Paige squints at him. “You’re being sweet, and it’s weird.”
He slept comfortably last night. It’s been some time since that’s happened, and he got the shower working this morning after a run to the hardware store. He’d pushed all of his worries and misgivings into getting that showerhead on securely. He feels great.
“I’m sweet all the time, just not with you.”
Paige sips her coffee and comments, “I don’t think I’m a fan of it.”
The exterminators arrive. Carter shows them to the spider-wall and doesn’t even want to consider that there are probably more of them still hidden away.
“Stay if you want to, then.” Carter puts on shoes and grabs his wallet. It’s a perfect spring morning; he doesn’t even need a coat.
Paige nods toward the upstairs, clearly still deciding whether or not she wants to hang out with him. “Isn’t that stuff pretty poisonous, though? Those guys were in, like, full-on hazmat suits.”
Carter opens the door and smiles. “We can only hope.”
The house is a long way away from needing any interior design elements, but Carter is hoping the art market he read about on a flyer at the hardware store will jump-start his inspiration. He may not be artistic, but all that creativity in one place has to kick-start something. On the way, Paige complains: about the walk, the sun, the pace Carter is setting—too fast, then too slow. Carter is regretting not leaving her behind to be engulfed in bug spray, when their mother calls him. Paige plucks the phone from his hand and answers. Carter stands in line for beignets while Paige distracts her with gossip about a cousin’s rumored infidelity.
“Thanks,” Carter says, handing her the warm, sugar-dusted paper bag and taking his phone back with the call finished.
“We better be done walking,” Paige responds. “Or I’m taking a cab. By myself.”
“Just a little farther.”
When they finally make it, Paige ducks into a bathroom to touch up her makeup and “blow dry her pits.” Carter wanders the nearby stalls. It’s like a flea market, but all the wares are handmade. He peruses jewelry and paintings and artsy photographs and nearly buys a set of ceramic coffee cups with a matching pot, but he doesn’t really have anywhere to put it, so he walks away. Carter can’t yet visualize what the house might look like when he’s finished. He’s a detail person; he’s always left the big picture stuff to other people. He does get in a long line to buy a bag of roasted nuts.
“Carter?”
Paige must be finished and looking for him. But it doesn’t sound like Paige. It sounds like—Carter spins around, coming face-to-face with a tall metal sculpture that looks like a plant from the bottom of the ocean: gothic and eerie and beautiful. And behind that—
“Carter Jacob?”
He has to blink several times, opening and closing his mouth without making a sound. He can’t possibly be seeing what he’s seeing.
“Link?”
At a booth filled with more metal sculptures and metal furniture, with blown glass art pieces lining a back shelf, stands Link. Carter’s breath rasps; the ground beneath him shifts. He wishes he hadn’t let Paige eat all the beignets and that he had consumed something more substantial than coffee before walking all the way here. He stumbles woozily, listing forward and catching himself on the deep-sea-plant sculpture. It does not hold his weight, and with it, Carter goes tumbling into the dirt.
He hears his name, tries to get his feet under him, and then a gentle, steady hand tugs him up to sit. It’s Link, crouching and touching his face and looking at him with such care and concern that Carter sways again.
“This might be a silly question, but are you okay?”
Despite his shock and subsequent humiliation, Carter is too woozy to fight his awe at running into Link. “Yeah. I’m okay now.”
Link insists on settling Carter behind the booth in a metal chair, then rushes off to get him food and something to drink. Carter inspects himself, so surprised at seeing Link that he didn’t even take note of the scrape on his elbow and the way his hip hit the sharp metal sculpture. He rubs at it, and Link returns with crêpes in a Styrofoam box and a huge plastic cup of lemonade, then tuts over Carter’s injuries.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Me either,” Carter says, meaning both of them. Sitting on the table in front of him is a metal scorpion made of nuts, bolts, and wrenches. Carter feels better after eating, promises that he’s not hurt, not really, and apologizes for taking out a one of kind art piece and scaring Link half to death. Link swears it’s fine, no big, and then the realization of the last time they were together, what they did, how Link left, seems to hit them both at the same time.
“I should go,” Carter says
“Carter, I wanted to—” Link starts, talking over him.
They both go quiet.
“Link, you wanna go grab something? Oh, you got crêpes…” A cute redhead with several tattoos and a lip piercing approaches the booth, slows at seeing Carter, then steps behind the display table to join them. “Is everything okay?”
Carter stands. “I have to find my sister, so.” As if he conjured her, Paige appears around the corner and spots him. She’s clearly annoyed at how far he wandered.
“Um, how sweaty did you think my armpits were? Oh, hello. I’m Paige.”
Link nods in apparent recognition. “Paige? Paige. Okay, things are starting to make sense now. Hi, I’m Link. Nice to officially meet you.” Paige and Link shake hands, then Link turns to introduce the redhead. “This is Eli. We share a studio space and collaborate sometimes. His stuff is the blown glass.”
Paige reaches for Eli’s hand and bats her eyelashes. “Well, hello there.” She and Eli shake hands far longer than necessary. Paige twirls a strand of hair with her other hand. Carter is going to vomit up his crêpe. He clears his throat until they cut it out.
“What brings you to New Orleans?” Eli asks, looking at Paige.
“Oh, I’m just in town to help Carter get settled.”
Link turns to Carter this time. “Settled?”
Carter shifts awkwardly away. People wander by the booth, and a band plays in the distance. Of all the ways he wanted to talk to Link, to see them again, at a public market after he nearly passed out—while his sister makes bedroom eyes at a cute stranger—was not anywhere close. Link looks incredible, too. Carter has to move to the other side of the booth and put the table between him and Link before he can speak. “I moved here, yeah. Just needed a change, and when I was here I guess I fell in love.”
Link’s mouth parts with surprise.
“With the city!” Carter rushes to say. “I fell in love with New Orleans. The city. The city of New Orleans.” Paige shoots him a what the hell is wrong with you look. “So, anyways. Yeah,” Carter finishes, frowning at his own awkwardness.
“Wow. Carter, that’s—good for you.” Links finally says after another very awkward pause. “It is a pretty amazing place; I can’t really blame you.”
“What are you—” Carter reaches across the table, realizes what he’s doing, drops his hand to the scorpion, and pets it, awkwardly. “What are you doing back here in New Orleans?”
Link frowns. “Carter, I live here. I thought you knew that?”
It takes a minute, but the puzzle pieces slot into place. Carter is the biggest idiot in the entire world. Of course: Link navigated the city like the back of their hand, had insider info about things to do, talked about partly growing up here. Has an accent reminiscent of New Orleans natives. Has Creole and Cajun roots and is working at a booth in New Orleans at this very moment.
“Right,” Carter says.
“I thought that was like, the whole point of this,” Paige cuts in, exasperated. “You seriously suck at stalking people, Carter.”
Link blushes, Carter glares, and Eli laughs. “So, Carter. The Carte
r. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Eli reaches for Carter’s hand and gives it a brisk shake.
Link has talked about him. A lot.
“Good things, I hope, since I’ve made a pretty bad impression today,” Carter says, attempting a joke to lighten the uncomfortable mood.
Eli tilts his head and lifts an eyebrow. “Well. Things,” he says. Link jabs an elbow into Eli’s ribs. “That I am keeping to myself.”
Carter’s stomach squirms; he’s made such a huge mess of everything. Has he always been this dense? Judging by Paige’s long-suffering expression, he guesses so.
“I, uh. I should go.”
Carter leaves, not waiting for a response or for Paige to follow. Link lives here, and Carter had to have known that. Somewhere in his muddled brain and his bruised heart, he knew.
Twenty-one
It’s only due to Paige’s intervention that Carter doesn’t immediately get in his car and drive back to Aurora. She tells him to sleep on it, and that tomorrow he should get in touch with Link and have an honest conversation. Instead, Carter of thinks of nothing but the house, of ripping up, tearing down, breaking apart. Paige remains, day after day, keeping herself busy and away, doing what, Carter doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He spends every spare moment on demolition, going to bed every night sore and exhausted and falling immediately into a dreamless sleep. He doesn’t intend to stop until the house has been stripped to its bones.
“Eli invited us over to watch a basketball game tonight.” Paige leans against the doorframe of the upstairs bathroom where Carter is busy and has told her that repeatedly. She looks overdressed for watching a basketball game, as if she’s going on a date. Carter’s fingers ache from hours of pulling moldy grout out from between the bathtub tiles; his knees ache from kneeling in the bathtub for so long. He doesn’t move, and he doesn’t stop pulling out the thin lines of grout.
“Link will be there,” Paige says.
Carter pauses, briefly, then continues his work. The tiles are probably the original ones in this shower, though not from when the house was built at the turn of the century, of course, because it wouldn’t have had an indoor bathroom. “The tiles in here look to be mid-century,” Carter says, to say something; his brain seizes on the only thing that makes sense to him right now. It’s cobalt blue, the tile; its polish has dulled over time. “Once I get new grout in and do a deep clean to get rid of all the mineral deposits and soap scum it’ll really be something.”
“Okay, Bob Vila,” Paige says. “Time to leave the house.”
Carter is surprised that she knows who Bob Vila is. He shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“No,” Paige says, wrenching the grout saw from his claw-like hand. “You’re emotionally constipated. That’s not the same thing as being fine.”
“I am not…” He’s crouched in the tub for so long that his leg muscles have almost begun to atrophy, and his attempt to grab the tool back ends with him falling onto his ass in the tub. “…emotionally constipated,” he finishes, feebly rubbing at his knees and numb legs. “I just really want to get this place livable.”
Paige perches on the counter, careful to avoid the spot where the base of the faucet is cracked and water leaks out, warping the old blue laminate countertops. Those need to go too. “Okay, all you’ve done is take stuff down. You’ve spent all day today sitting in the freaking bathtub just chiseling out little bits of caulk.”
“Grout.” Carter sounds robotic as he says, “Grout is porous and used to fill in spaces between tiles. Caulk is nonporous and used as a sealant on the seams and corners.”
“Oh my god, Carter. I don’t care.” The bit of tentative gentleness she had in her voice earlier is gone. “The point is, you’ve holed yourself up in this dump, made it look like even more of a dump, and you haven’t even put in a refrigerator! We’re still camping out on sleeping bags and making ramen noodles on a hot plate for dinner like barbarians!”
Carter drops his head back on the edge of the bathtub. Why is she still here then, why does she care? She has a life waiting for her back home, friends, dates, options. He has this house and nothing else. He’s too tired to argue with her, so he stares up at the yellow water stain on the ceiling—the roof will need to be fixed as well—and mumbles, “I want to make sure everything is right before I start rebuilding. It’s called being thorough.”
“No, it’s called you being so fucked up because of Matthew that you’re terrified to commit to anything and so embarrassed by what happened with Link that you’re hiding.” Paige hops down from the counter. “Enough.”
Carter scowls, turning away to curl in the tub. “Way to kick me when I’m down. Thanks for that, Paige.”
“Oh, Carter,” Paige says with a sigh. “Stop being so difficult.”
“Ah, yes.” Carter gives a quick, rueful laugh. “Stop being so difficult, Carter, a Jacob family classic.” Paige tries to rephrase, but Carter waves her off. “Just go without me. No one wants me there anyway.”
Paige sighs. Her feet thunk back onto the floor, which creaks as she walks out. Alone again, Carter remains curled in the tub with pins and needles in his legs and hands, waiting for his strength to return so he can get back to the grout removal. Maybe he is hiding, and maybe he is afraid to commit to anything, but shouldn’t he be? He came all this way to be something else, and he’s brought all his issues along with him. If Matthew really will take him back, then at least he won’t be so pathetically lonely.
Carter screams and flails as a sudden blast of cold water soaks him from the waist down. Paige is looming menacingly over him, pointing the stream of freezing water from the shower nozzle right at him. “Get out of the tub, or it’s your face next.”
Eli lives in a newer apartment building overlooking downtown. It’s small, but well laid-out with an urban-industrial feel: stainless steel appliances, concrete countertops, slate floors, high ceilings with exposed steel beams. Yet it still looks like an artist’s home, with funky art pieces and pops of color everywhere, and Eli’s glasswork is set here and there.
Carter puts on a pleasant face, exchanges niceties and accepts a glass of wine, and doesn’t mention to Eli that he only came under threat of waterboarding because that seems impolite. Eli and Paige fall into easy conversation, leaning close, smiling, touching each other’s arms and hands as if this is something they’ve done many times before. Carter retreats to a corner and leaves them to it. Is this where Paige has been spending her time? With Eli?
He doesn’t seem like her usual type: the interchangeable, straight cis dude-bros named Chad or Brad or Brent or Trent. Not that he cares who Paige dates, or that she’s ever cared about his opinion one way or the other, but Carter has hated every guy she’s dated and introduced him to. Eli, though—scruffy, laid-back, tattooed and pierced, artist Eli—seems okay. He friended Carter on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram right away, even though Carter doesn’t use any of them much. Watching Paige happily cuddle next to someone on the couch while Carter is still trying to sweep the dusty pieces of his heart off the floor again, though, seems both terribly unfair and exactly what he should have expected.
The basketball game starts, and the dozen or so people who were scattered around the apartment all find a spot around the TV. Carter spots Link hanging out in the back of the room, watching the game and chatting with a few people, dressed in a red and blue basketball jersey and matching red skinny jeans, with a sweep of blue eyeliner and glossy pink lips. Their hair is loose and shining, and they are as beautiful as ever, maybe more so.
Carter stays put in his corner. He misses the bathtub. No one would notice if he left right now. Hardly anyone has even noticed he’s here. Link looks over, smiles, waves, then turns away. Carter will quickly take in the view from the balcony before he leaves; that will be a reasonably considerate length of time to stay.
From the balcony, the view of New Orleans is of a modern skyline w
ith sleek new buildings. It’s a city of such complexity and seeming contradictions, a city in flux. Carter thought he could be someone different here, but he keeps making the same mistakes wherever he goes.
“Nice night, huh?” Eli steps out of the sliding glass door and closes it behind him.
“Sure,” Carter says.
Eli leans over the railing next to him. A small blown-glass pipe is cradled in one hand, a lighter in the other. He sparks a green bud nestled inside the pipe, and pungent, earthy-sweet smoke drifts over to Carter. Eli holds the pipe out.
“No, thanks.” Carter holds up a hand. “I’m very impulsive when I’m stoned.” Apparently. That and Stan are what got him into this mess.
“Is that bad thing?” Eli asks after taking another drag.
For him? “Yes.”
Eli lifts his chin, takes another puff, then snuffs the cherry out with the plastic end of his lighter. “I don’t partake often. Pelicans games stress me out, though.”
Carter nods and says, “I hear that,” even though he hadn’t even known New Orleans had a basketball team until an hour ago and certainly not that they were called Pelicans. The quiet settles uncomfortably between them. Carter shifts from side to side, looking toward the front door. It would be impolite to leave now. It’s impolite to stand here and say nothing.
“You make that?” Carter says, conversationally, nodding at the glass pipe.
“Yep,” Eli replies. “Some of my best sellers.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
After another awkward silence Carter adds, “So, you and Paige?”
Eli tips his head to hide a shy smile. “I guess yeah. We’ve been hanging out. Are you gonna give me the ‘don’t hurt my sister or I’ll hurt you’ warning?”
Jilted Page 10
