See Dot Smile

Baby Bear

Seeing Bud pull into my driveway has my spirits up. Way up. 

First, his car is awesome. Not high end awesome. He doesn't drive a sports car or a convertible. It's some boxy boat of a Lincoln, vintage, in a beat-up way. It's dog shit brown and has a vanity plate that says, MONTY3. I love it.

And second, I love how far he took my wardrobe advice. He's in charcoal gray pants and a black peacoat, and I can just make out the color of his sweater, burgundy, through the unbuttoned opening of his coat. He has his collar turned up to block the wind, and he's wearing a maroon and gold scarf, Gryffindor style. Brent would say he looks like a sexy Neville Longbottom, but I think he looks more like a squishy Colin Firth from Bridget Jones's Diary. 

He's already blushing because I'm definitely checking him out as he walks up to the front steps of my house.

"Happy January second," he says. "Do I look like a total weirdo?"

"What? No," I insist. "It's good. I feel like a monster slob by comparison."

"You don't look like one," he says. His teeth are chattering as he glances up at my front door. "Should I go in and introduce myself to your parents?"

"Nah," I say. "It's not like we're on a date. And it's also not 1955, so..."

He laughs. "Sorry. I've never picked a girl up from her house and drove away with her before."

"My parents are used to seeing me get driven away by guys," I say.

"Oh," he says, looking intimidated. "Yeah, I figured that you would have."

"I just mean most of my friends are guys," I say with a smile. "Believe it or not I've been tragically single my entire life."

"Me too," he says, taking a step forward and almost slipping on the icy driveway, "because I keep wiping out in front of girls I'm trying to impress."

"Lucky for you, I'm already impressed."

He shakes his head like he doesn't believe me, but it still lands as a compliment. I reach for his hand and let him lead me over the slippery pavement to his car. His fingers are crazy warm, despite the fact he's not wearing gloves. He opens the passenger door for me and it's like I'm in a movie. None of the real-life guys I know have ever considered opening a door for me. Maybe Bud's from another dimension. Or he's a time traveler.

I have a thing with the back seats of cars like some people have a thing with other people's medicine cabinets. I have to look. The backseat of Bud's car is enormous. Definitely room for two people to get horizontal back there. And even roll over once.

"I really like your car," I say.

He frowns a little as he turns the key in the ignition. "Thanks. It was my grandpa's car." He throws his hand over the head rest of the passenger seat and glances over his shoulder as we back out of the driveway. I get a whiff of his shampoo and a hint of fabric softener, and smile to myself. I didn't bother showering or even putting a clean sweater on this morning. But it's sweet that Bud did all that for me. And even sweeter that he's turning all the heat vents on the dashboard toward me and giving me free reign over the radio for the ride.

"I'm taking you to my favorite diner," he says. "It's about a half hour away. Do you want to fill me in on your shitty twenty-four hours to kill time?"

I take a deep breath. And I tell him everything. 

Not just what happened in the last twenty-four hours. Everything.

About growing up with Joshua. Our naked swimming adventure, though I do leave out the bike ride home portion in the interest of time. About Ali moving to town and becoming the first girlfriend I ever had. How I confided all my Joshua secrets to her the summer before we started high school. I told her I loved him and wanted to marry him and have his babies. That we planned to get tattoos together when we turned eighteen. That we planned to do everything together. And how she took my plan and scratched my name off it, replacing it with hers. How she stole my future, and the love of my life, and left me with nothing but my ironclad virginity and elaborate fantasies to keep me company.