Chapter 24 Then
I started therapy the first week of December, and it sucks.
Alex reassured me it gets better, after a while.
He said it’s like prep for cooking, arduous and frustrating, seemingly busywork, feeling like too much effort for not enough reward.
But you have to do it, because in the end, the meal you sit down to is only as good as everything you put into giving it a strong foundation.
I want to believe him. I’m hoping I won’t have to believe him, that soon I’ll know it for myself. Right now, though, it’s hard.
It probably doesn’t help that this is the busiest, most stressful time of year at work and also the start of cold and flu season, so all month, staff has dropped left and right with various illnesses, and I’ve been constantly scrambling to cover for that.
Then, of course, there’s the fact that I just weathered my first divorced Christmas.
Usually, I love the holidays. This year, I’ve felt like a Scrooge.
“Another one?” the bartender asks us.
I look to Alex, sitting beside me on the neighboring barstool. He turns to the bartender and says, “Very much, yes.”
I laugh a little. We’re both tipsy. Exhausted.
Spent. I drove to Columbus for Christmas mostly out of guilt.
My dad hasn’t fully bounced back from the angioplasty, and I pictured my mom stressed by caring for him, doing everything herself, because for some reason, she’d insisted on hosting Christmas, not just Thanksgiving, too.
Then my brother texted to say he’d be there. If Matt was coming, I knew I was, too.
Alex had Mia Christmas Eve, at his parents’, where Jen apparently came for a visit that wasn’t too strained.
After Mia told them it made her sad they hadn’t been together at Thanksgiving, they decided to make an effort to share the holiday for her.
Christmas Day, Alex dropped by his old house and watched Mia open presents, then made a brief appearance at Jen’s parents’, where things were slightly more strained, thanks to Ethan’s presence.
We talked on the phone for hours Christmas Eve and Christmas Day nights, and when I told Alex it was the only good part of the holiday for me, he said, “Yeah, Ted, me, too. Well, with the exception of Mia tearing open her presents. She was feral. And we definitely did a divorce guilt amount of gift giving, so there was a lot of carnage.”
I laughed when he said that. I think it was the only time I laughed all December, before tonight.
Alex, like me, does not look like he’s been feeling the holiday spirit, either. He’s slumped over the bar, shoulders rounded.
Above us, strung across the ceiling, is truly an astronomical number of colored string lights, and dangling from them, dozens of oversized Christmas ornaments.
It’s karaoke night at Bob’s Garage, and a couple on the other side of the room are singing “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
,” only slightly off key but with so much heart and mutual infatuation it makes me want to throw up. Or throw something.
I glance around and sigh. Everyone around us does not seem to have gotten the memo that it is not the season to be merry.
“Why did we come here again?” I ask.
Alex swings his head my way. “Because we were trying to cheer up and not spend New Year’s Eve wallowing in self-pity?”
“That’s right.” I drop my head on his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s working.”
“It’s not,” he admits.
The bartender slides our whiskey sours right into our hands, giving us a sympathetic glance. “On the house,” he says. “You two look like you could use it.”
“Thanks?” Alex says.
“Sympathy drinks.” I snort a laugh, folding my arms on the bar and dropping my head into them. “We’re that pathetic.”
Alex straightens and swivels on his barstool toward me. “Come on, Ted. We’re not pathetic.”
I peer up from my arm cave, frowning. “We aren’t?”
“We aren’t,” he says. Alex’s lifts his glass into the air. His hand wavers for a moment, like he almost doesn’t have it in him to keep holding steady, like even just a perfunctory cheers is too much cheer to manage.
Guilt slugs me as I look at him. He’s trying so hard. And I’m not.
I sit up, too, sweeping my drink off the bar and clinking it with Alex’s, a bit more forcefully than I meant to.
“Shit,” Alex mutters, before licking along his wrist to catch the whiskey sour sliding toward his sleeve. I’m sad-horny again, and a flicker of lust catches to a flame inside me as I watch him.
“Sorry,” I tell him sheepishly. “Want me to help?”
Alex laughs faintly. “Help yourself, instead. You’re just as bad as me.”
I peer down at my hand, the whiskey sour covering it. “Huh. Guess you’re right.”
I lick at my wrist, too, and our eyes catch. Alex snorts. I snort louder. Then I cackle. Alex’s belly laugh jumps out of him, seeming to surprise him as much as it surprises me.
We lick our way up our hands, still laughing, as I tell him, “We look like two sad tiny kittens, bathing ourselves.”
“Oh.” Alex’s expression crumples. “That image is so sad. It does not spark my joy.”
My chin wobbles dangerously. “Shit. Me neither.”
Our laughter, the momentary spark of happiness, evaporates into a bleak, empty silence.
Alex throws back half of what’s left of his drink, and I follow suit. We set down our glasses, whiskey and tart-sweet citrus burning down my throat. I shake myself and straighten my back. We were just getting somewhere good, and I brought us back down.
“Why is it,” I ask, trying to sound perky, “that it’s called sad-puppy face? Aren’t sad kitten faces just as pathetic? Maybe even more so? They’re so tiny and fluffy, and they have such tiny paws!”
Alex frowns in thought. “I think it might be because, between cats and dogs, dogs are definitely the dumber and thus more innocent creatures. A kitty is arguably as cute as a puppy, but the kitty’s going to grow up to be a vengeful, furniture-shredding, bread-stealing—”
“Bread stealing?”
“Figaro,” Alex mutters darkly, “stole more toast from me than my own sisters managed to.”
I tip my head. “Have I met Figaro?”
“Ted, I’m thirty-six. I haven’t lived at home since I was eighteen. He’d have to be immortal to still be around.”
“Rest in peace, Figaro,” I say solemnly.
“Try rest in perpetual anguish,” Alex says. “He was a demon in black-and-white furball form.”
“Wow.” My eyes widen.
Alex hangs his head and mumbles, “I really liked my toast.”
I set my hand on his arm, squeezing. “It was homemade-bread toast, wasn’t it?”
He nods sadly.
“Well, now I get it,” I tell him. “Because I would do violence to anything that tried to come between me and Bruscato homemade-bread toast. Fuck Figaro.”
Alex peers up at me, smiling faintly. “Did you grow up with dogs? That why you got Argos?”
“Yeah. I badgered my parents for a dog for years, and they finally caved when I was in seventh grade—a golden retriever named Bailey. She was my cuddle buddy. I wasn’t technically allowed to have her on my bed, but she ended up there every night.
I took such good care of her. Groomed her, walked her every day.
It was, according to my mother, the first time I showed her ‘the capacity for consistent responsibility.’ ”
Alex makes a face like he just smelled something stinky. “I don’t think I like the sound of your mom”
I laugh a little. “She was worn out. And grumpy.”
“Who could ever be grumpy with you?” Alex asks.
He leans in, cupping my face. I think maybe Alex’s caution around not drinking much so as not to crave cigarettes has left him with a slightly lower tolerance than me.
His thumbs stroke up and down my cheeks.
“You’re so beautiful. And kind. And patient.
And funny. Who wouldn’t want to love the shit out of you? ”
I bite my lip, fighting a smile as I set my hands over his. “I think this is the whiskey sour goggles talking.”
“Goggles don’t talk, Ted.” Alex hiccups. “They see.”
“You’re right.” I draw his hands down from my face, because I can’t take the torture. He’s drunk, and I’m tipsy. He’s saying sweet things to me, and I’ve wanted to kiss him for months and nothing’s made that want fade.
Alex keeps his hands tangled with mine, setting them on my lap. He leans in. “What were we talking about? Before I told you how pretty you were?”
“Sad-kitty versus sad-puppy face,” I remind him. “We got on the subject of your demon childhood cat, as evidence that cats grow up to be domesticated furball psychopaths.”
“Yes!” He leans in, eyes wide. “So that’s my answer.
Why it’s sad-puppy face is because kitties grow up to be cats who are sinister as fuck.
Dogs are just big puppies. They stay dumb and cute, and that never changes.
So sad-puppy face, which tugs on your heartstrings, has to evoke pure innocence.
Not demonic, needle-clawed animals who steal your toast.”
“To be fair,” I say, “I have met some really sweet cats in my day.”
“Where?” Alex says, like this is ludicrous. “Where, Ted!”
“The shelter,” I explain. “When I was a teenager. I was bored and lonely a lot on the weekends. So I volunteered at the animal shelter. Played with the dogs and cats to help them stay socialized and as happy as possible. It’s a tragic, self-fulfilling prophecy.
Shelter animals have this bad rap as mean, unlovable creatures, but they’re not.
They just get grumpy because they’re stuck in a cage, and then no one wants them when they seem grumpy, but they never asked to be put in that cage. It’s terrible—”
“Ted!” Alex wails. “This is not sparking my joy!”
“Sorry!” Now it’s my turn to cup his face. “Alex, look at me.”
He opens his eyes. They’re wet, like he was actually about to cry. “What?” he whispers.
I slowly cross my eyes, dragging my right eye toward my nose. Then I cluck my tongue when I’ve gone as far as I can, sending my left eye pinging away, like an eight just struck by the cueball.