Shy (2 page)

“Deal.”

I slammed down the phone, scooped Pedro off the floor, and plopped him down in the kitchen sink before he pooped on my foot as well. I could tell he was considering it by the sneaky look in his eyes, and I’d rather scrub the sink than the floor. Less bending.

Chihuahuas. You gotta love ’em. Exes not so much.

I
F
MY
life were a soap opera, then my typical workday would simply be one more boring scene stuck in the middle of a long string of dull-as-hell episodes, with every script just as poorly written as the one before it. And every day would be an experiment in terror. Every single one. No fun, no lover, no excitement. Scared to speak to anyone. Scared to get close. Scared to be myself. I knew there was a different me lurking beneath the surface, a better me, a
fun
me. But tapping into that other me was
far
beyond my capabilities. Shit, it was all I could do to
pretend
to be normal.
Actual
normality was
far
beyond my grasp.

Nothing maudlin about me, huh?

I was fine, sitting at my desk in the First National Bank behind the little laminated sign that read THOMAS MORGAN, SENIOR RELATIONSHIP BANKER, signing up new accounts, handling questions from depositors, dealing with nervous mortgagees or anxious senior citizens, and sometimes covering for a teller or two when break time rolled around.

However, interacting with my fellow employees on a
social
level, such as fending off their invitations to the Starbucks around the corner for a quick latte and a midmorning side of gossip, was another story altogether. Customers I could deal with. No problem. But put me on any sort of social playing field with my comrades in arms, and the old demons began swooping in. As a matter of fact, the invitations to share a latte or lunch had become increasingly rare of late. You can only say no to people so many times before they stop asking altogether. Of course, my self-imposed isolation only served to make me more paranoid than I already was. SAD sucks. It really does.

And to make matters worse, even I was smart enough to know the problem was worsening. I was pondering this disturbing state of affairs and surreptitiously picking my nose (not really mining for gold, more of a gentle reconnaissance) when the phone light for line one blinked on. An outside call. I jauntily scooped it up, seeing as my boss, Mr. Moonhouse, was eyeing me from just inside the vault where he was probably beating off on the thousand dollar bills. It was a slow day. If I wasn’t so damned shy, and he wasn’t so damned ugly, I’d join him.

“First National Bank. Tom Morgan speaking. How may I help you?”

I could hear the sound of breathing on the line but that was it. I cleared my throat and tried again. “First National Bank. Tom Mor—”

“Sorry, wrong number,” a male voice said and the caller softly hung up.

Two seconds later, I forgot the phone call. And two seconds after
that
the phone rang again.

“First National Bank. Tom Mor—”

“I’m sorry,” the same male voice said. “Are you busy?”

Moony was still watching so I put a businesslike smile in my voice and tried to look interested.

“No, sir. How can I help you?”

Silence lasted so long that I was beginning to think my caller had hung up again. Finally, he said, “I’m Frank. Frank Wells. Stanley’s brother.”

I blinked. “Oh. Well… hi.” One lone butterfly flapped his wings somewhere in the vicinity of my spleen. He was probably a scout. No doubt six million other butterflies were hot on his heels, if butterflies even
have
heels.

Since I couldn’t think of another thing to say, I just sat there like a moron with the phone stuck to my ear, waiting.

Apparently Stanley’s brother didn’t know what to say either. The silence stretched out so long I was beginning to wonder if maybe I was starting to need another haircut.

God,
I thought.
We’re two peas in a pod.
A trickle of sweat skated down my ribcage as the silence went on and on. I heard the big regulator clock ticking on the wall behind the teller cages. Tick. Tick. Tick. What next? A cricket?

“So—” I began.

“I’m sorry—” he sputtered at the same time.

Taking the bull by the horns, I made my move. Fueled by jangled nerves, my voice boomed out slightly below a roar, making the tellers jump thirty feet away. “Going to Jerry’s party?” I blared.

Mr. Moonhouse frowned, someone giggled in the counting room, and I waited for my heart to explode and end my misery.

To my amazement, Frank let out a nervous chuckle. “Jerry
said
we’d get along.”

“Yes,” I said. “We’re doing swimmingly.”

From the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of Mr. Moonhouse’s horn-rimmed glasses headed my way. I assumed an officious tone. “So if you just come on in, sir, we’ll have the forms for you to fill out and everything will be set.”

Frank said, “Uh—”

And I hung up. Poor guy. Probably set his therapy back six months.

Moony walked on by, the phone remained silent, and the day kept grinding along. After a lifetime or two, five o’clock rolled around and I stumbled out the bank door like a convict set free after thirty years in Chino State Pen. Gulping in the un-air-conditioned air like a fish, only fish don’t sigh, at least I don’t think they do, I headed for my car and the Brass Rail.

I needed a drink.

And while I was
needing
that drink, I found myself wondering just how cute Frank Wells really was.

I
T
WAS
happy hour at the Brass Rail, and judging by the number of cars parked around the bar, and the number of guys milling around the front door, and the happy chatter of male voices drifting out into the street from the patio out back, I knew the place was packed. It took me all of five seconds to decide to skip the mayhem and toddle on home. I told myself it was because I just didn’t feel like fighting my way through the crowd, and once inside, pushing my way through the mob of warm bodies to belly up to the bar just for the privilege of ordering what would probably turn out to be a watered-down drink. But deep inside I knew the truth: I was too shy to run the gauntlet of all those gay guys lurking on the sidewalk outside. Lacking anything better to do, they would be checking me out from head to toe to basket to ass as I slunk through the front door, trying to enter unnoticed. They wouldn’t be checking me out because I’m all that cute, you understand, but because that’s what gay guys
always
do when they congregate in a group. They swarm. Like sharks. And God help the poor seal pup that gets in the middle of them. Sweat broke out in my armpits just thinking about it.

So rather than elegantly sipping my way through a six-dollar Effin and tonic and acting nonchalant while a horde of beautiful men lusted after me, or so I imagined, I was reduced to slinking home, slipping on a pair of rubber gloves, and slurping a Miller Lite from a can while I scrubbed Chihuahua caca off my best chair. Pedro seemed to be as proud as punch about the mess he had made, dancing around the room like he had just won a Tony Award for Best Original Poop.

Two beers later, the chair was clean and Pedro had worn himself out, thank God. So while he was sleeping the sleep of the unjust on his little doggie bed in front of the TV and snoring like a lumberjack, I changed the ribbon on Jerry’s bottle of Chianti. I changed it three times, using a different color ribbon each time, finally deciding I didn’t like any of them. Disgusted, I decanted the wine and drank every last drop while watching the news. After the news, I walked down to the market. (After two beers and a bottle of wine I thought it prudent not to drive.) Once there, I bought a nice box of chocolates for Jerry to replace the wine. Halfway home, I cracked open the box, ate six pieces, did an about-face, and returned to the store to purchase the exact same bottle of Chianti I had tossed down earlier.

Then I bought a different card.

Back home, I rewrapped the new bottle of Chianti, tossed the old birthday card, addressed the new one, polished off the chocolates, and stumbled into bed with Pedro snuggling up next to me around eleven o’clock. As I lay there thinking about Frank and once again wondering if he was as cute as Jerry said he was, I also mulled over the possibility that I may have just manifested the first concrete symptoms of OCD. Well, good. I hated being a one-trick pony. Social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and the owner of an incontinent Chihuahua. Now if I could just sprout a couple of zits and contract a stubborn case of gonorrhea, I would have a nicely balanced palette of woe.

The entire box of chocolates I had gobbled down would probably help with the zits, but of course, you need to have sex to contract gonorrhea. The chances of that happening any time soon seemed fairly grim.

Pedro gave me a sympathetic lick on the ear as if he knew what I was thinking, and we were both sound asleep two minutes later.

I dreamed of Jerry. No surprise there.

Christ only knows what Pedro dreamed of. Pooping probably.

Chapter 2

M
Y
CELL
phone jangled on the nightstand. It was Jerry. For a second I wondered if I was still dreaming.

I blinked myself awake. The morning sun was pouring hot molten lava through the bedroom window. It stabbed its way into my eyeballs like battery acid eating through a couple of grapes. My mouth tasted like beer and wine and chocolate and dog hair. Dog hair, because Pedro’s tail was in my mouth. I spit it out. Pedro looked offended for a moment, then rolled over and went back to sleep. A hangover was gnawing at the back of my head like a beaver attacking a tree trunk.

“What are you wearing?” Jerry asked.

I tried to ignore the thumping in my brain. After wiping my tongue on the sheet to scrape off the dog hair, I said, “A gorilla suit.”

“Ooh, sexy.”

Right. “What do you want, Jerry? I’m in bed with a cute Mexican.”

“How
is
Pedro?”

“Pooped on my new chair. I’m considering deportation.”

“What a bitch.”

“
You’re
the bitch, Jerry. What do you want?”

“Stanley wants to move the party up a day.”

“You mean to
today
?”

“Well. Yeah. It is Saturday, after all. Is that a problem?”

“
Is that a problem?
”

“Whoa. That sounds like a yes.”

And suddenly there they were, closing in all over again; every symptom of SAD known to man. This time it started with cramps in the crotch area. If it wasn’t SAD, then either my period was starting or my bladder had just exploded like a water balloon. I was hoping for the second option since I was all out of feminine napkins and I faint at the sight of blood.

I fought to keep my anger under control. Something new for me. “Stanley’s just doing this to screw with my head, Jerry. Or his brother’s head. He’s got a mean streak in him a mile wide, and you’re too stupid to see it. Probably having the time of his life, jerking all the puppet strings and making everybody dance. Well, I’m not coming today. I can’t. I have other plans. Important plans. Things that can’t be put off.” My voice kept getting higher and higher so I decided to stop talking before I levitated off the bed and banged my head on the ceiling.

“Like what?” He sounded understandably skeptical. The last time I blew off an event because of previous plans, the plans included a hastily arranged root canal and two crowns, and Jerry knew it.

“I’ll be busy drinking your gift.”
Again,
I failed to add.

“It’s only a few friends, Tom. I don’t know why you get so freaked out.”

“Stanley
says
it’s a few friends. For all I know he’s invited the first thirty pages of the phone book just to make me feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s silly.”

“Is it? Remember the time he told me to come on over and share some leftovers? No company, he said. No reason to worry, he said.
There were eight people there, Jerry. And I didn’t know any of them
.”

“They popped in unannounced. It wasn’t—”

“Unannounced my ass. Eight people don’t just pop into someone’s house unannounced. They came from Scottsdale, Arizona, for Christ’s sake.
In two cars.
It’s an eight-hour drive. It was an ambush, plain and simple. Stanley’s a dick, Jerry. You’re married to a dick. And he’s not a pretty dick, either. He’s a
diseased
dick.”

My heart was thumping and clamoring around inside my chest like a squirrel trying to get out of a cardboard box. I figured if I didn’t get off the phone soon I’d be in an operating room somewhere having my chest splayed open with a hacksaw and my heart yanked out in a last-ditch effort to slow it down before it fucking exploded.

“How could you cheat on me with that dick, Jerry?
And why is he moving up the party?
”

Jerry spoke around a yawn. “How many times have we been through this? I needed more in a relationship than what you were willing to offer, Tom. Geez, getting you out of the house was like pulling teeth, and when you did deign to go out, there were so many ground rules I practically had to take my laptop with me to keep track of them. We were great in bed, Tom, but that’s not living. That’s fucking. I needed outside stimulation. I’m a social being. I needed to socialize.”