I didn’t know how long it took for erections to subside, but I could definitely see the outline of Mike’s through his shorts now. And let me just say, he had no need of flattering lighting. This situation was flattering all on its own.
I had to stop thinking about his dick … and about my vagina, which was as frustrated as I was. It felt like it was ticking, like a time bomb, disappointed that it hadn’t been allowed to go off.
Figured.
When we arrived back in Woodville, Mike asked if I wanted to film anything in town, but I said no. We stopped at what he called the Chippie for fish and chips (fishunchups in Mike’s accent). We got flaky deep-fried tarakihi and thick-cut fries wrapped in gray paper. Mike shoved them in the oven while he showered and I showered after him, because, not to be indelicate, but not only was my downstairs unsatisfied, it was messy. I put on my idea of casual clothing: harlequin sequin pants, some polka-dot hoop earrings I’d made in my resin phase, and a bustier with a shirt. Mike’s idea of casual, on the other hand, was another plaid shirt and jeans—these offered more coverage than his rugby shorts, which was good news for my sanity.
We took the food out to the field and sat on a picnic blanket Mike dug out of his linen cupboard. I was worried Baz would gore us for a fry, because he was clearly more seagull than sheep, but Mike put him in a pen by his barn. He stared balefully at us from behind the fence until Mike caved and went and gave him half a chip.
I was trying to act cool and unaffected, but also trying to read Mike’s mind. Did he want me now? Was what happened a fleeting thing, or was he attracted to me? What if the better he got to know me, the less he liked me? That was more or less how the end began with Paul.
While we ate dinner, Mike talked about anything but the Roadside Incident. He told me about his rugby team in high school and his friends in town. I got so absorbed in his stories, I forgot to worry about trying to seem attractive enough to tempt him into more trysting. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. He was resolutely friendly. I could tell I was back to being his sister’s friend. Not Princess.
I was off balance. Emotionally shell-shocked. So when he asked me to tell him something I never told my followers, I told him about my grandmother, who used to make balloon animals for me.
“Well, animal. She could only do dogs. She made me one every time I went to visit her. Actually, she could also make snakes—and she’d wheeze with laughter every time she made me a ‘snake’. She died when I was twenty. I was …”
The right word didn’t exist.
Gran made me feel like her regard wasn’t conditional—like I wasn’t one ignorant sentence away from disappointing her. She loved me and said it often. Casually. Even when we hung up the phone—Bye, Lyssa, darling. Love, love, love! she would say.
“Sad,” I finished. It was insufficient.
“Sounds like she was a cool lady.”
“She was. She and my mom never got along so I didn’t get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked, but it was something at least. My mom was—is—kind of a tough customer.”
I told him about the dinner parties she and Charles hosted.
“I mostly had to eat early so I could be out of the way before all of their interesting and accomplished guests arrived. There were lots of writers—playwrights, poets, and satirists. Never a novelist. Plenty of historians and lawyers and scientists. All very important people, well renowned in their fields. My first time attending was when I was sixteen, and I was so excited to join. But it was awful. My mother liked to go around the table and have each guest share an interesting anecdote or piece of information to impress the table. If you failed to impress, the rest of your night would be miserable and you wouldn’t be invited back. I failed the first dinner, and it was another year before I was allowed to try again. Then I bombed that one too.”
“Hang on.” Mike put down his fry. “You got banned from dinner in your own house?”
I made a silly face. “My mother believes in meritocracy, Mike. Not nepotism. And it’s not like I got sent to bed without supper. I ate. I just wasn’t impressive enough to be a proper part of the family. To have a seat at the table, so to speak.”
“I always thought you had an impressive memory, remembering all that Shakespeare.”
“Trauma talent,” I joked.
He didn’t laugh. I guess we both knew it wasn’t funny.
I swiped a fry in the pool of ketchup (tomato sauce, Mike called it, which made sense because it didn’t taste anything like actual ketchup) he had made on the fish and chip paper. “It takes a lot to impress my mom. You have to be able to quote Beowulf and Chaucer and know if the origin of a word is Germanic or Romance or Greek. Being passionate about print mixing never met her standard for interesting.”
Mike nodded. I hated that knowing this bit of my lore seemed to make sense to him, but I pushed that down. It could join everything else I was trying not to examine too closely. Like why my allure was so vacillatory as to only function in vehicles or offices.
“It doesn’t help that Mom thinks my ADHD symptoms are just a lack of willpower. I want to get a proper prescription, but I’m on her health care, so that’s not an option.”
Mike looked upset then. I would be too, if I were in a country that had free universal health care, listening to an American explain our capitalist clusterfuck.
I changed the subject then, and Mike told me about his plans for starting a petting farm business. We made short work of the battered fish, and I was soon full from fries, but there were so many left in the crisp, golden pile that my hand kept plucking them from the paper as if on autopilot.
“What was your very first pet?” I asked.
“Ducks.”
“Ducks?”
Mike avoided my eyes. “I found some once.”
