Cyril in the Flesh

by Ramsey Hootman

  She shakes her head. “It blows my mind every time I see you do that.”

  “Do what?” He sweeps the dice off the edge of the table, tucking them into the pouch they came in, and helps himself to the last of the Oreos.

  “You know. Transform. Into...” She waves her hand in a magician’s flourish. “Some kind of medieval bard, or whatever. The story, the voices—every one of those kids was completely engaged. Even Kai”—she looks around to make sure neither of the kids is present—“who is a little asshole. Teachers would kill for that kind of focus.”

  “Well, maybe teachers should be better at their jobs.” He tosses the rest of the figurines and tokens into the plastic shopping bag, helps Robin fold up the drop cloth, and props the sheet of plywood against the wall.

  “Do me a favor,” Robin says. “Get the kids in the shower before you give them lunch. They’re filthy.”

  He hesitates. “You’re not coming—”

  “Just a couple more things I wanna do. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  He falls for it, hook line and sinker. He’s got the griddle on the stove, warming it up for grilled cheese, when he hears, in the distance, the air compressor’s long, obnoxious waaaaa.

  He rings her from the dining room, shutting the hall door to tone down the shrieks of the children spraying each other with the handheld attachment in the shower. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I told you. Just a little cleanup. Nothing big. I promise.”

  “I can hear your fucking nail gun.”

  “Okay, I’m doing a little light cabinetry.”

  “That is not—you know what, never mind. Just get your ass back up here.”

  She laughs. “Make me.”

  And then the line goes dead.

  He scowls at his phone, then jams it back into his pocket and opens the hall door. “Wrap it up, guys!”

  Seth is the first to emerge from the cloud of billowing steam, wrapped in one of Robin’s plush green towels. Cyril hands him a pile of clothes. “Get dressed, go down the hill, and get your mom back up here ASAP.”

  He’s flipping the third grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate when the back door opens and shuts again with a thwack.

  It’s just the kid.

  “Mom said that’s cheating,” Seth informs him. “Can I have lunch now?”

  “God damn it,” he mutters, under his breath. He went up and down the hill in the back yard so many times the night it rained his legs still have PTSD. He slaps two grilled cheese sandwiches on plates, one for each of the kids, and takes the third for himself. “Get some apple juice for you and Nora,” he tells Seth. “Try not to spill.”

  The sandwich is gone by the time he reaches the barn. “This—” He sucks in a deep breath and clears the phlegm from his throat before stepping through the open doors again. “This is not funny.”

  Robin props the butt of her nail gun on her shoulder. “I dunno, I mean, I think it’s funny.”

  Jesus Christ. “You were bored. You wanted your kids back. I got them back. Now go fucking take care of yourself.”

  “What’re you gonna give me, if I do?”

  “No. I’m not doing this.” He slices the air with a hand. “I’m not playing this game.”

  “Says the guy who started it. Fine.” She sets the gun on her workbench with a thump. “Here’s the deal. Take me to dinner.”

  He looks at her for a long moment. “Are you fucking kidding me.”

  “Answer me this, big guy. If—” She levels a finger at him, realizes her hands are coated with sawdust, and dusts them off brusquely. “If you’re gonna punish yourself every time we get close, why can’t I offer an alternate incentive?”

  It takes a moment for him to fully comprehend her utter insanity. “You cannot fucking bargain with your body.”

  “Why not?” She picks up the nail gun again. “You do.” She bends over a half-assembled cabinet and squeezes the trigger, popping off a line of nails.

  “You’re a goddamn lunatic,” he says, shouting over the kickback.

  She moves to the next joint and lays another row of nails. “Nothing fancy. Bear Republic has outdoor dining, if you’re cool with burgers and beer. Greta said she’s happy to come over and hang out for a couple hours.” She shrugs. “Up to you.”

  Chapter 21

  Greta sizes him up like spoiled leftovers. “This... is the best you could do?”

  “Says the woman in a polo shirt and mom jeans.” Cyril steps back, ushering Greta over the threshold with a sarcastic flourish of one hand. “I had about four hours’ advance notice. What was I supposed to do?”

  Her eyebrows arch. “You’ve had years.”

  “Oh, right, it’s not my clothes, it’s everything underneath.”

  “I was referring to your personality,” she retorts, stiffly.

  “Obviously. You’d never resort to body shaming. Glass houses and all—”

  “I already have two kids,” Robin says, sweeping into the living room. “I don't need two more.”

  They fall silent, but not because of her words. She’d assured him casual dress was fine—not that he owns anything else—and, in a technical sense, her attire meets that definition: a sleeveless linen shift accented with teardrop earrings and beaded sandals. But she is stunning.

  Cyril looks down at his flip-flops and the garish Hawaiian shirt she’d insisted he wear—again—and is forced to agree with Greta: “This is fucking absurd.”

  The older woman’s head swivels to give him a sharp look. “Is that the language you use with the children?”

  “I dunno, is that the face you use—”

  “Would you stop?” Robin snatches her mask and purse off the top off the piano, grabs Cyril’s arm, and drags him toward the door. “Greta, thank you so much, the kids are supposed to be in the bathroom brushing their teeth.”

  Greta nods. “Have... fun,” she says, though her tone says she can’t begin to fathom how that might be possible.

  “Two,” Robin says, holding up the corresponding number of fingers.

  The blue-masked host grabs a pair of menus and nods for them to follow him across a square hillock of bright green grass. Three of four sides are lined with rustic wooden booths that look like they’ve been salvaged from an Irish pub, with the addition of vinyl dividers on stakes stretched around each set of high-backed benches to provide an extra measure of isolation. A chorus of low whomphs sounds as a breeze gusts around the vinyl partitions.

  Cyril catches her wrist. “Do you eat at any restaurant that doesn’t have booths?” Months after Tav’s death, he’d offered to take her out to dinner for her birthday. They’d had to wait for one of the few tables at the steakhouse to free up because the thought of him squeezing into a booth had been utterly laughable.

  “You’ll fit,” she says, pulling out of his grasp.

  “The fuck I will,” he growls, following her across the grass. It’s damp, and his feet sink into the soil. Last time they’d gone out, he’d passed off the dinner invitation as a gesture of friendship. Tavis had always made a holiday of her birthday, and Cyril had known the first year without him would be especially hard. Now she knows the truth. Oh, maybe she doesn’t know it took him weeks to compose that idiotic little speech he’d had to read off a fucking piece of paper because he couldn’t trust himself not to go off script, but she knows he was the one who had composed all the birthday cards and poems and jokes Tavis had presented her with over the years. She has to have realized it was never just dinner between friends, for him.

  It’s a squeeze, but, actually, he does fit. Robin lifts an I-told-you-so eyebrow.

  “You think this is funny?” he demands, when the host has distributed menus and assured them that their waiter will be right along. Now that she knows how pathetic he is—how even after Tavis was dead and buried he just couldn’t fucking let it go—does she get a kick out of making him squirm?

  Robin tugs the table toward herself, giving him another inch or two of c
learance. “Cyril, I can eyeball measurements to the quarter inch. Give me a little credit.” She casts a glance at the menu and then flips it aside. “You’re not nearly as big as you think you are.”

  “Oh, yes, because four hundred fifty is so much lighter than—”

  “Six hundred?” She scoffs. “Yes. It really is. You’re a big guy, Cyril. Six foot what, four?”

  “Five.”

  “See?” She flutters a dismissive hand. “You can get away with a lot.”

  He plucks at the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned out of necessity rather than choice. “It’s the macaws. Everyone knows parrots are slimming.”

  She snorts. “Seriously, though. I don’t know how you feel, but you look a lot more comfortable in your own skin than you did when you went to prison.”

  “Oh, is ‘comfortable’ the new euphemism for fat?”

  She gives him a long, low-lidded look of disdain. Then she rolls her eyes upward and sighs. “Okay. I give up. What do I do when you hate on yourself? Is it better if I just ignore it?”

  “Honestly?” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.” No matter what she says or doesn’t say, his self-talk is louder than her voice can ever be. Just like no matter how much weight he sheds, he will always be that obscenely bloated loser playing pretend with his best friend’s widow.

  Robin studies his face, as if she’s trying to figure out what’s going on in his head. Then the waiter arrives, sparing him from further scrutiny. Robin waits politely as the young man recites the day’s specials, then orders pulled pork sandwiches and house-brewed root beer for both of them.

  “That’s not what I wanted.”

  She hands their menus to the waiter, dismissing him with a nod. “Trust me, it is.”

  “You’ve been here?”

  “Oh, all the time. Well—before COVID.”

  “With who?” He can’t imagine her chilling at this hip brewery with Greta and her pocket-sized husband. Especially since the guy doesn’t seem to go outside. And it’s definitely too upscale for the kids.

  She tugs at one earring, sliding the hook back and forth through the piercing in her earlobe. “Myself.”

  “That’s not weird or anything.”

  “What? You know I’ve always liked solo dining. It’s a forbidden pleasure when you’ve got two kids.” Her eyes crinkle with humor. “Plus, I’m excellent company.”

  The waiter brings their drinks, and Cyril realizes the young man’s chitchat is not just the simple politeness he had first assumed, but that in fact this nascent adult knows Robin well enough to comment on the fact that she hasn’t ordered her usual non-alcoholic beer.

  “Sometimes I just get tired of the fake stuff. Yours is the best, but still, why even pretend?” She tugs her mask off and samples the dark amber liquid from a glass beaded with condensation. “The root beer is excellent, though, thank you.”

  Cyril tosses his own mask aside and tries it. “Not bad.” This is a massive understatement. But everything tastes fantastic after prison grub, so it’s hard to know whether he’s being objective.

  Robin’s phone pings; she pulls it out of her purse and laughs when she sees the message on the screen. “The kids are trying to convince Greta they should get Minecraft for bedtime stories. You’ve spoiled them.” Smiling, she taps back a reply with her thumbs.

  “I will never understand why the kids like her.”

  Robin snickers as she tucks the phone away. “Same reasons they like you, big guy.” She holds up an index finger. “You’re both fantastic cooks—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I admit Greta’s more skilled, but she’d never make the kids jello and macaroni, so you each have your advantages.” She lifts a second finger. “You both love kids—”

  “I hate kids. I love two very specific people who also happen to be children.”

  A third finger goes up. “You’re both wildly overprotective—”

  “Look, we’re both ugly as sin, I’ll give you that.” He sits back, lifting his arms out of the way as the waiter arrives with their meals. “Beyond that, I have nothing in common with Sue Sylvester. But we already know you’re good at believing whatever the hell you want.”

  “If you—” Robin cuts herself off, nods a thank-you to the waiter as he retreats, and cocks her head to one side. “Okay, I have to ask. Sue Sylvester—you watch Glee?”

  “Voluntarily? No. There was only one television, and I was not in charge of the remote.”

  She stares at him, unmoving, and then blinks, slowly. “I have so many questions.”

  “And none of them are going to be answered.”

  He eats. She talks. Mostly about frivolous, inconsequential bullshit. Clothes she needs to buy for the kids. Local businesses that have closed because of COVID. Her plans for what to tackle next on the house. When and if church might open for in-person services again. This is why he was never interested in relationships.

  At some point, Robin catches on. She stops talking. Raises an eyebrow. “Am I boring you?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that in a way that won’t offend you.”

  “So, yes. You’re welcome to change the subject.”

  He shrugs. “We’re just killing time until I fuck things up again.”

  She tilts her head back, casting a thoughtful look upward through the spindly tree branches to the sky. “I don’t get it,” she says. “You’ve spent years obsessing over me—we’ve written the equivalent of entire novels to each other. But now we’re here, together, and you're not interested in conversation?” She shakes her head. “Why are you even here at all?”

  “Because taking you to dinner was the only way you’d agree to rest before chemo—”

  “You know what I mean. I assume there’s something about me that you can’t get from anyone else. I mean, there were plenty of hot women on campus back in college. You never came across like you had some weird black girl fetish. So why was it me when we met in the library that day? Was it just that I was there, and female?”

  “That’s not—” He stops. Looks at his plate. Shovels a few bites into his mouth.

  She frowns. “This is gonna be one of those things where I wish I hadn’t asked, isn’t it.”

  “It's just—that's not where we met.” Not the first time, anyway.

  “Pretty sure I’d have remembered you and your big fat mouth.”

  He doesn’t answer. She shrugs. They eat in silence. When she’s cleared about two thirds of her meal, she lifts her plate and scrapes the remainder onto his. He finishes without comment.

  She reaches for her purse, pulling out her mask and orienting it with the nose wire on top.

  “It was outside the silo,” he says. The lecture hall had earned its nickname because it looked, on the outside, like a giant tin can.

  She puts the mask down.

  “You were with a group of freshman girls, walking up the steps. White, suntanned, bleached-blond hair straight down to the middle of their backs. Your friends, I assume.”

  She snorts. “In my defense, my choices were limited.”

  “I don’t know what you were talking about, but you were all laughing.” This is a lie. He’d heard them loud and clear. The shortest one had been bitching about her father, painting him as an overprotective buffoon because he called her to check in every single night. When she’d neglected to return his calls over the weekend, he’d called the police—who had showed up with lights flashing, first thing Monday morning. “You made some excuse about having forgotten your notes. Then you ran back down the steps and ducked behind the bushes.” There was a tiny clearing in the corner formed by the steps and the side of the building, and the horizontal branch of a California cypress provided a perfect seat. A seat which he himself had been occupying only a moment before. “For about five minutes, you just sat there and let the tears run down your face.”

  He’d had no idea she wept for her father, then. What had fascinated him was not that she cried, but the effortlessness of
her tears. There was no attempt to stifle or subdue her grief; she simply let go. And when the storm had passed, she dried her face with the hem of her shirt, sniffed, and turned to leave.

  She looks at him, now, with a puzzled expression. “I don’t remember this at all.”

  Which is to say, she does not remember it in particular; there had been many days when she excused herself to cry. This was something he had discovered later, having made a study of her habits. She never made a scene, but if someone saw her, she didn’t try to hide. She felt what she needed to feel, and moved on. “I doubt you saw me.” Though he hadn’t been quite so... memorable, back then. (Memorable being, in this case, a euphemism for “huge.”)

  “Were you, like… hiding back there?”

  He eases himself out of the booth, pulling out his wallet to toss down a trio of twenties before looping his mask over his ears. “It was a good place to read between classes.” Hanging out in public view tended to come with irritating interruptions.

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I did. I got as far as ‘hey’ before you shrieked and ran off.” She is still seated, and he’s just standing there beside the table like a dumbass. It occurs to him that maybe her incision is sore. He offers a hand.

  “Wait.” A crease appears between her eyebrows as she takes his hand and rises. “That,” she says, “was you?” She tugs her hand away and uses it to give his shoulder a soft punch. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “I know. You mentioned it twice in emails to your mom.”

  She makes an exaggerated gagging noise. “Creep.” And then she laughs. “You couldn’t just introduce yourself, huh?” She tugs her mask into place, shoulders her purse, and starts for the exit, lifting a hand and calling out “thank you!” as they pass their waiter tending another table. Outside, she turns right.

  “Uh.” He points left. “Truck’s that way.”

  “We’re taking a stroll.”

  “That was not the deal.”

  “I’m altering the deal.” She hooks her arm through his. “Come on. I’m supposed to be getting some light exercise. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt you.”