Thinking of You

by Rachel Kane

  There’s a sound of sorrow in Val’s voice, one Charlie has come to recognize. Val has such good intentions, but keeps coming up against bits of the world he doesn’t understand.

  He knows how this conversation is supposed to go, what he’s expected to say. It’s plain on Val’s face, that he expects some criticism for this mistake. Why didn’t you double check your order, didn’t you notice you spent way more money than you meant to, you were the CEO of a company so you must have made a million orders of things in the past, how does it even happen—

  But if today has taught Charlie anything, it’s that sometimes mistakes just happen. You get to work late, and your boss thinks he can use it to get into your pants. There’s always someone out there ready to take advantage of your moment of error.

  Why give Val hell for an innocent mistake? It’s clear that he expects it. Clear that he thinks he deserves it. Val is unmoored by all the changes in his life, and honestly, he needs someone on his side. Someone who isn’t going to judge every misstep.

  “So here’s a question,” Charlie says. “Why don’t you give it away?”

  Val scowls at the boxes. “If I can’t eat it all, who else can? Theo doesn’t like canned spaghetti, and even if both he and his boyfriend did, it would take weeks or months—”

  “No, no, like a food bank. Somewhere that will give it all away to people.”

  Now Val is sitting up. “There’s a place that will give these away?”

  “Sure, haven’t you ever seen a canned food drive, or…” But the way Val shakes his head reminds Charlie that Val lived in a much different world.

  “It’s like a charity,” Charlie explains. “You give them food, they feed poor people with it.”

  Now Val is thinking. He’s staring at the boxes, then at Charlie, then at the boxes again. “That’s inefficient. I can think of at least three problems with that distribution model, starting with the retail prices you would pay for the food you donate, versus the wholesale prices possible from buying in bulk, not to mention—”

  Charlie laughs and pulls Val close and kisses his cheek. “It’s okay. You want to talk to them about distribution models, I’m sure they’ll be interested to hear all about it…but give them the boxes, okay? There are a lot of hungry people in Corinth.”

  “I hope they like spaghetti.”

  It’s worrying about the people of Corinth that got him in trouble the first time…that got him on Rumson’s radar. Thinking about that sends a little shiver of memory down his spine.

  The problem is, Charlie doesn’t want to talk to Val about Rumson.

  This thing that he has with Val, it’s new, there’s not even a name for it, he doesn’t know how to categorize how awkwardly comfortable they are with each other, but he doesn’t want to spoil it.

  He doesn’t want to need help.

  Vulnerability just leads to problems.

  He’s already mentioned Rumson a few times, and seen the look Val gets. It’s different than that lost and puzzled look. It’s something much more confident…something darker. It’s the look of a man who has been used to a certain amount of power. He doesn’t know what that power is like, in Val’s hands, and he doesn’t want to know.

  Keep it innocent. Even if this turns out to be just a Christmas fling, even if turns out to be nothing at all…he wants to keep it innocent. No power games.

  “I don’t suppose they also need a hundred boxes of condoms,” said Val, looking at the table.

  But that reminds him of the letters, and he realizes he hasn’t shown them to Val. He could have last night…but got distracted. “Check this out,” he says, and pulls them out of his backpack.

  What’s great is Val’s reaction. This is a man who is used to being handed a ton of papers at one time. Before he even looks at them, he arranges them, taps them into a neat stack. His eyebrows rise as he reads.

  “These children certainly like toys. Jerome here earned an A on his math test, and thinks that entitles him to an…emojibot? Am I reading that correctly?”

  “So there are those kinds of letters, and lots of them,” says Charlie. “But they’re not all requests for toys.”

  He pulls out the second stack, and finds himself tapping it neatly into place before sliding it over to Val.

  “Well, I don’t know what they’re telling children these days,” says Val, “but I don’t think Santa can fit a new apartment down the chimney!”

  The joke catches Charlie off-guard. “Val,” he says, “that kid is homeless. That’s why he’s asking for an apartment.”

  Val looks up from the letter. “Homeless?”

  “There’s a lot of them. Some have homes, but not enough to eat. Some have parents who are out of work. I see them every day. You know, if I had my Christmas wish, it’d be to do something for these kids. But what can I do? I just give them candy canes and try to be nice to them.”

  Val turns the paper over. “There’s no address.”

  “They’re not real letters. I mean, they’re not mailed. It’s just a fake mailbox in the middle of the mall.”

  “So you don’t know who these children are?”

  Charlie shakes his head.

  The other night when he showed these to the other elves, they’d made their sympathetic sounds, but Charlie knew that they weren’t moved, not really, no more so than if they’d seen a cute puppy walk by. Their emotions were brief and shallow.

  It’s hard to describe what’s going on with Val’s face, as he studies these letters. In a sense, he’s closed off now. Charlie gets the sense that he could leave the room, and Val wouldn’t notice. He’s going from one letter to the next, then he stands up, still not looking at anything but the papers.

  Charlie follows him into a dining room, a nice one, open to the broad bright kitchen with shining fixtures, absolutely none of which catches Val’s attention. He’s just looking for a surface, and pushes aside the place mats and centerpiece on the table to make room to lay out the letters.

  There’s a limit to how much you can look at, though. Charlie’s been through this. You can stare and stare, but you’re not going to find out where these kids live. You’re not going to find out how to help them, not from just looking at the letters.

  It takes a while for that to sink in. Val has his hands planted on the tabletop, staring down like a general studying his maps before the big battle, a look of grim determination on his face. He’s staring at crayon drawings of families, of fat Santas and skinny reindeer, at houses with little puffs of smoke coming out of crooked chimneys, like they’re going to give him a clue for what needs to be done. If he can just crack the code…

  “It’s okay,” says Charlie. “You’re not going to solve this problem.”

  At first it’s like Val hasn’t even heard him speak. He doesn’t acknowledge Charlie at all. Then, a couple of minutes later, he says, “It’s simple. It’s just a distribution problem. There are empty houses and apartments in Corinth. The question is, how to you get these children into those homes?”

  “If it were that easy, then poverty would be solved,” Charlie says.

  But now Val’s shoulders slump. “I’m very sad about this.”

  “I know. I am too. That’s why I keep the letters. I wish I could do something.”

  He’s picking them back up again, tapping them into shape. Without looking at Charlie, he asks, “Can I keep these?”

  “Well, sure, but you can’t—”

  “I know. I’m not a miracle worker. But I’d like to keep them. I will put them out of my mind, and then my subconscious will mull things over.”

  Charlie has been really cautious about asking for help from Val. He wants to make sure the boundaries are all in place, wants to make sure he doesn’t appear needy at all. But this? This is a problem he’s grateful to share with Val. Even if it’s just knowing that Val can be as concerned about it as he is. Knowing Val cares, unlocks something inside of Charlie. A little bit of connection that he had been holding back. It’s on
e thing for people to offer you things. The gifts and gratuitous stuff that they use to buy their way closer to you. It’s another thing entirely to share something like this. To have someone say, let me see if I can take this burden off of you.

  15

  Val

  I could tell Charlie was more withdrawn this evening. I just couldn’t quite understand why. Was it something I’d said? I didn’t think so. I hoped I hadn’t been too presumptuous buying all of the condoms, a thought that hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but had begun weighing on my mind as soon as I’d let him into my apartment. Fortunately he had seen the humor in it, rather than being appalled that I wanted to sleep with him again.

  Which I really, really did. Right now.

  But how do you ask? What do you say? Last night, he had taken the lead, but I sensed that wouldn’t happen today. Something was different.

  Was it the letters? Those bothered me too, but I wasn’t going to think about them right now. I needed advice, needed expert opinions, and that would take time. So I filed it away in the back of my mind, but maybe Charlie felt he couldn’t do that? Maybe the immediacy of it, seeing these children every day, made it worse?

  Or maybe it was something else.

  Somehow I couldn’t put that thought in the back of my mind, and it bothered me all during dinner.

  How do you tell someone you want them to stay the night?

  We were back at the diner. Charlie was having a cheeseburger with french fries and a soda. I had hashbrowns, but branched out and also ordered a slice of pie.

  “At some point,” he said, “we’ve got to get you to eat a green vegetable.”

  “Tosh,” I said. “Plants have spent billions of years evolving defenses so they don’t get eaten. The more green leaves you eat, the more of their sinister poisons you ingest.”

  That made him smile, and he reached over and stabbed a forkful of hashbrowns off my plate.

  You see, this is what people do when they like one another. They share each other’s food. They know it’s okay. He didn’t ask permission, he didn’t make a formal request.

  If only getting him into bed were that easy. But I did sense I’d have to ask, I’d have to say something about it. Not that the pile of condoms wasn’t a big enough symbol!

  “Speaking of things that can kill you,” I said, “I got tested today. You’ll be happy to hear I am negative.”

  “You’re a busy little bee,” said Charlie.

  “I also have a new mop to show you. It is battery-powered. I’m not certain how it differs from a normal mop, since I’ve never actually mopped a floor before, but the commercial made it sound much, much better than the old way.”

  Theo can say all he wants about me not being able to read people, but it’s not true at all. I could tell there was something on Charlie’s mind. Even with his smiles, his laughter, his theft of my dinner, there was something in his eyes.

  It hurt me not to know what it was, because it was bothering him. And even if he wouldn’t let me solve any of his problems, I could at least hear about it, couldn’t I? Don’t people enjoy talking about their problems?

  I scowled, thinking through how to ask. But then, blurting has always been my specialty, hasn’t it?

  “You seem troubled tonight,” I said.

  “What? No, I’m fine,” he said.

  “I don’t think that’s true. You don’t have to say that. If you don’t want to talk to me about something, you can tell me you don’t want to. That’s different than telling me you’re fine, when you’re clearly not.”

  I almost winced as I said it. This was exactly the sort of thing that made people uncomfortable. The reason people saw me as off-putting.

  Rather than back away, Charlie set down his fork and nodded. “Okay. Yeah, actually, I’m pretty bothered by something. But if I tell you, you have to promise not to do anything about it. Don’t even offer. This isn’t a problem I want you to solve, okay?”

  I smiled. “I think we have this same disclaimer every time we talk.”

  “Promise?”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  Charlie sighed. “It’s my boss.”

  “Did you get in trouble for being late? Look, can we just either buy this bicycle or make arrangements with my driver—”

  “No, it’s not about that. I mean, it is, but it’s worse.”

  The story he told me chilled my blood.

  Of course these things happen. You know they happen all the time, you hear the rumors, you see the high-profile cases in the news.

  But that Rumson tried to lay his hands on Charlie?

  I carefully blotted my lips with my napkin, then set it on the table. “Excuse me.”

  “Whoa. Nope. Sit back down.”

  “I’m just going to make a few calls,” I said.

  “No. You’re really not.”

  “Come on, Charlie, that’s a clear violation of your employee rights, as well as the law. Do you know how many lawyers I had on retainer, when I headed my company?”

  He groaned. “God, Val, this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.”

  I thought he’d be happy. Here was something I knew how to deal with. Harrison Holdings had one of the most aggressive zero-tolerance harassment policies out there. I couldn’t bear the thought of my workers and teams putting up with that; it made me shudder just to think about it. If Charlie had been working for me, Rumson would already be on his way out the door.

  Damn it, I thought. I could have kicked myself, really. Twice now, Charlie had told me disturbing things about Rumson. Not sexually disturbing, but I should have seen the implications right away. I should have already taken action, in the background, in the shadows, so that Charlie never knew what I was up to.

  Yes, because I’m so good at keeping secrets. I’d probably blurt it out 30 seconds after doing something.

  Well, it was all out in the open now. Whatever I did, I’d have to do it in the daylight.

  “You have to let me help you,” I said.

  “No. Val, do I have to explain it to you, or will you just listen to me? Because if I have to explain it, I will, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to spend my time with you rehashing old traumas. I want…I want…”

  “New traumas?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Can’t you let it go? I can handle it, I promise. He’s not going to hurt me.”

  With a sigh, I leaned back in the booth and pushed my plate away. “Very well,” I said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  “Yes, in an apartment full of spaghetti and lube.”

  “And a power mop!”

  “And yet, a chilling lack of Christmas decorations.”

  I scoffed. “Theo is decorating his house for Christmas. It’s appalling. Miles of holly and tinsel and…and…just gaudiness.”

  “Wait,” he said, “you don’t like Christmas?”

  “Do you?”

  “Val, I’m a goddamn Christmas elf, of course I like Christmas. I love the music, the colors, the bells. Oh, and the scents! Pine and cinnamon and rosemary! The sound wrapping paper makes when you slide sharp scissors through it: hissssss! How can anybody not like Christmas? Wait a second…rich businessman, doesn’t like Christmas…you’re not being visited by three ghosts at night, are you? Mr. Scrooge, is that you?”

  I could sense he was trying to change the subject, and I welcomed that. I didn’t want things to be tense between us, ever.

  “Would you like to help me decorate my apartment, Charlie? For you, I’ll do it.”

  He seemed to understand. This was a kind of apology for earlier. He reached over the table and took my hand. The one person in the world I didn’t mind touching me. The one person I wished to touch.

  “Let’s go buy a tree,” he said.

  * * *

  “How have you never bought a Christmas tree before?” Charlie asked me, as we walked through the lot.

  It was the polar opposite of the mall. There were people, yes,
but they were quiet, murmuring about prices and heights and empty spots where there weren’t enough branches. A few well-placed overhead lights kept the trees in view, but without the frantic colors of the mall. And although there was street noise, the music was limited to a small radio on the table where you could pick out a freshly-made wreath.

  I brushed my fingers against the needles of one of the trees. “Someone else always does it for me,” I said. “When I was young, it was our servants—”

  “You had servants?”

  “And then later, we’d hire decorators to handle it.”

  I pinched a thin twig poking out from a tree like an unruly cowlick, and felt the stickiness of the sap on my fingers. I brought the sap up to my nose and inhaled. It was a healthy, fresh scent. I could not argue with that. I liked it.

  I liked being here with Charlie, looking at his excitement. Watching him as much as I was looking at the trees. When he’d stand next to one of the taller trees, he looked so small, so in need of protection.

  He doesn’t need you for that. I had to keep reminding myself. There was nothing frail or weak about Charlie. He was strong, confident, and utterly able to take care of himself. He didn’t need my help.

  “How tall are your ceilings, anyway?”

  I blinked and came back to the real world. “I…don’t know? Tall?”

  He laughed. “You’re the numbers guy, and you don’t know the dimensions of your apartment?”

  “I’m not an architect!” But I already had my phone out, and was dialing. Charlie raised an eyebrow at me, and I told him, “Theo will know.”

  “What do you know, you can call people before midnight!” said Theo on the other end.

  “Hello,” I said. “How tall are my ceilings?”

  “Uh…what?”

  “When you helped me decorate, did you notice how tall they were? I’m buying a Christmas tree—”

  “Whoa, what? You? Buying a Christmas tree. Did three ghosts visit you—”