“See,” he says, walking over to another customer. “That was awkward.”
I shrug. I have bigger problems, like my gappy lips.
The bar gets busy after that, and Kit comes around a couple times to give me new drinks. He doesn’t ask what I want; he just brings me things. First, a martini that has a slimy white thing floating in it.
“It’s a lychee nut,” he says. “You’ll like it.”
I do. He switches back to wine at some point, white this time. Food that I didn’t order arrives: scallops on mango quinoa. I’ve never eaten scallops, but he tells me they’re his favorite. They have the texture of a tongue, and I briefly consider that he’s sending me a message. By the time I’m onto dessert, the bar stools are mostly empty, and Nina Gordon is playing over the speakers. I’m way buzzed. I’m thinking how fun it would be to dance to this song in the empty restaurant. Since I am not a good dancer, I know this is an unreliable boozy thought.
Kit comes to sit on the barstool next to me. What I really like about him is that he has never once asked why I’m here. Like his girlfriend’s best friend showing up at his job, and getting wasted alone, is completely normal.
“We close in an hour. May I drive you home?”
“I can Uber,” I say. “It’s no big deal.”
He shakes his head. “I’m just afraid for you,” he says. “If the Uber driver sees how dirty your clothes are, he may think you’re not good for the fare.”
“That’s true,” I say. There are several glasses of flat seltzer on the bar in front of me. He stacks up the plates left over from my dinner. I pull out my wallet, but he waves me away.
“I fed you tonight.”
I’m too lightheaded to argue.
“We can leave in about an hour-thirty. That okay?”
I nod. When he leaves, I summon the Uber, and scribble a quick note on my napkin. I slide it under my empty glass, along with a twenty.
I should never have come. I should never have stayed. I should never have written the note. I almost go back, but I’m uncertain on my feet, and the driver is looking at me like he’s thinking about leaving.
I wake up on my couch. My couch smells like patchouli. I fucking hate patchouli. I cover my nose and roll onto my back. I didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Which is cool, because I also threw up on one of my throw pillows, and no one likes vomit in their bed. I stumble over to the trashcan and stuff the throw pillow inside. Then I take a shower. I’m halfway through soaping my hair when I remember the note I left for Kit at the bar. I groan. I jump out of the shower, not bothering to grab a towel, and run for my phone. God. A gazillion missed calls from Neil, and my parents, and Della, and my job. Blah blah. Soap is running down the back of my legs. I scroll through the texts until I see Kit’s name.
K: WTF
That’s all it says. I cover my mouth with my hand. What did the note say? I close my eyes. I remember how clumsy the pen felt between my fingers. How the nub ripped the napkin in some places, and I had to pull it taut to write.
I HAD A DREAM. DON’T MARRY DELLA
I groan. Suddenly, I need to throw up again. Instead, I take a selfie. My hair is globbed up on one side of my head, and there is mascara streaking down my face. I put the photo in an album called Mortifying Emotional Moments, and I title it Soggy Napkin Note. The last selfie I posted in there was of me on the day I graduated college. My perfectly made up face is happy … relieved. I called that one: Sallie Mae Can Suck It.
I finish my shower and feel more hopeful. I’ll never see Kit again. That will solve all the problems at hand. Somehow I’ll find someone better for Della, someone taller, with a less satirical face. She’ll be happier with a doctor or an investment broker anyway. Someone to fund her lifestyle, who wouldn’t infringe on her independence. Or I could find a new best friend. Elaine, from college, always liked me. I liked her hair.Neil wants to go to the beach. He says “just us,” but you know how that goes. Always seeing someone you know when you’re in a bikini and your stomach is bloated from all the drinking and eating you did from the night before. I go anyway, and wear a monokini. I still feel whoozy when I step out of my shorts and lay on my towel, my head underneath an open book. Neil’s been talking about his job for the last forty minutes. He hasn’t asked me a damn thing about my job. When he takes a break to laugh at his own joke, I tell him about my flat, and he balks.
“Why didn’t you call me? I would have come to get you. They let me take thirty minutes extra for my lunch break because they think I’m really good.”
I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. “I called Triple A. Plus, Kit saw me and pulled over.” I added that last bit without thought.
“Kit? Della’s Kit?”
“Well, she doesn’t own him,” I say, annoyed. “And how many other Kits do we know?”
“You don’t think that’s weird?” he asks.
I sit up. “That the guy dating my best friend sees me stranded on the side of the road and pulled over to help?”
Neil huffs. “Well, I guess when you put it that way…”
“There’s no other way to put it.”
He looks all crestfallen and lamby. I am about to lean over and kiss him when his phone lights up to tell him he has a text. I don’t mean to look; I’m not like that—a snoop. But I see a girl’s name. He grabs for the phone, but I’m faster. It’s automatic. My hand punches in his passcode and …
all
I
see
are
tits
“Helena…”
Why is he saying my name? Why is he even saying my name? We are both standing up now, me still holding his phone looking at the tits. The pictures are still coming. I didn’t know tits could be selfied from so many angles. I’m shaking. The phone drops from my hand, into the sand.
“I have to tell you something,” he says. He’s advancing on me, slowly. Like I’m some a-bomb about to explode. BOOM!
“You’re a cheating douchebag?”
“Helena, let me talk.”
“Hold that thought,” I say. Then I punch him. Right in the eye, and like my dad taught me. Pull back, throw forward. His head rolls, then snaps forward like a bobble head. Boing, boing, boing on his skinny turkey neck. He lifts his hand to his eye, and I slap him so that he has a hit on each side of his face.