“Fine,” she eventually says. “New topic of conversation. Have you given any thought to where you’re going to live next year?”
“I still don’t know where I’m going to have a job.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Maria. We both know the chances that you’ll move away from your grandmother are basically nil.”
“True.” Especially since I haven’t heard from the one New York firm where I interviewed.
“Especially if Gabe gets that job at San Jose State.”
Last I heard, he’d gone down for an interview with the provost, one of two candidates. I’m crossing everything for him.
“True.” I sigh. I don’t want to think about my job search. I don’t want to think about this semester ending and going on to the one boring job I have on tap. I haven’t even decided how to let my blog go. Deciding where I’m going to live on my tiny salary is low on my priority list.
“And I’m either going to UCSF or I’m taking this position at bioLogica.” She makes a face. “But I’m in San Francisco either way. Have you thought about getting a place together?”
I look over at her again to see if she’s joking.
She isn’t. I had hoped to avoid this conversation. I love Tina. I like Blake. I agreed to share a house with them because I assumed Blake would leave.
But this whole we-might-break-up thing? I’m not buying it for another year. Third-wheeling it makes sense when one of those wheels is unsteady. It completely sucks when everything’s great.
“Tina, do you really want that?”
She shrugs. “I mean, Blake’s probably skipping out on school after this year and moving back with his dad.”
I look at her skeptically.
“He’ll be around when he can. And when I have time.”
It’s one thing to share a six-bedroom, four-thousand-square-foot house with Blake and his occasional visiting father. I calculate the meager starting salary I have been offered. I subtract student loan payments. Prescription copays, if I’m lucky enough to have insurance that covers my HRT. What’s left is enough, if I’m lucky, for a birdhouse in a bad part of town.
Sharing my prospective birdhouse with Tina and her incredibly messy boyfriend? That sounds pretty awful.
“This is kinda premature,” I say. “You don’t know where you’re going to be. I don’t know where I’m going to be. I did apply for that job in New York.”
“I thought you weren’t excited about the New York job.”
“And you know me,” I bull on. “It’s not like I could conduct a housing search without a spreadsheet. How can I make a spreadsheet when we have no parameters?”
“Fine,” Tina says. “We’ll talk about it later.”
I nod. With any luck, before later comes, Tina will come to her senses.
* * *
Two weeks later
What are you doing? It’s two in the afternoon when Jay’s message comes through, and I can’t keep from smiling and pouncing on my phone.
Never mind that we’ve spent nearly twelve days together. Never mind that we met for lunch—and dinner—and that I’ve rarely gone home in that time. He’s in Boston at the moment. It’s been twenty-seven hours since I last saw him, and stupidly, I miss him.
Some part of me is aware that throwing myself headlong into this relationship is not a good idea. The other part of me wishes he were here.
How was your talk? I ask.
Oh, you know, he says. Couldn’t get the projector to work. I eschewed PowerPoint and did all the equations by hand, old-school style. I should do this all the time. But I’ll be home tomorrow.
I grin.
And you didn’t answer my question. What have you been doing in my absence?
I bite my lip. Are you in private?
Yes.
I waggle one eyebrow, even though he can’t see it. Because this is the kind of risqué sexy talk you don’t want to risk others reading over your shoulder.
Is that so? he writes. Good thing I went back to my hotel before dinner.
I let him have it. I am making a spreadsheet to evaluate job offers, which are now officially plural.
There is a pause. I can imagine him laughing.
Ooh, he writes. Congratulations on the plural. But also—spreadsheet. You need a spreadsheet to evaluate two job offers?
Honestly. It’s like he doesn’t even know me. I write quickly. You have it completely backward. I *want* a spreadsheet to evaluate my two job offers.
In some ways, it feels like old times. Bantering about…well, I can’t call the entirety of my economic future precisely nothing, can I? Still.
Oh dear, he says. Clearly I’ve been decision-making incorrectly all my life.
Clearly you have, I respond sternly, settling into my pillows. How else would you account for the cost (and opportunity-cost) of commuter time, various benefit levels, likelihood of advancement, etc?
His answer is on point. Um. With my brain?
Just as I’m about to respond, my phone rings. I glance at the number—unknown caller—and almost don’t pick up. But because I’m interviewing for jobs, I can’t afford to miss calls.
“Hello, Ms. Lopez?” The woman on the other end sounds vaguely familiar. “It’s Emily Lucas from Harding and Wilkins.”
I inhale and look at my spreadsheet. Harding and Wilkins is a consulting firm in New York. I had an interview there a month ago, and had assumed that the passage of this many weeks was equivalent to a no.
“Everyone loved you,” she says. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to respond. We’ll be sending you a formal offer letter, but until then…”
I scarcely hear her. My fingers move of their own accord. Harding and Wilkins, I type in my spreadsheet in a cell to the far left.
She’s rattling off numbers now. It’s good that I have my spreadsheet open; there’s no way I’d believe them if I weren’t writing them down as she said them. I type a number three times larger than the next closest amount in the offered salary bar.
Yes, it’s New York. Yes, money will go fast. But I upgrade my potential housing from birdhouse to studio. It’s not like the Bay Area’s cheap.
I’m in shock. “Thank you,” I say. “This is my dream job.” This is true, for some very limited values of dream.
“We’re looking forward to having you.”
I don’t accept. Instead, I fret internally while she talks, folding my pillow in two. I try to reduce the details she gives me to an equation. I fail. I have two main problems, and I don’t know how to fit them on my spreadsheet.
One: I wish I were excited about anything other than the salary. The hours will be long, and while eventually I’ll advance enough to get some interesting work, it will take years of slogging to get there.
It’s my dream job. Or at least it will be somewhat close, if I work at it long enough.
But the salary. On that salary, I could afford an actual vegetable to put in my ramen, and based on my graduating friends’ experience, I know how ridiculously rare this outcome is.
The rest of the conversation passes in a daze.
When we’re finished, I set my phone down and stare blankly ahead.
I would pinch myself, but I’m not even sure I’d feel it. I should be screaming for joy. Instead…
My phone flashes, and I realize that Jay’s been messaging me through the entire call. Um. Okay. It doesn’t have to be dinner. Or the day after is fine, if that works better.
Two: It’s in New York. My grandmother is here. My friends are here. My brother might be here. New York is cold and dirty. The Mexican food is subtly wrong. The pizza is so wrong, it barely even qualifies as pizza in my mind. Expressing either of those thoughts to a New Yorker would likely get me shanked, and I don’t want to die.
I nod at this bit of morbid fantasy. This irrationally premature obituary is easier for me to acknowledge than the other thought that flits through my mind. That is this: Jay is here.
After twelve days togethe
r, I’m aware it would be stupid to make a decision this massive on the basis of Jay.
If I told him, I know what he’d say. It’s your dream job. Take it. Or maybe: It’s your life. It’s your decision. He wouldn’t push me.
Still, I don’t want to tell him.
I pick up my phone. No, you dork. I got a phone call.
I scroll back through the messages I missed. I think about telling him about the job. We’ve known each other forever and he knows so much about me. Just…not everything. In one sense, this is the most intimate relationship I’ve had. I’ve told him things I haven’t told anyone. I let him close before I knew who he was.
It’s also the most lonely. He’s only realized my name for a handful of weeks, and all the things we would otherwise know about each other—favorite colors, food preferences—got skipped over. He knows everything and nothing, all at once.
I find his original message. So do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow when I’m back? I was planning on making food native to my peoples.
In the end, I smile helplessly. Decisions can wait; he’ll be back tomorrow.
Which people? Thai? Chinese? American?
His response is so swift that I know he set me up. None of the above. I am, of course, referring to beans on toast.
I grin as I’m typing. Oh, well. In that case… Sure.
23
JAY
“What are you doing?”
I look up from the little plastic tent I have set up on the counter. Maria has let herself into my house—as I told her to do. She’s standing on the other side of my kitchen island, watching me with a puzzled expression.
The house smells faintly of woodsmoke. Which it should since I’m juggling a handheld smoker trailing clouds of burning applewood chips. The fan whirs, doing its best to draw up the smoke.
“Hush,” I say. “I’m nearly done smoking the beans.”
“You’re smoking beans?”
“Yes.” I set down the smoker and juggle the beans out of the bag and into a container. I sprinkle bread crumbs on top.
She sets her bag down. “You promised me beans on toast. Isn’t that normally like canned baked beans on bread? And less like…?” She gestures.
I haven’t seen her in days. Of course I broke out one of my dad’s more impressive cassoulet recipes for her.
“Deconstructed toast,” I say, gesturing to the breadcrumbs. “Deconstructed beans. Be quiet. I’m trying to impress you.”
One hand goes to her hip. “Which is why you told me you were making me beans on toast.”
“Lowering expectations is a fundamental part of making a good impression.”
She just shakes her head.
“And it was either impress you with my cooking skills or, you know, lasers. I have a limited repertoire.”
“Ha. I can think of other things you can do.”
I turn off the smoker and put my cassoulet in the oven.
“Then come here and let me do them,” I say.
She stalks around the counter. Comes up to me.
I wrap my arms around her and kiss her.
Two weeks should be nothing in a relationship. But every day I was gone, I felt her absence in my bed like a palpable thing.
The kiss ends, but I don’t want to let go. “Did you have a good time with your grandmother?”
She shakes her head and lets out a little gurgling laugh. “She’s still at trial. I went over and made her eat food, and she made a few protesting noises. I’m not sure she even noticed I was there.”
“Poor Em. Everyone ignores you. I was out of town. Your grandmother was at trial.”
She shrugs. “I’m used to it. I don’t mind.”
“Want a glass of water while we’re waiting?”
She comes with me to the refrigerator and watches as I pour water from a filter pitcher. Her eyes narrow, and she reaches into the fridge and removes a plastic container of cream cheese.
She opens it. It is, unsurprisingly, cream cheese.
She nods. “I thought so,” she remarks in a grim tone.
“It’s almost like you’re psychic,” I comment. “Or—alternate explanation—you can read.”
She shakes her head, as if I’ve said something amusing, and takes the glass of water.
I wait until we’re sitting down on the couch. “Speaking of your grandmother,” I say slowly, “I want you to meet my parents.”
Her eyes widen. She doesn’t pull away from me—not really—but she leans forward to set her water glass on the table, and when she comes back, somehow, we’re not touching anymore.
“Maybe we should hold off on that.” Her voice is flat. She presses the palms of her hands against my thighs.
“If you want.” I already told them about her. “But they would like you.”
She gives an involuntary shake of her head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. My parents have a pretty firm no-bullshit clause for significant others. It comes from their own relationship.”
This doesn’t calm her down. She shakes her head again and looks away. Her breathing is rapid, too rapid. Her lips look pale.
“Em. Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She grinds the word out in the exact tone that suggests she is anything but fine.
I set my hand on hers. “Maria?”
“It’s fine.”
I don’t say anything. But maybe she can read the disbelief in my expression. She looks up at me and exhales.
“It’s not fine,” she finally says. But she leans into me when she says it.
“Bad experience with someone’s parents not liking you?”
She stares at her hands. “Jay,” she says slowly, “my parents don’t like me.”
Oh. I don’t speak out loud. Truth is, I met her parents once. They came out to visit Gabe at Harvard, and took a bunch of his friends out to dinner. They seemed nice. I don’t say this.
“It’s complicated.” Maria’s hands tangle with mine. “They kicked me out when I was twelve, and sometimes I wish that was all it was. But it doesn’t work that way. There are no clean breaks.”
I pull her closer. Her skin is cool against mine.
“There were summers when we tried to work things out. And sessions with therapists. Every time my mom would call and say she wanted to try, I’d get my hopes up. I’d start daydreaming. And then we’d try, and I…listened to my mother explain how hard it was for her, how all she wanted was for her children to have the safe place she never had as a child, and how it was my fault it hadn’t happened. I had my list of things that I wanted. It wasn’t long. But I never got to present it. She thought that if I just understood how my existence hurt her, I would change.”
“Oh. Em.”
She brushes off this sympathy. “And it’s fine. It’s fine now. But every time we’d try to work things out, I’d start believing, and…” She smashes her hands together, squelching those hopes. “So I have issues with things like this. I had this period in high school where I had massive anxiety attacks. My grandmother would come home late from work and I would work myself into a state thinking that she left me.”
The closer I hold her, the more I can feel the little tremors in her shoulders.
“And here’s the thing that made it better,” Maria said. “Part of it was seeing someone. Getting a prescription. Having people tell me that what I was going through was a normal reaction to trauma. But have you ever read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?”
I shake my head. “Sorry.”
“Well, you should. It’s about a couple of kids who run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In any event, I decided that if my grandmother ever threw me out, I’d hide out in the library. I had a plan. I hid boxes of granola bars behind the encyclopedias and everything. Every time I started freaking out, I’d tell myself it was okay because I had somewhere to go.”
I’m playing with her hair as she talks. She’s not shaking an
ymore.
“I’m a lot better,” she says. “I don’t have an active prescription right now. But weird things still freak me out. It took me years to believe Nana when she said she loved me. I used to wonder if she was trying to lull me into a false sense of security.”
She shrugs. I’m still not sure what to say.
“People talk about unconditional love,” she says quietly. “But all love is conditional. I’m just a little neurotic until I figure out the conditions. And until I do, I need to take things slow. Have a place to hide. Just in case. So can we hold off on meeting your parents?”
I think my heart is breaking for her. I think of my father’s book. Of his dedication. Of my mom, taking me out to lunch in the middle of her day. I spent years wondering how to make up my mistakes to my parents. I’m slowly beginning to understand that I don’t have to. All love is not conditional. It sucked when I thought it was. I hate that she lives in a world where she still has reason to believe it.
“You’re not neurotic,” I say. “My parents adored me, and when my brother died, I disappeared and drove to Vegas to get these.” I hold out my arms so she can see my tattoos. “I wanted to piss them off. I wanted them to get mad at me and blame me. They didn’t.”
She gives me a wan smile. “Did you keep on trying?”
“Of course. I had applied to Cambridge for university on a whim. I told them I was going. I think I really wanted them to say, ‘No, that’s too far, you can’t do it.’ But they didn’t. So, seven and a half years later, I had a PhD.”
She begins laughing.
“What?”
“You may be the first person in the entire world who rebelled from his parents by getting a PhD in physics from Cambridge.”
“I doubt it.” I lean in. “You’re not neurotic. You’ve built emotional muscles that most people never need to use. You’re not standard, but I adore every nonstandard inch of you.”
She looks up at me.
“Does that freak you out?”
She nods. “A little.”