That's Not a Thing

by Jacqueline Friedland

  “Nope.” He twisted the cap off the paint bottle. “Pass me a brush. I just channeled my one summer as a day-camp counselor. I dated the arts-and-crafts counselor that year.”

  “Uh-huh . . .” I looked at him dubiously as he shifted onto his knees and started painting something on the poster. Instead of studying the blue streaks he was making as he leaned across the paper, I found myself watching his form, the fluidity of his movement.

  “Toss me the white. I’ve had a stroke of genius.” I pulled my eyes away from his body to find the proper jar among the art arsenal. As I handed it over, he glanced up at me, and I could see some sort of trepidation in his eyes.

  “So, do you want to talk about your mom?” He looked back at the poster and kept painting, his brush moving rhythmically across the poster board as he waited for my response.

  “Not really.” I plunked myself down perpendicularly on the bare mattress and shifted backward until my shoulders were resting against the wall.

  “But she’s okay for now?” His eyes were focused on the strange shape he was creating. For a second I thought maybe he was making a chef’s hat, but then the shape curved in the wrong direction.

  “Yeah, for now,” I answered. I worried I was being rude, playing it too close to the vest after his multiple attempts to show support throughout the night. But in the hour since I’d left Sloan Kettering, I had been actively struggling to keep images of my mother’s withered body from flashing through my mind, freeze-frame style. Re-hashing everything for Wesley wouldn’t help. I tried to think of what else I could say to show I did appreciate the concern, but then the image on his poster started to take shape beneath his brush.

  “A cruise ship?” I asked, too harshly, as Wesley had unknowingly alighted on a personal trigger point. “You can’t make posters full of cruise ships.” I would not live the remainder of my freshman year surrounded by images of cruises and daily reminders of what had happened the last time my family traveled together.

  “Why not?” He stopped mid-stroke, sounding genuinely confused. “School colors, right? Blue oceans, white ships. And traveling’s not a theme that’s tied to any particular season.”

  “Why can’t you use cruise ships as the dorm motif?” I repeated, trying to rein in my emotions, unwilling to reveal the true reason I was so averse to the concept. “Let me count the ways. First of all, it’s classist. Not everyone at this school can afford exotic vacations. It’s elitist and the antithesis of Columbia’s message. Second of all, cruises are just plain cheesy.”

  “Not if you go on the right cruise ship.”

  “See? There you go again. Uppity.”

  “Uppity?” He laughed. “Real people use that word?”

  “Says the man who used the word woo yesterday,” I countered.

  “Okay, smarty-pants, what is Columbia’s grand message, anyway?” He leaned away from the poster, resting back on his heels, paintbrush in midair.

  “Isn’t it your responsibility as an RA at this fine institution to be aware of that information on your own?” I jumped off the bed and took the brush from his hand. “Honestly, I’m saving you from yourself here. I mean, you’d be better off doing something juvenile like Smurfs. Still the school colors, right? Or one of those cartoon ducks, Donald or Daffy—people might at least enjoy seeing those vestiges of their youth.”

  “If you’re so in touch with the vibe of the student body, then why don’t you come up with a slogan instead, a catchy tagline that makes the hall more welcoming all semester long, just like Karen the SRA wants? Maybe we can work from there.”

  “I don’t know,” I retorted defensively, as I looked down at his half-painted ship. Nasty thoughts about my father’s philandering lurked just beneath my composed exterior, pushing my internal temperature closer to boiling with every second that I considered the image beneath me. “But I do know it shouldn’t be some god-awful quote from the Love Boat theme song.” I flung the paint-brush upward for emphasis and accidentally sent several white droplets splattering onto Wesley’s face. “Oh, shit. Sorry!” I turned around to look for paper towels or a rag. If he was such a crafts whiz, he should have cleanup supplies, too, right? I started toward the box of tissues on the nightstand, but then, suddenly, I felt a powder or something landing on me, particles falling everywhere.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t!” I spun around, crazed. “You dumped glitter on me? Are you kidding me? That shit’s going to stay with me for weeks. Are you insane? You’re dead meat.” I turned back toward the extra bed, where several large salt-shaker containers of silver glitter sat, and I raced toward them.

  “No, no, no!” Wesley lunged toward me in some type of ninja wrestling move. He wrapped his arms around my hips as the top third of my body flopped down on the bare mattress and the rest of me landed on the floor. “No, you don’t!” he declared, holding me in place.

  I was no match for his strength, but he was clearly trying to avoid hurting me, and I used his gentleness to my advantage. I wriggled upward in his hold until my fingers stretched just far enough to reach one container of glitter. I started twisting off the top as he let go of my legs and tried to wrench the bottle away from me. I held fast to my bounty, though, shielding the bottle underneath me and flipping off the cap before he could stop me. I twisted around to where he was crouched over me, pulled out the collar of his sweatshirt, and dumped the entire container’s worth of glitter inside.

  “What?” He actually yelped. “You really just did that? Oh, you’re in for it now.” I was kind of still pinned under him against the bed, and he started reaching behind me for more supplies. I wiggled as best as I could, but he was so much bigger than me that my efforts were useless. He restrained me with his body while he fiddled to open something. I couldn’t imagine what crafty torture it might be, and I kept trying to squirm out from under him before he took his revenge. Suddenly, I felt him pushing something against my forehead.

  “What? What did you do?” I was laughing and wriggling and clueless.

  Wesley was laughing too, as he pulled back his hand and shouted, “Boo-yah! You’ve been marked.” He held out his hand and showed me what he was holding: a small, square stamper that he had pushed against my forehead.

  “You marked me? With what? It better not be a raunchy picture!”

  He looked at my forehead with a bit of surprise, appearing almost stricken for a second, and then erupted in a fit of laughter again. “No!” He climbed off me as he surrendered to his guffaws, loudly and with glee. I held my hand against my forehead, but I felt only glitter and a bit of residual wetness from the ink. “No!” He wheezed out the word through his laughs as he said it again, doubling over to rest his hands on his thighs like he couldn’t catch his breath.

  I shot off the bed and ran to the little rectangular mirror in the corner of the room. I looked at my refection: glitter all over my face, my hair, my ears, and a big blue letter in the middle of my forehead.

  “M?” I whirled around to face Wesley. “Like, for Meredith? Why is that so funny?” I demanded, as I wiped some sparkling flakes away from my eye.

  “Um, M for . . . mishap, or mistake? Or my bad? I did it so wrong.” He laughed at himself. “Total fail. I meant to mark you with a W for Wesley. Ha. M for mangled manhandling; missed maneuver.” He was still laughing as I rubbed at the ink, trying to determine how difficult it would be to remove from my face.

  “It’s not so funny, you know,” I griped at him. “I have a friggin’ letter in the middle of my face. How about M as in mad? Or, if you still prefer the letter W, I can stand on my head and say what, as in what the fuck?”

  Wesley just laughed harder at my outrage, and I felt my lips twitching despite myself.

  “This ink better be washable. I can’t walk around with a letter on my forehead, whatever it’s for. Can you just . . . can we just find something to get it off, please?”

  “Sure,” he answered, clamping his lips together, clearly trying to stifle remaining laughter. “Just let m
e deal with this for a sec.” He pulled off his sweatshirt, revealing a fitted white T-shirt underneath. He pulled at the T-shirt a few times, shaking it out, and a shower of glitter fell out from the bottom. Seeing the fruits of my resistance did make me feel a little better. He was definitely going to be finding glitter in all his nooks and crannies for days to follow.

  He tossed the sweatshirt onto the bare mattress and then went to the cabinet at the back of the room, where he pulled out a gray washcloth and a large pump full of hand sanitizer.

  I became momentarily distracted by the Purell. “That’s an awfully large bottle of hand sanitizer. Are you a germophobe?”

  “Not even a little,” he answered, as he pumped some sanitizer onto the washcloth. “With all the cooking, I’ve gotten a little compulsive about keeping my hands clean. Plenty dirty everywhere else, though.” His cheeks were still flushed from all the laughing. He walked over to me and raised the washcloth to wipe at the letter.

  “I can do it,” I said, reaching for the cloth.

  “I’ve got it,” he answered, pulling his hand back and looking down at me. “But I’m reluctant to get rid of that cute little letter, now that I’ve thought it through. The M kind of works for me.” He paused as he stepped a little closer. “M as in mine.” He looked down at me, and suddenly it was as if all the oxygen had vanished from the room and left only a charged energy in its place. “There’s only one problem,” he said as he moved a strand of my hair off my cheek and pushed it behind my ear.

  “What’s that?” I looked up at him as the room beyond him began to blur.

  “How can I call you mine before I’ve even kissed you?”

  And then his lips were on mine. His face had kind of crashed into me before easing up, like it had come in for a landing where it belonged. I could feel the heat of his full lips against my own, pushing. Then I was opening my mouth, and his tongue was gliding over my bottom lip, into my mouth. As I closed my eyes and breathed him in, I was vaguely aware of glitter falling all around us, as if we were figurines inside our very own snow globe. Wesley overwhelmed my senses as he cupped the back of my head with one hand and used his body to push me backward until I was up against the wall. I could feel the length of him against me, could smell his soap or shampoo, something clean and spicy. As his tongue darted into my mouth over and over, I was glad of the wall behind me to help support me, since my legs didn’t seem to be working properly.

  He moaned into my mouth, and the gravelly noise thrummed through my entire body. Suddenly, I was too hot; it was too much. I pushed against his chest, and he pulled away from me, surprised.

  “What? Are you okay?” His words were breathy.

  “Yeah, no. I just . . .” I didn’t even know what to say. “It was just more than I expected. The whole thing of it. You just . . .” I stalled, confused by my own reaction.

  Wesley waited, one of his hands still resting against the wall beside my head.

  “I guess you scare me,” I said.

  Wesley’s eyes opened wide, and he took a big step back from me, as he seemed to struggle for a response.

  “No, not like that,” I huffed. “Not like I’m afraid for my safety. This just feels really intense, and I’m not sure if I should be doing intense.”

  He started to nod slowly, like he was trying to digest what I’d said, to process it. “So, you’re scared because it’s too good?” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweats.

  “Yeah, I guess. There’s just a lot going on in my life right now, and I’m not sure I have the capacity to handle whatever this is becoming.”

  “Why sell yourself short before you’ve even tried? Why not see if I can prove you have greater capacities than you’ve ever realized?”

  I picked up the washcloth from where he had dropped it on the floor while his hands had been all over me. I didn’t respond as I turned toward the mirror to start wiping at my forehead and thinking over what he had said. Did I want to do this? I hadn’t expected to shut him down, but the size of the feelings he evoked in me were more than I had bargained for. Still, maybe it would be nice to have another person to support me while I dealt with all my family concerns.

  “How about,” he continued from behind me, “if M is for maybe? Or you could go back into headstand mode and say W is for why not . . .” He waited for my response.

  The hand sanitizer was working wonders on the ink on my forehead, and I quickly finished wiping off the remnants of the letter. The glitter, on the other hand, looked like it was going to be a long-term project to remove. I wasn’t sure how to answer Wesley. I could already tell that if it ever came down to it, removing a guy like him from my soul would turn into a long-term project, too.

  Chapter Eight

  January 2017

  When Aaron walks into my apartment on Sunday night following his thirty-six-hour shift at the hospital, I decide to tell him that I’m ready to move in together.

  “You are?” he asks as he takes off his wool jacket and hangs it on the bright pink coat tree that he and I bought at a SoHo street fair last year. He is justifiably surprised after the extreme resistance I put forth mere days ago. I’m obviously not going to tell him that my new enthusiasm has anything to do with a concerted desire to marginalize Wesley, to make my relationship with Aaron stronger than ever before.

  “I called the management company already, and they said I can break my lease with twenty-one days’ notice.” I’m nearly gloating as I flop down on the couch and sit cross-legged, waiting for him to join me. I am decidedly satisfied with my take-charge approach to solidifying our relationship.

  “I’m not sure it’s a great idea.” His response surprises me. “Hang on.”

  He disappears into my tiny kitchen, and I hear bottles clinking in the fridge. A moment later, he rematerializes with two open bottles of IPA in his hand and makes his way to the coffee table, where he sits down on the wooden surface, facing me.

  “A few days ago, you were adamantly opposed.” He hands me one of the beers, takes a long sip of his, and continues. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to share my place with you, but not if a part of you still thinks it’s too soon.” He takes my free hand and runs his thumb against the glittering princess-cut diamond in my engagement ring. “We have a long future ahead of us, so there’s no need to rush.”

  Yes, there is a need to rush. But I can’t say that. I can’t say that I’m afraid that if I have too much space, I will be thinking about Wesley during all the moments when I should be thinking of Aaron.

  “I want to. I don’t want you to have to schlep to my apartment after your long shifts downtown anymore. I love the idea of seeing you more. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I know what I’m saying, and, quite frankly, I’m getting totally seduced by the thought of your bigger bathroom. I mean, that tub alone . . .” I raise my eyebrows.

  Aaron studies me, his dark eyes searching my own, making sure I mean it. He knows I can be impulsive, and I appreciate him for pushing, for verifying that I’ve thought this through. He leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees, as he lets the beer bottle dangle next to his leg. He’s taller than Wesley, and broader, naturally muscular, built like the linebacker he once was. I realize that I’m comparing him to Wesley again, like I used to do when we first met, and I give myself a mental demerit for bad behavior. I have to do better. I will.

  “How was the soup kitchen?” he asks, changing the subject.

  “Ugh.” I stand and go to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of grapes, even though I’m not hungry.

  “What? I know you used to love that place,” he calls from his post on the coffee table. “Is it so different?”

  “No, there were just, well . . .” I hear the hiss of the refrigerator seal snapping back into place as I walk back toward the couch, “It was unexpected, but Wesley was there.”

  “Wesley Latner? The Wesley?”

  “He started some sort of job training program up there a couple of months ago. We didn�
��t actually see each other, but it seems he is going to be a presence at Community Kitchen for the foreseeable future.” I drop onto the denim sofa, leaning back as I prop my feet on Aaron’s wide lap.

  “You’re right—unexpected.” Aaron takes another long sip of his beer, and I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows. “Must be uncomfortable.” He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, like he’s the one who’s uneasy. “But you can’t let him take something from you that you were excited about. It’s been a long time, and the awkwardness will dissipate eventually.” He’s silent for a moment, running his thumb over his bottom lip, and I can tell he has more to say. “Want me to go with you next week?”

  “For real?” I ask, totally unsure how to respond.

  He shrugs. “I’m not on call. I’m not opposed to spending my Sunday engaged in a charitable endeavor. Especially if you wear tight pants.” He grabs one of my feet and squeezes, his hand cold from the beer bottle.

  “Sure,” I answer, trying to keep my voice from sounding weak. “That would be great.” And definitely not awkward. Not awkward at all.

  THE NEXT MORNING at work, I’m the first one to set up shop in the conference room. I’m hoping our document review team can get through the remaining boxes by midafternoon, and then I can return to Moe’s case file. Aaron couldn’t sleep last night, despite having spent one and a half diurnal cycles at the hospital. Sometimes it takes several additional hours before his post-surgery adrenaline rush dwindles sufficiently to allow for solid sleep, so he stayed up, collecting articles for me. I now have a stack of reports on the different escape routes from Myanmar and the cramped conditions in Thai refugee camps. I want to read through these materials today, and I’m also hoping to review the information that the country conditions expert sent about the Burmese militia.

  I head back to the seat I occupied on Friday, where a pile of papers eighteen inches high sits on the conference table awaiting me. I start flipping through the muddled collection of documents, which the defendant clearly randomized intentionally. Instead of one organized pile of accounting files, for example, what I have here is a receipt for a networking lunch, followed by two pages of marketing materials, followed by a single page out of the employee handbook, followed by a low-level employee’s nearly illegible handwritten driving directions, followed by one page of a tax return. As I turn each useless page, irritated by the defendant’s blatant tactics to obfuscate information, I place the reviewed pages facedown, starting another pile next to the first.