It's always a blow to the male ego to find that a woman has more game than him. But then take whatever impact that blow had and add about half a pound of insult when that woman turns out to be your own momma. Add the cherry on top at the fact she was drunk and still had more of a chance of leaving with someone than I did.
But to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really feelin' it that night you know. I mean, I wasn't on the prowl or anything. I'd gone out with my momma for Christ's sake. Best friends or not, she's still my mommie, I can't just get my swerve on with her so close. So I played my role of cool, laidback dude posted up in the back of the room, watching the scene.
The scene, which my mother was quick to make hers. It all started off innocently enough with one guy dancing with her, then I must have taken my eyes off of her for one solitary minute at the most before the next thing I knew when I glanced back over at her, she was surrounded, by a bunch of gyrating sweaty twenty-something guys. And once I got over the initial shock of the group grinding my mother was the center of and recovered my eyes back into their normal position in my eyes, I was quick to put an end to that.
And you know what she had the nerve to say after I'd rescued her from all those horny Oedipus complex having bastards? Roughly pushing me away from her, she stumbled backward slightly from the effort before I reached out to steady her again, as she swatted my helping hand away, she fixed me with an intoxicated frown and pointed her finger at me and said, "I never raised you to be like that."
"Be like what?" I asked, having absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
"A cockblocker, sweetie." She said with a giggle as my mouth instantly dropped at her language. I didn't know she knew words like, let alone used them. "Lighten up, honey. I was only dancing. I was having fun. And I know you don't know what fun is anymore..."
"I know what fun is." I pouted.
"Ahh, honey, honey, honey..." She said, clasping both of my cheeks with each of her hands, pinching and twisting, turning them this way and that with every 'honey' uttered. "You're so cute, you'll find someone. Britney wasn't shit."
"Ma..." I whined, brushing her hands and words away from me.
"Justin," She scolded me, trying to appear stern, but her sixth shot of vodka shot such efforts straight to hell. "I tried to warn you about that girl. Just like I've tried to warn you about every other girl from your past that you let play you like a damn fool."
"Ma..." I sighed, running my hands through my soft short curls as my eyes scanned around the area searching for an escape from this drunken lecture about how much of a fool I was when it came to who I let handle my achy break-y heart.
"No, listen, this'll be good for you. You need to hear this." She said, grabbing my wrist as if to restrain me from leaving, though I had yet to make a move to do so. "Good guys finish last. I'm sorry, baby but it's true and unfortunately you're a good guy. But that doesn't mean you should try to change yourself, cause you're a good man and hopefully one of these silly little girls will be able to see that. But until then you can't make it so easy for them, y'know? You're too easy with your feelings, you wanna hand over the world on a silver platter to the girl...when a little taste here and there would get you a lot further. You're just too easy, baby. Like say if you were a woman, you'd be the type that's quick to spread your legs. Just too open, too eager. You know what I mean? I mean, girls your age aren't lookin' to get serious. Girls just wanna have fun." She said, before proceeding to sway as she sang the Cindy Lauper song.
"Okay, Ma." I nodded, knowing that doing anything else but agreeing would just lead to more of the same.
Two hours later of holding my tongue and pretending like I didn't notice what my mom was doing and who she was doing it with, everyone seemed to feel the need to rush over to me saying things like 'Dude, isn't that your mom dancin' on the bar?' or my personal favorite, "There's a woman over there givin' out lap dances and she looks just like your mom, man! That's crazy. Imagine if that was your mom.'
Yeah, imagine that.
The ride home wasn't any better either. Not only had my mom picked up someone, but her and that someone were busy sucking each other faces while I sat with my back turned to them trying to drown out the sound of their furiously colliding lips by continuously banging my head against the window.
Kill me now.
She winced as she stumbled into the kitchen with slow, deliberate steps. Head held in hand, she plopped down into a stool nearby mine at the kitchen island.
"Well aren't we just one big happy family." I commented dryly, noting the fact that her company from the other night had just strolled into the room, towel loosely draped round his shower fresh moist body. The smile and quick kiss the two of them shared, had 'sex last night' written all over it. Unsurprisingly, my nearly starvation level of hunger took a sudden dip into a vomit-up-my-breakfast zone. Pushing myself away from the island, I quickly excused myself from the room.
Approximately three minutes and forty-two seconds later, my bedroom door opened again and in sauntered my dear mother adorning a playful smirk. "He's gone."
"Good." I grumbled.
"What's wrong, honey?" She sighed, running her fingers briefly through her long curly locks. "You're actin' funny. The last time I remember you acting like this was after you caught me and your daddy after we'd read up on Karma Sutra and we were..."
"Tut, tut, tut!" I groaned, throwing my hands up as a stop sign for her words. "It took me a long, long time to get that mental image out of my mind. And...damn! It's back. Thank you so much." I sighed frustratedly before falling back onto my bed.
"You're such a drama queen." She laughed, sitting gently down beside me.
"Ma, don't say things like that. That's how the gay rumours got started.”
Giggling she said, "You know, that wasn't what started it, baby. It was all them years you and Britney were together while she was still claiming to be a virgin is what did that."
"Ma..." I sighed, pulling a pillow over my head.
"Sorry, sorry. I know, I'm not supposed to mention the B-word anymore." She laughed, clearly amused by my annoyance. "But you gotta get over it, honey. And limiting your vocabulary ain't getting over it." When I decided to plead the fifth, she continued on in her typical way. "You know what you need to do?"
"Leave this house before you can give me anymore advice?" I asked, revealing a small smile on my face as I moved the pillow away from my head.
"You need to get out and start dating again."
"I've tried."
"Where was the trying?" She frowned.
"Me going out nearly every night."
"You know you're not going to find a good woman at a damn nightclub." She scolded.
"That's where I met Britney after losing touch on MMC."
"I rest my case." She laughed with a groan as she clutched the side of her head. "Why did you let me drink so much?"
"There was no letting you do anything. You just did. I tried to stop you a couple of times and for my efforts I rewarded with loving terms like 'cockblocker.'"
Laughing softly, she said, "Honey that wasn't you trying to keep me from drinking, that was you trying to keep me from living. I was trying to get my swerve on with them young boys and you were messin' up my flow."
My nose wrinkled at the thought of her 'flow.' "Ma, let's not create anymore horrendously long-term mental images to haunt my dreams."
"Boy, shut up!" She laughed, smacking me upside my head. "You know who you should date?"
Sighing, I made a move to leave. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I'd made it out of the room, her voice trailing close behind me let me know that she was following me and had every intention of taking this lecture on the road.
"You should date that cute girl who works for you."
"Who?" I asked, pretending like I didn't know who she was talking about.
"Jan...uh Janet? Janelle?" She said stumbling over names in her head as she snapped her fingers trying to remember.
"Janice?" I reluctantly supplied for her.
"Yeah!" She cried in triumphant recognition, but groaning softly as her hands moved back to hold her head. "Yeah, yeah, her.” She continued, her voice lowered to a more hangover friendly volume. “You should date her. She's cute, seems nice and smart enough. Y'all would make me some cutie patootie grandbabies."
With a loud sigh I moved toward the fridge, not really in search of anything but an escape from this conversation.
"Okay, so maybe y'all don't have to immediately jump into marriage and babies...but c'mon a date at least." She pleaded.
Had it been that long since I’d been on a real date? I mean, it had only been a couple of months since I broke it off with Britney. It wasn’t like I’d stopped living…I was still out doing my thing.
Occasionally.
Okay, if I’m completely honest I have to change that ‘occasionally’ to ‘rarely’ but I’m a busy man. Who has time for relationships nowadays anyways?
"Ma, I'm not interested."
"Why not? She seems perfect for you." She argued, before allowing the conversation to fall into a small but very welcomed lull. "Oh no, baby. Is this when you come out of the closet?"
Studying her face, I had to wonder if she was serious and judging by the sudden glimmer of worry sparkling in her dark blue eyes I realized that my life had reached a new low when my mother was sincerely questioning my sexuality.
It was definitely time to get my Stella on, ‘cause somehow”I dunno know exactly”I’d lost my groove and I desperately needed it back before my mom switched from setting me up with her friend’s daughters to setting me up with their rainbow toting sons.
Because I'm fat.
That's why I workout. That's why the spandex was dragged out of the 80's and onto my ass, again. That's why the TV was yelling at me in Richard Simmons' annoyingly nasal voice to 'lift those legs higher, you fat cow.'
Okay so he wasn't calling anybody a 'fat cow.' But that's what I felt like as I was panting to the beat of a song that should have never been written in the first place let alone used as the background music to inspire people to 'feel the burn.'
I personally didn't want to feel any burn. No random kitchen fire incident burn. No 'oops...I have an STD now' burn. No I-actually-put-physical-effort-into-something-that-didn't-involve-lifting-food-to-my-open-and eagerly-awaiting-mouth burn.
I was still Sweatin’ to the Oldies when the doorbell rang, but I ignored it. Focusing on the workout that I knew if I was distracted from that I'd be hard-pressed to drag myself back to. By the sixth and tenth ring, I was ready to kill the person behind door number one (commonly referred to as the front door).
Around the twelfth ring, I grew tired of trying to balance between ignoring the incessant ring and occasionally calling for Janice to come and answer the damn door before I officially was plunged into the realm of mentally insane. It was also around that time that I remembered that Janice had gone out to one of those day spas she likes to visit every once in a while.
Fifteenth ring, I told Richard Simmons to kiss my fat ass as I turned off the TV - effectively shutting him up. Mid-sixteenth, I was swinging the door open, angry enough to immediately start swinging on the imbecile who would not take a hint.
"Finally." The blue-eyed, curly-haired imbecile boss of mine grinned, upon seeing me on the other side of the now opened door. "I was beginning to think that nobody was home."
"You were beginning to think that? Sixteen rings later?"
Chuckling to himself at my clear irritation, he said slowly, "Patience is a virtue."
"You are a fool." I said mimicking him.
"Maybe so." He shrugged flippantly, his glance falling to his feet momentarily. "But a persistent one. You have to give me credit for that."
"No, I don't. I don't have to give you anything."
Silence sidled into the space between us, as we stared quietly at each other. I looked away first. I was never good at staring contests. I'd always found them to be utterly rude and pointless.
"So can I come in?" He asked, switching his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot, to foot again.
Before the yeah, sure could bubble its way out of my mouth as my years of hometraining had raised me to respond to such a question, I regained my senses and sensibly asked instead, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you, too.” He grinned, clearly unfazed by my rudeness.
“Yeah, it’s a pleasure as always.” I replied with sardonically covered sweetness. “But what are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” He persisted, glancing at his perfectly white tennis shoes before almost shyly meeting my gaze.
This was the second time in a barely a minute that Justin Timberlake appeared less than confident, less than arrogant, less than asshole-y…and it worried me. Something was up.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated, watching him closely now as a PI would a crime suspect.
“You really like that question, don’t you? You’re just like a pit bull on it.” He said, grasping air and pretending to gnaw at it before chuckling to himself at what I’m sure he considered to be hilarious, but in reality was extremely odd”which is something that more and more I’m finding to be a good description of him in general.
Rolling my eyes I quipped, “And you really like avoiding answering it, don’t you?”
“I’ll tell you once you let me in.” He grinned that playboy grin of his.
After eyeing him suspiciously for several seconds, I finally relented and let him in. “So…” I started again, both of us sitting on the couch now.
“So…” He echoed.
“You know if you don’t start talking soon I’m going to go back to that question you seem to not want to answer.” I said, getting impatient.
“I wanna know…” He trailed off before starting again much more softly than he’d been speaking before. “a-about Janice.”
I frowned---actually it wasn’t so much of a frown per se, as it was that my lips just happened to fall a little to the south at the corners at that moment. Okay, technically I guess that is a frown and I don’t know why it bothered me, even if it was only on this tiny, itty bitty, barely enough to be classified as there, smaller than microscopic level. ‘Bothered’ is a bad word for this. What I mean is…
Disappointed.
Yeah, that’s better. Maybe I was just disappointed because I was expecting some kind of deep dark secret to be revealed. Maybe I’d been watching a little too much of Maury and Jerry Springer lately. Either way, I definitely thought it would have wound up being something a little less predictable than this.
“Why do you want to know about her?”
“It doesn’t matter why.”
“It does to me.”
“Okay then.” He nodded. “It’s because…” He trailed off again this time with what sounded like a defeated sigh. “I like her.”
Shocking, really. A guy liking Janice? Well that stunned me about as much as when I heard that Bush had nearly died from choking on a pretzel. Like I couldn’t see that one coming from a mile away.
“Okay. So what do you wanna know?”
“Just…stuff, I guess.” He shrugged.
I sighed, rolling my eyes at him as my hands swirled encouraging him to elaborate past ‘stuff. ’ I said, “Yes, but what kind of stuff?”
“I dunno,” He shrugged again. His sudden shy and “I dunno, I’m so shy” countenance starting to tap dance on my nerves. “Just tell me what you know.”
“Just tell me what you know so then I can fill you in on what you don’t.”
After a twenty minute discussion on all the splendors that were my roommate and friend, Janice, I eventually ran out of things to say”leaving a silence long enough for Justin to look me over and really notice what I was wearing: my 80’s inspired workout gear which included some hot pink leg warmers, a huge scrunchie tying up my messily thrown up hair, a shirt cut so that it exposed my shoulder on one side, and headband.
Yeah, I know I was looking hot…
…a hot mess, that is. Groaning inwardly, I said, “Don’t say anything.”
He raised his hands in the air in surrender, a shy smirk beginning to curl the edges of his lips as he said, “Wasn’t gonna.”
“Uh-huh” I said, rolling my eyes at him, unconvinced. “I’m going to go change out of my workout clothes and I guess since you seem all comfortable now having nested down into the couch…I suppose you can stay in the meanwhile. The remote’s on the TV if you wanna watch something. Other than that, don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, sir!” He smiled, saluting me.
After I fixed a glare on him (that I used to use to chase away the kids at my school, who had made it their sole purpose to torture me, which had subsequently led me to get the charming nickname ‘Spawn of Satan’) for a long moment, he said, “Uh, I meant…yes, ma’am.” He finished with a smile, trying to look all innocent.
“You know you’re about this close.” I said, holding my pointer and thumb fingers a centimeter apart. “To makin’ me pull a Martin on you and tellin’ you to get ta stepping or at the very least to start flappin’ those Dumbo ears of yours on home.”
Frowning now, he fingered his ears absentmindedly. “Damn girl, you trying to give me a complex or something?”
I shrugged and continued like he hadn’t said a word. “Like I said before don’t touch anything ‘sides that remote while I’m gone. You move so much as a piece of paper out of its original position and I’ll know.”
“What are you anal-retentive or something?” He laughed.
“Maybe.” I muttered. “Or maybe I just don’t like my stuff to be fucked with.” I added, walking away before he could come up with another stupid response.
“What are you doing here?” Janice asked, walking into the house and dumping her things down onto the floor as she went, leaving a trail behind her. She always did that. She knew I hated it when she did it, but still…she always did that.
“You both have impeccable manners.” Justin chuckled, causing my eyes to focus on him for second and realize that he was still there, despite my having tried to get rid of him for the last two hours.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She started again, casting curious glances my way. “That was very rude of me. Please forgive me, but I’m just a little thrown off by the fact that our boss is here. At our house.”
“I just came by to visit Fi.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” She asked, her eyebrow raised as her arms crossed at her chest. “I didn’t realize you two were friends.”
“We’ve become quite good friends. Actually we’re more than friends.” He smiled, scooting closer to me on the couch and resting his hand on my thigh.
“What?” I asked, breaking into their conversation as I nearly choked on the crackers I’d been nibbling on.
“I know, sugar, you wanted to be the one to tell it.” He said, taking my hand in his. “But I just couldn’t help it. It just kind of slipped out. We shouldn’t hide our love.”
Sugar? Love? What in the hell has this boy been smoking?!
“Y’all are in love? Fi?” She asked, pointedly, staring hard at me now”her face a mixture of shock, cluelessness as to what to believe and extreme doubt.
“I”we”love?” I sputtered, my eyes bouncing between Justin and Janice as if the answer to the question was written on one of their faces.
“Fionna doesn’t really like to talk about us much. But to answer your question, yes we are in love. Very much so.” Justin finally said, being the bastard he is and letting me squirm for a few more seconds as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
“But how can this be?” Janice frowned, her brow rippling in more confusion that I’ve seen her in. She looked so lost that I began to feel sorry for her, but I knew about as much as she did and was about to tell her so, when I glanced over at Justin and judging by the way he kept winking his eyes, I guessed I was supposed to just play along with it. “Why didn’t you ever tell me before, Fionna? I thought we were close enough now that you didn’t feel the need to keep secrets anymore. I tell you everything.”
And when she said ‘everything’ that’s exactly what she meant and when the stories are about irregular bowel movements ‘everything’ is a helluva lot more information than you could have ever wanted. Ever.
With all the articulation I could muster, I said, “I”we”love?”
*^*^*
“Tell me how you and me being together will get you to be with Janice and me to be with Richard. Tell me why you would even think that just because you’re dating me that suddenly you’d look appealing to Janice. Tell me why you think that Janice would go after a man that is or was depending on how soon you want our faux relationship to break up…anyways a man that at one point or another was involved with her friend. Now I might not be completely up on the new rules of engagement involving friendships, but I could have sworn there was a rule against shit like that.” I said, after Justin had finished explaining me the plan he’d formulated and forced on me.
“Will you just shut up, woman?! For one minute! Damn. I can’t think with all your constant yapping.” He said, his head falling into his hands.
I held my tongue for a full thirty seconds, before I couldn’t help but say, “It didn’t work in My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
He sighed, raising his head slightly. “What didn’t work?”
“This date someone else to get the one you want plan.”
“Well that’s a movie.” He said, dismissively.
“Exactly!” I exclaimed in irritation resisting adding a ‘ding ding ding, you idiot.’ “So if a movie can’t even make such an illogical scheme that doesn’t have the boss and friend of the person you’re trying to entice elements against it work. How can you even possibly begin to believe that this will work for us?”
“Simple.” He replied. “People always want what they can’t have. Right now we’re both available, therefore by dating one another we make ourselves unavailable. Therefore making us what they want.”
“Therefore making us,” I started, mimicked him flawlessly. “Complete losers for having to do all this in the first place. If they don’t want us, they don’t want us. I realize you’re Justin Timberlake, pop star extraordinare, but in regular folk land this is what is called rejection. And what you are suffering from is denial.”
“You say denial, I say hope.”
Sighing, I shook my head resignedly. “Fine, whatever. I’ll go along with your little harebrained scheme. But let me just say that this is going to take more than just some hope. What we need is a damn miracle.”
