Where Would I Be Without You (2 page)

My
cousins arrived with my grandma who was incredibly hard of hearing along with my aunt who is my mom's much older sister.  She wasn't too spry herself these days; we directed them to the back room.  I had contemplated inviting more friends, but my mother just embarrassed me way too often that I let the mention of this party slide, knowing that on Wednesday, we would have an office cake and after work drinks to enjoy.  Working at a manufacturing plant wasn't glamorous, but I loved the celebratory camaraderie that came with the job, party for any reason was a great reason for cake during the day and drinks in the evening.

The only person left was
Steve, and he mentioned he might be late by a few minutes.

I walked up to my grandma to give her a hug and a kiss.  "Grandma, you look lovely.  Is that a new dress
Grandma Tess?"

"Piss test?  Why would I take a piss test?  You young ones are truly odd these days
, what with all your technology and code words and funky fresh dance moves."

Carl raised his eyebrows and excused himself to the men's room.  Marion giggled as the now
half-f restaurant turned to the volume of my grandma's voice shouting about being able to buy a book about sex and dominance at the grocery store the other day.  My three younger cousins headed pass my grandma and aunt and bolted into the party room.  I gingerly tried to steer my grandma and half-blind aunt to the back party room while my grandma continued on talking at the top of her lungs about the weather, her bad hip, the walk from where they parked and why I was wearing my lingerie instead of decent clothes to my birthday party.

Ok, she had me there.  Maybe I should have saved the slinky number for later and wore just a simple elegant dress like Marion did.  Sometimes, my common sense just goes out the window when I get excited.  I was excited for my family to meet Steve.
  There was potential.  I was excited to turn thirty.  I had plans for the next ten years, one of them was to hopefully settle down with marriage.  I wasn't exactly sure if it was Steve, although his sexual skills held promise; what I did know was I was starting to want to settle, somehow.

I got everyone settled in around the table and drink orders were placed.  My cousins all ordered alcohol, Marion and Carl still had theirs from
the bar; my dad gave me a pleading look to order another, and I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes while looking down.  When the waitress got to me, I order a martini and then caught the look of disapproval from my mom.  Then my sister ordered bottled water, and my mother beamed.  My mother ordered an ice tea.  I'm pretty sure when they die, my mother and sister will reconnect in heaven while my dad and I, will be tearing it up in a bar in hell.

Fifteen min
utes had passed, and I was starting to wonder if something happened with Steve.  Just then, he walked in with a panic look on his face, but other than that, he looked ever the sexy man I recently fell in love with.  Not to mention he did things with his hands and tongue that no man had ever done before and that was probably why I was so enamored with him.  I quickly stood and was about to announce his arrival when he motioned for me to come outside with him.

"This is Steve everyone.  We'll be right back."
  I proudly announced to my family in the party room, like a kid who shows off a report card with all A's.  Only problem is, it was all A's in the ridiculous department.

I was the family offspring
whom everyone thought needed a little more common sense.  Well, except for my aunt Heather.  We were two peas in a pod, only she was only fifteen years older than me, due to the fact my grandparents are Catholic.  She, just like myself, tend to be considered as, less wise in my family's eyes.  She could not be here tonight, on account she's in the Bahamas.

As
Steve practically dragged me out of the party room by my hand, I caught the look of concern on Marion's face and the look of disapproval on my mothers.  I heard my grandmother shout out something about kids these days and my cousin's last comment that caught my ears, as Steve and I fled the room.  The comment made my heart stop.  "Why's he wearing a wedding ring if he's dating Cousin Amber?"

And that
, was the beginning of a hellish night for me.  Steve's wife had followed him and caught us just outside the party room doorway.  Everybody in the restaurant and at my dinner table got to hear that I, Amber Jones, had been sleeping with a married man.  Why had I not noticed the tell-tell signs of a married man?  I couldn't call, only text his cell.  The odd working hours.  The sick sister, my ass.  The motel rendezvous, and the slight indentation in his skin, on his ring finger, that I dismissed.  All that from the very first kiss should have been my light-bulb moment.  He was married.  I was embarrassed.  His wife was pissed and unwilling to let me explain.  If it wasn't for Carl, I think the restaurant would have kicked us out.

Carl escorted Steve out with the strength of his strong hand on Steve's upper arm.  Steve's wife followed.  Marion grabbed me and rushed me to the
lady's room.  My mother's cry of 'for Pete's sake you can't even get your own boyfriend' rang out throughout the restaurant.

I spent the next hour in the
lady's room, getting supplies of hard alcohol shots from my cousins and Marion.  I wanted to wait until a new turn of tables appeared before I walked back passed those tables of people that just heard I was sleeping with a married man, and a new flux of customers were too busy ordering their food or eating, to notice the scarlet in the restroom.

I finally made it out when my cousin Julie mentioned they wanted to bring the cake out.  The dinner my mother ordered me, eggplant
parmesan, had gotten cold.  I hate eggplant, and she knows it.  At this point, I was drunk.  Too drunk to care about cold eggplant or my mother.  I was ready to dive right into the chocolate cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting that I had ordered from the bakery up the street.  I walked slyly between my cousin and Marion to the party room.  I slinked in and sat in my chair.  Carl motioned for the waitress and asked if I wanted something new to eat.

"Just bring on the snake!"  I slurred.  I meant to say
cake, but the waitress caught my drift, and I was passed the point of normal conversation or word pronunciation.  I was blitzed.

On a cart with a
tablecloth came a full sheet cake of dark moist chocolate cake, with sweet raspberry filling and dreamiest cream cheese frosting a girl could ever hope for.

That was the best moment of the night.  The brightly lit
candles, thirty of them, didn't bother me.  The snarky comment from my mother when I asked for three pieces didn't bother me.  The birthday cards with gift cards were nice, except when I opened my mother's card, the gift card was for half of what she gave my sister for her birthday.  A nice penmanship comment of 'get yourself something nice to wear' tore at me for a second then I tried to take it in a positive way.  Because that is what this heavenly cake did for me.  It made me forget all the rest of the bad things that happened before tonight and the crazy things my family said and did after.

I was not
only having my cake and eating it too; I was taking the left over's home to wallow in my tears with for many lonely nights to come.  Because tonight may have come to a crappy ending, but I had my cake, and I was not going to be left out in the cold for very long.  In a few days, I will be officially thirty, and I am going to make my mark in this world.

Chapter Two

Nothing like a glimpse of a man with broad naked shoulders, naked
six-pack of abs, naked chiseled backside and did I mention NAKED - to make a girl's tears just disappear.  That naked I am referring to is my new neighbor who just moved in across the alley.  Directly, across from my living room window seat was the window of my neighbor's bedroom.  I have not met him yet, but I fully intend to.  Then a thought struck me quickly.  Not even twenty-four hours from my last disaster of a boyfriend, and here I go again.  'Not so fast you horny slut.  Why don't you take a break from all the male testosterone drama and explore what else is out there, like volunteering?'  That was my good girl conscious talking, and she was a party pooper on more than one occasion; that comes from a strict Catholic upbringing and a mother who raised me to think that I was not out being all that I could be.

However,
as I had watched him strip down to nothing, without a single cover on his window, right in front of me, obvious that I was not even there as I stood half-hidden by the corner ledge of my large apartment window.  I debated the fact that my bad girl side held a lot more power over my good girl conscious.  My bad girl side nudged me hard and shouted.  'Now you need to get your hands on that.  Don't be shy girl.  You're a catch.  Doesn't he look positively sinful?  More sinful than your birthday cake?  "My birthday cake.  Shit!"  I had left it in the taxicab that drove me home.  However, all that didn't seem to matter as I let drool drip down off my lip, while my mouth sat open, and I stared like laser beams at my naked neighbor's body.  Examining every fine sculpted inch of his body.

While I sat down on my window ledge, meant as a window seat,
I watched his every move.  I would not be a normal healthy female if I didn't.  Then he left his bedroom, walking in the direction of a small bathroom window directly next to his large uncovered bedroom window.  It began to steam and that got me thinking.  So, I sat there still as could be, thinking any minute now he will be stepping out of that hot steamy shower, hopefully naked again, back into his bedroom with water droplets trickling down his finely sculpted body.  I was hoping he hadn't unpacked any towels yet and would walk completely naked to his room.

Five minutes had
passed, and I was beginning to feel an ache in my lower back, along with the fact that my butt had fallen asleep.  In the two years that I had lived in this apartment, I had never once put a cushion on this window seat let alone pillows.  No reason to.  I used it as a coffee table or junk collector.  Now, with my new neighbor and his ability to put on a free erotic show, I will be putting not only a plush bench pillow but also several throw pillows.  I might even pick up a book and pretend to read while precariously facing my neighbor's bedroom window.  Perhaps, right about the time he needs to either, dress or undress, or just take a shower.  This is how I start it.  The trouble.  Finding devious ways to get my mojo going and then not knowing when to stop.

That made me think briefly of Steve and our precarious meeting.  Who picks up a guy at a
convenience store that's buying large size condoms?  Me, that's who.  Maybe it was because I was there to buy replacement batteries for my vibrator and the fact that not only was his package large, but his looks were sexy.  His laughter was uncanny when he asked what the batteries were for as we stood in a line of six people.  I leaned in, whispered into his ear, not wanting to tell a lie and said the truth as sexy as I could.  He turned his complete attention to me and smiled.  Before I knew it, he was buying my batteries for me, along with his condoms and telling me his offer of replacing my batteries, if you get what I mean.  So it wasn't love at first sight, although he was good looking.  It was after my first orgasm that I thought I fell in love.  Well, love is blind and orgasms make women do stupid stuff.  I should have stuck with the batteries.

I knew that what I had done
, had not been done to hurt anyone, especially Steve's wife.  If I had known he was married, I would have - NOT flirted.  Thinking back, he did not have his ring on at the store either.  Therefore, I needed to get over my guilt, conjure up some witty banter for the next time my mother drops a comment about it, and move on.  Perhaps the convenience of my new naked neighbor moving in was just the type of moving on I needed.

When I finally could not take sitting any longer
, I stood up to stretch with my back to the window.  I let my arms stretch above my head, and my long tee shirt rose up with my arms.  I let the air seep into the holes of my last resort underwear; my faded red, more like pink, well-worn and holey granny panties.  Today was laundry day, so shoot me for not throwing them away like I should, instead I kept them around for days like today, procrastination laundry day.  Where every sock, bra and underwear is dirty, and walking around without undies on in only a tee shirt wasn't my style after a night like last night.

When I finally bent down to touch my toes, I caught a glimpse of my toes that were in desperate need of a pedicure. 
Somewhere between last night's birthday soirée and this morning, I chipped two toenails to a ragged edge.  A pedicure will be something I can run down the street and do while my laundry is taking up the only three washers and dryers in the basement apartment complex's laundry facilities.  I know it's kind of rude, but it's Monday and the laundry room in my apartment building and the apartment across the way that had access to it - same management company, only one laundry room between the two buildings - was always empty on Monday mornings.  So once a month I take a vacation or uh-hum sick day, sad - I know, and I wash a month's worth of laundry, clean my apartment, stock my cabinets with food and liquor and get my hair done along with a manicure and pedicure if I'm feeling lucky.  Today, after getting a five-second glimpse of my finely sculpted naked neighbor's body, I am feeling good!

When I finally stood back up and turned to see the progress on my neighbor, I was shocked and mortified.  Not only was he fully dressed in khaki shorts and army green tee shirt, but he was leaning against his window looking directly at me.  Can you say deer caught in headlight look, from
me?  He had a devilish grin upon his adorable face.  I couldn't make out the color of his eyes but his slightly tanned skin suggested Spanish heritage, and his dark-brown hair in a short cut suggested professional man or perhaps just a clean-cut bum that lived in these average rent apartments.  I gulped hard as he waved, and I froze.  Then he shook his head with a smile, turned his back to me with a backwards wave, and then he was out of my line of sight.