Page 34 of Best Man on Campus

Earlier at the First Wildbeast Hockey Playoff Game

Dooley is there three seats in and I give him a nod when I get to his row. My row. An older woman sits in the seat on the end as I squeeze past her and take the empty seat between them. She looks familiar and I realize why when she introduces herself as Janet Weaver. Fuck. Dooley nudges me.

“My son plays for the team, Ben Weaver, maybe you know him?” I look at her feeling like a deer in the headlights, so out of my element. His fucking mother. That fucking asshole set me up. Now I have to be polite to his mother all night. Fuck. I smile, or try to while I think of something to say that’s not snarky.

“Oh, what am I saying? Of course you know Ben—he gave you this ticket for the game, isn’t that right?” I nod. Maybe she’ll go on in her monologue playing June Cleaver all night and I won’t need to talk, only nod here and there. If only I didn’t have to hear her. I turn to Dooley and he flashes me a smile, oblivious to everything except what a swell time he’s having because he’s being seen at the game in the team friends-and-family section.

“What’s your name?” she asks after a long pause of my continued silence.

“Jaz—Jasmine,” I say. God, I hate this polite act, hate that I feel compelled to turn myself into a different person, play a former version of myself that I don’t feel and barely remember. Worse, I know she’s going to ask me about my relationship with Ben and I don’t have a fucking good answer. But since when has that stopped me? Any good lie will do. I could tell her I’m his fiancée. That’ll teach him to blindside me.

“Are you two dating?” she asks, no shame in her bald curiosity and I gotta respect it even as I hate it.

“No. We’re friends.” The national anthem starts up saving me from further explanation and I find Ben-the-dickhead in the lineup on the ice and catch his eyes as he gazes up, pinpointing me in the stands. And I thought he was a good guy. Ha. Inside the tension, deep down in my chest I want to laugh because it’s funny, truly funny that I should be here now, Ben the humanitarian’s guest, sitting with his mom and next to my new bud, Dooley the superficial social climber.

Not a scenario I would have predicted a couple weeks ago. I let out a snicker and take a deep breath. Go with it, Jazzy, like an out-of-body experience. I can always write a song about it later. A funny song. Ironically silly. Not very often I get the chance to do that. Like never.

The game barely starts, going from a standstill at mid-ice to savage action so fast, with that swishing of skates and the low buzz of the crowd in the background, that I barely see Ben’s shot, barely register in my head that he’s scored before the entire arena erupts. Including Janet, who jumps from her seat and pulls me up with her. We’re all clapping and high-fiving, including Dooley. Then with the crowd still roaring, music playing, Janet looks at me, and after a second of hesitation, she opens her arms.

When she wraps me in a celebration hug, the shock prevents me from lashing out or pushing her away immediately. I feel like I’ve gone from disoriented to full-fledged Twilight Zone. As the woman’s warmth calms me, my arms go around her in a long buried move where my muscle memory takes over. The embrace only lasts a couple of seconds, but the vibrations shake my soul as I’m allowed this peek into Ben’s life, into what made him who he is.

Her smile is genuine and joyful and filled with the kind of pride I’ve only ever seen in Disney movies. She tells me she goes to every game and I squelch every instinct in me to snort at her and accuse her of playing June Cleaver. It’s wild to watch the game sandwiched between Dooley and Mrs. Weaver, opposite ends of a spectrum that I’m not even on. She fills me with all kinds of facts and stories about her beloved son.

The game goes by in an emotionally exhausting blur as I try and keep my shit together, to keep from melting or lashing out, to stay neutral and control the penetration of the excitement around me, the energy threatening to send me spinning into a violent rage against life and fate because this is not my universe, because I don’t know how to be normal. Because I want to hide under the covers and never acknowledge all I’ve lost, because however good the moment is or life seems, I want to shout at these people that it’s all an illusion, that it’s going to be snatched away. That any second now it’s all going to blow up in an explosion of blood and shattered pieces of heart.

Before the game clock ticks to zero, I stand and grab my jacket. Dooley grabs my arm.

“Where you going? Aren’t you waiting for Ben—?”

Giving him what I know is a feral look, I viciously yank my arm from his grasp and try to move past Janet, keeping my eyes averted from her. But there’s no clean escape from the woman who thinks she’s bonded with me, who she thinks is her son’s new girlfriend. Fuck.

“It was nice to meet you, Jasmine.” She touches my elbow lightly as she stands. I can’t avoid flashing her a look with the least sincere smile I’ve ever felt—and there have been a hell of a lot of those, mostly aimed at professors, teachers, and other random authority figures who are easy to keep at a distance.

It doesn’t work with Janet. Because she’s fucking Ben the unicorn boy’s fucking mother. A nice mother. I want to scratch her eyes out or weep in her arms, but more than that, I want to run before I can’t contain the pain searing my insides, making me want to vomit.

“Nice…” That’s all I can manage to mumble as I half stumble past her into the aisle and then run up the stairs and to the exit as fast as I can, not giving a fuck that people stare, that a cop asks me if I’m okay. I manage to nod so he doesn’t give chase and then I slam through the doors to the cold air outside the campus arena, sucking in deep breaths, bent over like I’ve just escaped a monster, my demon.

As the crowd starts trickling from the arena, I run to my car and make my way to Wildbeast Pizza. I text Leon that I’ll be earlier than expected. Skipping out on Ben after the game is the least of my worries. And as I calm on my way to Wildbeast, I realize it’s the least I can do to repay him for setting me up with his mother.

Although, he did text me earlier. Maybe he’d meant to warn me. But I don’t give a fuck, do I? I’m never going to see her again. I’m not her son’s girlfriend. We’re not an item except in Dooley’s fantasy world. I glance at the B on my bandage and swear at myself. It’s a B for bandage, or more accurately bondage if I don’t get a grip. Maybe I should have written S for stupid silly sicko. But I’ll need to correct the fantasy so easily brought on by a few orgasms.

Especially Ben’s fantasy where he gets the girl and brings her home to mommy. I’ll be glad to disillusion him of that Disneyesque delusion. That’s what I meant to do for him, isn’t it? Knock hockey boy off his unicorn? Make sure he never bothers with another coat collection again in his fucking humanitarian life because who gives a shit about coats in this fucking hell of a world?

By the time I force myself to push the back door of Wildbeast Pizza open, it’s 8:30. The place is already half full. I’m scheduled to sing at nine, an hour later than my usual Tuesday night gig. Leon is letting me off with a short night tonight in the interest of romance. All I had to do was mention that it would be a shame to waste the ticket to the hockey game after Ben went to all that trouble to get it for me and he caves because he’s a sucker for a love story.

Hopefully he doesn’t mind when they end in tragedy. But somehow I have a feeling that Leon knows his share of tragic love stories and may even be a pal in commiseration.

Nodding at Leon, I hang my jacket on a hook just inside the office and then take a seat at the back corner of the bar, the farthest away from the front door. But I can still see it open when Ben walks in with his entourage. Fucker. He looks pissed and that pisses me off more. It’s what I need, a good head of rage to sustain me. I watch him search the bar until his eyes land on mine and I give him a sassy smile. He waves me over.

Squelching my impulse to flip him off with my middle finger, I stand. Leo looks up at me.

“Where are you going? You’re on in fifteen.”

“Then I might be late.” I’m not being fair to him, but all’s fair in love and war, isn’t that the saying? And this is both.

“You’re already late, Jazzy.”

My chest tightens with what I suppose passes for guilt in my conscienceless soul.