Amy's Smile Ch. 08

But even after I'd grown and gotten a handle on the whole dating women thing, my mother still felt she was necessary in the process. She rarely went a week without calling with the thrilling news that Alice, from the bank, has this friend (or Jan in my book club has this niece) who just moved to Chicago so I got her phone number for you and oh, by the way, I called her and let her know you'd be getting in contact with her and she seemed really excited after I told her all about you.

It was the all about you part that was making me nauseous knowing she'd talked to Amy. Because my mother wouldn't let a little thing like not having a clue about how the fuck I knew this girl-or more to the point, what I wanted her to know about me-stand in the way of telling her every humiliating thing I'd ever done, including how I'd really gotten the scar at the base of my cock.

If Amy had given her any encouragement, of which I had no doubt since I knew how polite she was, my mother would have started with the first labor pain and continued to last week's phone call when I'd cut her off by accident when the bus I was on went into a tunnel. Then there would have been the 'natural' (only to my mother) segue way into how she wouldn't feel like a truly successful parent until all of her kids where firmly ensconced in a three bedroom Cape Cod with a spouse and two kids and by the way did Amy like big weddings or was she more the casual type?

I was half tempted to pick up the phone and call Liam and ask how long Amy and my indiscrete mater had talked and I would have if it hadn't been almost 4AM. Not that I gave a shit about waking up the asshole, but I figured that: A) His attention span wasn't developed enough to take in anything that didn't relate specifically to him. And: B) I knew from experience that getting him to utter a coherent sentence was iffy at the best of times and those didn't include the first two hours after he woke up.

So instead I paced and swore and managed to half convince myself that Amy's finding out how insane my mom was wouldn't really make my chances any worse with her. Of course, that reminded me how bad they were in the first place and on that sorry note I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

My wake-up call was for 8AM. At nine, the manager came and pounded on my door to make sure I wasn't dead. I staggered over and assured him I wasn't, but I think the way I looked made him wonder if I was really telling the truth. Twenty minutes later I was showered and shaved and on the phone to the office telling them they had till that afternoon to get the new equipment here. Then I called Arnie and told him the happy news.

He wasn't very happy.

After that, there wasn't much else to do but eat and wait. I wandered out to the nearest Mickey D's and grabbed an order McPancakes and McSausage and then took the entire McSlop back to my room and chowed down. With my belly full, I finally got the nerve up to make the call to my mom.

It went surprisingly well, at least at first. She said she understood why I couldn't make it home for my big day (Her words, not mine.) and at least that sweet girl, Amy, had told her that she'd make sure I wasn't alone for it. That cheered me up for about thirty seconds until she added that Amy had said she'd get my roommate, the asshole, (My words, not hers.) to keep me company.

Part of me was dying to ask her what she and the sweet girl had talked about, but I've been my mother's son all my life and knew better than to ask any questions that might engage her curiosity. So, I just agreed and said I'd talk to her when I got back to Chicago and hung up before she could think of a reason why she should move the party to my place.

There was only one other person left that I needed to talk to. Okay, wanted to talk too-the need was purely my own pathetic addiction to her voice. But when I called her house, I got her machine again. A second try at her work got a friendlier clerk, but no Amy. At least she was there though, just in an all-day meeting.

I went back to bed.

At three, Clem called and said the stuff was on the way and to be at the airport at 4:22 to pick it up. I passed on the info to Arnie, who almost sobbed in relief. I thought he was a little premature with the tears; there'd be plenty of time for those when he saw the bill.

I tried Amy again, but this time she was, 'out of the building'. I thought about leaving my cell number, but decided the call would have to wait anyway since it was about to be show time at the clinic. Besides, I didn't want to be rushed when we finally spoke. I didn't know what I wanted to actually say, you understand, but I wanted the time to say it when I finally figured it out.

I'd never bothered to undress for my five hour 'nap' and it showed, but fuck it, I worked with computers, I was supposed to look like a geek. I brushed my teeth, stuck my head under the tap, and called it good. Then I drove over to the airport and watched the baggage handlers toss around the fragile equipment like it was unbreakable beach balls. Eventually I loaded it up in the Freelander and made my merry way back to the clinic.

It was a repeat of the night before including the pizza. This time though when Arnie stuck his head out of the office looking like something out of Night of the Living Dead and begging for sleep time I only growled at him to find a comfy desk and use his coat for a pillow. He gulped and did his turtle impression by ducking back into his office.

I finally finished at 7AM. Arnie must have slipped out when the coast was clear and I wasn't looking because he wasn't in his office. There was a note though. It said, If you need me I'm in Exam Room 12. That's where I found him too after a little trial and error. He was laid out on a gyno table, his head resting on a bunch of scrubs and his feet stuck in the stirrups. It was not a Kodak moment.

"Get up." Arnie grunted and shifted his hips like he was waiting for someone to tell him bend over and cough. I leaned over and pushed the release for the stirrups.

"What the...?" Arnie rubbed his eyes and looked around the room until he spotted me. Then he cringed. "Is something wrong?"

My whole life, but I didn't think that's what he meant.

"I'm done," I was too tired to torment him though the thought was appealing. "Come on, I'll show you."

We walked silently back into the office. Arnie listened politely while I ran through things, but I could tell he didn't have a fucking clue what I was talking about. This guy was so dense about computers I didn't know how he'd known enough to mess up the program in the first place.

I ran through it twice more and finally started to see a little spark of recognition in those dull eyes. It wasn't enough though and I was just about to start over for the fourth time when some of the other staff started to arrive.

One of them, a girl who was maybe eighteen came over. She'd hung around a little yesterday afternoon too before Arnie had shooed her out. Not much to look at unless you were into purple and green hair and enough piercings to play connect the dots. She smiled at me, flicked her gold laden tongue out to lick the diamond stud at the corner of her mouth, and then asked if she could watch. I nodded and went back to explaining the system to Arnie for the forth time only vaguely away that Goth-girl had moved in closer and was looking at some of my notes.

"Oh," she said. "I know this."

That got my attention. "You do?"

"Sure, it's just a variation of CdakX4.1 isn't it?"

If I wasn't already in love with Amy, I might have given this Rocky Horror reject my heart. "4.2 actually."

She grinned and sucked on her tongue stud, "Cool."

I told Arnie to beat it and sat Drucilla (Well that's what she told me her name was, some of the others when they came in called her Debbie.) down and started again. I got about halfway through when I realized that she'd taken over the discussion and already knew more about how the system worked than I did. My day looked like it was starting to pick up.

It was. With Drucilla/Debbie by my side, I started in on the training. This wasn't the biggest clinic in the world, but there were about fifty employees on two shifts and every one of them needed to know at least something about how the system worked. We took over Arnie's office, put in a second computer, and started to herd in ten or twelve people at a time. Since with that many it was going to take a minimum two hours to train a group it made for a very long day. Drucilla was great though and after the first couple of groups, I had her split off the ones she figured would pick it up quicker and show them herself. It cut the time down, but we still weren't completely done until almost ten that night.

"Damn," I rubbed my neck. "I'm beat."

Drucilla/Debbie just grinned at me, "It was fun though, wasn't it?" She danced around a little and the three rings in her eyebrow bounced up and down so hard I wanted to wince.

"If that's your idea of fun than you really need to go find a job in the computer industry."

She nodded, "I plan on it. That's what I'm studying at college."

It's what I'd figured. I already knew that this was just a part time job for her. She'd told me the only reason she'd been in while I was there was because her school was on semester break and she was picking up extra hours.

"Well, when your finished, let me know." I handed her my card. My bosses were always looking for talent and her fashion sense wouldn't be a deterrent either. I mean they'd hired Leroy hadn't they? "How would you feel about living in Chicago?"

"Cool!"

Drucilla didn't have a car. She'd hitched a ride with her dad that morning so I'd offered to drop her off on my way to the motel. Hell, it was the least I could do. Without her help, there would have been no way I'd have been able to get out flight out the next day. I might have even needed to stay another weekend.

In the state I was in that would not have been a good thing, not only for me but for anyone else I happened to come in contact with. Hell, you might even say she'd had a potential hand in saving Arnie Pederson's life and prevented me from having an up close and personal relationship with a seven foot convict roommate who went by the name of Sven the Impaler.

She went to get her coat and I looked at the clock. It was still early enough to call Amy. It still wasn't ideal, but if I wanted to talk to her at all before I finally got home, it was going to have to happen soon. But before I could punch in the number Dru came back. I sighed and pocketed my phone.

We walked out together into the bitter wind of a Minnesota winter. It was snowing like a bitch. I'd vaguely been aware of some talk of a blizzard, but hadn't taken the time to look out a window. Now I could see what they were talking about. Damn, and I thought we got snow in Chicago.

My stomach growled. There hadn't been any pizza tonight. Once I'd ordered Arnie out of my sight, he'd apparently done a powder. At least no one had seen him. D/D had told me he was a jerk, but had real job security because his wife was the chief physician's sister. I only hoped that didn't mean he'd be back to playing with the computers again any time soon. Fergus Falls wasn't exactly my kind of town and I didn't want to be revisiting for as long as possible.

My stomach rumbled again. I guess it wasn't happy with the fact that all I'd put into it that day were three apple fritters and half of Dru's tuna sandwich. Which gave me an idea.

"Hey, I haven't even thanked you for how much you helped today. How about I take you out to eat? Where's the best steak in town?" I was hungry and I really did owe her.

"Burgoyne's," she shook her head and laughed, "but it's been closed since nine."

"Anything open?" Though when I thought about it, I seriously doubted it. This was not a booming metropolis. Hell, it wasn't a booming anything.

Dru thought about it for a second while I stomped my feet to prevent frostbite, then her face lightened. "I know a great place. I can't promise you steak, but I can guarantee whatever it is will be excellent."

"Then lead on MacDuff."

Looking puzzled, the girl said seriously, "Actually, my last name is Sorenson."

Oh yeah, she'd fit in great at my company.

The roads were worse than bad. For one brief, second I was grateful to Arnie for the upgrade to four-wheel drive. Then I thought about the fact that he was why I'd needed to be here in the first place and the warm fuzzies died a quick death.

Druscilla/Debbie directed me down a bunch of side streets until we got to a residential area filled with stucco bungalows that all looked pretty much alike. I was so busy trying not to slide down the street sideways while memorizing the way back out of there that I didn't notice the lack of restaurants until Drucilla pointed to one of the houses and said, "Here we are."

Uh oh.

She was a sweet kid and by now I'd figured out that under all the metal she was pretty cute too, but the last thing I was interested in tonight was seeing any more of her. For one thing, she was goddamn young, and then there was the very real possibility that the piercings didn't stop at her neck and call me old fashioned, but sliding my dick through a minefield of safety pins just wasn't a turn on. But neither of those things would have stopped me if that was all it. The truth was I didn't feel like having sex.

Hell, where had that come from?

In my whole life, or at least since I'd hit puberty, sex was something I wanted as often as possible. You know that old joke about how do you get a woman to go to bed with you? There's a list of about eleven hundred things you have to do to convince her and then when you finally get to the end of it, there's another one about what you have to do to get a man into bed. All it says is: 'Bring beer and show up naked.' Well, I'd always been willing to skip the beer.

Yes, I was in love, but what the hell did that have to do with sex? I'd been in love with Tracy Nigg too, but when Elise Langhorn had wiggled her butt in my face and told me she'd always fantasized about a one night stand I'd been all over it-and her. I mean love is all fine and good, but sex is... Well, sex.

Except now it wasn't. Now it was Amy. Only Amy. I suddenly realized I'd been away from home for almost three weeks and the only women I'd even given a glance to were small, dark and had at least one physical trait the reminded me of the little girl from Green Bay. And even with them, I'd never given them a second look because they couldn't possibly live up to the real thing.

Druscilla/Debbie didn't have a chance.

"Uh, this is where you live?" I was stalling for time, trying to think of a reason why I wasn't going to go in the house with her.

"Yeah, well, me and my parents and my dumbass brother, but he'll be in bed cause he's only ten."

"Oh," I relaxed. I highly doubted Druscilla/D. was planning on seducing me while mom and dad were watching Leno in the living room. Then I thought of something else. "Are you sure your folks will be okay with you just showing up like this with a strange man?"

"No biggie," she shrugged, "they know I was working late with you. They'll be fine. Or actually Mom will be, Dad's out plowing."

"Hope he's doing the airport," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." But that wasn't really the truth.

The thing I'd been obsessing about ever since I'd taken the first turn out of the parking lot and slid halfway into the wrong lane was worrying whether the airport in this burg would be open in the morning. With my luck, it wouldn't be and I wouldn't be able to get out of here until god knows when. Like I've said before, this is the way my life works.

We got out of the car and shuffled our way to the back door. Maybe Drucilla's dad (I was willing to make book that he called her Debbie) plowed snow for a living, but it was obvious he didn't give a high priority to his own house. It was knee deep in some spots. I managed to find them all too, so I was pretty much soaked by the time we made it inside.

"Take off your shoes and socks and put them by the radiator," D pointed to an ancient iron thing that blasted out enough heat for a room twice as big. It felt wonderful. "I'll go get my mom and see what she can whip up for us."

"Hey, I don't want to be any trouble," I was already starting to struggle back into my frozen shoes.

"Don't worry about it. Like I said, she's used to it."

Drucilla disappeared and I peeled off my ice-incrusted socks. I started to lay them on the radiator top, but it sizzled and I decided that wouldn't be a very smart move after all and put them on the floor and hoped they were far enough away from the thing to not spontaneously combust.

She still hadn't come back though I could hear voices in another room. I stuck my head into the next one, but it was only an empty kitchen. I went in and sat down at the table. My cell phone fell out of my pocket and I picked it up and stared at it. If I were going to try and talk to Amy at all tonight then it would have to be now. It was getting late and I knew she had work in the morning.

Still I hesitated. If she didn't answer than it could only mean she was out, either with Miriam or, and I had to force myself to admit it, Liam. I wasn't sure I could take a whole night wondering which it was.

Tell the girl you love her. James' voice came out of nowhere.

"Yeah, yeah," I told the voice in my head. With sweaty fingers, I punched in the numbers.

It rang twice, "Hello?"

I held out the cell and shook it. Must be a something really wrong with the line because the voice on the other end didn't even sound human. "Hello."

"Who is this?"

Halfway through the 'Who' I'd pulled the phone away to stretch it a full arms length away from my ear. The voice on the other end was still loud as hell. The memory bell finally rang.

"Miriam?"

"Who's askin'?" Came the suspicious reply.

"Uh, yeah, right. This is Amy's friend, Charlie."

"Oooh, Chaaarlie... Yeah, Amy told me about you. All about you."

What the hell did that mean? Whatever it was I decided I didn't want to discuss it and take the risk of permanent hearing loss. "Um, great, I guess. Look, can I talk to her?"

"Nope. She's not here."

Huh? If Amy wasn't there, than what the hell was Miriam doing at her house?

Though I hadn't actually said that out loud, Miriam answered my question anyway. "Funny thing is, she's at your place."

I didn't think it was funny.

"She went over there a little while ago to get some clothes for Liam."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Miriam took this as a sign to keep talking.

"Oh, you don't know yet do you?"

"Know what?" I finally croaked, not wanting to hear the answer, but compelled to find out anyway.

"Liam got dumped by his girlfriend!"

"Oh god, I'm so sorry," I really was too, but probably not for the same reason Miriam was.

"I know, that bitch... What's her name? Blixen, or something-sumpthin' screwy like that. Anyway, the little slut ran off and eloped with her personal trainer. Seems he'd been teaching her how to really do the press and squat."

At any other time I might have enjoyed the whole mind picture Miriam was creating for me, and god knows it was what Liam deserved, but all could think of was now he was free for Amy.

"Hey, Charlie, you still there?"

"Yeah, and it's Bambi." Now I remembered her name.

I could hear her shrug through the phone, "Bambi, Blixen, I knew it reminded me of hooves. Anyway Bambi comes into Liam's work today and flashes the old ring under his nose, then waltzes into Daddy's office and tells him the happy news along with the fact that now that she and Liam are definitely ex, she'd feel real uncomfortable coming into see Popsy if she had to think she might catch a glimpse of him. Liam I mean, Daddy's okay-he has the checkbook. The old man agrees he can see how that might be a problem so now Liam is not only out the babe, but out of a job too."