“Do you take compliments?” he asked as we stepped into the elevator and I pressed the down button before he had the chance.
“If they’re original.”
He snickered and rolled his eyes.
“Okay, okay,” he said. He was trying not to laugh at the expression on my face. “Let’s see. You can kill with a smile, you can wound with your eyes….”
“That’s not original, that’s a Billy Joel song,” I interrupted. “And what kind of compliment is that anyway?”
We were walking toward his car. His hands were now in his pockets as we strolled casually.
“I’d say that song was written for you, but if you’re going to be picky…” his voice trailed off. “Do you want the jock to compliment you or the guy who reads Great Expectations?”
“Both.” I was trying to appear like I wasn’t enjoying this little exchange but I could already feel my shoulders relaxing, and now that his hand wasn’t on my back, I could think again. We reached his car and I stood at the door with my back to him, waiting for him to unlock it.
“Whether I’m standing behind you or facing you, the view’s pretty nice,” he said.
I felt my face flush as the automatic locks clicked and he held the door open for me. I could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice so I climbed in without a word. I had never met anyone so intent on making me feel uncomfortable. He took his time walking around the car. I watched him intently. He was wearing another one of those impressively well put together outfits.
I sank into the seat and breathed in the scent of his cologne. It permeated the leather seats like skin, making it smell like he was everywhere. The smell was Christmassy, like Douglas firs and Bergamot oranges. I liked it.
“Put your seatbelt on,” he said, sliding in the driver’s seat.
I pursed my lips. No way. He was not going to order me around.
“I’m not putting it on.” The restored VW Bug that I owned didn’t even have seatbelts. One of its previous owners had cut them out. I silently chided myself for not taking my own car.
Caleb raised an eyebrow, something I was starting to notice he did quite often.
“Suit yourself,” he said shrugging. “If we come to any fast stops, I’ll just reach out my arm like this to stop you from jerking forward.” He illustrated his point by extending his arm across my chest where it came in direct contact with my B-cups.
I put my seat belt on. He didn’t even try not to smile.
“Where are we going anyway?” I asked bitterly. Hopefully, we could make this quick and I could be back to my room in time to watch Grey's Anatomy. Handsome, fictional men were so much easier to stomach than real life ones who smelled of Christmas and looked like a Calvin Klein model.
“To my favorite date spot.” He looked over at me as his hands shifted gears and I felt unwelcome warmth in my belly. I had a hand fetish. His hands were big, probably beneficial for that stupid sport he played. His were the kind of hands that made wedding rings look sexy—tan with vein lines that ran like snaking rivers to his wrist and disappeared under his sleeves.
“This isn’t a date,” I reminded him. “And, it’s really lame that you just told me you’re taking me somewhere you’ve taken other girls.”
“Right. Well next time I’ll remember to lie to you then,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What makes you think there will be a next time?”
“What makes you think there won’t?”
I didn’t bother looking at him I just sniffed my response and stared out the window.
Jaxson’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream was located on one of the busier streets in Dania. Its neon circus sign blinked impatiently from a nondescript shopping plaza, working overtime to attract the attention of passersby. Despite the bright lights, the cutouts where tourists place their heads on animal bodies, and the blaring organ music, I had never noticed the place.
“Oh,” I said, trying to mask my surprise. “This is interesting.”
“Are you lactose intolerant?” he asked sliding his car into a parking spot.
“Nope.”
“On a diet?”
“Not this week.”
“Great. Then you’re going to love it.” He came around to open my door, and offered me his hand as I maneuvered my way out of the car.
We entered the lobby and were immediately greeted by an elderly man with cotton candy hair. He wheezed in excitement when he saw Caleb and shuffled over to shake his hand.
“Good to see you again, Caleb,” he said in a cigarette chapped voice. He was wearing a red pinstriped jumpsuit with buttons made to look like lollypops.
It embarrassed me.
Caleb put a big hand on our host’s shoulder as he greeted him. They exchanged niceties for a few moments and then annoyingly enough, Caleb’s hand found my lower back again.
“Harlow, is my table open?”
Harlow nodded and shuffled forward. We towed along behind him, passing through the first room and taking a small walkway between the ice cream coolers until we emerged into a second, larger room. I looked around in awe as we slowly made our way to the table. The place was a smorgasbord of twenties paraphernalia. In fact, there were so many knick knacks and doodads hanging from the walls, my eyes crossed in confusion. “Caleb’s table” was rinky-dink and small, with a lopsided baby carriage hanging over it. I pursed my lips, unimpressed. Caleb turned to look at me and smiled like he could read my thoughts.
Harlow began wheezing again as he struggled to pull out my chair.
“I can get it. Thanks,” I said. He shrugged his shoulders and disappeared, leaving us alone.
Rich, British boys didn’t eat ice cream in places like this. They ate caviar on yachts and dated rich, blond girls with trust funds. He had to be seriously flawed in some unobvious way. I went through the possibilities in my mind; bad temper, clingy, mental illness…..
“I suppose you’re wondering about the table?” he said, sitting down across from me.
I nodded.
“I’ve been bringing girls here since junior high.” He folded his hands on the sticky tabletop and leaned back in his seat casually. “Anyway, you see that table over there?” I turned to look at the corner table that he was pointing to. An old traffic light was spastically blinking red, green, red, red green above it.
“That is the bad luck table and I will never sit there again, not by myself, and not ever with a date.”
I turned back to him amused. He was superstitious. How tacky. I felt smug.
“Why?”
“Well, because every time I sit at that table something disastrous happens—like my old girlfriend seeing me with my new girlfriend and dumping death-by- chocolate on our laps, or finding out that you’re allergic to blueberries in front of the hottest girl in school….” He laughed at himself and I let a smile creep through my tough girl act.
A blueberry allergy was kind of endearing.
“And this table?” I asked.
“Good things happen at this table,” he said simply.
I raised an eyebrow but was too afraid to ask. Bringing a girl to an ice cream parlor that looked like it was funked in the twenties scored pretty big points. Cammie would be eating it up. It was his sex ticket, I decided.
I was inordinately relieved when our server showed up with two waters and a colander of stale popcorn.
I was still looking through my menu when I heard Caleb ordering for me.
“Are you kidding?” I asked when out server walked away. “Are you aware that women can now vote and order their own food?”
“You never give an inch,” he said. “—I like that.”
I lick the salt off my fingers and narrow my eyes at him.
“I saw you looking at this.” He tapped a picture of a banana split. “—right before you started looking at the low fat ice cream.”
He was observant, I’d give him that.
“So what if I wanted something low fat?”
> Caleb shrugged. “It’s my night. I won. I make the rules.”
I almost smiled. Almost.
He told me about his family while we waited. He grew up in London with his mother and stepfather. He had the type of magical childhood every kid dreams of, fancy vacations, Christmases with the cousins in Switzerland, and a goddamn pony for his birthday. They transplanted to America when he was fourteen. Michigan first, and then when his mother said the cold was bad for her complexion, Florida. There was an abundance of money, little fighting, and an older brother who did things like climb Mt. Everest in his spare time. His biological father, whom he still occasionally saw, was a womanizer who graced the covers of British tabloids by dating and breaking up with famous models. When it came my turn to spill, I filtered my story for his upper class benefit, leaving out my alcoholic father whom I just called ‘deceased,’ and replacing the projects with ‘a bad neighborhood’. I saw little reason to drown him in the ugly details of my un-charmed life. I didn’t want to bruise his happily ever after. He listened with attentiveness and asked me questions. In my opinion, one could measure a person’s self-absorption by the amount of questions they did not pose. Caleb genuinely seemed interested in me. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Either it was a ploy to get girls in bed, or he really was that nice.
When I told him about my mother and how she had died of cancer during my senior year of high school, I saw genuine compassion in his eyes, which made me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“So you’re all alone then, Olivia?” I withdrew at his question. It kind of stung to hear.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that if you’re referring to my having no living family members.”
I scooped desert into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to say anything else.
“Are you happy?” he asked. I thought that was kind of an odd question. Was he asking me if I was still crying at night because my mother was dead? He was playing with his spoon, unconsciously dripping chocolate all over the table. I answered as honestly as I could.
“Sometimes. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked up in surprise. Star athlete, handsome, spoiled, how could he not be happy? Better yet, how could he not know if he was happy or not?
“What does that mean?” I asked setting my spoon down. I didn’t feel like eating ice cream anymore. I didn’t feel like being here anymore. The whole conversation was making me feel sick.
“I don’t know what makes me happy yet. I guess I’m trying to find it. I’ve always wanted to get married and have a family, one where you pick someone and stay with them till you’re grey and wrinkled and have a minivan full of grandkids.”
“A minivan?” I say incredulously, thinking of the licorice sports car parked outside. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not as bad as you think.”
I poked him on the shoulder. “You don’t want a minivan, you want a Porche. Fifteen years into your marriage you’ll be trading in the wife and the mini for something that gets your blood moving again. You’re spoiled?”
“Come on,” he said, laughing. “You didn’t get handed to me. If I had to fight any harder to get you here, I would be in a body cast.”
“Either way, you wrote the book and now you’re complaining about the reviews I’m giving it,” I quipped.
“Fair enough.” He held up his hands, “I’m going to start writing the sequel which will be considerably less narcissistic. Will you read it?”
“Only if every other girl on campus hasn’t.” He laughed so hard several people turned around to stare at us.
I plucked some kernels of popcorn from the colander and ate them thoughtfully. This wasn’t as dreadful as I’d anticipated. I was almost having fun. When I looked up, he was examining me.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Caleb sighed, “Why are you so hostile?”
“Listen pal, don’t think for one minute that I buy that sensitive guy routine you’ve got going. I know bippity, boppity, bullshit when I see it.”
“I didn’t know I was putting on a sensitive guy routine,” he said sounding pretty honest.
I studied his handsome face trying to see past his looks and into his soul.
He had the kind of eyes that always looked like they were laughing at you. Their color was amber and smile lines already creased their corners like delicate folds in paper.
“Give me a break,” I said. “You bring me to this cute little place for ice cream like we’re in high school. You know that old guy by name, you’re giving me looks….” I trailed off because he was frowning at me.
“You’re not very good at reading people.” He flicked a stray kernel of popcorn at me and it hit me on the forehead. I rubbed at the spot, insulted.
I was very good at reading people.
“Maybe, I’m a nice guy, Olivia.”
I snorted.
“You can read a lot about a person by their features and what they do with them. But, getting to know someone, who they really are, takes time,” he said.
“What can you tell about me?” I asked, “—since you’re such an expert.”
Caleb squinted at me like he didn’t think I was ready for his evaluation.
“Come on,” I urged, “if you’re gonna brag about it….”
“Okay…okay. Let’s see….”
I immediately regretted my decision. I had just given him license to stare at me and I was already blushing.
“There’s something sad about your eyes, maybe it’s how big they are or the way they dip downward like they’re disappointed. They’re definitely vulnerable, but bold too, because you look at everything like you’re challenging it. Then, there’s the way that you hold your chin. You are defiant and stubborn, and you have a snobby little nose that’s always pointing due north. I think you pretend to be a snob to keep people away.”
I felt sick. Too much ice cream. Too much truth.
“And my personal favorite, your lips.” He smiled as a pink flush crept up my neck. “Full and sensual, puckered, and always turned down at the corners. They kind of make me want to kiss them until they smile.”
I balked. He thought about kissing me? Of course he thought about kissing me. Guys were always thinking about that kind of stuff, stuff that led to sex. Underneath the table my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he was leaning back in his chair, one elbow resting casually on the table.
I swallowed the volleyball in my throat. My heart was acting the fool as it beat sporadically.
“No.”
“Good, because I don’t take you for a woman who’s ever really surprised, especially when the school jock proves her wrong.”
Now I felt ready to pass out.
Okay, so maybe there was a little more to this egg-head than I thought. I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes like cowboys did in old westerns.
“Okay, why did you miss the shot?”
“Why did I miss the shot?” he repeated. “Because I cared more about knowing you than I did about winning another game.”
This time I didn’t even try to conceal the dumbfounded look on my face. He had just passed me the greatest compliment, even better than the one about kissing my lips. Fuhgettabouit. I didn’t even have a quip to deliver. I didn’t care if my wit had failed me.
On our way out we stopped to browse through the candy and toys for sale. As if the place wasn’t small enough, they had to cram it full of junk.
Caleb was studying something in the corner as I studied him.
“Look at this thing,” he beckoned me over. I wedged myself between him and a row of sherbet colored Beanie Babies to get a look. It was a penny press, one of those souvenir coin makers in which you placed fifty cents and a penny. The machine would then press your penny and stamp a random message on it in its newly flattened form, keeping your fifty cents as payment. Caleb was pulling change from his pockets like h
e was roped on too much sugar.
“You do it,” he said, dropping the coins into my palm. I slid the change into the narrow slit on its front and pushed the start button. The press began to hum and vibrate in a polite vibrato. I was acutely aware of how close we were standing and I would have edged away if there was anywhere to go. I knocked a few of the Beanie Babies off the shelf. As we bent to pick them up, the machine made a small burping sound and the penny landed in the return slot with a tinkle. He rubbed his hands together and I giggled.
“Now there’s something you don’t see very often,” he said, tapping me lightly on the nose.
I swallowed my girlishness and resumed my dour face. My nose was now tingling.
“It’s just a souvenir machine, calm down, Stokes.”
“Aaah, but this isn’t just any coin maker,” he said, pointing to advertisement on it that I, unfortunately, had failed to see.
“This is the romantic coin maker.”
I paled.
The penny was still warm when my fingers found it. I handed it to Caleb without even bothering to see what the message was.
“Well, well.” His voice was smug. Curiosity got the best of me. I pulled his arm down until the coin was directly in front of my face and read:
Good for one kiss
Anywhere, anytime
The nerve! I backed out of the tight spot and started walking to the door.
“Good luck collecting that one.”
He didn’t say a word and he didn’t need to. His strut and the smile on his face were enough to