Chapter Six
Simon’s therapist—a semiretired seventy-five-year-old who works out of her home in Laurel Canyon and decided to let the entire
concept of telehealth pass her by—wants him to sit with the discomfort. Instead of repeatedly counting electrical outlets
and arranging objects at right angles and indulging every other whim his synapses throw at him, he’s supposed to acknowledge
the impulse and ride it out.
That is not working so well for Simon at the moment.
Hiding in his bedroom while Jamie uses every single bowl in the house to do a dry run of Simon’s birthday cake, Simon looks
into changing his ticket to New York. His sublet doesn’t start until next week, but he could spend a few days at a hotel.
Surely he can manufacture some reason why he needs to be there early.
But he won’t lie to Jamie. Jamie would figure it out and then his feelings would be hurt, and he’d be even more hurt that
Simon didn’t tell him what was wrong. If Simon admitted that the kitchen mess bothers him, Jamie would stop making messes,
but then Jamie would know that Simon is the kind of nightmare ingrate who complains about the mess someone makes while they
bake him a literal birthday cake.
And the thing is, he wants the cake. He wants to like it, wants to be the kind of person who likes it.
He wants to help Jamie make the cake and then sit on the sofa and judgmentally watch HGTV together without swatting away intrusive thoughts the entire time.
He misses his old meds. They weren’t perfect, but now he regrets every minute he didn’t appreciate only being a moderate basket case.
So instead, he takes Edie on a walk. They’ve been doing this a lot, so many walks that she looks askance at her leash and
also at Simon when he says the magic word walk. The sun is just starting to set, so the light is coming in at a brutal angle. He puts on his darkest glasses and hopes for
the best.
If anyone asked, Simon would swear that when he bought his house, he didn’t know Charlie lived less than half a mile away.
He’d be lying, but he’d say it anyway.
It’s just that he fell in love with the house. It’s a 1930s Tudor with arched doorways and built-in bookcases so tall they
need a ladder, and it’s small enough to encourage his family to stay at a hotel when they’re in town. He loves the house more
than he dislikes Charlie.
Besides, it’s not like they’re next-door neighbors. They only bump into one another on the rare occasions that Simon’s walking
Edie while Charlie’s out for a run. Once a month, maybe, because Edie isn’t interested in exercise and neither is Simon. Still,
in the four years Simon’s lived here, he’s learned to recognize Charlie from a hundred yards away. That gives him just the
right amount of time to stir up a nice panic about what he’s supposed to say or whether it’s stupid to wave.
Tonight, when he realizes that the man jogging toward him is Charlie, his heart picks up immediately from the usual combination of irritation and reluctant attraction, but both of those things are now somehow informed by the experience of sitting too close at lunch.
When they said goodbye outside the restaurant, it had been almost friendly, or at least closer to friendly than they’ve ever gotten.
Maybe they trauma bonded over their failure to make conversation.
He attempts a smile that’s maybe ten percent warmer than his usual “the social compact compels me to smile at my neighbors”
smile.
Charlie stops running. “Oh, hey.” He gestures at Edie. “Can I?”
“Of course.”
Charlie kneels and holds out his hand to Edie, who sniffs it politely. His T-shirt is one of those fabrics that’s supposed
to wick sweat. It’s soaked through and clinging. If Simon takes off his sunglasses, it’s not because he needs an unimpeded
view.
“I was going to text you,” Charlie says, getting to his feet, “but I have to go to Phoenix tomorrow. I should be back in a
few days.”
“We’re on a deadline here.” Simon sounds peeved and insufferable even to his own ears.
“I still can’t get in touch with my stepfather, so I’m going to go check on him. Or at least check on his house, maybe file
a missing persons report. Shouldn’t take too long.”
And now Simon feels like a dick because missing relatives do take priority over whatever nonsense the two of them are up to.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’ve spent the day on the phone with every hospital in Maricopa County. Did you know that if you give someone’s name, they’ll
tell you if that person is a patient? I thought that only worked on television. Thing is, if I call the cops to check on him,
it’s not gonna end well. So I’ll just do it myself—”
“Okay,” Simon says, because Charlie said that all in one rush, not pausing for air. He thinks about telling Charlie to take a deep breath, but Simon would personally knife anyone who tried that on him.
“I would’ve flown out tonight,” Charlie says, a little defensive, “but there weren’t any seats. I checked every airline that
has a direct flight, and flying standby seemed—”
“All right,” Simon says, taken aback. “Nobody’s asking you to fly standby. Just go and find your stepfather and don’t worry
about the rest of it.”
“Just don’t worry, huh? How does that work out for you?” Charlie doesn’t say it meanly, but he isn’t joking either. There’s
something strange and tense around his eyes and the set of his jaw. Charlie isn’t just worried, he’s frantic.
Simon looks around desperately, like maybe he’ll find a passerby who’s more qualified to deal with Charlie’s feelings than
Simon is. But no, it’s just the two of them, alone in a darkening street.
“Sorry,” Simon says. “I’d be beside myself if anyone in my family went missing, even the ones I don’t like.” He has no excuse
for adding that last detail except for how sheer proximity to Charlie’s sweat-soaked T-shirt has put him into an altered state.
“There’s another possibility, but it’s stupid, so don’t make fun of me.” Charlie says this seriously, like he’s afraid Simon’s
going to roast him about his missing stepfather in the middle of the street.
“Okay?”
“You could come with me. It’d be a shitty couple of days, but we could make it look like a vacation or something. We take
a bunch of pictures, post them to socials.”
Simon doesn’t know what to say to that. He has loads of objections, starting with how spending a few days together will make them both homicidal and ending with his profound lack of interest in going to Phoenix.
But then he remembers what’s waiting for him at home: a night of suppressing the urge to flick the light switches in multiples
of three while wondering how long he’ll feel like his kitchen is contaminated. The growing impossibility of hiding all this
from Jamie.
The fact is, he’d much rather be annoyed by Charlie than by Jamie.
Besides, Charlie’s right. A social media–documented trip is a good way to control the narrative about why he’s leaving Out There. He has ten more days in Los Angeles. That’s not a lot of time. This is probably their last chance.
“I told you it was stupid,” Charlie says when Simon’s been silent for too long.
“Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
“Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“No,” Charlie says, looking very much like a man who’s changed his mind.
“Just tell me now, because if you’re pissy with me because I barged in on your family emergency, you’ll only have yourself
to blame.”
Charlie throws his hands up so suddenly that Edie takes a step backward. “I didn’t change my mind! For fuck’s sake. I’m just
surprised that you’d want to come.”
Want is not the word Simon would use. “What flight are you taking tomorrow?” He already has his phone unlocked.
Charlie tells him. Simon checks the airline app, but there aren’t any seats left, not even in coach. “It’s sold out.”
They check a few other flights and they’re full too. What on earth are all these people going to Phoenix for?
“Oh well,” Simon says, certain that it isn’t disappointment that he’s feeling.
“We could drive,” Charlie says. “I usually drive anyway. It’s only six hours.”
If filling the dead air during a half-hour lunch was bad, twelve hours round trip in a car will be excruciating, and that’s
not even counting whatever’s waiting for them in Phoenix.
“When do you want to leave tomorrow?” Simon asks.
“Would six be too early?”
Six is a disgusting time to be on the road, but obviously Charlie wants to get there as soon as possible, and Simon isn’t
going to be so much of an asshole as to complain about that. “Unless you want to leave tonight,” Simon suggests, because he
has to offer.
“That would get us into Phoenix in the middle of the night. Someone will call the cops on us for breaking into Dave’s house.”
It was silly of Simon, really, not to immediately assume that any plan of Charlie’s might involve breaking and entering. More
fool him.
“Six o’clock, then.” Simon walks home, trying to figure out exactly what he’s gotten himself into.