Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren

THREE

HAZEL

I’m sure the man in front of me understands my dilemma—nay, I’m sure he sees this several times a day. “Indecision personified,” I say, pointing to my chest. “The problem here is you have so many good choices.”

“Um.” The PetSmart cashier stares at me, maneuvering his gum from one side of his mouth to the other. “I can try to help?”

“I’m deciding between a betta fish and a guinea pig.”

“I mean, that’s kind of a big difference?” His glasses slowly slide down his nose, and I’m transfixed because their path is halted by an enormous, angry whitehead perched there like a doorstop.

“But if it were you,” I say, waggling my eyebrows, “what direction would you go? Fish or furry? I already have a dog”—I gesture to the leashed Winnie at my side—“and a rabbit, and a parrot. They just need one more friend.”

The teenager looks at me like I’m completely lacking any marbles. “I mean—”

“Lick it good.”

He stares at me and it takes me a beat to realize it’s my phone that’s just blasted these three words from Khia’s “My Neck, My Back (Lick It).”

I burst into motion, scrambling for my purse. “Oh, God!”

“Suck this pussy just like you should, right now.”

“Oh my God, oh my God.” I fumble inside my bag, pulling the phone out.

“Lick it good.”

“Oh—I’m so sorry—”

“Suck this pussy just like you should, my neck, my back …”

I drop my phone and have to push Winnie’s excited, exploring nose away from it before I can grab it—“Lick my pussy and my crack”—and silence it with the swipe of a finger.

“Emily!”I sing-yell to cover my abject horror, and apologize to the elderly pug owner looking at leashes. I may have just given her a stroke. Her dog is now barking maniacally, setting off Winnie, who sets off three other dogs in line to check out at the registers. One squats to poop from all the stress.

“Good God, Hazel, where are you?”

“PetSmart.” I wince. “Getting … something?”

The line falls dead for several seconds and I look at the screen to see if I’ve lost the call. “Hello?”

“You think what your apartment needs is another animal?” she asks.

“I’m not getting a Great Dane, we’re talking rodent or fish.” I look up at the PetSmart employee—Brian, he’s apparently named—and excuse myself with a tiny humiliated wave. “By the by, old friend,” I say to Emily, “did you perchance change my ringtone again?”

“I couldn’t stand that Tommy Boy line one more time—I’m not even kidding.”

I imagine sending a flock of dragons to her house to feast on her. At the very least a hungry swarm of mosquitoes. “So Khia is better? Sweet Jesus, you could have just made it ring.”

She laughs. “I was sending a message. Stop using all these weird ringtones, or turn your phone on silent.”

“You are so bossy.”

As anticipated, she ignores this. “Look, is it cool if I give Josh your number?”

“Not if he’s going to call me before I have a chance to change the ringtone.”

“We’re out shopping,” she tells me. “He’s such a sad sack now that Tabitha is in L.A., and I know you guys had fun at the party. I just want him to get out more.”

I hear Josh’s sullen growl in the background: “I’m not a sad sack.”

The idea of hanging out with Josh Im makes me oddly giddy. The idea of hanging out with a sad sack Josh Im sounds like a challenge. “Ask him if he wants to come over for lunch tomorrow!”

Emily turns, repeating the request presumably to Josh, and then there’s silence.

A lot of silence.

Awkward.

I imagine a host of sibling glares being fired back and forth like bullets:

Way to put me on the spot, jerk!

You’d better say yes or you’re going to make her feel bad!

I hate you so much right now, Emily!

She’s not as crazy as she seems, Josh!

Finally, she comes back. “He says he’d love to.”

“Great.” I bend down, making fish kisses at the beautiful teal betta I think I’m going to adopt. “Tell him to bring takeout from Poco India when he comes.”

“Hazel!”

I burst out laughing. “I’m kidding, oh my God. I’ll make lunch. Tell him to come over anytime after eleven.” I end the call and pick up the fish in the tiny plastic cup. “You are going to love your new family.”

..........

Winnie and I head out with fish in hand to meet Mom for lunch. My mom moved to Portland from Eugene a few years ago, when I finished college and it became apparent that I was unlikely to move back home anytime soon. I’m far more my mother’s daughter than my father’s, personality-wise, but I look exactly like my dad: dark hair, dark eyes, dimple in the left cheek, wiry and not as tall as I’d like to be. Mom, on the other hand, is tall, blond, and curvy in all the best snuggly-mom ways.

My dad was a decent parent, I suppose, but the predominant emotion I got from him throughout my life was disappointment that I wasn’t sporty. A son would have been ideal, but a tomboy would have sufficed. He wanted someone to jog in the park with, and throw around a football with for a couple of hours. He wanted weekend-long sportsball tournaments, with shouting and maybe some unfriendly opposing-team fatherly shoving. Instead, he got a goofy chatterbox daughter who wanted to raise chickens, sang Captain and Tennille in the shower, and worked at the pumpkin patch every fall since she was ten because she liked dressing up as a scarecrow. If I wasn’t entirely bewildering to him, then I was surely more work than he’d signed up for.

My parents divorced when I was twenty and happily established with a life and friends in Portland. I’ll be honest: I wasn’t the least bit surprised. My response reveals me to be the monster I am because primarily I was irritated that I would have to make two separate stops when I went home, and when I visited Dad, Mom wouldn’t be the buffer of joy anymore.

But even though I knew I was technically an adult at twenty, I kept telling myself that Dad and I would bond when I was older … when I was out of college … that he’d be so proud at my wedding someday … that he’d make a great grandpa because he could play and then hand back the kid and return to the game without a wife glaring at him from across the room.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the cards. Dad died a few weeks before Christmas the year I turned twenty-five. He was at work, and, according to his longtime coworker Herb, Dad basically sat down at his desk and said, “I’m feeling tired,” fell unconscious, and never woke up.

A weird honesty developed between my mom and I after Dad died. I always knew that my parents didn’t have the tightest romantic bond, but I didn’t realize how flat they had been, either, to the point that they were essentially two strangers moving around the same house. The ways I’m like Mom—a little wacky, I admit—were totally exasperating to Dad. Mom and I are both huggers, maybe overly enthusiastic about the things we love, and terrible joke tellers. But where I love animals and costumes and seeing faces in clouds and singing in the shower, Mom favors making wild skirts out of bold fabrics, creating artwork out of colored glass, wearing flowers in her hair, quoting musicals, and dancing while mowing the front lawn in her red cowboy boots.

Dad couldn’t stand her eccentricities, even though they’re what attracted him in the first place. I remember clearly one fight they had in front of me where he told her, “I hate it when you act like a weirdo out in public. You’re so fucking embarrassing.”

I don’t know how to explain it. I was fourteen when he said that to her, and those last four words broke something in me. I saw myself and Mom from the outside in a way I hadn’t before, like Dad represented this mainstream ideal and she and I were these loud, bouncing yellow dots outside of the standard curve.

When I looked up at her, I’d expected her to be shattered by what he’d said. But instead, she looked at him pityingly, like she wanted to console him but knew it would be a wasted effort. Dad missed out on so much by not enjoying every second he had with her, and in the end, she was terribly disappointed that he was so dull. I learned a very important thing that day: my mom would never try to change for a man, and I wouldn’t, either.

..........

She’s waiting for me at Barista when we walk up, but it’s apparent that she’s really been awaiting Winnie, because it’s a full two minutes of puppy voice and ear ruffling before I even get a glance. At least it gives me time to decide what I’m going to order.

Mom looks up just as the waitress delivers a muffin and latte to her. “Hey, Hazie.”

“You already ordered?”

“I was hungry.” With a hand bearing rings on every finger, Mom peels the paper wrapping away from the muffin, staring down at Winnie. “I bet I could drop this entire thing and she wouldn’t notice.”

I order a curry chicken salad and black coffee and look over at my dog. Mom’s right, she’s obsessed with the trio of speckled finches under the table next to us, casually pecking at sandwich crumbs. I can see Winnie’s insanity ratcheting higher with every peck.

A car honks, a couple passes by with Winnie’s favorite thing ever—a baby in a stroller—and nothing.

But then Mom drops a huge chunk of muffin and Winnie pounces on it in a flash as if she sensed some change in the atmospheric pressure. Her movement is so fast and predatory that the birds burst away, escaping into a tree.

Mom drops another piece of muffin.

“Knock it off, you’re ruining her.”

“She’s named Winnie the Poodle,” Mom reminds me. “Already ruined.”

“Because of you I can’t eat a single meal without her watching me like I’m dismantling a bomb. You’re making her fat.”

Mom leans down and kisses Winnie on the nose. “I’m making her happy. She loves me.” This time, Winnie catches the bite of muffin before it even lands on the sidewalk.

“You’re the worst.”

Mom sings to my dog, “Best, best, best.”

“Best,” I agree, thanking the waitress when she delivers my coffee. “By the way, Sassypants, I like your haircut.”

Mom reaches up, touching it like she forgot she had hair, without any self-consciousness whatsoever. She’s always worn it long, mostly because she does forget it’s there, and luckily it’s low maintenance: thick and straight. Now it’s trimmed so it lands just below her shoulders, and for the first time ever, there are some layers at the front.

I reach over, touching the ends. “Call me crazy but it looks like you actually had someone else cut it this time.”

“I couldn’t do layers like this,” she agrees. “Wendy has a girl who does her hair.” Wendy is Mom’s best friend, who moved up to Portland about ten years ago, and was another draw for Mom to relocate here. Wendy is a Republican first, a real estate agent second, and any time left over she devotes to hassling her husband, Tom, about being lazy. I love her because she’s basically family, but honestly I have no idea what she and Mom ever find to talk about. “I went to see her yesterday. I think her name was Bendy. Something like that.”

Delight fills me like sunshine. “Please let it be Bendy. That is fantastic.”

Mom frowns. “Wait. Brandy. I think I combined Brandy and Wendy.”

I laugh into a hot sip. “I think you did.”

“Anyway, I hadn’t cut it in forever, and Glenn seems to like it.”

I pause and then take another long, deliberate sip as Mom looks directly at me, her green eyes shining with mischief.

“Glenn, eh?” I pretend to twirl my mustache.

She hums and spins her rings.

“You’ve been seeing a lot of him lately.” Glenn Ngo is a podiatrist from Sedona, Arizona, and about four inches shorter than Mom. They met when she went in because her feet were killing her, and instead of telling her to stop wearing her cowboy boots, he just gave her some orthopedic inserts for them and then asked her out to dinner.

Who says romance is dead?

I knew they were dating but I didn’t know they were I’ll cut my hair the way you like it since I have zero vanity dating.

“Mom,” I whisper, “have you and Glenn …?” I dunk my spoon in and out of my coffee cup a few times.

Her eyes widen and she grins.

I gasp. “You floozy.”

“He’s a podiatrist!”

“That’s exactly my point!” I drop my voice to a hush, joking, “They’re known fetishists.”

“You shut up,” she says, laughing as she leans back in her chair. “He’s good to me, and he likes to garden. I’m not saying anything for certain, but there’s a chance he might be visiting on a more … permanent basis.”

“Shacking up! I am scandalized!”

She gives me a cheeky smile and takes a sip of her drink.

“Does he mind the singing?” I ask.

Her look of victory is everything. “He does not.”

Our eyes hold, and our smiles turn from playful to something softer. Mom found a good one, someone I can tell really gets her. An ache pokes at my chest. Without having to say it, I know we both question whether those guys really exist. The world seems full of men who are initially infatuated by our eccentricities, but who ultimately expect them to be temporary. These men eventually grow bewildered that we don’t settle down into calm, potential-wifey girlfriends.

“What about you?” she asks. “Anyone … around?”

“What’s with the emphasis? You mean, around inside my pants?” I take a bite of the salad deposited in front of me and Mom gives a little Yeah, that’s not exactly what I meant but go ahead shrug.

“No.” I straighten and push away the mild concern that her question immediately triggered this next thought: “But guess who I did run into? No, never mind, you’ll never guess. Remember my anatomy TA?”

She shakes her head, thinking. “The one with the prosthetic leg on your roller derby team?”

“No, the one I wrote the email to while high on painkillers.”

Mom’s laugh is this breathy little twinkle. “Now, that I remember. The one you liked so much. Josh something.”

“Josh Im. I also threw up on his shoes.” I decide to leave out the roommate sex for now. “So, weirdest thing: he’s Emily’s brother!”

This seems to take a few seconds for Mom to process. “Emily your Emily?”

“Yes!”

“I thought Emily’s last name was Goldrich?”

I love that it would never occur to my mother that a woman would take her husband’s name. “She’s married, Mom. That’s her married name.”

She feeds Winnie a handful of muffin crumbs. “So, you and her brother …?”

“No. God no. I’m an established idiot with him, and he’s most likely a Normal Dude.” Our shared code for the kind of man who wouldn’t appreciate our particular brand of nuts. “Besides, he has a girlfriend. Tabitha,” I can’t help but add meaningfully, and Mom makes a yeeesh face. “He calls her Tabby.”

Mom’s yeeesh face deepens.

“I know, right?” I poke at my salad. “But he’s actually pretty cool? Like, you wouldn’t look at him and automatically think he’s a banker.”

“Well, what is he?”

“A physical therapist. He’s all muscley.” I maneuver an enormous piece of lettuce into my mouth to beat down the image of Josh Im working his strong hands over my sore thighs.

Mom doesn’t say anything to this; she seems to be waiting for more, so I swallow with effort and venture onward into Babble County.

“We hung out together at Emily’s barbecue last night, and it’s weird because I feel like since he’s already seen me at my most insane, and he has a girlfriend, I don’t have to try to pull up the crazy plane around him. I always wanted to be friends with him and here he is! My new friend! And he looks at me like I’m this fascinating bug. Like a beetle, not a butterfly, and it’s fine because he already has a butterfly and when you think about it, beetles are pretty great. It’s nice.” For some inexplicable reason, I repeat it again. “It’s nice.”

“That is nice.” The way Mom studies me is making me feel like I forgot to dress myself this morning; it’s with this Does my adult daughter know her own mind? kind of maternal focus.

I shake my head at her and she laughs, absently petting Winnie.

“You” is all she says.

I growl. “No, you.”

She looks back at me with such adoration. “You, you, you.”