“The tannins in wine bother my sinuses. But I have…” I mentally sort through what alcohol I have. Even though I’m sure there’s less than three bottles in the house, it takes a considerably long time. “Rum,” I decide. “I have rum.”
“Rum. Works for me. I’ll get food.” She turns, misses the step, and lands heavily into Mrs. Gretchen’s garden, her knees buckling but managing to stay on her feet.
“Do you need help?”
“You can’t come into my house,” she says over her shoulder. “It’s sad, because I have a nice house.”
As I watch her walk the short distance to her own front door, I realize she has a nice everything. Then I hurry to my own door to unearth the ancient bottle of rum, without a second thought that this is probably a bad idea.
8
Rachel
I’m goingto Boen’s house to drink rum. To be able to do that without collapsing into a puddle of alcohol-sodden Rachel, I need something to eat.
Today has been the only day Boen wasn’t annoyed with me, most likely because we drank two pitchers of the mystery brown liquid that makes my stomach warm and my limbs loose and uninhibited.
Maybe all of me is uninhibited.
It’s probably a bad idea to go over to Boen’s.
I should feel like I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office, but instead I feel like Brad Lean, the most popular guy in my grade six class, has asked me to the dance. Boen is…different than what I expected. Funny and smart and so good looking. His smile is almost as much of a revelation as his ass in those jeans.
I checked him out the two times he excused himself to go to the washroom during the game.
“What do I do, Rusty?” I ask my dog as he races around the house. It’s nice to be missed.
A memory pops into my head—once when I had a huge deadline looming, I’d gone twelve days without seeing Bartlett. Then when I’d finished the project, I’d let myself into his condo when he was at work and made a celebratory dinner.
Bartlett never showed an ounce of the excitement Rusty did. In fact, he had argued that it had been only four days since I’d last seem him.
After that, things went seriously downhill. I blamed myself because I put work before him, but now, looking at it through the fuzzy lens of several hours of drinking, I realize it wasn’t my fault at all.
“That’ll teach you for giving your heart away,” I say aloud as I open the back door for Rusty to do his business in the backyard. There’s an edge of guilt for leaving him alone again, but I’m not about to suggest I bring him to Boen’s.
Even with the fuzzy fog of alcohol, I know there’s something sketchy with Boen and dogs.
I feed the cats while Rusty is outside, and then start gathering food, throwing random things into my market basket as I keep up an internal dialogue.
Should I change? My Blue Jays shirt isn’t the most flattering.
Why does it bother? Boen doesn’t even like me. He’s not going to notice what I’m wearing.
But he smiled at me. Plus, he laughed.
“Nothing is going to happen,” I say loudly, which ends the discussion. “Why would it?”
Because I’m a woman and he’s a man, and we live a house apart. Much sex has been had for less.
“We’re not having sex,” I cry.
But we could.
I say goodbye to Rusty and the cats and take my basket of food two doors down to Boen’s.
There’s a Dolly Parton song by that name and if I remember correctly, Dolly gets a little action from Mr. Two Doors Down.
I am not having sex with Boen.
