The Boy Next Door (10 page)

“They’re all really beautiful,” I tell him after we’ve been looking for about thirty minutes.

“That’s not helpful,” he says.

“I don’t know,” I say. I look at Jason and decided that if I can’t be honest with him, I can’t be honest with anyone. “Truthfully, it’s just kind of depressing that I don’t see any guy buying me rings in my future.”

“You’re nuts, Tash,” he says, shaking his head as if baffled. “You’re gorgeous. And you’re awesome. You could be married in five minutes if you wanted.”

I can tell Jason isn’t just being nice. He actually believes that.

“Unfortunately, that’s not even remotely true,” I say. “There are lots of guys who want to date me or sleep with me, but I really can’t envision a guy wanting to spend his life with me ever. It seems impossible.”

Jason frowns at me. “Tasha,” he murmurs. “I really don’t know how you could say things like that. You know, I would . . .”

He stops speaking abruptly and looks down at his hands. I’m watching him and I suddenly realize I’ve been holding my breath.

“You would what?” I say.

“Nothing,” he mumbles, after a long pause. “I just think you’re selling yourself short, that’s all.”

I feel a flash of disappointment, although I’m not entirely sure why. What did I think he was going to say to me? Jason and I are good friends, nothing more: period, end of story.

For the next several weeks, I keep expecting to see Melissa wearing an engagement ring. Each time I see her, I hold my breath and feel this intense sense of dread. But somehow it doesn’t happen and Jason doesn’t offer any explanation to me. I do notice, however, that when I spend time with the two of them, they seem to be fighting more.

Like for example, she picks on him for every little thing. Stupid things that nobody in their right mind could possibly get upset about.

For example, the four of us are out at dinner, and Jason orders a burger with fries. Melissa gets this disgusted look on her face and says, “So I guess you’ve just entirely given up on your health.”

“What?” Jason says, baffled.

“You just don’t care,” she says. “You don’t care that you’re clogging up your arteries and gaining weight.”

Larry, who ordered a chicken-fried steak, remains silent.

“I haven’t gained any weight,” Jason says.

“How do you know?” Melissa retorts.

Jason sighs. “Look, I’m only 32-years-old. I can eat a burger and fries sometimes if I want.”

Melissa’s face turns red. “Are you saying that I’m OLD?”

Jason stares at her. “No, I . . . I . . .  what? What are you talking about, Melissa?”

At that point, Melissa storms off and goes to the ladies room. Despite the fact that she hates me, I feel somehow compelled to follow her. I find her in front of the mirror, dabbing at her makeup. Although she has completely mastered the “natural look,” Melissa has been wearing more makeup lately.

“Hey, Melissa,” I say.

She glares at me. “What do you want?”

It may be anti-feminist, but I seriously want to ask her if she’s on her period. “Listen,” I say, “you should probably know that the other day, Jason made me help him look at engagement rings. So that’s it. You won.”

I’ve never seen Melissa flash me a smile that genuine. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

When we get out of the bathroom, Melissa is all over Jason. She’s incredibly affectionate and basically can’t keep her hands off him. Looks like I helped him get lucky tonight.

It turns out I jumped the gun, though, because the next few months go by and Jason never pops the question to Melissa. She’s nice to him for about a week, then ends up even more pissed off than she was before. I feel like I should tell Jason he needs to hurry up and propose, but then again, I don’t want to push him into it. Especially since I don’t want him to marry Melissa in the first place.

As for me, my relationship with Larry always seems to be teetering on the brink of breaking up, although I don’t know if he has any idea. My grandmother called one Saturday night when I’d just come back from seeing Larry, and she said triumphantly, “I knew it! Home on a Saturday night!”

“I was out,” I protested.

“Not with anyone good,” Nana said. “Not if you’re home at ten o’clock. Tasha, you’re the prettiest girl in any room. You need yourself a good boyfriend.”

“I have a boyfriend,” I said, unable to modify “boyfriend” with the word “good.”

“Dump him,” Nana said. “Trade him in for someone you really like.”

Of course, it would have been easy enough to dump Larry. I felt like if I said the word, he’d just fade away into the background. But I spent a lifetime going out with good-looking, exciting men, who were the exact opposite of Larry, and look where it got me. Still single at age 32.

I think that being a teacher for little kids is probably the worst job you can have when you’re single. Because kids ask questions and have zero tact. Sometimes they’ll ask things that are flattering and other times they’ll ask things that are so insulting, you want to cry. I’ve been asked more than once how could I sing so off tune. But on the other hand, several kids have told me I look pretty, and I even had one or two boys in kindergarten say they wanted me to marry them.

So it’s only natural that kids in my classes would ask me if I’m married. Frequently. I pretty much expect it at this point. But every once in a while, they catch me off guard.

Last week, one of the first grade girls said to me, “Miss Moran, do you have children?”

“No, I don’t,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “because I’m not married.”

“Oh,” the girl said. “Are you going to get married?”

“No, she’s not,” a boy said. “She’s too old to get married.”

Of course, I laughed at the time. But as soon as the bell rang, I ran to the bathroom and cried for most of my free period. I know he was just six-years-old, but sometimes kids say really wise things. And I thought this kid just hit the nail on the head.

***

Larry takes me out to dinner to celebrate our six-month dating anniversary. Actually, it’s sweet that he remembered. I know he’s trying to be romantic, but the restaurant he takes me to is just so tacky. It’s this Mexican place with a Mariachi band and the salsa comes in a little hat-shaped bowl. The whole thing is so cheesy that he may as well have taken me to Taco Bell or something.

I order a giant Margarita and am taking sips of it when Larry reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Tasha,” he says. “These last six months have been magical for me.”

“Oh,” I say. “Um, me too.”

“I got you a present,” Larry says.

I’m actually kind of touched. And then as Larry reaches into his jacket pocket, he pulls out a little square box and all I can think is, “Oh, hell no. He’s not asking me to marry him.”

For a minute, I think I’m going to pass out.

“Go ahead,” Larry urges. “Open it.”

Oh God, what if it’s a ring? What will I say? I mean, I don’t want to marry Larry, but God knows, it’s not like anyone else great is coming along. Maybe I should just . . . I don’t know. Oh God, why is he doing this to me? We’ve only been together six months!

I open up the box with slightly shaking fingers. My shoulders sag in relief. It’s not a ring. Instead it’s a hideous, giant gold pin, shaped like a musical note.

“Because you teach music,” Larry says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks.” This pin is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, in general, I don’t really like pins. I think they’re things you don’t wear before age sixty. But even if I liked pins, this one is really awful.

“Do you want to put it on?” Larry asks eagerly.

God, no. “Um, all right.”

I struggle to get the giant pin through the delicate fabric of my dress. I’ve probably ruined my dress forever because of this stupid pin. But I have to paste a smile on my face for Larry’s sake.

“You like it?” he asks.

“Um, yes, of course,” I say. The problem with saying that I like a gift that I actually hate is that now he’ll be encouraged to buy me more horrible pins. But I’m not sure it will end up being that big a problem, considering I’m not sure how much longer Larry and I will be together. I’d be shocked if we’re still dating a month from now. “I, uh, didn’t get anything for you. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” he says cheerfully.

“But I’ll make it up to you tonight,” I say.

Larry’s face lights up. I have to say, Larry is definitely a guy who really appreciates a blow job.

Even with dinner and the blow job, Larry and I are pretty much done by 10PM. He occasionally spends the night at my place, but he likes to shower in his own bathroom, and he doesn’t have a change of clothes at my apartment, so he decides to head home. Which means I’m rid of him by 10:30.

I make myself a little bag of popcorn in the microwave and I settle down in front of the television to watch reruns of
Family Guy
. I’m mid-episode when the house phone rings. I consider letting the machine get it, but I’m overcome by curiosity as to who would call me at 11 on a weeknight. I should have guessed though: it’s my grandmother.

“Tasha,” she says. “Are you alone?”

“Nana, why don’t you call me on my cell phone?” I ask irritably.

“So you could screen the call?” she asks.

“I’d never screen your call,” I say, even though I probably would. No, definitely.

“Tasha,” she says. “There’s something I need to tell you. Before you hear it from someone else.”

She’s got my full attention now. I even shut off
Family Guy
. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Lydia’s getting married.”

At first, I feel relief. I mean, I thought she was going to tell me she was dying or something. But then I absorb what she just said. My baby sister is getting married. Lydia’s getting married, and I am so far from something like that, it’s not even funny.

How could this possibly be happening? How could Lydia be getting married before me? I’m the pretty one! Everyone said so. Lydia was the smart one or the one with good personality or whatever. Anyway, she was fat. I always had boys chasing after me and Lydia could never get a date to save her life. I remember my mother telling me that she sat at home during prom night.

How the fuck is Lydia getting married?

“You met the guy,” Nana says. “It’s that stiff Duncan who was there at Thanksgiving.”

Duncan. I remember him vaguely. If possible, Duncan was even worse than Larry. He was bucktoothed and balding, and I think he worked as a plumber. I wouldn’t want to be marrying Duncan, that’s for sure. But what I really don’t want is to have everyone whispering about me at Lydia’s wedding, how I used to be so pretty but I was so picky, and now I’m an old maid.

“Look, I know how you feel,” Nana says. “I was the oldest of my sisters and also the last to get married.”

“Really?”

“It’s true,” Nana says. “And it was much less acceptable to be unmarried back then. But I wasn’t about to compromise and marry some dirtbag just so people wouldn’t call me an old maid. My sisters married a drunk and a gambler. I was the only one who married a decent guy.”

I take a deep breath. I don’t even trust myself to talk because there are tears rising in my eyes. I can’t even believe I’m crying over this. As much as I feel like a loser for getting married after my baby sister, I feel like even more of a loser for crying over it.

“If you want to get married so bad,” Nana says, “go ahead and do it.”

“Oh, sure,” I say. “I’ll just kidnap a random guy off the street and drag him to the altar.”

“Marry that guy you brought to Thanksgiving last year,” Nana says. “The crippled one who lived in the house next door. He’d marry you in a second.”

“Jason?”

“Sure, why not?” Nana says. “He was nice looking and you could tell from his clothes that he’s got money. And he sure likes you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you all night.”

“Jason doesn’t like me that way,” I say. “He’s the kid from next door. He’s like . . . my brother.”

Nana snorts. “Is that what you tell him? Poor guy.”

“Nana, seriously,” I say. How come nobody except Jason and I seem to realize that our relationship is entirely platonic?

“You think you can get to 87 without learning a few things?” Nana says. “Least of all, I can figure out when a young man likes a girl. I learned that when I was younger than you, Tasha.”

“Trust me on this one, Nana,” I say.

“No, you trust me, Tasha,” she says. “You offer that boy a roll in the hay, and you’ll see I’m right.”

I can’t even imagine offering Jason a “roll in the hay” without bursting out laughing. I’m sure he’d laugh just as hard. Especially if I called it a roll in the hay.

“I’ve been seeing that boy come around since you were a kid,” she goes on. “He’s head over heels for you, and aside from the wheelchair, he’s very good looking. And you can just tell by looking at him that he’d treat you good.” She adds thoughtfully, “These boys who can’t walk, I hear they learn to do amazing things with their mouths. He’d probably give you quite a thrill.”