April 2, Ten Days to Austin Film Festival
Hey, I’m not going to Dawn’s tonight. Or, I can’t. Parents said no,” Edie sighed into the phone.
“Dude, they’re so annoying.”
“Can you go at least?”
“Simone is already here cooking dinner, and my mom thinks by the time we’re done eating it’s going to be too late at night.” Georgia picked at the carpet under her palm with her lavender acrylic nails.
“Okay. Let me know if D texts you back. I saw she read one of my messages. I’m worried.”
“Of course.” Georgia heard her mother’s singsong voice through her bedroom door and lifted the phone away from her ear. “I gotta go. My mom is calling me.” She hung up the phone quickly and pulled herself from the floor where she’d been spread out doing some writing and got ready for dinner. Simone had arrived about fifteen minutes earlier, but she’d been hiding out in her room in the hopes that she could avoid interacting with him as much as possible.
Swirling smells of the roasted duck her mother was cooking wafted into the hallway from the kitchen and into Georgia’s room. She followed the scent of the savory spices and found her mother barefoot, leaning over a pot of sauce, Simone hovering uselessly near the dish cabinet.
Georgia couldn’t help but think her mother looked like a kid with her hair pulled high into a ponytail and her toes tapping to some inaudible song.
“It’s almost ready, Geo. Set the table,” her mother said, back still turned towards the food.
The plates made a tinkling sound as they landed on the tiny round table. Georgia made sure to put her set as far from Simone’s as she could. Her mother carried the pot from the stove onto the waiting potholder and Simone rushed over with the pan of duck in hand.
Sitting at this table with Frankie was all Georgia knew. As long as she’d been alive, it had always been one plus one. Two plates, two long days to talk about, two pairs of shoes clashing beneath the table. Now, for the first time, here was Simone with his clunky feet and stupid glasses and voice that coiled and slumped like some dead thing at the bottom of a trash can.
They all moved the dishes around the table and grabbed their servings. Georgia shoved the duck into her mouth and spread the sauce over the small potatoes from the pan. Frankie and Simone talked about nothing and she wondered what her mother, the most brilliant and soft-hearted person she knew, could possibly see in him.
“You know, there’s actually a poetry reading happening at BookWoman in Austin next weekend. You could read some of your poems. You said you write poems, right, Georgia?” She shuddered at the sound of her name on his tongue.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Oh, Geo, wouldn’t that be nice? You never share your poetry.” Her mother added, approving of Simone’s suggestion.
“Yeah.”
“I would like to hear some of your writing one day.” Simone said. Sauce sat messily on his chin and dribbled down his face as he spoke. Georgia kept her head down and tried to force the time to go faster as her mom and Simone began talking about bookstores in Houston they liked.
“Turn on the radio, Georgie.” Her mother insisted as dinner came to an end.
She did as she was told and got up to mess around with the buttons on their kitchen boombox, which her mother had referred to as the radio ever since they’d bought it a decade ago. They only had four CDs, two of which were from Georgia’s punk phase in middle school. The other two were love songs of the seventies. She slipped a CD into the player and some crooning song about never ever ever ever breaking up began to play.
Her mother cleared the plates and began to move around the kitchen to the tune as it ramped up to the chorus. She swayed her hips and tapped her toes on the little kitchen rugs they had spread out around the floor.
“I used to listen to this song in my bright yellow Ford Pinto,” Simone chimed in over the sound of the running water on his dirty plate.
“Oh god, I remember those. I wasn’t old enough to drive but my aunt had one when I was a little girl,” laughed Frankie, her head nodding lightly to the song.
Georgia watched Simone begin to move to the music, with his perpetually sweaty hands mounted onto Frankie’s shoulders. Georgia felt sick and out of place. The song went on and on as they stumbled over each other’s feet.
“Too much, too much,” Frankie muttered into Simone’s chest. “Let me change so we can go out.”
Frankie left the room and the air ballooned with discomfort.
“Dance with me,” he said flatly.
“No, thanks.”
Simone crossed the kitchen in one stride to face her. He reached his hand out towards her.
“Just dance with me.” His voice took on an insistent tone as he moved closer.
He grabbed her waist and pulled her body in close. She could feel the chill from his belt buckle rub against her stomach. He swayed and so she swayed too. It felt as though every bug that ever existed crawled up and down her skin with each thump and beat of the music. He dragged his finger up her forearm slowly. She wanted to push him away and stab him with one of the knives on the counter.
But she didn’t. She let it happen and felt dumb because she was so sure she was not the type of person that this would happen to. Whenever bad things happened to girls in movies she thought, well if that were me, I’d just leave. But here she was, solidly unmoving in his arms.
Her mind went nowhere. Simone smelled like the ginger her mother seasoned the duck with. Something else too, maybe a strong deodorant with illustrations of trees and mint leaves on the label. They moved left and right and she waited until the song was over.
The song ended and he moved away. Frankie rounded the corner in a lavender wrap dress and they were out the door before Georgia could think of anything beyond the kiss her mother gave her on the forehead as she disappeared.