The Leftover Club Read online

  I shrugged. “I’m used to it. And it’s not entirely unwarranted.”

  He gave me a pointed stare. “Don’t you think it’s time you get off the cross, honey? There are better uses for the wood.”

  I chuckled. “It’s not about martyrdom. I told you what happened with Dylan. I blew my marriage apart when I slept with him.”

  “Please,” Bryan scoffed with a roll of his eyes. “Your marriage was on life support way before Dylan marched back into your life. What difference does it make who pulled the plug?”

  “To Meghan it makes all the difference in the world. A six-year-old doesn’t see a controlling father or a codependent mother. She just sees a whole family, living in the same house, both parties there when she needs them.”

  “How different would it be if you had stayed with Wade? He’d still be working 20-hour days and you’d still be the one picking up all the pieces and putting out all the fires. At least this way you can date and get you some every now and then.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Speaking of which, how are things going with you and Mr. Wonderful?”

  “I expect that he’ll be looking for the escape hatch by…,” I paused for a beat, “what time is it now?”

  “Always the voice of optimism.”

  “This isn’t some one-night-stand or some fun-time fling. Kids? Exes? This is way more complicated than anything he’s tackled before.”

  It was Bry’s turn to shrug. “Who knows? He might surprise you. I mean, who thought you’d be dating the Dylan Fenn?”

  “We’re hardly dating,” I corrected. “We hang out once or twice a week, usually with you and Olive.”

  He leaned in close. “That’s dating, sweetie.”

  “We haven’t even gotten to second base,” I insisted.

  “What are you waiting for? I’d have wrecked that hot ass weeks ago.”

  I shook my head. “Timing hasn’t been right. That’s the story of our whole lives, I guess. Every time something big happened, something rotten followed. That first kiss on the merry-go-round, the first kiss after that party where Amber left him high and dry. That embarrassing debacle on the camping trip. And who can forget the last time? It’s never been perfect, you know? I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Ever since your dad died,” he agreed with a nod. His astute comment left me breathless. “Maybe your problem is that you’ve been fixated on some stupid standard someone else set. There is no picket fence. There are no rides off into the sunset. For every romantic moment, there are about a thousand moments of mediocrity to make the others special. There is no right way to love. There is no perfect way to be. Life is messy, Roni. Especially if you’re doing it right,” he added with a lascivious grin.

  I giggled and threw a French fry at him.

  As the afternoon wore on, though, I couldn’t get what Bryan said out of my head. Was he right? Had I put too many expectations on some kind of champagne and diamonds happily ever after? Was I setting Dylan up with these outrageous expectations, in effect pushing him to fail before we could even get started?

  The more I examined the past, especially those moments when I was so close to having what I wanted with Dylan, I found that it was me, and not Dylan, who sabotaged every single experience that happened after that first embarrassing rejection at the playground.

  Why would I do that?

  Was I still expecting him to bolt the minute anyone realized he was merely slumming with the fat chick?

  Was I still expecting to go to sleep one night thinking life was happy and perfect, only to wake up the next morning, having lost everything?

  When I stopped at the market on the way home, I bought candles and a bottle of wine. If this really was a date, maybe it was time I started acting like it. Rather than cook, I bought some California-Greek fusion takeout so I could spend a little more time getting ready before Dylan arrived.

  Meghan was doing her homework at the kitchen counter when I got home. “I thought you were going to Erin’s tonight,” I commented casually as I unpacked the family meal of falafel, spanakopita, tabouli and hummus.

  Meghan shrugged. “I thought I’d stay home tonight. If that’s okay,” she added. “I know Dylan’s coming over.”

  I looked into her green eyes, the exact same shade as mine. And for the first time, I saw the same awkward, uncertain teenager I had been staring back at me. She wasn’t just asking to share dinner. She was asking to belong. I wondered if she had talked to Wade yet about moving to Arizona, but I wasn’t about to ask. “Of course it’s okay,” I smiled as I unpacked container after container. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

  She gave me a small smile before she jumped in to set the table. I put the candles in the catch-all drawer and the wine in the fridge.

  Dylan arrived a little after seven. He brought a movie for us to share, a sexy romance dating way back to the 1980s, but we decided against the DVD and opted for a board game that we could all play. Dylan was competitive by nature so he kicked our butts handily, and I laughed as he and Meghan trash-talked each other like they had known each other forever.

  Dylan lingered until her bedtime. She bestowed a rare hug for her new friend before she disappeared into her room by ten. I rewarded him with a glass of wine as we settled together on the sofa.

  “She’s a great kid,” he said softly as he stared at the dark liquid in his glass. “You’ve done a remarkable job.”

  I chortled. “It’s a crap shoot some days. You just close your eyes, plow through and hope for the best.”

  “One of these days you’ll take the compliment,” he grinned. “I’m not giving up.” I laughed. “Look, I know how hard it was for my mom. She tried to hide it, like you, but I know. There were moments I’d watch her when she thought I wasn’t, and I saw the worry and the burden in her eyes. She swallowed all that down so that she could make it okay for me.” He looked into my eyes. “I see that in you, Roni. I think of all these years I’ve been chasing this stupid acting thing and you’ve actually managed to grow a person. Well. It humbles me.”

  “Thank you, Dylan,” I said softly and sincerely.

  He smiled. “There it is.” His hand slipped up around my neck to pull me close as he planted a soft kiss on my lips. The kiss was easy to indulge. I had dreamed so long about being in his arms that every single time I wound up there it felt like a miracle. His hands were soft and tender against my skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind his inquisitive fingers. He had learned a lot in twenty years, where to touch and how to kiss. This wasn’t some teenager in my arms; he was all man.

  It reminded me of how he made love to me in that Los Feliz apartment ten years before, taking me with strength and purpose, like he might have died if he hadn’t.

  At least that was the way I remembered it. Maybe I had to, to justify how my life imploded right afterwards.

  Now I had nothing to lose. I was single, as was he. There was nothing between us but some pesky clothes that could easily be discarded.

  Somehow this revelation scared me more.

  I gently disengaged. His eyes were cloudy with confusion as he stared down at me. “What’s wrong?”

  I motioned to the hallway. “Meghan,” I said simply.

  He nodded. “Right.” He caressed the curve of my face. “One day we’ll get our timing in sync.”

  I giggled. “Think after thirty years we can get it right?”

  He brushed a thumb across my swollen bottom lip. “God, I hope so. Otherwise I may just use up every drop of cold water in L.A.”

  I got lost in those bottomless brown eyes. “Thanksgiving too long to wait?” I asked softly. “Meghan is going to spend that week with her dad. Maybe I could spend that week with you.”

  It was a brazen thing to ask, but he answered me with a kiss. His tongue parted my lips and I groaned as I submitted myself gloriously to him. He was breathless when we broke apart. “It’s a date.”

  25: Our Lips Ar
e Sealed

  November 22, 1982

  I made a face as I looked in the mirror. Ugly red blotches covered my torso, and the pink lotion my mother was applying didn’t seem to do much to quell the itching. I whimpered and she gave me a broad smile. “Hang in there, kiddo. You’re doing great.”

  Great, she said. I didn’t consider it great to come down with chicken pox the week of Thanksgiving. Sure, I got extra days off from school, but this wasn’t how I wanted to spend one of my favorite holidays.

  The Moms always made a big deal of Thanksgiving, opening their home to other SoCal orphans who couldn’t make it home for the holidays. We shared a festive pot luck dinner with a handful of friends and neighbors, both new and old, and then that night we’d all decorate the house for the final six weeks of the year, which just happened to be my favorite holiday season.

  Christmas was a time of hope and expectation. Anything could happen. Any wish could come true.

  Now all I wished was that I would stop itching. And stop looking like a human version of Connect-the-Dots.

  I crawled back in bed with a book, but it barely kept my attention. The radio was on low, so my pop heroes kept my company in my lonely room.

  Neither Bonnie nor Dylan had ever had chicken pox, so my mom was my only company. No school. No friends.

  No Dylan.

  With a sigh, I pulled my diary out from under my mattress. Some days, when nothing special happened to me, I would write about the things that I wanted to happen. I had gotten a lot of mileage out of the playground memory, embellishing it so that it didn’t end on such a humiliating note, with Dylan leaving me high and dry and denying that he had ever wanted to kiss me.

  Thanks to the daytime TV that kept me company while I was quarantined, my fantasies grew ever more salacious. Some of my fantasies had even progressed to second base. There was no hope of anything like that happening now, of course. Not while I looked like I’d been peppered by a blister gun.

  It made my confinement bittersweet. I couldn’t be a part of the festivities beyond my bedroom door, which smelled divine from all the baking the Moms were doing in preparation for their big day. But I didn’t have to brave seeing Dylan either. I was mortified by the thought.

  He was used to me being fat. But scratchy and blotchy? I shuddered as I pulled my covers over my head to read my diary under my tent of humiliated solitude.

  I was feeling a bit more human by Wednesday, so I ventured out to the kitchen while the Moms were at work and Dylan was at school. I snuck some cookies and even watched some TV in the den. But the antihistamine I took to help soothe the itchy rash knocked me plumb out. Dylan found me dozing on the couch when he returned from school just after noon.

  I had forgotten that Wednesday was an early release day.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he gently shook me awake.

  I jolted upright in a panic. “You shouldn’t touch me,” I shrieked. “You’ll get sick.”

  He laughed. “I’ve been trying to get sick all week so that I wouldn’t have to go to school. Lucky,” he added, but I turned my face from his. It was still blotchy and gross.

  I scooted off the sofa and made a mad dash for my room. Five minutes later, he was knocking at the door. “Go away,” I said through the door.

  “Open the door,” he said. “I brought you something.”

  I opened the door and there he stood, holding some of his prized, handheld games in his hand.

  “Figured you were bored,” he said.

  In 1982, we both nursed a significant addiction to the Atari he had received for the previous Christmas, but I hadn’t been out of my room in days, and had been suffering through withdrawals. The handheld games were cold comfort, but at least they were something.

  I took them with a grateful, “Thank you.”

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “You’ll get sick,” I warned.

  He shrugged with the nonchalance of a thirteen-year-old. He had only been a teenager for a couple of months, but I could tell Dylan had already decided that most rules didn’t apply to him. He had always been the golden boy with the good grades, the ease of making friends and the early adoration of the opposite sex. Everyone had wanted to “go with” Dylan from the time we were in grade school, even when “going with” someone meant you did little more than sit together at lunch, or walk home together after school.

  And of course, his father made sure he had all the new and cool toys and accessories, as well as the best clothes. He couldn’t be bothered to travel across country to spend any real time with him, so he assuaged his guilt with his pocketbook, hence why I had an armful of video games to amuse me during the last leg of my confinement.

  I crawled back into bed and my diary flopped out onto the floor. I gasped, which drew Dylan’s attention. He pounced before I could. “What’s this?”

  “It’s nothing!” I insisted, dropping everything to snatch the book back from his hands.

  He grinned. “Then let me see it.”

  I shook my head, pulling at the book with all my might. He refused to let go. “Dylan, please! That’s my private property!”

  “What’s so private about it?” he wanted to know. “We’re best friends. We don’t have secrets.”

  It was then that it hit me. We hadn’t been best friends since 1979, simply because there was one secret between us. And it was a big one.

  I cared more for him than he cared for me.

  My serious case of puppy love for my mother’s roommate’s son had driven a wedge between us. I couldn’t share my feelings with the one person I wanted to tell the most.

  “Bobby is your best friend,” I argued.

  “And who is yours?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  I thought about it. “No one,” I finally said.

  Dylan was so shocked by my sad admission that he released my diary at once. I cradled it to my chest and turned away. “I’m kind of tired,” I lied.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Feel better, Roni.”

  I didn’t turn back around until I heard my bedroom door close behind him.

  The next day I could hear our house fill to capacity with all our guests. I desperately wanted to be a part of it, but Mom had been adamant. So I resigned myself to playing some of Dylan’s games while the smells and sounds from the other parts of the house tormented me.

  When someone knocked at the door, I assumed it was my mom. It creaked open and there stood Bryan Dixon, a classmate of mine.

  We had just met that year, our first in junior high. Like me, he was an acne-prone and awkward geek, so we immediately gravitated towards each other when the cliques around us began to form. I smiled at the familiar face. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged as he shut the door behind him. “Your mom invited my mom to stop by. Dad’s out of town, so we thought this was better than eating TV dinners while watching the Macy’s parade.”

  I laughed. “Fair warning. I have chicken pox. I’m highly contagious.”

  He plopped on my bed. “Infect away, it won’t do any good. I had chicken pox when I was five.”

  It was a Thanksgiving miracle.

  Bryan stayed with me most of the afternoon. He crawled up next to me in my tiny twin bed and we played Dylan’s games together. That was, in fact, where Dylan found us when he brought me a plate of goodies from the kitchen.

  He was stunned silent when he saw there was another person in my room, notably a boy, even more notably in my bed. “Oh,” he finally said. “I thought you were alone.”

  “Bryan is keeping me company,” I explained unnecessarily. “He’s already had chicken pox, so…,” I trailed off, as though he deserved any explanation at all what I was doing.

  “Cool,” Dylan said. “I just thought I’d bring you some food in case you were hungry.” He put the tray on my chest of drawers. “I should get back to the Moms,” he said quietly before he departed.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Bryan asked.


  I shrugged, but inwardly I knew it was probably the same thing that was wrong with me.

  This episode of chicken pox just illustrated, painfully, that Dylan and I had missed yet another crossroad. We operated on two completely different planes. Coincidence had rendered our lives parallel, with fewer and fewer chances to intersect.

  The red welts made me look like on the outside what I felt like on the inside: a social pariah only those who had gone through my challenges could fully understand.

  He belonged with Bobby and all the popular kids at school, including a score of girls who wanted to do more than just “go with” Dylan Fenn. Deep down I knew that they could.

  I, on the other hand, belonged with the outcasts, the weirdoes and people on the fringe. People like Bryan, who was the closest thing to a best friend that I had now.

  I leaned on Bryan’s shoulder and watched him defeat the game.

  The next day I threw away my diary and gave up on my dream of landing a boy like Dylan Fenn.

  26: You’re Beautiful

  November 16, 2007

  The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were some of the most idyllic I had ever known, even with my whirlwind romance with Wade in my early twenties. As it turned out, daydreaming of a longstanding unrequited love was way more exciting than being wined and dined in the finest restaurants in Orange County. I was giddy as a teenager and finally free to enjoy it.

  I even splurged on new clothes and tried some new makeup, trading in my ponytail and my stretchy pants for something more stylish. Meghan contributed her fashion expertise on an impromptu trip to the mall, where I ended up buying more things than she did.

  It was a first.

  Another, more important, first was that we managed to actually have a good time. There was no snarling, no eye-rolling, no ‘whatever’-lobbing. It was a girls’ day out, just like we used to have when she was little.

  “You should try this,” she said as she lifted up a thin white sweater with a daring neckline.