by C. Spencer
“Chopin,” I say.
“Okay, rule number two,” she says, “don’t be cryptic.”
“Was I? But you’re so sick of hearing about her.”
“So it’s Rae again?” she says. “And what’s the absolute worst that could happen?”
“She could say it’s over.”
“She already did.”
“Maybe I’m pretending it’s not,” I say, “like I have another chance if I wait, if I give her space.”
“Wait for what?”
“I don’t know. Things are different now. I have the kid every day,” I say. “And why should I apologize for that?”
“I never said you should.”
“Have you ever kept something,” I say, “like, from an ex. I mean, after.”
“What,” she says, “like some shirt?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Like that.”
“Sure.”
“Do you ever wear it?” I say.
“Do I wear it?”
“Yeah,” I say, “like, have you ever worn it afterward?”
“No.”
“Then why do you keep it?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “sentimental reasons. I guess.”
As she checks her phone, shakes her head. And that grin is simply devastating. “First thing on your mind,” I say.
“Don’t,” she says.
“Your rule,” I say.
“Game over.”
“But we tell each other everything,” I say. “I tell you everything.”
“No, you don’t,” she says.
“You are so in love with this girl,” I say.
“We just met.”
“Yeah?” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, smitten.
“Oh my God, you’re so cute,” I say. “I think we need another round.”
“If we do,” she says, “you’ll need to hide my phone from me.”
By Monday, Powell’s back at the office with his loud voice, carrying plan tubes, when Kristen steps into my office, seals the door behind her back facing me, then makes her way around to my side of the desk. She leans across, pointing at mock-ups on her iPad, and she’s asking for advice. Or maybe I’m to make a decision. When all I want is lunch.
“I haven’t eaten. Have you?” I say.
And let me pause right here to say, I’m thinking about giving it back just so I’m not tempted to spray it on, again. Because I did again. I just don’t know how yet. I’ve thought about maybe a text. But then I’ll see her, and could I handle that? She must know it’s missing. She wore it every day. And there must be a reason, too, why she hasn’t called to ask for it back.
But we’re walking past cyclists now who clip my stride, and I bump some woman’s handbag. Then everything is drowned in the squeal of brakes as we dodge accordion doors that open to the city bus.
But I’m less focused on crowds once we hit Archipelago and more on our host, who escorts us, and soon enough, here’s that table I had with Rae, and it’s empty as he wipes it dry.
“We can wait,” I say, standing by as they stack plates, clear silverware, wipe it down. “I’d like this table, if that’s okay?”
And once it’s clear, she takes a seat and I slide in to review more proofs.
“The Pearson account,” she says, “with this overlaid across the entire front side. Something clean, simple. Maybe put one mailer out four times a year.” And this leads to budget approval, and she’s leaning in, asking, charming in that sorority way. “You know the best part,” she says, “is that we’re way under budget.”
I motion for the waiter, ordering as we carry on with more pleasantries. Her tomatoes. Jordan. And as our plates arrive, I’m still learning the delicacies of aioli vs. mayonnaise and how they’re not the same.
But after lunch, as we make our way back to the office, amused, relating, connecting with one another, having forgotten the pains of my day, comes the constant weight of missing Rae.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Spinning
Rae
Avery’s singing along to the twang they’ve piped in overhead, occasionally interrupting herself with more goings on to our mm-hmms, and all I can say is, seriously, how much caffeine has this girl had? To the contrary, I’m going for something more along the lines of reserved as I make my way to the cramped ticket counter and hand the guy my stub.
Then, once I get through that line, I say, “God, this is so small town, hay ride, petting zoo.”
“How is it you’ve never even been to a county fair?” Avery’s saying, skimming hips through the tight turnstile as she reaches back to take Erin’s hand.
“Because I was waiting for you to de-virginize me,” I say.
And soon we’re filing into a family crowd to the tune of boom-chick-chick with the weight of my arm at her shoulder. Enjoying the calm breeze paired with the warmth of mid-autumn as I peruse lights strung above and overhead. Scanning boots and Levi’s. Eavesdropping as we tread on the heels of girls, fresh-faced and high-schoolish, in that floral scent of some nondescript body spray they all douse themselves in.
We skirt their grandstand, their sports bar, their string of ATMs before ducking under the cool shade of a canvas awning.
“I love you for coming today,” she says, too animated with that mad hair flowing like the wind as she shouts for fried dough.
“You’d love me regardless,” I say. Ordering, “Diet Coke, please,” as I reach for my back pocket.
And I guess this place does have its airs of corncob Americana—crisp and luminescent in every misty color of the rainbow as if prepping for that season finale we’ve all been waiting up for.
Waiting while smashed, that is, between some dude’s elbow and Avery’s gigantic bust when I’m handed a waxed cup that chimes with ice, only to get full-on body slammed. “Jordan?” I say, dumbfounded. “Hey, kid.” I can’t exactly say What the fuck? “You could maybe try to not…suffocate me,” I add, squeezing through the line, then shifting her little lovefest out of harm’s way. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“Me?” I say, scanning the crowd.
“Yeah, you.”
“Food.”
“You don’t have food,” she says.
“No, really, how’d you get here?”
“How else?” she says.
“So you’re with those two?” I say, perusing the unfamiliars, the not-Madisens.
She nods, and I’m thinking why am I suddenly getting that heart-skipping All eyes are on me vibe? “My friends are over there,” she says with that whole adolescent shrug thing.
“Friends,” I say, glancing, “as in that one girl plus how many other guys?” Which makes her blush, and that amuses me, so I laugh. Though she does not. “They’re cute,” I say.
“Look…” she says.
“What?”
“Come talk with Belle-mère.”
And um. “Why would I do that?”
“Why not?”
“Did she send you over?” I say.
“No.”
Okay then, “Listen, we sort of…” Had a falling out, I begin to say.
But as opposed to hanging out and maybe continuing our little heart-to-heart, the kid opts to drag me clear across the fairgrounds between beers in clear cups and mom jeans and carnies until I’m face-to-face with…
Mercy.
And not just Madisen but, holy shit, who’s shoving me so hard into her, and I’m sorry, where was I going with this?
I was going to blurt out something I shouldn’t, that’s what. But instead, I’m apologizing and, I guess, wondering what she’s thinking. Wondering what I’m thinking. But it all hits with such a rush that I can’t think aside from God, she looks incredible. Not that I say that, of course, I don’t. But she does.
And soon enough, my lips are finding my straw, and I’m glancing up at sunlit features. Catching her flashing glance.
Until Aline be
nds into view to fix, I don’t know, something. And I guess I hadn’t noticed her there.
So taking a step back, I give her some sort of Sorry to intrude thing and maybe something’s said between the two of us. I don’t know. But I’m realizing gradually that perhaps I maybe shouldn’t be here.
Maybe, but the kid’s going on about something, this shirt, her oversized hoping-to-be-grunge attempt at owning the legacy of Kurt Cobain.
“Since when did you start listening to Nirvana?” I say.
“Since someone else did,” Madisen’s saying, gesturing—and just her voice takes me someplace else, takes me back, since I guess I’d forgotten it. Since maybe I had to. Since maybe that’s easier.
So I’m watching her. Flustered, slipping a hand down the back of my neck. As she settles on me—blank, I guess.
No, not blank. What is it?
But Aline decides to break in to our little moment again with, “Right over there, who she’s hoping to impress,” as if I could pin some unknown someone out of a crowd of hundreds.
And since I can’t, I settle back, hoping I don’t look like a fool, though I know I do. But at any rate, “It’s great seeing you again,” I say, resigned, “and really, really sorry about this.”
Amid our clenched and forced conversations as those two exchange glances and I catch myself, transfixed. The whole time I’m hoping to find a suitable way of saying nothing at all. As I gaze down at her hands talking, stroking an arm as if she was cold, but it’s not cold. How those fingers brush her lips while she leans in—close, in an all too familiar way.
“Please stay,” I hear her say.
But they step away. And I take a drink. I study her walk. Their miles apart and that Ferris wheel, their nudge, a nod, their low-key, my view pinched between pedestrians. My heart racing. My stomach sinking. Thinking why am I here?
And wouldn’t it be easier, safer, to vanish unnoticed.
Slip away. Find an exit. Find my car.
But before this clicks, they’re parting ways. And Madisen’s making her way back—at her pace—unrushed, slow, rhythmic.
Until we’re somehow alone. Alone.
And I’m wishing I could set this place aside, the busyness, our requisite social graces, my trepidation. When I catch her peeking at me.
“I hadn’t expected to see you,” I say with a smile, then ducking glare as a casual strand of hair crosses her lips and I want to fix it.
“You almost didn’t,” she says. And you would think that after all this time I’d have something better to say. But I don’t. “It’s just half day for me. It’s her weekend, not mine.”
“Then why are you here?” I say.
“Long story,” she says.
“No, tell me.”
“This isn’t exactly your thing,” she says. “Is it?”
Leaning in, glancing at me and those eyes. And what if I am reading into this? I could be. I do that. I have. But something is telling me I’m not. Reading into it, that is. “So what are you saying?” And I’m thinking I’ve missed you.
“I’m just surprised,” she says, “that’s all.”
“To see me?” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“So that door’s closed?” I say with a nod to Aline.
“Do you want it to be?” she says.
“I do,” I say.
And she laughs.
“What?”
“Don’t be silly,” she says.
“No?”
“Yes,” she says, “it’s closed.”
“Then I have to ask…”
“What?” she says.
“Is this one?”
“Closed?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“What would you like me to say?”
“That you’re glad to see me,” I say.
And glancing everywhere but here, she says, “I’m glad to see you.”
“Are you?” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“You realize rain was in the forecast,” I say. “You would’ve been drenched in that.”
“I brought my umbrella,” she says.
“That’s unfortunate,” I say.
Next, she’s carrying on about, “That’s the name of the place. And there’s this pretty little beach and margaritas and sixty degrees—”
So I cut her off with, “Madisen,” as her eyes search mine—for what? “What are you doing? Because you didn’t keep me here for a weather report, I hope.”
And that smile, it’s all I need. So we walk.
“Could I buy you lunch?” I say.
And she says, “Sure,” as we settle into some sort of what-do-I-say-next thing. Her sliding that straw through the lid of her cup, and it squeaks but not in an obvious way, just unexpected. Playful. When all I can do is focus on that D drawn on it in grease pencil. Her lips sucking more of its air than anything else.
And then she starts in about some boy.
“With who?” I say, “Jordan? So she’s straight?”
“Officially,” she says. “She just came out.”
“She came out?” I say with a laugh thinking missing you is an understatement.
“I believe Bell-mère, I’m sorry…I like pink and don’t like girls were her exact words.” Before she’s gazing off, and when she does, I’m just lost in this. I’m lost in her.
“The first of many disappointments,” I say. As she glances at me as if to say…I don’t know. Before leaning to toss her cup. “Would you like another?” I say.
But she shakes her head, settles in, brushes against my arm. And that’s when I remember—Avery. Who’s waiting.
Thumbing my phone, fretting, sensing Madisen watching as I do, as if I was a puzzle she was trying to piece together. And that’s flooding me with another rush of nerves.
And then, “You do this thing,” she’s saying as I step to the edge of foot traffic.
And I glance up. “What thing?”
“That thing,” I hear. Texting back: Give me ten. Her gaze still fixed on me. I can sense it. “When you’re thinking…not always.”
“About what?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t know,” she says.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I like it,” she mouths and her gaze sinks to my lips and mine to hers.
Interrupted by…
Avery: I won a teddy bear.
Me, amused: Congratulations.
And I blurt out, “I almost called you.” And this is so hard, the saying of it. The stalling and stalling, since how can I put any of this into words when they have no meaning. When they’re not enough. “God, you look incredible.”
And she says, “So do you.” And when her hand brushes mine, I catch it, hold it. As I mirror her cheesy grin and we stroll again in our silence.
Until my phone goes off.
And she says: “Avery?”
And I say, “Yes.” Thumbing.
“What’d she say?”
And I shrug. “Nothing.”
“Something,” I hear.
“And you really want to know?” As my gaze lingers a little while. And even still. She’s doing that thing with her lips again. “She told me,” I say, “to kiss you.”
“And you said?”
“That I’d love to.”
But it’s one of those things just beyond reach. Like the way you taste sugar from that puff of cotton candy still hopeful it won’t melt, won’t liquefy, like that. It’s sweet and you try and she’s everything and exhausting. But you’re the one who melts. Regardless.
“And when do you figure this out?” she says, after that kind of a kiss.
“And what’s that?” I say as my palm’s finding its way down the curve of her back.
“That you’re the absolute end for me.”
“You think?” I say.
And it dawns on me that there’s no sound to hear—no cords no beats no pulse outside my own, in all of the song’s upheaval. In all of her honeyed and candied and sub
lime. With this dusted turquoise sky. The sluggish spin of a wheel. Miles and miles of air-whipped laughter.
Our silence.
As I slip my hand in hers and sink into her gaze and she lingers on mine and I draw her in and say, “Maybe I was hoping for something else.”
“What were you hoping for?” she says.
“Well, not to be an end,” I say. “Why are you making me want forever?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Forever
Madisen
While unpacking grocery bags and putting it all away, I’m thinking about those oblong shadows, distorted, now sneaking up my wall—as I contemplate forever. Because what does that even mean, forever?
Still it’s all she had to say, the only word I heard, after which I remember thinking, she’s smiling at me. She’s smiling and what do I do? What am I supposed to do now? Say something, that’s right. I’m supposed to say…what? I didn’t know what to say.
So what did I say?
I think I might’ve said, I love you. That’s all, because what else could I say? I love you. Glancing at her, and she was smiling again. She was smiling and that meant I was okay. And then I felt her lips near mine, and well, it’s as if I needed her arms to hold me there so I could find some semblance of stable ground, because stability seemed to have slipped out from under me. My mind slipped out as well.
Because how could she say that, forever. There’s some part of me, still, that doesn’t believe it. Since all we really have is now. Isn’t that what she said? Here, with that imperfect smile, her laughing irrepressibly, her dry voice in the morning because we won’t sleep tonight, will we? And her meaningless messages I read on my phone throughout my day. The notes that keep me going. That’s all she can give me.
And maybe I like not knowing what’s next.
As this unstable song fades into the next, and I hear her keys jingle and turn to open the door in the living room, that tight bolt twisting then closing behind her as she lets herself in. Those creaks down the hall.
And suddenly, it’s as if her being here makes everything seem sweet and simple and fine.
Yet unsettling still.
Me, flustered the moment I realize she’s here beside me, and closer still, until our arms are touching, and what was I doing?
