by Penny Aimes
“Arguably?” she said. “But not explicitly.”
He made a tch sound. “Well, that might be a dealbreaker.”
They watched the first season; it did make more sense as a TV show, or at least the extra legroom gave the weirdness more room to breathe and build. “Is this translated badly?” he asked. “I mean, does that explain some of it?”
“I don’t think so,” she said cheerfully. “I think it’s just like that.” They were back on the bed, and she was leaning back against his chest with his arms around her, and he would’ve cheerfully watched anything like that. She was warm and soft and relaxed, and he was incredibly turned on by the touch of her skin against his. It felt like the tables had turned on teasing and denial, as she shifted gently against him.
Of course, he probably had some fault for confiscating her pajama pants. She was adorable in her T-shirt and panties, but his deferred arousal was a dull ache by now as a result. Soon, he thought. The last few days had been too turbulent to introduce an intense scene, and when he finally let her orgasm, he was determined it would be intense. Even if it meant punishing himself as much as her while they waited.
When his head was swimming with magical curry and upside-down castles in air, they took a break to eat some dinner, and then it was his turn to introduce her to something new. He found David Chang’s cooking/travel/culture documentary Ugly Delicious, and started with the barbecue episode.
“I kinda prefer nonfiction over fiction,” he admitted. “Especially cooking shows.”
“Do you cook a lot?” she asked.
He laughed. “Not lately. But yeah, I like cooking. Not just eggs. I thought about studying it, but technology felt more practical.”
“We’re very practical people,” she said, so solemnly that it cracked him up.
They spent another chaste night side by side. In the morning they ordered in breakfast, then laid around in bed and did some reading. She was almost finished with a reread of a Young Adult series she loved, she said, and he browsed through her eclectic shelves, organized broadly by genre, until he found something that looked interesting: a collection of New Orleans folklore.
They read quietly together for a time. After a while, he looked up from the discussion of Mardi Gras krewes to ask if she’d ever been there—another possible trip?—and realized she’d dozed off with the book collapsed on her chest. He lifted it carefully, marking her place, and tucked the blanket around her, feeling again the warmth of domestic intimacy and the tender glow of caring for her. He read another chapter and then slipped into the nap with her.
He dreamed of rough surf on the coast and pleasures long deferred coming due.
April
And now they were awake again, as the daylight drained out of her studio and they faced the prospect of separating at last. “I wish you could stay,” she murmured, her hand inside his shirt and flat on his strong chest. She could feel his heart beating. “I wish you’d brought clothes for work.”
He laughed. “I should have.”
Thinking of tomorrow cooled her off, anyway. She sank back on the bed. “I guess we’ll need to talk to HR, tomorrow, huh?”
“What?” He sounded confused, and it made her blood run cold.
She froze and whispered, “Fuck.”
“Why would we need to talk to HR?” he asked.
She held perfectly still, hoping that if she stopped breathing, stopped time now, he wouldn’t figure it out.
He cocked his head, his expression still schooled, controlled. Puzzling it out. She could see the pieces sliding into place one by one. Her mortified expression was probably a clue, too, but her freeze wasn’t a voluntary thing anymore; it was a deep icy immobility, daggers of cold reaching for her newly hopeful heart.
“April...” She couldn’t stand to look at his face as it clicked. “Do you...”
She’d been so sure he knew.
“Do you work at... I mean do I work...do we work at the same company?”
No. No no no no—
“Is that why Fatima—”
“I thought you knew,” she said, in a very small voice, and then silence fell like the ceiling caving in.
“If I knew,” he said eventually, tension rippling in every word, his control getting wobbly now, “I would have said something before now. I wouldn’t feel...like a goddamn joke, right now.” Her anxiety began to spiral out of control. She knew Dennis wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that. She wasn’t afraid of any physical threat. But he had every right to be furious, and if he had unkind words for her, she felt like it was no more than she deserved. She just didn’t know if she could bear it.
He shoved up from the bed and began to pace the confines of her studio, yanking himself away from her.
Her stomach heaved. She’d worried so much about disclosure at the beginning; worried about the wrong thing. The wrong facts. Because while the truth of her transition was ultimately her secret to keep if she chose, this wasn’t. This very much wasn’t. Shakily, she asked a question she already knew the answer to: “So you didn’t fire Bob Flowers because of me?” She was glad for the darkness of the room; she didn’t want him to see her face; her tears. She didn’t want to be able to see his.
“No, I fired him because he was awful at his job.” His voice rose to a peak, and she cringed. Dennis never yelled, and seeing his control slip dialed up both her guilt and her panic.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not able to keep the tears out of her voice now.
“Did you—did you know all along?” She nodded silently. “So for... For six months now. You’ve known. And you and Fatima have been—somebody I see every day—you’ve been telling her—Jesus, April.”
“No! I only told her this week,” she said. “After...after I thought you’d figured it out.” It was, she knew, a really terrible excuse, because even if she’d been right, Dennis had not consented to Fatima knowing about them.
“Do you feel like that’s making it better? Do you feel like that’s going to make it better? How many other people at work know?” The questions sliced her open, coming hard one after another, and the tears began to flow.
“None. Oh my God, Dennis,” she sobbed. “Why would I do that? Why would I tell anyone?” Even as she said it, the guilt and shame crashed over her. Why would she do it? Why would she go to Fatima and not to him? Because—
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” he demanded. “You ‘thought I figured it out’ this week? So...you knew, and you knew I didn’t know, and you just lied?” She wrung her hands together, sitting up on the edge of the bed and watching him pace with wide eyes.
“I knew I should tell you,” she whimpered. “Every day I told myself I should tell you. But there was a part of me...a hateful little part...that said, well...what if I don’t?”
—because if she told him, there might be a confrontation. It might hurt. But now all her avoidance and omissions had caught up with her and here she was, in the confrontation she never wanted, times a million, and she wasn’t equal to it. Everything was falling apart, and she was just standing there, unable to save any of it.
“And what if you didn’t?” he said tightly, taking her hands by the wrists as he sat down.
“Then I could keep you,” she said, trembling. “For a little while longer.” I never said I was strong, she thought, the sentence crashing around her skull like a panicked bird in a living room. I never promised that.
“Oh, my sweet doll,” he sighed. “You had me, though. You always had me.”
He let go of her hands, like letting go of a ledge, and stood up.
“Oh God, Dennis.” She covered her face with her hands and tried to catch her breath. Afraid of the wrong thing. Of course she was. He wasn’t just angry, he was crushed. He wasn’t going to yell at her; he was going to leave.
“I’ve—I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. He sounde
d...furious. He sounded lost. He sounded gutted.
“I’m sorry,” she cried out.
“You should be,” he said, his voice shaking. “You kept a huge secret from me, and without trust we have nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Are you—” She choked; she couldn’t say it. “Is it over? Already?”
“I think we’re worth more than five hundred dollars, April. I think we’re worth more than one lie.” All she wanted in the world was to crumple against him and feel his heartbeat again, confirming his solidity. That he was here. He was still here. “But I also think,” he said, “that this is going to take some getting over.”
“You should punish me,” she said. Desperation and hope mingled in her voice.
“I can’t,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “I’m too angry. You...you do whatever you want. Wear whatever you want. Come whenever you want. Red, okay? That’s fucking red, for me.”
He was halfway to the door and she called after him. “I’m so sorry, Dennis. What do I do? Tell me what to do to fix it and I’ll do it, I swear to you.” He was in the doorway.
He hung his head. In silhouette, he looked slumped. Defeated. “Red means I can’t tell you what to do, remember? I don’t know what you can do to fix it. When you figure it out let me know, okay?” And the door shut behind him.
Dennis
Dennis drove home, on the way rehearsing the conversation he was going to have to have with Jason. He’d texted him earlier in the weekend, of course, before everything went to hell. Now he would have to take back his good news. He’d have to deal with questions; how do you feel and are you angry at her and what’s going to happen. He didn’t have any answers.
When he stopped in front of his house, he realized something was different. The contractors had picked up the miscellaneous items that had been strewn around his lawn for as long as he could remember. The porta-potty was gone.
Coming through the front door, the foyer was open up to a gallery around the second story. The railing had been half-finished when he left on Thursday after driving home to pack a quick bag. Further in on the first floor was a large open-concept kitchen that had been waiting for countertops. Some of the facing on the walls had been unfinished and one corner of the flooring had been torn up so fans could blast the matting beneath. Now...
It was a finished house. The furnishings were sparse, because he hadn’t dared to move things out of storage, but it was all ready. He walked the house and checked each detail. Two and a half baths. A walk-in closet that had halved one of the guest bedrooms. Hot tub in the en suite, and a connecting door to the remaining guest bedroom that he’d had specially modified.
“How am I going to wake up in the morning without hammers and miters?” he muttered to himself. He pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures. His first instinct was to send them to April, and he froze as his second thoughts caught up and his heart sank.
He opened the adjoining door to the remaining guest bedroom and looked inside. This, too, was done. The playroom had been a part of the plans from the beginning, and thankfully Reggie had chosen not to ask any uncomfortable questions. It was perfect, exactly to his specifications, waiting for his gear to move in. He couldn’t think, right now, of anything he’d rather do less.
He called Jason.
“Hey. Yeah, finally came up for air. No... Uh, not that good, actually. Not good at all.”
He paced the floors of his empty house while he tried to explain. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice, Jason. We aren’t on the same floor, you know.”
There were beers in the fridge, if not much else. That was good.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t know how I feel. I mean... I’m kind of pissed. I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m not more pissed.”
Because he had no furniture except in his bedroom, he went out and sat on his front steps. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. No, not this time.” He listened and shook his head. “This time, Jason, I genuinely have no idea what to do next. I think she beat me.” In the distance, over the tree line, he could see the shape of the city.
Monday morning, of course, he had to go to work. Heartsick and hungover, he hoped desperately that Leo Graham would try something today. In his current mood a little bit of corporate warfare sounded more than acceptable.
He saw Fatima Nayeem, who blanched when she saw him and scurried away. It was strange to think April was in the building. Strange to think that she had been for the last six months. She could’ve sat here in his office. She could’ve—
He pushed the mental images away. He hurt, terribly, in the helpless bewildered way he’d felt after Sonia left. At the time it had reminded him of when he’d broken his leg sledding as a kid, the screaming claxon of pain that couldn’t be fixed or ignored. I hurt! I hurt! Now despite all his best intentions he was back here, and it was almost unbearable.
After lunch Graham did come by and he thought it might be his lucky day, but instead the COO wanted to talk budget planning strategy against what he described as “the real enemy: Consulting.” Dennis let him talk because it would’ve been more work to throw him out, occasionally grunting or nodding or saying something meaningless like “let’s circle back on that,” or “we’ll have to sharpen our pencils and see what happens.”
Eventually Graham stood up, which must have indicated that whatever this was, was over. Graham stopped in front of his desk and stuck out a hand. “Hey. I realize I never said thanks. You pulled my ass out of the fire when we lost that data back in September. You know, I’ve been here for ten years and I’ve put in the work, so I get a little stiff-necked when somebody new comes in, but you showed you’re willing to work hard, too, and I’ve gotta respect that.”
“Okay,” Dennis said, because he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that and had absolutely no bandwidth for being polite. He shook the COO’s hand, though, and that seemed to be all he wanted. “Why the change in mood all of a sudden, though?” Dennis asked, his brain apparently working on a ten-second delay.
Graham looked at him soberly. “Ed told me we had to reschedule the budget meeting last week because you had something personal come up. Hey—” he said, holding up a hand as Dennis began to react “—none of my business. But you’re a scrapper just like me. You wouldn’t miss something like that without a damn good reason. And you look like shit today.
“Ergo, you’re having a rough time. I’m not a fucking animal, Martin.” Graham shrugged. “We’re both trying to work our own patch and ultimately we’re on the same side. We may not be friends, but we aren’t enemies, are we?”
Dennis stared at him. “No,” he said, still half a beat late. “I guess we’re not.” He looked at his phone, which was vibrating. “Hey, I gotta take this.” Graham nodded and left. Dennis did not, in fact, answer the phone, which showed April’s smiling face. He let it go to voicemail, and then immediately checked the voicemail. Then he immediately called April back.
April
Hi John,
I won’t be in today or maybe for the rest of the week. Something personal has come up and I have the PTO so I’ll be back when I can be.
Thanks for understanding,
April
April French
Operations Analyst, x1667
She/her/hers
April—
Are you sure you can’t work around this? Even work from home would be fine. You know we have deliverables *and* development deadlines coming up quickly. This is really a bad time.
John Weems
Senior Operations Analyst
x1892
Hi John,
No, it’s not negotiable. Maybe Meili can handle the development stuff. The deliverable deadlines are internal, we can push them if we have to.
April
April—
Actually I was planning to start weanin
g Meili off the development stuff entirely and start transitioning you to be our designated product owner for all our projects, so I think having her take over your stuff would be counterproductive. With that in mind if you want to back off the operational deliverables that makes sense, I just need you on the scrum calls this week. You can take those from home, right? Everything else can wait until you’re back in the office.
John
What? I’m not going to be the product owner for everything, I already hate being the product owner for the things I manage now.
I cannot work this week, in the office or at home
April, this is part of the increased responsibilities we discussed with your new, salaried position. You are still in a probationary stage in that position. We really need to see you’re a team player right now.
Hi John/HR:
I quit, effective immediately. You don’t need to cash out my PTO, please use it in lieu of my two weeks’ notice.
There is nothing in my cube I want or need. Please give the bamboo plant to Fatima Nayeem. I will have her bring my laptop in.
Thanks for everything!
April French
Operations Analyst, x1667
She/her/hers
* * *
“Hey, Dennis. It’s April. Please listen to this one, it’s... It’s important.
“I quit today. So you don’t have to worry about—it’s taken care of. I don’t work there anymore. That’s one less thing to worry about.
“Okay. I... I miss you. I’m trying to figure it out, I promise.
“Bye.”
She slumped back into her easy chair, her knees pulled up to her chest. Almost immediately her phone rang; just enough time for someone to listen to a message and call her back. Her face was blank as she took the call.
“April! What happened? Are you okay?” Dennis sounded panicked, like he had when she told her friends. For a moment she felt irritated with him, piercing the blank haze of what just happened? Did he really think he could have it both ways? Move into the center of her life and then pull himself out and then wring his hands when it affected her?
