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Title: Ollie Ollie, In Come Free (3/4)
Part two.
“So what brings you back so early?” Alpert spooned another helping of three-bean soup into the bowl and handed it back to Dan, who started eating before he realized he had to answer.
“Sorry –” he gulped the mouthful down and started over, “I was thinking that with all the side stuff you’ve got now, you needed more people, so I might as well stop by.”
“The bees are taking pretty good care of themselves.”
“That’s, that’s not what I meant. I mean, there’s always stuff you need done around here and –”
“Dan, it’s March.” If he wasn’t getting himself tea, Dan knew this was big. “You’re not here to get a jump on things, are you.”
“No, I’m not. I’m here, well,” he stared down at the cooling soup, looked back at Alpert, “Well, no, I really am here to get a jump on things.”
Alpert took a deep breath and let it out slowly, through his nose. “If I let you into my house and feed you and show you hospitality then I think the least you can do is be honest with me.” This was different. He wasn’t bluffing, Dan could tell if he was – and if he wasn’t then it wasn’t a good time to push back, not now.
“I got tired.” That got him to look back at Dan. “I got tired, and I wanted a place to stay.”
“What –”
“And this was the only place I could think of to go.”
Alpert blinked a couple of times; Dan kept his face as still as he could get it. “How long did it take you to get here?”
“A couple weeks.”
“I mean since you last woke up and started walking.”
“Eighteen hours. Seventeen and a bit, but most of eighteen.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re getting the bed.”
“Look, I –”
“It’s for tonight. That’s all. We can get you something in town tomorrow. What, you were going to sleep in an alley somewhere?” Under a bridge, but he didn’t need to tell Alpert that. “It’s late for you, and I don’t want to find you passed out in the hallway. Come on, take a shower before you start smelling this place up any worse.” He smiled. “Look, you followed me home, I’ve got to take care of you, right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“I can take care of myself fine.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” He laughed, then stopped suddenly enough to get Dan’s attention. “I do need more people, actually, so it is kind of good you came along now.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Yeah, actually, I kind of need someone in the office with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s getting big enough I need that sort of help. You won’t need to go to meetings or write memos but I need someone to help me keep track of land records, vendor sales, you know, documents and phone calls.” Dan wobbled on his feet that had nothing to do with how tired he was. Alpert shrugged. “Okay, maybe a memo or two. If you think I need them.”
“Wait, so what is it you’re offering?”
“I think people call them ‘personal assistants’ now.”
“What makes you think I can do something like that?”
“Most of an economics degree.”
“I left school after three years.”
“Which is still more than what I had, and I’m the one running the business.”
“Could I shower first?”
“Go ahead.”
“Hold on.” He rooted around in his bag before pulling out a small paper bag sealed up carefully. “Got this for you.” Alpert unfolded it, and the little charm glinted by itself when it fell into his hand.
“What is it?”
“Personal charm. It works for the first person who uses it – it’s supposed to help keep the menopause stuff down. I can’t use it, but I figured…” He trailed off, watched Alpert hang it around his neck and tuck it down his shirt, his face going soft around the eyes.
“Thank you.”
Dan let himself linger in the shower after he managed to scrub most of the dust off, longer than he needed, breathing in the steam when he finally shut off the water and had to brace a hand against the wall to keep upright. He pulled on the clothes Alpert had lent, stopped to take another deep breath with his eyes closed, and made his way to the bedroom. Alpert was already there, reading a book, and looked up from the bed when Dan came in. “Sorry for taking so long.”
“I can take one in the morning, it’s fine.” He looked down, definitely not really reading anymore, then said, “So you showered.”
Dan nodded slowly. “So I showered.”
“And did you take any time to think about it?”
“I took some time.”
“So what?”
“Sure.”
“Sure, what?”
Sighing, taking in a deep breath, Dan answered, “Yes, I accept the offer.”
“Thank you.”
Dan waited until he was out the door to start to push it closed and half-whisper, “Good night, Isabel,” which got the usual chuckle.
“Go get some sleep.”
-
Finding a place to sleep in town wasn’t hard, just a read through the classifieds and some phone calls to make sure when he could come by to see them. The best one was about the size of the last place he’d stayed. This time he’d be above and below other little apartments with the closest diner two blocks away, and he went ahead and went there for dinner. He could pay for the place tomorrow.
The bell jangled when he pushed the door open, a tiny sound in the buzz of the overhead lights and low hum from the back. He got seated at a table by the window by a tired, sighing waitress who smiled at him when he turned her question around and asked her how she was and let her go ahead and answer honestly. He got his dessert in a metal bowl with a plastic spoon, and scraped it as clean as he could, slowing down halfway through to take a bite when a car passed by to make it last.
“How is it?” The bright lights made her hair look like one of the wigs his mother’s friends used to wear, and it moved like one too, the way it didn’t fall like it should.
“Not that great.” He put on the most apologetic face he could, did one of his I’m-sorry half-laughs, “But, that doesn’t really matter, it’s still ice cream.”
That got her to smile for real again, “Just like Chinese food.”
He hadn’t eaten Chinese food in nearly six years. “Right, like that.”
“So, you want anything else? Coffee? We got decaf.”
“Umm, a ranchos burrito to go, and that’s it.” As she made her way to the kitchen, he went back to looking out the window and the uncapped streetlamps lining the sidewalk. It wasn’t late enough for him to be the only one awake, but it was late enough for him to be the only one in here. He’d gotten this feeling a lot when he was walking here, the same thing of being the only one around – the waitress and whoever was in the back didn’t count, they were part of the diner and weren’t going to go out walking. There wasn’t enough dark here to get a good view of the stars, the weird city-light dark that never got where it did out away from people, and he realized he hadn’t checked to see how tight he could close the windows’ blinds, and then realized he could get a new set if it was a problem.
He almost couldn’t sleep after he realized that. The blinds in the apartment closed fine, and he spent a while opening and closing them. So he didn’t need new ones. But he could get new ones if he needed, since he was staying. Of course he was staying. Even if it wasn’t here – it was about as big as his old place, and the water in the shower didn’t get that hot – he was staying put.
Even after a long, not-hot-enough shower, he stayed awake, curled up under the covers trying to not think about what he’d do next, and if he should bother with furniture if he didn’t want to stay there. He hadn’t signed anything or put down money, he could pick somewhere else if he wanted.
-
Getting back to work usually wasn’t anything special, even if it went from nailing up bedroom walls to strawberry picking, but he hadn’t sat behind a desk since the afternoon of the day he’d left. He didn’t remember them being so high until Alpert showed him how to adjust the chair. He also ran him through the phones, most of what the computer did, and all the filing cabinets, then closed the door and let Dan fend for himself. The old entry room had been redone to add a desk and work area, sectioned off by short walls and a couple of plants, so there was some sense of it being a real business office, at least how Dan assumed everyone imagined them, going by what was on TV.
It took most of the morning for someone to call, asking about a purchase order for some sort of truck, and Dan did his best to tell her what she needed to know. Before she’d called, he’d stared out the window, gone to open it, then sat back down and watched nothing happen. It was more exciting to watch it through a window than to see it in the office. This was too early for much to be going on outside, no chance for him to try to spot anyone he knew from the last two years – assuming they were hired on for the main growing and harvesting seasons, which were still a ways off. Not so far that if he went around to the other side of the building he’d be able to watch everyone who was out today, but he knew better than that. He stayed inside through lunch and finally broke down and asked Alpert if he could take a short walk around three.
“Sure,” he waved him off, “You can take twenty minutes, go ahead.”
“Thanks.”
Everything smelled pretty close to how he remembered when he stopped to take it in. It wasn’t like it smelled in July, and he couldn’t pick up everything as well as his brothers could, but he still remembered the tang of the fresh dirt and new-cut grass. The bees were going too, and he waited by a hive to watch a few of them as they came and went, before he had to hurry and get back to the desk and hope he hadn’t missed anything.
By the end of the third week he’d gotten used to the pattern of working inside. He still took the bus and walked the last half-mile and brought his lunch with him when he could, but he ate it inside and skipped it less, didn’t have to stick it out if it started to rain since he was inside all day, realized he needed a better set of clothes by the middle of the first week and resolved to do the best he could when he got his first paycheck.
He still came by early some days, even though his hours were already set out in advance – it was getting into real spring and summer would be by soon, so he had to get an earlier bus if he wanted to pretend he had the orchards to himself, just for a few minutes. It was nice enough now, and it’d be even better after the buds flowered and the leaves opened up, and he didn’t have to ask to know if Alpert ever went walking around at three in the morning or eleven at night to be the only person awake in his piece of the world. Dan wanted to ask if he could stay over one night to see the orchards early in the morning, knew he shouldn’t, so he just came early and didn’t say anything when Alpert joined him outside in the fresh light. He’d take the offered coffee and drink it quietly while the day warmed up and got started, never asking if Alpert celebrated the trees’ birthday the way Dan was supposed to.
He forgot what he shouldn’t be doing when he started to wave to people he knew from the last few years if they looked his way, somehow so happy to be there he thought they’d be glad to see him back in some way or another. If they recognized him, he couldn’t say, so he decided to skip his afternoon break and take a longer lunch to head over to say hello face-to-face, which didn’t go as well as he’d hoped, nobody really smiling with their eyes or giving him the full story even if he asked, and he knew he’d never given them his full story either but still felt like he’d been open enough to let them talk to him now.
He still had work to do, and that usually did the trick for getting him to stop thinking about other things, even when he knew what was bothering him would still be there tomorrow, and every day after when he was working here. So he did his best to get the inspectors on the phone to make the appointments for the new hive locations, see if there was enough money left for a new set of mower blades, and find another ream of paper for the fax machine and printer. Things to do, things to get done, things to remember to do in the morning after he turned off the lights and locked the door without saying good-night. He’d get used to it if he had enough time. He didn’t have anywhere to go.
-
“This your place?” He shut the door behind them, tossed her coat onto the nearest chair to free his hands, brush the hair off her neck and kiss here there.
“You like it?” God, she smelled fantastic. No perfumes, no sprays, just her sweat, God, all that dancing.
“Just asking, ah,” she sighed, tilted her head, “anyone else coming?”
“Nah,” he kissed her again, took her chin in hand and turned her head to look her in the eyes, “it’s all ours.”
“Good.” That smile, man, she looked like she was smiling with her whole body, it looked like she was laughing. He kissed her again, tasting the drinks they’d shared, God, he could taste her under that. He ran his hands through her hair, long and brown and soft and tangled it around his fingers, happy to keep kissing her but his cock was getting in the way again until she moaned out and it was just where he wanted it to be. He’d swear he could smell how wet she was now, slipping his hands down to feel, then she moaned deep and full, “Wait.” He didn’t want to wait at all, but pulled his hands away and whimpered softly when she took them in hers and asked, “You do have a bed, right?”
“Right this way.” He spun them around, pulling her as they smiled and then pulled her back in to twirl around and dance a bit like they’d done before with the music loud and people around them dancing too. Just the two of them now, in his bedroom, swaying softly together and pulling each other in for more kisses. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, tilted his head to kiss her neck to hear her moan, nibbled it just enough before returning to kissing her. She shook away and started to take her clothes off and he had to do the same, shoes and socks and pants falling away until he was naked except for his t-shirt. She’d left her panties on, and somehow this was just like in the movies with her pulling the shirt off him and him pulling the panties off her. She pushed him onto the bed and straddled him, her thighs around his hips, and he ran his hands up her soft back, marveling at how soft and small she was in his arms.
He had to stop to get a condom but he was back right away, ripping it open and rolling it down just like he’d practiced and lying back like she’d wanted him, letting her climb up onto him and hold him and he arched at her touch and if she said anything he didn’t hear over the sounds in his head, and then she pushed onto him and she was coming down him and he felt every single fucking inch fucking him fucking her, God, he didn’t want it to be over but she was so soft and so good. It’d been so long, and he held onto her, pushing up as she cried out along with him as she rode him, and he came pushing into her as hard as he could. He knew she wasn’t done and he was still hard and it was too much for her to be on him now so he pushed her off as gently as he could, and nudged her onto her back, sliding his hands where he’d wanted to put them, and she was just as wet as he’d smelled, wetter now if anything, and he found the right spots to touch her just right, to make her clench and come so happy.
He cleaned himself up in the bathroom, cock and hands, and rolled into bed next to her where she was already under the covers. She sighed when he pulled her close, spooning up together, and let himself float like that, gentle and warm, until he felt himself falling asleep. When he woke up the next morning she was still asleep, which made him sigh with relief. Her purse was still by the door, and he set the coffee going before checking her wallet for a driver’s license to make sure he remembered what to call her.
Her name was Beaux, and he wondered what kind of name that was as he put the license back.
She wandered into the kitchen in her rumpled clothes from last night just as he finished pouring himself a cup of coffee. He held up the half-full pot, “How do you take it?”
“Oh. Um, cream if you have.”
“Milk work?”
“Sure.”
“Sugar?”
“Nah.” He handed the mug over, and smiled when she took a sip and then started to drink in earnest. She wrapped her hands around it when she set it down on the counter, leaned over it, then shook her head and murmured her thank-you.
“You’re welcome. You want something else? Cereal?”
“Do you have toast?”
“I’ve got bread, but I don’t have a toaster.”
“Toaster oven?”
“Sorry.”
She smiled. “Then can I borrow a pan?”
“By all means.” He stepped aside to let her work, laying the bread out in the pan over the flame, pressing it gently with a fork and flipping it over before sliding it onto a plate, then doing it again before asking him if he wanted any. He didn’t, but said yes to have an excuse to keep watching her hands and fingers.
“You can do it in the stove,” she said with a mouth full of toast and melting butter, “but it doesn’t come out as well. Not as even.”
“It’s really good.”
“Thanks.”
He took a drink of coffee to help wash down the crust. “So…I don’t have a car, if you need a ride back to wherever.”
“I’m fine sticking around here for a bit.” She licked the last of the butter off a finger. “I’ve got a couple people I can call, see if they’re not busy later.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Great.” She stopped for a minute. “Is it – do you have a spare toothbrush?”
“Right this way.” There was only one bathroom in the apartment, so Dan spent twenty minutes on the couch while Beaux brushed her teeth and showered and toweled off – in that order, going by the sounds – before he had a chance for his own grooming. Good thing she hadn’t used up all the hot water; better thing he got a good sniff of her hair, still warm and smelling of fresh shampoo, when they had a good-bye kiss. It took a while for her to get out the door – not in a bad way, just in the way of a lazy morning that took its time getting somewhere.
She’d left her number by the fridge, a little surprise that made him burst out grinning.
The next Sunday they ended up walking over to that new place that’d opened up a couple of months ago that neither of them had been to yet, and took their time getting there to talk on the way. By the time they were seated, they’d gone over the weather, recent movies watched, length of time in the city, current occupation, and had just moved onto travel. She nodded politely when he talked about going down to the Keys one December a while back, and he whistled when she talked about her trip to California.
“I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s gone there.”
“No, really. I got my passport stamped and everything.”
“California always seems like – this big magical land out West where everything is brighter and cleaner. I wanted to go out there when I was a kid, but I think everyone does.”
“You want to know a secret?” She leaned in close, and he did too. “You know how they say it’s like the movies out there?” He nodded. “They’re more right than you can imagine. You really should go someday.”
“Tell me about it.” He laughed at the face she made. “No, really. I’m sure you’ve got some great stories.”
“Great stories, have I got amazing stories.” The first one she told – their first week of hitchhiking ending early and in the local hospital because of a few animals that were also sleeping in an abandoned house – could’ve happened just about anywhere, but the way she told it, bringing her whole body into it and mapping everything out in the air with her hands, was what he’d wanted to hear more than the story itself. They swapped anecdotes over their sandwiches, compared the toppings and sides, and she kissed him good afternoon.
Beaux was an electrician with a local construction company, a former Marine Corps of Engineers who still went out to the shooting range every two weeks to stay sharp, thirty-five years old with a short string of bad boyfriends and one botched engagement, plus a taste for hard beers and loud music, and knew both at the same time was best. Also mixed drinks: after their second meal out together, which included a lot of argument over what their first date actually consisted of and whether or not they were too old for that sort of thing, they went to a bar a bit nicer than the one where they’d met, and she introduced him to a couple of drinks that hit him the way his first good beer hit him years ago.
Dan didn’t take her home, and she didn’t have him follow her back to her place – there was more than enough time for that later, but good-night kisses just couldn’t wait.
-
“How can you not own a coffee grinder?”
“The same reason you still don’t have a toaster.” She ate another spoonful of cereal.
“It tastes better that way.”
“It still gets me up in the morning. I guess it shows where our priorities are.”
“Ha ha.” He spooned some more instant into the mug and waited for the water to boil.
Beaux brought the bowl to her lips and swallowed the last of the milk with a loud slurp, then licked her lips and grinned at Dan’s expression. “So anyway,” getting back to the morning’s first conversation that had carried over from last night, “they’re only three hours away and if we leave early Friday we can spend the weekend there.”
“Okay.”
“Hang on, okay? That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’m okay with it. Isn’t that what you want?”
“It’d be better if you had a bigger reaction.”
“So you wanted me to get upset? Jump for joy?”
“No, Dan, it’s, it,” she hissed, pulling her hair back with both hands, “Most people have bigger reactions to this sort of invitation.” He nodded, waved a hand for her to go on. “It’s a thing that most people understand is a big step in a relationship.”
“I know that.”
“So would you act like it?” He looked away, grabbed the kettle and poured the water. “Don’t give me any bullshit on you being tired or some excuse like that. Be honest with me, why aren’t you –”
“Why do I need to? Look, Beaux, I want to do this, I want to meet them, but –” he had to look away again, “It’s not as big a deal where I come from. Meeting someone’s parents isn’t as, I mean it’s still important, but you wouldn’t need to see them for anything.”
She nodded slowly, crossing her arms and glaring at the floor. “I get that.”
“I’m sorry for not acting the way you expected me to, but I haven’t had to see anyone’s parents in a long time, so – just deal with the fact that if I’m nervous it’s because I want them to like me and not because I need to ask him for your hand or anything.”
“That’s how we do things down here.”
“I know, and I’ve never needed to do them before, so can you deal with that?” He moved closer, trying to meet her eyes. “Please?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“I’m not going to cut and run just because I’m going to meet your parents.”
“I know. I…I think I thought you weren’t taking it seriously enough.”
“Beaux, you know I’m serious.”
He wanted to explain to her that he knew it was a big deal, that the last time he’d gone to meet a girl’s parents it was almost fifteen years ago and he’d already known them for years from being in their daughter’s same age category for the shul’s youth activities, that it really didn’t mean as much when he knew on some level any relationship outside of the twelve tribes wasn’t valid, but the best one he could think of she might understand was that he was too old to worry about what someone else’s parents might think of him.
“Should I bring them some nectarine honey?”
That got a faint smile. “Couldn’t hurt. Dad’s got a huge sweet tooth.”
He nodded. “Jam too.”
“That’ll do it.”
Sure enough, the gifts did the trick, adding gasps and smiles to the hugs and handshakes when they walked in the door. It gave them something to talk about that didn’t have anything to do with him for a while and gave him some time to get used to talking to them, sitting with better posture than he’d ever used at work while her father served generous helpings of everything and her mother finally finished talking to her daughter about her garden and moved to talk to Dan for a while. He smiled and nodded, being as polite as he could, answering the best way he knew how by being clear without telling them everything.
“Oh, I was born in South Carolina, but we moved away when I was five. I guess I missed it – you get used to what you grow up with.”
“And where’d you go?”
“Beaux didn’t tell you? All over the place, and I’ve had a lease for my apartment for almost three years, if that’s what you mean.” Two years and eight months this June first.
“Yes, but after you moved away when you were five – where’d you go?”
He gave one of his you-pay-for-the-next-round smiles, remembering family vacations to see relatives or new places. “We went all over the place – Pennsylvania, Canada, back to Carolina, New York City –”
“You didn’t tell me New York,” Beaux slid in.
“Remind me to someday. Anyway, yes, I’m finally settled in, I got my job and everything.”
“But he still doesn’t have a toaster.”
“You’ve got to have a toaster,” her father mused.
“And I keep telling him that, but he never listens.” She kissed him on the cheek, making everyone else at the table smile and Dan blush while he did.
It wore him out more than he thought it would, just talking and not much else, and he didn’t even eat much for dinner – and he knew how to do that, too, skipping over foods he knew he didn’t want in his mouth if he knew what they were and he had a choice about it – so all he could do after his shower was crawl into bed and wait for Beaux to join him. She snuggled up right next to him, moving his arm over her waist under the blankets.
“So are we having fun yet?”
He laughed quietly. “Plenty of it.”
“You sure did talk a lot tonight.”
“If I’ve got a good reason to, I will.”
“Like making your girlfriend’s parents like you?”
“Something like that.” He took another deep sniff of her hair, still a bit wet, still rich with her own smell.
“Thank you.” The shock of it got him to stop. “For coming. This means a lot to them too. You know I told them about us, and…”
Dan wanted to pull away, roll to the other side of bed, jump out of it and run, “Please don’t say things like that.”
“What –”
“Shhh. Shh. Let’s just get some sleep.”
It took a while for the answer to slip out in the darkness; by the time it did even still holding on to her, he almost didn’t hear her “Okay” from how close to sleep he was.
If Beaux was still thinking about it the next morning, she didn’t say anything, the two of them dressed before breakfast and explaining their joke about toasters to her mother while she opened up one of the jars of jam and took a taste. Her face made Dan wish he had a camera to show it to Alpert later. Miming just wouldn’t cut it.
“Beaux,” she said, not bothering to swallow, “You’re going to get me more of this.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am.”
Her father ambled into the kitchen a little after that with timing even Dan had to appreciate, the coffee already bubbling and the toast set out, and with everyone assembled around the table for a slow breakfast before a tour of the garden he finally felt like he could relax a little bit.
Later, everyone having voted to go downtown for lunch to give Dan a taste of hometown life, the four of them were strolling – and that was really the word for it, strolling, nothing else fit for her mother’s hat – down some of the side streets with her father talking about the town’s little history while Dan tried not to think about what ‘old’ meant for back where he came from, and without listening he disagreed to something and realized he shouldn’t have been quite that honest. It took a moment to realize what he’d disagreed to, which was that he went to church. Any church. On Sunday or otherwise.
“I just don’t see much reason to go. I…” he groped for a good way to talk about it, shrugging and using his body to tell them he was a little embarrassed even if he didn’t feel that way, deliberately curling in. “I guess I never got into the habit.”
“Your family didn’t take their kids to church?”
“No. We weren’t really big on that.”
“Oh, oh.” Her mother sighed. “I was – well, I was thinking we’d all go together tomorrow, if you’re comfortable with it.”
“I’m fine with going,” he said almost too fast. “I’d be happy to go. I didn’t pack anything for it, but I’d be fine with going.”
Her dad gave him a strong look-over. “I think I’ve got some suits in the attic that might fit. We’ll have to dig around to check.”
The clothing was too big for Dan, hanging loose on his frame, but not by much, not by enough that it looked like he was a kid playing dress-up. He’d planned on Sunday morning being a lazy affair of newspapers and coffee but somehow realized he was being introduced to the local pastor who smiled too gently for Dan to be comfortable when Beaux’s mother explained he didn’t go to church.
“At all?”
Dan did his best to act sheepish. “Sorry, no. My family never went.” The pastor nodded, still smiling gently.
Thirty minutes later, when everyone was done talking about their hats and was seated, the pastor stepped up to the pulpit – and suddenly Dan understood what people meant by acid flashbacks, the sight of him up there and everyone down on the pews almost but not quite right – and cleared his throat, started with what Dan guessed were weekly news pieces, and then suddenly shifted. “I’d like to take a moment – would all members of the congregation, please bow their heads.” They did. “And would all those who are considering joining the congregation, please bow your heads.” He gave another pause. “And would all those who have accepted Christ our Lord into their hearts, please bow their heads.”
Dan glanced around, side to side and back to front, and realized this was another moment he could use ‘literally’ in a literal way, being literally the only one who wasn’t looking down at the floor. For a moment considered bowing his head too but decided against it.
Long after the service was over, during Sunday dinner, he shrugged at Beaux’s parents’ questions. “I don’t know why he kept giving me the skunk-eye. Maybe he just didn’t like me very much.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Neither can I, but maybe there was just something about me.”
“That’s really quite a shame to hear,” her father said.
“Just how it goes. You can’t please everyone – don’t tell me it never happened to you.” That got a small concession. “I think after he heard I didn’t go to church, he decided I was some sort of atheist or something.” That got a reasonably loud laugh, which was enough for Dan to shuttle the conversation over to something else, not really caring much what it was they were talking about. He was ready to not talk for a while, and if on the ride back Beaux thought it was strange he wasn’t saying as much as she was, she didn’t mention it. They kissed good-night by his building and he took the elevator up instead of the stairs, more than ready to fall asleep. He still needed to shower and brush his teeth and he really wanted a beer or a couple of fingers of bourbon and maybe the beer would be all right, he had enough time for a beer, grabbing one on the way to the bedroom and flopping down on the bed before unscrewing the cap and gulping it down.
If he could just stop thinking about it – not even the pastor, at least that he knew why even if he wasn’t going to tell Beaux that ever – if he could get back to where he didn’t have the weekend so big on his mind he’d be better for a while. He’d liked the weekend just fine, just great, fitting in just fine and then something had to happen to remind him he didn’t. It would’ve been so easy to just bow his head, go along with what everyone else was doing, but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to look at himself in the mirror. He just couldn’t do something like that even now, when it’d been God knows how many years since he’d darkened the door of a synagogue. He fell back against the bed, closed his eyes, and knew it was seventeen, and took a moment to figure out how many full moons there’d been in that time, then how many new ones. His moon. Not his brothers’ moon. His moon was the one that wasn’t there. It was just how things worked for him; it was how they’d always worked. He knew who he was because of what he didn’t do. It was his life, right down to the bottom of everything.
He didn’t have a choice about it, about not doing it, not shifting – he couldn’t help it, there wasn’t any prayer to help him out, to turn something in him from off to on. He didn’t want to anymore, he’d gotten used to it and stopped resenting it a long time ago, but it wasn’t just that anymore. He curled up on his side, shoes still on and not caring even with just one beer, too tired to care. He didn’t even know if he wanted a choice, and he knew he didn’t have a choice anyway. He could act the part until he couldn’t, and that was how it worked. He was who he was because of what he didn’t do.
Dan pulled himself to his feet, started to take his clothes off and pad to the shower. Turned it on as hot as he could get it, breathing in the steam and letting the water run through his hair before soaping it up to get clean and ready for tomorrow.
He wanted to call in sick, but showed up thirty minutes early to make the coffee and called Beaux that night to chat. He wasn’t twenty-three anymore, knew he didn’t have the luxury of cutting and running – he had to put on his game face and show up even if he wanted to just get up and leave. So he told Alpert about Beaux’s parents and how much they loved the honey, went over to her place for dinner on Thursday with a bottle of sweet red wine, and they went out dancing on Saturday night because that was what they did. It was what he did. And that felt nice, nice enough, to do things instead of not doing things.
They talked about the framed art hanging on coffee shop walls and how overpriced it was – “If it’s an original painting, sure, but photo prints? They’re nice and all, but this one? That’s my gas bill for last month.”
“I kinda like it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t. Just that I think it costs too much.”
“I know. And I know it costs too much, but I still like it.”
“Didn’t really peg you for an artist-type.”
“Oh, I’m not – wait, what’s that mean?”
“It means since you don’t have anything hung up, I didn’t think you cared for pretty pictures.”
He chuckled. “That’s the rest of my family.” Beaux sat up straighter at that, ears practically perking up. He went on, amazed at how easy it felt, “I think – we had some at home, but it was there to take up space on the wall, not because anyone really liked it. We’d go to museums and I’d be the only one who’d really – okay, I’d be the only one who cared about the paintings, but sometimes photos would get someone’s attention. Mostly black and white stuff. But not a lot. Mostly me.”
“All art? Not just…postmodern stuff, or weird conceptual things?”
“Pretty much everything. Some collages, I guess.”
“How come you care when nobody else does? You smuggled art history books under the covers at night?”
“Just the way I am, I guess.” The conversation kept moving on after that, dropping art for the coffee itself and a fast-resolved discussion on whether or not it’d be worth it to split a piece of cake, and Dan didn’t let her know but was glad she didn’t make a big deal out of his rare family talk. He played dialogue over in his head, telling her he was glad she didn’t make a deal of it and if she didn’t he’d say more.
“So,” she said with her mouth full of poppy seeds, “tell me about New York.”
Dan swallowed his bite before starting, always careful to not say the wrong things or too much where he shouldn’t, like how Jimmy got all restless because he couldn’t run on all fours around the hotel room. He told Beaux about a big family vacation from a town to the city, going to the museums and restaurants, running with his brothers under subway tracks and through parks to chase birds and going to the top of the biggest buildings and daring each other to look down. Some museums were better than others – he still could see Reuben’s face in the diorama room at the Natural History museum – and he still remembered the way some hallways seemed to suck up all the noise he could make.
She leaned in when he started talking about the Chinese New Year festival, how they didn’t know it was coming but found out on the second day of a week-long trip, and they all went to see it the night before they left. He tried to explain how frustrating it was for an eleven-year-old version of himself to get a lecture on the history of the festival and the meaning of the traditions when all he wanted to do was see fireworks, and didn’t say a thing about how he and his brothers stopped being frustrated when their tour guide started to talk about the Chinese using a lunar calendar, and how it suddenly clicked in his head because it made more sense to go by the moon than something else.
Dan smiled when he got to the nighttime parade, how they got there early to get curbside seats to see everyone and everything as it all went by, and Beaux’s eyes went wide when he told her about the dancers and the dragons. He told her about the fireworks reflecting and shimmering on their scales as they swam through the air and roared along with the people underneath them, fearsome and wonderful, how some made clouds appear right around them and others slithered down to come face-to-face with the crowds and hover just a few feet away, shaking their whiskers and thrusting their horns, before moving on with the rest of the parade.
Some of it he had to mime with his hands, and some of it he told her he couldn’t do at all, “We got to say hello to them earlier – the dragons, I mean. It was in the park at the bottom near the ferries, the Bowery, the day before the festival, and it was a thing to get young dragons used to being around people. There was a guy with them, this trainer-person, and he let us pet one of the younger ones,” he held his hands about three feet apart, “and their whiskers were as soft as they looked, and it blew fog right in my face.”
“I’d love to see them someday.”
“We’ll just have to make plans for February. You’ll need good boots.”
Part four.
“So what brings you back so early?” Alpert spooned another helping of three-bean soup into the bowl and handed it back to Dan, who started eating before he realized he had to answer.
“Sorry –” he gulped the mouthful down and started over, “I was thinking that with all the side stuff you’ve got now, you needed more people, so I might as well stop by.”
“The bees are taking pretty good care of themselves.”
“That’s, that’s not what I meant. I mean, there’s always stuff you need done around here and –”
“Dan, it’s March.” If he wasn’t getting himself tea, Dan knew this was big. “You’re not here to get a jump on things, are you.”
“No, I’m not. I’m here, well,” he stared down at the cooling soup, looked back at Alpert, “Well, no, I really am here to get a jump on things.”
Alpert took a deep breath and let it out slowly, through his nose. “If I let you into my house and feed you and show you hospitality then I think the least you can do is be honest with me.” This was different. He wasn’t bluffing, Dan could tell if he was – and if he wasn’t then it wasn’t a good time to push back, not now.
“I got tired.” That got him to look back at Dan. “I got tired, and I wanted a place to stay.”
“What –”
“And this was the only place I could think of to go.”
Alpert blinked a couple of times; Dan kept his face as still as he could get it. “How long did it take you to get here?”
“A couple weeks.”
“I mean since you last woke up and started walking.”
“Eighteen hours. Seventeen and a bit, but most of eighteen.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re getting the bed.”
“Look, I –”
“It’s for tonight. That’s all. We can get you something in town tomorrow. What, you were going to sleep in an alley somewhere?” Under a bridge, but he didn’t need to tell Alpert that. “It’s late for you, and I don’t want to find you passed out in the hallway. Come on, take a shower before you start smelling this place up any worse.” He smiled. “Look, you followed me home, I’ve got to take care of you, right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“I can take care of myself fine.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” He laughed, then stopped suddenly enough to get Dan’s attention. “I do need more people, actually, so it is kind of good you came along now.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Yeah, actually, I kind of need someone in the office with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s getting big enough I need that sort of help. You won’t need to go to meetings or write memos but I need someone to help me keep track of land records, vendor sales, you know, documents and phone calls.” Dan wobbled on his feet that had nothing to do with how tired he was. Alpert shrugged. “Okay, maybe a memo or two. If you think I need them.”
“Wait, so what is it you’re offering?”
“I think people call them ‘personal assistants’ now.”
“What makes you think I can do something like that?”
“Most of an economics degree.”
“I left school after three years.”
“Which is still more than what I had, and I’m the one running the business.”
“Could I shower first?”
“Go ahead.”
“Hold on.” He rooted around in his bag before pulling out a small paper bag sealed up carefully. “Got this for you.” Alpert unfolded it, and the little charm glinted by itself when it fell into his hand.
“What is it?”
“Personal charm. It works for the first person who uses it – it’s supposed to help keep the menopause stuff down. I can’t use it, but I figured…” He trailed off, watched Alpert hang it around his neck and tuck it down his shirt, his face going soft around the eyes.
“Thank you.”
Dan let himself linger in the shower after he managed to scrub most of the dust off, longer than he needed, breathing in the steam when he finally shut off the water and had to brace a hand against the wall to keep upright. He pulled on the clothes Alpert had lent, stopped to take another deep breath with his eyes closed, and made his way to the bedroom. Alpert was already there, reading a book, and looked up from the bed when Dan came in. “Sorry for taking so long.”
“I can take one in the morning, it’s fine.” He looked down, definitely not really reading anymore, then said, “So you showered.”
Dan nodded slowly. “So I showered.”
“And did you take any time to think about it?”
“I took some time.”
“So what?”
“Sure.”
“Sure, what?”
Sighing, taking in a deep breath, Dan answered, “Yes, I accept the offer.”
“Thank you.”
Dan waited until he was out the door to start to push it closed and half-whisper, “Good night, Isabel,” which got the usual chuckle.
“Go get some sleep.”
-
Finding a place to sleep in town wasn’t hard, just a read through the classifieds and some phone calls to make sure when he could come by to see them. The best one was about the size of the last place he’d stayed. This time he’d be above and below other little apartments with the closest diner two blocks away, and he went ahead and went there for dinner. He could pay for the place tomorrow.
The bell jangled when he pushed the door open, a tiny sound in the buzz of the overhead lights and low hum from the back. He got seated at a table by the window by a tired, sighing waitress who smiled at him when he turned her question around and asked her how she was and let her go ahead and answer honestly. He got his dessert in a metal bowl with a plastic spoon, and scraped it as clean as he could, slowing down halfway through to take a bite when a car passed by to make it last.
“How is it?” The bright lights made her hair look like one of the wigs his mother’s friends used to wear, and it moved like one too, the way it didn’t fall like it should.
“Not that great.” He put on the most apologetic face he could, did one of his I’m-sorry half-laughs, “But, that doesn’t really matter, it’s still ice cream.”
That got her to smile for real again, “Just like Chinese food.”
He hadn’t eaten Chinese food in nearly six years. “Right, like that.”
“So, you want anything else? Coffee? We got decaf.”
“Umm, a ranchos burrito to go, and that’s it.” As she made her way to the kitchen, he went back to looking out the window and the uncapped streetlamps lining the sidewalk. It wasn’t late enough for him to be the only one awake, but it was late enough for him to be the only one in here. He’d gotten this feeling a lot when he was walking here, the same thing of being the only one around – the waitress and whoever was in the back didn’t count, they were part of the diner and weren’t going to go out walking. There wasn’t enough dark here to get a good view of the stars, the weird city-light dark that never got where it did out away from people, and he realized he hadn’t checked to see how tight he could close the windows’ blinds, and then realized he could get a new set if it was a problem.
He almost couldn’t sleep after he realized that. The blinds in the apartment closed fine, and he spent a while opening and closing them. So he didn’t need new ones. But he could get new ones if he needed, since he was staying. Of course he was staying. Even if it wasn’t here – it was about as big as his old place, and the water in the shower didn’t get that hot – he was staying put.
Even after a long, not-hot-enough shower, he stayed awake, curled up under the covers trying to not think about what he’d do next, and if he should bother with furniture if he didn’t want to stay there. He hadn’t signed anything or put down money, he could pick somewhere else if he wanted.
-
Getting back to work usually wasn’t anything special, even if it went from nailing up bedroom walls to strawberry picking, but he hadn’t sat behind a desk since the afternoon of the day he’d left. He didn’t remember them being so high until Alpert showed him how to adjust the chair. He also ran him through the phones, most of what the computer did, and all the filing cabinets, then closed the door and let Dan fend for himself. The old entry room had been redone to add a desk and work area, sectioned off by short walls and a couple of plants, so there was some sense of it being a real business office, at least how Dan assumed everyone imagined them, going by what was on TV.
It took most of the morning for someone to call, asking about a purchase order for some sort of truck, and Dan did his best to tell her what she needed to know. Before she’d called, he’d stared out the window, gone to open it, then sat back down and watched nothing happen. It was more exciting to watch it through a window than to see it in the office. This was too early for much to be going on outside, no chance for him to try to spot anyone he knew from the last two years – assuming they were hired on for the main growing and harvesting seasons, which were still a ways off. Not so far that if he went around to the other side of the building he’d be able to watch everyone who was out today, but he knew better than that. He stayed inside through lunch and finally broke down and asked Alpert if he could take a short walk around three.
“Sure,” he waved him off, “You can take twenty minutes, go ahead.”
“Thanks.”
Everything smelled pretty close to how he remembered when he stopped to take it in. It wasn’t like it smelled in July, and he couldn’t pick up everything as well as his brothers could, but he still remembered the tang of the fresh dirt and new-cut grass. The bees were going too, and he waited by a hive to watch a few of them as they came and went, before he had to hurry and get back to the desk and hope he hadn’t missed anything.
By the end of the third week he’d gotten used to the pattern of working inside. He still took the bus and walked the last half-mile and brought his lunch with him when he could, but he ate it inside and skipped it less, didn’t have to stick it out if it started to rain since he was inside all day, realized he needed a better set of clothes by the middle of the first week and resolved to do the best he could when he got his first paycheck.
He still came by early some days, even though his hours were already set out in advance – it was getting into real spring and summer would be by soon, so he had to get an earlier bus if he wanted to pretend he had the orchards to himself, just for a few minutes. It was nice enough now, and it’d be even better after the buds flowered and the leaves opened up, and he didn’t have to ask to know if Alpert ever went walking around at three in the morning or eleven at night to be the only person awake in his piece of the world. Dan wanted to ask if he could stay over one night to see the orchards early in the morning, knew he shouldn’t, so he just came early and didn’t say anything when Alpert joined him outside in the fresh light. He’d take the offered coffee and drink it quietly while the day warmed up and got started, never asking if Alpert celebrated the trees’ birthday the way Dan was supposed to.
He forgot what he shouldn’t be doing when he started to wave to people he knew from the last few years if they looked his way, somehow so happy to be there he thought they’d be glad to see him back in some way or another. If they recognized him, he couldn’t say, so he decided to skip his afternoon break and take a longer lunch to head over to say hello face-to-face, which didn’t go as well as he’d hoped, nobody really smiling with their eyes or giving him the full story even if he asked, and he knew he’d never given them his full story either but still felt like he’d been open enough to let them talk to him now.
He still had work to do, and that usually did the trick for getting him to stop thinking about other things, even when he knew what was bothering him would still be there tomorrow, and every day after when he was working here. So he did his best to get the inspectors on the phone to make the appointments for the new hive locations, see if there was enough money left for a new set of mower blades, and find another ream of paper for the fax machine and printer. Things to do, things to get done, things to remember to do in the morning after he turned off the lights and locked the door without saying good-night. He’d get used to it if he had enough time. He didn’t have anywhere to go.
-
“This your place?” He shut the door behind them, tossed her coat onto the nearest chair to free his hands, brush the hair off her neck and kiss here there.
“You like it?” God, she smelled fantastic. No perfumes, no sprays, just her sweat, God, all that dancing.
“Just asking, ah,” she sighed, tilted her head, “anyone else coming?”
“Nah,” he kissed her again, took her chin in hand and turned her head to look her in the eyes, “it’s all ours.”
“Good.” That smile, man, she looked like she was smiling with her whole body, it looked like she was laughing. He kissed her again, tasting the drinks they’d shared, God, he could taste her under that. He ran his hands through her hair, long and brown and soft and tangled it around his fingers, happy to keep kissing her but his cock was getting in the way again until she moaned out and it was just where he wanted it to be. He’d swear he could smell how wet she was now, slipping his hands down to feel, then she moaned deep and full, “Wait.” He didn’t want to wait at all, but pulled his hands away and whimpered softly when she took them in hers and asked, “You do have a bed, right?”
“Right this way.” He spun them around, pulling her as they smiled and then pulled her back in to twirl around and dance a bit like they’d done before with the music loud and people around them dancing too. Just the two of them now, in his bedroom, swaying softly together and pulling each other in for more kisses. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, tilted his head to kiss her neck to hear her moan, nibbled it just enough before returning to kissing her. She shook away and started to take her clothes off and he had to do the same, shoes and socks and pants falling away until he was naked except for his t-shirt. She’d left her panties on, and somehow this was just like in the movies with her pulling the shirt off him and him pulling the panties off her. She pushed him onto the bed and straddled him, her thighs around his hips, and he ran his hands up her soft back, marveling at how soft and small she was in his arms.
He had to stop to get a condom but he was back right away, ripping it open and rolling it down just like he’d practiced and lying back like she’d wanted him, letting her climb up onto him and hold him and he arched at her touch and if she said anything he didn’t hear over the sounds in his head, and then she pushed onto him and she was coming down him and he felt every single fucking inch fucking him fucking her, God, he didn’t want it to be over but she was so soft and so good. It’d been so long, and he held onto her, pushing up as she cried out along with him as she rode him, and he came pushing into her as hard as he could. He knew she wasn’t done and he was still hard and it was too much for her to be on him now so he pushed her off as gently as he could, and nudged her onto her back, sliding his hands where he’d wanted to put them, and she was just as wet as he’d smelled, wetter now if anything, and he found the right spots to touch her just right, to make her clench and come so happy.
He cleaned himself up in the bathroom, cock and hands, and rolled into bed next to her where she was already under the covers. She sighed when he pulled her close, spooning up together, and let himself float like that, gentle and warm, until he felt himself falling asleep. When he woke up the next morning she was still asleep, which made him sigh with relief. Her purse was still by the door, and he set the coffee going before checking her wallet for a driver’s license to make sure he remembered what to call her.
Her name was Beaux, and he wondered what kind of name that was as he put the license back.
She wandered into the kitchen in her rumpled clothes from last night just as he finished pouring himself a cup of coffee. He held up the half-full pot, “How do you take it?”
“Oh. Um, cream if you have.”
“Milk work?”
“Sure.”
“Sugar?”
“Nah.” He handed the mug over, and smiled when she took a sip and then started to drink in earnest. She wrapped her hands around it when she set it down on the counter, leaned over it, then shook her head and murmured her thank-you.
“You’re welcome. You want something else? Cereal?”
“Do you have toast?”
“I’ve got bread, but I don’t have a toaster.”
“Toaster oven?”
“Sorry.”
She smiled. “Then can I borrow a pan?”
“By all means.” He stepped aside to let her work, laying the bread out in the pan over the flame, pressing it gently with a fork and flipping it over before sliding it onto a plate, then doing it again before asking him if he wanted any. He didn’t, but said yes to have an excuse to keep watching her hands and fingers.
“You can do it in the stove,” she said with a mouth full of toast and melting butter, “but it doesn’t come out as well. Not as even.”
“It’s really good.”
“Thanks.”
He took a drink of coffee to help wash down the crust. “So…I don’t have a car, if you need a ride back to wherever.”
“I’m fine sticking around here for a bit.” She licked the last of the butter off a finger. “I’ve got a couple people I can call, see if they’re not busy later.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Great.” She stopped for a minute. “Is it – do you have a spare toothbrush?”
“Right this way.” There was only one bathroom in the apartment, so Dan spent twenty minutes on the couch while Beaux brushed her teeth and showered and toweled off – in that order, going by the sounds – before he had a chance for his own grooming. Good thing she hadn’t used up all the hot water; better thing he got a good sniff of her hair, still warm and smelling of fresh shampoo, when they had a good-bye kiss. It took a while for her to get out the door – not in a bad way, just in the way of a lazy morning that took its time getting somewhere.
She’d left her number by the fridge, a little surprise that made him burst out grinning.
The next Sunday they ended up walking over to that new place that’d opened up a couple of months ago that neither of them had been to yet, and took their time getting there to talk on the way. By the time they were seated, they’d gone over the weather, recent movies watched, length of time in the city, current occupation, and had just moved onto travel. She nodded politely when he talked about going down to the Keys one December a while back, and he whistled when she talked about her trip to California.
“I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s gone there.”
“No, really. I got my passport stamped and everything.”
“California always seems like – this big magical land out West where everything is brighter and cleaner. I wanted to go out there when I was a kid, but I think everyone does.”
“You want to know a secret?” She leaned in close, and he did too. “You know how they say it’s like the movies out there?” He nodded. “They’re more right than you can imagine. You really should go someday.”
“Tell me about it.” He laughed at the face she made. “No, really. I’m sure you’ve got some great stories.”
“Great stories, have I got amazing stories.” The first one she told – their first week of hitchhiking ending early and in the local hospital because of a few animals that were also sleeping in an abandoned house – could’ve happened just about anywhere, but the way she told it, bringing her whole body into it and mapping everything out in the air with her hands, was what he’d wanted to hear more than the story itself. They swapped anecdotes over their sandwiches, compared the toppings and sides, and she kissed him good afternoon.
Beaux was an electrician with a local construction company, a former Marine Corps of Engineers who still went out to the shooting range every two weeks to stay sharp, thirty-five years old with a short string of bad boyfriends and one botched engagement, plus a taste for hard beers and loud music, and knew both at the same time was best. Also mixed drinks: after their second meal out together, which included a lot of argument over what their first date actually consisted of and whether or not they were too old for that sort of thing, they went to a bar a bit nicer than the one where they’d met, and she introduced him to a couple of drinks that hit him the way his first good beer hit him years ago.
Dan didn’t take her home, and she didn’t have him follow her back to her place – there was more than enough time for that later, but good-night kisses just couldn’t wait.
-
“How can you not own a coffee grinder?”
“The same reason you still don’t have a toaster.” She ate another spoonful of cereal.
“It tastes better that way.”
“It still gets me up in the morning. I guess it shows where our priorities are.”
“Ha ha.” He spooned some more instant into the mug and waited for the water to boil.
Beaux brought the bowl to her lips and swallowed the last of the milk with a loud slurp, then licked her lips and grinned at Dan’s expression. “So anyway,” getting back to the morning’s first conversation that had carried over from last night, “they’re only three hours away and if we leave early Friday we can spend the weekend there.”
“Okay.”
“Hang on, okay? That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’m okay with it. Isn’t that what you want?”
“It’d be better if you had a bigger reaction.”
“So you wanted me to get upset? Jump for joy?”
“No, Dan, it’s, it,” she hissed, pulling her hair back with both hands, “Most people have bigger reactions to this sort of invitation.” He nodded, waved a hand for her to go on. “It’s a thing that most people understand is a big step in a relationship.”
“I know that.”
“So would you act like it?” He looked away, grabbed the kettle and poured the water. “Don’t give me any bullshit on you being tired or some excuse like that. Be honest with me, why aren’t you –”
“Why do I need to? Look, Beaux, I want to do this, I want to meet them, but –” he had to look away again, “It’s not as big a deal where I come from. Meeting someone’s parents isn’t as, I mean it’s still important, but you wouldn’t need to see them for anything.”
She nodded slowly, crossing her arms and glaring at the floor. “I get that.”
“I’m sorry for not acting the way you expected me to, but I haven’t had to see anyone’s parents in a long time, so – just deal with the fact that if I’m nervous it’s because I want them to like me and not because I need to ask him for your hand or anything.”
“That’s how we do things down here.”
“I know, and I’ve never needed to do them before, so can you deal with that?” He moved closer, trying to meet her eyes. “Please?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“I’m not going to cut and run just because I’m going to meet your parents.”
“I know. I…I think I thought you weren’t taking it seriously enough.”
“Beaux, you know I’m serious.”
He wanted to explain to her that he knew it was a big deal, that the last time he’d gone to meet a girl’s parents it was almost fifteen years ago and he’d already known them for years from being in their daughter’s same age category for the shul’s youth activities, that it really didn’t mean as much when he knew on some level any relationship outside of the twelve tribes wasn’t valid, but the best one he could think of she might understand was that he was too old to worry about what someone else’s parents might think of him.
“Should I bring them some nectarine honey?”
That got a faint smile. “Couldn’t hurt. Dad’s got a huge sweet tooth.”
He nodded. “Jam too.”
“That’ll do it.”
Sure enough, the gifts did the trick, adding gasps and smiles to the hugs and handshakes when they walked in the door. It gave them something to talk about that didn’t have anything to do with him for a while and gave him some time to get used to talking to them, sitting with better posture than he’d ever used at work while her father served generous helpings of everything and her mother finally finished talking to her daughter about her garden and moved to talk to Dan for a while. He smiled and nodded, being as polite as he could, answering the best way he knew how by being clear without telling them everything.
“Oh, I was born in South Carolina, but we moved away when I was five. I guess I missed it – you get used to what you grow up with.”
“And where’d you go?”
“Beaux didn’t tell you? All over the place, and I’ve had a lease for my apartment for almost three years, if that’s what you mean.” Two years and eight months this June first.
“Yes, but after you moved away when you were five – where’d you go?”
He gave one of his you-pay-for-the-next-round smiles, remembering family vacations to see relatives or new places. “We went all over the place – Pennsylvania, Canada, back to Carolina, New York City –”
“You didn’t tell me New York,” Beaux slid in.
“Remind me to someday. Anyway, yes, I’m finally settled in, I got my job and everything.”
“But he still doesn’t have a toaster.”
“You’ve got to have a toaster,” her father mused.
“And I keep telling him that, but he never listens.” She kissed him on the cheek, making everyone else at the table smile and Dan blush while he did.
It wore him out more than he thought it would, just talking and not much else, and he didn’t even eat much for dinner – and he knew how to do that, too, skipping over foods he knew he didn’t want in his mouth if he knew what they were and he had a choice about it – so all he could do after his shower was crawl into bed and wait for Beaux to join him. She snuggled up right next to him, moving his arm over her waist under the blankets.
“So are we having fun yet?”
He laughed quietly. “Plenty of it.”
“You sure did talk a lot tonight.”
“If I’ve got a good reason to, I will.”
“Like making your girlfriend’s parents like you?”
“Something like that.” He took another deep sniff of her hair, still a bit wet, still rich with her own smell.
“Thank you.” The shock of it got him to stop. “For coming. This means a lot to them too. You know I told them about us, and…”
Dan wanted to pull away, roll to the other side of bed, jump out of it and run, “Please don’t say things like that.”
“What –”
“Shhh. Shh. Let’s just get some sleep.”
It took a while for the answer to slip out in the darkness; by the time it did even still holding on to her, he almost didn’t hear her “Okay” from how close to sleep he was.
If Beaux was still thinking about it the next morning, she didn’t say anything, the two of them dressed before breakfast and explaining their joke about toasters to her mother while she opened up one of the jars of jam and took a taste. Her face made Dan wish he had a camera to show it to Alpert later. Miming just wouldn’t cut it.
“Beaux,” she said, not bothering to swallow, “You’re going to get me more of this.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am.”
Her father ambled into the kitchen a little after that with timing even Dan had to appreciate, the coffee already bubbling and the toast set out, and with everyone assembled around the table for a slow breakfast before a tour of the garden he finally felt like he could relax a little bit.
Later, everyone having voted to go downtown for lunch to give Dan a taste of hometown life, the four of them were strolling – and that was really the word for it, strolling, nothing else fit for her mother’s hat – down some of the side streets with her father talking about the town’s little history while Dan tried not to think about what ‘old’ meant for back where he came from, and without listening he disagreed to something and realized he shouldn’t have been quite that honest. It took a moment to realize what he’d disagreed to, which was that he went to church. Any church. On Sunday or otherwise.
“I just don’t see much reason to go. I…” he groped for a good way to talk about it, shrugging and using his body to tell them he was a little embarrassed even if he didn’t feel that way, deliberately curling in. “I guess I never got into the habit.”
“Your family didn’t take their kids to church?”
“No. We weren’t really big on that.”
“Oh, oh.” Her mother sighed. “I was – well, I was thinking we’d all go together tomorrow, if you’re comfortable with it.”
“I’m fine with going,” he said almost too fast. “I’d be happy to go. I didn’t pack anything for it, but I’d be fine with going.”
Her dad gave him a strong look-over. “I think I’ve got some suits in the attic that might fit. We’ll have to dig around to check.”
The clothing was too big for Dan, hanging loose on his frame, but not by much, not by enough that it looked like he was a kid playing dress-up. He’d planned on Sunday morning being a lazy affair of newspapers and coffee but somehow realized he was being introduced to the local pastor who smiled too gently for Dan to be comfortable when Beaux’s mother explained he didn’t go to church.
“At all?”
Dan did his best to act sheepish. “Sorry, no. My family never went.” The pastor nodded, still smiling gently.
Thirty minutes later, when everyone was done talking about their hats and was seated, the pastor stepped up to the pulpit – and suddenly Dan understood what people meant by acid flashbacks, the sight of him up there and everyone down on the pews almost but not quite right – and cleared his throat, started with what Dan guessed were weekly news pieces, and then suddenly shifted. “I’d like to take a moment – would all members of the congregation, please bow their heads.” They did. “And would all those who are considering joining the congregation, please bow your heads.” He gave another pause. “And would all those who have accepted Christ our Lord into their hearts, please bow their heads.”
Dan glanced around, side to side and back to front, and realized this was another moment he could use ‘literally’ in a literal way, being literally the only one who wasn’t looking down at the floor. For a moment considered bowing his head too but decided against it.
Long after the service was over, during Sunday dinner, he shrugged at Beaux’s parents’ questions. “I don’t know why he kept giving me the skunk-eye. Maybe he just didn’t like me very much.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Neither can I, but maybe there was just something about me.”
“That’s really quite a shame to hear,” her father said.
“Just how it goes. You can’t please everyone – don’t tell me it never happened to you.” That got a small concession. “I think after he heard I didn’t go to church, he decided I was some sort of atheist or something.” That got a reasonably loud laugh, which was enough for Dan to shuttle the conversation over to something else, not really caring much what it was they were talking about. He was ready to not talk for a while, and if on the ride back Beaux thought it was strange he wasn’t saying as much as she was, she didn’t mention it. They kissed good-night by his building and he took the elevator up instead of the stairs, more than ready to fall asleep. He still needed to shower and brush his teeth and he really wanted a beer or a couple of fingers of bourbon and maybe the beer would be all right, he had enough time for a beer, grabbing one on the way to the bedroom and flopping down on the bed before unscrewing the cap and gulping it down.
If he could just stop thinking about it – not even the pastor, at least that he knew why even if he wasn’t going to tell Beaux that ever – if he could get back to where he didn’t have the weekend so big on his mind he’d be better for a while. He’d liked the weekend just fine, just great, fitting in just fine and then something had to happen to remind him he didn’t. It would’ve been so easy to just bow his head, go along with what everyone else was doing, but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to look at himself in the mirror. He just couldn’t do something like that even now, when it’d been God knows how many years since he’d darkened the door of a synagogue. He fell back against the bed, closed his eyes, and knew it was seventeen, and took a moment to figure out how many full moons there’d been in that time, then how many new ones. His moon. Not his brothers’ moon. His moon was the one that wasn’t there. It was just how things worked for him; it was how they’d always worked. He knew who he was because of what he didn’t do. It was his life, right down to the bottom of everything.
He didn’t have a choice about it, about not doing it, not shifting – he couldn’t help it, there wasn’t any prayer to help him out, to turn something in him from off to on. He didn’t want to anymore, he’d gotten used to it and stopped resenting it a long time ago, but it wasn’t just that anymore. He curled up on his side, shoes still on and not caring even with just one beer, too tired to care. He didn’t even know if he wanted a choice, and he knew he didn’t have a choice anyway. He could act the part until he couldn’t, and that was how it worked. He was who he was because of what he didn’t do.
Dan pulled himself to his feet, started to take his clothes off and pad to the shower. Turned it on as hot as he could get it, breathing in the steam and letting the water run through his hair before soaping it up to get clean and ready for tomorrow.
He wanted to call in sick, but showed up thirty minutes early to make the coffee and called Beaux that night to chat. He wasn’t twenty-three anymore, knew he didn’t have the luxury of cutting and running – he had to put on his game face and show up even if he wanted to just get up and leave. So he told Alpert about Beaux’s parents and how much they loved the honey, went over to her place for dinner on Thursday with a bottle of sweet red wine, and they went out dancing on Saturday night because that was what they did. It was what he did. And that felt nice, nice enough, to do things instead of not doing things.
They talked about the framed art hanging on coffee shop walls and how overpriced it was – “If it’s an original painting, sure, but photo prints? They’re nice and all, but this one? That’s my gas bill for last month.”
“I kinda like it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t. Just that I think it costs too much.”
“I know. And I know it costs too much, but I still like it.”
“Didn’t really peg you for an artist-type.”
“Oh, I’m not – wait, what’s that mean?”
“It means since you don’t have anything hung up, I didn’t think you cared for pretty pictures.”
He chuckled. “That’s the rest of my family.” Beaux sat up straighter at that, ears practically perking up. He went on, amazed at how easy it felt, “I think – we had some at home, but it was there to take up space on the wall, not because anyone really liked it. We’d go to museums and I’d be the only one who’d really – okay, I’d be the only one who cared about the paintings, but sometimes photos would get someone’s attention. Mostly black and white stuff. But not a lot. Mostly me.”
“All art? Not just…postmodern stuff, or weird conceptual things?”
“Pretty much everything. Some collages, I guess.”
“How come you care when nobody else does? You smuggled art history books under the covers at night?”
“Just the way I am, I guess.” The conversation kept moving on after that, dropping art for the coffee itself and a fast-resolved discussion on whether or not it’d be worth it to split a piece of cake, and Dan didn’t let her know but was glad she didn’t make a big deal out of his rare family talk. He played dialogue over in his head, telling her he was glad she didn’t make a deal of it and if she didn’t he’d say more.
“So,” she said with her mouth full of poppy seeds, “tell me about New York.”
Dan swallowed his bite before starting, always careful to not say the wrong things or too much where he shouldn’t, like how Jimmy got all restless because he couldn’t run on all fours around the hotel room. He told Beaux about a big family vacation from a town to the city, going to the museums and restaurants, running with his brothers under subway tracks and through parks to chase birds and going to the top of the biggest buildings and daring each other to look down. Some museums were better than others – he still could see Reuben’s face in the diorama room at the Natural History museum – and he still remembered the way some hallways seemed to suck up all the noise he could make.
She leaned in when he started talking about the Chinese New Year festival, how they didn’t know it was coming but found out on the second day of a week-long trip, and they all went to see it the night before they left. He tried to explain how frustrating it was for an eleven-year-old version of himself to get a lecture on the history of the festival and the meaning of the traditions when all he wanted to do was see fireworks, and didn’t say a thing about how he and his brothers stopped being frustrated when their tour guide started to talk about the Chinese using a lunar calendar, and how it suddenly clicked in his head because it made more sense to go by the moon than something else.
Dan smiled when he got to the nighttime parade, how they got there early to get curbside seats to see everyone and everything as it all went by, and Beaux’s eyes went wide when he told her about the dancers and the dragons. He told her about the fireworks reflecting and shimmering on their scales as they swam through the air and roared along with the people underneath them, fearsome and wonderful, how some made clouds appear right around them and others slithered down to come face-to-face with the crowds and hover just a few feet away, shaking their whiskers and thrusting their horns, before moving on with the rest of the parade.
Some of it he had to mime with his hands, and some of it he told her he couldn’t do at all, “We got to say hello to them earlier – the dragons, I mean. It was in the park at the bottom near the ferries, the Bowery, the day before the festival, and it was a thing to get young dragons used to being around people. There was a guy with them, this trainer-person, and he let us pet one of the younger ones,” he held his hands about three feet apart, “and their whiskers were as soft as they looked, and it blew fog right in my face.”
“I’d love to see them someday.”
“We’ll just have to make plans for February. You’ll need good boots.”
Part four.