43. Oliver
FORTY-THREE
Oliver
“ Hoy , Ollie,” my mom’s smiling face says, during a group FaceTime with my family. “Your birthday is coming, hah !”
“You old as hale, Ollie,” Izzy says.
“We’re planning your birthday party this weekend. Saturday, actually,” Tala informs me.
I groan. “I can’t make it. I’m busy.”
“Pssht. Ollie, we’re done watching you mope around. We haven’t seen you in forever. You’ve been burying yourself in work. I know you’re all heartbroken, hah . Well, pull yourself together. It’s depressing.”
“Jeez, Ma,” I mutter.
“Harsh,” Izzy agrees. “What Ma means to say is, we miss you and we love you and we want to celebrate your special day with you.”
“Agreed,” Tala chimes in. “That’s why we booked a private karaoke room in Flushing. We invited some cousins and a bunch of your old coworkers and weird bro-ey friends.”
I frown. “How big is this private karaoke room? ”
Ma rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine. It’s not a private room. It’s the entire bar. We booked the entire karaoke bar.”
“What the fuck?! How expensive is that—” I erupt.
“LANGUAGE, Oliver!” Ma says at the same time.
“We’re not paying anything. We just have to meet a minimum bar tab,” Izzy explains.
“Which our cousins and your finance bro friends will meet in what we’ve estimated to be an hour and a half,” Tala adds on.
I scrub my face. “This seems to be a little extreme for a thirty-ninth birthday party.”
Ma’s face is glowing. The screen is bouncing like she is jumping up and down on her toes. I don’t like the looks of it. “Just make sure you look nice, hah ? Wear a shirt that shows off your muscles. And maybe those nice jeans I bought you from Macy’s.”
“This is a lot—” I try.
“Don’t worry, we’re getting it catered by Ihawan. So I don’t have to cook. Filipino food for everybody. So don’t worry about me,” Ma says.
“That’s not what I was going to say?—”
“Okay, Ollie, we gotta go. See you on Saturday. At three. Bye!” Izzy says.
All three Flores women hang up at the same time.
I stare at my phone for a bit, scratching my head.
I wake up Saturday morning, the day of my thirty-ninth birthday, filled with dread, alone in my bed in my fucking apartment in Fort Greene.
I’m washing my face and brushing my teeth when something on the bathroom counter catches my eyes. A single fleck of pink glitter. A relic from that night we went to that warehouse party in Bushwick. I go to wipe it off, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I leave it.
I go up to the building gym. I start my daily workout routine, which basically consists of exercising so hard that I can no longer feel feelings, or so my misery stems from something more tangible, like my aching muscles.
On autopilot, I head back down to my apartment and get in the shower, where I have a very unsatisfying and depressing jerk to the image of Georgia on all fours on top of my desk, ass red from my palms. I come to the vision of her on her knees under my desk, luscious mouth wrapped around my cock.
Sighing, I use the removable shower head to spray down the tiled wall.
I take the train over to Flushing, or three different trains, actually, requiring me to take a train into Manhattan and then two different trains out towards Queens. It gives me time to remember Georgia dancing on one of those seats, spinning and grinding on one of the poles, head tilted back in open-mouthed laughter, headphones barely containing the volume of her hair.
I wind my way through Flushing, through masses of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, holding red plastic bags of fruit and vegetables and seafood. The spring air is warm with the smell of scallion, soy, and car exhaust.
The karaoke bar is tucked away from the main thoroughfare. When I walk up, I see my sister’s wife Jill lighting up a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I told her.
She shrugs, using her other hand to type something on her phone. She takes a drag, makes a strange choking sound, then bends over, coughing her lungs out. “Yum,” she hacks, tears in her eyes. “This is so relaxing. I love this so much.”
I eye her. “You okay? ”
She nods, eyes red and face slightly disgusted. “You should go in.”
“Do you want me to wait out here with you while you finish your cigarette?”
“NO!” she half-shouts. She clears her throat. “No. Just… just go in. Oh, and happy birthday,” she says, patting me on the back with one hand and pinching the cigarette between two fingers on the other, holding it as far away from her body as possible.
I walk into the bar. I’ve been here before. It’s set up and designed to look like a nightclub, complete with faux leather couches and black lights, illuminating anything and everything light colored to a glowing neon.
I’m bracing myself for the inevitable “SURPRISE!”, even if it is in fact not a surprise party, yet is something my family would do anyway, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, I hear what sounds like a dying cat screeching the lyrics to I Believe in a Thing Called Love, that catchy yet slightly irritating song by The Darkness that came out in the early 2000s.
I believe in a thing called love
Just listen to the rhythm of my heart
There's a chance we could make it now
We'll be rocking 'til the sun goes down…
I recognize that cat. And honestly, the screeching works for this song.
In the back of my head, I vaguely note that my family and friends are seated around the bar, but my sights zero in on the stage.
Georgia stands there, screeching into the microphone and gyrating her hips like the guy in the music video, the whites of her eyes and her teeth glowing unnaturally under the black light.
I wanna kiss you every minute, every hour, every da y
You got me in a spin, but everythin' is a-okay…
It’s relief, pure relief, this feeling in my chest. It blooms, as I walk towards her in a daze, like Icarus flying towards the sun. I can’t help the grin that takes over my face.
Georgia drops the performance when she sees my smile. She hands the microphone to Tala and Izzy, who I notice now are standing next to her with glee on their faces, like kids in a candy shop.
They take over the song while Georgia pulls me aside.
“Hi,” she says breathlessly.
“Hey,” I say. I’m no longer in control of my body, and I find my hand reaching up to touch her hair, tugging on the soft ends. “So, you got Jill smoking cigarettes now?”
She scoffs. “That was Tala’s idea.” Her gaze softens. “Can we talk outside?”
With a confidence born through routine, or love, maybe, I take her hand and lead her out. Her hand feels soft and warm and right in mine as our fingers interlock.
We’re outside and I get to look down at her beautiful face. I drink her in, parched by the loss. Her eyes sparkle. She has more freckles over her nose and cheeks, as if she’s been out in the sun. She’s wearing my lipstick. My eyes are glued to her mouth when she speaks.
“I’m ready to try,” she says simply.
I look back up towards her eyes, remaining silent.
She sighs. “I’m ready to try, because I’ve been working on it, and because I have a plan. My therapist is working with me on strategies to help manage my behaviors. I see her twice a week. There’s a lot of cognitive reframing of my thought patterns. Guided discovery. That kind of thing.” She laughs once. “Actually, a lot of them have been strategies I can replicate in the classroom with Max.”
I smile. “That’s good.”
“Yeah. I’m going to stick with it this time. It’s time to get better.” She pokes at a rock on the ground with her toe. “…she’s also given me some tools to help me come to terms with some more things. On my own.”
“What’s that?”
She tilts her head to look up at me now. Her expression is serene, confident. “I forgive you, and I love you, too.”
Something inside my chest bursts.
“I forgive you, and I know what you were doing wasn’t malicious. You did things for me because you genuinely care for me, and you thought it was best. But more importantly, you took accountability when you realized what you did was wrong. You fixed the problem, but you still gave me the independence and the freedom to make my own choices. I recognize that now.”
I take a step closer to her.
“I love everything about you. I love that you cook and clean up after me because you know I hate it. I love that you’re always doing things for me, and putting me before yourself. I love that you alphabetize your bookshelves by author's last name and not something ridiculous like color.”
I shudder.
“I love that you’re a big teddy bear around me and your family. Actually, to everyone, really, anyone who knows you. You see my flaws and love me despite them. I love that you’re not trying to fix me because you’re embarrassed, or ashamed, or need to control me, but you want me to be fixed because you genuinely want what’s best for me. I feel complete when you’re around. Safe and secure and loved.” As she says this, she nestles into my chest, where she belongs. I wrap my arms around her, breathing her in.
“You’re like the other half to my whole,” she says, voice muffled. “But like, I need to make myself whole first. So then, I guess, we’re two wholes? Or maybe one and a half right now?”
I chuckle. “Teaching math was never your strong suit.”
“I’ve been working on it. But I miss my coach,” she says, stepping back.
“Can I kiss you now?” I ask her gently.
“No,” she says firmly. “I’m not done. I still have to thank you. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for giving up your promotion for me. Thank you for protecting me and keeping me safe and coaching me to be a better teacher,” she says, eyes shining with gratitude. “Okay, now you can kiss me.”
I smile instead. “You’re welcome. I’m so proud of you for getting better.”
She eyes me shrewdly, that fierce look I’ve grown to love. “I’m not fixed yet, or anything, Oliver. My therapist says it’s a work in progress. I have a lot of work to do on myself. But if you’ll be patient with me, I’d like you to be there with me. ”
“Same for me. We’re not perfect, Georgia, but that’s okay. As long as we agree to move forward together.”
We take a minute to look our fill of each other. I zero in on her mouth.
“Is that the lipstick?” I ask her, my voice coming out deeper than expected.
Her pupils darken, remembering. “Yes.”
“Can I kiss you n?—”
I’m cut off by her pulling my head down by the back of my neck and finally, finally , I can cover her mouth with mine. Our lips meet and this, this is my homecoming. Our kiss starts off chaste, and I reacquaint myself with the feeling of lips against mine, but then grows deeper, wilder, our tongues tangling. I wind my hands through her hair, feel her arms wrap around my neck. We angle our faces, relearn and map each other’s mouths. It’s a kiss that speaks volumes. I love you; I missed you; you’re mine; I’m never leaving you again.
My hand drifts down the inside of her jeans to squeeze her ass when I hear a horn honk and remember that we are in the middle of Flushing, smack dab in the middle of Auntie Central.
I pull away, mapping her freckles and each individual eyelash, loving the way her lipstick is now smeared around her mouth. She licks her finger and rubs it off my face, where I assume it’s transferred.
I don’t fix hers.
“Is my lipstick okay?” she asks me.
“Yep.”
“Oliver.” She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m about to go in there and see your mother.”
Wincing, I wipe her face down.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you more,” I answer.
“Impossible.”
“Nope.”
“No way in hell.”
“Yep,” I tell her, taking her hand and bringing her back into the bar.
“SURPRISE!” screams my family, my friends, old co-workers, Lina, and the third grade team. Someone starts scream singing ‘Happy Birthday’, the Flores way, and the whole room chimes in. Tito Rick provides guitar accompaniment.
“Happy birthday,” the love of my life whispers into my ear, and I am complete.