Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
I’m convinced some people have all the luck because there’s not really a better explanation for why I don’t have any of it.
It probably seems like I’m making it up that I trip and fall in the crosswalk on my way to Reese and Ainsley’s. But alas. I’m suddenly staring down at a square of concrete framed between my palms.
I dust the sting off my hands and hobble the rest of the way to the building. It’s all so bleak. The apocalypse could be fun. At least it’d be socially acceptable to toss my hands in the air and run in a circle.
I dash into the building and hide from the world inside the elevator. The ding as I get to their floor is so artificially cheery it feels like satire.
“Try-hard,” I accuse the elevator as I step off at Ainsley’s floor. “You’re probably faking it like all the rest of us.”
I turn the corner in the hallway and there’s a big scary man waiting for me outside Reese and Ainsley’s apartment.
“Talking to yourself?” Miles asks dryly.
“Well, I have to. God’s not picking up my calls ever since I tried to rope her into that MLM.”
“I never have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s probably better that way.”
He straightens up from where he was leaning against the wall and squints at me. “Hey, whoa. Hold on.”
“What?”
“You look awful.”
He’s standing between me and the door, so I make an attempt to push past him. “Great. Thanks. You know, I was worried I was going to have a bad day, but with one simple sentence you’ve really turned things around for me.”
I reach up to ring Reese’s doorbell, but his fingers land firmly on my elbow. “Hold on,” he says in a low voice.
But before he can say anything else, Reese’s door flings open and there’s Reese and Ainsley.
“Lenny! Hi!” Reese’s eyes skate over and dim. “Miles.”
He drops his head in an infinitesimal nod. I internally add greetings to the list of things Miles and I need to work on together.
“Headed out?” I ask them, confused.
“I was just texting you,” Reese says, apology all over her face. “I’m such a dolt but I accidentally double-booked. Ainsley has a doctor’s appointment in half an hour but I forgot when I asked you to come in. We’re headed there right now.”
“Is she okay?” Miles cuts in, glancing back and forth between them, and I make another internal note. Talk to Ainsley, not about her.
“Just a yearly physical,” Ainsley answers for herself.
“Oh, okay,” I say. “No problem. Do you need me to come in later?”
“Well…” Reese says with a grimace. “We usually go to this special restaurant that’s down by her doctor’s office. Let’s just see each other tomorrow? You can pick her up from school for me? I’ll compensate you for today, obviously. I’m so sorry to cancel like this.” She’s jamming on the call button for the elevator until the doors slide open. They’re clearly very late.
“Good luck! I’ll see you tomorrow.” I wave at Ainsley. She waves back. I add another hand and wave both. She does both. I add a foot in the waving mix and, grinning, so does she. We both do identical hops, trying to wave the second foot as well, when the elevator doors slide closed and she disappears from view with a laugh.
“Well, I guess I’ll—”
Then I’m being steered toward the stairs by my shoulders. But we’re walking upward instead of downward.
“What are we doing?”
He points to an apartment door, the unit that’s directly above Reese and Ainsley’s. “My place.”
He swings us through the door and I stand just across the threshold, blinking around at everything. “And why am I at your place?”
“Lenny, you’re bleeding.”
“Huh?” Oh. I guess I tore my pants when I fell. And skinned my knee like a five-year-old. I didn’t even notice.
He makes it to the living room and turns to see that I’m still standing on his doormat.
“This is…not what I was expecting,” I admit, peering around at his apartment.
He looks around, hands on his hips. “What were you expecting?”
“Bachelor pad? I guess? Huge TV playing sports commentators in perpetuity? Maybe some kind of tacky art made out of empty whiskey bottles? A framed hockey jersey?”
He laughs and shakes his head at me, so I kick off my sneakers and take a cautious step into his apartment. It’s much smaller than Reese’s. Just a central room that combines the living room and kitchen all in one. I can see a few closed doors around the edges that must be the bathroom and a bedroom or two. The walls are painted a rich blue. His furniture is all a matching set and looks squishy and warm. I can see from here that he has a full set of matching glasses on a shelf in the kitchen and, yup, that looks like matching multicolored plates and bowls as well.
An odd, disorienting feeling slips through me. This feels distinctly like…a family home. I realize I’ve been thinking of him as a bachelor, because he’s got a real Lone Ranger thing going on. But…
“Are you married?”
He blinks at me. “What?”
“Kids?”
“Lenny, get in here and sit down.”
I eye him up but follow directions, perching on the edge of his couch. And I mean the edge. I’ve got barely an eighth of a buttcheek on the cushion. My thighs are burning. “Well?”
He strides out of the room and comes back with a tiny white briefcase.
“No wife, no kids. Sit back.” He’s kneeling in front of me, glaring at my legs and opening the briefcase. I peer down into it. It’s a mini pharmacy in there. Bandages, gauze, tubes of ointment, swabs, pills, tong thingies, you name it. He’s a Florence Nightingale wannabe.
He moves the hole in my pants from one side to the other, trying to get to the scrape. Finally, with a sound of frustration in the back of his throat, he just reaches for my ankle and rolls my pants up, over my knee. I grimace down at my long-unshaven shins. “Sorry. Wasn’t expecting company.”
“Huh?”
I gesture to the leg hair.
He rolls his eyes. “Oh. Yeah. How dare you have leg hair.”
I laugh for the shortest of seconds, but then he’s disinfecting my knee and my time is better spent trying not to kick him right in the face for the searing pain he’s inflicting on me. I’m wincing, sucking in breath, sliding down off the couch, and he’s just rolling his eyes, the heartless lout. “Bear it if you can,” he says tonelessly.
I’m in a puddle on the floor, but it doesn’t seem to hinder his process. In less than a minute he’s got me properly bandaged and my pant leg pulled back down. “Sorry about the pants. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about the rip.”
“That’s okay. I’ll patch them later. Thanks for the bandage.”
I lift two hands up to Miles, who is already standing. He grips me firmly and bang I’m on my feet. Just like that.
We’re standing a foot apart and he closes a few inches of the distance, squinting into my face. Again I notice the fan of smile lines outside each of his eyes. They’re not in service now, however. He’s appraising me and frowning. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
I shoot him a little pouty grimace. “I slept like a baby. Twelve straight hours. They want me to star in a mattress commercial.”
“Don’t argue. It’s obvious.”
“Because I look so awful?”
“I mean, sorry to offend your vanity, but it’s an objective fact.”
This time I use my hands to squinch my face into a grotesque shape and waggle my tongue at him.
“Were you a good sleeper before Lou died?”
Hearing him say her name so easily is a guttural jolt. My hands drop to my sides.
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you call me?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you couldn’t sleep, or needed to talk, you should have called me. I shouldn’t be finding out that you had a sleepless night because I happen to run into you when you drag your rotting carcass to work.”
“What?” The rotting carcass comment is such a body slam I might not survive it. “Come on. I can’t actually call you in the middle of the night!”
“Why?”
“ Because it’s the middle of the night! ”
“So?”
“So, you should be sleeping.”
“So should you.”
We hold each other’s glare until he drops his head and does the thing that people with buzzed hair get to do where they rub their palm all the way from the crown of their head to the back of their neck. “Lenny, I didn’t suggest this because I thought it would be easy. I don’t care if it’s hard. Of course it’s hard. But in order for me to be there for you, I need to actually be there. So what if I lose a couple hours of sleep.”
“So…say I do call you. What would you even do?”
“Call and see.”
I don’t say anything and he sighs. “Just promise me that you’ll try it once.”
Well, I guess once can’t hurt. “Okay, fine. It’s your REM cycle, I guess.”
There’s a flash of triumph in his eyes and he stands up. “I’m heading to the grocery store. You stay here and sleep. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Sleep here? Why?”
“You look like you can barely make it to the elevator on your own two feet. I have a perfectly good couch.”
The thing is…the world is splashy Technicolor nonsense and I could really use a couple winks. But when I imagine dragging my—okay, okay—rotting carcass back to the studio apartment and collapsing into the twin bed, in theory it sounds luscious. But come on. It’s the scene of the crime. The exact place I didn’t sleep for a literal second last night. The blankets are on the floor, twisted, feverish, blighted.Who knows what happens there.
But here? Look, what a fluffy pillow. And I can see dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. There’s a fan going in one of the rooms and it creates an oceanlike fog of sleepy sound.
Miles must take this for hesitation because he leans down, takes my backpack off, and sets it on the ground.
“Not to sound like a dick, but this is seriously for your own good.” Then he plants his pointer finger smack-dab in the middle of my forehead and gently pushes me backward onto the couch.
Even if I hadn’t given up Pilates after one horrific session, my core still wouldn’t have been able to defeat basic physics. I collapse back into the couch cushions and decide not to fight the good fight. I curl onto my side, take a spare pillow, and squash it over my head. Blocking out him and the world. But mostly him.
I stay awake just long enough to hear the front door click closed and then I’m out.
—
When I wake up, the light has changed and one of my socks is halfway off my foot. I sit up so fast I scare the shit out of Miles, who is sitting at the kitchen table behind the couch, reading a newspaper.
“Holy shit!” He’s got a hand over his heart as a page of the paper sifts to the floor. “You popped up like a mummy.”
“What just happened,” I grumble, rubbing my eyes and trying to make sense of my life.
“You just slept for five hours. You should see your hair right now. It’s a real work of art.” He’s back to the paper.
“What am I smelling?”
“I made you lunch. Well, I guess it’s more like dinner now. You want some?”
I stand up and groan. My muscles are aching, but not in a bad way. “Bathroom first.”
“Through that door.” He points without looking.
I head that way and actually laugh out loud when I see my hair. My bun has somehow migrated ninety degrees to one side and come halfway loose. The other side of my hair is floating in static. There are pillow lines on one cheek and my eyes are bloodshot and puffy.
I spend a few minutes unabashedly snooping around his bathroom. Hand towels that match his bath towels. No mildew in the shower. More 2-in-1 shampoo, which should be illegal, but his hair is a half inch long so I’ll allow it. His toilet paper is upside down, though, feeding from the bottom side, so I take a quick second and flip it. There’s a box of condoms in the medicine cabinet, which I nosily shake, trying to guess how many are in there. Other than that, nothing fun. I do, however, see a spare toothbrush. So I commandeer it and brush my teeth, tossing it in the cup next to his when I’m done. I wash my face and hands and slather some lotion on and that’s pretty much that.
“What’re we eating?” I ask when I reemerge, lifting the lid on a pot in the middle of the kitchen table. Steam billows out and a savory scent greets me.
“It’s just chili. Sorry. I know it’s still summer. But I wanted to make something that would stick to your bones.”
I’m already spooning some into a bowl and don’t bother accepting an apology I don’t think is necessary. I’m suddenly famished.
We eat dinner together in silence, him still looking at the newspaper. I do the dishes, feeling energized by my nap and by the food. But as soon as I turn the sink off, I realize that the sun will set soon. There’s a cold pit in my gut and tears spring to my eyes. I don’t want to leave here, but I also don’t want to stay.
This is the time of day when everything I’ve ignored for the last few hours starts knocking.
“Hey.”
His eyes shoot up to mine. “Hm?”
“Let’s do homework.”
—
“Homework” means that I drag him ten blocks south to a sporting goods store. It wasn’t in our original plan but it’s all in the name of Ainsley. I help him agonize over which baseball mitt to buy.
“Help” means that I fall in love with the sporting goods salesman (short king, full beard, looks like he’d know how to drive a Jeep down a mountainside) and Miles puts a hockey helmet over my head.
“So,” I say as I watch him put a tiny baseball mitt on, like, one quarter of his hand and try to open and close it. “You’re going with the Come play a game of catch with the old man angle, huh?”
He scratches at the back of his neck.
“It’s a good idea!” I reassure him. “I just wondered why you chose baseball.”
“I know it’s cliché…”
“It’s brilliant! But…what if you helped her get really good at a sport no one else is good at? Like…I dunno. That.”
“Badminton? That would require me knowing literally anything about badminton.”
“So, be bad at badminton with her. Learn it together!”
He considers the idea, then puts the baseball mitts back on the hooks and heads to the badminton area.
The salesman—aka love of my life—comes over to assist us and by the time we leave, Miles has a full bag of whoozits and whatsits and I’ve got hearts in my eyes.
“He was wearing a wedding ring,” Miles says, looking down at me while we wait at the crosswalk.
“I know. ” I scowl back up at him. “Just let me fantasize from afar.”
He glances back toward the store and then down at me again. “So…you never actually approach these guys? You just want to…daydream about them?”
“It’s something to do.” I nudge him to start walking once the light changes.
“Crossword puzzles. Push-ups. These are things to do.”
“You’ve never fantasized about someone you’ve just met?”
His brow immediately, aggressively furrows and he’s looking at me like Exactly how much does this lady know about a man’s mind?
I burst out laughing. “I’m not talking about, like, sex stuff. ”
He crushes down a laugh and shakes his head. “It’s involuntary.”
“I’m not judging you. It’s clearly normal. Who would it hurt anyhow? You’ve got a face like a bulldog. Nobody would ever even know what you’re thinking.”
“Face like a bulldog…” he murmurs, but I plow on.
“I’m talking, like, you’ve never met someone and thought, wow, I bet she makes a great double fudge brownie? Wow, I’d like to eat one of those brownies after I get home from work. Wow, I bet she’d like to learn how to fish and one day we’ll rent a cabin and fish and eat brownies and I’ll give her my grandmother’s engagement ring and someday we’ll have twins?”
He’s bemused. Possibly still digesting the bulldog comment. “No, Lenny,” he says simply. “I’ve never done that.”
I burst out laughing at his delivery. “Okay, fine. So, your fantasies are limited to, like, ooh, pretty lady, I’d like to give her the business.”
“No.” He starts walking in the other direction.
“What a stunner!” I throw my voice low and put on a wiseguy accent. “What I wouldn’t give to teach her a thing or two.”
“Oh, my God.” Now he’s turned and started walking in the other opposite direction.
I catch up to him quickly, an irreverent grin on my face that he deftly ignores. “So, have you always done this fantasy thing?” he asks.
“Maybe? I don’t know. No.” I shove my hands in my pockets while we walk, most of my mirth evaporating away. “Mostly just since Lou…Is it really that weird?”
“No.” He turns to me, one hand on my shoulder, that familiar quick squeeze.
“It always comes back to her, doesn’t it?” I laugh but there’s no levity in it. “Everything reminds me of her. Like my hair earlier today. How ridiculous it was in the mirror. It would have made her laugh so hard. Not in a mean way! Just like…how to explain this?”
He slows to a stroll, puts his hands in his pockets.
“Lou had great hair,” I try. “Long red hair that she could part down the middle. You know how hard it is to pull off a middle part? Really hard.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Well, she had the kind of hair that you could do anything to. It could hold curl, but it would also stay perfectly straight if you blow-dried it or flat-ironed it. It grew fast and she would try a million different hairstyles. It was always the first thing anyone ever commented on with Lou. Her hair.”
He makes a little noise to show he’s listening.
“She lost it twice. The first time when we were twenty, during her first round of chemo. I shaved my head to match hers. When her hair grew back in, it was a little different than before, but still beautiful.” My voice cracks. “When she started to lose it again, four years ago…she didn’t let me shave my head again. She said this time she wanted me to keep growing my hair, as long as I could possibly get it. So…here I am. Accidentally zipping my hair into my hoodies. And waking up with it looking like that. ”
“Wow. Lenny…” He pauses. “I’m sorry I was making fun of it this afternoon. I didn’t realize…”
“No, no.” I wave it away. “I know my hair looks ridiculous these days. I don’t style it or take care of it. You didn’t hurt my feelings.”
“I am sorry, though. For making fun of the way you look.”
“Oh, you mean that first day we met? You already apologized for that. And that was different than the jokes you made about my ridiculous hair. You weren’t being mean about my hair. Besides…whenever my hair looks absurd, it makes me happy. I’m not explaining this right.”
“Take your time.”
“Lou and I used to call ourselves the Fuglies.”
“I’m sorry, the Fuglies ? As in…”
“Fucking ugly. Yeah. Exactly.”
“Jesus.”
“It sounds terrible, I know. But it was so great.”
“You’re not ugly.”
“No, no. That’s not the point! I mean, Lou and I were definitely ugly ducklings in our preteen years. And I have the pics to prove it.”
“Can I see?” Miles asks, arching his eyebrows.
I laugh and then pull out my phone, texting him an album of Lou and me, post-Alanis, pre-Rihanna.
He takes a quick perusal and literally laughs out loud at some of them. I can’t bear to check which ones brought him so much joy.
“The point wasn’t ugliness,” I try to explain. “The point was that when we were together, just the two of us, we didn’t spend any time worrying about being pretty. It was that being ugly was okay, no big deal.”
“Like a state-of-mind sort of thing.”
“I guess? It was more about just letting ourselves relax. It’s not that we were never interested in makeup or stylish clothes or whatever. It wasn’t about rejecting any of that. It was more that…well, I guess my friendship with her was this safe zone…a sphere of fugly that other people’s judgments just sort of bounced right off of.”
“Ah. I get it. She wasn’t just a pal. She was your comrade.”
And I just break.
A torrent of tears burn their way out of me. I’m bent over and gasping for air and every muscle I have is bearing down, trying to squeeze this pain clear of me so that I can live. Because I won’t survive if it stays. How could anyone endure this? How can I endure this?
Distantly, I’m aware of a group of people walking past us, probably staring at me. Miles takes a step to the side, shielding me from their view.
Comrade. “I never thought about it that way, but…” She was. It’s the perfect word to describe her. She was the one at my side. Had my back. No words necessary. I had one person on this earth who would have died for me, and I would have died for her if possible. But it wasn’t possible. There was nothing I could do.
“ There was nothing I could do. ” The words are broken, sliced, aching with fresh blood.
“You’re doing it right now,” Miles says quietly. “There’s never anything we can do to keep someone alive, Lenny. There’s no bargain you can make. It’s an illusion. A terrible illusion. The only thing you ever could have done is what you’re doing right now. Sending her off.”
I keep crying. For a long, terrible time. Eventually we’re walking again and then we’re arriving at the studio apartment.
“Thanks,” I manage, swollen eyes on the darkened sky. “Thanks for the nap and the food and the—” I gesture to…everything.
He nods and then, “You all right?”
“No. But…”
I have to be alone now and he seems to get it.
He follows me up the stoop stairs to the brownstone door, and when I drop the keys he scoops them up and unlocks the door for me. He turns my backpack strap right side out. I’m standing there watching him fix everything and tears are drop-drop-dropping off my nose. He’s standing there watching me cry and then he lifts the hem of his T-shirt and quickly wipes the tears off my nose. New ones replace the old ones and he does it again.
“Call me,” he says sternly.
I turn to leave and he puts one hand gently on my shoulder, pausing me.
“Lenny.”
“I promise,” I concede. “I’ll call.”