The Fix

by Kristin Rouse

  Me: It won’t freaking stop snowing here. My ice scraper actually snapped in half this morning. This winter shit is for the birds.

  Juliana: I’m going to be truly magnanimous and not tell you that I went to the beach yesterday. Oops.

  Me: You’re killing me.

  Juliana: You were the guy who was convincing Anja all day that the snow would make her wedding pictures prettier. And they did! Why bitch about the snow now?

  Me: Because my ice scraper snapped in half this morning. Pay attention.

  Juliana: I can’t. I’m too busy sunbathing.

  Me: I thought we were supposed to be friends.

  Juliana: We are.

  Me: So why are you trying to kill me?

  Juliana: Oh… Is it working? ;)

  Me: Sorry. I couldn’t answer because I’m dead.

  Juliana: I’m looking forward to seeing all this snow that’s chapping your ass so much. I miss it, sometimes.

  Me: I miss the sunshine. Bring the sunshine with you, please. And hurry.

  Juliana: I’ll do my best. Anything else I should bring?

  Me: No, you and the sunshine are more than adequate.

  Juliana: Me?

  Me: …yeah, you.

  Juliana: No coffee?

  Me: No, the coffee goes without saying.

  I become that person habitually checking my phone between sessions at work, scrolling through message chains on my break while I puff down cigarettes in my car, holding up traffic at red lights because her name has just flashed over my screen, and I can’t wait until I pull up to my destination to figure out what charming thing she might have typed into an email or text message. I have the traffic ticket to prove this one—I’ve gotten better since then, as much as seeing her name on my screen still thrills me.

  Me: So should I get you Post-Its for Christmas? Anja says they make recycled paper ones now.

  Juliana: I know they do. I’ll never say no to them. Are you sure you don’t want to give me a massage for Christmas?

  Me: I told you… I don’t work on people I know. It’s a boundary thing for me.

  Juliana: You wouldn’t make a tiny exception for me?

  Me: Sorry.

  Juliana: Mean. I just want to know what all the fuss is about.

  Me: You’ll have to come up with something else for me to get you.

  Juliana: I’m sure I’ll think of something.

  I find myself wishing I sat at a desk, double computer monitors in front of me, a tablet in my lap, my phone ever at the ready, because then I’d be able to respond as quickly as she does to my own rambling messages.

  Juliana: But just to clarify—you’re looking forward to seeing me?

  Me: Pretty sure I’ve told you as much before.

  Juliana: Interesting. Since you’re seeing me as a friend.

  Me: What? It’s interesting that I don’t have many friends?

  Juliana: That isn’t what I said.

  Me: What, pray tell, did you say?

  Juliana: Nothing, friend. I’m looking forward to seeing you, too.

  ***

  That must be how I end up picking her up at the airport two weeks later. I’d like to say she suckered me into it with pretty words and promises in our emails, but I was the one who offered. Mama A mentioned that she’d pulled a shift when Juliana was due in, and I volunteered so quickly I think I made Mama dizzy. She didn’t mention it to Mattias or Lukas, but she smirked at me in this funny way of hers. I might be dense, but I’m definitely not transparent.

  Since I don’t mention it to Mattias, Anja has no way of knowing. I feel pretty bad keeping something like this from my sponsor. I try to tell myself it’s just not that big a deal, and that it really doesn’t mean anything. But I’m pretty sure I’m wrong and have no interest in being right.

  I chain-smoke out to the airport, and decide to park and go inside and meet her on the other side of customs. I tell myself it’s better for the atmosphere to park and kill the engine than sit in the cell phone lot with it idling in freezing temperatures. She’s an environmental engineer, so that makes a difference to her, right?

  I’m humoring myself and I know it. Really, I’m just eager to see her. I’m hoping for another hug like that last time, where she melted against me. I want a few extra minutes to see if the emails we’ve exchanged actually mean something, or if she’s really as content with ‘just friends’ as I claim to be. Try as I might, I don’t want to think of Juliana as a friend.

  I know I’m totally screwed when it comes to this girl. At least I didn’t bring flowers or anything. Shit. Should I have brought flowers?

  I don’t really do waiting well. It gives me too much time to think, and when I think, I think about drinking. More immediately, I think about drinking and about what I’m going to do when I see Juliana come through the customs gate.

  I try to tell myself again that my feelings were situational. It was a while ago that I saw her, and it was all under very highly charged emotional activity. It was a wedding, for crying out loud—aren’t people supposed to feel all mushy and romantic during weddings? Maybe I was just reacting to that part of the weekend, and the little crush I developed was nothing more than that. Of course, that explanation doesn’t settle the pounding in my chest that I feel every time her name pops up on my phone or email box, never mind the thudding my heart is doing right now as I wait.

  I start pacing for lack of anything better to do. Maybe this is too personal, too much like something a boyfriend would do. Do I have time to run back out to my car, pay for the obligatory hour, and circle around like I was waiting in the cell phone lot the whole time?

  But I don’t—she’s right there. And whatever I felt two months ago at the wedding wasn’t a fleeting crush. Seeing her stepping out of the customs double doors brings everything back that I’ve been trying to ignore since the last time I saw her, everything I’ve been trying to ignore with every typed exchange between us since. I’d nearly succeeded, too, but she’s too much goodness for me to ever really shake her. I’m already realizing that I don’t want to.

  There’s no time to debate with myself further about how precarious this situation I’ve gotten myself into is before she’s right in front of me. She smiles, and her dimples gut me like they did that first morning. My arms open and she steps into them. She fits like she did before. That isn’t normal, right? A girl isn’t supposed to fit into your arms until you know her, until you’ve proclaimed something and have a shot in hell of being anything other than two people in a glorious mess.

  She steps back, and I notice for the first time her lips are glossy, like she’s trying to draw attention to them. Kissing her is out of the question. It has to be out of the question. This moment and a handful of others over the next ten days is all we’re going to be allowed. Getting attached would be almost as bad as walking into a bar.

  Since I have to do something, I lean forward and peck to her cheek. I’m close enough to smell cherries or raspberries latent in her lip gloss. When I pull away again, her smile is a little less enthusiastic, but no less lovely.

  “Hey, Ezra,” she says, brushing the back of her hand against mine.

  “Hi, Jules. Good flight?”

  “Fine. But I’m glad to have landed.”

  Yeah, I think. I’m glad you did, too.

  ***

  I’m wickedly glad that it’ll be hours before anyone else will be off work. I want as much time alone with Juliana as I can get. I’m glad to get it before she becomes completely preoccupied with her family and I have to bow out and pretend I’m not a puppy following behind her, hoping for affection and attention.

  It’s different, though. I don’t know if it’s the emails or it’s us picking up from where we left off. She’s still good-natured and easy to talk to, but there’s something to say for proximity—and now we have it. When we go for coffee to keep her awake after the lengthy flight, she leans across the table and looks straight into my eyes. When we get back to Mama A’s, we s
it together on the couch, our knees scant inches from one another. It sends a dangerous sort of thrill through me knowing I can reach out and touch her whenever I want to. So I do. I look for excuses to brush her hand or wipe an eyelash off her cheek. She doesn’t stop me, not once.

  Then there’s this: I’ve realized when I’m with Juliana I don’t want a drink the way I usually do. I still crave regularly at work. I get shaky and short-tempered with my coworkers between sessions, I silently mock and make faces at the back of some of my more demanding client’s heads, and I need cigarettes or a rub of my chips to calm me down. As soon as I leave her, though, I can tell there is a massive difference in how I felt when I was sitting on the couch talking about anything and nothing with her, and how I feel after. It’s Wednesday, and I’ll be expected back for dinner. By then I imagine Juliana will have told Anja how she got home, and I’ll have some explaining to do. I take a few minutes for myself at home to think about what I’ll say and what everything means. But mostly I think about how, for three whole hours, I didn’t think about drinking, not even once.

  Anja catches me outside before I even come in. She’s got a cigarette pack in her hand and her coat buttoned up to her throat, so I know we’ll be having A Talk.

  “I thought you said you were telling her you weren’t interested?” Anja says, a sharp eyebrow nearly hitting her hairline. This is her ‘significant look,’ and when it’s directed at me, I feel about as small as one of her kindergartners.

  “I wasn’t going to tell her that because it isn’t true. We’ve just been talking, and it helped Mama A out to pick her up. That’s it.”

  “Really? That’s not the impression I get,” Anja says. She lets me light up for us, then blows smoke out of her nostrils in a huff.

  “I just figured spending a little more time with her wouldn’t really hurt anything. You know—as friends.”

  Anja rolls her head from side to side. “Ezra, getting attached to someone like this might not be the best idea.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I definitely don’t mean to sound as defensive as I do. “I recognize this is crap timing. But addiction aside, I am a big boy. And besides, when was the last time I told you I was thinking of drinking? Ages, right? Before the wedding, maybe. That’s progress, isn’t it?”

  “It is. Of course it is. I can’t tell you what to do. But I’m your friend and she’s my sister-in-law. I don’t want to see either of you hurt if it doesn’t work out.”

  “There’s nothing there to ‘work out.’ It’s just… time. Together.”

  We finish our cigarettes in silence, but I’m quick to light us seconds.

  “I won’t fuck anything up on purpose, I promise,” I whisper. “She deserves better than that.”

  “You both deserve better than that.” She says it like she’s exasperated she has to. I have a hard time accepting that I deserve anything good at all. But it’s sort of Anja’s job to say those kinds of things.

  Juliana pokes her head out the door the next second. “You done polluting your lungs yet, sis—? Oh. Hey, Ezra.”

  Anja scans back and forth between the two of us, her large eyes saying everything she either can’t or won’t.

  “Yeah, I’m all finished,” she says, tossing the tail end of her cigarette in the ashtray. When she looks at me, I’m not sure if she’s expecting me to do the same thing or not.

  “I’ve got a few drags still,” I say, holding up my own.

  “Well hurry it up. Dinner’s ready and it smells amazing.” Juliana stands aside so Anja can slip past her, and the door closes again behind them both. I feel a little disappointed that Juliana didn’t stay out here with me, didn’t come near enough for a hug or even a kiss on the cheek. Maybe I shouldn’t expect things like that with us yet. Or at all.

  We’re seated next to one another at dinner. All I want to do is grab her hand under the table like a middle school kid at lunchtime. I wonder if I did if she’d grab it back.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I don’t see Juliana much after that first day until closer to Christmas, nor did I really expect to. Alcoholics might be vapid narcissists, but I hold no delusions that she came here to see me and me alone. So I mush on about my life—work, AA, home. Lather, rinse, repeat—and try not to think too hard about Juliana sleeping in a bed a few miles from my own. Mama A will be hosting her annual Christmas party a few days before the holiday. I decide not to hold out too much hope of spending much time with her then, either, as I’ve been told the party is basically a reunion of every person the Almeidas have ever met. And besides, I’ll likely stick close to Anja out of both preference and necessity. There will be booze at the party—she and I can’t be expected to change that—and the temptation for both of us will be huge. For the two of us, it’s hang together or risk self-destruction.

  I’m half-asleep in a comfortable, awkward position on my futon, lucidly dreaming about Juliana in place of the female protagonist in the Netflix show on my TV when a knock on my door wakes me. I glance at the clock on my stove when I go to answer, and register that it’s nearly midnight. It’s been a long time since I’ve had unexpected late-night visitors. When I see Juliana through the peephole, I press down the panic of late-night disturbances, though I gape at the general mess that is my apartment. Still, I can’t just not answer. It’s her.

  “Hey, is everything okay?” I ask her as I shield my messy apartment from her view.

  Her face brightens when she sees me. I swear I’m not just seeing things, it really happens. “Everything’s fine. I know it’s crazy-late, but Mama has been driving me crazy all day and I just… Oh God, were you asleep?”

  “No!” I say, too quickly. “Just dozing. I work until closing on Tuesdays so I don’t really settle in until late.”

  “Good” she says, and there’s an almost wicked smile on her face. She bends and picks up a large bag at her feet. “Because I managed to find a Chinese place that stays open later than ten, which is impressive and terrifying all at once. You like Chinese, right?”

  “Yeah, I love it, but….” I chance a glance behind me and try to decide how to best explain how my apartment looks. There are dishes in the sink, but I’d at least rinsed them before leaving them. The litter box is fine and the trash is relatively empty, but things are definitely messy. I apparently also need to pay better attention to the potted plants I keep on my windowsill.

  “I really want to invite you in, Jules, but my place is kind of….”

  She mock-gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t live in pristine conditions at all times? Are you trying to imply I might see an overturned shoe or stray sock? However will my delicate sensibilities handle such a thing?”

  She grins, and there’s that wink/bat thing again. I laugh in spite of myself, then rub my jaw and sort of half-hang my head. “It’s definitely worse than that.”

  “I really don’t mind, Ezra. I know I’m popping by unannounced. I just really needed to get out of my house for a while. But if you’re not up to company and it’s too late, I can just….”

  The last thing I do is want her to leave. “Come in. I’m really sorry about the mess.”

  I take the take-out bag from her and send her straight into the living room, hoping she’ll bypass looking at the kitchen altogether. She walks straight past my laundry baskets piled near the coffee table and plops down on the one part of the couch not covered by pillows or blankets (or my coat, or hell, even my mail). “It’s not that terrible,” she says. “Do you not celebrate Christmas?”

  “No, I do.”

  “You don’t have a tree up.”

  “I haven’t really gotten around to it.”

  “It’s in five days.”

  “Yeah… I figured I’ll be other places or at work, so it’s not like I’ll be doing any celebrating here.” I open the containers one after another. It’s pungent, spice-scented music to my nose after three days of cold cereal and toast.

  “G
et me a scoop of everything, will you?” she says before I even ask. “You don’t get a lot of good Chinese food in Sao Paolo, so I went a little nuts. Make as big oa plate for yourself as you want, if you’re hungry.”

  I spoon two heaping plates and bring them to the couch. I move to set hers down on the coffee table when the cat jumps up onto it and mewls at her pathetically.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had a cat,” she says with a gasp.

  “You’re not allergic, are you?”

  “No, not at all,” she says, then leans forward and rubs her fingers together. The cat stalks towards her and allows Juliana to rub between her ears for a few seconds before scampering off to hide.

  “She’s pretty skittish. Want anything to drink?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  I set my plate down while she tucks in and head back to the kitchen. My kettle is the quick-boiling kind, so I’m back in the living room, a mug of peppermint and chamomile tea in either hand, before she’s even half of the way through her plate.

  She smiles as she chews, and holds her hand over her mouth to talk. “It’s not half bad. Better than you can get in Brazil. Hence why I’m making a pig of myself.”

  I want to tell her it’s quite charming, and even kind of sexy, to see a woman who enjoys eating. I think again of how I snuck peeks at her that first brunch, at the reception, the other night at dinner, and studied her lips and jaw as they moved. I don’t say as much, because that’s probably creepy at best. “I have a brother who played football in high school. If I didn’t eat fast, he’d steal stuff off my plate. You’re positively delicate in comparison.”

  “Mat and Luk, too!” She laughs and takes the peppermint tea. “Cheers. Thanks for letting me escape here, despite the hour.”

  “Anytime,” I say before shoving my fork in my mouth.

  She looks around between bites. “So is this a studio, or….”

  “No, my bedroom is through there. Work has been sort of tiring the last week or so, so I’ve been crashing out here where there’s a TV, falling asleep to Netflix.”