Chapter Seven: Off Course
“May I just say, I still don’t see a reason for me being here before this place opens up,” he said, with his eyes more closed than open. She shoved a cup of coffee under his nose. He closed his eyes tightly and then blinked rapidly before he opened them.
“I swear, I leave you unsupervised for ten minutes and suddenly you’re sleep.”
“What can I say, it’s early.”
“It’s three. What time did you go to bed?”
“Who said I did?” he asked as he stood up with his cup of coffee.
“Since when?” she asked in surprise and concern.
“Just yesterday.”
“Are you sure?” He nodded in response and took a sip of his coffee. “What’s wrong Daniel?” He was about to answer that question when Venus came running down the stairs shouting.
“Hey Harriet, have you seen my grey bra with the roses? I asked uncle Robert, but he told me to ask you since you do all the-” she said but stopped dead in her tracks when she whipped her head around to see that Harriet was talking to Daniel, “Laundry.” She smiled awkwardly.
“Yeah, I’m surprised I don’t get more of a say with things that are going on around here by the amount of responsibility I have,” Harriet said raising her eyebrow and putting down a glass. “I think I saw it last night, I’ll go check. Why don’t you stay here and have a scary awkward moment with him, god knows how many more you will get the chance to have,” she said and left, tapping her cousin on the back as she went up.
“So, how have you been Daniel?”
“I’ve been ok, I suppose.” He yawned. “How about you?”
“I’ve been good, just packing really.” Surprise shook Daniel awake (either that or the coffee finally kicked in).
“Wait what?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” Daniel suddenly felt adrenaline rushing through his veins, as if coffee flowed through them rather than blood. “I thought you knew?” He blinked rapidly. Another person leaving?
“I uh… I must have forgotten. How long are you going for?” Venus looked confused, she shivered and Daniel understood why she was looking for her bra.
“Daniel, I’m going back home. This was a wonderful six week vacation, but I’m going back now.”
“Wow, I uh… I’m sorry, I must have gotten caught up in my own life there for a second that I completely forgot what and when.”
“Why would you?”
“I don’t know, I guess I just thought… I don’t know, that there was something here.” She looked down at the floor in sad silence.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Is there?”
“I… I don’t know, I can hardly ever tell with you… I’m split in between trying to figure out if you’re playing hard to get or not playing at all.” She couldn’t even bare to look at him. “I don’t know… maybe it’s my own fault.”
“No, you’re right, I… I haven’t entirely been fair to you.” He paused, agreeing, but still confused. “You are…” she paused, to think about her words, “Charming. That’s for sure. Sometimes though, I get the feeling, you’re a little too charming for your own good. And sometimes… sometimes I let my self get carried away by you. I like falling head over heels in love with you.” He smiled. “But sometimes, I feel myself falling in love with you. Often more than I should and then I wonder, how many more girls are there, like me, who have fallen head over heels in love with you, only to be dropped. I mean, you know how you are with women. I don’t need to tell you that. I shouldn’t even have to remind you. After all, they do call you The Rabbit.” He dropped his head in shame. “But, to be fair, I have been paying attention and I have seen how well you have been coming to work more, something I believe Harriet used to complain about a lot. And I have seen you turn down girls asking you out here at the bar. So I can’t say… I haven’t noticed improvement.”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ somewhere?”
“Daniel, no matter if there is or isn’t a ‘but’ at the end of that, I’m leaving. Tomorrow morning. I don’t know what you had in mind, but I can’t do the whole one night stand thing.”
“You really think that’s what I want?”
“Come on, seriously, you’re trying to convince me that you would want to have something… lasting?”
“Would you be that surprised if I said yes?”
“Honestly? Yes.” It was at that exact moment, when Daniel and Venus were looking at each other without blinking, that Harriet came down.
“Hey you two crazy kids. What did I miss?” There was a silence as both their stares wouldn’t break. “I missed a serious match of the blinking game?” she said as she went back to putting glasses in place. Venus was the first to give it up, she lowered her eyes and walked next to Harriet.
“Ha, no. I’m sorry we were just… thinking.”
“Dangerous thing to do, think.”
“Tell me about it,” she said as she patted Harriet on the back and went upstairs. Harriet followed Venus with her eyes as she went up without even looking back.
“Do I need to be concerned?” Daniel shook his head with straight lips before taking a sip of coffee.
Hours later, the bar was overflowing with life. Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he had to serve this many drinks, although, to his memory, his work efforts weren’t exactly high to start with.
“You wanna remind me why there are so many people here tonight again?” he yelled to Harriet as they took on wave after wave of thirsty students.
“First day back to school. Many people think we deserve a few drinks to celebrate.” A blond that was right in front of him explained. Daniel’s eyes shot over to her. He tilted his head as he tried to think of where he knew her from. “Hi Daniel.” His face dripped with confusion.
“I know I know you, I’m just having a very hard time placing you in a where and when and who.”
“I must say Mr. Hare, I’m quite offended. We share a wonderful morning the way we did and you can’t even remember me?” she asked in false shock.
“I’m honestly sorry,” Daniel said still trying to think of why she looked so familiar. Harriet rolled her eyes and assumed the worst. “I-”
“Relax, I’m just messing with you, you never even got my name,” she told him, causing him to let out a sigh of relief followed by an even bigger face of confusion.
“So then why do I recognize you?” he asked confused. Harriet face palmed herself as she heard the battle of the idiots and then went back to surviving the insane battle that lay before her.
“Well maybe you would recognize me more if I weren’t wearing a top,” the mystery woman commented. Harriet couldn’t take it and butted in.
“I don’t know how you manage to find such easy and slutty women, but seriously, I’m beginning to wonder why I even helped you with Venus in the first place.”
“Harriet?” the woman asked. Her little cheeks had grown a little pink since Harriet’s little outburst.
“How did you-?”
“Just how I imagined you,” the woman said not having both of them in perpetual confusion, “Beth, Beth Course,” she finally said rolling her eyes, smiling and extending a hand to shake both his and hers. “Daniel here knows me from a party I once had at his place when he returned from one of his many trips to find his missing origin.” Suddenly Daniel remembered a remarkably long and honest talk he had with a silent girl following a crazy night. He blinked and shook his head as he pictured her naked again. “There it is,” she said seeing Daniel recognize her again. “Never thought I would see you again and here of all places. I mean sure I knew you worked at a bar, but the “The Bar”, I could have never expected.”
“You apparently know very little about him, or have very few girlfriends,” Harriet said. Beth grinned.
“I don’t know, I think I know Daniel here pretty well.” Daniel flushed.
“Hey lady, what’s your problem? We’re all waiting to get a drink here!” one customer yelled to Beth.
“I’m sorry, can you get me a beer? Heineken will do fine.” She waved a few notes of money in Daniel’s face. Daniel gave her the beer, still in baffling silence. “Nice seeing you again,” she said, then turned and left.
“You know some weird people, Rabbit.”
“I’ll say,” he said, still with his eyes locked on her.
The night dragged on and the two co-workers had hardly had a moment to breath in between the constant costumer flow. Around eleven though, there was a slight moment in which Harriet saw a moment to go pick up glasses and plates from tables, even with Susan, her father’s wife helping out with that too. When she came back with a load of glasses and plates, she stopped and talked to Daniel.
“You wanna tell me what was going on with your little fuck buddy over there?”
“Want to? Sure. Probably won’t believe me though,” he said as he leaned on the counter drinking a glass of milk still looking at Beth who was starting to stand up to leave. “Quick question, is your dad in?”
“He should be, why?”
“Could you maybe ask him to take over from here, I mean, I’ve been here since… well early in the morning for me at least and I’m-”
“Seriously, you’ve been working here for years and you’re still gonna pull the ‘I’m tired, can I go home?’ scam?”
“First of all, not a scam, secondly, you have no idea what I was going to say.”
“Fuck it, go, just… think about Venus.”
“What about her?”
“Sometimes I wonder how you have been able to live as long as you have.” Daniel got himself ready and started going around the bar to leave. Just as he was going, Venus came downstairs. “Perfect timing,” Harriet muttered under her breath.
“Hey Daniel, can I talk to you for a second?” He turned his head to look at her and then back at the door just in time to see Beth lift her hair out of her coat before she took her first step outside.
“Yeah, sure, what’s up?”
“I was wondering, did you mean what you implied earlier?”
“I don’t know, I mean, I’m still a little uncertain on where you stand and you haven’t really been able to give me a decent answer either.”
“Listen, you’re right. I haven’t. For reasons that are a mystery to me as well, but, I think that, I mean, would you be able to handle a long distance relationship?” Daniel looked dumbstruck, for years he didn’t have to be monogamous, let alone monogamous and sexless.
“I don’t kn-”
“You know what, don’t answer that now. Why don’t you come and tell me tomorrow before I leave?”
“Uh… When do you leave?”
“I have to be at the airport at eleven.”
“Yeah, sure.” She smiled softly. He turned around again and Beth was no where to be seen. He looked around for her shape through the windows but couldn’t find anyone matching her profile. “Listen, I got to run, but we’ll talk soon ok?” Now it was her turn to look confused, she threw a smile on her face to try and keep up the charade that she wasn’t worried. He walked over to Harriet, thanked her for letting him leave and for not telling Venus about anything that happened that day, hoping she would get the hint and left.
Once outside he looked around him as fast and as thorough as he could in search of his previously unnamed topless shrink. But no matter how many times he turned his head to find her, she was no-where to be found. He put his hands in his hair in desperation as he turned on his axis a few more times to try and find her. Quickly though, it became very obvious that he really wasn’t going to find her. Saddened, he walked back to his car with his hands in his pockets. When he got there he stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed someone leaning on his car.
“You know, for a second there I was beginning to think I had actually forgotten what your car looked like.”
“Is your memory seriously that good?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I already am.”
“So, whatever did end up happening to The Mad Hatter, did she finally make The White Rabbit come to the tea party?”
“Go ask Alice. I think she’ll know,” he said pulling out his car keys and opening the car.
“You like Jefferson Airplane?”
“I like a lot of music. Come on, if we’re gonna talk about the Hatter, I’m gonna need a drink and if I’m gonna be drinking that much, I’m not gonna wanna drive.”
“Fair enough.”
Daniel felt his foot become mighty heavy this time on his drive back home. Beth even turned around and raised an eyebrow as he sped through a traffic light.
“You trying to kill us?” she asked.
“I’m just willful.”
When they got home, Daniel didn’t even bother taking his coat off and went straight for the kitchen.
“Can I get you anything, Beth?”
“You know, I’m not sure I like you knowing my name.”
“Why not?” he asked as he stood in front of the fridge with his hand on the carton of milk.
“Well, to be honest I was curious as to what you would scream in bed.” The Rabbit had become an owl with how far back his head turned. She tapped her nails on the archway leading to the kitchen and raised her eyebrows for a second.
“Well, I must say, I’m a little off guard there.”
“I lied.” Even as he thought of his “possible” relationship with Venus, he dropped his head in the disappointment of knowing she didn’t want to sleep with him. “I knew you worked there.” His head shot up again just in time to see her take off her shirt to reveal she wasn’t wearing a bra at all this time. She dropped her shirt on the floor and walked over to him.
“Wouldn’t want to lose your bra twice huh?” She just smiled and kissed him.
They ended upstairs and out of breath faster than he thought. He was still gasping for breath as she, cheekishly, stood up and began putting on her pink lace panties.
“You’re leaving? Already?” he asked with three breaths.
“Not at all, but I just feel more comfortable with my panties on.”
“I gotta say, I have that too,” he said as he sat up.
“You like wearing panties too?” He blinked his eyes as he noticed the stupidity of his remark. “I don’t know why, but quite a lot of people find it more comfortable in underwear.” He nodded agreeingly. “So you wanna tell me about Madeline now?” He exhaled and fell on the bed again.
“What do you wanna know?”
“What do you wanna tell?” she asked sitting in his computer chair in just her panties. Another exhale.
“I left her.”
“Good, I didn’t think she was doing you any good.” He looked over at her as if to ask how she could possibly know that.
“I’m not too happy about how I did it though.”
“No one is ever happy with how they break up with their significant other.”
“Suppose you’re right, all the same, this was remarkably shitty. I broke up with her while I was still inside her.”
“As in…” Daniel nodded. “Oh. That is bad.”
“Anyway, thing is I don’t even know what stroke caused me to do something that stupid, it’s not like…”
“Like what?”
“Did I tell you about my- Kate?” he asked, correcting himself midsentence.
“Yes,” she said with a smile realizing why he corrected himself.
“I don’t know… I think… I…” he froze up, choking on the words he was about to say, “I think I’m in love with her.”
“Well this is a very surprising turn of events,” she said sarcastically.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let me take away your first fear before I answer that,” she said straightening herself in her seat, “I haven’t been following you around, I’m basing everything I’m saying on that first conversation we had.”
“That wasn’t my first fear about you.”
“Oh?”
“My first fear is that you would have told someone who I was. As in who my parent’s were.”
“Ah, no worries there either, I haven’t.”
“Well that solves one of my concerns.”
“Anyway, since that first time we spoke, I could have already told you that you were in love with Katelyn. You spoke of her in a way that could have only possibly meant that and what you told me about all your other relationships just seemed to converge on the fact that your relationship with your would be sister was all you really wanted. A lot like most people have that with their mothers. It’s a simple oedipal complex, but since your mother figure is out of the picture, you’ve chosen the next best thing, your sister. In a way it’s a lot like Peter Pan and Wendy.”
“I think I understand.”
“Good, so what does that have to do with you leaving Madeline mid-coitus?”
“Well, me and Madeline we went to Spain and while we were there all I could think of was how much I wanted Kate.”
“Got too much to your head?”
“Yup.”
“Right. So where is Wendy tonight? I remember her living here.”
“She did, she moved out yesterday.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. But worst of all was, when I got back here from Spain, I took a girl with me, she looked exactly like Madeline except she was slightly more tanned, she had been staying with me up until yesterday too.”
“Yaouch.”
“She was good.”
“As in… in the sack?”
“Well there too, but no, I have kinda been trying to be with this girl, Venus, Harriet’s cousin from England.”
“With a name like Venus, I’m surprised that’s how you know her.”
“Yeah, you’re not the first one to say that.”
“Excuse my unoriginality. Anyway, carry on.”
“So Irene, the tanned Madeline, she was helping me… stay focused on Venus.”
“You realize how stupid this sounds as you’re saying this don’t you?”
“A bit.” She gave him a look of sudden understanding. “Thing is though, Venus is leaving.” A nod of understanding with high eyebrows, as if to ask him to continue. “Tomorrow. And to make things even more interesting, she’s asked me to...” He chocked on his words again. “Consider a long distance relationship.” Beth’s face was drenched in wow.
“What are your thoughts on that?” she asked him partially thinking she already knew the answer.
“I think… I don’t know, I mean I have hardly ever been monogamous, but to now also have my partner all the way out there, so, not to have sex at all for long periods on end,” Beth was already nodding her head in agreement, “I don’t know, I don’t know how I would handle it. I mean already, when she was here, I needed Irene to help me stay focused and stuff.”
“You want my opinion?” He nodded. “I think this Venus chick has too many high expectations from you. Sounds like she wants you to be someone you’re not. I mean you just got out of a very dysfunctional relationshit, with Madeline, to now suddenly be thrown into a relationship where you can’t be who you really are… I just don’t think it would be healthy for you at this point. Even if she does put you on the right path...”
“I’m afraid you might be right,” he paused, not knowing quite what else to say, “Where have you been all this time by the way?” he asked when he suddenly came up with something.
“I live on campus.”
“Wait really? How come I don’t see you at all?”
“I don’t get out much. I had to be dragged out to go to that party at your place.”
“Wow.” Again an awkward silence filled the air. “So, is there anything you want to talk to me about? Any issues or…”
“Nope I’m good. And you’re done?”
“With?”
“Talking about all your issues?”
“Not nearly, but I think this is as close as we’re gonna get.”
“Good, I was hoping we could go on for round two.”
“Why didn’t you say so, I’ve been ready for quite some time,” he said throwing the blanket off him, exposing himself. Her eyebrows made a jump once more before she stood up to walk to him.