by N. K. Smith
With her hands flat on the table, Gramma pushes herself up, then runs her hands down her blouse, dusts off the thighs of her pants, and lifts her head. “I apologize if I’ve hurt you by keeping it for too long. I will look for it and give it to you when I find it.”
“Thank you.”
Without anything else, she walks out of the kitchen. I follow to lock the door after her, but when she pauses in the doorway of my apartment, she twists her body around, one hand steadying herself on the frame of the door. “As you grow older, I think I see a bit of your parents coming out. Your mother would have fought tooth and nail for something she believed in, and your father, well, you know how he was. Willing to die for what he felt was right.”
Oh, my God. Did she just compare me to my mother in a positive light? Before I have a chance to free my thoughts and respond, my grandmother is gone. There is nothing more to do but lock the door and think about what just happened.
***
I don’t know why I don’t feel self-conscious after having sex with Fox, but I don’t. We’re lying in my bed with my head pillowed on his bicep. None of the afternoon’s emotions have seeped into our time together. I forget about my grandmother’s hoarding of my mother’s items because when I’m wrapped within Fox’s arms, curled into his body, there’s not much else in the world.
There’s no worry in my mind about if he liked the sex, because I know he did. I don’t wonder if everything is okay because it’s impossible for it to be otherwise. The silence is like its own climax; a time when we can both remember the act we just committed together and let our fluttering bodies relax and match the calm of our minds.
However, the silence doesn’t last long. Fox doesn’t like too much quiet, so it’s no surprise the peaceful moment of listening to the air conditioner force cool air into my apartment is broken by his voice.
“What are the two sexiest animals in the barnyard?”
Just the question cracks me up, so I can’t wait to hear the answer. I roll over and push a little bit of hair off his forehead. “I don’t know. Tell me.”
“Brown chicken, brown cow!” he answers in a singsong voice, making the punch line clear. It comes out sounding like Bow-chica-bow-wow, the familiar and funny tune used to reference scenes of erotica or porn.
I playfully smack his shoulder, and he tightens his hold on me until our naked bodies are pressed together. “Do you know how lucky I feel to have met you?” he asks.
“I don’t know, you said I was a bitch at the graduation party.”
Fox shakes his head while pulling his upper body away from me to look straight into my eyes. “Nope. You’re remembering it wrong. I said other people said you were a bitch—and I don’t think I used that word, did I?—but that I didn’t believe them. And I was right. You’re not. You’re awesome, just a little rough around the edges when it comes to interacting with other people.”
Even though his words could have made me angry, they don’t. Nothing he’s said is anything but the truth, and to be honest, I like that Fox doesn’t hold back. I like that he’s not willing to put me on some pedestal and ignore my obvious flaws.
My thoughts turn to adventure. I’m probably just trying to sort out my grandmother’s thoughts on my parent’s drive for it. I’m not like them. The nearest I’ve gotten to adventure is dreaming of California, but to be honest, there’s a little piece of me that knows I’ll never go. Well, maybe I’ll visit to pretend like I’m setting things up, but I won’t move there.
I don’t know what it is that keeps my feet in Pechimu, but I feel locked here. It’s comforting. Fox is going to England, and I can picture him not coming back. He’s free and fun. Nothing holds him anywhere.
“Are you getting excited for your trip?” I pillow my head on his shoulder to avoid his eyes. In a couple of weeks, he’s starting a new journey, and I’m just continuing my old life of uncomfortable contentment. It feels like my stomach is all knotted up.
“I’d be more excited if you were coming with me. I think you’d like England, Saigey.”
“How do you know? You’ve never been there.”
He tightens his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. I’m sure he interpreted my clipped tone correctly. I don’t want to hear him console me, or sugarcoat anything, so I speak again before he has a chance. “Maybe it’ll suck.”
Fox’s chuckle is less of a laugh and more of an exhalation of breath. “Way to be positive, baby.”
I drag my hands over my face like I’m scrubbing away the imaginary dirt I feel from shitting on his dream. While he tries to keep me close with his hands on my waist, I slip out of them and the bed easily to find my clothes. “I’m sorry,” I say when I’m fully dressed and near the door.
“Don’t go.”
“I’m just going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
Fox takes a deep breath. “Saige.”
I turn and lock my eyes with his. “What?”
“Don’t freak out. It’s a short trip, and I’ll be back.”
With a clenched jaw, I turn back to the doorway and don’t say anything to him. My heart pounds because it’s not fair to feel like this. I didn’t ask to be so wrapped up in someone I can’t think straight. I don’t want to be. He’s leaving, and there’s nothing I can do about it. How did this happen?
After I’m finished in the bathroom, I decide the best strategy is to avoid more conflict, so I go back into the room and climb up onto the bed with Fox. I haven’t forgotten his imminent departure, but I don’t want to talk about it, so I snuggle in deep, molding my body to his.
When Fox asks, “Are you okay?”
I nod in response and make a satisfied noise when he kisses my ear, but the knot in my stomach seems to grow bigger and tighter at the same time.
***
My stomach is still in a knot the next day when Fox decides we need to go back to the park and eat our lunch in the clover patches. It’s sweet, but I can’t feel it. My mind is fixed on the exploits of my parents. Gramma hasn’t given me the journal yet, but I don’t need it to know my parents’ shared trip through life brought them so close they decided to spend their lives contractually obligated to each other. They decided to bring a kid into the world.
What did their adventures together or individually get them? Nothing. Zilch. They both died. The loss of my mother probably killed my dad. If she’d been alive, he wouldn’t have kept signing on for more combat duty, and if he had, he might not have taken the same risks he did.
So what’s the damn point of any of this?
I try to keep this all to myself, but I always have a hard time limiting my emotions from translating to outward actions or expressions. In my attempt to change my thoughts, I watch Fox’s left hand as he sketches me. It wasn’t my idea to have him draw, but I felt too sick when he pitched it to protest. He’s not doing it in the Japanese style he loves so much. He’s doing this as a regular portrait, and it’s astounding. Even though I’m viewing it upside down, it looks like me. He has so much talent.
As he uses his left hand to drag the pencil across the paper, he props himself up with his right arm, his hand pressing down into a bunch of clovers. The green leaves nearly cover Fox’s entire hand. I have an urge to capture the image; I want to keep it forever, so I use my phone and snap a quick picture.
“What was that for?” he asks. “I wasn’t even smiling.”
“It was of your hand.”
“Oh.” He stops sketching and holds both of them up. “Want another one?”
I don’t think I have any pictures of him beyond what’s in the stupid yearbook. He’s holding up his hands on each side of his face. I snap a picture, then toss my phone into another clover patch and look away.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You won’t look at me much today.”
“Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
When I turn back, he’s resting his hands o
n top of the sketchbook. “Quit trying to figure it all out.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“I’m not not looking at you today.”
Fox is quiet for a minute. “Okay.” I’m happy it seems like he’s going to let it go for about half a second, then he says, “But something is wrong. I’m not stupid. You’re distant.”
“I’m right here.”
He shakes his head as his lips shift into a sad line. “I know where you are physically. I just don’t know where you are mentally.”
“Mentally?” I say. I know what he means, but I can’t help myself from getting pissed at it. “Mentally I’m fine, thank you.” I bite back the nasty words that automatically spring into my mind. They’re about his mother and are beyond horrible. I might not be able to control whatever the hell is happening in this moment, but at least I’m able to keep those words inside my head instead of using them as weapons against a defenseless guy.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
“You suggested I was mentally lost since you didn’t know where I was, right?”
Fox shakes his head and squints his eyes as a cloud finishes its pass over the sun and the sky brightens again. “That’s not what I said.”
“Well, maybe you should pay attention to the words you use and the way you say them.”
After a moment of silence, he says, “I’m sorry if I misuse words, Saige. I’m not as smart as you.”
“Whatever.”
“Why are you picking a fight with me? What happened between this morning and now? I thought we—”
“Let’s just go.” I grab my phone and keys and stand up, but I can’t go anywhere because he’s still looking up at me from the clover patch. “Please?”
Even as he gets up and collects his paper, pencils, and food containers, he has this look on his face like he’s just read a philosophy book he didn’t understand. Again, horrible words appear in my brain. I could end all of this now by calling him stupid. He’d never read a philosophy book because he wouldn’t get past the title page. I could use his learning disability to shatter him, which would shatter our fragile bond. We could be done with this whole thing.
If I said something cruel about his mother or about his dyslexia, he’d walk away from me. It would be so easy to go back to what I know, what I’m comfortable with. I wouldn’t have to feel like this again; like I’m waiting for him to figure it out and leave. If I push him away and he leaves now, I’m in control. If I wait until whenever he gets around to seeing what kind of person I am underneath the loving veneer he’s slapped me with, I’m at his mercy.
But could I say those things to Fox?
“I don’t get you,” he says in a quiet voice as he walks past me to my car.
When he’s out of earshot, I mumble to myself. “I don’t get me either.”
Chapter 20
Fox
Saige acts like she’s just going to leave me at my car and go into her apartment, so after tossing my stuff through the open window of my VW, I catch up to her just as she pulls open the door to the building. I wouldn’t normally just grab a person, but I have to in this case. I doubt she would stop if I just call her name.
I wrap my fingers around her bicep and stop her from going inside. Saige swings back around, pulls her arm out of my grip, then folds both over her chest. She’s not looking at me. She’s looking past me, and it’s driving me nuts.
“What are you doing, Saige?”
“Trying to go into my apartment, Fox.”
I clench my jaw. “I’m not stupid. I see that you’re going into your place. I’m asking what the hell you’re doing with this.” I wave my hand between us. “What did I do to piss you off like this?”
“I’m not pissed off.”
A laugh bubbles up within me, and I can’t cut it off in time for her not to hear it. Finally, she turns her sharp eyes to me, but it’s not the kind of gaze I want from her. “You’re clearly pissed.”
“Not pissed. Just want to go inside.”
“Without me?” I ask.
“Kind of.” Good old Saige, never holding back the harsh honesty. This is what she’s like when she’s drinking, but I know she’s sober.
The deep breath I take doesn’t keep me from feeling the pain that she doesn’t want me right now, but maybe we’ve just been spending too much time together. Maybe she just needs a little break, so I nod. “Okay. Gage invited me to the city tonight, so I’ll just. . . go.”
She doesn’t say anything, but the intensity of her gaze is gone. Not that this expression is much better. Now she looks disapproving with her arms folded over her chest and her lips pinched up tightly. I know she and Gage don’t like each other, but what does she want? She doesn’t want to hang out, and I’m not just going to go sit at home alone. I’m not like her.
I wish she’d say something, but when she doesn’t, I fill in the silence. “So maybe we’ll work on the new novel tomorrow?”
Saige looks away. “I don’t want to work on the stupid gods and demons novel. I only did the other one because it was Myka’s.”
If I thought the pain of her wanting to be alone was deep, the pain of what she said about the graphic novel I’ve been drawing for years is severe. She said she was into it. She said she liked the idea and would love to write it with me.
I don’t know what I look like, but it must be something pitiful if Saige drops her irrational wall of distance for just a moment to say, “Fox, I didn’t mean to say the novel is stupid. I—”
“Well, you can’t really take it back, can you?”
“No, but I—”
“Yeah, well. . .” I don’t finish. All I can think about now is the question running circles in my mind. Why am I here when I could be having fun? It’s not like Saige is even acting like she wants me around. Gage wants to spend time with me. Hell, half the town of Pechimu has been calling me to hang out. I don’t need to deal with this. “I’ll see you later, Saigey.”
If she says anything as I walk back to my car, I don’t hear it.
In three hours, I’m walking around New York with Gage. I wish I could say I’m paying attention to my friend and our surroundings, but I’m not. My mind is on Saige, and I’m constantly checking my phone for texts and voicemails which is ridiculous since she doesn’t text me much and whatever happened today is still too fresh to expect her to leave me voicemails.
The afternoon passes quickly until it becomes evening and evening becomes night. I use my fake ID to get into a loud club with Gage. The women here are gorgeous to the extreme, and it seems like my buddy feeds a line to each and every one of them. He gets a couple to bite. I watch as he dances with a few, exchanges numbers with more than a few, and buys drinks for three different girls over the span of three hours.
For my part, I smile at the women who give me a look of interest, but I don’t go out of my way to speak to any of them. I can’t stand how antisocial I’m being, but I feel tied to this table. Our drinks are here—whiskey for Gage and water for me—and Gage keeps walking away to hit on women. Plus, I’m checking my phone too much to have any kind of meaningful conversation with anyone.
Finally, just when the club really starts hopping, I dial Saige’s number and am disappointed when it goes to voicemail. “Hey, this is Saige’s voicemail. The first telephone recording machine was invented by Valdemar Poulsen way back in 1898, and the answering machine as we know it was invented by either William Schergens in 1931 or by William Muller in 1935, and the modern voicemail system was created in the 1970s, so I don’t think I need to tell you what to do.”
After the short beep, I take a deep breath, then feel stupid because that’s the first thing she’ll hear when she checks her messages. “Saige. I don’t know what’s up. I love you. I’m out with Gage, but all I can think about is you. Whatever I did to tick you off, I’m sorry. I don’t understand how your mind works, and I’m sorry about that too, but. . .” I let my voice trail off.
Just then Gage co
mes up and loudly says, “Let’s go someplace else, Foxy. This place is beat.”
Into the phone I say, “I’ll leave you alone, but I’ll say it again. I love you, Saige.” I hang up and turn to Gage.
“Trouble in Toxic City?”
“Shut up.”
“Come on, let’s go to this little dive I know. The shots are cheaper and the women are drunker.”
I place my hand on Gage’s shoulder and push him. “This place is just getting started.”
“Yeah, but all the hot women are already here.” He holds up his phone. “And I got all their numbers. Come on, let’s go.”
Gage isn’t lying about the bar’s status as a dive. It’s a little hole in the wall place. Even though he’s already wasted, Gage does another shot as we sit by the bar. As he lifts his hand up to the bartender for another drink, I take out my phone and check for any new calls or messages. I would have felt it vibrate if there had been, but I can’t stop myself from looking at the unlit screen.
I wonder what Saige is doing.
The sound of glass against wood stops me from thinking too much on the subject. In front of me is a tumbler of amber liquid, matching the glass in Gage’s hand. “I don’t—”
“Drink,” he finishes. “Yeah. I know. But you’re a depressed mofo tonight and it’s ruining my game.”
I take in the bar, making sure to be as dramatic about it as possible to hold Gage’s drunken attention. “Yeah, there’s a lot of need for game in here.”
“You’re usually the life of every party, my friend, but right now you’re Mr. Quiet-Checks-His-Phone-A-Lot.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, but get cut off.
“Well, stop it. It’s not like we get to hang anymore. Let that girl be that girl in Pechimu and get your mind here.”
I push the alcohol to him. “I’m not going to drink that.”
“I know, but just hold it in your hand so you don’t look like such a sad sack of shit, okay?”
