Indestructible Object

by Mary McCoy

  Ian in the back seat of my car was no better than Ian in the alley, and it didn’t take long before the novelty of hooking up with someone new disappeared entirely. I pulled away, refastened the buttons on my shirt, and told Ian I didn’t think this was working. He shrugged, and at first I thought, Okay, it’s cool, no harm, no foul. But then, Ian suggested—seemed to expect, in fact—that I would “take care of him,” to use his words, intimating that what I had done was somehow unfair and that my unfairness to him was going to result in some kind of great physical pain.

  “How is that fair to me?” I asked.

  “It’s not a big deal. It’s just relief.”

  My parents were probably getting divorced, and my boyfriend had dumped me for public radio. I did not have time for this shit.

  “If it’s not a big deal, then do it yourself,” I said. “Don’t let the specter of blue balls hang needlessly over my car.”

  Then I made an Oooooooo sound and waved my hands in the air like a ghost, the Specter of Blue Balls in this case, which he did not find as funny as I did, and then I told him to get out of my car and I drove home, even though there were three other people on the open mic sign-up sheet scheduled to play after the break, and all my gear was still inside, and Claire had no idea where I was.

  Kicking him out of my car was the only part of the whole encounter that wasn’t a mistake. And now, in addition to feeling annoyed, disappointed, and filled with dread about the idea of returning to Java Cabana to face Claire, I also feel out of practice at all of this stuff, and decidedly off my game.

  I should probably mention, all this time I’ve been talking about how deep and passionate a love affair Vincent and I had, we never actually had sex. I have had sex with people who were not Vincent. Not a lot of them, but there had been times when the possibility of sex, or at least enthusiasm about it, was part of the equation.

  Not only did Vincent and I never have sex, but he never even seemed like he wanted to. Eventually, I stopped asking him to touch me in different places, or asking if he wanted me to touch him, because the answer was always the same. He’d shake his head and look away and we’d stop kissing and never talk about it. Since I didn’t want to lose the kissing, too, I stopped bringing it up at all and just let the kissing be enough. Which sometimes it was. That’s the other thing—I mean, yes, I was frustrated sometimes, but that wasn’t Vincent’s problem. And unlike Ian, I didn’t think that was Vincent’s job to take care of.

  And that’s the most confusing, irritating part of what happened with Ian and me last night. As poorly as it had gone, I’m surprised how good it felt to want a guy to put his hands on me like that, to feel excited about what might happen next.

  Of course, having those exciting, sexy feelings tied to a guy who’d proven himself to be wholly undeserving of them makes me wonder if Vincent’s way is right. Maybe desire is something to put in a jar for later, and my life would be happier and simpler without sex in it.

  I emerge from my bedroom to find the house empty, two notes addressed to me on the kitchen table. My dad has left for work, taking Sage and Max with him. My mom and Maggie have left for the train station. They’re all very sorry to have missed me, and I feel alone in a way I’ve never experienced before. Ordinarily, I’d call Vincent or work on Artists in Love or go to Java Cabana, but now I have no one to see, nothing to do, and nowhere to go.

  I know I should go to Java Cabana and apologize to Claire for skipping out on the second half of open mic and leaving my gear behind. I don’t flatter myself thinking that she wasted any energy worrying about my sorry ass, but she’s probably furious that I left her to close by herself.

  I feel too ashamed to face her, so as a kind of penance, I lie down on the floor, let my back ache on the hard wood. I don’t know what my mom was thinking, suggesting that I make something. There isn’t a single idea in my head, and I realize that maybe I was never an artist at all. Artists are supposed to feed on experiences like this. They’re supposed to make beauty out of tragedy, art out of heartbreak. These things are supposed to charge you up and give you something to make art about. But me? At the first setback, I give up, let all the life go out of me.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been on the floor when I hear a knock at the front door, and when I get up and answer it and find Vincent standing there with a cup of coffee and a bag of pastries from the bakery near his house, I’m so happy, so relieved to see him, that I fling myself into his arms. The coffee slops over the lid on impact, splashing down my leg, and the pastry bag is smashed against my chest, but I don’t care because Vincent is hugging me back, hugging me like his life depends on it.

  I start crying, and then he’s crying, and even though there are so many things I want to say to him, I don’t allow myself to say any of them first.

  Not I miss you, not I love you.

  I don’t say those things because he’s the one who is leaving, and because I still don’t know what he’s doing at my house.

  Finally, we let go of each other, and I take the coffee cup from his hand and set it on a coaster, inspect the pastries, which are not unsalvageably crushed, and go to the kitchen for cups and plates and forks. I’m weirdly formal as I lay it all out on the coffee table, put a pastry on each plate, and divide the coffee between two cups and saucers, folded paper towels on the side. I feel his eyes on me, on my every move and gesture, like he’s memorizing them.

  Because there is nothing else to do, and because I’m still waiting for him to say something, I sit and take a bite of my pastry, a sip of my coffee, and finally, Vincent asks, “How are you?”

  I think about the past twenty-four hours, about my parents and Ian and fucking up the open mic night and the crushing emptiness of standing alone in my living room with no ideas. It’s been less than two days since we broke up, and he wants to know how I am?

  “Not great, Vincent,” I say, and then I start to laugh, and he starts to laugh too. At first, he laughs like he’s not sure whether he should, but then we both lose it and our laughter becomes almost unhinged.

  Eventually, I pull myself together and ask, “And what about you? How have you been?”

  I’m being formal again, like he’s someone I barely know, someone I’ve forgotten how to talk to. His face grows serious and he takes a deep breath and says, “Lee, I think I made a mistake.”

  My heart starts to beat faster, and a surge of adrenaline shoots through my body and sends my muscles quivering, even as my brain whispers, Settle down, slow down, you don’t even know what he means.

  “I was at church last night, and everybody was congratulating me, making a big fuss, but the whole time it was like they were secretly thinking, Really? You?”

  I’ve never met the people at Vincent’s church, but they’ve known Vincent his whole life. They watched him grow up.

  “Isn’t it possible they’re genuinely proud of you?” I ask.

  “Or it’s possible they think a spot at Howard should have gone to someone a little more Black.”

  “Vincent, that’s bullshit,” I say, not knowing how much exactly that means coming from me, a white person who didn’t even know about Howard University until her boyfriend applied there.

  “I used to worry that I was the wrong kind of Black for Memphis, and now I’m worried that I’m not Black enough for Howard. Or talented enough, or smart enough. They put me on the waitlist for a reason, Lee.”

  “They took you off for a reason, too,” I say.

  I’ve never seen Vincent like this before. I think back to the other night when we were recording the last episode of our podcast. He’d admitted to feeling nervous about not being up to the challenges and terrified about uprooting his life. The way he’d said it was so rational, like he was just acknowledging some unpleasant feelings before getting the better of them, but still, it should have tipped me off. Everything Vincent puts out into the world is so polished and positive and assured. Even his feelings.

  Especially his feelings.
>
  “I’ve been so unhappy, Lee. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. I keep thinking about what my life will be like without you, and it is intolerable to me.”

  I like that he said “intolerable.”

  It’s such a certain word, it sounds like the Vincent I’m used to. When I imagine what my life will look like without Vincent in it, I can’t muster language that certain. What I know is this: before Vincent and I broke up, I could see a future that was very big and full of all the things I wanted most; and now it was an empty room, silent and still. My life without Vincent is unimaginable to me. Which is also intolerable.

  “What are you thinking, Lee? Please, say something.”

  Sitting next to him on the couch, I study his face, his golden-brown eyes, the sweat beaded adorably on his nose.

  “I love you,” I tell him, “but you’re leaving.”

  “That doesn’t change the way I feel. I love you, too.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Vincent, I’m so tired. Will you hold me some more?”

  He knows what I mean when I say this. It’s an old code between us. We go down the hallway to my bedroom, and I close the door behind us, turn on the air conditioner, and pull the curtains closed. And then, Vincent and I slide under the covers of my bed, our arms and legs intertwined, our faces pressed together. It feels like home, just like it always did. Even though we never take our clothes off, every time we hold each other like this, I think, I will never feel this close to anyone again.

  “What do we do now?” I ask, my eyes half-closed, drinking in the smell of him. After he leaves, I know his smell will still cling to these sheets, and I can bury my face in the pillow and remember that this happened, that it was real. I thought I’d lost him, and then, there he was.

  “Come with me,” Vincent says.

  “Really?”

  “I don’t want to do this without you.”

  Tears begin to leak from my eyes. This isn’t supposed to happen. He isn’t supposed to come back. I’m not supposed to get him back.

  The lump in my throat, the tears in my eyes, the feeling in my heart all tell me to nuzzle into his shoulder and say, Yes, yes, yes, I love you, and I will come with you.

  But when I open my mouth to say the words, nothing comes out.

  * * *

  The first time Lee Miller met Man Ray, she walked up to him in a Paris café and said, “I’m your new student.” He said, “I’m afraid that’s impossible, as I’m leaving Paris for the summer,” and Lee replied, “Then I’m coming with you.”

  Nothing about this story seems true, yet neither of them ever deviated in their telling of it for the rest of their lives.

  * * *

  It would feel so good, and so free, to give myself over to Vincent like that, and I don’t know why I can’t just say I’ll go with him. Vincent doesn’t seem to mind. He reads the language of my body, all weepily joyful and wrapped up together with him, and takes it for my answer.

  “I love you so much,” he says, and he kisses me.

  Maybe the words will come later, when I’m less overwhelmed, when my head is clear. I’ll be able to say them then.

  I kiss him back, and it feels like home, and without meaning to, we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  CHAPTER 6 Head in the Game

  Lee!” I wake up to the sound of my dad’s voice, a sharp voice he never uses, and the glare of my bedroom light. I dig myself out from under the sheets and sit up, at which point I notice that Vincent is still in my bed, a few seconds behind me in consciousness, his cheek still resting in a small spot of drool on my pillow. I check the clock on my dresser and realize that it’s four thirty, and that Vincent and I have been asleep for hours.

  My dad is standing in my doorway with Sage and Max. Sage studies my dad, waiting to take his cues on how to react, though my dad seems not to know.

  “Our guests are here.”

  Behind him, Max stifles a laugh. He looks different from how I remember him. The last time I saw him, he was wearing Banana Republic shorts and deck shoes. Now he’s wearing a mesh shirt and eyeliner. I wonder what this newest iteration of Max makes of me.

  Modest and discreet people might go back out to the living room and give Vincent and me a moment to collect ourselves, but Max, Sage, and my dad make no move to leave. Vincent shudders awake, then sits bolt upright in bed, a look on his face like he might perish on the spot. If this had happened to us at his house, his parents would be dragging him out of bed by the ear and taking him straight to church. They would have looked at me like I was some kind of biblical temptress, come to cut off their son’s hair or sell his birthright.

  “Vincent, will you be staying for dinner?” my dad asks in an uncharacteristically frosty tone. As far as he knows, this is still the person who broke up with me less than two days ago.

  “I’m so sorry, sir. I had no idea how late it had gotten.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question, Vincent. Will you be joining us or not?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you,” Vincent says, because he thinks he’s supposed to, and in his effort to be polite, inadvertently does the thing no one wants.

  “Very good,” my dad says. “I’ll order the pizza.”

  “Hi, Lee. Hi, Vincent. Congratulations on Howard,” Max says, waving from behind our parents.

  “And NPR,” Sage calls from the doorway. “And congratulations on graduation, Lee. Do you have any plans for the summer?”

  “Not really,” I say.

  “It’s a wild time,” they say. “Limbo land. Your old life isn’t entirely over, but your new one hasn’t entirely started. That’s how I remember it, at least.”

  Sage and my dad exchange a look, and he snorts, and I realize that the three of them are enjoying the shit out of themselves, making this as awkward and embarrassing as possible.

  “How about you, Max?” my dad asks. “Have you figured out your life yet? Have you picked a major?”

  Frozen beneath the sheets, Vincent blushes furiously.

  Max, who is still grinning, turns to my dad and says, “I’m going to major in Mortification Studies with a minor in Napping Until the Food Gets Here.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to visit with Lee and Vincent?”

  “I think maybe they need a minute.”

  “Yeah, a minute would be nice,” I say.

  My dad says, “Then I’ll see the two of you in the living room in a minute.”

  “Actually, sir,” Vincent says, probably considering the prolonged awkwardness of joining my family for dinner and dialing back from his gallant etiquette, “I should probably go home.”

  “Are your parents expecting you?” Sage asks.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Just Sage is fine. I’m not a ma’am.”

  “Yes,” Vincent says, and I can tell he’s barely caught himself from saying ma’am again. Sage gets clocked as a guy about as frequently as they get clocked as a woman. It’s worse in the South with all the excessive sir-ing and ma’am-ing that goes on. Like people can’t figure out how to be polite to you unless they can determine to their satisfaction where you belong.

  “If you have to call me something, call me Captain,” Sage says, and they and my dad finally leave, closing the door behind them. I look at Vincent and laugh while he puts his head under the covers.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” he says.

  I run a brush through my hair, fix my face in the mirror, smooth the fabric of my sundress. In the mirror, I catch Vincent looking at me.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he says. “And I’m so happy.”

  “What are you so happy about?” I ask. I already know, but I want to hear him say it.

  Vincent swings his legs over the side of the bed and comes up behind me, puts his arms around my waist as we stand together in front of the mirror.

  “I’m glad I came over, I’m glad you let me stay. I’m glad about everything that h
appened this afternoon. I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We go out into the living room, and Vincent pulls himself together and says his awkward goodbyes. The detritus from our morning, the half-empty coffee cups and plates covered in crumbs are still on the coffee table. It feels weirdly intimate, having it out there for everyone to see, and I clear it away in a rush.

  When the pizza arrives, my dad, Sage, Max, and I sit down to dinner like nothing has happened. No one asks me what Vincent was doing in my bed; no one asks me how my heart is.

  Instead Sage pulls out their notebook and begins to page through it with my dad, showing him some of their latest tattoo designs.

  “Do you see anything you like?” they ask.

  “I’ve been thinking,” my dad says slowly, “could you do a bridge for me?”

  “Like London Bridge? The Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “The M Bridge,” my dad says. I know he’s talking about the Hernando de Soto Bridge, which stretches from downtown across the river into Arkansas. Everybody calls it the M Bridge, though. M for Memphis. M for Mississippi River.

  M for Maya, my mother’s name, I think.

  “I can do that for you,” Sage says before turning to me to ask, “What about you? Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?”

  “I can’t think of anything I’d want on me permanently.”

  “A tattoo doesn’t have to say something about the rest of your life. It only has to say something about your life right now.”

  “But it’s on you for the rest of your life.”

  “Well, there’s that,” Sage says, then rolls up their sleeve and points to a tacky four-leaf clover inked on their bicep, right in the middle of the beautiful dragons and stained glass swirls. “Looks like it came out of a cereal box, right?”

  “Can you cover it up?”

  “It’s part of my story,” they say.

  It makes sense to hear it that way, sort of. If you covered up part of your own story, wasn’t that like saying you were ashamed of it?