My cheeks flushed and I flipped the phone over on the table.
“Thanks,” I said, quietly.
“There are so many attractive guys on there. And girls too! Promise me you’ll check it out,” Pam whined, slamming back her second beer and shouting after the waitress for a third.
“I will,” I lied, fingers grasping one of the mussel shells. “So, how was your day off?” I tried to change the subject, uncomfortable with this intense focus on me and my lackluster love life.
I sucked the flesh from the shell while Pam told Jerry and me about her two intakes at the shelter today—an abused labrador and a lost Balinese kitten. She had been volunteering at the local animal shelter every Friday and Saturday for years now, and though she was one of those people who viewed animals as children, she never brought any home with her from work.
Oh, how nice it would be to have a sassy pup instead of a rabid teen in my house …
I was grateful to have a change in topic. I listened to my friends talk, but I didn’t hear much of what they said because I was slightly irritated about the whole dating site thing.
Who the fuck do they think they are setting that up without asking me? Am I that desperate in their eyes?
I tried to imagine the conversation that must have taken place between them when they decided to set it up. Pam saying, ‘Poor Ivy. You know what she really needs for her birthday? A man!’
Pam was single too, but she dated regularly, either guys she met on dating sites or blokes she met in bars. Unlike me, she had never been married.
I was also still worried about Delaney and Samantha. I checked my phone for the hundredth time but Michael had not responded to my texts.
Surely, if Delaney needed me, she would get a hold of me, I assured myself.
“Helloooo,” Jerry said, breaking into my thoughts with the snap of his fingers.
“What?” I snapped. “Sorry. Just thinking about Delaney again …”
“Well, we’re trying to get your mind off that. Where should we go next? You’re the birthday girl, you decide.”
“Next?” I took a sip of my drink. By now, the amaretto sour was lukewarm, and the mussels were swishing around in my belly. All I wanted to do was go back home and fall asleep early.
Damn, maybe I am getting old.
“Yeah, I thought we could go out to a club. There are some new ones that just opened over in Kentucky. Maybe have some more drinks, do a little dancing like the old days? And before you say no, don’t worry. Jerry will be the DD if we need him,” Pam pleaded.
The words “no” and “I’m tired” floated on the tip of my tongue. And they wouldn’t have been a lie – I was tired. And stressed out.
I want to go home, crawl into bed, and sleep.
But my mind wandered back to the dating profile, that giddy, carefree version of me in that profile pic. And my friends, so desperate to see me dating again. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea, but it still made me nervous just thinking about it. The last man I was with was Michael, and … well, look how that turned out.
“Okay, I’ll go … but only for a little while. I need to get home in case—”
“We know, we know. In case Delaney needs you,” Jerry said, laughing.
Pam and Jerry were kind enough to settle the bill, covering my part of the food and my drink for my birthday. As we walked outside, I was hit with a vague memory: stumbling out of a restaurant just like this one … only then, it had been my twenty-first birthday. Michael clutching my arm for support. We were both drunk, completely unfit to be driving. But we didn’t care – we were so in love, or lust, that all we could think about was getting back to his apartment, getting each other alone …
‘I can’t wait to get you back to my place. Give you some birthday dessert, baby,’ he’d purred in my ear. He flicked my lobe with his tongue. It was cheesy – all of it – but his words created tingly shocks of pleasure that started on my scalp and trickled all the way to my toes.
Michael, always the charmer. Until he wasn’t.
“Listen, I’m going to follow you there,” I said, opening the door of the van. I expected more protests and was relieved when they didn’t.
It had been so long since I’d been to Grisham Boulevard, which was where most of the popular bars and night clubs were in Kentucky.
“You sure you don’t want to ride with me now? You could leave your car here till morning,” Jerry stood outside the driver’s window, jingling his keys. Pam was clutching his arm, clearly too drunk to drive herself after those four beers.
“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll park in the garage by Grisham, and then if I need you to take me home, at least I’ll know the van is safely parked.”
In reality, I wasn’t planning on having any more drinks. The amaretto sour had hurt my belly and left a terrible aftertaste in the back of my mouth.
Plus, I wanted to be able to drive home so I didn’t have to deal with tracking down my van in the morning. Too many days in my youth had been spent recuperating from the night before …
I placed my purse on the passenger seat and tugged my driver’s mirror down to check for food in my teeth.
Even now, I’m shocked by the woman looking back at me.
I guess I was still expecting that younger version, the one with the smooth white skin and shiny black hair minus the wiry gray strands, the girl with the killer smile and the confidence to back it up. Once upon a time, I could turn heads. Including Michael’s.
But I don’t turn heads anymore.
Maybe the dating app isn’t such a bad idea, I considered.
Pam had shared a few stories about her dating escapades with me. Was I impressed?
No, not really. I sort of felt sorry for her.
My mind drifted back to Delaney, as I waited for Jerry to pull up beside me so I could follow him there.
The phone on the floorboard chirped again. I’d nearly forgotten about it, lying down there in the dark. Grunting, I reached across the seat and scooped it up.
Delaney will definitely be wanting this back in the morning, I thought, furtively.
I stared at the screen of her iPhone. The screen saver was a picture of her and her best friend, Kerry. Kerry was all smiles and puckered lips, but Delaney … she frowned into the lens, her eyes narrowed and intense. She looked almost … angry. And everything about the photo screamed: ‘Don’t fuck with me.’
Maybe that’s exactly what she was aiming for, I considered.
I swiped right, mostly to erase that vexed image of her, and was instantly met with a prompt to put in a password. Without thinking I punched in the six-digit code Delaney and I had both been using for years now, the one she used to use for Roblox and other online kid games. But that had been years ago; surely, she had changed it by now?
Surprisingly, the password still worked. Like me, Delaney was a creature of habit.
A dozen app icons filled the screen. I was relieved to see that her wallpaper was a simple design, blue ocean water and steamy white caps on a stranded beach. It felt wrong looking at her phone like this. And if Delaney knew I was snooping, there would be hell to pay.
She would be livid, no doubt.
But isn’t this what responsible parents are supposed to do? Check up on their teens?
My mother was dead by the time I was Delaney’s age, and I could have used one with all the trouble I got into.