“I don’t have folks,” you say. “I have my mom but she’s alone.”
I glance around at the other IKEA ferry riders. None of them are like us. They’re all talking about end tables and Swedish foods. We are special. We are falling in love.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I am.
“My dad died,” you say.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I am.
“I don’t know,” you say and your eyes are wet but it could be the wind and you know so many guys you could have asked, guys in class, guys online. You asked me. “I guess sometimes I cry for no reason. Death is just so final, you know? He’s gone. There’s no coming back. He’s gone.”
You wipe your eyes and I won’t let you laugh your way out of this one. “When did he pass?”
“Almost a year ago.”
“Beck.”
You look at me and I nod and you crumble in my arms, and it looks like we’re hugging, another young couple off to IKEA to get feathers for the nest and eat hyped-up meatballs, and nobody can hear you crying except for me. You try to wiggle away but I hold you, and your big Portman eyes are glossy and your cheeks are red and there’s an old couple across the way and the dude nods at me like I’m Captain America and we’re almost there and you’re wiping your eyes.
I want more. I try: “So, what was he like, your dad?”
You shrug and I wish there were a way for me to ask about a red ladle but it’s not a normal question and you sigh. “He loved to cook. That was one good thing.”
“I like to cook too,” I say and I will learn how to cook. Red ladle red ladle red ladle.
“Good to know,” you say and you cross your legs. “My shrink would say that I’m not respecting boundaries.”
“You see a shrink?”
“Dr. Nicky,” you say and I nod.
“Omigod, Joe. Why am I telling you this? What’s wrong with me?”
“Don’t you think that’s a question for Dr. Nicky?” I say. You smile. I am funny.
Now I understand the meaning of Angevine on Tuesdays at three marked in the calendar in your phone. Dr. Nicky Angevine. Bing! And I mean it when I tell you not to be embarrassed. “Seriously, Beck,” I say, all comforting. “I think shrinks are great.”
“Most guys don’t wanna know stuff,” you say. “Most guys would freak out at me right now. The crying and the shrinking and the shopping.”
“You know too many guys,” I say and you smile and you know you need me and you nod like you agree, like you’re agreeing to us, seeing the light, and the captain blows the horn. You kiss me.
IN the movie 500 Days of Summer, IKEA is the most romantic place on earth. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the girl start out in one kitchen and she’s sweet on him and pretending to feed him dinner and when the faucet doesn’t work—the joke being that all the appliances are props—Joseph jumps out of his chair and walks through a doorway into another kitchen and she is in awe of him and he says, “That’s why we bought a home with two kitchens.” I watched the clip right after you tweeted about going to IKEA and it’s not like I’m some moron who expects life to be like the movies, but it has to be said.
Life at IKEA is not like life at IKEA in the movies.
In real life, I am not Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I have to push a giant metal shopping cart, weaving through the masses while you point out sofas you don’t need, wall units you don’t have room for, and ovens that are made of cardboard. There are a million people crowding this gargantuan converted warehouse. It’s a dystopian nightmare come true where all furniture is cut from the same hunk of cheap-ass wood, where all rooms were furnished with items that came out of the exact same factory at the exact same time. It smells like body odor and Febreze and baby shit and farts and meatballs and nail polish and more baby shit—doesn’t anyone get a babysitter anymore?—and it is loud, Beck, and I miss half the things you say because I can’t hear you over the other humans. And all the while, I am consciously not thinking about where the red ladles might be in this hellacious sprawl of new shit.
In 500 Days of Summer, the chick challenges Joseph to a race from the kitchen to the bedroom and the camera follows them as they run through an aisle. The chick flies onto the mattress and Joseph comes next, at a slow crawl. He mounts her and she wants him, you can see it. He whispers, “Darling, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s a Chinese family in our bedroom.”
In real life, there is also a Chinese family in IKEA with us, but they are nothing like the quiet family in the movie. There is a small boy who screams and a small girl who poops in a diaper and drools. It feels like they’re following us, Beck, and I’m going to lose it if they don’t stop fighting. They’re so fucking loud that I can’t hear what you’re saying. You pick up a yellow, fringed pillow and I am sick of missing out on your words. What if you said something important? What if you revealed something to me and I missed it?
You excuse yourself as you squeeze by the Chinese woman, who has stopped abruptly to examine an unremarkable round table. She could get out of the way but she doesn’t. You practically have to boost yourself onto the back side of the hunk of junk they call a sofa in order to get closer to me. That woman has nerve and I want to tell her but you hold my hand and maybe it’s not so bad after all.
“Feel this,” you say. You push the pillow into my hand. I look down and I can see your black panties just below the belt of your white jeans. They’ve stretched out from all your monkeying around and you’re holding my hand and breathing and you don’t smell like IKEA and just like that, I’m hard.
“It’s soft, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. The Chinese dad slams his fist on the table. Bam! We’re both startled and the moment ends as you drop the pillow. If this were 500 Days of Summer, we wouldn’t be able to hear him over the Hall & Oates that would be playing just for us. You pick up another pillow, pink. You press it into my palm.
“Well, what about this one?”
I’m your putty and you’ve got your hair in a bun and you’re not looking at me even though you know I’m looking at you and you smile and keep your eyes on my hand on the pillow and you whisper, “I think this is good.”
“Me too,” I murmur. I’ve barely been able to hear you speaking for the past couple of hours and your voice is heaven. I missed it.
You look up at me with sweet eyes. “It just feels good, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say and it does.
“You can tell when something is right because most things are just plain wrong.”
“Yeah,” I say and you have to be talking about us, not some twelve-dollar piece of Swedish chazerai, but you won’t look at me, you won’t let me all the way in yet. So fuck it. This is all too good and I’m gonna break in.
“Hey, Beck,” I say.
“Yeah?” you say but your eyes are on the pillow, not me.
“I like you.”
You smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say and I put my other hand on your shoulder and now you’re looking at me. We’re so close that I can see the pores you’re always trying to shrink and I can see the eyebrows you didn’t pluck this morning, because this morning you didn’t know you were gonna want me. This morning I watched you get ready in five minutes flat.
“So we’ll get the pillow?” you say.
“Yeah,” I say and it won’t be long until I’m inside of you. We’ve just made a pact and we know it and I don’t know who grabs whose hand. I just know that we’re holding hands and you’re holding the pillow and we’re weaving in and out of bedrooms and now you’re helping me, you’ve got a hand on the front of the cart. We are in this together, side by side, navigating like an old couple, like a new couple, and you know what, Beck?
It turns out IKEA is pretty fucking awesome.
You grab onto the base of something called the HEMNES bed and you look up at me. “Does this work?”
“Yep,” I say and you nod. You want me to like your bed. You know it’s gonna be our bed and you
take the little pencil out of your back pocket and scribble down the numbers and letters.
You hand me the slip and smile. “Sold!”
Some girls would take all day and go back and forth but you are gloriously decisive and I am crazy about you. You peck me on the cheek and tell me to have a seat “on my new bed” and you skip off to the ladies’ room and maybe you pee and maybe you don’t. But you do send an e-mail to the guy you hired off Craigslist to assemble your new shit:
Hey Brian, this is Beck from the ad. I’m so sorry but I have to cancel today. My boyfriend got the day off so he can do it. Sorry! Beck
Boyfriend. When you come out of the bathroom, your eyelids are a little red from the quick job you just did on your brows and your lips are glossed and your tits are a little higher and you’re smiling and I almost think you rubbed one out in there and you take a deep breath and clap your hands.
“So can I buy you some meatballs?”
“No,” I say. “But I can buy you some meatballs.”
You smile because I’m your boyfriend. You just said so, Beck. You did. We park the shopping cart outside of the café area and the noise level in here is too much and there’s a line but you say it’s worth the wait. You are prattling on about meatballs and that damn Chinese family is in front of us and how did they get here first? They are taking forever and they are ahead of us, in line and in life—married, with kids. The clouds are forming in my head because you didn’t say boyfriend to a friend, just to some dude on Craigslist. What if you don’t mean it? What if you were quick to pick out a bed because you looked at beds online? What if you don’t care what I think? What if you’re not thinking it would be nice to go to bed with me, to make a family with me? The Chinese dad is taking too long and I can’t take it anymore and I reach over his arm and grab the other meatball ladle. Ladle. He shoots me a dirty look and you apologize to him, as if I’m the bad guy in the buffet line, in the world, and you still haven’t told me about the red ladle. You look at me. “Is something wrong, Joe?”
“They were rude.”
“It’s just crowded,” you say and you think I’m harsh and I am.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Your jaw drops and your mouth opens and then it closes and your eyes are wide and you are dazzled. You purr. “He says he’s sorry when he’s wrong and he lets me spend two hours looking at couches I don’t need? Joe, are you for real?”
I beam. I am. When the Chinese mother shoves my hand out of the way to reach a napkin, I don’t even react. I don’t have to withhold my anger because I’m not angry. You pick out the meatballs and I pay (I’m your boyfriend!) and you choose a table and I follow you. We sit, at last.
“You know, Joe, I am totally going to help you put the bed together.”
“You bet you are, missy.”
You split a meatball down the middle and pop half into your mouth and you chomp, mmmmm. Now it’s my turn and you pick up the other half and I open my mouth. I’m your seal, open, and you pop the half ball into my mouth and I chomp, mmm. The Chinese family interrupts, again, when the boy rams a spatula into the white table, which reminds me that you still haven’t told me about the red ladle and suddenly these meatballs taste like shit. You told Benji about that ladle. Why not me?
“Are you okay, Joe?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just realized I gotta take care of some online orders at the shop.”
“Well, that’s actually good,” you say. “I can shower and clean up and you can come over when you’re done.”
Everything about what you just said is ideal but you still haven’t mentioned the red ladle and for all I know you never will. I take charge.
“I just gotta pick up something.”
“Really?” you say like it’s so hard to believe. “What do you need?”
I can’t say ladle. “A spatula.”
“A spatula for Joe,” you say. “Sounds like a kids’ book or something.”
The Chinese family sails past us, hightailing it to their next destination in this plastic zoo. You look longingly at them and their full cart and we’re on the move again. I search the signs for COOKING UTENSILS and you sigh. “I’m beat.”
“Just gotta get the spatula and then we’re out of here.”
You’re done, lazy. “I can stay here with the cart.”
“Do you mind coming?” I say. “The last one I got was a piece of shit.”
You follow me into COOKING UTENSILS and I walk slowly and hope that the spatulas will be right next to the ladles. I see red ladles and my heart leaps. You don’t react to them. You need a push. I pick one up. “Maybe I’ll get all red things,” I say. “Is that lame?”
You look at the red ladle. “This is really weird.”
“What?”
And now, at last, you pet the red ladle in my hand and tell me the story of your red ladle. You were a little girl in a little bed, and the smell of pancakes woke you up on Sunday mornings. Your dad used a special red ladle on Sundays, just Sundays. He would sing along to the top-forty countdown, screw up the lyrics, and make you and your brother and your sister laugh, winter, spring, summer, fall and you couldn’t fall asleep Saturday nights, you were so excited for Sunday mornings. And then, he started hitting the bottle. And the Sundays went away and the red ladle stayed in a drawer and your mother’s pancakes were greasy and burnt or wet and undercooked and your father was gone but the ladle was still there and bad pancakes smell like good pancakes and he’s dead now so there will never be pancakes again. There’s nothing dirty about your sweet, sad story and fuck Benji for making you feel bad.
“That ladle is still in our house to this day, as if he’s coming,” you say. “Life is mean.”
I put my hands on your shoulders and you look at me, expectant.
I speak, “I’m getting this for you.”
“Joe.”
“No ifs, ands, or buts.”
The world stops and your eyes gloss over. The Benjis of the world don’t understand what you want, someone to make you pancakes. You don’t care about money. You don’t want to be spanked. You want love. Your father had a red ladle and now I have a red ladle and I will make you the pancakes you want so badly, the pancakes you haven’t tasted since he died. Your mouth waters and you submit, softly. “Okay, Joe.”
You pick up a silver ladle. “Fresh start,” you say and you are right.
I am your boyfriend.
15
I cross Seventh Avenue and smile at every single person who passes by. I am happy. I don’t even think I’m walking right now. It’s just a dream and if I started to sing and dance, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the strangers got in line and followed along. What a magical day with you and now to think of you in your place, showering and shaving those legs so they’re nice and smooth for me, brushing the meatball gristle out of your fine little teeth. I can’t wait to touch all of you and I am carefree as a guy in a beer commercial as I make my way down Bank Street.
It’s actually possible that we can have sex tonight and I really didn’t think we would get here this fast. But Benji is still out cold and I put a twenty-dollar salad and a bottle of Home Soda in the drawer for him, so he’ll be fine for hours. I am free and I am literally walking up the stairs to your stoop and pressing the buzzer and waiting for you to come jogging to the door, which you do.
“Entrez vous.” You giggle and I walk into your lobby and it’s happening, we’re going to fuck. Your hair is damp and your pores are gone and there’s no bra under that tank top and there are no panties under those low-slung, threadbare sweatpants and you’re not wearing any socks.
“I’m kind of a slob,” you say as you open the door and I want to tell you that I know but I don’t.
“This isn’t so bad,” I say and I’m not sure where to go. It’s an awkward space with you in it and it’s so small that it really is meant for one. You stand in front of me with your hands on your hips looking around at all the girl stuff strewn about, magazines and matchbooks, e
mpty vitaminwater bottles, and coupons and receipts, brand-new books, unread, mixed with beloved books, torn and frayed. It’s a minefield of shit and maybe that’s why you’re just staring at all of it. There’s a galley kitchen ahead to the left and there’s a new toaster and the box from the new toaster on the floor and you really do like new things. The bathroom door is to the direct left and the light is on and the fan is blowing and I reach in and turn off the switch. It was a strange thing to do, and I know it and you are freaked out but thank God you like me so you make a joke of it and laugh.
“Well, yes, Joe, go ahead and make yourself at home,” you say and you make your way across the minefield, past the TV and into the bedroom.
I take off my jacket and hang it on the standing coatrack. You turn around and scrunch your pretty little nose at me.
“Get in here,” you say.
“Yes, miss,” I say and I step on a fucking hanger and it snaps but I just keep going.
Your room. There’s a bottle of vodka on the floor and two brand-new glasses (not IKEA), and a paper cup of ice that you pick up and show to me.
“Pretty ghetto, right?” You laugh.
“Nah, ghetto would be if it was in a paper towel.”
You giggle and pour ice and vodka into both cups and sit down on the floor by the box of bed. There is music on, the Bowie from our date, and you pat the floor and I sit down across from you.
“Someday I’ll be the kind of girl who always has mixers in the fridge,” you say.
“Good to have goals.”
You smile at me and get on your knees and move closer to me and I lean forward to meet you and when I take my glass I very deliberately feel your hand against mine.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” you murmur and somehow, like a ballerina, like a pretzel, your legs relax and spread and you are sitting like a yogi with your bare feet pressed together. You sip your vodka and look up at the ceiling. “I hate all those marks.”
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