“It’s hard to say. I did find out one thing, though . . .” I paused, letting the tension draw out. Jonathan looked at me hopefully. “She’s a virgin. Which doesn’t really coalesce with the notion that she's a freak in bed, now, does it? Remember how you told me that?”
“Yeah,” he said, his face reddening. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t know if she was, or that she was a virgin. I just thought if I told you that, you might be more apt to hire her, you know . . . since the whole thing with Annie and all.” He looked down at his shoes. “But I’m really sorry, man. That wasn’t cool for me to make shit up like that.”
“It wasn’t,” I said, cringing inwardly at the mention of Annie’s name. I’d managed to forget about her for a whole five minutes, and that had felt fucking wonderful, believe me. Why couldn’t Jonathan have a crush on Annie? Why couldn’t he be interested in her? He was the type of guy who would certainly step up and raise another man’s kid if said child was the offspring of the woman he adored.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run; don’t want to be late seeing Pete.”
“Sure,” Jonathan said. He gave me a closer look. “It surprises me sometimes that you still go see him like this.”
“Does it?”
“Well . . . yeah. He was so awful to you. But I think that says a lot about you, that not only have you been able to forgive him and move past it, but you’re willing to go see him every week. I know some people whose parents ended up in a nursing home and they never go see them, and they’re not even on bad terms. So, yeah.” Jonathan nodded, smiling. “I think that’s pretty cool that you’re able to do that. And hey, thanks for talking to Daisy for me. I know it was kind of lame that I couldn’t just handle it myself, but . . .” He let the sentence die off. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t even mention it, man,” I said. I held my hand out and we slapped fives, and then I was off to go visit Pete.
This time, when I got to Eagle Hollow and parked, I looked up at the window and saw Pete parked there in his wheelchair, staring straight at me. For the briefest of moments, I experienced this strange longing to trade places with Pete; to be the one living in some facility, all of my needs taken care of, nothing to do all day but stare out a window, or better yet, stare at the nurses’ asses and down their shirts when they delivered the meal trays. Sure, I might not be able to speak, and I’d probably be shitting in a bed pan, but I at least wouldn’t have to deal with this whole problem that Annie had just brought to my attention. Of course, I snapped myself out of that reverie quickly; no fucking way did I want to be like Pete. I raised a hand and waved, then started to walk toward the building, running my hand over the Camaro’s hood as I went past. Inside, it was the same routine as it always was: there was Wendy, big smile on her face, giving me the hungry bedroom eyes.
“Whatever you said to Pete really seemed to
help,” she said. “He seemed must less agitated after you left.”
“That’s great,” I replied, wondering if she was just telling me this because she thought it was what I wanted to hear, or because it was actually true. It seemed a little odd that he would find comfort in what I had said to him; I preferred to think that he had finally just given up. “I’ll do my best to continue to bolster his spirits,” I said.
Wendy gave my arm a squeeze before she left me at Pete’s door.
I went inside and walked over to the window. “Hi there,” I said. “It’s your favorite stepson.”
I pulled one of the chairs over and sat down, rubbed my hand across my eyes. Pete was wearing a red plaid bathrobe I’d never seen before.
“New threads?” I said.
He glared at me.
“I’ve had quite the day,” I said. “You know, Jonathan thinks that I’m commendable because I’ve somehow found a way to move past all the horrible shit you used to do to me,” I said. “That’s funny, isn’t it? Everyone thinks I come here because I actually give a shit about what happens to you, which really couldn’t be further from the truth. I know that seems heartless, and probably makes me sound like some sort of sociopath or something, but it’s the truth. Although, Jonathan and I wouldn’t even be friends, I bet, if it wasn’t for you.”
Pete’s eyes shifted, left to right, then fixed at a point behind my shoulder. “That’s right,” I continued, “all because of you. They were basically my other family because all you seemed to want to do when I was around was to talk shit and kick my ass. Which must’ve been fun for you; I can’t figure out another reason why you would’ve done it. I wouldn’t have been one of those dickhead stepsons, I wouldn’t have tried to flex on you or anything like that, but you couldn’t have been bothered to even give me that chance. Would you like to know what my childhood memories are made up of? They mainly consist of living in fear that you were about to come home or spending my time at Jonathan’s, where everything was so fucking perfect it would’ve made your teeth hurt. Their family ate dinner together every fucking night. Sat down and ate an actual meal that his mom OR his dad made. They took Sunday drives. Jonathan had probably every single toy he ever wanted, and then a bunch that he didn’t want, too. And he didn’t have to hide these toys because he was afraid that they were going to stomped on because his father was mad at him, or just came home from work in a bad mood. He didn’t even know how good he had it.
“In other exciting news,” I said, “I found out that you’re potentially going to be a grandfather. Well, a step-grandfather, I guess would be the correct definition.” I stared at him as I said this; his reaction didn’t seem any different than with anything else I’d told him. He probably thought I was making it up. “While it’d be nice to say I was making this all up, I’m not. Trust me, I wish it wasn’t the case.”
Pete’s eyes went from looking out the window to looking at me. He made a sound that sort of sounded like a cat trying to hack up a hairball. The corner of his mouth twitched. Though his facial expression hadn’t changed that much, I knew suddenly that he was thrilled to see me uncomfortable, happy that I had found myself in such a position.
I forced a smile. “It’ll all work out,” I said. “Anyway, Pete, sorry for the short visit today, but I’ve got to be on my way. You know, there’s a whole world out there, lots of shit going on. I’ll see myself out.”
I could feel his eyes on me as I hurried out of the room, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. Wendy tried to say something to me, but I rushed right out of there, aware the whole time of Pete up there in that goddamn window, looking down at me. I had half the mind to just drive that fucking Camaro of his right into the side of the building, let him watch crash and burn, but I wasn’t ready to go that far yet. Instead, once I had the car backed out of the parking spot, I stomped on the gas, felt the tires squealing underneath me, rubber burning.
At work the next day, Daisy asked me if I wanted to go with her to her favorite bar.
“You have a favorite bar?” I said. Today she was wearing a dark pink skirt that she hadn’t worn here before, and a short-sleeved black blouse, plus a pair of black Mary Jane shoes. Mmm, she looked good.
“I do,” she said with a smile, looking rather proud of herself. “Failte. Have you ever been there before?”
I tried to hold back my groan. Of course her favorite bar was Failte. “Maybe once or twice,” I said. “But not in a while.” I’d probably end up running into Billy McAllister.
“I was thinking of going there after work tonight. Do you want to go with me?”
Well shit, how do you say no to that? Even if it was to a dump like Failte. “You’re awfully hard to resist, you know,” I said.
“Am I?” She was asking honestly, not coyly, which made her even more appealing.