“Coincidentally, did you know that my favorite hardware store is right across the street from my favorite taco shop?” she mused.
“Did someone say tacos?” Rocco poked his head out of the second-floor window.
Tacos and home renovation supplies with an entrepreneur, a male exotic dancer, and a drag queen on her day off. Just another glamorous day in the life.
46
Dominic
The thing about being over forty is hangovers last about as long as a case of the flu.
Saturday morning, I skipped my usual workout in favor of walking two blocks to a diner to shamefully eat two greasy breakfast sandwiches while guzzling electrolytes and tea behind sunglasses.
Back home, my doorbell rang just as I was heading back upstairs to sleep off my poor life choices.
“Hey, Dominic.” My chipper neighbor Sascha was bundled up in a lime green, puffy parka and grinning at me over a wrapped platter. Her six-year-old son, Jace, stood next to her dressed in Spider-Man pajamas and a winter coat. His grin revealed a gap in his smile that hadn’t been there when I saw him last weekend.
I was familiar with this drill.
“Sascha,” I rasped. Pretending not to be hungover was about as effective as pretending not to be drunk.
“I’m coming to hang out with you, Mr. Dominic,” Jace announced gleefully.
His mother elbowed him in the shoulder. “Not before we ask politely, remember?” she said out of the side of her mouth while still smiling maniacally at me.
“Mr. Dominic, we made you your favorite cookies. Can I come play with Brownie?”
Sascha held up the platter. “Cinnamon butterscotch. And it would only be for forty minutes. An hour tops.”
Cinnamon butterscotch cookies were not my favorite. In fact, I hated butterscotch anything. But the day I’d moved in, Sascha, her husband Elton, and their then newly adopted baby Jace “dropped by” with a plate of cookies and the hopes that their new neighbor wasn’t going to be the grumpy asshole their old one was.
For some reason, I wasn’t eager to disappoint them and had been living a lie ever since, pretending to be a decent human being with a love of cinnamon butterscotch cookies. Sometimes I pulled their recycling bin back from the curb on trash day. Sometimes I shared a backyard scotch with Elton. And sometimes I watched Jace when he didn’t feel like getting out of his pajamas and his parents didn’t feel like fighting him.
“As long as you don’t feel like moving around much or talking above a whisper,” I told Jace.
“One of those nights, eh?” Sascha asked.
I nodded, then winced.
“Don’t worry about it. Believe me, I understand. That’s why we never speak of Christmas Day 2015. I can take Jace to Great-Aunt Alma’s,” Sascha said.
But that was a problem with knowing things about your neighbors. Jace hated Great-Aunt Alma’s house. It smelled like cat pee, and she made him eat steamed carrots. The last time she’d babysat, the woman made Jace sweep the kitchen floor and called it a game. When he “won,” he was “allowed” to sweep the front hallway.
“Do you have a bad decision flu?” he asked, his big eyes sad and solemn.
“It’s fine,” I lied. “I’m fine. Jace can hang out with me.”
“Yay!” He punched his mittened fist in the air.
“Shh. Celebrate quieter, bud,” Sascha warned him, clamping a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry,” he stage-whispered through his mom’s hand.
“An hour tops,” she promised. “I’m just picking up a dress for our surprise anniversary dinner, which I promise we won’t be asking you for your babysitting services for.” Every year, Elton commemorated their wedding anniversary by surprising Sascha with dinner out at a new swank restaurant. This year, in a continuance of my role as a good neighbor, I’d suggested he hire a chef to come to their house and recreate their favorite meal from their honeymoon. Apparently it hadn’t been a totally stupid idea because Elton tracked down a chef that specialized in Caribbean cuisine and had been texting me updates on recipes and wine pairings for two weeks.
I took the cookies and the kid, and after ten minutes of delighted dog and boy greetings, I hooked Jace up with headphones and the Xbox that I’d bought for just such an occasion.
I lounged on the couch next to him, reading Pride and Prejudice and identifying with poor, misunderstood Darcy.
For lunch, I made us fancy grilled cheese sandwiches with roast beef and three kinds of cheese—Jace’s favorite. The kid ate two. I ate one. And Brownie ate six slices of roast beef before I caught him counter surfing. Sascha came back fifty-nine minutes after she’d left and collected her son and her empty cookie plate. Maybe I didn’t hate butterscotch as much as I thought.
I spent the rest of the day on the couch, which delighted Brownie. We watched the entire first season of The Great British Baking Show and then three episodes of Queer Eye. I was inspired to order and to eat an entire sponge cake from the bakery three blocks over and pondered growing a beard.
Then I pondered what Ally thought about beards.
And the shame spiral began again.
Brownie dragged me out of the house for a walk early that evening, and I found my Range Rover keys tucked in the mail slot with a note that said, “Thanks for the ride.”
My SUV was parked down the street, and there was a six-pack of sports drinks on the passenger seat with a leftover Christmas bow stuck to it. There was also a small bag of dog treats in the cupholder.
I was both touched and annoyed.
Ally had yet to respond to any of my texts since Drunk Me made an ass of myself. After a quick scroll through my phone, I could at least understand why. They ran the gamut from intoxicated adoration like “your hair looks like a sexy bird’s nest” to “let’s never speak of this again.”
The bits and pieces that I remembered from last night gelled into one unflattering, inappropriate picture of a boss stepping over the line with his employee.
Once again, I’d proven that it was my father’s blood running through my veins.
I let Brownie pick the course around the neighborhood, and when he paused at his favorite tree, I pulled out my phone.
Me: Thanks for returning the car and not driving it to Mexico.
Maleficent: I did the Mexico run for authentic tacos before bringing it back. BTW, you’re low on gas, and you got seventeen traffic violations in Tijuana.
Me: You could have come inside.
Maleficent: I really couldn’t have.
Me: I’m sorry.
Maleficent: Don’t be. It’s for the best. Besides. Now we can try something new.
To me, “something new” meant stripping every article of clothing off her and licking, kissing, and biting my way over every inch of her body. I had a feeling this wasn’t what she had in mind.
Me: New?
Maleficent: Friends.
Me: I’m sure what you meant to type was “frenemies.”