Chapter 3
I take a deep breath and swipe open my phone, my heart racing. My entire future could be determined by the next few seconds.
The text reads: Can you bring my fave water bottle? followed by a bunch of emojis that make no sense, including the taco and the flag of a country I do not recognize – a typical communication from my best friend Omar.
Sure , I send back. My heart descends from my throat back to my chest. I guess my future will need to wait a little longer, or at least until after I pick up his water bottle and we head to the gym together.
Omar and I met in college. We were both on work-study scholarships and spent countless hours in the library’s basement talking about what we wanted to do when we graduated and the guys on campus we had crushes on. I was the first person Omar came out to, and he was the first person I let read my senior thesis. We trust each other with our secrets.
I decide to walk home after work since it’s such a beautiful day and seeing the city through Finn’s eyes this morning has renewed my appreciation for the metropolis. He gazed out the window like he was peering out of the Millennium Falcon across a sea of new galaxies. A guy like Finn can have that limitless optimism, that sense of hope that anything is possible. I guess I felt that way once. Maybe right after college when I won the Seggerman Award for my short story. Or when I saw the first book I wrote for Justine in a bookstore. But it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way. Hope may be a thing with feathers, but it can also be a rusty gear in a car that won’t start anymore.
Summer is holding on to the city but a cool breeze makes the late afternoon air bearable, although I know part of my decision to enjoy the outdoors is influenced by the fact that if I don’t get on the subway, I’ll still have a signal on the commute home in case I hear from my agent.
After a few blocks, my phone rings and I’m glad I’m not underground, but when I look at the screen, I see my mom is calling. I don’t immediately send it to voicemail because she’s learned that if it does that after one ring, it means I have actively denied her, so now I have to let the call bleed out, which is super annoying. Instead, I just pick up the phone.
‘Hello, Sam is that you?’ she asks.
‘Yes, Mom. You called me.’
‘I know that. It’s just that you never pick up on the first ring. Is everything okay? Are you okay? Did you think I was a boy?’
‘Your picture literally shows up on my screen when you call. Granted half of the image is the rainbow flag you’re holding but I would never mistake you for a boy I like.’
‘Oh, so there is a boy you like?’
‘No, Mom. There is not a boy I like.’ The woman is constantly hoping I will have a bestselling novel or find my soul mate. Sadly, both of those things seem very, very unlikely at the moment.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Mom. I. Am. Fine.’ I say each word slowly and deliberately. Maybe she can hear in my voice that I’m preoccupied. I haven’t told her a thing about the book project I have on submission. I don’t want to let her know that the reality of my career is so much more depressing than she could imagine.
‘What’s up?’ I ask casually trying to hide any concern that might reveal itself.
‘I wanted to know if you are driving or taking the train for Thanksgiving and if it’s the train which one and if you are driving I wanted to tell you not to take Highway 17 because they’re doing construction.’
‘Mom, Labor Day is this weekend and you want to know how I’m getting to your house for Thanksgiving. I have no idea. It’s months away.’ She’s always planning events that aren’t due to take place for months or sometimes years. I swear my mother will eventually loop herself.
‘ Next Labor Day is months away. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. You have to plan for these things if you want to be prepared. Do you know when they start planning the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? The second after one parade ends, they start working on the next one. I saw that on the news. Technically, I’m behind. So, train or drive? I think train because the construction might not be done, but you decide. It’s your choice.’
‘Mom, I have no idea.’
‘But which would you prefer? The train or driving in?’
‘I told you. I don’t know.’ My mom constantly asks me questions to situations I haven’t even considered and the answer ‘I don’t know’ is meaningless to her. I tell her I don’t know and she just keeps on asking as if doing so will somehow create a new answer. The phrase ‘I don’t know’ is like ammunition to her.
‘You don’t know when you’ll know or you don’t know how you’ll get here? Because I could have someone pick you up. Let me make a few calls today.’
‘I don’t know!’ I say again but with more force.
‘I’m just asking a question,’ she says and I immediately feel guilty. I know Thanksgiving is going to be hard for her. It’s going to be hard for both of us. The first one without Aunt Shug. I love the holiday but I remind myself that this one will be a challenge and change my tone with her.
‘Mom, let me think about it and I’ll get back to you,’ I say as I arrive in front of Plant Daddy, the cafe on the ground floor of the building I live in. I stop in front of the window boxes with their late summer zinnias and marigolds to wave to Omar who is finishing his barista shift. He waves back and I point to my phone and roll my eyes. He knows this is code for I’m talking to my mother . ‘Mom, I have to go.’ I hope I can make a quick exit from the conversation.
‘We can finalize things when I see you for your big birthday surprise this week.’
Big. Birthday. Surprise. Three simple words that fill me with fear. Images of the Joan Crawford Cake fill my head. ‘I have to go, Mom. I’ll talk to you later. I love you,’ I say and hang up before she can ask another question.
Omar’s apartment is just upstairs from mine. He found the building first, and as soon as an opening became available I moved in two floors below him. After a quick stop at my place to change out of my ‘normal’ clothes and into my gay gym ‘uniform’, I head two flights up and key into his apartment. His place looks like a fabric store exploded. There are tissue-paper patterns covering the floor, mannequins with lace trim pinned to the edges, and a table covered in gears and small pieces of robotics that he uses to animate his fashions. When Omar is not serving coffee downstairs, or at the gym, he’s at his sewing machine making some marvelous creation. I grab his purple water bottle with the sparkles on it and head downstairs to Plant Daddy.
When I walk in, Kai is watering a bushy Boston fern perched on a stand between two cafe tables. He’s not only the proprietor of Plant Daddy, but he also owns the building, so he’s our landlord as well. He comes over to me and puts the tin watering can he was using on the tray of his wheelchair. ‘Any news from your agent?’ he asks, biting his lower lip.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘They shouldn’t make you wait so long,’ he says gruffly. ‘I found a blossom on the peace lily by the espresso machine. I heard that’s a good omen. Maybe it can help us both get lucky.’ He tapes a ‘Help Wanted’ sign to the front window.
‘I thought Mitzi was covering Hanzhang’s shifts.’ Hanzhang works at Plant Daddy in between tours. She got cast in a regional production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Musical. She’s playing an alien and super excited.
‘She was until Mitzi broke her arm at a protest for trans healthcare. Now she needs to stay down in DC. Silly old fool. I told her not to wear high heels.’ He scratches the grey stubble on his chin and shakes his head.
‘Oh, that’s awful. I hope she’ll be okay.’ I really like Mitzi and to be honest she pulls a much better espresso than Hanzhang. She also has great stories about her and Kai working on the front lines of the trans helpline decades ago. She’s sweet and kind which is not how anyone would describe Kai at first meeting. He is sweet and kind but he does his best to hide it.
‘Don’t worry about her. I’m the one who has to fill these shifts. Who in the world wears kitten heels to a protest march? She has plenty of friends taking care of her.’
‘That’s good,’ I say. Kai saves most of his outward kindness for his plants but everyone knows underneath his crusty exterior is, well actually, more crust but underneath that layer I believe there is something sweeter. ‘Let me know if you know someone. Omar has too many hours pattern cutting at Vanata and Maggie can’t change her schedule at the yoga studio. Angelika said not to worry because she pulled the Page of Cups.’
Madame Angelika is a regular who reads Tarot cards at one of the tables near the large potted fiddle leaf fig tree. She says the tree has an amazing life source. Kai grumbles about how woo-woo it is but whenever he has a problem he always asks Angelika to pull a card.
‘What does the Page of Cups mean?’
‘A big happy surprise. So, no thanks. The last time she pulled that card the cappuccino machine broke down and I had to buy that new fancy one,’ he says shaking his head.
The previous machine was awful. Everything tasted like the engine of an old Toyota Camry. ‘But everyone loves the new machine and you’re selling more espresso than ever Kai.’
‘You’re always able to look on the bright side when it’s someone else,’ he says and rolls his eyes at me. ‘Just let me know if you can think of anyone.’
‘Will do,’ I say. I wave to Damola, who has his headphones on and looks up from his laptop for a second with a short wave and then goes back to his screen. I’m sure he’s in the middle of some scheduling emergency with one of his dog walkers or mixing some amazing beat or both. I smile at a few other regulars I recognize and head over to the counter where Omar is wiping down the steam wand of the cappuccino machine.
‘Anything?’ he asks. He knows how anxious I am about hearing from my agent. I shake my head. ‘I’m sure it will be good news.’ He pulls his apron off over his head.
I shrug. ‘I doubt it. Each passing minute makes it seem more unlikely.’
‘I wish you believed in yourself more,’ he says walking out from behind the counter. So do I , I say to myself. So do I.