Chapter 11
11
Gabe
I’ve written and printed out—secretly—a draft of Kayla’s letter to the bank, and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Mom and Lucy are downstairs with representatives of at least six of the fifteen families, hashing out the details of the Hungry Hearts dance. I definitely don’t want to walk into the middle of that. Almost absentmindedly, I open the desk drawer where I’ve stashed Gretchen’s engagement ring, right next to my old TI-83 calculator and some chewed-up pencils.
My friend Paul is right: I should sell the ring, or at least give it back to my dad, so he can sell it. But I would rather have another fight with Adam about structural inequality than talk to Dad about my failure with Gretchen.
The whole experience of proposing and planning a wedding felt so unnatural to me, like a performance, which is more or less how our relationship felt, too. Gretchen and I were never a natural fit – I’m the kind of guy who wants to relax on the couch with a beer at the end of a long day, while she’d rather get dressed up and take selfies of us dancing at Chicago’s swankiest clubs. But we’ve known each other all our lives. And when she sidled up to me at a crowded Halloween party during our sophomore year in college and started cracking wickedly funny jokes about how thongs and cat ears don’t really count as full-fledged costumes , I couldn’t help but laugh. She was fun to be around, and knew just how everything should go: where we should go for our first official date, when we should kiss, when we should move in together, and, of course, when I should propose. She made everything so easy.
I cared for her. I still do, in a way. But we could never talk as simply and openly as Kayla and I had during that high school basketball game. Looking at her and touching her was very pleasant, but it didn’t set my every nerve ending on fire the way my most casual interaction with Kayla had. That was teenage lust, I’d tell myself. This is grown-up love. Why, then, did it feel so depressing?
I thought that if Gretchen and I went ahead and got married, like everyone expected us to, things would shift between us. I’d forget about Kayla, Gretchen and I would connect more deeply, and all would be well. I wanted to get off to a good start by proposing to her quietly, at home, or maybe on a walk. I don’t like being the center of attention, and I knew that I would be able to express my feelings much better if it was just the two of us. But when I’d mentioned this, offhand, to the friend of hers who helped me choose the ring, she looked at me like I’d suggested Gretchen get married in a burlap sack. She went on and on about this being Gretchen’s first and only proposal, and didn’t I want it to be special ? So I talked one of our law professors into surrendering his class to me for the day, filled the lecture hall with flowers and candles and had “Will you marry me?” projected onto the smart board when Gretchen walked into Advanced Contracts. The room had exploded when she said yes, many Insta-worthy pictures were taken, and Gretchen claimed, at least, that it was everything she’d always wanted.
After that, my life became a blur of engagement parties and engagement pictures and guest lists and color palettes. Gretchen was so busy checking out vendors (or so she said) that some days I barely saw her. Later I found out that she was already having an affair. I feel worse now about the actual betrayal than about the relief I felt when I realized we could finally stop pretending to have the perfect relationship.
I shove the ring back in the drawer with a sigh. Maybe I can leave it there and we can all forget about it, and someday give a second-hand furniture dealer the surprise of a lifetime.
As if the universe has sent him a sign that someone, somewhere, is squandering money that could be spent on booze, Paul sends me a text:
Hey dude, how’s the fam?
As expected. How are you?
Secretly hating my new job at Rothschild & Reed and questioning all of my life choices. Courthouse gig going okay?
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting, turns out. I feel like I’m actually make a difference
This is true. Over the past week, Mark and Nancy have gotten more used to my presence and have allowed me to do some actual work. The city attorney’s office covers areas of the law that I always thought were boring in school, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find how much I enjoy immersing myself in the minutiae of municipal regulations. There is so much going on beneath the surface in a small town, and I can’t help but feel a little privileged to be part of it.
We’re not supposed to “make a difference”, we’re supposed to make $$$! Didn’t you pay any attention in law school?!
Guess that’s why I flunked out
You didn’t flunk out, and you better not be getting too cozy in Kentwood. All the associate attorneys in my firm suck
Don’t worry, I’ll get out as soon as I can
Are there any hot girls in Kentwood? Maybe an older, buttoned-up librarian type who likes to get a little wild on the weekend? A bored stay-at-home mom? A busty waitress who leans over enticingly while refilling your coffee cup? Insert the straight-guy fantasy of your choice?
I laugh. I miss Paul, I really do. Though his busty-waitress stereotype hits a little too close to home—not that I would describe Kayla’s stunning figure as necessarily busty, or that she refills coffee cups intentionally enticingly. But I am enticed by the fact that she didn’t seem to hate me quite so much when I went over to her house on Tuesday. A teeny, tiny doorway seems to have opened to our past friendship, and I want to do whatever I can to keep it from slamming shut. The whole situation is too complicated to explain to Paul, though, especially by text. I decide to keep it simple.
No hot girls. Just children and little old ladies organizing church raffles. I’ll be back in Chicago before you know it
My phone dings immediately after I hit send, but this time it’s Joyce, Kayla’s mom. I gave her my number in case she needed any more help around the house.
I want to thank you for helping us sort out our issue with the bank. It’s really been eating at Kayla
I’m glad I can help. Do you need me to do any more repairs?
Oh, no, you’ve already done enough, and you and your folks must be so busy with Hungry Hearts
I noticed that the doors were off your kitchen cabinets. Do you want me to put them back up? Or do you like them that way?
No, they just fall off because they’re old, and we can never get them to stay
I’d be happy to fix them. Say tonight around 6:00?
Well, if you insist… thanks! I’ll have Kayla bring you another burger (or two!)
I flip my phone around in my hands, pleased to have something to look forward to, and to have figured out how to see Kayla again. I told her I’d write the letter, but we didn’t make a plan to meet, and I don’t know how to get in touch with her without simply showing up at the café. Now, though, I have an excuse to stop by and offer to pay for dinner. It’s worth a shot.
“Hold still so I can screw it in,” I say, and instantly regret it. Kayla bites back a smile, but holds the cabinet door in place while I attempt to reattach it. Like the house, the metal cabinets date from the 1950s, and are so worn that it’s next to impossible to secure them. It doesn’t help that it’s about a thousand degrees in this kitchen, or that Kayla has stripped down to a tank top that reveals the soft curve of her breasts. They’re not huge ones that would spill out of a tight diner uniform, but rather smallish, roundish ones that would fit perfectly in the palm of my?—
“Fuck!” I pinch my finger in the cabinet door. Kayla laughs outright.
“Are you all right?” she says, trying to suppress a cackle.
“Fine, not that you care.” I glare at her while sucking at the cut.
“I’ll get you a Band-Aid,” she says, still smirking. “And wash your finger!” she calls bossily over her shoulder on her way to the bathroom. As if I didn’t know to do that.
She returns with a bandage and surprises me by taking my hand. She’s been noticeably friendlier tonight, though when I arrived she had been as reservedly stone-faced as the first time I came over. But this project, with its slippery, heavy doors and the constant risk of dropping said doors onto toes or hands or heads, has brought us together like a thorny calculus problem. It’s impossible to maintain a tone of polite formality when you’re crawling on the floor chasing after lost screws, accidentally attaching the wrong doors to the wrong cabinets, and having supposedly attached doors come off immediately in your hand. Plus, have I mentioned that it’s about a thousand degrees in this kitchen?
Kayla’s hands, though, are remarkably dry and soft as she turns my palm over, looking for the cut.
“Just a little pinch,” she murmurs. “You know, you did that before,” she adds as she applies ointment.
“Did what?” I am extremely worried that I am going to get an erection just from her putting Neosporin on my hand. I really could do this myself, but I can’t pull away. I take deep breaths, hopefully subtly, and focus on listening to her words rather than feeling her touch.
“In high school. You knocked your Coke all over my calc notes and made this ridiculous high-pitched squeal.”
“I did not squeal.”
“You totally did. You did it again just now.” She’s laughing again. Damn it, she’s adorable when she laughs. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh since I’ve been back in town, and I realize how desperately I’ve missed the sound.
“As I recall, I cursed, in a manly way.”
“Sure,” she says, looking up at me with a twinkle in her eye. She’s let go of my hand, properly cleaned and bandaged, but is still standing close enough to touch. I suddenly remember the feel of her hips under my hands when we danced at the graduation party. I have a strong urge to put my hands on those hips again, lift her onto the counter, push her knees apart, and...
She breaks eye contact first and steps away from me, still with the hint of a smile. “I’ll make dinner,” she says, and begins bustling around the kitchen while opening and closing the newly attached cabinet doors. I’m relieved to see that they all hold.
She had, of course, flatly refused to let me pay for dinner from the café. “Your money’s no good here,” she’d asserted with her fiercest law-professor glare, hands on those shapely hips. “Besides, it’s unhealthy to eat out all the time. I’ll cook.” She refused to let me buy groceries, too. Of course. I may just have to sneak a wad of bills into her purse. Now she’s chopping vegetables, humming a bit, clearly at ease. Whatever her beef with me had been, she must have decided that I’m at least sort of trustworthy. The bumblebee in my chest starts to get revved up again. Would it be madness to ask her on a real date sometime?
Since I knew she didn’t want to date anyone in high school, I was constantly plotting ways to get her to go on non-date dates. Would she like to come meet my neighbors’ new calves? Keep me company while I repaired my grandmother’s fence? Let me ride with her while she delivered books to housebound library patrons?
I have no idea what she would have said to any of these proposals because I was too scared to ask. Still, our friendship continued to deepen. During spare moments in class or study sessions after school, we learned the names, ages, and personality quirks of each others’ family members, what we wanted to study in college versus what we should study (English vs. communication/geology vs. political science), and our greatest irrational fears (being squashed by a garage door/accidentally getting ejected from the International Space Station). In some ways I felt closer to her than to any girlfriend I’d ever had, but somehow we could never overcome the barrier between nothing and something— until the night we almost did.
“Do you mind if I turn on some music?” present-day Kayla asks.
“Not at all. I didn’t know you could cook.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet,” she quips. “But yeah, I like to cook. It relaxes me. It’s creative, you know? But I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like. You’re a good excuse.”
“Can I help?”
“Nope, you just relax and nurse that finger.” She suppresses a giggle. She bought beer at the store, too, which I very much appreciate. She sways her hips slightly in time to the music, and since her back’s to me, I let myself watch her. I can’t help but admire how comfortable she is in her own skin, how unselfconscious. Gretchen and I almost never did things like this, regular things, like cooking or cleaning or shopping. We always had to be going to some fancy restaurant or on a carefully curated outing. It was like we were afraid to stand still and really look at our relationship.
“By the way, I have a draft of that letter to the bank,” I mention during a break in her sautéing. “Do you want to take a look?” I take it out of my pocket and hand it to her.
She unfolds it, places it on the counter, and narrows her eyes critically.
“Do you have a pen?” she asks. And in the time it takes garlic to brown, she takes out three commas, adds one, and completely rewrites two sentences of a seven-sentence letter.
“There,” she says, businesslike. “That’ll do. Good work, Wilson.”
The fact that she calls me “Wilson” makes my heart inflate like a balloon. I glance at her and see that one strap of her tank top has just slipped off her perfect shoulder. I want to caress her there, run my thumb along her collarbone, and whisper in her ear that I will make this mortgage problem go away, that I would take care of her forever if she’d let me. The force of this thought stops me from replying to her for half a minute while I struggle to catch my breath. But finally I simply say, “Thanks, Johnson,” in as normal a voice as I can muster, and let her get back to work.