11. What’s a Life Worth? #2
“Babe.” A large-bodied white man with a neat buzz cut emerged from the kitchen to our left, ducking his head so he didn’t hit his forehead on the doorframe. “Nobody is biting on this juice press. Should we take it for our place?”
I had seen this man in photos and chats and videos. He was taller in person, with hands like baseball mitts, one of which he extended to me. “Hi there. I’m Mike.”
I lost all ability to form words. He was Xavier’s high school sweetheart.
The only boyfriend Xavier had had before we started dating in my senior year of college, and the ghost of whom haunted our blossoming romance as if he were the infamous Rebecca—despite being far from dead—and I were du Maurier’s unnamed narrator from the novel I read in my first-year writing seminar.
“Mike, this is Henry Aster.” The subtext was unmissable in Xavier’s words. Mike’s slightly trout-mouthed expression only highlighted it.
They had discussed me. At length.
Of course they had. Who wouldn’t tell their current partner about the rebound boyfriend they had in college who embarrassed himself in front of the entire art department and countless other students?
“Good to meet X’s college friend,” said Mike, shaking my hand so hard it jostled me. My cheeks burned like hell.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Xavier said.
“I’m Aidan. Henry’s perfect man,” he declared to my utter mortification.
Not only had he overpaid for used Christmas trees, but he spoke to Xavier and Mike like an alien beamed down from Planet Strange.
Last night, I’d almost forgotten myself, forgotten who Aidan was— what Aidan was.
I was reminded too well, and I felt the urge to run away from it all.
“Cool,” Mike said, hiding the awkwardness well.
Xavier did it less convincingly. “I’m glad you found someone, Henry.”
I couldn’t even look at him.
Suddenly, I wished I were the one that was dead.
That this was my house and my stuff being sold.
I’m glad you found someone . It felt passive-aggressive and cruel after he strung me along the way he did, and I wanted to cry but I couldn’t so I said, like a coward, “Thank you.” Before instructing Aidan to grab the other trees and get out of there.
I jogged to the car. The metal wires and plastic arms of the trees rattled inside their battered boxes as I threw our haul in the trunk with a huff.
Aidan didn’t say anything the whole ride back to the apartment.
He didn’t even say anything when I went out back and furiously painted our sets. Art had always been my escape; creation my mode of control. But the color mixing didn’t bring clarity. And the brushstrokes didn’t create calm.
Aidan came to check on me an hour later with two mugs of tea and my coat. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t wearing one. I accepted both offers without a word, stepping away from the paint palette and sitting on the bench we’d set out.
“Wow, I’m going to have to paint over that,” I said, looking at the absolute chaotic mess I’d made of the snow scene. Unless the display was “White Winter Hymnal” themed, there shouldn’t be red in a snowy landscape. “Fuck.”
“I like it. It’s honest,” Aidan said. There was no undertone of even if you weren’t today . He was stating an opinion. Unvarnished. I hadn’t suspected he even had those unless I supplied them first.
And today all he did was give a little extra money to a man who’d just lost his grandma. And last night all he did was be hot and capable. My anger chipped away until my core was exposed.
“How did you learn how to do all of this?” he asked.
“I went to college for art. That’s where I met Xavier,” I said, his name still weighty after six years of not seeing each other.
“To get my degree, I had to do a thesis show—present a collection of my best work tied together with a theme. At the time, I was seeing Xavier, and I thought we were in a serious relationship. I took an interest in sculptural pieces and woodworking and assemblage art. I liked combining different mediums into one piece of art because art—no matter the method—is never one thing, and using nontraditional materials was a way I’d be able to afford to continue doing it after I graduated.
So I made all these different multimedia pieces describing how I felt about him. ”
“What a nice thing to do,” Aidan said.
“He didn’t think so. That night he told me he was getting back together with his ex-boyfriend. Mike. Whom we met earlier…”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate.”
“You know what else is unfortunate? I think I’ve always been a romantic who’s just no good at romance,” I said.
“Does art make you feel better?” Aidan asked.
“Usually. It hasn’t so far today.”
“What if I painted with you? I will probably be very bad at it, but whatever I make it can’t be worse than this gruesome scene,” he said. That made me laugh. It really did look like a dormant battlefield after a brutal winter slaughter. Not what we were going for.
“Fair enough,” I said.
Aidan extended his hand to help me up. The feel of his hand in mine matched how I’d imagined it would the night before. Soft. Warm. Almost as if it were made with the exact proportions to fit mine.
We picked up rollers and laid down a base coat of white over my epic mess.
A few hours later, when the sun went down, we returned to the bench and our now freezing teas and inspected our work. We finished one scene and made a start on a second backdrop.
“My list on How to Be Human says that making art is one of the ways humans give their existence value,” Aidan said in recitation mode. “I think I understand that now. I feel tired, but it’s a happy tired.”
“That’s called pride,” I told him, teeth chattering in the cold. While focused on the work, it was easy to forget how frigid it was. I zipped up my coat, but I wished Aidan would hold me so we could share body heat, too.
“Like the rainbow pin you have on your bag and the flag you have hanging in the shop,” he said. “I took a photo and put it in a search engine.”
“Oh, that’s a different kind of pride…” I said with a light chuckle. “Which maybe gives me an idea for our next practice date.”