“Absolutely,” returns Sam, and it might be the cheeriest word I’ve ever heard uttered deadpan.
“What about … our thing?” asks Tomas, the boy at her side, who I’m surmising is a friend of Sam’s, though the nature of their relationship is entirely a mystery, considering how utterly unromantic they seem toward each other. They could be brother and sister, if it weren’t for the drastically contrasting hair and differently-shaped faces.
“What thing? Oh, that thing. I … don’t want to do that thing.”
“But we talked about doing that thing.”
Brant leans forward. “Is ‘that thing’ some kind of clever sexual euphemism, or …?”
“Naturally you’d think that,” blurts Dessie with a teasing smile, inspiring a laugh from the others. “If someone isn’t talking about sex or bowling, you’re bored to tears. And even bowling is all balls.” Suddenly her eyes meet mine and a look of worry crosses them. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being totally rude. Don’t listen to me. I’ve known Brant for over a year now. I’ve basically earned the right to make fun of him whenever I want. He’s a great guy. Ignore me.”
The faces at the table turn to me, laughter in them. The only face I regard is Brant’s, who regards me with a sheepish smirk.
“Remarkable assessment,” I finally say, acknowledging Dessie’s utterly inept and skewed presumption of who Brant is, “for someone who’s known him ‘over a year’, as you put it. I’ve not even known him for a month, and while I am all too aware of Brant’s hornucopia of a brain,” I go on, my eyes narrowing, “I’m also aware of his keen eye, his attention to detail, and his artistic integrity. If it weren’t for those things, I wouldn’t be standing at this table right now having just listened to a girl sing about how much she hates her lover’s face.”
Dessie looks like I just slapped her in the face. “I—That wasn’t what the song—I mean, Clayton’s deaf. I don’t like his face when he looks away because I—”
“Because he can’t read your self-important lips?” I finish for her, incensed by the way she just dismissed Brant with a handful of words and everyone at this table thinks it’s okay, Brant included. “If you’d spend less attention on Brant’s lips and whatever jokes come out of them, you’d see a driven artist behind a camera instead of some lowly horn-dog who’s just here for everyone’s amusement.”
No, I didn’t slap Dessie’s face earlier with my words. Now I have, and the sting is evident in the way her eyes well up instantly. Whether it’s with hurt or indignance, I don’t know her well enough to say.
Maybe I don’t know her at all. Maybe I’m being the asshole here.
And besides that, what am I even saying to these people? Why the hell am I defending Brant, calling him an artist with integrity and all that bullshit?
What’s gotten into me …?
When I look at Brant, I see a flicker of doubt in his eyes, and that’s when I realize I may have gone too far. He just brought me to meet his friends and all I’m succeeding in doing is being rude and embarrassing the hell out of him.
“I need to hit the ladies’ room,” I say dryly, dismissing myself from the table.
Cutting through the crowd, I make my way toward the wrong corner of the bar and find myself standing in front of an exit door instead of the bathroom. With a roll of my eyes, I seek the restrooms over a hundred heads and bodies standing in the way. Pushing to the opposite corner, I find the tiny hall that leads to my destination, then push through the door into the restroom.
I twist on a faucet and stare at my face in the mirror. This is the reason you don’t have friends, I remind myself with a cold stare into my own eyes. I hate that I always learn these valuable lessons in the worst situations.
And why am I so damn quick to jump to judgments about people? I wonder if something in Dessie’s tone reminded me of the girls on the bus who tore apart my artwork. Or the ones in the cafeteria who threw food at me.
Or the one I call Mom who raised me.
Maybe the thought that scares me the most is if Dessie doesn’t remind me of any of those terrible women in my life. Maybe it was seeing her performing her art in front of this room full of people who were eager to see her, who downright adore her, and for her work to be received with praise and screams of joy. Maybe she’s the kind of artist I want to be someday: celebrated, revered, and … liked.
Oh my god. Am I jealous of her?
“What the fuck did you just do?” I ask my reflection through a sigh. I just went off on Brant’s good friend Dessie in front of all of his friends, who I had just met. Talk about a shitty first impression. Eric has probably flipped his tack completely, now warning Brant to run the hell away from me.