You Love Me(You #3)(11)
You make eyes at me the way you did on Day One in the library—Please be patient—and Melanda says that her toxic trainer asked Greg, the barista at Pegasus, to stop selling her cookies and you nod, like a therapist. “Well, I’m glad that Greg told you about it. He’s a good guy in that way.”
Her nostrils flare. “Well let’s not pat Greg on the back, Mary Kay. He was laughing, which means he probably laughed about it with my trainer too. Ex-trainer.”
You nod, Dr. Mary Kay DiMarco. “Okay, but remember. Greg’s in there all day and when you deal with the public all day, you hear crazy things. Greg does strike me as one of the good ones. And imagine if he didn’t tell you about the trainer.”
You tamed her without dismissing her—brilliant—and she makes a self-deprecating joke about being Bitchy McBitcherson and now you cut her off. “Stop it, Melanda. You’re allowed to have a reaction.”
I want to tear off your tights but for now I just nod affirmatively. “You said it, Mary Kay.”
I was beaming when I said that, beaming at you, and Melanda felt it and we are a party of three and she scans the diner and you nudge her, girlfriend to girlfriend. “On a happier note, you’re seeing that Peter guy this week, right? The one from Plenty of Fish?”
She grunts. No eye contact with you or me. “Plenty of Fish? More like plenty of pigs. He sent me a dirty joke about Cinderella and a Pumpkin Eater and, needless to say, I reported him.”
“Well,” you say. “You know how I feel about those apps…”
Melanda fixes her eyes on me now. “And what about you, Joe? Are you on the apps?”
She’s not stupid. She saw me beam at you. But I don’t want to be that asshole pooh-poohing her way of life. “No,” I say. “But maybe I’ll join just to give Peter a piece of my mind.”
It was a joke and you laugh but she doesn’t. “Aw,” she says. “That’s sweet but I don’t recall asking you to fight my battles. All good here.”
I let it slide. Imagine all the dick pics she gets, all the rejection. You take the reins and change the subject. “So, Melanda. How’s my daughter? For real.”
“Good,” she says.
You look at me and tell me that Melanda knows more about Nomi than you do and Melanda is proud—she’s one of those bestie aunts—and she says that Nomi is cooling off on Dylan Klebold and you sigh. “Thank God. I was hoping it was just a phase.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” I say, because I have a voice too. “Kids go through phases.”
Melanda grunts. “Well, I wouldn’t diminish a young woman’s feelings as a phase…”
It was okay when you said it was a phase and the three of us aren’t gonna be at Eleven Winery any time soon. I get it. You take care of Melanda because she’s alone. She’s telling you about Nomi’s ideas for her imaginary incubator and she’s not Auntie Melanda. She’s Auntie Interloper and you almost jump out of your seat.
“Seamus!” you shout. “Over here!”
So it really is a hazing ambush and this is Seamus in real life, working the room like a politician, glad-handing the other diners with his masturbation paws. Did that dryer work out okay for you, Dan? Hey, Mrs. P, I’ll swing by and check out your furnace. He wears a long-sleeve Cooley Hardware T-shirt and a baseball cap with the same logo—we get it, dipshit—and he’s too short for you. Too smarmy for you. But he grins at you like he could have you if he wanted.
“Ladies,” he says. Juvenile. “Sorry I’m late.”
I can just hear God in heaven. We’ll make this one short and squat with arms too long for his body and a bombastic voice that turns off women. But it’s hard enough down on Earth, so let’s give him piercing blue eyes and a strong jaw so he doesn’t blow his brains out when the midlife reaper scratches at his door. But it’s not all bad. I slide in to the wall. At least this way I’m across from you. “Joe,” you say. “I’ve been so excited for you to meet Seamus.”
You say that like he’s not the one who’s lucky to meet me but I am Good Joe. Convivial Joe. I ask him if that’s his hardware store as if the question needs to be asked and the waitress delivers coffee—he didn’t even have to place an order—and he laughs. Smug. “Last time I checked.”
The three of you gossip about some guy you went to high school with who got a DUI. You’re leaving me in the cold and I don’t have history with you and this is beneath you, using your friends to ice me out. I sit here like a mute monk and I should step outside and call Fuck You Slater, Ushkin, Graham, and Powell to file a class action against Marta Kauffman et al., because they made Friends and that show is the reason we’re in this mess. On a show like Cedar Cove, the goal is love. You watch because you want Jack and Olivia to get together. But on Friends, everything is an inside joke. They brainwash you into thinking that friendship is more valuable than love, that old is inherently better than new when it comes to people.
I dump ketchup on my fries and you reach onto my plate, reestablishing our intimacy. “Is this okay?”
I nod. “Go for it.”
Seamus wrinkles his nose. “No fries for me,” he brags. “I’m doing a Murph later. You wanna join, New Guy?”