The Air He Breathes
Page 9

I turned to Matty, a bit of shock in my stare. “You made Faye a manager?”
“I think she drugged me.” He laughed. “But if you really need some work, we always have room for you. It might just be part-time.”
“Part-time would be great, really, anything.” I smiled at Matty, thanking him.
“Or, we could fire Sam,” Faye offered. “He already has another part-time job! Plus, he’s kind of creepy.”
“I can hear you,” Sam said, shyly.
“It doesn’t matter if you can hear me, you’re fired.”
“We aren’t firing Sam,” Matty said.
“You’re no fun. But you know what is fun?!” She took off her apron and yelled, “Lunch break!”
“It’s nine-thirty in the morning,” Matty scolded.
“Breakfast break!” Faye corrected, pulling me by the arm. “We’ll be back in about an hour.”
“Breaks are thirty minutes.”
“I’m sure Sam will cover my tables. Sam, you’re no longer fired.”
“You were never fired, Sam.” Matty smiled. “One hour, Faye. Liz, make sure to have her back on time or she’ll be the one who’s fired.”
“Is that so?” Faye asked, placing her hands on her hips, almost…flirtatiously? Matty smirked at her, his eyes traveling over her body almost…sexually?
What the…?
We walked out of the building, Faye’s arm linked with mine, confusion about the odd interaction between her and Matty still clouding my thoughts. “What was that?” I asked, arching an eyebrow in Faye’s direction.
“What was what?”
“That,” I said, pointing back toward Matty. “The little sexually intense tango you two just performed?” She didn’t reply, but she began chewing on her bottom lip. “Oh my God… You slept with Matty?!”
“Shut the hell up! Do you want the whole town to know?” She blushed, looking around. “It was an accident.”
“Oh? Was it? Was it an accident? Were you casually walking down Main Street and then Matty started walking toward you and his penis accidentally tumbled out of his pants? Then did a strong whoosh of wind pass through, knocking said penis into your vagina? Was it that kind of accident?” I mocked.
“Not exactly like that.” She pushed her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “The wind kind of pushed the penis toward my mouth first.”
“OH MY GOSH, FAYE!”
“I know! I know! This is why people shouldn’t go out on windy days. The penises are on rampage on the windy days.”
“I cannot believe you right now. He’s like twice your age.”
“What can I say? I have daddy issues.”
“What are you talking about? Your dad’s amazing,” I said.
“Exactly. No guy our age could ever live up to that! But Matty…” She sighed. “I think I like him.”
That was shocking. Faye never used the word ‘like’ when it came to a guy. She was the biggest womanwhore I’d ever met. “What do you mean you like him?” I asked, my voice soaked with hope that my friend was finally planning on settling down.
“Whoa, slow your roll there, Nicholas Sparks. What I mean is, I like the dick. I even gave it a nickname. Do you want to hear it?”
“For the love of everything good in the world, no.”
“Oh, I’m going to tell you.”
“Faye.” I sighed.
“Fatty Matty,” she said, her wolfish grin growing deep.
“You know what, these kinds of things you don’t have to share with me. Ever. Like, never ever.”
“I’m talking like two bratwursts combined kind of Fatty Matty. It’s almost as if the sausage god is finally listening to my prayers. Remember Pinky Peter, and Unclipped Nick? Well, this is so much better! Fatty Matty is the promised land of sausages.”
“There’s seriously vomit rising up from my gut. So if you would please stop talking.”
She laughed and pulled me closer to her. “Gosh, I missed you. So, what do you say? Should we head to our regular hangout location?”
“Oh, most definitely.”
As we walked for a few blocks, Faye had me laughing each and every moment, and I wondered why I’d stayed away for so long. Maybe a part of me felt guilty knowing that if I stuck around, I would slowly start feeling better, and the idea of feeling better was kind of terrifying to me. But right then laughing felt like exactly what I needed. When I laughed, I didn’t have much time to cry, and I was so tired of the tears.
“It’s kind of weird being here without Emma,” Faye said, sitting on the teeter-totter at the playground. We were surrounded by kids with their parents and nannies, running around and playing while we went up and down on the teeter-totter. One kid stared at us as if we were insane for hanging out at a kids’ playground, but Faye was quick to scream at him, “Never grow up, kid! It’s a goddamn trap!”
She was so ridiculous all the time.
“So, how long has this thing with Matty been going on?” I asked.
She blushed. “I don’t know, like a month. Or two.”
“Two months?”
“Maybe seven. Or eight.”
“Eight?! What? We’ve been talking every day. How has this not come up?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You were going through so much with Steven, you know? And it seemed kind of heartless to talk to you about my sexlationship.” Faye never had relationships, but she was a pro at sexlationships. “My shit was small, yours was…” She frowned and stopped pushing on the teeter-totter, leaving me hanging high in the air. There weren’t many moments when Faye grew serious, but Steven had been like a brother to her. They’d fought and bickered more than any pair of siblings I’d ever met, and they’d cared for one another so much. She’d actually introduced us to one another during college. They’d known each other since the fifth grade and were the best of friends. I hadn’t really seen her eyes grow sad since he’d passed away, but I was almost certain that they did often. I was probably living in my own world of despair, missing the fact that my best friend had also lost her best nonrelated-brother. She cleared her throat, giving me a tight smile. “My shit was small, Liz. Yours wasn’t.”