I'm Your Girl. J.J. Murray

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СКАЧАТЬ Pat says, “before I was rudely nudged with somebody’s hard and crusty elbow—”

      “My elbows aren’t crusty,” Mike interrupts.

      “Dag, Mike, lube them things,” Pat says. “So, Mike, we haven’t seen your friend Paul around in a while. Are you two still kickin’ it?”

      Mike shrugs. “Yeah, we’re still cool, but I think our relationship changed when I asked him to give me a little space. I’m just tired of partying all the time. I’m getting too old for that shit.”

      And this ends Ty’s opening section. Not terrible, not wonderful. Adequate. I’m getting hints for what’s to come, and it isn’t as if it will take long for these two to get together. It’s Dan’s turn again:

      3: Dan

      I’m getting too old for this shit.

      I’ve been peeling beer bottle labels ever since I had my first Michelob—or was it a Miller?—back in high school. I peeled quite a few bottles of Bud in the service, too. I know it means I’m horny. And I am. It’s hard for me to admit that at thirty-two, yet it’s true. I know I’ve just been dumped for another woman, and I know that this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

      But at least the first time involved a woman dumping me for her mother.

      Oooh, nasty! Why can’t Dan just be a plain, ordinary man? Why does he have to have so much baggage?

      Which isn’t as twisted as it sounds. Okay, it does sound twisted, but there’s a logical explanation. Given the choice between marrying me, the surfer boy Marine from California turned elementary school teacher from Virginia, and the traditions of her Thai, man-hating mother in Cleveland, Jewel chose…the Honda Prelude that her mother promised her if she broke off her engagement with me.

      This is different. A white man with a Thai ex will be bumping uglies with a rugged sister—an interesting development. At least it means he’s open to interracial relationships.

      Either that or he’ll mess with any woman, anytime, anywhere.

      The freak.

      Yeah, it’s a little bit twisted. And it also involved her mother agreeing to pay for all of Jewel’s med school bills, but I feel that I’ve been replaced by a two-door coupe that I hope rusts to dust up in Ohio, and I don’t want to think about Jewel anymore. She’s past history, end of story, archives, end of the road…yet she visits me whenever I have situations like this, as if she’s sitting across from me right now in Beth’s empty chair. The ex that keeps on giving me pain.

      And I still have the ring I gave her that she threw back in my face.

      Which means that Jewel will be back in Dan’s life. That’s how these books work. He’s hard up and hurt from a past relationship, and as soon as he finds true love with Ty (though I still don’t see how), Jewel will be back with a vengeance. Such a soap opera. I’m so glad real life isn’t this way.

      I look at the mess in front of me: seven beer bottles’ worth of labels, two plates of chicken bones, and a pile of sticky napkins. Leftovers from a five-date relationship with…a lesbian who is going home to wait on my waitress, to serve my server, who is going to get the tip of Beth’s tongue.

      Damn. I hope the Sam Adams and all those hot wings give Beth some really bad gas. Or loose stools. Yeah, that would be perfect. Just an evening of Darcy and diarrhea. An evening of sucking down Pepto-Bismol instead of sucking face. An evening of starts and farts, fits and shits.

      HAAAAA! That’s a good one. Nasty, but good. Funny, but I don’t mind it so much when a man of any race curses. That’s how most men communicate when they can’t think of anything intelligent to say, right? But educated sisters—no, they can’t be cursing up a storm and get my approval.

      I reach down to pick up a stray fleck of a label and turn my head just enough to see the delicious, sexy, toned brown legs of the black woman with cat’s eyes in the booth across from me. Beautiful is the wrong word. Stunning. No, dazzling. Classy, definitely elegant. Cute toes, too. She must work out. So smooth, flexed just right, so well-proportioned, so—

      So busted.

      She saw me.

      I raise my head too quickly, bump it hard on the bottom of the table, and see a few stars. When I finally am able to sit up, I steal a glance her way—and she’s smiling at me. Perfect teeth gleaming like that gum commercial. Fabulous.

      Or is she laughing? She has her hand over her mouth and—

      Yeah, she’s laughing. Private Sidney, a hot black woman from Alabama whom I hung out with in Saudi, used to laugh at me the same way whenever I tried to dance, covering her face with both hands. Yeah, I’m that bad of a dancer. I wasn’t bad at dancing horizontally, though. Yeah, I wonder what Cyd’s up to these days? We used to go at it—

      Dan is a freak! Do I want him messing with Ty? What on earth could she ever see in him? Do all white men in their thirties behave this way? This is getting beyond ridiculous. A Californian former-Marine freak of an elementary school teacher is going to hook up with a trailblazing, cultured sister? Against my better judgment, I’m going to give it a few more pages, but it had better get moving, and it had better start getting real.

      Geez, I need to get hold of myself. I’m too old to be reliving old relationships and flirting, yet that’s what I’m doing, and who am I flirting with? A black woman sitting next to a guy twice my size just minutes after my lesbian girlfriend has left me to go play field hockey—or should I say tonsil hockey?—with one of Hooters’s finest.

      Yeah, life can suck in oh so many special ways.

      I toss two twenties and a ten on top of the check. I know that will give Darcy more than a 20 percent tip, but who knows? Things have a way of working out. Maybe things won’t work out between Beth and Darcy, and Darcy will see me in a new light because of my generosity, realize the errors of her ways, and give me a chance.

      And then again, maybe Darcy will use her tip to buy Beth a new leopard-skin thong, and then they’ll—

      I down a full glass of lukewarm ice water, and as I set down the glass, I look once more at Cat Eyes. Such ripe, red lips, such devastating eyes.

      And thighs. Don’t forget the thighs. They are smokin’.

      At least he’s not a chest or booty man. Eyes and thighs. I have two pairs of those. They aren’t “smokin’,” but they can smolder when I want them to.

      I nod once at her, and she nods back. I put on my coat and nod again. She nods again.

      We’ve just had a nodding moment.

      I don’t have many of these moments. What do I do next? If I had any guts, I’d go over and speak to her. But what would I say? “Hi, I’m the guy who’s been scoping out your fine, sculpted legs like a drooling teenager, and I was wondering if I could have your phone number, maybe give you a call sometime?” But if the big guy is her boyfriend, I might be leaving with a busted nose to go with my bruised ego.

      No, Dan, you might be leaving with his phone number.

      Instead, I weave my way through the tables to the door, where I pause to look back at Cat Eyes and only see Darcy at her booth, serving СКАЧАТЬ