32. Elias
THIRTY-TWO
Elias
“Wow, man,” NBA player Jordan O’Neal says to my eye.
“Yeah,” I say, scratching the back of my head.
“She? He? They?”
“She,” I’ve been finally admitting to everyone, including myself. “And her brother.”
“Damn,” he says, with considerably less feeling than all the feelings I am feeling.
We move into stretches. Today is an active recovery day, which means low intensity exercises.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you—” I start.
He raises an eyebrow.
“What made you recommend me to your teammates?”
He looks at me, seemingly confused by the question.
“I mean, I’m nothing but grateful. I was able to quit my full time teaching job so that I could do this full time instead. But I’ve wondered.”
He thinks for a moment, stretching his seven-mile-long legs. “You weren’t some disorganized meathead, which I’ve seen a lot of in your field. You’re professional. Seems like you have your shit together. And what really took it over the top was when you digitized everything. And made social media and stuff. It was easier for me to tell my buddies. Or show them that you were legit.”
I digest this. You’re, like, annoyingly competent at existing. Your gym is already legit, Elias.
“I didn’t even know you were a teacher. You mean you were doing this as a side hustle?”
“Yeah.” With help.
“That’s a lot. That’s pretty cool. I couldn’t tell that this was your side hustle. You take it so seriously.” Because of her, I realize. It’s because of Mia that I’m here, doing this.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, picking up my phone on my long walk home from the gym. I’ve been walking home the two miles from Gowanus to Bed-Stuy just to kill time.
“What’s wrong?” she asks immediately, in that all-knowing mother way.
“Why do you think something is wrong?”
“Because you never pick up on the first ring,” she says.
I don’t tell her that I’ve been clutching onto my phone for dear life for a week. Waiting for something that would never come. Or jerking off to mine and Mia’s sexting thread from New Orleans. And all her photos and videos.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, clearly not.
“Did you get that last package?”
I think about how Mia and I chopped up all the brownies and mixed it into vanilla ice cream, but then got extremely distracted, and it ended up as a brownie soup on the dining table.
“Yeah, it was fantastic. It didn’t last three seconds in our house.” This is true, because it ended up melted in a soup. “You’re the best mama of all eternity for sending that.”
I can hear my mom smile over the phone. “You don’t have to charm your mother. I can send you another batch.”
“If you could throw in an extra blondie and oatmeal raisin cookie for Mia, that would be great.” I can keep it in the freezer for her, for when she inevitably comes home. She can’t stay at that prick Adam’s forever.
“Of course, darling.”
I wait at a crosswalk in Park Slope for a light to change, a stroller or three running over my foot.
“How’s life with you, dear? We haven’t spoken in weeks.”
I rub my aching toe on my calf. “A lot, actually. I… I quit teaching.”
“What?!”
“Yeah,” I laugh.
“What happened? Something bad?”
“Nothing bad. No, I quit.”
“What did Mia have to say about this?”
“Mia—” I scrub my face.
“Explain,” Mom orders.
“My gym was… is doing really well. I realized… well, Mia, really, realized that I was taking in almost double my teaching salary from the gym. And then, I, we, put it all online.” I’m determined to give credit where credit was due. “Mia got this small business software that took some weight off my shoulders to get everything organized. I had a lot more time on my hands to take on more clients. Then remember that NBA guy I have? He talked about me to some of his teammates, and five more signed up. That’s really what pushed it over the edge.”
There is silence over the line. Then, a loud, high-pitched squeal. “Holy crap, Elias! That’s amazing!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I wait for the inevitable question. It comes in the form of a statement.
“Mia must be so proud of you, too,” she says warmly. “That was great of her to help.”
I blow out a breath. “Mia… technically doesn’t know all of this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never told her.”
“Why not?” she repeats.
I don’t even know where to start. What I do say surprises me. “Have Uncle Joe and Aunt Molly always been so…” I’m not sure how to put it. I try again. “Or with Leo and Mia, have they always been…”
“Have they always treated Mia like a second-class citizen?” Mom offers.
“Yeah,” I say.
She thinks about it. “I think they unfairly held Mia up to Leo’s standards, yes. They’ve always been successful in different ways. Mia and Leo are both hyper-intelligent. They’ve always been. But your father and I were always there to temper Molly and Joe’s… behavior towards Mia. But I think once they started college and started building their lives, and your father and I couldn’t do that anymore, and Molly and Joe started to define success as financial… well, their treatment of Mia started becoming more obvious.”
“Were Leo and I the same way to her?” I ask quietly, because I’m afraid to know the answer.
“I think Leo has always tried his best to ignore it. I’m not saying that was right, but I understand. What was he supposed to do? At seven years old? It probably became more and more of a habit the older he got.”
I hum.
“You, on the other hand, have spent your entire life defending that girl.”
I am silent.
“I remember one time around Christmas, when you were maybe ten or eleven. Both of the families were together, and Mia was talking about what she wanted for Christmas. She wanted to read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy . The adults, including me, I have to admit, were dying laughing, because there was no way an eight-year-old could read that book. I remember she was upset, but I remember the look on your face more. You were outraged. And you said something like, ‘Mia is the smartest kid I know. If she says she can read the book, then she can read the book.’ You told everyone in that damn room.”
I remember this, and I remember what happened next.
“You made me take you to the bookstore before Christmas, and you used your own allowance to get her that book. It’s a huge book, too, so it was pretty expensive, and I remember you used a considerable amount of your allowance. Elias, when you gave her that gift on Christmas… I’ll never forget the look on both of your faces. She looked at you like you were her hero. You looked at her like… I don’t know how to describe it. It was fiercely happy. Proud. It was possessive. I knew you’d spend your entire life trying to keep that look on her face. And you did, and you have.”
I need to sit down. I find a random park bench somewhere in Prospect Heights, and I sink down. I blow out a breath.
“What happened?”
“I love her, Mom,” I admit, to her and myself and to everyone walking around Brooklyn.
“Well, obviously,” she says impatiently, totally killing my dramatic reveal. “Did I not just tell you that? Honestly, I’m surprised it took so long for you to realize it.”
I suddenly feel like crying.
“Is she finally your girlfriend now? I’ve been waiting forever for this,” she tells me.
“No.”
“Why not?” she demands to know.
“I guess… we were kind of together, maybe? For a little. But then I freaked out and… ended it. Poorly.”
“Why’d you freak out? What’s there to freak out about? Don’t you love her?”
“It’s not that easy,” I manage.
“What do you mean? You love her. I know she loves you. She still looks at you like you’re her entire universe. How hard can it be?”
“I fucked up.”
“So fix it. Tell her you love her.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
She sighs. “What did you do? Why didn’t you tell her about your gym?”
“I’m not good for her,” I finally whisper, admitting it to myself and my mother and everyone walking around Brooklyn.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she bursts out angrily.
“I can’t take myself seriously. I’m a gigantic fuck-head himbo. I’m?—”
“Did she say that to you?”
I think about it. Of course she hasn’t. “No. But everyone else has. My entire life, everyone else has. With my job, with my relationships with women. I can’t do that to her. She’s the best, smartest, most successful person I know. I can’t bring her down.”
Mom is silent for a while. “I’m sorry that you feel that way, Elias, but that’s not true, at least for me. I can’t speak for other people, the Roberts or your friends or whoever is saying that crap, but I have to ask. What does it have to do with Mia, if Mia doesn’t think that?”
I’m silent, digesting.
“Do you think that about yourself?”
“Yes,” I say automatically. “Well, no,” I amend, after thinking about all the events of this past month. You’re, like, annoyingly competent at existing. Your gym is already legit, Elias. “I guess… Mia’s… She’s the only person who’s made me not think that.”
“Then there you go.”
I scrub my face.
“There’s another thing, Elias. If you’re turning her down because you have this irrational fear of not being good enough for her, even when she has told you otherwise, then you’re doing what everyone else has been doing to her for her entire life. Everything you both hate, and that you’re both afraid of. You’re dismissing her, just like everyone else does. Dismissing her opinions and thoughts and feelings as not as true as yours.”
My heart drops. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
We’re silent as I watch people walking by.
“So what are you gonna do about it?” Mom finally asks.
“I can’t… I mean… it’s not like I can just find her and apologize for being a fuck-head and tell her I love her.”
“What did you just say?”
“I can’t just find her and?—”
“Elias, think about what you just said, please.”
I do. “I… can do that? I should do that,” I say with a shaky conviction.
“People have an extraordinary capacity to forgive the gigantic fuck-head himbos in their lives,” she says with confidence. “Especially the ones that they love.”
“I… but what do I do about Leo? He’s my best friend. He’s pissed at me, too, after he found out what I did. He punched me in the face. I have a giant black eye to prove it.”
“That sort of seems like an extreme reaction for someone who’s been essentially your brother your entire life… but maybe it’s because of that that it isn’t,” she says.
“Huh?”
“I don’t know, honey. But talk to him, too. Make him see you.” See me , her voice says in my head. “Tell him the same exact thing you tell Mia. Have a mature conversation instead of keeping secrets and throwing punches.”
I exhale loudly. “Wow, Mom.”
“I know, right? I’ve been around long enough to know that you should fight for the relationships that matter,” she says. “But anyway, why are you still on the phone with me? Go get her. I’ve been planning your wedding for years.”
What matters to Mia right now? What is significant? It’s probably not you anymore. So what could it be?
Work. The only place she’s felt seen. The only place she’s taken seriously.
Courtney Thomas. That shit show I left her in. That garbage curriculum that upset everyone who worked at PS 2.
I do some research. I send a few texts to District 13 friends I’ve made over the years. Make a few phone calls. Send a few emails. I treat it like it’s a real fucking job.
I learn some shit. People disconnected from NYC public education would be very, very surprised at how corrupt it all is. Just another political, bureaucratic system. It’s why I hated working for it. But just like in any other political, bureaucratic system, people are willing to talk. Especially ones that are unhappy with the system. Disgruntled with the leadership in the system.
I do some shit.
Then I go get her.