Chapter Five
Chapter Five
I take Ainsley to school and then that afternoon I meet her at the gate of the schoolyard with a hot pretzel and a bubble tea (her favorite snack, she informed me yesterday) and she’s practically airborne as she skips her way home. Her mom is almost back.
I smile as I watch her. Obviously, being a mother must be desperately difficult, but to be on the receiving end of that kind of ebullient love probably makes it worth it.
We mess around at home for a few hours, working on a puzzle, then tossing a bunch of stuff into the instapot and hoping it creates something edible for dinner.
When we hear Reese’s keys in the front door, Ainsley leaps down from the counter and sprints to the front hall. After a minute, Reese walks into the kitchen, holding Ainsley baby-monkey style, and it makes me grin. They look effervescent with joy to be reunited.
“Mom, I wanna watch a movie,” Ainsley whines in a voice I haven’t heard her use once all weekend.
“It’s a weeknight, sweetie,” Reese says firmly.
“But I want to!” Ainsley insists, immediately growing petulant.
“Ains—”
Tears burst out of the little girl and she squirms down from her mother’s grasp and disappears down the hall toward her room.
“Sorry,” Reese says, pinching at the space between her eyes.
“No apology necessary. It’s understandable. She was an angel for me. Which means she saved up everything else for you.”
“Exactly.” Reese sighs. She’s wearing a pantsuit and her hair down around her shoulders. For someone who just took a five-hour flight she looks impossibly fresh. I feel like a sewer creature in comparison. “Well, how was it?”
“A total dream. You’ve got a good one, Reese.”
She smiles. “She’s the best, isn’t she?…I was really worried about her after my dad died. He was a father figure for her. But I think she’s rebounding. So,” she says, changing topics with a clap. “Tell me everything.”
I fill her in on the weekend and then go say goodbye to Ainsley. She’s not receptive to much, obviously on total overload, and I’m relieved. I don’t think I could handle any more emotions right now. I hate that this is goodbye, but that’s the way it is.
When I reemerge into the kitchen, Reese is standing there, biting her lip. “Are you sure you aren’t looking for regular work? I just want to make it clear that the offer is out there.”
“Thank you,” I say quickly. “But I’m just here to help in a pinch. That’s…that’s what works for my life right now.” I try not to burst into maniacal laugh-tears at the word life.
“Well,” she says on a sigh. “If you ever change your mind, I can tell how much Ainsley liked you.”
I shake her hand and gather my things. “Do you want me to lock up on my way out?”
“No, that’s fine. I’m sure Miles will be down in a few minutes. Finding something to criticize.” She collapses into one of the kitchen chairs. “If you can’t save me from that, at least save me a trip to unlock the door.”
I’m just closing their front door on my way out when suddenly I’m face-to-face with a crossed pair of arms.
“Hey,” Miles says.
“Hey.”
“Are you going home tonight?” he asks.
Men. You let them feed you one egg bagel and suddenly your whereabouts are their business. I’d like to tell him to mind his own, but then an image from this morning flashes in my mind: my ponytail being carefully extricated from the path of snot and tears. Sigh. He can be a real dick but I suppose he’s not all bad. “Eventually. I have to shower at some point, ya know?”
“What does eventually mean?”
He’s a quick one.
I shrug.
“The ferry, then?” he presses.
“No. Not on Mondays. There’s this all-night dance party on the Lower East Side that they do every Monday night. I usually go there instead.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “You look like you need three days of sleep and an IV, but you’re headed to an all-night dance party?”
“What can I say? I’m a dancing machine.”
He takes a step toward the door but looks back at me.
He’s pausing. I’m pausing. This is it for me and Miles. I can’t bring myself to acknowledge anything that’s passed these last few days. But we have to say something, right?
“Well,” I say, holding out my hand for a shake. “We met.”
He exhales quickly in what I think might be a laugh. “True.”
We shake hands and he slides his hands into his pockets, catching my eye right as I’m about to turn away.
“Define all-night dance party.”
“It’s from seven to seven. People come straight from work and dance until dawn. It’s a spiritual melee. You should come, seems right up your alley,” I joke.
“Okay,” he says with a shrug. “Let me just say hi to Reese and I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, I’m sorry.” Words have stopped making sense to me. “What?”
“I haven’t seen her in a few days. I just wanted to say hi.” He points behind him to her apartment.
“Yeah. I got that part. I’m a little foggy on the part where you think you’re coming with me?”
“Didn’t you just invite me?”
“I mean, yes?” The word yes squeaks like a chipmunk has said it.
“Great. Give me two seconds.”
—
Dance like no one’s watching , motivational kitschy kitchen signage insists worldwide.
Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now (except for Miles side-eyeing me from a slight distance) and frankly I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
I think I’ve passed social freedom and catapulted myself firmly into cry for help. Especially since in the last twenty minutes, twin rivers of tears have started coursing down my cheeks.
I dance harder.
Removing yet another grabby pair of hands from my hips, I rotate ten feet to the left, finding a clear spot among the mass of grooving humans.
You’d think dancing while crying and wearing a backpack would be enough to deter suitors, but I guess the people aren’t picky tonight.
Usually this is kind of a family-friendly dance party. People come to shake the workday off or motivate themselves for tomorrow. But this seems to be an unusually horny night.
The music is grimier, the people are wearing fewer clothes, and the drinks are more plentiful.
Drinks! Maybe that’ll help.
It won’t. Obviously. But I’m exhausted and raw and nothing else is helping, so…I head to the bar area and peek around the crowd. Miraculously, some guy has just bought a round for everybody in earshot, and drinks in plastic cups are being distributed to the masses en masse. The guy in front of me hands me a cup of foamy something and I blink down at it.
Miles’s hand comes from behind and plucks the drink away from me. “Do not drink this.”
I’m not even surprised. Just annoyed.
“Did you come here with the specific intention to be a buzzkill?” I’ve got my hands on my hips and I’m hoping I look irritated enough to cow his audacity, but the fact that I’m crying probably dims the effect.
He hands the drink off to someone else. Since we got here he’s been posted up in the corner, nursing a beer and occasionally raising his eyebrows at my dance moves.
The beat drops and I start dancing again, maintaining searing eye contact. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you don’t dance?”
“Are we calling this dancing?”
I laugh and concede the point. I’m currently pretending to mow a lawn, so yeah, maybe dancing isn’t quite the term.
“You, like, never dance?” I push.
“Not my thing.”
“Says the man who voluntarily attended an all-night dance party.”
“I…I came because I had something to talk to you about.”
The bass makes the building rattle and I lean in. “What?”
He puts his hands in his pockets and his mouth at my ear. “Can we talk outside?”
I consider this, nod, and then follow him. Mostly for the same reason I gravitated toward alcohol. Nothing else is helping, so I might as well follow this man out into the night.
We get to the sidewalk, the noise blissfully dampens, and he turns to face me. He’s looking a little…nervous? Uncertain? “I…wanted to ask you something…”
“Well?” I prompt after he pauses.
“How did you do all that? With Ainsley?”
“Do what?”
“Get her to laugh like that? And, I don’t know, always figure out what she needs so fast? I’ve known her for almost two years and I’ve never…”
Two years? He hasn’t known Ainsley her whole life? Did he marry into the family or something? I guess that partially explains Ainsley’s indifference to him. Some of the awkwardness between him and Reese.
“Oh. Well…I’m good with kids.” I wave my hand like it’s nothing.
He gives me a narrowed look of appraisal. “Reese said that you turned down the job offer.”
I rock on my heels. The music is beckoning me back inside. I’m going to scream if I have to think straight any longer. “Yeah.”
“Why?” He must sense my desire to ditch him and get back to the dance floor because he repositions himself between me and the door of the club.
“I don’t do long-term gigs anymore. You know my…situation. Do you really think I’m fit to be permanently integrated into some kid’s life right now? I’m a complete and utter mess. I can fake it for a couple days in a row, but regularly? No way.”
He nods, apparently in total agreement with me. “What if…what if you came back for just a little bit longer?”
I frown, trying to figure out what he’s getting at. That nervous look is back. “Spit it out, Miles. Whatever it is you’re trying to say.”
“I have a proposal for you.”
I roll my hand in the air so fast I feel wind.
“Look,” he says. “I’m not trying to convince you to be a full-time nanny for Ainsley. But…what would you think about coming back just long enough to teach me how to do what you do?”
“You want to be Ainsley’s babysitter?”
“I want to be someone they can rely on. Who they like having around. And right now…I’m striking out on both counts. Neither of them really…like me. As you could probably tell. But they like you. So if you could just teach me some tricks and in exchange—”
“Tricks? Miles, it’s my personality, not a magic show.”
He’s agitated. “Right, right. Of course. But there must be something you could, I don’t know, coach me on? I just want to learn—”
“And what would be in that for me?”
“Ah.” He’s slowly shifting from agitated to wary. Backlit by the orange glow from the streetlight, his eyes are coal-black. “Look. You’re clearly grieving right now.”
I wince.
“Well,” he continues. “I’m kind of a grief…expert, for lack of a better term. And I was thinking that in exchange for the babysitter lessons I could…help you get through this.”
“How?”
“I understand what you’re going through. Not the specifics, but the general idea. I literally know how to keep on living after…”
His eyes spark with pain and he cuts off.
It’s this, more than anything, that makes me realize he might be on to something. Because if it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to finish that sentence either.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?” he asks. “Your parents?”
I think of all the calls I’ve avoided from my mom, the texts unanswered.
“That’s a nope.”
“What about people you don’t know? Doctors? Bartenders? Priests? Therapists? A grief counselor?”
I shake my head. I have to bully myself just to get the toothpaste on the toothbrush. Finding a grief counselor, making an appointment, clearing it with my insurance, hauling my ass to the appointment, and then talking about Lou to a stranger? Literally impossible.
“Well, then…you can talk to me. Anytime. That’s what I’m offering.”
“I don’t think I need someone to talk to,” I insist. “There’s nothing to say. She’s gone and I’m…”
“Then we don’t have to talk. I’ll just be your companion. I was thinking that it might be helpful…You might want someone…I could…you know…do your list with you. You haven’t been able to cross anything off yet, right? I’ll help. We can go through one by one. I’ll be your list…buddy.” He seems to be genuinely offering, but also he says the word buddy like someone else might say the word vomit.
We’re interrupted when a couple stumbles out the door, sweaty and clasping hands, teetering and knocking sideways into Miles.
“Sorry, dude,” the guy says over the girl’s head.
Miles gives him a silent appraisal so slow, so diminishing that the guy can’t help but shrink three inches.
“We said sorry,” the girl snaps.
“Okay,” Miles replies, completely flat. He turns to face me and boxes them out of his life forever.
For that, he gets four middle fingers spearing toward his back.
I snort.
“You know, you say you want me to talk to you about my feelings, but you’re not the best at conversation, Miles.” I make a meaningful nod toward the couple attempting to make out while they walk away.
He glances between them and me. “Was I rude?” He looks suddenly perplexed.
I almost laugh. “You really don’t know what your face looks like, huh?”
He’s glowering again. “I know I’m not good with people. I’m not…gentle. But I don’t think you need someone gentle.”
“Oh, is that right?” Now he knows what I need. How cute.
“Yeah, that’s right. You need strong. You need someone who can stop you from fighting large men on the street. You need someone who can wade in and pull you out of the swamp if you need me to. And I can be that person.” He’s tapping on his own chest as he talks, and weirdly I can feel those taps echoing through my own rib cage. “I am not easy to shake off, Lenny. Look at Reese, she hasn’t figured out how to. I’m stubborn. If you need to cross things off your list to survive, I’ll do that. I can carry someone on my back if I have to.” He takes a step forward and I stop breathing. He puts one palm on my shoulder and squeezes. A firm hold that reminds me I’m a citizen of Earth and belong right here, on the ground. “If we do this, I will not let you drown.”
I gasp for air. He’s winded me. The water rushes in. Is it silly that I didn’t realize I was drowning until he told me he won’t let it happen?
Apparently he does know what I need. How frustrating.
Overwhelmed, I crouch down again and tug at my hair and see spots and almost scream. He waits.
When I stand up again I can feel my bloodshot eyes, my sticking-up hair, my backpack falling off one shoulder. I gesture to it all. “You really think you can handle this? I’m not just gonna need a tissue every now and then. I need someone to, like, make me waffles and then not bat an eye when I punch those waffles in the face.”
“Violence toward waffles. Got it.”
“Seriously. You don’t want this. I’ll scar you.”
“Oh, my God. Everybody thinks they’re so unique. I’ll be useful. I promise.” He fixes my backpack strap. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Look,” I say. “Pretty much the only thing that’s keeping me together right now is the fact that I haven’t taken anybody else down in flames. It’s why I’m only doing short-term gigs. It’s why I’m avoiding my parents. So just, please, read the caution tape and save yourself.”
He’s giving me that narrowed look again. “Let me get an audition, then.”
“Huh?”
“Let me see the list.” He wags his hand at me until I dig it out of my pocket and hand it over. “Oh. This one.” He snaps a finger against the list. “Easy. We’ll do this one. Tonight. If you…enjoy my company, then you’ll consider the deal. If you don’t, we’ll go our separate ways.”
He’s nothing if not persistent.
He’s five strides down the sidewalk before he turns back. “Follow me,” he says.
And for the second time that night, I do.
—
Ten minutes later we’re still power walking toward some unknown destination and I’m flailing and sweating and out of breath.
Miles glances down at me. “Maybe we add a little cardio to the list.”
“You can’t add to the list!” I’m aghast. “It’s laminated. ”
He grunts.
“Where are we going anyway?”
“You’ll see.”
I stop dead in my tracks and say the one thing that’ll surely get him to stop walking, thus saving my life. “I can’t take you up on your offer, you know.”
He stops stock-still, three sidewalk squares away, hands in his pockets, framed under a streetlight. His bone structure is so strong the man is standing in a beam of light and he’s still almost ninety percent shadow. “Why?”
I list on my fingers. “One. You called me emaciated, implied I have a drinking problem, and just generally made fun of the way I look. So yeah. Fuck you.” He takes a step and eats up one of the sidewalk squares between us. “Two. You judged me for eating Reese’s food while I worked a nonstop fourteen-hour shift, by the way. So yeah. Fuck you twice.” Another step, another sidewalk square disappears. “And three. Not tipping the waiter? Come on. That’s, like, sociopathic.”
The last sidewalk square disappears and he’s looking directly down at me, the toes of his shoes a centimeter from mine. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re trying to buy yourself a little time for a breather.”
I fake outrage. “These are legitimate gripes!”
“I tip waiters! I’m not a total dickhead, okay? He’s the first waiter in my life who I didn’t tip.”
“So why didn’t you?”
He does that sideways nod thing to get me to start walking alongside him again, and for some reason it works. This time he sets a more reasonable pace.
“On my way to the bathroom I heard him saying something really nasty and I didn’t think he deserved a tip.”
My spidey senses tingle. “Was it about me?”
He purses his lips, and that’s all the confirmation I need.
“Well,” I say. “It probably wasn’t worse than calling me strung out, right?”
He winces. “Look. That was really bad. I’m sorry I said that. I…thought one thing and it was wrong. It’s clear that you’re going through a tough time, but I judged you before I could see it. Again. I’m very sorry.”
I glare, but his apology has sucked all the venom from it. “You questioned my babysitting skills and told Reese to fire me.”
“That was before I knew there was a method to your—” He cuts off, probably because it’s a little too real to say the word madness to someone who puts cocktail onions in cupcakes. “Before I realized you had a method. I was shortsighted. And for the record I wasn’t judging you for eating. I was worried that that was all you were going to eat. It wouldn’t have been enough food for a hamster and you barely finished it.”
I pull a face. “I’ve been having trouble with my appetite.”
He nods. “That’ll happen. Maybe this’ll help.”
We stop short in front of a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop, and Miles goes inside to get our sandwiches. I sit on the bench outside and enjoy the sensation of not being in a hot, sweaty club.
A few minutes later he emerges with something called a Turkey Surprise and I get to experience a moment of nirvana.
“Holy guacamole,” I groan after the first bite.
“Totally.”
I’ve got half a sandwich hanging out of my mouth when he nudges me with his elbow.
“What?”
“Look up.”
“Ah. Pigeon butts. Appetizing.”
“Not at the pigeon butts. At the sign. ”
I can’t read it from this angle, so I stand up, sandwich and all, and read out loud: “Cousin Sammy’s Sammies, home of Omar’s one and only Turkey Surprise.”
My breath catches and my gaze drops to Miles. “Number seven,” I whisper through bright pressure in my eyes.
I mean, I knew I was following him because he insisted he could cross one off, but I was not prepared for what it would feel like to actually do it.
“?‘Eat something famous you can only get in New York,’?” Miles quotes from the list. “Not so hard, right?”
I look from him to the sign. I’m speechless.
He holds out his hand and I wordlessly hand him the turkey sandwich. He wraps the rest of it back up.
“It was so easy for you.” I plunk back onto the bench beside him. “I think I must be bad at this,” I murmur. “Like, maybe other people handle this better than I do.”
He barks a sad laugh. “Lenny, not a soul on earth is good at this.”
He takes a deep breath, then turns to look me in the eye. Smile lines, stubble, honest eyes, unswerving, unhidden face. Not friendly but not mean. “My mom and cousin were killed in a car accident about ten years ago. My life kind of…ended for a little while after that.”
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.” Sure, it’s a platitude, but I’ve got two hands wrapped around his arm and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
“Believe it or not, it gets easier to talk about after a while. A long while. But I’ve been there, Lenny. Right where you are. Where you lose control of your life and nothing makes sense anymore. When you can’t remember how basic things function. Like when to eat or shower. Grief…it’s not like any other emotion. It is utterly discombobulating. Among many other things.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeat.
“Thanks. I’m still sorry about it too.”
I study his profile. “I get…I get that you’re wanting some guidance on how to be there for Ainsley. I understand you need my help with that. But honestly, why would you ever want to wade into all this with me? Especially if you have experience with it. Wouldn’t you want to be as far away from it as possible?”
He considers this for a long time, chewing his sandwich and folding his legs in and out when pedestrians pass on the sidewalk in front of us. “Ainsley and Reese, they’re my only family left. I’m not…well…you’ve seen it. I’m not always good with people. And you…even when you’re like this, people like you. I need help.” He shrugs. “Besides, look, seeing someone go through this…and not being able to help? It’s awful. Not everyone will accept help when they’re grieving. Some people just…go inward and bear it all alone.”
I get the distinct feeling he’s talking about someone in particular.
“We don’t need to get into all of it,” he continues. “But this has been a pretty useless couple of years for me. I mean me. I’m useless…Look, a project would be good for me.”
I point to my heart. “Me being the project.”
He shrugs. “And the list. And me. It’s a really big project.”
My phone buzzes and I see that it’s a text from my mom. I quickly scan it. She wants to know how I am. But I ignore it and the two missed calls from her that came through while I was in the club, clearing away the notifications and blacking my screen.
Miles looks from my phone to me. “You’re really living out of that backpack? Never going home?”
I shrug. “Home is where the heart is. My heart died in a cancer ward six months ago.”
I say it like it’s just another thing to say, but Miles makes a sound in the back of his throat, like those words hurt him as much as they do me.
“I know what you mean about going back to your apartment…” he says in a low voice, and I turn to watch his profile. “We all lived together. Me and Anders and Mom. When they died, it pretty much meant losing my entire family at once. So yeah. I get it. It’s awful to go back to the place where they just were but aren’t anymore.”
Images from my apartment crash over me. Lou burning Christmas cookies in our kitchen. Lou’s coconut Suave shampoo in our bathroom. Lou’s handknit sweaters drying in the sun after she washed them.
Being back in that apartment is like touching electricity.
“Miles, how does anyone do this?” I whisper, leaning forward and letting the tears pit-pat off my nose and onto my leggings.
“A very little at a time,” he says, balling up his sandwich paper and giving me a squeeze on the shoulder. “And virtually none of it tonight. Tonight is all about finding you a place to sleep.” He pauses. “And shower.”
“I’ll figure something out…It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Look, I have an extra apartment; it’s shitty but no one else is there right now. You can crash. At least for tonight.”
He’s already walking toward the train and I have to scramble to catch up. “Wait! What do you mean you have an extra apartment? Who can afford an extra apartment in New York City?”
He shrugs. “My current apartment was…a gift? It’s hard to explain. I still pay rent on this other place just in case everything falls apart and I have to go back. I’m warning you. It’s really tiny.”
We take the train back uptown to a neighborhood about ten minutes’ walk from Reese and Ainsley’s place. The sun will be up in just a few hours. The building is a little brownstone with a beautiful front door and a crumbling cement porch.
“Third floor,” he says, jingling keys in front of me. “Use whatever you want.”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t just go into some strange apartment that you claim is yours! I don’t even know your last name!”
He sighs and digs in his pocket, coming up with his wallet, and then his license.
I eagerly study it, suddenly insatiably curious. “Hmmm. Brown eyes and six foot two, huh?”
He quirks his face at me. “Obviously?”
I survey his grumpy little picture, doing a double take at his last name. “Honey?” I ask, one eyebrow hiking up my forehead. “Such a sweet name for someone so…you.”
“It’s not pronounced like honey. It’s Ho-nee. Rhymes with—”
“Baloney.”
“I usually say pony, but sure. Whatever.” He sighs, like he’s tired, which he probably is. “Should we…” He holds out his phone to me and motions to trade numbers. I swipe it and call myself. “Okay.” Now that he’s said all he came to say he’s suddenly looking awkward. He clears his throat. “Well. Go to bed.”
He puts the keys in my hand and leaves while I laugh at being told to go to bed even though I’m pushing thirty. As I watch him go, one thought fills my head. That man just crossed something off Lou’s list for me.
After he’s gone I tiptoe up to the third floor.
Miles’s apartment was almost certainly a closet in another life. It’s mildly furnished, and clearly he never moved out completely. I reverently place the sandwich in the empty fridge.
A scalding hot shower with Ivory soap, a ridiculously oversized T-shirt I find in a dresser drawer, and clean cotton sheets on a twin-sized bed I simply cannot imagine Miles fitting in: it’s all awfully close to wonderful.
I sleep for six deep hours, then three more fitful ones, and when I wake up at noon, I feel almost like a member of society.
I almost feel a little bit…good? I hate it.
I eat the other half of my sandwich as I take out my phone and compose a text.
Okay. You got yourself a deal.