We Won't Feel a Thing (23 page)
Read We Won't Feel a Thing Online
Authors: J.C. Lillis
Everyone stared at him.
“That,” breathed Mrs. Woodlawn, “is
exactly
right.”
“Watch your language, though, Champ,” said Mr. Woodlawn.
“Can I have some wine?” said Riley.
“Ah…” Mr. Woodlawn shook his head. “I don’t think—”
“Of course!” said Mrs. Woodlawn. She poured two inches in his tumbler. “If we lived in France, you’d sip wine at the dinner table every day.”
Riley drained the glass.
“Who
are
you?” Rachel murmured.
He looked at her. For a half second his eyes softened, and then he put on the cool appraising stare of Lupo Jones in
Wolf Force 2: The Reckoning
, right before he lunged for his fiancée’s jugular.
“I’m a wolf, baby,” he muttered around a mouthful of meat. He swallowed the next words, but he thought them violently in her direction.
And I don’t mate for life.
***
EXAMPLE:
The kiss was a mistake.
Tilly knows it. I know it. So let’s say she says yes to Hitch, and we travel back to New York for her impromptu engagement party.
Here is what I do to prepare.
I pop the lid on a container of SmartClings, the revolutionary touch-simulation conduits developed in our WAVES lab by people even more intelligent than I. Then I press button 5 on the console. As I unravel the clings and ready them for application, the console mixes up a fresh batch of a unique Touch Therapy compound we call The Solution. (It also, cleverly enough, doubles as adhesive.)
Upstairs, Rachel opened the large envelope and slid out an insulated box marked
SmartClings.
Inside were two quivery silver-gray masses that bore a queasy resemblance to fresh brains. She transferred one into a gallon-sized freezer bag and passed it to Riley. She pressed button 5 and they stood in dark silence on opposite sides of the console, listening to the machine wheeze and whir. After six minutes it let out a hiss, and two thumb-sized glass bottles dropped out of the Delivery Slot.
The broken clockface ticked in the dollhouse. Riley snatched a bottle of The Solution and dropped it in his pocket. He took his freezer bag and left without a word, the fourteenth, eleventh, and fifth steps creaking as he went away.
My mother calls just before I apply the SmartClings. She offers sympathies and a kind invitation to a Ukrainian film festival, but I decline. She has been married to my father rather ecstatically for the past forty years. Happy people cannot help me now.
Mr. and Mrs. Woodlawn danced in the bare living room, Anne twirling under Ed’s arm like a glass ballerina. He wore a new tweed blazer with leather elbow patches; she wore a skin-tight dress printed with tropical flowers. Her unsprayed hair was dyed Laurie-blond.
“You don’t look like yourselves,” said Riley, pausing in the doorway.
“Yes!” they said, laughing.
“I thought you were being authentic.”
“We are,” said Mrs. Woodlawn.
“We’re authentically trying to make each other happy!” said Mr. Woodlawn.
Riley shook his head. He retreated to the guest room, locked the door, and began to unravel the mass of SmartClings. They were warm and slightly icky—thinner and stickier versions of the gelatinous window clings Aunt Jerrie used to send them on birthdays and Christmas. When you flattened them out, they looked like intricate webs of connections. Like veins, he thought, or a roadmap.
He wrapped a small piece around his finger, experimentally. It settled there, snuggling around his skin like a needy living thing. Fear tweaked his stomach. He set his jaw like Lash Hudson in
Fists of Trouble
and chased it off.
I take a long, meticulous shower first. The cleaner I am, the more effective Step Five will be.
Downstairs in the guest bathroom’s shower stall, Riley lathered himself with Old Sport, his father’s musky soap that smelled like a baseball glove. Upstairs, Rachel took a seething-hot bath in their clawfooted tub with Enchanted Moonlight body scrub—a birthday gift from Mrs. Woodlawn, who always gave her the sort of gifts a student might give a mediocre teacher.
They toweled off, sniffing themselves approvingly. They smelled like new people.
When my skin is completely dry, I swab on a thin layer of The Solution. Then I apply the SmartClings wherever I would most enjoy being touched (you may place them anywhere; however, I recommend avoiding direct application to your most intimate areas). I will wear the clings for a full four hours, at which point The Solution’s adhesiveness will fade and they’ll peel off quickly and easily. (Do not attempt to remove them before the cycle is over.)
Downstairs, Riley sat on the toilet lid. Upstairs, Rachel sat on her bed. They applied the clings to their arms and shoulders, their torsos and thighs. They avoided their most intimate areas.
I dress myself for the evening. I choose clothing that inspires confidence and makes me feel reasonably attractive. I will wear it like armor.
They unzipped the garment bags.
The outfits looked like an apology for a prom they’d never attend. Riley’s was a dark suit with a crisp white dress shirt and a skinny black tie. Rachel’s was the kind of dress she never wore: fluttery synthetic chiffon with a wide satin sash and delicate ribbon straps. She touched it as if it might burn her. It was California blue.
They dressed in their separate rooms. They performed dramatic gestures of finality: the knot in Riley’s tie pulled snug, the long cold zipper on the dress buzzing shut. Riley mussed his hair and misted it with Ultra Control PowerHold Spray. Rachel shrugged a thin black cardigan over her dress to hide the SmartClings on her arms and chest.
Every clock in the house seemed to tick louder. They thought of David’s latest hypothetical example, and wished it were 28% more convincing.
When I arrive at Tilly’s loathsome soiree, the bride-to-be—radiant in a yellow dress printed with unicyclists—is watching her fiancé natter on about their honeymoon plans: ice fishing in Nova Scotia. I waste no time. I retire to the balcony with a lousy craft beer and seek out someone new to focus on, just for tonight’s purposes. I settle on a shapely girl in a crocheted hat, who is having a very animated discussion inside with a man in tight red pants. I can’t hear a word they’re saying, which is probably a blessing.
I latch my eyes on the new girl and allow myself a frisson of sexual desire. The SmartClings respond instantly; under my gray linen shirt and seersucker pants, my skin is alive with whispers of soft hands on my skin, touching me lightly but skillfully in the strategic areas I have chosen. This phantom touch produces a powerful euphoria, designed to “retrain the brain” and choke out existing attractions in the process.
“What are you doing out here?”
Say Tilly finds me on the balcony, just as the phantom fingers are exploring my chest.
“Nothing.” I am careful not to look at her. (DO NOT LOOK AT EACH OTHER.)
“He’s super stoked about the honeymoon.”
“I heard.” I swig my terrible brew. “Nova Scotia, hm?”
“He has family there. We can stay for free.”
“What about that Florida horror you were lobbying for?” I bungle the name, possibly on purpose. “Sighers?”
“Sirens.” From the corner of my eye, I see her toying with her garish ring. “I can always go by myself.”
“I suppose you could.”
At this point, I sense she notices my eyes are focused somewhere to the left of her lovely eruption of hair. She turns her head and sees the girl who’s ensnared my attention.
“Listen, David.” Tilly sits down beside me. I smell Mango Madness and regret. “About that—you know. That kiss?”
“Forget it.”
“No, I mean…What—was it, to you?”
“A crisis narrowly averted.”
“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “Like…maybe in another life or something, we…”
She trails off. I drop “believes in reincarnation” into my anti-Tilly bank.
“There is no other life,” I tell her. “Just this one. And we should probably get on with it.”
For a long moment, all is quiet on the balcony. “Maybe I should give my notice now, then.”
The SmartClings scintillate. “Maybe that would be best.”
Tilly pushes back her green plastic chair and makes a hasty retreat. For the sake of authenticity, suppose it feels awful. I redouble my focus on the girl I’m in love with for tonight, who is twirling her hat on her finger and singing along with the Pretenders.
Within an hour, I am 86% over Tilly Merriam. And the nightmare is nearly at an end.
Sensibly yours,
David A. Kerning
P.S. Past studies have shown that Steps Five and Six are most effective when done in quick succession. Please conduct the steps within twenty-four hours of each other for maximum impact.
In the last minutes before the Woodlawn car left for Beechwood Lake, Rachel opened the white box with the Step Six materials: two silver bullets, each split in the middle and hinged, and a clear cartridge with four vials of colored liquid trapped inside. Double-checking David’s instructions, she pushed the silver bullets through a hidden door on the console, shoved the cartridge into Slot B-6, and pressed the button.
The console rattled like a runaway wagon and sent up a thin plume of smoke. Then a steamy sigh, and the bullets shot from the Delivery Slot and into her cold waiting hand. She itched to pop them open and peek, but David had said to keep them shut until it was time. She shook them and heard skittering. It reminded her of their fourth Us Day, when Riley got her a ring in a gumball machine at Skateland and she secretly kept it under her pillow until the plastic amethyst fell out.
Rachel squeezed the bullets hard, remembering. She slipped them in her cardigan and snapped the pocket shut.
Chapter Fourteen
“The turn’s
here
, Ed!”
The Ford careened to the left and bumped onto a narrow gravel drive. The rusty chain guarding the Beechwood Lake entrance was gone, and the NO TRESPASSING sign was obscured by a blue vinyl banner:
TRICK & LAURIE * 25 Years * Lifes a Beach!
Rachel didn’t comment on the apostrophe. Riley watched the back of his father’s head.
“I find vow-renewal ceremonies an insufferable display of ego,” Mrs. Woodlawn said. She touched up her new Red-Hot Mama lipstick. “Especially when they’re
themed
.”
“Well, they did get married on a beach,” said Mr. Woodlawn.
“I find that insufferable too. I thought this place was closed now.”
“Trick knows someone in Parks & Rec.”
“Trick always knows someone, doesn’t he?”
“That lipstick I got you looks great.”
“I hate it, but I’m trying not to. You look very handsome in your tweed jacket.”
“Thanks.” Mr. Woodlawn’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. “It’s kinda prickly.”
Rachel and Riley stared out separate windows, the SmartClings itching faintly. Mr. and Mrs. Woodlawn were acceptable background noise, like that bickery British sitcom they’d play on the laptop while slogging through worksheets on rational numbers and the Pythagorean theorem. They had made the decision not to look at each other directly for the rest of their lives, which so far was working out just fine.
They were the moon and the sun. Eight inches and ninety-three million miles apart.
***
Seventy-five white folding chairs—each hung with tulle bows and pink plastic starfish—were assembled on the manmade shore of Beechwood Lake. Riley sauntered down the aisle past murmuring guests he pretended to know. Rachel-memories threatened, but he was immune. He had no use for orange cream popsicles and lazy rowboat rides and meadowlarks spotted through shared binoculars. He was a world-famous artist debuting his masterpiece.
A steel-drum band played “Kokomo.” Riley seized a chair and sat, braved a look at his mosaic.
He let out a breath. It didn’t look stupid. It was mounted inside the rundown gazebo on the water, behind a card-table altar draped with raffia hula skirts. All the flaws that had deviled him at home didn’t matter here; the thing was a beautiful blur. And Laurie Semper was right—it was an interesting shape, two waves facing off in an almost-heart. Impossible, but romantic. If you were into that sort of thing.
“Can I sit here?”
Rachel’s voice gave him a jolt. He hadn’t heard it in days; she sounded washed-out, like a watercolor dropped in a puddle. He kept his eyes down but let them flick to the side. Her chiffon hem rippled like water.
She was wearing his color.
“Whatever,” he made himself say.
***
Rachel perched on the chair beside Riley, her SmartClings tingling at the sound of his voice. The mosaic was stunning from here—all the imperfections looked intentional, sly hints that the sea glass and shells were set by the unsteady hand of a human in love. She wanted to run down the ramp and rescue it from this sad pseudo-tropical paradise. She would shrink it down, wear it forever on a chain around her neck.
She darted a glance at Riley’s knee. Rain was in the forecast again; David’s umbrella was locked between his knees. If she moved her arm two inches, his jacket would brush her arm. She had never seen him in a suit. How would it feel to rest her head on his formal shoulder, whisper into his breast pocket, tell him she was sorry they ever started WAVES?
The SmartClings gave off threatening twitches. She folded her hands and sat wicked-queen straight, chased away her Riley-thoughts.
No going back now.
One row in front of them, Mrs. Woodlawn shifted in her tight dress. Mr. Woodlawn picked at the sleeve of his blazer.
Steel drums announced the bride and groom.
***
The trees lit up with electric lanterns. Everyone stood and turned.
A white classic car wreathed in tropical flowers pulled up at the end of the aisle, and out came Trick and Laurie Semper, smiling and waving like a king and queen on a balcony. Riley watched his father’s face fidget in awe. Laurie wore a fluid white dress splashed with red hibiscus flowers, sandals trimmed with shells and pearls, and a white lei pinned in her yellow curls. Mr. Woodlawn bit his lip, rubbed his chin so hard his fingers went red from the bristles.
That’s what it looks like,
thought Riley,
to never get over someone.
