-rimmed, pink-tinted glasses; it's small comfort, but at least I'll be spared the humiliation of a barroom brawl. For a fleeting second I consider torturing myself by sitting per
fectly still, watching them. They've chosen a cozy booth in the corner that allows me a decent view of their gleeful profiles facing each other, their animated mouths jabbering on about God knows what. But then I feel the shepherd's pie, vinegar-soaked fries and Guinness sloshing together in grisly communion. I have barely enough self-control to bolt into the bathroom before kneeling over the toilet and puking it all up.

That should teach you, Bloom,
I scold myself as I kneel over the pinkish-gray mess in the toilet and heave again.
Haven't you seen enough of love to know it's toxic?

Rose comes in as I'm flushing the toilet. “Claudia? Babe? You okay?”

“Sick,” I mumble, coming out of the stall with my hand over my mouth.

“But you've barely had a pint.”

“I'm not drunk,” I say, splashing cold water on my face to disguise my tears. “It's Clay. He's out there with some vulgar little slut. Why does everyone leave me for Lolita?”

“Oh, God,” she says. “I'm so sorry. I didn't even notice.”

“It's typical.” I yank angrily at a paper towel, dampen it slightly and pat at my splotchy face. I will myself to be brave and just shut up about it, but when I catch sight of Rose's face in the mirror, watching me with her eyebrows forming an inverted V of worry and empathy, I turn around and fall sobbing into her arms.

“Shh,” she says, patting my back. “It's okay. He's not worth it.”

“He
is,
though,” I cry incoherently. “If anyone is,
he
is.”

“Not if he's stupid enough to prefer some tacky little bimbo over you.” We go on like this for a few minutes, me crying and slobbering into the crook of her neck, she murmuring mindless, reassuring assertions of my supremacy, Clay's blind stupidity, and the nameless slut's totally skanky vileness.

“Do you think he saw you?” she asks when I've managed to pull myself together a bit.

I pull at a strand of my wig. “I'm Cleo tonight, remember?”

“Oh. Right. I forgot.”

“God, I want a cigarette,” I moan.

“Okay, look. The night can be saved. I'm going to go get Tim, and we'll all sneak out the back, okay?”

“Don't worry about me,” I say. “I'll just walk home. You two have a good time.”

“No way. You are not going to mope about this, Claudia. We're leaving this stupid pub, and we're going to go get properly sloshed at a bar that doesn't serve scumbags like those two out there. Got it?”

“He's not a scumbag,” I whine, hating myself for such weakness.

“Claudia, listen to me. Anyone who two-times you, the most brilliant, beautiful, seductive cousin alive, is scum. Is that clear?” I hesitate, then nod obediently. “Good. Now, slip out the back—I'll meet you there in ten seconds.”

“Rose—”

“Do it. And we'll get you a cigarette, first thing. Then we'll pour so much liquor down your throat, you won't even remember his name.”

 

Morning After. Ugh. I wake up in a slice of sunlight so sticky-hot and oppressive, I somehow find the strength to sit straight up and peel my shirt off. Then I flop back down and my head clouds with pain. There's the headache, yes—that's a given—but there's also a searing, throbbing spike in my ankle. I prop myself up gingerly on one elbow and peer down the length of my body at the puffy, swollen mess at the end of my leg. It looks like someone amputated my own bony white ankle in the night and replaced it with a fat girl's thick, puffy one. It's an angry red and I swear I can see the pain throbbing from under the skin.

Christ. What…?

I notice a note written hastily on a paper towel on the pillow beside me.

I moan softly, roll over and carefully peek at Rose's mattress in the corner, dreading the possibility of a stranger's large, bald body there. Nope. Coast is clear. Then I hear the toilet flush and wince as goat-eating-bat guy appears, drying his face with my favorite fluffy blue towel. He looks away, mumbling, “Sorry—didn't realize…” at which point it occurs to me that I'm shirtless in boxers before a stranger. I frantically scramble back into my tank top as he politely averts his eyes.

“How you feelin'?” he asks once I'm decent, a little too cheerfully and definitely with more volume than I'm prepared for.

“Errmm” is my eloquent response.

“Sorry,” he says, lowering his voice. “I know how it is. If it's any consolation, you were impressively wasted last night. I'm surprised you can face the light of day.”

“Time?” I say, looking around for a clock.

He consults his watch. “Twelve forty-five. Hungry?”

“Eugh,” I say. “Don't think so.”

“No. But you will be. Can I get you some water?”

“Um, this might seem rude, but who are you again?”

He laughs. “Tim Frank. Nice to meet you. Last night we were fast friends, but I guess everything's different in the morning.” He finds a mason jar in the cupboard, fills it with ice and water and hands it to me. I sit there, blinking in the sunlight. The cold glass feels wonderful in my hand and I gulp down half its contents, making greedy slurping noises and belching when I'm through.

“So listen,” Tim says. “I'll give you your privacy. I just wanted to stick around until you woke up, make sure that ankle's not giving you too much pain.”

“It hardly hurts at—ouch,” I cry as I try to wiggle it and am rewarded with a red-hot poker stabbing into my ankle-bone.

“Could be broken,” he says, examining it. “But probably not. Do you want some aspirin?”

“You mind?”

“Not at all.” Much to my surprise, he produces a leather briefcase from Rose's corner, pops it open and pulls out a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. This guy's a trip.

“So,” I say, when I've popped three of his pills and summoned enough strength to sit all the way up. “You don't have to be at work today?”

He grins. “You really don't remember last night, do you?” I shake my head no and blush, imagining myself swinging from some chandelier. “No, I'm a freelancer. I do graphic design. Pretty good gig—make my own hours, that sort of thing. I should be out of here pretty soon, though. I was going to get a bagel before I head down to Carmel. I need to meet with a client around three. Do you want me to grab you a couple bagels and drop them by? It's no problem, and you'll be hungry soon.”

“Oh, don't bother—”

“No, really,” he insists. “I don't mind.”

“Well, okay. If you say so.” I start to get up so I can scrounge up some cash, but putting weight on my ankle
causes me to shriek with pain. “Motherfucker. What the hell did I do?”