“I knew there was something weird about that guy.” Aaron lowered his voice. “Not that I have a problem with it, but I thought he was sort of gay.”
I opened my mouth to protest. So what if Ed was a little skinny? And couldn’t give an opinion about first-round draft picks? He knew things way over Aaron’s head—what a diphthong was and Obama authorizing drone strikes in Iraq and the best way to open up a pomegranate without losing seeds. How I had to keep trying to talk to my dead father, even if it only felt like circles and circles back to me without any answers.
Anesthetized under the happy-hour chardonnay, though, I decided not to say anything. What was the point? I already knew he was the type of dude—this was part of my learning to accept him, for Fiona’s sake—who said shit like lesbianism was natural and beautiful but the thought of two men kissing grossed him out. You had to choose your battles with family, and that was how I’d thought of Aaron back then. My best-friend-in-law.
Aaron said, “I never understood why you two— I don’t see it, you and him”—and then he said Ed’s real name. “I thought you liked chicks, anyway. What’s so special about this guy?”
I hesitated a moment. “He writes me poems,” I said, knowing how corny it must’ve sounded.
“？‘Roses are red, violets are blue,’ that sort of crap?”
“No one’s ever done something like that for me,” I said.
Ed had books stacked on his nightstand, brick-thick tomes of Céline and Sartre, and thin spines of poetry by writers with only initials for first names. I picked one up on a morning after he’d left for work; the margins were scribbled with notes in his slanting handwriting. I didn’t understand the poetry—it seemed worlds apart from those haikus on yellow stickies he’d leave in my pockets—and trying to decipher his cursive in the margins felt wrong, like reading his diary. I was afraid of what I might discover, like the time I came upon old Mrs. Chung in the basement laundry room wringing out something red and lacy at the sink.
“Poems,” Aaron said. He smiled. “Huh. I didn’t think you were into stuff like that.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“But if he can’t get it up,” Aaron said, “how do you—why—”
“You think sex is only about that? Man,” I said, “I feel sorry for Fi—”
“Why even date a dude, if you can’t, you know.” He put his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his hands. “I’m asking honestly, Jane.”
“Listen. I got a drawer full of dicks.” Aaron leaned back in the booth, put his hands up in the air in a sign of defeat. “You asked,” I said. “So I’m telling you. That’s not why I—”
“Then why?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t say fucking poems,” Aaron said. “Poems? Come on.”
“There is something,” I said slowly, “about being with someone Chinese.” I hesitated. “It’s not everything, but—I don’t know. There’s a secret understanding, maybe.” I wondered if saying this out loud sounded even cornier than what I’d told him about Ed’s poetry. “Less explaining. You know what I mean?”
He nodded. “Fiona is very happy with me. Bedroom-wise,” he added. “I’m sure she’s told you—I have a huge—”
“Okay, dude,” I said. “You can shut up now. For real.” I was laughing. We both were. The waitress came by and we ordered another round. When she brought the drinks she said we made a beautiful couple, and that started us laughing all over again.
* * *
? ? ?
Fiona was in the middle of saying she might delete her Facebook account altogether when Sam popped a head in the bedroom. “We’re about finished out there,” he said.
I removed the last of Fiona’s clothes from the closet, a section of dark blazers, and jammed the hangers onto the bar in the cardboard box. Sam carried the box out, and we followed him.
“Didn’t I say it would take no time?” They’d cleared out the entire living room and adjoining eat-in kitchen, all the furniture and the boxes, in the time Fiona and I were packing up her clothes.
“Well,” Fiona said. “My ex took half of it.”
Sam paused, about to say something else, but seemed to change his mind. He turned to Sonny. “Let’s get the bed out.” He added, “Nothing in the second bedroom, so we’re good to go.”