Beneath the Shine Read online

  I give up on the tutorial. Tomorrow is Monday, and it’s the start of another long week behind a desk, filled with scratchy business suits and dry legal documents and the same boring talk around the water cooler about reality TV and celebrity bullshit. Clint may or may not come down to take me out to lunch; it all boils down to whether or not he’s hungry, since I’m the one who usually pays. The other women in the office will ooh and ahh over him, telling me for the millionth time what a hottie he is and how lucky I am to date a guy who looks like that.

  I’m setting the alarm on my phone when it rings, the haunting wail of bagpipes letting me know Adair is on the other end. Curious, I swipe the screen, bring my knees to my chest and wrap my free arm around them before pressing the phone to my ear. In this day and age, where texting is about as intimate as it gets, receiving an actual phone call from someone—especially at ten o’clock at night—is suspicious. I can’t remember the last time Adair called me. “Tell me this isn’t a bootie call,” I say in lieu of a greeting.

  Adair laughs, the sound deep and rolling and contagious. I press my lips together to keep from smiling too wide. It’s one of the things I adore most about him; the man laughs with everything he has. It’s magnetic, lighter than air, and its resonance pulls you up right along with it. “Oh, you’d love that now, wouldn’t you, doll?”

  I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “You couldn’t handle my bootie.” And then I roll my eyes. Sometimes I such a nerd.

  “Well,” Adair drawls, “as much as I’d love—and I mean love—to get into a long conversation about your lovely behind, I’m afraid I’m ringing you about someone else’s.” He pauses, suddenly reluctant, and I fiddle with a loose string on the hem of my t-shirt while I wait. “Gabe has a bad case of the skitters.”

  I cock my head. “Huh? He has a what of the what?”

  “Skitters. You know. He, uh…” A pause, followed by a deep exhale of breath. “He seems to be having some digestive issues.”

  I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. “He has diarrhea, you mean?”

  “That’s another way of putting it.”

  “Okay,” I say, my mind working back to my years at the animal shelter. “Is he eating, drinking?”

  “He is.”

  I nod, biting my lip. “Good. It’s probably stress from everything that’s gone on since my grandmother passed. Do you have any chicken and rice? Like the starchy white kind? Or, maybe some canned pumpkin?”

  “Really, Bets? I’m a bachelor who lives on pizza and take out. So, no, dearie, I don’t have any chicken or… What was it that you said? White rice and canned pumpkin?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I realize it was a stupid thing to ask.” I pause, already predicting how the next part of this conversation is going to go. “Can you get a sample?”

  “A sample of what, exactly?” By the grimace in his voice, I can tell he already knows what I’m going to say.

  “Of the poop.”

  “Shit.”

  I giggle. “Exactly.”

  “You find this funny, do you?” But there’s a smile in his voice, and I know he’s not mad.

  I go into detail—probably too much—about what he needs to do, how he should collect it, and give him the name of the vet my grandmother took him to so he can have them run a fecal test. “In the meantime,” I say, “get some chicken and rice, boil it up, and give him that until you get the results. That should bulk things up. Unless, of course, it’s a parasite and then you’ll have to bring him in for some medication. Have you seen any worms in it?” I ask as an afterthought. “Ones that look like spaghetti? Or maybe rice?”

  “Like spaghe— What?” His voice has gone all high-pitched and squeaky. “Are you wanting me to look for all this in the poop, you mean?”

  Now I’m laughing so hard I can barely breathe. Tears sting my eyes, squeeze out the corners and dangle on my lashes. I wipe them away, the muscles in my stomach contracting, shooting spasms of pain through my core from severe lack of use. “Duh, dumbass. Yes, in the poop. Or, sometimes you’ll see them dangling out of the anus, wiggling…”

  “Christ, Betsy!”

  I’m rolling now, and I can just picture Adair—eyes open in mock horror and shaking his head like he can’t even believe I had the audacity to say what I’ve just said. It’s one of my favorite things to do, shock him. I do a little fist pump and kick my feet against the mattress. “Well, now that you have that visual stuck in your head, how’s everything else going with you two?” I’m like a lovestruck high schooler, and if my phone had a chord I’d be twirling it around and around on my finger while eating up every word coming through the receiver.

  Adair chuckles. “Oh, it’s great, actually. He and I, we…”

  But he doesn’t finish.

  “We what?” I prompt, breaking the silence. “You and Gabe?”

  “He’s…” Adair clears his throat. “He’s quite the dog, really. We…” A woman’s voice murmurs in the background, a seductive coo along with the whisper of a zipper that hints she’s grabbing for more than just his attention. Her hum prowls through our conversation, choking the life out of my words and catching Adair’s breath before he can finish his.

  “And that’s my cue,” I say. I try to sound flippant, but the woman’s voice has leeched all the humor from mine, and the words come out dry and scratchy.

  “Bets, give me a…” His voice is tinged with annoyance, but then he moans softly, and the rest of his words float away, spilling down to whoever’s head (I can only assume) is bobbing between his legs.

  I wrinkle my nose and swipe my screen, ending the call. I finish setting my alarm and toss the phone on my nightstand, knocking over an antique alarm clock that I never use but bought at a flea market because it’s retro and funky. There’s a satisfying crack as it hits the floor.

  I lay back, spreading out on my double bed, my old quilt pulled up to my chin and my left leg sticking out the covers, and nestle into the sheets. In the living room, the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire ceases, turning instead to something I find equally annoying: Sports Center. The only thing I feel lucky about right now is that my hottie boyfriend is probably minutes away from falling asleep on the couch, therefore leaving me the entire bed for the rest of the night. I scooch to the middle of the mattress, hug a pillow to my chest, and try to squash the jealous thoughts racing through my head. The thoughts that will, no doubt, chase sleep away with their whirling accusations, their berating grievances.

  Fourth of July – 14 Years Old

  “I don’t know.”

  I held up the black and white striped crop top against my chest and frowned into the mirror. What would Josh think? Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing because, despite all the years I’ve crushed on the guy, I’d never really spoken to him—aside from today, that is. And while I was old enough to know I shouldn’t feel the need to dress a certain way just for a guy, I was still young enough to throw that idea right out the window.

  Tonight, I was dressing solely for Josh Make-Me-Weak-In-The-Knees Kramer.

  Next to me, Taffy was busy shoving her permed locks into a yellow banana clip. She’d slipped into a pair of denim overalls, the bottoms cut well above her knees and frayed, making her tanned legs seem even longer than they were. She wore a hot pink sports bra underneath and had traded her sandals for chunky Doc Martins. I compared her outfit to the one I’d arrived in this morning and was still wearing—a boxy t-shirt from one of last year’s swim tournaments and faded cut-off jean shorts. We looked as different as night and day.

  I shrugged out of my t-shirt and into the top Taffy gave me, the fit new and uncomfortable. Even though I was a year younger, my boobs were bigger than hers. While she was tall and willowy, I was medium and curvy. The way my chest poked out made the shirt hang even higher than it did on my cousin, showing way more of my midriff than I was comfortable with. But it didn’t look terrible, something I was surprised to note, and as long as I just chilled the heck out, I might
be able to pull the outfit off.

  Earlier this afternoon, after Taffy and Brian had flirted enough to make me want to puke, Brian asked us if we wanted to hang with them for the Fourth, to which I nodded enthusiastically and Taffy answered with a disinterested, Sure, why not? My cousin, who attended a different school on the other side of town and therefore didn’t know the guys from Adam, didn’t realize what a fan-freaking-tastic honor this was. Josh, to his credit, didn’t seem to care one way or another as long as we started the night at Grandview Park.

  Taffy snapped the clip into place and reached up, plucking fine chunks of hair from her up-do and stretching them out between the pads of her fingers. They sprung back in soft waves, dangling spirals of gold against her high cheekbones. My face was round, my cherub cheeks still covered in layers of baby fat—despite the hour-long jazzercise video I’d been forcing myself to do daily since school got out over a month ago.

  “It’s kind of revealing,” I said, stretching to see myself in the mirror and tugging on the shirt.

  Taffy smirked, her eyes leaving her reflection long enough to roll my way. “That’s the point. Duh.” She mumbled something about me being a dweeb as she reached into her makeup bag, popped the cap off a tube of lipstick, and ran the rounded tip over her lips. Her jaw worked left, then right, and when she was done her lips were full and pink and glamorous.

  I watched her out of the corner of my eye with fascination. The only makeup I had was some frosted pink lip gloss my mom had gotten through her Mary Kay dealer along with some brown mascara that I’d been wearing religiously since the beginning of eighth grade. (Blonde eyelashes are the pits.) The lip gloss was too shimmery and gaudy, not to mention it faded too fast, leaving a ring around my lips that made me look like a half-made up clown. I didn’t mind the brown mascara. Although, after seeing Taffy’s smoky eyes, I wouldn’t have minded a darker, more alluring shade for my own. I bit my lip, tearing loose a piece of dry skin and worrying it between my teeth. “Do you… I mean, would you mind? If maybe I borrowed some of your makeup?”

  I held my breath. Normally, I wouldn’t ask my cousin for anything. I mean, I wasn’t thrilled with my lackluster life, but I didn’t have a death wish. Braced for a cutting response, I avoided looking at Taffy, instead running my eyes up and down the bathroom’s flowered wallpaper, my shoulders tensed, my chin clenched.

  To my surprise, she merely shrugged. “Sure,” she said, bending over the sink to layer a second coat of mascara over her lashes. She pulled back from the mirror and blinked a few times, her eyes bright and green and catlike. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

  She said it like it was no big deal, all relaxed and easy and helpful as she pushed me down on the toilet seat and swirled her hand through her makeup bag, searching for a blush that would, as she put it, turn me from a zombie into a real live person.

  So okay. She was still sorta bitchy. But she was helping me, and lord knows I needed all the help I could get when it came to this stuff. Taffy worked on me for a good ten minutes—the giant blush brush tickling my cheeks, the mascara wand lengthening my lashes, the lipstick tugging against my lips, the glossy top coat making them shine—and when she was finished, she pulled me up and steered me by my shoulders toward the mirror. “What do you know,” she said, positioning me in front of the glass. “You actually look cool.” She arched a brow. “Well, sort of.” But she smiled, a real smile, and I couldn’t help but flash her a grateful one back.

  As kids, we treated each other like mortal enemies; she’d jab and pinch and hit while I retaliated by running to the nearest adult, tears streaming down my cheeks and chin wobbling. None of the adults ever believed me, of course, because Taffy was Marie’s daughter, and the Golden Child of thee Golden Child could do no wrong. Eventually I stopped telling them about her attacks altogether. Especially my grandmother, who would often overlook the bruises and pinch marks blooming red on my skin and punish me for trying to get Taffy in trouble. But maybe now that we were older, we could put all that crap behind us. Maybe now we were more mature, had grown past that competitive, feral stage where the stronger kid feeds off the weak one. Maybe we could be friends. Real, honest to goodness, friends.

  And it hit me that perhaps I wanted that more than I wanted Josh Kramer to like me.

  This unspoken truce between us had me euphoric. So much so that, when my grandmother came in and told Taffy that she looked like a movie star and scolded me for looking like a hussy, I didn’t even care. As she scrubbed my face with a wet wash cloth and chided me for being a rough cookie, Taffy made cross eyes behind her back, winked at me, and stuffed tubes of lipstick and mascara into her pocket when my grandmother wasn’t looking. I bit back a laugh, which earned me another stern lecture, this one about what happened to girls who were smart mouths. She gripped my chin and forced my eyes up to hers, the disappointment flashing to pure loathing before she let go and left the bathroom, mumbling something about me being just like my mother.

  Whatever that meant.

  Once outside, though, I forgot about it. The sting from my grandmother’s bony grip had already worn off, and when Taffy pulled me behind a large lilac bush to reapply the black mascara and plum lipstick, the knowledge that I now had at least one ally in that house filled me with so much relief I laughed out loud.

  As we skipped off to meet the guys, I wondered… Why had I hated the Fourth of July all these years? I couldn’t even remember anymore.

  I wake up every morning with a song stuck in my head. It’s totally random, just some crazy neurons firing out of sync, their paths tripping into the soft crevices of my brain tissue and digging out a few stanzas from a song that I heard when I was twelve, eighteen, twenty-three, or yesterday. There’s no rhyme or reason, and no correlation to proximity in time. I can listen to an entire playlist of Cigarettes After Sex before going to bed and still wake up with something as corny as Billy Ray Cyrus’s Achy Breaky Heart thrumming in my head.

  This morning it’s Scrubs by TLC knocking through my skull, and I’m so busy humming it under my breath and fiddling with the office’s ancient coffee maker that I don’t hear my co-worker come in until she sidles right up beside me and makes me jump.

  “Did you watch Dancing with the Stars last night?”

  I shake my head as I scoop coffee grinds into the machine’s filter, the smell alone clearing my head. I didn’t sleep well last night, even with having the bed to myself. Instead I tossed and turned, first too hot and then too cold, my talk with Adair filtering into my dreams and waking me up well before my alarm, a bitter taste in my mouth and a weight in my stomach.

  Sandy, a middle-aged woman with a doughy appearance, presses her hip into the counter and looks at me, her drawn-in eyebrows raised. She’s a paralegal and, as a result, thinks she can boss me around because she has a four-year degree and I don’t.

  “Nope,” I say, like I say every week when she asks me. I don’t even bother telling her anymore that I don’t, and have no plans to, watch Dancing with the Stars. Ever. I’ve expressed my aversion to reality TV at least a hundred times, and she just doesn’t get it. I mean, how many TV shows does the world need about teen moms? Or C-list actors vying for a second, third, fourth, fifth chance at stardom? We’re just feeding egos here, people.

  “Well, let me tell you.” She huffs, her feathers thoroughly ruffled, and launches into a detailed account of the show, particularly upset about the couple that—rather unfairly, in her good honest opinion—got the boot. She’s actually offended about the cut, like she was the one out there on the stage, dancing her heart out, instead of merely sitting on her couch and munching Funyuns in her Disney sweats. (The woman is a huge Disney fan and manages to incorporate some image of the iconic mouse into her wardrobe every day. Today, she’s sporting dangling gold Micky Mouse earrings.) “You know what? I’m starting to think it’s rigged.”

  I nod, commiserating with her and making the appropriate faces—brows drawn, lips turned down at the corners, head tilted�
�and too polite to do what I really want to do, which is scream right into her Pillsbury Dough face that I DON’T CARE.

  I rub the top of my foot against the back of my leg, which is itching like crazy thanks to my scratchy nylons and the firm’s strict dress code. But Bauer, Stockton & Lynch like their employees to look crisp, professional, and competent—comfort be damned. Well, at least Bauer and Stockton do. August “Gus” Lynch, the partner I work specifically for, hired me despite my pink hair and, in his words, “edgy appearance.” He has a tattoo sleeve, plays drums in a local band, and for some reason, adores me. And thank whoever’s running the heavens, because I don’t think I could take working for the other two stiffs.

  I quickly fill two mugs with coffee and dump the prerequisite amount of cream and sugar into mine, offering another sympathetic smile to Sandy before turning to leave with the excuse that if Gus doesn’t get his coffee by eight I’ll be looking for another job by the end of the day. My give-a-damn must be starting to wear down, because I’m just not as good at pretending to care about the things other people care about anymore. Maybe if, once and a while, Sandy listened to me, I’d be more apt to offer her my attention in return. One time, in rare form, she asked me about my weekend and then, just as I was starting to describe the concert I attended, interrupted to tell me about her Saturday night, which consisted of—yep, you got it—Funyuns and reality TV.

  It’d be one thing if she was the only person in the office like this, but she’s not. It seems to be the theme of the world today. Everyone is so busy with their lives, their distractions, all the striving for more, more, more… It’s all they can think about.

  Me, me, me. Mine, mine, mine. I need, I need, I need.

  It’s like they have no attention span for things outside of their own self-involved little realms.