Page 10 of Cookout Carnage
TRISTAN: You better, or I’ll tell Tabitha and she’ll fly here to do it herself. And I can’t have that woman around me as I try to figure out my own life, let alone yours. It’s the right thing.
JONATHAN: I’ve only known you a spell, but I’m glad you got my back.
TRISTAN: Cheers, mate.
My parents arrive, and my face breaks into the kind of smile only your kin can bring on. They decided not to stay at the farm, and they’re at the town’s only B&B. My mom said she wanted to live it up and staycate.
My mom leaps in my arms. “My baby boy! My boy. My giant boy.” She’s weeping as if she didn’t see me a month ago down in Florida. My father slaps my back.
“Hey, Ma. How are you?” I kiss her cheek, and she takes my hand.
“Doesn’t he look so handsome?” My mother gushes as Tanya appears from nowhere and slides her arms around me, ousting my mother.
Tanya says, “He does, but he would have looked better in the suit I picked.”
My mother pats her arm. “I’m sure you think that, dear. Big weekend.” My mother’s voice goes up. I chuckle a little. I can’t help it. Tanya turns to her, completely missing that my mother just dismissed her. She can be like that.
“It’s MY weekend, and I so love it! Thanks so much for coming.”
I was fixated on the farm; I kept forgetting to participate in my own life. Even though my life is a fucking wreck right now, I can’t stop thinking of Jules. I miss my best friend. She hasn’t called or texted in ages, and I’ve been too afraid or busy to reach out.
Tanya steps away. I started to wake up in that damn airport with five strangers. Talking about my life to people who have no vested interest and no history with me knocked some sense into me. I was listening to myself tell my own story, and I was bored—need a new narrative.
My dad slaps my back and knocks me back to reality as Tanya saunters off to talk to the dude she picked out to be my best man, an old high school teammate, Scooter. We were never close.
My dad’s voice is gruff and raw from the years of working in the sun. “Still in for the gallows there, boy?” He’s my hero. He’s smart, kind, hard-working, funny, and still head over heels for my mom.
“Seriously, boy, you ready for forever with that woman?”
I don’t answer because, no. No. No, I’m not.
* * *
She’sclomping through the crowd and seems to be avoiding me. She knows I’m off. She’s cuddling up to her father’s real estate clients. She answers phones for him twice a week. She makes no move to finish community college, and she yells at me for using words and phrases likecross-referenceorostentatious. And whenever I ask about her plans, she tells me she’s building her brand.
I worked harder at this relationship because Juliet was too easy. We both just let it go thinking it would come back around with someone else, never noting that it might have been unique and once in a lifetime. I should have fought harder when she pulled away.
I grab Tanya’s hand and tug her to the patio. “Come, we need a quiet moment.” I was going to wait until after the party, but I can’t be here another fucking second.
She grins with her shockingly white teeth contrasting against her fake tan. Her ebony-dyed hair with the purple tint, what she calls her “glamour rinse,” is in ringlets around her head. She does not have curly hair, so there must have been some serious maintenance involved for the night.
We head to the back patio. The one that was created by cementing over an active and thriving cornfield when her father decided to become sophisticated. Her real estate developer daddy is responsible for most of the industrial and commercial happenings in town. He wanted respect. But lost the entire town’s when he dismantled a heritage grain farm to become someone else.
She pulls her hand back and tucks her breasts into her glossy top. I shove my tie into my pocket and undo the top buttons, trying for a smidge of relief from the humidity. I guide her to a scrolly cement bench in her backyard.
“What?” she screeches. “Tonight was perfect until you ruined it.” Then she stomps up and down as if she’s four and didn’t get the swirly lollipop.
And all of a sudden, I’m not angry at her or myself. I’m simply done. I’m completely and totally at peace with my decision. But I’m out. She’ll find someone else to mold and bend to her will and dress up like a Disney villain with.
I let her blow herself out, and just as she’s done squawking, I say calmly, “Sit down before you tump over. Look, I don’t love you. I know you don’t love me. And we shouldn’t get married. I don’t want to. I’m aware the timing’s horrible, but this isn’t something I can go through for another second.”
Her face is unreadable. Scanning her face for a sign, I get preoccupied. I’m not sure if it’s the dramatic black and white eye shadow that has me distracted or the iridescent glitter between her orange boobs.
“You can’t say that shit to me.”
I stand and hold her bony shoulders. I speak as calmly as I did before. She’s like a badger about to attack.
“I can say whatever shit I want, considering you’ve been fucking any able-bodied man but myself for the last year and a half. So do you want to back down your righteous indignation?”
