Be Straight with Me

by Emily Dalton

The front door flies open and

  it’s you—

  scanning the room

  with a look of desperation

  on your face.

  I burst into tears—

  the kind of crying

  I do when

  I hear my mother’s voice

  on the phone and

  lose all composure.

  You kneel in front of me.

  We hug for a long time

  before you lean back and

  look me up and down,

  still holding my hands.

  You reach up with your sleeve

  to wipe the tears from my cheeks.

  Moments later, we’re under

  the covers in my bed.

  You hold me close to you.

  You rub my back as I

  fall asleep in your arms.

  I don’t even tell Grant

  about the car accident.

  It goes without saying

  that there will not be

  another visit.

  TURN UP

  We’re at the Hannaford supermarket

  to buy vodka and whiskey.

  On our way out,

  we pass the vegetable aisle

  and get an idea.

  Later that night, at a party

  in the Atwater senior suites,

  we’re shouting,

  “TURN UP!”

  as loud as we can

  and throwing

  fresh turnips

  at all the freshmen.

  DRUNK DIALING

  When I answer your 2 a.m. phone call,

  your voice is fuzzy with booze,

  and there’s a lot of shouting

  and music in the background.

  “I’m with Leopold. Come to Dub.

  We want you to come smoke with us!”

  “Leopold?”

  We know only one Leopold,

  and I’m almost positive you’re joking.

  You lower your voice.

  “Yes. Leopold. Em, I think he wants

  to hook up with us. Or you. Or us!”

  LEOPOLD TOWNSEND?!

  As in, the international student from Sweden in our year,

  arguably one of the hottest guys at school,

  causing girls—and guys—from all four grades

  to sigh with lust as he passes by?!

  As in, perfect blond hair that falls just right at every angle,

  tall, broad stature, measuring in at about 6’2” and 180 pounds,

  piercing deep-blue eyes, lightly tanned, smooth complexion,

  and, of course, that exotic Scandinavian accent?!

  I do not believe you.

  THEN YOU PUT HIM ON THE PHONE

  and I get out of my warm bed,

  back into my clothes,

  and start the twenty-minute

  walk to Dub Street.

  I find you, Theo,

  and the one and only

  Leopold Townsend

  sitting in the living room,

  a haze of smoke hanging

  in the air and cans of beer

  in each of your hands.

  My heart is still pounding, and

  my breath is short as I crack open a beer.

  “All right, well, unless y’all

  need me to chaperone here . . .”

  Theo smirks as he backs into the hallway.

  “I bid you good night!”

  The three of us—

  you, Leopold, and I—

  drink and listen to music

  in awkward anticipation

  of what is about to happen.

  You and I lead by example,

  stripping down to our underwear

  and kissing as Leopold watches us

  in a drunken daze, telling us

  how sexy we are together,

  how beautiful and blond.

  The lights in your room are all still on,

  and then I’m on all fours in my thong

  between Leopold’s thick, long legs.

  His left palm rests on the back of my head,

  and he’s groaning a little, eyes closed,

  while you rest your head on his chest.

  He doesn’t seem interested in kissing you,

  and the next thing I know you’re lying

  on the other side of the bed,

  just watching.

  In the morning,

  we wake up in your bed,

  just the two of us,

  and shriek with laughter

  as we try to piece together

  the epic failure that was our first threesome.

  The story bounces around our social circles

  and you and I feel reinvigorated,

  realizing the answer to our problems

  might be as simple as

  hooking up with other people

  together.

  THE SECOND THIRD

  We don’t expect to find another third

  on our small campus in the month

  we have left of our senior year,

  but a few weeks after our night

  with Leopold, we meet Mason Hewitt.

  We’re at a party, and Mason is not

  shy about making it clear

  that he finds the two of us

  very intriguing, very beautiful.

  So we go back to your room.

  The lights are off.

  You and I get fully naked

  before we help Mason out of his clothes

  and into the bed between us.

  At first, you’re both ravishing me,

  but then you get a little more adventurous

  with each other,

  and in another life,

  I’d probably be so into this, but

  right here, right now,

  I feel very unsure of

  what to do with myself

  while the two of you

  crawl all over each other.

  I slip out of the bed,

  wrap a blanket around

  my naked body, and

  huff out of the room.

  After a little while, you emerge,

  wrapped in a blanket of your own,

  and find me on the orange velvet couch

  in the dark of the living room.

  You sit down next to me.

  Your eyes are searching mine

  for some kind of allowance.

  A few minutes later, you’re gone, and

  the reality sets in, and I want

  to shrink into a speck and float away.

  As I lie on the couch

  in the dark living room,

  staring at the wall,

  I try as hard as I can

  to focus my attention

  on the sound of a little black fly

  buzzing against the windows.

  If I can just concentrate

  on the fly, it will drown out the noise

  from your room down the hall.

  But as I listen to the soft buzzing,

  a fleeting question rises to the surface of

  my consciousness—

  How has this become my life?

  The next night,

  when I ask you

  how it was,

  your answer

  breaks my

  already-broken

  heart:

  “It all just felt really . . .

  normal.”

  AT LAST

  We decide to stay together

  as a couple

 
for the last week of college.

  The night before graduation,

  when all the seniors gather

  on the football field at 5 a.m.

  to watch the sunrise,

  no one seems to know

  where you are, and your phone

  keeps going to voicemail.

  As the sky turns from a deep, dark blue to light gray,

  I make my way over to Dub Street, heart pounding

  and head spinning,

  dreading that you’re either dead in a ditch or

  in bed with a guy.

  I crack open the front door

  and then pause, because sometimes,

  when something really terrible is happening,

  I can shake my head back and forth

  hard enough to wake myself up.

  But this time

  I can’t shake the sight

  of Mason’s

  faded

  red

  sneakers

  in the hallway.

  GRADUATION DAY

  The first person to swim from Cuba

  to Florida without a shark cage

  gives a very moving and empowering

  commencement address at graduation

  this morning.

  I’m sitting here in my black robe

  next to the other English majors

  watching her mouth move,

  but I don’t hear any of it

  and

  behind my sunglasses

  there are tears in my eyes.

  ENDING

  I arrive home a college graduate.

  I start the miserable process

  of unpacking the car,

  and it feels like I just

  finished watching a long,

  dramatic film—

  the kind that has an unsettling,

  unsatisfying ending

  that leaves you feeling

  empty.

  At the bottom of a suitcase,

  I come upon an unfamiliar

  orange manila envelope.

  Across the back of it,

  written in black marker,

  there’s a note.

  It’s addressed to: Babe My Babe.

  Your messy, swirly handwriting.

  The note says that despite your actions, you hope I know

  there’s no part of you that doesn’t love me.

  That even though it hurts, we are worth it.

  That no one makes you feel the way I do.

  That you’ve been loving me for way too long to ever stop.

  Love,

  Max (Babe Your Babe)

  I sit down on the driveway and cry

  tears that look like raindrops

  when they hit the asphalt.

  Soon I’m wailing, and

  an image of you

  watching me ugly-cry

  on the pavement

  flashes through my mind,

  and I start to laugh.

  I’m laughing and crying amid

  a pile of bedding-stuffed garbage bags.

  And now I’m not so sure

  that this is the end.

  RELOCATING

  You get a job at a school

  for teenagers with special needs

  in New York City.

  A month after that,

  I get a job at a hip

  young ad agency in the East Village,

  and now I’m moving to New York, too.

  We settle into separate apartments in Brooklyn.

  You in Bushwick, me in Gowanus.

  I don’t know how or why, but

  the future we’ve always joked about—

  how you’d be a teacher and stay-at-home dad

  and I’d be a breadwinning business mom—

  is beginning to align, as if

  the universe is laughing at our joke

  as it rearranges our postgrad constellations.

  An urban relocation of Max and Emily World.

  We’re living in the real world,

  the adult world, but still acting

  like our college selves.

  I stare out the window of my apartment,

  my gaze resting on the fluorescent red clock

  of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.

  With its tapered obelisk

  thrusting high and its dome top,

  this is the very structure that prompted

  the “World’s Most Phallic Building” contest in 2003.

  All evening, we’ve been fighting

  about our relationship status.

  Laughing softly to myself,

  I turn to look at you.

  “Do you ever feel like your whole life

  is just one big dick joke?”

  KEVIN

  The leaves on the potted trees

  are turning the same colors

  as they do up north in Vermont,

  but there’s something misplaced

  about autumn foliage in New York City.

  As the era of dating apps dawns upon us,

  our relationship hinges on which one of us

  will find an interest in someone new first.

  We set our profiles to both genders,

  swiping through males and females alike.

  I match with a boy named Kevin.

  He’s a year older and works

  a variety of freelance jobs in film.

  The physical chemistry is there,

  and we share enough interests

  to make it worth more than a few dates.

  Maybe Kevin will be the one

  who can help me see the light,

  help me believe in anything other

  than you.

  I avoid bringing him along with me

  to parties and make sure you’re not

  there before inviting him to come.

  I see you every now and then . . .

  I ask you whether you’ll meet Kevin,

  but you have absolutely no desire to.

  The last thing you say to me

  before we stop talking

  isn’t exactly to me

  because it’s a note you leave

  on my computer that

  refers to me in the third person.

  You write that you’re realizing Emily

  has been searching for something more all along.

  She’s been searching for art. And you have, too.

  You just thought you’d found it already.

  In Emily.

  She was your art.

  You were never Emily’s art.

  You were always her disaster.

  ABOVE ALL

  Ramona and Sophie throw a party

  at their apartment in Williamsburg.

  I stand at their kitchen counter,

  mixing whiskey and ginger ale,

  when Sophie mentions something I

  haven’t yet heard about you.

  “He’s going to Australia for the summer?”

  I sip my drink and try to act casual.

  The smell of marijuana

  wafts from the fire escape,

  and I follow it out the window.

  At the other end of the grated platform,

  standing in a small circle of friends,

  there you are.

  A few moments pass before we make eye contact,

  and when we do, I stealthily flash my personal spliff,

  and you make your way over to me.

  You’re not exactly smiling, but

  you’re not frowning, eit
her.

  “Hey.”

  Your distant, cordial tone

  makes my heart hurt.

  Gesturing to my hand, you hold up a lighter.

  You point up the metal rungs that lead to the roof.

  I wonder why we haven’t spoken in such a long time.

  You start up the ladder, never looking down

  before you disappear over the parapet.

  I tuck the spliff into my bra and follow.

  I find you sitting on a low divider wall

  on the other side of the roof,

  gazing at the faded contours of the sunset.

  You tell me that your flight is on Wednesday at 4 a.m.

  “A long one, isn’t it?” I say.

  You tip your head to the side

  and exhale a puff of smoke.

  “That’s what he said,” you joke.

  “Oh, it’s what he said, now?” I reply,

  and you give me a sarcastic, unenthused look.

  We talk about what we’ve been listening to lately.

  I play you a few songs from my phone.

  We laugh, and I study your face—

  the scruff of your dirty blond beard,

  your long, dark eyelashes,

  and your thick, unruly eyebrows.

  I reach up and feel the hairs

  in between your brows with one finger.

  You ask about my family.

  I pick at my cuticles as I fill you in.

  You notice the old habit and

  gently pull my hand away from the other.

  Before letting go, you squeeze it,

  and we look into each other’s eyes.

  For a moment, I’m back in sophomore year,

  standing across from you at the pong table,

  realizing how stupid I’ve been

  for denying my love for you.

  The spliff is gone, and the sounds

  from the party below are getting

  a bit louder as more people arrive.

  “You’re going to be safe while you’re there,

  right, Max?” I ask.

  I can see your mind working.

  The thoughts and feelings floating

  in the air between us seem too raveled to pin down.

  But I encourage you to try anyway.

  I can’t help myself.

  “Nothing is not worth saying to me

  if you want to say it.”

  “It’s just a shitty and fucked-up

  but beautiful feeling, Em,” you say.

  “It’s like the whole world stops

  or disappears

  when I’m up on this roof with you,

  and it’s just the two of us . . .

  and I just want to live up here

  like this

  with you

  forever,

  in our world together.

  And it’s sad