In the front, Dex flicked the MP3 player until The Beatles Abbey Road came on and gave Jenn a playful nudge with his elbow. She looked at him, coyly peering over the edge of her designer shades, and smiled in return. It seemed to be some little inside joke or perhaps telepathic couplespeak for something.
I looked away from them and kept my eyes on the road. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been the day before but it still made me feel funny inside.
“Something” came on, one of my favorite Beatles songs.
At least it was, until Dex started to sing along with it. I had to look. He was eyeing me in the rearview mirror while carefully crooning to the most poignant parts. I shook my head and looked away.
Dex continued the sing along with the next song, “Maxwell Silver Hammer.” He was louder this time and to my horrible surprise, Jenn started to sing along too. They traded off verses like some Paul and John session, and when the chorus kicked in, they both began to act out the hammer hits with their hands, in tune with the rhythm. They were smiling at each other, singing at the top of their lungs, and having the world’s most stomach-turning karaoke competition in the front of the car. And to a song that was essentially about a serial killer with a hammer.
I felt sick. My face scrunched up at their cutesy, song-sharing coupleness. Abbey Road was now forever ruined for me.
Luckily the song wasn’t long and Jenn stopped singing as soon as “Oh Darling” came on. Dex kept going, of course. I mean, he was really letting ‘er rip. I tried not to be won over by his vocal prowess but it was hard, especially when he rolled down the window and started howling with Paul at the most passionate, throat-burning parts.
Jenn made an annoyed sigh and smacked him on the shoulder. “What are you doing? Roll up the window. No one wants to hear you.”
He ignored her and kept belting it out the window to the bemusement of the cars and pedestrians going past. A few of them gave him the thumbs up for the free performance on wheels.
“I’m serious, you’re so fucking embarrassing,” she sneered, and for the first time, I didn’t find her so pretty anymore.
I quickly eyed Dex to see his reaction. He stopped singing and gave her one hell of a look. Had I mentioned that Dex was the king of looks that could kill? It was one of those looks. I waited with bated breath for Jenn to explode into flames and I was glad I was sitting far away in the back seat.
She didn’t burst into flames, unfortunately, but she did push her shades further up against her face and brought out her phone. She started texting someone, ignoring the bolts of brimstone that were shooting out from Dex’s fiery glare.
Finally, he brought his attention back to the road before we almost rear-ended a van, turned down the volume on the stereo and we rode the rest of the way to Capitol Hill in relative silence. It was fucking weird. They had gone from a sickening, “in love” couple doing a duet to the complete opposite in the span of two songs. Who knew the Beatles were still so controversial.
The lunch, then, was brutal for all of us. Dex and Jenn weren’t talking to each other and Jenn wasn’t talking to me, which left Dex and me making careful small talk with each other, dancing around subjects like two characters in a play. When Jenn got up to go make a phone call outside, Dex exhaled loudly and comically collapsed across his chicken club sandwich.
I watched him anxiously, rubbing the edges of my fingernails. He eventually lifted his head and a small, tired smile tugged at his lips and the corners of his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” I told him, trying to sound cool, like I was an impartial friend and not at all invested in the decline of his relationship. “Couples fight all the time.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. Then sighed, sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his eyes unfocused.
“Am I making things worse?” I asked.
“Worse? No, kiddo. Things aren’t worse. This is just the way it is sometimes.”
What I think he meant to say was that “this is just the way it is all the time” but he was trying to save face. I didn’t know why. Why did he bother with her? Why did he bother moving with her? Why did he bother getting a dog with her? I didn’t understand any of it. Did he love her? Was that it? Did he actually truly love her and was too afraid to let go?
I could have gone on with these questions, as I often did, but I stopped myself and forced myself to think about something else. This was the only way I was going to get over him. Get over him as he sat across from me. I turned my attention to the other people in the restaurant, trying to focus on something, anything else. I picked up on a group of girls my age who were giggling with each other over a Smartphone they were passing around the table. I envied them. It was working.
Jenn came back to table after her phone call was over. She stopped in front of us, leaned over to Dex, moved his face over to hers and kissed him passionately on the lips. There were tongue and slobbering sounds involved. My eyes widened, watching them, unable to look away.
When she pulled back, he looked dumbstruck, while she gave me a quick, sly wink. It either said, men are simple or it said, oh no you don’t. I’d put bets on the latter.
“Excuse me,” I blurted out, quickly getting out of my chair, which rattled loudly against the tiled floor, and hurried my way over to the restaurant’s bathroom before I burst into tears.
I entered the washroom, which was thankfully empty, and ran the tap, splashing an endless amount of cold water on my face. I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry. I was going to get out of the damn city without a single tear leaving my face.
When I calmed down a bit, I gently patted my face with a paper towel and leaned against the mirror. I needed to get a hold of myself. I was tired of being fine and tough one minute and then losing it the next. What the hell was wrong with me? Jenn, Dex, they both had way too much power over me and my emotions. This had to stop. Now.
I breathed in a few times through my nose until I felt under control and then went into the stall to pee. I thought about this Bradley fellow. Maybe I’d ask Rebecca tomorrow about setting me up with him. Maybe he was just the distraction I needed from this whole Dex and Jenn business. Plus, the fact that both of them seemed totally against it, was finally sounding intriguing.
As I pondered this exciting diversion, I heard the door to the washroom open and a woman enter, her heels slowly making their way down toward the mirrors. She absolutely reeked of gin, the tangy scent of juniper flooding the bathroom. That, coupled with the slight unevenness of her gait, made me think that this girl was pissed off her gourd.