Page 33 of Man Hands
Ash makes a sad face. “I’m just trying to look on thebrightside.”
“Iknow.”
Suddenly, Idoneed sweet things. Maybe that’s been the problem all along. I have misaligned my emotional crises with the wrong food response! Artichoke dip? What a disaster! No—I know what we need. And it’s serious. This is not-fucking-around-anymoreserious.
“We need chocolate,” I say in a deeply terrified voice. “We need itrightnow.”
“I could run to the store for you,” Ash offers. “I was going to do thatanyway.”
“No need,” I say with a sigh. “Put on an apron, though. You’rehelping.”
21Happy FaceStickers
Tom
Iswear to God,as soon as I turn onto Lovett Street I can smell…chocolate? Chocolate. I’m not having a stroke. I really do smell it, and, as I walk toward her duplex (where the stairs really need to be repaired), the scent washes over me. It sort of mixes with the rosemary bush I’mholding.
Bush. Plant. Whatever. I stopped at the store for flowers, but then I saw these little Christmas tree plant things, and the poster said you could use the leaves in barbecue or something. It mentioned barbecue. Don’tjudgeme.
I’m pretty sure that the last time I was in this neighborhood, there was no crowd of people milling around in front of a little oldVictorian.
And the satellite news trucks are definitely abadsign.
Fuck.
I stand there, fifty paces off, breathing in chocolate and the rosemary pine andpanicking.
“Holy cow!” someone yells. The voice comes from behind me and then I hear the snick of a phone taking a picture. “It’s Mr. Fixit! He’s visiting his lady friend! And he’s holdingabush!”
I turn around and smile, because really? What else is there to do? I could hold the plant in front of my face, try to tell whoever it is to fuck off, but I don’t have the energy. And these are fans, not professional photographers, so telling them to fuck off would be plastered on social media. I can just see the live Facebook feed and all the hell that wouldbring.
It’s tempting, actually. A quick end to my career and then I could stay here and be enveloped by chocolate. AndBrynn.
Suddenly, I am enveloped, but it’s not by either of the things I’d been hoping for. It’s a pair of sharp, scarecrow, yoga arms threading around me and pulling my face down into a chest of augmented boobs. Goddamn plastic surgery. “Oh my god!” the woman squeals. “I love you so much! Judy, take ourpicture!”
Judy takes a series of pictures, and then I’m signing something. (Please let it not be a boob.) And I’m telling them how great it is to meet them. All the while, I’m planning evasive maneuvers. Because the news crew a few houses down is going to see me anysecond.
“I, uh, left my hammer in the car!” I say, apropos ofnothing.
“You need that hammer!” the woman squeals. The pitch of her voice turns a few heads on the people standing down the block, and I’mspotted.
Fuckity.
“Gotta run nice chat!” I say over my shoulder as I take off running between two houses. I jump over a boxwood, and run past some nicely trimmed dwarf rosebushes and a napping Chihuahua. Which backyard is hers? I wish I’d looked more closely at the house. I pass two yards, and then a third. But the smell of chocolate gets very strong in the next yard, so I leap up onto the saggy littleporch.
It really needs some new joists. I make a note to think about thatlater.
I pound on the door. “Brynn? It’s me. Open up.” My heart is in my throat. I can hear pounding feetbehindme.
Then Brynn opens the door and grabs my bushforme.
That. Did. Not. Sound.Right.
“Are you okay?” she asks, when I am safely inside herentryway.
I don’t have an answer for that, so I hold tight to her bush (the rosemary plant), and then just lean down and kiss her. She even tastes like chocolate. “Chocolate,” I say out loud because I’m fuckingsmooth.
“Flourless chocolate cake,” she says in a breathy voice, as if this explains everything. Actually,itdoes.
