Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (2 page)

 "Here she is," she said, when she saw me. "How's the next Great American novel coming?"

 Cassandra had always had a way of needling me, but it was like she knew that this was the particular combination of words that made my spine stiffen. The other favorite of hers was "Lacie is
creative
," the adjective larded with a mocking distinction.

 "I was minding the store," I said, trying hard to keep my cool. "Working."

 "Was it busy?" asked my Dad, looking up from the door he was sanding. I knew he was only asking because he wanted to know but right away I saw the flash of apology in his eyes when he realized he'd dumped me in it with Cassandra.

 I felt my lips form the word 'no' and Cassandra arched an eyebrow. "You could always write in the store," she said, with maddening predictability. "Everything has a keypad on it these days. Or just use a notebook. Have you heard of those? They used to have those back in prehistoric times, when me and your Dad were at school."

 I ignored her as best I could. "Dad - Courtney's thinking of coming up from New York for a weekend. I thought we might go up to Burlington. Can you spare me?"

 "Sure, Pumpkin. Which one is Courtney?"

 "The blonde. You met her at graduation."

 "The real pretty girl?"

 "That's her."

 "What's she doing in New York?" asked Aunt Cassandra, who was never happy unless comparing herself to someone else.

 "She's going to be a model."

 Cassandra shook her head. "Leaving it kinda late, isn't she? Most agencies like to start them at fifteen or younger, if they can get them. That way they can make sure they give up food before they develop proper curves."

 "Courtney's gorgeous," I said. "She'll do well."

 "It's not a case of gorgeous," said Cassandra. "Most times it's a case of
thin
." She spoke with a certain bitterness. She had won a beauty pageant as a baby and gone on to smile cutely in advertisements for apple-juice and jump about in neon-bright kids clothes. Her career had been cut short by her failure to grow much above five foot three, a trait I'd also inherited from my grandmother.

 "I'm glad you were too short for all that crap," she said, as if reading my mind. "It's no world for a young girl. From what I've read it's all heroin and eating disorders."

 "Jeez Cass," said Dad, who preferred not to hear about the seamier side of life.

 "What? They do. It keeps them thin. I'm told they shoot it in the soles of their feet so nobody sees the marks. Or under their toenails."

 I shuddered, my teeth itching at the thought of it. Cassandra laughed. "See?" she said. "There's always a bright side, Lacie. Sure, you're probably never going to set the world on fire but hey - at least you won't be shooting heroin under your toenails."

 Even my father winced at that one.

I figured Aunt Cassandra was as good a person as any to blame that night, although part of it was Courtney's fault. After all, while Cassandra had made the remark that had rankled with me all week, Courtney was still the one who talked me into believing it was about time I wore a skirt.

 Well, kind of a skirt. As much as a skirt can be called such when it barely covers your ass and leaves your whole thighs on display. Before we left I'd almost believed I could get away with it, since Courtney had these amazing 'control top' panty hose that made my legs look pretty decent. And since I'd managed to get them on without sticking a finger through them or wrinkling my not-quite-dry nail varnish, I figured the omens were good.

 Courtney had bought miniature bottles of champagne for us to drink while we were getting ready to go out, a tribute to our freshman days when on big nights we had never left the house sober and always carried hip bottles of vodka to sneak into our Cokes. We would always drink through a straw - "It gets you drunker faster," - although four years later I'd still never taken the time to examine the science behind Courtney's theory. When we put straws in champagne it came frothing up the straws and spurted out like a tiny, very expensive fire hose; we laughed as we tried to catch the ends of the straws between our lips.

 I was giggly before I'd even started drinking in earnest, and laughter is always a great confidence boost. So I guess that's why, when I stood in front of the mirror, that I'd been pleased with what I saw. My legs did look good. And my upper arms weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. Courtney had taken hours working on my hair with expensive ceramic straighteners, as used by all the best hairdressers in Manhattan. Her suitcase was filled with things like that - just like her room had been in college. Everything she owned - the thick, soft brushes, the pearly-gold pots of bronzing powder, the gleaming goo of lip-gloss - all held the fairy-godmotherish promise of improvement.

 It was only when I was in the bar and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror that I realized I'd been a sucker. Midnight had struck early for my new sleek, sophisticated hairstyle. I'd gone out for five minutes with Courtney so she could smoke a cigarette and that five minutes had proved fatal. The kinks and frizz were returning with a vengeance.

 I'd been drunk enough on arrival to imagine I could blend with this crowd - the handsome young men and the doll-faced girls on their stilt-like heels, their shiny manes of pampered hair swinging between the wings of their delicate, half-starved shoulder blades. Courtney had told a guy named James that I was an English Major and from that moment on he wanted to talk about
Fifty Shades of Grey
, no matter how many times I said I hadn't read it.

 "I thought all English Majors had read it," he yelled in my ear, over the music.

 "Huh?"

 "I said 'I thought all English Majors had read it'. The main character is like an English Major."

 I was confused. "I thought he was a billionaire."

 "No. He is. But she's an English Major."

 "Oh. Okay."

 He leaned forward again. "So are you looking for a billionaire?"

 I felt amazing. He had wonderful brown eyes with spiked black lashes like starbursts. And he was flirting with me. I threw my head back as I laughed and that was when I saw it. My reflection.

 The short skirt and halter-necked top that had looked so good in my bedroom looked ridiculous, now that I was surrounded by the kind of bony beauties who made such outfits look amazing. I looked like a joke, like one of the tutu-clad hippos in Disney's
Fantasia
. I had been wandering around this bar like I belonged here and yet it was comically apparent that I didn't - a fat, frizzy haired mess laughing as if she were normal.

 I don't think I could have been embarrassed if I'd turned and seen myself naked. Oh my God, I had to get out of here. Where the hell was Courtney? I began to count the ways in which I'd kill her for making me over like this - cartoon deaths, the kind of deaths that only killed for an instant.

 "Did you see my friend anywhere?" I yelled at James. "Black dress, blonde hair."

 He looked blank.

 "She had like a chunky necklace on - gold. Egyptian kind of thing."

 "Oh, that girl," he said. "The HB-nine? Yeah - I think she went out to smoke."

 Great. She goes out to smoke and leaves me in here with the cast of
American Psycho
. Fucking awesome. And since when did she smoke so much? I knew she could go through a pack a night when we were drinking but she seemed to have spent most of tonight outdoors.

 I fought my way to the door. As I neared the door I dodged a waitress coming past with a tray of empties, and collided with him. He had dark hair. Probably. Maybe. Blue eyes. I think. The smile, though. That was the problem. That was the cause of all the later...mess. It wasn't a toothpaste commercial smile; no veneers here, but it had a sideways slant that made me pause where I would usually have plowed on towards the exit.

 "You look like someone who needs a drink," he said.

 I felt obscenely under-dressed. "Forget it," I said. "If I need anything right now I need a shirt."

 The next thing I knew he was undoing his buttons. Funny guy. I kept moving. I just wanted to go home. As I reached the door I felt a hand on my shoulder and the next thing I knew he was standing in front of me in nothing but his undershirt with his black button-up flourished before him like a bullfighter's cape.

 "You want to walk over it or wear it?" he said, making to lay his shirt in front of me in an exaggerated display of gallantry.

 "I'm sorry, I have to go," I said.

 "Go where? The party's getting started. Jeez, Louise - I give you the shirt off my back and you want more?"

 "I don't want your shirt," I said. "And my name's not Louise."

 His smile didn't falter. I think his eyes were green. Men with green eyes are always trouble. "So what is it?" he asked, his head cocked in a way that just made the slant of his smile all the more annoying.

 I thought of all the names I'd wanted in place of my own when I was a child - plain Jane, honest Anne. Anything ordinary to take away the taste of my absurd handle. Or something sporty and preppy - Stacey, Heather, Lindsay. The last one popped out of my mouth before I could stop myself and I consoled myself for the lie by telling myself that at least they both began with L.

 "Lindsay," he said. "Huh. Cute." He waggled the shirt at me. "Sure you don't want this? Because you look kind of cold."

 I was cold. I'd checked my jacket in at the club and the gooseflesh on my arms only served to remind me how stupid I'd looked in the mirror. I shook my head but I'd hit that stage of drunk where the tiniest kindness could tip me over into tears, and so it did. In that moment I lived up to my real name and began sniveling and shivering like the biggest loser on the planet.

 He put the shirt around my shoulders. It smelled of some kind of good cologne and I could tell right away that he kept the good stuff for special occasions and probably stuck to Old Spice or something on regular days; he didn't smell of money. He had one of those lousy tribal tattoos around the top of his arm, and a dent in the lobe of his ear where he had probably removed an earring, the better to fit in with this preppy crowd.

 "Don't you need this?" I said, trying to convince myself I wasn't stupidly grateful. It was amazing the difference that an extra layer between you and the world could make.

 "Nah," he said. "I'm used to going without. I'm a stripper."

 "Oh," I said. It was, on reflection, a pretty moronic thing to say but my mind went all kinds of obvious places. Was he the kind who went down to a G-string or did he do the full monty?

 I probably didn't make myself look much better by saying "Really?"

 "Yeah," he said. "I'm a stripper. I strip. What do you do? Because you don't belong here."

 Despite the chill in the air I felt my face turn hot. I drew a little closer to him, strangely pleased that someone had pointed it out. It was like being back in high school again - that moment where the goth kids or the art geeks make room for you at their table; the relief of their acceptance not only took the sting off being rejected by the alpha pack, but there was also a weird sense of pride in belonging.

 "Is it that obvious?" I said.

 "Very. Can you even walk in those shoes?"

 "Not really," I confessed. "I should probably go find my friend..."

 "Is she gonna miss you?"

 I glanced back through the doorway. I would rather have walked into the gates of Hell than gone back inside. All that bare, skinny flesh - it was like a Hieronymus Bosch drawing with added Jimmy Choos. And yet despite high school being years behind us, these were Courtney's 'people' - rich, famous, beautiful, thin. I felt bad for even thinking it but part of me wanted to text her and say I was going home.

 "I can't ditch her," I said.

 "You don't have to," he said. "Wanna go blaze one in the parking lot?"

 He pointed to a white Honda parked behind a clump of trees. My mother’s voice came back to haunt me – “Don’t get in cars with strangers,” – but I’d been seven years old at the time. What was the alternative? Finding Courtney and bursting into tears as I admitted I wanted to go home because I felt fat? What was I? Thirteen?

 “Okay,” I said.

 Chapter Two

Clayton

It was all Bog's fault. Every damn bit of it.

 Okay, so maybe not all. This morning wasn't directly his fault, although he'd been talking about MILFs and 'cougars' for weeks after he allegedly scored with some bored housewife whose hedge he was trimming. ("No pun intended - she didn't have a hedge, if you know what I mean.") We'd listened to this shit for all of about five minutes before Steve said "Bog, are you sure this wasn't a porno you watched?" since Bog and reality had swapped phone numbers back in maybe 2005, but reality had lost its phone or switched to a better plan and they'd since lost touch. One time he woke up with the munchies and swore blind that I'd eaten the last of the cheesecake in the fridge, even though our fridge had never contained much more than beer, mustard and some expired hot dogs that nobody dared touch because the package was getting kind of bloated.

 "It was there," he'd said. "I was eating it last night. It was cherry or something. And the base was just the right kind of crumbly and the cheese was the good kind - none of that gross lumpy cottage shit."

He'd dreamed the whole damn thing; there was never any cheesecake. But that was Bog for you; he spent so much time rattling around inside his own weird little mind that the lines between dreams and reality were apt to get blurred. By some bizarre extension, the wild yabberings of his twisted Id were strangely contagious. Just like his description of the dream cake had made me crave cheesecake, his obsessive MILF monologues had led me to wrong thoughts about thirtysomething wives who sublimated their sexual cravings with yoga until their thighs were fit to crack walnuts.

 That's how I wound up with Cadence. She said she was thirty-six but later let slip that she'd been born during the Nixon presidency, which put at least two extra years on her if my High School history served my correctly. She winced when I said Bush Senior had been president when I was born. "I guess it could have been worse," she said. "At least I wasn't old enough to vote in that election."