How to Love

“How Goddamn difficult is it to use your turn signal?” Liz complained as we drove through the typically heavily congested traffic near the mall. It was Saturday night and we’d decided to go see a movie and grab some dinner, killing two birds with one stone by driving to a larger, slightly farther away mall as opposed to our local shit mall. Liz had insisted on driving for whatever reason, which was normally fine. I didn’t particularly care for driving in the area, and she was better at it anyway since she didn’t get frustrated as easily. Tonight, however, she was completely hung up on the imperfections of the other drivers.

“Evidently we’re all supposed to be able to read minds,” I cracked in an effort to lighten the mood.

“Seriously though, look at this jackass,” she said through gritted teeth as we finally made it into the fuckery that was the parking lot. “You have to make a left turn or a right turn here; there’s no going straight. And look! No turn signal.”

“Well, that’s his own Goddamn problem if he wants to go straight,” I said. “He’s not gonna get very far since the sign’s right there. It’s irritating, I agree, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, leaning back in her seat a little. There was finally time for the guy in front of us to turn, but there was a long line of cars looking to exit the parking lot, so we were forced to continue waiting. Liz momentarily turned to glance at me. “So have you talked to Andrea lately?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t had any communication with my cousin in nearly two weeks. “Not since the concert. Even then, I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her though.”

“Because of that girl that was with you guys, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, looking at the window to study traffic with her. “Fucking Rebecca.”

Liz laughed and then her voice softened again. “I miss that girl.”

“I know,” I nodded. “I do, too.” But I couldn’t help it that my cousin attracted the wrong kinds of people, the kind of people that would use her, use the rest of our family, and then fuck all of us over in the end. It didn’t matter how many talks Liz and I had with her about choosing her friends carefully; Andrea still adopted the worst kinds of stray people. And everytime that happened, there was a new wedge added to our relationship. I cleared my throat. “I think you can turn now.”

We were quiet as Liz searched for a parking spot, finally finding a mostly secluded one outside of the Dick’s Sporting Goods store, or preferred entrance. We went in and I tried to remember the last time I’d visited this mall, since if I really wanted to go shopping, there was one not even three minutes from the funeral home. I racked my brain, but all I could come up with was when Liz, Andrea, and I had gone Black Friday shopping at three in the morning back in November.

Once we got to the food court, Liz and I went our separate ways to get dinner. I opted for McDonald’s while she went to some sub place. She got through her line faster than I did, so she went off to find a semi-clean table. I located her and checked my phone for the time. We had about half an hour before our movie, which seemed about just enough time to eat dinner if we didn’t spend the whole time bull-shitting.

“What are we going to see again?” Liz asked, spreading ketchup all over one of her fries.

“It’s called Silver Linings Playbook,” I replied. “I think it’s about a bipolar guy. It’s got that girl from The Hunger Games in it, and Bradley Cooper is the main character.”

“Where do I know that name from?” she asked thoughtfully.

“He was in The Hangover movies,” I said. “He played Phil.”

“Oh yeah!” she remarked in realization. “Well, I know I’ll like this movie then. He’s hot.” I laughed with her and watched her eyes drift over towards the Starbucks kiosk. “Speaking of hot…”

I followed her line of vision and caught a glimpse of Jake, walking away with his unmistakable bowlegs. He was carrying two cups of Starbucks coffee and caught up to some blonde girl, handing her one of them.

“You should go say hi,” Liz suggested, raising her eyebrows in faux seduction.

I watched as the girl stood on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. I must have frowned since Liz looked back at them. “Nah. I don’t think so.”

“Who is that girl?” Liz tried to figure out. “I think I know her.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I averted my eyes, but not quickly enough to miss Jake sling his arm loosely around her shoulders.

“I know you,” Liz insisted. “It matters to you. Something’s up.”

“It really doesn’t matter to me,” I shrugged, taking a bite of one of my last chicken nuggets. “I’ve known the guy for, what, a week? I’ve spoken to him three, maybe four times. That doesn’t exactly make for a profound bond.” I finished off my last piece of chicken and pointed to Liz’s sub. “Come on, hurry up and finish your food. We’re gonna miss the beginning of the movie.”

Luckily, Liz let the subject drop. I didn’t want to talk about how irritating it was to me that he hadn’t mentioned that he’d had a girlfriend, and I especially did not want to talk about what our non-date date the next night would mean now. Most importantly, I did not want to talk about the sinking feeling in my stomach that I’d felt when she kissed his cheek. Instead, I wanted to lose myself in someone else’s life for the next two hours, which is precisely what I did. Despite being seated way too close to the screen to really enjoy the movie without developing a headache, the movie served its purpose in allowing me to forget about things for a little while. It was also pretty pleasing to see good, imperfect people get a happy ending for a change.

When the movie was over, Liz and I got some ice cream and shuffled out to the car, rehashing our favorite parts of the film. The whole ride home was spent laughing about irrelevant jokes and carrying on light-hearted conversation. Around nine-thirty, we arrived back at the FH and Liz asked me if she could practice some of her cosmetology skills on me. I agreed, and we headed upstairs. Liz immediately went into my bathroom to set up, so I joined Dad on the couch for a few minutes.

“Hey,” he greeted. I noticed the wine glass in his hand immediately. Lately it seemed like it was glued there every evening. “How was the movie?”

“It was really good,” I replied. “We’ll have to get it when it comes out.”

He nodded. “Cool. Is Liz still here?”

“She’s in the bathroom,” I confirmed. “She wants to do my hair or something. Is it okay if she spends the night?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Liz is always welcome. You both know that. Oh, by the way, 65th got a call in.” We had a sister funeral home in a rather bad neighborhood in downtown Cleveland, run by my dad’s second cousins. They owned the majority share of Polanski Funeral Home, though my dad and I handled more funeral per year than they did. The 65thers, as we called them, were a miserable, cold group of people, though I had to admit that they were efficient in their business.

“Glory hallelujah,” I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess. The layout’s supposed to be here, right?” Even when 65th did get calls in, they normally had the visitations at our place since most people were not willing to risk the crime factor within their neighborhood.

“Yeah,” Dad nodded. “It’s for Monday. See if you can get Jake to come work the door, will you?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “I’ll ask him about it when he comes tomorrow. Is there anything else I should do?”

He shook his head. “Not really. They wanted you to send in the newspaper notice for the obits, though.”

“I’ll do it in the morning,” I said.

“Thanks,” Dad nodded. He turned his attention back to the TV for a few more moments until he heard Liz walking into the family room. He turned around to look at her. “Hey Liz, how’s it going?”

“It’s going well,” she said. “How’re you?”

Dad pointed to his half empty bottle of wine sitting on the end table. “Fantastic. Congratulations on the baby, by the way.”

Liz’s face faltered for a split second, but she regained her composure and smiled. “Thank you. We’re excited.” She looked to me now. “You ready?”

“Yep,” I nodded and got up, following her back to the bathroom. She’d taken the stool from the kitchen that we used for the little desk area of our kitchen counter and set it up in the middle of my bathroom in front of the mirror. She had her scissors and whatnot lying out on the counter and had also retrieved my blow-dryer, as well as adding several unknown bottles and sprays to the countertop. “I don’t know that I agreed to this.”

“You did,” Liz said. “I said I needed someone to practice on, and you said yes. There’s no getting out of this now. So sit.”

I obeyed and let her play with my hair for a little while. She soon decided that I needed to trim my hair of its split ends, which I allowed her to do as well. I had to draw the lines at the styling products, though. “I don’t need any of this stuff, Liz. It’s too heavy for my hair. It’s pretty Goddamn thin, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“This will make it look fuller,” she insisted. “Please just try it.”

“Why, though?” I asked. “There’s no point. I don’t see anyone anyway. I answer the door occasionally and that’s about all the face to face interaction I get, aside from you and my family.”

“Well, you’re going to school this semester, aren’t you?” she asked. “Do you or do you not want someone to notice you?”

“I choose not,” I grimaced, flashing back to my days of attempting to make friends in the smoking section. I’d gotten hit on by this really creepy guy, who didn’t stop bothering me for about two weeks. It got so irritating that I refused to go outside for fear that he might find me. “The only people that ever like me anyway are either mentally disturbed guys or other girls.”

“Maybe someone normal will notice you if you’d play your hair up a little,” Liz suggested. “It just hangs in your face. How do you expect someone like Jake to notice you if they can’t see your face?”

I threw my hands in the air. “How did Jake get dragged into this conversation?” I shook my head. “I don’t even know how to use any of this shit anyway.”

“I can show you,” she offered. “It’s not difficult.”

I shook my head again. “No thanks.” Liz looked discouraged, and I immediately felt bad for being so difficult. I tried to backtrack. “Not tonight, anyway. I’m kind of tired.”

Liz sighed. “I kind of am, too. Blow-dry your hair and I’ll see you in your bedroom.”

She went through the connecting door to go change into her pajamas and to go get comfortable in the bed. When I was done blow-drying my hair, I had to admit that Liz had done a good job on my haircut. I glanced at the product she’d left out and studied each bottle individually before setting them all back down. I joined her in my bedroom and slid under my satin sheets after turning the lights off. I was just starting to fall asleep when Liz asked, “So what are you going to do about Jake?”

“What do you mean?” I grumbled. Please, I silently pleaded, please just shut up and go the fuck to sleep. This was once conversation I was not prepared for.

“Well, we saw him with that girl earlier,” Liz said. “That’s something.”

“Not really,” I replied. “The guy’s entitled to do what he wants. I don’t really know him.”

“But you like him,” Liz insisted.

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t. You can think someone is good-looking and a nice person without having to like them in that way. I appreciate that he’s been really helpful to my dad and me, but that’s about it.”

Liz was quiet for a moment. “I think you’re lying to yourself.”

“And I think you’re trying to find something where there’s nothing,” I snapped.

“Whatever,” she sighed. “I saw the look on your face. You were disappointed. But if you want to keep denying it, that’s fine. For now.” I ignored her and turned over, rolling my eyes. She continued talking. “See, I did the same thing when it came to Matt.”

“You knew Matt for like a year before you started going out,” I reminded her. “And you were friends first. You had a lot of time to get to know each other before you decided you liked each other. I’ve known Jake for a week. If anything, there’s a mild attraction. But that’s it.”

“Well, at least we’re getting somewhere,” Liz said. “Admitting attraction is the first step.”

I sighed dramatically. “Can we talk about something else now? Or go to bed?”

“Yeah, sure,” Liz agreed. “I meant to tell you thanks for the movie earlier.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Nothing like free movie passes. Nicest thing my godfather’s ever done for me.” My godfather was one of the 65thers, and he was typically pretty miserable to be around anymore. “I’m just glad it didn’t suck.”

“Yeah, that would’ve blown,” she said. We left it at that, I started to drift off to sleep yet again. Liz reached over and kicked me lightly, waking me right up again. “Hey, Veronica? Thanks for not bringing up the baby. I appreciate it.”

There was a certain vulnerability in her voice, almost child-like. I turned back over to face her. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m just so sick of talking about it all the time,” she elaborated. “It’s what every Goddamn conversation I have is about. It was just really nice to go out and not think about it for a little while.”

“Sure,” I repeated. “I can understand that.” I was really just starting to realize how scared and nervous Liz was about having this baby. It would really put everything on hold for her and Matt, but they were facing it head on. “If you do decide you want to talk about it, though, I’m here.”

“I know,” she said. “Thank you.” She laughed a little. “And if you ever decide you want to talk about Jake, I’m here, too.”