Here, Have a Husband

by Heather Gean

  “What should I be looking for?”

  “A gray cat. He is sort of a loner. You have to earn his affection. His name is Ishmael.”

  “Nice use of literary references,” I noted.

  Van smiled at me, squinting into the sun that was only half visible above the rooftops. “Well, Spot and Skip seemed a bit played out.”

  I took a seat on the least questionable looking piece of furniture on the patio, a bench constructed of three different chairs that were somehow attached together. I sat on the red, retro, sparkly side while Van took a seat somewhere between the classic wooden dining chair and the foldout chair. The armrests were white wicker. It was an interesting and borderline hideous thing to sit on. Olive Oyl eventually tired of us and trotted away after her partner in crime.

  “How was your day?” he asked casually. It was a loaded question, but I knew he wouldn’t pry if I gave a vague answer. Something about knowing that made me want to answer openly.

  “It was shitty. I went to that ridiculous counseling session and got nothing accomplished. I hate shrinks. I hate being analyzed, ya know? It’s like they put you under a microscope and watch you squirm.” I sighed as Van nodded complacently, thinking back to the incident with Ashley on the sidewalk. “How are you even friends with Ashley?”

  Van shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “Explain it to me. Do you two ever talk?”

  Van swept a hand back through his hair, pushing it away from his eyebrows. He sank into a comfortable, stretched-legged position in the chair and folded his arms over his chest. “We don’t really talk. We haven’t ever been that sort of friends.” I looked at him, still confused. “If he needs anything I am there for him and vice versa. I don’t get into his shit, and he doesn’t get into mine.”

  “And that has worked for you since you were kids?” It didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t the kind of friendship I was used to being involved in, but he nodded as if it were just that simple.

  Something soft tickled across the back of my calf. It startled me until I realized that it was nothing more than a smoke-gray cat weaving itself between my legs. His body vibrated against me as he purred. I reached down to pat him with a small smile.

  “That’s impressive,” Van said as he sat up straight again and leaned forward to pet Ishmael. “You have earned his affection in a matter of minutes. That has to be record timing.” I giggled as the cat rubbed his face against my hand. My laughter seemed to soften Van’s features. His eyes fell gingerly across my face. “You seem to have that effect on men around here.”

  An intimate moment seemed imminent. Van and I were both leaning forward, elbows-to-knees, leaving us close enough to do something forbidden: to touch, to kiss. However, we were cut short by a woman opening the back door. “Hello, hello!” she called.

  We stood up and the sexual tension slid away. Van introduced me to the woman as his mother, known to those who weren’t her offspring as Robin, and she looked almost identical to him. Her eyes were the same thoughtful shade of brown. Her hair was dark, almost black, and hung in long waves. She was pretty and looked surprisingly young to be Van’s mother. She could easily have passed for his older sister, but I didn’t tell her that for fear of it sounding like a complimentary lie.

  The three of us sat down together for a dinner of exquisitely tasting but questionable looking curry vindaloo. Robin entertained us with a story about her day at the restaurant where she worked as a chef, and some fiasco that had occurred involving an irate customer. She asked about me, too, though it seemed she already knew a lot. “I hear you are appealing your engagement,” she said after the formalities were out of the way. It wasn’t exactly a conversation I was comfortable having with my secret lover’s mom, but I had little room for avoiding it. She must have noticed the discomfort on my face. “I’m sorry. I know it has to be horrible. If Ashley is anything like his father you are better off without him, I can promise you that.”

  “You know his family?”

  She shrugged rather bitterly. “I used to be a chef for them. It was a long time ago, a short-lived experience. But you live, you learn. Ya know?” I nodded sympathetically, not being able to imagine working for Mr. or Mrs. Schroeder. That tidbit was also the last link I needed to connect Van and Ashley as friends.

  “Van, this vindaloo is excellent!” I echoed her praise. She continued remorsefully, “I can’t believe he is all moved out! I’m going to miss the strange things he leaves lying around the house. Living in the city… I keep telling him that it’s too dangerous. He’s going to get killed living out there!”

  Things drifted along lightheartedly after the laughter that followed. The small kitchen table and Robin’s easygoing conversation were much easier to stomach than the Schroeder smack-downs. We departed for Van’s place about the time Tim, her live-in boyfriend, showed up from work. Robin stood on the small front porch under the glow of the porch light and talked to us until we were in the car, begging me to come back anytime. I really felt like she meant it.

  Luckily, Van and I did not get killed that evening on the way from the parking garage to his apartment building. The area was old and lacked the extremely tall skyscrapers I usually saw in the areas that Ashley took me around. Small businesses adorned with tacky, glowing signs lined the streets. One of every dozen storefronts we passed was empty with boarded windows. We stopped briefly on the sidewalk to listen to a small group of people in their mid-twenties playing guitars and tambourines and singing folk songs. They begged Van to join them, apparently he had met them a few times before, but after making quick introductions he bashfully declined and wheeled me down the next dark side street. We started up old, metal stairs that snaked up the side of the five-story, brick building. On the second floor we passed a young guy with his door propped open, smoking a joint with one hand and holding a beer in the other, and he simply nodded at us as we went by.

  Van’s apartment was a loft on the top floor of this old building. It was very industrial with rough, brick walls and an unfinished wooden floor, and the ceiling seemed to stretch up forever. I was drawn to the windows that lined nearly an entire wall, looking down on the street below and slightly above some of the buildings across the street. It was pretty amazing, the way the lights glowed up from the street in the dark. It was like an out of body experience, looking down on everything that was happening in the world but not actually being a part of it. Van moved close behind me. “Nice view, isn’t it?” His voice was low and close to my ear, but he headed across the room as quickly as he had appeared behind me. “It isn’t much right now, but it has all the space I need.”

  He had no television, but he had a long black couch with a few bookshelves, an old record player, and new stereo system lining the wall across from it. He had classic fiction and a few new, popular titles, along with a couple of old textbooks and a bunch of things with interesting titles that I had never heard of, and of course vinyl records. His collection, of both literature and music, rivaled mine. I continued to explore his place while he selected a record to liven the place up. Canvases rested against another wall with white sheets underneath them to protect the floor from any paint. Closer to the kitchen and the large wooden spool he used as a makeshift dining table were more of his sculpting things. Plaster was speckled on the brick wall nearest it, and additional white and gray sheets lined the floor. I treaded over them carefully. Beyond that area I could see a decorative folding screen which almost blocked the view of Van’s bed, which lay directly on the floor. I had just finished inspecting the mural painted on the screen when a tall figure draped in a heavy sheet caught my attention. I went to peek under it and was quickly reprimanded. “That’s top secret work,” Van said with a smile.

  Curiosity itched at me. “What is it?” I figured it was artwork, hopefully something he was working on for my exhibit. He came over and led me away from it by my hand. The simple touching of our fingers sent my heart into rapid beats.

  “If I told you that I
would have to kill you.” We both laughed at the use of that cliché. He tugged me toward him so that I fell into his arms, and he brought his mouth to my neck and gently bit it with a growl as if he was pretending to attack me. The sensation made me giggle at first, but as the giggles subsided they were replaced by a feeling that seemed to be trying to tug my heart from my chest. Van’s bed was only steps away, and we fell hard towards the floor only to land against blankets and pillows.

  The night was still young when we pulled ourselves from bed, but I needed a pick-me-up. I rummaged around Van’s mostly empty kitchen. “Don’t you have a coffee maker?” I asked.

  “Probably not. It is still lost in the moving process.” He pulled his t-shirt back over his head, and I caught myself admiring him as he did so. “We could go out for some. This is New York. There are more coffee shops than people.” I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Ashley’s earlier warnings about tabloids resurfaced within me. If I wasn’t in quick transition to or from a parking garage, I didn’t feel safe. “Or… would you rather do something else?” His concerned gaze probed me. “You okay?”

  “I just don’t want our secret outings to end up in a tabloid.”

  “Trust me. The tabloids don’t hang out in this part of New York.” When he saw that this didn’t ease my fears, he disappeared into the area of his apartment where he kept most of his art supplies. From a cardboard box on a table he produced a perfectly styled red wig. It was just past shoulder length with a straight, choppy cut and straight across bangs. It looked nothing like my hair. He tossed it to me.

  “You want me to wear this? Where did you get this?”

  “It’s a real wig. It doesn’t have lice or anything. I got it from a wig shop a few weeks ago because I was going to use it on a sculpture, but I haven’t gotten around to it. You can wear it if you want.” I looked at it skeptically. “No one will notice,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  No one seemed to notice that I was wearing a wig. The people we encountered were mostly unconventional themselves. The coffee shop hung heavy with hookah smoke. It was the kind of place that warranted the word trippy to be included in its description. “This is the best coffee I have had in a long time,” I said in between sips from the mug.

  Van smiled at me. “It’s their secret ingredient.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s cocaine.” Before I could choke he laughed and promised me that he was joking. I nudged him hard with my elbow, but I couldn’t complain. I loved the way Van made me laugh.

  We meandered around a few blocks after buzzing ourselves on caffeine. It was a beautiful night, warm air with cool breezes. We explored the area, ducking inside shops if they seemed interesting enough. Armed with my red wig, I felt like a bolder person. It was like I had a secret identity. When we passed the neon signs of a tattoo parlor, I glued myself to the window. “I want one,” I said. I felt like a kid with her nose pressed to the candy shop window.

  “So get one,” he said.

  I smiled. “It isn’t that easy. It’s permanent.”

  “If you have something you feel strongly enough about then I think it’s worth it. But I’m biased,” he said, holding up his arm.

  I’m not sure if it was the wig. It could have been the excitement of the evening. Maybe it was an expression of independence in a world where everything seemed to be controlled. Either way, we ducked inside under the fluorescent lights, and within half an hour I was sitting in the old tattoo parlor chair with an overweight, bald but bearded, biker-looking guy buzzing a needle across my wrists. It stung like hell, but occasionally he paused to wipe away the blood. I took a deep breath and tried not to cringe when he passed over sensitive spots. Van sat beside me on a stool, flipping through an album of past artwork that had been done in the place. Crappy radio metal played over the staticky speakers. I sighed again, drawing attention to the fact that watching my wrists being covered in ink and blood was affecting me mentally.

  Van shut the album and focused in on me with an uncertain smile. “You okay?”

  “I never knew liberation could feel so… painful.”

  He laughed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “What’s that women always say? Pain is beauty, or something.” I nodded, focusing on him to help distract me, but every few seconds, the heart-wrenchingly beautiful character that was Van was not enough to block out the stinging. I heaved another sigh.

  “You can’t stop now. Otherwise you’ll be walking around with Ima on one of your wrists, and it’ll confuse people. Like… I’m a… and then they’ll fill in the blanks. It wouldn’t be good.” I acknowledged that he was right with a half-hearted laugh.

  Van successfully distracted me with rambling conversation for the next hour or so, after which I emerged with the insides of my wrists inked with sweeping, classy, cursive lettering. Reasonably sized black words stretched across them; the left said Imagine, and the right said Freedom. If my body was a canvas, I was making quite a statement.

  On our way back to the apartment, we stopped by the parking garage to grab a few of the boxes we had stuffed into the backseat before leaving his house. It took a long walk and a skillful set of maneuvers to get them successfully in his apartment, but halfway up the stairs the guy who had been smoking a joint earlier offered us a hand with a few of them. After we got them all set up along his countertops, I began opening them to help him unpack. I laughed at the assortment of cookware he had. Most of it had never been opened. I unloaded a few pots and pans into the cabinets along with a blender and a set of mixing bowls. “Is this what happens when you’re the son of a chef?” I asked. Van chuckled and shrugged as he unpacked a coffee maker. I noticed that it wasn’t a Schroeder brand.

  I was nearly to the bottom of the first box I was working on when I pulled out a set of silverware still in its original packaging. A small card was stuck in the front of it, nestled underneath a butter knife. I removed it before I opened the box, and after I had tossed it to the counter I realized what it said. The cursive words looped around until they made a noose for my heart. I picked it up just to make sure. “Van? Why didn’t you tell me you were married to Elsie?”

  The color completely drained from Van’s face as he looked at me then down at the card in my hand. Congratulations Elsie & Van on your marriage! I realized all of the cookware and appliances were leftover wedding gifts. He sank back against the counter. “Because it didn’t seem relevant. We aren’t together anymore.” That didn’t make sense considering the given government circumstances.

  “How are you ‘not together anymore’?” My face was burning. My heart filled up my throat until I couldn’t swallow. “Was she your government match?”

  “It wasn’t like that. I never bought into that government bullshit.” He sighed deeply and ran his hands through his hair to pull the bandanna out and toss it to the counter. “We got married when we were eighteen, before the system. It was a stupid mistake. We did it straight out of high school. It just didn’t work out. She couldn’t figure out if she was straight or gay or somewhere in between…” He seemed exhausted trying to explain, and I felt guilty. I counted it back in my head. If they had gotten married when they were eighteen they could have avoided the government requirement and gotten married like normal people. The trouble with my calculations, though, was that they couldn’t have had time to get a divorce.

  “So… you’re married?”

  “Legally.”

  “To Elsie Sappho?”

  “Elsie Edwards… Sherman. She changed her last name when we split up and she officially became a lesbian.” There was a long pause. I was at a loss for words. Reality had slipped into the sanctuary of Van’s top-of-the-world apartment, and it stung more than the tattoos had. The pain in his eyes was evident, and it wasn’t just that I’d found out about his marriage; it was that the marriage existed at all. Nobody was immune anymore.

  Van neared me, gently lacing my fingers through his, leaving my bandaged wrists facing upward. It made me look suici
dal. He cautiously brought my hands to his lips and kissed my fingers. “I’m so sorry, Sunshine,” he whispered. The depth in his voice killed me, and I pulled him into a hug that was meant to comfort both of us.

  “Nothing you can do about it now, huh?” I tried to lighten the mood, but things remained warped. We left the rest of the boxes without unpacking them, leaving tainted dishes and flatware for some other time. Instead, we spread out a game of Scrabble on his makeshift table and attempted to maintain normalcy. My heart swelled with the certainty that the government was wrong and society was wrong and that things needed to change, but for the time being I would rearrange block letters and hope to find something recognizable.

  Chapter 16

  Every Fourth of July my friends and I packed up our tents and sleeping bags, hamburger trimmings and cases of beer, and spent the evening camping on the banks of the Mississippi. July fifth may always have found us with hangovers and bug bites, but while it lasted the celebration was exemplary of what it meant to be free. If the best we could do was drink beer and pepper in lots of illegal activity then we all felt more American for it by the day’s end.

  Since noon our group had suffered through the summer heat, and though there were only about ten of us, I successfully avoided Liz. Sasha, being the kindhearted and meddling person she tended to be, made sure to bring to my attention that she noticed my evasion. I was sitting on my knees with my shins pressed against the rough concrete of the picnic table bench, pouring myself another drink, and trying to decide on the proper gin to juice ratio for this time of day when she sauntered up. She took a seat on the tabletop, grabbing a bottle of water out of the cooler whose insides, nearly melted from the heat, sloshed as she did so. She unscrewed the top of it and took a long drink as she watched me add liquor, then juice, then a few more splashes of liquor. I grew self-conscious beside her hovering presence, and stopped combining liquids before they even reached the top of the plastic cup.