Center Courtship (13 page)

“It's on me,” said Elsu, holding up his hand behind me.

I wanted to argue, I
should
have argued, but I was pretty sure there was no sense in arguing. “Thank you,” I said. “Oh, and thank you for the picture yesterday, that was nice.”

“You're very welcome. Gave me an excuse to see where you work.”

“Why would you want to see that?”

“Humph,” said Elsu with a shrug and a smile. We stood to leave and Elsu stood like a gentleman would when a female stands at a fancy restaurant. He held out his arms to me for a hug. “I'm so glad we ran into you. It's really good to see you.”

I hated hugs. They're nothing but cringe-worthy people-touching things. I couldn't deny his friendly gesture so I spread my arms and let him take control of the embrace. My head came to his chest and I felt his hands on my back. I patted him lightly on his waistband just above his rear, not wanting to do much more. When he released himself from me, I had a strange feeling inside of wishing it hadn't stopped so soon.

I shook my head and smiled at Elsu as we turned to leave.

When we got to the work truck, Steve informed us he needed to run into the drug store that was in the same shopping strip as the restaurant. Greg and I stood at the truck and looked at some damage that it had gotten on its last haul.

“Mae!” Carl was running up to us from the diner.

“Carl?” I asked.

“Don't be getting attached to Elsu, Mae.”

I looked at him, then to Greg. “Excuse me?”

“I see the way he looks at you. You need to stay away from him.”

“Ok, I had nothing to do with seeing him today. He said he just saw the truck and came here.”

“He's a liar, Mae. We didn't just
happen
to drive by. We stopped at your shop and that woman at the front desk told us where you probably were. Elsu was trying to find you. You need to tell him you're not interested in his advances.”

“What advances? He's been nothing but a gentleman to me. I have no interest in him, believe me.”

“Good, then there won't be a problem.”

“There was going to be a problem if I said otherwise?”

“Let's just not worry about problems. You keep to yourself, there won't be any. Understand?”

He walked away and I looked at Greg who seemed just as confused as I was.

“That guy's an ass,” he said.

“Yeah, I've been getting that vibe.”

Back at the shop I went straight to my office and closed my door. I never closed my door. In fact I had to move a few things out of the way to enable the door to swing shut. Hopefully people would recognize the barrier as a sign that I needed to think. I pulled up our accounts and started doing the math with the cars.

The Chevelle was pretty, the blue of the Z28 was bright. Elsu's pants were a similar shade today. I always referred to those kind as ‘swishy' pants. UGH
no, Mae!

The Corvette was amazing. The roar of the engine, the sound of Elsu's voice in my ear.
I said NO, Mae
!

That steel building was awesome. It would have been really nice if we could have just picked it up and brought it back. The smell of the wax and the rubber. Elsu's scent when he hugged me after lunch.

“Oh hell no!” I finally said out loud, slamming my pencil to the desk. Bonnie turned to look at me with confusion through the glass wall. I hadn't realized the room wasn't sound proof like I had thought. I smiled and put my head down, pretending to do more math. I looked closely at my handwritten numbers. Had I really dotted an “i” with a heart? I needed a shower, ASAP!

Back home, I went straight to Arnold's apartment and knocked. The door opened quickly and Colette was already there. Tuesdays were our sit and bitch about the world days and I knew they both would have something, or someone to bitch about.

“Before either one of you say anything, I am sorry about those two. I have no control over their behavior.” I pulled a beer from Arnold's refrigerator before grabbing his stack of mail and
his checkbook. I plopped down in my usual chair at his table and started opening the obvious bills. I had been doing his banking for months now, ever since he was almost scammed out of his life's savings by some con artist.

“Oh, we're not mad at you, honey,” said Colette. “But we were talking about you.”

“I thought I felt my ears burning,” I smiled as I started writing a check to Max for Arnold's rent. Arnold didn't know, but I had convinced Max to give him the family discount.

“You don't know, do you?” she asked.

“Know what?” I asked.

“When were you on Facebook last?”

“I don't know, last week? I don't go on very often.” I pulled out my phone and noticed I had a ton of missed private messages and public replies as well. I clicked on one and saw it was in reply to me changing my profile picture to the picture of Elsu and me at his house. “That stinker! He must have done this at lunch!” I said.

“You went to lunch with him?” asked Colette.

“No, I went with Greg and Steve and then Elsu, Millard and Carl the nutty PR guy came in.” I continued to look at the messages and noticed that my cover image for my Facebook page had been changed to the one of all of the guys from his house. The one I refused to let Colette share. I guess I should have a password for my phone after all.

“You told me not to share those pictures and you put them all online!”

“No, I didn't do any of this. Elsu did!” At first I was mad, then I thought it was actually kind of funny. I noticed that my status had been updated as well. “Out to lunch with my favorite basketball player and some guys from work.” I had apparently tagged him in the post. “Wait a minute, the only way I could tag him in this picture is if I was friends with him. I clicked on his name and sure enough his profile page showed we were friends. I looked at his friends count and saw he only had about 300. “He doesn't have many friends.”

“That's because that's his REAL account, Mae. Most celebrities have one for private use and one for fans. You're a private use kind of friend,” she giggled.

I stared in disbelief at Elsu's page. His cover photo was a picture of him and Saraya at some fancy affair. He was wearing a tuxedo, she was wearing some expensive piece of fabric that just barely covered her important bits. I'd seen Elsu's smile and the one in that picture wasn't what I had seen. I would have bet that the one in the picture was not the real deal. His profile picture was the logo for the Whoopsters and scrolling through the page, he didn't seem overly active. Most pictures were from other people tagging him in comments or pictures and not the other way around.

“Ok, but that's not what I was asking if you knew about,” said Colette. “I assumed you knew about all that.”

“Ok, what am I missing?”

She took my phone, then quickly handed it back to me. “This is making the rounds.”

On my phone I saw a picture of the embrace from the restaurant. I stared in disbelief. “Who would have taken this?” I thought about the angle and knew it had to be Carl. “This explains everything!” I was so mad for letting myself think anything like I had been thinking. “He's using me.”

“WHAT?” asked Colette as she went to the stove and started dishing out some of her famous chili.

“His PR guy had to have taken this. He wants them to have more exposure in the city so people don't attack when they see them. I am an idiot.”

“I don't know who took the picture, Mae-Belle but the comments that are with it aren't anything a PR guy would want if he was trying to get people to like someone,” said Arnold as he began crumbling crackers into his chili.

I followed the trail of shares and found the original post for this particular version of the shot. It took me to the Nopester's page. “This Just in: Junk Yard Bitch Sinks her Fangs into Basketball Stud.” I turned red. I had been called the junk yard bitch by a lot of my classmates when I was in high school. It wasn't that far from the truth, I wasn't overly friendly and I spent most of my time at the shop. I hadn't heard the term in a long time. I assumed we had all grown up.

“The Nopesters did this? What do
they
have against me?” I asked.

“I don't think they posted it originally, they probably took it from its original post. Go to the Whoopster's official Facebook page.”

I typed in the name of the team and searched for the official page. “How do I know which one is official?”

This time Arnold shocked us both and grabbed the phone. “Eat, then you can worry. Your chili is going to get cold.”

“Yes father,” I laughed. He hated us using our phones at the table.

We quickly finished our meal and I helped Colette clean up. We made sure Arnold was good for the evening and we both went across the hall to my apartment. I quickly fed Diesel and grabbed two beers from the fridge before we sat on the couch. “Here,” she handed me her phone showing the offending picture.

“Elsu greets a lucky fan,” I read. “Well that's not so bad. I don't know about fan or lucky, but if that's what they want people to believe.”

I clicked on the comments link and most of them were favorable…at first. Then names I recognized started popping up. “Shit,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Mae is a money grubber? Classless grease monkeyette?”
Is that a word?
“Mae likes her men like she likes her cars; old and played out.”

“Ouch,” I said. I was honestly more upset about the insult to Elsu than the one about me.

“I could tell you not to keep reading, but I know you. You're going to read all three million of them and then I'm going to have depressed Mae on my hands. I'm not letting you read them. At least not off my phone.” She grabbed her phone back and took a long swig of her beer.

“Colette, those were all people I know. Kids I went to school with. That's what hurts the most. I had nothing to do with the hug. Ok, that's not all true, but he started it. I just accepted it.” I slouched into my couch. Even my cold beer was starting to resemble day old bathwater. “It was a friendly parting hug. I don't even like hugs.”

“It looked like one of them started it and the ball just kept rolling,” she said. Apparently
she
had read them all.

I shook my head and finished my beer. I was wrong, it was delicious. Diesel jumped into my lap and nudged my face. He knew what to do, cats are like that. “Well, I guess I'm just going to go take a bath and go to bed.”

“Me too, Mae. Me too!” She stood and started walking toward the door with her half-finished beer in her hand.

“Thanks for showing me the picture,” I said, sadly. I followed behind her and locked the deadbolt and the slide chain before turning out the lights and heading to the bathroom. I turned the taps on and once the water was to temp, I decided I deserved some bubbles and started fishing around under the sink. Way in the back I found an old bottle I had been given as a gift. It was probably five years old or more, but I doubted it could ever go bad.

I poured in a capful like the label said but decided it didn't look like enough, so I poured half the bottle in. I left the bathroom to undress and grab my cell phone. When I came back the tub was overflowing with bubbles. I couldn't do anything but laugh so I snapped a picture of the mountain of suds after I turned the water off. “Apparently, this grease monkeyette doesn't know how to use bubble bath,” I typed as I shared the picture.

After gingerly removing some of the top layer of foam and depositing it into the sink, I found my way into the tub and slid down into the warm water. It felt heavenly. No wonder people did this on a regular basis. A girl could get used to this kind of thing. Plus, it didn't smell bad, either. I think the bottle said vanilla. My phone started to buzz by my head and I grabbed for it to see Aaron's name. “Hello, Michelangelo,” I laughed.

“Wow, there's a greeting. Someone's in a good mood.”

“Actually, I wasn't in a good mood until I discovered the wonderful world of bubble baths. This should become a thing.” I smiled.

“I'll let the people know,” I could hear him smiling. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know that if it's ok, I'm going to start working on putting in my piece tomorrow. It might just be to set the groundwork and make sure it's flat and everything and then I'll bring the actual piece by on Thursday. OH, and to drop off your tickets.”

“That will be wonderful. And you can grab your album that's really mucking up my office.”

“You're on fire tonight, aren't you Mae?”

“Hey, since I've got you on the phone, I know we said we'd go get a drink during the game, but I happen to have been given some tickets for what I'm hearing are primo seats. Are you interested in being my date?” I asked with my fingers crossed.

“How can anyone pass up primo seats? It's a date.”

“Awesome! I'll see you tomorrow!” Who knew vanilla scented bubbles could make a girl forget that her whole high school class thought she was a money grubbing tramp and the basketball player was just using her for publicity?

Wednesday morning started like most others, I realized I must have laid weird after my failed attempt at a shampooing in the bath. Maybe there's a science to shampooing and bubble baths. My hair usually laid flat to my face and neck but there were kinks in it that really weren't doing me any favors. Not that any of the mechanics cared what I looked like, but I, for some reason, wanted it to look better than it normally did.
Weird.

Any time Candice needed new beauty supplies, my mom would give me her old ones.
“These are the things your sister used to make herself presentable. Maybe you should try them, now.”
I usually threw them away before they even got to my apartment. But one bag slipped through the cracks. I went to my hall closet, reached toward the back into a bag and found Candice's old curling iron. Make that irons. Four different sizes. Who needs that many different sized curls? I laid them on the counter in the bathroom and stared for a while. I decided the biggest would probably flatten out the kinks better than the smaller ones. After heating it up I started curling my hair. At first I just used it to straighten it, gliding it through my hair instead of curling like I had seen my mom do to Candice hundreds of times. When I'd get to the end, the hair ended in a cute curl that I kind of liked. I grabbed the second smallest iron and plugged it in and started curling my whole head. Before I knew it I looked like a relaxed Shirley Temple.