Chapter two: Let's drink with Jane Rose

Chapter two:

A streaked reflection cast in silver stared back at me. A clump of white banana spilt ice cream spilt my image in half. “Am I broken?”

“No Sweetie,” a voice clucked behind me. “But please don’t get ice cream on my carpet. I just got it.” I turned to the voice dunking my spoon back in the carton.

“You sure Brandon? Like sure- sure?” He scoffed shaking his perfectly gelled hair. “I mean it.”

“We should put the ice cream away, you’re having sugar hallucinations.”

“A smart man doesn’t remove the ice cream.” Plucking my spoon out of the carton.

“Well lucky for you I’m gay. An awesome, male upgrade.” I laughed as he covertly snatched away. Two shot glasses were placed between us. “And don’t worry about the ice cream we can fill the empty hole you have inside with vodka.” Ice cold citrus. He plopped down on the carpet across from me.

“Brag! Brag! How goes the dating scene?”

“Same as it ever is. Hopeless.”

“Hopeless? You, sir- jest.”

“Gasp!” He exclaimed with his hand to his heart. “Love makes cowards of us all!”

“What are bitching about!?’ You fall in and out of love more than anyone I have ever met in my life.”

“When I prayed at night as a child,” I stifled a snicker to watch him go about this oh too familiar line. Hell, it was familiar when we were children. “I prayed to fall in love!”

“Oh, buddy. Did you ever get answer to your prayers.”

“Over and over again. But never true love.”

“Ah, Rinse, lather and repeat?” He nodded sadly in my direction. “It’s alright sugar tits. Doesn’t exist!” His mouth dropped and he pushed me over.

“Still your tongue, Freaky Links.”

“Never.” I said pointing at him with my glass. “You’d still believe in Santa and the Easter bunny if I hadn’t said anything.”

“You’re such a skeptic. Don’t you believe in anything?”

“Yup, the fact and just the facts. And the facts say, true love doesn’t overcome. True love doesn’t conquer, it just moves on. And that my dear is exactly what love does. It just happens to have a better PR company than sex.”

“Sex is nice.”

“-And exactly the same thing,” His face crumpled back in horror. “Tell me I’m wrong.” His face went blank as it conceded with my logic. “That’s what I thought.”

“Well,” he said pouring it a shot. “It wouldn’t be a problem, if lovers didn’t become so boring. Then Love would be-”

“-Still just as unlikely,” I finished.

“I was going to say, true.”

“In other words, you’re still in love with the idea of love but not the upkeep?”

“Bitch.”

“Hag.” We took a shot.

“Dump truck,” he spat as he poured another.

“Hump dunk.”

“What? Is that even a thing?”

“It might be,” reeling from the burn, I poured another shot. “Let’s keep drinking and play mad gabs.” Brandon let loose a peel of laughter before he kicked back another shot. For those people in the live studio audience we were up to three shots a piece.

“Glad to see that your humor survived.”

“I’m to see that you too survived but how come you aren’t…”

“Old?” Yeah, right. That’d be the day. He never aged an inch to me but maybe because I saw him through the child eyes I had when we were kids.

“Different? Like I don’t know changed somehow.”

“Because I’m a one of a kind. Classic, if you will. Old Hollywood. You’ll be a bag of dust before I even outside of twenty something.” I chuckled.

“It’s comforting,” I said pouring us another shot.

“We should change to tequila, Vodka makes you mopey.” He started to slip the bottle away and I grabbed it.

“That’s terrible idea.” I said pouring another round for a party of one. “Especially since I was mopey to begin with,” I paused, “Wait you think Tequila this will make things better?”

“Of course not! But it will make you more interesting. Maybe loosen up a little.” He stood up and began to dance with an invisible partner. “Maybe get you to tango? Yes? With a hot Latina?”

“Oh god, I’m going to need more vodka!”

“Phst- As if you needed to!” He plopped back down.

“Can’t I pretend?”

“What’s the fun in that?” I rolled my eyes. “You are fun with or without vodka.” A lull sounded between as I looked to the bottom of my glass.

“That’s what normal people do, right?”

“What?”

“Blame it on anything else but yourself.”

“Yes but weeeee,” he said dragging it out. “Are not normal people.” I was about to say something when he put up his hand to cut me off. “Normal people are boring and let’s be honest, we aren’t.”

“Why do you think that is?” He edge of his mouth ticked back and made a clicking noise.

“Head shrinkers still trying to dissect your brain?”

“How’d you guess?” We took another shot.

“Because that sentence isn’t yours. You would ask how or you ask why but never why it is how is how it is because you know…” He left the sentence abandoned in the air and pointed to me.

“There are no answers let alone easy ones.”

“You out smart this set yet?”

“Noooooo,” I said drawing my attention only to him and not to my dowdy problems. “No. I’m going to get help this time, around.”

“I call bull shit.” He said shaking his head. “Just do me a favor this time around, ok?”

“Maybe. What is it?”

“Don’t get lost in their bullshit because they can’t figure out the answer easily. It’s not your fault. Shit happens.”

“Okay but if I do get lost I can always depend on you to pull my head out of my ass.” He nodded with a huge smile on his face. The silence filled the moment as the question swelled between us. “But something like this?” I finally said.

“Stranger things have happened. You don’t have to let it define you for the rest of your life.” I poured us another shot.

“You’re skating around the V word, I see.”

“No! I’ll say it right now. Victor. That’s what you are. Victor.”

“That’s not what I mean. Everyone is calling me a-”

“Don’t. Just don’t start down that path. Do you think of yourself as… That?”

“I didn’t,” I said quietly into the hush of the room.

“Past tense. Interesting. What about now?”

“I guess I don’t know.”

“Do you remember when we were in high school and I’d come over to your place so I didn’t have to go home.”

“Yes, I kept telling you we had a world outside of this town.” We were our own special band of misfits. Outside of the rumors and small town politics laid entire nations to discover. Why settle for the magazine when you could have a library? It felt weird to think of a time when sexual orientation was a label that defined an entire set path. Although the biggest twist was they thought I was gay or a hooker. Maybe it was a gay hooker; I never bothered to ask their opinions because they simply hadn’t mattered to me. They weren’t walking in my heels so why should I bother?

“When we were kids, people seemed so set to fix us because they thought we were broken. But I noticed that as I grew older, people seemed more likely to label us and stick in a box then try to figure out a logical answer.”

“Logical answer? This coming from a guy who still-“I paused. Five years gone and yes he does- “Still relies on an astrologer to do his stock market portfolio.”

“Silence, you hag! I made great money off that.”

“And your love life-” I laughed as I counted down numbers on my hand.

“I don’t get along with Aries. You should know this by now!”

“And your career as a phone sex consultant-” I pointed to my glass and he poured.

“That’s it! Shut your vodka hole. We’re having a moment.” Brandon took a double shot. “And for the record, Fanny Mae would totally take you. Give you some good luck your way.” I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“Does that line come with a coupon?” I said flatly.

“No, because I get the bonus referral.” I rolled over on my back to stare at the ceiling. “You’re not broken just because a bunch of people can’t figure out where you went or disappeared to.” He remarked while filled the air with quotation marks. “People feel helpless if they don’t have answer and maybe there is no answer.” My mind fogged and I asked him something that had been brewing in the back of my mind.

“Why haven’t you  ever asked the golden question?” He laid down opposite me with his head beside mine.

“For a few reasons, one you’d probably tell me first.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Secondly, if you had any answer for the,” He took a breath inward searching for the answer. “Unfortunate lapse of time. You wouldn’t be here with me; you’d be on a highway to hell scouring the earth’s surface for a lead. But that’s only if you had a barest sketch of a clue.” I laughed in disbelief. “I’m serious.” He remarked with a tilted tone. “I’ve seen you go on a ketchup stained napkin in the middle of Denny to find my cheating ex.”

“Ah, John Errand. What a douche. Was he an Aries?”

“Worse, Taurus.” He said turning his head toward me.

“God, I hated him,” I remarked under my breath. It was true, I hated this guy more than any he had ever dated. I was like a knee jerk to my gut. The very second I saw this guy. I hated him. Every inch of me hated him and I didn’t ever know why.

“That’s never been in question.”

“I tried to like him,” Brandon made a uh-huh noise in the back of his throat. “I did! Honest!” he shook his head his mock disbelief. Well, I did try. Just not hard. “Besides, were my hunches wrong?”

“I was in love.” He said with exasperation. “True love,” I rolled my eyes. True love my ass. He was balls deep in the maid in a motel six two miles outside town. Brandon had been one of the few people who loved with absolute abandon. If John wanted an open relationship, all he had to do was ask and maybe come clean about being Bisexual rather than sneaking around in the night. Possessive asshat. The best day of my life was when I beat the shit out of his car and lit it on fire. I smiled remembering the hot, melting faux suede. He sure took his time getting down to his precious car. Oh well, it granted me enough time to bust out some marshmallows and a lawn chair. Don’t judge, I carry around that stuff in my trunk. My only regret is that I didn’t have time to grab a six pack of domestic beer. Would have been awesome to chuck a cheap beer at his head.

“You may have been in love but he was not.” He tilted his head.

“You’re heartless!” He stated flatly.  “Utterly heartless. “

“No, if I had been heartless I would have simply delivered the evidence on your door and not seek fiery vengeance,” I paused. “Also, I’m a pieces. Which makes me super awesome, Hollywood.”

“You never told me how you found him,” he whispered softly.

“Triggers. I used triggers.”

“Oh your mind, remembering thingie.”

“Something like that.”

“Big bouncing red ball.” I laughed softly. “You see it lately?”

“No. Not since my first night back.”

“Have you tried?” he asked.

“That’s not how it works Brandon. It’s like a red beacon when I need to pay attention to something.”

“That reminds me,” he said popping up to his feet. “I got something for you.”

“The vodka was enough, honest.” I heard him pad to his room and shuffle through some drawers.

“Thank me when I get you laid,” he yelled.

“No thanks. Besides, I never get laid with the places you take me. Those guys never look at me because they are too busy looking at you.” I shouted and he responded with a loud bark of laughter.

“But it is fun to look!” He said peeking his head out the door.

“It’s like being a diabetic at an all you can eat ice cream buffet! It’s not fair!” He padded back to my side as I rolled over to fetch more vodka. The end was looking mighty bleak.  Maybe it was time to get a bottle of tequila.

“One of your saving graces, I assure you. But, it is evidence of your quest for answers when there are answers for said questions.” He dropped a red ball on the carpet and it bounced toward me dragging a light key chain behind it.

“I think you’ve had too much vodka for that sentence to make sense.” I rubbed my face.

“Or you’re looking for answers in the wrong places. Hopefully, this will give you some idea where to look next.” I held it in my hand and examined it. He poked me with toe. “Get up, we’re going out.”

“Is that some sort of joke? If so, it’s a bad one.”

“Why?” He asked jabbing me harder.

“I’m already buzzed.” I got to my feet and the world wasn’t completely moving.

“Excellent!” He grabbed my jacket and tossed it at me while sifting through his pile of black shoes for more acceptable black shoe. “You’re fun that way.”

“Cunt.”

“Harlot.” He found a pair and quickly put them on. “Now hurry up! The night is still young!” Dragging me out the door a dull truth became apparent. He, too, was buzzed but this was the life for two single bitches like us. Young (kinda), Dumb (okay, not really) and full of rum (soon, I hope).