How to Love

“I was about three seconds away from kicking Rebecca in the fucking mouth,” I growled, sitting across from my brother Matt and his girlfriend, also my best friend, Liz. We were at Friendly’s for a late dinner and I was giving them a re-telling of the previous night’s events, when I’d gone to a concert with my cousin Andrea in an effort to reconnect with her after our most recent falling out. However, she decided to go with her friend Gina and invited me along, and I agreed since I liked Gina. I did not realize that Gina had also invited her friend Rebecca, and I certainly was not aware that Rebecca was so Goddamn annoying, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone. Naturally though, since I thought Rebecca was so obnoxious, she had decided that I was her new best friend. “She kept trying to stand right next to me during the show and if she would have touched me with her stupid bag one more time, I was gonna beat her senseless.”

“Was she really that bad?” Liz asked while Matt continued flipping through his menu, not even looking up. I wasn’t sure if he was listening to me, but I knew that Liz was. One of the reasons we got along so well was because we hated all of the same things and we got off on hearing each other rant.

“She made us stand outside for thirty-five minutes in negative fifteen degree weather,” I told her. “And then she made us wait outside for half an hour after the show, waiting for the band to come out, even though I told her at least ten times that they wouldn’t be out for at least an hour. I wanted to cut her open and bathe in her entrails for warmth.”

“Someone really needs to take your copy of American Psycho away,” Matt finally commented. He shut his menu. “I think I’m gonna get the chicken tenders.”

Liz and I ignored him. “Don’t even get me started on the people around us.”

“Yes, please don’t,” Matt chimed in. “I’m gonna lose my appetite if I hear one more of your violent fantasies. Don’t you have anything positive to contribute to the conversation today?”

“I actually do,” I volunteered. “I got invited to Clay’s party tomorrow night.”

“Oooh,” Liz raised her eyebrows teasingly. “I bet you’re excited.” Clay Carson was a friend of my other brother, Alexander, and I’d had a minor crush on him for years. He’d never invited me to one of his parties before, so I was extremely shocked to have gotten the text invitation. In fact, I was completely sure it was a mistake until he texted me again the next day to let me know that it was a jersey party, which I thought was a stupid idea, and he offered to let me borrow a shirt. “Are you gonna go?”

“I was planning on it,” I said.

“In that case, I’m gonna need the address of this party in case Liz and I need to swing by there and make sure that everything is on the up and up,” Matt went off. “I’m also gonna need the names of every asshole at this party. No, I take it back, every single guy.”

“And call me to check in every fifteen minutes,” Liz added, smiling.

“Sheesh, I’m almost eighteen,” I rolled my eyes. “What do you guys think you are, my parents?”

Matt started to say something else, but then the waitress came over to take our order, which luckily passed with little incident, despite Matt harassing her about her opinion on the coleslaw. She left to go put our order in and a rare awkward silence fell over the table until in typical Matt fashion, he cleared his throat loudly and broke it. “So Liz and I have some news.”

Liz glanced around anxiously, her heavily lined eyes darting all over. She grabbed the dessert menu and held it in front of her face. “I’m gonna pick out my ice cream.”

My eyes shifted between the two of them. “What’s going on?” I could feel an uncomfortable smile spreading across my face.

Matt took Liz’s hand. “Elizabeth and I got married.”

I could see Liz shaking her head behind her menu. I scoffed. “No, you didn’t. You would have invited me, you little shits.”

He let go of Liz’s hand. “You’re right.” Now he gripped mine. “So are you ready for this?” I nodded, and Matt finally blurted out, “Well, you’re gonna be Auntie Veronica soon.”

Liz had finally lowered her menu enough to gauge my reaction. I looked between the two of them again, waiting for one of them to bust out laughing and yell, “Just kidding!” but they never did. “Are you serious? Don’t fuck with me, Matt. Not today.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” Matt insisted. “I promise, not this time. I’m serious. Liz and I are having a baby. She’s about three months along.”

“Why’d you wait so long to tell me?” I asked.

“Liz was afraid you wouldn’t be friends with her anymore,” Matt answered.

“Why?” I was facing Liz now.

“I don’t know,” Liz shook her head. “It seems stupid now, but I was really worried about that.”

“Well, you can cross it off your list of worries,” I assured her. “There’s virtually nothing you could do that would make me not want to be your friend. Whatever you need, I’m here for you. And congratulations.”

“Thanks Veronica,” she smiled as Matt put an arm around her. “I really appreciate that.”

“Sure,” I nodded. “So do you know the sex yet?”

“No,” Matt said. “Not yet. We were thinking Patricia Veronica as a name possibility for a girl, though.”

“We are not naming her Patricia,” Liz insisted.

“Why not? Grandma would love that!” Matt said, which launched them into a minor squabble about names until our waitress returned with our food and we fell into mindless conversation. Just like that, the subject had changed and the world was back to normal. Except not really.

Though ultimately I was very happy for Liz and Matt, and incredibly flattered that they would even consider naming the baby after me in some way, I had a million questions. How had this happened? How many people knew? Did they tell Liz’s parents yet? What about Dad? How would he react? What would Mom say if she were still alive? What would happen to Liz’s beauty school dreams? How would they support a baby on their minimum wage jobs? Where would they live? Secondly, I was also plagued with stupid little selfish thoughts. It meant I would see Liz even less than I currently did, and that we would never share an apartment together like we’d been talking about for the past year. Still, their little tidbit of news seemed to be the missing piece of the puzzle. I now knew why Liz had been almost avoiding me for the last month and also why on the rare occasion I could get her to come over, she would fall asleep on the couch while we watched movies or something.

I tried to shove my questions and concerns to the back of my mind and participate in the conversation, which was easier to do than I’d thought. We carried on with dinner and about halfway through, Matt announced that he was working third shift at the Shell Station and that Liz and I should come in and visit him. We agreed, and he dropped us off at Liz’s house after dinner so that she could borrow her father’s truck. We followed him to the Shell Station and he took his post behind the register while Liz and I grabbed our usual table near the register in the adjoining Subway shop. Between customers, Matt went into the back and grabbed a pack of playing cards and we played a few games of Tens & Twos. I was shuffling the cards when I remembered something I’d promised to do for my dad.

“Hey Matt,” I said. “Do you happen to have a piece of paper and a marker? I need to make a help wanted sign.”

“Why?” Matt asked.

“Because I had to fire the door guy and the cleaning lady this week,” I admitted. My family owned a funeral home, the upstairs serving as a living quarter, where we’d all grown up. My dad had been a funeral director for twenty years, and before Mom had gotten sick, she had done all the secretarial work and managerial duties. My other brother Alexander used to work the door on occasion and run death certificates around, but after he joined the Marine Corps, Matt had moved out, and Mom got sick, all of the duties had fallen to me. “Dad was pretty pissed.”

“I’d imagine,” Matt commented. “I assume you have stupid reasons for firing them, too. But I’ll get some paper and crap from the back.” He got up from the table and disappeared into the back, leaving Liz and I alone.

“So you finally fired Tabby with the lazy eye?” Liz asked.

I nodded vigorously. “That was a long time coming. She sucked at her job. She was always missing a lot of big messes. I even made the dumbass a checklist of what to clean. Plus she never buzzed up to tell me when she was leaving, so I never knew her exact hours.”

“And what about Joey Howe?” Liz added.

“Joey Howe? More like Joey how did he get hired?” I laughed. Joey was the son of one of my dad’s friends and my dad had given him the doorman position as a favor, but that really didn’t last long. “He’s the worst doorman we’ve ever had, and that includes Don with the dead eyes who was stalking the woman across the street at the bank.”

“Wow,” Liz raised her eyebrows. “That’s pretty bad.”

“I know,” I scoffed. “I mean, for one thing, the kid needs to learn how to tie a tie properly, not use those stupid clip-on ones that they make for third graders. He also needs to buy a suit that he did not wear to his Bar Mitzvah three years ago. Plus, his unibrow was distracting. I told him at least three times to shave it.”

“That’s my sister, always a kind word for everyone,” Matt joked, returning with the paper and Sharpie I’d requested. “Do tell, did you fire the poor kid because of his unfortunate genetics?”

“No,” I said. “Although, I will admit it was a deciding factor. I can’t have someone who looks like a slob representing the business. Think about it. Someone comes in for a viewing and the first person they see when they walk in is Mr. Unibrow. That’s the first impression someone has of our business. It doesn’t look good. And anyway, he was usually late and he took too many breaks. Also, I don’t know how many fucking times I was going to have to explain to him what to do for the after viewing cleaning. You vacuum the upstairs chapel, hallway, and downstairs luncheon rooms, take out the trash, straighten the chairs, and make sure that all of the cigarettes are emptied out of the outside ashtray. It’s not rocket science.”

“True that,” Matt agreed. “But I notice that you’re only asking about a doorman on that flyer of yours. What about the cleaning position?”

“I’m gonna try to see if I can get Ruth to come back and clean for us, but until then, I’ll do it,” I said. “That woman was a genius with a scrub brush.”

“Aren’t you biting off more than you can chew?” Liz asked.

“You’re already practically running the place,” Matt agreed. “You’re seventeen. Go act like you’re seventeen.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged him off, though I knew he was right. After Mom had died about a year and a half prior and I’d gone back to school, I’d found that when I was supposed to be learning about algebra and French, my mind was on death certificates and funeral arrangements. So I asked Dad if I could drop out and just get my GED, and though he was not thrilled about the idea itself, he was ecstatic to have the help. Presently, I was taking a few college classes, but I wasn’t really serious about them. “Can you hang this on the bulletin board?”

“Sure,” Matt agreed, tacking up my poorly made sign. On it, I’d included a brief description of the job and written my cell phone number on it since I didn’t want anyone getting ahold of the funeral home’s number and thinking it would be funny to blast the business line with crank calls. Matt was just about to sit back down with us when the bell over the door dinged, alerting him to a new customer.

Most of the time, I ignored people when they came in, since at this time of night it was usually just the really weird ones that came in, but I felt compelled to look after Liz’s mouth opened slightly and she muttered, “Wow.”

I was expecting to see a guy with bizarre hair or that irritating girl that always wore too-tight clothing, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a perfectly normal looking guy, with short, styled brown hair, glittery green eyes, perfectly shaped lips, and broad shoulders. I looked back at Liz and whispered, “I think that ‘wow’ doesn’t do him justice.”

The guy went to the back and grabbed a six-pack of beer, Miller Lites, to be exact, and brought it up to cash register for Matt to scan.

“What’s going on, brother?” Matt greeted.

“Same old, same old,” the guy shrugged. He had a surprisingly deep voice with a gravelly tone to it. It wasn’t fair or possible that a guy that pretty could also have an attractive voice. Genetics couldn’t be that kind.

“Can I see some ID?” Matt asked.

The guy sighed. “They don’t usually card here.”

“Yeah, well, they’ve been cracking down on it lately,” Matt replied. “I know the other night guy doesn’t check ‘em, but I do.”

“That’d explain it,” the other guy said. “Listen, can you let me slide this once? I’m twenty-one in, like, three days.”

“No can do, bro,” Matt shrugged, and turned back to look at the clock. “Sorry. Anyway, it’s a little after one, I can’t sell it to you anyway.”

The other guy sighed again. “Well, I can see this is a losing battle. I’ll just put this back and grab a water or something.”

“The healthier, though not as fun, choice,” Matt agreed. The guy walked back to the cooler and put the beer back, grabbing a bottle of water from a different cooler on his way back to the counter. Matt scanned the water and handed it to him, reading the price off of the register. “Hey, thanks for being honest about the ID thing, man. And also for being cool about it. I know a lot of guys that would’ve had hissy fits. So I’ll tell you what, come back and see me on your birthday, I’ll give you a six-pack, on the house.”

“Sounds great,” the other guy enthused. “Thanks a lot, dude.” He looked past Matt for a second and something seemed to catch his attention. “Hey, do you happen to know who put up that sign for the doorman position?”

“Sure do,” Matt nodded and pointed to our table. “The surly blonde one.”

“Thanks,” the guy said again and then strode over to our table, grabbing a chair from one of the other tables and pulling it over to ours. He held out his hand to me. “Hi, Jake Damon.”

“Veronica Polanski,” I introduced myself, shaking his hand. He had a good handshake on top of everything else, too. “This is my friend Liz.”

She gave him a wave. “Hello.”

“Hey,” he acknowledged Liz, but for no longer than half a second before turning back to me. That was quite a shock since Liz was completely gorgeous, just like everyone else in her family, and most guys fell all over themselves just to talk to her. “And Polanski like that director Roman Polanski, right?”

I nodded uncomfortably. “Yep. And you have no idea how many times a day I hear that.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I wasn’t trying to insinuate that you were related to a pedophile or anything.” I arched an eyebrow and he swallowed uncomfortably. “I’m just digging myself into a really deep hole, aren’t I?”

I nodded again. “I’d stop.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be best,” he said. “So how old are you?”

“This is supposed to be your interview, as I recall,” I said. “But I’ll humor you. I’m seventeen.”

“Gosh, seventeen, really?” he looked surprised. “You sure don’t look seventeen.”

“Watch it, buddy,” Matt warned him. “She’s my sister.”

“Quiet over there, Matt,” I called back to him. “No one was talking to you.”

“Rude,” Matt muttered. Liz laughed and went over to look at the magazines, leaving Jake and I alone at the table.

“Anyway, back to the interview,” I said. “So, what experience do you have holding the door for people?”

“Well, probably more experience than the rest of the general population,” Jake quipped. “Apparently holding the door for people isn’t a courtesy anymore. Mostly I just get women yelling at me.”

I scoffed. “Well, you probably wouldn’t have any problems with that, since it’s a funeral home you’d be working at. People are generally pleased to have the door opened for them.”

“That’s interesting,” Jake commented. “I don’t remember reading that on the sign.”

“I must have forgotten to add it,” I said. “Anyway, if that’s a problem, we can just stop the interview right now.”

“No, no,” he insisted quickly. “It’s not a problem at all. It’s a hell of a lot better than the job I have now.”

“Which brings me to my next question,” I segued. “Anything you can tell me about work history and can you give me any references?”

“Well, I used to work at a bowling alley for about three years, from fifteen to eighteen,” he volunteered. “Seven Hills Lanes. Pay sucked, so I quit. You can call them if you want, and ask for Jeff. I worked at Marc’s for about six months, but they don’t like me there, because, you know, you make one little comment about how dirty the produce is and they get all touchy… So anyways, don’t call them.”

I cut him off. “Anyways isn’t a word. It’s anyway.”

“Anyway,” he mulled it over. “Not anyways. I’ll remember that. Anyway I do a seasonal thing at Spirit Halloween when they open, but I’m not entirely sure how you could get ahold of them, but I can assure you that both the manager and the district manager love me. And then right now I’m currently working at Jocko’s Bar and Grill and it makes me want to fling myself from the top of a building.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “The food there is terrible.”

“Isn’t it?” Jake agreed. “Horribly greasy. I have to prep some of the food and it’s just disgusting… Anyways… I mean anyway, I’m a dishwasher there, but they have me doing the job of two people with really horrible hours. There’s no set schedule, except that it’s the same three days a week. Fridays and Saturdays I’m supposed to only work until twelve, but I don’t usually get out until at least two-thirty, and they won’t pay for overtime. I’ve been wanting to quit for a while now, but I wanted to have something else lined up. Plus I really want my Friday and Saturday nights back.”

“Well, I can’t promise you a set work schedule either,” I said. “And I can’t promise that you’ll have your Friday and Saturday nights all to yourself. But the latest you’ll probably ever work is ten or ten-thirty.”

“I can handle that,” he nodded. “That’s not bad at all. What’s the pay like?”

“It’s eight-seventy five an hour for a viewing and one-hour cleaning,” I said. “We pay seventy if you work a full eight hours, which only happens on occasion. By the way, what are your cleaning skills like?”

“I run a mean vacuum cleaner, if that’s what you wanna know,” he joked. “Dust bunnies and stray crumbs fear me.”

“Well, that’s really about all I need to know,” I concluded. “I literally put that sign up right before you walked in, so as of now, you have no other competition. So your odds look pretty good.”

“Awesome,” Jake nodded. “So when do you think you’ll know? I’d like to be able to put my two week’s notice in as soon as I can, and if I don’t get the job with you, I’m back on the hunt.”

“Within the next few days,” I told him. “We need someone as soon as possible.”

“Sounds great,” Jake enthused. “Should I just give you my information then, or what?”

“You can leave it with my receptionist,” I joked, leaning my head back towards Matt.

“Lady, I’m not your receptionist,” Matt complained. “And I just bought you ice cream like three hours ago, so you’d better just be nice to me.”

“Just go ahead and give him your number and whatnot,” I told Jake, ignoring Matt. “I’d take it, but he’s the man with the paper and pens.”

“Cool,” Jake said, getting up and grabbing his water. “Well, hopefully I’ll be hearing from you, Veronica. Nice meeting you.” He walked over to Matt, and I noticed for the first time that he was bow-legged. There was the flaw. Matt handed him some paper and a pen, and Jake jotted down his information before turning to leave. “Nice meeting all of you. See you around, V.”

The bell dinged again as he walked out. Matt nodded approvingly. “Nice guy. Think you’re gonna hire him?”

I shrugged. “Right now, most likely, but I’m gonna give it a few more days. I don’t wanna make a rash decision.”

Matt nodded and Liz finally came back to the table after reading through one of the trashy magazines. Matt left his post behind the cash register to have a quick cigarette outside and left Liz and I alone inside.

“He was so hot,” Liz commented as soon as the door shut.

“Watch yourself, missy,” I joked, imitating Matt. “That’s my brother out there.” Though she was completely right. That Jake Damon guy was hot as hell. And while Matt was not bad-looking, he was chubby and had a Transformers tattoo on his chest.

“He was flirting with you, you know,” Liz leaned forward against the table.

“My brother?” I pretended to look grossed out. “Eww. You’re disgusting.”

“Not Matt,” Liz rolled her eyes. “Jake. He was definitely trying to hit on you, until, you know, Matt put an end to that. But he called you V when he was leaving.”

“So?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve never heard anyone call you anything but Veronica,” Liz said. “I’ve seen you threaten anyone who calls you Ronnie. And I don’t think anyone’s ever called you V before.”

That was true. No one had ever called me V before in my life. Maybe there was something to this Jake Damon guy.