And shame was the one thing I absolutely refused to feel. Shame meant that I was feeling bad about who I was, and I’d worked to combat that for too long. Shame was the canary in the coal mine that signaled I was in danger of letting someone else’s opinions or expectations determine what I thought was valuable instead of my own.
He must’ve seen it in my face because he backed off and raised his hands. “All I meant—”
“Look,” I said, because I was pretty sure that “all I meant” was not ever the beginning of a comment that was going to fix anything. “Yes, I’m super busy right now, and yes, I get that it sucks if you want to hang out and I can’t. But my career and my art were part of my life long before I ever met you and I’m not just going to completely abandon them because you suddenly have several hours free tonight that you want me to also be free for.”
It came out slightly harsher than I’d intended, but I wasn’t going to apologize for the shop being busy and for having other interests. I wasn’t going to apologize for not dropping everything in favor of date night.
Christopher nodded once, all stoically gritted teeth and tight shoulders. “I should’ve given you more notice, I realize.” His voice was formal. Distant. “I apologize.”
He walked back out into the shop, his spine iron, looking straight ahead.
✕ ✕ ✕
Marcus had been casting glances at me all during work. He could tell something was wrong. He always could. We’d both stayed late to finish large tattoos and were wiping down our stations quickly since it was almost midnight. I was mentally calculating how many hours of sleep I could realistically get if I wanted to get up at seven a.m. to paint when I knocked into my table, sending three bottles of ink to the floor, one of which splattered on my boot. Not that it mattered, since both were black. But I swore loudly and kicked the base of my chair. Which hurt. A lot.
When I looked up, Marcus was a step away from me. He was looking at me with such a familiar expression it almost jolted me back in time.
“Honey,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”
And damn, it had been a long time since he’d called me honey.
I gestured to the ink splattered on the floor and he just stood there, waiting me out.
“Fucking Christopher!” I said finally, and flopped heavily into the chair I’d kicked. “Making me feel guilty for being too busy to have dinner with him. Like I’m just gonna cancel on my clients. I mean, he knows the hours I work. It’s not a surprise! And then he’s all fucking pouty eyes, rigid jaw with his fucking fragile ego, like it was an insult against dating to not be free!”
Marcus nodded and stepped behind me, put a hand on each of my shoulders and started digging into the knots there with his thumbs.
“Like, I’m working on my stuff for a show! I have a deadline. I can’t just blow it off, even if it’d be nice to have someone make me dinner for once.”
I slumped forward. He always pressed just a little too hard, and it always felt amazing.
“He went to culinary school, so it’d probably be a good dinner too,” I said regretfully. “Plus he was clearly raised to eat balanced meals.”
I sighed, the sensation in my back leaching away a bit of my anger.
“I was so mean,” I said. “Totally interrupted him, shut him down. I was such a dick. Dude, I really freaked.”
Marcus made a sound that said he was listening and kept rubbing. There were certain spots where we were always sore, always aching. Places that the job hardened, as it turned our bodies into tools. After rubbing my shoulders for a few minutes, Marcus just rested his palm on the back of my neck and I breathed out the anger like a poison cloud.
Without the anger there was just fear. Fear of being rejected. Fear that someday I’d get so lonely I’d compromise in ways I didn’t want to. Fear that I’d be so afraid of compromising when I shouldn’t that I’d refuse to compromise when I should.
“If that’s what he wants from me then it’ll never work,” I said softly.
Marcus sat on the stool where I usually sat and faced me, and it seemed right that he be the one I told. He knew how I was in a relationship. He was the only one who did, really.
“Do you want it to?”
I covered my face with my hands to try and focus the six million lines of thought that zinged around my head whenever I thought of Christopher. Even his name sounded like some kind of incantation.
“I fucking like him so much. Dammit. At first I was kind of like, ‘oh, a cute white dude at a coffee shop, yes, I’ll take a quad shot and look at you, please.’ And then…”
I shook my head. Somewhere along the line, without my even noticing, Christopher had gotten completely under my skin. I’d started thinking about him at random moments, realizing that I was taking him into account when I considered options, and—okay, yeah—fantasizing about him. When we’d hooked up after our drink and draw date, it had been hotter than I’d expected. Christopher was so kind, so…I don’t know, Christopher-like, that I’d sort of expected him to be a little vanilla.
In reality, he’d been anything but. It had been explosive, impassioned, a little sloppy, and heavily laced with the promise that the next time would be even better—especially without the heaps of garbage nearby. But next time hadn’t happened yet, and at the rate I was free, it never would.
We occupied different worlds and I had no guarantee that Christopher got mine. I guess I had no guarantee that I got his either.
“It was just so easy with you,” I said, even though it wasn’t true and Marcus’s wry smile said that we both knew it.
“Some things were,” he granted, giving my hand a squeeze. “You going to your parents’ tomorrow since Daniel’s not around?”
I groaned. In my angst about Christopher I’d totally forgotten that in a clearly addled state I’d told Christopher I was.
“Eva called to guilt me into it like sixteen times and she kept insinuating that maybe something is wrong with my dad. She won’t say for sure, which is fucking typical of her. I actually haven’t seen any of them since my dad’s birthday, and that was six months ago, so now I feel like I should go. Just in case something really is wrong…ugh, I don’t know. Anyway, have a good time at Selene’s folks’. Enjoy everyone trying to fatten you up.”
Marcus grimaced and wrapped his arms around his skinny frame. Selene was fat and gorgeous and her whole family was fat and gorgeous and her mother and sisters treated Marcus like his skinniness was down to some kind of wrong-minded stubbornness. Still, they adored him and the feeling was totally mutual, so he put up with being called every variation of “skinny” on the planet, grateful they also called him “him” and thought his faster-than-average metabolism was the only regrettable thing about his body.
We hugged goodbye at the door and I squeezed him tight. “Thanks.”
“Ginge,” he said seriously. “Everyone has their shit. Don’t make the mistake of thinking he doesn’t just because it isn’t the same as yours.”
⌃ ⌃ ⌃
J,
I’m writing from that ancient PC in my old room at Mom and Dad’s and there’s a good chance that it will short out before this email gets sent. Okay, so it’s good you didn’t come to Thanksgiving, I think. Mom had some serious holiday manic shit going on and it would’ve driven you up the wall. Hopefully she got it out of her system so she’ll be a little calmer at Christmas. Dad was in heaven, of course—you know how he loves when there are a bunch of people around. He and the brothers got tipsy on Yuengling and watched a lot of football but they kept fighting about overtime rules because they forgot they were watching pro instead of college. They are ridiculous.
I, uh, invited Ginger to come and she said no. Cringe. Probably it was way too soon, huh? I think I freaked her out… How long had you and Scott been dating before you asked him to come to Thanksgiving? Or shit, knowing Scott, he probably just told you he was going to come and then did it. That fucking guy.
Remember the next
year when Scott came with you and Jen came with me? She was so into him, she was all like “Scott seems like such a stable presence, and so good for Jude.” Meanwhile, what she actually meant was that she wanted me to propose like Scott did. Shit, man, I think…did we actually hide in your room and plan the joint break-up speech we were going to deliver, or was I just really high?
So, Ma was saying something about how she called and spoke to one of your doctors? I’m not totally clear on what happened because I don’t actually think they’re allowed to give out any medical info on you, are they? Or maybe they are if Mom and Dad are your next of kin, or emergency contacts or something? But I kind of figured that you would’ve made Kaspar your person for that stuff. Well, anyway, whatever Mom found out, she’s now talking about you coming home in time for Christmas, so if that isn’t right can you just let me know? I don’t want her getting her hopes up if it’s not gonna happen, and I don’t want her to guilt you into it if you don’t think you’re ready to leave.
Do you think you’re ready to leave, J? I just…it’d be great to know how you’re doing. I hope you’re feeling a little better, anyway. Okay, bro, more soon. Love you.
C
Chapter 9
I spent the train ride home from Thanksgiving with my parents caught between periods of silent staring and bouts of near manic laughter, and everyone else on the train seemed to be in similar spirits.
Dinner had been precisely as awful as I’d expected, but because I’d been dreading some health crisis bomb to go off I was relieved that it hadn’t. My dad seemed to be fine, aside from his chronic spinelessness, but that wasn’t any more acute than usual, so I wasn’t sure what Eva had been smoking. Maybe she’d just wanted something to be concerned about. God knew it wouldn’t have been the first time.
When I got above ground I just stood for a minute, breathing in the autumn air, looking up and down Broad Street at the lights of the theater marquees and hotel bars.
I pulled out my phone, took a deep breath, and texted Christopher.
I have an indecent proposal for you. Also an apology.
I knew he was at his parents’ but it was nearly nine and I was hoping maybe they’d eaten early. My phone pinged almost immediately.
I only accept apologies in person.
Then you’d better take me up on the indecent proposal.
I realized I was grinning, cleared my throat, and walked down South Street toward home.
You have my full attention, he wrote.
Okay, here goes: do you want to come over and consume even more food than we already have? I know of a magical place that can save Thanksgiving… Then, remembering that he actually liked his family, I added, Or uh make it even better if it was already good.
I can be there in 20.
Just come up the fire escape.
I hurried the last few blocks home, stopping at Cinders on the way.
It was operated via a fold-down counter out of a window in a building it shared with a sex toy shop. The non-sex-toy shop half of the building had been partially burned-out back in the nineties and the owner took the insurance money and abandoned it. A few years later, Cinders simply appeared—open for business one day where there had been nothing the day before. It had just been regular burritos at first (or so I’d heard), but the holiday burritos had been so popular that the owner (who we all just called Cinders) went with it, introducing more and more holiday burritos and taking the non-holiday days as, well, holidays.
“Hey, if it ain’t the walking billboard!” Cinders called as I walked up, thick South Philly accent curling his vowels.
“And if it isn’t the man who does the best holiday wrapping on South Street.”
He held out a hand through the window and I squeezed it. “Where’s your buddy this Thanksgiving?”
“He moved, man. Got a job in Michigan, teaching.”
“No kidding. Well good for him. Damn. You tell that one I said well done, y’hear. I liked him. Smart kid. So, one this year?”
“Nah, better make it two. I’m inducting a first-timer into the world of Cinders, so I want him to get the full effect.”
He pointed at me with his knife. “Good thinking. Two, then. With everything?”
Everything meant turkey, sweet potato roasted with brown sugar, cornbread stuffing, and cranberry sauce.
“Everything.”
“Listen,” he said as he handed me a bag with two huge, warm burritos. “I’m doing solstices now. Tell your friend—pretty black girl who likes horoscopes? I’m gonna have, uh, moon burritos on the winter solstice. They’re vegan. Okay? Longest night of the year, plenty a time for eatin’ burritos. You tell her.”
“Morgan,” I said, smiling. She’d become the newest Cinders convert when I’d brought her for Rosh Hashanah burritos in the fall (turned out black beans went surprisingly well with apples and honey). “I’ll tell her.”
“Yeah, Morgan. Moon burritos,” he murmured meditatively. “Okay, happy Thanksgiving. You enjoy, now.”
“Thanks,” I called, and blew him a kiss over my shoulder.
✕ ✕ ✕
I got to the shop door just in time to see Christopher get out of a battered orange truck.
“Hey,” I said, walking over. “You know I just realized I have no idea where you live?”
He locked the truck, holding the handle while he kicked the bottom left corner of the door in what was clearly a familiar maneuver. “I live just the other side of the Italian Market, but I’m coming from my parents’ in Germantown.”
We faced off for a minute, the awkwardness of our last exchange making me feel like it’d be weird to touch him, but kind of just wanting to slide my arms around him. I held up the burritos and he nodded.
He followed me upstairs. It was awkward and I didn’t bother trying to make conversation as I let us in and shed my coat, put the burritos on plates, and poured bourbon into two glasses. I deposited it all on the wagon wheel coffee table, avoiding eye contact. I was still wearing the gray sweatshirt dress I’d worn to dinner and I wanted to change into pajamas, but it felt strange to do when things were strained between us. Too vulnerable to be in pajamas when he was in clothes. I settled for unzipping my boots and tossing them next to the closet.
When I looked up Christopher was looking at the art in my apartment. It was mostly work I’d traded for my own, or traded for tattoos. Jonah’s Day of the Dead animals, Nika’s glitter-crusted skulls, Willa’s leather masks, Mychaela’s collages of outer space. My favorite was by a guy whose name I never even knew, though it was signed JMB. It was a nude of a beautiful, fleshy man, reclining in a throne made out of half a bathtub, every inch of his skin intricately tattooed, bubbles from the bath clinging to his inked skin. His eyes were distant and his expression ecstatic. I’d traded two of my paintings for it at an art show years ago. The last show I’d done.
“Wow,” Christopher said, coming to stand in front of the nude. “I’m so in awe of artists. I don’t know how you do it at all. Not just the technical side, but the whole thing. How certain things present such…opportunity.”
“Well you do that with food, don’t you? See the opportunity of how certain flavors go together?”
He turned toward me, brows drawn together. “Hmm. I guess a little. I never thought of it as being the same.” Before I could respond he said, “Hey, can we make with the apology part of this whole jawn so we can get on to me asking about how your Thanksgiving was?”
I nodded and sat down on the couch, but instead of sitting beside me he sat on the leather armchair across from me.
“I won’t apologize for not being free, or for needing—wanting—to paint. But I’m sorry I was so mean about how I reacted. I…implied that you expected something of me. That you had some kind of, I don’t know, menacing ulterior motive or something. Which was super unfair. You didn’t do anything to make me think that. At all. Ever. I reacted that way because of me and my brain, and not because of you. So I’m really sorry.”
> “Thanks,” he said. “I accept your apology. And I accept what you’re not apologizing for. I know I sprung those invitations on you at the last minute and I really wasn’t expecting you to drop anything to hang with me. Just…hoping, I guess, that you might be free.”
I nodded, glad I’d been right about him. He stood and pressed a kiss to my lips, thumb stroking my cheekbone, then sat down beside me.
“So why did you react that way? Have other people you’ve been in relationships with made you feel shitty for working, or…?”
I snorted, and muttered, “What other relationships?”
Christopher’s gaze sharpened. “You haven’t…dated people much? How come?”
I dropped my head back on the couch and sighed. What I really wanted was just to talk to Christopher without thinking too much. I wanted us to know each other already, rather than having a State of the Union about our relationship.
“Well, I dated Marcus for almost a year, a lifetime ago.”
“Marcus from the shop, Marcus?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s it for long-term relationships. Mostly I’ve dated people for, uh, shorter periods.”
“Why so short?”
“Oh, sometimes because after I got to know them a little I realized I didn’t like them after all. Or that I’d rather be working on art or tattooing. Sometimes because it just fell apart. Like, I’d stop being willing to put in the effort, or it would start to feel like an obligation. I’d get claustrophobic.”
“How long did you usually date them for?”
“Er, about a month.”
We both looked at each other, realizing that a month was about how long it had been since we’d met. Then Christopher shot me a cocky grin, like he was determined to beat the odds, and relaxed back into the chair.