Sorrow

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  “Joe,” she whispered again. “What’s your favorite word?”

  I told her I’d never thought about it and would have to get back to her on that. Then she asked if I’d ever heard the term “desiderium.” She’d just discovered it, she said, and was trying to come up with a way to develop the concept into an exhibit.

  “What does it mean?”

  “An ardent longing,” she said, “usually for something lost.”

  I had the feeling October was trying to tell me something specific with that word, to forewarn me about what would happen if I wasn’t careful. Or, rather, if I was too careful. And as I drifted off to sleep that night, I actually wondered if I would ever be that close to her again. I knew there was a good chance our moment had already passed. I also knew that if I lost her, it would be because I didn’t have what it took to hold on to her, and that loss would be something I would have to live with for the rest of my life.

  Desiderium.

  The unrequited.

  Even now, years later, when I think about that night, my jaw tenses and my dick gets hard, and there’s an emptiness, a craving, an ardent longing in my chest and in my gut that seems to define the word “desiderium” so completely, I almost feel as though I conceived of the concept myself.

  TEN.

  October was gone when I woke up, and I wandered over to her house and found her in the middle of preparing breakfast. Eggs, potatoes, toast, fresh berries. She was wearing the bottoms to the pajamas she’d had on the night before, along with the T-shirt I’d left on the floor, which explained why I couldn’t find it in the mess of covers before I’d pulled on my jeans and went looking for her.

  I tried to help, but she wouldn’t let me. Cooking was another kind of art project to her, she explained. She preferred to make the food and, more importantly, to plate it herself. She had a fancy Italian coffee machine, though, and when I told her I had been a barista in college, she put me in charge of the cappuccinos.

  Over breakfast we talked about spending the day together. It was warm and sunny, and I suggested we drive up to Point Reyes, hike around all afternoon, and then have dinner at Nick’s Cove and watch the sun set on the water.

  As far as I could tell, I hadn’t disappointed her yet. And although my unquiet mind and heavy heart were pushing for me to question everything and assume the worst, I didn’t cave. I felt strong that morning. Wide open and available. The man I wanted to be.

  And I had an intense desire to talk to this woman. On our drive to Point Reyes, I planned on telling her everything I hadn’t told her yet—about Bob and Ingrid and Sam, about growing up in Mill Valley. I would tell her how I’d never gotten over my brother’s death and how I hadn’t talked for two years, and then I would tell her about my best friend, Cal, and how much he’d meant to me. I’d tell her how I’d let him down, and how I’d let myself down too.

  But the part that surprised me the most? I wanted, more than anything, to play guitar for her.

  We were standing at the sink doing the dishes, and I guess I’d zoned out because October nudged me and said, “What cha thinkin’, Lincoln?”

  It was all I could do to piece words together. “You. Last night. That madrone tree outside the window.” Diego stuck his whole head into the sink and tried to lick remnants of scrambled egg from the plates. “This dog. Coffee. You in my T-shirt.” I was used to vacillating between numbness and regret and was shocked at the encouraging emotions I was experiencing. “It feels nice. Good. I don’t know.”

  The door opened behind us and Rae walked in with a handful of mail, her laptop, and the Ziploc bag of nuts and raisins she was always carrying around. I’d forgotten it was a workday and was startled to see her, but not as startled as she was to see me. There I was, shirtless at 9 o’clock in the morning, standing beside my boss, who was wearing what looked like tangled sheets. Our arms were touching at the sink, and there was a fluency to our body language that we hadn’t had time to adjust.

  I stepped to my right to create some distance, but it was too late.

  “Morning,” October said to Rae, nonchalant and unapologetic.

  Rae didn’t say a word, but she gave me a wicked side-eye when October went back to the dishes. Then she set the mail on the counter and started sorting through it.

  “Joe makes an award-winning cappuccino,” October said. “Joe, make Rae a cappuccino.”

  “I don’t want a cappuccino,” Rae said.

  She walked around me and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. Then she sat down at the kitchen table, opened her computer, set her snacks beside it, and began running through the day’s schedule with October, all the while picking raisins out of the bag and plopping them into her mouth. Evidently, October had a daylong meeting at Ribble she’d forgotten about, and then she had to make an appearance at a cocktail party at the gallery that represented her later that night.

  “I can’t go to a cocktail party tonight,” October sighed. “There’s going to be too many people there. And I have plans.”

  “You have to. Your name was on the invitation,” Rae told her. “Besides, you promised Thomas. Go get a shower, yeah? We need to leave in forty-five minutes.”

  October looked at me and made a sad face. Then she swallowed the rest of her cappuccino and headed down the hallway. A second later she said, “Joe, come here for a sec.”

  I walked around the corner, out of Rae’s sight. October stepped in close and whispered, “I’m sorry we can’t spend the day together. Rain check for tomorrow?”

  “Deal,” I said. “Rae seems pissed.”

  “She can be overprotective. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.”

  We kissed, and October slipped her hand down into the front of my jeans. I pulled her hand away and backed up, because the last thing Rae needed to see when I returned to the kitchen was a hard-on in my pants.

  When I rounded the corner, Rae was still at the kitchen table on her computer. She waited until she heard October’s bedroom door close, then looked at me and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Sorry?”

  “She has a boyfriend. You know that, yeah?”

  “I think you know it’s more complicated than that.”

  “And what exactly do you foresee happening here? You think she’s going to leave him for you?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about this.”

  “I knew you had an agenda the minute you showed up.”

  I laughed at that. “I don’t have an agenda.”

  “What happened to all that drivel about not knowing who she was and keeping to yourself? It doesn’t look like you’ve been keeping to yourself.”

  I didn’t want to argue with her, and under the circumstances I didn’t really know how to defend myself. Though I did get a small kick out of the fact that Rae thought I was capable of premeditated seduction, because nothing was more outside the realm of my skill set than that.

  I walked toward the door and Rae said, “Normally, a person would get fired for sleeping with their boss.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No. It’s a statement about how unprofessional your behavior is.”

  “Well, October is my boss. And if she wants to fire me, I suppose she will. What’s it to you?”

  “Part of my job is to look out for her. Shield her from the wrong kinds of people. You suddenly look like the wrong kind of person.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “She’s just lonely. This will end when Christopher gets home, yeah? She’ll forget all about you.”

  “Have a nice day, Rae.”

  I went back to the studio, straightened up a bit, and then spent the rest of the afternoon—wait for it—playing my guitar until one of my fingers started to bleed. I hadn’t taken the guitar out of its case in a long time; it took me a while
to clean it up and get it in tune, but once I did it sounded as warm and as beautiful as ever. And besides lacking the necessary calluses on my fingertips, I wasn’t nearly as rusty as I thought I’d be. It’s astounding how the body remembers what to do if it’s spent thousands of hours doing it, even if it hasn’t done it in years.

  I tried not to think too hard about what Rae had said, but I figured she was right. I probably was nothing more than a distraction. Furthermore, October was my boss, and my behavior was unprofessional. Throughout the day I found myself wondering why Rae could see what a shit I was but October couldn’t.

  What did that say about either of them, I wondered?

  October didn’t get home until late that night, and it was all I could do not to call and ask her if I could come over. It should be noted that throughout my entire adult life, I had only entered into relationships with women I could live without. That was my modus operandi: Stay safe. Don’t care too much. So I was anxious about the way I was feeling. I had a hard time falling asleep, and by the time I woke up the next morning, it was already after nine.

  I showered and dressed in a hurry. On my way out the door, I grabbed my phone and noticed a couple of texts from October, but I was seconds away from her house and didn’t bother to read them.

  The front door was unlocked, and I strolled into the kitchen. October was at the sink filling Diego’s water bowl, and she looked startled when she saw me.

  “Joe,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder. “You didn’t get my texts?”

  I shook my head. “I slept in. Came straight over.”

  I heard a voice coming from the back of the house. A man’s voice. Talking in an animated tone that led me to believe he was speaking to the dog.

  October leaned in and whispered, “Chris came home this morning. He wasn’t supposed to be back until the end of the month. He just showed up. To surprise me.”

  “Ah.” I hadn’t had coffee yet and couldn’t process this information in a swift or proficient way. I didn’t know if I was supposed to run from the house or act like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “What should I do?”

  “I don’t know.” October bit at her thumbnail. “He wants to meet you.”

  “Now?” I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus. “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I told him you were my assistant and that you were great. That’s all. He caught me off guard.”

  The confidence I’d had the day before was waning fast. Now that her boyfriend was real, now that he was here, I didn’t think for one second that I would be able to compete with him, and I certainly didn’t want to meet him without some mental preparation.

  October met my eyes and touched my arm, and who knows what she felt there, because she said, “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll sort this out.”

  Diego came bumbling into the kitchen, and I could hear Chris a few steps behind. October went to the table and sat down with a mug of coffee in her hands. I backed up as far away from her as I could get, all the way to the sink.

  From the vantage point of the hallway, Chris saw me before I saw him. He was saying something to October about how good it felt to shower in a familiar bathroom, but he stopped abruptly, midsentence, presumably when he spotted me. That’s when I glanced his way, and he and I made eye contact.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  I was about to say the same thing.

  “Harp?”

  If I hadn’t been leaning on the counter, I would have fallen over.

  “Cal?”

  October was looking back and forth between us, bewildered.

  “Cal?” I said again.

  “Harp?” he repeated.

  The shock wore off for him faster than it did for me. He threw his arms around my neck and pulled me into his chest like I was his long-lost brother. And, in a way, I was.

  “Is it you?” He was shaking me and grinning, and his breath smelled strong and medicinal, like he’d just used Listerine. He held me by the shoulders and looked at my face. “How is this possible?”

  “Hold it.” October looked at me, mortified. “You’re Harp?” Then she looked at Cal. “Joe is your best friend, Harp? From high school?”

  Cal nodded vigorously. “I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe this.”

  He hugged me again, and for one second I forgot everything except that Cal Callahan was standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen him in fourteen years, and even though I thought of him at least once a day, I couldn’t have quantified how much I’d missed him until that moment.

  And then everything inside of me started to tear apart.

  “Shit. Cal.”

  He threw his head back and howled with laughter. “No one’s called me Cal since high school! Come to think of it, you’re the only person who ever called me Cal.” He looked at October and said, “I’d declared, the summer before our freshman year, that I was dropping my first name, and I asked everyone to call me Cal. I wrote it on all my papers and tests, but nobody bought it. Not my teachers, not my mom, not Harp’s mom. Only Harp.”

  “And Bob,” I reminded him. “Bob called you Cal too.”

  “But with contempt!” Cal laughed.

  “Who’s Bob?” October asked.

  “My dad.”

  “How is old Bob Harper?” Cal said. “Still as pleasant as always?”

  I wasn’t ready to start catching up. There was already too much to process. I shook my head and said, “I need to sit down.”

  Cal ran his hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. “Fucking Harp.”

  October looked at me and said, “You told me you were from Spokane.” She didn’t seem angry, just confused.

  Cal laughed again. Then he went to the window, pointed and said, “He’s from that ridge right over there! Bob’s from Spokane!”

  Cal went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne. “This calls for a celebration.”

  “Christopher, it’s ten o’clock,” October said.

  “And I’m with my two favorite people in the entire world!” He looked at me. “She was just telling me about her new assistant, how smart and creative and amazing he was. What are the odds it turns out to be you? What are the fucking odds?”

  I didn’t know the fucking odds, but I was going to calculate them and perhaps play the lottery since I was so lucky.

  Cal popped the cork over the sink and pulled out some juice glasses from the cupboard. I could feel October looking at me from the table, needing something, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t face her. Nor could I take my eyes off of Cal. He was even taller now, over six and a half feet. His hair was shorter and more stylish than it used to be, and he’d grown into his face in a good way. Birdlike features on a kid look weird, a little sinister even, but on a grown man with some depth and character, the effect is striking. Cal had transformed from an owl into a hawk.

  He handed out the champagne, we clanked glasses, and I drank mine in one gulp. October didn’t touch hers. Cal took two sips and forgot about his.

  “Seriously. How long has it been?” he asked, refilling my glass.

  “Fourteen years.”

  “Tell him,” he said to October. “Tell him how much I talk about him. I can’t tell a story from my childhood that doesn’t involve you.”

  October nodded. “He talks about you all the time.” All the sparks were gone from her voice. She looked beside herself. “Blood Brothers.”

  “Blood Brothers!” Cal shouted. “See! She knows!”

  I wasn’t ready to talk about Blood Brothers either. I drank my second glass of champagne, even though I don’t like champagne, and it provided me with the dizzying kind of kick in the ass I needed to ask a question I was suddenly obsessed with knowing the answer to.

  “How the fuck did you two meet?” I asked with too much grav
ity, glancing back and forth between Cal and October. “How long have you been together?”

  “You want to tell it?” Cal asked October.

  She shook her head and stared at the table. Now it was she who couldn’t look at me. The question had clearly unnerved her, and I felt bad about that. But I desperately needed some context to their relationship.

  “She bought this property from me,” Cal said. “I’d purchased it for my mom, and after she died and I put it on the market, I was—”

  I cut Cal off. “Wait. What?”

  Terry had died? Another shock. I felt awful that I hadn’t known, that I hadn’t kept in touch with her, that I hadn’t been there for Cal when he lost his mother. I was the worst kind of human: a terrible friend.

  “Good God, Cal. I’m so sorry.”

  “Cancer,” he said. “She was sick for a long time. She did get to see me win a Grammy though. That meant a lot to her.” Cal picked up his glass of champagne but didn’t drink out of it, he just rolled it around in his palm. “I bought her this place right before she got sick. She didn’t have time to enjoy it for very long, and before she died she made me promise I would sell it to someone who would love it as much as she did.” Cal leaned over and kissed the top of October’s head. “Enter this incredible woman.”

  October squirmed in her seat. I’d never seen her so ill at ease.

  “She showed up and gawked at the trees,” Cal said. “No kidding; the first thing she did when she got out of the car was wander through the backyard, looking up and touching and smelling all the trunks. I asked her to have dinner with me before she went into the house. She just had this vibe, you know? Turned me down though. Wouldn’t even give me her phone number. I had to bribe her real estate agent for it.”

  “Why not?” I asked her. I couldn’t imagine any girl turning Cal down.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Cal responded. “Because I made the mistake of saying, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ and after that she thought I was a dick.”

  Cal cracked up at the memory. October gave him a half-hearted smile then looked my way. “I knew who he was. And I didn’t think it made sense for me to date a man whose job requires him to stand in front of thousands of screaming people every night.” She stared into her coffee. “Especially one who lived in New York, had a somewhat infamous reputation as a womanizer, and was in the middle of a divorce.”