Jilted

by Lilah Suzanne

  Link sinks onto the couch, tucks up into a ball, and yawns. “Carter Jacob, are you asking me out on a date?”

  Carter shrugs. “I guess I am, yeah.” They’re doing everything out of order or really with no order or sense at all, so why not. “Would you like to go out on a date with me?” Link smiles at him sweetly, and affection rushes through Carter’s veins.

  “I would love to.”

  Carter doesn’t stay; Link is sleepy, and he’s restless. Back at his house, he sands a new spot on the floor. The more he does, the less finished the house seems. Carter’s arms hurt, and his eyes are bleary, and he accidentally sands too deeply, possibly damaging the hundred-year-old flooring because he has no idea what he’s doing. A YouTube tutorial does not a vintage flooring expert make. Yet he can’t make himself stop and go to sleep. He can feel the funnel cloud of panic start to spin at the edge of his mind.

  The last time he was with Link the way he was tonight, Carter closed his eyes and went to sleep and when he opened them again, Link was gone. That’s his entire problem with art that only exists for itself; it’s too fragile. Without meaning and sense to guide him, Carter is trying to steady himself on a pathway made of smoke.

  Thirty-one

  Carter spends the days leading up to his date with Link dithering over what to do with the house and dithering over whether or not to accept the job. It takes him four days to decide on a paint color for the living room, and then on the fifth day he swipes one test patch of green onto the wall and does nothing more. Assuming he has other offers and is merely deciding between them instead of being completely incapable of making a decision, the New Orleans firm offers him an even better benefits package. Where is Stan the security guard when Carter needs him?

  Thank heavens his clothes all look the same. In a short sleeve button-down and crisp slacks, his hair parted to its usual side, Carter, happy to leave the house and his thoughts behind, goes to the warehouse on Friday. It’s oppressively hot and sticky once again, and the wide warehouse doors are pushed open. Massive fans whoosh so loudly Carter’s entrance goes unnoticed. Eli and Link are hunched over the table that holds Eli’s glassblowing tools and instruments, discussing something in tense, low tones. Eli’s eyebrows are furrowed, his head is dropped into both hands, and Link is repeatedly twisting up and loosening their hair.

  “Evening,” Carter says, announcing his presence. “Everything all right?”

  Link hasn’t changed out of their welding coveralls, hasn’t even undone the top half. Eli is holding a paper down with the flat of his hand; the corners lift one by one in time with the clockwise motion of a nearby fan.

  “Carter,” Link says, confused, then wide-eyed. “Oh, crap. Carter. I’m so sorry, I got completely sidetracked.”

  “It’s okay,” Carter says, relieved that Link didn’t forget about him altogether.

  “It is not.” Link stands, attention still focused on whatever that paper is about. “I’ll go change; give me ten minutes.” Link’s phone rings from inside the front coverall pocket, and whoever is on the other end makes them amend, “Fifteen minutes.”

  Link takes the stairs two at a time up to the loft while talking on the phone; their voice is completely drowned out by the fans. Carter tries to smooth down his windswept hair, but it’s no use. He hasn’t talked to Eli much since he become one half of Eli-and-Paige, so Carter says, “It’s windy in here,” just for something to say.

  Eli looks up as if he’d forgotten Carter was there. “What? Oh, yeah. It gets insanely fucking hot in here during the summer.”

  Between the weather outside and the fact that both of their art forms involve intense heat, Carter can believe it. “Hmm,” he says. He tries to fix his hair again. Maybe he should go upstairs. Link didn’t invite him up, but Carter could wait by the door while Link gets ready. The loft doesn’t have much private space, but then Carter did see quite a bit of Link very recently. Eli curses softly, pulling Carter’s attention back to the paper Eli is still scowling at.

  “Bad news?” Carter guesses. Jury duty? Car recall? Invitation to a destination wedding?

  “Yeah,” Eli says, folding the paper back along its creases. “The landlord is hiking up the rent, and I don’t really see any way out of it.”

  Carter hmms. “Have you asked why?”

  “Oh, I know why,” Eli says, smacking the folded letter on the table. “When we first set up shop here this warehouse and all the other ones around it were really fucked up after a hurricane and flooding. We got it cheap with an agreement to fix it up, but now that it is fixed up, he wants us out so he can charge more.” He holds up the letter. “It’s fucking extortion, right?”

  Carter opens his mouth to explain that extortion requires the explicit use of force or threat and this guy is just being an asshole by raising the rent so high that they’ll have no choice but to leave. But now is maybe not the time. He nods. “Yeah, that’s messed up. So, can’t you find a different studio space?” Of course, Link lives here as well.

  “Easier said than done,” Eli replies. “But that’s one of the options we’re considering, or I’m considering, if Link really does leave.”

  Carter’s head jerks back as if he just walked right into a plate glass window. “Wait. Leave? Link is leaving?” The metal stairs clang with the sound of someone bounding down them, and Link appears, still on the phone and still wearing coveralls. Leaving? Where?

  “You should probably talk to them about it,” Eli says.

  Carter tries to, but Link tugs him forward, tilting the phone up and covering the mouthpiece as they walk to the door. “Let’s just go. I need a drink,” Link says, then returns to the still-in-progress phone conversation.

  Carter drives as Link talks, taking a right out of the gravel lot with no idea where he’s going. He didn’t pick a place to go and, since Carter doesn’t know New Orleans as Link does, he planned on letting them decide. Randomly taking a side road to another side road, he tries to not listen to Link’s side of the conversation, but Link groans loudly, exasperated, and says, “Because it’s embarrassing! I keep doing this!”

  Carter stops at a red light. He glances at Link, who listens to whoever is on the other side of the conversation, then sighs, says okay several times, and hangs up. “Carter, you are getting ready to have the worst date of your entire life,” Link says, finally peeling off the coveralls; beneath is a plain, worn, gray T-shirt and baggy nylon shorts. It’s the most dressed-down Carter has ever seen Link.

  “Not possible. Not when it’s with you,” Carter says.

  Link touches his arm, looking over with a small, shaky smile. “You’re so sweet to me, and I do not deserve it.” Link pats Carter’s arm and says, “Turn left at the next light. I need you to go by my mom’s house.”

  Link guides him southwest, and Carter is a little bummed at the detour, but excited to see where Link’s family lives. He imagines something bohemian, an artist commune or another unique space like Link’s loft or Eli’s vibrant urban apartment.

  “Okay, right here,” Link says, pointing out the last turn. It’s a regular neighborhood with regular houses in standard ranch style with little flat yards. Maybe artist hippie communes look like suburban neighborhoods built in the ‘80s. They get out of the car, and Link says, “This was my grandmother’s place. Danielle was taking care of her for a while, until she moved on. Still strange to see my mom here and not her.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Carter says as they head up the walkway. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  The screen door opens with a screech. “Oh no, she’s alive,” Link says. “Just in a nursing home. Still as fiery as ever.” The wooden door is painted a soft yellow and opens to a woman with round brown eyes, black hair streaked with gray in a thick braid that reaches her waist, and Link’s wide, full-lipped smile. She’s wearing a billowy shirt splattered in a riot of colors and pants that seem to be constructed from pa
tches and fabric scraps. She welcomes them in with a rich, mellifluous voice.

  “Carter, this is Danielle Boudreaux, my mother.”

  Danielle, Link’s mother, moves close to Carter as if she’s going to give him a hug, but presses two fingers against his head, right between his eyebrows. She shakes her head and tuts, “Oh, my, your third eye is completely closed.”

  Thirty-two

  Carter rubs at the spot on his forehead where his third eye is apparently in real trouble. “Oh,” he says, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Carter. Don’t worry about it.” Link touches his elbow and tugs him back from Danielle’s scrutiny.

  “Well! Somebody’s aura is a dark, angry orange today,” Danielle says, with an intent look at Link, while she flutters her hands around the outline of Link’s body. Then she smiles. “Hey! Does anyone want some lemonade? I just made a fresh batch!” She sweeps into the house and around a corner, and then Carter hears kitchen things clang and bang and crash.

  The house’s interior looks like a time capsule, as if it was indeed built in the ‘80s, decorated and furnished in that decade as well, and then left in that exact state with pastels and floral prints, gold-trimmed glass tables, and oddly shaped mirrors everywhere.

  “Carter and I are actually trying to go on date, Danielle,” Link calls, “So can we just get to whatever I urgently needed to come here for?”

  It brings Carter up short, that Link calls her by her first name, for one, and then the rebuke and the clear voicing of displeasure. Carter knows he and Link had very different upbringings, but the casualness and lack of deference to parental authority is still surprising. When Link was on the phone, Carter assumed the conversation was with a close friend because that was how it sounded: honest, forthcoming. Carter is a grown adult who doesn’t do everything his mother says, but when he defies her wishes it’s behind her back. He’s hidden most of himself and his entire dating life, except Matthew, and that’s only because they got engaged and he had no choice. His mother certainly isn’t a friend.

  Danielle comes out of the kitchen with two glasses and sets them on a coffee table in the living room. There is a stack of money in the center of the table. She taps the bills, then the couch. “Come sit, come sit.” Carter does as he’s told, and Link reluctantly follows. “I had a booth at this wonderful craft fair last weekend. Did very well. I want you to take some and put it toward your rent. That way you don’t have to leave New Orleans if that isn’t what you want, though I respect your decision either way.”

  “You know I don’t like taking your money.” Link, drink untouched, perches on the edge of the couch.

  “And you know that I don’t like having too much cash around,” Danielle counters. “It’s a summoner of evil spirits and dark energies.”

  Link and Danielle glare at each other with matching stubborn expressions, and Carter, not knowing what else to do, picks up his lemonade. Inside the glass are generous slices of lemon, several large green leaves, and a long sprig of something else green. Carter pokes around with his straw until he finds a clear path to the actual lemonade and takes a sip, then chokes a little on the sour, unsweetened, herbal taste. Link and Danielle turn to look at him.

  “That is—” He coughs instead of finishing his sentence, then sets the drink back down. His eyes water a little. “So, you’re also an artist?” Carter asks Danielle, trying to steer the conversation into more neutral territory.

  She gasps. “I am!” She slides next to him on the couch, touches his head again, and then his chest and stomach and lower back as she says, eyes intense and very close to Carter’s, “My medium is the mind and body.” She puts both hands on Carter’s chest and rubs slow circles around his pectorals.

  “Oh,” Carter says, wishing he was still choking on his lemon herb water. “Um.” As Link’s mom continues to rub his chest, Carter looks desperately to Link for help. Link is laughing at him.

  “I’m sorry, I told you she was strange.”

  “Spoken like a true Sagittarius,” Danielle says, then flutters her hands around Link’s general area again. “Normalcy is an oppressive social construct designed to reinforce the status quo and keep us from fully embracing our own inherent power.” She pats Link’s cheek, then turns to Carter. “Isn’t that right, Carter?”

  “I—” Carter starts. Reading people’s auras and energies is as ridiculous as believing one’s personality is the result of a pattern of stars falling in a certain place at a certain time, yet there is something in the way Danielle is looking at him, as if she knows him. “Right,” Carter says, sipping more sour lemonade. It goes down a little easier now that he knows what to expect.

  Link sighs, squeezes Danielle’s hand, and gathers up the stack of bills. “Okay. Fine. Thanks, I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

  “No need,” Danielle says, “The universe will pay me back in karma.”

  “If only my landlord took karma as payment,” Link quips. Their phone goes off. “Excuse me. I need to take this.”

  As soon as Link disappears down the hallway leading to the bedrooms, Danielle also stands, hovers above Carter, and moves her hands in circles over his head. She asks his birthday and seems pleased at the late January date, then says, “May I read your aura, Carter? Your energies are simply fascinating.” Carter is unaware of how to how to politely turn down an aura reading, so he agrees.

  Danielle instructs him to lie down on the couch. She takes six deep breaths and closes her eyes, then opens them; her gaze has gone unfocused. She seems to be looking off to the side, at the busy floral pattern of the couch beneath him—or beyond him—and moves her hands over Carter’s head and the length of his body without making physical contact. She hums in several different intonations: curious, then confused, intrigued, then horrified, then pleased. Finally, she says, “Well. Well, well, well.”

  Carter sits up as Link comes back down the hallway. Carter’s aura must be in even worse condition than his third eye. “What? What is it?”

  Danielle sits, palms pressed against her cheeks, her expression serious. “It’s just—your primary energy is so yellow, indicating a seeker of truth and joy and knowledge. But it’s so clouded with gray I don’t know how you haven’t gotten lost in it completely.” She shakes her head with dismay, then makes a circling motion around Carter’s pelvic area. “And there’s the whole matter of this purple sexual energy—so raw.”

  “Okay!” Link interrupts. “We’re definitely gonna stop talking about that.”

  “Oh, Link, it’s nothing to be uncomfortable about!” Danielle protests, though she moves her hands farther from Carter’s lower half. “Sex is—”

  “Humanity in its purest form, yeah, yeah,” Link intones, stopping a speech they’ve probably heard many times, then motioning toward a sliding glass door in the dining room. “Carter, could I see you outside for a minute?”

  Thirty-three

  There’s a little square patio out back, and a small fenced-in yard. Link sits in one of the sun-bleached patio chairs, and Carter sits in the other one. “Was it Eli?” Carter asks, after Link only offers thoughtful silence. “Any news about the warehouse?”

  “No,” Link says, plucking at a broken piece of wicker on the chair as they scan the backyard. “You know, I didn’t as spend much time here as I wish I had, as a kid. I didn’t really spend much time anywhere.” Link looks over to Carter, then quickly away; they seem unable to look him in the eye. Whatever that phone call was about, it changed things. Carter braces himself for what’s inevitably coming.

  “I came back to New Orleans because I wanted stability. I wanted commitment and roots and I… I think now it’s just not meant to be.” Link twists the piece of wicker until it breaks off. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Carter?”

  Along the back fence is a cluster of dandelions, some yellow, some with white fluffy seeds,
ready to spread the invasive weed elsewhere. Contrary to popular opinion, what qualifies as a weed isn’t a matter of perspective, but an actual classification of plant characteristics, tenacity chief among them; an ability to grow and thrive anywhere. Carter is not a dandelion.

  “Things are not ‘meant to be,’” Carter says, once he can trust his voice to remain steady. “They either are, or they aren’t.” He swallows hard and turns to face Link. “You either do or you don’t. We make choices. The whims of the universe have nothing to do with it.”

  After a moment, Link meets his eyes. “That’s fair.”

  After everything he went through with Matthew and everything that happened with him and Link before, Carter would just rather know that it’s over than remain suspended in uncertainty, hoping for the best. Carter states plainly, because he knows no other way of saying it or hiding the truth of it, “I want to be with you.”

  Link nods. “Me too.” Carter breathes out a sigh of relief that doesn’t even last until the next breath in. “But,” Link says. “It’s like we keep getting close, but not quite. The timing is never quite right. Carter, I might be leaving soon…”

  Carter starts to tell Link that it doesn’t matter, that he’ll be with Link wherever, just say the word. But that would be making the same mistake, relying on someone else to define his life for him again, acting on a fear of being alone again, and he can’t. “Do you think we’ll ever get the timing right?” he asks.

  Link’s eyes search Carter’s face. “I hope so.”

  Carter crosses his legs and tilts his face up to the sun. He shoos a bug away. “Where do you think you might end up?”

  The bug zigzags to Link, who watches it come close and then zoom off. “I have some possibilities in New York, maybe Chicago. Seattle.”