Random Acts of Hope (25 page)

“Because paper books are irreplaceable.”

“
T
hey’re heavy.”

“We already had this argument at my apartment.”

A box in her arms started to buzz.

“Hey, your phone is ringing,” I muttered.

She reddened. “That’s not my phone.”

Darla stood and walked over, a mi
s
chievous grin on her face. She reached for the lid of the box on top over Amy’s protests, and pulled out a double-headed monstrosity with seven different buttons on it.

“The power button got pushed,” Darla announced, turning the damn t
h
ing off.

I think my cock shrank a little in deference, like bowing before the king. Women put that inside them? My eyes cut over to Amy. Between using that for fun and those nice, wide hips, when she and Sam decided to have kids she’d be like one of those peasants w
h
o squat
in
a field, spit out a kid, and go right back to work.

Sam walked back into the room to find Darla admiring his replacement.

“Do you have to play with your
s
ex toy collection out here, Darla? Remember how we talked about that?” he said.

“This is your girlfriend’s other boyfriend,” Darla cackled. Then she pushed a button that made the thing slide up and down like a piston. The outer rubber casing turned out to be a fake foreskin, so the dildo—about the thickness of a Red Bull can—slid in and out of the fake foreskin, simulating, well, fantasies, I guess.

“Amy?” Sam squeaked.

“It’s new.” She looked at me. “I ordered it from Charlotte.”

“
Speaking of which,” Darla said, rummaging around in the aircraft carrier with handles she called a purse, “I have something for you, Amy.”
 

Darla pulled out this long rubbery…thing. It looked like a miniature version of a wire lasso you use to capture cattle.

“What is that?” Amy shrieked.

“Give me your phone,” Darla demanded.

“My what?” Amy snapped. Sam stared at his chick with confusion, looking remarkably like a tan Ron Weasley once more.

“Your phone.” Darla held out her palm.

“Darla,” Amy said in a low growl, her hair a long curtain swinging behind her. “What are you doing?”

Darla reached around and gave Amy an ass grab. It was kind of hot.

“Girl-on-girl action,” I whispered.

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam said.

Darla emerged from Amy’s ass with her phone, then looped it into the rubber gusset that fit perfectly around the electronic device. The rest of the rubber was shaped like an oval, like a handle.

“That’s a weird case. For people without pockets?” I asked. “Why would a sex toy company sell something like that?”

Amy turned so red she looked like a bowl of cherries.

“
It’s so you don’t lose your phone in something so deep you can’t pull it out,” Darla said sweetly.
 

“Like a sewer?” Sam asked.

Darla snickered. “
Exactly
like a sewer.”

“
I hate you,” Amy hissed.
 

“Oh. Look. It’s
d
é
j
à
vu,” Darla answered. Amy looked like she was about to rip half of Darla’s hair out.

“No,”
Sam said. He’d picked up the sex toy catalog Darla had left on the couch. “It’s called the 4G Spot.”
 

“You bitch!” Amy said without sound, the words screaming so loudly from inside her shaking body you could hear her without her vocal cords being used.

“What is it?” I asked. This was getting really good.

“Designed for pleasure seekers who use vibrator apps, this handy device helps prevent those unfortunate mishaps where the fine line between—”

Amy snatched the catalog out of his hands, marched over to the window, opened it, and flung the catalog into the fall air.

“Charlotte said it’s more popular than you’d think,” Darla said with a chortle. “That there are all these weird reports of women—and men!—getting their phones caught up in theirselves.”

“Themselves,” Amy corrected, then stormed off to Sam’s room, slamming the door.

B
z
zz.

“That was me,”
I
confessed.
 

“You have one of these, too?” Darla asked, gaping
and pointing at the fake foreskinned sex toy next to her
.

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone. “No. Just a vibrating ass.”

“I’d love a man with a vibrating ass.”

“One of your men
is
an ass, so you have that.”

I actually answered the phone this time. Dad. Might as well get it over with.

“
L
iam!” He had that booming, bombastic voice that always made me think of the sport
s
casters on ESPN.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Still getting naked for women for money?”

“Still making people bend over for a sale?”

His answering laugh was a little less confident than the last time we played this game. “Sales are strong. Business is good. So good the job is still open for you. Yours to take.”

“I ha
v
e a job, Dad. Two, actually.”

“Eh. You’ll burn out on all this eventually. Young men always do. And then you realize that shitty hovel and crappy car aren’t enough, and you want to settle down. Then you find a real job.”

Blah blah blah.
I could write the script.

“You call for a reason, other than to try
to make me feel like shit? It’s not working, by the way.”
 

More laughter. “Al
l
right, al
l
right. Just calling to see how you’re doing. Your mother and I had a talk, and—”

Ah. Now it made sense. “Let me guess. You have my future all planned out for me.”

“Your mother does. She still thinks you should have been a music teacher. A perfect compromise.”

“Except I hate teaching.”

“We all do things we don’t like. At some point you suck it up and find a middle way to make it all work.”

“You do that. Mom does that. I’m doing fine the way I am.”

“No one said you aren’t fine, son. But you’re turning twenty-four soon and you might want to start to think about the rest of your life.”

“You think I haven’t?”

An uncomfortable silence fill
ed
the air.

“I think taking your clothes off for women is…”

St
alemate.
I’m not giving up my job just because it embarrasses them, and they’re not giving up their lectures just because they piss me off.
 

“
I gotta get going, Dad. We’re helping Amy move.”
 

“Where’s she moving to?” Relief filled his voice. Something to talk about.

“In with Trevor and Sam.”

More silence. “Well,
sheeeeeet
. You kids really are growing up.”

“I’m going to take her apartment, so get ready to scratch out another address for me in your phone book.”

I heard the ruffling of pages.
H
e had a literal, physical address book. “That’s the
fourteenth
place in four years!”

“I’m a nomad.”

“That is a very tactful word for it.” I knew his word.
Shiftless.
 

“
It’s $400 a month less, so while it’s smaller than my hole, I’ll be able to save more money.”
 

“You save money?” Derisive laughter. “Last I knew, you spent it like it was w
a
ter.”

“Why not? All I have to do is put on a g-string and let the women touch.” Normally I’d never in a million
y
ears say that, but normally
D
ad didn’t put on the thumbscrews like this.

“Liam!”
he snapped.
 

A
my, Sam, and Darla were all staring at me with a mixture of horror and go-get-’em looks on their faces. “Gotta go, Dad. Heavy box.”

Click.

“Parents suck,” Amy and Sam said in unison, then laugh
ed
.

“Your parents make my
m
ama look like a saint. And she’s a chain smoker who’s missing a foot and plays online sweepstakes all day,”
Darla added.
 

“Thank her for the mint condoms,” Sam said. Amy elbowed him, hard.

“She won a new contest from some curvy girl lingerie company.
Hips and Curves.
Sent them my size. Let’s see what arrives.”

“Ask her to win us some plane tickets back to Eden,” I said. “
Those would be more useful than some pieces of silk Trevor and Joe will just rip off you.”
 

“Some men appreciate a woman in lingerie.”

“Some men have more patience than I do.”

That was a great way to clear the room. Even Darla backed off and left. I realized, though, that I was alone in
their
apartment. I needed to get back to
mine
. Moving out of my shithole had been easy—two carloads and I was done. The landlord took my
thirty
-day notice in stride. It would be easy to find someone on Craigslist.

Amy had moved all her stuff out and insisted on cleaning the place, despite my assurances that even “messy” her apartment was cleaner than mine had ever been on its finest day.

She mumbled something about disinfecting and got that look she gets where she clearly wants to be in control. Not my chick. Not my fight. Whatever. Let her pull out the Swiffer. I’m not Don Jon. I don’t get off on t
h
ose.

The walk down to my car felt long, like I was moving through concrete. Everything did these days. While Charlotte and I weren’t fighting, we weren’t together. There was this giant swath of grey that we lived in, and the ambiguity was killing me. The truth was the truth, though. She had cheated on me—there was no way that pregna
n
cy came from me,
but
…

Amy and Darla’s questions had gotten to me, though. I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I reached my car. Looking through the window carefully (no snakes), I climbed in, shut the door, and dialed.

“Liam!” Second parent in an hour. When did I talk to both on them on the same exact day? Probably hadn’t done that since Christmas.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“You need money?”

“What? No!”

“That’s the only reason you call me out of the blue.”

“Actually, I’m flush these days. You need to borrow some?”

Her laugh, unlike Dad’s, was genuine and infectious. “No. Not unless you wash and disinfect it.”

My turn to laugh.

“What’s going on, Liam?”

“Mom…” I didn’t know how to even start this conversation. Maybe I should drive home and talk about it in person? The issue burned a ho
le
in my brain. My heart. My dignity. I had to ask.

“Spit it out. I know you didn’t get anyone pregnant,” she joked. “That’s the one thing I’ve never had to worry about, unlike my other friends with boys.”

Ouch. Fucking
ouch
.

“Actually, that’s part of w
h
y I’m calling. Are you…sure? I know we did all those tests, but…”

“Is some girl trying to pass of a baby as yours?” She chortled. “That’s some gall. Been there, done that.” Her voice went hard and cold. “After what Charlotte did to you…”

I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel. “Yeah.” Long sigh.

“W
e
took you to the
best
reproductive specialists in Boston, honey. Boston’s one of the top cities for this issue in the world. The results were clear.” Her voice choked up. “I’m sorry, Liam. I know it was one hell of a blow. It would be for anyone. It was for your father and me, too.” She didn’t have to say the word “grandkids.” I knew.

“Yeah, but…what if there is a chance? What if I’m not?”

“I don’t know what to say.
I…I think we can help you go back to Dr. Ronstandt if you think it would help.” That was the shrink they sent me to for six months after the testing came back.
 

“I don’t need a psychologist, Mom. I need…”
Charlotte.
 

“Why is this coming up now, honey? Is some woman claiming you got her preg
n
ant? Because even if you w
e
ren’t sterile, I hope you
use condoms
.”

“I do.”

“Good.” She breathed a long sigh of relief. “
A
paternity test should nip this in the bud.”

“There’s no baby.”

“Oh.”

“I’m just…thinking.”

“
Y
ou could always go to the doctor and do a quick sperm test. You don’t have insurance now so you’d have to pay out of pocket. I wish I could afford to cover you.” Mom
worked for a tiny historical society
in
MetroWest Boston
and told me I could go on her insurance if I could pay the premium, which was $900 per month. Fuck that. Dad’s business could cover me if I were an employee, he said. He could cover me on his own policy as his son, but was refusing.

“The idea of jacking off in a cup is so appealing.”

“It might give you the answer you’re looking for. But you know, your father and I truly did everyt
h
ing possible back then to make sure there weren’t other options.
I want to make sure you understand that.
And you know…”

Guilt. It hit me. She was worried I was upset, or that she and Dad hadn’t done enough. “This isn’t about what you and Dad did or didn’t do, Mom. Males get mumps. A tiny percentage of us get the
testicular
swe
l
ling and we go sterile. It’s super-rare. But I’m
that
special.” I
couldn’t
keep the bitterness out of my voice.

Long shot.

“We questioned the doctors. You had the
all
vaccinations. You were exposed to kids from another country with an ac
t
ive case when we sent you on that church mi
s
sion group. None of the other kids got it, but they traced your vaccination back to a possibly weaker batch. I remember trying to understand it all but also nursing you through it, and then the…testicular swelling, and how the doctors worked to treat that. The whispered comments about fertility. The praying…”