by Rachel Cohn
I hate that neither of us will say how in this or not we are--too scared to ruin our January love nest hiatus in Max's apartment.
Yvette didn't appear concerned that Shrimp should be holding me close in the middle of the night after I'd woken up from my nightmare, petting her while she lay next to him on the living room carpet in Max's apartment. My head turned to her as I lay flat on my back, and I shot her the evil eye from my position on Shrimp's other side. Yvette spared me a hiss in return; she purred her supremacy inside Shrimp's hand instead. Diva.
Shrimp murmured, "Should I be worried that you cried out
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Johnny's name in your sleep?" Hair falling to the sides of his face, blond stubble surrounding his cherry lips, he looked almost painfully beautiful in the light of the dozens of candles he'd placed around the carpet sanctuary he'd created for our night's sleep because my body hurt from the yoga class.
I answered, "Should I be worried that you're a Shrimp out of water who dodges my brother at every opportunity?"
"You answer my question first."
"You shouldn't be worried about me and Johnny Mold. He's my friend. I admit I'm curious about him, but not in a way like I want to experience him physically. More like I want to know what he wants to experience. Make sense?"
"Not at all."
The nightmare, along with the fallout from the previous day's particularly high caffeine count, not to mention my achy post-yoga-disaster back, ensured I wouldn't be falling asleep again anytime soon. Now had to be as good a time as any to dig the middle-of-the-night conversation with Shrimp deeper, to end the stalemate of our indecisions by bringing our issues to the fore--or the floor, as the case may be. "I think there's an expectation that when you're our age, you should date lots of people, and I hope Johnny will part with his Game Boy and comic books and sci-fi novels long enough to find that out. But do I want to fool around with him? Of course not. In my heart right now all I want is you." I so came close to
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singing Shrimp a cheesy power ballad lyric like, "You fill me up, you're all I need to get by, oh baby, you and me, into in-fin-i-ty."
"Good, because Johnny spell-checks my haikus, and I don't want to think of him as competition."
I waited, expecting Shrimp to declare his desire to stay--and to be with me, and only me.
I waited.
Send love back my way.
Winter's apartment will end.
Anytime now, shrimp.
Nothin'.
Shrimp is a way better haiku writer than I am.
The moonlight-candlelight brightened my resolve to get to the heart of the matter. "Do you think of Danny as competition?"
Shrimp said, "There's a Buddhist saying Dante told me: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.' Dante said this means that you must not look for Buddha outside of yourself. Make sense?"
"Not at all. You're saying you want to kill my brother?" Right now I wanted to go to Corsica, find Dante, and kill him. (Cue The Godfather theme song.)
"I want to work on myself and not be threatened by Danny. Or your worship of him."
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"Meaning you ignore him so you won't have to think about him?"
"Something like that. Divert my karma elsewhere."
I wanted to point out that I suspected Shrimp had misinterpreted Dante's Buddhist saying, which to my mind was not about diverting karma but about looking inward for truth rather than harping on the idea of a god leading you to what you had to find within yourself. Instead I asked Shrimp, "Why does your karma need to be diverted?"
Shrimp gave Yvette a series of rubs before answering, like he was using her to buy time before deciding how to answer. But even though his hand chose Yvette instead of mine at his side, just waiting for his stroke, at least he answered the truth. "Last year when I asked you to marry me, you chose Danny. And I don't trust that you won't again."
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***
THIRTY-EIGHT
"Whassa matta, Dollface?"
I looked up from the cupcake trays awaiting my frosting ministrations, too tired to be irritated that now was so not the time for Danny's sorry Don Corleone impression. Danny's concerned face at least diverted my attention from visions of how Shrimp's face looked when I'd stormed out of Max's apartment early this morning after our monster fight--hateful.
Danny tried again. "Wanna talk about it? Did you get any sleep last night? You look like hell."
"No. And no. And thanks."
If I talked, I feared I would capitulate into full-scale rage, which my karma did not need--any more than Shrimp's face needed the new, uncharacteristic spectrum of anger that had colored his foggy
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surfer beauty into all-out darkness as dawn rose through the garden windows of Max's apartment this morning.
I rechanneled my energy into the job at hand. I visualized each iced cupcake I dipped into the bowl of chocolate sprinkle splendor as being christened with a peace and tranquility that would be passed on to its future consumer. As the Buddha taught, and as cut out from a pamphlet and glued down inside Shrimp's sketchbook: Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.
Truth and I are no longer on the outs. We now outright despise one another.
Shrimp + Truth = these revelations:
(1) Shrimp gives--I'm right. If Shrimp chooses not to get along with Danny, it must mean he wants to leave. We don't need to make a mutual decision about what to do once Max returns to his apartment. Shrimp has decided. He wants to go home to San Francisco. New York is too cold, too much energy. Shrimp needs quiet, focus, and ocean. The Hudson feeding into the Atlantic doesn't count.
(2) Without bothering with the small detail of consulting me directly, Shrimp decided that if he had asked me to go home to San Francisco with him, make a Pacific life there with
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him, he knew I would choose Manhattan. I would choose Danny. So Shrimps not asking.
(3) Shrimp thought he chose the quest to Manhattan to find me, but now he's not sure we should be together always; my life here flourishes just fine without him. Maybe why he came to Manhattan was not for me at all, but to connect with the spiritual teachings that could lead Shrimp down a fresh path. He has questions about this new path. I could obstruct his answers.
(4) Excuse me, but the girl who loves him most in the world could obstruct him how? Buddha teaching number 251: There is no fire like lust; there is no grip like hatred; there is no net like delusion; there is no river like craving.
(4) (a) Shrimp didn't misinterpret Dante's Buddhist saying about if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. I don't know what I'm talking about.
(4)(a)(i) Interpret this, CC: As any Buddhist could tell you, neither the future nor the past are real; only the moment is real.
(4)(a)(ii) My interpretation: This moment sucks.
(4)(b) How dare I suggest Shrimp is using the spiritual path as an excuse not to deal with his issues--like anger at
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his parents' craziness, or resentment that the life he chose in New Zealand with them did not work out.
(4) (b) (i) This moment also sucks.
(5) Fair is not fair and trust is not trust. (Shrimp said this, not the Buddha, or stupid Dante.) Shrimp lied when he said he'd been with someone else in NZ. All Shrimp did in NZ was surf, meditate, pine for me, and watch his parents' plans for their new lives Down Under fall apart. And what had I done? Jumped right into bed with Luis. Yeah, that bothered the hell out of him. I chose the clean break--not Shrimp.
I then chose to storm out of the apartment in a rage, shouting at Shrimp that I couldn't care less if he returned to SF, and what did he care if I chose Danny anyway? Shrimp had chosen for both of us--chosen not to like Danny, chosen to return home without any concern about what that would mean for us, chosen to act like he's okay with the past choices we'd made together, when in fact he wasn't. My partin
g words before the BAM door slam: "YOU'RE A FAKE, PHIL!"
So ended the middle-of-the-night-into-early-morning fight-- suckilicious to the highest power.
Danny powered on the stereo to fill the void of my morning silence. From the speakers Freddie Mercury wanted to know if this was the real life, or was it just fantasy?
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Finally my mouth could produce words. "No Queen at seven in the morning, okay, Danny? I can't deal."
"Wow, she's not even in the mood for Queen. That's a first for you, Ceece." Danny zapped the stereo remote. "Bohemian Rhapsody" faded away, replaced by the power ballad pop song about she who was not a girl but not yet a woman. Hah-hah, brother-baker-man.
"Danny," I said. "Philosophical question. Do you think I am like one of those girl singers who is so desperate for love that she creates love where none exists?"
"You mean like a classic case study pop princess who gets married too young to a real a-hole and convinces herself it's love when in fact it's just her escaping a lifetime of people who've used her body and talent to sell off her soul?"
"Exactly."
"No, I don't think you're that."
"Do you think Shrimp and I will be like you and Aaron--able to start fresh, find hope with each other?"
"I honestly don't know Shrimp well enough to make that judgment. I mean, anyone who watches him with you could tell he's totally in love with you. But what he wants for your future together? I'd like to know as much as you."
The stereo should have been playing a gospel song of prayer, since the answer to mine was delivered when the kitchen door
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opened--and this was real life, this was not fantasy. Shrimp stood at the doorway wearing his flap-ears hat dusted with fresh morning snow, shivering, but with a face shining back in love--or at least with hope rather than hate.
He looked at Danny instead of at me. "Got a job for me this morning?"
I resisted the urge to run into his arms and slobber him with kisses and murmurs of "Sorry, sorry, sorry, let me warm you up." I knew Shrimp was not here to be with me. Shrimp's way of saying sorry was to show me he would invest time with a questionable suspect, not because he genuinely wanted to hang out with Danny, but to try to get used to him. It was like me with bio-dad Frank. Well, maybe Shrimp was kinda here for me.
Relief.
Danny didn't need the situation spelled out to him to understand. He said, "Take your coat off and sit down here by me. I've got a bag of Oreos needing to be crushed, and I think you're just the man for the job. I'll pour you a coffee and have breakfast delivered for you if you'll promise to get as hyped as CC does after her caffeine kicks in, and regale me with stories of your life. Feel free to make shit up."
Shrimp mumbled, "Deal. But no soft-boiled eggs for me." He glanced at me. "I like mine over easy."
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***
THIRTY-NINE
Everyone's happy.
I'm suspicious.
Max is thrilled to be reunited with Yvette Mimieux--and to no longer be in the custody of his mother, or her retirement community in Sun City, Arizona. He's so happy to have returned to cold, grumpy New York City that he's extended the welcome on Shrimp's lease in his apartment. So since Shrimp and I still haven't figured out what we're going to do about our living situation, for the time being, Shrimp's cool to crash on Max's couch, and Max is cool to have him there. According to Max, he could tolerate anyone after a month with his mother. And as we all know, Shrimp digs anyone, with the possible exception of my brother--but even they're happy to tolerate one another lately.
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Danny is happy because even though he's getting on well enough with Shrimp (in the awkward-but-not-hostile "Dude, sup?" guy-shoulder-nudge-followed-by-complete-indifference interaction kind of way) to have also extended an invitation for Shrimp to stay in our apartment now that Max is home, Shrimp declined. Danny's doesn't think Shrimp and I are ready for the moving-in step.
I'm happy Shrimp declined to crash with us because while we'd have the apartment pretty much to ourselves, what with Danny's double happiness at finally gaining admittance back into the land of indoor sports at Aaron's (hee!), I agree with my brother. I don't want to get into a real living arrangement with Shrimp unless we're ready to decide if we're really ready to live together. Not just if-- but where.
I think I could be happy to live in New York or San Francisco, so long as Shrimp was there. Right? So should I try to convince Shrimp to stay in NY, or, fair is fair, should I consider whether my life here has been a cool diversion, but all roads lead back to San Francisco, where he prefers to be, and where Shrimp and I could start a new life together in the heart-luring city where we first started out?
For now, we've settled on being happy to have worked through the monster fight and resolved the back-end issues. We have agreed that the "clean break" might originally have been my call, but Shrimp answered it by not contacting me while he was in New
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Zealand. Yet, trust really is trust--if we are in this together, and we have agreed that we are, for now, at least within the sense of the mutually agreed upon Buddhist interpretation that neither the future nor the past but only the present moment is real, I acknowledge that I'm sorry about the Luis thing. I'm not sorry that it happened, but I am sorry it hurt Shrimp. And Luis is over, done , finito.
As to the if and where Shrimp and I still need to resolve--we'll get there. Just not yet.
What I wanted to know now was, "How come all these Buddhist monks look so happy?"
Because I am the Best Girlfriend Ever, I finally made good on my promise to join Shrimp for a meditation class at the Buddhist temple where he's been spending a lot of his time.
If that meditation session wasn't the longest hour of my life, I don't know what.
While the class practitioners had sat on their pillows in the prayer room emptying their minds, visualizing the Buddha, and dedicating merit for the benefit of all sentient beings, I hadn't been able to keep my eyes closed. I was too mesmerized by the bald-headed, orange and red robe-attired monks at the head of the room, who had the strangest looks of giddy peace on their faces that I'd ever seen. Like they were beyond actualization and had glided into their own realms of happiness--some weird, pure kind that I reason has to be completely phony.
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Shrimp answered, "I guess the monks look so happy because they've dedicated their lives to working toward an end to suffering?"
"They're happy about suffering? That's pretty effed up."
"They're not happy about suffering. They're finding peace from trying to relieve it."
Shrimp and I held hands as we wandered out of the meditation room and into the temple's main area. The peaceful room smelled of incense, and it was lined with colorful prayer flags, Buddha statues and portraits, and paintings of Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and Nepal. A few nuns and monks passed by us, and made prayer-bow gestures at their chests when they recognized Shrimp.
"You've kind of found a place here, huh?" I asked him, squeezing his hand, so proud and awed how he has the ability to make himself part of a community--whether it's a community of artists, surfers, caffeine addicts, or Buddhist--wherever he goes.
"Sort of," Shrimp said. "I mean, I know the Buddhist path is one I want to go down. And I like this temple. But I like many different Buddhist temples I've visited. What I need next is a teacher."
"I'll teach you," I teased. What a laugh. During the hour of meditation silence Shrimp and I had just experienced together, I'd personally experienced sheer torture trying not to: (1) die of hysterics watching the happy monks think about nothing; (2) visualize my baby sister Frances Alberta as a Buddha baby who miraculously could sing every lyric of "Come Fly with Me" before she was even
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old enough to crawl; and (3) think about me, me, me and Shrimp, Shrimp, Shrimp when I was supposed to be emptying my mind for the altruistic intent of praying for an end to everyone else's problems.
Whereas. Shrimp had sat still for the hour, eyes closed, his face etched in total concentration, his hair spiked up, my lust for him through the roof. My dharma punk, my dirty hippie, my Philip-Shrimp.
My loverman who knows his girl's limitations. "You might not be the best candidate for meditation," Shrimp acknowledged. "But I love you for trying."
This room we stood in, this togetherness we shared--I knew we were standing in a happy bubble. But make no mistake. Bubbles burst.
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***
FORTY
Impermanence vs. Indecision.
I'll take indecision, please.
My life as a barista-waitress is over, for now. LUNCHEONETTE is shuttering its windows for good. Johnny the First is going into hospice upstate, and Johnny Mold is headed there to share the last days of his granddad's life with the old man who raised him. Once his grandpa passes, the building and the business will be put up for sale, but Johnny Mold doesn't have the energy right now to deal with operating or selling this joint that's only just now breaking even.
So, this much has been decided for me: Hello, full-time cupcake business, good-bye to my calling as a barista. That is, assuming I stay in Manhattan.
Since our apartment building's rooftop would be too cold for a February gathering, Johnny Mold invited us to use LUNCHEONETTE
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to throw a party--and to give the place a proper send-off. With champagne, cupcakes, music, and Danny and Aaron's friends gathered, the occasion was as much an excuse to celebrate Aaron's birthday as it was an opportunity to celebrate the rebirth of Danny and Aaron's true love.
It's funny how at parties it's the odd men out who find one another. Being the only "out" heterosexual males in attendance, Shrimp and Frank-dad bonded as party buddies even faster than I'd once initially bonded with Shrimp's mom the first time I got to know her. But at that long-ago party on the rooftop of Shrimp's brother's house back in Ocean Beach, Shrimp's mom had offered up a spliff by way of breaking the ice between us. Here, Frank offered up his patented wise counsel.
I was too amused watching Shrimp get a lecture on spirituality from Frank of all people that I had no compassionate thought to rescue him. I stood at La Marzocco (bye, baby, I love you--you'll always be a Cadillac rather than a Camry to me, no matter what Dante says), pulling shots for our party guests, at a comfortable enough distance to hear Shrimp and Frank's conversation, but not so uncomfortably close as to join in.
