I flip a pancake and you smile and stretch your arms above your head and hold them up there. Cracking elbows. Twisting. “Who is this?”
“Rilo Kiley. ‘With Arms Outstretched.’？”
You laugh and I laugh—your arms remain outstretched—and you say, “Do you know how fucking happy I am right now? Because I just…”
I stretch my arms, just like you. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Good,” you say. “Because I’m really liking this whole life-is-a-gift thing we have going on.”
You are walking to the door to head to work—you go in every day but for me it’s only three days—and you reach for the doorknob. But then you let go of it. You stare at a box of trash bags. “When did these get here?”
Yesterday at 4:12 P.M. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I told you I was gonna get trash bags. I completely forgot.”
I walk up to you. Closer. “And I ordered some online. It’s no big deal.”
You cluck. I reach out to you but you don’t want that. “Look,” you say. “You’ve never been married. You’ve never lived with me. I’d tell him I’d pick up almond milk and I would mean to pick up almond milk…” AND YOU DID PICK IT UP. “But then I’d forget.”
“I don’t care about ordering trash bags.”
“Not right now,” you say. “This is all brand-new. But here’s the thing. Next time I forget to pick up trash bags, and there will be a next time, you won’t realize it, but things like that… they build up and then before you know it, you’ll resent me. And I’ll resent you because like you say… we’re talking about something as mundane as trash bags.”
“Mary Kay, I don’t give a fuck about trash bags. I will never give a fuck about them.”
But you look at the trash bags. “Every day, I drive in to work on a high, you know? Because this is a dream, being with you. But then when I’m about to head home, I get nervous. Is this gonna be the day that he’s just fucking sick of me?” You gulp. “Is this gonna be the day that I’m just fucking sick of him?”
That last part was a lie. You’re afraid because you know you’ll never be sick of me and I hold your hands. “Can I say something?” You answer with your eyes. “Look, Mary Kay, I’m not a dream come true. I’m not perfect…” I used to have terrible taste in women. “But I want you to know that I am never leaving you. And I know that sounds trite.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball.”
“No,” you say, warming up now. “You don’t.”
“But just so you know, every day, when I know you’re on your way home… well, that’s my favorite part of the day.” You raise your eyebrows. Playful. “Well, I say, it’s my favorite part of the part of the day when I’m not in the same room with you.”
That was all you needed and I fixed it and we put our heads together. Our foreheads. I can feel your cells commingling with mine. I can feel our hearts pushing, wanting to get Closer as in closed. Fused.
“Joe,” you say. “Promise me you’re in this for the long haul.”
“I promise you, Mary Kay. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
You laugh and hum a little of that old Huey Lewis song and then you turn serious. You clamp your hand around my forearm and you don’t let go. You squeeze to seal the deal, the greatest deal of my life. “Good.”
40
Here’s the thing about us. It just gets better. The library is fun. It’s slow, and that gives us time to play our own subtle game of hide-and-seek. I love feeling you watching me when I push Dolly Carton around the first floor and I love when you slowly go down the stairs toward the Red Bed, making sure that I know to follow. You were right about this—it’s a fucking blast—and you are right about everything and it’s hard not to throw the books at the wall and scream at the top of my lungs I FUCKING LOVE YOU, MARY KAY DIMARCO.
The day drips on and the quietude is eerie. It’s dead lately, which gives us time to hatch plans for our Bordello. But sometimes quiet is too quiet and you whisper at me—I think our sex vibes pushed everyone away—and you are right. Love is powerful that way, and finally, it’s time to go home. We feed our cats and we fuck our brains out again—yay!—and once again we’re naked and sweaty, wrapped up in each other. Coming back to Earth.
“What a day,” you say. “And I can’t wait to get away for a few days. Is that awful?”
“Not at all,” I say. Because it isn’t.
“Hey, have you heard from Seamus?”
“Not much… I think he’s out of town on some CrossFit thing…”
“Does he seem off to you?”
Stupid, yes. Shallow, yes. Off, no. “Well, I think it’s to be expected. It’s hard for people who are alone to see two people fall in love.”
“Right,” you say. “Everyone says that love makes the world go around but it also makes the world a cruel, exclusive place, like a book club that tells you there’s no more room at the table.”
You are so smart and I kiss your forearm. “I’d be depressed if I was in his shoes.”
“Oh no,” you say. “He doesn’t like me like that…” Of course he does. “I just worry.”
“I think that’s natural. When things are really good, you worry more than normal.”
You are vulnerable and there is goop in the corners of your eyes. “Yeah.”
“But tomorrow we’re gonna go to Victorian Cedar Cove.”
You grin like a kid. “Yeah.”
“And everything is gonna be fine. Assuming that Victorian sex isn’t dangerous.”
You laugh. “Victorian sex is perfectly safe, I promise.”
“No, Mary Kay. You and I are perfectly perfect.”
Soon you are asleep, snoring and even that’s not annoying. I’m too happy to sleep. I order some more balloons for Nomi’s graduation party next weekend—I bet Phil wouldn’t have ordered balloons—and I pick up one of your Murakamis and I’m half-reading, half-daydreaming about you as you dream on my body. I love to look down and see you there. I love that you want to be here with me and I feel like I can see the neurons firing inside of your mind, forging new pathways, everything leading to me, to happiness.
I’m hungry, so I go downstairs to fix a snack. We’re out of eggs so I grab a Hostess Cupcake—RIP Melanda had good taste in junk—and I tear off the wrapper and the cupcake tastes like childhood, like sugar.
And then my phone buzzes. I have one new text message, and that message is from Love Fucking Quinn: We need to talk.
She never writes to me and my legs fill with pins and needles. I put my phone on the counter and no. This is not happening. I’m hallucinating—I should have gone to sleep like you—and my screen is black and maybe I was hallucinating.
But then my phone lights up again. One new email from Love Fucking Quinn.
She’s never texted me and she’s never emailed me but she is the mother of my son. All the worst thoughts flood my mind at once—Forty fell down the stairs, Forty drowned in the pool, Tressa stole Forty—and I grab my fucking phone and I walk outfuckingside and I call Love Quinn on the phone.