Poinsettia Lane

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

IT’S POSSIBLE, EVEN probable, that Everly is procrastinating. She chooses to live in denial though, and blames it on Carrie, which she also recognizes is entirely delusional and for that reason she has no intention of telling her therapist anything about this thought process and decision making strategy.

She spends New Year’s Day cleaning, attempting to relax, and mentally preparing, so when she wakes up the day after, she’s ready. Everly made a list last night, obviously, and she woke up prepared to take names and kick butts. Or, make friends, rather.

First item on her list: practice.

Last session, Carrie said to focus on being herself. Everly isn’t entirely sure what that means, so before she does it in a big way that truly matters with someone she wants to like her, she figures practicing around others would be a good first step. She’s convinced herself that practice, consisting of spending time in places she isn’t used to and talking to people she doesn’t really know, will help. Starting at some of the local businesses.

She drives the short distance downtown instead of walking, then parks in the downtown lot rather than at the hotel, even though it’s close. This way she has easier access to the other shops in the area and can run back to the car to drop things off if needed. Very practical.

So Everly sets off with a pep in her step. She chose her style and outfit carefully today; she doesn’t want to put anyone off, so she went for a look that she thinks says “I’m approachable and easy going, but also sophisticated, and I have a sense of humor”. Basically business casual, but that sounds way too boring in her head. She’s rocking a comfy cream sweater, which she feels really makes her dark hair and eyes pop, tucked into a high waisted, herringbone-patterned skirt that hits just under mid-thigh. Her bright red stilettos add a pop of color, matching the red bag she has slung over her shoulder.

Fun, sophisticated, easy going and approachable. Nailed it.

Wandering into the local handmade shop, filled with all sorts of cute stuff from knitted hats for babies to gorgeous stained glass wind chimes, a little embroidered hoop catches her eye. It has a picture of a cheesy smiling lasagna getting stabbed with a knife and fork on it, that says “I’m feeling lasagnabout it” around the edges in bold lettering. Everly suspects it’s a pun, but she has no clue what it’s supposed to mean. It’s cute though, so she picks it up as a little souvenir for Addison when she comes back to visit next time. Maybe she’ll be able to decipher it.

Apart from the lady working the cash register who clearly has no interest in small talk this morning, there’s no one else in the little shop, so Everly meanders her way down the block, popping in and out of each shop or business she comes across, but not having much luck on the socializing part of her goal.

She swears there are normally people outside laughing and chatting, sometimes even yelling down the street to one another. Of course when she’s trying to be social though, everyone disappears.

Pursing her lips, Everly turns her feet toward the last stop of the morning, the candy shop. It’s just opened for the day and smells divine. Sugary fuel is just what she needs to propel her into a more successful afternoon. Everly is wandering around inside, admiring the beautiful artistry of the truffles and candies under the counter, when she glances out the candy shop windows, almost like something pulled her eyes that direction. She sees someone walking into the local hardware store across the street, and a tingle shoots down her spine, a burst of adrenaline straight to her stuttering heart .

It’s him.

Hot Delivery Guy just walked into the hardware store. Asim is right across the street.

Everly immediately panics. Her heart beats a frantic rhythm as it tries to escape her chest, probably to go tearing across the street after him. Her thoughts spiral and she can’t help but ask herself what she should do. Does she go in after him? Is that crazy? She was going to go to his work anyways, but if she can maneuver a happenstance run-in with him instead, that’s much further away from the domain of a stalker. She could go in and pretend to shop around for… well, she’s never been in a hardware store before. What does one buy there? Rope? That seems likely, but what would she do with rope?! Is she planning on tying him up or something? Actually… her brain tells her that doesn’t sound so bad as far as ideas go. Even better, maybe he could tie her up…

Everly gives herself a violent, full body shake, scolding herself soundly in her head. Objectifying others is not what she is about. Yes, he’s attractive, but come on Everly. Get your head out of the gutter, and think . There’s got to be a reasonable way to make this happen.

After internally freaking out while staring with unseeing eyes at the assortment of candies under the counter, she belatedly realizes the sales person has been waiting for her to make a decision. Everly snaps to and requests a few of her favorite salted caramels, then decides to make a run for it (“coward!” Frankie’s voice screams in the back of her head). Decision made, she pushes her way out the door while popping two of the sugary, salty squares into her mouth, and—

Asim steps out of the hardware store right across from her at the same moment. Their eyes connect, cementing her feet to the sidewalk. He’s carrying a cloth bag, because of course he has reusable bags, but she can’t see what’s in it.

His face lights up and he glances both directions, checking the road before he starts walking toward her, which makes Everly realize she hasn’t moved an inch, maybe not even blinked, and is just staring at him. She frantically chews, slurping up some drool before it can fall out of her mouth, and questions why on earth she thought eating two candies at once was a good idea. Or caramel itself. Caramel is never a good idea. Caramel is impossible to eat!

He makes it across the street and is only a few feet from her when his rich, clear voice makes her knees want to tremble.

“Well hello there,” Asim says, still smiling at her as his deep voice seeps under her skin and sets her nerves on fire.

She tries to swallow too quickly, resulting in far too much sticky caramel not quite making it all the way down her throat, because her mouth has gone impossibly dry.

Everly is half choking, half mortified crying, and somehow also partly nervous laughing? Because honestly, what even is her life. Of course this would happen to her.

She manages to clear her throat after an eternity of torture and say hi back, though it comes out raspy, sounding like what she imagines a sun-baked lizard might sound like if it could talk. He reaches out to pat her back, just as kind as she remembered.

“Are you okay?” His eyes are a gorgeous green, filled with concern as they flit across her face.

She’d love to say yes, she’s great, fantastic really, but now he’s touching her and it’s only making the situation worse because that causes all sorts of tingles and butterflies to erupt across her body, tightening the meager air left in her lungs. She feels too tense and closed in as she tries to fight against the panic taking over. Everly takes a clumsy step back from him so she has space to gather her thoughts.

Right as he asks, again, if she’s alright, she offers him a candy from her bag, like some sort of creep who tries to entice kids with sweets. At least she doesn’t drive a white van, she thinks to herself, and can’t help but accept that this is going horribly wrong. She couldn’t have planned it worse if she tried.

Luckily, Asim has much better social skills than she does. He politely accepts a caramel, tucking it into his pocket .

“Something sweet to remind me of you later,” he says with a little smile, though the concern has only etched deeper around his eyes.

Everly isn’t sure if him remembering this moment is a good thing, as she really doesn’t want him to remember that she can’t even eat a candy or say hello properly, or what the sound of her choking sounds like.

“How have you been?” he asks in a valiant attempt to save the situation.

“Good. Great, yeah I’ve been good.” Everly wants to slap a hand over her own mouth but manages to resist the urge.

Asim nods with a polite smile, “and how did the party go? I’m sure everyone enjoyed it.”

He is sweet and kind, and wow did he have such long, thick eyelashes last time she saw him? They make his bright green eyes pop even more than they already do against his darker bronze skin. As he pushes the long sleeves of his henley up to his elbows, the muscles in his forearms flex with the movement of the bag shifting in his grasp, and holy mother how did she not notice the tattoos before?! Everly catches herself staring, imagining how far those tattoos go and what his muscles might look like underneath his shirt, before noticing his friendly smile has turned into a satisfied “I know what you’re doing and I don’t mind” type of smirk.

Everly experiences one of those deer in the headlights moments, and her immediate reaction, as usual, is to run. She starts to turn away, giving in to her instincts, but he catches her forearm. His hand is gentle but warm, and as she turns back, he briefly rubs his thumb back and forth over her sweater before letting go.

“It was really nice running into you, Everly.” He says, gazing directly into her eyes. She could so easily get lost in those eyes. “I’d really like to see you again sometime.”

Her brain stops.

Straight up ceases to function.

Her anxiety might have killed her brain all the way dead at this point, because somehow it’s blank but also racing with too many thoughts to sort through. Her pulse skyrockets, and she forgets how to breathe, feeling like there’s a mountain sitting on her chest. She offers an unintelligible, non-word mumble with a barely discernible “have to go meeting late” jumble of words, and nearly speed walks all the way back to the hotel, before remembering she parked in the downtown lot because, oh yeah, socializing . What an absolutely terrible idea.

She doesn’t glance back once, her vision tunneled on the sidewalk in front of her while her pulse thunders in her ears.

Step, step, step.

Red shoe, red shoe, red shoe.

One foot in front of the other until she reaches the parking lot.

Everly is dreaming. She must be having a nightmare, because there is no way what she thinks just happened, is actually what happened. Surely, she didn’t freeze up in front of Asim, ignore his polite request to see her again, and then quite literally run away. And yet, what other explanation is there?

Time jumps, and Everly finds herself sitting in her car, breathing way too fast and clutching a squashed bag of caramels to her chest with sweaty palms, feeling as though she just ran a marathon. She tips her head back against her seat and closes her eyes, trying to steady her breathing.

Sometimes it feels like she can’t do anything right.

She smashes the bag of candy into the passenger seat before clenching her hands into fists and opening her mouth wide, letting out a long, silent scream. Her entire body is tense, eyes squeezed shut, neck taught and legs straining. It’s over just as suddenly and she slumps back into her seat, entirely spent.

This day is a disaster.

~~~

Everly opens her door back up, not having moved the car an inch. She avoids the main sidewalks this time and instead sneaks through the back entrance of Roasted, coming in from behind the counter. She skirts around Frankie, in the midst of making something hot and foamy, and veers left into the back corner, keeping her head down. There’s a little nook back here that can be perfectly arranged for hiding. Everly pulls a large potted plant to the side and tucks herself into the cushioned chair behind it, next to a small bookshelf. This is as much privacy as she can hope to get during the tail end of the lunch rush.

Frankie glances over, giving Everly a concerned frown. Everly just shakes her head and waves at them to carry on. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Everly wallows. She is truly astonished with herself and is having a hard time figuring out what exactly happened. Now that she’s calmed down a bit and can think more clearly, she suspects she had a panic attack. She can hardly even remember getting back to her car, and it’s nearly an hour later than she thought it was, indicating she lost quite a bit of time between running away from Asim and entering the coffeehouse. Everly pulls out her phone, types into the search bar and sure enough, she experienced most of the symptoms on the list.

Now that she knows what happened, Everly feels a little less idiotic, a little more concerned instead. She’s been seeing Carrie for almost a year now, and overall her anxiety has gotten much better. She makes a note in her phone to talk about it during their session next week. This leads her to question how she can be herself without her anxiety getting in the way. As she’s contemplating this dilemma, Frankie shuts down the coffeehouse again and pulls a chair up next to her.

“What’s wrong?” They waste no time on pleasantries.

“I think I had a panic attack.” Everly’s voice cracks on the last word.

She can’t help but be confused about what her emotions are trying to tell her. They feel all tangled up, and she’s not sure how to sort them out.

“Are you okay? I didn’t know you had panic attacks.”

“I don’t.” Everly shakes her head slowly. “Or at least, I never have before. This was the first one.”

“How about some tea? We’ll do decaf, green tea doesn’t have much caffeine anyways, but I know even a little can make it worse.” Frankie is truly the best person she knows; they get up and grab a pot of hot water and riffle around the tea drawer for a particular tea bag, dropping it into a mug on their way back over. “Better to be safe.”

Everly takes it gratefully, already feeling comforted having the warm mug in her hands and her friend at her side.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” they ask. “We can also just sit if you want. Or I can distract you, I’m pretty good at that.”

“I don’t know. I can’t even get my thoughts straight right now.”

“Distraction it is.” Frankie launches into a story about their nemesis at the grocery store who keeps trying to steal their beans. This has been slowly escalating for a few months now, where the local grocery store owner has been hinting at and verbally tiptoeing around the mystery of where Frankie gets their infamously delicious coffee beans. Over recent weeks though, he’s become more forward and demanding. At first, it’s the same old story—he said, they said, he did, they did—but then Frankie leans forward and smacks their hand on the table.

“THEN,” they say, “he had the audacity to threaten to report me to the city council!”

Now, Everly is fully invested. This may not seem like a big deal, but in their small town, the city council rules everything.

“He did not!” Everly gasps as her eyes widen.

“He absolutely did. Of course, I asked what on earth he would report me for, and he actually came up with something. He said, and I quote, “You’re in violation of business hours.” and he was so smug about it, too.” Their lip curls up in distaste.

“Wait, you’re in violation of business hours?”

Frankie leans back and rubs a hand across the back of their neck, glancing toward the wall of windows facing the street. “Well… you know how you’re always getting on my case about closing down at all hours of the day?”

“Uh, yeah. Terrible business practice, but I don’t see how that’s a violation when you own the place.”

“It is, actually.” Frankie grimaces. “The city council passed it a couple years back: that any business on the main strip downtown has to maintain regular business hours “within reasonable expectations” whatever that means.”

“And he’s accusing you of not maintaining those regular business hours,” Everly surmises, “because you’re always closing shop in the middle of the day.”

“You got it.” Frankie sighs, and Everly turns her head toward the door where the word “open” is facing inwards, staring right at her, instead of facing out as it should be.

“You need to open back up. If he’s threatening you… You can’t keep closing like this Frankie.” Everly implores them to listen, and Frankie nods in acquiescence. They stand and walk over to the door, flipping the sign before returning to their seat.

“If he does go to the council, you’ll let me know? I don’t have a lot of sway, but I do have some. They were all tight with my parents and since their passing, they always make a point to offer me whatever help I need. I can call in a favor. I’ll help however I can,” Everly says.

“Thanks. I don’t want to ask that of you, but if it comes to it I will.” They sit in silence together for a few moments, reflecting on the strangeness of their lives right now.

“Okay, I think I’m ready to talk about it,” Everly whispers. Frankie nods and puts a gentle hand on her knee, waiting for Everly to continue. The soft touch helps to ground her, and she appreciates that Frankie knows and remembers this. “I ran into Asim, and I don’t know, he started talking to me and I just panicked. I ran away and ended up back in my car and I think I was there for a while but I can’t really remember.”

“That sounds kind of scary. Do you feel uncomfortable around him?” Frankie asks, doing their best not to bristle.

“No, I actually really like being around him.” Everly thinks about it for a moment. “I think it’s because I wasn’t expecting to see him. I was already feeling stressed being out, and then my plan to be social was failing so I was even more stressed, and then running into him so unexpectedly just really threw me off.”

“That makes sense to me.” Frankie reassures her, and they settle back into their seat.

“I’m not sure what to do now though. I made a complete fool of myself.” Now that she reflects on it, she is feeling rather embarrassed about the whole situation. Her reaction was so out of the blue.

“What do you want to do?”

“Ugh,” Everly glares at them. “This question again.”

“Yes.” Frankie counters her glare with a sassy smirk. “This question again.”

Their left eyebrow goes up as they wait. Everly glowers at it. She’s always been jealous that they can lift one eyebrow, it’s such a useful expression. Hers just sort of contort awkwardly without any up or down movement when she tries.

Everly sighs and lets her head tip down toward her lap. “I hope he doesn’t think it’s his fault, or that there’s something wrong with me. I guess I want to fix it. I don’t like what happened, that’s not me, and he asked to see me again. I want to see him again.” She looks up at her friend with a self-deprecating smile on her face. “I just also don’t want to look like a fool again.”

Frankie looks like a proud parent sending their kid off to the first day of school. “You won’t. Let’s make a plan, we both know that will help.”

Everly acknowledges that plans and a solid list fix everything, even though they betrayed her today, so the two of them begin. They go back to her idea of heading to the garden center under the guise of doing some plant shopping, since she still has no other way of contacting him. Frankie offers to go with her for moral support, but Everly determines this is something she can and should do on her own.

Everly and Frankie discuss what she will wear and say, backup ideas of what else she can say, what to do if he’s not there, what to do if she sees him first and vice-versa, and anything else they can think of. At this point, she could not be more prepared if her life depended on it. It’s the start of a new year after all, and she’s committed to showing the world who she really is.