Page 14 of Rosie and the Dreamboat
“No, thank you. I’m absolutely pickled.”
“Rinse out your eyes,” Leo advises. “I’m going to have a paramedic up here in a second to just check you. Meet you after that. And hey, she’s right.” His voice drops half an octave. “You’re not a drowned rat.” The scent of his body hits me in a heady swirl.
“Smooth, ain’t he?” Bree chortles, and I think my stomach is still back in that float tank, bobbing around, rippling on the current. “Come through, I’ll fix you up.”
I have an endless pee, then take a shower, lathering, rinsing. My dry clothes feel like ancient artifacts. When I reappear from the shower into the tasteful dressing room and remove the towel from my hair, I manage to crack open my eyes. “What time is it?”
Bree checks. “Way after lunch. Are you hungry?”
I can see now that my sister looks thoroughly well tended to. Her skin is glowing, her hands have red nails, and thetiredness has melted away. “You look beautiful. You’ve had a better day than me.”
“I know you’re mad at me. But I can explain it all in a minute.” She opens the door and says out of the room, “I’m just drying her hair. It’ll take a bit. She’s waterlogged.”
Leo replies, “Sure, I’m off shift. I can wait.”
“The minerals in the float have made you positively radiant,” Bree says encouragingly, and while it sounds like utter bullshit, the dresser mirror reveals the truth as she stands behind me, blow-drying my hair into attractive, scrunched waves.
I do look ... lovely. “How’s it possible that I look so good right now?” For the first time, as I compare myself to her, I don’t see a messy version of her. We’re different, that’s all. And that’s okay. Maybe I’m just blooming now. I put my hand to my ear. “Oh, dang it. I’ve lost my other earring.”
“Please never change,” Bree replies. “I’ll just add a little here, and there ...” She’s got her makeup bag open, and she’s putting some touches of color onto me like a canvas. “Trust me. Trust me.”
“You keep saying that. I need to say thank you to Leo.”
“He’s right out there, waiting.” She gives me a quizzical look. “Surely you’ve been wondering about him like crazy. Like the waiting room torso,” she adds on a whisper.
I raise my eyes to Bree. “That guy saved my sanity today. He’s fantastic.”
“I can hear you,” Leo says from the other side of the wall. “But say more about how fantastic I’ve been.”
“He was so kind,” I say louder for his benefit. “And he’s funny. He’s got a great smile, I just know it. And oh, Bree, his laugh. My lord. I’ve never heard a rainbow pastel laugh like that, and he laughs constantly, because he’s a sweet, foolish gentleman.”
He laughs and laughs outside the room, and I see my smile in the mirror.
“And I sold him a peace lily.”
“What else?” Bree cups my face in her hands. Whispering, she repeats, “Trust me. Trust me.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I lean my cheek into her manicured hands. “I love you, Bree. Thank you for bailing on me, so I could tell my deepest secrets to that silly dreamboat.”
“Guys who talk themselves up like that are usually hideous. I don’t think you got a good look at him. You might want to brace yourself. Adjust your expectations.”
“Hey,” Leo exclaims, wounded. “I forgave you for bailing.”
“Teasing you is very entertaining. You ready, Rosie the Nudist?” She stands me up. “Really ready?”
I nod. “I’m going to hug the shit out of him.”
“I’m really ready, too,” Leo says outside the door. “Release the beast.”
The door is opened.
Light pierces my eyeballs in a fractured rainbow spectrum. I don’t see him at first—well, not exactly. Not his physical form. I still experience the vision I have of him in my head: the big white smile and the fluid, changing shifts of his body as he laughs and teases, and the big hand I felt on me.
Before the image gets to my brain, sorted into a proper pattern, I am satisfied.
Everything’s exactly right about him.
“I forgot to pee in the tank for you,” I say, and the surrounding room begins to lock into place. There’s a pink wall, a salt candle, and a man. He’s tall, tanned, bicepped, and silly, with a delighted laugh already halfway up his throat, and he opens his arms.
