15. Brooklyn
15
brOOKLYN
I spent the rest of the afternoon with Jeff going over my job application packets, and by the time I got out of his office, I was exhausted. I had to start sending applications out this weekend, so when Jeff had offered to review my packet with me, I’d jumped at the chance.
What I wasn’t prepared for was for him to rip everything to shreds.
Okay, maybe not entirely to shreds. But honestly, Jeff didn’t need to worry about Gabe destroying me, he’d pretty much done that himself. Sure, it was a different area of my life. Jeff was only fucking with my professional self-esteem, not my personal sense of self-worth. But sometimes they felt pretty damn similar.
My head spun as I biked back to my apartment. Jeff had warned me about this, of course. Getting so wrapped up in work that I lost sight of life outside of it. But it was hard not to care, when I’d spent the past fifteen years of my life working towards this one goal.
Freshman year of high school had been rough. My mom and I had just moved, again, so I was the new kid in school, again . As if that weren’t enough, this time she’d dragged us to live in a hippie commune in upstate New York. So in addition to being new, I was living in a fucking meadow with no indoor plumbing while my mom studied at the feet of the guru in that camp and, predictably, fell into bed with him. At fourteen, I was old enough to recognize my mom’s patterns for what they were.
To top it all off, that was the year that I realized that unlike most of the other guys in my class, who were busy staring at girls and trying to guess their cup sizes, I was busy staring at the guys and trying to pretend I wasn’t. There was no way in hell I was coming out in a school that small, a town that insular. Not when I was already the weird kid whose mother refused to buy him normal deodorant. But I always felt like I was one step away from everyone finding out anyway.
The only respite was my biology class, and Ms. Forrester. She’d pulled me aside one day after class to talk to me about my grade on a project. Apparently, I was the only student who’d attempted the extra credit lab report. She said she hadn’t seen anyone with my aptitude for biology in years.
I sighed as I turned onto my street and biked the last stretch slowly. The funny thing was, I hadn’t even been all that into biology at the time. I just didn’t have friends and didn’t have much else to do, so tackling the extra credit project had been something to fill my time. But Ms. Forrester gave me direction, and from that day forward, I’d set my sights on this career path.
Take as many AP science classes as possible. Take extra courses online. Go to college for biology, double-major in chemistry. Straight into the best PhD program I could convince to take me. Then publish, publish, publish until I got tenure somewhere and could research to my heart’s content, secure in the knowledge that my job wouldn’t disappear on me like everything else in my life did.
And sure, a few things had changed. The more I went along, the more I realized I liked teaching. I was beginning to hope I could get a position at a university that put more emphasis on that than research. But otherwise, I’d stuck to the path and ground away at it. So why, when I was finally, finally , so close to the end of grad school, was the path losing its appeal?
I exhaled slowly as I walked my bike into the elevator in the lobby of my building. It had to just be burn-out. Just your standard body-rebellion towards the end of any big project. Seeing the end in sight must have set my brain running amok, deciding maybe it didn’t want to finish after all. I was probably just scared of the future. What I needed to do was power through, not hem and haw over my next steps.
Jeff had helped me find the weaknesses in my application package. Now all I had to do was attack them and somehow scrape together enough self-esteem to actually send everything out before the deadlines hit. Sure. Fine. No big deal. It wasn’t like I was suddenly doubting my right to take up space on earth, wondering what the fuck I had ever accomplished in life.
“I need a drink,” I announced when I walked in the door.
I dropped my bag on the floor and sighed. I could hear my laptop thunk down with depressing reality, demanding that I notice it, pay attention to it, deal with all the tasks it would have ready, waiting for me, when I opened it up.
“Beer, wine, or liquor?”
I jumped. For a minute, I’d been so wrapped up in my own brain, my paralysis over the future, that I’d completely forgotten I now shared an apartment with somebody. A particular somebody. Well, for part of the week, anyway.
“Shit, I forgot you were home.”
Gabe stuck his head around the corner from the kitchen. He had an apron on, of course, and he looked fucking delectable. I’d have to ask him where he’d found it. I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine and I didn’t know which I found cuter—the idea that he’d brought it from his home in Chicago, or that he’d bought it specifically when he’d moved in with me.
“You saw me this morning, dude,” he said, cocking his head to the side. His arms were covered in flour.
“Yeah, I just—I don’t know, don’t mind me. My head isn’t on straight today.”
“That might explain why you were talking to what you thought was an empty room. Unless you’re usually in the habit of speaking to your apartment?”
“How much will you judge me if I say that I am?”
“That depends. Are you sad when you do it, bemoaning your loneliness? Or are you talking to your upbeat imaginary friend?”
“More like a cheerful poltergeist. Or like, imagining my apartment is sentient, and that the bookshelves really want to hear about my day.”
“Then you probably don’t want to know what they said about you while you were out.”
“Was it that I have a drinking problem? Don’t listen to them. They’re gossips. And to answer your question, beer.”
Gabe grinned. “Can do.”
I followed him into the kitchen, curious what had gotten him so dusted in white.
“Holy shit, did you make these?”
The counter was covered in tiny pink macarons. Not the coconut kind that you eat at Passover and get stuck in your throat, but the dainty French kind that are always impossibly pristine and pastel and cost five dollars each at fancy bakeries. Gabe shrugged.
“Yeah. I’m not sure they’re actually that good, though. I got the recipe from Jesse, via Mark, before the wedding. He swears they’re amazing.
“Aren’t these supposed to be hard to make?”
That was the reason we didn’t carry them at Cardigan Cafe. Jesse must have learned the recipe since quitting his job there. I stared at Gabe in wonder as he reached into the fridge.
“Did you hear the part where I said I wasn’t sure if they were any good?”
“Yeah, but, damn. I wouldn’t have even attempted them. You weren’t kidding when you said you liked to cook different things.”
Gabe smiled and handed me a beer, twisting the top off another one for himself.
“Eh, it keeps me from going crazy. Besides, I’ve had a soft spot for French shit, ever since I realized girls in my high school French class went crazy for the accent and thought anything to do with Paris was romantic.”
“So you decided to try to be French so that they’d like you?”
“No—I realized that I thought it was kind of romantic too. I don’t know, maybe it’s cheesy, but I’d fucking love to go to Paris someday. Anyway, try one. And then tell me why you need that drink so badly.”
I took a swig of my beer, then picked up one of the pearlescent confections. It was like air in my hand, and when I bit into it, it crunched delicately in my teeth, the thin filling sliding along my tongue and suffusing my mouth with the most exquisite raspberry flavor.
“Gabe, these are really good. Fuck, if you seriously find your job that boring, you could quit and become a baker.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Gabe laughed. “Does that come with full benefits and a company-contributed 401k?”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed two more macarons before heading to the couch, conscious of Gabe following behind me. How could I have forgotten he was here when I couldn’t get him out of my head most of the time? I settled back and brought a macaron to my lips.
“Hold it,” Gabe cried out, holding his hand up.
I cocked an eyebrow at him but froze, the cookie as yet uneaten. He moved onto the couch next to me, grabbed the second macaron, and pulled out his phone.
“It’s too perfect a picture not to send it to Tanner,” he said by way of explanation.
I laughed. “I can’t believe how seriously you take that requirement. A picture a day is fine, but you elevate it to an art.”
“Hey, you don’t like the guy, right? I figure the least we can do is show him how wrong he is, how supremely idyllic our fake relationship is.”
I tried my best to smile as Gabe took a picture of the two of us, tried not to give any indication of the thoughts his comment had sent racing through my mind. Our fake relationship, he’d called it. It was important to remember that.
No matter how much Gabe might lodge himself in my brain, no matter how much fun we might be having, this wasn’t real. He didn’t want it to be real, and for that matter, neither did I.
I thought back to what Jeff had said. Be careful not to get hurt. I was being careful, wasn’t I?
I was taking things slow with Gabe. Making sure I didn’t push him too far, too fast. And I wasn’t going to fall for him. That much I knew. I’d been burned before and I was smarter now.
“So.” Gabe glanced up at me as he typed something out on his phone. “Tell me why your day sucked so bad.”
“Tell me who you’re sending that picture to,” I countered. For some reason, I didn’t want to get into my day with him. It was nice to just push it to the side and think about something else for a change. “It’s not just Tanner, or you wouldn’t be adding a fucking novel to the bottom of that text.”
“Aiden. He’s going through kind of a rough patch right now and he gets a kick out of us and what we’re doing.”
I frowned. “What, exactly, does he think we’re doing?”
Gabe looked at me, his eyes suddenly wary. “I mean, I told him everything about the bet, the deal with Tanner. You said that was okay, right? I haven’t told anyone else, but he’s family.”
“But does he know what else we’re, um, doing?” Forming those words was excruciating, but I felt like I needed to know.
“Hooking up?”
“Yeah.”
“Kinda?”
“How can he kinda know something?” I narrowed my eyes. “He does or he doesn’t.”
“I guess he does, then.” Gabe looked like he was afraid of something. My reaction, I realized. He was afraid of how I was going to react to that. “Is that okay?”
“It’s—” I stopped.
Why the hell was I making such a big deal out of this? What did it matter if Aiden knew about us? If none of this was serious, why couldn’t Gabe tell him? Why shouldn’t he?
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a brother—someone to actually share shit like this with. It must be nice. And the way Gabe had said it— he’s family —made me realize he and Aiden must be really close. I was a little envious, to tell the truth.
“It’s fine,” I said finally. “Sorry, ignore me. I’m just being weird.”
“And again, I ask you—what the hell happened today?”
I looked at Gabe and realized something else. He actually wanted to know. His blue eyes were clear, his gaze was focused on me, and he was paying attention in a way I wasn’t quite used to.
Sure, I had Jesse. And Jeff. But Jesse had moved away to his bed and breakfast. And Jeff was great, but not quite a friend. It dawned on me that it had been a while since I’d had someone to talk to about my PhD, my job applications, my everything.
I stared back at Gabe, and the words just came spilling out. “I kind of think my whole future might be a lie and that my entire life is falling apart?”
Gabe barked a laugh. “Okay. Well, that’s bold. Tell me more.”
I cocked my head to the side, really hearing what I’d just said. I’d meant to tell him about my meeting with Jeff, but I hadn’t expected that to come out. But the more I thought about it, the truer those words felt.
“Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe this is all just stress and frustration, but I just spent the entire afternoon with Jeff, and he pretty much ripped my application package to shreds. And I know it’s for the best, and I know it doesn’t mean that he thinks I’m a shitty student or researcher or whatever. He’s just trying to help me, and if I make the changes he suggested, the packet will be better for it.”
I sighed. “But I just…can’t anymore. I can’t summon the energy to open my laptop again and get to work. I know it’s going to take pretty much the whole weekend to fix, and I need to get started, but all I want to do is go sleep for the next forty-eight hours or maybe forty-eight years and just wake up and be done with all this shit.”
“To be fair, you are tired. You work all the time.”
“So do you.”
“Yeah, but honestly, not as much as you. And not as hard as you. My job’s boring but it’s not actually all that difficult. And frankly, I don’t care as much as you do. There are reasons why you’re tired and stressed out, is what I’m saying.”
“ Do I even care?” I set my beer down and turned to look at him pleadingly, like he might harbor answers. “These days, I think about finishing my dissertation, and my stomach clenches. The idea of actually having to interview for jobs? It repels me. And then I picture myself having to do, like, ten more years of this shit to get tenure? Gabe, I don’t think I care about anything that much.”
“Well, maybe you don’t. So let’s play devil’s advocate here for a second. What if you’ve honestly discovered that you hate your dissertation and want to totally change your life around. What then?”
“I’ll have wasted the past fifteen years of my life and have nothing to show for it but an unfinished degree. And I’ll be jobless. Without any idea of what to do next.”
“Brooklyn, you make that sound terrifying, but don’t you see how that’s kind of thrilling, too? Like, you could do anything! The world would be your oyster. And your education’s not a waste. You’d figure it out. Honestly, I’d be a little bit jealous of you if you decided to quit.”
“If you want someone to quit so much, why don’t you ?” I grumbled. “You talk all the time about how boring your job is. If you want all this terrifying freedom, quit yourself.”
“I’m going to.” Gabe smiled. “I have a plan. It’s just not time yet. But you…”
“What would I even do though? I’ve spent my whole life working for this goal. I don’t even know what I enjoy outside of this.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.” I looked at him, my eyes growing wide as horror dawned on me. “I have absolutely no fucking clue what I even like, outside of this one subject area. Fuck, I’m the worst.”
“I don’t accept that.” Gabe shook his head as he swallowed another swig of his beer. “Quick, name one good thing that happened this week. Don’t think too hard, don’t over-analyze, just tell me one good thing.”
“Uh, I went over to Adair Elementary yesterday?” It was the only thing I could dredge up. “I couldn’t stay long, since I had to prepare for this meeting with Jeff, but Julian, the teacher I work with over there, had the class do a sight and sound meditation outside.” I laughed as I thought about it. “Robbie Mejía damn near lost his mind when he found an ant crawling on him, but it led to a weirdly good discussion about arthropods and different life forms, so I guess that was cool?”
“See, there you go.” Gabe smiled. “There are like five things in there that you liked.”
“Five?”
“The school, the kids, the meditation, the ants, and whatever the fuck an arthropod is.” He ticked them off on his fingers.
“An ant is an arthropod. So that’s only four.”
“Yeah but you talked about other life forms too. So it’s still five. Moreover, as long as we’re sticking out this marriage thing, that means that you also care about Human Nature and its continued existence. So that’s six things, really.”
“That still doesn’t help me know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life.”
“Maybe you don’t have to figure it all out now. Ever hear the quote, ‘Live the questions ’? You don’t need answers yet. You’ll live into them when you’re ready.”
“Excuse you, Mr. ‘ I’m Just Biding My Time ’ Management Consultant, but some of us do need answers. Like immediately. And failing that, I need to get started revising my application packet, like, yesterday.”
“Hmm. I guess so.” Gabe sounded doubtful.
“You guess so? I did tell you I have to send my applications out by the end of the weekend, right?”
“Yeah. And that’s important. But you ever hear the phrase, ‘Exercise makes time, not takes time’ ? Maybe you need a tiny break from work right now.”
“No more pithy phrases, please. I can’t handle it. Nor can I handle going to the gym with you and letting you torture me through a P90X workout, or whatever it is you do.”
“Well, if you say so. I was actually going to suggest something else we could do for exercise. But sure, job stuff is important. We can put it off.”
Gabe grinned at me wickedly, and I ended up smiling in spite of myself.
“And just what did you have in mind?”