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When three future Marines swaggered into Dave’s studio that fall, he wasn’t sure at first why they’d come. Perhaps Sergeant Lloyd, the recruiter he’d visited with a business card, had sent over his problem children. Dave had a few forms for them to fill out for billing and liability release, and on a line that read, “What made you choose this class?,” one had written, “Lost a bet” and another, “Tight pants,” which made Dave uneasy. They were 18 or 19, still a little baby-faced, and when Dave looked into those young eyes, he found it a bit chilling. Although approaching the recruiter had been his idea, the inner stillness and self-control, the peace, of yoga, seemed incongruous with the training for war that awaited them in boot camp. He voiced this thought to Phil after the first class with them.
“Well, actually,” Phil said. Phil was very fond of starting sentences with “well, actually”, as if some slight modification was necessary to everything that anyone ever said. He was often right. “Well, actually, you can’t shoot well without a good amount of composure.” This, of course, left Dave even more conflicted, as preparing men to kill more efficiently was not something he aspired to. But they were coming to class now; he couldn’t very well prevent them.
Isla’s co-worker, Andrea, came to their second class and it became even more clear to Dave what these guys were here for. Andrea was a good ten years older than the youngest of them but about 30 years younger than the three other women there. She was rather slight, with wavy ash blonde hair in a ponytail, and pale skin with faint freckles. The guys grabbed mats and arranged themselves around her, looking for excuses to talk, watching her stretch.
Dave didn’t like it, but it was a slippery issue, since it was hard to point to any one thing they were doing wrong. He resolved to keep an eye on the situation.
Andrea missed a couple classes, and the recruits dwindled to two, but then one night, they were all there again. Andrea seemed uncomfortable, making an excuse to move away from them. Dave worried about how they looked at her. He kept watching the clock, hoping class would end, yet the air seemed more and more charged. He feared he was fighting a losing battle, that he couldn’t make this a safe place for everyone.
But he had to try. The hour came to an end and he watched the young men closely. Andrea went into the changing room and they stood close to the thin walls, listening and elbowing each other. The flush on their faces probably wasn’t from the minimal effort they’d put into the workout. Dave saw a heart-wringing boyishness in them. In their eagerness, in their optimism, in a shyness that they tried too noisily to compensate for. They cornered her as she came out, suggesting they go out for drinks.
“Can you drink?” Andrea asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Good point—let’s stay in for drinks.” The boys’ eyes met mischievously.
“Don’t you live with your parents?”
“No!” The ginger boy blushed a deep red, “We’ve got a place. But we could go to your place, if you prefer.”
“No, thank you. I have to work tomorrow.”
“Well, call me up when you’re free.”
“I . . . I’m not free.”
“Well, tell me how much, then!” The tall, dark-haired one started a ribald laugh that the others joined. Andrea didn’t find it funny.
“Excuse me. Please don’t talk to me again.”
“All right, darlin’.” The tall one put his hand on her extreme lower back in a pretense of guiding her away from the changing room.
Dave was watching from his desk, and stood up abruptly, realizing he should have intervened sooner but not sure when it was. He hadn’t been 100% sure of where Andrea stood; perhaps she had been flattered? But now he didn’t think so. Now that just seemed like an excuse he’d told himself.
“All right, guys, you heard the lady.” He tried to inject a little humor, but it didn’t suit him very well. Not in his present, somewhat uptight mood, anyway. Andrea was making her way to the door rather quickly. He caught up to her in a few quick steps and put his hand behind her in a natural protective gesture before jerking it back, realizing how similar it was to the one he was in the act of rebuking.
“I’m sorry, Andrea. I’ve let an uncomfortable situation persist for too long,” he said in a low voice as they passed out the door.
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t sure how you felt about it.”
“Why wouldn’t I love a couple of drooling kids staring at me for an hour twice a week? Why would that bother me?”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know, you know . . . if you were flattered or something.”
Her expression relieved him of that idea.
“I’m so sorry, Andrea. I really am. I made a poor decision.”
Andrea sighed. “It’s ok. Don’t worry, I’ll come back. I don’t want you to starve; I can handle myself.” Dave wondered just how hard Isla had pushed his class at work.
“I understand if you don’t. Hey, what if I start a women-only class?”
“Ok, Dave. It might be a good idea. Let me know. See ya.”
“Yeah, bye.”
The guys were heading out as Dave came back in from the stairwell.
“Hey, no fair getting her out there by yourself,” they kidded him.
“I . . . no, it’s not like that. I had to apologize for letting you guys harass her.”
“Harass? Since when is flirting harassment?”
“Since she told you to go away, at least. But probably before. Look, guys . . . she’s not interested. Let it go.”
“Sure, sure. That’s what you say.”
“Really. Leave her alone. Listen . . . from now on, Tuesday and Thursday evenings are ladies only. I’m going to post it on the website tonight. You guys are welcome any other time.”
“Ladies only! Now you have an unfair advantage. That’s taking advantage of your rank!”
“Just go.” Dave felt increasingly disgusted.
They went, oblivious to Dave’s mood, elbowing each other and snickering all the way.
Two nights later at about 8:30, Dave realized he’d made a strategic error. After the new all-ladies class, the two women picked up their things and left. Dave was only five minutes or so behind them after locking up. He came out the door just in time to see the mayor’s wife get in her car, waving goodnight to Andrea. As Andrea returned the wave, two shadowy figures approached her. The dark-haired one put an arm around her; his inexperience made him awkward and clumsy. He pulled her close to him and said hoarsely, “Missed you tonight.” But Dave was already running and yelling in his naturally mild voice, “Get out of here! Get out of here!” as if to a flock of pigeons.
The kid dropped his arm, startled, and Andrea darted quickly off to her car. Dave’s feet pounded the sidewalk up to them.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothin’.” The tall one answered, and the redhead looked at his shoes.
“I don’t want to see you around here again. Don’t make trouble for everyone. Just go away, please, and don’t come back unless you grow up into a decent human being.”
“Sheesh man, overreact much? I didn’t hurt her.”
“I don’t want to see you here again, right?”
“Whatever.”
“Hey!” A shout called Dave’s attention to another small knot of shadows at the far end of the mill, barely visible except for the orange glow of their cigarettes. One of them broke away and ran towards them.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. We got company, anyway. Let’s get out of here.”
“Company?” The redhead was confused.
“Yeah. You know.” He winked. The redhead still looked confused, but Dave got suspicious and followed the trio back to the rest of the group.
Two young women stood in the midst of them. One was wearing dirty sweatpants and a hoodie with ragged cuffs, unzipped over a thin camisole.
The other was the woman he’d brought home from the stairwell several weeks ago.
Dave met her eyes. He knew it was ridiculous, impossible, to be shocked, and furthermore that he had no right to be.
He had a bad, bad feeling about the group’s plans for the evening, and he wanted to help or warn her. But she was laughing coquettishly, holding hands with one guy, with her arm around another. She didn’t look like she wanted saving, and what on earth could he do? Did he just not try?
His impulse was to grab her arm and drag her away. But wasn’t that what he’d just been telling the others not to do to Andrea? Assume a right to control her, to dictate her actions, to tell her where to go and what to do? It was different; he knew it was different. But he was scared by the part that was the same.
He wasn’t sure he even wanted these guys to know that he knew her, not because he was ashamed, but because he knew they’d get the wrong idea, and then everything he’d said about respecting people would become meaningless. After all, he didn’t really know her.
There was nothing he could say or do. The air pulsed with wrong, but there was nothing you could call out. Why, in the end, did it always seem so impossible to stop a train wreck even when you saw it coming?
He walked away. But he couldn’t walk away. He walked back. After all, he’d already taken a stand with these guys. They wouldn’t be that surprised if he did it again.
“You ladies want to be here?” They nodded. “You sure?” They smiled and laughed at his quaintness.
“Sure, hon,” the girl he hadn’t met said. The second offered a practiced smile and nodded, but her eyes didn’t smile or meet his.
____________________________________________________________________________
A week later, she knocked on his door.
“You mad?” she said without ceremony. She looked vulnerable in a way that was cultivated but not exactly fake. A deliberate enhancement of a natural quality.
“I . . . no. Why would I be mad?”
“You seemed mad the other day.” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“Outside the mill. Those guys gave me a place to stay and food. Isn’t that what you did? What you wanted for me? Why’s that so bad?” Dave nodded, dispirited. “I can probably go back again, too. I haven’t worn out my welcome yet, I don’t think.”
“Those guys . . . they don’t want what’s best for you. You’re welcome here.”
“You don’t even know me. How do I know what you want?” She leaned on the stairwell wall and scratched her leg with the opposite sneaker.
Dave sighed. “You’re right; there’s no reason you should trust me. But I really do want what’s best for you. Do they know you? Are they friends of yours?”
She looked away. “Of course.” He waited. “They are now. Friend of a friend, anyway.”
“I’m Dave Abbatescianni.” He stuck out his hand in introduction, “Let’s be friends.”
“I’m Lacey. But you still don’t know me.”
“Do you want to come up and talk?” Dave gestured towards the living room.
“Ok.” She followed him up the stairs and perched on the edge of the futon.
“Now,” Dave said from the chair, “how do I get to know you?”
“You don’t.” Her voice was small and tired.
“It’s up to you. But why not?”
“You don’t want to know me, trust me. And I don’t want you to know me.” She stared at the picture of Dave and his dad.
“Why not? Why did you knock on my door?”
“I’m no good.” She said it simply, matter of fact, in answer to both questions. “Now you know everything about me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. I stole from you before.” She picked at a hangnail.
“I know. Is that what you came for this time?”
“Yes.” Lacey’s hair was falling out of its ponytail and she kept tucking it behind her ears.
“Nothing else?”
“Like what else?”
Dave was silent. He wasn’t sure. Finally, he said, “But why tell me that you came to steal from me?”
“So you’ll trust me. That makes it easy. I’m a sneaky little bitch. That’s all there is to know.” Her words sounded bitter and biting, but her tone was limp, listless. She called herself a “sneaky little bitch” like it was a name given to her at birth.
“No . . . no. I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it.” She was begging him, “Don’t tell me that you believe that people are basically good. I can tell you for sure that that’s not true.”
“I believe that people have worth. It’s not the same thing.”
“Worth what? What am I worth?”
“You’re a soul. You’re beautiful.” Dave struggled to explain himself.
“Oh. I understand. You gave me a place to stay and I can give you something.” She thought she recognized the basics of the economy she lived inside, but her expression was profoundly sad, as if she had actually hoped to find that things worked differently here.
“No!” Dave said, heart pounding. “That isn’t what I mean at all! Please stop saying things like that.” She looked at him genuinely confused, perhaps a little hurt at the vehement rejection. “I don’t mean transactional worth.”
“Transactional? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Transactional means . . . well, valuable as payment, or valuable as a way to get something. Like money, or whatever you trade the money for. Anyway, it’s not what I mean. What I mean is . . . well, worth, it’s like a beautiful piece of art.”
“But you can sell art for a lot of money, can’t you?”
Dave smiled. “Sometimes. Many people can’t sell theirs for any money at all, but a lot of it is beautiful anyway. Oh, wait . . .” Dave took three big steps to get into his kitchen and three big steps back. “Look at this. You know I can’t sell this for money, right? But it’s still beautiful. It still has worth.” Kim’s little daughter had given him a crayon drawing the last time he was there for coffee, a funny stick figure with long legs and a plump round body, holding a flower, standing under a big round yellow sun.
“But that’s because of innocence.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s because of love.”
“Nobody loves me.”
“The little girl and I like each other, it’s true, and that does give some value to this. But that’s not the love I meant. I meant the love that she had for this picture gives it worth and beauty.”
“This is all too much for me. I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying,” Dave’s heart started pounding again, and he swallowed a lump in his throat, “I’m saying that you’re a work of art, all people are.”
“But then who is the artist? I wouldn’t call what my mom did to make me art. Or love, for that matter.” She had kicked off her shoes and was curled up, now speaking with her face away from him, half buried in the futon.
“Well, I know it sounds crazy but . . . I think it was . . . well, God.”
“Oh,” Lacey sighed, disappointed. “I see. You’re a religious fanatic.”
“I mean, I don’t think I’m a fanatic.”
“When I’m high, I believe all the fairy tales. I believe in God, and I believe that I can do something with my life, and I believe I can matter to someone. But I’m not high, and all I have is the hunger and the voice that says I’m no good and I have to get high to make the voice go away.”
“Sounds like a fairy-tale monster to me.”
“This is all too much for me. I don’t know what you’re saying. You’re not making any sense. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I want to help you, Lacey. I just don’t know how. Everything seems to hurt you more. How can I help you? Tell me, please tell me.”
“I wish the hell I knew,” she whispered into the cushion, “’cause I think you really mean it, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Please,” Dave said, “please come here when you need food, or rest. Please just do that for me.”
“For you? That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
“I’m not clean. I’m not trying to get clean.”
“No. Come anyway.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“No.”
Lacey rose slowly, almost painfully from the couch. “It’s nice to meet you, Dave,” she said very seriously, “you’re a nice guy. Please do one thing for me.”
“Yes!”
“Lock your doors. Here and at the mill. Please lock them. I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt you.” She turned and went down the stairs as Dave sadly watched and vowed never to lock his door again.
Two days later, he came up the stairs and found her curled up on the couch, watching him come in.
“Hello,” he said softly, pleased.
“Hi,” she responded, “I couldn’t get your stuff back, but I cleaned up your place a little bit.” She nodded at a vacuum and dust cloth. “For a man that lives alone, you’re pretty clean.”
Dave smiled slightly. “Thanks.”
“So we’re even.”
“Ok.”
“I don’t want charity.”
Dave nodded. “Most of us are like that. But do you want to be able to help people?”
Lacey shrugged. “In a perfect world, maybe. One where I had any help to offer.”
“Then someone has to swallow their pride somewhere. All of us, probably.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s right for people to help other people, then it must also be right to accept help.”
“I guess.” Lacey picked up her sweatshirt.
“Hey. . .want to have coffee tomorrow?” Dave’s heart was pounding nervously.
“Why?” Lacey scowled a little in confusion.
“I. . .I dunno, I’m trying to make friends. I’m new here.”
“Oh Dave. . .I am not a good friend for you.” She shook her head, pitying him.
“Let me decide. I’ll be there at Dunks at 4. You can come or not come.”
“Ok. Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Good enough.”
Lacey put her hand on the stair railing and looked back at Dave. “You scare me a little.”
“I do?” Concern flashed across Dave’s face.
“Yeah…I just don’t get it. People aren’t. . .nice.”
Dave looked at her sadly. “I know.”
Lacey shrugged and started down the stairs.
edited 2/9/25
Next Chapter: The Many and Varied Ways to be Awkward
Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson