Chapter 14
The creaky Metro escalator lifted me toward Union Station, where I was meeting Jay at the MARC Train.
Pigeons waddled on the cement out front.
Inside: the lunch rush. Chipotle, CAVA, Shake Shack.
I moved into the main hall, its thick white columns leaping into a wave of arches.
The gold-foiled octagons gave it an added flick of grandeur.
I thought of the basilica, of Tristan sinking onto the stone steps.
Wind sending hair into my mouth, his hand drawing it behind my ear, the whip of cologne at his neck.
I crushed the memory like an old piece of paper.
Jay texted to say he’d deboarded. On the platform, I nervously searched for him in the flurry of suitcases—commuting businessmen, college students in sweats—and caught his green cap bobbing through the crowd.
I remembered wearing that cap around campus when I didn’t feel like doing my hair, how people mistook me for him from afar.
When he spotted me, grinning with abandon, I was struck by a hot-blue lightning bolt of guilt.
He kissed my temple. “You’re not as cute as I remember.”
“It’s not too late to go home.”
He didn’t have a suitcase, just a weekend bag that was falling apart at the zipper.
His back was slender and athletic when we hugged.
I could easily wrap my arms around him. It made me sad, like he was slipping away.
When I looked up at him, I was flustered, overcome.
Dark feathery brows, button nose, mocha-brown eyes mere slits when he smiled.
Still smiling, he kissed me. Soft upper lip, sharp taste of peppermint gum.
We braided hands and left the platform, walking in step. I felt like the woman in the oil painting, clutching the man’s arm so as not to fall out the window.
Our Airbnb was a newly renovated English basement.
Jay folded into the space like he’d been there all along.
He’d always had a liquid ease: quick to laugh, eager to befriend, posture of deep listening in conversation.
I hadn’t noticed I was staring until he cocked his head from the sofa as if to say, What’s wrong with you?
I always had to recalibrate at the beginning of these trips, flitting between the feeling that he was both new and the most familiar person in the world.
We ordered groceries: basmati, limes, wine, sea bass enveloped in harsh brown paper.
It cost more than takeout but neither of us said anything.
There was a grill on the patio that took Jay thirty minutes to light.
“No, like this,” I said. “Stop, you’re going to burn yourself!
” he said. Neither of us knew what we were doing.
A chunk of fish collapsed between the grill slates, charring beautifully.
How easy it was to fall into domestic bliss, to release all the decadent resistance of youth, eat overpriced fish on a warm autumn evening.
I could almost forget the mess I was making.
Dimming the lights, we turned on Ma Belle, My Beauty. I realized it was going to be one of those films that was all subtext and stares. I wanted to watch people throwing shit and fucking like they were about to die.
Jay was rubbing my feet. “Let’s move to France.”
“Okay.”
“We could live in an old crumbling house.”
“I already live in an old crumbling house.”
He dug his thumb into my arch, unearthing a dormant pain from standing at the restaurant all day. “But this house would be ours.”
“I could write while you yell at CNN.”
“That’s exactly how I want to spend my time in France, still entangled in the elaborate nightmare of American politics. You know”—he set my foot aside—“I think Tristan lives around here.”
I reached for my wineglass and knocked it onto the coffee table. Jay fetched a roll of paper towels.
“Thanks.”
“You wanna call him and see what he’s up to?”
“I wanna watch the movie.”
He put a hand on my thigh. “I know you don’t like him, but would you please just be cool? For me?”
I didn’t say anything. Jay called him. It rang, rang, on speaker phone. I prayed he wouldn’t pick up.
“Hello?” Tristan’s voice was muffled by the faucet running in the background.
“Look at my location.”
There was a pause. “You’re here already?”
“At an Airbnb. Cat’s here. Say hi.” He passed me the phone. It was hot and slippery against my face. I didn’t speak. Jay bending down to kiss me on the train platform, sweet, like an old film. Tristan’s mouth pouring into mine outside the café like a bottle of Don Julio.
“Hey,” Tristan said finally. “How are you?”
“I’m good. You?”
“Okay.”
I gave Jay the phone back. He tilted the speaker toward his mouth. “I think we’re staying near you. You’re in Shaw, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We just ate. Want to meet later?”
The water shut off. “I can’t.”
“Okay. What about Saturday? A group of us are going to a haunted forest for Halloween.”
“I can’t do this weekend. I have a lot of work. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m also here to see you, you know.”
“I know. I just… next time. I promise.”
Jay took his bottom lip into his mouth. “Okay.”
All evening, I was afraid to let Jay out of my sight. This was a foreign fear. In bed, I tangled him in the web of my arms, crushing him against me.
“This isn’t comfortable.” His cheek was smashed to my chest.
“Sorry. I can’t let you go.”
“I can’t even use the bathroom?”
“No.”
“But I have to pee.”
“Pee in the bed.”
He sighed. “I’ll just hold it until you go to sleep.”
Tired, I loosened my grip. “Are you gonna help your mom out?”
He paused. “You knew I was.”
“Don’t sound so disgusted with yourself.”
“I’m not.”
I searched his face. “Did that hurt your feelings earlier?”
“What? Asking about my mom?”
“No. Tristan.”
“It’s okay.” Jay reached for his glasses on the nightstand and pulled out a political thriller. “I know he just started his program.”
I wanted to stick my head in the toilet and flush. He turned his focus to his book, but my guilt grew around me until I broke out: “Maybe he’ll come out.”
Jay didn’t look up. “I doubt it.”
After a while, I turned toward him and lifted my leg onto his hip.
Still reading, he ran a finger along the outside of my thigh, tracing a series of loops.
When I shivered, his lips parted into a small smirk.
Closing his book, he slipped a hand under my shirt, warm against my back.
I reached into his sweatpants. He groaned, glasses falling slightly down his nose when the back of his head hit the headboard.
We kissed, slowly at first, then deeply.
Laughing, a little awkwardly, from the foreignness of it, having survived on phone sex for weeks.
I pulled down my shorts, leaving my top on, and turned onto my stomach.
He laid flat on top of me, entering me that way.
His body was like a weighted blanket pinning me to the mattress.
Mouth on my neck, teeth clipping my shoulder, bed rocking beneath us.
When his long, gentle fingers found my clit, I sighed loudly into the pillow, shaking before going still.
He was the only man I let have me in this position, the only one I trusted enough to put all their weight on me like this.
I fell asleep against the heat of his stomach. I dreamed of a child’s hollowed-out eyes, bombs burning up the night sky like stars, bright and illuminating nothing.