{"id":474,"date":"2010-09-25T14:55:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T18:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=474"},"modified":"2011-02-13T22:37:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T03:37:45","slug":"three-dates-in-orlando","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=474","title":{"rendered":"Three Dates in Orlando"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Daniel McDermott
\n
<\/br>
\nBluette<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the vomit that ended things. I\u2019m pretty sure. Vomit does that to people: scares them away, makes them cringe, makes them question their most recent decisions. And Bluette\u2019s vomit was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill, I-have-the-flu-will-someone-please-hold-my-hair-back kind of vomit, nor was her regurgitation a single occurrence. No. Bluette\u2019s vomit was the projectile kind, with a far-spewing arch normally reserved for garden hoses, rainbows, and powder-chucking snow blowers. And her nauseating episode was threefold: once in the bar on an open-toed pack of screeching coeds, once on the rust-colored cobblestone of Church Street before a cheering crowd of beer-handed onlookers, and once in the parking lot, in the car, in the driver\u2019s seat, on my lap.
\nI had a hunch about that third time. <\/p>\n

\u201cShould I wait a little bit?\u201d I asked, the ignition key inserted but the car not yet started. \u201cDo you feel like you\u2019re gonna be sick again?\u201d <\/p>\n

Bluette slumped her petite, 100-pound frame into the front passenger seat, her frilly yellow skirt pushed up inappropriately high, an errant bite of dirty-blond hair tucked in the left corner of her mouth, and a heaving cadence to her sour breath. She turned to me, sat upright, and leaned in across the cup holders and change console with eyes wide and mouth open, as if to say, \u201cYes. Thank you for asking. I do have to vomit again. Look!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was our second date. It was our last date. I sped down I-4, pushing the limits of my dilapidated, 4-cylinder Honda with viscous stomach bile seeping into my crotch. The scent was worse than foul-smelling things are supposed to smell, like putrid, horrifying, defecated things not of this world, like a weapons-grade version of that ubiquitous hotdog odor that lingers around deli counters and fast-food joints. It lives in my brain, this smell, tattooed into my memory. It waits for morning breakfasts and Thanksgiving dinners. It comes alive and swims to the front of my temporal lobe to say hello. <\/p>\n

\u201cForget about your mother\u2019s candied ham,\u201d It says. \u201cPut down that crispy bacon. Throw away that cheeseburger and remember, forever, the little French woman who threw-up in your lap.\u201d
\n
<\/br>
\nNancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought the idea of a gym date was cool: music, raging endorphins, a pumped physique, and the knowledge that your partner is at least mildly self-respecting (if not a bit narcissistic). But I didn\u2019t realize that Nancy\u2019s daughter would be coming to the gym with us \u2013 I didn\u2019t realize Nancy had a daughter at all \u2013 and I didn\u2019t realize her daughter\u2019s biological father was a personal trainer at the gym, and I didn\u2019t realize her daughter was still an infant, and I didn\u2019t realize that Nancy would be breastfeeding her infant daughter on our date, in the gym, on the exercise bike.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that you are spectator to the suckling of your date\u2019s nipple. And, if you are, it\u2019s usually not on the first date, and it\u2019s usually not in public, and it\u2019s certainly not nourishingly so. <\/p>\n

For some reason, I did not feel inspired to exercise while the baby fed and the breast explored the exterior of its stretchy red sports bra, despite Nancy\u2019s pleasant assurance. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go ahead and start without us. She\u2019ll be done in a minute,\u201d she said, peddling away, stroking the little bald head of her nipple-sucking child. But I decided, instead, to awkwardly converse with Nancy\u2019s vascular, neck-less, cologne-and-gel-scented ex-husband. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s it going there, buddy?\u201d said the ex, with a vice-grip handshake and an arm-swinging shoulder slap. He seemed fine with the scenario \u2013 with me, and his ex-wife, and his daughter, and his ex-wife\u2019s milk-spigot-breast \u2013 which didn\u2019t seem normal given that, considering the baby\u2019s fledgling age, he couldn\u2019t be more than a year or so removed from the making of this adorable, publically breast-chomping little girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d I said to the meaty ex. \u201cSay, could you tell me where the restroom is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight through those doors,\u201d he pointed, with a calloused, karate-chop hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks. I\u2019ll be right back.\u201d <\/p>\n

The gym was relatively empty, just a gum-chewing high school kid manning the front desk and a couple spandex-clad women trolling through a rack of dumbbells. The quickening swish of my nylon track pants carried me away from Nancy, her ex, their child, and her exposed bosom. And, fortunately for me, the restroom was located near the front exit, and the front exit emptied into the parking lot, and in the parking lot I could see my vomit-scented Honda, and I drove my Honda back out onto International Drive, down Westwood Boulevard, and back to my single bedroom apartment and my single life.
\n
<\/br>
\nLaura<\/strong><\/p>\n

She said it over pizza; that\u2019s what\u2019s really disturbing. It wasn\u2019t late at night, we weren\u2019t playing Truth or Dare, and we weren\u2019t clinking shot glasses or licking salt from our wrists. It would have been weird regardless, but it\u2019s just not the kind of thing I wished to associate with pizza. Before Laura, pizza was birthday parties, college late-nights, and little league victories. But now pizza is simply Laura, our third date, and her twisted past. <\/p>\n

She was talking about her father, how he is tall, handsome, impressively athletic, a financial executive for a large credit card company who now spends most of his time in South America, and that she sort of had a relationship with him a few years ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean\u2026 a relationship?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, like an actual relationship,\u201d she said, her mouth half full of pepperoni and dough, \u201clike a boyfriend\/girlfriend kind of relationship\u2026 a sexual thing. But it\u2019s OK; he\u2019s not my real dad; I was adopted.\u201d <\/p>\n

My heart began to palpitate. The pizza tasted bitter and oniony, the cheese now infused with Laura\u2019s rancid dysfunction. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow old were you when you were adopted?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust a baby\u2026 why?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, she doesn\u2019t know. She\u2019d kill me if she ever found out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no!\u201d she raised a French-tipped hand to her mouth, still chewing. \u201cDoes it bother you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yep. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s over now. I promise. It was just for like a year or so in my early twenties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how old are you now?\u201d I asked, still palpitating, wanting to scream and cry and run and phone the authorities. <\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-five.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd even though you\u2019ve, uh, been with him you still call him dad?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, not really. I mean, he\u2019ll always be my daddy\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n

Gross.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2013but now I mostly call him Roy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see\u2026 Roy\u2026 right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura narrowed her eyes, scrunched them between brow and cheek, tossed a nibbled chard of crust onto a plate-side stack of red and green napkins, and reclined into our wooden booth with arms folded. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like he forced me or anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to say. People who have had sexual relationships with their parents should not be talking to me, or dating me, or casually eating pizza. People who have had sexual relationships with their parents should be in large gated buildings with white-collared doctors and stockpiled Lithium supplies. They should be heroin addicts, carnies, or homeless street-folk who dance on park benches and whisper to statues. And their parents should be locked up, or caned, or burned at the stake. And, yes, the same goes for someone who adopts a child and waits for her to grow up before perpetrating his sexual deviance. Moreover, a minimum $100,000 fine should be imposed on any man whose daughter refers to him as \u201cRoy\u201d.<\/p>\n

I did not lecture or ridicule Laura; I pitied her. But I was not prepared to deal with her borderline reality. So I paid the bill, said goodbye to Laura, said goodbye to pizza, stepped from the crisply air-conditioned eatery into the torrid Orlando humidity, revved up the vomit-smelling, nipple-escaping, Roy-evading Honda, broke my apartment lease with eight months remaining, and drove back to New Jersey.
\n
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDANIEL MCDERMOTT<\/strong> is a Jersey-born writer with a fetish for words and orange tic-tacs, both of which have progressed to the point of injury. He is the Executive Editor at Bananafish Magazine<\/a> and has new work currently appearing in Fray Quarterly and Monkeybicycle. He can often be found procrastinating here: danielmcdermott.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Daniel McDermott Bluette It was the vomit that ended things. I\u2019m pretty sure. Vomit does that to people: scares them away, makes them cringe, makes them question their most recent decisions. And Bluette\u2019s vomit was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill, I-have-the-flu-will-someone-please-hold-my-hair-back … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":323,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-7E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions\/1146"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}