The Leftover Club Page 15

  I allowed Olive to carry the conversation as I sat safely between her and Bryan, nursing my beer and saying nothing unless spoken to. Every once and a while, his gaze would drift toward me, likely drawn by the enormous beacon that was my exposed, glittery cleavage. I felt my face flush and I would glance away before I could see any derision on his face. I felt like an idiot, surely that was what he saw.

  Olive decided that she wanted to get on stage, which Bryan thought would be great fun. They scooted out of the booth to go peruse song options, leaving Dylan and I alone in awkward silence. He scooted toward me to compensate for the loud surroundings. “You look great,” he said.

  “Please,” I scoffed before I took another drink.

  “Seriously, I’ve never seen this side of you. It’s kind of exciting.”

  “It was Olive’s idea,” I dismissed as I killed that beer and ordered another as I caught the waitress’s eye.

  “God bless Olive,” he grinned. “We should go sing something.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Why not? That’s what you do in a karaoke bar, right?”

  “That’s what you do in a karaoke bar. And what they do in a karaoke bar,” I said, indicating towards our friends poring over the song selection. “I sit here and drink beer.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I’m just a boring kind of gal.”

  “I know better than that,” he said. Our eyes met and held for a heart-stopping moment. I looked away. “You know what this reminds me of? Remember when we did Grease in junior year?”

  I wrinkled my nose as I giggled. “Oh my God,” I groaned. “I had successfully repressed that memory until now, thank you very much.”

  He laughed. “I got the part of Danny and you were cast as Jan, even though I heard you practice for Rizzo for at least two weeks straight.”

  I shrugged. “Jan didn’t have a solo.”

  “Again, boring,” he announced. “You were born to play Rizzo. That was a waste of your talent.”

  “Talent, please,” I snorted.

  “We should totally put something together for the reunion.”

  Both Olive and Bryan thought this was a fabulous idea when he mentioned it to the both of them after they returned to the table to wait their turn to perform. “They have “You’re The One that I Want” over there,” Olive sadistically pointed out, and totally ignored me as I glared at her.

  “Oh, yeah,” Dylan decided at once. “This is happening.”

  I shook my head as he slid from the booth to put us on the list. “There’s no way.”

  “There’s always a way,” he assured with a wink. He motioned to our waitress to bring me another beer.

  I felt like I was going to puke every minute that followed. Ten minutes later, Olive and Bryan sang “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with gusto, even if they missed the pitch by a mile thanks to cheap draft beer. I marveled that the lively audience didn’t seem to care. They saw the performers having fun, so they had fun right along with them.

  It still didn’t make me feel any better when, two minutes after they were done, Dylan was pulling me toward the stage despite my death grip on our table.

  He was undaunted, even as I tugged at his shirt. “Please, Dylan. This is ridiculous.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen? So they hate you, so what? You’ll never see anyone in this room ever again except the people that already love you. Just go up there and have fun, Roni. Live for once.”

  My head swam from the four beers I’d sucked down. I was sure every drop would make a sudden projectile appearance if I had to get up on that stage.

  “You’re fine,” he assured in my ear as we waited for the singer before us to finish. “The worst part of performing is always the dread leading up to it. Once you push through that initial ten seconds of terror, you’re fine. You got this,” he promised. “Trust the professional.”

  I took a deep breath as he took my hand in his and pulled me up onto the recently vacated stage. Olive and Bryan hooted and hollered from our table, like we were U2 or something. I looked down at the monitor as the song started, gripping Dylan’s hand like I was hanging off the side of a cliff. Thankfully his part was first, so I could muster up my nerve to warble my part as a response.

  Much to my surprise, I found that Dylan was right. Once I pushed through the initial terror, the second line came much easier than the first. And I might have been totally buzzing, but it seemed like the audience was with me every step of the way, as though they wanted me to succeed rather than fail.

  That was new.

  The audience joined in with the chorus, including a very loud Olive and Bryan we could hear all the way to the stage. Dylan’s smile was wide and triumphant as he got into his familiar part, and I giggled in between lines as I tried to do the same.

  For nearly four minutes, I got to be Sandy – the star of the show.

  The crowd went wild for us as we finished, so Dylan led the bow and I followed suit. We returned to our table to the applause from our new fans. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I actually had a lot of fun once I pushed through the fear.

  And Olive wasn’t done pushing me out of my comfort zone. Once we returned to the table, Dylan seated himself between Olive and me, which she used to her advantage to initiate Project: Fuck Fenn. She leaned in close, touching him liberally as she flirted openly and shamelessly.

  Not just with Dylan, but with me as well.

  In fact, her innuendo made it sound as though he could join us back at my place for a private reunion of three. I kept looking to Bryan to save me, but he would simply shrug with an impish grin on his face. Like Olive, he probably thought it was time for me to fully ‘blossom’ as well.

  Call me old fashioned, but having a ménage a trois seemed an extreme measure to take to accomplish this particular goal.

  Worst of all, Dylan seemed totally open to this unconventional idea. I don’t know why it surprised me, but it did. He virtually laid claim to both of us as he rested his arm on either side of the booth, flirting openly with the both of us as Bryan watched on, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement.

  To punish him, or perhaps to get away from the more terrifying prospect of group sex, I pulled Bryan from the booth and signed us up to sing again. We stayed by the bar and I watched Olive work her magic on Dylan as they sat close together in the booth. Dylan’s eyes returned to meet mine more than once, and I found myself leaning toward Bryan for support.

  “What have I gotten myself into?”

  He laughed. “You’re just sowing your wild oats, oh,” he looked at his watch, “about twenty years after everyone else did.”

  “I don’t think I’m wild enough to sow these particular oats.”

  “You didn’t think you could get up there on that stage and sing either. Sometimes we have to surprise ourselves. It reminds us we’re alive.”

  I shook my head. I knew that my identity as a single mom didn’t turn anyone on, but it was who I was, who I was comfortable being. What good could come from shaking the apple tree?

  I didn’t have to ask. I already knew. It wasn’t the first time I had seen that look in Dylan’s eyes, but I knew it had to be the last. Nothing good ever followed and I simply couldn’t go through that again.

  “Be a pal. Get me out of it.”

  He sighed. “I don’t get you, Roni. I really don’t. He wants you. Why aren’t you jumping all over that? I know I would if it were me.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not you.”

  “You’re not you either, that’s the problem. You spent your childhood being who we wanted you to be. Then you married that jerk Wade and tried to be what he wanted you to be. Now you’re neck-deep in motherhood, trying to be who your daughter wants you to be. You’re never going to be free until you decide to be who you want you to be.”

  “I don’t even know who that is.”

  “Ding-ding-ding,” he said as he tapped his bottle on the b
ar. “We have a winner, folks. Tell her what she’s won, Johnny,” he smirked. “Look. We all had people who have tried to shove us into ill-fitting boxes. They hurt for a reason, honey. We don’t belong there.”

  I glanced over at the table, where Dylan and Olive were now sucking face. “Well, I certainly don’t belong there,” I grumbled.

  “Maybe not,” he conceded. “But make it because you don’t want to be there. Not because you don’t think you deserve to be.” He wrapped his arm around me and kissed me loudly and long. “I love you, no matter who you decide to be.”

  I looked up at him with a grateful smile. “Ditto.”

  We headed to the stage, where we sang “I Got You, Babe” off-key but sincerely.

  Bryan still had his arm around me when we got back to the table. “I think I’m gonna kidnap our star diva and take her home. Is it okay if Olive catches a ride with you, Dylan?”

  Dylan glanced between us before he cuddled Olive closer. “I already thought that was the plan.”

  Olive’s brow furrowed a bit as she studied me. “Are you sure, Roni?”

  I nodded and clutched Bryan closer. “I think I’ve had a little too much to drink. I’m ready for warm jammies and a bed.”

  “Don’t worry, guys. I’ll see to it she gets tucked in,” Bryan assured with a wink their direction before he led me out of the restaurant.

  I was quiet as he drove us back to my apartment. Though it was my choice to leave, something gnawed at my gut as I realized that by morning, Olive would no longer be a Leftover. She would get the guy everyone always wanted and all that came after that. And I was jealous. Not because she could get Dylan, I knew I could have easily joined them.

  She was just better equipped to deal with it being one and done than I ever was.

  After all these years, after all we had been through, Dylan’s was the face I saw as my fairy tale prince in my happily ever after. A tussle in the sack would never be enough, especially since it seemed that his life would intersect with mine for the foreseeable future thanks to our work.

  That had been my fault, too.

  I had always been unable to let him go, which was the biggest problem with Olive’s nefarious plan. She wanted me to rip him off of the pedestal so I could move on.

  But I didn’t want to move on.

  I never had.

  Bryan climbed into bed with me and we shared one of Olive’s magical joints. He toasted her with the first hit. “To Olive, who is no longer officially a Leftover. Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.”

  I took a hit and leaned on Bryan’s shoulder. I stared blindly at the old black and white movie we were watching as my gut tightened with all the words left unsaid. Bryan was my best friend, and I had been lying to him for decades. As my head lifted from my shoulders in a dreamy, cloudy fog, I glanced up at him. “Actually…,” I began, and he looked down at me and waited. The words dragged from my lips. “It’s just you.”

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t been a Leftover for quite a while.”

  He sat up and muted the TV. “You slept with him? When? Where?”

  “The first time,” I began and he cut me off with a shriek.

  “The first time?! You mean it happened more than once? You scandalous slut! Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?”

  I knew he wasn’t mad, just surprised. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I was so embarrassed. He was supposed to be my first. That camping trip to Sequoia. And it just… I don’t know. It felt so good to be wanted, and not just the teasing stuff he used to do when we were kids.”

  “Wait,” he said as he sat cross-legged to face me. “Hold up. My brain is melting. What teasing stuff?”

  “He was my first kiss,” I admitted and Bryan promptly hit me with one of my little pillows to accentuate every single word that came out of his mouth.

  “Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?! This is major!” he exclaimed. “How could you keep that from me?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t think he meant it. I thought it was another game.” I told him about the incident in 1979, where he had denied kissing me once our peers made fun of him for it.

  “Kids are stupid,” he agreed. “But if he kept coming back for more, surely that was proof enough.”

  I shook my head. “Look at the girls he dates. None of them look like me. I’m just… I dunno. A pity date.” I thought back to how I broke down like an idiot that night at the cabin, when he had tried to make it so romantic and perfect. Twenty years later and I was still mortified.

  “Is that really what you think?”

  I shrugged. “What else is it?”

  In a split second, Bryan figured it out. “A question never asked is a question you don’t have to hear the wrong answer to.” His brow furrowed. “You said he was supposed to be your first. What happened?”

  I shuddered. “Let’s just say I chickened out and leave it at that.” He glared at me expectantly until I finally said, “I was afraid, okay? I knew he was going to New York within a few weeks and he’d be gone, just like…,” I trailed off.

  “Like your dad?” he supplied. I nodded and he hugged me close.

  “I thought if I put the brakes on, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. I never wanted it to be some one-night-stand, like scratching some itch.” He nodded and I slumped against the pillow. “Like tonight. He would have slept with me because he had the chance to screw two chicks. Name one guy who doesn’t have that fantasy.”

  He raised his hand.

  “One straight guy,” I amended. “He’s always going to go on to greener pastures, Bry. And that’s not what I want. That’s never been what I want.”

  He leaned across the bed. “Ron. Honey. I want you to think about this for a second. Of all the girls he’s ever screwed, you’re the only one he has ever come back to.”

  “That’s not a fair comparison. Our moms are practically sisters, so he’s like a cousin that pops up every ten years. Plus we work together.”

  “Because of you,” he added. “You can’t let him go, but he’s not going anywhere. People get married for less. If he wants you and you want him, why can’t you just get together already?”

  I reached for the joint. I breathed in deep and exhaled slowly. Finally I said the words I had never admitted out loud.

  “Because it ruined my daughter’s life.”

  19: Bittersweet Symphony

  August 8, 1998

  I sat at my vanity in front of a large mirror framed with lights, fussing with my short hair to tease it into a more exciting ‘do. But the woman who stared back at me was a shell of who I was mere days before.

  Wade and I had been fighting almost nonstop from the reunion. He hated my friends and missed no opportunity to tell me, especially when I hinted that I wanted to spend time with them, to have a little fun of my own.

  “You don’t need to have fun,” he told me. “You’re a mother. Your job is here. Your responsibility is to her.”

  Despite his wishes, I had met with Bryan several times since the reunion. It started as random coffee dates, but during July, when Wade had been gone for a week on business, he finally convinced me to join him for a night of frivolity at Eleete.

  It was like coming home.

  After that, I began to resent Wade for how much he controlled our lives. He got final say on everything from the clothes we wore to the friends we kept. He worried about appearances and keeping the proper company, and considered himself the final authority on such matters.

  As I started to push back on some of his standards, things grew even tenser between us. He started to question everything I did and everywhere I went. It was as though he considered me a naughty child that needed to be disciplined. My own mother had never micromanaged me as much.

  When I made it clear that I was going to maintain my friendship with Bryan no matter what he thought about it, his passive aggressive behavior hit a whole new level. I didn’t realize how far he was willi
ng to go to force my hand until I found an open email on our shared computer.

  It was from someone he met at his conference, who thanked him for a lovely time and hoped he would be free when they got back to home, because she couldn’t wait to see him again.

  I look forward to getting to know you better, she had written, adding a friendly winky emoticon to underscore her sentiment.

  I didn’t find his reply, so he had either not written one or deleted it once he wrote it. Either way, I was livid when he walked in the door that night, late as usual.

  He walked into our formal dining room, where I sat in the dark. “Who is Julia Disalvo?” I asked before he could even turn on the light.

  He chuckled. “Who wants to know?”

  “Your wife,” I gritted between clenched teeth.

  He turned on the light, which filled the dark red room with warm light. “She’s a friend,” he said without even a hint of remorse. “You have your friends. I figured I could have mine.”

  “So that’s what this is? You want to punish me?”

  “Odd, that. You insist on seeing friends of the opposite sex and I’m supposed to accept these terms with no complaint. I have a friend of the opposite sex, and somehow you consider this a punishment.”

  “You know damn well that is what it is. You want me to be jealous, to conform. You flirt with women right in front of me to piss me off enough to fit into some size-2 designer dress.”

  “You should want that for you,” he stated coldly. “You should want something better for yourself than what you’ve allowed yourself to become.”

  “Oh, you mean like a successful business manager? A mom to a bright, happy child? The wife to a successful businessman?”

  “None of those things would have ever happened had you not lost weight initially, Roni. I tried to show you that when we first met. Excellence is something you pursue, in every aspect of your life. You got the ring on your finger and you simply stopped trying.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it, Wade.”