Things I'm Grateful for, Part II

I never sleep better than when I'm home, and I woke up fresh as an actress in a Folgers commercial. With a happy yawn, I rolled over and grabbed my phone. I kind of hoped it would be there, but my toes still curled when I read the text from Ian, 'Can't stop thinking about last night'. I texted him back that I couldn't either, then pulled up Facebook. As I scrolled through my newsfeed, I came across an update from Richard that made me sit straight up in bed. 

Friends, I was mugged walking home last night. I wish I could say I used my ninja skills to take that bastard down, but instead I readily gave up all the worldly possessions while crying like a little girl. I currently have no wallet, no identification, and no phone. Kindly send me your contact information and if anyone needs to get in touch with me, email is the best way.

I started to call him, then realized, duh, I couldn't. I sent him a frantic email asking if he was okay and he responded back within minutes. He told me the only thing bruised was his ego. To add insult to injury, he was basically trapped in New York for the next few days until his new credit cards arrived and he was able to get a new ID from the DMV. 'I was supposed to go to Florida with Sam for Thanksgiving,' he wrote. 'But I can't even get on a plane now.'

'Are you going out to Long Island then?'

A few minutes later, this, 'Come on, you know how I feel about my parents. I've got enough mac and cheese in my apartment to feed an army, I'll be okay.'

'You're coming to New Jersey,' I wrote. 'Meet Nina and Ashley at Penn and they'll get your ticket. If you say no I will murder your dog.'

'I don't have a dog you psycho.'

'So that's a yes?'

'That's a yes.'

What did people do before texting?

I went downstairs and found my Mom slicing potatoes for her famous potato gratin. "Hey, Nance," I said. My Mom's name is Nancy and I started calling her Nance when I was in middle school, as a joke, but it's kind of stuck. "Add one more more seat to the dinner table." I told her about Richard.

"The poor guy," she gasped. "He must be so shaken up. You always carry that pepper spray that I got you, don't you?"

"Except when it doesn't fit in my cute going out clutch."

She caught my chin in her hand and squeezed, playfully. "Don't be smart with me."

I grinned. "Okay, I'll be dumb." It was an exchange we'd been having since I was little.

"You weren't very clever last night." She went back to the potatoes. "Was that Ian Whitmore I saw creeping down our driveway?"

I poured myself a steaming cup of coffee. "It absolutely was not."

"Uh-huh." She gathered the potato slices and dumped them in a casserole dish. "Well, for what it's worth, I always liked that boy."

"I still like that boy," I said.

"I thought you were taking some time off from relationships," she said.

"I am." I took a sip of my coffee. "He lives in LA. So nothing can seriously happen right now. But we just, you know, hang out when we are on the same coast. "

"So it's casual?"

I shrugged. "As casual as it can be when you've known the person for over ten years."

"Well," she dumped a carton of cream on the potatoes and began to toss them together, "you met him over ten years ago. But you haven't known him for that long."

I rolled my eyes. "Semantics."

"Can you grab the cheese out of the fridge?" She wiggled her fingers, covered in goo.

I spent the rest of my morning cooking and gossiping with her. Sometimes I wish Nance would just move into my apartment and be my roommate. Totally normal for an almost twenty-six year old to want live with her Mama, right?

I stayed in my pajamas all day, only changing into real clothes when it was time to pick up my band of merry pirates from the train station. I will know I've made it when my wardrobe consists of nothing but pants with elastic waistbands, because it will mean I'm so wealthy that I have no responsibilities other than to relax.

"Well, isn't this cozy!" Ashley gushed once we all piled in.

"Ash, seriously, who is your therapist?" Nina asked. "And did she replace you with a Stepford robot?"

"It's not her therapist," I said. "She's getting laid by yoga guy."

"Ohhhh," Richard taunted. "Who's yoga guy? Is he all bendy in bed?"

"I hate you all," Ashley said.

Nina patted Ashley on the shoulder with great fondness. "There's the Ashley I know."

When we got back to the house, we tried to help my Mom clean, but she insisted we get out of her hair and go out for a drink. "Isn't this like a big party night?" She shimmied her hips. She'd had two glasses of wine and Richard told her she could have been my sister, and now she was all giddy. "Don't you want to go out and dance?"

"We really should," Richard said. "Your daughter has some amazing moves, Mrs. Mitchell."

My Mom beamed. "Isn't that sweet."

I sprayed some Pine-Sol on the dining room table and started wiping it down. "He's making fun of me, Mom," I said.

She took the rag out of my hand. "Stop. I've got this. Go enjoy yourselves."

The four of us changed our clothes and then brushed our teeth shoulder to shoulder in the bathroom like quadruplets. We pulled on our coats, said goodbye to my parents, and piled into the car to head to The Office, the bar where everyone from high school meets the night before Thanksgiving.

On our way there, I told everyone about my night with Ian. I knew there was a chance we'd run into him, and I didn't want anyone to give him any crap for what had happened in LA.

"Ew, I cannot believe you hooked up with him again," Ashley said.

"He's not a bad guy, Ash." I met her eyes in the rear view mirror. "He did something shitty but who hasn't? It shouldn't define him for life."

Richard raised his hand. "I second that."

Nina laughed. "That's convenient given your history."

Richard turned around in the front seat so he was facing Nina. "Well there goes the tequila shot I was going to buy for you."

"You don't even have a wallet," Nina said.

"So what's your deal with him?" Ashley pushed. "Are you going to try long distance?"

"Hell, no," I said. "But I do like having sex with someone that I have, like, a connection with. It's so much hotter than when it's with a rando." I flicked my blinker and pulled into the parking lot. "It feels....safe...too."

"Safe and hot," Ashley said. "My brain does not compute."

"Because she knows how he feels about her," Richard said. "With a random person you're dating or hooking up with, they can turn on you like that." He snapped his fingers. "Just up and show themselves for the asshole they really are and make you feel like total shit. You can't trust someone you've just met the way you can someone you have a past with. But at the same time, the person is still kind of a dark stranger, because he or she has been out of your life for so long." He sighed, pleased with his analysis. "It really is the perfect storm."

I maneuvered the car into a parking spot. "Boom. That is exactly it."

There was actually a line to get in to the bar, and a beefy bouncer at the door, which is laughable because it's New Jersey. Though I very much enjoyed watching Richard sweet talk the bouncer into letting him into the bar without an ID. "I'm almost thirty years old," he wailed. "Seriously, quiz me on all my 90s trivia. Boy Meets World. Saved by the Bell. 90210. 'Donna Martin graduates'! Only a 90s tween could know this stuff!"

The bouncer didn't so much as crack a smile but I think he would have done anything to get Richard to stop talking, so he stamped his hand and waved him through the door. We worked our way to the front of the bar and ordered beers and bad tequila shots. I took mine back and was focusing on a point on the wall on the other side of the bar, trying not to barf, when I saw something that made the entire room blur.

It was Ian and Erika Felding. The girl he'd called a dead fish in his yearbook. And they were all over each other. 

"Nina." I reached out and grabbed Nina's hand. I nodded across the room. Nina had never seen Ian before, but she took one look at the expression on my face and she just knew.

"Fucking asshole," she seethed.

"Who?" Richard shouted, and Nina nodded to Ian and Erika.

"Is that Ian?" Richard asked.

"Obviously," Nina said. "Why else would she be this upset?" It was as if I was hearing their voices from far away. Then farther still, as I broke away from the group, all three of them shouting after me as I pushed my way through the crowd until I was inches away from Ian.

I touched his shoulder and waited patiently for him to stop kissing Erika. When he saw it was me, his face twisted with panic."Hey," I said, coldly.

Ian wiped the spit off his mouth before he spoke. "Um, Josie. Hi."

"Hey, Josie," Erika said.

I gave her a polite smile. Held onto it as I asked Ian if I could talk to him in private.

Ian looked like he wanted to do anything but talk to me in private, but I think he was worried I was going to create a scene, so he followed me into a secluded corner.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I said.

"What?" Ian turned his palms up. "We're just kissing. It's not like I'm cheating on you."

"It's not like you're cheating on me," I laughed, bitterly. "That's it. That's all you have to say for yourself. After all the bullshit you fed me last night about how it was"—I made my voice saccharine sweet—'even better than you imagined it to be'."

"Josie," Ian said, gently, like he was about to break some really bad news to me. "You're not my girlfriend."

He put his hand on my shoulder, and I stared at it with so much venom he quickly removed it. "You're right," I said. "But of all the people you could have hooked up with next, it's the girl you called a dead fish. It's like, what are you trying to prove?"

Ian rocked back on his heels and sighed, irritably. "I'm not trying to prove anything, okay? I'm just trying to get laid."

"Well," I said, "far be it from me to get in your way."

I turned on my heel, ignoring Ian calling after me.

I found my friends. "Someone please get me another tequila shot," I said.

They all glanced at each other, unsure. Finally, Richard leaned forward on the bar and ordered another round of shots. I knocked mine back, then another, telling myself the tears that sprang to my eyes were for how much that cheap tequila burned, not because I gave one flying fuck about Ian.

The shots kept coming. Things I am grateful for: Friends who understand that sometimes, alcohol is the answer.

I was sloppy-drunk by the time I got home. I remember Nina and Ashley helping me into bed, and the next thing I knew I was blinking awake, the clock on my nightstand reading 3AM. My throat felt like sandpaper.

I kicked off the covers and crawled over Nina, who was sound asleep by my side. I assumed Ashley and Richard had set themselves up in the other two guest rooms.

The entire house was warm and still as I descended the stairs and crept into the kitchen. I chugged a glass of water, then another. I was out of breath by the time I finished.

I almost dropped my glass when I heard a soft, "Hey" behind me.  

"Richard," I gasped. I leaned against the refrigerator door and inhaled, sharply. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't sleep. I was watching TV down here."

I nodded and didn't say anything.

"You okay?" he asked.

I traced my toe on the floor. "No."

The refrigerator hummed to life, emitting an icy blast. I shut the door. "I look like a real idiot, don't I?"

Richard shook his head. "You don't."

"It's so much scarier when the assholes are nice. Because then it's like, how can you trust anyone?" I started to cry. A really ugly, embarrassing cry.

Richard slipped towards me, his bare feet making a sweeping noise against the hardwood floors my Dad had polished just that morning. He wrapped his arms around me and said, "You can trust me." I felt his mouth hot and close on my scalp. "Always. I mean it."

I pulled my face away from his chest. "I snotted on your t-shirt."

Richard glanced down. "I guess it's preferable to vomit."

I went to wipe away the stain at the same time Richard did and our hands touched. One of us probably should have pulled away, but neither of us did, we just held on tighter. I rose up on my tip toes, slightly, and Richard's face came closer to mine. 

At the sound of the foot steps on the stairs Richard and I jumped away from each other like our fusion had produced an electric shock. Nance appeared at the mouth of the kitchen.

"Oh my God," she gasped. "I thought you were burglars!"

"Well then why would you come down here without anything to defend yourself?" I hissed.

"Because the Glock is in the basement," she deadpanned. 

"I was just getting water," I said, defensively, as though someone had accused me of something. "I'm going back to bed." I looked at Richard as I passed him on my way to the stairs. Even in the dim light, I could see he was white as a ghost. I didn't have to look in a mirror to know that I was too.