Old Henry-Christina Ledesma

Old Henry

“Oh my God I have something to tell you.”
“What is it this time?” I said.
“Well actually I have two things to tell you.”
“Of course you do.”
“So what it is it?”
I could see her full pink flushed lips tremble. She hesitated for a moment knowing that what she was about to tell me would feel my ears with an uneasy sensation. I waited for her to speak; the words rolled off her tongue and stopped at the roof of her mouth. She lightly stuttered and as I waited I notice the chip on her front tooth from falling off the monkey bars in third grade.
“Promise that you’re not going to think I’m weird.” she said.
“How could I you’re my best friend.”
“Just tell me already!”
I was tired from work and impatient. The loud growl inside my stomach sounded like a gigantic ogre shredding his teeth through my abdominal muscles. The taste buds on my tongue craved a bowl of spaghetti with meatballs, sausage, and a piece of roasted garlic bread. I watched her contemplate in her mind how each word should be placed together. I could tell that she was keeping all of this bottled inside her consciousness. She needed to vent and I was her diary, since elementary school. I kept all her secrets the first time she kissed a boy, the first time her dad caught her smoking a cigarette in the garage, the first time she had sex in the back of his 65’ mustang, and the first time she smoked weed at the football game freshman year. Images from her childhood glazed over my hazel coated pupils. As she began to speak I noticed the rigid whole on her tongue left from her hot pink bar bell.
“Ok so…I’ve been dating…a…fifty year old man.”
“Come on Lacey stop playing, seriously what were you going to say?”
“I'm serious.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me”
“No I’m not! I really like him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Henry”
“Old Henry uh?”
I couldn’t believe it I stared into her sea green eyes and watched her yellow hair fall over her creamy pale skin. Was it true, this twenty-two year old blonde bombshell was dating a man almost thirty years older than her? I tried to imagine her youthful fresh cover girl face next to an old dirty pervert with heavy lines circling around his aged eyes. This image was unacceptable; there had to be a reason why she was going out with a man this age.
“What do you guys possible have in common?” I asked.
“Well we work at the same place?”
“Oh, so he’s a waitress too?”
“No, not exactly but he owns the place I waitress at.”
“Oh ok so he’s what we should call your boss?”
“Oh is that what you call them.”
The tension from our conversation sparked into sarcasm. I was disappointed in her she was just another statistic. Just another girl dating a man for job stability, the fancy dinners, and the monthly allowance, just another one of these’s money hungry bitches.
“Do your parents know?”
“Hell no!”
“Good, I can’t even imagine the look on your fathers face when he finds out your dating someone his own age, and not only that but he’s your boss Lacey!”
“I know I know, we had a close one the other day.”
“A close one?”
“Yeah, we had just you know what and we were taking a shower together. And all of a sudden I heard my dad’s voice, “Lace I’m home for lunch”. I panicked and we waited in the shower for almost forty-five minutes until he left.” The images of soap suds covering their bodies damage my perception. My faced turned dull and pale and I tried not to think of how saggy balls, wrinkled skin, and how hair growing from your ears attracted my best friend.
“Oh my god! Are you serious?”
“I can’t’ believe this shit!”
“Your poor dad.”
“Let me guess, did old Henry think that your dad was your other old man boyfriend?”