Can't Get Enough of Your Love (33 page)

No way! “You went out for breakfast?” He has to be lying.

“I told you it was a weird night. We went to IHOP, and we were there from just before sunrise until almost lunchtime. We went back to Juan's car later with a new alternator. I'm surprised you didn't hear us arguing later that day.”

I must have been crying too loudly or something.

“We even decided to meet at IHOP every Sunday morning from then on.”

I stare a hole in his head. “You what?”

He shrugs. “We … get together at IHOP, the three of us, every Sunday morning. It turns out that aside from you, we have a lot in common.”

“You're kidding.”

“It's not a Lana Haters Club anymore.”

Ouch. “Anymore?”

“Oh, we still mention you now and then, but … mostly we just shoot the shit.”

And to think that I brought them together for this weekly ritual.

“Karl … Karl's a good guy. A little rough, but he's funny as hell. And Isabel likes the Coach bags.”

I roll my eyes. “They're knockoffs.”

“Oh, she knows they are. The DVDs though. They pretty much suck.”

“Yeah.”

“Juan's a good guy, too. He tunes up my truck and Karl's van whenever they need it, even getting us discounts on parts.”

My friends with benefits … are friends? Wait. They're friends who benefit each other. What kind of a three-headed monster have I created?

“We were all out just the other night watching some soccer match at Hooters. Juan knew every player on both teams, and the waitress he could have picked up that night was a knockout. He said, ‘No, I must be faithful to Monique.'”

Roger has Juan Carlos's voice down pat. They have been spending a
lot
of time together.

“You heard about his mama, right?” I ask.

“Yeah. That was sad. She was a nice lady.”

“You met her?”

“Sure. We had a few cookouts over at Juan's house. Best chili I ever ate.”

This is too much! I date and sleep with the guy, and I don't get to meet his mama. Roger eats breakfast with him, and he gets to meet his mama.

“Karl and I went to the wake.”

Huh? “I didn't see you there.”

“We saw you go in. We were getting gas across the street.”

“Why didn't you come in while I was there?”

He shrugs. “Mainly because we didn't want to be part of the fireworks. Monique can be pretty evil sometimes.”

Don't I know it.

“And, we couldn't understand why Juan wanted you there at all, so we gave you two some privacy.”

Today is getting to be one of the weirdest days of my life. I need to change the subject. “So, how did you meet your fiancée?”

“Lisa?” He smiles.

That jolts me, and not just because he said her name. It was the smile that followed his saying her name.

“Lisa is our favorite waitress at IHOP.”

Roger, the future interment director of Fairview Cemetery, and Lisa, the IHOP waitress. How quaint. One serves you food that will one day kill you, and the other plants you. “So you've only known her for, what, a couple of months?”

He shrugs. “I only knew
you
for a couple of months before I asked
you
to marry me.”

Oh yeah.

“Yeah. Lisa's something. And she knows
everything
there is to know about you.”

Great.

“Now at first, I didn't want to ask Lisa for her phone number, but Karl and Juan insisted. I thought they were trying to weed me out of the equation so they'd have a better chance to get back with you, but that wasn't the case. Karl has Izzie, Juan has Monique. Anyway, that's when we all agreed never to be with you again, no matter what.”

They actually made a damn agreement!

“Karl called me the night you visited Isabel and him, and Juan called me when you visited him, you know, to warn me that you might be coming to see me.”

I've been under surveillance. I don't know whether to be scared or pissed. “Did you tell them about the day you saw me here?”

“I didn't mention that to them. I mean, we didn't exactly speak to each other.”

“We did share a wave, and you did put that rose under my wiper.”

He smiles. “I did?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yeah. I did. I must have had an extra to spare that day.”

I feel like stomping my feet, I'm so mad! But I don't want to wake any of the dead around me. “Y'all actually have an agreement against seeing me?”

“We wrote it all out on a napkin and everything.”

And it's written down! Of course it is! And on a damn IHOP napkin. “Well, that's, um, that's great. Just great.” I start to walk directly to my car.

“Hey, sorry,” says Roger, trotting alongside. “But at least you'll know where Karl is every Sunday morning from now on.”

How comforting. I juggle them, let them fall, and they collect themselves every Sunday morning at IHOP for a cholesterol breakfast.

“How's your ankle?”

I'm almost to my car. “It's fine.”

“Will you play again next year?”

I shoot a look at him to see if he's being sarcastic. He seems genuinely interested. “I haven't decided.”

“Well, you should. You're a good player, Lana.”

Was that supposed to be a smart remark? Why can't I tell anymore?

I get to my car, throwing the bag, the bulb food, and the spade into the backseat.

“Wait,” he says.

“What?” I say.

Then … Roger looks me up and down slowly, and suddenly I feel self-conscious. “And you
look
good, too, Lana.”

“Thanks, um, Roger. Bye.” I get in the car.

He pantomimes rolling down the window. What else? I roll down my window.

“You really ought to come out here after the first snow.”

Why would I want to do that? He waves his arm over the entire cemetery. “You'll see white fields as far as your eyes can see.” “I'm, um, I'm sure it's beautiful. Bye.” I start up my car and drive off, talking to the dead people I pass.

“Y'all have it easy,” I say.

I
t was
only
five months!

Five freaking months!

Twenty weeks and Roger is engaged, Juan's marrying Monique, and Karl and Izzie are expecting a child. I thought they were better men than that! They leave me and fall all to pieces going after a permanent piece. I was the best thing in their lives….

And they were the best things in mine.

I want them all back!

I know I can get Karl to dump Izzie. I know everything about her, and most of it is scary. She plucks her eyelashes and uses false ones. When she takes them off, she looks like a black gecko. She has a false tooth held in her mouth by a bridge. If that bridge should ever fail, she'll be missing one of her top front teeth. And, she has the hairiest toes I've ever seen! I swear she could braid them. Karl wouldn't want her after I told him all that.

Except for the baby.

Which Karl wants.

No.

They seem happy. They have what I want.

Okay, what about Juan Carlos? Roger said that Juan Carlos
could
have picked up a waitress at Hooters. I'm sure I can make Monique jealous enough about that to break it off with him. I'll just go to Monique …

Nah.

She might be Haitian and cut me with a machete or something.

And as for Lisa, I almost want to drop in on them at IHOP one Sunday morning just to tell them how childish they're all being. I'd tear up that little napkin, and I'd get to see Lisa in the flesh.

Today is Tuesday. Five days until Sunday. Hmm.

I
could
go to IHOP and talk about my
boyfriend
Roger McDowell in front of Lisa, and then Lisa would be suspicious or break it off with Roger, and …

No. That happens only in the movies or on stupid sitcoms. Or in middle school.

I'll just … drop in. Yeah. As in right now. So what if it's lunchtime.

I drive from the cemetery to IHOP, slam the Rabbit's door closed, throw open one of the restaurant's double doors, and—

Damn. There are a lot of people here for lunch at a breakfast place.

Only in Roanoke.

While I'm waiting to be seated, I stare at every waitress's name tag and don't see a single “Lisa.”

“One?” the hostess finally says.

Oh, rub it in, why don't you? “Yes. Is Lisa working today?”

“She only works early mornings.”

Shit.

I follow the hostess to a booth and sit, not looking at
the menu. A waitress named … Allie comes over with a pot of coffee. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

She pours the cup. Allie looks no older than nineteen, so she might know Lisa.

“Um, Allie, are you a friend of Lisa's?”

“We've worked together some. You know her?”

Shit. I need information. I don't need to be answering any questions from gum-cracking waitresses like Allie from the Valley. “Um, yeah. I know her from high school.”

Allie blinks. “You don't look that old.”

Lisa is older than me, or at least she seems so to Allie. White folks sometimes have trouble telling black folks' ages, so I don't know how to react. “Thank you,” I say.

“You really went to high school with old Lisa Lou?”

Old
Lisa
Lou?
Whoa. She must be really old. Roger, I hardly know you anymore! “Oh, I work at Patrick Henry. That's what I meant when I said high school.” That was weak.

Allie squints. “I think Lisa's kids graduated from Northside.”

Old Lisa Lou is an older woman with children who
graduated
from high school already? What does that make Lisa? In her late forties at least? Whoa. I look up at Allie. “Perhaps we're talking about different Lisas.”

“We must be.”

“Yeah.”

“You ready to order?”

I'm not even hungry. “Bring me … a stack of pancakes. To go.”

What am I doing? Who orders pancakes to go after waiting in line at lunchtime at an IHOP?

I'm losing it. I swear I'm losing it.

I call Mama when I get back to Jenny's dollhouse while I eat the coldest, soggiest pancakes I have ever eaten. “Mama, Roger is engaged to a woman
your
age.”

“And?”

“Mama, that's at least a twenty-year age difference.” Unless Lisa squirted them out when she was fourteen. And with a name like Lisa Lou, she may have squirted them out earlier than that. “Twenty
years
, Mama.” And now
I'm
saying things twice.

Sigh.

I'm becoming my mama.

“So?” Mama says.

“So?” Mama's not being very helpful tonight. “Don't you think that's weird?”

“No.”

Three one-word answers in a row. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.”

Make that
four
one-word answers in a row. What's up with her today? “Well, I think it's weird, and I'm going to IHOP Sunday morning to …” To do what, exactly?

“You're going to the IHOP on Sunday morning?”

“Yes.”

“To cause trouble, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, at least get your hair done. I gotta go.”
Click
.

This
is
the weirdest day of my life. My mama
never
hangs up on me. What could she be doing that's more important than hearing me rant and rave? I put up with all her rantings and ravings all those years! She should at least find a few minutes to hear mine!

She did say I should do my hair…. Oh, and my nails.

A makeover.

Yeah.

That's right.

I need a makeover so I can be smoking-hot good-looking on Sunday morning. I will put Lisa to shame, I will put Izzie to shame, and I will put Monique to shame. My three ex–friends with benefits will be salivating more from me than from their eggs, bacon, and toast. They will all regret not coming back to me. I giggle.

I've never really ever been girly like this before.

It's kind of a new feeling, and I don't even know how to go about being girly. Do I need to go to a spa? I look at my fingernails. I at least need a manicure. I've never had one of those. Do I dare get a pedicure, too? I know that
I
wouldn't do
my
toes. Yuck.

I flip through the Yellow Pages and find several listings for local spas offering half-and full-day treatments. Only one, St. Pierre Salon Spa and Academy, lists its prices.

Damn.

Twenty bucks for a manicure sounds reasonable, but forty bucks for a pedicure? There're the same number of digits! And the nails are smaller on my toes, and one toenail is even missing! Will I get a ten percent discount for the missing nail?

And what the hell is a Lavender Body Scrub with a Seaweed Wrap, and why does it cost fifty bucks? Microdermabrasion for a hundred ten? A glycolic peel for sixty? What the hell is a glycolic peel? It sounds painful, and you want me to pay you sixty bucks for some pain?

I'm not calling them.

Instead, I call Zee's Salon and Day Spa on the outside
chance that they have more reasonable prices than St. Pierre. Zee's was, after all, sponsor of the Miss Virginia Pageant in 2003 and was voted “Best Hair Styling Salon” by
The Roanoker
magazine.

Which doesn't say much.
The Roanoker
magazine says that Texas Tavern, a grimy little diner downtown that serves aged chili and cheesy westerns (mystery meat covered with eggs), is one of the best places to eat in town.

“Zee's Salon.”

“Yes, I'm thinking of getting a complete makeover. Do y'all have any package deals?”

“We sure do.”

A hundred or less, and I'm in there.

“We have something we call the ‘Great Escape.' With it you get a full-body massage, a classic facial, a classic or French manicure, a classic pedicure, a mineralsalt wrap, and a shampoo and style, all for only three hundred dollars.”