Authors: Opal Mellon
“Well, well,” Justin said. “Looks like you might be stuck with me after all.” He grinned at her.
If he expected her to be ruffled, he’d have to be disappointed. She smiled back at him demurely.
“What day?” Justin said, looking once again irritated.
“The 20
th
,” Nicole said. “Please say you can do it Justin.”
“Hmm,” he said. “No can do. Busy that night.”
“Oh Justin, can’t you free it up?”
“Well I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know if she’d really like me to come.” He raised an eyebrow.
She knew he wanted her to beg, but once again, he’d be disappointed. “I’d like you to come,” she said, with a small lift of her shoulders. “I’d appreciate it very much.”
But she said it with the same tone you’d say ‘yes I would like cheese on my salad’ at the Olive Garden.
Justin appeared nonplussed.
“Although I guess Logan could probably do it.” Molly shrugged.
“Fine,” he snapped, grabbing the date book out of Nicole’s hands and penciling his name in it. “I’ll do it. I’ll tell Hope I’m on that night.” He put the date book in his breast pocket to take it back to the bar and update the main calendar.
“Sheesh,” the girls heard him mutter over his shoulder.
“Is he always so grumpy?” Molly asked. He paused for a split second, shoulders tensed, when he heard it. But he kept walking.
“No,” Nicole said, picking up her purse and watching him with tension in her face. “Normally he’s a perfect doll. I’m sure he’ll be back to his usual self by the reunion,” she said. She headed for the door and Molly followed.
Back to normal? Not if I can help it, Molly thought.
~~~
They were an odd little group, heading into the reunion. Molly and Nicole tried not to roll their eyes at the over the top decor in the hotel lobby: too many streamers in the school colors, red and green, and ducked under them to enter. On TV, high school reunions looked like glamorous affairs where the attendants strolled to each other on red carpet to the punch bowl, beaming with self-satisfaction and witty comebacks. Molly wished she’d stocked some before they left.
Her date was the only thing that seemed similar to the reunion theme in a chick flick or manga. He was beautiful, more than half the girls in the room (her included no doubt), tall, and well dressed. He was the consummate jealousy-inducing date. She looked even more like a little brown paper bag next to him. Maybe she should have found a nerdy guy. Then they might have had more to talk about. But she would have let Nicole down in her plan to show off to the people who used to be rude. Molly had grown up enough to realize that the other girls had done the same most likely. She’d stopped feeling resentful about it, even if she was still feeling some of the residual negative effects of their treatment. She felt that being forced to spend time with Justin was giving them more power to make her miserable than she needed to be doing at this point in her life. Probably.
They stopped just inside the door. Sean looked great in a black suit, Justin in a light olive one that set off his skin well. Nicole was wearing a beautiful pink dress and had shanghaied Molly into another blue one, this one more of a light gray blue. To match her eyes, she had said. She had taken Molly shopping for shoes too, and Molly felt regrettably clumsy in them. She felt that if she had a Cinderella moment where she had to run from the ball, she’d probably face-plant and leave her blood on the floor along with her shoe.
The boys were talking and Nicole was pretending to listen to them while scanning the ballroom for prospective victims, so Molly did the same.
The first thing Molly thought, while looking at the blur of faces, was that she hadn’t remembered all of these people being so small before. They felt her size now. In high school, leering into her face, gathered in groups to sneer, they had seemed impossibly big. Now they just looked like her, mostly average people. Considering that everyone was in their best clothing on their best behavior, they were a remarkably average group. Molly guessed that this was just a part of growing up, that everyone was a lot more like each other than you thought, and that most people weren’t villains, or heroes, but just doing their best.
Even Justin, confidently resting against the wall with crossed legs and folded arms. He was an adult dealing with an adult life five years later. Not just that guy who’d broken her heart in college. Not just an escort. Like Nicole wasn’t just a black girl, like Sean wasn’t just a huge guy. These girls now probably had families, kids. Kids that probably teased other kids at school. Molly shrugged, drawing Nicole’s attention.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Remember, we’re all here with you.”
Molly looked at her, puzzled. Had she seemed worried? If anything, she was mildly worried that the world was turning out to be a much more boring place than it was when she was younger and than it was in books. So what if she wanted to disappear back to a place where things were clear-cut, where adventure was manufactured for entertainment, with no risks or pain?
She felt a gentle nudge on her elbow, and looked up to see Justin had quietly sidled up and was standing close, folded arms just barely touching hers.
“So what do you want to do now that you’re here?” he asked. “It’s your gig, after all.”
She looked up at him for a long moment, then back out to the room. Run away, she thought. That’s all she really wanted to do. This place was a waste.
“What are you thinking?” Justin said. “I never could read you.”
She nodded. Her newly straightened hair was still retaining the home perm Nicole had applied, but she’d still tied it back in a tight ponytail that made her neck hurt a bit when she moved her head too much. “I’m just thinking I’d rather leave.”
“Why don’t you then?” he said.
She looked back over her shoulder, and Justin followed her eyes over to where Nicole stood with Sean, with her still surveying the crowd for her first opportunity to strike, and him surveying her cleavage.
“Ah,” Justin said, dropping his eyes back to the ground. “I see.”
She pursed her lips and nodded slightly again.
Justin looked sidelong at her for a moment. “Well, is there anything I can do to make it more enjoyable?” He moved his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s my job you know.”
She finally smiled at him, and it was like light spilling into a dark room; it made him feel several degrees warmer. “I know.”
“Well then. Punch maybe?”
“Sure.” He started ahead, and she followed, not knowing how one behaved on a date, not knowing how close to him she should stand, or how she would be looking at him to be convincing that she was actually dating him.
Justin looked back at her, extended an elbow for her to take his arm, but she shook her head slightly and he dropped it.
Justin reached the table and picked up a glass. Molly stood a bit back, hoping to avoid being noticed by any of the women at the table. She just wanted to get through this with as little trauma as possible. Then Justin jumped and dropped his cup in the punch bowl, and Molly realized someone had just pinched his rear. Someone in Gucci shoes and a pencil skirt. Someone with red hair who looked suspiciously like Cynthia, the ringleader in middle school, and the meanest chick in high school.
“Who did that?” Justin said, turning around to face the women. Cynthia was, as usual, flanked by two girls in order to make herself more invincible.
“Why?” Cynthia’s friend Rachel, a plain brunette with a face like tanned leather and crow eyes, asked. “Didn’t you like it?”
“Who would you want to have done it?” Cynthia said, moving forward.
Justin raised an eyebrow at them, backed into the table as far as he could. “Ladies, I’m here with a date.”
Cynthia pushed out her lower lip. “Oh? Where?”
Justin motioned over her shoulder to Molly.
Cynthia folded her arms, and started to turn. Molly’s slap resounded across her face like isolated applause.
Her hair whipped back as her face flew to the side, and her manicured hand came up to cup her cheek. Her cronies gasped but didn’t make any move towards Molly. Cynthia pulled her hair out of her face and finished turning towards her assailant. Her face, now turning red on one side, went white.
“Molly? Molly, is that you?”
“Apologize first,” Molly said.
“As if I’d apologize to you.”
“To him,” Molly said, pointing to Justin, who was staring open mouthed, an empty cup crushed in one of his hands, the other still pointing limply.
Cynthia narrowed her eyes at Molly, then slowly turned to Justin again. He flinched and inched away from the table, like he was avoiding a snake. Cynthia put one hand against the table and leaned on it.
“What’s she paying you?” she said. “I’ll double it.”
Molly dusted off her hands, perfectly calm, as if she’d dispatched of some garbage. Justin didn’t know why Molly had slapped someone for him. Tried to make someone apologize, to him. Didn’t she hate him? Not remember him? He was the one who was supposed to be making this the perfect date for her. Instead, she was rescuing him like some knight, and it made him a bit nauseous, and a bit flattered in a weird way. Maybe it was just payback for saving her from Bosey. Did she remember that? He did. It still made him feel like throwing up or putting his fist through a wall or something glass.
Luckily Nicole arrived before he had time to mistake something dumb to say for something smart to say.
“What’s going on here?” She put an arm around Molly, and turned to the girls. She looked at Justin with a cocked head. He put up his hands and shook his head, nodding to Molly.
The girls turned to Molly and Nicole again. Nicole’s mouth dropped a little then snapped back up. Her dark eyes grew darker as her lids came down a fraction.
“Cynthia,” she said.
“Nicole, was it?” Cynthia said. “Still defending the loser?”
Nicole walked towards her, her hand up then stopped. “I’d slap you but I see that’s already been taken care of.” She turned to Molly. “What did she do?”
Molly just looked away to the side, letting out a small puff of air.
“Anyway Cynthia, what do you do?” Justin said, coming back into the conversation.
“Pardon?” Cynthia turned to him, and Nicole looked at Molly and shrugged, missing the wink Justin had sent her way.
“Well you said you’d pay me more than Molly could, and she’s an engineer. So what do you do?”
Cynthia flushed. “That was a joke.”
“Like grabbing my butt?” He said. “’Cause that was sexual assault.”
“That wasn’t—”
“She’s not paying me,” he said. “And honestly, I prefer to be with someone who doesn’t have to grope other people’s dates because she doesn’t have one.”
“Yeah, Cynthia,” Nicole cut in. “Where is your date?”
The other girls with her were suddenly interested in their nails and the floor. Cynthia just glared. “I don’t have to bring a date to these things because I was never a loser. I don’t have anything to prove, unlike you.”
“Or you couldn’t get a date because you have a terrible personality,” Molly said, quietly, from the corner of the group.
“Shut up fatty.”
“Don’t call her that.” Nicole stepped forward between Justin and Cynthia.
Cynthia clenched her hands into small fists, and then turned to walk away. Rachel sent them a glare and followed, and Ally, the quietest of the group, sent them a helpless shrug, as if to apologize, and skulked off behind them.
“Wow,” Justin said, coming up to Molly and standing beside her. “Quality people.”
Molly brought a finger up to her mouth and started to bite the nail. Justin caught her hand and held it gently. “Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Molly frowned and looked down at the red, angry nail. He was right. She rewarded him with a small smile and put her hands together in front of her. She looked up to see Sean approaching. He was an intimidating person, and even though Molly inherently trusted someone who had picked Nicole, she was a little wary around him. He was surly and seemed to command a natural distance from others. She guessed he didn’t get his butt pinched like Justin did.
She was still embarrassed by her outburst. She hadn’t planned on making a scene. But she knew what it was like to be touched when you didn’t want to be, so she knew that someone needed to speak up. She also felt that Cynthia had no right. Justin was her date. The possessiveness welling up in her felt wrong and overwhelming.
Quite a few faces were turned their way, some with cell phones out that were doubtless recording the drama.
“My guess is a lot of people have been wanting to do what you did for a long time,” Justin said. “Looks like you’re going to have some new fans.”
“She was acting like a bum,” Molly said. “And grabbing yours.”
“Yeah,” Justin said. “I guess she was.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Want to go out for some air?”
“Yes.” Molly touched Nicole, who was eagerly updating Sean. “We’re going outside for a moment. Enjoy flaunting your man.”
Nicole gave Molly a quick hug. “All right, be safe out there. Call if you need me to come to you.”
“I’m not a baby.”
Molly followed Justin out. When they exited the room, the air was a few degrees cooler and a few degrees fresher. They both took a deep breath, and held it. Then it became a silent competition to hold it the longest, and Justin won, mostly due to sheer lung size. He laughed at Molly’s defeated sigh and started towards the doors leading to the outside.
Molly stopped him and pointed to a bench just inside the lobby that still had a good view out the side doors.
“Can we sit there? I’m sun sensitive.”
“Really?” he said, eyeing her pale skin. “I’d never have guessed.” She squinted at him and he laughed, shaking his head. “I was being sarcastic. Lowest form of humor. So shoot me.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I will.”
He dropped his head in his hands. “You’re really something.” He sat back up and leaned against the wall. He pulled one leg up and rested the ankle on his knee, creating a table with his leg.