There’s silence. And It’s All Coming Back To Me Now playing on the loudspeaker.
“Dude,” Mitch says, snickering. “That sounded kind of gay.”
“Your mom’s kind of gay.” Not a great feat of scathing genius, but considering the circumstances, it’ll cut it.
“Your mom’s not,” Mitch replies, not missing a beat. “See, I know because I totally did her last night.”
“Plebeians, all,” groans Amber.
Chapter Six
Monday morning comes way too fast, and I just can’t do it. At five to nine, I make the grand effort to reach for my phone. As I dial the number, there’s this lump in my throat, this gross nervous feeling. I close my eyes as I listen to the ringing. After three rings, it gets answered.
“Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts this is Arthur how may I help you?” He says it all without pausing, a steady flow of words. There’s this precise lightness to the way he talks. It sounds like a voice that should be reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, it has the right wise lilt, and I realize that’s a weird thing to think as soon as I think it.
“I’m sick,” I croak.
There’s this little sound, like maybe he inhales sharply. Or maybe I’m making it up because I’m losing my mind.
“Okay,” he says. He sounds like he feels weird. Well, good. He better.
I think about saying something else, for just a second. But what? ‘How ‘bout that kissing, eh?’ I don’t friggin’ think so. So I lie there and don’t say anything.
“Feel better,” Arthur throws in at last, with this helpless awkwardness that sounds so strange coming from him.
I hang up.
+
At around eleven, there’s a gentle knock at my door. “Howie?”
Busted. Playing hooky my second week into the least impressive job known to man. Yeah, that’s right, Mommy, just making you proud.
“Honey, you in there?” my mom prompts.
For a second, I contemplate pretending not to be, but then that seems a little too lame.
“Yeah,” I call, and hold back a sigh.
She pushes the door open. “Sick day?”
“Yeah.”
She comes over and presses her fingers to my forehead. “Doesn’t feel like you have a fever.”
“I think it’s a stomach thing,” I invent.
She gives me one of those I Am Mom, I Know All looks. “Not a lame job thing?”
“Nope,” I answer with as much conviction as I can summon. Which is not a lot.
She looks sad all of a sudden. It’s enough to make me wish I had just manned up and gone to work.
“I know what it’s like not to want to drag yourself out of bed in the morning,” Mom tells me, running a hand through my hair. “I’ve still got the scars from working retail in college. Hon, if you really don’t like it there …”
“No,” I interrupt, “I do.”
She’s not buying it. “Howie…”
“It’s fine,” I say, forcing the words out. “It’s cool. It’s low-key and the work’s really easy. And my coworkers are cool. It’s cool.”
“It is,” she says, not believing me.
“I just don’t feel great today, Mom,” I finish firmly. “That’s it.”
She looks at me for a long time.
“Okay,” she says at last. She smiles at me. I watch as she reaches over with her left hand to massage her right arm.
“Is it hurting?” I ask.
“Not too bad,” she replies in that airy tone she gets every time she knows I’m worrying about her. “I think the weather’s going to change again, though.”
“Oh,” I answer lamely. I hate even bringing it up, but sometimes it’s hard not to slip up on this stuff.
But Mom seems okay. She just gives me this tired smile and asks, “You want a cup of tea?”
“Yeah, sure,” I reply, because if she wants to convince herself that she can still take care of me, then I’m not exactly going to stand in her way.
When she brings me the tea, it turns out to be chamomile, which feels a little bit like the universe is mocking me. Really, what else is new? I drink it anyway.
+
I go in the next day. From the second I pull up in the parking lot, I feel so on-edge I think I might pass out. When I step inside, Kristy’s there already, turning the lights on and singing along to the radio.
“Hey, Howie!” she chirps, beaming. “Feeling better?”
“Two hundred percent.”
“That’s good,” she says, bouncing over to give me a little hug. “I missed you yesterday!”
There’s this momentary urge to believe that she dumped Mr. Flower-Wielding Whasisface, that she is single and willing, that this is her begging for it, but what it all comes down to is that she’s just nice.
“Hey,” she adds, “Arthur wants to see you in his office for a sec.”
“Great,” I grumble.
I take my time. First I go into the kitchen, set my stuff down, put on my buddy the Apron of Death and Emasculation. Going up there, it’s dangerous. Who knows what awaits me? What if he, like, tries something again? What if he thinks he’s entitled to, just because he’s where my paychecks come from? Newsflash, Kraft: I’m not that poor.
I climb the rickety staircase, trying not to remember climbing the rickety staircase with Artie all over me. He probably thinks that was, like, our fucking first date or something. Fucking freak.
When I get to the top of the steps, I’m actually shaking. God, this is ridiculous. The fact that a drinker of chamomile can reduce me to this is just – I’ll tell you what it is, it’s untoward. It’s not gonna fly. It ends now. I push the door open in one jerky, decisive movement.
Arthur looks up. “Howie.”
He seems totally caught off-guard and, like, nervous. And hearing him say ‘Howie’ is strange, really strange. I suddenly realize I don’t know if he’s ever called me that before; it was always ‘Howard,’ always annoying as hell, like, what, now that The Thing happened, he’s gonna start being considerate? That’s not even remotely fair.
“Yo,” I say, only I draw it out all awkwardly so it sounds more like ‘yooooo.’ Just awesome. “You wanted to see me?”
“Um,” Arthur says. He’s looking at me dead-on, like he’s forcing himself to do it. God, I wish he would knock it off. I also wish he’d lose his eyelashes in a freak eyelash fire incident. And his lips, too, because all of a sudden I’m looking at them, what is that. “Yes. I thought we should discuss—”
“You mouth-mauling me?” I ask loudly, indignantly, like a tough sonuvabitch who doesn’t want to be mouth-mauled. I make myself meet his eyes. They’re green; I never paid attention before. This really light, interesting, intelligent green—
FUCK, this guy needs to STOP HAVING A FACE.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “That.”
“Explain away, buddy,” I order. I take a seat in the chair opposite him. “I’ve got all day.”
“No you don’t,” Arthur replies crisply. “Kristy will need you back downstairs by nine.”
“I’ve got ‘til nine,” I amend smoothly. “So you just … enlighten me.”
Arthur takes a breath, presses his fingers briefly to his right temple. Then he opens his mouth. “I—”
“Wait,” I say, seized by the sudden need for truth.
He goes obediently silent.
“Do you wear girl chapstick?” I demand.
“No.” He has the nerve to look baffled.
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure.” His forehead wrinkles in confusion.
“Wait, just, hear me out here,” I order, ‘cause I’m not settling for that, no effin’ way. “Nothing that’s, like, called pink-banana-grapefruit, or, I dunno, raspberry fucking surprise, or that – that bee stuff?”
“Pink banana?” he repeats.
“Don’t be a sicko, I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, horrible realization dawning.
“Mean it
like what?” Arthur asks, ‘confused.’
I glower at him. “Like some … gay-ass euphemism or something.”
“Gay-ass,” Arthur repeats, like he’s trying to speak another language.
“That’s not what I meant, Sir Elton, so you can just simmer down.”
“Bananas aren’t pink,” Arthur says, sounding increasingly weary (like that’s gonna fool me). “That was my only issue with what you sa—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I interrupt harshly. “Play innocent, that’s nice, that’s really great, but I just think you should know, dude, you have clearly got some underlying homosexual shit you need to work out, like, stat, and me, I’m not gonna help you with that.”
There’s a long pause.
I like to think it’s the truth sinking in.
“All right,” Arthur says at last.
“I’m straight,” I add, just in case he needs me to, like, draw him a word-picture. “I like ladies. La-dies.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and for some reason, that last word – “la-dies,” dragged out like I’m talking to a two year old – hangs in the air and makes me really uncomfortable.
“I apologize, then,” Arthur says. He doesn’t really seem nervous anymore. Just a little confused. And like he knows something that I don’t, which – false. “I was having a very bad day, those kids got on my last nerve, and you … just so happened to be there. Quite frankly, I was just as surprised as you were that it happened. To be candid …”
He drifts off, like being candid is something that’s gonna hurt my feelings. Yeah right.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I find you obnoxious and fairly insufferable,” Arthur finishes. His eyebrows are a little raised in this ‘you asked for it’ way, and I’m really careful not to let my expression change, because – because screw what he thinks of me! Like I care. I don’t care! Just in case you cared to know. “And kissing you was not something I had ever thought about doing or wanted to do until it actually happened. It was completely, completely spur of the moment. Possibly some sort of hypothermia side-effect.”
“Really?” My voice sounds weird. Hollow. A tiny bit squeaky.
“Yes,” he says – and then, as if the word itself isn’t enough, he gives a brisk nod, too.
So he didn’t want to kiss me? What? Like – like, what, was it not good for him or something? So he comes stomping on in and he violates me – yeah, that’s right, violates me! – and then he doesn’t even have the secretly gay decency to enjoy himself???
“Good,” I manage. I sound pretty chill.
“Yes,” Arthur agrees, utterly calm, like he’s multitasking, like he’s spent this conversation not only dealing with me but also trying to attain nirvana. “Of course, if you want to stop working here, that’s perfectly understandable. In fact, it’s probably the best course of action. My behavior was absolutely inexcusable, even if you didn’t seem bothered at the time—”
“What?” I squawk. “I was bothered. I was bothered all over the fucking place.”
“So you’d like to leave,” Arthur surmises.
All I really want to do is say “Hell yes, moron” and take off in a blaze of glory, but then I remember my mom yesterday.
“No,” I scowl.
“Oh,” Arthur says, looking mildly surprised. “Mind if I ask why?”
“Yeah,” I glower. I sound like a surly eighth grader, but I can’t even care.
“Okay, then,” Arthur says. He sits up a little straighter. His words get a little more clipped. “You should probably get downstairs, and we can just put that little incident behind us.”
“Dandy,” I say, standing up. I kind of want to kick the chair over on my way out, but then he’ll probably fire me.
“Howie?”
I turn around, hand on the doorknob.
“Your apron’s untied,” Arthur informs me serenely.
I stare at him. And just as my brain starts boiling over with thoughts of the ‘Whoa there, you saucy bastard, eyes off’ variety, he gets all goddamn psychic and—
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t – how did you phrase it? Ah yes – working out my underlying homosexual shit on you.” Underneath the loftiness, there is this undeniable, loathsome flicker of amusement. “Just a casual observation.”
And so I achieve the seemingly impossible, and leave feeling even worse than I had going in.
+
“Kristy?” I ask as soon as I get downstairs, because something’s starting to dawn on me. Something that could make me the actual biggest dumbass in the world.
“Yeah?” she asks brightly. “Ooh, how’d it go? I hope he didn’t get mad at you. He was sort of grumpy this morning because I like to get up early and watch exercise tapes, you know, stay in shape! And I thought that maybe it wouldn’t bother him if I just put it on mute and turned on the closed captioning, but I guess I’m a really loud exerciser? So I wound up waking him up, and I sort of kicked him in the face by accident at one point, and—”
“Kristy—”
“Ooh, you want me to tie that for you?” she asks, spotting my untied apron. Without waiting for a reply, she moves behind me and gets to work. “I love bows! Is that dorky? They just make me happy. When my mom taught me how to tie my shoes, it was all I wanted to do for like a week—”
“Kristy, is Arthur gay?” I cut in, hating the weird urgency in my voice.
“Of course he is, silly,” Kristy replies, laughing a little. “What kind of question is that?” Then, slowly, she comes back around to face me. Her mouth is an adorable o of shock. “You mean you didn’t know?”
“No,” I reply stiffly, “I did not.”
“Ohhh!” Kristy exclaims. She reaches over and swats me playfully on the arm. “Yeah, that’s the whole reason I got him to hire you!”
“Because he’s gay?” I ask blankly.
“Noooo,” Kristy says. “Because he and Patrick have been having all these awful problems lately, and to be honest, I’ve never really liked Patrick that much, because he has like the most boring taste in movies ever and he can never take a joke about anything. But Arthur loved him for some reason, so I didn’t want him to be sad, and I thought you were really, really cute! And you’re fun, and you’re so funny, and you obviously have great taste in stuff. And I really thought that Arthur should be with someone like you instead of someone like Patrick. You know, so he can actually get to experience a fun relationship. And I know that it’s not smart to do the whole dating-people-you-work-with thing, especially when it’s your boss, but you were just so sweet, and I really thought it was worth a shot! So.”
“You wanted me to work here,” I say, “so you could set me up with Arthur?”
“Not set you up,” Kristy says, giggling just enough to reveal that, yes, she wanted me to work here so she could set me up with Arthur. “Just … push you in the right direction!”
“Kristy,” I say, because this is the most absolutely important thing that anyone could ever know about me, and therefore it must be said: “I’m not gay.”
“You’re not?” It’s like watching someone find out the tooth fairy’s not real.
“No,” I say. Very, very firmly.
Kristy stares at me for awhile. Then she claps one daintily manicured hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed! I totally thought – I don’t know, I just didn’t really get why a straight guy would want to work at a store like this!”
Amber wins again. Amber wins the whole goddamn world. We, collectively, as the human race, might as well make her our queen.
“Honestly?” I say. It’s not like the truth is gonna hurt me. At this point, it can only help. “To meet girls.”
“Oh, like Cora?” Kristy asks, totally oblivious.
And because I don’t think I can handle any more insanity today – and because she is great, even if she’s got that goddamn boyfriend, and I don’t want her to have to feel bad – I just say, “Yeah.”
“Ohhhh,” Kristy
says. Her eyes are still huge. “Gosh, I can’t believe it! I totally got that one so wrong.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, you did.”
Chapter Seven
You wouldn’t expect it, but stuff gets better after that. If you want to know why, well, it beats me. You’d think that the mess of a conversation in Arthur’s office would send the whole thing spiraling down into new, unparalleled levels of suck, but for some reason, it has the opposite effect. It seems like, after that, we reach some kind of unspoken truce. I’m more than happy to roll with it.
Within a couple days, I can go to work without that pit of dread-slash-unholy-terror in my stomach, and everything sinks into dull, droning, welcome normalcy. I go to work, I wear the apron. I answer the phone “Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts, this is Howie, how may I help you?”, and it doesn’t inspire any vomit or suicide attempts. It’s not so bad.
In fact, it seems like Arthur’s having a tougher time than I am.
For some reason, he’s still crashing at Kristy’s place. One morning he comes in, dead-eyed, and asks me, “Have you heard of Glee?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Ah,” he says faintly.
If he had been any other guy in the world, I would have given him a pat on the shoulder and a “hang in there, buddy,” because he just looks so disturbed that it’s clear he needs it – but, well, as things are, it’s pretty much out of the question.
“You watch a lot of TV, Arthur?” I ask instead.
“No,” Arthur replies, still dazed. “The news, mostly. PBS. The History Channel sometimes. I like Antiques Roadshow.”
Poor sorry bastard.
Know Not Why: A Novel Page 7
