Jilted

by Lilah Suzanne

  Carter plays a few rounds of darts with Pilar, Tom, and Jeremy, then begs off for the evening, saying he has painters coming early in the morning and needs to get to bed, which is true. He doesn’t say that he’ll have a hard time falling asleep tonight because he needs to wallow for a while. When Carter leaves, Isaiah and Evan are still talking to each other. Walking down the street to where he parked, Carter can’t understand why that bothers him so much.

  He has to hang out at Paige’s apartment all of the following weekend while his house finally gets fresh coats of paint inside and out, until she asks him one too many times what his problem is and then gets angry when he says he’s fine. Then he takes his laptop to the park near his house and sits roasting in the sun.

  Back at work, Carter is assigned to a new project: an eco-friendly, energy-efficient, modern off-grid home. It’s a perfect distraction, so he stays late and goes in early, skips lunches and Tuesday coworker dinners to stay hunkered down in his office. The client wants the home to blend seamlessly into nature but with high-performance modern technology, and the lead architect has some rather lofty ideas of how to make that happen. Actually, making it all happen is challenging in a good way, and Carter can’t help but think this sort of thing would be right up Link’s alley. The client even wants a sculpture garden in their natural, native-plant-filled yard. He sends a quick email with Link’s professional contact information to Pilar, who handles landscape architecture for the firm.

  “Yo!” Jeremy’s round face and crooked tie appear in Carter’s doorway.

  “Yes, I know there’s cake in the break room,” Carter says, not looking up from his work. “Yes, you can have my slice.”

  “Sweet,” Jeremy says. “But actually I wanted to thank you for setting my cousin up with Isaiah. I got my weekends back now. I mean, I love the guy, but his wingman game was some weak sauce.”

  Carter attempts something akin to a smile. “Great.”

  “And dude,” Jeremy continues, clearly not getting the hint. “I didn’t even think about Isaiah, because he had a girlfriend for a while, but it turns out he’s bisexual. Crazy, right?”

  Carter presses his hands together and sets them against the strained line of his mouth, barely keeping his irritation in check. “So crazy,” he says. “So, so crazy.”

  Jeremy finger-guns at him with both hands. “Okay, I’m gonna go eat your cake. Peace.”

  All along, Cupid has been a tragic figure, Carter thinks. He seems happy, sure, shooting love arrows, bringing connected souls together, an icon of true love. But Cupid is always alone. Cupid is cursed to an eternity of watching other people fall in love, finding their happily ever after. And what does he get for it? Wings? The freedom of flight cannot be worth it.

  Carter works on the modern eco-house at home and continues to stay holed up in his office during the day. He ignores calls from his mother and from Paige insisting that she’s taking him out to brunch. He even ignores some texts from Link; nothing important, just little funny or interesting things from day to day life. Carter has picked up his phone so many times when he thought, Oh Link would like this, or, I have to tell Link about this. But that’s not what they are to each other, so he doesn’t.

  Carter emerges from his office one afternoon to quickly refill his coffee. He makes brief conversation with Sara about a show they both watch while he stirs in cream and sugar, then goes right back to his office—where he finds Link, dressed in a business-casual look of fitted slacks and a button-down, one bracelet, and one necklace. Their hair is tied back and a subtle, smoky gray lines their eyes.

  “Oh,” Carter says, discombobulated. Was he thinking about Link so hard he somehow made them materialize out of thin air?

  “I was here meeting with Pilar. About the sculptures?”

  “Oh!” Carter sets his coffee down, sits, and smooths his tie. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Thanks for recommending me, by the way.” Link sits on the wingback chair in the corner that Carter never uses. Sometimes he’ll put a folder on it. “I may be able to afford my rent for another month now.”

  “Yeah, well. You’re amaz—” Carter pauses. Too much. He recalibrates. “I, um, felt that your sculptures would be appropriate for the particular aesthetic we’re going for. So.”

  Link’s legs cross and uncross; their hands are set primly on their knees. “Yes. I agree.”

  Carter makes a popping sound with his mouth. He scratches at his ear.

  Link sighs. “This is weird. Why are we being weird?”

  It’s because I want to kiss you and I can’t, Carter thinks, but he says, “I dunno.” Carter’s eyes stray to his computer; burying himself in work is much easier than this.

  “Working on anything fun?” Link says, shoulders lifting, in the relaxed, kind-of-flirty tone Carter is more used to. Carter turns the computer screen so Link can see.

  “So the idea is to give the entire home an indoor-outdoor feel. Starting with the all-weather patio that surrounds the entire space, then on into the entryway which will be entirely enclosed in glass, and right next to that will be a living green roof; thus the space offers a panoramic view of vegetation, including vines that will hang down over the glass. Now, it’s an open floor plan, but with a different approach to flow and negative space…”

  Link lets him ramble on for way too long, until Carter forgets that things are awkward with them and Carter says without thinking, “And here will be a built-in, two-person, cedar-plank soaking tub, which I am definitely getting for my house for reasons I’m sure you can imagine.” It does not sound kind of flirty; it sounds very blatantly like a come-on. Carter backtracks quickly with a fake laugh, adding, “You know, for when I have a date that does go well.”

  “Right, yeah.” Link nods, too rapidly, then stands and strides quickly to the door. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Um, bye.”

  Carter drops back in his chair and covers his face with both hands. Dammit.

  Thirty-six

  “Brunch time!”

  Carter is in his rattiest pajamas; his face is covered in itchy stubble, and his hair is uncombed. “I don’t want brunch,” he says, squinting angrily into the morning sun. He spent all last night and most of the early morning battling wallpaper in the dining room, the last room with unfinished walls. The wallpaper defeated him. He’s hit a new low.

  Paige waves him off. “Yes, you do.”

  He does; she’s right. He just doesn’t want to leave the house right now, possibly ever. “Just bring me back a spinach omelet, side of bacon, hash browns, and a few mimosas,” Carter says, closing the front door.

  Paige slams her entire body into the door. It springs wide open again. “I’m not a delivery person, Carter. Go change. What is this?” She gestures at his hair and face and all the rest of him. “You look gross.”

  “You’re always good for an ego boost, Paige.” He sits in his living room camping chair. The house is really coming along, renovation-wise, but he still has hardly any furniture, other than the new bed, which he barely slept in last night. They were supposed to go furniture shopping today after brunch. Carter just doesn’t care anymore.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Paige says, smiling fake-sweetly. “You also smell bad.”

  Carter does take a shower and shave and change, not because he admits that he wants to go to brunch and not because Paige told him to, but because he did smell bad, a little.

  She drags him to a small café near the river where they’re seated on a brick patio overlooking Canal Street. Large, lazy fans rotate overhead, and the tables around them buzz with quiet morning conversations as cars pass on the street. Carter, needing something less effervescent than a mimosa today, orders a Bloody Mary.

  “I have almost enough artists committed; we just need to decide if it’s still too hot to have the event outdoors at the warehouse, or if we need to clear out the inside somehow,” Paige s
ips a ruby sunrise as she fills Carter in on an event she’s planning to help Eli and Link raise some money.

  “Doesn’t really solve the long-term issue,” Carter points out. Not wanting to be negative, but—no, maybe he does want to be negative.

  “No, but at least I’m doing something,” Paige mutters.

  Carter sets his drink down. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  Paige opens her mouth, then takes a breath and closes it. “Nothing, never mind.” She taps her finger on the table, then says, “Ooh, gossip! Meredith and Malcolm totally hit it off at the party.” Of course they did.

  Carter glowers at Paige’s excited face until her expression is closer to his own. They order, shrimp and grits for him, bananas Foster pancakes for Paige, then sit quietly. The table next to theirs has a dog tied underneath it, a big fluffy dog of some indiscernible breed. It sits watching the steamy New Orleans Sunday morning go by, completely content. The thick fog surrounding Carter lifts a bit.

  “Sorry, I haven’t been sleeping well,” Carter says. He had his broken heart re-broken, can’t figure out how to be around Link again, sucks at dating, and is incapable of hanging wallpaper. “I guess I’m just in a mood.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” Paige bites back, then winces at her own tone. “Sorry.”

  Carter chuckles. “We are not great at being nice to each other.”

  “No,” Paige laughs. “You know, speaking of that, I’ve been wanting to tell you that I’m proud of you.” Carter stares blankly. Never once in his life has she said that, or implied it, or acted in a manner that would suggest she approves of anything he’s ever done. Paige continues, “Yeah, I mean. Your house isn’t a total dump anymore. You got a good job that isn’t making you dead inside. You aren’t a total pathetic shut-in lately, besides the last of couple weeks, I mean.”

  “Thanks.” Carter takes a drink of his Bloody Mary. “I think.”

  “You haven’t even mentioned Matthew in a while.”

  Their food comes, interrupting the conversation. He hasn’t thought about Matthew much lately, it’s true, but he never talked to Paige about him unless he was feeling particularly weak and upset, so it isn’t as if they’ve had tons of conversations about him. Paige has never been shy about her dislike for his ex.

  “I’m sure not hearing about him must be a relief for you,” Carter says, stabbing a shrimp with his fork; the grumpy gray fog threatens to fall back around him.

  “It is,” Paige says around a bite of pancake and flambéed banana. “You know why?”

  Of course he knows why. “Because it was an uncomfortable reminder of my identity and sexuality?” She’s trying to be better now, and she is, but that doesn’t erase the years he spent being judged and dismissed and penalized for being himself.

  Paige sets her fork down and leans closer over the table. “Hey, remember when you were like, thirteen and obsessed with The Princess Bride?”

  “I remember you broke the DVD on purpose,” Carter says. And he remembers the massive crushes he had on both Cary Elwes and Robin Wright.

  “After the one hundredth viewing in a row I couldn’t take it anymore,” Paige protests. “I was also fifteen and a huge jerk. Anyway, I watched a few times, even though I acted like I hated it. And I remember thinking… the way that Westley looked at Buttercup, you know? Like, even when she was ordering him around and stuff? I wanted that.”

  Carter quietly considers this. Her dating history seems to say otherwise, but she was never serious with any of those guys, not the way she is with Eli. “I guess I did too,” Carter admits. “It’s just a movie, though. A goofy one.”

  Paige stabs more pancake and bananas onto her fork. “Maybe. But if I can’t get someone who looks at me like Westley, for real, then I swore I would at least never be like our parents.”

  Carter lifts his chin. “You mean how Dad looks at Mom like she’s a stranger?”

  “And Mom looks at Dad like she wants to kill him, but he isn’t worth the trouble?” Paige adds. “Exactly.”

  Carter takes a bite, chews, swallows, then asks, “What does that have to do with you hating Matthew from the moment you met him, though?” He and Matthew weren’t Buttercup and Westley, sure, but they weren’t Carter’s parents either. Things weren’t that bad, especially not in the beginning, when they were better at pretending.

  Paige shrugs. “I didn’t like the way he looked at you.”

  After brunch, they stroll to a nearby furniture boutique, as Paige is newly committed to local artisans and this happens to be a store to which she sells art pieces. They’re shown around by the shop owner, which is a nice perk. The tufted blue velvet dining chairs and hand-carved reclaimed wood sideboard Paige and the owner help him pick out are exceptionally gorgeous, and outrageously expensive.

  “This is the rest of my entire furniture budget,” Carter says as they oversee the delivery at Carter’s house.

  “Ask Link to make you something.” Paige directs a delivery person to the dining room.

  “Link doesn’t want me to bother them,” Carter says.

  “Carter, you are so clueless.” Paige rolls her eyes and shakes her head. The chairs and sideboard are set up in the dining room, and Paige barks at Carter, “Bring the table back here.”

  Carter obediently goes to the front room to fetch the table, but only because he wants to. It’s heavy; heavier than Carter remembers. Afraid to scuff his newly refinished floors by dragging it through the house, Carter tips the table onto its side to roll it through.

  “I don’t know how Link carried this thing down the street alone.” Carter leaves the table on its side as he catches his breath while bracing himself on the bottom “trunk” part.

  “It’s because you’re a weakling,” Paige says, an offhand insult without any real heat.

  Carter ignores her when he’d usually insult her back, because something on the underside of the table’s metal trunk has caught his eye. Carter moves around it, crouching down and brushing his fingers along the center. It’s a flower made of glass, set to one side of a disk that makes up the table’s base. Either he’s seeing things he wants to see, or Link intentionally hid a flower that looks just like the one Carter picked on that picnic, on the first day he and Link spent together.

  Thirty-seven

  The day of the art bazaar to save the warehouse comes at a not-great time for Carter. He made plans a while ago with Sara and her wife, for one, and there’s a construction crew taking over his house, for two. He’s also juggling multiple projects at work and avoiding his mother’s increasingly frequent phone calls.

  She calls again early that afternoon, when he’s trying to eat a sandwich surrounded by the ambiance of drills and hammers and construction workers shouting at each other. He takes the phone and half a turkey sandwich outside. His lawn is still a scrabbly stretch of dirt with a few sad tufts of grass. Pilar has drawn up some suggestions for him, but they’re waiting until the heat backs off a little before they get started. Carter waves to his neighbor next door, who is working in his garden and calls over that he has more peppers and tomatoes for Carter. Carter’s neighbor in the back is watching her kids play in the yard, and Carter tosses a stray ball back over and chats for a minute. Other the other side is an older, long-married couple; Carter makes a mental note to bring their trash and recycling cans up later and return the pie pan he borrowed.

  Finally, with nothing left to distract him, Carter rests against the back wall under a slight shadow from the roof and calls his mother back while construction workers stomp overhead. The phone call starts the way all their conversations go.

  “Hello, Mother,” Carter says.

  “Hello,” his mother says.

  “How are you?” Carter asks.

  “Fine and you?”

  “Fine as well.” Whether it’s true or not, it doesn’t matter. “How’s Dad?”

/>   “Your father is fine.”

  And then she’ll usually guilt him for not calling some family member he’s never been close to and mention someone’s daughter who is “such a lovely girl, Carter” and talk about something they’re fixing on the house or a recent antique store find or a restaurant she’s been to and none of it ever goes beyond surface level unless she’s telling Carter how he’s disappointed her this time. She surprises him, though.

  “Your house is really coming along.”

  How did she…? Paige. “Yeah, it’s getting there.”

  “Well, I admit that I never expected this foolish New Orleans whimsy to actually work out for either of you. Consider me pleased to have been mistaken.” She says New Orleans strangely, with a harsh O and long E.

  Carter is so taken aback by her approval, though reluctant and backhanded, that he answers honestly, “I wasn’t sure if it would work either. I’ve been a little lost since Ma—” He stops cold; his mother can’t even stand him saying Matthew’s name, and not for the reasons Paige claims. She’s made her position on that very clear. She’ll dismiss his heartbreak and loneliness as the result of his own choice to make his life needlessly difficult. “I’ve been a tad rootless, lately,” Carter says.

  “Well, I can certainly relate to that,” his mother replies, surprising him with her candor once again. Maybe it took this distance between them to gain a little understanding. “You know, I only want your and Paige’s happiness and success, Carter.”

  The familiar statement doesn’t feel like barbwire wrapping his throat, as it usually does. “I know,” Carter says.

  The Art Bazaar and Benefit is being held in the same empty gravel lot next to the warehouse where Paige’s party was held. This is a much more subdued affair; it’s quiet when Carter approaches, with no cupcakes in hand this time. There are card tables laid out in rows, with a wide variety of art for sale, from paintings to pottery to jewelry to cartoon portraits. Link has a table at the far end of the second row, and Eli is right in the front. There’s good turnout of people perusing the tables.