“I know. I’m just wondering how friendly.”
Bob’s still standing in the window, but I haven’t read the situation well enough yet to give him a wave, high or low.
I look Marcus in the eyes. “She and I, we’re good friends, dude. Tight. Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t change that.”
He breaks eye contact, and that’s when I see it. He’s not here to murder me at all. He’s here because he’s wounded. Self-doubt has cut the mighty Marcus West to the core. Suddenly, any jealousy I might have left over evaporates, and I realize I’m the one with the power in this situation. Either I can twist the knife deeper into his heart or I can pull it out. Me being me, I go for the second choice.
“Hey, Marcus, buddy, Cassidy and I are always going to be friends. But here’s the deal—we may be friends, but I’m dating someone else now.”
“Yeah, but everyone knows you’d drop Aimee Finecky in a second if you could get back with Cassidy.”
“Maybe people think that,” I say, more than a little annoyed. “But that’s just because they don’t know Aimee. She’s my girlfriend now and Cassidy’s yours. Case closed.”
“I don’t know about that.” His baritone cracks in mid-sentence. I can’t believe it—he’s actually bordering on tears.
“That’s the way it is,” I assure him. How could I stay annoyed with that pitiful expression staring me in the face? “Look, nothing’s going on between me and Cassidy except we have some fun, blow off some steam.” Obviously, I don’t mention anything about the lingering feelings from our dating days.
Marcus looks down at his hands. He’s twisting his key chain nervously. “Yeah, well, that’s the problem. She shouldn’t have to go looking for another guy to have fun with. I want to be that guy. I want to be the one who makes her laugh.”
I glance Bob’s way and give him the high wave.
“Look, Marcus, You can be that guy. I mean, there’s no reason she can’t have fun with me and you both, just in different ways.”
He shakes his head. “Naw, man, I know myself and I’m not that fun. And she needs fun, I can tell by the way she talks about you. But I don’t know how to make her laugh or anything like that. I can’t come with the funny like you.”
This is too weird. Marcus has always seemed so smooth and cool. Now here he is beating himself over the head because he’s not funny. That’s love for you.
So I’m like, “But, hey, you’re Marcus West. You’ve got the cool, the glide. You’re a doer, dude. You don’t just dream things, you get them done. If our whole generation was like you, maybe we really would change the world.”
“Yeah, but it’d be a boring world.”
“You aren’t boring, Marcus. You’re an interesting guy. You have all these opinions and causes and everything. And I can tell you’re crazy about Cassidy, aren’t you?”
“I am, man. I really am.”
My heart’s bleeding for the dude, but I’m also doing this for Cassidy. If she needs another boyfriend right now, she could do a lot worse than Marcus West.
“Look, Marcus.” I would give him a pat on the shoulder, but it’d be awkward as tall as he is. “Let me give you some advice. For one thing, she’s into you. She told me she is, so you can believe that, one hundred percent.”
“She told you that?”
“Absolutely.” Okay, so admitting this hurts more than I thought it would, but it’s for a higher cause. “And another thing.” I’m on a roll now. “She’s also into all your causes and everything. The girl used to wear me out with that stuff. But maybe you could back off on saving the world just a fraction. I mean, as fucked up as the world is, with all the war and torture camps and exploding buildings and shit, it can crush you into a powder just thinking about it.”
“Hey, that’s not what I’m trying to do.” I’ve never seen anyone look so earnest. In fact, I haven’t seen many people over the age of nine look any kind of earnest. He’s like, “No single person can save the whole world. I’m just trying to do my part. I get that from my mom and my brothers and the church we go to. You know? You just start with the small stuff in your own world and let it spread from there. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
“Yeah, well, it can be a little much for someone like Cassidy who’s a lot more used to talking about doing that stuff than actually doing it.”
“I thought she liked doing it, though. But, I mean, she doesn’t have to do everything I do. Everyone’s different. To tell you the truth, sometimes I get a little stressed myself. I got a lot of pressure on me. Sometimes it’s like I got this wire stretched tight inside me, about to break, but I don’t figure that’s any reason to give up.”
“Well, let her know that. Don’t go around playing the macho man who won’t tell his girlfriend his problems. Sit down and talk to her, get it all out in the open. And, dude, don’t plan everything out so much—just let it happen. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt you to have a beer every now and then. Maybe even some whisky.”
“I’m not into that.”
“It was just a thought.”
He studies me for a second. “I really appreciate you talking to me like this, Sutter. It’s big of you. I guess I was always like some of the other guys—I figured you were kind of a joke, but you’re not. A long way from it.”
“Wait a minute. Who thinks I’m a joke?”
“I’m just saying—you got a lot more to you than you let on. You got heart, man.”
“Oh yeah, I have that, all right. I have a heart the size of a tuba.”
“You know what, man? I bet if you put your head to it, you could really be a difference-maker yourself.”
“I’ll leave that to you, Marcus. You got it all under control.” I put out my hand, and he gives it a good, warm shake. He’s back to being Marcus West again.
“Why don’t you head over to Cassidy’s,” I tell him. “I’m sure she’d love to see you right about now.”
He smiles. “I think I’ll do that. Thanks again. You’re a good man.”
He ambles away and folds himself back into the Taurus. Bob’s standing in the window again. What a damn good guy. I shoot him another high wave to let him know everything’s all right. Doom has passed me by for now.
But as I drive away, I can’t help going over the conversation. There are no two ways about it. I handed him the keys to Cassidy, all right. At least for a couple of months. That’s all I give their relationship before it collapses under the weight of Marcus’s immense sincerity.
Chapter 44
Aimee’s still not tired of me, and I can’t say that’s a bad thing. I’m really enjoying hanging with her. She’s up for just about anything I want to do. The thing is, now that the secret’s out about my afternoons with Cassidy, I have to explain it to Aimee before it gets back to her through someone else. Krystal Krittenbrink would love to pass that piece of gossip along.
Lunch seems like a good time to spring the news. It’s harder for an argument to get out of control in the middle of McDonald’s than if it’s just the two of you at home. Of course, Aimee’s never given me the least cause to think she’s the fit-throwing type, but you never know what might happen.
I turn out to be a genius, though. I start by telling her about me setting Marcus straight on how much Cassidy’s into him. Then I casually mention the good things Cassidy has to say about her whenever we get together for drinks on Thursday afternoons. And it’s true—Cassidy has told me she thinks Aimee’s an absolute sweetheart. Still, the Thursday afternoons part doesn’t escape Aimee’s attention.
“I thought you had to work Thursday afternoons,” she says.
“I do but not until later. It never hurts to get a little fortified before work, you know.”
She stares at her burger. “So where do you two go to have drinks?”
“Nowhere. We just hang out on the patio mostly.”
“At her house?”
“Yeah. In fact, we were just talking about going on a double date—me, you, C
assidy, and Marcus.” Maybe that’s not exactly the truth, but it is something that could be arranged somewhere down the line, and it gets the subject back on a positive track. “How about that? Think we should do it sometime?”
“Uh, sure, that’d be all right, I guess.”
“Great. You want some of my French fries?”
“Okay.”
And that’s that. No accusations, no tears, no big scene. Everything’s cool. For the time being.
Of course, the situation might have become more emotional if we were having sex, but I have wisely steered away from that so things don’t get too messy when the end comes. So far, it’s just been the same old car-in-the-driveway kiss and rub. I figure we’ll never go too far as long as there’s the threat of Aimee’s mom or Randy-the-Walrus walking up on us at any second.
See, I agree with what Cassidy says—once you have sex you’ll always be sewn together with an astral thread. I’m no expert on astral stuff, but she’s definitely onto something there, and I sure don’t want Aimee getting all tangled up in a sticky thread like that come time for her to say adios to the Sutterman.
It’s not easy, though. I’ve counted to about a million, listed most of the presidents, and played mental reruns of my favorite old movie, Dumb and Dumber, just to keep the horniness at bay while making out with her. I know I told Ricky there’s no way she could ever be a hottie, but the body doesn’t lie. The head does, but not the body. My blue balls testify to that every time I drive home from her house.
But my greatest challenge is yet to come. Only a couple of days after our Cassidy talk at McDonald’s, Aimee hits me with the big question—Do I want to sleep over and help with the paper route the next morning while little brother Shane’s spending the night with a friend and Mom and Randy are off for an all-night run on the Indian casinos?
Maybe the timing is just a coincidence, but I can’t help wondering if Aimee wants to shift our relationship into the bedroom as a way of competing with Cassidy. Of course, just because we’re spending the night together doesn’t mean we have to have sex, but it’s sure going to make it a lot tougher to avoid it. But you know me—I’m always up for a challenge.
When the big night rolls around, I do the usual deal, tell my mom I’m spending the night at Ricky’s. Then I load up on videos, pizza, chips, salsa, Twinkies, whisky, 7UP, vodka, and cranapple juice. Of course, when I get to Aimee’s, she has the soft sixties music playing and the candles stationed around the living room, so I’m starting out with a ten-degrees-of-difficulty super-challenge already.
We have three movies to choose from, two comedies and one moody sci-fi flick. Nothing too romantic. Definitely nothing with nudity. We start off with the sci-fi, which works out fine since, with Aimee explaining it to me, there’s not much time for the conversation to tilt toward relationshippy issues. That’s the big fear right there—getting caught up in one of those “Where are we going?” talks.
Strange thing is I actually find the movie and her commentary interesting, especially after she hits a couple of vodkas and really starts cranking. It’s one of those movies set in a screwed-up society in the near future. Totalitarianism rules. Half the characters look like refugees from a seventies punk-rock club and the other half look like space Nazis. One of the women is pretty hot for a bald chick.
Aimee says the themes are simple: Goodbye individuality, goodbye uniqueness. The uniform, soulless future is coming and the seeds have already been planted. She’s read or watched about a billion similar stories. That’s what people fear, she says, because they think it’s like death and that death is the ultimate robber of identity.
“Do you think that’s what death’s really like?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I think, when we die, we don’t lose our identity, we gain a much, much bigger one. As big as the universe.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” I tell her, and we clink our glasses together to toast our grand universal selves.
There’s a little punk-rock girl in the movie with an old, punk-rock father. I think the guy playing him used to be a pretty big star. It’s sad, in a way, to watch movie stars grow old beneath their fabulous hair. But this is the only part of the movie that seems fresh to Aimee. When the movie’s over, she admits the guy reminds her of her own father because they understood each other when no one else did.
Her father was the one who turned her on to sixties music. He even used to sing the songs to her. He read to her, too, even when she was old enough to read for herself. He loved some writer dude named Kurt Vonnegut and another one named Isaac Asimov. I’m sure they did science-fiction stuff. In the evenings, he’d read her chapters at a time and explain all the philosophy behind it as he went.
“He used to set his little red ashtray on the window sill and blow his cigarette smoke outside so I wouldn’t have to breathe it. And he had this old, beat-up St. Louis Cardinals cap that tilted back on his head, and sometimes he’d crack up laughing so hard at what he was reading he could barely go on.”
“I like him,” I said.
“He was a dreamer.”
“That’s all right. I like listening to people’s dreams. My dad, I don’t think he had any dreams. He was like me—every second’s a dream for guys like us.”
“Well, he must have been ambitious to end up working at the top of the Chase building making all those business deals.”
“What?”
“You know, you told me he works in the Chase building downtown?”
“Oh, right, right, right. I guess I kind of drifted off, thinking about how he used to be. Man, he was fun. He’s a workaholic now, though.”
She nestles in closer and puts her hand on my leg. “Maybe we should go see him sometime. I’d love to meet him. After all, you’ve already met my whole family, and I haven’t met any of yours.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to do that sometime.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Sometime.”
“How about tomorrow? I mean, if it’s not too short notice.”
“I don’t think so.” I stare off at the TV, even though the movie’s ended. “Besides, he’ll probably be burning the midnight oil at the office.”
“On a Sunday night?”
“Like I told you—he’s a workaholic.”
“How about this, then—we surprise him at the office. We’ll bring him some leftover pizza.”
“Not a good idea.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the view from the top of one of those buildings.”
“Goddamn.” I pull my hand away from hers and look her in the face. “Would you shut up about going to see my dad? It’s not going to happen, all right?”
Her face flushes red and she shrinks away. You’d think I slapped her or something. But, really, the girl just did not know when to stop.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Well, you just kept going on and on. I don’t like to be badgered, you know?”
“I know, I know, that was so stupid. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I swear, she looks like she’s about to shrink all the way down into the crack between the sofa cushions.
“Hey.” I pat her leg. “It’s not that bad. It just got on my nerves a little.”
“No, I know. I’m acting just like my mom, and I said I never would. But I guess when your family’s screwed up, you’re going to be screwed up too.” She’s actually sniffling now.
“You are not screwed up. Come here.” I wrap my arm around her. “I’m just a little touchy about my dad, you know, spending more time working than with me.”
“I’m so sorry.” She wipes her tears on my shoulder. “I’m so dumb. I should’ve known that.”
The girl cannot stop apologizing, so I do what I have to. I kiss her. And kiss her and kiss her, until finally the sniffles dry up, and by then we’re lying clamped together on the couch with our hands under each other’s shirts, and she’s going, “I’m so glad
I met you,” and I’m like, “I’m glad I met you too,” and then the words get lost in more kissing.
Chapter 45
I kiss her mouth, her eyelids, her eyebrows, her forehead, her ears, her neck, even her breasts through the fabric of her T-shirt. We roll one way, then the other. I’m on top, then she is, then we’re both on our sides, and the couch is so small she almost rolls off onto the floor. I squeeze her tight, and go, “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall,” and she says, very softly, “Can we go back to my room? There’s more room on the bed.”
“Sure, we can,” I tell her, gearing up to imagine the complete expanded edition of Dumb and Dumber, count to a billion, and maybe even work in a visual of full-frontal frog dissection. Anything to keep from taking it too far with this girl. I mean, if she’s going to start crying just because I told her to shut up, what’ll happen when she has to dump someone she’s had sex with for the first time?
It’s strange being on her bed in the middle of a room full of sci-fi novels and drawings of Commander Amanda Gallico on horseback. You might think it would be the least sexy place in the world, but that’s not the case. Instead, it’s mega-intimate, like we’re alone together in our own little, weird space capsule, hurtling through the universe.
“I like you so much,” she says between kisses. And I can tell she wants to say love instead of like, not because she really does love me but because she just wants to say it. Of course, she can’t, though. Not when I haven’t said it first.
“I mean, I really, really like you.”
“You’re spectacular,” I tell her. “You really are.”
“Can we take off our clothes?” she says.
What am I going to do? Say no? I mean, there’s no movie funny enough, no number big enough, no dead frog ugly enough to stop things now.
“Sure, we can.” My mouth is so close to hers the words seem to drop one by one down into her like pennies into a wishing well.
This is always the awkward part. Am I going to take her clothes off? Is she going to take mine off? Or do we take our own off? I mean, who wants to fool around with someone else’s socks? So we do a little bit of both.