Page 62 of Mr. Picture Perfect
The touch is so unexpectedly tender, it arrests my heart.
I watch him, dreamy and curious.
Then Cole gives me his dangerous smile again. “I have much,muchmore I’d love to show you.”
There’s a noise in the hallway. Cole drops his hand from my face just in time for my mother to show up at the bedroom door. “Cookies are ready! Now, you two wouldn’t happen to know of any eligible nearbytaste testersavailable to tell me how these cookies came out, would you?” she asks while making a funny face.
Cole’s handsome smile persists. “I can think of a couple.” He glances back at me and gives me a playful nudge.
My response is a meek, microscopic smile.
Show me?
Just what does he have in mind to show me…?
I guess I won’t find out right away. Soon, we’re at the small, circular dining table by the kitchen with a large plate of neatly-arranged chocolate chip cookies cooling in its center. Of course, with my mom concerned, they can’t just be normal cookies. The misshapen discs of promised yumminess have weird faces pressed into them somehow, each face in a different color—yellow, orange, magenta, pale blue, black, dark green. I can’t tell how she did it, but she’s pulled out all of the colors, they’re there, and there’s no telling what facial expression she was intending with each one. Disgust? Joy? Mild constipation? It’s different on each cookie.
But with every bite, Cole appears to have an orgasm, and my mom is living for all of them. I realize that sounds strange, the way I’ve described it, but there’s no other way to document what it is I am witnessing before me. I haven’t even finished my first cookie, nibbling on it like a finicky pigeon.
“These areamazing,” Cole keeps saying, and my mother melts with happiness on her own face every single time, appearing in many ways like the very faces on the cookies she made. He makes small talk about her baking, which leads to some very dangerous encouragement for her to show off at the next baking festival this summer. Then my mom pries her phone out of her bra (it’s where she always stuffs it away for convenience), scoots up next to Cole by the table, and starts showing him pics of all her latest “genius creations”, including the Jiggle-Wiggles. Cole is full of energy and compliments, gasping and oohing at each of the pictures, and of course laughing appropriately at the humorous ones, which seems to set my mom’s heart ablaze as the light comes on in her eyes.
It comes so easily to Cole, setting others’ hearts ablaze. How does he do it? Once or twice, I inch around the table to get a better look at the photos myself, wondering if there’s something in her unusual, tasty creations that I missed or hadn’t seen before.
Cole is skilled at making people feel celebrated.
My dad, as skinny as a broomstick with a face full of mustache and beard, emerges without warning from the garage where he’s likely been doing some late-night tinkering. “Oh my, I’m so rude!” he says in his usual jaunty, too hospitable voice that always sounds like he’s apologizing for something. “I never greeted our guest. I’m Elmer, it’s a pleasure.”
“Elmer!” chirps my mom, turning to him. “You rememberCole Harding, of course! Robert and Lauren’s kid!”
My dad blinks. “Well, I’ll be! You’ve sure grown up!”
Cole smiles and reaches for a handshake. “Good evening,” he greets him, “and … I’minsistingthat I’ll fix that mailbox outside.”
Then my dad becomes perplexed. “Mailbox?”
“I’ll fill you in later,” says my mom, “and I do swear, you need to get your hearing checked, I say that with love, but I do believe sometimes this whole house could get lifted and thrown halfway to Oz and you wouldn’t know.He always gets in a ‘zone’ when he’s out there playin’ in the garage,” she then explains to Cole, like he’s her new best buddy she confides in with her marital frustrations.
“Huh … ‘playing’,” my dad murmurs, finding that funny, then comes up to the table to help himself to a cookie—an action which my mom quickly puts a stop to, swatting at his hand. “They’re for theboys,” she clips. He stares at her in shock, until she turns sweet again and says, “Just kiddin’, honey, there’s plenty, help yourself.”
The second my dad takes a bite, he’s under the spell, too, and then it’s the three of them sharing warm conversation, laughing, and gobbling down my mom’s cookies, which I’ll presume haven’t earned themselves a name just yet—or a spot in one of her dozens of illustrated recipe books.
“Of course I want to see your trains!” exclaims Cole when my dad brings up the inevitable subject of his tiny train town he calls Windville, and then the pair of them are off to the guestroom as I stay behind to clean up the (now empty) cookie dish.
I guess Cole and my parents are best friends now.
Considering we were just enjoying mutual hand jobs on my bed half an hour ago, I am containing a variety of weird emotions inside my head about everything that’s happening before my eyes. I feel so unreal. I feel like I’m not here. This is like a dream, except I’m far too aware of my anxiety, and nothing feels right. Does Cole evenlikeminiature trains?
My mom comes up next to me. “So did you talk to Lauren?”
I flinch from my thoughts. “Who?”
“Cole’s mother. You interviewed him at his house yesterday, didn’t you? Did you see his mother?”
“No.”
“Why not? She would’ve been there, I’d reckon! I wanted you to say hi to her. Y’know, from me. I told you the other night.”
I scrunch up my face. “You didn’t actually tell me to say hi. You cut yourself off, said ‘never mind’, and left.”
