"That's not a problem, Mr. Andrews," Nia assured me. "I don't actually have a boyfriend just now."
Nia Bexley was the oldest applicant I had yet interviewed, a 21-year-old writing major (minoring in history) finishing her junior year. She was a tall, curvy woman, maybe 5'8", with long black hair, a roundish oval face, and warm sepia-toned skin. There was something about her expression that hinted at a taste for mischief—which meant I should have been prepared when she added, "Don't worry, I promise I'll only watch porn when the girls are out, never when they're home."
I was still working my way through my coffee at that point (I'd offered Nia a cup, but she had declined), so I came very close to giving her the classic spit-take. I only avoided it at the cost of snorting coffee into my sinuses, which in retrospect probably wasn't an improvement. I managed to croak some sort of response, but who knows what I said.
"Mr. Andrews!" Nia said, pretending to be shocked. (Her smirk gave her away.) "Do you have a problem with girls watching porn? I hadn't thought you old-fashioned!"
"No . . ." I said, still grappling with the coffee I'd snorted. "I just . . . well, I wasn't
expecting
it," I finished lamely.
"If girls didn't like porn, girls wouldn't
do
porn," she said matter-of-factly. "And when I don't have a boyfriend, I need
something
to get me off—and I need to get off a lot.
"Do you watch porn, Mr. Andrews?" Nia asked ingenuously. "Or read erotica? Do you need it to help you get through the week? I bet a stud like you has a pretty high sex drive too."
"Umm, well, yes, I do," I admitted, wondering how the fuck this conversation had gone this way.
"What kind of porn do you like best? I bet I have an idea," Nia continued suggestively. "I know what
my
top fantasy is; I'll tell you if you tell me yours first."
I was saved by the bell—or, rather, by the ringtone: I heard Yakko, Wakko, and Dot sing out, "School, school, school!" That's my ringtone for Hope's elementary. I apologized to Nia, pulled my phone off my belt, and tapped the green phone symbol. "Hello, this is Rob Andrews."
"Mr. Andrews, this is Mrs. Garcia calling from the nurse's office at Hamilton. Your daughter Hope is down here with an upset stomach and a fever; she's already thrown up once. You need to come get her."
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I assured her. I turned to Nia and said, "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to postpone the rest of your interview."
"I understand, Mr. Andrews," Nia replied. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Well, are you available tomorrow night?" I asked. "I had a friend ask me this morning if he could meet me for drinks; I was going to put him off, but if you're free, I could give you the tour beforehand and finish the interview after I got back."
"Let me check my calendar," she answered. After a few moments, she looked up and said, "That will work, actually. When do you want me here?"
*****
Fortunately for me, Hope's bug went like they usually do—by bedtime, she was feeling more like herself, and by morning she was ravenous. School policy required me to keep her home anyway, so I kept Joy home as well and we had a daddy-daughter day. We played Legos and Thomas for much of it and spent most of the rest at the park.
Nia showed up several minutes early that evening with a smile on her face. I had set the girls up in Hope's room to keep them occupied during the tour, knowing when they saw her they would attach themselves to her like limpets and take over the conversation. Nia was delighted by the tour, and especially by the guest suite. I was a little nervous when I started showing her around, given her comments the day before, but she showed no sign of remembering them; we talked a little about writing, but mostly about the girls.
When we walked into Hope's room, Nia clapped her hands excitedly. Hope looked up and her eyes widened. "You're really pretty," she said.
"Thank you, sweetheart," Nia responded in a soft, happy voice. I introduced her to the girls, and they promptly attached themselves to her and started asking one question after another. I pulled each one off her in turn long enough to give her a hug and kiss, and made my farewells.
*****
I sighed inwardly as I walked into Louie's. Dave Reagor and I have been friends since fifth grade when my family moved here, and I couldn't bring myself to quit him—we'd been through too much together. In fifth grade, I was a shy, nerdy runt, and completely lacking in social skills; Dave and I bonded over shared interests in books and music and a shared position in the social hierarchy (or perhaps I should say
under
it). For a few years, he was the only real friend I had.
But then a couple things happened. One, I discovered temperament theory, Myers-Briggs and cognitive functions, and then the Enneagram, and suddenly I could start making sense of other people. I started teaching myself to read them, reverse-engineering social skills for myself. I gradually stopped putting my foot in my mouth and aggravating my classmates, and they started to see (and enjoy) my sense of humor. I'd never talked a lot—it was just that I usually managed to say the wrong thing when I did—so it wasn't that hard for me to keep my mouth shut until I figured out something
helpful
to say.
Two, over the course of a (painful) summer, I added six inches of height, about that in breadth, and half my weight again of muscle. (Do I exaggerate? Maybe . . . I don't know if I remember the actual numbers, I just remember that's what it
felt
like.) My dad had always said that would happen—he was a minor-league shortstop who reached AAA, and my mom was a champion swimmer at the D-III level; I'd given up on the idea, but he was proved right. I showed up for my freshman year with a very different body, and if
I
was still trying to figure out what to do with it, the coaches had all sorts of ideas. I ended up playing basketball and baseball, as those were the games I had some idea how to play. I may not have been the athlete my parents were, and I certainly wasn't the
motivated
athlete they had been, but I was still a guy who helped my teams win. (Especially in baseball. I'd always been able to put the bat on the ball, I just couldn't hit it hard. Man, had that ever changed.)
Put the two things together, and I was suddenly a lot more popular. I was an athlete and a good teammate, and I was still a good student who was always happy to help out a classmate. I was also a lot more attractive to girls. It took a while for my self-confidence to catch up to that fact, but by the time baseball season started I had a serious girlfriend. Thayla was the only good relationship I had before Lori; I'd bet we'd still be together if her family hadn't abruptly moved away over Christmas our junior year. No one knew why they'd gone, or where—they'd canceled their cell phones and e-mail addresses and hadn't even forwarded their mail. I prayed for months, many times a day, but I never saw or heard from her again.
Thayla didn't much care for Dave, though . . . and I have to say she had reason. In both respects, she was typical of my new friends. I stayed loyal to him as my social standing climbed, but he made it difficult. He was brash where I was generally quiet, and he remained socially tone-deaf. I tried to teach him some of the people skills I was learning, but he rejected them. He didn't believe he needed to learn anything from me. I continued to spend time with him, but the other friends I was developing quickly decided they didn't want him around. I essentially had two friend circles that didn't overlap, and one of them consisted of only one person. Needless to say, I drifted away from Dave fairly quickly, and for most of high school we only got together every once in a while.
Dave went away for college, while I stayed local, but then he moved back. He'd earned his degree in computer game design, and there was a successful indie game developer in our area that snapped him up after graduation. He did well there, and the company did very well; they became a
de facto
subsidiary of EA, but managed to retain both structural independence and the freedom to make the games they wanted to make. I reconnected with Dave when I interviewed him and most of his co-workers for a novel I was writing, and we started getting together once every month or two.
He hadn't really changed much, and there were times he made me grind my teeth. Lori asked me why I kept spending time with him, and the best answer I ever managed to give her was, "For auld lang syne." I guess I just find it very, very hard to let go of people. The one thing that
had
changed was that Dave had somehow become quite adept at reading other people's expressions and body language—as long as they weren't directed toward him. When it came to interactions in which he was involved, he was still hopeless. Unfortunately, he was less aware of that fact than he had ever been. That made his inability to keep his mouth shut more of a problem than it had ever been.
I saw Dave as soon as I walked into the joint—yes, people routinely call Louie's a "joint," don't ask me why—and angled toward him. Normally, when he saw me, he would bounce enthusiastically to his feet, greet me at the top of his lungs, and give me an enthusiastic handshake. This time, when he looked up and saw me, he just nodded grimly. My heart sank and my stomach exploded with butterflies. Anything that could make Dave look like that was not going to be good.
I sat down at the table, ordered a stiff drink, and said, "OK, lay it on me, man. You look like your servers just blew up. What's wrong?"
"Dude, there's no good way to say this, so, yeah," Dave replied. "Sorry, man, but I'm pretty sure your wife is cheating on you, probably with her boss."
I had always assumed the phrase "seeing red" was just a writing cliché that had no basis in reality. I discovered in that moment that I was wrong, as it was like a red filter dropped across my vision. Dave didn't react at all to my sudden rage; he probably assumed it was aimed at Lori, but it was actually all at him. I'm not sure how I managed not to strangle him, or at least deck him, but I did, keeping my hands firmly pressed into the table.
Just as I was regaining my equilibrium, Dave continued, "Sucks to find out about it this way, I know, but better this than being fooled." My vision went bloody again; I closed my eyes, breathed in until I had to stop, and held it. I did my best to put my body into lockdown until I could regain some measure of self-control. If there had been even a hint of smugness or self-satisfaction on Dave's face, I'm sure I couldn't have managed it, but there wasn't. It would have been understandable, given his own lack of success with women, but he'd never taken any satisfaction in bad things happening even to his worst enemies, and that hadn't changed. He wasn't actually helping me, but that's all he was
trying
to do.
When I finally opened my eyes, I must not have had myself as much under control as I had thought, because Dave visibly flinched. It took me a few moments before I was sure I was safe to speak; he slowly paled under my gaze, but staunchly maintained eye contact. Finally, I ground out, "Dave, I already
knew
that."
