Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Vin must have gotten the hint when Esther handed him a mesh bag filled with footballs and Frisbees, et cetera, because he’s been playing with Fabi and Liam and Sari (Daniel’s eight-year-old twins) for the last hour.
He stops by every so often for some bites of the hamburger and corn and watermelon and casserole that I piled onto a plate for him when we got here. As soon as Shan cuts that pie, I plan to snag Vin a slice.
By the way, I decidedly have my back to Vin because he’s throwing a football and I already told you about his T-shirt.
Reggie and his wife, Carina, have been talking to me for the last nine minutes about a vacation they took to Connecticut and I have, sadly, not been listening at all.
Sadly, I say, because now there is a break in the conversation where a normal person would have something up her sleeve, say, a reply, but I can’t even come up with nouns right now.
Vin is not leaving me. Vin still loves me.
Vin pushed me down on his boner and almost made me black out.
I feel like a high schooler who is pretty sure she’s going to lose her virginity after school today.
Sorry, Reggie and Carina, Connecticut can’t compete.
“So,” Lauro (in a silk floral-print button-down) says, flopping down in the grass beside me and eating grapes like the lecherous lout that he is. “That guy. Vin.”
Oh, never mind, I love Lauro. He’s just brought up the only subject I have any interest in at all right now.
“Yeah?”
“He’s Raffi’s brother, right? That’s how you know him? Why’d you bring him?”
Reggie and Carina get up to greet Stacia, who has just arrived.
“He seems pretty into you,” Lauro prods me when I don’t answer him.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, he’s looking at you like he’d like to test how flexible you are.”
“He knows exactly how flexible I am.”
“Oh, realllllly.” He chomps grapes with a grin. He’s gotten the information he wanted and now he’s very pleased with himself. “So you two are hooking up? He’s wearing a wedding ring, you ho.”
To lie or not to lie? Which would be more fun? “He’s my husband.”
And now I have the incredible satisfaction of truly gobsmacking Lauro. It almost looks out of place on him. Like seeing a tiger slip on a banana peel. “What?”
“Yup.”
“You are married?”
“Yup.”
“To him?”
“Lauro, yes.” Surely, it can’t be that shocking.
“And here I thought I might actually have a shot.” He says it in a friendly way, one that says more about his confidence in himself than anything about our supposed (nonexistent) romantic connection.
“Nah, never had a shot.”
He takes this with aplomb, seemingly more interested in my marital life than in the rejection he’s just been administered. “That night I first met him I did not get married vibes from you two.”
I sigh. “Well, it’s been hard times. We thought we might be splitting up.”
“He does not want to split up with you. Trust me.”
“He was the one who was leaving! Sort of.”
“Well, he’s not leaving now. Actually, he’s coming over here. Bye.” Lauro does a backwards somersault and skedaddles. If Vin were frowning at me like that, I’d probably do gymnastics to get away from him too.
But he’s not frowning at me. He’s smiling at me.
It’s his we-have-a-secret smile. I know this smile well.
And the best part? The only secret it ever is is how much he wants me.
I expect him to sit where Lauro was just sitting, on the grass beside me.
But instead, he pulls an old-school Vin and parks himself behind me, legs spread in a V on either side of me.
His hands trail up my thighs, over my belly, he gives me a squeeze and then just holds me.
This is going to get indecent and we’re in a public park, so I choose the most effective sexual defuser known to man. Hamburger.
“Mmrgh,” Vin says when I shove it over my shoulder and into his mouth. “Vis is goob.”
“Esther’s on the grill. Thank her later.” I lace my fingers with his free hand to fully demonstrate that I don’t want him going anywhere right now.
“Hi!” Daniel says, standing above us.
“Hi,” I say, though I’ve already greeted him earlier.
He’s holding out his hand to Vin. “It’s Mr. Infinity,” Daniel says with a grin.
Vin shakes his hand. “Sorry?”
“Nothing!” I fill in quickly.
“I’m Daniel. The teacher. Glad you could make it. Let me know if you ever want to make a few bucks modeling for the class. Oh, Em’s here.” Daniel is waving and wandering off.
“What’s Mr. Infinity?” Vin asks me.
“Oh, it’s really nothing. Just something he said after he saw some of the drawings I’ve done of you.”
“Oh. That person has seen a drawing of my dick,” Vin says, and takes a big bite of his burger. “Not quite sure how to feel about that.”
“If it makes you feel better, that person has probably seen more drawings of dicks than almost anyone else on earth.”
I wait a long time for Vin to respond. And then finally…
“Good stuff,” he says.
Which for whatever reason just really cracks me up. I’m wiping tears from my eyes when Shan comes to sit next to us with her pie. She’s brought the slicer and a stack of paper plates, too, bless her.
“Soooo.” She’s grinning and slicing at the same time. “How’d you two meet?”
“Bachelorette party,” I say. “He was the stripper. Fireman costume.”
She’s laughing but then sobers, leaning forward confidentially. “Wait, really?”
“She’s my brother’s friend. I met her and asked her on a date.”
“Oh.” She’s fatally disappointed. “Pie?”
And then we’re swarmed with classmates seeking pie.
Vin has to unhand me to eat his, a concept he clearly disapproves of. Which makes me very happy.
Fabi and Liam and Sari chase the first few fireflies.
A softball game is dramatically lost within hearing distance.
Reggie’s accidentally gotten way too drunk and Carina thinks it’s hilarious.
Penny and Lauro are sitting on either side of Em, watching her draw everyone’s slow disintegration toward blankets on the grass.
When the pie is gone, the universe does a backflip and treats us to a rising crescent moon so thin you could pick your teeth with it.
Vin leans back on his palms and I lean back on Vin’s chest. Let’s cast it in bronze, all of it, even Stacia’s very dry brownies.
I’m so filled with fluffy gold clouds I could cry. I tip my face up toward Vin. He tips his face down toward me.
“I have to pee,” I say.
“Wow, I really thought you were going to say something, I don’t know…lovely,” he says on a laugh and then helps me to my feet.
I go to the bathroom and on my way back toward the group (now just a silhouetted blob in the dim distance) I hear a familiar voice speaking in a very unfamiliar way.
“You can’t really have thought I’d like this, Lauro. Not in your heart.”
That’s Em. And she’s…seeming quite fierce.
“So I drew a portrait of you, Em. What’s the problem?”
That’s Lauro. And he’s…seeming quite timid.
They’re just ahead of me, around a bend of trees. I’m not a total asshole, so I make myself known. “Sorry, guys, I’ll just pass—”
Neither of them even acknowledges me.
“What’s the problem? The problem? Roz!”
I jump a foot in the air. “Yes?” I squeak.
“Come over here for a second.” I really can’t stress how odd it is to be hearing Em berating a wilting Lauro.
I immediately follow directions because, if it’s not obvious by now, I’m totally scared of her.
“Here.” She thrusts a piece of paper in my hands and I tip it toward the circle of coppery streetlight a few yards away.
It’s a beautiful portrait, done in Lauro’s typical style. Flowing cursive that wraps around form. It’s clearly Em, but a softened version. She’s bent over a drawing pad like a nymph might touch her fingers to a crystal-clear lake.
“It’s…” I fish for a word and find Vin’s. “Lovely.”
“Right,” Em says with a vicious nod. “But I am not.”
Lauro straightens. “Em, you’re—”
“Don’t give me that, Lauro. There is absolutely nothing of me in this portrait and you know it. I’m erased.”
She’s trying to shove the drawing back into his hands. He’s refusing to take it. “Nothing of you—”
“You’ve been doing this since NYU. You come to class with a smile for everyone, flirting and, and, and whatever.
You buy drinks and pretend you’re the party.
But I see you, Lauro.” She pokes two fingers against his chest so hard it makes the drawing crinkle where she’s pinning it against his heart.
“I see what you’re drawing. How you see people.
This silhouette bullshit. Continuous line around the outside.
You don’t come to class to give or…or to learn.
It’s disrespectful to the model. Who comes to class and strips naked for you.
You offer nothing in return.” I wonder, for a moment, if it’s really the model she’s talking about.
But she’s plowing on. “If you were really looking, Lauro, really trying, if this drawing were actually an offering to me, I would not look lovely. I would not look graceful. I know myself. I am neither of those things. I hunch over the drawing pad. I frown and look ugly and I draw. I draw what I see, Lauro. But you? You are not trying to draw people. All you’re trying to do is contain them. ”
Lauro isn’t blinking, his chest is moving up and down under his shirt. He’s clutching at his heart and the drawing has crumpled terribly under his fingers.
“Em—” His voice is just a husk.
“It’s all just stylized flatness,” she says, and now he shrinks back. This more than anything has sliced him to the bone. She’s clearly touched something fearfully tender for him. “It’s pretty, Lauro. But meaningless.”
His breath comes out in the sort of exhale people do when they lift their bloody fingertips and realize they’ve been stabbed.
“I think…” I whisper gently, and touch her shoulder with my fingertips. “I think that’s enough.”
It’s obviously not my business, but turns out I do like Lauro after all and he seriously looks devastated.
She jumps under my touch and turns her wild gaze on me.