After the club, we hit an all-night hipster diner in Santa Monica. Olive was knuckle-deep in her vegan nachos when she said, “This reminds me of the day we met. Remember?”
Both Bryan and I chuckled as we nodded. “Food’s better,” I quipped as I shoved more of my omelet into my mouth.
Our cute waitress stopped by the table to refill everyone’s water glass. “So is the view,” Olive said with a wink. “Remember when the best we could do was Dylan Fenn?” She laughed, because apparently she thought this was an embarrassing aberration of our youth. “Why were we all so hung up on him?”
“He was beautiful,” Bryan murmured wistfully.
“He was so popular any of his attention validated you by default,” I added.
“And he was completely out of reach,” Olive concluded. “Nothing safer than wanting someone who can’t possibly want you back, is there?”
“He got over that at the ten-year reunion,” Bryan confided. “When he infiltrated the crew.”
Her eyes opened wide. “If it is either one of you bitches I’m going to kick you right in the leftovers.”
Bryan shook his head. “No, we’re members of the crew tried and true.”
“Then who?” she asked before ticking each of us off on her fingers. Finally she put it together. “Charlie? Are you fucking kidding me? How is that even possible?”
I shrugged. “She lost a hundred pounds, bleached her hair and showed up looking like Baby Spice. He was a goner.”
Olive snorted. “Figures. Once a dog, always a dog.” She toyed with the straw in her glass before musing, “But no longer an unattainable one. Interesting.”
“That’s a look of pure evil if I’ve ever seen one,” Bry teased.
“What can I say? I’ve always loved a challenge.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I figured out a way we can make this twenty-year shindig a little more exciting. I think it’s time that all the Leftovers got their chance to sail away on the S.S. Fenn.”
I shook my head. “You’d have the best shot of any of us. I’m still nowhere near his type.”
“And I’m an outy, not an inny,” Bry reminded.
“Trifles,” she dismissed. “The bigger the obstacle, the greater the victory. You guys still talk to Fenn, right?”
“Roni does. She works at the agency that represents him.”
“Perfect! Lemme see your phone.”
“No way,” I protested immediately.
“Don’t be a chicken. This will be fun. Isn’t this the one thing you’ve always wanted?”
Well…
“Come on, come on, come on,” she insisted as she held out her hand. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” Then, with an arched eyebrow, “Have I led you astray so far?”
I sent a beseeching glance to Bry, but he was no help at all. He just shrugged. “It does seem kind of unfair that Charlie had all the fun. If she cracked the code, who’s to say we couldn’t?”
I shrugged. “The plan is inherently flawed. I’m fat and old, she’s a lesbian and you’re a guy. Even if we make the cut by default of our gender, you might not. I don’t think he’s bisexual.”
Another arched eyebrow from Olive. “Neither are you.”
“I don’t think he even knows I’m gay,” Bryan decided suddenly.
“Good,” Olive said. “Let him come to you.”
“How can he not know you’re gay?” I asked. It had been obvious to me even before I knew what gay was.
“One: people see what they want to see,” he told me. “Two: we only hung out together in high school, when I was pretty far back in the closet by necessity. Three: whenever he sees me now, it’s usually as your date.”
“Perfect,” Olive said again. “People are easier to manipulate when they’re jealous.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re not really seriously suggesting that we make this some covert operation.”
“Operation: Fuck Fenn. I like it,” she grinned. “Now gimme your phone.”
I shook my head. “This is childish. We’re not in high school anymore. We’re all adults. I have a child, for chrissakes.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Revenge sex can be a lot of fun. Just ask Bry. I’m sure he’s bedded a guy or two who used to call him ‘fag’ in high school.”
“She has me there,” he grinned.
“And nobody here has to sleep with him. You just have to make him want to sleep with you. To finally win the desire of the one who got away. You can reel him into the boat and throw him back immediately, kind of like he did to everyone in high school. Call it poetic justice. And you, my friend,” she said to me, “need to finally figure it out that you’re more than worthy to sit at the cool kids’ table.”
Bry nodded. “She’s right, Roni. You’ve been measuring yourself by his ruler long enough. Isn’t about time the tables turned?”
I shook my head. This was lunacy.
“You don’t know how liberating it is to defeat the fears that have chased you from your childhood. Bryan and I had big fears, about being accepted for being different. It was a more dangerous world for us to finally embrace and ultimately celebrate what set us apart. In your head, sleeping with Dylan is that mile you never ran. That trophy you never won. Imagine how much your life would change if you could finally figure out the only obstacles you have in front of you are the ones you’ve put there all along?”
I hesitated. She was right about that. Being singled out by Dylan had shaded my whole identity as I came of age. If he didn’t want me, who would? It was probably why I settled for so much less than I deserved with Wade. And it was neither Dylan’s nor Wade’s fault that I did so.
I decided a long time ago I wasn’t good enough for the ultimate boy, so it was okay for others to shortchange me as well, including my very own daughter.
“Come on. I don’t have cable. Throw me a fucking bone,” she added with a grin.
I sighed. “Fine. You win.” I handed her my phone.
She was mighty proud of herself as she scrolled through my contact list, landing at last on the object of our new, weird, impossible mission. “And that, my friends, is how you get someone to do what they don’t want to do. Take notes. There will be a test.”
She stuck her tongue out at us before she texted something to Dylan and handed the phone back to me.
I glanced down at the screen.
“Some old friends are treating me to dollar beer at the Karaoke Klubhouse tomorrow night, eight sharp. You are cordially invited.”
It only took a minute for Dylan to reply.
“Sounds like fun, count me in.”
I half-glared at Olive, who returned once again to her heap of nachos with a wide, shit-eating grin on her face.
THE LEFTOVER CLUB releases TOMORROW!! Get it while it's HOT!!
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