coffee.
—Roxy 512-555-8792 (My actual phone number)
Artemis studied the note. “Basic and lacking in romance, but it will do.”
We approached the car. As I was sliding the note under the wiper blades, I spotted the glistening eyes and sharp teeth of a snarling animal staring at me. I jumped back in alarm and then looked closer. A taxidermied raccoon sat in the passenger seat of Texas’s car. “What the fuck!” I yelled. What a freak! I pressed my eyes against the glass. On the floorboards sat a wadded up Burger King bag. And Texas had claimed to be a vegetarian!
“Don’t worry! That raccoon and those burger wrappers belong to Texas’s sponsee Stuart. The raccoon is named Boris. He’s Stuart’s Higher Power.”
“Jesus,” I said. “That’s fucked up.”
“Stuart’s a contrarian. He likes to push the limits of the AA philosophy that a person can pick any Higher Power they want.” Suddenly Artemis screamed and pointed at Texas’s car with a trembling hand.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?” I mean, what could be worse than a taxidermied raccoon?
Then I saw it there in the backseat of Texas’s car.
A child’s car seat.
“Oh, shit,” I said. My heart sank. “Any chance that belongs to Stuart, too?”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Artemis said mournfully.
In that moment I wished Artemis wasn’t sober, so we could walk across the street to Güero’s and get hammered together on margaritas. “Want to come over for a cup of tea?” I asked.
“I most certainly do,” Artemis said.
In the end, I didn’t leave the note on Texas’s car. Artemis and I went to my house and watched my bootleg copy of “Pitch Perfect.” It turns out she knows the complete choreography of the final dance sequence, and she taught me a couple parts of it. Roscoe joined in, dancing at our feet. So at least the night wasn’t a total bust. But I am devastated that Texas likely has a kid. Will my desire to live a child-free life forever ruin my chances at love? I can’t be any kid’s stepmom or even stepmom-type person. I don’t know how to deal with children, and kids come with a mom somewhere, and that’s just a whole lot of baggage I don’t need in my life. I’m barely not a kid myself.
I now feel I am certain to live the rest of my life alone and, like other oppressed groups before me, I plan to reclaim the name given to me by my oppressors—Spinster.
Woefully,
Roxy
November 7, 2012
Dear Everett,
I woke up this morning thinking maybe, just maybe I could deal with dating someone who has a kid. I mean, the kid still needs a car seat. Maybe it doesn’t even talk yet. I could teach it how to dip french fries into ketchup. That would be pretty cute, a tiny little Texas person daintily dipping a french fry. It’s something I could handle, maybe. But then Texas has all these sponsees. And I know they are needy, since they obviously worship him and he gets called in any time one of them has a crisis or whatever. When would he have time to pay attention to me?
I was pondering all this when my phone rang with a local number I didn’t know. Against my usual inclinations, I answered it.
“Vet Girl?”
“Texas?”
“I got your number from Mitch. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yes! I was going to give it to you last night but then—”
“The sponsee storm hit.”
“Exactly.” And then I blurted out: “I thought you didn’t want to be my attorney because you hated me.”
“Hate you? Ever since I saw you teetering on that chair in the vet’s office I’ve been totally intrigued by you. So I couldn’t have you be my client. Dating a client—or former client—isn’t illegal. But it’s seriously frowned upon at my work. So I just had this lightning-bolt realization that if I took your case I could never date you without it potentially being disastrous for my career, and just kind of… not right. Like a shrink dating a past client or something.”
“But then you weren’t my attorney and you didn’t ask me out.”
“I wanted to wait until your case was totally closed. And then Mitch told me you went into PharmaTrial.”
I groaned. “And then you really didn’t want to date me!”
“I wasn’t judging you! It’s just that after a while I felt like I’d missed my chance or something. And then I worried I’d be too straight and vanilla and boring for you.”
“Vanilla? Boring? You’re a tattooed drummer.”
“I mean, I saw you at that convention.”
“Oh my