Chapter 5

Mimi’s turn:

“By the way, Mister ‘I’m all THAT’ Engineer,” I said.

“What?”

“Orange trees come in groves, not orchards.”

“What?”

“You said there’s not a lot of snow in orange orchards. They’re groves.”

“You’re ... you REMEMBER me saying that?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

“I remember lots of things.” I sighed. “Some of them, I wish I would forget. Tommy, I don’t like what I was. Never did like any of it. Even before I was, you know, the people I hung out with, we were just going through some motions. No more thought to what they were doing than a root seeking out moisture. Just organisms responding to stimuli.”

“See?!? Mimi, that sentence does not belong to somebody who’s stupid.”

“Well, it’s all true, Tommy. I didn’t KNOW. People who have NO idea of where they’re going, goal is to get fed, get fucked, get high ... all that ... it just doesn’t feel right any more. It doesn’t fit. I don’t fit that.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ve known people like that. Hard to avoid them sometimes.”

“I know,” I said. “But you never became PART of that. I did.”

“You’re not now.”

“Not any more.”

“Look, Mimi,” he said, “I like you. A lot. I don’t know where you’re heading, but I’ll be here for whatever help I can offer.”

“You like me.” There, he said it. I mean, one might kind of gather that from all the time we’ve spent doing things together over the past few weeks, but he SAID it. Not “Hey, babe, you cool” or some other inane mumbling to go along with an erection and some dope. No, he said “I like you. A lot.”

I reached my hand across the console and squeezed his. It was supposed to mean something. I think he realized it because he turned and smiled at me.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked.

“Well, you’re supposed to be taking me to Cindy’s, last time I thought about it.”

“Oh, yeah ... We need to eat, though.”

“Next intersection that has restaurants, choose something,” I said.

“No, you choose.”

“Whatever. You’re gonna argue, then I’ll choose. Not like there are a lot of choices.”

Actually, there were a few choices. I pulled up Yelp on his iPhone. “Not the next intersection. The one after that. Mexican. I desire cheese dip.”

I got my cheese dip. We split an order of fajitas. There was a certain tension in the air, though. I think we both sort of rolled out some words and were worried about how they’d play out.

Back in the car. “Tommy, do we keep dating?”

“I don’t see why not. I wasn’t exactly chasing women when you showed up. If I’m gonna date, it’s gonna be you...”

“But ... Am I unattractive? You haven’t tried...”

“Not because you’re unattractive, for darned sure, Mimi. I want that to mean something. I know, I know ... physical act. I’m broken that way.”

“I understand.”

“Mimi, I played like that for years. I stopped. I had this one girl, she was gonna be it for me. I thought ... She was playing the game, too.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You never told me about you before...”

“Not much to tell.”

“Prob’ly a better story than mine,” I said.

“It’s not a contest.”

“Tommy, I appreciate you trying to make me feel good about myself, but sometimes I only want to understand that some of my life was shit,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll concede that point,” Tommy said. “But I reserve the option to try to make you feel better about what’s coming up. Okay?”

“Tommy,” I said. I am developing a propensity to enjoy saying his name. “I appreciate that. You know, though, that I have to work through some things myself.”

“I’m here for you,” he said, almost sadly.

“I appreciate that. And that’s one of my biggest fears, buddy.”

“I’m scary?”

“Definitely NOT scary, except for the part that one day I’ll call you and you’ll start making excuses not to talk with me and see me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Oh, I dunno. One day you wake up and say ‘Tommy, you’re wasting time with a stupid whore’.”

“One, you’re not stupid, and two, you’re not a whore.”

“Was.”

“Ain’t. Mimi, do you want to WIN this argument?”

“No.” I paused for a second. “But what if YOU win?”

“Then I’m in the proximity of a rather delightful, intelligent, cute girl with a smile on her face. That’s never a bad thing. Mimi, that’s what friendship is about, I think. Somebody to laugh with, a shoulder to cry on, somebody to sing with, somebody to add the perfect presence to a silence.”

“Dammit, Tommy. You’re too smart for me.”

“No I’m not. Like I said – not a contest.”

“That silence, Tommy ... Where can I find that? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Saturday – the social. It was happy chaos, all the conversations, the activities, the people, the music ... But sometimes I just want to be still and be quiet and maybe read, with some music in the background. I miss that.”

“You don’t have your own room at the shelter.”

“Us single girls without children, we share a room. I’m lucky for that. But my room-mate’s taste for music, it’s nothing like yours. Nothing like what I enjoyed Saturday. I just can’t get into rap and that other stuff she wants to listen to.”

Tommy and I have had this discussion before. I was wrong when I figured his big ol’ country white boy self would be all into modern country or rock or something. I found instead that he’s got eclectic tastes and when he strays off into a genre, I can find reason to like it.

“Baby,” he says, “I’ve offered you my apartment.”

“Baby,” I said back, with just a little emphasis to make sure he was paying attention, “I didn’t feel safe. The new Mimi – trying to be moral.”

“Lounging around the apartment is not exactly screaming wild monkey sex, Mimi.”

“I believe you now, honey. Taking it slow. You have to be somebody I trust.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Said every axe murderer in history.” Laughed. Easy, natural laugh.

“Okay. So maybe I take you up on that. Watch movies. Read. Music.”

“Cook for ourselves. I’m a shade above ramen in a cup, thank you.”

“So cook for me.”

“Anything you ask ... Might say ‘no’, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“You’ll come get me?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll bring me home when I’m ready to go home?”

“Where ever home might be.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s still up in the air.”

“I’m not trying to get you into my lair for a wrestling match.”

“Nice to know. Does your definition of ‘wrestling’ encompass, perhaps, a bit of snuggling?”

“Pleasant to think about,” he said.

“Perhaps so,” I returned. “Just ... Not past that. Not right now.”

“I understand. Wasn’t going there.”

“Multiple reasons, Tommy. The first, most horrible reason is in our rear-view mirror right now. I don’t know what all I might have.”

“Baby, I don’t care. They can fix that. And to get it from you to me, that takes steps that I’m not sure we need to be taking right now. Not if it’s the ‘now’ Tommy and the ‘now’ Mimi...”

“That takes care of both reasons, then. I’m kinda late to the chastity game, though...”

“Never too late to start doing the right thing,” Tommy told me. “You’ve heard my version – only difference, as far as I’m concerned, is that there was no remuneration.”

“And that argument, we’ve had it before. But sometimes it’s not about how YOU feel about it, it’s how I feel about it. And sometimes it hits me and I really feel dirty.”

“I don’t know how to help, Mimi. If I’m around, I mean...”

“You, you talk with me, go places with me. Being around you makes me feel clean for a while, then I stop and think and I feel so dirty again...”

“I’d hug you...”

“Sometimes ... Like a while ago, when I just held your hand. It’s like good energy left you and entered me. You’re very therapeutic. That’s what the social worker said in one our group sessions – pick people who lift you up.”

“I always wanted to be therapeutic,” he said, smiling. “Helps when it’s you, though...”

“ME? Why?”

“Thought I told you like a million times – I like you.”

“Okay. I like you, too. Good place to be.”

Getting closer to Auburn, I borrowed his iPhone. Pulled up Cindy. “Hey, Cindy, we’re getting close.”

“How far?”

“How far?” I asked Tommy.

“Twenty minutes or so.”

“Tommy says twenty minutes, give or take.”

“Good! Come on.”

“What about Tommy?”

“Oh, bring ‘im. He can wander off with Dan and the guys. You and me, we need to talk. I got a couple of mommies coming over, too.”

“Ooooo, babies,” I said. “We’ll be there.”

“Babies?”

“Yeah. Apparently holding ONE baby and being happy has set forth the idea that I might be the community foster mom.”

“You’re eighteen...”

“I’ve baby sat. I held little Stoney Saturday. I saw the others. Those are good kids with good parents. Not the same as taking a daycare job anywhere else.”

“Wow, look who just got a burst of optimism.”

“Hon,” I said, “I’m jumping over the rail of the Titanic with a deckchair in my hands here.”

He was smiling. “That’s the bunch. If there’s anybody who’ll be able to help, you just tied in with ‘em.”

We drove into the neighborhood where Cindy and many others of the 3Sigma group live. Tommy pulled into the driveway just in time to see Terri and Vicki headed toward their house.