Mustaches and Memories

(Sorry for the delay, I've been home and had this ready to go for awhile and got sucked into pinterest.) I expected the guys to leave after our conversation, and was surprised when they hung around.

“We’re not keeping you up, are we?” Noah asked, and then added “or keeping you from bleaching your mustache?” with a wink.

I felt myself turn pink. “I don’t have a mustache!” I protested, and even though I knew Noah was only teasing, I had to keep myself from getting pissed off.

“Don’t worry, Mel. Hottest ‘stache I’ve ever seen.” John said, smirking at me.

“Mustaches turn you on, eh? Is that why you’ve never made a pass at me? Batting for the other team?” I shot back. Honestly, my boldness surprised me, especially when it came to John, but I had a quick mouth, and sometimes it shot off before my brain had time to filter it.

I think I saw a hint of a blush creep up on John’s face, but his skin tone made it hard to tell. I had to make myself stare him down, even though at this point my brain HAD caught up, and man was I mortified.

“Ooooh, she’s got you there, bro.” Noah said, laughing.

“Well, now if I make a pass at you, you’ll think I’m just doing it to prove something.” John finally countered back.

I’ll admit, I was disappointed, but I tried hard to hide that disappointment. I felt stupid enough, and I wanted it to come across as a joke. I was struggling with what to respond with when Noah chimed in:

“Well, now if you don’t, it’ll seem like you’re staying in the closet. But, whatever you’re comfortable with.” Noah said, nudging John on his way to the kitchen to get another beer.

“You don’t really think I’m gay, do you?” John asked.

“I don’t really know. I was just kidding, but I don’t suppose it matters either way.” I said, shrugging. John was watching me, and it unnerved me. Still, I forced myself to meet his eye.

“Well. For the record, I’m not. Not that it does matter.” He said, winking at me.

“Are you going to prove it?” I quipped back. There I went again, my mouth speaking before my brain had a chance to proofread. It was too late to take it back, so I just held his gazed and hoped that my blush wasn’t showing as much as I felt it was. John opened his mouth – actually it looked like I took him by surprise and his mouth dropped, but I didn’t have time to over analyze anything, nor did John have time to respond before Noah popped back in the room.

“So. I’m having signs made up and –“

“You’re having signs made? Can’t get your pretty hands dirty making them yourself, huh?” I said with a smirk.

“ACTUALLY, for your information, the kids made them. I knew Sunny would want to get them involved in some way. But, I didn’t know if she wanted to keep them and I also didn’t want the ink to run if they got wet, so I took them in to get laminated.” Noah was actually a teacher – which, to be honest, I think surprised a lot of people to find out when they saw him. The way he was built I think a lot of people looked at him and automatically assumed he did some sort of hands-on manly work. But, no. Noah was a second grade teacher.

“Anyway, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,” he paused, giving me a look. “I need someone to drop them off at the Pier this week. They’ll keep them in the control booth at the ride and then hand it to us when we get on. Can either one of you do it?”

I was about to say that I would go. Owning the business meant that I put in a lot of hours, but it also meant my hours could be a little more flexible. Don’t get me wrong, I could plan all I wanted and if someone called in sick, I’d have to step in, but on the flip side of that I could also do my paperwork at home at night and take an afternoon to go in to the Pier.

“Melanie and I could go together. Scope it out? Maybe practice what we’re going to do.”

I looked up in surprise. “You and I go?”

“Yeah. I mean, unless you’re busy. I can just go by myself then.”

“No, I mean. I can get an afternoon off. What do you mean by practice though, because I’m not riding that thing until I absolutely have to.” I said, trying to recover.

“Don’t worry, I won’t force you to ride anything, but we can check out the pictures, see where the camera is, maybe check out a few games to see which is the most believable for you to lose at – though I suppose any of them would be believable considering you’re up against my awesome athletic abilities.”

“I don’t think I can go with you John, I don’t think your ego would fit in my car.” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, then I guess we’ll just have to take mine.” He shot back.

“If you two are done with your pissing contest, maybe you could set a date for this little outing?” Noah asked.

“Barring any emergencies, I should be able to get out of work any afternoon this week. So it’s up to you.” I said, looking at John.

“Friday’s are the easiest days for me to get out early. So, Friday around noon? I’ll swing by and pick you up at the shop?”

“Sounds good.”

They stayed a little longer, and we all just shot the breeze, going from one topic to another. John told embarrassing stories about Noah from college and Noah let him know which ones could be used in his best man speech and which ones were banned. Then I told stories about Sunny, Noah and I from grade school and up, reliving high school. I tried to avoid the stories where my Uncle was a main part, and Noah seemed to pick up on that and avoid those stories too.

I’m sure John knew what happened, but I hadn’t been the one to tell him, nor did I want to be. There were two reasons for this. The first is the easier, obvious answer: it still hurt too damn much to talk about, and I didn’t want to bring everyone down by crying. The second reason was… Well, people usually pissed me off in their response to the story. Either they were all sympathetic – which was annoying, I didn’t need anyone to feel sorry for me, or they said something stupid like “well at least you got the business out of it.” – And yes, people did say that to me, a lot more often than you think. I know that they were just trying to find the positive in a negative, but it hurt more than anything else anyone said. As if the business was any sort of replacement for my Uncle, for my cousin who I had lost in the aftermath of it all. As if I wouldn’t give it all back and then some for him to be here with us now. So I tried to keep quiet about it, and I tried not to think about it. I know people were just trying to be nice, trying to find something to comfort me, but sometimes you need to acknowledge that there’s nothing you can say except what a crappy situation, and you’re sorry it happened.

Of course, it was easy to remain upbeat and ignore the obvious when they were both here, reminiscing and laughing. It was easy to be distracted. But, then they left to go home to their own places, and I was left with the quiet. I wanted to call Sunny, tell her about everything that went on tonight and gush about John (she was the only person to know about my sort of crush on him.) But then of course, even if I left out the marriage proposal part she’d figure out something was up. Noah and I are friends, but I can’t tell you the last time he randomly popped by to shoot the shit with me. And I’d want to freak out about spending time alone with John on Friday, and how could I explain that without it sounding like a date, which it was not? I considered, for a brief moment calling Stephanie, but... I always felt weird calling her when I was sad, she used to be able to pick up on it so well, and so what if she still could? What if she asked me what was wrong? Steph had a strict "don't talk about Dad" rule, and for awhile it made me angry, I now realized it was just her way of dealing with things.

So I did what I always did when I got like this – I grabbed a beer, I turned on some sad music, and I dug through my box of memories. My box wasn’t all about my Uncle, but he was a very large part of it – in pictures, in cards he had given me for my birthday, in ticket stubs to movies I went with him and Steph and playbills and mementos from trips we all took together.

It might seem a little depressing, or even a little morbid, and I suppose it was. But that was life, wasn’t it? Taking the good with the bad. Ripping off the band-aid to see how the wound was healing?