“YOU DID WHAT?” TESS SHOVES HER PALM INTO HER TRAINING DUMMY with a lackluster shove, then turns to face me, pressing her hand to her brow like a visor to block the afternoon sun.
I leap forward and sweep my dummy to the sidewalk as she watches me, mouth agape. The inflatable dummy—which I’ve monikered Zane—rises, wobbly, to face me again.
“Yep,” I say through a heavy breath. My best friend’s reaction doesn’t help quell my anxiety about joining a virtual stranger on a trip out of the country. I try to play it cool nonetheless, pretend I’m someone who does unreasonable things like joining a guy on a trip to the Caribbean on a whim of fancy. Or that I’m someone who says things like whim of fancy.
“It’s so . . .”
“Unlike me?” I give Dummy Zane a front kick to the midsection, then smile at a passing Pomeranian because it appears to be smiling at me. Finn lifts his head from the sidewalk beside me to acknowledge the pup with fur a half-shade darker than his.
“Yes. Completely, wholly unlike you.” Tess gives her dummy an inconsequential jab with her fist. Unsurprisingly, her self-defense efforts are less than impressive. “What is this class, anyway? I thought in self-defense you get to take your aggression out on a real guy, like kick him in the groin and scream ‘NO!’ over and over as loud as you can. Was this a Groupon?”
I shrug. “Thought it would teach us some good skills. Maybe I can bank some moves for my game characters. And, because it’s outside, they allow dogs!”
Finn’s ears perk, knowing he has entered the conversation.
“And being typical me hasn’t been working out so well lately,” I add.
“How did this happen? Does this guy have some kind of dirt on you? Is he blackmailing you? Or are you just sleeping with him and hooked on the D?”
“Tess, my god. I’m not sleeping with him.” I was contemplating telling her Free Hugs Guy is also Hot Neighbor Guy, aka Charlie, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing this is all the result of her ill-advised mission at the bar.
“Well, explain then! I don’t want to be interviewed on Dateline defending why I didn’t do enough to stop you from going on the trip that ultimately led to your demise.”
Tess is also a true crime fan.
“For starters, I’ll be able to work on my game concept for Catapult. What better place to get work done with no distractions than on a beach in paradise?” I wince a little inside as I use Charlie’s argument to convince her. “And I have to get this job. I’m running out of money . . .”
Tess exhales and shakes her head. “You’ve been so consumed with preparing for the end of the world, you neglected to prepare for the basics of your actual life.”
I choose to ignore her and give Dummy Zane another kick, this one a roundhouse to the face. “And did you know Turks is the gem of the Caribbean?” I say, undeterred, regurgitating what I read in my online research last night. “And Rihanna visits often? I could be partying with Rihanna all week. I can’t deprive myself of that opportunity.”
“The chances of you running into Rihanna—”
“Providenciales is a small island! Only twenty-three thousand people. So really, the chances aren’t that unrealistic. And he’ll owe me. I can make Charlie go with me to my parents’ vow renewal next month. It’ll get them off my back about not having anyone.” Though the last part hadn’t occurred to me until this minute, I might as well leverage the situation to my benefit.
Our instructor approaches Tess and places his hands on her hips to correct her poor form. She bites her bottom lip and scrunches her nose raunchily at me when he’s not looking as if it’s some form of foreplay.
“But I was gonna go and fake-announce myself as your lover,” she says when the instructor has given up.
“It was a solid plan, but then I’d have to explain, at some point down the line, why you are no longer my lover and still my best friend.”
“Fair,” she concedes. “Why don’t you just finally tell your family what really happened with Zane?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t the truth be better than them thinking you let this amazing guy go? Tell them what a dickhead he really is.”
I shake my head again, this time more firmly. “If I tell them the truth, everything they believe about me will also be true. That I couldn’t make a good decision for myself if my life depended on it.” I say they, though we both know I’m only referring to my mother. My father’s love is simple, unyielding, and unconditional, sort of like Finn’s. I realize I’m comparing my father to a dog, but I do mean it in the best possible way.
“So you’d rather them think you walked away from something they believe was perfect?”
“Yes, because then at least they might have some faith in me that I can find perfect again.” Though I informed Tess of the Zane and Jenna update, I don’t care to discuss it further.
“I still don’t understand how Zane got your parents to love him so much.”
“They didn’t love him. They loved that I might finally get married. My mom’s standards lowered considerably when she thought there was a ring in my near future.”
According to my mother, I need a man but, equally, should be self-sufficient. She focuses her efforts on one versus the other depending on her mood on a particular day, or on which she believes I am currently failing at most.
Tess shakes her head. Conversations trying to make sense of my mother’s logic never seem to go anywhere. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” she says. “You know you’ll probably fall in love with this guy, right? Or sleep with him, at least. It’s inevitable.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Right.”
“No. Really. It cannot happen. I sort of promised the team at Catapult I’d stay single.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Yeah. It’s an all-dude creative team and they’re wary of hiring a woman. So, I promised I would have no distractions. That I would be fully dedicated to the company. No boyfriends, no babies, no problems.”
“Is that their recruiting slogan?” She crosses her arms. “You realize there are about a hundred HR violations in what you just said, right? They can’t expect that of you.”
“Yet—that’s how it goes if I want to get my foot in the door. This is the career I want. The only thing I’m good at. I can handle a little misogyny to get it.”
“How would they even know you had a boyfriend anyway?”
“I’m sure they would keep tabs somehow—they seem to care about it too much not to pay attention. Besides, now that Zane’s living in my neighborhood, I bet he’d rat me out if he ever saw me with someone.”
“You think he’d do that?”
“If I got this job over him? Psht. One thousand percent. I’m sure they bro’d it up in his interview, even mentioning that there was a lonely girl final candidate, in the running as long as she is single. And now he knows that girl is me. And the gaming world is small. I can’t become known as the other girl with boyfriend issues. It would ruin me, professionally speaking. And besides, who wants to constantly sneak around and act like they are ashamed of their own relationship? No guy would sign up for that.”
“A married guy might.”
“Hmm, tempting. But I’ll opt for singledom over mistressing.”
Tess takes a long sip of water, then pours some into Finn’s mouth from the bottle. I feel a strong opinion coming. “Why don’t you find another company—or better yet, build one yourself? That’s the ultimate dream, isn’t it?”
I sigh. “It’s not that easy. Catapult is the number one—”
“Number one game design company in the world, right in our backyard. Yeah, I know. But it’s pretty shitty that they can all have multiple marriages and booty calls and whatever else they’re into, and even Zane can be engaged, yet they expect you to promise a life of spinsterhood to even be considered.”
“I can play the game.”
“Pun intended?” She kicks her dummy with the toe of her purple sneaker.
“Yes. Besides, it’s not like I’m looking for a relationship anyway. After Zane, a life dedicated to work and Finn is fine by me. Delightfully fine.” I kneel to give him a top-of-the-head scratch.
“If you say so,” she says with a sigh. “Okay, if you plan on selling your soul for this job, I suppose I can get behind you having this little adventure first. I hope you sleep with this guy. And anyone else you cross paths with. Maybe one guy each day. Like the twelve days of Christmas, but as a countdown to your vagina being closed off for good.”
“You need help,” I say.
“Not as much help as your vagina.”
“Can we please stop talking about my vagina?”
Finn groans at my feet.
“Ladies, less vagina, more balls!” our instructor calls out from the front of the group.
“Excuse me?” Tess and I say in unison.
“Balls,” he says, pointing to the medicine balls stacked against the side of the building.
“This class makes no sense to me,” Tess says, grabbing one and setting it at her feet. “Am I supposed to have a medicine ball with me at all times to throw at potential assailants?”
“Maybe it’s for building core strength so we can fight off an assailant.”
She shrugs. “If you insist on going on this trip, please don’t get murdered. I really don’t have time to organize candlelight vigils. I know how you feel about candles.”
“Full of arsenic.”
The other class participants have broken off into pairs and are throwing the medicine balls back and forth. I throw my ball at Tess, who steps aside and lets it hit the cracked sidewalk. I won’t be bringing her to this class again.
“You are so not disaster-ready,” I tell her.
“I don’t need to be. I have you,” she says. “So act like the responsible human you are, please.”
“I’ll take my Mace on the trip.”
“Great. Now can we please go get a proud-of-ourselves-for-working-out cocktail?”
“Can’t.” I grab Finn’s leash. “Interview game design.” Finn and I say our goodbyes to Tess before she can argue.
As we begin the walk home, I wonder why I’ve pushed so hard to convince Tess this escapade is a good idea when I’m not particularly convinced myself.