I shut my eyes again.
His hand was on my arm. “Tell me. I need to know. Please. No lies, ok?”
I took a deep breath. All this could have remained unspoken. At least for another day. But Tristan was there, breathing steadily, his hand firm on my arm. My heart was racing. The plane was moments from landing. Putting it off now would be worse.
“I…he…I don’t know. Yes. He is. Strangely fascinating. There.”
I looked over at him. Tristan’s mouth was turned up at the corner, a look of irrepressible glee removing a tension around his eyes that had been there. For a while, it suddenly struck me.
“Well?” I put my hand over his.
Then the grin spread across his whole face. “I was convinced you didn’t like him. Thought you were putting up with all this for my sake.”
Now I was smiling. “Martyr complex?”
“Something like that.”
“Damn I’m good.”
“Cards close to the chest.” He looked down. “I like that.”
“So, brakes off the train then?”
The serious look returned. “I don’t know.” He took my hands again. “You really did know.”
“I really did.” The plane hit the runway and bounced, and touched down again. I clutched at Tristan’s hands as the engines roared into full reverse.
“How?” he whispered in my ear. The squeal of the engines almost drowned him out. I looked around. The closest person was across the aisle. They were just a little too far away to hear.
I leaned towards him, my mouth touching his ear. “Chicago. Dressing room. Door ajar.” I could see the whole scene again, their bodies against the wall, Tristan’s face lost in pleasure. I pushed it from my mind. “I didn’t mean to spy. But. Quite a show. Lucky it was just me, really.”
“The night you were passed out.”
“The very one.”
“You were upset.”
“I was a lot of things. I couldn’t really…I don’t know. Untangle it.”
He gripped my hands. “Lily. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I leaned even closer. The engines were powering down. Our whispered conversation would have to end. “You didn’t. You are you. That’s it. That’s all I want.”
The plane started to bump over the seams in the runways, heading towards the gate. We passed by the planes lined up, waiting their turn to head out, to speed down the runway into the sky. We were going towards the buildings. Back to civilization. Back to New York. And it really struck me. We were home. This part of the tour was really over. And now all this new information was going to have to be part of real life. Which meant that life was going to change.
I wondered how.
chapter twenty-one
New York
We were only going to be in New York for a few days, so it had felt strange to return to the apartment, almost like another hotel room. I supposed it felt more like home to Tristan, although he didn’t seem that happy to be back either. I felt itchy under my skin. Tristan, pacing while he talked on the phone, gave off that aura of a wild caged thing he had at times. We thought about going out, which probably was what we both needed. Mindless activity. But Tristan didn’t want to deal with the public, and there was nowhere either of us really wanted to go. Instead, we indulged in the small luxury of ordering food to be delivered, the one thing that New York could always provide, the ability to stay shut inside. We made more phone calls. I checked in with Dave, but it was really just to thank him for organizing the car and driver to extract us from the airport. There was nothing to deal with at the moment, and for that I was very grateful.
I strolled around the apartment, gazing over all the places that now held memories for me as well. Our short, intense history together was leaving its traces on his home. I wondered what Tristan could see, that I couldn’t. That was the trouble with mysteries revealed. The state of wonder the revelation brought on reminded you of all of the secrets, all the other things that you didn’t know. I found Tristan in the kitchen and approached him carefully. After a moment, I gave him an awkward hug. We were standing by the kitchen window, where I’d made that fateful choice to stay. Was I making it again? In some ways it seemed that way. Tristan kissed my forehead, and we gazed at each other, and within all the uncertainty and unease, there was that little feeling that yes, we did know each other. Deeper understanding, wordless, silent, not spoiled by some inane rush to explain. His eyes were dark, and bottomless.
He frightened me a little, all the same, and I gave him a half-smile, which he returned, shaking his head, all the irony, all the complications, all the possibilities of the situation in his look. He kissed me, and returned to his phone calls. I stood there, and watched the streets below. So many moments in relationships were acceptance, and quiet, and storing away confidence in the future because you hadn’t fucked up the present, even if all you did was nothing. Nothing was a choice too.
Dinner came, and over sushi, we watched a film. Tristan idly tapped his foot as the woman in the French film found her way to the house in the hills, and it was all too late, because the lover was going to jail. She wailed, then was silent, as the gendarmes pushed him into the car, and you knew they’d never see each other again. Her final reflection, facing the rock faces of the primitive mountains where they’d hoped to hide, was an acceptance of simple tragedy. FIN came up, and Tristan got up to throw out the containers. It was utterly banal, and very domestic, and we were playing house. Remembering how life went. Tristan showered, then I did, and there were glasses of water by the bed, and the lights were switched off. Finally we went to bed, and the bed itself seemed big and strange, the distant constant roar of movement and traffic outside providing a lingering music that crept between you and the pillow like little needles keeping you from sleep. I kissed Tristan’s shoulder, and turned over.
The next day rose thick and warm, with the kind of heat New York City used to only have in August. The heaviness of the air around us didn’t bring any comfort. It wasn’t a soothing blanket of warmth—instead, the air was thin and hot and empty. Tristan slung his arm around my shoulder and dropped it almost immediately. “Sticky,” he said. I shrugged. We had decided to go for a walk, and then get the ferry over to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, hoping for a bit of fresh air on the river. Tristan said he had an errand to run over there, and I was happy for the distraction. We walked past the traffic lined up at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, the cars revving their motors in their excitement to get through the light and wait on the other side for more traffic. Two men behind us talked about sales and their niche market. I looked over at Tristan, who was almost amused, but as he swept a hand through his dark hair, and pushed it off, away from his skin, I could see that he was tired, and not really enjoying this, our slog through the downtown streets. “It will be better when we are by the water.” I muttered. He threw me a weak smile. The traffic poured slowly across Canal Street. A little girl next to us screamed and pulled at her mother’s arm, as the mother patiently tried to calm her. She pointed, hysterical, at the gutter. We looked down, and there, slightly squashed, lying across the metal bars of the drain at the corner, was a half-grown rat. It wouldn’t have scared anyone while alive. The girl’s reaction seemed almost cruel, except that she was genuinely scared. Tristan looked away. He really was tired. Even the short tour had taken it out of him, the setbacks, the success. His silences, more frequent, and longer, seemed menacing somehow. Except behind his eyes, when you looked, his big eyes, floating between dark and light, seemed to be begging for something, release maybe. And as soon as you looked again, they were flat, still, a pond in the afternoon light waiting for someone to drown.
We got a taxi, and reached the ferry terminal, and waited with the tourists, the workers heading home, the mothers who had been out on a day trip with their children, the few wanderers and ramblers headed back or out
, it was hard to tell. We showed our tickets on my phone, and walked down the gangplank, a weird little commute. Most of us walked onto the boat and headed for the stairs that led to the outdoor deck. Tristan and I commandeered a corner, and looked out across the water to the Brooklyn Bridge, to the reclaimed land where the docks and the ships slotted in used to be filled with activity. The boat headed across the river and docked at the base of the hill leading up to Brooklyn Heights. The old buildings looked fake, the new ones looked empty. A group of children got on, all holding ice cream cones from the shop by the ferry dock. It should have felt like the joyful end to a summer day. The ferry left with a shout of the horn, and a gasp of cooler air from thick green water of the East River came to us.
“Let’s stay on to the end, then come back,” Tristan shouted over the roar of the engines. I nodded agreement. He pulled his hat further down over his forehead. With the sunglasses, the hat, and the plaid shirt, he looked like all the other inhabitants of the new Brooklyn. You’d have to have very sharp eyes to catch those memorable features, the sharp nose, the finely cut mouth. I had my sunglasses on as well, my hair pulled back. Two arty people disappearing into the crowd on a very hot afternoon. The boat stopped, then headed further up the coastline, to the new unmemorable towers taking over the former brownfields of Long Island City, north to the Queensboro, now Ed Koch Bridge. Looking west, there were the old apartment and new business buildings of the East Side of Manhattan, still marked, but no longer dominated by the fishbowl blue green of the United Nations building, a polite but imposing monolith on what had once been another forgotten piece of unwanted waterfront land. Tristan suddenly reached out for my hand and squeezed it, and I held on, the warmth and softness of his skin a strange contrast with the strength and size of his hand, clinging to me tightly.
We stayed on the boat at 34th Street, and no one seemed to mind. The people disembarked, and the new group refilled the boat. The horn went again, giving notice, and the ferry quickly left land, heading across what seemed a mere spit of water, to dock hurriedly at the Long Island City port. Letting off a few brave souls reclaiming the factory lands overlooking the grey offices of midtown, it roared off again, reversing into the river, heading at a fast pace through the now calm waters of the East River. An inlet went by, its banks almost retaken by foliage, green against the brick and concrete walls of the warehouses just beyond, a shadow of what once must have been a watery and fertile land, quiet and waiting. Tristan still had my hand in his, as we both looked out at the passing scenery. “Do we get off at the next one?” I asked.
“No, let’s stay on until the first stop in Williamsburg. This is good.” Tristan murmured, his lips again parting the hair just over my ear, getting much closer than he needed to be. I leaned into him, the rounded muscle of his shoulder just brushing the top of my head, his arm around me, close and protective. The boat stopped again, at the end of a long dock, and headed out once more. We watched the shoreline pass by, the overgrown tangle of plants and half trees and weeds giving way to the three blank white tanks containing some mysterious substance, surrounded by a yard full of trucks and other vehicles, looking like they had been there always. A dock appeared, the boat did its quick maneuvering, and we got into the line waiting to jump off the boat as soon as the gangplank hit the concrete pier. Tristan looked around, slightly nervous, the way he always was the minute he was in a crowd of people with no immediate exit. We followed the line out to the park. He pulled me over to a line of wooden benches that looked out on the skyline. “Lily. Come with me.” I squeezed his hand again, and followed him to a bench.
We sat there for a while, my hand small within his grasp, watching the kids play on scooters and the Williamsburg hipsters with cash to burn walk their dogs in the shadow of the new condo buildings all around us. A couple of people who looked like they pre-dated all this new transformation, sat around, not fashionable, enjoying the sun, a can of beer in a paper bag day. Another ferry came and left. Finally, Tristan turned to me.
“Lily, you remember all the things I told you about my family?”
I nodded, not sure what to say, wanting to listen before I ventured anything.
Tristan’s eyes were dark as he looked out over the water. “I’ve done a lot of crazy things I guess. Trevor’s pretty pissed at me.” He turned towards me and kissed my cheek. “But you. Are you angry?”
I thought about all the things I wanted to say, and all the things that it was pointless to bring up. “I’m not angry. You’ve always been honest with me. I’m not expecting perfection.” I looked into his eyes. “I don’t even know what that is. You. You’re perfect for me. All I want is you. The way you are. For real.”
Tristan ran his fingers through his hair. It was such a familiar gesture I felt like I was doing it myself. “I want to tell you things. Ok?”
I pulled one of his hands towards me, and held it between mine in my lap. “Anything. Really. I mean that.” I tried to smile. “Tell me.”
Tristan looked at his hand in mine, then up at the sky. He breathed in, and turned to face the river again. “Lily. Talking. I guess I’m not used to it.” He turned back to face me, and took off his sunglasses, and quickly put them back on. “Let’s walk.” We got up from the wooden bench and started down the path, avoiding the mini scooter riders and bicyclists, before heading out on the cobblestoned streets. “Trevor said I should trust you,” Tristan finally said.
I nodded. Nothing I could say would make it easier, or better. But Tristan looked like he was waiting. “You should,” I finally murmured. “You can.”
Tristan’s face was in shadow, the sunlight blocked by the tall building, his silhouette sharp lines on the hazy background of smog filled air and green junk trees creeping through the chain link fences. “My family. They…I don’t know. Trevor made me go to some therapy sessions. After. That. With the drugs, right?” He hesitated. “After the first time. I didn’t think it helped. But maybe it did. I never thought about it much. I never wanted it to. What it all meant. Being left alone like that. As a child. I thought I was very grown up. To look after myself so much.” He laughed, a bitter choking smirk that cut through the soft summer air. “It seemed normal for a long time. A very long time. After all the things that happened. It still feels normal.”
I nodded at him. “Time. Makes some things better. But anything like the same thing happens again, even a thought, it’s just like it’s on repeat.”
Tristan put his arms around me. “Repeat. That’s it, Lily. I don’t want to repeat. I want it to be new. I want it to be right. But I feel like I keep fucking up.”
I didn’t say anything. This wasn’t the time to say things. Stupid words.
“I know what it is, Lily. I know it. As long as I have something else to go to, it feels like I can get out. I can escape. Before it’s too late. But I still love…people.” He pulled his arms away and punched one fist into the other.
The smack of skin on skin made me jump. It felt like he was hitting me. Himself. Everyone.
“But I can love, Lily. I do love…It’s just…” Tristan trailed off. He looked towards the south, the lowering sun hitting his features, every outline traced by the light, his skin pale yet golden in the swirled afternoon sunlight that bounced off every particle, a prism in the polluted air. He was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at him, and I did, I had to look away. I forced myself to look back. I wanted to want him for all the right reasons, but sometimes just looking at him tore away all my resolve and I just wanted him, so badly. For any reason.
“I know…” I ventured.
Tristan gave me that look. “Do you?”
I made myself stare back. “Don’t I? Really? Then tell me. Talk to me. Please Tristan, please. Don’t do this.”
His face was hard, his eyes cold. It was easy to see how he’d gotten to where he was, the unwillingness to back down. “Lily. I’m not going anywhere. Even i
f you hate me. Even if Trevor hates me. Even if AC hates me. I’m not leaving. That’s what I always did before. I didn’t stay for the final act. Because that’s what I thought it was. The end. I couldn’t ever see a way of resolving anything—because everyone left. Don’t you get it? Everyone left. Even if they were there physically, they weren’t there in spirit. Someone said to me once—your family and friends—they must all want a piece of you, of your time. And they didn’t. They didn’t really care if I was there or not. Unless they were lonely. Then I was company. But I could have been anyone. Anyone at all. Alixe reminded me of my father. I guess.” He laughed again, that horrible tinny sound that meant nothing was funny. “Success. That’s why people want success. At least that’s why I wanted it. I thought it would make that empty feeling go away. But it didn’t. It made it worse. I had more people to be betrayed by. Sounds so fucking melodramatic, doesn’t it? Ah, whatever.” And he was silent.
We walked by another little park by the water, and went in. There was an empty bench on its own, away from the others. We sat down. I held his hand, examining his fingers, the calluses from the guitar playing. “I’m still listening.” I didn’t look up.
“Drugs. Drinking. So easy. All that empty space and there they are. You buy them. For a while, they’re yours. No excuses to be made. The edges get softer. Like the women. They’re around. So easy. Easy to pretend no one cares.” He crossed one leg over the other, pulling at his jeans for a moment. “I didn’t care. All that mattered was how I felt. I’m not proud of it. But I’m not lying either.”
I stretched out on the bench and rested my head on his thigh, and looked up at the clouds. Anywhere but his face. I had the feeling that if I looked at him, everything I’d been thinking would betray me, and he’d stop talking. That was the last thing I wanted.
He rested his hand on my head, and began stroking my hair, tugging a little at it when he found a tangle from the ride over on the boat. It felt good, so good. I closed my eyes, and hoped he would start talking again. His hands were soothing, gentle, yet held so much of me at one time that it was a matter of either fear or surrender.
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