Chapter 3: Regret

Alex's breathing slowed. He pushed the thought that he'd just 'done it' with a stranger out of his mind; he much preferred the feeling of connection and contentment. Em's body felt so soft and warm pressed up against his -- he didn't want to think about anything right now.

So what happened next took him a while to process.

Em straightened up and kissed him on the forehead. "Thanks," she breathed, "that was amazing."
And then she pulled away.

Alex blinked. Where did his lover go? He saw her picking something up from the floor. Her dress. She quickly stepped into it.

He looked down in his lap. Maybe he should button up.
Maybe he should change.

"Have you seen my underwear?" she asked.

Alex thought maybe there was a joke to be made there, but ... why was she getting dressed already?
He looked around, then spotted a wispy something next to him on the couch. He held it out for her by one of the strings.

"Thanks."

She took them from him, not bothering to sort out which way was up, just walking off behind him. He turned around slowly, watching her kneel down, pick up her purse, then put it down and stuff the panties in her coat pocket.

Was she ... leaving?

Alex didn't know what he expected to happen next, but it wasn't that.

He buttoned up as quickly as he could, but as he turned around to ask her, she was already heading for the bar. "I need another drink; you want anything?"

Alex rubbed his forehead; his hand smelled of sex. "Huh? N-No."
He heard her pour something -- a lot of something -- and then he saw her take a big swallow as she walked around the far end of the couch to stand at the window, her back turned to him.

Why was she acting this way?

"Hey."
She took another gulp of alcohol, but didn't acknowledge him.
"Hey," he said, louder.

She started to turn around, but stopped. She looked down at her feet. "I should go."
"Is something wrong?"
"I should just go." Her voice wavered.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No!" The suddenness of her answer startled them both. "No, of course not. I just..."
She bit her lower lip. "I just really need to go now."

Alex looked at her; her whole body was tense. Defensive.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Just let me change my pants." He hesitated a moment, but when she just turned back to the window, he hurried out.

Alex's gym bag looked tiny sitting alone on the floor of the empty walk-in closet. The guest bedroom was almost as big as Alex's whole apartment, and Tony was gone for a couple of weeks, but Alex wasn't packed for more than a weekend, and he'd stopped short of hanging his clothes -- he didn't want to get too comfortable. Somehow that made him feel more complicit in the way things were going with the girl in the living room.

Alex dug a pair of cargo pants out of his bag; a pair of boxer briefs extricated themselves in the process. He wondered if he should close the door... "A little late for that," he said to himself.

When he came back down the hall, he expected Em to be waiting by the door with her coat on, but ... her coat was still hung, and she was still standing at the window.

"Okay, ready," he announced.

She didn't move.

He stepped closer. "I'll take you home now."

"I'm not like this," she said to the window.
"Like what?" Alex blurted, immediately regretting it. He rushed to cover his faux pas. "This ... confident?"
There was enough light inside that they could see each other's reflections in the glass; she gave his a stern look. "You mean this easy?"
Her eyes broke off first, returning to the vague horizon.
He knew he'd made it worse by forcing her to articulate it.

"I'm sorry I brought you up here," he managed.

Her eyes locked back on his again; there was a spark of fierceness there. "You know, you're not helping." She looked back outside. "I'm not like this," she said again. "I don't just drop everything and run off like this. I don't invite myself over to people's houses and start drinking their liquor." It was like she'd rehearsed it. Like she was trying to get through a speech.
Or an apology.

"I don't ... do that." The thought made her uncomfortable. She stepped back to break the spell, instead regarding her own reflection. "I don't dress like this." She shook her head. "I mean, what was I thinking?"

Alex answered matter-of-factly. "You were thinking, 'I'm a beautiful woman who deserves to be appreciated.'"
Emmeline rolled her eyes. "I think it was more like 'He doesn't stand a chance.'"
"He didn't."

Em gave Alex a mischevous grin.
But it didn't last.
"Neither do I," she sighed.

The sudden fatalism left Alex speechless.

Em was not so hampered.

"You know, I was wrong. I am easy." She headed toward the bar. "Whatever it is, I just go along with it." She stopped short, perhaps feeling the effects of the drinks she'd already downed -- or maybe it was just those high heels. "You know why I was out there in the first place?" She turned sharply on one heel and started off in the opposite direction. "My stupid boss found out that the centerpiece for the head table was twenty bucks cheaper if we rented it from this other place," she reversed direction again, "so he switched the order, withouttellingme" -- here she stopped and put her hands on her hips for a moment -- "and instead of it being delivered, I had to drive out to the boonies to pick it up myself -- only when I got there, everybody had already gone home because of the power outage." She'd reached the bar again; she stopped, realizing she was still holding a glass, and it still had something in it. "And you know how that turned out."

She emptied her glass, set it down rather ungently on the edge of the bar, and launched her way across the room again. "With my luck they won't even total the car. You know I didn't even want that thing? My dad talked me into it. He said it'd be more practical. I wanted a convertible. I shouldn't have listened ... but James ... James said it'd be cool, we could go skiing. But we never went skiing. Oh he went skiing, with his buddies, on that weekend I had to work ... and I know he broke the taillight that weekend, even though he said it was probably somebody in the parking lot at Costco. God, why do men always have to be such assholes?"

Alex wasn't going to say anything. She'd built up a good head of steam and he didn't want to get burned. Besides, he was too busy watching her stalk her unseen prey, her dress swishing, her legs flexing...

She stopped suddenly, staring right at him; for a moment he thought he'd been caught staring, but: "You know he dumped me on the way to a funeral? Can you believe that? We're heading to the airport, and he pulls up right to departures, so I go, 'I'll wait for you inside, ' and he's like, 'I'm not going, remember?' only he never actually told me." She started pacing again. There was more?

"I find out later he ditched me because my Grams basically asked him whether he was gonna pop the question. 'Shall I prepare two beds or is there a ring in my granddaughter's future?' And do you know why she did it?" Here Em stopped; Alex wondered if he was supposed to guess, but she'd just paused to seethe. "She said he wasn't right for me. In the first place, like that's any of her concern, and besides ... ooh, I swear they were this close to needing another casket."

And then she was off and running again. "And my dad's not even there! For his own brother's funeral! They said he was in Budapest or Bucharest or Whatever-est doing some critical work for a big customer and he couldn't get away and I should try to understand. Only I know it's not all business because he left me one of his little messages like he always does when he's been with some floozy and he's feeling guilty about it."

"So when my granddad corners me after the funeral, I should know something's up, I mean, he only hints to me about joining the family business every time I'm there, but I'm so busy trying not to kill Grams, and the way some of the guys there are like leering at me -- oh, did I tell you my best friend convinced me to wear this for the funeral? I mean there's this other piece with sleeves and a back, but still, it's a funeral, in winter, in Wisconsin, and even though it's all indoors, just getting out of the car the wind feels like an icicle running right up my-- ... I can't believe she even talked me into buying it in the first place, she said I should wear something special at the company Christmas party for James -- see what I mean about just going along with everything? -- so when I find out about the funeral and I try on my nice black skirt and the zipper breaks because apparently somewhere during all of James' guilting me into always ordering the salad whenever we went out I still managed to get fat--" she looked at Alex "-- have I mentioned what an asshole he is? Anyway, I'm there in granddad's study, glad just to be away from the hovering pervs in the kitchen, and he asks me if I'll do a sad old man a favor, and like a complete idiot I say, 'sure, Granddad, anything.'"

Em stopped pacing, looked at Alex, and said, "I walked right into that one."

As if Alex had any idea what that meant.

"And so my uncle's dead and my dad's AWOL and my boyfriend's history and my boss is retarded and my best friend's got me dressing up like a funeral home hooker so I can throw myself at this perfect guy and there's no centerpiece and my crazy granddad has me hauling a fucking axe around in the trunk and the Keebler Elves run me into a telephone pole and it's raining and it's dark and the car I didn't even want is busted and then you come along."

Em seemed suddenly out of breath, as if she'd reached the end of her story unexpectedly.

Alex was so bewildered, he had to ask a very basic question:

"And who am I?"

Emmeline's brow furrowed. Her gaze shifted. It was a long moment before she seemed to find an answer; but the answer seemed to make her sad.