Vibrizzio (13 page)

But on the plane, as they talked over their DH plan of attack for the upcoming weeks, they slipped into their old rhythm. By the time they landed at O’Hare, it was almost as if the kiss had never even happened. Almost.

* * *

“In spring you’re all coming out to visit, right?” Amy said for at least the fifth time that evening.

“Yes!” Lyssa, Trish, and JoAnne simultaneously assured her once again.

They’d just been to see
Mamma Mia
, Amy’s favorite musical, and now they sat around a cozy table at the top level of the Italian Village restaurant. The buoyant atmosphere of a recreated Italian street, complete with strings of white lights draped from the ceiling, set the perfect scene for their official last night out together before the perky blond would leave Chicago to join her husband out west. With the sale of the honeymooners’ condo squared away and all of Amy’s job responsibilities transitioned off, there was nothing holding her back now.

“Good. By then I should know my way around the place and will be able to take you to the very best spots.”

“So when’s the last time you saw Chuck?” Trish asked from across the table. “I’m sure you’ve got to be anxious to reacquaint yourself with
his
very best spots.”

“No kidding!” Amy practically snapped her menu in half with her desperate grip. “He went out there a couple weeks after we got back from Cabo, so it’s been almost a month! I can’t even remember the last time I’ve gone this long without getting any.”

The girls laughed, and Trish said, “Yeah, you start to take it for granted when you’ve got a regular.”

“Not like I would know,” JoAnne said. “But a month? Even for me, that’s pretty brutal.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think our friend Lyssa might have something different to say about the joys of staying celibate,” Trish said.

Amy scrunched her face, turning to Lyssa, who sat to her right. “Oh yeah, what did you do to poor Sean? He was so grouchy at the family luncheon the day after the wedding. When I asked him how the night went, all he said was that he had blue balls for breakfast.”

“Ha!” Lyssa exclaimed a little too loudly. When her friends looked at her like she was the Wicked Witch of Cock Tease, she added, “It’s not my fault the boy doesn’t know how to take care of himself. My balls weren’t blue at all.”

“No, but they might be a little purple … or whatever color that thing is,” Trish said.

“The proper term would be
things
,” Lyssa said.

“Oh, they’re plural now?” Trish asked.

“Different moods call for different models.” Lyssa scanned her menu even though she’d already decided what she was getting.

The waiter interrupted the conversation to take their orders, but that didn’t stop Trish from digging into Lyssa as soon as he walked away. “Seriously, Lyss, when’s the last time you let an actual man touch you?”

“Back off. I just recently made out with a guy.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Who?”

“None of your business.” She stuck her tongue out at Trish, the interrogator.

“You fess up to your collection of vibrating naughties with no problem, but you clam up when I ask about real guy?”

Lyssa shrugged. “There’s not much to say about it. It wasn’t really real.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t really real?”

“He wasn’t … it isn’t … ” She huffed. “I don’t feel like explaining right now.” She maneuvered to change the subject, though perhaps not quite as far away as she should have. “So Amy, you might not have to wait all the way until spring for me to pay you a visit. There are some interesting managers in the L.A. area I might want to look into for Delicious Hayden. Maybe I can make a long weekend of it and drop down to see you.”

“That’d be awesome! Who’s Hayden?” Amy asked.

It struck Lyssa as an odd question, coming out of nowhere, but she answered, “My partner on the account.”

“What’s so delicious about him?” Amy pursued.

“Huh?”

Trish smirked. “You said Delicious
Hayden
.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yeah, hun, ya did.” Trish’s lips curled like the Cheshire Cat’s.

“Is he the guy you kissed?” Amy bounced in her seat. “Oh! I want to meet him. Bring him with you!”

“Are you seriously dating your partner?” JoAnne asked, scrunching her face as if she’d eaten something foul.

“No! I’m not dating anyone. It was just a slip of the tongue.”

“Which gets us back to Amy’s question,” Trish said. “Is he the one who slipped you the tongue? You were away on business two weeks ago. I take it you’re seeing him in a less asshole-ish light these days, hm?”

Lyssa kept what she hoped was an excellent poker face as she answered without really answering. “Hayden and I have become friends. He’s a good guy who made a bad first impression on me. But I’m sorry to disappoint you—friendship is as far as it goes.” Trish raised a suspicious eyebrow, so she added, “If you saw what he looked like you wouldn’t doubt me. He’s so outta my league, we’re not even playing the same sport.”

“I doubt it,” Trish said.

“Exactly how far out of your league?” JoAnne asked.

“He’s professional soccer in Europe and I’m intramural badminton in the States.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “You’re not badminton. But even if you were, so what? Nothing wrong with aiming high.”

Lyssa shook her head. “No. That’s a lesson I learned a long time ago. It was even backed up in the sociology class I took in college—the matching hypothesis or something like that. Relationships work better when you date within your own sport. It’s easier.”

“Well, I’m glad for your sake that nothing’s going on between you two,” JoAnne said. “No matter what he looks like, getting involved with a coworker is a B-A-D idea.”

“Bring him anyway, when you come to visit.” Amy smiled and raised her glass of pale Pinot Grigio. It was light and pretty, like the girl holding it. “Let’s toast to that—
all
of you coming to visit.”

They clinked their glasses of assorted reds and whites, and the conversation moved on, but Lyssa’s love life didn’t stay off the table for long. As her second bite of rich, garlicky eggplant Parmesan melted on her tongue, she noticed JoAnne’s eyes pop wide open. Milliseconds later, Trish exclaimed, “Ow!” and glared sideways at JoAnne, who gave her head one quick nod, keeping her eyes focused on something beyond Lyssa’s shoulder.

“What?” Lyssa asked, turning around to see what JoAnne was staring at. But she was distracted when Amy crawled over her lap to look past her.

“Oh my God!” Amy shouted, slamming back into her seat.

Lyssa whipped her head around to face her. “What?”

“You didn’t see him?” Amy asked.

“Who?”

JoAnne leaned diagonally across the table and hissed in a whisper that was somehow louder than her normal voice, “Keith! And he’s with another girl.”

“My Keith?” Lyssa asked.

“Not anymore,” JoAnne said.

“Yup, that’s him, all right,” Trish murmured. Her eyes narrowed as she peered over Lyssa’s shoulder. The girls’ table was nestled into a private alcove surrounded by faux walls with small window openings, but they may as well have been spinning on an elevated stage in the middle of the restaurant after the spectacle they’d made.

“Did he see us?” Lyssa asked.

“No,” Trish said, still looking over her friend’s shoulder. “Oh wait … yeah.” She lifted her fingers and waggled them in a wave while she gave a polite smile.

“Shit,” Lyssa muttered. “Should I turn around and wave too?” she asked while trying to move her lips as little as possible, though she had no idea why she felt the need for the ventriloquist act.

“Um, yeah, probably.”

Lyssa turned, putting on a faux-surprised face, and gave a quick wave, careful to keep her eyes from examining her ex-boyfriend’s date.

She returned to her meal and tried to forget he was there—though that was made difficult by Trish making covert observations of Keith’s date: “Sort of pretty, nothing special.” After the girls finished eating and paid their bill, there was no way out except to walk directly past Keith’s table.

“Hey,” Lyssa said casually, intending to keep walking, but he stood and gave her a wooden half-hug.

“I’ve been meaning to get in touch,” he said. “Been busy.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I understand. Me too.” Her eyes wandered to his date, and she nodded a greeting. Lyssa saw that she was much as Trish had described her, which didn’t exactly soothe Lyssa. She realized she wasn’t curious because she was thinking of the other girl as competition but rather as a benchmark for how people must view her since the two women had dated the same man.
Nothing special
, Lyssa repeated in her head.

She looked back at Keith, who’d now resumed his seat. They locked eyes for a brief moment, and he flicked his irises in a half roll, acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation only to Lyssa. She smiled inwardly at the private communication. Keith had always thought she was special. That was probably what she missed most about the relationship.

* * *

The day before Thanksgiving, Lyssa made the road trip down to her sister Jessica’s house in southern Illinois where she’d also meet up with her mom and dad. Her brother Doug was spending the holiday with his wife’s family in Ohio, much to Penny Bates’s irritation.

“Baby sister!” Jess cooed, pulling Lyssa into a big hug upon her arrival.

Lyssa hugged her back, inhaling her sister’s powdery scent and enjoying what she was sure would be the first and last blissful moment of the visit … though if she were in a mood to analyze, she’d note that “baby sister” was an early slam. Lyssa was only three years younger, yet Jessica liked to emphasize how very behind she was in the “normal” progression of life. Jess was married and already had three children—four if you counted her husband Sam’s son from the marriage she’d wrecked—while none of Lyssa’s accomplishments seemed to rate as anything at all without the almighty ring on her finger.

“How’s the big bad city treating you,” Jessica asked, pulling back and holding her hand to her sister’s face, running a thumb over her cheek. “Yikes, all those exhaust fumes are hell on the pores, I see.”

“The city’s great, Jess. Too bad you never got a chance to live there.”

“Well, some of us move on with our lives and can’t stay stuck in the party-party atmosphere of the college years forever.”

“True. And some of us feel the need to experience life before bending to the will of an arcane society.”

“Alyssa Marie!” Penny appeared out of nowhere.

“Sorry, Mom. Was just joking. You know that, right, Jess?”

“Of course. All we ever get from you is goofing off,” the elder sister answered.

Well, not everyone can have a giant stick shoved up her bum at such a young age,
Lyssa refrained from saying through her now-strained smile.

Lyssa had the Thanksgiving routine down: arrive late Wednesday evening, allowing no more than an hour or so for visiting before turning in for the night, then follow Jessica’s and Penny’s strict instructions the next morning throughout meal prep, eat, help clear the dishes, and clean up the kitchen, making no mention whatsoever of the rampant sexism perpetuated by the women cleaning while the men lounged and watched football—she’d learned two years earlier that saying something would only have her mother hinting that if she were a lesbian, she should come out and say it. Instead, Lyssa listened to Penny and Jessica discuss the moistness of the turkey and the activities of their various committees. Never once did either of them ask Lyssa how things were going with her job.

At some point during the day, Lyssa made sure to give a plausible excuse for having to leave Friday morning. She’d be spending four straight days with her mom and sister at Christmas and needed to start storing up tolerance for that visit as soon as possible. After dishes were dried and put away, she escaped to the upstairs bedrooms to play games with the kids. This year, it was a twisted version of Candy Land.

“Here, Auntie Lyss. You’re the toilet,” said Lyssa’s four-year-old niece, Gabby.

“Toilet!” Lyssa mock growled, reaching out to tickle Gabby’s tummy and sending the girl to the floor as she erupted in giggles. A plastic dollhouse toilet sat next to a miniature, rubber dinosaur on the game board. “Why can’t I be the T. rex?”

Gabby pushed herself up to sit, shaking her head. “Ben is the T. rex.”

Lyssa narrowed teasing eyes at her. “What are you?”

“Barbie’s head.” She produced the unfortunate blond’s bodiless noggin with gnarled hair sticking out at all angles.

“The toilet suddenly doesn’t look like such a bad deal. Where’s Benny?”

“Taking a dump.”

Lyssa laughed though she knew Jessica would give her the hairy eyeball if she were there. Sarah, the toddling two-year-old, came over from the corner of the room and handed Lyssa a torn page from a Disney Princess coloring book. Two swishes of red marker slashed across Jasmine. “Pretty.” Lyssa had settled onto the floor next to the game and pulled her youngest niece onto her lap as Benjamin entered the room. He was seven years old, tall for his age, and had a quiet, often serious demeanor like his dad.

He joined them, and they began their journey through Fart Forest and Poopy Swamp, as Gabby had renamed them. Part way through, Lyssa’s phone buzzed with a text. It was Keith. She stared for a few seconds at the name:
Hot Stuff
. He hadn’t called or texted since the breakup, so she hadn’t thought to change it.

Keith: Happy turkey day. U at sisters?

Lyssa: Yep. U?

Keith: At Ps. Was nice to c u last weekend

Lyssa paused a moment before responding. This was … unexpected, but she didn’t want him to sense her hesitation, so she shook it off and typed:

Lyssa: Ditto. How did date go?

“Auntie Lyssa … ” Gabby growled.

“Sorry.” Sarah had wandered off at some point, so Lyssa threw her phone into her lap—screen up—and took her turn, glancing immediately down at the phone once she’d finished.

Keith: Er not good. U left & it was 20?s. High paranoia