I’m restocking the napkin dispenser Saturday night at work when Ray’s truck pulls up outside at the pump. I stare out the window at the truck, wondering what Ray is up to tonight. I really hope he isn’t going to come in and punch Denny for giving Charlotte some CDs. Denny’s nose is already crooked, and we both know he’s not the best fighter in town.
Ray gets out to pump the gas. The passenger-side door opens and Mike gets out. He peers at the gas station, and there I am, staring right out at him. He waves and then jogs toward me, looking happy to see me.
“So, Fleming. Where’ve you been?” Mike asks when he walks into the store. He’s wearing his usual red flip-flops.
“Around,” I say, feeling nervous.
“Around, huh? What have you been doing?” He comes up really close to me and when I look in his eyes, I start remembering the car wash.
Behind me, I hear Denny humming. I wish he’d turn up the radio so that he can’t eavesdrop.
“Well, I’ve been busy. Really busy,” I say as I fidget with my stupid apron. “My family . . . and the job . . . and the new baby coming . . . and . . .” I shrug. “You know.”
“Yeah. I’ve been busy, too. You wouldn’t believe how many people order pizza during a heat wave,” Mike says. “It was insane on the Fourth. So do you have a break or something coming up?”
“Um . . .” I’m about to say no when for some reason I look right at Mike’s mouth, and I remember how kissing him was sort of thrilling, the feel-good movie of the summer so far. Without another thought, I hang up my apron, ask Denny to cover for me for a couple of minutes, and Mike and I head out back. Denny glares at me the entire time it takes to walk past him. It’s like having an extra father around.
“Is this okay with Ray?” I ask as we go out the back door.
“Sure. He’s cool,” Mike says.
I prop the door open with an empty container of 10W-30 motor oil, then turn to find Mike. In the dark, I stumble over some discarded cardboard boxes on the ground and Mike catches my arm. He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close, right up against him.
“Careful,” he says. “You’re as bad as me trying to Rollerblade.”
“That bad? Really?” I tease him.
“Hey, not all of us are born skaters, okay?” Mike smiles, and in the deserted area behind the store, I notice how white his teeth are. I haven’t been back here except to toss trash bags into the Dumpster. It smells horrible. I try to close off my nose, to stop breathing, to stop absorbing the noxiousness.
“A born skater? Interesting,” I say, glancing down at my feet.
His hands are on my hips and he pulls me toward him again and kisses me. His lips don’t feel the same as they did that night in the car wash—they’re dry, maybe a little sunburned or windburned. Then again, it’s hard to kiss while I’m also holding my breath to avoid Dumpster smells.
“You know what’s bizarre?” Mike pauses to look at me. He runs his fingers up and down my bare arms. “Gropher is, like, the biggest liar in the world. I mean, usually nothing he says is true.”
“Oh, yeah?” I say. “Really?” I hadn’t thought of him as a liar before.
“Are you serious? The dude has made up almost everything,” Mike says.
“Like what?” I challenge him.
“Like all that stuff about gambling and being an addict and all. He’s never lost big at gambling. He’s played poker like twice in his life, and he sucked at it,” Mike says. “I beat him. My father beat him.”
“Really?” I ask. I can’t believe it. Everyone at school thinks he’s on his tenth step.
“That scar he says he got from jumping off a roof? Okay, he fell off his bike or something. Going down a hill and turning too fast. I mean, he’s just . . . he takes stuff and he makes it sound like something else.”
“Really?” I say again.
“He’s supposed to be saving all that money from waiting tables for his road trip? Then explain how he owns like a thousand CDs and DVDs. You know what I mean?”
My heart starts to sink a little—no, a lot. Or maybe it just didn’t have that far down to go.
Steve was supposed to take French, but he didn’t. Maybe all his talk about getting out of Lindville is just that: talk. Because if you look at it one way, it does seem as if maybe he’s working really hard toward being the IHOP manager here, instead of toward escaping town.
Mike moves closer to me and kisses my neck. “Anyway, that’s beside the point. Because even though he lies? The really cool thing is, everything he said about you is true.”
“About me?” I step back from Mike. “What about me is true?” I ask him, and at the same time I don’t want to know.
Mike kisses my neck again. “He said you were a really good kisser. He said even though you weren’t his type, he just felt like he had to kiss you again, after the first time.”
I stare at him, this awful burning in my throat. “Oh, yeah? I’m not his type? When did he say that?”
“I don’t know. Who cares? The point is, he was right,” Mike says. He tries to kiss me again, and I shove him away, nearly knocking him against the Dumpster.
“What? It’s a compliment,” Mike says.
I go back inside, tossing the plastic oil container aside, and I close the door behind me, which locks it. Then I realize that anyone, even Mike, can walk into the front of the store as long as it’s open, so it doesn’t matter whether I close that door or not.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say before Denny can ask. Headlights flash against the windows and I glance out and see Mike and Ray driving away.
I take some bleach and cleanser and start scrubbing the sink, one of the chores Jamie left for me. I can’t stop thinking about how I was so stupid, how this whole thing got so ridiculous. I kept thinking that Steve and I had this connection, because of the way we met and the things we talked about. I thought we were . . . soul mates or something. I figured he was only with Jacqui because they worked together and that kind of stuff happens when you work with someone. Or so I’ve heard. It isn’t happening here at Gas ’n Git, which is fine by me.
Anyway, it turns out Steve never meant anything he said, that he’s so shallow he believes in “types,” and that he liked kissing me—enough to tell Mike about it—and that’s it. He made out with me and then reported on it. Which I would have thought was really beneath him. But now I guess it’s obvious that I don’t know him at all.
Now I know two things I didn’t want to: that Steve isn’t interested in me, even though he likes making out with me, and that Mike probably only came after me because of what Steve said about my kissing . . . skill, or whatever you’d call it. I guess I can’t be mad at Mike, though I am. I only went out with him because I wanted to get to Steve.
We’re thwarted all around.
Denny walks over and puts a fruit drink on my counter. “With my compliments,” he says. “That is, if you can drink anything after inhaling all those bleach fumes.”
I laugh, and for a second forget how angry and upset and furious I feel.
“So the guy’s a loser. You realize that.”
“He’s not the problem,” I say. “There’s this other guy—his best friend, Steve. I sort of used to . . . I don’t know.” I can’t say I ever dated him, can I? “Anyway, he’s going out with this other girl now. They both work at IHOP.”
“Love among the pancakes,” Denny says dryly. “How romantic.”
“I have to leave work a little early tonight,” I say. I flip open the phone book and look up Taxi.
“Okay, I’ll tell people we’re out of coffee. But be careful.” Denny looks at me and I can tell he knows what I’m about to do. “Don’t slip on any butter pats.”