Kinky Confessions

Brooke smiled at her and then pulled into the driveway of a largish Spanish-style house with a tall privacy fence. She turned off the engine, and we all sat in silence for a moment.

“I feel like such a loser,” she said at last.

“You aren’t. You’re pretty normal. And,” I added after a suitable pause,

“I think we all just wanna hang out. It doesn’t matter where. The beach, the pool, wherever.”

So we hauled the picnic basket and the girls’ beach bags through the gate and into the back yard. It was a lot larger than it looked from the street, with a pool and huge expanse of well-groomed lawn.

“Wow, this is nice,” I said. “No wonder Christy wanted to stay here instead of her parents’ house.”

“Mmm hmm,” Brooke agreed. “While I’ve been studying or finishing research papers.”

“Well, now, hold on…,” I said gently. “To be fair, you also did a lot of partying. I mean, you were both drinking every time I talked to you on the phone.”

“It was all her fault,” Brooke said.

“Mine?” Christy squawked. “You drink like a fish. An Irish fish!”

“I drink like a fish? You do!”

It was a friendly argument, one they’d clearly had often, and it was just what Brooke needed to lift her out of her funk.

“Do you think it’s too early to start drinking?” she asked.

I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even noon, but I said, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

“Do we have any whiskey left?” Christy asked.

“No, we drank it all. Remember?”

“Even the Seagram’s?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What about the wine?”

“Gone.”

Christy rolled her eyes. “Okay, then what do we have?”

“Everything else. How about rum?”

“Do we have any fruit juice?”

“How should I know?” Brooke shot back. “You’re the one who’s been here all week. You really don’t pay attention, do you? Come on, let’s look.”

She stopped and glanced uncertainly at me.

“I’ll make myself comfortable. You all go make something alcoholic.

Sounds like you both need it.”

Christy smiled gratefully and then came over for a kiss. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For being the most awesome boyfriend in the world.”

“My pleasure. Now, run along.”

They disappeared inside, and I surveyed the house. It had been built sometime in the sixties, but its design was from an earlier era, Spanish Colonial Revival. The pool had been added later, probably in the mid-seventies. Whoever had done it had also added a pergola over the patio. The two styles didn’t quite match, but that was the appeal of American architecture sometimes.

I kicked off my shoes and scrunched my toes in the grass, which was warm from the sun. We were far enough inland that the sea breeze didn’t reach us, although the house and fence would’ve blocked most of it if it had.

The temperature was balmy in the sun and mild in the shade, and a lot less humid than I was used to in either case.

The girls returned about ten minutes later with a pitcher and three large plastic cups with ice.

“We made mai tais,” Christy said. “Sort of.”

“She drank all the juice, so we had to use Hawaiian Punch,” Brooke explained.

“That stuff has nothing to do with Hawaii.”

“At least we had the right kinds of rum.”

I kept my mouth shut and smiled politely when Christy handed me a cup.

She poured one for Brooke and then herself, and we settled into chairs around the table. The pergola did little to shade us from the midday sun, but I wasn’t about to complain, since the weather was a far cry from the cold and wet that I’d left in Atlanta.

We made small talk for a few minutes and then the conversation shifted to school. I asked about Brooke’s major and made a fool of myself when she told me.

“I’m sorry, did you say engineering?”

“Yes, bioengineering,” she repeated. “Why?”

“Nothing,” I said hastily, and tried to cover my faux pas. “I just thought you’d be more like Christy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Christy herself asked.

“That she’d be artistic or something.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said, unconvinced.

Note to self, I thought, women can do anything men can, which includes being an engineer.

Christy read my expression and must have realized what I’d just said to myself. She let me off the hook, but I was clearly on probation.

I silently thanked her and returned my attention to Brooke.

“We’re alike in lots of other ways,” she was saying, “but I’m good at math and science. Besides, it’s sort of the family business.”

Her parents were scientists, she explained. Her father was a Faculty Chair at the Salk Institute, and her mother was a molecular biologist at a pharmaceutical company.

“That’s why they’ve been gone all week,” she added. “They’re not exactly in the same fields, but close enough, and they had a big conference in Toronto.”

“That makes sense. Not why they’re gone,” I added, “but why you’re so smart. Good genes.” I was flattering her, but I was also being honest. “Sorry about before. I was being a male chauvinist. I should’ve known better.”

“You should’ve,” Christy agreed.

“Let me make up for it,” I said. “I’ll fix another pitcher of drinks.”