“What happened?” he asked, after taking one look at me. “You look like shit.”
“Why, thank you,” I said, thinking that if disheveled, unshowered Miller was telling me I looked like shit, it had to be pretty bad.
“Seriously. Have you been crying?”
“No. It’s just the mascara,” I said. “It always smears on me. I don’t know why.”
“That’s why you gotta go waterproof,” Miller said knowingly.
I laughed and said, “How do you know about waterproof mascara?”
“Because I listen,” he said in his faux touchy-feely voice. “Because, unlike a lot of guys, I care about women and their needs.”
I laughed again, thinking that I’d made the right phone call. Never mind that I really didn’t have any other friends.
“How’s Ryan?” he asked.
“We broke up. How’s Hot-for-Teacher?”
“We broke up, too.” He raised his eyebrows and said, “Wait. Are you hitting on me? Returning to the well?”
“No, Miller. I’m not returning to the well,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I just needed to talk to someone … It’s been a shit day. I’m in a fight with my mom. Lucy’s not speaking to me. And I got fired.”
He whistled and said, “You’re making my life look pretty damn good. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“So why’d you get fired? Because you’re bonin’ Coach Carr?”
I looked at him, too startled to deny the charge. “Why would you say that?”
“For one, I told you, I pay attention. I’m perceptive as hell.”
“And for another?”
“That night you left your credit card … I drove over to your place to return it … maybe get a little action … and there was his car. Right there in your lot. So to speak.”
“You haven’t said anything to anyone, have you?”
“Nope. I’m sensitive and discreet.”
“Thanks, Miller. Seriously.”
He winked and said. “So lemme guess … Lucy has a problem with you bonin’ her old man?”
“Stop saying that.”
“Bonin’ or old man?”
“Both. And we’re not boning. But there are some feelings there … Anyway, Lucy told my mom—who is also really pissed off at me—that I had to choose. Him or her.”
“Easy choice.”
“You just hate Lucy.”
“True,” he said. “But regardless. You gotta go with love.”
“You think?”
“Every time.” He hesitated and said, “Unless the broad you love up and cold-blooded dumps you, and then you gotta limp away with whatever pride you have left.” He added a wink, in case I missed the point.
I shook my head and laughed. “You got any more advice?”
“Take Walker and the points. Alabama won’t cover.”
“I don’t bet on Walker.”
Miller grinned. “Oh, yeah, you do.”
Forty-one
Later that evening, after my Pabst Blue Ribbon buzz had worn off, I wrote Lucy a letter, in longhand, putting everything on paper as clearly as I could. But I knew her, and felt sure that she would return it unopened. I also knew that on some level it was cowardly not to face her, look her in the eyes, and talk to her. I had given Ryan that much. So I called her, pleading into her voice mail for her to talk to me, then calling back after I reached my maximum message length. On the follow-up call, Neil answered Lucy’s cell in a whisper. “Hold on,” he said.
I heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and then his voice again. “Okay,” he said. “In the garage now.”
“How bad is this?” I asked him.
“Oh … on a scale of one to ten? About ten thousand.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s not pretty around here, Shea. Throw in a little morning sickness? My life’s hell.”
“I’m sorry, Neil … I really need to talk to her.”
“Yeah. Well. I don’t think that’s gonna happen anytime soon.”
“C’mon, Neil,” I pleaded. “You have to help me out here. You can get her to talk to me.”
“I can’t get her to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” he said. “You know that. But maybe if you just dropped by …”
“When? Now? What’s she doing now?”
“She’s in the bathtub … So that should mellow her a little.”
“So can I come now?”
“Okay. But don’t you dare tell her I told you that. And I’m deleting this call from her log …”