Chapter Fifteen
Marty
I tell her about him. I tell how we met at rugby club, a year before we joined the same secondary school.
I tell her how we were inseparable by the end of the first year.
I tell her how I was the first person he told he was gay, the day after his fifteenth birthday.
I tell her how he came on holidays with my family, and how I had my own key to his house.
I tell her how much he read - anything and everything - and how he would banish me from his room when he watched certain TV shows because I asked too many questions.
I tell her how he would get so annoyed when I talked about girls and I always thought it was because he hated hearing about boobs, but really, it was because he was fiercely jealous, something I didn’t know until years later.
I tell her about the night we first kissed.
I tell her how he was the first person I told I was bisexual.
I tell her how travelling with him was the best time of my life, how we made memories to last a lifetime, the bittersweet irony of that not lost on me.
And I tell her about his favourite places, and about mine.
I tell her how incredible the sunset was on Koh Lanta.
I tell her how one night in Cambodia we watched the sun go down and then stayed in the very same spot, on a beach, and waited for it to come up again behind us.
I tell her how we planned on returning to New Zealand to live for a few years.
I tell her how we talked about that trip as if it would still happen, right up to the day he died.
And then I stop, and it’s not just because I’m sad or struggling to talk, rather because I have shared enough.
I have shared what I’m willing to, because some of it I want to keep just for me.
I also wonder if I have shared probably more than she wants to know.
I also stop before I get lost in the other side of our story, the one that involves hospital wards, long complicated names of drugs I eventually learned to say with ease, other cancer patients who became friends, and their ghost-like family members and loved ones rushing from the ward to the toilets to sob.
I can sense that Jenna is a generous soul, but even she doesn’t want or need to talk about this, not here, not now.
“Thank you for sharing that,” she says when my words slow to a halt.
“Thank you for listening,” I reply, and I mean it.
“You probably need a drink now,” she says with a tentative smile. “A non-alcoholic one.”
“Jesus, yes,” I say, lifting my hand to my mouth, the hand that isn’t still holding hers. “My mouth’s as dry as a nun’s fanny.”
“My God, Marty,” she says, and I can’t tell if the way she covers her crumpled face with her hands means she’s disgusted or amused, but regardless, I’m proud to have shifted the mood a little.
Then I stare at our interlocked fingers. “I want to get it, but I also don’t want to move.”
She does it for me, pulling her hand away and grinning at me. “Go get me a drink, you filthy-mouthed menace.”
I head to the bar and find the same woman that was working yesterday and she asks me what I have in mind for her today, making my task much easier. Together we concoct two mocktails and I proudly carry them over to Jenna.
“Here we go. A Cuddle on the Beach,” I say, putting the glasses down on the table. “It’s fruity, fun, and won’t get as much sand in your arse crack.”
“Thank you,” she says with a tinkling laugh before taking a slow sip. I try not to look too intently at her lips, surprised at how desire is bubbling up inside me despite being so lost in thoughts of Arnie just a few minutes ago.
But it also makes sense. There’s something about telling her about Arnie that feels like I’ve undergone a cleansing ritual, a process that has very faintly lightened the burden of my grief.
The sadness and dull ache is still there, but the heaviest load and the razor-sharp edges of my pain have gone.
Maybe that’s why looking at her lips feels better, almost safer, than it did last night. Maybe that’s why I say what I say next.
“Now I have three questions for you,” I say, then correct myself. “No, four actually.”
“Go ahead,” she says, pulling a face that tells me she's bracing herself.
“Firstly, am I forgiven? For getting here late.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Secondly, can I have dinner with you tonight?”
She is shocked by that one. “Yes.” She smiles after a beat.
“Thirdly, was that weird for me to just talk about my ex like that? It’s heavy and tragic and sad, but also he’s still my ex. It’s still someone I had feelings for... have feelings for. Like, I still love and miss the shit out of him. Is that weird for you?”
Jenna starts talking while looking at her drink, but eventually her eyes pull up to find mine.
“It’s not weird. Love is not as prescriptive or as predictable as we like to think it is.
We like to put rules on love, like we do most things, and we approach it with a binary mindset, but love will never bend to fit in binaries or boxes.
Love doesn’t care. Love will just grow wherever it finds the right conditions.
Your love for Arnie doesn’t stop your capacity to feel physically attracted to someone else, even if he were alive that would still be true.
Missing him and grieving him doesn’t mean you can’t also take pleasure in being with someone else when you’re ready to.
.. physically, I mean.” I sense she is being extra cautious with her words.
“So you still fancy me? Even though I still have feelings for a dead man?” I am a lot less careful with my words.
“Is that your fourth question?”
“No, it wasn’t. Shit!”
“You can have another one.” She grins and bumps her body against my arm.
“You need to answer that question first,” I raise my eyebrows at her.
Her teeth sink into her plump lower lip, the lucky buggers.
“Yes, I still fancy you. And to clarify, I don’t find it weird at all that you still have feelings for Arnie. Honestly, I would find it weird if you didn’t still have feelings for him.”
I stare at her as I process what she’s just said.
I realise in that moment that I’ve been resisting what I still feel for Arnie for so long since he died, because it hurt.
Loving him hurt me, because it reminded me of his absence, of his death.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I recognise now that somewhere along the way, I’ve been trying to stop loving him so that I could stop some of the pain.
But what if it didn’t have to be like this?
How much energy and effort would I get back if I stopped trying to switch off that love?
What if I could find peace in still loving him?
I must have been thinking on this for longer than I realise because she nudges me again, her arm warm against mine. “Your final question, Irishman?”
Blinking, I glide my eyes over her face, once, twice, as if I’m trying to count every one of her freckles. A question does indeed climb to the tip of my tongue. It isn’t the one I was going to ask, but it’s the only one I want an answer for now.
“Can I kiss you?”
If she's surprised by that one it melts away in a heartbeat, as does the distance between us when she tells me Yes in the sweetest whisper. I lean in too and time starts to slow down, the background noise fading away, and I close my eyes...
“Oh, he showed up!” A man’s voice calls out and Jenna pulls back.
Fuck.
We both turn our heads towards the culprit, and I see an attractive young man with big brown eyes carrying an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne in it.
“Hi, Lionel,” Jenna says pulling back further from me.
“Sorry, did I interrupt?” he asks. “I did, didn’t I? Fluffballs. Jake wanted me to send this over to you. He wanted to come himself, but we have a rather annoy- no, err... challenging guest at the front desk and...”
I try to contain my smile. Who is this adorable human?
“It’s fine, Lionel,” Jenna says, and I love the pink that is now in her cheeks. “It’s really sweet of you.”
“Super sweet, thanks a million,” I say, and then I stand up and introduce myself. “Hi, I’m Marty.”
“Oh, wow, you really are Irish,” Lionel says as he shuffles the ice bucket to one side and grips my hand.
“Afraid so,” I say. “It would be a pain in the arse to keep up the accent all day long otherwise.”
His smile is wide and genuine, his laughter light and airy and I don’t think I could hate him for interrupting our kiss if I tried. And for a moment there I was really trying.
“So, shall I just put this down here?” Lionel moves towards our table.
“Actually, we’re grateful, but we aren’t drinking tonight,” Jenna says but immediately I interject.
“No, you should have some, if you want,” I say to her.
“That’s it, I don’t want. I’m happy with our Cuddles on the Beach.” I somehow know her well enough to know she’s being honest. “Did you open it already?” she asks Lionel.
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “Your brother was insistent you’d want it to drown your - sugar cubes! I mean, to take back to your villa.”
“Then you should keep it on ice until the end of your shift and share it with my brother,” Jenna says.
“Great idea!” I agree.
“Err, okay, although I’m not sure that’s allowed,” Lionel stutters and I resist the urge to give him a big reassuring hug.
“Please just tell my brother that Marty showed up, so there’s no need for me to go drown my sorrows tonight and I therefore insist he drowns his instead. With you.” Jenna leans towards Lionel, her back arching in a way that drags my eyes down to her butt.
“Okey dokey,” Lionel says and there’s a hint of excitement shimmering in his eyes as he turns away from us. “Have a nice evening!”
“Fuck me, he’s too cute,” I say after he’s gone.
“The sweetest man. I sort of hope he and my brother discover they like each other.”
“Get in there, Sweet Cheeks,” I say.
“Did you just call my brother Sweet Cheeks?”