“Elizabeth,” he says. “Please let me do this. Let me do things right.”
I want that, too. But I am putting together a puzzle in my head, connecting a piece of what he has just said with one from our conversation in the parking lot of the Moonlight. “The last time,” I say. “That other girl. You didn’t do things right.”
He shakes his head.
“So you think this is going to somehow going to make up for that?”
He grabs my hand. “No, it’s not like that. I just want you to know how I feel. That’s all.”
So I undo the silky white ribbon that’s tied in a bow around the box and then take off the top. Inside, a small turquoise sack that says TIFFANY and has a white silky drawstring sits perched on a bed of cotton.
“I haven’t gotten you anything yet,” I say, and he shrugs and says, “Doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t.”
I open the little bag and slide out a silver necklace. There are two charms on the chain, one a heart and the other a circle that says LOVE in engraved script.
“I totally don’t want this to freak you out,” Mark says. “But I mean it.”
I open the clasp and put the necklace on and say, “I mean it, too,” and then I lean over and kiss him full on the mouth and find myself wanting to cry again. Because it’s almost as if I can see into the future, and see a time when the necklace won’t fill me with warm feelings but will sit in my jewelry box collecting tarnish and getting tangled after this whole thing has run its course, whatever that course may be.
“So not to spoil the mood or anything,” he says then. “But I talked to my dad.”
“And?”
“And…” He shakes his head.
“What? He said he won’t break it off?” I’m talking as softly as I can.
“No,” Mark says. He is still shaking that head. “My dad is such a class act that he said, ‘Good, I was looking for an out anyway.’ ”
I think I actually feel my stomach churn. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Mark says. “Wow.”
“Well, my dad’s no prize, either,” I say; then I spit it out. “I asked him if I could come stay with him for a few weeks, since things with my mom are so weird, but he’s in Italy on vacation.” It all sounds so dumb now. “Not that he should fly home or anything, but I don’t know. I just…” I feel myself getting choked up again. “I just wanted him to be there for me. You know, in my hour of need or whatever.”
A tear breaks free from my eye, runs down my cheek.
“Well, it was a terrible idea,” Mark says, and he slides his arm around me. “Leaving me? Before you absolutely have to. I mean, duh.” He nudges me and I love him for trying to make me laugh. “Plus, I’m here in your time of need.”
“How’d you get to be so”—I wipe away my tears and some stuff at my nose, too—“normal?”
“Who? Me? Normal?” He laughs and I laugh. He says, “Trust me, I’m all sorts of weird. I just hide it really well.”
Then he kisses me quickly and we sit quietly in the night as the wind rustles the leaves in the trees. I think about that noise, about trying to record it—the way it sounds sort of like paper brushing together—because the sound of trees in San Francisco will be different. I know this because I know about the US Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zones, which help categorize what kinds of plants and trees will flourish in a particular location. What if I myself, like some of the trees here, am really an East Coast specimen? What if I thrive here, in Zone 6, but will die out in California, in Zone 10?
Then again, is this really thriving?
I reach for my necklace, touch both charms. “So what do we do now?”
“I guess we wait for it to all go down?” He doesn’t sound convinced. “But how will we even know?”
“Trust me,” I say. “I’ll know.”
After Mark leaves, I go inside and up to my room and it strikes me for the first time how weird my bedroom is, because there are two twin beds in it. One is almost always covered in clothes and books and magazines and whatever and it’s almost like I forgot it was a bed for a long time and only now remembered. My mother told me years ago it was so I could have friends sleep over and I’ve done that a few times but not many. Maybe that’s why I feel so lonely all the time and have such longing for a sibling… for a roomie. Because of that ghost bed that has been living in my room all these years.
Which reminds me…
Lo,
I don’t think you’re a floozy, for the record. Friends with benefits isn’t a bad situation to be in at this point in our lives, is it? Then again, maybe it takes a floozy to know one. I mean, I lost it with a guy I’ve barely known a month! Who am I to talk? Would you WANT Keyon to be your boyfriend?
So. The loss of the Big V. It was actually sort of great. We went to a motel that was hilariously lowbrow but not in a skeevy way. More like… old school? Old Hollywood? Anyway, it was sweet and intense. I know there are probably a lot of people who would think I’m too young to know that it was the right time or whatever but what do they know? I am a little bit freaked out in an “I can’t believe I did it!” way but not that much. And yes, I think I am in love with him.
And that sounds crazy.
It feels crazy!
I consider writing more, like about how it only hurt a little bit at first and then felt right and a tiny bit funny. Or about how I feel like I know him in this different way now and also know myself in this new way. Even about the painting, and how for a second when I saw it I thought I was going to cry, I don’t even know why. But that all feels like a potentially serious overshare. Part of me wants to write Just do it! So we can talk about it after we’ve both crossed to the other side. But of course I can’t. I opt to move on.
As for soaring, well, sign me up. Because I, too, am getting pushed out of the nest. Unfortunately, my nest never really felt like a home to begin with. And I am the only bird in my flock. Which means that if I soar I’m going to ultimately end up feeling guilty about leaving Mother Bird all alone, unsoaring, but soar I must. Okay, enough with my bad analogy. I’m sure your family still needs you. But I’m sure they’ll survive without you, too. Isn’t that sort of the way it works?
Oh, and as for my dad. He’s vacationing in Italy! Who can give shelter to their long-lost daughter when there is wine to be drunk and villas to visit? Must be nice is all I can say. Must be nice. I’m relieved that you don’t think it’s weird. The gay part of the situation, anyway. They split when I was five and the last time I saw him I was like seven? I guess that’s the weird part, right?
Floozily yours,
EB
Yes: The engraved “love” necklace that Mark gave me.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4
SAN FRANCISCO
I’m at a restaurant. Eating brunch. On a Sunday morning.
Apparently, this is what people do. Or, this is what certain kinds of people do and have been doing on Sunday mornings all this time while I’ve been cleaning pancake batter off the kitchen floor and walls, and out of P.J.’s hair.
My parents are deadly serious about “freeing” me, and my dad practically snatched Francis out of my arms to push me out the door to meet Zoe. But not before remarking, “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Zoe. That’s nice.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, and pocketed the Saturn keys. “Since our talk about friends and stuff, yeah.” Half the time he thinks I’ve been spending with Zoe, I’ve actually been with Keyon. For some reason I haven’t told my parents about him.
Dad held Francis out airplane-style and made him “kiss” me, aka put his open fish-lips on my cheek. “Kiss sissy! Sissy takes Daddy’s advice! Kiss kiss kiss!”
“Okay, Dad. You’re getting his drool on my shirt.” But of course I couldn’t resist taking a fake bite out of Francis’s little cheek before leaving.
Now I’m with both Zoe and Keyon, so they can get to know each other a little bit better. Which may be pointless as we’re all going our separate wa
ys in a few weeks, but it doesn’t feel pointless. They already knew each other, slightly, because of Zoe being generally more social than me at school. She seems intimidated by his cuteness and undeniable charm, though, and swerves between chattering away and staring into her crepes as if they are asking the Riddle of the Sphinx.
In one of her staring moments, I ask what we should do after brunch.
Zoe shrugs and moves to withdraw her phone from her pocket. I hold her arm. “Let’s see if we can think of something without asking the Internet.”
“We could scout for some Bakelite,” Keyon suggests.
“Some what?” Zoe asks.
I ignore her question. The little antiques business Keyon and I are plotting is more fun as a secret. “What do normal people do on the weekend? Like, after brunch? Walk in the park? Go to a movie?”
“Usually I meet some guys at the gym for ball,” Keyon says.
“Oh. Do you… want to do that?” I shouldn’t have assumed we’d be spending the whole day together.
But he shakes his head, reaching over to my plate to help himself to my last piece of bacon. I grab it, too, and it tears in half. We crack up and each cram half a bacon slice into our mouths. Zoe’s eyes flick from me to him and back to me. “You guys don’t have to hang out with me all day.” If you want to be alone, her face says.
I hold her arm. “Yes, we do.”
Spending all that time with her at her house hasn’t made me sick of Zoe. On the contrary, I feel more attached than ever, hyperaware of what we’re soon about to lose. Even if the loss is temporary, it’s still loss.
“I was thinking about shooting some footage for my next vlog. It’s sort of a diary of my last few weeks in San Francisco,” she explains to Keyon. “Before college. Do you like art?”
I bite my lip. Is Zoe calling her vlogs art?
But she continues, to me: “Because I was thinking that gallery we went to last weekend would give me some cool background shots and stuff.”
“I like art,” Keyon says, nodding gamely.
“There are lots of places to see art,” I say. “Museums, for example.” It’s one thing to go spy on Ebb’s dad’s gallery out of curiosity when it seemed like no big deal. Another thing to go back and do it again before I even confess to her about the first time, if I do.
“Galleries are free,” Keyon points out.
“And I want to check out that local artist dude,” Zoe adds. “The guy said we should come back. We can pretend we’re going to buy something and make it part of my video.”
The guy, meaning Ebb’s dad.
“It’s probably not open on Sundays. Anyway, the owner isn’t—” I’m about to say the owner isn’t there, he’s in Italy, but explaining how I know that is way too complicated. “The owner isn’t about to believe we’re going to buy a painting.”
“We could call, to see if they’re open. I still have the card.” She produces it after a second of digging around in her bag, and punches the number into her cell.
Something bumps my foot under the table. Keyon’s foot. I bump it back. Do friends with benefits play footsie? That seems distinctly romantic to me. Playful. Boyfriendy. And when I pull some cash out of my pocket and lay it on the table for the bill, he pushes it back.
“I got it.”
“I can pay for mine,” I say.
“I’m good.”
“But—”
Zoe, now off the phone, interrupts. “Let him pay! Gallery is open. We’re going.”
Keyon settles the bill and we head out.
Ebb’s dad was right about the new stuff he has up. They’re paintings by this guy named Edward Sherman—a lot of cityscapes that are recognizable parts of San Francisco but not the same stuff you always see, like the Golden Gate Bridge or the Victorian houses on Steiner Street. There’s one of the Financial District at twilight. A line of traffic at sunset. There’s also a series of portraits of jazz musicians. Well, not really portraits, because it’s like the music is a part of the paintings of these musicians playing their instruments.
“My dad would like this,” Keyon says, standing in front of one called Jammin’.
I stand next to him and he snakes his arm around my waist. It’s a total boyfriend move, the arm around the waist. There is no question. Zoe takes a few seconds of footage with her digital video cam; I make a face.
“I want this!” Zoe exclaims, putting her finger on the wall next to one of the cityscapes. I untangle from Keyon, walking over to check it out; the sign reads Marina, After Rain.
“Yeah,” I say. “I love the wet pavement and the way those clouds are breaking up.”
“It’s great, isn’t it?”
It’s Ebb’s dad, behind us. I stare at him, blinking. Because as far as I know, we’re still in San Francisco, not Italy.
“Unfortunately it’s already in someone’s private collection,” he adds.
“Not that I could afford it, anyway,” Zoe says.
“So I was right?” Mr. Ebb asks. “You do like this artist better than what you saw last time?”
“You remember us!”
Sure I do, he might say. I have a daughter your age.
No, Mr. Ebb tells us more stuff about the artist. He went to high school in the suburbs around here, and then the Academy of Art right in the city. I nod, watching his face. Maybe it’s not her dad. Maybe he hasn’t left for Italy yet. Maybe I misunderstood Ebb’s e-mail. “Um,” I ask, “will you have this stuff up next weekend, too?”
“All this week and next weekend. Then I’m curating something different. Video art, actually,” he says to Zoe, giving her video camera a little tap. “You should come. We’re getting a new Bill Viola piece. Do you know his work?”
“No…”
“Is that going to be here?” I ask, sounding incredulous. I point my finger to the floor on which I now stand, so that he knows I mean here here. Not Italy here.
“Yes.” He gives me an odd look. And so do Keyon and Zoe.
“Just double-checking,” I explain to them both. “Is there a bathroom I could use?” I ask Ebb’s dad.
He points me to it, and once inside I lean against the door. I feel queasy. Like I know too many things I shouldn’t know. I know this guy’s daughter lost her virginity and I know he has no idea. I know he’s lying to her and I can’t imagine why. Or she’s lying to me. And now I’m lying to her, or that’s how it feels, knowing something that’s none of my business like this.
Why did I feel it necessary to come here last weekend? Everything was fine. And it still is, I tell myself. Forget this whole thing and carry on. It’s summer. The last summer. Nothing needs to be serious—not my friendship with Ebb, not things with Keyon, not even the weeks I have left with Zoe.
I pee and wash my hands and attempt, alternately, to smooth and fluff my hair, and reapply my tinted lip balm. “No responsibilities,” I say to my reflection, repeating my mother’s words. “No ties. Be. Free.”
When I open the door, Keyon is standing there. “You all right?”
I nod. Then shrug. Then nod.
One corner of his smile twitches and he leans close, saying low in his sexy voice, “Who were you talking to in there?”
“Myself,” I whisper back.
He kisses me. It feels different. I mean, every kiss has been amazing, but this has something behind it. A feeling. This kiss communicates. It communicates I hope you’re all right, and you being all right is my business, and yes, we can talk about it later and I’ll be listening, I’ll be whatever you need me to be.
I back away, dizzied from hearing all that through his unspeaking lips.
We return to the main gallery, where Zoe is now interviewing Ebb’s dad on video, asking, “Do you have to be totally rich to own a place like this?”
“Zoe!” I exclaim. “Rude.”
Mr. Ebb laughs, the tan skin around his eyes crinkling. “You have to have some cash flow, I will admit.”
“I have to go,” I say to Zoe.
“Why?” she asks, still shooting.
“I just do.”
“There’s a reception for the artist next weekend if you’d like to come,” Mr. Ebb says, giving me a postcard. “I can introduce you both.”
Keyon rests his hand behind my neck.
What’s happening? Why is everything so serious, so suddenly?
I make his hand go away by walking toward the door.
Outside, the air cools my face and I try to sort through the last twenty minutes. When Keyon comes out, he asks, quietly, “Why say you’re okay when you’re not okay?”
I shake my head. We’ll only be alone for a second more.
Zoe plunges through the door, staring at her camera. “That was awesome. I can’t wait to edit this vlog.”
EB—
“It was sweet and intense”? That’s all I get? Zoe hasn’t done it yet so she’s no help. YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON I PERSONALLY KNOW WHO HAS DONE IT AND WOULD TALK TO ME ABOUT IT. Do you feel like Mark owns a piece of your heart now, that you’ll never get back? Do you think it’s possible to have sex and then be able to let it go and be your old self or is it a forever thing that changes you? What does it feel like to be in love? ALSO PS I DON’T THINK YOUR DAD IS IN ITALY.
I backspace over all that and start again.
EB—
Do I want him to be my boyfriend? Good question. We went out to brunch with Zoe and then the three of us hung out (this is my new “free” life), and everything about it felt like he was my boyfriend and some things happened that felt serious (not physical things. emotional things. interpersonal things that are hard to explain) and after we dropped Zoe off, Keyon was kinda like “did I do something wrong?” because I guess my body language was… argh I don’t know.
He didn’t do anything wrong. He paid for my food and put his arm around me and stuff and there was this kiss unlike all his other kisses and I should have been ready for things to change, should have thought about this A LITTLE BIT before now—but I didn’t and my head was elsewhere to be honest. Blah blah blah anyway BORING I don’t know. Benefits will continue to be limited.
Roomies Page 15
