Pretend You Love Me (16 page)

Right. Shane, the wannabe filmmaker. He must’ve been pumping gas in preparation for his SATs.

Xanadu looked from Jamie to me. “Who’s Shane?” She offered me the joint and I shook my head no. I was going to be sick enough.

Guess in all their conversations Jamie forgot to mention his one true love. “Shane is Jamie’s cybersex fiend,” I informed
her. “Some guy he met on the Internet. He’s too old for Jamie and he’s probably a pedophile.”

Jamie took the joint and stuck out his tongue at me. It was purple from the wine.

Xanadu twisted to face him. “Interesting. I was having this long distance relationship with a guy I met in a chatroom once.
But it didn’t work out. You can’t connect that way. At least, I can’t. I need a body. Give me flesh and blood.”

Yes! I thought. A living, breathing, warm-blooded, heart-pounding person.

“What about you, Mike?” She took back the joint, pulled a deep drag, and chased it with a swig of Absolut. She handed the
bottle to me.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about college until this week.” I glugged the vodka and coughed. Xanadu and Jamie wide-eyed
me. What? Were we talking about relationships or college? I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.

“What happened this week?” Xanadu asked.

I unwrapped a Snickers and popped the whole thing in my mouth. Rude to talk with your mouth full. Xanadu tilted her head like,
I’m waiting. So did Jamie. Though he was alternating bites of Snickers from one hand with hits on the joint from the other.

“Coach Kinneson thinks I could get a shoftball… a sholar… shit.” My tongue wouldn’t work.

Jamie and Xanadu giggled. I did too.

Xanadu said, “You mean a softball scholarship? You could.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Course you could.” She touched my thigh. “You’re an awesome player. Why not?”

I shrugged. Concentrated on speaking. It was hard with my tongue so thick and her hand so close to my, um… “You have to be
scouted. You have to play competitive. You have to attend soft… ball,” I pronounced the words slowly and distinctly, “camp.”

“Camp?” Jamie clapped excitedly. “Oh boy. Can I go to camp? I used to be a Boy Scout.”

“And the pope is a drag queen.”

Xanadu laughed.

Was I funny? I’d made her laugh.

“You can go in my place,” I told Jamie.

His face turned a sickly shade of green, like he was going to hurl. I scooted away from him, pulling Xanadu with me. She said
quietly, “Why aren’t you going?”

I heaved a sigh. “It costs three thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit,” Jamie hissed. He covered his mouth. “Sorry, Pope.” His eyes bulged and he wobbled on his butt, teetering over
sideways. He never could hold his liquor.

“Three thousand isn’t that much.” Xanadu slowly peeled a wrapper on a Baby Ruth bar.

Where did she live? Not in my shack of the woods.

“Don’t they have financial aid?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t really want to go.” I exchanged the vodka for Jack Daniel’s. It was tasting good now,
delicious. Soothing and warm.

“You lie.” Jamie shot forward and thrust an index finger in my face.

“You’re stoned.” I scrambled to my feet. I had to pee, bad. I steadied myself on Xanadu’s shoulder and felt her hand cover
mine. If only we could stay like that, my leg pressed to her side, her hand caressing mine. “I gotta find a tree,” I said.
My eyes didn’t respond as fast as my brain. The door was around here somewhere. Behind me? I whirled and stumbled.

My head felt like a grappling hook. Swing, swing,
clang.
I rammed the side of the caboose. Took a header down the steps, landing in a clump of thistles. A thought registered dimly:
Tomorrow that is going to hurt. I groped around for a bush.

When I got back, Xanadu and Jamie were squirting whipped cream into each other’s mouths. Attempting to. Jamie had most of
it on his face and hair. Xanadu squirted a stream into her own mouth as I flopped down beside her. “Tell me everything you
know about the McCalls,” she said. Her voice sounded far away, hollow.

“Handth off. Beau’th mine.” Jamie’s head bobbled.

I smacked his leg. “I knew you still had the hots for him.”

Jamie’s eyes rolled back into his head.

“You can keep Beau,” Xanadu said. “I want Bailey. Bad.”

Jamie’s eyes focused on mine, momentarily. I retrieved the half-empty bottle of J.D. and swilled.

“I can’t believe he hasn’t called me yet.” Xanadu fiddled with the nozzle on the whipped cream. “I’m not
that
disgusting, am I?”

All I could do was shake my head no. No, no, no. The Reddi-wip can appeared over my face and Xanadu parted her lips, instructing
me to do the same. I didn’t need instruction. While she squirted a stream of whipped cream into my mouth, she licked her lips
as if tasting. Hungry. I was tasting her. I wanted to put my lips on hers and eat her up.

“I’m calling him.” She bubbled whipped cream into her mouth, swished it around and swallowed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait.
I don’t
operate on Toto time.” She grabbed the neck of my dad’s flannel shirt and jerked me up until my face was flush with hers.
“Open,” she commanded.

I obeyed.

She filled my mouth with Reddi-wip until I choked. Then she let me go and I fell on my head. I might’ve passed out. I might’ve
passed on. The whipped cream, the alcohol, the shedding of inhibitions. Me and Xanadu, physically connecting. We did. I felt
it. It was real, wasn’t it?

If not, this was one heavenly dream.

O
kay, I might’ve been driving a little erratically. I might’ve been speeding. The road kept disappearing into the sea, then
rippling up like the Loch Ness monster in front of me. At least I’d managed to drop Xanadu off safely at the end of the Davenports’
drive and leave Jamie at his trailer.

I didn’t hear the siren. Did he sound the siren? Reese pulled up alongside me on Main Street. Shit. I was two blocks from
home. He waved me over. His cruiser door slammed as I fumbled around to turn off the ignition. Were you supposed to cut the
engine? I’d never been stopped by the cops before. The cop.

“Pretty late for you to be out, Mike,” Reese said, resting his arms across my open window.

“I got lost,” I mumbled.

Reese smiled. His nose twitched and he dropped his arms, stepping back. “Hooey.”

Oh that. Jamie had barfed on the floor. I didn’t quite make it to the
ditch in time. First thing this morning, I was going to hose out the truck.

“Been doing some partying, have we?” Reese stated the obvious.

“Gold star,” I said. I licked my index finger and marked him air bingo. Oops, I should stifle the sarcasm with the local law
enforcement. “Or is it a silver star?” I pointed to Reese’s badge.

Reese was not amused. “I should write you up,” he said. “Or make you spend the night in the drunk tank. Unfortunately, Armie’s
in there.”

“Uh-oh, Armie. No one to bail your butt out now.”

Reese studied me. He shook his head. My head was spinning like a circulating pump. “I’ll let it pass this time,” Reese said.

I believe we both knew why.

“You think you can make it home?”

“Oh yeah.” I cranked the key. Reese reached in and removed the key from the ignition. Guess that meant I’d be walking.

I staggered out of the truck. Halfway down the block, Reese sidled up beside me. I whirled on him. “I said I can make it.”

“I know you did. Consider this a police escort.” He grinned and winked.

That wink. I suddenly felt so sick I thought I might blow on Reese’s shiny patent leathers. If my head didn’t drill a fence
post on the Ledbetters’ front lawn first.

I woke up on my bedroom floor. The ceiling was a yellow vortex and my stomach heaved. I scrunched to my knees and stumbled
to the john, just in time.

No telling how long I was in there, puking my guts out. Every time I stood, the room spun out and my legs crumpled. Finally,
I managed to crawl back out the bathroom door—into a roadblock.

Darryl. He did an unexpected thing. He lifted me up by the armpits
and shoved me against the wall. “You stupid shit,” he said in my face. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Gold stars all ’round.”

He shoved me again, hard.

“Ow. Cut it out.”

Darryl screamed in my face, “You stupid shit! Don’t you start. Don’t you ever start. Do you hear me?”

No, I couldn’t hear him. My eardrums were ruptured. “Let me go.”

“If I ever catch you drinking again, I’ll kill you!” He released me and I slid down the wall into a heap at his feet. I tried
to pull myself up by Darryl’s jeans, but he didn’t have any on. Just black bikini briefs. Ew. I wasn’t touching those. He
kicked me off his leg.

I clawed the wall to stand. Made it.

Darryl clamped down on my shoulder and swiveled me around. It took a few years for my head to catch up. “You’re better than
him,” he said. “Do you hear me?”

“No. Why don’t you come closer?
Scream it in my ear?
” I pushed him out of my face. Did my foot connect with his shin? I was being sucked into the vortex again. Falling, falling,
thud.

The nightmare. Same one I’d had for the last two years. No. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t asleep.

Or was I?

Sometime later I opened my eyes to find Darryl gone and me flat on my back in bed. Alive, at least, but barely.

“You won’t believe what he thought.” Xanadu’s voice reverberated in my empty skull. A brain used to reside there. What time
was it? I squinted at the clock on the stove. Four-thirty. PM? Had I slept all day? I was disoriented. Sick. Was it Saturday?
I should be at work.

“Mike, are you there?”

“Where?’”

“Get this. He thought you and I were together. Like a couple. Isn’t that hilarious?” She laughed.

What? Who thought that? Someone other than me?

“He’s coming by later tonight to work on our math. Don’t tell him I took Geometry sophomore year. I am
so
glad I finally got up the courage to call him.”

Oh, me too, I thought. How could she sound so cheery? Sober? She’d called him. My stomach felt like it’d been reamed out by
a backhoe.

“Last night was a blast, wasn’t it?” Xanadu said. “I haven’t been that wasted since…” Her voice trailed off. “You know. Did
you get busted?”

A vague memory of Reese helping me home resurfaced. Darryl laying into me. No consequences. “No. Did you?”

“No. Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee’s bedroom is upstairs, so I’m sure they didn’t hear me come in at
three
AM
,
” she emphasized the time.

I’d never feel good again. My head was throbbing. My gut ached.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

She hesitated. “Nothing. We can talk later. I’ll call you after Bailey leaves tonight. If I can. Aunt Faye has this stupid
rule about not calling people after nine. I mean, God. How Toto is that?”

“Toto,” I said.

She paused a moment. “Thanks,” she said. “For everything.” Then hung up.

What’d she mean, everything? Her voice suggested… Did something happen between us that I didn’t remember? No, I’d remember.

She called him.

Darryl slammed in the back door. He tossed the truck keys on the counter and looped a leg over his dinette chair. A cigarette
dangled out the side of his mouth. Rubbing his hands together, he said, “What’s for dinner?”

I just looked at him. Then snatched up the keys.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Stop screaming, will you?” Was he? I pressed a forearm to my forehead.

“You’re grounded.” Darryl stubbed out his cigarette in an old cereal bowl.

Right. “I’ve got to go to work.” I added to myself, If I still have a job.

“Nice present you left me in the truck.”

Ugh. The vomit. “Sorry. I’ll clean it out.”

“Already did.” Darryl got up to head for the fridge. “What time are you getting home?”

What was he now, my mother? Ours was such an exemplary role model. “Tiny called from the salon,” Darryl said. “One of her
sinks is clogged and she wants you to come by and fix it. Somebody named the Redmans—who I never heard of, have you?—are redoing
their plumbing and want you to come and give them an estimate on the job. You might’ve told me you were in the biz again.”
He glugged from the milk jug.