When The Rain Falls

10. Dr. Jones & the New Leaf

10 DR. JONES & THE NEW LEAF

FINN

"It's hideous," Laurel declares, putting a hand up to her mouth in horror.

I lean proudly against the silver minivan and pretend to check out my hair in the side mirror.

"It may be hideous," I explain. "But it's got the best safety ratings." I pull down my sunglasses and give her a wink. Laurel sighs as she rubs a hand over her belly.

"A minivan? Ew."

"Don't ew me." I pat the side panel. "At least not until you've seen the inside of this bad boy."

I push off from the side of the van and dramatically open the sliding door. "Look at all those cupholders! Eighteen, I counted." I step back so Laurel can peek in.

"What are you going to do with eighteen cupholders?" She eyes me suspiciously.

"I'm more worried about filling all these seats." I gesture to the interior. "Five kids, right? That was our deal?"

"Deal? What deal?"

"I wed and bed you. And you give me five children to carry on the Hudson legacy."

"First of all, never say 'wed and bed' ever again. Second, I don't remember agreeing to this." Laurel rests a hand on her baby bump and fuck, she's so sexy like that that I have to bite back a growl. Laurel doesn't like when I growl at her. She says it's repulsive and bestial.

"Laurel. I lived up to my end. That's partial performance."

"Will you stop trying to lawyer your way through our marital decisions? I went to law school, too, you know."

"The law is the law." I come up behind her and grab her hips. I may not be allowed to growl, but I can touch. Laurel slaps my hand away. Or not.

"There's the letter of the law and there's the spirit of the law. And the spirit of the law says you better stop being a chauvinist dick or you'll never touch your wife again." I grimace and hold my hands up in surrender.

"Laurel, babe. We're getting off track here," I say defensively.

"Ok, Finn. Where exactly is the track?" She puts her hands on her hips and it's so damn cute that I have a hard time taking her seriously.

"The track, or the point, is that I love you both so much that I bought the safest vehicle on the market. Even if it means the mark of death for my manhood."

Laurel's pursed lips loosen slightly. She peeks into the van one more time. "It does look pretty safe," she says.

"Side airbags. Reinforced side panels," I explain. "The back seats fold down," I add with a raised eyebrow. That earns me a good dose of side eye.

"Fine," she says finally.

"Fine?"

"Yeah. It's not what I pictured, but..."She turns to face me. "I think it's really sweet that you did all that safety research."

I pull Laurel into my arms and nuzzle her neck.

"That just leaves one more point of discussion," I say, planting a kiss along her jaw.

"What's that?" Her voice sounds like it's melted.

"I was serious about five."

Aimee

Julie throws back the curtain of the dressing room and steps out timidly. She's clutching the top of a salmon pink, sleeveless dress.

"I feel like a cupcake," she says, taking in the layers and layers of fluffy tulle fabric flowing out from her waist.

I pop a hip against the wall and cross my arms, considering my words and trying not to laugh. She kind of does look like a cupcake. But at least she looks like a cute cupcake.

"That dress," I start, "is not your color." It makes her look pale. But the real problem is that Julie's not exactly busty. There's a large gap between her body and the cups of the dress. The curtain next to Julie slides open, revealing Ruby in a purple, sequin dress. The girls size each other up and exchange comments. Ruby has the opposite problem that Julie has. Her chest is spilling over the top of her dress.

"I think this is cute." Ruby spins in a circle. She looks to me for the final verdict.

"You might want to think about something more..." How do I say this? "Subtle?" I suggest.

"Yeah. That dress makes you look desperate AF," Julie says, tugging up the bodice of her dress. Ok, Julie. Way to not be subtle. She slides the curtain closed in front of her, disappearing back into her dressing room with an armful of dresses.

"What if I am desperate?" Ruby asks. “Rocky is going to meet me at homecoming and I need this dress to work some magic.” She turns around and eyes the back of her dress in a mirror. I’m not sure what she means by magic. I laugh nervously. Mostly for her dad’s sake.

Speaking of Mr. GQ, he’s avoiding me. Every time I come outside when he’s in his yard, he immediately mumbles something and goes back into his house. The troll must feel safer in his little troll cave. The guy is totally ruining trolls for me. Because I used to think of trolls as ugly and deformed. And now I think of them as hot and muscular with gorgeous stormy grey eyes. Barf.

“Who’s Rocky?” I ask.

“Oh God,” Julie chimes in. “Don’t get her started. She’s obsessed with him.”

“I’m not obsessed! And it doesn’t matter anyway. My dad won’t let me date. Homecoming might be my only chance to kiss him. So, my dress needs to be perfect.”

"Well, if you bring that dress home,” I scold Ruby, “your dad will murder me. Not just murder me. He’ll track down my ghost and murder that, too. Maybe try something else. Because I'm too fun to die."

Ruby rolls her eyes. "Ugh. I know. He has no chill."

"Wrong," I tell her. "He has too much chill. Chilly like an iceberg.” Except he showed me the hint of a playful side the other day. And the way the veins in his biceps popped when he was carrying that box of books...

No, Aimee! Bad girl.

“Pretty much,” Ruby says. “At least you don’t have to live with him.” Ruby disappears into her dressing room. I glance towards Julie. She's standing in front of the floor length mirror, inspecting her dress.

"It looks like I'm wearing a garbage bag," she exclaims. Poor thing. She's so skinny. Everything looks so big on her.

"Didn't a celebrity wear a dress made out of garbage bags to the Oscars last year?" I ask. "You could, you know, make a statement."

"Yeah," Ruby calls from her dressing room. "The statement would be, I've given up on life and aspire to be homeless ," she says.

“Hey now,” I tease, “let’s not pick on the homeless. Maybe they’re only homeless because they slept with their landlord.” I laugh weakly.

“ What ?” Ruby pops her head out of the dressing room. “That happened to you?”

“Uh…maybe,” I say with a weak laugh.

“You slept with your landlord?!” Ruby’s eyes grow wide. What the hell. How is it that I’m being scolded by a fifteen-year-old? And how is it that even a fifteen-year-old recognizes this concept as a bad idea, when I clearly didn’t?

“How many people have you slept with?” Ruby asks.

I cough a little and find myself growing just a little uncomfortable. “Uh, you know, it’s really not that important.”

“Is it more than five?” Julie asks. “As long as it’s not more than five. Tessa says more than five makes you a slut.” I cough again. I guess I was a slut two times over this year. Who the hell is this Tessa lady? Because I’m coming for her.

“The number doesn’t matter,” I say. “What matters is that you shouldn’t sleep with people who have the power to evict you.”

“Well obviously,” Ruby retorts.

“Ok, well it’s not so obvious to some of us,” I say. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be homeless.”

Ruby and Julie both laugh and I’m glad that my trauma is at least entertaining.

Both girls disappear behind their curtains to try on another round of dresses. I check my watch. We've been at this for almost an hour, and at this rate, we may be here an hour more. I slide down the wall and get comfy on the floor. I pull out my phone and begin to scroll through work emails.

I hear a phone buzz. But it's clearly not mine because I'm holding it in my hand. I clamber around the pile of dresses, and purses, and shopping bags piled haphazardly on the floor of the dressing room. The buzzing sound is right at the tips of my fingers. I fling a sweater behind me and the buzzing sound disappears. I turn around and find the sweater. One of the pockets is lit up and shaking furiously. Bingo! I reach my hand in and pull out a phone. I recognize it as Ruby's. There's an alert on the screen that tells me she has a text from Finn.

"Ruby, your troll is texting," I call out to her. “I mean dad. Your dad is texting.” She responds with an exaggerated groan.

"Can you just read them and see what he wants? He’s probably asking questions .”

"Sure," I say, trying to sound casual. But I feel a bolt of something hot and thick enter my bloodstream at the thought of being on the other end of the phone from him. I do not want him.

Ruby tells me the code to unlock her phone and I study the screen.

Dad

Are you with Aimee getting a dress?

Dad

Don’t talk to her while she’s driving. She seems like she gets easily distracted.

Dad

What time will you be home?

Dad

Buy her dinner on me if you guys are out late enough.

Aww. That’s kind of sweet isn’t it? I mean aside from the fact he thinks I’m easily distracted. I can’t really fault him there, though.

He’s been distracting me all day.

"He wants to know what time we'll be home," I tell Ruby. "Should I tell him around seven."

"Fine. Whatever," she calls back to me through the curtain. I’m in the middle of drafting a response when another message comes in.

Dad

Have you thought about a green dress? Mom liked you in that color.

A picture appears in the text thread. I click on it to make it larger. It's a family of three. The person I notice first is the young man in a dark grey suit, no doubt a younger Finn. I recognize him, but barely. He's not just younger, he's a different person. His stormy grey eyes are playful and full of mirth. He's thinner. Scrawnier. But the thing I can't stop staring at is the wide grin across his face. It's spirited and kind. The type of grin that happens to your face when your soul is brimming with joy and needs to find a way out.

My jaw drops.

That cannot be the same person.

He's standing next to a stunning, dark-haired woman in a light blue gown. On his hip is a chubby toddler wearing an emerald-green dress. They are all posing for the camera. It looks like they're at a wedding.

I glance back at the dark-haired woman. I don’t know what happened to her. Alicia mentioned that she passed away, but she didn’t know details. And I haven't been brave enough to ask. Something tugs on my chest when I study her. I think about how much she must be missed. And how much she left behind. What is it like to have the kind of happiness that is clearly on the faces of the people in this picture? What does real love feel like? What happens to love when someone dies?

When I show Ruby the photo, she goes unusually quiet. She doesn’t really say anything about it. But I notice her starting to take a stronger interest in a green dress hanging from one of the hooks of her dressing room.

They try on a couple more dresses. And after several minutes, chatter resumes between the two girls. They talk about classes, and boys, and the funny things that happen at school.

"Hey, Aimee?" Ruby asks from behind the curtain. "Question."

"Shoot," I say half-heartedly, still studying the picture on her phone screen. I can’t stop looking at it. I stare and study it like it holds a hidden clue to the mystery that is the man next door.

"Do people actually like giving blow jobs? Like, is it fun?" Ruby blurts out. I have to blink a couple times to process the question. Did she just ask me about blow jobs?

"Wow. Ok. Really?" I ask. "That's your question? You have to go straight to the hard ones? Not like, do corn dogs have actual corn in them or what sound does a bunny make?" I'm not a parent. I need some warm-up questions first.

Ruby throws open her curtain and cocks her head at me. The look she gives me tells me that I do not get warm up questions. "This girl at school was talking about oral," Ruby explains. "And I don't know. It just sounds so gross. Why would you want to do that?” She winces.

Julie peeks her head tentatively out from behind her curtain. Great. Just great. Welcome to dressing room sex ed. I am your very experienced and skilled professor, Aimee Jones. I can provide references. You want my curriculum vitae? It might be a complete book.

"I think it's like spicy food," I tell her. "Some people like it and some don't. And maybe you won't know until you try. It can actually be fun. I don’t know. I like it.”

“Did you always like it? Or did you just learn to like it over time?”

“Is this question going somewhere?” I ask. “Like are you and Rocky?—”

“No,” Ruby says quickly. “We haven’t even kissed yet. That’s the goal for homecoming.”

“Ok, just don’t let him talk you into doing something you’re not ready for,” I tell her. And maybe don’t sleep with him just because you’re lonely, I think to myself.

Ruby smiles at me before looking down at her feet, her bare toes barely visible beneath the hem of her dress. “Hey, Aimee?” she says, her voice growing soft and serious. "Thanks for not being weird. And for giving me real answers.”

She gives me an actual, genuine smile and she slips back into the dressing room. An actual smile. Not a sarcastic one. Not an ironic one. I sit back against the wall and enjoy the warm feeling rising in my chest. To think she used to scare me.

"It's nice to have someone to talk to who isn't going to freak out, you know," Ruby adds from behind the dressing room.

"No problem," I say casually. But I don't feel casual on the inside. I feel like I’ve won a major victory and my insides are squealing a happy little victory cry.

"Hey, Ruby," I add. "I'd prefer if you didn't go around advertising to your dad about this conversation. I'm not saying to lie to him. I'm just saying what he doesn't know, won't hurt me."

"You mean, won't hurt him ," Ruby corrects.

"No. I meant what I said. If he finds out I'm teaching you about blowjobs, I will be the one hurting. Got that?"

I hear rustling behind Ruby's dressing room curtain and the sound of a zipper.

A store clerk walks in with a pile of dresses draped over her arm.

"So, what do you do with the balls?" Ruby asks loudly. "Do you put them in your mouth, too? Aren't they gross and shrively ?"

The store clerk freezes. She looks from me to Ruby's dressing room curtain and back to me. I smile awkwardly and flash her all my teeth. She turns around and walks back in the direction she came from.

“I’m pretty sure shopping with you girls made me five pounds lighter,” I say, giving my abdominal muscles a tentative poke. “I haven’t laughed that hard in forever. And who knew laughing was such a good core exercise. Forget Pilates. We need laugh-o-lot-ees.”

Ruby turns around from her spot in line in front of me and groans. “That was terrible. Like dad joke, terrible.” The girls finally found their perfect homecoming dresses and now I’m taking up Finn’s offer for dinner, on him. I should take the girls to the Lobster Palace, just to take full advantage of this opportunity. But I don’t really like lobster. So, we’re in line for dinner at the noisy food court in the mall.

“You know what? I think dad jokes are underrated,” I tell her. “And dad bods, too,” I add, thinking about Finn’s muscular frame.

“Ew. Aimee. We are about to eat dinner. Don’t ruin Chinese food for us,” Julie whines.

“Hey, there,” I hear a seductively low male voice. I turn around and see a tall man with black, curly hair and piercing blue eyes standing behind me. He’s wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt that accentuates a full sleeve of tattoos. Ooh, a bad boy, perhaps. “I have to ask. There’s no way these are your kids, right?”

“Oh no, I’m the cool aunt,” I assure him quickly. “Although they’re pretty great. I mean, if they were my kids, I wouldn’t have any complaints.”

Ruby’s forehead wrinkles and her eyes soften. And it makes me wonder if maybe she doesn’t hear that she’s great very often. I mean, she has her moments. Moments when she can get cold and standoffish. But most of the time, she’s funny and interesting, if not slightly on the critical and overthinking side.

“I’m sure they are,” the man says, “but there is no way you are old enough to be a mom to teenagers.” I feel his gaze slide up and down my body. My face flushes. Ruby wiggles her eyebrows at me.

“Uh, thank you,” I say, feeling my cheeks blush.

“Do you ride?” he asks. Do I ride? Yes, I ride. Boy, do I ride…

No, Aimee! Bad girl.

“You know, motorcycles,” he adds.

“Oh, motorcycles.” Duh, Aimee. Motorcycles. God, what’s wrong with me? But I know exactly what’s wrong with me. Days and days of pent up sexual frustration, that’s what. Sexual frustration from having to live across the street from the world’s sexiest troll. And that troll likes to vacuum shirtless in front of his living room window. I swear the universe is doing this on purpose.

“No,” I answer him. “I’ve never actually been on a bike.”

“Want me to change that? I have my bike out front. I could take you for a spin sometime.” The line moves and we all shuffle closer to the register. “I’m Jack, by the way.” Jack thrusts his hand out and I shake it. He has a strong grip. I imagine he’d be good at pulling hair.

No, Aimee. Bad girl!

Maybe this is it. Maybe this is my chance to meet someone. Like really meet someone. Like, go on a date and hold hands and share French fries. I don’t really know what couples do. But I’m pretty sure they hold hands and share French fries. I glance at the girls, both of whom give me encouraging looks. Also, it’s a motorcycle ride. You can’t turn down a motorcycle ride. That’s downright rude.

“I’m Aimee,” I say. “And sure. I mean, that sounds like fun.”

“Well, Aimee, how about this. I give you my number and you call when you feel like a ride.” The corner of his mouth lifts playfully and I suddenly get the feeling we’re talking about more than one kind of ride. Sure, maybe I’m looking for something real, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also do those things. I mean, you have to make sure you’re sexually compatible, right?

I’m turning over a new leaf, right? So that means I’m starting over. That means a fresh slate. I can sleep with one guy.

I just can’t sleep with five. According to Tessa.

I pull out my phone and Jack gives me his number. We chat in line for a while longer and then we say our goodbyes. Finally, Jack gives me a wink and turns and walks away.

“Hey, Jack,” I yell out to him as he pauses and turns. “You’re not a landlord, are you?”