You Take It From Here (5 page)

You two began the series of contortions that was your Odd Hugs ritual—repeated awkward embraces that mocked affection while still technically counting as touches. A leg lifted here, an elbow bent into someone’s side there—your mother was fond of pulling faces while she leaned toward you. You preferred making chicken wings out of your arms while asking, “Like this? Like this?”

“What’s that smell?” she asked you after your tenth Odd Hug. “Why do you smell like a brothel?”

You kissed her on each cheek in a mock French fashion,
quickly noting, “Y’all better get going before Vikki packs a suitcase.”

Your mother said, “Love you, stinky,” and we drove away.

Smidge wanted a road trip, a back-to-basics, paper-map-and-fast-food, feet-up-on-the-dashboard, singing-Madonna-songs girl trip. We headed east, toward a destination only Smidge knew, even though she was making me drive her large, green sedan that I liked to call the Pickle. We wouldn’t hit Mexico going east, but we would eventually hit the Atlantic.

Where there were cruise ships.

“How about a hint?” I asked again.

“Unh-uh,” she said. “I wanna see your face when we get there. And I don’t want you to ruin it with all your thinking. No brains! Just driving.” She took a second before she added, “I love you. You are my prettiest friend.”

“Thank you.”

“Pretty, despite those flesh sticks you call fingers. You knew we were leaving; you didn’t have time for a manicure?”

“I type a lot, Smidge. You know manicures are wasted on me.”

She grunted. “Never gonna get a new man wagging around those skin stumps you’ve got going on.”

This was not the time to stand up to Smidge. I would never be so dumb as to say to her something bold like, “I think I know what’s best for me.” If I ever lost my brain and told her something like that, I already knew what would happen.

First, her head would jerk back, like someone had shot her between the eyes with an invisible bullet. Her dark, thin
eyebrows would search for each other, straining to meet just above her freckled nose. Then her sharp chin would drop to her pale chest, already flushed patchy-pink with outrage. With her right hand slapped to the back of her head, she’d fluff those bundles of chestnut hair, outraged that I’d offended her right down to her secretly gray roots.

And then she would speak, which is when it’s over. Once Smidge’s singsong, Southern-soaked voice got into your head, once it flowed past your ears and IV-dripped deep into your bones, there wasn’t much more to do but obey.

“
You
know what’s best for you,” she’d say, not as a question, but a shocked statement. “I’m sorry. Did you just say
you
know what’s best for you?”

Smidge would turn indignant, about to say the very last word on the subject. Pressing the fingertips of her left hand with the perfectly painted index finger of her right, she’d count off with her bony fingers, getting to the heart of exactly what she felt was wrong with me.

“No husband. No kids. You ain’t got a house.”

Smidge wouldn’t say the word
ain’t
around most people, but I’m hardly people. I’m a constant. I’m expected, like ground under your feet when you get out of bed. Smidge never saw me as someone else, this other human. I’m an extension of her. I’m extra Smidge. So when she called me out, it’s because she saw something she didn’t like about the entity that is Us.

Usually it was better to deflect her hits and blows one by one, like Wonder Woman using her steel cuffs. But in a situation where she’s listing my flaws, it doesn’t matter why I don’t have those things. I don’t have them. And to Smidge, having
those things would prove I’d done something right with my life. Husband. Kids. House. They’re the merit badges earned by grown women.

I suppose I could have tried the truth, something like: “Well, I got separated before we ever had enough money to even think about buying a house, and real estate is rather expensive in Los Angeles. I’m only newly divorced, not that I’m counting the months, or anything. But I’ve been pretty busy with my career to have kids, with or without a boyfriend or husband or even a nanny.” Perhaps I’d end with a very quiet, very quick: “It’s also possible that I have different goals for myself than you have for me.”

But saying all those words would risk too big a fight, so what I’d say instead would be a very levelheaded, “Smidge. You know you’re the only one who knows what’s best for me.”

“Cor-
rect
,” she’d say, leaning over to rub my arm while handing me a glass of wine she’d somehow magically make appear via her powers over the space-time continuum. Then, unable to keep from having even more of the last word, she’d cluck, “Honestly. What would you ever do without me?”

We were about thirty minutes out of town, driving past a whole lot of nothing, when we passed an empty road lined thick with trees in bloom.

“That’s a pretty road,” I said, pointing. “Look at all those purple flowers.”

“You don’t know that road?” Smidge asked, crinkling her forehead until she cut her freckle number in half. “That road’s famous. Some man did this thing where he would film every person in this parish walking down this one street. Every year
he’d come back and do it again. I think it’s in some
faincy-paints
museum.”

“That sounds cool.”

Smidge’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you don’t know this!” she said, her excitement growing. “Every year for like, sixty years now or something, he comes back to film them again. Everybody. From babies to old people. They say if you missed the day the man came to town and didn’t get filmed walking down that street, it’s like you didn’t live here. Like you didn’t count.”

I could picture the scenes. Bodies shifting from tiny to big, sometimes disappearing, sometimes new ones showing up. People moving away, coming back, making families. “I bet that’s so neat,” I said. “Watching all those people grow up on camera.”

“They call it Big Count Road,” she said, nodding. “In fact, that’s how the Count on
Sesame Street
got his name.”

“What? Seriously?”

“No!” Smidge yelled, pushing my arm so hard I swerved the Pickle and had to wave an apology to the driver in the next lane. “How could any of that be true? You’re so dumb sometimes, Danny, I swear! Oh, my God.”

You might think the tendency to believe the things people say is a normal human function, even considered a trait of nice people. It should be a sign of decency, humanity, perhaps something to honor and respect. If you were talking to Smidge, you’d find out you were wrong.

She thought my trusting nature was something to be exploited, mocked as often as possible. Smidge wasn’t the only one who delighted in telling lengthy tall tales, seeing how far
she could get before I started to question the validity of her story. James used to do it all the time. The worst was when he and Smidge would conspire together, ganging up to breathlessly share something they’d witnessed on the way home, and how they couldn’t believe I’d missed it: a dog walking a cat; a kid floating above his front yard, clutching a giant birthday bundle of balloons; Carmen Electra in a wig store.

Smidge was particularly pleased with herself on this Big Count Road speech, probably because she made it all the way to mentioning a Muppet.

“Do you how hard it would be to film every single person walking down that street every year?” she asked. “And how long did I say he’d done it, sixty years? With what kind of old-timey editing equipment was he doing that? How old is that man? Jesus, Danny. All those brains you’ve got, but sometimes just no smarts. I’m gonna have to call that idiot ex-husband of yours and brag about that one. I bet James misses this so much.”

“Yes, won’t that be nice? The two of you talking about how stupid I am for believing in you.”

“The Count,” she muttered. “On
Sesame Street.
My Christ.”

When we got to Sonic, I made her pay for my lunch.

FIVE

O
nce we were back on the road, Smidge let out a giggle as she remembered something.

“Soooooooo,”
she sang. “Guess what I’m fixing to tell you: what had happened to me last Friday night.”

Smidge held her gigantic cherry limeade with both hands, bouncing the already nearly empty Styrofoam cup on her knees, both feet kicked up on the dash. The sugar was working, obviously, but I think the vacation was starting to get into her blood as well.

“Tell me what had happened,” I drawled.

“First of all, I made the mistake of going out with Vikki, who was so boring. Here’s how boring: so, so, so, so, so, so boring.”

“Six sos!”

“Six. Maybe even seven.”

“That
is
boring.”

“Yes. And it’s your fault for going out with that guy who had rapist hair when we were supposed to talk on the phone, leaving me to fend for myself with Vikki. In fact, all of what
I’m about to tell you is your fault, so I hope you’re ready to start feeling guilty.”

Rapist Hair was originally named Lane, but when I e-mailed Smidge a photo of him she replied with just:
Rapist hair. Do not date.

She was right, of course. Not about the hair, but the dating part. He started strong. Tall, good chin, dark eyes, but he had a terrible habit of intentionally making bad jokes and then acting offended when I didn’t laugh at them.

It got worse. Once inside his apartment, I saw he had an iguana. I would like to receive some kind of medal or certificate for not screaming while running from the building right then and there as if he were an actual rapist. Instead, I waited at least ten minutes before pretending there was an emergency that would somehow render me unable to contact him for the rest of my life.

Nights like that sometimes left me thinking,
“Maybe I’ll just move in with Smidge. Be her Boston wife. Jenny can think of me as some weird aunt and I’ll live in the back room and clip coupons in front of a dusty, old television while having an intimate one-sided relationship with Drew Carey on
The Price Is Right,
where I yell at him about the rising cost of olive oil.”
There was something about it that felt so much easier, letting her make all my decisions. Just melt into someone else’s life and disappear, no longer worrying about what I’m going to do next.

Funny how you can be so wrong about something.

I propped my elbow to rest my head in my hand. “Let’s focus less on what’s my fault and go back to your complaints about Vikki,” I said.

“
Ugh,
Vikki. Six so-borings! All she talks about is that dog, I swear to God. She got a dog, did you know that?”

“No.”

“Some kind of shit-zu. Looks like someone took a pretty dog and melted it down. Named it Barksy. Like she’s
two.
Now, what kind of grown-up names a dog Barksy? Honestly. And she can’t stop going on about the damn thing. ‘Barksy jumped up on my bed. Barksy ate a carrot. Barksy got stuck in the pantry.’ I wanna be like, ‘Vikki. Just have a baby. I will steal one for you, if I have to, just to make you shut the hell up.’ She is turning into one crazy woman, Danny. I can’t take it. Okay, so she’s got raisiny ovaries. Lots of people have problems. Just fix it.”

One had to be careful in telling Smidge personal information, as she’d find a way to fit it into one of her rants like a piece of trivia. Fun facts everyone knows, no big deal. I’d think Vikki would prefer I wasn’t privy to the workings or nonworkings of her reproductive system, but to Smidge, if it were really a secret, she wouldn’t know about it. In her mind, if you’re talking about it to someone, obviously you don’t mind someone else knowing.

“Smidge,” I gently scolded.

“What? You’ve got the ovaries of a Golden Girl, too, but at least you put them to use most nights. Can’t wait to find out which derelict will end up being your baby’s daddy.”

With my right thumb and forefinger, I reached out to the front of Smidge’s tank top and flicked the very tip of her tiny nipple. She instantly doubled over, howling and laughing, clutching her chest.

“I earned that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“
Sooooooooo.
To numb the pain of Vikki’s dogologue, I started drinking. The next thing I know I have had a bottle of wine. And a
half
.”

That’s usually an alarming amount of wine to anyone else the size of Smidge, but my friend never met a blood alcohol content she couldn’t handle. I’d seen her drink marines under the table. Marines at a bachelor party. In a strip club. In Pat-pong, Thailand.

Smidge fiddled with her sunglasses as she talked, playing with the hinge in a way that was definitely going to cause them to break. “And it’s fine, all that wine,” she said, “because Jenny’s at her friend’s house for the night, and Henry’s out with Tucker, and I suddenly realize that all I want to do is get into bed and watch an old movie. Without Vikki. I just want my bed and some Turner Classic Movies. I start wanting it so bad I’m practically salivating. So I’m cleaning up, doing the dishes.
Washin’ up a little hint,
you know? I put on my
pajamas
, trying to give some clues. The ones with all the happy tacos on them? Those are pants that say, ‘I am going to
bed.
’ But this girl’s just standing in my kitchen, chatting away. So now I’m fixing to kill this woman who thinks I actually want to hear about her dog-baby, because she will not take the
hint
! Crap. I just broke my sunglasses.”