You know what I thought about today? I thought about how I had sex with someone else. I thought about how good it felt. I didn’t do it to spite you. I did it because I could never get enough of you, and I missed you, and I wanted to feel you again, but I didn’t feel you. I felt him instead.
Give me permission. Help me to stop hating; help me to love again. Help me, Cam. Will you let me?”
I hit end and threw his phone across the room, then immediately ran over to it. Of course Cameron’s phone had one of those cases on it that essentially made it indestructible. I was grateful. Too bad he hadn’t had a case on to make him indestructible.
That night I did actually have a dream about Cameron. He was smiling at me from the top of Mount Whitney. We were talking as though we were sitting in a room somewhere, except we weren’t. We were standing on a rock slab with a sheer cliff next to it. It was a repeat of a conversation we had actually had in our apartment in San Francisco when he was alive. I think it was the fall after we had gotten married. I had wanted to take a trip to the Spanish Cave with him, but he told me he had to practice. In the dream, though, he said, “Laya, concentrate on your work.” Cameron hated how much I worked. He never would have said that to me.
Was he sending me a message now? I just wanted to hear his voice say, “I’m glad you met someone. I want you to be happy,” but every message seemed so cryptic. I wondered if diving into work really was the answer.
18. Pilaster
MICAH
“Melissa got hit by a car?” Devin said, shocked as he peered over my cubicle partition.
“How’d you know?”
“She posted a picture on Facebook with her knee and neck in a brace, all laid up in the hospital. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I got busy on the Glossette model.”
“Your sister got hit by a car, and you didn’t tell your best friend?”
The truth was, I didn’t exactly classify Devin as my best friend, but I probably should have told him so he wouldn’t have to find out from Facebook.
“I got kinda hung up on the work.”
“You’re still working on that piece of shit?”
It wasn’t a piece of shit anymore because I had altered the design and Steve had approved of it, so Devin was just being snarky, and it was too early in the morning for bullshit. Devin was always putting me down for giving in to Steve when Devin was doing the exact same thing. “What’s up, Devin?”
“Were you there, when she got hit?” he asked.
“Yes, it was terrifying. Luckily Laya happened to live in the apartment right above where Mel got hit. I called her and she came running down.”
He looked at me sideways. “You know where Laya lives?”
“We went to a movie. I walked her home.”
“Wow, moving kind of fast, huh?”
I wasn’t about to mention the club escapade.
“It was no big deal.”
“I wonder how Jim would feel about that?”
I couldn’t figure out what Devin’s play was, but he was obviously jealous.
“Well, Jim encouraged Laya and I to go to lunch, so maybe he just wants someone to get her out of the house.”
Devin turned and looked back at his computer and said under his breath, “Yeah, whatever.”
“What’s your problem, Devin?”
“I told you I liked her,” he said.
“You don’t even know her,” I replied.
“Oh, and you do?”
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying, I didn’t really have a choice with the lunch thing. Jim suggested it. Was I supposed to say no? What would you have done?”
He shook his head and ignored me, so I sat back down and continued working.
I left the office around six and walked aimlessly around New York. Why hasn’t Laya gotten back to me? I walked down her street and stopped halfway. What if she was looking out the window? I thought. I would seem like a total creeper. I walked by anyway.
To my absolute horror, she was outside walking a dog. It literally was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. She looked up at me, surprised. “Micah, what are doing here? Don’t you live in Brooklyn? Once again, just in the neighborhood?” She was smiling when she said it, but I knew it seemed weird.
Recover, Micah, recover. I remember my music teacher telling me to recover every time I messed up at a recital. He would say, “No one will notice your mistake.” But I felt like this was just too coincidental, even though I honestly was just wandering, or maybe wondering.
“I actually wanted to come here and take some notes on where my sister got hit. She might file a case against the cabbie.” It was a half truth. I did want to get notes and photos for Melissa but I volunteered enthusiastically just to have an excuse to potentially run in to Laya, though I didn’t actually expect to.
“Ahh, I see.”
Time for a subject change. “Who’s this furry little creature?”
“This is Pretzel.”
I smiled. “You named your dog Pretzel?”
“I actually just adopted him this morning.” She bent and let him lick her face. He was some kind of mutant terrier. “He came with that name. I didn’t want to change it and confuse him.” She was still giving him little kisses, practically sitting on the ground. “And I kinda like his name. Isn’t he adorable?”
NO! “Yes, he’s the cutest dog I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She laughed. “Now you’re being sarcastic.”
“But I made you laugh, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked.
She hesitated for way too long. “I don’t know, probably staying in and letting Pretzel get used to my apartment. I also just got on a cleaning binge.”
“It seems like a nice place. Maybe out of my price range, though. I really like this area.”
“I’ll tell my father to give you a raise,” she said automatically.
“Ha! Does he always follow your recommendations?”
She cocked her head to the side. “I think that’s actually Steve’s department, but I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Thanks. So, you’re staying in?” I didn’t want to push it and ask her about the following night. I would wait until she gave me a cue.
“Yeah. Gotta get this guy used to my place so he doesn’t go peeing on the furniture.”
“You should try crate training him.”
“I think that ship has sailed. They estimate that he’s six years old, and they found poor Pretzel in a dumpster, so I’m going out to buy him a big ol’ fuzzy dog bed.”
“Well, that makes sense. He deserves it.”
She stood up. “Good seeing you, Micah. I was just at the hospital . . . they’re allowing me to do my fellowship there.” She rolled her eyes. “My dad pulled some strings. Anyways, I checked in on Melissa and she looked great. She’s a character.”
“I know.” Now I was the one rolling my eyes. “I’ve known her since we were zygotes.”
“She told me if I broke your heart, she’d cut my tongue out. And then she started laughing maniacally. A second later she said, ‘I’m kidding, chill.’ At least you know she has your back. She said you were a complicated person.”
Gee, thanks, Melissa.
“Break my heart, huh?”
“Well . . . um . . . ” She began stumbling over her words and I didn’t want her to get uncomfortable and bolt.
“What else did Melissa say about me?”
Laya laughed. “She said you were her favorite person in the world even though you hung all her stuffed animals from a clothesline when you were six.”
“In my defense, she had put hot sauce in my soccer cleats.”
“Sounds like you guys really love each other.”
“We do.” My eyes froze on hers. I don’t know what possessed me to blurt out my feelings but I couldn’t help myself. My mind was racing with everything I wanted to say to her. “You
. . . really . . . you’re beautiful. You look amazing today. You always look amazing, but especially today. I don’t know what I’m saying. Why can’t I stop talking? I want to kiss you but I’m not going to, I’m just going to continue rambling about how good you look and how badly I want to touch you, and how I wish I would have taken you home that night at the club to sleep in my bed.”
Her jaw dropped to the ground. She was speechless, which caused me to continue rambling. “I want you to lazily lie on top of me. We don’t have to do anything, just lie there. You’re staring. Am I making you feel uncomfortable? I hope not because I just wanted to tell you that the night in the club meant something to me. It wasn’t just a careless screw, I mean, that sounds terrible, but what I’m trying to say is that I really enjoyed it. I was completely awestruck by you and I didn’t want it to end. I’m not usually this forthcoming. You just look . . . edible and sweet and lovely and wonderful.”
“Edible?” she said finally.
“Yes, edible, but I want to feed you, too, and wash your hair and put your hands inside my shirt.” I shook my head, shocked at my own words.
Laya looked at me with compassion. “Are you . . . feeling okay?”
“I could go on, actually.”
She smiled. “I should say thank you. You’re really sweet but—”
“No, please. Don’t say anything.” We were still standing awkwardly in front of the building next to hers. I wasn’t ready to walk away. I scrambled and tried to change the subject. “What’s your favorite movie?”
She quirked her head to the side. “Um, okay? It’s, um, Space Camp, actually. What’s yours?”
“It’s a tie between Willow and The Neverending Story.”
“Really?” She looked amused.
“What? Is that weird?” I said.
“No . . . it’s cute.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Orange.”
“Now that’s weird. No one has ever said that. Did you know your eyes are absinthe-colored?”
She didn’t respond for a moment, watching me closely while Pretzel sniffed my feet. “Where is all this coming from. Micah? This is the strangest conversation we’ve ever had.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I want to tell you that I’m basically falling for you, and I really think you need to know right now.” Oh great, here I go again.
“Micah—”
I felt something drop on my shoe. “Laya?” Pretzel had stopped sniffing—then took the biggest poop right on my foot. I was actually grateful. It interrupted whatever Laya was going to say. I feared it would be rejection.
“Shit,” Laya said.
“Yep.”
“I’m so sorry. What a mess.”
“Yeah, way to spoil a moment, Pretzel. How did that much poop come out of such a small dog?”
“Let me run up to my apartment to get something to clean that,” she said.
She didn’t invite me up; instead, she appeared in a flash at the top of the stairs with a wet towel, jumped off to skip the last three steps, bent, and, voilà, had cleaned off my leather work shoes.
“These are nice shoes,” she said. “Can I replace them? I don’t think I can get them clean.”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on, stand up.” When she stood up I could see tears in her eyes. “Why are you crying? They’re just shoes. Don’t worry about it,” I told her.
“I have to go. I just . . . your confession. I just don’t know if I can reciprocate right now, and my dog shit on your shoes right after you told me you were falling for me, and I want to tell you the same thing—not falling for me but falling for you. But I just can’t get a handle on my feelings right now, and I do actually have to go, but I will replace your shoes and I’m so sorry about this.” Her voice had gotten higher and higher. She glanced down, noticing that she was holding a poop-stained towel in her hand. But I didn’t care about any of that. She felt the same as me. She was falling . . . for me. “My god, I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s adorable.”
“I really do have to go. Bye, Micah.” She picked up Pretzel and was gone again, leaving me on the street with crap on my shoes. Even so, it was pointless to try to hide my stunned smile.
19. Tracking Station
LAYA
I knew I had to have Pretzel the moment I saw him. He was wounded and alone . . . like me. In front of the pet store by my apartment, they had an adoption day. There were two available adorable puppies—a happy jumping lab named Johnny that seemed way too much for me to handle, and then Pretzel, sitting patiently in the corner of a tiny fenced-in space.
He looked up at me with sad eyes. An hour later, I had a dog. I hoped it would help me focus on other things. When I walked him, we looked around for other dogs, or shot dirty looks at the people staring at him, wondering what the hell happened to little deformed Pretzel. I loved him for being so flawed.
When I thought about it, I knew my father would be happy if I started dating a guy like Micah. I mean, it would be his dream finally fulfilled, but I still didn’t think I was ready, and I knew I would have to do it for me, not my father. It was also peculiar to me that I ran into Micah, and that each time he called it a coincidence. Was I going crazy, officially losing my mind and just trying to avoid having feelings again? I pushed the thought out of my head and chalked it up to being paranoid and having attachment issues, just a bunch of psychobabble I learned in therapy.
But I had Pretzel now, who I could try to fix first.
20. Rubble
MICAH
The only thing that kept me from feeling like a total fool during my run-in with Laya was that she finally admitted she had feelings for me, too.
From the office the next day, I called Melissa at the hospital to see how she was doing and to get my mind off Laya.
“What up? I’m happily jacked-up on pain meds,” she said, slurring.
“How long are you gonna be in the hospital?”
“Dude, my night nurse is so fucking hot. He washed my hair last night and I wanted to blow him.”
“Jesus, Melissa. Just get better. Quit flirting with the staff,” I said, not at all in a nice tone.
“It’s all I have, Micah. This is so mind-numbingly boring, lying here all day. I keep asking for more pain meds and they tell me I’ve hit the pinnacle more than once. That’s what they called it . . . a fucking pinnacle. What does that even mean?”
“It means you can’t have any more pain meds, Melissa.”
She ignored me. “I saw your girlfriend. I guess she works here now. She said she remembered her mom dancing with good ol’ Jim to the song ‘Sweet Melissa’ in their kitchen right before her mom shuffled off her mortal coil and went six feet under.”
I held on to my phone a bit tighter, irritated by Melissa’s drugged-up tone. “I have no idea why I tolerate you. That was so insensitive. Her mother died when she was a toddler, and then she lost her husband right after they got married.”
“What’s your fucking problem, Micah? You need to get laid so bad. Go get some lotion and fuck socks and bang city by yourself in your bedroom.”
“How much pain medication are they giving you? That comment actually worries me. I don’t even want to know what fuck socks are. After you get out of the hospital, we’re dropping you off at Saint Peter’s to have the demons exorcised from your demented soul. I can’t believe I shared a womb with you.”
Melissa was wrong. Getting laid was not the answer. Every time I thought about Laya, it involved something more profound. She wasn’t just a woman I met in a club and had a one-night stand with. She was a surgeon who wore old NASA sweatshirts and pink Converse. She was a walking conundrum, and her complexities drew me to her.
Melissa was just being Melissa when she brought up my love life. She couldn’t take anything seriously. It was a small miracle that she was able to stay with Kenny as long as she had.
“Mel, Laya told me that you threatened her.�
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“I was kidding, jeez. So sensitive. It’s like you two are waiting for someone to offend you.”
“She knows you were kidding, and by the way, I know you said it because you love me.” I laughed. “I hope that makes you feel uncomfortable. I know how much you love me. You don’t have to go around making death threats, though I do appreciate your commitment when you made the comment about cutting her tongue out.”
“Be serious about what? I just got hit by a car. Isn’t that pretty serious?”
“Melissa, the day you went to the hospital, you told the doctor with the horrible bedside manner that he was compensating for having a small dick.”
“Well—”
“Nothing, never mind. I’ll come visit you tonight,” I told her.
I actually knew how to manipulate Melissa. She did have a good heart. It was just buried under a bunch of Medusa snakes, but it was in there. I guilt-tripped her often and it worked.
“Okay, tell me, baby boy. What’s really bothering you now?”
“Laya has been posting these messages to her husband—”
“I know, I know, and . . . ?”
“And,” I said, and paused.
“Oh my god, you still play Kill Your Loved Ones. And I’m the demented one?” She was starting to sound coherent and back to her normal self.
“No, I told you I stopped doing that. I kind of replaced it with trying to fulfill Laya’s posts by leaving stuff on her doorstep. Stuff that sort of mimicked her life with Cameron.”
Melissa didn’t say anything for a long time.
“I think we should go to rehab after I get outta here,” she finally said.
“For what?”
“I’ll go for my demented soul, and you go for being a stalker before you get arrested.”
“So, you’re admitting you’re demented?”
“Whatever,” she said, “I’ll just go to support you.”
I laughed. “I don’t think they have a rehab for that. Do you really think it’s stalker-ish? What I’m doing?”
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