The Opportunist

Chapter Nine



The Past





The decision was made. I told Cammie about the abortion as we sat bent over our dinner trays in the cafeteria.



“You’re kidding,” she said as a French-fry dropped from her mouth.



“No,” I said swallowing the lump in my throat. “I overheard her talking to that tall girl about it—the one who picks her scabs.”



I stuffed the last of my fries into my mouth and licked the salt off my lips.



“Nadia?” asked Cammie, pushing her plate away.



“Yes, Nadia, but you can’t tell anyone I told you Cam, I mean how horrible would it be if that got out?”



I studied my roommate’s pretty face and frowned. Perhaps, this would be the one time that Cammie kept her mouth shut. What would I do then?

“Do you think Caleb would care, I mean do you think he would have wanted to keep it?”

I stared at her glittering eyes and felt a sinking in my stomach. I never really thought about that one. He would have wanted to keep it. I knew that in my heart. The way he had spoken about his family that night at Jackson’s he told me that he wanted to be a father. I closed my wicked eyes and sighed.

“Why would you think I would know the answer to that question?”

Cammie shrugged. “You kinda know him. I mean you spent some time with him right, I just thought—”

“I don’t know anything about him,” I snapped, standing up and grabbing my tray. Except that I wanted him more than anything else in the world. I looked down at Cammie and felt panic. This was it.

Cammie had diarrhea of the mouth. It was going to be all over the school and fast. I had now officially secured my front row seat on the train to Hell.

Choo choo!

“I’m going back to the dorms,” I said. I wanted her to follow me so that I could keep an eye on her. I wasn’t sure that I wanted…

“Ok. I’m going to hang here for a while.” Cammie smiled sugar-sweetly up at me. Her face looked innocent, but her eyes looked evil. I could see the gossip monster crawling its way up her esophagus and pushing frantically behind her mouth to be let out.

I turned on my heels and fled before she could see the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

Choo choo…

News of the abortion spun and chortled through the gossip chain until it reached Caleb two days later. It was an ex-girlfriend who delivered Caleb the blow. She took her first chance to ax Jessica in order to win him back. I had watched her give Jessica dirty looks for the last few weeks. I recognized them because I was giving them too.

The entire break up took less than ten minutes. It was witnessed by a large portion of the student body who hovered on the scene like flies over a bleeding carcass. I was not there but was told by Cammie who had a front-row seat. The ex timed it perfectly, telling Caleb right before he was supposed to meet Jessica for dinner, and then standing back to watch. Jessica found Caleb waiting for her on the steps to the cafeteria. Their exchange was a brief. Jessica in hysterics, admitted everything to Caleb, who some say punched a wall and others say threw a bench at a tree. In actuality, he walked away from her stony faced and never spoke a word to her again. Jessica left for home a day after the commotion and purportedly left all of her belongings behind. I wondered if she knew it was me—if she even thought about me after that day or if my face blurred into that place where all of the non-popular’s belonged.

I wore my guilt for a week. It was like a firm hand pressing down on the back of my neck. I hung my head in shame and lurked around the dorms like a shadow. By day eight, I was already justifying what I had done.

I was ensconced in self-love. I had taken advantage of a girl looking for someone to trust and I used her predicament for my own personal gain. I was my father’s child. I hated myself.

My father—Oliver Kaspen, no middle name, was the worst sort of bastard a woman could drop from her loins. My mother used to say that he was a carbon copy of Elvis, dark and sexy, with bedroom eyes. He had the type of mouth that said pretty thing,s but when things got thin, it would curl into a hateful grin and cut you where it hurt. But, before he would peel off the overcoat of charm he wore, and before he would tell you that the only reason he was only with you was because of the ugly brat you bore, he was all smiles and kisses and compliments. That’s how he got my mother and that’s how he got me—the ugly brat.

He only stayed for three years after my birth, before shuffling off with his duffel bag over his shoulder. Periodically, through my tweens he would ‘reconcile’ with my mom, taking up residence on the left side of her bed, before once again jockeying off to sow his wild oats elsewhere. He gambled our grocery money, swore at us when he lost it, and he never batted a guilty eye when we had nothing to eat but a box of stale saltines. My dad.

Once, when our cabinets were empty, and I was hungrily gnawing on my thumb, he disappeared with my mother’s last dollar. My five year old mind thought that he was off to find some food, but hours later, he came back smelling so strongly of philly cheese steak, it made my mouth water. Oliver Kaspen looked out for Oliver Kaspen. Ouch. That had been the straw that broke my mother’s back. She kicked him out of our crappy studio apartment with a string of swear words I had never heard before.

The feeding frenzy for Caleb began shortly after Jessica left. Girls clamored for Caleb's attention like chimps on crack.

“He’s got the banana that every girl wants,” Jim commented one afternoon as we watched a couple of blondes bob around him like loosely tethered helium balloons. Caleb was laughing at something one of them said. She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek to which he blushed and pulled back in surprise. I looked away jealous. I couldn’t take much more of this. I was mentally murdering someone new every five minutes.

My opportunity came the same day I flunked my Latin test. I had never received as much as a C in my entire educational career, so the large F circled in red and underlined twice, came as pureed brain shock. I was losing my grip. I couldn’t concentrate. Caleb had rooted himself in my mind like a parasite and he was feeding on my emotions and thoughts. Something had to be done. I was between buildings clutching my test to my chest and staring glassy eyed at a random brick in the wall when someone walked by and shoved a flyer into my hand. Normally I would have tossed it but this time, blame it on my moment of shock, I turned it over.

ZAX PARTY

Where? Where else?

When? Saturday at 10:00

Bring: Beer

When I got back to my room, I shoved the flyer in Cammie’s face.

“Let’s go to this.”

She was leaning over a poster board using liquid eyeliner to stencil in the words “Business Plan” across the top. She glanced at the flyer for the briefest of seconds and started blowing on her letters.

“Are you having some kind of midlife crisis?”

“I’m only twenty, brat; you have to be in the middle of your life to have a midlife crisis. Why aren’t you using a marker?”

“I don’t have one and I’m in no mood for jokes. This project is due tomorrow and the only thing I know about business is how to spell it.”

“Well, you don’t even know that much because you’re missing an s.”



Cammie frowned at her poster and went to work on the last s.



“I need you to come with me...”



I walked to my drawer and retrieved a box of markers.



“What are you going do at a party?”



I quelled the urge to smack her and tried to sound pleasant.



“I don’t know. Normal things that people do at parties…like…hang out.”



“You don’t drink, dance, or smoke. Sorry Olivia, nobody’s going to want to talk about politics with you, unless you’re going to a keg party at Beta Nu, and that would be so, so lame.”

“I can dance,” I said defensively, “and anyone can drink—there’s no special talent needed there.”

“Yes, but a special talent is needed for not acting like a fool when you are drinking.” She was drawing hearts on the corners of the board and making little smiling faces in the center of each one.

She was such a waste of good air.



I sighed dramatically.



“I will do your project for you—if you come with me.”



Cammie rolled over onto her back and waved her arms in the air like she was swimming the breaststroke.



“Glory hallelujah! You’ve said the magic words.”



I grunted. I would have done it for her anyway. I’d be damned it I let my roommate turn in a business plan that looked like a Valentine’s Day card.

On Saturday I got ready with the precision of a spinal surgeon. Everything had to be just right. I was going to win this battle—be it with Mad Merlot lipstick and Sexy by Victoria Secret. At ten o’clock Cammie and I were floating up the stairs of the Zax house surrounded by clouds of exhaled nicotine. My head was spinning and my dress, which was a size too small, was hugging my chest like a boa constrictor.

“It’s a good thing you look like a normal girl,” Cammie said, smiling at me in approval.

“Normal—as opposed to what?”

I was tugging at my dress trying to cover the exposed swell of my breasts, which were rising like two plump muffins, out of Cammie’s push up bra.

She smirked at me and tugged the dress back down again.

“Well, you have those for one thing,” she poked me in the chest. “You’ve been hiding them in those ugly, outdated shirts you wear. And makeup makes you look sexy—exotic even. You clean up nicely my friend.”

I hoped so.



"Are you ready O?" Cammie asked squeezing my arm. I felt a little sick actually but I took a deep breath and nodded.



"Good, because this is going to be the most interesting night of your life.”



The door opened and we stepped into a room so thick with bodies and the stench of beer, my first instinct was to step back. Cammie shoved me through the doorway and toward a table corrupted with bottles.

“A drink first,” she said handing me a red plastic cup, “then, you do what you came to do.”

Cammie splashed vodka into my cup and added a stingy dash of cranberry. I was so nervous. I took a sip too large for my mouth and spilled the concoction down the front of my dress.

“Careful, Julia Roberts. The plan is to be smooth.” Cammie eyeballed me disapprovingly and I took another sip, carefully this time. It was worse than I thought. People were sweating and touching everything, breathing their alcohol breath into each other’s faces…germs! Horniness! They were acting like animals. I suddenly felt a rush of panic. This was too hard—being someone else. There had to be another way to do it.

"I don't think that I can—” I said turning around. The door was ten steps away. All I would have to do was dodge a couple of bodies and I could slip into the cool night air before I had the chance to humiliate myself.

Cammie grabbed my arm.

“There he is," she hissed into my ear. I turned. He was in a room to our left, playing pool. Raucous laughter drifted over to where we were standing and I caught the words “vibrator and locksmith.”

“Well, maybe we can stay for a bit,” I said weakly. Caleb was taking his turn. He bent over the table with hard concentration and knocked two balls into their pockets.

“What do I do now?”



“You have to get his attention without getting his attention.”



“I don’t speak girl games.”



Cammie waved to someone across the room.



“Look, just don’t be obvious,” she said. “There’s nothing more unattractive then a girl who throws herself at a guy.” This was coming from the same Cammie that rubbed baby oil on her cleavage every morning to draw attention to her “better parts” as she advertised them.

“How the hell do I do that?”

“You were the one who wanted to come. You figure it out.” And with that, she left me. Freshman scum. I hovered at the drink table for a few minutes then realized that I must look like a loser and wandered away. Okay, I had to do something to get his attention, to let him know that I was here.

I spotted the DJ’s booth and an idea wiggled its way into my brain. Dancing! My secret weapon!

A guy wearing a “Korn” t-shirt was typing something into a laptop behind the table. He nodded at me when I approached and his eyes immediately found my cleavage.

“Can I request a song?” I shouted above the music. He nodded at my girls and pressed a piece of paper and a pencil into my hand. I quickly scribbled the name of a song and the artist onto the paper and handed it back to him.

“My face is here,” I said reaching out and lifting his chin until he was looking me in the eye. He smiled and winked at me.



Degenerate. I kind of liked him.



“Yours is up next.” He shouted over the music. He gave me the thumbs up, as I sauntered away.



I eyed the dance floor with trepidation and saw the only person out there was a prematurely drunk guy who was shuffling around, winding his hips without a trace of rhythm. This was going to kill me, but that was obsession and I was going to do it. I took a huge swig, finishing off what remained of my vodka cocktail and summoned the memory of our kiss in the pool. The thought of it gave me a temporary surge of boldness. I want to be kissed like that again—possibly every single day of my life.

I stepped onto the dance floor as my song flowed from the speakers. It only took about ten seconds for me to take over the entire room. People simultaneously stopped what they were doing to watch me. I was good. I was really, really good. I silently thanked my mother for the eight years of free dance lessons she had wrangled out of the local studio as I twisted my hips in a complicated wind.

I’m obsessive, when just the thought of you comes up…

I saw Cammie’s face appear around the corner to see what was happening. Her mouth made an “O” shape and she winked at me with approval.

It’s not healthy for me to feel this…

Other people started joining me on the dance floor but they kept a respectful distance, swaying around me like my personal backup dancers.

“Looks like we have a hot one in the house tonight,” I heard the DJ say over the microphone. As more people started crowding around to watch me, I saw Caleb and his pool buddies emerge from the back room. That’s right, come take a look and see what all the commotions about. I let my hair fall seductively into my eyes and swiveled my hips in his direction.

This time, please- someone come and rescue me…

I watched his face as he spotted me and my stomach did a little dance of excitement. Bingo! Eye contact. Other than a slight narrowing of his eyes, his face didn’t show one iota of emotion. Dammit! I threw in my signature belly dancer shake and I saw with satisfaction that he raised an eyebrow. When Rhianna sang: Just your presence and I second-guess my sanity…I looked directly at Caleb and crooked my finger. He didn’t look surprised at all. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked casually over to me, hands still in his pockets. He allowed me to dance around him for seconds, smiling at the hoots and catcalls before grabbing me by the waist and dancing in-sync with my steps. He was good- all smoothness- like I expected.

When that song ended, we danced to the next one, and the next one. My hair was damp and sticking to the back of my neck, when Caleb finally pulled me off the dance floor. I held onto his hand as he steered us through the ocean of bodies and out onto the porch. We leaned our elbows on the railing, and let the cool air run her fingers across our sticky skin.

“You’re full of surprises.” These were the first words he had spoken to me in months. I savored the sound of his voice before I answered.

“Why? Because I can dance?” I lifted my hair off of my neck and looked him in the eye.

Caleb shook his head and did something with his lips that almost made me keel over.

“No. Because you came…because you’re wearing that dress,” he smiled, eyeing my cleavage. “and not because you can dance, but because you did dance.”

“You think I’m uptight,” I sigh, watching a girl throw up in an Azalea a hundred yards away.



“Everyone thinks you’re uptight.”



I knew he wasn’t saying it to be mean. It was just fact—like green apples being sour.



“You’re like a pair of boots with six inch heels. All attitude and sexiness, but you make people feel uncomfortable just looking at you.”

Well, I had officially graduated from Llama’s to footwear.



“And after tonight?” I asked him, picking at the peeling paint on the banister.



“I think you broke a heel and you’re wearing flip flops like the rest of us.” There was laughter in his voice.



“I might put my boots back on tomorrow,” I said. “And why are we speaking metaphor?”



Caleb laughed and then all of a sudden he became serious again.



“I like your boots. They’re sexy.” His voice was throaty and seductive. I knew he could get girls—maybe even me into bed, just by using that voice.

“I have something for you,” I said suddenly pulling out of the trance he was putting me in. He cocked his head. That small gesture got me so worked up I forgot what I was supposed to be doing for a few seconds. Grabbing his hand, I placed my token in his palm. He smiled at me, almost questioningly, and looked down. It was the penny. I found it in the pocket of his sweatshirt the morning after our kiss.

This time, I made the first move. I stepped towards him, eliminating the space between us, just as he looked up. His hands wrapped around my waist and in one smooth motion, he whipped our bodies around until my back was pressed up against the wall. He was trying to shield our moment from the stragglers who had wandered onto the porch. I all but disappeared behind his back, but I could still hear some snickering and exclamations of surprise.

This kiss was different from the first one. We had kissed before so there was no hesitancy or shyness this time. He did things with his mouth that purposely prompted racy thoughts. I was breathing hard when he pulled away. My hands were braced behind me pressing against the rough stucco of the house. Caleb laughed, running his hands through my hair, tugging on the split ends.

I was still leaning against the wall, wondering if my legs would work if I took a step away. The backdoor opened, leaking out the noise of the party.

“Come on,” he said taking my hand, “I want to see you dance again.”

I fell in love hard and swift like Tyson’s uppercut. One day I just enjoyed his company and the next I couldn’t live without it. We saw each other every spare minute—even if it was just for a quick, hungry kiss before class. When our grades made the shitty plummet, we set boundaries; no talking on the phone after dark and no seeing each other during the week except at mealtimes. Most of the time, we broke our rules minutes after making them. It was nugatory trying to stay away from him. He was my crack. I could never get enough and when I had him I was already thinking about when I could have him next.

We seemed happier than other couples, permanently stuck in a state of bliss so intense our mouths were curved into smiles even in our sleep. Caleb taught me how to play—something I had never known in my youth or as an adult. He brought me cupcakes and then smashed them in my face. He took me kayaking and flipped us into the water. Once when his fraternity hosted a jello wrestling night, he convinced me to attend and then challenged me to a wrestling duel. Knee deep in jello the color of Windex, I charged him aiming for his knees. I got lucky and threw him off balance. We both landed up on our backs with Caleb laughing so hard, it sounded like he was sobbing. I loved him with everything in me. He taught me who I was, something I never would have known, without his deft handling of my personality.

That summer, I picked up a part time job at a small bookstore. I was the only employee, other than the owner, and I worked nights which required me to lock up the store around midnight. The bookstore shared a parking lot with a bar called Gunshots and most nights I had to endure catcalls and whistling from the intoxicated bikers who were lingering outside. I hated it and kept my fists balled all the way to the car, in case I had to hit someone.

I had been working there for three weeks when Caleb dropped by to see me. His face was red and tense when he walked through the doors.

“What’s wrong?” I said coming around the counter to hug him. I peered over his shoulder, wondering if one of the bar rats had said something to make him angry. Often they made rude comments to the customers as they were coming or going.

“You’re alone here?”

“Well, there are a few customers.” I said glancing around the aisles.

“When you leave at night, do you walk to your car alone?” His voice was impatient and I wondered where exactly he was going with this.

“Yes.”



“You’re not working here anymore,” he said, with finality.



“What?” my jaw dropped. He had never spoken to me that way before.



He pointed outside to the bar. “It’s dangerous. You’re a woman. You are alone and it doesn’t help that you look the way you do.”



“You’re telling me that I have to quit my job because of the way I look?” I raised an eyebrow and walked back behind the register. He was pissing me off.

“I’m telling you that it is not safe for you to be here alone and then walk to your car by yourself.”



“I can take care of myself.” I began stacking books that needed to be shelved onto a trolley.



“You’re a hundred pounds soaking wet, and those are very drunk men.”



I shrugged.



Caleb looked like a ball of hot energy and he was making me nervous.



“I’m not quitting,” I said putting my hands on my hips. “I have to work. Not all of us have rich parents and trust funds to see us through life.”

His face became white. He hated for anyone to mention the fact that he was loaded, least of all me. He walked out of the store without a goodbye. I threw a pen at the door, wishing he was still there so it could hit him on the head.

Later that night, when I was locking up, I saw his car in the lot.



I walked up to the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass with my keys.



“What are you doing here?” I said when he rolled down the window.



He shrugged.



Annoyed, I walked away without asking him anything else.



From then on, anytime I worked, Caleb’s car was parked in the lot when I left. We never acknowledged each other in the parking lot, and we never spoke about it during our regular relationship hours. But at midnight, he was always there, making sure I was safe. I liked it.

It took me a while to get used to Caleb’s vast popularity. Maybe five people on campus knew my name, but his was a name that was engraved on brass plaques in the school’s gymnasium.

“I feel like I’m dating a celebrity,” I said, when we were out to dinner one night and a couple of girls waved to him from the next table. He rolled his eyes and played it off like I was being dramatic. But, my jealousy weaseled its way into my mind every time some bimbo paid him homage.

Those girls had no regard for the fact that he was my boyfriend. They were waiting for the chance to pounce on him—just like I had.

And then there was the sex issue. We hadn’t gone that far. Cammie quizzed me nightly on just how far our make-out sessions went.

“We just kiss,” I told her for the umpteenth time. We were both in our beds, with the lights out and Cammie was sucking on a lollipop, making wet, slurping noises.

“You need to brush your teeth when you’re done with that.”



“And he never tries to do more?” she asked ignoring me.





“I don’t want him to.”



“Olivia, just looking at that man makes me want to have sex and I’m sure ninety nine percent of the female student body agrees with me. What’s your issue? Wait! Were you molested?”

She pronounced it “mo-lested.” I rolled my eyes.



“No, shut up. I just don’t want to. Why do I have to be a product of sexual assault because I’m not jumping into bed with him?”



“Hellooo, Caleb is a man. He wants to have sex and if you’re not giving it to him, he’ll find it somewhere else.”



I rolled over and refused to say anything more. What did Camadora know anyway? Weren’t freshman infamous for being stupid and slutty? Wasn’t my father famous for ‘finding it somewhere else’?

No. I wasn’t going to use my father as an excuse to lose Caleb again. Caleb was faithful, attentive, and he had never pushed me to do more than kiss, because he respected me. I remembered the last time we kissed. It had been in his room, lying on his bed. His whole body had felt tense, like he was wound up and ready to spring loose. What if he was using every ounce of self-control when he was with me? The word ‘cock tease’ sprung to mind and I crept further under my covers in shame.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think about having sex with him. I thought about it all the time. But, thinking and doing were two different things. I wasn’t ready and I didn’t know why.

Laura Hilberson was found the same week Caleb and I messed around for the first time. The police found her wandering the Miami airport, barefoot, and her eyelids hanging low over milky eyes. Laura's story was that a man had abducted her while she was jogging on a trail at a park not two miles from the school. Calling for help, he claimed to have sprained an ankle, and begged for her assistance. He asked to be helped to his car, which was just yonder, over the rise. Reluctantly, Laura agreed. She shouldered his weight and walked the short distance to his white van. The van was an old Astro van with rust eating away the metal like cancer. Hindsight told Laura that the darkly tinted windows and slightly cracked rear door was a flashing warning sign. As she helped him into the driver’s seat, he let his keys slip from his fingers and fall into the grass at Laura’s feet. When she bent to retrieve them, the man lifted a crowbar from the passenger seat and connected it with one powerful motion to Laura’s pretty temple. He then shoved her into the back and drove her to what the papers were calling “The Rapist’s Den.”

Laura remembered being kept in a basement of some sort, for a time she couldn’t determine, because she had been sedated. The man, who she described as “shy,” used her for sex and company. Then one day, for no good reason, kissed her on the cheek and dropped her off at the airport. She told police his name was Devon. Laura Hilberson had been missing for six months.

While Laura was lying in a hospital bed being questioned by police, Caleb and I were at a charity auction that most seniors in his fraternity were required to attend. It was one of those fluffy affairs where everyone dresses up in expensive suits and dresses, with waiters circle the room with flutes of champagne. He spotted a group of people who were huddled together in a tight pack.

“I went to high school with them,” he said casually, sliding an olive off of a toothpick with his mouth.

“How many of those girls did you date?” I said eyeing the group. Nearly all of the girls were beautiful enough to be on the cover of a magazine and several of them had greeted Caleb with a sensual familiarity that made my green monster crack his knuckles.

“Why is that important?” he asked and I could see the amusement in his eyes.



“Because, if I made a statement like that you would want to know who I’d been kissing,” I snapped impatiently.



He smiled and obliged, bending his neck to speak softly into my ear.



“Adriana Parsevo,” his voice was so low I had to strain to hear him. I repositioned my ear closer to his lips and shivered when I felt them against my lobe. “She’s in the little silver dress,” I directed my gaze towards a striking girl whose dress didn’t manage to cover even a tenth of her never ending legs. What was it with Caleb and the legs?

“We dated for a while, She was very…experimental,” that last word and the texture of his voice hinted at so much, I felt a surge of jealousy crush my windpipe. Caleb, seemingly enjoying my reaction, continued.

“The girl she’s speaking to, the one drinking the mimosa, is named Kirsten if I recall correctly. She has a birthmark that resembles Africa on the inside of her thigh.”

I blew air hard through my nose and glared at him. He laughed—the type of naughty, sexy, chuckle that stirred the sleeping butterflies in my belly.

“You asked Duchess…”

I pictured him kissing those girls. His fingers tracing their birthmarks and my breath caught in my throat. I hated them and I hated him for liking them.

“Would you like to hear more?” he asked, lips grazing the top of my ear.

“No,” I said surly and I meant it. Asking was a big mistake.

As soon as we got in his car, I pounced on him. I kissed him hard—jumping across the seat and climbing into his lap. He laughed into my mouth knowing that his game had struck a chord and he cupped his hands around my buttocks. I ignored him and kept working intent on proving myself seductive.

Caleb’s mood changed quickly and soon all smiles were gone as we were tangled together in a kiss so intense we were both panting. I thought I was going to die when his fingers lowered the straps of my dress and I felt air on my breasts. Then there was more than air. His hands and his mouth found me and I wondered why I had never done this before. I said something. I don’t know what it was, but my voice seemed to snap him back to reality, because he tore away from me the moment he heard it and held me at arm’s length. I had never done anything as wanton, as daring, and what was kept safely beneath my bra and he had never had to stop at such an early point in foreplay.

“Why—? I was breathless and still clutching at his shirt. He kissed me softly on the lips. All sexual charge was gone. He turned on the ignition.

I climbed back to my side of the car and slumped down in my seat. It was because he didn’t want to go halfway. There was no “messing around” with Caleb. Most guys were happy to cop as many feels as they could get. With Caleb, it was different. You either went all the way, or you stayed in the shallow waters of kissing. He wouldn’t sleaze his way into sex, by pulling me further and further away from my chastity by giving me pieces of what I was missing. I sat back in my seat and contemplated throwing all of my inhibitions to the wind. What were they anyway? I could barely remember when I thought of his hands and the way they knew exactly where to touch.

I wondered what my mother would say. She would be happy that I found a guy like Caleb, but she would still be wary of him. My father had gifted us both with a package of suspicion that sat like a teeth baring watchdog in our minds. “Guard your heart, so it doesn’t get broken like mine,” my mother would say as often as twice a week.

Sheri, my mother’s best friend, brought Oliver Kaspen’s life to an abrupt end one Fourth of July after I turned eleven. She used his own 22 gauge shotgun to do the deed, plastering his grey matter all over her pink flamingo shower curtain. Unbeknownst to my mother, Sheri was one of the many women my father used for sex and money. She reminded me of a watery eyed cocker spaniel with a personality as slimey as a raw egg. Before my mother found out about his affair with Sheri, I knew. On the afternoons that my mom worked late and my father picked me up from school, we would go visit his ‘friends.’ These friends all happened to be women, and either had access to money, drugs or both.

“Don’t you go telling your ma about these little visits you’ve been making over here with your dad,” Sheri said wagging a finger at me. “She’s got enough on her plate as is, and your dad just needs a friend to talk to.”

They talked for hours in Sheri’s bedroom, sometimes with the radio playing oldies and cigarette smoke seeping from the crack under the door. My dad would be real nice to me after he came out of the bedroom. We always stopped for gelato on the way home. I didn’t miss him when he was gone. He was just some guy who walked me home from school and bribed me with ice-cream. At the time of his death, it had been ten months since I’d last seen him, and he hadn’t even called for my birthday. Oliver Kaspen, my namesake, died leaving me with a flurry of bad memories and a deadbolt on my heart that only he had the key to. I had daddy issues that doomed Caleb from the get go.