Paper Planes, The Second Excerpt
In celebration of reaching 30,000 words (30,327 to be exact at the moment), I am posting a second, slightly more cheerful excerpt from Paper Planes, the current work in progress. This takes place in Chapter Four.
I had never been much of a party animal, but Brendan and I had a circle of friends, mostly other couples like ourselves that we liked to hang out with. After his death, it was too awkward to be the only unpartnered person in our circle, to be constantly reminded of Bren’s absence, so I had withdrawn. Much like the speaking engagements, the invitations to dinner or bowling or poker night had slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Most likely our friends felt as awkward as I did, unsure of how to treat the bereaved partner in their midst.
What that meant for me now, though, was that I was stuck scrolling through the address book in my BlackBerry, searching for someone to call to go hang out with me. I selfishly avoided the people I knew through the grapevine had just broken up or were having romantic troubles. I had enough problems of my own. Me with a recently dumped friend and copious amounts of alcohol would be a therapist’s worst nightmare.
Unfortunately I didn’t have one “best friend” that I knew I could rely on. Brendan had been that for me, and our fights had never really lasted long enough for me to go hunting for another confidante.
I chewed absently on a thumbnail as I evaluated my list of choices. After eliminating the purely work-related contacts, the couples, and the Miss Lonelyhearts, it wasn’t a very long list. There was Dan, a self-confirmed swinging bachelor, or Mariluz, a butch dyke lesbian with a taste for good beer. Dan had been known to get a little gropey after a few drinks, even back when I wasn’t single, and I wasn’t sure I was emotionally capable of handling Dan the Octopus that night. Mariluz it would be.
I realized the wisdom of my choice two black-and-tans into the evening. Mariluz sprawled back in her chair like James Dean, her short-cropped black hair gleaming in the low light of the pub as she leered at a pretty extreme-femme type two tables over. Mari was low-key and easygoing, and more than that, she was good at listening and asking smart questions.
“I should just fire my therapist and drink with you more often,” I mumbled into my beer as I drained the pint.
Mari snorted. “You couldn’t pay me enough.” The little brunette at the window booth was giving Mari covert glances from underneath her fall of long dark hair, the tousled ringlets carefully styled to look careless. I rolled my eyes when Mari gave her a wolfish grin in return.
“Not only that, but at least my therapist doesn’t flirt with other people when she’s out with me.”
“Heh.” Mari drained her Dos Equis Ambar and signaled the cocktail waitress for two more pints. The intimate, cozy atmosphere of the pub was just right for the toe-in-the-water socializing I’d had in mind. I tried to imagine the inevitable techno club I would have ended up in with Dan and suppressed a shudder.
Mari watched me with a keen eye and smirked as she took a deep, appreciative drink of her dark ale. “So what you haven’t told me,” she said as she licked the creamy headfoam from her upper lip, “is what happened with this pilot in Dallas that has you thinking about taking an underpaid, out of town job for the literally one-in-a-million chance that you’ll see him again.”
I toyed with the soggy coaster under my pint glass and shrugged. “I don’t know. We played Tetris.”
“You are so fucking weird. Is that a euphemism? You put your long red piece in-”
“Oh my God, stop!” I couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Fuck you very much. Now I’m never going to be able to play Tetris again without seeing it as 8-bit porn. You suck.”
Mari snorted. “You wish. Anyway, c’mon, what about ‘playing Tetris’”-she actually made the air quotes with her fingers-“has you rarin’ to go?”
“I don’t even know. Maybe it was that he was right there when I needed someone. I mean, first there was the thing with the-the-” I waved my hand eloquently. She nodded that she understood. “The picture thing. And then he was there at the airport too. Came to check because he thought I’d probably missed my flight.” I poked at the condensation on my glass. “Maybe it was just that it was nice to have someone kind of rescue me.”
Mari was still watching me. I glanced over at her flirty femme to see how she was taking this, but the brunette was talking animatedly to her friends-though still stealing glances in Mari’s direction. I felt bad for being in the way.
“That’s probably part of it,” Mari allowed. “But there’s something else there too. I mean, you wanted to go out with him for coffee for a reason. And no matter how many times I save your ass, you’re never going to want to ‘play Tetris’ with me.”
“You got that right,” I muttered, and she chuckled.
“So anyway. This is the… first?” She peered at me for confirmation. “First person you’ve been seriously interested in?”
Since Brendan went politely unsaid, and I decided I wasn’t going to bring it up either. Two and a half pints of ale into the evening was not the time to reminisce about my dead lover. I’d turn into a sobbing, soggy mess faster than you could say “crybaby.”
“Take off the ‘seriously’ and you’ve got it. I haven’t had the energy to be interested in anyone.”
“Right. So it’s the first person you’ve been attracted to for more than a split second. He’s smart and funny and successful and shares your incomprehensible love for all things geek, and he’s attracted to you too.” She took a deep swallow of Dos Equis. “Yeah, I see the problem.”
The dripping sarcasm in her tone made me want to flip her off. After a moment’s debate, I did. She grinned.
“He was attracted to me seven months ago,” I reminded her. “There is absolutely nothing to say that he’d still be single, much less interested.”
She gave me her patented, peel-the-paint-off-a-car “don’t be stupid” glare, and I sat back.
“What?”
She sighed, and I could tell she had at least a dozen things to tell me and was trying to settle on which one she wanted to address first. “All right, leaving out everything else, because if I got into that with you now it’d only piss you off-”
“Well now I want to know what that is.”
“Later. Let’s cover the basics first.” She waited until I settled back in my chair, grudgingly accepting her directive. “All right, so here’s the thing. Seven months ago, you were single and interested in him. And you still are.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Don’t start that with me. Your situation is a bit unique, but you don’t know what his situation was, do you? Did you ask him how long ago he’d been in a relationship and whether it had ended well or not?”
“Well, no. He didn’t volunteer the information, either, and don’t you think he would’ve?”
“Maybe. Maybe he didn’t want to look like he was trying to minimize what you were going through. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it’s not impossible that he’d have a partner by now, but honey, it’s worth a try.” She smirked. “If nothing else, you can always play Tetris.”
I threw my coaster at her, and she laughed as she got up and crossed the room to the brunette. She braced her hip casually against the table, looming over the girl just enough to be butch and toppy without actually looking frightening. If I was any good at reading body language, the brunette was very impressed by this, and Mari gave me a meaningful glance from the corner of her eye. Her message was painfully clear: If I was going to gaze longingly at Dustin McDonough over the distance of seven months and several states, I’d better have the balls to get up and do something about it.
I had never been much of a party animal, but Brendan and I had a circle of friends, mostly other couples like ourselves that we liked to hang out with. After his death, it was too awkward to be the only unpartnered person in our circle, to be constantly reminded of Bren’s absence, so I had withdrawn. Much like the speaking engagements, the invitations to dinner or bowling or poker night had slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Most likely our friends felt as awkward as I did, unsure of how to treat the bereaved partner in their midst.
What that meant for me now, though, was that I was stuck scrolling through the address book in my BlackBerry, searching for someone to call to go hang out with me. I selfishly avoided the people I knew through the grapevine had just broken up or were having romantic troubles. I had enough problems of my own. Me with a recently dumped friend and copious amounts of alcohol would be a therapist’s worst nightmare.
Unfortunately I didn’t have one “best friend” that I knew I could rely on. Brendan had been that for me, and our fights had never really lasted long enough for me to go hunting for another confidante.
I chewed absently on a thumbnail as I evaluated my list of choices. After eliminating the purely work-related contacts, the couples, and the Miss Lonelyhearts, it wasn’t a very long list. There was Dan, a self-confirmed swinging bachelor, or Mariluz, a butch dyke lesbian with a taste for good beer. Dan had been known to get a little gropey after a few drinks, even back when I wasn’t single, and I wasn’t sure I was emotionally capable of handling Dan the Octopus that night. Mariluz it would be.
I realized the wisdom of my choice two black-and-tans into the evening. Mariluz sprawled back in her chair like James Dean, her short-cropped black hair gleaming in the low light of the pub as she leered at a pretty extreme-femme type two tables over. Mari was low-key and easygoing, and more than that, she was good at listening and asking smart questions.
“I should just fire my therapist and drink with you more often,” I mumbled into my beer as I drained the pint.
Mari snorted. “You couldn’t pay me enough.” The little brunette at the window booth was giving Mari covert glances from underneath her fall of long dark hair, the tousled ringlets carefully styled to look careless. I rolled my eyes when Mari gave her a wolfish grin in return.
“Not only that, but at least my therapist doesn’t flirt with other people when she’s out with me.”
“Heh.” Mari drained her Dos Equis Ambar and signaled the cocktail waitress for two more pints. The intimate, cozy atmosphere of the pub was just right for the toe-in-the-water socializing I’d had in mind. I tried to imagine the inevitable techno club I would have ended up in with Dan and suppressed a shudder.
Mari watched me with a keen eye and smirked as she took a deep, appreciative drink of her dark ale. “So what you haven’t told me,” she said as she licked the creamy headfoam from her upper lip, “is what happened with this pilot in Dallas that has you thinking about taking an underpaid, out of town job for the literally one-in-a-million chance that you’ll see him again.”
I toyed with the soggy coaster under my pint glass and shrugged. “I don’t know. We played Tetris.”
“You are so fucking weird. Is that a euphemism? You put your long red piece in-”
“Oh my God, stop!” I couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Fuck you very much. Now I’m never going to be able to play Tetris again without seeing it as 8-bit porn. You suck.”
Mari snorted. “You wish. Anyway, c’mon, what about ‘playing Tetris’”-she actually made the air quotes with her fingers-“has you rarin’ to go?”
“I don’t even know. Maybe it was that he was right there when I needed someone. I mean, first there was the thing with the-the-” I waved my hand eloquently. She nodded that she understood. “The picture thing. And then he was there at the airport too. Came to check because he thought I’d probably missed my flight.” I poked at the condensation on my glass. “Maybe it was just that it was nice to have someone kind of rescue me.”
Mari was still watching me. I glanced over at her flirty femme to see how she was taking this, but the brunette was talking animatedly to her friends-though still stealing glances in Mari’s direction. I felt bad for being in the way.
“That’s probably part of it,” Mari allowed. “But there’s something else there too. I mean, you wanted to go out with him for coffee for a reason. And no matter how many times I save your ass, you’re never going to want to ‘play Tetris’ with me.”
“You got that right,” I muttered, and she chuckled.
“So anyway. This is the… first?” She peered at me for confirmation. “First person you’ve been seriously interested in?”
Since Brendan went politely unsaid, and I decided I wasn’t going to bring it up either. Two and a half pints of ale into the evening was not the time to reminisce about my dead lover. I’d turn into a sobbing, soggy mess faster than you could say “crybaby.”
“Take off the ‘seriously’ and you’ve got it. I haven’t had the energy to be interested in anyone.”
“Right. So it’s the first person you’ve been attracted to for more than a split second. He’s smart and funny and successful and shares your incomprehensible love for all things geek, and he’s attracted to you too.” She took a deep swallow of Dos Equis. “Yeah, I see the problem.”
The dripping sarcasm in her tone made me want to flip her off. After a moment’s debate, I did. She grinned.
“He was attracted to me seven months ago,” I reminded her. “There is absolutely nothing to say that he’d still be single, much less interested.”
She gave me her patented, peel-the-paint-off-a-car “don’t be stupid” glare, and I sat back.
“What?”
She sighed, and I could tell she had at least a dozen things to tell me and was trying to settle on which one she wanted to address first. “All right, leaving out everything else, because if I got into that with you now it’d only piss you off-”
“Well now I want to know what that is.”
“Later. Let’s cover the basics first.” She waited until I settled back in my chair, grudgingly accepting her directive. “All right, so here’s the thing. Seven months ago, you were single and interested in him. And you still are.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Don’t start that with me. Your situation is a bit unique, but you don’t know what his situation was, do you? Did you ask him how long ago he’d been in a relationship and whether it had ended well or not?”
“Well, no. He didn’t volunteer the information, either, and don’t you think he would’ve?”
“Maybe. Maybe he didn’t want to look like he was trying to minimize what you were going through. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it’s not impossible that he’d have a partner by now, but honey, it’s worth a try.” She smirked. “If nothing else, you can always play Tetris.”
I threw my coaster at her, and she laughed as she got up and crossed the room to the brunette. She braced her hip casually against the table, looming over the girl just enough to be butch and toppy without actually looking frightening. If I was any good at reading body language, the brunette was very impressed by this, and Mari gave me a meaningful glance from the corner of her eye. Her message was painfully clear: If I was going to gaze longingly at Dustin McDonough over the distance of seven months and several states, I’d better have the balls to get up and do something about it.