by Mara White
I’m so disappointed, but I force myself not to show it. I had imagined us eating Chinese takeout and unpacking boxes together, while discussing our future. There is some spoiled girl inside of me who wants to whine and pout and demand a concrete timeline on our love life.
“Thanks, I’m sure I’ll love it,” I say instead, masking my feelings with a smile. Anyone with a brain in their head would voice their disappointment. But I just got off the damn plane and this homecoming has crushed all of my expectations like little blue robin’s eggs on the sidewalk in spring. Splat. Heartbeat visible through its transparent pink skin. Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing without him, like I could end up dead and nobody—not even Danny—would miss me.
It happened to my dad; a hunter stopping to camp discovered bones in the fire pit. A year had passed since he disappeared and nobody besides us even cared. His buddies from work hadn’t even noticed he was missing. I was eight when he died, nine when the authorities finally discovered the bulk of his body, and ten years old when I testified against both of my brothers, who were charged with capital murder for killing their father.
Danny is rich enough that the restaurant held both of my cats in the coat check. He hands them a crisp hundred as he tells the maître de that I’ll need a car service. My eyes sting with tears because he’s not even driving me home, but I gather Elvis and Priscilla and my small rolling suitcase. Danny puts a strong arm around my waist and nuzzles my ear. When the car pulls up, he helps put the cats in. His eyes finally meet mine and search them a little.
“Our big hello has turned into a goodbye,” I say, tucking one of my eager blonde curls behind my ear.
“It just seems that way now, Sunshine. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”
“I haven’t had sex in six months. I didn’t even kiss anybody.”
The sex part is a tactic. That’s the girl inside me I don’t really like. I can always manipulate Danny with sex. He loves fucking more than life itself. Danny is a bona fide sex fiend. A pervert, a lech, he’ll get his dick out for anything.
“Good thing you came back then. We’ll get to taste each other tomorrow.” He licks my earlobe when he says it and it sends shivers all over me. I haven’t been touched in so long, I’d almost forgotten what it feels like. Danny zips up his leather jacket. He’s the only fifty-year-old man I know who can still pull off sexy in leather. He never looks like he’s trying too hard—his sex appeal is effortless.
“Okay,” I whisper and then pout a little. I sit my butt down on the seat and keep my eyes trained forward, watching him in the rearview as the car pulls away. He takes out his phone to call his driver and glances at his watch. When he looks back up at the car, I cast my eyes down. I’m yearning for love and all I ever get from him is sex and affection—affection where some crucial ingredient is missing, like how you love your exotic pet bird. The affection is real but the bird is still a possession. It’s like he’s fascinated, yet he really doesn’t see me. Now with every interaction I’ll have to wonder how he loves his wife. Is she also an accessory for him, or does she get the whole person?
Before I knew of her existence, I couldn’t imagine Danny ever cheating. But he was cheating on the both of us for a solid six years and counting.
The livery driver looks at me in the rearview and then openly shakes his head. Is it because he thinks I’m Danny’s mistress or is it because I’m the only twenty-six-year-old on the planet who lives in midtown Manhattan? Why not Brooklyn, why not Queens? Why not Jersey? The answer to that question has probably always been that Danny needs quick and easy access to me. But did I think of that during the time we were together? No. But I did always suspect that he was trying to keep me from interacting with people my own age.
I have to make two trips to the car because my building doesn’t have a doorman. Danny’s always taken good care of me but he doesn’t flat-out pay my rent—I maintain some dignity, some autonomy in our relationship. I leave Elvis and Priss in their cages in front of the door, then go back for my suitcase and take out cash to pay the driver.
“Your dad already paid, back at the restaurant.”
“Thanks,” I say dejectedly, not really caring if he’s calling it as he sees it or if he’s making a joke.
There’s a guy waiting for the elevator when I go back inside. I almost think about lugging my suitcase up the stairs because I’m always wary about getting into elevators alone with people I don’t know. It’s not even that I’m scared of robbery or assault; it’s more like I’m afraid of getting stuck in twenty-five square feet for hours on end with a stranger. I decide against it solely based on the fact that he’s black or maybe Hispanic and if I take the stairs he’ll surely think it’s because I’m scared of riding in elevators with a dark-skinned man. I’d explain myself, but then he’d think I was crazy so I bite my lip and ready myself to get stuck with him, regardless of what color he is, for hours and hours, just in case.
“After you,” he says when it dings on my floor. That’s when I notice that we’re going to the same place.
“Thanks,” I grumble and step out into the hall. I’m all suitcases and cat crates, and he holds the door open for me. It looks exactly the same. Glancing down at his bags, I distinctly smell takeout. He and his girlfriend will gorge on it and then have sex, living out my lowbrow dreams while I sleep in a pile of warm cats.
He stops for a second and studies my face, then he looks at his phone and walks right up to my door, pulling out his keys. Apartment 4C still looks like home to me. I know I’m in 4F now, but it comes as a shock. I watch him stick the keys in the lock and can’t stop staring at this guy who now lives in my place. I’ve got to move my ass over to 4F, where the Jamaican bike delivery guy used to live. I wonder if it still smells like his incense and pot. I want to switch with Chinese take-out guy so badly I almost stomp my foot. Hey you, strange dude, get out of my house!
He seems to sense it and looks slowly over his shoulder. His eyes are warm and brown and slightly slanted in a feminine but still handsome way.
“Are you . . . Is there something I can help you with?”
“Nope,” I say, kicking the tiles and dragging my suitcase across the floor in the opposite direction. I know he’s lingering because the door doesn’t close with the signature click I know so well.
I sigh audibly and stick my key in the door. Maybe I’ll take a bath in Jamaican bike delivery guy’s bathtub. Maybe Danny hired a cleaning service so I won’t have to spend the whole night scrubbing away stale apartment smell. But I notice a tinge of guilt as I grab the doorknob; Lord knows 4C wasn’t exactly left in turn-key condition. My excuse is that I left both in haste and under duress. I peek over my shoulder, and he’s still standing there staring. I dare him to go inside first by raising an eyebrow at him.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with?”
“Was it dirty when you got the place?”
“What, the apartment? Not really. Why? Are you worried about yours?”
“Maybe I am,” I say as Elvis begins to meow.
“I saw your father here the other day when they delivered the furniture. It looked like they were cleaning. My guess is, it’s probably fine.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, not correcting his mistake. I lift Elvis’s crate onto my suitcase. For as much fun as this homecoming is, I might as well be dating my father.
Right inside the door is a round white table with a gorgeous bouquet of roses; they’re so red they look like blood and a few petals have fallen gracefully onto the surface. There’s a note in a thick, white envelope that says “Aimee,” with a bottle of expensive champagne and one flute. One stupid flute. He was never going to come and he knew it. My heart loses some of its own petals.
I lean down and unclick both Elvis’s and Priss’s crates. They zip out like fuzzy blurs and hide beneath the sofa that’s still mummified in paper and plastic. I pop the cork on the champagne and foam rushes down my arm.
“Cheers, Danny,” I say t
o the blank white wall and chug a swig straight out of the bottle while I kick off my shoes.
I finish the entire bottle by the time I get the plastic wrap off of the sofa and two chairs. They’re dark green like the old ones, but with less wear and definitely less cat hair. I check the fridge in the kitchen—it’s brand new and absolutely empty—so I order a burrito through Seamless on my phone. I’ll eat like a slob in my pajamas and text all of my girlfriends to let them know I’m back in New York. It wasn’t that long ago that they threw me a going-away party. There were a lot of tears and a lot of booze and a million and one “he doesn’t deserve yous.” It still sort of felt like everyone was gloating. The girl who fucks the boss doesn’t get much sympathy from anyone.
I’m so confused by my feelings for Danny. He’s all I’ve ever known, if you don’t count a few gropes and kisses in high school. He taught me about sex; he slowly and gently introduced me to everything. Christ, the man even went with me to the OBGYN to discuss my cycles and help me choose the right birth control. He offered me a job at his company and I was reluctant to take it, but eventually I did, out of sheer desperation. Danny always tried to convince me that he hired me for my talent. He attended my fucking graduation, paying for my cap and gown, and then afterwards drowned me in kisses and roses. Solid family territory, and that was exactly what he had become to me. Stability, unconditional love, and confidence in who I was, who I was becoming.
He taught me how to give a blow job when I was scared half to death—I was convinced my skills could never live up to other women he’d had. But the way Danny coached me and built me up, he had me believing myself some kind of deep-throat vixen when I was practically a virgin. In a way he is a father figure to me, as disgusting as that sounds. He’s been there for me a whole hell of a lot more than my dad ever was. I don’t know anything else besides being with Danny and I’m not sure I want to.
The doorbell buzzes sharply and lifts me out of my reverie. There’s a little screen with a view of the door, so I can see it’s the delivery guy. You can never be too safe in New York. I press the button and put my lips close to the intercom.
“Fourth floor,” I say, pulling my hair back from my face. I must look like shit. I’ve got what looks like sawdust stuck all over my pajama bottoms.
“Dinner is served,” I say and extract two cans of cat food from deep inside my purse. You always have to travel safe when you are the world’s very best cat mom.
Elvis and Priscilla come running, the two of them ever cognizant of the sounds and movement of dinner. I set the cans on the pristine white table and open the door. When the deliveryman steps out of the elevator, so does the neighbor who now lives in my old place.
“What did you order?” he asks. His voice holds a flirtatious tone.
“A giant bean burrito with extra sour cream,” I say as Priss and Elvis dance at my feet. He looks at his hands.
“I got a six pack,” he says, lifting a brown bag from the deli. “It set me back twenty.” He wears a genuine smile that sets me at ease.
“Welcome to Manhattan,” I say as I dig in my purse for some cash.
“He already paid, ma’am,” says the delivery guy.
At first I think he means Danny but then I catch the delivery guy’s gesture of throwing his thumb back over his shoulder.
“You bought my burrito?” I ask, my mouth hanging open.
“Welcome to the neighborhood. Here, might as well take a beer to go with it.” Mr. Neighbor steps over. He offers me a beer, holding it by the neck, and I stand stunned at the kind yet flirty gesture.
“Aimee,” I say, taking the cold beer and putting it behind me on the table.
“Wade,” he says, sticking out his hand.
“Do you want to come in for a drink or would that be too weird?”
“Only if you share your burrito.”
“That’s the weird part or the not weird part?” I ask, kicking open the door. “You have to provide the drinks, it’s BYOB in here until I can get to the grocery store.”
My skin prickles a little when my thoughts gloss over the idea that this could be the start of a scandalous murder. However, who’s going to do the murdering, I haven’t yet decided. But I’m so morose from the anticlimactic reunion with Danny that I welcome the danger. I’ll live on the edge a little—like getting to know the neighbors and sharing my burritos with them. A story of a cunning, flirtatious neighbor who easily preys upon young victims before revealing their sociopathic tendencies. Ridiculous, paranoid thoughts from a girl with a very bad track record.
We saw the burrito in half with a plastic knife and drink beer from the bottle. Wade is an engineer by trade but is at Columbia doing research and teaching a few classes. I bore him with my lackluster waitressing history and degree in accounting from City College.
“I guess I’m not very ambitious,” I say.
“Don’t say that. You ate your whole half of the burrito.”
I laugh in spite of myself and get up to close the window. I wonder if Danny would care that Wade is over here and that he paid for my dinner.
“I could go get more beer?”
“Okay,” I say tentatively. I could use another drink.
“Or I could go home too, if it’s already getting too late?”
Another six-pack later and I’ve spilled my whole Danny story. Wade listens thoughtfully and doesn’t seem to be judging me. I have to tell someone—I feel so awfully lonely.
“Am I a terrible person?” I ask at the end of it, bravely retaining any drunk tears. That would definitely scare him back across the hall—he’d hightail it the hell out of here.
“Terrible? No. I wouldn’t say that. Naïve maybe, but that’s just lack of experience. You fell in love with a married guy and you couldn’t fall out of love with him.”
“I tried. I moved all the way across the country.”
“Well, moving is one thing, but FaceTime chatting and Skype is another.”
“You don’t think I tried hard enough?”
“Did you ever try dating someone else? You might enjoy hanging out with people your own age.”
“How old are you, Wade? How long have you lived in my apartment?”
“I’m thirty-five, Aimee. You moved out on the twenty-sixth and I moved in on the first. I recognize your perfume because the curtains you left behind still smelled of it.”
Both of my fat cats are perched on his lap. He doesn’t seem to care and strokes their backs rather absentmindedly. He came in clean-cut but he’s definitely leaving here covered in cat fur.
I go to the bathroom to pee and look at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are flushed from the alcohol and the over-zealous radiators. I kind of want to kiss Wade so I brush my teeth and spit in the sink. I’m not sure if I want to kiss him because I’m drunk or if it’s because I’m angry at Danny for abandoning me. Maybe I just want to kiss him because he’s hot and he’s been lending such a sympathetic ear to me all night.
He raps on the door and I jump in surprise.
“Hey, I’ll be right out!” I call.
“Aimee, I should go. I’ll let myself out. Thanks for the food and the company.”
“Can I kiss you before you go?” I ask on a whim. I slam my hand over my mouth because I can barely believe I just said it.
“To get back at Danny? Or because you really want to kiss me?”
“I’m not sure. Sorry. Um, I think I just want to kiss you.”
I open the bathroom door, cringing at my own behavior. Wade has one hand above him gripping onto the molding. His eyes are closed and his lips puckered out absurdly.
I burst out laughing and he opens his eyes and smiles.
“I probably have beer and onion breath, and from the looks of it, you just brushed your teeth.”
“I don’t care,” I say, putting one hand on his shoulder tentatively and rising up on my toes to kiss him. I’m short. Wade’s tall and muscular. His hand slides up my back, warm and affectionate, and grasps the ba
ck of my neck and gently pulls me to him. I open my mouth under his tender pressure and my tongue meets with his. His mouth is gloriously wide and seems to completely encompass mine. His lips are full and soft and he uses just a bit of tongue. It only lasts a few seconds; it’s sweet and its tender. There’s a little spark, but the kiss confirms one sure thing to me: I am still in love with Danny.
Wade pulls back and he looks me in the eyes.
“Okay, neighbor, see you around. You know where to find me.”
I walk him to the door and stand there in my socks, not knowing if I should shake his hand or kiss his cheek.
“Well, at least you’ve now made out with someone closer to your own age. You can cross that off your bucket list.” His whole face relaxes when he smiles. Then he winks at me.
“Right,” I say, perking up. “But for that kiss I get to scratch off two.”
Wade raises an eyebrow at me.
“That was officially my first time kissing a black guy.”
Wade laughs and rolls his eyes.
“Better run back in and text all of your friends.”
“Yeah. This might even warrant a call to my mom.”
“Goodnight, Aimee. Good to meet you. You’re pretty ridiculous.”
I close the door and pick up my phone. I’ve got no friends I want to call and one text message pending. I open the text and of course it’s from Danny.
I love you, Aimee. I’m so glad you came home to me.
In Chickasaw County, Oklahoma, there is a manmade lake. There used to be a small, natural lake there filled with bass, crappie and bream. My grandfather would fish in those waters, wearing thigh-high waders alongside the tall wading birds poking around for fish eggs. It was rumored that the waters had healing powers, that the native people drank from the natural springs to heal ailments and to purify the spirit.
