Real Life

by Brandon Taylor

  Miller’s surprised silence, the dark caution on his face, told Wallace everything he needed to know about his offer.

  “Well, all right then,” Wallace said quietly. Miller put his head down on the table and groaned with exaggerated plaintiveness.

  Cole, who was kinder than the rest of them and could therefore get away with such gestures, reached over and ruffled Miller’s hair. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, and Miller grunted, then swung his long legs out from under the table and stood up. Cole kissed Vincent’s cheek and shoulder, and another cold shard of envy darted through Wallace.

  The table behind Yngve was filled by a league soccer team in cheap nylon shorts and white T-shirts on which they had drawn their numbers, loudly discussing what to Wallace sounded like women’s tennis. They were all fit and tan and covered in dirt and grass. One of them wore a rainbow headband, and he pointed aggressively at another man, shouting at him in Spanish or maybe Portuguese. Wallace tried to make out what they were talking about, but his seven years of French gave him no purchase on the flurry of diphthongs and fragmented consonants.

  Yngve was on his phone, his face caught up in its glow, more pronounced now that night was coming on. Darkness seeped into the sky like a slowly spreading stain. The lake had turned metallic and ominous. It was the part of a summer evening just past the blue hour, when everything began to cool and settle down. There was something salty in the wind, a charged potential.

  “We haven’t seen much of you this summer,” said Vincent. “Where have you been hiding?”

  “At home, I guess. Though I didn’t know I was hiding.”

  “We had Roman and Klaus over the other night—did Cole tell you?”

  “This is the first time I’m really seeing the boys all week, I think. It’s been a little hellish.”

  “Well, it wasn’t anything special. Just dinner. You didn’t miss much.”

  If it wasn’t anything special, Wallace thought, then why bring it up? He’d gone to their barbecue, hadn’t he? But even there, he remembered, Vincent had said how good it was to see Wallace, how they never saw him anymore these days, he never came out with them or asked about them. It’s like you don’t exist, Vincent had said with a laugh, and Wallace had watched the thick vein down the center of his forehead engorge, wishing with a calm cruelty that it would rupture. Wallace saw Cole, Yngve, Miller, and Emma at the biosciences building almost every day. They nodded to each other, waved, acknowledged each other in a dozen small ways. He did not go out with them, it was true, not to their favorite bars or that time they’d all crammed into two cars and gone apple picking or that time they went hiking at Devil’s Lake. He didn’t go with them because he never quite felt like they wanted him there. He always got stuck on the edges, talking to whoever pitied him enough to throw him a bone of small talk. Yet here was Vincent, making like Wallace was the only reason he didn’t spend time with them, as if they were not also to blame.

  Wallace smiled as best he could. “Sounds like you had a great time.”

  “And Emma and Thom came over last week. We had a little lunch by the pool and went to the dog park. Scout is getting huge.” Vincent’s forehead vein bulged again, and Wallace imagined placing his thumb over it, pressing hard. Wallace made an assenting sound in the back of his throat like Well, look at that.

  “Where are Emma and Thom? I thought they were coming,” Yngve said.

  “Getting Scout shampooed.”

  “How long does it take to shampoo a dog?” Yngve asked in exaggerated outrage.

  “Depends,” Vincent said, laughing, looking at Wallace, who was not above much but certainly considered himself above making jokes about dog shit and so simply cleared his throat. Vincent drummed his fingers on the table. “Okay, but seriously, what have you been doing, Wallace? You think you’re too important to hang out with your friends?”

  It was a stupid thing to say. Even Yngve’s eyes widened at it. Wallace hummed as if in deep thought, waiting for the flare of irritation and humiliation to subside. Vincent’s expression was patient and expectant. Wallace saw a flurry of action at the next table: The soccer boys had started shoving each other, the white of the shirts glowing, so many bright rectangles falling across each other like in a postwar painting.

  “Working, for one thing,” he said. “That’s the only thing, really.”

  “We love a martyr,” Vincent said. “I suppose that’s what we’ll be talking about tonight. Our Lady of Perpetual Lab.”

  “We don’t talk about lab all the time,” Yngve said, but Wallace could only laugh, even if it was at his own expense. It was true: Lab was the only thing they talked about. No matter the subject, the conversation always found its way back: I was running a column the other day, and you will not believe this, yes, I eluted before I finished my last wash. Someone didn’t fill the tip boxes, so guess who spent four hours at the autoclave? Is it so hard to expect them to put my pipette back where they found it? They just come and take and never return. Wallace could understand Vincent’s frustration. Vincent had moved to town during their second year to be with Cole, and during the week they all were waiting for their final exam grades, he had thrown a holiday housewarming party. Instead of drinking cheap beer and admiring the sleek chrome and leather sectional, they had huddled in a corner whispering about the 610 final, with its unexpected helix question at the end, and the 508 exam, which had included a question about free energy changes in various osmotic conditions that had taken Wallace five pieces of paper and calculus he hadn’t even thought of since undergrad to solve. Vincent had spent the evening decorating the tree himself while they moaned and fretted, and Wallace had felt sorry for him. But it was automatic, this reflex to turn to lab, because as long as they were talking about science they didn’t have to attend to other worries. It was as if graduate school had wiped away the people they’d been before they arrived.

  For Wallace, at least, this had been the whole point. And yet he had begun to feel, this summer in particular, something he had never felt before: that he wanted something more. He was unhappy, and for the first time in his life, that unhappiness did not seem entirely necessary. Sometimes he yearned to trust this impulse, to leap out of his life and into the vast, incalculable void of the world.

  “I work, too, but you don’t see me talking about it all the time. Because I know it would bore you,” Vincent said.

  “Because that’s a job. That isn’t— What we do is different,” Yngve said.

  “You talk about it all the time because you don’t have anything else to be proud of,” Vincent returned. Wallace whistled. The voices from the other table rose in pitch and volume. Every so often, they gave a shout of either celebration or anger. They were all gathered around a phone now, Wallace could see, watching some kind of game. Now and then the bodies parted, and he saw the brightness of the screen for just an instant before it was lost to the cluster again.

  “There’s more to life than programs and jobs,” Vincent was saying. Some noise from the lake, more playful shouts. Wallace looked out over the water, where the dark shapes of the rocks folded into the depths of the shadows over the water. There was music coming from some of the boats nearing the shore, but it all came together in a crackle like static at the start of a radio signal.

  “I’m not sure that’s true, Vincent,” Wallace said. Yngve grunted in agreement. Wallace did not think, however, that he and Yngve were entirely in sync on this point. How could they be? Yngve’s father was a surgeon; his mother taught history at a liberal arts college. Yngve had lived his entire life in this world of programs and jobs. For Wallace, to say that there could be nothing more than this meant only that if he should lose it, he might not survive his life. Wallace wondered if he had been too sharp with Vincent, and he turned to him to apologize, but just that moment, Cole and Miller were returning. The pale interior of Miller’s thighs flashed. The skin seemed smooth and chaste compared to
the rest of his body. His shorts were too short. The cords of his life vest jangled. Cole had a flat-footed, sweeping step and a smudged, puppylike enthusiasm. He and Miller carried white cartons of popcorn and something in a large plastic container: nachos drenched in oozy, rubbery cheese generously spotted with jalapeños. Miller let out an oof as he sat down. They had also purchased tacos, which Yngve snapped up, writhing in pleasure.

  “Oh yes,” Yngve said. “Yes, yes, yes. This is it, boys.”

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” Miller said.

  “I never said that.”

  Cole handed Vincent a small dish of vanilla ice cream. They shared another kiss. Wallace looked away because it felt too private to watch them.

  “Do you want some?” Cole asked him, offering nachos, offering popcorn, offering food to Wallace the same way Wallace had wanted to offer food to Miller.

  Wallace shook his head slowly, turned from the warmth he felt. “No, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself,” Miller said, but Wallace could feel the weight of his gaze, its heat. He knew when he was being looked at, being watched, as if by some predatory animal.

  “Are we still on for tomorrow?” Cole asked, unfolding a white napkin on the table.

  “Yes,” Wallace said.

  The grease from the tacos soaked the napkin through until the wood was visible through its thin, translucent layers. Cole frowned, laid another napkin, and another. The aroma of food cut against the putrid sweetness of the lake. Dying plants.

  “On for what?” asked Vincent.

  “Tennis,” the two of them said in unison.

  Vincent grunted. “Why do I bother asking?”

  Cole kissed Vincent on the nose. Miller cracked open the container of nachos. Wallace squeezed his hands under the table so hard they popped.

  “I might be a little late,” Cole said.

  “It’s fine. I have a bit of work to do anyway.” Though it was not a bit of work. He felt sick just thinking of it. All that effort wasted. All the effort it would take to repair the damage, which very well could end up wasted too. Wallace had been doing well not to think of it, to set it aside for now. A wave of nausea pressed upon him. He shut his eyes. The world spun in slow, dark, slick circuits. Stupid boy, he thought. Stupid, stupid boy. To have hoped that things would turn out okay, that it would finally be his turn for things to come out all right. He hated himself for being so naive.

  “That’s why I’ll be late,” Cole said, laughing. Wallace opened his eyes. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, not like copper or blood—something else, silvery.

  “You’re working tomorrow?” Vincent asked. “We have plans, and you’re working?”

  “Not for long.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

  “And today is Friday, and yesterday was Thursday. It’s a day. There’s work.”

  “I don’t work on weekends.”

  “Would you like a medal for that?” Cole asked, a wet streak of spite wicking across his voice.

  “No, I don’t want a medal. But I’d like a weekend with my boyfriend, for once, in the summer no less. Forgive me!”

  “We’re here now, aren’t we? Yes? I am here. You are here. We all are here. We’re here.”

  “What great fucking skills of observation.”

  “Can’t we just enjoy the last bit of summer?”

  “Wow, sure—as it’s ending. Brilliant.”

  “There’s a new year starting,” Yngve said tentatively. “You know what that means.”

  “New year, new data,” Cole and Yngve said together, their eyes filling with refulgent, desperate optimism. Wallace laughed a little at that. For a moment, he forgot himself, buoyed on their warmth, by their belief in what was possible. New year, new data. He didn’t believe it for himself. It was just a thing people said sometimes. A way of getting by. He rapped his knuckles hard against the table.

  “Knock on wood.”

  “God,” Vincent said.

  “Hey now.” Cole put his arm around Vincent, but Vincent just shook him off. He dropped his dish on the table and ice cream leapt over the rim of the cup, splattering the table. A drop of white—lukewarm like spit—landed on Wallace’s wrist.

  “What would you do if you didn’t have this? If you had to fend for yourselves?” said Vincent. He looked at each of them. Miller had raised his eyebrows. Yngve turned a little red. Wallace pinched some of Cole’s napkins to wipe his wrist clean.

  “Fend for ourselves? Excuse me, but you work in finance. Not exactly roughing it,” Cole said.

  “I didn’t say I was roughing it. I’m just saying, what if you had to fend for yourself? Think for yourself? Plan your own fucking life. You’d be lost.”

  “I don’t plan my life? My project? My experiments? Are you telling me we haven’t planned our life together? We have furniture, Vincent.”

  “Because I bought furniture. When I showed up here, you were basically living in a frat house with these two,” Vincent said, sharply motioning toward Yngve and Miller, who looked on stoically. “Plywood on buckets for end tables. Jesus Christ. You don’t know anything about furniture, just like you wouldn’t know the first thing about getting a real job, real health insurances, taxes. We can’t even take a real vacation. Five days in Indiana—what a great time. Wonderful.”

  “We spent last summer in Mississippi with your parents, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but your family hates gay people, Cole. There’s a difference.”

  Wallace laughed and then clamped his mouth shut as tightly as he could. He again felt the edge of shame at seeing something private turning horribly public right before his very eyes. And yet he could not look away. They had begun this argument with smiles and soft feints at violence, but now they were snarling at each other. Cole had slid away from Vincent, and Vincent from Cole, which made their bench twist awkwardly. The food slid down the table, now at an angle. Miller caught the nachos before they hit the ground.

  Cole smiled at Wallace. “Back me up. It’s Mississippi.”

  “I’m from Alabama,” Wallace said, but Cole closed his eyes.

  “You know what I mean. Same difference.”

  “I’m from Indiana, and even I think it’s pretty terrible,” Miller said. “Vincent has a point.”

  “You’re basically from Chicago,” Cole said. “This is not—Vincent just hates my family.”

  “I do not hate your family. Your family is wonderful. Just deeply racist and wildly homophobic.”

  “My aunt is racist,” Cole said to Wallace.

  “His mother said their church is struggling. Tell them what the struggle is, Cole.”

  “A black family joined the congregation. Or tried to. Is trying to?” Cole said, putting his hands over his face. His neck was deep maroon.

  “So don’t tell me they aren’t—”

  “There were no black people in my church when I was growing up,” Miller said. “Before I stopped going, anyway. It’s Indiana.”

  “I mean, my family didn’t really go to church,” Yngve said. “Like, there were no black people in my town either. But my grandparents love black people. They say the Swedes are the blacks of Scandinavia.”

  Wallace choked a little on his own saliva. Yngve squirmed and returned to his taco.

  “Anyway, there is more to life than your pipettes and epi tubes,” Vincent said evenly. “You’re all just playing at being adults with your plastic toys.”

  Cole was about to respond when Wallace opened his mouth, surprising even himself. “It is silly, isn’t it? Still being in school like this. I wonder sometimes, what am I doing here? I guess it’s not so silly. Lots of people think that. But still, I think about what it might be like to leave. Do something else. Something real, as you say, Vincent.” He laughed as he talked. He looked past his friends to the soccer team, who had settled
and grown closer and were now so transfixed by whatever they saw that they didn’t even think to talk or move or drink their beers. Wallace dug his thumb into the top of his knee until it stung. “I guess I sort of hate it, sometimes, I guess. I hate it here.”

  The words fell out of him like the exhalation of some hot, dense space inside him, and when he was done talking, he looked up, thinking that no one had really been paying attention. That’s how it was. He talked and people drifted in and out of concentration. But when he looked up, Wallace saw that each of them was looking at him with what seemed to be tender shock.

  “Oh,” he said, a little startled. Miller went on eating his nachos, but Cole and Yngve narrowed their eyes. Their shadows slid across the table. They felt close.

  “You can leave, you know,” Vincent said. His voice was warm on Wallace’s neck. “If you’re unhappy, you can always leave. You don’t have to stay.”

  “Wait a minute, wait, hold on, wait, don’t go telling him that,” Cole said. “You can’t just take it back if you leave.”

  “Doing things that you can’t take back is what the real world is, babe.”

  “Listen to yourself. Suddenly you’re a life coach? You’re literally a telemarketer.”

  “You’re so pretentious,” Vincent hissed. “Like, to a terrifying degree sometimes.”

  Cole bent around Vincent to stare at Wallace. “Leaving will not make you feel better. Leaving is just quitting.”

  “You can’t just decide what is too hard for someone else,” Vincent said hotly. Wallace reached out and placed his palm against Vincent’s back. He was sweating through his shirt. His body vibrated like a plucked string.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” Wallace said, but Vincent hardly heard him. “Don’t pressure him,” he said to Cole. “What is this, a cult?”