Cue awkward silence. Her cheeks flushed prettily, and I let the silence go on for a little longer, just because I liked seeing her out of her element.
Finally, she threw her hands up, exasperated, and said, “What? It’s the truth! Are you implying that you don’t think about sex constantly, Golden Boy?”
“Oh, I definitely think about it.” I was thinking about it right now, and it was not making leaving this apartment any easier. My eyes, as usual, were drawn to her lips, and I had the sudden urge to ruffle her hair so that it was closer to her normal style. I wanted her out of that ridiculous turtleneck, so that I could see her creamy skin and the art that enhanced it. God, was it only this morning that I’d seen her tree tattoo in its entirety? I could still picture the bare branches and twisting roots. I wondered what it meant to her. I wondered what it would be like to trace the lines with my fingertips. With my lips.
She cleared her throat, and I realized I’d been standing there staring at her, imagining her naked for who knows how long.
I coughed. “Well, I should probably go.”
Go beat my head against a wall. Go jump in front of a moving car. Go get a life. Any of the above was appropriate.
“Right,” she said. “Um, thank you . . . again for all of this.”
I shook my head and smiled. “It was nothing. I’ll see you around, Angry Girl.”
I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. She said, “Good night Cade.”
I only let myself look back for a second, and then I said, “Good night.” I walked down the flight of stairs and out into the street. Chinatown was fairly busy, since the restaurants were all still open on Thanksgiving. I took one last look at the door to Max’s building, and then promised to forget it.
I refused to let myself want what I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t go through that all again. I said, “Good-bye, Max,” and set off for the nearest subway stop.
I was too lazy on Friday to get out of bed. I lay there until far too late in the afternoon to not be pathetic. Eager to accomplish at least something during my day, I dialed my grandmother’s phone number.
I’d lied to Bliss about her being ill because I knew Bliss wouldn’t question it. Grams had gotten sick around the beginning of our senior year—pneumonia—and it had scared the shit out of me. She was all I had, and I’d thought I was going to lose her. I was twenty-one, and my entire life had revolved around partying like most kids in college. But that’s not how I wanted our final months in college together to be. That was around the time when I made myself start getting serious about the future. That was around the time I started having feelings for Bliss, too.
It took her to the fourth or fifth ring to answer, probably because it took her that long to get to the phone. She was old . . . and as she liked to say “slow as molasses.”
She answered, “You got me.”
I’d never heard anyone else answer the phone like her.
“Hi, Grams.”
“Oh, Cade! It’s so good to hear from you. We all missed you terribly yesterday.”
I closed my eyes, surprisingly affected by the sound of her voice. It must have been the discussion of my parents yesterday and all that time with the Millers. Family was fresh on my mind.
“I missed you, too, Grams.”
“How was Thanksgiving with Bliss, dearie?”
I hadn’t told Grams about any of the stuff that had happened with Bliss. I’d told her I was having Thanksgiving there because I couldn’t afford to come home, and I didn’t want her insisting on paying for the trip. Her retirement check barely covered all her bills, and she’d done enough for me. I hated lying to her, but it was a necessary evil.
“Oh, you know Bliss and me, things are always interesting.”
I heard her raspy laugh on the other end. “Oh, I bet.”
Grams had met Bliss during the second show of our senior year. We went out to dinner after the play, and on the way out of the restaurant, Bliss had walked into a glass door. Grams told me afterward that she knew I loved Bliss because I didn’t laugh at what she called “the funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”
God, I missed her. And Bliss. I missed a lot of things.
“So everyone made it yesterday?”
“Oh, yes, yes. The little ones asked after you.”
Every other holiday, some aunts and uncles and cousins joined us. It didn’t make for a very big family gathering, but I suppose I had more than a lot of people do.
“I wish I could have been there. I can’t wait for Christmas.”
I wasn’t sure yet exactly how I was going to afford to go home for Christmas, but I would. If I had to take out more loans on top of my school ones, I would. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t be paying those back for a century anyway.
Someone knocked at the door, and I said, “Hey, Grams, someone is at the door. Can I call you back later? I want to hear all about how yesterday went with the family.”
“Of course, honey. Tell Bliss I said hi.”
I swallowed and said, “Uh-huh. Love you. Bye.”
A second round of knocks came as she said good-bye and hung up the phone.
Through the door, a voice called, “Hermano! You in there?”
“Just a sec, Milo!”
I rolled off my bed and pulled a T-shirt over my head. I padded barefoot toward the door of my studio apartment, and undid the dead bolt.
I yawned and pulled the door wide.
I was in pajama pants, and Milo looked like he’d raided Urban Outfitters. He said, “Whoa. Either you had a really late night or are currently having a really early one.”
“Sadly, neither.”
Before I could invite him in, he’d already passed by me and plopped down on the futon in my living room.
I laughed and closed my door.
“This isn’t still about that Bliss girl, is it?”
It felt good to be able to say, “No, it’s not about Bliss.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already gotten your heart broken by some other chica. I only left you alone for a day.”
“No, no broken heart. Just an unavailable girl.”
Milo stretched his legs out in front of him and nodded. “Ah, you know the cure for that don’t you?”
“What?”
“An available girl.” Laughing, I made my way to the fridge and held up a beer in offering. Milo nodded, and I grabbed one for each of us. He said, “I’m serious. I happen to have it on good authority that you picked up a phone number the other night. Forget the unavailable girl . . . both of them . . . and call the blonde from the other night.”
That wasn’t a bad idea.
Dating was the solution to my Bliss (and now Max) problem.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I told him.
I picked up my phone to find her number, and he said, “Whoa! Whoa! Don’t do it now, hermano. You’ve got to give it a few days. You know the rules.”
I rolled my eyes. Right . . . Milo had rules for just about everything—drinking and dating being the two most prominent.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”
He made a face and said, “Eh, better make it the day after. That girl was all over you at the bar. We don’t want to encourage too much clinginess. The day after tomorrow will be much better.”
So Sunday afternoon, with Milo obnoxiously watching from my sofa, I called Cammie. I pulled out my cell, found her in my address book, and hit send quickly, before I could change my mind.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Cammie?” I asked.
“Yes?”
I said, “This is Cade.” Then I couldn’t remember if I’d actually told her my name at the bar, so I added, “We met at Trestle a few nights ago.”
“Oh.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “Hi, Cade.”
“Hi.”
Milo whispered, “Set the date up for this weekend. Give her plenty of time to get nervous about it.”
/> I rolled my eyes, but asked, “What are your plans this Friday night, Cammie? And whatever it is, can I steal you away from it?”
“Steal me? I think I’d go quite willingly.”
She giggled.
Now I just needed to figure out where we would go. And how to get her there. If I were still back in Texas I would have picked her up, but I didn’t have a car, and it seemed odd to pick someone up for the subway.
“Excellent,” I said. “It’s a date. I’ll call you back in a few days to let you know what we’re doing.”
20
Max
My phone rang so early the day after Thanksgiving that it should have been labeled cruel and unusual punishment. I reached out toward my nightstand, knocking off who knew what until my fingers finally closed around my phone.
“What?” I grumbled.
“Good morning, sweetie.”
Ugh . . . it was way too early for this.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Your father and I are at the airport. Our flight has been delayed.”
Oh no. If she said that they were going to stay even longer, I would go crazy. I had to get back to the band and back to work, and I had reached my crazy quota for the week.
“I’m sorry, Mom. There’s no chance they’ll cancel it, is there?”
“Oh, no, honey. Just something about the pilot’s plane being late the night before, so they’re required to give him so much rest. We’ll be back in Oklahoma by this evening.” Thank God. “But your father and I were talking, and we just wanted to tell you again how much we liked Cade.”
I was pretty sure that was already abundantly clear, thanks.
“You know, we’ve been worried about you. Your father and I had a lot of difficulty with your decision to drop out of college.” A lot was an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if they discussed having me committed as mentally unstable. “But we came around.” After a year of fighting, yeah. “We’ve been helping you pay your rent so you can afford to spend time doing your little music thing.” God, I was going to break out in hives if she called my career and lifelong dream a “little music thing” one more time. “It’s just . . . you’ve been here so long, and your father and I were starting to feel that perhaps it was time to face the facts and grow up.”
No. Please no. I was so close. I could feel it. The gig next weekend at The Fire was going to be huge for us. We were even doing a live recording of the set.
It wasn’t like they didn’t have plenty of money. They both had high-paying jobs, and the insurance money from Alex’s death had made our already wealthy household even wealthier. They gave me five hundred bucks a month to help pay my student loans from those pointless two years at UPenn that they’d been the ones to insist upon. You’d think when they were the ones pushing me to go to college, that they would have at least paid for it. But since they hadn’t helped Michael, they didn’t help me. Some bullshit about making my own way. Too bad it had only ever been their way.
Five hundred to them was nothing, and to me it was the difference between doing what I loved and dreaming about doing what I love. I just needed a little more time.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “You’re going to stop helping me?”
“Eventually, yes.” Shit. I was going to have to double my shifts at the Trestle. Between that and my job at the tattoo parlor, I would have zero time for singing, much less writing my own stuff. “We were going to talk to you about it while we were here, but then we met Cade.”
“What does Cade have to do with it?”
“Well . . . you’re obviously getting your life together. You’re dating a nice, respectable boy and finally starting to take things seriously. Your father and I are so glad you’ve left behind the negative influences you were spending time with before. So, since you’re obviously trying, we’re going to give you a few more months.”
“A few?” I asked.
“Well, we’re going to play things by ear. But as long as you keep taking your life seriously, you don’t need to worry about it.”
AKA . . . as long as I kept dating Cade.
I wanted to scream.
At her.
At the world.
At myself. For being too damn cowardly to tell her exactly what I was thinking. I should have told her the truth about Cade. I should have told her that she was full of shit. I had been taking my life seriously.
I had been taking my life seriously when I left college. Just because I was not taking a familiar road or doing something that made sense to her didn’t mean I was naive or ignorant.
It meant I didn’t want to be a mindless office worker who daydreamed about what life could have been if things had been different.
It meant I was willing to make sacrifices and work two jobs and kill myself to get it all done.
It meant I was brave.
I wished I had been brave enough then to tell her those things.
I wasn’t.
Instead I kept my mouth closed and listened to her prattle on about a charity event she was hosting right before Christmas and how Michael was doing, and how perfect his wife, Bethany, was.
The more she talked and the more I stayed silent, the more nauseated I became. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I lied and said, “Mom, there’s someone at the door. I have to go.”
“Oh, sure, honey. It was good to see you. Tell Cade we said hi and we’ll see him at Christmas.”
“Mom, I’m not sure he’ll make it to Christmas.”
“And why not?”
“Well, he has his own family to see, plus it’s not exactly cheap. He has tuition and loans to pay.”
Like all the rest of us.
“Oh, your father and I will just take of all that. He can stay for a few days and then go on to Texas. We’ll pay for it. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I was so glad she didn’t mind throwing money at someone she’d just met.
“We’ll see, Mom. I really do have to go.”
I hung up and threw my phone somewhere on the floor. I pulled the covers over my head, and hugged my pillow, but the damage was done. I was too worked up to go to sleep.
I took a long shower. I made a complicated lunch that was supposed to occupy my mind, but didn’t. I went for a run. I played my guitar. I tried to write a new song.
I did that for two days.
Distraction. Failure of said distraction.
Different distraction. Different failure.
Repeat until insane.
The whole time my phone sat there, taunting me. Cade was one call away. Or a text if I was feeling particularly cowardly.
One question could solve so many of my problems. Or delay them anyway. Wasn’t that what life was? Taking the good while we could get it, and delaying the bad as long as possible.
Cade was good, and he could help delay the bad. Win-win, right?
Except for the part where I had to degrade myself to do it.
How much was I willing to sacrifice for the money my parents were giving me?
I knew . . . I could feel it somewhere in the space between my heart and lungs that this wasn’t a hopeless dream. Anything that felt this good and consumed me so completely couldn’t be hopeless. I thought of all the gigs I’d have to cut back on if I didn’t have that money. Any one of them could be the one that puts us on the track of making music for a living, but if the gigs never happened, neither would our break.
I’d just finished thinking that I wasn’t afraid to make sacrifices.
Could I sacrifice my own pride, bend to my parents, and pretend to be something I wasn’t if it meant following my dream? It wasn’t as if I had to actually be someone else. I just had to pretend . . . for a little while.
Five hundred bucks a month. I suppose people had betrayed themselves for less.
I made it to Sunday evening before I went back to my room and fished my phone out from under the pillow I had stuffed it under to dampen the temptation. Before I could analyze what
I was doing, I scrolled through my old texts and found Cade’s number.
Hey. My band is playing this Friday at The Fire in Northern Liberties. You should come.
I tossed my phone down on the bed, and then pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes.
Why did I feel like I’d just hit my self-destruct button?
I was just inviting him to see us play. That didn’t mean anything. I still had a whole week to make up my mind.
My phone started ringing, and I jumped to answer it.
Oh, it was Mace.
He probably wanted to do something tonight . . . or spend the night, now that my parents were gone. I just . . . I wasn’t feeling up to being around people.
I hit ignore.
Cade’s reply came a few minutes later.
What time?
I spent most of the next week avoiding Mace. We saw each other at practice, and we grabbed dinner beforehand a few times, but I just kept telling him I had to work, which was true. And when I didn’t have to work, I told him I wasn’t feeling well, which wasn’t true, but oh well.
When the day of the gig arrived, we were set to meet that afternoon to load up our equipment from Trestle. Spence had a van we used to transport what we needed. When I arrived, Mace wasn’t there, and Spence was outside smoking.
He inhaled, and on the exhale said, “You look like shit.”
I did. “Thanks, douche rocket.”
I hadn’t slept well the night before because I knew I was going to see Cade the next day, and I still hadn’t decided whether I was going to ask him about Christmas.
“I’m just saying . . . we need you to look hot for tonight and you look like you’re auditioning to be an extra on The Walking Dead.”
“I’ve had a shitty couple of days, okay?”
“Right. Mace said you’ve been sick the last few days.” Spence made air quotes with his fingers when he said “sick.”
“Stay out of it, Spence. And don’t you worry. I’ll be good by tonight. I’ll look so sexy you’ll be dying to get back into my pants.”
“You know I’m always dying to get back in your pants.”