The Pull of Yesterday

by Gabriella West

  We’d joked about boners when we were young and silly. Now we were back to our young selves, just about, having shed some of the weight of time and guilt and sadness that lay between us.

  “I do love you, Matt,” I said dreamily, because it had been voiced and I realized it was true.

  “Yeah, I know.” He nuzzled my damp hair. “I just needed you to say it.”

  This was when he was supposed to tell me what he was going to do, how he was going to solve the problem of us.

  But it didn’t matter, suddenly. It would be all right, I thought.

  “I love this place so much,” Matt said, staring up at the wooden ceiling. “I’ve thought about buying it from Brad, the guy in New York. I have enough money for the down payment.”

  “I thought you said he rented it.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. I would take over the berth payment initially and then...” Matt was thinking ahead. “I even suggested it to Taylor as an option, but she balked about living here. Said it was tiny, that she could never bring her friends here, she’d be ashamed.”

  “That’s weird,” I murmured, my face turned against his, our hearts beating slowly together.

  He kissed my neck slowly. “Oh, Dave. I wish you could spend the night here with me.”

  I almost did too, but... “It’s not gonna happen,” I said. “You know I can’t do that to Aaron.”

  “But he’s pretty much told you it’s over, right?”

  “Yeah, but even so, not coming home one night, when he knows we’ve been together... It’s just too rough. He has trouble sleeping as it is.”

  “We’ll share you for now, then,” Matt said gently.

  ***

  Waiting at the airport gate that morning, exhausted, I’d sent Matt a text. At SFO. Taking plane to Boston. My dad died yesterday. It was pretty blunt. I thought he’d understand and be OK with it.

  All he’d responded was: Oh no! What airline? Flight number?

  United. I shook my head as I typed the flight number. What did it matter? Maybe he was especially anxious about plane crashes because his dad had died in one. A particularly horrible one, come to that. He’d probably track the plane, make sure it got in.

  I’ll see you soon was his only response. Short and sweet, I thought.

  Yeah, when I get back. And then I typed Love you for the first time. It was almost automatic.

  A pause and then his terse reply. I love you too.

  I stared at it for a long time, my body filled with warmth, buzzing. Alive.

  12.

  I was flying back into winter, which seemed so fucking unfair. It would be 20, 30 degrees in Boston, probably snowing still in early Feb. As I’d driven to the airport in the early morning hours, I saw the cherry trees had started to bloom on Elsie Street. I’d actually stopped the car on the downward slope to look. The sight of the pink blossoms had startled me, made me smile. But this was part of the magic of the West Coast, these early blooms due to the mild winters. Everyone took it for granted here.

  I wore a bulky, fleece-lined jacket on the plane, which would have to tide me over on the trip, and I’d brought gloves and a scarf. I’d no idea if that would be enough. There wasn’t room in my duffel bag for a suit for the funeral, even if I’d had one. Someone would give me one, I thought. Some relative, or maybe I’d wear one of Dad’s. Did he own a suit? I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in one.

  One businessman was snoring softly beside me, the other still clicking away on his keyboard. I put my cheap sunglasses on my face, remembering. This morning I had dressed quietly after pulling myself away from Aaron’s warm body on the bed. He didn’t wake up for me, and perhaps that was because I’d thoroughly exhausted him the night before. My throat contracted. Something else to feel guilty about. I shouldn’t have done it, I thought. He’d looked so happy afterward. He still loved me, no matter how aloof he acted, and it was going to make the parting harder.

  But maybe I was deluding myself that Matt would go through with any of this. He’d dropped hints about his future, asked me what I wanted, but I hadn’t exactly made it easy for him to plan anything. I sighed deeply. The last time I had trusted him, the time I’d been so certain he loved me, he’d disappeared. The scars of that ten-year-old trauma were still with me, no matter how much I rationally understood what had happened. Anyway, it seemed too good to be true, the way his marriage had just vaporized. I didn’t think he was lying to me... but he’d probably come to his senses eventually. Hell, I might be his rebound fling. His mother didn’t like me... And on and on my thoughts ran.

  They also lingered on an encounter at the Museum a few days before, over the weekend, not long after I’d seen Matt for dinner in his home.

  Mike had strolled up to me in the parking lot. I was standing there at the open trunk of my car, unprepared. Just standing, thinking, remembering that evening in Matt’s bedroom. Happy for a sec.

  It had been months since I’d looked at Mike’s face up close.

  He looked sneering, which was odd. I waited, puzzled. Finally he said:

  “So, Wendy and I were having dinner with Elaine Cohen and a few other people last Thursday. She had quite a tale to tell. She said a man in a Fine Arts Museums uniform came to the door to have a hot date with her son!”

  I gaped. It was impossible.

  “Wendy and I laughed and laughed. We knew it was you when she described you. Well, you’re keeping up your track record of getting around.”

  “It’s my private life,” I said shakily.

  “Do you think you could take off your uniform next time, though?”

  I reddened and didn’t reply.

  “Do you like this job, Dave?” Mike asked in a light conversational tone.

  “Yes, I do,” I said, not looking at him.

  “Oh, OK. Just checking. Well, we hope you’ll stay on through the spring at least. There’s a big Georgia O’Keefe exhibit coming up. We’ll be busy for that.”

  He paused. “I’m sure with Matt Cohen in your pocket you’ll be moving on soon to higher things. Though I hear he’s between jobs at the moment, living with mom. You wouldn’t want to join him there. Elaine’s very possessive of that lad. She ran his wife off easily enough. Though they were only married for about ten minutes. Maybe you had something to do with that as well?”

  “I’ll let you know when I need your advice,” I ground out.

  He left, but I felt as if he had reached inside me with a scraper.

  It was impossible to sleep, to rest, to read anything, to focus on anything. The dark glasses calmed me, though. I closed my eyes. It had been a smooth flight despite the rough start. My sister Lulu would pick me up at the airport. We’d arranged it through Facebook. I’d brought my laptop but had no inclination to look at it after staring at it blearily at the airport gate for an hour. I’d emailed Janine that my dad had died and I was on my way back to Boston. Where my father had been, there was a blank space. Instead, thoughts and images of Matt and Aaron flitted across my mind. I opened my phone, lying in front of me on the plastic airline tray, and stared at two texts. Matt’s “I love you too” had been topped by one from Aaron, probably sent from work that morning.

  I love you, baby. Safe travels. See you on Sunday—I’ll have a nice meal waiting.

  It was as if everything problematic had been erased and we were back together, no questions asked. But I figured Aaron was smarter than that. He knew we were done; he just was giving me this time out because I needed it. Later the pressure would come back on again, no doubt. The pressure for me to decide, and to move on.

  But he had been different ever since he’d seen the therapist on Saturday. That was the strange thing, how immediate the change in him had been. He carried himself more confidently. I’d begun to find him hot again, infuriating as that was. And I blamed myself. I shouldn’t give him mixed signals, I thought. Stupid, stupid... The awareness of how much I was hurting him was always on my mind. I loved him enough still to hate hurting him, that was
for sure.

  I took a sip of my weak ginger ale and swallowed a few salted peanuts.

  Aaron had thrashed feverishly against me last night. I still could hear his moans echoing in my mind. I’d given him the rough sex he’d always wanted in an attempt to wipe out whatever else I was feeling. But would I want him again? I didn’t know. Somehow I felt the trip to Boston would wipe me out—emotionally, financially, in every way. I didn’t have the resources for this. I would stumble through it, return home a wreck. And perhaps by then Aaron would have come to his senses and just order me out of the house. He’d be seeing that shrink on Saturday again, I mused. But I was glad he had found that guy, Marc, his name was. Genuinely glad. He could afford the therapy, he needed it, and I’d put him through hell lately.

  Two men loved me. I didn’t deserve either of them and had no idea what I was going to do.

  The plane droned on, shaking every now and then as a blast of cold air hit it.

  ***

  I’d always been fond of Logan Airport, though everything had changed for the worse since 9/11, and the TSA were all around. Still, when I emerged from the flight into the Arrivals area, I smiled briefly at the cluster of people, the name signs some of them were holding up. That had always felt good to me, coming off a plane. Arriving somewhere. It still did.

  Boston just seemed lighter than SF somehow, more vibrant. Time with my family would wipe that impression away, I knew, so I plunked myself down in a seat, bag at my feet, and waited for Lulu, my 25-year-old sister, to show. She was always late. Her picking me up was a huge concession, probably forced on her by my mother, who didn’t drive. Maybe Mom could actually learn to drive now that Dad was dead, I mused. My youngest sibling Barry was the irresponsible one, whom no one expected anything of. He might be able to teach her, though, if Lulu was too busy. I remembered her as always working or partying, though she’d been ridiculously young when I left Boston, all of nineteen. She’d worked in a bar, too, and still did.

  I crossed my legs, looking around at the pale New England faces. It was way more racially diverse than I remembered, though. It was getting to be like New Jersey or New York. Who knew if that was a good or a bad thing?

  “Dave,” said a male voice. I glanced up.

  It was Matt. He stood in front of me, a carry-on case in hand, his hair tousled, a puckish smile forming on his face as my jaw dropped open.

  “What the fuck? Matt?” I exclaimed, too loudly, so that several people glanced in my direction.

  “That’s not very gracious, dude,” Matt said idly, touching my arm.

  I jumped up and did the most instinctive thing I could do when he hugged me. I put my tongue down his throat.

  He was shaking with laughter as he pulled away. “Wow, that’s better. This is OK to do in Boston now, huh?”

  “Asshole! You should have told me,” I grumbled, flushed in the face. “I can’t believe you came. Why?”

  “To support you, hopefully,” Matt said, as cool as a cucumber, smiling faintly still. I had heard his heartbeat speed up as I kissed him, so I just stood there looking into his eyes.

  “Well, thanks,” I finally said lamely. No one had ever done anything like this for me, so I couldn’t put it in context, what it meant. “I would never have asked you,” I muttered.

  “Exactly,” Matt nodded. “So I did it without consulting you after your text, went to Oakland Airport and got a direct flight that left thirty minutes later. Was it the right thing?”

  We were standing close together. I nodded, wanting to lean against him suddenly, but my sister was coming; I could almost sense her looming presence.

  A sudden cough pulled us apart. Lulu was standing about five feet away, staring at us curiously.

  “Uh, hi, Dave,” she said. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Hi, Lu,” I replied, flustered, glancing at Matt. He stepped forward and took her hand.

  “Matt Cohen,” he said. “Dave’s college roommate.”

  “Oh, do you live in the area?” my sister enquired. It was the only thing that could have explained his presence to her.

  “No, I decided to join him in Boston. I had some business here. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Oh, yeah, thanks,” my sister said, looking away. She clearly had no idea how to handle condolences of this type. With her close-cropped light brown hair, puffy jacket, and tight jeans, she looked quite boyish in the way young Irish women did sometimes. She’d always been slightly androgynous in appearance while making it abundantly clear that she had a sexual preference for men only. But she had no patience for fools and could be quite rude when she wanted to, which was most of the time.

  Matt glanced at me. “Hmm, so I was going to rent a car. I, well, I rented an Airbnb room in Cambridge. Want me to pick you up in a few hours at your family’s place, Dave, or what’s best for you?”

  Lulu looked studiedly disinterested while listening keenly at the same time. I was aware of her and then suddenly I didn’t care anymore.

  “That would be great,” I said with a smile and a rush of relief. “I doubt there’s going to be a big family dinner tonight anyway. I want to see Mom first, of course, have a chat.”

  Lulu snorted faintly at my side, as if my attitude was all too typically selfish and cavalier. You haven’t seen her since 2005! hung in the air between us.

  “Look, I have to work tonight myself,” she said pointedly. “I thought you’d stay longer with Mom than that. She really needs someone around her at all times. She’s broken up.”

  Jesus. This was what I’d feared.

  “Do you think you could at least stay with her till nine or something?” my sister enquired.

  It was about 5pm local time currently. “Yeah, we’ll talk about it in the car,” I told her.

  “I’ll come pick you up around nine, Dave. I don’t want to intrude,” Matt said. He grabbed his case, smiled, and began to wander away—in the direction of the car rental desk, I assumed.

  “You know the address? It’s tricky,” I called out after him.

  Turning around from some distance away now, he called out my home address to me. He must have had it all these years, memorized it, the same way I’d done his. I had a huge lump in my throat, staring at him. I didn’t want him to leave. But I couldn’t exactly dismiss my sister either, after she’d made this effort. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

  “No problem. I’ll have a GPS!” he added, waved, and was gone.

  “Lovely guy,” my sister blurted out at my side, resentment and disbelief warring in her voice. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  I gulped. “We’ll talk in the car,” I said curtly.

  She grumbled something predictable like If we have to, and started walking toward the elevators to the parking garage, keys in hand.

  13.

  I was in the passenger seat of Lu’s old Toyota, only slighter younger than my own. My knees touched the dashboard, but I didn’t say anything, and once we were moving it took too much effort to adjust the seat. The car smelled of cigarettes. I asked her if I could smoke.

  “Be my guest,” she replied. Out of the corner of my eye I watched her handle the car, her eyes focusing on the freeway ahead of her. You had to be careful out here; people drove like maniacs. It was the first time she’d ever taken me anywhere. When I left she didn’t have a car. It had probably taken her a lot of hours at the bar to get this one.

  “I’d offer you one, but...” I said.

  “No, I’ll have one too.” She pulled the little ashtray open in front of us. “You never quit smoking, out in Cali?”

  “No, never. It never worked out when I tried. I’ve cut down.”

  “Me too,” she said, in a kinder tone. “Well, it’s times like this you need a cig, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” I answered. I watched the road signs absent-mindedly; I remembered the names of all the turn-offs. But none of them meant anything to me.

  “We weren’t sure you were going to make it,” Lu said.
She didn’t exactly sound pleased I was here, but the fact she was talking to me at all was a good sign.

  “How’s Mom?” I asked finally. “I mean, she didn’t sound good when I talked to her.”

  My sister shook her head. “She just can’t believe it. You know, when you’re living with someone, you can’t see when they’re going downhill. I could see he was. He could barely walk there at the end. Just had no energy. Kept falling down, actually.”

  I took a pull on my cigarette. “Awful.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed, eyes on the road. I’d always had the impression that she despised our father; that of the three of us, she disliked him the most.

  “And you?” I said. I knew I should ask.

  “Well,” she just said, shrugging. “I actually cried when I heard. I felt bad for a little bit. But what can you do? He wasn’t really a father to any of us.”

  “True,” I murmured. The Boston skyline was visible now through the gray haze of the late afternoon. My head throbbed.

  “Has it been snowing?” I asked.

  “No snow,” Lu said. “Not for days.”

  Looking ahead, she added, “There’s alcohol at the house.”

  We both laughed suddenly.

  “I know, it was the alcohol that killed him. But not having anything to drink will probably kill us, right?”

  I grinned but said nothing. A drink would be good. I hadn’t had one last night.

  “Your work was OK letting you go for this long?” Lu asked.

  I sighed. “Shit, I forgot to check whether my supervisor got back to me.” I’d had to text Vic. It had been too late last night to call HR, though I probably should have left a message with Elena. Checking my phone, I saw that Vic had not responded to my text about taking a few days off. I felt a momentary jab of panic.

  “Well, that’s awkward,” I said out loud.

  “It was easy for me; I just dropped into the bar and told them,” Lu murmured. She seemed rather relaxed now.

  “You seeing anybody?” I enquired. It was probably the last time we’d have to talk. She was hard to pin down.