Dave Loves Alexis

Chapter 1 - The Witching Eye

None of it made sense to Alexis. She didn’t recognize the creepy, godforsaken street she was on, or any of the teetering, decrepit brownstones that lined it. And it didn’t help that a cold, thick-ass fog had rolled in. As she ran, she wondered - Where the hell am I? And -What in the fuck is going on?

She reached for her cell phone, but it wasn’t in her sweatpants’ pocket. She picked up the pace, her running shoes chewing up the asphalt. ‘When I get to the end of the street I’ll see where I am from the street signs,’ she thought.

But the street seemed to have no end. It was quiet, she couldn’t hear anything but her footfalls. She stopped so she could listen better. Silence. Not a car engine, nor a distant television, not even the electric hum of an overhead wire. The absence of any sound panicked her, so she resumed sprinting down the street.

When she finally thought she heard…something…she stopped abruptly, but the only thing she could hear now was her rapid breathing. She tried to control it, but she had winded herself from her fear and exertion.

“Squeek, squeek, squeek, squeek,” came a sound from the other side of the street. The repetitive squeeking of rotating wheels, still she could see nothing because of the fog.

Warily, she made her way across the street. She reached the sidewalk and started toward the sound. A gray shape appeared, then took form. Thank God. It was someone pushing a shopping cart, heading away from herself.

“Hey!” Alexis yelled, but the person kept going, paying her no mind.

“Hey, wait!” she cried, running forward. When she got closer she was relieved to see that the cart’s “owner” was a wizened, gray haired, hunched back woman. The old woman continued to ignore her as she pushed her trash bag filled shopping cart along.

“I’m scared, please, help me. I’m lost,” Alexis begged.

The old woman, without breaking her slow plod, finally croaked, “I can’t help you, Doll. We’re all terrified here. Join the club…”

“Can you at least tell me where I am?” she pleaded.

“Sure, Doll. That’s easy. You’re asleep, you’re dreaming,” said the old woman. “You’ll be awake soon enough. Now leave me be.”

Alexis placed herself in front of the old woman’s path and put her hands on her shopping cart to halt her, but the old woman was surprisingly strong and she was unable to stop her. Indeed, the old woman simply continued to push her cart steadily along at the same slow speed. Alexis lost her balance, collapsed on the sidewalk and, despite her best efforts to hold it together, wept.

The old woman, perhaps finally taking pity on her, stopped. “I told you you’re asleep. You’ll wake up soon and then you’ll be fine,” she rasped.

“Wrong!” Alexis cried. “I won’t be fine! “My nightmares have always haunted me. They always have, ever since I was a girl.”

The old woman’s head tipped sideways and her nose crinkled. She approached Alexis, who was still crumpled upon the pavement.

As she closed in on Alexis, the old woman’s back straightened and she seemed to grow, not only physically, but in eminence as well. Before Alexis could evade her, the old woman squatted down and took Alexis’ head between her hands. She lifted Alexis’ chin and peered into her eyes. Alexis' attempts to break free were futile as once again the old woman’s strength surprised her, and she couldn’t shake her hold.

“Be still, child,” the old woman clucked. They examined each other. Alexis saw the old woman’s face was deeply wrinkled and weathered. Crow’s feet creased her eyes, yet her eyes themselves were still sharp, even beautiful. And her hair wasn’t gray at all, but silver, with touches of black, that she still had from her youth.

After a time the old woman released her. Her brow furrowed and she said, “You have the Witching Eye, don’t you, Doll?”

Alexis went numb. Instantly, her fears were gone and they were replaced by a measure of...of...something she hadn’t felt in such a long time - hope. She cried out, “How do you know that?!”

Now it was the old woman’s turn to be perplexed; she stood and looked at her surroundings. “That’s right,” she murmured. “It was all mist and confusion that night. It seems so long ago though, so long ago. But I remember, I...I remember this.” She looked back at Alexis sitting on the sidewalk. “And I remember you now too.”

“You remember me?” asked Alexis. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

The old woman snapped out of her reverie and she hauled Alexis to her feet. Alexis was tall, but now the old woman was as well, so they were eye to eye. It was the old woman’s eyes, something about her eyes. Alexis had seen them before, but where? Where? Then she had it. A coldness fell on her and she began to shake.

“Now you know me. Acknowledge me,” said the old woman.

“You’re me,” said Alexis horrified.

“Yes,” said the old woman, her aura of power fading. The beautiful silvery hair she had just a moment ago began to fade into dingy, iron gray. She shrunk, hunched back over, and retook to pushing her cart back up the street.

Alexis wanted to follow her, but found that she couldn’t move her legs. The old woman was getting away. She yelled out in anguished admission, “Yes, it’s true! I have the Witching Eye! I have the Witching Eye, but what do I do about it?!”

“You know what to do. You’ve known for quite some time,” called out the old woman as she faded into the mist. “Don’t fall in love. Just don’t fall in love. You will though, you will. You won’t be able to help it. What woman can really? I’m sorry, Doll. You’re both a witch and a woman, and that makes you cursed twice over. That’s just the way it is. Some things never change. That’s just the way of the world.”

And with that Alexis’s future self disappeared into the fog.


Chapter 2 - Dr. Magil


Alexis sat outside her therapist’s office fuming and stewing, waiting for her turn. They were mandated meetings, ordered by the court as a condition of her parole. They had really nailed her too. One meeting a week, for one full year.

Luckily, that year was coming to an end. She had been in and out of therapy since she was a teenager and she was fucking sick of it. She was dead set on getting out of these sessions completely next year, and she wasn’t opposed to lying like a rug to do so.

When her time came she went into Dr. Magil’s office.

As per usual he was sitting behind his tidy, large ornate wooden desk. As she always did, she took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk, instead of the “lets get homely comfy” loveseat couch he also had there.

She looked around and saw what she always saw in his office. Mahogany paneling lined the lower half of his walls, while crisp white paint lined the upper halves. Academic type, dust-free psychology texts were lined up neatly in three bookcases against one of his walls. She rued that currently she wished she set them all on fire.

He acknowledged her presence with a distracted, “Hello Alexis” as he finished writing his notes from the previous session. As this was their routine, Alexis didn’t say anything in return and let him write. Plus she despised giving him a greeting as well.

Alexis’s view of Dr. Magil ranged somewhere between dislike to hatred, depending on her mood, and since she was in a wicked sour one today, currently she hated looking at his stupid face.

But she had to admit he really wasn’t stupid looking at all. She knew to most regular people looked smart; in his appearance, demeanor and attire. He was always clean shaven, and dapperly dressed, Presently he had on what looked like an expensive charcoal cardigan, which she noticed with distain flattered his touch of gray black hair.

She knew he knew he looked smooth in it, and so the metro, prissy dude purchased it as such. He didn’t act outwardly narcissistic, but she knew he was.

He always dressed and acted all WASPy, and she hated that type of elitist, self-absorbed crap, especially in a dude.

And especially in him.

She recognized he actually rarely acted all high and mighty, other than he always carried himself as coolly soft spoken, and well spoken. But that was always done in an equally WASPy distant way. And usually in a condescending way too.

He was trim, of average height, took care of himself, and as so was older than he looked. But when he stood or walked though, she noticed that he stooped over a little, affirming that fact he was well into his fifties.

When he finally stopped writing, she buried her current enmity toward him and tried to look and sound all cheery and optimistic, like how a dopey, dipshit girl her age would act if everything-little-thing was just perfectly peachy in her life.

When he asked her how she was, she forced herself to smile wide and she started slinging around the old bullshit

“Everything’s great, I’m so happy now, ” she lied to him. “As you know I’m alcohol and drug free...plus I’m med free too. And college is great! I’m having…um…So much fun there! I’m working - a lot, which is a drag, but on the upside I feel very productive and I like the camaraderie of my colleagues at the Burger Shack. Those dudes are wicked funny, and they me laughing to tears.”

It was hard to say all this with a straight face, it made her want to puke, despite the fact that some of these things were true. But some weren’t. She was drug and alcohol free and she was working a lot. But college was a boring grind, and she hated those dumb, guffawing, idiotic men-children she worked with, as she flipped slaughtered cow carcasses over that nasty, hot grill.

Nevertheless she continued as now she lied outright, “And the delusions are gone! I haven’t had one in forever.” She concluded while nodding her head, “And the ones I’ve had in the past, now I see them for what they really were - just a bunch of false memory nonsense and things that I made up.”

“Really?” said Dr. Magil as he glanced dubiously at her above his reading glasses on the end of his nose.

“Really,” she said, trying to look sincere. “Absolutely, no bad dreams and no weird visions. I’m so glad they’re gone too. It’s like a total weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Totally.”

Dr. Magil took his reading glasses off, twirled them around, then he looked squarely at her. He said, “You’ve said this before in the past, Alexis, when it wasn’t true. I don’t believe you. Your one year evaluation is coming up and I’m going to be recommending to the judge that you receive another year of mandated therapy.”

“No!” she cried as her face went red. “You can’t do that!” “I’m not lying!” I am better!”

“Agree to disagree,” said Dr. Magil as he resumed writing in his notebook.

Alexis tried to compose herself, but her anger was building. She blurted, “Dr. Magil, you can’t fucking to that!”

Dr. Magil took this with aplomb, as he was very used to her cussing. But she cringed at her lack of self-control, any anger on her part during her sessions was a misstep.

She took a breath and tried to compose herself. “These sessions are killing me. I’m trying to hold down two jobs, plus I’m back in school. Do you know how hard it is to cram these sessions into all that? It’s exhausting, I’m always sleep deprived. And your copays are killing me. You don’t know how it is, to be grindingly poor, to work your ass off, only to watch the bills pile up on your kitchen table. I mean how could you know?” she ended as she looked about his posh, pristine office.

Dr. Magil said neutrally, “I have bills to pay. Everyone does, Alexis.”

Alexis couldn’t hold it in anymore as this was so friggin’ idiot. So she unleashed her tongue and said, “Yeah, sure you do! You have bills you pay, which you do with ease because you’re fucking loaded. Yes, I’m sure you get car payment bills for your deluxe red beemer every month. But then you pay them off with ease because you’re loaded! And when you get your credit card bill for your numerous vacations you take to the Bahamas, with whatever woman is your new flavor of the month, you make those breezy too! Fucking Boo-hoo for fucking you!”

Dr. Magil put his pen down and said, “I am going to disregard those last inappropriate comments and simply point out it’s my job to make sure you receive therapy until you mentally healthy. How can I tell if you are stable if you come in here and tell falsehoods? Particularly, about your delusions?”

“But I am telling you the truth about my delusions,” she lied. “I’m not having them anymore. How am I supposed to prove the absence of something? It’s impossible,” she added a little smugly.

“But it’s not,” said Dr. Magil as he resumed his scribbling.

“OK, you know-it-all, how can I prove to you that I don’t have or believe in my delusions anymore?” she asked.

Dr. Magil leaned back in his chair and thought for a bit. He leaned forward and began to write again. He said flatly, “Well, you could get a boyfriend, that would convince me.”

Alexis went cold. ‘That fucking bastard, that dick,’ she thought. But she had to admit it would be very sound proof. She panicked and said impulsively, “I do have a boyfriend.”

“Really?” said Dr. Magil as he sighed and continued to write. “And what is this alleged boyfriend’s name?”

“Dave,” she said awkwardly.

“Dave what?” he asked wearily.

“Nevermind what his last name is,” she retorted. “I don’t have to tell you all the details of my love life.”

“His last name is a detail?” asked Dr. Magil.

“Every session I come in here and lay my life out in the open. I want to keep one or two things private. That’s reasonable, right?” she said.

“True, but you never mentioned him before, until this convenient moment came up,” replied Dr. Magil. He stopped writing, leaned back in his chair, and thought. He said, “I tell you what, if you produce this mysterious boyfriend of yours here for one of your sessions, then I’ll believe you. But I’m going to have to verify he’s your boyfriend, so I will be asking him a lot of questions, mostly about you. Otherwise, like I said, we are going to be seeing each other for another year. That’s all, see you Monday at six.”

As Dr. Magil returned to scribbling, Alexis walked out, stunned by how quickly all of that had gone so magnificently awry. She didn’t have a boyfriend named Dave. She didn’t have a boyfriend at all.

She might as well have told Dr. Magil her boyfriend’s name was George Glass.


Chapter 3 - Dave

Alexis pulled into the gym’s parking lot, parked, got out of her car, and headed for the entrance. She saw that a guy and a chick around her age were talking outside by the front door. As she neared them, the young woman called out to her, “Hey, it’s Alexis, right?”

She didn’t recognize her. “I’m sorry…” she said.

“I’m Rachel. You clean my mother’s house. I met you when I was having lunch with her the other day,” she said.

‘Fucking wonderful,’ thought Alexis. The privileged daughter of one of her rich clients. And Rachel filled that bill to a T. Blonde, blue eyed, and very cheerful, Rachel looked fantastic in her fashionable, leopard print yoga pants. She was obviously done working out, and she was one of those girls who only looked hotter when she was all sweaty.

In contrast, Alexis knew she looked like grimly shit in her dingy sweats. “Oh yeah, hi,” she sheepishly said, while trying to sail past them inside.

Rachel, obviously having none of her attempted getaway, quickly said, “Hey, this is my cousin, David.” Alexis stopped almost by reflex, given the context of her meeting with Dr. Magil three days before.

“Call me Dave,” he said as he cornily held out his hand. Nevertheless, she shook it. His hand was calloused, and she couldn’t help but notice that his jacket smacked of blue collar work, especially in contrast to his cousin’s Rachel’s chicness. He was of average height, had short-cropped, brown hair and dark eyes. Alexis absentmindedly noticed he wasn’t a bad looking guy...in a sort of unobjectionable, nondescript way. She thought if she saw him again somewhere else in the near future, she’d probably walk right by him without recognizing him.

“Umm, you got something on your sweatshirt,” he said as he let go of her hand.

She looked down, then closed her eyes in revulsion. “Fuck, I dripped some barbecue sauce on it from my veggie burger while I was driving. I’m particularly ecstatic that it looks like a shit stain…” she said.

A silence fell over them, then Dave gave a friendly laugh and she smiled, despite herself.

“You want to borrow something?” asked Rachel as she made to open her gym bag.

“No, thank you. I’ll just snag some random thing from the bottom of the lost and found box and throw that on,” she said. Dave and Rachel looked at each other in puzzlement. Seeing her joke fall flat, she added, “Kidding, joking, kidding. I’ll just wear my tank top I have on underneath.” She made to go inside.

“Hey, I’ve seen you here a couple times recently, but never before that. Did you just sign up here?” asked Dave hurriedly. Rachel smiled.

“I did. I’m still pretty new to the area,” she said uncomfortably.

“Ahh,” said Dave. He was about to say something else, but she completed her get away.

“Well, it was good to see you again Rachel, and nice to meet you Dave,” she said as she whisked inside.

Dave’s eyes followed her. Rachel laughed at him. “Cuz, your game is not poppin’,” she said.

“Yeah, sure, like I was even trying,” said Dave morosely. “How’d you know I’ve been wanting to meet her?”

“Your eyes were all over her the moment she left her car, and that’s not like you at all,” said Rachel. “I don’t blame you, she is so pretty. I’m get so jealous of those tall girls and their never ending legs,” she added with envious wisp. She snapped out of this and said, “Anyway, I tried to be a number one helper…”

“Helping me is a hopeless task, but not a thankless one. Thanks for being my wingman,” said Dave as he smiled.

“Yo, no problemo, bro!” said Rachel in a deep, husky voice while puffing out her chest and giving him a fist bump. “I’m not gonna throw out no cockblocks.” She switched back to her regular voice and said, “Hey, you can always try talking to her again. Go on in there and reel her in! Who knows, maybe she’ll grant you a pity date?”

“I doubt it,” said Dave. He grew reflective at what his cousin said and then he said, “But that’s good advice. If I have an opportunity to talk to her, I will.”

Rachel smiled at this. And as she started to make her way to her car, she said in her patented deep husky, dude’s voice, “That ‘s what I’m talkin’ bout! Go reel her in, son!”

Dave laughed merrily at this. Then he went inside.


Dave left the men’s locker room and was making his way up to the weight room when he saw Alexis stretching, getting ready to run on one of the treadmills. Now in her tank top, her beautiful, long, lithe arms were exposed for his viewing pleasure. He thought, ‘Show some sack, man.’ He switched directions, made his way toward her and tried to exude a confidence he wasn’t feeling at all.

“May I?” he said pointing to the empty treadmill beside her.

Alexis turned around and it became her turn to study him more in the flesh. It wasn’t a difficult study, for now, without his jacket on, his buff chisledness and broad chest couldn’t be missed. She thought he was probably juicing, like a lot of the guys around here did. She smiled a bit and said, “I don’t know. You look like a lumbering lunkhead. I don’t think you could keep up.”

Dave stepped on a treadmill, then started to warm up by jogging. He said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

She chuckled. Jogging lightly and easily, Dave moved better than she first suspected. His friendliness and lack of raised hackles at her insult made her feel at ease, and playful. “You want to make it interesting?” she said.

”What? You mean like a race?” he asked.

“Sure, why not?” she said.

“OK, what are the stakes?” he asked.

“How about twenty bucks,” she said.

“Whoa,” he said. “That’s a little pricey.”

“Scared?” she asked.

“Ahh, yeah,” he said as if this should be obvious.

“OK, pussy,” she taunted. “What do you wanna bet?”

Dave thought for a bit, then he just went for it and said, “OK, if you win, I’ll pay you the twenty, but if I win, then you have dinner with me sometime.”

“What? You mean like a date?” she asked as she imitated him by deepening her voice and trying to sound stupid. Dave smiled at this, as this reminded him of his cousin’s humor.

“If it makes you feel better about yourself to think of it as that, then sure, you can call it a date,” he said.

“I don’t know if I have time for that kind of silly nonsense,” she said while smiling. “I’m a busy girl.”

“Dinner will be on me,” he said, trying to sweeten the pot. “So you’ll get a free meal out of it too. Anywhere you want. You can’t lose.”

She laughed. It had been a while since anyone had shown any interest in her. It felt good. Recently she had been wondering if she had lost it, what little she had actually ever had to ever lose. Apparently she hadn’t, at least she hadn’t in Dave’s eyes, anyway.

“OK, it’s a bet, but all that doesn’t really matter anyway, cause you’re gonna get dusted,” she said as she got on her treadmill and started to run.

“Wait, how far?” asked Dave as he watched her warm up. She was already running like a gazelle. His optimism was vanishing.

“Any distance,” she said. “Won’t matter. You pick…”

“Four miles,” he said, choosing his fastest distance time wise. He reset his distance on his treadmill to zero and took off.

Alexis reset her machine likewise. And as she ran she effortlessly cranked up her ipod, put in her ear buds and it was on.


Dave, drenched in sweat and absolutely exhausted, sat on his treadmill defeated. He had kept it reasonably close most of the way, but she had kicked it up at the end to decisively finish him off. Alexis, who was very sweaty too, had a big smile on her face. Standing over him, she flexed her arms, made two devils’ horns with her hands in his face and said, “Freedmont High Cross Country State Champs, Class of 2009! Go Demons! Woohoo!”

Dave chuckled, and then started outright laughing. “I’ll have to get your money from out my locker,” he said. “I’ll do it the first moment when I feel like I won’t have a heart attack.”

“Aww, poor baby,” she cooed mockingly. “But don’t bother, I’m not taking your money. You were like shooting fish in a barrel,” she continued more sympathetically. Then she went back to mocking and said, “But my, my, David! I have to commend you on your all out effort. You sure didn’t want to lose, did you?”

Dave laughed at her teasing and he said, “Actually, the losing doesn’t sting much. It's not winning that really hurts.”

An inadvertent, ”Aw” escaped her mouth. And she shyly smiled at his compliment.

“Dave,” said a deep, baritone voice from behind her.

“Hey Walt, what’s up?” said Dave looking up. Turning around, Alexis saw that said Walt was not only massive, but black. He completely stuck out in their lily white gym.

“Sorry to bother you off the clock, and for interrupting, but I need to talk to you...” said Walt to Dave.

“Well as far as I’m concerned, we're pretty much done here. You’re not interrupting anything,” Alexis said as she began her cool down stretches by contorting her body like she was one half yoga master and one half supple feline.

Dave smiled and said, “What’s going on, Walt?”.

Walt talked about some problems he was having with bread, receipts, receiving, bakery items, a put-out store and stuff that was blah, blah, blah to Alexis. Dave helped him troubleshoot those and soon it became apparent to her that Dave was Walt’s boss. The two hashed it out quickly, then Walt said, “Hey, I wanted to thank you again for everything. I know you stuck your neck out for me and I appreciate it.”

Dave said, “No need to thank me, you’re doing a superb job. That route's in better shape with you on it than it’s been in,...well since ever. Listen Walt, what that store is complaining about is all ticky-tack stuff, and they know it. That’s just their past resentment bubbling up cause of all the terrible guys we had who delivered there in the past. You’ve already smoothed every other store out on that route, so they won’t last long. They’re a bitchy store, and they want you to be perfect, even when they aren’t themselves. I’m not worried, because you’re already spot on. They’ll soon see that too, and then they’ll just stop giving you a hard time and just ignore you, which is the highest respect we bread guys ever get.”

Walt chuckled and said, “All right man, I get it…I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bright and entirely too early,” said Dave as Walt left smiling.

Alexis, who had heard all of this while stretching (she wouldn’t have missed it for the world) looked at Dave and asked, “What do you do?”

“My family owns a bakery,” he said. “We bake breads, rolls, doughnuts, that kind of thing, and we deliver them to stores, too. Marconnelli’s Bakery, maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“I have,” she said. “Why did he thank you?”

“Because I hired him,” Dave said.

“What did he mean when he said you stuck your neck out for him?” she asked.

“Nobody else in my family wanted me to hire him,” said Dave, looking uncomfortable.

She looked across the gym at Walt who was now bench pressing an ungodly amount of weight. He was huge, imposing, and had a lot of tattoos. All blue ink.

“Was he in prison before he worked for you...” she murmured.

Dave stood up from off his treadmill and said, “Alexis, I would really appreciate it if you would keep your insightful conclusions to yourself. Everything I said about Walt is true. He’s paid some hard dues and now he’s doing a great job for us. People talk too much around here and Walt’s past is his own business.”

She said quietly, “I know how to keep my mouth closed.” Dave nodded his head in thanks. She continued in a low tone, “And apparently you do too. Can I ask why you hired him? I wouldn’t have pegged you for the do-gooder type.”

“I’m not the do-gooder type. We need delivery drivers. I had a feeling he’d do a good job, that’s why I “gave” him a second chance…” he said.

As she processed all this, Dave said hesitantly, “Ahh, speaking of second chances…I know I lost the race and all, Alexis, but I was, umm wondering...ahh, hoping really…”

“Wondering what, Dave?” she asked knowing where he was going with this, and enjoying his obvious lack of game.

“Um, would you still be willing to have dinner with me sometime?” he asked.

She stepped back and comically eyed him, evaluating him. She said, “I don’t know...you’re kinda on the short side.”

“5’10 is short?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

“I know, right! I need my escorting dudes to be taller than me, not as tall,” she said as she smiled.

“Well, I’ll just wear my heels then, Prince style,” he said. “Plus, you can slouch over whenever you walk next to me,” he added with a straight face, which made her smile more.

She considered Dave, there was something appealing about him. He had a chill, pleasantness about him. She had already dismissed her own earlier suspicion he was on roids, he seemed way too even keeled. She noted that just like with his cousin Rachel, his workout perspiration only flattered him, and now she thought he had a wholesome, handsomey deal going on. It must run their family, she thought. She wished that ran in her fucking family. She looked horrible whenever she got more than nine drops of water on her. Self-consciously, and on the sly, she turned and looked at herself in one of the gym’s numerous mirrors. She cringed at the appalling, storky, skinny, drowned rat that was reflected back at her. ‘I’d better accept and quick,’ she thought as her smile disappeared. ‘This may very well be the last date proposal I ever get.’

But she knew the potential, disastrous consequences of agreeing to a date with him - and that the proverbial vast understatement. It was dangerous water she was navigating now. And she knew what she wanted from him most of all, and her ulterior motive was making her hate herself. Maybe if I were a little more upfront and honest, she thought.

“I’ll go out to dinner with you, but I’m probably going to be asking you for a favor. And a big one too.”

“What favor? You need work?” asked Dave.

“Nevermind that for now,” she said. They exchanged numbers, and when she said goodbye, Dave was all the more intrigued with her. She, on the other hand, was still disgusted by herself. But she was desperate, and she couldn’t think of a single person from her past who could help her - Not a one.


Chapter 4 - The Favor

Dave sat with Alexis in her car in an empty parking lot. They had just had dinner together, which was superb. He had enjoyed every second of it. He thought she looked devastating, and she had been very charming and funny.

Afterward they had gotten into her car, which was a noisy hunk of junk, and parked here. She said she had something that she wanted to ask him in private. Something weird and something she was pretty sure he was going to say no to. And when she asked him, he realized she wasn’t lying, as it was weird as hell.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You want me to go to your therapist’s office with you and pretend that I’m your boyfriend so that you can get out of your therapy.”

“In a nutshell,” she said.

“That all seems very bizarre. Can I ask you why having a boyfriend would get you out of your sessions?” he asked.

“You can ask, but I’m not saying why,” she said quickly and shortly.

He laughed and said, “No, of course you’re not.” His mind was running with this strange proposition that was dumped in his lap. He knew that any normal guy would not hesitate to put as much distance between himself and this “crazy” girl as soon as possible, but there was something about her. She didn’t seem crazy to him, just eccentric and overwhelmed. She was witty, entertaining, and very beautiful. Still, he was definitely leaning toward a big old ‘no.’

“Pretending to be your boyfriend, lying, to get you out of your therapy smacks of...I don’t know...wrongness?” he said.

“This was a really bad idea,” she said as she got visibly upset. She started her car. “I’ll take you back to your car.”

“Hang on a second,” he said. “I didn’t say no yet.” There was something about her...he decided to have some fun with this. “Um, so if I help you with this, what are the actual chances I could become your boyfriend?” he asked while smiling.

“Zero,” she said. “Zero percent.”

His smile evaporated and he thought, ‘Well that wasn't very fun.’ While he knew full well that Alexis was out of his league, her answer nevertheless hurt his pride. She must have picked up on this and she said, “Don’t take it personally, I’m not dating anyone, ever again. I’m not viable girlfriend material. Damaged goods and all.”

“So if I don’t have any chance in dating you, what’s in it for me?” he asked as his smile returned a little.

“Probably nothing,” she said. “And I’m not going to be throwing you any nookie either. My number has already gotten higher than it should be.”

He was taken aback by her frankness and he said, “Alexis, that wasn’t what I was thinking…”

She smiled and said, “I figured as much. I just wanted to make that clear. I won’t be your girlfriend and we aren’t going to...you know. Dave, there really isn’t much in this for you. I’m desperate, I need help. I don’t have any family that will talk to me. I’ve burned all my bridges friendwise. It’s just me against the world, and I’m losing…badly.”

He asked quizzically, ”How come you say you’ll never have a boyfriend again?”

She blurted, “I don’t want to talk about that either. Just know that I won’t. Look it, this was a stupid idea.” She put her car into drive and headed toward his car. She said, “I’m sorry I wasted your time with this crazy shit. Honestly, I didn’t only come tonight to try and railroad you into helping me. I haven’t been on a date in a long time and I wanted to do that again. I had a really good time too. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a better one, so thank you for that. I’m sorry I ruined it all.”

They rode in silence back to his car. When she pulled up to it she said, “Let’s see if I can bring back a little saneness.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, “Thank you for dinner, Dave. I had a great time.”

He thought for a time, then he said, “I had a great time too,” but he did not get out of her car. He just looked at her for a bit.

“What?” she said.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he said, nodding his head. “I’ll do it.”


Chapter 5 - The Study Sessions

Days later, Dave sat across from Alexis at her kitchen table. They both had paper and a pen. They had been going over each other’s histories, so each could field any potential questions from Dr. Magil.

“OK, here’s our story,” said Dave, recapping. “We’ve been going out for six months, but we’ve been keeping it on the DL, from everyone.”

“The DL?” said Alexis as she laughed. “That’s pretty last decade, Old Man.”

“Funny, just remember I’m actually a year younger than you,” he said.

“That’s all well and good, but I don’t have to remember anything about you,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because if Dr. Magil asks me something about you, you just say I’m right, whether it’s right or not,” she said as she smiled.

“Alexis, if we are going to fool your psychiatrist, you’re going to have to know some things about me,” he said. “The more you actually know about me, the better chance we’ll have of not getting caught. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll be able to pull this off and it’s not helping that most of the stuff I’m asking you, you refuse to answer.”

“Well, you don’t have to know everything about me either. Most of the boyfriends I had in the past couldn’t even be bothered to remember my birthday,” she said.

“Yeah, but putting me into the category of an indifferent boyfriend isn’t going to convince Dr. Magil of anything. By the way, you were born on January 18th and you’re 24 years old,” he said. “You’ve had boyfriends in the past?” he asked.

“Yeah, and that’s all you need to know about that too. All you need to know is some of the factual stuff Dr. Magil knows about me,” she said.

“Your father died when you were eleven,” he began. “His name was Alexander Johnston. He was a sergeant in the army and died from a roadside bomb in Iraq. Your mother, Deborah, still lives in Freedmont, Vermont. I would tell you what she does for a living, except you wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, you graduated from Freedmont High and lettered in cross country and tennis. You were expelled from college your sophomore year because of “drugs and alcohol” and two years later were arrested for the same.”

She said quietly, “Yup, that’s my impressive resume.”

He continued, “You have two jobs now, cleaning houses, and working at the BurgerShack. You.ve been taking classes at SUNY Stonekill since September of last year. You’ve been alcohol and drug free for two hundred and forty nine days.”

“Nicely done, Sheldon Cooper,” she said with genuine admiration. “You nailed the numbers and everything without even looking at your notes once. I mean, what the hell? Are you the most brilliant man to ever hawk doughnuts?”

“For some things I have an OK memory,” he said. “Is that true? About the drugs and alcohol?”

“Yeah it is, although right now I so wish I had a fat joint and some smooth booze in hand,” she said wistfully while looking off dreamily.

“OK, focus time,” Dave said as he snapped his fingers to bring her back. “Here’s a pop quiz.” He handed her a piece of paper with a list of questions about him on it.

She spent some time filling out his quiz, then she handed it back to him. His eyebrows knitted in concern as he corrected it. He put his pen down and just looked at it with a strange look on his face. He said, “You got two out of ten right. And that’s giving you credit for my last name, which you spelled wrong.”

“Guinea names are tough to get right,” she said while smirking.

“You’ve got to take this seriously,” he said with annoyance.

“I am,” she said, trying not to laugh.

“Oh, really?” he said. “For my favorite sport you wrote; To watch - women’s volleyball. To play - also women’s volleyball.”

“Ha-ha, funny, right?” she said with an exaggerated look for approval on her face.

Dave said, “I’m really going out on a limb for you here. Lying isn’t something I do a lot. I’m not good at it at all. Honestly, I don’t think this is going to work, but if we are going to have a shot at this at all, we have to be prepared with our story. So we have to know each other, cold.”

Alexis waved her hand in front of her face, replacing her former goofy expression to one of mock sternness. She nodded her head in solemn agreement. “I know, right? I need to buckle down. I need to get my “act” straight,” she said while air quoting the word act with her fingers.

Dave shook his head and said, “I have to go.” Before he left they worked out when they could get some more meetings in. Dave was every bit as busy as she was, maybe even more so. He got to work at four in the morning and worked about sixty hours a week. But they made plans to meet on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to work more on their story. Alexis thanked him for his help and he left.

She closed her apartment door behind him. She watched through her living room window as he drove off. She knew she had disappointed him. That was nothing novel for her, she had disappointed a lot of people in her life.

But currently she felt bad about it, and that was something new to her.


When they met on Tuesday and Thursday she made a concerted effort to learn Dave’s past better. On Saturday when he came over, she had made him dinner, which was meatloaf with gravy, twice baked potatoes and roasted asparagus. It was his favorite meal. The combination of her getting it right and then actually making it for him, surprised the hell out of him.

As they sat at her table, Alexis went over his past, telling the story of his life. She told him about his family, his friends, his interests, and the jobs he’d had. She told him about all the stuff he’d won or achieved in sports or in school. The list was lengthy. She told him about the few problems and failures he had too. She did it all mostly in chronological order and she included specific dates. She did all this without looking even once at her notes. Indeed, the whole time she looked at nothing other than a weirdly shaped water spot on her kitchen ceiling because recently she found Dave’s dark, mediterranean eyes to just be too damn alluring. Actually, she also started to notice that the rest of him could be very distracting as well. Anyway, it wasn’t until she was done telling him everything she knew about him that she lowered her eyes to look at him.

He was looking at her and she noticed that he had stopped eating his food. “What?” she said.

“That was impressive…and perfect,” he said. He lowered his eyes to his plate and started back in on his food. He said, “I think we’re ready.”

She said, “Yeah, ya think?” Dave nodded his head. With a big smile on her face, she continued “I’m pretty brilliant, right? Although I have to admit I can’t chalk it all up to my God given supra-intellect. I did a ton of studying Friday night from all the notes I took on Tuesday and Thursday. I suppose if I had applied myself like that the first time I went to college, I would be better off. Such is life, right? Learn the hard way - and all those other pithy cliches.” She switched gears and went back to being business-like. “Hey, I wanted to ask you about past girlfriends, I’m very sketchy on that part of you,” she said as she fished around in her bag for paper and pen so that she could take more notes.

“Don’t bother, you aren’t going to need anything to write with for that,” said Dave.

She stopped rooting around in her bag and looked up at him, “Why not?” she asked.

“Because, in a way, I’ve never really had one,” he said.

She laughed in disbelief and said, “You’re joking, right? But when he flinched and responded “no,” she knew immediately she had done the callously wrong thing for the umptheeth time in her stupid life. She sat still, not knowing what to do. She looked at him. He seemed to be a really good guy. The dude had dropped out of college his junior year to help run the family business after his father had finally succumbed to cancer. He had been kicking ass in college too before that. He, unlike herself, had been chewing college up and spitting it out, before he left. ‘No, surprise there,’ she thought, as he was there on a partial academic scholarship.

She smiled as she knew he had chosen that partial academic scholarship over the athletic one he had been offered. He couldn’t get both, so he chose the academic one.

She was starting to gather that he was really smart. And different…

Plus, he was a pretty friggin’ good looking guy. Something didn’t add up to her with this new no girlfriend thing…

“You aren’t gay, are you?” she asked as delicately as possible, cringingly at how her question might wound him.

Thankfully, he chuckled and said, “No.” He looked at her and added, “Believe me, everytime I’m around you I’m sadly reminded I’m completely in the hetereosexual camp.”

“Aww,” she said, thinking that he could be pretty damn smooth at times in his own weird way. Her forehead wrinkled in thought. “You’ve storked other women before though, right?” she asked

He looked away from her, but then he threw his hands up in a confessional manner. “No,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked, flabbergasted. He was twenty three years old for God’s sake!

“I guess I don’t even know why,” he said. “When I was in high school there were a couple girls I liked, but they didn’t like me back. Then there was Jess, we went out for a summer...but, we never...ah...sealed the deal, so to speak.”

“Why not?” she asked quietly as her brow furrowed.

“I shouldn’t answer because it’s her personal business,” he said. “But you know what, she lives in Sacramento now and she’s married. Plus, you’ll probably never meet her. She was raped before I met her and she wasn’t interested in sex, at all.”

She nodded her head. Everyone thought our allegedly enlightened times were so different. She knew of lots of girls in Jess’s position, any chick twenty five or older that you met, it was like fifty-fifty whether she had been molested, raped, or sexually assaulted sometime in her life.

“A few weeks after we broke up, I ran into that guy at a kegger party and I confronted him about it. It got heated, he broke my nose. See how it’s a little crooked in the middle here,” said Dave pointing to his nose.

She nodded her head.

“Then I broke his arm,” he said. “And I cracked a couple of his ribs.”

She believed it. Dave was very solidly built, with his broad chest and all. Plus that made sense to her as Dave had told her previously that once he had to do a hundred hours community service for “getting in a fight.”

“Every other fight I’ve been in I’ve regretted, but not that one,” he continued as she listened, riveted. “He totally traumatized and ruined Jess. At least for me at the time. I really liked her a lot. Actually, I loved her, but I couldn’t spend every day around her and not...you know...I was just too attracted to her, it drove me crazy. If I was a bigger man, maybe I could have.”

She nodded her head. With his soft delivery and with what he was talking about, he had her captivated. She loved it, but she stayed silent.

“Anyway, to complete my story, or lack of story, I just didn’t feel like dating anyone else for quite a while,” he said. “Then I went back off to college, and that was hard for me. I was dragging my books to the library most nights, even sometimes on Friday and Saturday nights, so I didn’t mix much. Weekends were spent home working at the bakery. Then, when I went back in full into our family business after my dad died, I found that it was in rough shape. Particularly the delivery aspect of it. It was in the red actually. It’s taken all my time and energy to get it all back to being profitable. So I’ve been too busy for a girlfriend. She would never see me. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

Alexis, who was super proud of herself for listening to Dave’s story without saying anything stupid during it, opened her mouth and said something stupid. IShe wanted to be helpful, so she said, “Well, I suppose you could always just boink some chick to get it out of your system. She doesn’t need to be your girlfriend. There’s boat loads of skanky hos out there that would let a dope dude like you bone them.”

Dave made a distasteful face and said, “While all that skanky ho talk sounds very enticing, I don’t think I could “bone” a woman that wasn’t my girlfriend.”

Alexis thought about this for a moment, then she nodded her head in agreement. Everything she knew about Dave lined up with this.

He looked pained and she sensed all this was some kind of weight upon him. She was searching for something, anything, she could say to ease the tension. But before she could say anything, he said quietly, “I’ve never told anyone this before. You’d think it’d be a relief, but actually it’s amazingly humiliating.”

‘Christ,’ she thought. She couldn’t think of what to say. She just looked at him. Then she said quietly, “More men should be like you.”

He shook his head and said, “That’s funny, because in a way, I’m not a man at all.”

“Yes, you are,” she disagreed. “Yes, you are.” She got to thinking and said, “But wait a minute! How come you say you don’t have enough time for a girlfriend? Look at all the time you’ve spent with me over the last bunch of days. Most girls would be perfectly OK with that amount of time with their boyfriend.”

“I didn’t have any of that free time from work until recently,” he said.

“Oh yeah, how recently?” she asked.

“About a week and a half ago I promoted Walt and delegated some of my depot management duties to him. He picked all that shit up fast. At the same time, I trimmed my own hours back some,” he said.

She leaned back in her chair, shook her head, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that for my benefit.”

“I never said I did it for you,” he said as he started back in on his dinner.

“OK, if you didn’t do it for me, then why’d ya cut your hours back?” she asked.

“I cut my hours back for me,” he said as he chewed. “I wanted to meet some of my needs for a change. I wanted to be able to do something that I wanted to do. Something different. Something fun. Something for me.”

She snorted. “How is helping me fun? How is helping me doing anything for you?” she scoffed.

“Hey, did I mention yet that this food is really delicious?” he said pointing to his plate with his fork.

“You like it?” she asked proudly.

“Like it? It’s absolutely superb,” he said. “And did I mention yet how pretty you look tonight?”

She snickered. “Yeah, ya did.” she said as she smiled. “It was the first thing out of your mouth when you saw me.”

“It was?” he asked. “Hmm, I don’t recall that. Anyway, where were we? Oh right, you asked, ‘How is helping me doing anything for you?’ My answer is that I find helping you to be helping me.”

She smiled and thought, ‘Yup, the boy sure could lay on the smooth when he wanted.’