“Hang on,” he said. “She just walked in the door.”
I could hear the sounds of their children talking in the background. I’d never expected Mal to be a dad. He was like a male version of me, once upon a time. He was always up for a good time. But now he was settled and happy and a dad and a husband.
And he still didn’t like me. Even though I’d once let him fuck me in the bathroom at the Pancake House. I knew how many germs there were in a Pancake House bathroom, and I still let him prop me right there on the sink and have at it. That should earn me a favor fifteen years later, shouldn’t it?
Mal had covered the mouthpiece of the phone, but I could still hear him. “I have no idea why she’s calling…something about a favor… I know she’s fucking nuts, but she wants to talk to you… Lynn is out of town and she needs…well, something. I don’t know.”
They muttered back and forth for about two more minutes, and I could hear only about half of what they said.
“Hello?” Aubrey said cautiously into the phone.
“Hi Aubrey,” I said, trying to sound cheery. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you. And you?” Her voice was clipped and crisp, kind of like the lady who answered the phone at my gynecologist’s office.
“I’m doing well,” I said. I hesitated.
“Shelly,” she said. I heard her blow out a breath and imagined her wincing. “What can I do for you?”
“Well…” I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “I need some advice and Lynn’s not here.” And I didn’t have a single friend I could call because I never thought it was important enough to make people like me.
“Okay…” she said slowly. Then she rushed ahead and asked, “And what made you think it would be a good idea to call me?”
“You’re the next closest thing I have to a friend.” It was true. Aubrey was Lynn’s friend, but I saw her when I went over to Lynn’s house all the time, and we had exchanged cordial words since I got out of the hospital, since I’d apologized. Sure, we had never been buddies or besties or whatever the fuck the word was nowadays, but she knew me and I knew her. “I’m going on a date tonight.”
“And?” Again, clipped and short.
“And I’ve never been on one before.”
Silence. Then I heard a rustle as she tried to cover the mouthpiece like Mal had. She failed as badly as he did. “Mal,” she called. I heard him grunt at her, and then she said, “You and Shelly dated, didn’t you?”
“Nope,” Mal replied.
“Yes, you did,” she shot back.
“Nope,” he said. “We fucked. We never dated.”
I could hear him clear as day.
“What’s the difference?” she asked.
“Between fucking and dating?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“Well, one is fucking and one is dating.”
“And that means…?”
“One is biological and one is emotional.”
“Which one’s emotional?” she asked.
“Dating is emotional.”
“And you and Shelly never had emotional…stuff.”
“Nope. Just fucking.”