Eating Out (The Wallflowers Remix)
Any minute now, Gunn will barge in here and ruin my perfect day. That I'm certain of. Wesley is on his usual day-off and gone to who knows where; that means that I have the CD player all to myself, as long as Gunn's out and about. But he'll be back, back with tacos and chulapas that he should have brought from Del Taco and not Taco Bell.
But I won't complain, at least not yet. That reminds me, has Fred emerged from her room yet? Anyway, she'll come out when Gunn comes with his Taco Bell treasures. She always does, she's starting to act normal that way. There's familiarity, then routine; plus no necklaces that make your head go boom.
It's all Cordy Chase at the Hyperion, ladies and gentlemen. No brooding, no Bob Dylan wailing, just me with my bare feet up on my desk eating Safeway peaches in light syrup and Freddie Prinze Jr. on page 23 of this month's issue of Jane, which just happens to be the swimsuit issue. Adorable Freddie Prinze Jr....in a Speedo.
Someone up there must really like me.
"Between your feet and that music, you're gonna scare away business," Gunn enters and doesn't even say good morning; there goes that perfect day I was talking about.
"If I so much as feel the phone vibrate with the thought of ringing, I swear, I'll turn it down."
Of course, just then the phone rings. Gunn smiles a little opening the brown paper bag with Taco Bell printed on it. He takes out something wrapped in festive Mexican designed waxed paper and hands it over to me, I frown my usual 'You-should've-gone-to-Del-Taco-instead' frown but still take it. "Angel Investigations, we help the helpless."
"Um, hi. Cordelia? This is, um, Willow."
"Oh, hey! What's up!" I sound cheerful, at least I try to be. When Willow calls, it usually means the crap has hit the ceiling.
"Um, yeah. I was thinking of, um, coming up to L.A. this weekend. And I was wondering, since you live there and stuff, if maybe I could stay with you? It would just be a couple of days, and if you've got work I'll just go find something to do."
"Yeah, of course. That would be really cool, actually," I say, unwrapping my chulapa. It would be nice to have someone who isn't Gunn, Wes, Lorne or Fred to talk to. Well, actually, Fred doesn't get into conversations, at least coherent ones, that much.
"I, uh, got a train ticket for Friday night. it gets to L.A. at, um, let me check--8:36. It's okay if you can't meet me at the station, though, because I know how to take the bus from there to the Hyperion."
"No, that's okay, Friday's my day-off," and I sure as hell won't be at the Hyperion on a Friday night, not if I can help it. "I'll meet you at the station. Is the McDonald's all right? Because it's the most obvious and brightly lit thing there."
Any opportunity to escape from Wesley's old volume and Dylan bootleg hoedown, I will take. We work out a few other details and I hang up, "Willow's coming this weekend." I finally eat off the inferior chulapa while Gunn is on his fourth taco. "And nobody died. I think."
I'm a little worried. When Willow comes over, it doesn't just mean that the crap has hit the ceiling; it means it hit the ceiling fan. "There must be some weird shit goin' down," Gunn manages to say with his mouth full.
"By the way, have you told Fred the tacos are here?"
"Not until you put your shoes on."
"My feet are gorgeous," I say, crossing my ankle. "You should worship it."
"That ain't how I get off," Gunn smiles as he leaves to fetch Fred. "But I'll ask Fred, maybe she's up to it."
The work week is good, there are enough phone calls and actual business that I manage to keep busy and keep out of the office and away from Wes' music collection. In between jobs I try to figure out what the hell happened in Sunnydale that Willow has to come up here to say it to us.
On the domestic front, Dennis is up to his usual antics by writing the words "clean me, please" on the fridge door. Of course, he's right, the fridge needs cleaning. After that I started cleaning around like crazy trying to work out the anxiety of Willow's upcoming visit. It doesn't help that way, but at least I cleaned the place.
I wake up at noon on Friday and celebrate with a big salad from the deli across the street from my apartment. What I'm celebrating I don't know, but the salad is good.
By 8:30, I'm at the station waiting, I stand in front of the McD's feeling twelve kinds of anxious. It doesn't help that her train is almost twenty minutes late and she's the last one to get off when it does arrive. I give her a big hug, which is a little awkward for me, and take one of her bags. The train ride seems to have flattened out her hair. "I don't want to, um, ruin your plans or anything, but I'm just, I'm really tired. It's been--it's been an unnecessarily long day. So I was wondering if it would be okay, I mean if it's all right with you, if I just went back to your place and crashed? I mean, you could go out without me if you wanted. No biggie."
"Sure," I say. "I am completely up for renting some movies and chilling." I won't tell her that I feel the same way, that all I want now is to stay at home with someone and just chill. We get on the bus and stop by the Hyperion because Willow insisted on saying 'hi' to everyone.
Wesley is more than happy to see Willow and proceeds to talk to her about her Wiccan powers. Meanwhile, I talk Gunn into getting some booze for us, and while normally he'd protest he's in a good enough mood to go over to a 24 hour store where he knows the guy behind the counter. "We sort of had a conversation today," he says before leaving.
"With who?" I ask but I don't get an answer.
"How's Fred by the way?" Willow wonders, she's always good that way, not forgetting anyone.
"Well, she's been a little better." Wesley frowns and smiles at the same time. "She's quite a remarkable girl, isn't she?"
"Easy on the eyes, um, I didn't say that," Will says blushing.
"Oh, don't be," I tell her, after all every guy in the Hyperion is after Fred's tail, what's another one.
Gunn arrived with a bottle of lemon-flavored Stoli and looks me in the eye, "Don't drive." He's projecting his little sister on me, I think.
"I promise," I swear before taking the bottle from him. Willow and I leave without asking Gunn who it was he had a conversation with. "Maybe Angel called?" Willow offers in Safeway while we're picking out junk to snack on.
"No, it was a 'I-talked-to-my-childhood-crush' kind of happy," I say picking up a bag of marshmallows.
"Um, well, maybe Gunn is, um, you know? Gay?"
I laugh so hard that I think I snorted, I'm such a geek that way, "No, no way, besides if Gunn's, you know, gay, then he'd already be married to Wesley by now."
"Then it's Fred," Willow simply says. Now why didn't I think of that.
"Your right! God! What could I have done without that Willow-brain around," I look at our procurements and was happy about it.
"C'mon, we just eliminated all other possibilities and came to a logical conclusion," she was blushing. "Although I must say, they were, um, very gay possibilities."
We sprawl a rug in front of the TV set and VCR, with a bowl of Jiffy Pop and the bottle of Stoli we began to watch "Thelma and Louise", the queen of chick flicks. I rarely get to watch TV or movies anymore and the only reason I have a TV and VCR is because a customer couldn't pay our services for a poltergeist removal from his appliance store. Ironically, my own resident ghost is the one who really enjoys the fruits of my labor. He even figured out a way to get cable for free, which is great because I can't afford it.
"Thanks again, um, for letting me stay here," she manages to thank me again, just as I'm pouring our third round of drinks. "I, um, really needed to get out of Sunnydale for a few days. It's-- it's just been too much, they're all looking at me like I'm going to tell them what we're supposed to do next."
She looked like she needed a hug, so I give her one, but I know she really doesn't. Willow's a lot more stronger than people think she is. She's babbling away, which I don't really like but I let her go on, I'm in a good mood tonight and not just because she's here, although that's a big part of it. She seemed to be genuinely upset about something and I wasn't dreading what it was, it wasn't 'end-of-the-world' trouble. "And to top that off, I had this st-- stupid fight with Tara." More of like 'end-of-the-affair' kind of trouble.
I really don't want to know what the fight was about, God knows I don't want to relive some fights I've had, I wasn't up to making Willow relive her fight. She's been through enough as it is. Now thinking of it, it probably isn't time to tell her my own love story gone awry; the one where I became a queen of another dimension and turned down this hot guy because he'd get my painfully mind-numbing visions. I shush her because that was all I could think of doing.
"I had a fight with Tara," she repeats it like it just hit her now. "Tara and I never had fights, not like this one, and it was so stupid. We-- we were just watching 'Heathers' and I-- I sort of mentioned that I thought Winona Ryder's hair loo-- looked cute and she just-- she just went off about how I was always attracted to o-- other people."
"It's okay," I say stroking her hair hoping that whoever's listening in doesn't read much into what's happening. "It's okay, I'm here, baby," okay, stop tape and cut that line.
"I mean it's insane, she's insane, I'd do anything for her, I did everything for her. I love her," she repeats those last three words over and over again that I almost, almost envy Tara. "She just lost it, she went insane, I love her."
"It's the time to break out the ice cream Will," I say before letting go of her and running to the fridge. When I return I find her in a much better state, she apologizes and she sniffles and of course I say it's all right. We watch the rest of the movie uneventfully sharing Ben and Jerry's and a few laughs. Afterwards, without nothing else to do we flipped across the stations looking for something to watch since we kind of put off watching Antonia's Line for tonight.
"You know, um, I think Xander might be asking Anya to marry him soon," she sort of slides it in in-between channels.
"Ohh-- good for them," I'm so fucking out of the loop.
"I think that everyone assumes Tara and I are-- going to last forever and ever and ever-- I don't know why, really. I mean, I, um, she's the only girl, the only woman I've ever been with. How am I supposed to be sure that she's going to be the one for me, I mean, um, I so want it to be her," she slides to that again. "Maybe, somewhere deep down, I'm not ready to settle down yet, maybe that's where the wandering eye is coming from, huh?"
"Well, I'm not really the one to ask when it comes to relationships," I say as I stop at a Simpson's rerun. "But I do know that all relationships tend to suck."
She seems to have cooled off a little and started fixating on the TV, "You know, Xander ruined this show for me."
I laugh remembering his imitations of Homerisms like 'Hmmm, beer'. "Me too. Actually, Xander ruined a lot of things for me."
"Like what?"
"Well, like my senior year social life. And Jell-o pudding in little cups-- don't ask why," I'm actually thinking hard, dredging up things that I got over so long ago, "And oral sex." Did I just say that out loud?
"Oral sex-- how?" Great, how awkward is this going to be? At least I got her mind off Tara.
"By being amazingly bad at it." She laughing now which is good and that gets me sort of started too. "I think he learned how to do it when he was a hyena."
"That-- that bad?"
I think I'm crying and laughing at once, and I last did that after seeing Angel's first time onstage at Caritas. "I faked, a couple of times, just to get it done with."
"I could never fake, it's like lying."
"So what do you do? Say, 'Okay, let's do something else because I'm not going to come'?"
"There was this one time in the back of Oz's van. He always did it like he was afraid he was going to hurt me, so it would tickle. So he went down on me, and I was squirming and trying not to giggle. But I couldn't help it, because it really, really tickled, and I just started laughing. He looked up like I'd just insulted his manhood. Which I kind of had. I grabbed him by his hair and said, 'And I'm going to keep right on laughing unless you do it harder.' We, um, discussed it later, but it never really got any better."
"That's kind of nice to know, I mean, that it's not just me who picks out guys who can't give a girl head even if a clitoris came with instructions."
Willow agrees taking down a shot of vodka and cranberry juice, "Yeah, it takes a lot of practice. It's a, um, a skill."
Note to self: change topic now. "So now you're skilled?"
She grins in a way I've never seen her grin before, "I don't want to brag, but yeah, I like to think so. I've had a lot of practice you know."
Again, note to self: change topic now. "So are you skilled like you can always get Tara off, or does it work on everyone?" Great, now I reintroduce Tara to the conversation. I'm on my fifth drink, so I guess the mouth-mind coordination's a little screwy.
"I don't know," she says, "I've only been with her."
"Sorry," finally my mind has caught up with my mouth, "that was a weird thing to ask. Want to see who's on Conan?"
It's Winona Ryder, who's older but still has cute hair. "Um, can we not watch this?"
I turn off the TV set and the room is quiet and dark, I could hear cars going by outside. Streetlight is shining through the window which kind of give my place this eerie glow.
"Now I feel bad," she says suddenly while pouring me another drink.
"Why?"
"Because now I'm curious. About what you asked me."
"I didn't mean anything," I say really, really fast.
"And I'm not suggesting anything," she pours herself another drink and I do the same, I put lots of vodka. I don't know if I'm trying to get drunk or I already am, but I start to think of things. How can I rule things in or out if I haven't even tried it? I mean Willow didn't know she was gay until she meet Tara?
"But would you go down on someone else, just to know if you could get them off?" I guess I'm already drunk.
"I-- I don't know. Maybe I-- I think I should."
"Because I would totally let you. If you wanted to, I mean. For research purposes," I always wanted to donate my body to science. But is going down an art or a science?
"No," she shook her head shaggily. "That would be-- it'd be weird."
"Okay. Well. Whatever," I swear I watch the dead TV screen for what seemed like hours.
"Did you really want me to?" she finally breaks that wonderful lull.
"Yeah, kind of."
Now she leans closer towards me, "You have to promise one thing."
"Okay," and now I'm all enthusiastic. "What?"
"No faking."
"Sure," I promise, I think telling her it isn't working would be much easier than faking it.
"Oh, and also, if you want me to, um, stop, just say so."
I sort of nod. She puts a hand on my arm and all of a sudden her lips are on my neck and her hands are under my shirt, which I didn't expect, so I jump back. "You wanted me to do this the way I, um, do it, right?"
"I just wasn't expecting that."
She pushes some hair back from her face. "Do you want to start over?"
"Yeah," I think there was no hesitation there. But Willow is kind of sitting awkwardly, afraid to touch me now. So I do one of those 'I-will-never-do-that-sober' kind of things and just kissed her on the mouth, with tongue. And I feel her loosen up, she's starting to kiss back and fumbling with my shirt.
She kind of knows her way around the kissing part more than the removing the shirt part. "It ties there, in the back..." I manage to say before we resume kissing. And kissing Willow, isn't really any different than kissing any guy, except that she knows not to sort of suck the air out of me. She sort of just dances in my mouth, which is really good. I don't notice my shirt fluttering to the floor, but the next thing I feel is that her thumb is on my nipple.
"You're cold," she observes, and she pushes me back on the rug. Again, she's back to kissing me, one hand still on my breast and the other is climbing up between my legs, under my skirt. She strokes my thighs with her fingertips. Her nails are very short, so it's mostly skin that's a little rougher than usual. Willow makes these clawing movements, scratching with a balance of soft and hard. This, I find out just now, really turns me on.
By now a million things have crossed my mind; there's the wonder of being with someone who knows the difference whether I'm cold or aroused; there's the part where I sort of have thoughts of cotton candy; and there's the part where I think of cats and kittens, which is really weird. Then of course there's the thought that I could do this, I want to do this, and I get to keep my vision afterwards. I could, I want to, do this.
Plus by now, I'm really sure that Willow knows how to do this. It's not just a Tara exclusive.
I lose track of all the wonderful things she's doing, but now she's got her mouth on my thigh, I think because she knows how much the scratching-the-thigh part worked for me. Or maybe it just one of her many rituals, either way I enjoy it. She now hooks her finger on the waistband of my underpants and I can tell she's trying to pull them down. I wriggle them off to sort of help her when it get twisted around my knees. She doesn't notice how unglamorous they are, because the last thing they are are getting laid underwear.
She goes back to kissing and sucking my thighs and she's pushing my skirt up so now it's flipped with the inside-out over my stomach. I arch my back over her hand which is at the small of my back, the place where I had my tattoo etched in after moving here. This feels so good and it's only just my thighs.
Now she's moving up so slowly, it's like she's reading my mind, Oh God, she's there. She opens me up by making these long, slow, dragging strokes. She kind of pulls a little when she's sucking on my clit and inner labia, God she's doing it so slow that she's driving me insane, driving me to beg for her. She teases again and again by drawing little circles with the tip of her tongue, a swirl here, a swirl there and these places she visits, they don't have names, but they respond to her magic. When she enters me finally she makes these thrust, tingly thrust, and her hands, like a part of a religious ritual, rub my hips and butt. She alternates between flickers and long paintbrush strokes and this feeling, this happy feeling like a wave moving inside me from head, from feet, happy waves moving oh, slowly, oh God, slowly, I yell, OHHH.
I lie there for what seemed like a long time and then I sort of manage to breathe out, "Do-- do you want me to..." I look up to her and she's pouring herself a drink and she has this grin, this huge grin on her face.
"It's okay. Only if you want to," she says after finishing her drink.
I sort of stayed there on the rug for a few more minutes and then fixed the couch for her and brought her a towel. Then I fluttered off to brush my teeth and go to my bed, which after what happened, seemed unnecessarily roomy for one.
I had a chatty breakfast with Willow talking about whether or not Anya and Xander will ever get engage, then we went our separate ways. She already figured out how to take the bus to the contemporary art museum, which is the kind of thing Willow would do on a free afternoon in July. I, on the other hand, has to go to work, which is one of the things I have deal with being poor. The only consolation is Wesley won't arrive until 6 p.m. Yay!
So I crank up the CD player and sort of do stuff that needs to be done, I check up on Fred, who had breakfast, thanks to Gunn. I make a mental note of ordering lunch for three, in case Willow drops in unexpectedly, which she doesn't. I get one call the entire day, and it has to do with devamping an apartment building. I hurry there because the landlord sounded really anxious to get it done with before sunset, which by the time I get there is still a good five hours away. But I'm not one to bitch about it, I'm getting paid, plus I got laid last night.
Willow doesn't arrive until after six which is what she would. We talk about the museum and Salvation Army shops, where she apparently shopped. I neglect to mention that today's skirt was brought from one of those shops. She asks me about my day just as Wesley barges in.
"You're still here?" he asks, with a stack to tapes and an old book in hand.
"We were just about to leave," I say picking up my things and taking Willow by the hand. "By the way dinner for two, remember?" I point up, indicating our guest.
"Yes, how can I forget," he smiles and waves us off goodbye.
"About that place, the one with the green karaoke demon, um, Car-- Cari..."
"Caritas," I finish it for her as we walk the streets to this Vietnamese restaurant I order lunch from. "It doesn't open until midnight, I think." She hooks her arm around my arm and they sort of slide against each other until our hands are clasped. She holds up my arms and sort of sniffs my wrist.
"You did magic today," she says it as a fact, I guess witches can tell.
"It was just a devamp."
"A what?" she asks lost in the office speak of Angel Investigations.
"A devamp, to uninvite vampires so they can't get into a house again. Fifty percent of our business is that. Mostly, it's apartment buildings."
"Isn't that a little complicated, I remember when I had to do it Angel went all bad," she paused as if she said something she shouldn't say.
"Don't worry, we make fun of him all the time."
I run down Wesley's simplified devamping spell and promised to write it down for her when I get the chance. We arrived at the restaurant and had a light dinner, I talked about my short stint as the queen of Pylea, which feels so good because Willow wasn't there at all, so she really is interested. I don't ask about Buffy, I know all that I need to know from when she came her to tell us.
After dinner, we decide to go back to my place and watch that other movie we rented. Of course once there, she sort of forgot about that, she kisses me even before I get the chance to close the door behind us and turn on the lights. "Sorry. You-- you probably didn't want me to do that."
But it's okay. It's strangely okay.
Everything is strangely okay.
"I did a guy thing last night."
"What guy..."
I don't wait for her to ask it, "The one where you go down on them and they're so into it, and then the second they get off, they sort off roll over and sleep." Which, I neglect to say, I hate.
"But-- but you didn't," she says.
"Yes I did. I was skanky asshole boy, and now I'm apologizing. And I'm really, really bad at apologizing, so could you please accept it? Okay?"
"B-but you weren't. You asked-- you asked if I wanted, and I said no, it was okay. And-- and I wasn't doing that thing where you say you don't want, to make the other person happy, even though you really do want."
"Maybe Tara is turning you into a nun."
"N-no, just-- I knew th-that it was going to take a while, and I'd have to give you in-instructions and stuff, and-- and I wasn't up for that." She smiles, this smile is pure evil. "Then."
We fumble with each other's shirt and we tumble our way to my bed which is way better than the floor. Dennis takes care of the door and the lights for me, or for us, whatever. I try to imitate what she did do me last night; I make out with her and try to dance in her mouth; I do my variation of thigh-scratching, biting, which she finds out just now, turns her on. I make her make ridiculously cute sounds like "eep". I guess Tara doesn't do this because she thinks she might hurt Willow, but people are hard to break and when they do, they tend heal easily. I'm talking from experience.
I kiss her all over and linger on her bellybutton which she likes. I unbutton her jeans and slide it off her. Her underwear gets caught up with it, which actually saves us one step. They are getting-laid underpants, which means she was thinking about the possibility of this happening, but I don't mind since I have a pair on myself. Her pubic hair is reddish brown (which answers that question) and thick like she doesn't shave her bikini line. Though come to think of it, of all the years I've known Willow I've never really seen her in a bikini.
She's wet, but not porn-movie, Barely-Legal-dripping-wet. She has this shiny film on her, that I guess I made her do which is like-- wow I made here do that. "You can st-- stop, if you want..." she says as I scoot up. She smells clean, not soap clean, but cool skin clean. I lick her, I feel stupid but I guess I'm curious if it's really what guys say it's like, which is so not true.
"I don't want to," I say before finally settling down and doing what I set out to do. She giggles when I lick her again, and I remember her back-of-Oz's-van tale.
"Tickles," she says. Yeah I think I got that. "Harder."
I was basically doing what she was doing to me last night. At least, I think I was getting it right, all she says now are those cat-like 'ohhhs' and funny sounding 'ahhhs'. She makes another 'eep' when I sort of try to get a finger inside her. "Sorry," I apologize just now remembering that I keep my fingernails long.
"No...good," she sort of moans, so I continue with it until I have three in. God, she's making these wonderful noises that aren't neanderthal sounding. She's close to it because she's got her hands in my hair and she's arching up to push herself to my face and hands. Willow comes quietly like she doesn't want to bother anybody. "Thank you," she says heavily, after.
Note to self, wash hands in the kitchen sink, later. "Did-- did I do it right?" Like I have to ask.
"Yeah, I'd-- I'd say so."
We have sex a few more times, two or three times depending on how you divide it. By then it's late enough to leave for Caritas. On the bus, Willow snuggles to me, I pull away because I feel eyes on us. "Like anyone cares," she whispers. "It's not like you'll see these people again."
She has the sense to calm down once we get to Caritas, which is packed like it is most Saturday nights. Lorne manages to find us an empty table, and winks at me because he knows, even without us singing, which I hope he doesn't try to talk us into. Because the bar is packed he doesn't do that. Willow and I have our frozen drinks in peace while we play footsie. "Now the Bronze seems really pathetic," she says.
When we get back to my place, it's already a given that she's not going to spend the night on the couch, alone.
We wake up late, so we to run to this diner near the station for brunch. The diner kind of reminds me of those 50's movies where people go on dates in diners. It also reminds me of Pulp Fiction, so I half-expect to see Tim Roth pull out a gun and demand our cash, which I don't have much of. Afterwards I drop her off at McDonald's, because only ticketed passengers can get into the waiting area.
I give her a hug, which I'm now sure we have to, want to. "I think--" she says-- "I think I should go back to Tara now. I, um, think it's time."
"Okay," I say.
"No, I mean, I've been th-thinking a lot because-- because of what we did, and I, um, think it helped me figure out those thoughts. And I think I really do. Um, love her. And we're probably going to have an even more massive fight over this, but I think we need to have those fights. Like, otherwise the relationship never gets anywhere. And I want it-- I want it to go somewhere. I want it to go everywhere."
"That's good," I say. "Because I don't think I could handle having a girlfriend. I think that deep down I'm still straight. Mostly."
"Um, I'm glad-- I mean, not because-- but I just didn't-- didn't want to-- you to feel like I was leaving you because of you."
"Willow. I would have completely freaked out if you'd told me you wanted to stay."
"Would've given your ghost a thrill."
"Yeah. He'll probably leave me notes for a few weeks. 'When's that redhead coming back?'" I expect that.
"I think that this is one of those-- those things you remember," she says. "Instead of doing again."
"Oh, like I could forget that."
"You? I'm still walking funny."
"I said I'd stop when--"
"Yeah, and I, um, told you to keep going, so it's all my fault for getting scratched."
We stare at the street quietly, then at each other. I fight off the thought of kissing her goodbye. "So we're good then?"
"Still friends."
"Still friends," I smile and we hug again. If we weren't friends back then, then I'm sure we're friends now.
"Well, I'm gonna miss my train."
"Yeah, you should come back up here some time," I say, hoping it doesn't sound like begging. "You should bring Tara." Which is a joke, I think and not one of those Freudian slip things.
"Okay. I will. Um." I think she took it seriously, she shifts her overnight bag. "Bye."
"Bye," I say and I watch her leave, just another girl from the suburbs leaving L.A.
Wesley and I are on duty tonight and it's pleasant for a change. We order pizza and Diet Cokes from a place across the street, which I'm pretty sure is a drug front. Anyway the pizza is decent and Wes let's me play some of my CDs. I put on my copy of the Wallflowers' first CD and in the middle of One Headlight, he looks up at me and ask whose playing. "The Wallflowers," I say. I also mention that the lead singer is Bob Dylan's son.
He reads his magazines while I read mine and then we trade, I do my nails and offer to do his out of sheer boredom because no one's calling in for help, not even through the Powers. We talk about Fred and absentee Angel.
"You're in a good mood," he says suddenly.
"I figured some stuff out," I say.
"Yeah," he says. No, he scoffs. "I know what you figured out."
"No. I just feel like I know what I want now."
"Well, congratulations." He raises his eyebrows and picks up the swimsuit issue of Jane I finished last Friday. He's smiling, but I'm not sure if it's me or Freddie on page 23, in a Speedo.
And what if he's smiling, he can smile at me all he wants. At least now, I know what I want. Someone who'll take instructions and practice, a lot. On me, of course.