Small Change

  “Well, you are pretty bad at it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Dating. I mean, I basically had to beg you to go out with me, and when you finally did, you flashed everyone else in the room and then ravished me in a filthy alley.”

  I laughed, and then remembered a conversation I’d had with Daniel and laughed even more.

  “Oh, man,” I said. “I gave Daniel all this dating advice and I was so serious about it, like”—I wagged my finger and made my expression stern—“wear these jeans and don’t swear too much and…and…and all this shit.” I started laughing harder and Christopher chuckled too.

  “I have to tell you a secret,” he said. “I have no idea why, and I don’t want to analyze it, honestly, but I find it ridiculously hot that you have such a filthy damn mouth. I mean, filthy.”

  I opened my filthy damn mouth to comment, realized I was about to swear in response, realized that would be ridiculous, and closed it again.

  Christopher leaned in and ran a thumb over my lips, then kissed me. “Okay, so what’s this indecent proposal?”

  I was pretty ready to abandon the burrito in favor of other pursuits, and I forced myself to refocus on the matter at hand. “This”—I pointed—“is the Thanksgiving Burrito. If I were you, I would prepare to have my mind blown. Of course, if you ate an actual delicious Thanksgiving dinner then the effect is, admittedly, not quite so shocking. It’s true that Cinders kind of caters to those of us who need the holidays redeemed. And a burrito is the ultimate redemption.”

  “I ate a pretty good Thanksgiving dinner,” he confirmed. “But that was hours and hours ago. And I can always eat.”

  “Why do Christians do that?”

  “Huh?”

  “That…eat dinner at lunchtime thing on holidays. It’s so weird.”

  “Jews don’t do that?”

  “No way, man. Our shit doesn’t even start till sundown.”

  He laughed. “Uh, I don’t know because my family’s always done it. I guess I thought everyone did that. Though you’re seeing one reason it’s a great idea right here. I get to have my cake and eat it too.”

  “That’s not what that saying means.”

  “I get to eat my cake and then eat it again. How’s that?”

  “Yummm, cake. So, go.” I gestured him toward the burrito.

  He took a bite and a slow smile spread across his face as he chewed. “That…is somehow perfect,” he said. I could almost see the cogs turning as he started to imagine how he could riff on it in deli sandwich form.

  “Right!? Yay. Also, do not steal The Burrito for Melt or I’ll have you blacklisted.”

  He grinned and held up his free hand in peace. Now that I knew he wasn’t an idiot who couldn’t accept an apology or appreciate The Burrito I unwrapped my own and started eating. I was starving.

  “So can I ask about how your Thanksgiving was now, or is there some kind of hallowed no-talking-while-burritoing rule I should be aware of?”

  “It was garbage, thanks, and yours?” I tore off a huge bite of my burrito so I couldn’t speak.

  “It was great, thanks. Garbage how?”

  “Welp. My cousin Tamara, who’s six years younger than me, just had her third child—she’s married. My cousin Neil got a promotion at the advertising firm he works at so now he’s been able to put a down payment on a loft in Center City. Janie, the Johnsons next door’s daughter is getting her master’s degree in urban planning, which is both academically impressive and extremely useful in today’s competitive job market. Kenneth, the neighbor’s kid from across the street, just got married to the nicest woman, and they’re going to be decorating the nursery in lavender and mint—did you know those colors are very on-trend for a nursery? Very on-trend. Let’s see…oh! The Roscoes, up the block? Their daughter just made partner. She’s two years younger than me. And all of them keep in what seems to be near constant communication with their parents about everything they do.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah, my mom can somehow remember every accomplishment of every person between the ages of eighteen and forty but can’t remember the name of my shop. Hmm, the brain is a complex and mysterious organ.” I tapped my head in faux confusion.

  “But you’re wicked successful—did you tell them about how busy the shop is and how that Eddie guy is promoing you? About your art show?”

  “They don’t care about that stuff. Those aren’t real accomplishments.” At Christopher’s look of surprise, I explained, “My parents hate tattoos. Well, my mom does. My dad wouldn’t have an independent opinion if it begged him. She thinks they’re ugly and disgusting. When I left school at sixteen to apprentice, they didn’t speak to me for months. And when they did, my mother cried every time she saw me because it was just so hard for her that I would never amount to anything. It’s terrible for a parent when their child totally disappoints them, did you know?”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. That’s awful—they should be so proud of you. Would they have felt the same if you hadn’t left school?”

  “It wouldn’t have been quite as bad, probably. They were horrified. Like, spit over their shoulders, don’t speak my name horrified. I swear to god, in another life, my mother would’ve loved to be a voodoo practitioner. She said I was throwing my life away, that I was chasing a stupid dream. I mean, at least if I’d run away to Hollywood to try and be a movie star or something, they could’ve understood the impulse. Even though no doubt my mom would’ve told me I’d never make it because movie stars are thin and beautiful. Still, she could’ve understood. But tattoos? I might as well as have dropped out of high school to be a garbage collector, in her mind. Uh, not that there’s anything wrong with—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Christopher said, patting my arm. His expression darkened. “I am, in this moment, honestly not trying to flirt with you, though I’ll start trying again after this moment. But I don’t get this thing you keep saying about your mom and your looks. You’re gorgeous. Your skin and your hair and your—god, those big brown eyes—and your fucking mouth. I don’t get it.”

  He shook his head and a wave of warmth washed through me. It was the nicest non-flirting I’d ever heard. “Um, well, I’m glad you think so? But…here, look.”

  I pulled out my phone and found a picture of my mom and Eva that I’d taken earlier that evening. They stood, flanking the oven, both looking slightly off to the left, because the doorbell had rung. I took the picture because they looked so hilariously like each other they could’ve been twins, my mom in a lavender cardigan and khaki capris, Eva in a lemon yellow cardigan and khaki capris, both of them with their arms crossed loosely in front of them.

  “This is my mom, this is Eva. She’s my mother’s clone. They even got the same haircut, see? Mother-daughter spa day, ya know? And no, I wasn’t invited—but it’s the haircut my mom always gets so now Eva looks about fifty years old. She’s the office manager for a big tech company in Center City and has appropriate nine-to-five things to say about her job. Not, mind you, that she couldn’t have done better, as my mother points out from time to time when she’s feeling particularly poisonous and I’m not rising to her bait in a satisfying manner. ‘Eva’s very smart and could have run the company.’”

  “Jesus, your whole voice changes when you do that mom impression thing—it’s creepy.”

  “Ugh. Yeah, it’s a nightmare. I can hear her voice in my head. ‘Ginger, you know, if you’d just lose ten pounds then maybe your tattoos would look like an avant-garde statement instead of a desperate attempt to thumb your nose at society’s standards of beauty before men reject you for being…unconventional-looking. Ginger, if you insist on spending all your time at that tattoo store, then you’ll never expand your horizons and meet a different class of people. Oh, Ginger, you were such a smart girl—what happened? Ginger, you may think everything is fun and games now, but what will happen when you wake up twenty years from now, and you’re an old lady covered in tattoos who’s wasted her life an
d ended up totally alone without accomplishing anything?’”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and slouched down on the couch. That last comment had sounded a little less like my mom than I’d expected.

  Christopher put down his plate and slid next to me on the couch. “Come here.”

  He took my plate off my stomach and pulled me against him. He then proceeded to give me the world’s nicest hug.

  “Fuck,” he murmured, and I didn’t think I’d heard him use the word before. “I think your family sounds kind of awful.”

  I sighed into his neck, breathing in his smell. “They are,” I muttered. “I hate them. I don’t know why I even went. I don’t know why I ever talk to them at all. They just make me feel like shit.”

  I felt sulky and raw—wrung out. I hated how much I could hate them and still be hurt by them. Christopher ran his hand up and down my back and I let myself melt farther into him.

  “I guess I kind of…I always hold out this tiny little bit of hope that one day they’ll magically…turn into other people or something and be proud of me. It’s stupid, I know.”

  “It’s not stupid. It’s generous. With family, it’s easier if you can write them off entirely, I think. Draw a firm line. But you don’t just stop loving people, or stop wanting them to love you just because they act badly, you know?”

  I nodded into his shoulder and breathed in his smell. Fresh air and beeswax, and the earthy smell of wool from his sweater. It was slightly too small for him, showing his T-shirt at the waist and leaving his wrist bones exposed, like it couldn’t quite contain him.

  I lifted myself away and sat facing him, grabbing my plate again. I had barely eaten anything at dinner. “Okay, anyway, tell me about your nice Thanksgiving. I want to live vicariously.”

  “Well, you’ve met my parents so you can probably guess there was a ton of food and a lot of talking over each other.”

  I smiled. The one time I’d been at the shop when both of Christopher’s parents were there they had been like a sitcom couple, finishing each other’s sentences, talking over each other, and swatting each other affectionately. It was utterly unlike my mother’s icy disdain and my father’s anxious bumbling.

  “Some aunts and uncles and cousins were there, and a friend of my mom’s who’s like a aunt to us. She has a subscription to every magazine under the sun so she’s always quoting them, only she’ll mix up the tips from different magazines, so it becomes a ridiculous mashup of, like, ‘how to remove a stain from your sexually uninhibited cat using only ultra-thick motor oil and the powers of embracing yes.’ We ate a lot and there were five different kinds of pie—I’m a pie man, you should know. Over cake, I mean.”

  That was ludicrous, but I let it go for the moment. I’d had enough discord for one evening. “How do you feel about ice cream?”

  “I could take it or leave it.”

  “So what else should I know?” I’d meant it to just encourage him to tell me more about Thanksgiving, but his expression grew a little shy.

  “I told my brother about you.”

  “You did?”

  “I emailed him about you. He doesn’t do the phone.”

  “Amen.”

  “I told him I had a huge crush on you,” he drawled, leaning back on the couch and grinning at me. That should’ve sounded puerile and ridiculous but I liked how he was challenging me. As if it was a dare where I would have to tell him explicitly if his attention wasn’t warranted. “I also told him that our date the other night was the best date I’d ever been on. And not just because I got an original Ginger Holtzman out of the deal.”

  Whoa. That was unbelievably sweet. “Um, wow, thanks. I…well, it was the best date I’ve ever been on too. Hands down. Are you guys close?”

  “We…are. I haven’t actually seen him in a while. He’s lived in Boston during the year and in a small town near Tanglewood Music Center in the summers for the last few years, and I’ve been all over the place. We were really close as kids.”

  “He older or younger?”

  “Older. A little over two years. I would drive him nuts following him around and stuff when he wanted to be left alone, but we mostly got along really well. I wanted to be just like him. He was so smart. He always seemed to understand everything. Stuff our parents’ friends said. Why people did stuff. He was in math classes with seniors in high school when we were still in middle school. And the piano? He was just…unbelievable. I even tried to pretend I was bad at some of the stuff he was bad at so I’d be more like him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I pretended I wasn’t good at sports even though I was. Or my dad had season hockey tickets and Jude thought hockey was boring so I pretended I didn’t want to go.” He grinned. “Fortunately my dad saw right through me and made me go anyway, so I could whine about it and front like I didn’t want to but I still got to go.”

  “God, that’s so sweet of your dad.”

  “Yup. When we were little, Jude and I did everything together. Shared everything.” He rolled his eyes. “He had this kind of singular focus though, even as a kid. This follow-through. Once, we said we were going to set up all the trains and this little Christmas village thing that we’d had forever. My parents had it all packed away in the attic. We dragged out all these boxes and unpacked the stuff, and after like an hour I was kind of done. But Jude spent all day on it. Maybe eight hours setting the whole thing up. It was amazing—so intricate. It was perfect.”

  Christopher’s eyes were wistful and far away.

  “I was more interested in watching him because he was so totally absorbed in it. Older brother worship, or whatever. But he had this way of making me feel like whatever he did still included me. We left it up for a month and he always called it our village, as if I hadn’t just sat there, occasionally handing him stuff. Anyway, around the time he turned fourteen everything kind of changed. He started acting so different. He stopped talking to me. Stopped talking, period. He never wanted to hang out. Never wanted to do anything. It was like he just…switched off? He was there, physically, but inside, he was gone.”

  I slid my hand into Christopher’s and squeezed, hard.

  “I was too young to really understand what was happening. This was years before he got diagnosed. I just knew that all of a sudden he didn’t want me around anymore. He’d just stay in his room and listen to music. My parents said he was just being a moody teenager, and I assumed they were right. He was older and I figured it would happen to me to. But it just got worse and worse. Turned out he has major depressive disorder.”

  “That’s so hard. How is he now?”

  “Not great. He’s actually in a hospital right now, in Boston, so they can keep an eye on him. Then he’s coming to stay with my parents. But we’re not sure when. Maybe for Christmas…” He trailed off, seeming distracted by playing with my hair. Before I could ask another question about his brother he said, “I try really hard not to stare at you because you get this boo face sometimes.”

  “Boo face?” It took me a second to register the abrupt subject change.

  “Yeah, like boo!” He said it like I was a ghost popping out from behind a curtain. “Like, you want to scare me away. I want to though. You’re so…complicated-looking.”

  My first reaction was suspicion, but the way his eyes were moving from my hair to my face to my body felt pretty complimentary.

  “Beautiful, I mean, like I already said,” he said absently. “But with all your tattoos and your hair. Your face, how you dress. It’s like there’s so much of you going on I always feel like I don’t want to miss anything. Uh, that was me back to flirting again.”

  That was about the best compliment I’d ever gotten.

  We sat on the couch and looked at each other, but instead of feeling self-conscious and irritated, like I usually would with someone talking about my appearance, I felt like he saw me. Like he was looking at all the specific things that made me me.

  And after a few breaths, I fo
rced myself to do what I actually wanted to do. I stopped thinking about how he was watching me, what he might be thinking about what he saw. And I started actually looking at him the way I always wanted to look at people but usually didn’t because I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable. And I hoped that he’d feel it as the appreciation I intended, and not scrutiny.

  Faces were like tattoos, aesthetic and expressive at the same time. Faces were what they were when they were still—beautiful, ugly, boring, interesting, and everything in between. But they were never really blank. Beauty didn’t signify, but the way someone used their face, the way their face formed expressions—it interacted with their features in a way that had impact.

  The freckles that followed the lines of Christopher’s cheekbones and crossed over the bridge of his nose were aesthetically pleasing to me, yeah, but also, when he laughed and his face turned pliable those freckles cut a line through that expression, reminding me of a hard spine beneath soft skin. The fact that his lower lip was full was hot because it made me think of kissing him and of what else his mouth could do. But also, when he shot me the look that meant he found something I’d just said ridiculous, his mouth retained some gentleness, easing any barb.

  I traced his mouth with my finger and felt his sharp breath. I ran my fingertips over the shaved sides of his hair. It felt like velvet, and Christopher’s eyes fluttered shut as I moved to run my fingers through the rest of his hair. I loved the color of it, a thick, fiery shade between russet and rust. He slid a hand into my hair and twined his fingers through my curls. His touch was tender and sure, and it made me feel like he wanted me. Like anything I did would be welcome.

  I leaned in and kissed him, pressing him back into the couch, and he hummed into my mouth, his other hand holding me close. I wanted to taste his skin everywhere, feel the subtle change from smooth to rough and everything in between. My tongue along the shell of his ear, dipping inside at his sharp intake of breath. Mapping his jaw and kissing his throat where his stubble softened. But it was so much—so overwhelming with him close, all color and line and texture and angle, smell and breath and sound.