Twelve Years Ago
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
It came out of the blue. A heart attack at the gas station.
Ronald set the pump and sat down in the driver’s seat of his pickup truck, and by the time someone noticed him slumped over the center console he was already gone.
Benny went home to settle the estate and ended up staying for three months.
Despite Helen’s early death evidencing the fragility of life, no one had accounted for the possibility of Ronald’s early death, and his affairs were a mess.
My heart broke for my best friend. He was still coming to terms with the loss of his mother, and now, without any warning, he was an orphan.
I offered to come visit, but he didn’t want me to travel alone.
It was early days with a new cognition-enhancing drug, and I was suffering from vertigo and migraines.
In those three months, I felt anxious and ineffectual. Lonely.
In those three months, I met Xander.
Ours was the quintessential coffee shop meet-cute. He grabbed my cappuccino, I grabbed his; we realized our mistake at the same time.
“Triple shot with oat milk and a dash of cinnamon?” he asked, reading off my cup with a sweet, melodic accent.
I read his; it was the same. “I guess there’s no point in switching…” I did a double take at the name scrawled in marker. “Zander?”
“With an X, not a Z.” He glanced down at the drink that was supposed to be mine. “I’m guessing no one ever misspells your name.”
“Roy?” I shook my head, deadpan. “Never.”
He laughed, and my lips spread into a grin.
“Your dimple is perfect,” he said.
“Your hair is very blond.”
“Would you like to join me at my table?”
He had the kind of smile you might expect in a Jane Austen movie: perfectly imperfect. Only, with that hair, those blue eyes, and those razor-sharp cheekbones, the effect was more Thor than Darcy. I like Thor. And so I said yes.
There was no lull in the conversation. He seemed to find me interesting; in turn, I felt interesting. My tract-home childhood in the Inland Empire wasn’t boring at all! Graphic design is riveting!
Xander had recently quit a high-stress regional management position at Hugo Boss in order to try his hand in the entertainment industry.
“My father produces C-movies, which pay the bills, but I’m aiming for B’s and hopefully, eventually, A’s.
” He was twelve when his parents divorced; that same year, his father moved him and his five-year-old sister from Denmark to Los Angeles.
“You weren’t even a teenager yet,” I said. “I’d have guessed you were a recent transplant with that accent.”
“I don’t want to lose it,” he said self-consciously. “I’ve been told it’s charming.”
Whoever told him this was not wrong. I lowered my head to hide my flush and backtracked slightly, expressing surprise that his father moved him so far from his mother.
He shrugged. “My mother wasn’t cut out for parenting.”
“Do you ever see her?”
“She’s not around anymore. Neither is my dad, for that matter.”
This made me think of Benny. When I said I was sorry for his loss, he waved my condolence away. “No no, not like that. They’re just doing their own thing.”
“Then I’m sorry for that loss.”
He tilted his head in a thoughtful way. “Me too.”
We sat there for two hours, long enough for me to grow tired. When I mentioned my sleep disorder, he propped his chin on his palm. “Narcolepsy,” he said, as if savoring the word. “How wonderfully unique.”
There were no tasteless jokes about Sleeping Beauty or indelicate comments about how nice it must be to get so much sleep.
He didn’t suggest I was milking it in order to take advantage of disability benefits on account of the fact that I “don’t look disabled.
” (Oh yes, friends, I’ve heard it all.) Xander said all the right things. I was wonderfully unique.
We went on two dates in two nights, both ending on my doorstep with a gentle kiss. I wasn’t sure what to make of this surprising development, but Xander was kind and handsome, and I was lonely.
On the third night, I came down with a high fever.
“I’ll bring you soup,” he said over the phone.
I was fairly certain this fever was the newest in a revolving door of drug-related side effects, so I let him.
He arrived not with soup, but with the ingredients for soup, which he proceeded to make from scratch in my kitchen.
I don’t remember nodding off, but when I awoke a few hours later he was beside me on the comforter, hair adorably rumpled.
“Did I sloup through…” Hearing myself, I tried again, doing my best to enunciate. “Sleep. Through the soup?”
He smiled, like this was the cutest thing he’d ever heard. “You did.” His lips turned down. “Unfortunately, I may have also caught the bug.”
I felt his forehead; he was burning up.
We stayed in bed for the next several days, shivering and snuggling under blankets, watching movies, holding hands, napping, slurping broth. Through our fever hazes, we got to know each other at fever pitch, and it was, hand on heart, one of the most romantic weeks of my life.
By the time Benny had packed his last box and turned over the keys to his childhood home, I’d fallen hard. Only problem was, Benny knew nothing about it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. It didn’t feel right to mention my own happiness while he was still deeply grieving.
I brought him pizza the night he returned. “I missed you,” I said, pulling him into a hug.
“I missed you too.” He held on for longer than usual. “You have no idea.”
“You changed shampoos.” I sniffed. “Eucalyptus?”
“Good nose.” He ran a hand through his curls and sank down onto the couch. “It was my dad’s.”
I dished out the slices. He took a bite and sighed. “It’s good to be home.”
“I’m sure. Is the house for sale now?”
“As of yesterday.”
“Does it feel weird?”
He nodded. “I didn’t realize my dad had kept so much of my mom’s stuff. He still had all her clothes. Her jewelry. Her sewing supplies. Five years, and I don’t think he went through a single drawer. There was even … stuff in her nightstand.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with that?”
“That went in the trash.”
“Oh god.” I shuddered with secondhand embarrassment. “What about the rest?”
“My sister took a carload of stuff, but I mostly went for the photos.”
“No taxidermy busts?”
“I found them all good homes.”
“That makes me desperately sad.” I took his hand and squeezed it, then rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Benny.”
“Me too.”
Eventually, we ate and drank and talked about other things. Benny asked what I’d been up to and I realized I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. “Actually, I have something to tell you.”
“Yeah?” He shifted forward and cupped his knees. “I kinda have something to tell you too.”
“Kinda?”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Okay, but me first.” I needed to get it over with. “I met someone.”
He laughed. And then he realized I was serious. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I averted my eyes. “You know, a guy.”
This was not what he’d expected me to say. Nor did I expect his response. “I thought you were sick.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that why you didn’t come to Colorado?”
I frowned. “I didn’t come because you told me not to.”
“Because you were sick.”
“I was. But I would’ve come. I wanted to come.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I … because…”
“Because you were getting laid.”
“No.”
He stood and looked around, as if trying to find somewhere else to sit.
“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “The vertigo only stopped a few weeks ago.”
“I could’ve used your help.”
“I would’ve come. I wasn’t lying to you.” My voice was thin. I knew how I sounded, and I didn’t know how to fix it. He shouldn’t have told me to stay home. I shouldn’t have listened. Benny needed me. Of course he needed me. “I’m sorry.”
He grabbed our plates and brought them to the kitchen. I remained on the couch, regret an anchor in my stomach, listening to the old pipes squeal as he washed up. When I finally had the courage to join him, he was standing motionless at the sink.
“Benny.”
He turned around and ran a hand down his beard. I thought I might have to grovel. I hated that I’d upset him after all he’d been through.
Shaking his head, he said, “I shouldn’t have—that wasn’t fair.”
I noticed then the open beer on the tile countertop.
“I was going to tell you,” he said in answer to my unasked question. “I stopped in Arizona on my way back.” A judge had granted him early termination. His parole was over. He had a certificate and everything.
I closed the gap between us, wrapped my arms around his waist, and pressed my cheek to his chest. Beneath the eucalyptus, he smelled like grass on a hot day. Like Benny.
“I’m so sorry about your dad,” I said into his T-shirt.
His chest rose and fell. “Me too.”
We rocked in place. After a while, he angled back and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Tell me about this new guy.”
XANDER AND BENNY met a week later. Benny’s birthday was that Saturday, and I decided the best way to welcome him home was to host a party with our closest friends. Nothing fancy, just drinks and appetizers with the Angelenos who love him best.
“This really isn’t necessary,” Benny said when I answered the door.
“Hello to you too.” Hand on hip, I gave him a once-over. “Well done. I approve.”
He’d donned a black button-down for the occasion, untucked, with dark jeans. His curls were tame, and his beard was freshly trimmed. “Likewise.”
I twirled. My retro yellow cocktail dress had an impressively flared skirt. “Too much?”
“You’re perfect. What can I do to help?”
“Not a thing.” I instructed the birthday boy to sit while I fixed him a drink.
A few minutes later, our friends started arriving—first some neighbors, then our dodgeball crew—and before I knew it the mood was festive, the music was loud, and everyone was pouring second drinks.
I was returning from the kitchen with a plate of bacon-wrapped figs when I spotted Xander standing in my doorway holding a brown paper bag.
“You made it.” I set the plate down and greeted him with a hug.
His golden hair was held in place with pomade, and he wore a slate-blue sweater that brought out his eyes. “Sorry I’m late.” He smiled his perfectly imperfect smile, making my stomach flutter. “I couldn’t decide what to bring.”
I caught Benny watching us and waved him over.
“Benny, this is Xander. Xander, Benny.”
They exchanged greetings, and Xander handed him the bag. “Wasn’t sure what your drink was, so…”
Inside was a liter of scotch, another of gin, and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Benny’s eyebrows shot up.
Xander scratched his head, as if embarrassed by his own generosity. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, man,” Benny said. “Wow. That’s nice of you.”
“Yeah, well. Heard you’ve had a rough couple of months, so…”
I could tell Benny didn’t want to talk about it, and I was about to change the subject when Xander said in his dulcet accent, “Joy tells me you’re an audio engineer? What does that entail?”
Xander was good at reading people, and even better at asking questions. I let myself relax as Benny explained that he got his start in music recording studios but mostly freelanced now, offering sound edits for media production services.
“You ever work on podcasts?”
“No,” Benny said, “but I’d be interested.”
I’d never listened to a podcast, not yet.
I didn’t hop on that trend until Serial came out a few years later.
One could say I’m not an early adopter of technology in any form, hence the ancient boom box that was at that moment blasting Weezer from the corner.
Someone must have turned it up because I could barely hear Xander’s response.
“Hold on,” I shouted, excusing myself to take over volume control. Our dodgeball friends then wrangled me into a heated argument on Weezer’s OK Human versus Radiohead’s OK Computer, and by the time I returned, Benny and Xander were engaged in what appeared to be a Very Serious conversation.
“What did I miss?” I said, triangulating them. “What are we talking about?”
“Koalas,” Benny responded without missing a beat. “Did you know they can sleep up to twenty hours a day?”
“Of course I do. I was a koala in a former life. Did you know goats can’t look up or down without moving their heads?”
“Wow. That is completely related and equally interesting.”
I nodded. “But seriously, what were you talking about?”
“You,” Benny said.
I elbowed him, but this time he wasn’t joking. “Only good things, right?”
“Only good things.” Xander kissed the side of my head, sending a rush of warmth through my limbs. “Now. Are you going to introduce me to the rest of your friends?”
The party was a success. Everyone celebrated my best friend, and we all ate cupcakes, and laughed, and drank too much.
When I started to fade Benny shooed everyone out, shouting, “Bedtime! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!
” A few minutes later, he and Xander and I were the only three left standing.
“Joy and I will clean up,” Xander said. “You go, relax. It’s your birthday.”
“Nah, man, it’s cool.” Benny was already grabbing empty bottles. “We’ve got a whole system, right, Joy?”
“We do.” I removed the bottles from his hands. “And it usually involves me sitting on the couch and watching you do all the work. Xander is right. Go home, we’ve got this.”
Benny glanced back and forth between us. “If you’re sure.”
“Hundred percent.” I gave him a big hug to ease my rising guilt. “Happy birthday, Benny.”
“Okay.” He backed toward the door. “Thanks.”
Xander shook his hand, I waved goodbye, and then there were two.
“I think that went well,” I said.
“Yeah?” Xander searched my face.
I nodded and sat on the arm of my vintage green side chair. “Everyone liked you.”
“And I liked them.” Xander consolidated the leftover chips. Stacking the empty bowls, he said, “I may have to work on Benny, though.”
“What makes you say that?”
“A vibe.” He disappeared into the kitchen. Plates clinked. Silverware tinkled. Cabinets and drawers thudded closed.
When he returned, I said, “What was it you two were talking about earlier?”
“Nothing much. Just your basic getting-to-know-you stuff.”
“Xander.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, drew me close, and nuzzled my neck. “He told me to be good to you.”
This sounded very Benny. I smiled. “And what did you say?”
He pulled back and looked me in the eyes. “I said I couldn’t imagine being anything but.”
I pressed my lips to his, and he ran his hands up and down my back, into my hair. Ignoring the mess, I led him to my bed.