We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  * * *

  We wrap up at the museum by ordering some velvet curtains online, express shipping, and Mom taps a crew to handle their installation.

  “Hope this rain lets up before tomorrow,” she says as we drive home. Tomorrow: an outdoor wedding at Alki Beach. It’s impossible to make it through a Seattle summer without at least one storm like this, the kind of rain that frustrates everyone because how dare one of our perfect sunny days be compromised. We always need a backup plan, and Mom has more than one favorite tent rental company.

  I focus on the swish of windshield wipers. “Mm-hmm.”

  After a half dozen hypnotic swishes, Mom lets out a deep breath, like she’s been working up to saying something. “So. I’ve wanted to ask you this for a while, but… you and Tarek?”

  A flash of panic. “Did Asher say something?”

  One side of her mouth curves upward. “When you’re in this business, you pick up on a lot of body language and nonverbal cues. I had a feeling that something romantic might be going on.”

  Jesus, my family needs some hobbies.

  I want to tell her there’s nothing romantic about what I’m doing with Tarek. “We’re just… hanging out.” What a euphemism.

  “O-kaaay,” she says in this high-pitched, very amused-sounding voice, and I fight the urge to hurl myself out of the car Lady Bird style.

  My mom and I don’t talk about things like this. We don’t talk about anything of substance.

  There’s a weariness in her face I don’t usually notice in the midst of a wedding, a droopiness beneath her eyes, a sag to her mouth. She’s beautiful, she always has been—she just looks exhausted.

  I wonder if it’s the way she looked before she moved out. The way she felt.

  For the first time, I’d rather talk more about a wedding than about this. “I really like working with Victoria and Lincoln.”

  “They’re great,” Mom says. “And this wedding could open up so many opportunities for us. We might even be able to do destination weddings. We’ve never had the budget or the bandwidth. But once you’re working full-time, it’ll be much easier for us to expand.”

  Any warmth I felt after helping Victoria turns cold. My chest tightens, and my brain fills with images I can’t control: me at twenty, stuck in business classes, my weekends accounted for. Planning the weddings of all my classmates who stayed in Seattle. At thirty, still in the tower and working for my parents. At forty, when my parents retire and pass B+B off to the next generation of Berkowitzes, and I have to force a smile and tell them this was what I always wanted, to take over this thing they built.

  “That sounds… wow,” I say, still trying to process it. “It wouldn’t be for a while, though, right?”

  “Right.” Mom goes quiet for a moment, and then: “The attitude isn’t helping, Quinn.”

  If she wanted a reaction from me, she’s getting one. “Attitude? Did I not just comfort Victoria in there?”

  “You did. And I appreciated it,” she says. “But you’ve been so distracted lately. I’m not upset, but I have to ask—is Tarek the reason you missed the walk-through?”

  “The pre-walk-through,” I correct. “Because of course we needed two walk-throughs. Nothing less than our best, right?”

  “We needed two walk-throughs to avoid what happened today.” There’s an edge to her voice. My mother, the boss, chastising her employee.

  I have to hold myself back from saying it’s not the relationship that’s distracting me. The relationship—the non-relationship—is the one thing that feels solid. Too solid, probably, but it’s a life raft right now.

  “Maybe I should skip tonight’s rehearsal dinner.” I slouch low in my seat, feeling more like a child than I ever have. “Since I have such a bad attitude and all.”

  “Maybe you should.” It’s an unexpected punch to the gut. “We’ll be fine without you.”

  And I should want to hear that they’ll be fine without me, but that’s not the way it feels. It feels like my worst fear, my parents and Asher on one side, me alone on the other. Battle lines drawn. It tempts the lies to climb up my throat until my desires are on display for everyone to see.

  “Great” is what I say instead, and we’re silent the rest of the drive.

  23

  Tarek smells like rain and chocolate.

  I texted him as soon as I saw the MTRMNY-mobile leave our driveway from my tower window, and he told me he was just getting home from therapy but he’d be over as soon as he could. If his appearance doesn’t take away all my anxiety, at the very least, it makes me feel like maybe I won’t have a total breakdown tonight. But who knows, the night is young and panic is my brand.

  “I’ve been doing some experimenting,” he says after I open the front door. He passes me a foil-covered mug, the ceramic still warm. “And I’m finally ready for you to try this.”

  “Is this what I think it is?” I peel back the foil and gasp. “You made a mug cake!”

  “I did. It should have cooled down enough at this point to eat it,” he says. “It sounded like you maybe needed some chocolate. And I’m not going to lie—part of me wanted to prove to you that this is better than the kind you microwave from a box.”

  “I really did need chocolate. This looks incredible. Thank you.”

  He peers past me into the house. He’s wearing a T-shirt again, and the sight of his bare forearms makes me wobbly. “Not that I don’t love and respect your parents, but I didn’t see the van in the driveway. Are they…?”

  “Not here,” I confirm, pulling him inside and closing the door behind him. “They’re at a rehearsal dinner.”

  “Good.” In one swift movement, he pins me against the door, trapping the mug between my chest and his. But instead of kissing me, he leans down, burying his face in my neck, his mouth fitting into the space where my neck meets my shoulder. There’s something deeply intimate about it, more so than a kiss. “You always smell like wood.”

  “From the shop.” I reach out my free hand to stroke his hair, to pull him closer. When I got home from the museum, I changed into the T-shirt and jeans I wore to Maxine’s earlier in the week. “It’s impossible to get the sawdust out of my clothes. I think I’m seventy percent sawdust and thirty percent human at this point. I can shower if—”

  “No.” He wraps my hair around his fist, a slight pressure as he pulls at it, breathing me in. “I love it.”

  That L-word lands heavy in my chest, but I’m distracted by his mouth moving up my jaw, kissing me beneath my ear, then my earlobe, a gentle bite on the shell of my ear. When I shiver at that, he bites down harder.

  In the depths of my mind, it occurs to me that I asked him over to comfort me the same way someone might seek comfort from a boyfriend or girlfriend. And the comfort he brought that’s warming my hands—that’s some kind of gesture, even if it’s not a flashy one. It’s personal, something he made because he knows my weakness for mug-based desserts. I like it too much to ponder what it means right now.

  When his lips find mine, he tastes like rain and chocolate, too.

  “Come upstairs,” I say, and I don’t have to tell him twice. I grab a pair of spoons from the kitchen before following him.

  From my bed, Edith regards him with a swish of her tail before looking up at me, as though she needs confirmation she should not pounce on him. Tarek makes a move to pet her, but I hold out a hand to stop him.

  “She responds best to people who ignore her.” Much to Asher’s chagrin. “The cat equivalent of playing hard to get.”

  “Well, sure.” He proceeds to stand up straight, determinedly not looking at her. She figure-eights around his legs, brushing up against his calves. “She seems to not hate me?”

  “You must smell good to her or something,” I say. Seeing him here in my bedroom, my cat warming up to him, makes me feel a certain way.

  Maybe being a prisoner up here wouldn’t be so terrible after all.

  “I’ve never had a boy in my room,” I tell hi
m. “I’ve never had a boy come to my house, actually.”

  His mouth quirks up at that. “So I’m special.”

  “A little.”

  “Is it okay to eat in here?” Tarek sits down on my bed next to Edith, who takes a tentative step into his lap. He scratches her head, behind her ears.

  “You’re asking the girl who hoards boxes of processed microwavable desserts in her room. Yes, it’s okay.”

  I hand him a spoon and sink onto the bed. I carve out a hunk of chocolaty goodness and lift it to my mouth, and… yeah. I could die right now and I’d only be a little mad. “It’s perfect. But you already knew that.”

  “Never hurts to hear it,” he says with a grin.

  We sit in this comfortable silence for a while, our spoons clinking against the ceramic mug. The rain pummels my windows. Up here in the tower, it feels like we’re taking shelter from an apocalyptic storm, like we’ve slipped out of summer and into another season entirely. Like I’m sitting on someone else’s bed with this sweet boy who bakes sweet things.

  “No pressure,” he says, “but if you need to talk about whatever happened today, I’m here to listen.”

  “It’s just work.” I bury a hand in Edith’s fur. “Victoria and Lincoln’s wedding, the camera crew, everyone freaking out about it. I’m used to my parents treating me like an employee, but lately they’ve been treating me like their least-qualified employee.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He links his fingers with mine, thumb rubbing my palm.

  “I have to quit. After Asher’s wedding.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nod, feeling more certain about this than I have about anything in a while. “And then I’ll start school in a month and study… something.” Despite the calming motion of his fingers stroking mine, I let out a deep sigh. “Even if I don’t have it figured out, shouldn’t I at least have some idea? Am I broken?”

  “No. You are not broken.” He says this with such conviction. I want to believe him so badly. “You know you don’t have to have it figured out right now, and the degree doesn’t have to perfectly align with whatever you end up doing. I mean, my mom has a degree in marine biology. And your dad studied…”

  “European history,” I say.

  “Which I imagine he’s using every day,” he says. “And you don’t necessarily need a degree to do what I want to do. But I love learning. I wanted a degree to fall back on in case I change my mind later.”

  I get what he’s saying, and it’s not anything I haven’t thought before. There are a hundred different majors that don’t segue neatly into a career. I allow myself to wonder what would have happened if I’d applied to other schools instead of sending the one application to the one school my parents and Asher had gone to. They had rolling admissions, and I figured I’d deal with it later if I didn’t end up getting in. But I did, back in December, rendering the rest of my senior year nearly pointless. I thought I’d be thrilled, but that college acceptance was just another thing tethering me to my present with no opportunity for change. Another thing keeping me prisoner in this tower.

  That’s what I’ve been chasing, too: change. I said yes to everything my parents wanted because it was easier to go along with what had been decided for me long ago. To grow up and grow into this role.

  “I know a creative career isn’t easy, if that’s what I decide I want to do. And it’s probably even harder with an instrument like the harp. Orchestra jobs are extremely competitive. Playing with Maxine, though… It’s made me realize there’s other stuff out there. That I don’t have to keep doing something that makes me unhappy.”

  He squeezes my hand. “I’m glad,” he says softly. “I don’t like the idea of you being unhappy.” We scrape at the mug with our spoons for another minute before he says, “I’ve always liked hearing you play. Even when we were younger. You were the cute harpist my parents worked with.”

  Gently, I shove his shoulder. “You did not think that. You’re just saying that to butter me up.”

  He lifts his eyebrows, feigning innocence. “Is it working?” Too well, probably. “I’m serious, though. It was this massive instrument and you were this tiny thing, and I couldn’t believe the way you controlled it. You became a different person when you were playing, and it was a person I wanted to know better.”

  Hearing this reminds me how I first fell in love with the harp, how I’m falling in love with it again. And it’s not entirely dissimilar to how I feel with Tarek, which is accompanied by a sharp layer of dread.

  Yet somehow I keep managing to push the dread away. Not now. Let me enjoy this.

  I reach over to my nightstand drawer, rooting around inside for something I haven’t looked at in ages. “Do you remember this?” I pull out the strip of photos, watching his face light up.

  “You kept this?” He stares at it in disbelief. “Yes. Of course I remember that day because we got in trouble immediately afterward.” He points to the last photo. “Look at our faces. We knew we were about to get caught.” He presses a kiss to the side of my head. “Worth it, though.”

  I lean back against him. Whatever we have here, it’s something I never felt with Jonathan, or with any of the others. And maybe that’s the difference, that this with Tarek is comfortable, even when I want to climb on top of him and kiss him until he groans deep in his throat. The way my parents treat me, it’s as though I am too old for my skin, for my bones. With Julia, we’ve had our own language for so long. But Tarek is familiar and brand-new at the same time. My brain isn’t buzzing, aside from the low-grade anxiety-hum I carry through life. With Tarek, my mind is quiet, and god that’s a nice feeling.

  Or at least, it’s quiet as long as I don’t think about what happens when we don’t have this anymore.

  When he goes back to school.

  When we maybe stop talking again.

  “Could you play something for me?” he asks. “You’ve been teasing for so long. I’m dying to hear.”

  Sitting in my desk chair isn’t the most ideal setup, but I make it work. I tilt the cherrywood harp backward, enjoying its familiar weight, and launch into the first few bars of a song I’ve been practicing a lot lately.

  “Cat Power?” he says, eyes bright. “You learned that for me?”

  There’s this dangerous sweetness in his words that nearly breaks me in half.

  “I’m still figuring it out. That’s all I know so far.” But it doesn’t stop him from grinning.

  I launch into another piece, a Maxine original, and the entire time, I’m aware of his eyes on me. Lately, I’ve been able to shut everything out while I’m playing—but not this. Not now.

  “You love it,” he says when I finish, and there is something so earnest in his tone that I can’t not kiss him after that.

  It feels like only the two of us exist up here in the tower, and I’m thinking I would be okay if we never left.

  For long, lazy minutes, all we do is kiss. Slow, slow, fast. Slow, slow, fast. Building our own rhythm. His hands on my back and on my hips and then sliding down my thighs, like there is not enough of me for him to touch.

  Gently, I run a hand along the faint reddish shadow on his arm. “Hey. It isn’t that bad today.”

  “It isn’t,” he agrees. I can tell he’s fighting the urge to draw his arm away.

  “I remember your mom used to get so mad at you for scratching.”

  “And I’d tell her I was only touching, not scratching.” He continues to stare down at the rash. “It really doesn’t bother you? We’re not in the dark. You can see it all.”

  I shake my head, finally letting out the words I wanted to say so long ago. “You’re beautiful,” I say quietly, my heart in my throat. It’s easier to say than You’re so easy to talk to and I can just be myself around you.

  He pulls me to him and just holds me for several long moments. Eventually, his hands drift up the back of my shirt, pausing when they reach the strap of my bra. I break away from him for a moment to pull off my shirt, givi
ng him easier access.

  When he sheds his shirt and jeans, I have to will my heart to slow down. He is lovely, all that deep tan skin and the dips of his muscles. He closes his eyes as I run a hand down his chest, placing his hand on top of mine. “I’m going to say something, and you have to promise not to get mad at me,” he says.

  “No way. I reserve the right to get mad at anything you say.”

  He lifts my hand to his mouth, kisses the inside of my wrist. “Fine, I shall risk your wrath.” A deep breath, and then: “I really, really like you.” I must have some kind of reaction because he says, “Why does that make you scoff?”

  “I—I don’t know. It was involuntary.” I shake my head, wanting to live a little longer in that compliment, though part of me doesn’t believe him. “This is such a dumb thing to ask, but now I have to know. What do you even like about me?” I have to laugh because it sounds ridiculous, and yet I keep going. “I’m just this weird, maybe-broken girl who played part of a Cat Power song on the harp and owns too many articles of clothing featuring tiny animals.”

  “This is a difficult question to answer when we’re half naked, but I’ll do my best.” He backs up on the bed, putting some space between us, but he reaches for one of my hands and starts ticking items off using my fingers. “Okay. Things I like about Quinn Berkowitz. You have a fantastic sense of humor. I can open up to you in a way I haven’t been able to with anyone else. You care about your family, which is why it’s been so difficult for you to decide what to do about B+B. You’re brave, even if you think you’re not. And…” A flick of one eyebrow. “You’re sexy as hell.”

  RIP me.

  I don’t know how to react except to push him deeper into the bed. He doesn’t ask me the same question, possibly because his self-esteem isn’t down in the gutter where mine apparently was, and I’m glad he doesn’t.

  Because then I’d have to say, everything.

  I kiss him everywhere, the places he used to think were ugly, the skin he wanted to hide. We lose the rest of our clothes and his mouth moves down my chest slowly, slowly. It’s agony. Eventually, he reaches my waist, my navel—and keeps going.