November 9: A Novel

I hang my head in my hands and wait for her to return from the bathroom.

I should leave, actually.

I don’t want to leave, though. I feel like I trampled on her day with the stunt I just pulled with her dad. As smooth as I tried to be, I didn’t ease into this girl’s life with the discreet grace of a fox. I barged into it with the subtlety of a fifteen-thousand-pound elephant.

Why did I feel the need to step in? Why did I think she wasn’t capable of handling her father on her own? She’s probably pissed at me right now, and we’ve only been fake-dating for half an hour.

This is why I choose not to have real-life girlfriends. I can’t even pretend without starting a fight.

But I did just order her a warm plate of salmon, so maybe that’ll make up for some of it?

She finally exits the bathroom, but the second she sees me still seated on her side of the booth, she pauses. The confusion on her face makes it apparent she was sure I’d be gone by the time she returned to the table.

I should have been gone. I should have left half an hour ago.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

I stand up and motion for her to sit. She eyes me suspiciously as she slides into her seat. I reach over to the other booth and collect my laptop, my plate of food and my drink. I set them all on her table and then I occupy the seat her asshole-father was just sitting in minutes before.

She’s looking down at the table, probably wondering where her food went.

“It got cold,” I tell her. “I told the waiter to bring you another plate.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, but her head doesn’t move. She doesn’t crack a smile or say thank you. She just . . . stares.

I take a bite of my burger and begin to chew.

I know she isn’t shy. I could tell by the way she spoke to her father that she has sass, so I’m a little confused by her silence right now. I swallow my bite of food and take a drink of my soda, maintaining silent eye contact with her the whole time. I wish I could say I’m mentally preparing a brilliant apology, but I’m not. I seem to have a one-track mind, and that track leads straight to the two things I shouldn’t even be thinking about right now.

Her boobs.

Both of them.

I know. I’m pathetic. But if we’re just going to sit here and stare at each other, it’d be nice if she were showing a little cleavage, instead of wearing this long-sleeved shirt that leaves everything to the imagination. It’s pushing eighty degrees outside. She should be in something a lot less . . . convent-inspired.

A couple seated a few tables over stands up and begins to walk past us, toward the exit. I notice Fallon tilts her head away from them and lets her hair fall in front of her face like a protective shield. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it. It seems like such a natural reaction for her to try and cover up what she sees as flaws.

That’s probably why she’s wearing the long-sleeved shirt. It shields everyone from seeing what’s beneath it.

And of course, this thought leads me to her breasts again. Are they scarred, too? How much of her body is actually affected?

I begin to mentally undress her, and not in a sexual way. I’m just curious. Really curious, because I can’t stop staring at her, and that’s not like me. My mother raised me with more tact than this, but what my mother failed to teach me is that there would be girls like this one who would test those manners merely by existing.

A solid minute passes, maybe two. I eat most of my fries, watching her watch me. She doesn’t look angry. She doesn’t look scared. At this point, she’s not even trying to hide the scars she so desperately tries to cover from everyone else.

Her eyes begin to make a slow descent until they stop at my shirt. She stares at it for a moment, and then moves her gaze over my arms, my shoulders, my face. She stops when she gets to my hair.

“Where did you go this morning?”

Her question is incredibly random and causes me to pause mid-chew. I figured the first question she would ask me would be why I took it upon myself to interfere with her personal life. I take a few seconds to swallow, take a drink, wipe my mouth, and then lean back in my booth.

“What do you mean?”

She motions to my hair. “Your hair is a mess.” She motions to my shirt. “You’re wearing the same shirt you wore yesterday.” Her eyes fall to my fingers. “Your nails are clean.”

How does she know I’m wearing the same shirt I wore yesterday?

“So why’d you leave wherever you woke up in such a hurry today?” she asks.

I look down at my shirt and then at my nails. How in the hell does she know I left in a rush this morning?

“People who don’t take care of themselves don’t have nails as clean as yours,” she says. “It contradicts the mustard stain on your shirt.”

I look down at my shirt. At the mustard stain I hadn’t noticed until now.

“Your burger has mayonnaise on it. And since mustard is hardly ever eaten for breakfast, and you’re inhaling your food like you haven’t eaten since yesterday, then the stain is more than likely from whatever you ate for dinner last night. And you obviously haven’t looked in a mirror today or you wouldn’t have walked out of your house with your hair looking like that. Did you take a shower and fall asleep without drying your hair?” She touches her long hair and flicks it between her fingers. “Because hair as thick as yours bends when you sleep on it wet. Makes it impossible to fix without rewashing it.” She leans forward and eyes me curiously. “How in the heck did the front of your hair get so jacked up? Do you sleep on your stomach or something?”

What is she? A detective?

“I . . .” I stare at her in disbelief. “Yeah. I sleep on my stomach. And I was late for class.”

She nods like she somehow knew that already.

The waiter appears with a fresh plate of food and refills her water. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something to her, but she’s not paying attention to him. She’s still staring at me, but she mutters a thank you at him.

He looks like he’s about to walk away, but before he does, he pauses and turns back to face her. He wrings his hands together, obviously nervous to ask whatever question is about to leave his mouth. “So . . . um. Donovan O’Neil? Is he your father?”

She looks up at the waiter with an unreadable expression. “Yes,” she says flatly.

The waiter smiles and relaxes with her response. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head in fascination. “How awesome is that? To have the Max Epcott for a father?”

She doesn’t smile or flinch. Nothing on her face indicates that this is a question she’s heard a million times before. I wait for her sarcastic reply, because based on the way she responded to her father’s senseless comments, there’s no way this poor waiter is leaving here unscathed.

Just when I think she’s about to roll her eyes, she releases a pent-up breath and smiles. “It was absolutely surreal. I’m the luckiest daughter in the world.”

The waiter grins. “That’s really cool.”

When he turns and walks away, she faces me again. “What kind of class?” she asks.

It takes me a moment to process her question because I’m still trying to process the bullshit answer she just fed the waiter. I almost inquire about it, but think better of it. I’m sure it’s easier for her to give people the answers they hope to hear, rather than an earful of the truth. That, and she’s probably the most loyal person I’ve ever met, because I’m not sure I could say those things about that man if he were my father.

“Creative writing.”

She smiles thoughtfully and picks up her fork. “I knew you weren’t an actor.” She takes a bite of her salmon, and before she swallows the first bite, she’s already cutting into it again. The next several minutes are spent in complete silence while we both finish eating. I clean my entire plate, but she pushes hers away before she even finishes half of it.

“So tell me something,” she says, leaning forward. “Why’d you think I needed you to come to my rescue with that fake boyfriend crap?”

And there it is. She’s upset with me. I kind of thought she might be.

“I didn’t think you needed rescuing. I just sometimes find it difficult to control my indignation in the presence of absurdity.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re definitely a writer, because who the hell talks like that?”

I laugh. “Sorry. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can be a temperamental idiot and I should have minded my own business.”

She pulls the napkin from her lap and sets it on her plate. One of her shoulders rises with a little half-shrug. “I didn’t mind,” she says with a smile. “It was kind of fun seeing my father so flustered. And I’ve never had a fake boyfriend before.”

“I’ve never had a real boyfriend before,” I reply.

Her eyes shift to my hair. “Believe me, that’s obvious. No gay man I know would have left the house looking like you do right now.”

I kind of get the feeling she doesn’t mind the way I look nearly as much as she’s letting on. I’m sure she receives her fair share of physical discrimination, so I find it hard to believe she would be the type to list physical appearance high on her list of priorities in a guy.

But it’s not lost on me that she’s teasing me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was flirting.

Yep. Definitely should have walked out of this restaurant a long time ago, but this is one of the few moments I’m actually thankful for the plethora of bad decisions I tend to make.

The waiter brings the check, but before I can pay it, Fallon scoops up the wad of cash her father threw on the table and hands it to him.

“You need change?” he asks.

She waves it off. “Keep it.”

The waiter clears off the table and when he steps away, there’s nothing left between us. The imminent end to the meal leaves me feeling a little unsettled, because I’m not sure what to say to keep her here longer. The girl is moving to New York and chances are, I’ll never see her again. I don’t know why the thought of that makes me anxious.

“So,” she says. “Should we break up now?”

I laugh, even though I’m still attempting to discern if she’s got an incredible deadpan wit, or absolutely no personality at all. There’s a fine line between the two, but I’m betting it’s the former. Hoping it is, anyway.

“We haven’t even been dating an hour yet and you already want to dump me? Am I not very good at this boyfriend thing?”

She smiles. “A little too good. It’s weirding me out, to be honest. Is this the moment you break the ultimate boyfriend illusion and tell me you knocked up my cousin while we were on a break?”

I can’t help but laugh again. Definitely deadpan wit. “I didn’t knock her up. She was already seven months pregnant when I slept with her.”

An infectious burst of laughter meets my ears, and I’ve never been more thankful to have a semi-decent sense of humor. I’m not allowing this girl to leave my sight until I get at least three or four more of those laughs out of her.

Her laughter fades, followed by the smile on her face. She glances toward the door. “Is your name really Ben?” she asks, bringing her eyes back to mine.

I nod.

“What’s your biggest regret in life, Ben?”

An odd question, but I go with it. Odd seems completely normal with this girl, and never mind the fact that I’d never tell anyone my biggest regret. “I don’t think I’ve lived through it yet,” I lie.

She stares at me thoughtfully. “So you’re a decent human being? You’ve never killed anyone?”

“So far.”

She holds back a smile. “So if we spend more time together today, you aren’t going to murder me?”

“Only if it’s in self-defense.”

She laughs and then reaches for her purse. She wraps it over her shoulder and stands up. “That’s a relief. Let’s go to Pinkberry and we can break up over dessert.”

I hate ice cream. I hate yogurt.

I especially hate yogurt pretending to be ice cream.

But I’ll be damned if I don’t grab my laptop and my keys and follow her wherever the hell she’s willing to lead me.

• • •

“How have you lived in Los Angeles since you were fourteen without ever stepping foot inside Pinkberry?” She almost sounds offended. She turns away from me to study the choice of toppings again. “Have you at least heard of Starbucks?”

I laugh and point to the gummy bears. The server scoops a spoonful into my container. “I practically live in Starbucks. I’m a writer. It’s a rite of passage.”

She’s standing in front of me in line, waiting for our turn to pay, but she’s looking at my container with disgust.

“Oh, my God,” she says. “You can’t come to Pinkberry and just eat toppings.” She looks up at me like I’ve killed a kitten. “Are you even human?”

I roll my eyes and nudge her shoulder to turn her back around. “Stop berating me or I’ll dump you before we even find a table.”

I pull a twenty out of my wallet and pay for our dessert. We maneuver our way through the crowded restaurant, but there aren’t any free tables. She heads straight for the door, so I follow her outside and down the sidewalk until she finds an empty bench. She takes a seat on it cross-legged and sets her bowl in her lap. It’s the first time I take a look at her bowl and realize she didn’t get a single topping.

I look down at my bowl—full of nothing but toppings.

“I know,” she says, laughing. “Jack Sprat could eat no fat . . .”

“His wife could eat no lean,” I finish.

She smiles and spoons a bite into her mouth. She pulls the spoon out and licks frozen yogurt off her bottom lip.

I wasn’t expecting this today of all days. To be sitting across from this girl, watching her lick ice cream off her lips and having to swallow air just to make sure I’m still breathing.

“So you’re a writer?”

Her question gives me the footing I need to pull my mind out of the gutter. I nod. “Hope to be. I’ve never done it professionally, so I’m not sure I can call myself a writer yet.”

She shifts until she’s facing me and props her elbow on the back of the bench. “It doesn’t take a paycheck to validify that you’re a writer.”

“Validify isn’t actually a word.”

“See?” she says. “I didn’t even know that, so you’re obviously a writer. Paycheck or not, I’m calling you a writer. Ben the Writer. That’s how I’m going to refer to you from this point forward.”

I laugh. “And how should I refer to you?”

She chews on the tip of her spoon for a few seconds, her eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Good question,” she says. “I’m kind of in transition at this point.”

“Fallon the Transient,” I offer.

She smiles. “That works.”

Her back meets the bench when she faces forward. She uncrosses her legs, allowing her feet to meet the ground. “So what kind of writing do you want to do? Novels? Screenplays?”

“Hopefully everything. I don’t really want to put a cap on it yet, I’m only eighteen. I kind of want to try it all, but my passion is definitely novels. And poetry.”

A quiet sigh leaves her mouth before she takes another bite. I don’t know how, but it feels like my answer just made her sad.

“What about you, Fallon the Transient? What’s your life goal?”

She shoots me a sidelong glance. “Are we talking about life goals now or what our passion is?”

“Not much of a difference.”

She laughs half-heartedly. “There’s a huge difference. My passion is acting, but that’s not really my goal in life.”

“Why not?”

Her eyes narrow in my direction before she looks back down at her container again. She begins stirring at the frozen yogurt with her spoon. She sighs with her entire body this time, like she’s crumbling to the ground.

“You know, Ben. I appreciate how nice you’ve been since we became a couple, but you can stop with the act. My dad isn’t here to witness it.”

I was about to take another bite, but my hand freezes before the spoon hits my mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, baffled by the nosedive this conversation just took.

She stabs at her yogurt with the spoon before leaning over and tossing it into a trash can beside her. She pulls a leg up and wraps her arms around it, facing me again. “Do you really not know my story or are you just pretending not to know?”

I’m not really sure which story she’s referring to, so I give my head a slight shake. “I’m so confused right now.”

She sighs. Again. I don’t think I’ve ever made a girl sigh this much in such a short amount of time. And they aren’t the kind of sighs that make a guy feel good about his skills. They’re the kind of sighs that make him wonder what the hell he’s doing wrong.

She picks at a piece of loose wood on the back of the bench with her thumb. She focuses on the wood as if she’s talking to it, rather than to me. “I got really lucky when I was fourteen. Landed a role in a cheesy, teenage spin on Sherlock Holmes meets Nancy Drew called Gumshoe. I starred in that show for a year and a half and it was starting to do really well. But then this happened.” She motions to her face. “My contract was pulled. I was replaced and I haven’t acted since. So that’s what I mean when I say that goals and passions are two separate things. Acting is my passion, but like my father said, I no longer have the tools it takes to achieve my life goal. So I guess I’ll be looking for a new one soon, unless a miracle happens in New York.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. She’s looking at me now, waiting for a response, but I can’t think of one fast enough. She rests her chin on her arm and stares off behind me.

“I’m not very good with on-the-spot motivational speech,” I say to her. “Sometimes at night, I’ll rewrite conversations I had during the day, but I’ll change them up to reflect everything I wish I could have said in the moment. So I just want you to know that tonight when I write this conversation down on paper, I’ll say something really heroic and it’ll make you feel really good about your life.”

She drops her forehead against her arm and laughs. The sight of it makes me smile. “That is by far the best response I’ve ever gotten to that story.”

I lean forward to toss my container into the trash can behind her. It’s the closest I’ve come to her since we were sitting in the booth together. Her entire body stiffens with my proximity. Rather than pull back right away, I look her directly in the eye before focusing on her mouth.

“That’s what boyfriends are for,” I say as I slowly back away from her.

Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about the fact that I’m deliberately flirting with a girl. I do it all the time. But Fallon is looking at me like I just committed the cardinal sin, and it makes me question if I’ve been misreading the vibe between us.

I pull back completely, never shying away from the look of annoyance on her face. She points a finger at me. “That,” she says. “Right there. That’s the shit I’m referring to.”

I’m not sure I know what she’s referring to, so I proceed with caution. “You think I’m pretending to flirt with you to make you feel better about yourself?”

“Aren’t you?”

Does she really think that? Do people really not flirt with her? Is this because of her scars or because of her insecurities about her scars? Surely guys aren’t as shallow as she’s implying. If so, I’m embarrassed on behalf of all men. Because this girl should be fighting off the guys who flirt with her, not questioning their motives.

I squeeze the tension from the center of my jaw and then cover my mouth with my hand while I contemplate how to respond. Of course tonight when I think back on this moment, I’ll come up with all kinds of great responses. But right now . . . I can’t come up with the perfect response to save my life.

I guess I’ll just go with honesty. Mostly honest, anyway. That seems to be the best way to respond to this girl, since she reads through bullshit like it’s written on transparent paper.

Now I’m the one releasing a heavy sigh.

“You want to know what I thought when I saw you for the first time?”

She tilts her head. “When you saw me for the first time? You mean as in one whole hour ago?”

I ignore her cynicism and continue. “The first time you walked past me—before I interrupted your lunch date with your father—I stared at your ass the whole time you were stomping away. And I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of panties you had on. That’s all I thought about the entire time you were in the restroom. Were you a thong girl? Were you going commando? Because I didn’t see an outline in your jeans that hinted you were wearing normal panties.

“Before you returned from the bathroom, I started to get this panicked feeling in my stomach, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see your face. I had been listening in on your conversation and already knew I was drawn to your personality. But what about your face? People say not to judge a book by its cover, but what if you somehow read the inside of the book without seeing the cover first? And what if you really liked what was inside that book? Of course when you go to close the book and are about to see the cover for the first time, you hope it’s something you’ll find attractive. Because who wants an incredibly written book sitting on their bookshelf if they have to stare at a shitty cover?”

She quickly glances down at her lap, but I continue talking.

“When you walked out of the bathroom, the first thing I noticed was your hair. It reminded me of the first girl I ever kissed. Her name was Abitha. She had great hair and it always smelled like coconut, so it made me wonder if your hair smelled like coconut. And then it made me wonder if you kissed like Abitha, because even though she was my first kiss, it’s still one of the only ones I can remember every detail of. Anyway, so I immediately noticed your eyes after admiring your hair. You were still several feet away, but you were looking straight at me, almost as if you couldn’t understand why I was staring.

“But then I grew really uneasy and shifted in my seat, because as you so clearly pointed out already, I hadn’t even looked in the mirror yet. I didn’t know what you were seeing now that you were looking back at me, and if you even liked what you were seeing. My palms started sweating because this was the first impression you were getting of me and I didn’t know if it was good enough.

“You were almost to my booth at this point and that’s when my eyes fell to your cheek. To your neck. I saw the scars for the first time, and just as I noticed them, you darted your eyes to the floor and let your hair cover most of your face. And you know what I thought in that moment, Fallon?”

Her eyes flick up to meet mine and I can tell she doesn’t really want me to say it. She thinks she knows exactly what I thought in that moment, but she has no idea.

“I was so relieved,” I tell her. “Because I could tell with that one simple movement that you were really insecure. And I realized—since you obviously had no idea how fucking beautiful you were—that I just might actually have a chance with you. And so I smiled. Because I was hoping if I played my cards right—I might get to find out exactly what kind of panties you were wearing under those jeans.”

It’s as if the world chooses this moment to go silent. No cars pass by. No birds chirp. The sidewalk around us is completely empty. It’s the longest ten seconds of my life, waiting for her to respond. So long, ten seconds is enough time for me to want to take it all back. It’s enough time for me to wish I would have just kept my mouth shut, rather than lay it all out there like that.

Fallon clears her throat and looks away from me. She pushes off the bench and stands up.

I don’t move. I just watch her, curious if she’s chosen this moment to finally fake-dump me.

She inhales a deep breath and then releases it just as her eyes fall back to mine. “I still have a lot of stuff to pack tonight,” she says. “Offering to help is the polite thing for a boyfriend to do, you know.”

“Do you need help packing?” I blurt out.

She nonchalantly lifts a shoulder. “Okay.”