by Bethny Ebert
Christ. Evidently the entire world conspired in his favor this evening. Too bad it was under false pretenses.
Man in love. Hah.
Nick took the money anyway. No sense in morality when dealing with the uncouth. He walked back to the kitchen with two armfuls of dishes, vowing to mop all the floors as penance for that thought. He and Brooke were going to eat like royalty after work.
“Potatoes au gratin, if you would, Sir!” a blonde woman yelled after him. She wasn’t the best actress. Her accent kept switching countries throughout the night.
“On it!” he yelled back.
In the kitchen, Polly Larson leaned over a pile of diced vegetables, carving little shapes into the chopping board with her paring knife and looking depressed. She sighed heavily, turning to face him. Polly was the boss’s daughter. She knew everything about running the kitchen, and she hated everyone who worked there. Frasquita told Nick that long ago, Polly wanted to be an Olympic runner, but then her boyfriend shoved her around too much and she couldn’t run anymore.
“Nick, you’re not supposed to wear your apron on the floor,” Polly said.
“My bad.”
He scraped the dishes and stacked them in the sink, filling it with water and soap. He sprayed the hot water hose. It took forever – you rinsed everything, let it soak, then ran it all through the hot water dishwasher. The water steamed. About the same temperature used to boil lobsters. When it was done, the dishes were immaculate. It was strangely satisfying.
Although a converted Buddhist, Nick enjoyed the Catholic tradition of hard work and punishment through sanitation. Considering his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, his gayness was an ironic turn of fate.
He hated sex, though. Well, maybe he’d never done it yet, but he hated it just the same. Society’s obsession with sexuality got on his nerves. Everyone acted like it was the greatest thing in the world, bedding someone who didn’t give a rat’s ass about your emotional well-being, spewing some fluids and ruining the sheets unless you were fast enough to do the laundry before the stains set in. That wasn’t love. It was gross. What’s more, it lacked moral commitment. It didn’t mean anything.
Nick could stay a virgin forever. Most of the men he knew were kind of stupid.
There was somebody, though. His boyfriend, sort of, he supposed. At seventeen and fifteen, they still hadn’t done it. Maybe they never would. His love life, if you could call it that, demanded secrecy.
Most of the punks figured it out anyway when they started holding hands at shows. They didn’t really give a shit one way or the other. Tons of people experimented with being gay in the punk scene. Shock value, mostly. It freaked people out.
It was his parents, really. What would they say? They liked Parker, because he was calm and smart and good, but they didn’t know about the two of them. One time, his mother told Nick that she was glad his friend Parker was a good influence, but he was so nice and why didn’t he have a girlfriend? They had a good laugh over that.
His older sister Brooke always managed to steal the spotlight, given her 4.0 grade-point average, guitar talent, and recent brush with the law. An off-duty police officer caught her on Dagwood Street, falling-down drunk, arm-in-arm with a well-known graduate student, the journalist son of a political representative, shamelessly canoodling with him and her best friend Elizabeth Ericksen.
Scandal.
The incident led to a citation. The officer was vague in the written ticket, but it amounted to public intoxication, underage drinking, a fake ID, and too much swearing.
Their parents were beside themselves with disappointment. Their only daughter. How embarrassing.
Right.
If they ever really paid any attention to either of them, they would have noticed she’d been getting free whiskey at Smelly’s Tavern nearly every time her band did a gig there. Smelly’s never checked for ID. Pete, the bartender, said that ID cards were a tool of the oppressor.
Good old Brooke. A regular barrel of laughs, that one. Bartenders loved her. Concert-goers were enamored with her. Not to mention the whole Trevor issue. Life was a constant plea for attention with her, but Nick was the only one who seemed to catch on. All of it was fake.
Brooke was hard to live with. At the same time, Nick couldn’t imagine life without her. She was fiercely overprotective of him and Parker both. If anyone ever gave them shit she had no problem exacting her revenge.
He wasn’t sure how his parents were going to respond when he eventually told them. It was entirely possible they were more open-minded than regular parents. All that Cultural-Anth training. Then again, you never really knew how a person would respond until that pivotal moment.
They were so busy. On those infrequent occasions when they were both home, dinner was more about “listen to this fascinating trivia regarding the West African marriage system! And now let us discuss our adventures studying the mountain people of Tibet!” and not so much about feelings or accomplishments or anything Nick-related.
Nick focused his attention back to work. “Potatoes au gratin,” he barked, feeling like a drill sergeant with influenza. His lungs still felt tired from the woman’s damned perfume.
“Yeah, yeah,” Frasquita said, leaning over a bubbling pot of split pea soup, adding bacon bits and a dash of pepper. She made a grab for the farmer’s cheese. “In a minute.”
“It’s cool,” Nick said. Frasquita hated being rushed with her cooking. A woman had to take time with such things, she liked to tell him. Can’t hurry perfection.
“When you leaving tonight, mijo?” she asked.
“Um…” He searched his brain for an estimated time and came up with nothing. He probably had to stay late. Even after two full courses of food, the dinner party showed no signs of slowing. “’Bout eleven, I guess.”
“I should pee in the pea soup.” She had a crooked tooth that showed when she smiled, which was always. “Fuckers.”
They laughed. Rich people sucked.
Chapter three
October 2010
“Fuck!” Nick said. He punched the loaf of wheat bread into the counter, then immediately regretted his mistake. The bread, a 2.99 loaf, looked sunken-in and defeated, like a melted candle. “Damn it.”
He glared at the bags of groceries, all seven of them. So much food. All that money.
God.
He just needed a break. The second he got home today, he had to make a grocery run because everyone else forgot. Then he was stuck putting groceries away alone.
Not to mention the phone call.
“What’s wrong?” his roommate Alex Dhenke asked, peering at him from the narrow doorway that connected the living room to the kitchen. “Is everything okay?”
Nick shook his head. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling agitated. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” Alex said. He sat at the kitchen table, tossing a dim smile at the apples and mini-pumpkins in the wicker basket. “You get any squash? Did you know Hershey’s Kisses has pumpkin flavor? Isn’t that neat? I like pumpkins.”
Nick ignored him. He shuffled through the grocery bags and got the majority of their contents into the fridge and cupboards. He furrowed his brow, concentrating only on the motion. Ritual. Meditative. Work.
Alex scowled at Nick, crossing his arms and leaning with his elbows on the table. Mr. and Mrs. Dhenke beat him when he was younger, from the sound of it, so he spent a good part of his youth sleeping outside, or at shelters and hotels. At nineteen, he was the youngest roommate. Nick suspected his immature behavior helped him cope. He couldn’t hate him, but it got pretty annoying after a while.
Alex dug through his backpack, sandy hair in his eyes. He sighed in an exaggerated way.
Nick stopped moving for a while, regarding his roommate. “You want to help me put these away?”
“Sure,” Alex said, and just like that it was over. He wore his moodiness like a favorite old coat, shrugging in and out of it at will. As Nick unloaded more groc
eries, Alex arranged the cans of beans and corn in a row on the counter. “You know, if the world ever ends, they say you’re supposed to get non-perishables. Do you think these are non-perishable?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Nick said. “Beans are pretty weather-resistant.”
“Okay.”
Nick dug the garlic bread out of a forgotten grocery bag. “My sister called just now, to let me know she’s coming to visit. She didn’t ask for permission. I think she expects the house to be permanent crash space.”
Alex nodded.
“We haven’t spoke in years,” Nick added.
Alex nodded again. He didn’t say anything.
“Score! Yeah!” Parker yelled from the living room. “Who’s the greatest? Oh, I think that would be me.”
“Oh, come on,” Austin said. “You cheated.”
“B.S., man. You can’t cheat at Tekken.”
“Well, if there was a way to cheat at Tekken, you’d figure it out,” Austin said.
“You’re just mad because you lost.”
“Am not.”
“Yeah, right,” Parker said. “Would you be whining like a little bitch if you won?”
At that, Austin left the living room and headed to the kitchen, hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie. Except for his scraggly beard, he was almost handsome with his shaggy mess of brown hair and layered clothing, the hoodie worn over the beat-up flannel shirt. His posture was slouched, and he wore Doc Martens on his feet. Since moving in, Austin quickly proved himself reliable with budgeting and rent money, and he pitched in on chores when he remembered, but he had a depressing sort of focus on his ex-girlfriend. It was hard to snap him out of it.
“Couldn’t take the heat?” Alex chided. His brown eyes glinted, a laughing sort of quiet.
Austin shook his hair out of his face. “I want a beer.” He rummaged in the fridge and procured a can of Budweiser from its place on the fridge-door-shelf. He opened the tab, letting it hiss slightly before opening it completely, then dipped his head back to drink.
He belched.
Nick leaned over the kitchen sink, damp hair stuck to the back of his neck. He stared out the kitchen window, letting the fall breeze hit his skin. It cooled him off. At some point he’d have to close the window in preparation for the winter months, but the scent of autumn bonfires felt more important at present.
He wondered what Brooke was up to on the East Coast. Why would she visit now, after so many years? Had she dropped out of school? Her voice on the phone, so unfamiliar. She might as well have been a telemarketer.
Alex sat at the kitchen table, poking at an organic burrito with a plastic fork. He had a crush on one of the girls who worked at the health food store and was beginning to develop an interest in veganism.
Nick and Alex sighed at the same time.
“Jeez, why so serious?” Austin said. “You look like Firefly just got cancelled.”
“Firefly got cancelled a long time ago,” Nick said. He stared out into the distance, feeling old.
“Homo.” Austin slurped at his beer.
Nick didn’t respond.
“You are way too quiet, man.”
“You remember my sister?” Nick asked.
Austin scratched at the back of his neck. “Uh… vaguely. You guys gave me a ride to that concert way back when, but we never actually talked.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, massaging his temples. His head hurt all of a sudden. “She just called to announce her upcoming visit. She’ll be staying with us for like a week.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” Austin said. He dug in the fridge again. “Did you buy any hot dogs?”
“No,” Nick said. “It’s not cool. It’s extremely uncool. Brooke never keeps her word. Sure, she says she’ll only stay for a week, but before you know it, she’ll move right back in. She thinks my house is the Hampton Hotel? Fuck that. I’m a dishwasher, not a hotel guy.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I can’t stand this. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” He opened the fridge, letting the cold air hit his face. He shut the refrigerator door, then opened it and closed it a few times. Repetition calmed his nerves.
Parker strutted into the kitchen, looking smug and adorable in his black Dragon Ash t-shirt and faded thrift store Levi’s. He looked good in everything. Possibly Nick was biased on that issue.
Parker pointed a finger at Austin’s chest. “You, sir,” he said, “are a sore loser.”
Austin slammed his beer back. “Round two,” he said. “I’ll win it, then you’ll be the loser.”
“I doubt it, but okay.” Parker grinned, tucking a strand of black hair behind his ear. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and a can of Budweiser from the fridge. He poured the beer into the glass. Nick could tell he was hungry from the way he stared at the beer foam, trying to form bread from distilled grain. “Name your stakes.”
Austin thought about it. “Whoever wins takes Nick’s sister on a date when she comes to visit.”
“What?” Parker said.
“Nooooooo,” Nick whined.
“Is she coming back?” Parker said, and Nick nodded meekly. “No way! Dude! Holy shit!” Parker grabbed Nick by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, their faces almost touching. “Princess Brooke, my favorite person, returned from the bowels of hell?”
Favorite person? Nick frowned at him.
“I thought she was in New Jersey,” Alex said, examining his organic burrito.
Nick narrowed his eyes at Parker, who kissed him softly on the mouth. Reluctantly, Nick closed his eyes as Parker let go of the collar of Nick’s shirt, smoothed back his hair, and kissed his brow and cheek.
“Evidently they didn’t want her in New Jersey either,” Nick said flatly.
“She’s not that bad,” Parker said.
“She ruined my life,” Nick said.
“She’s still your sister, dude,” Parker said. “Maybe you should give her a chance.” He took a sip of his beer. It wasn’t cold enough, and he frowned at it. “You never know, maybe she’s smarter than she used to be.”
“Not if she’s dumb enough to call right when I finish work,” Nick said. “She has no sense of respect with regards to other people’s time. I hate it. She’s so…” He paused, then made a face, not finding the words.
“Alluring? Intoxicating? Titillating?” Parker said. He smirked. “Well-breasted?”
Alex cracked up, then covered his mouth.
Nick shuffled through the empty grocery bags. He needed somewhere to put his excess energy. “Remind me to kill you after Halloween is over,” he grumbled.
“Postpone my murder until Valentine’s Day, would you?” Parker said. “I want my last meal to consist of Godiva chocolates. One of those little heart-shaped boxes.”
“Don’t push it,” Nick said. He felt himself start to smile anyway. It was hard to stay mad with him. “The way you’re going, you’re lucky if your last meal consists of stale popcorn.”
“Oh, good. I like it stale.”
Austin finished his beer. “Enough of you guys and your gay-ass woman talk. You ready to lose yet?”
“So ready,” Parker said. “And by that, I mean win. Because you’re gonna lose. And then you’ll be a two-time double-whammy worst place loser.” He downed the rest of his beer glass in one gulp.
They walked to the living room.
“Who’s gonna win, you think?” Alex asked.
“No idea,” Nick said. “From the sound of their trash-talking, they’re way too drunk to play accurately. I doubt they’ll even remember who’s playing what character.”
Alex grabbed another burrito from the freezer. It was still thawed-out, and he tapped the buttons on the microwave. “You remember that one time when we all played James Bond and I forgot which side of the screen was mine and then I kept dying because you all shot me to death with lasers and hand grenades?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “Why?”
“Do you think that’s a metaphor for life?”<
br />
“I suppose it could be,” Nick said. “But if you think about it, pretty much anything is a metaphor for life.”
“Except death,” Alex said. He picked at his teeth with the plastic fork, smiling in a way that looked more like a grimace. He really was a strange kid.
Chapter four
April 2004
Nick was hanging out in his room when Parker stopped by. They didn’t even bother to knock with each other anymore. If for some reason they weren’t home when the other showed up, usually a family member let them in. A good sign, Parker thought. Maybe. Hopefully. His heart babbled nonsense, and he shushed it.
He said hi to Nick’s mom, asked after her work. She was baking something involving an exorbitant amount of tofu for a get-together in the Women’s Studies department. “I don’t know why they invited me,” she grumbled, flushed. “I’m an Anthropology professor, not a Women’s Studies one.”
“There’s some overlap between the fields,” Parker said. Like he knew anything.
“I suppose,” Nick’s mom said. “But I’ve got other things to do. And it’s tofu, for God’s sake. So bland. You know the kinds of things I ate back in Ghana? Israel? Now I’m stuck in Wisconsin making tofu scramble for a bunch of stuffy middle-aged cat people.” She grabbed a few mushrooms, dicing them up, then rummaged around for some spices.
Parker grinned. “Nick home?”
She pointed up the staircase with one hand, adding nutritional yeast with the other. The expression on her face reminded him of women who smile too hard, their polite tranquility giving way to heavy sadness when nobody was around to notice it.
Shoving those thoughts aside, Parker headed upstairs. He heard “Rock Star” by Hole through the door. Nick sang along in his off-key voice. They could never agree on Courtney Love. Nick thought she was a creative genius, while Parker recognized her work as spiteful and malicious. But some things were more important.
