Lingering

by Melissa Simonson

  Jason hadn’t been able to help a laugh when I told him his grand plan hadn’t worked. What do you want from me? I may be gay, but I’m not a woman, I don’t know how to handle them. Note to self: I guess they don’t like when you forget to mention you ran into your ex and had an impromptu coffee date and they have to find out after the fact from Facebook.

  “I’m not a seven-year-old girl.”

  “Okay. So buy her what?”

  “I can access my Amazon account, if you want. See if I’d added anything to my wish list to buy for her. Her birthday was in August and I wasn’t around to give her anything, but I’m sure I was looking for potential presents.”

  “Can you?” A warm wave of relief washed over me as I sat up straight. Kylie had always gushed over everything Carissa bought her.

  “I already did. A kit to make your own glitter nail polish and a pink sparkly box to keep them in. When are you seeing her next?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “The shipping will take too long. You’re going to have to go to Sephora, then.”

  “Where?”

  “Good God, Ben, Sephora, you’ve seen me bring home how many bags from that place? Sephora. Makeup store. I can find you the directions if you want.”

  The only bags she’d brought home that I ever paid any attention to were from Victoria Secret.

  I must be the first guy to ever set foot in here alone,” I told Carissa as I stepped into the shockingly perfumed and overbright Sephora an hour later.

  “Don’t be a baby. The nail polish kit’s from Urban Decay. You see any signs for that brand?”

  I squinted around, heading deeper into the store, feeling miles outside my comfort zone. “I don’t see anything yet.”

  “You look lost,” a voice to my left piped up.

  I looked around and found a black-clad woman standing between the aisles, her smiling lips shellacked a seizure-inducing pink.

  I switched my phone to my other ear, holding it steady with my shoulder. “I’m looking for something from Urban Decay.”

  “It’s right over here.” She gestured for me to follow with scary inch-long nails. “Buying something for your girlfriend?”

  “She’s probably hitting on you.” I could practically hear Carissa rolling eyes she didn’t even have. “Just tell her yes.”

  “Yeah,” I called to the woman.

  “Good boy,” Carissa said. “It shouldn’t be hard to find, they keep everything separated by brand in this joint. Lose the helper once you’re there.”

  “Here we go.” The employee—Zara, according to her name tag, that had to be a fake name, she looked about as exotic as a Barbie doll—swept her arm to the side. “Anything specific?”

  “I’m actually fine now. Thanks.”

  Zara gave me an amused your funeral look and took off to greet someone else.

  “All right, now what?” The Urban Decay aisle was as intimidating as all the others. I couldn’t imagine what half the products even did. “Do women really need all these brushes and shit?”

  “Uh, yes, if you want proper winged liner and eyeshadow with cut creases.”

  “This is going to be one of those needle in a haystack situations, I can already tell.”

  “Ben,” she said in the slightly condescending, pandering tone I always secretly loved, “you know what nail polish looks like. Just look around, you’ll find it. It’s called Frankenpolish. Big black box set type deal.”

  “Frankenpolish?”

  “As in Frankenstein? Like, you design your own colors the way Dr. Frankenstein designed his monster?”

  “If you say so.” I sunk to my haunches, having finally spotted stuff that looked vaguely related to nails. “Big black box, you said?”

  “Amazon says it’s three pounds. It’ll be hard to miss, it says Frankenpolish in bright yellow letters.”

  “You forget who you’re talking to,” I said dryly, but I found what I was after a second later. “Oh. Got it.” I flipped the box over and balked. “$59.99, are you kidding me? It’s just nail polish.”

  “Amazon was cheaper. Who cares, Mr. Moneybags? You can stand to part with sixty bucks.”

  I stood, craning my neck for the elusive checkout station. “I’m just happy to get out of here. Thanks for your help.”

  “What would you do without me?” Her tone was light, playful, but it made reality whack me over the head like a mallet. I’d been asking myself that every day for the past six months.

  W hat are you doing here?” Kylie asked suspiciously, after I’d elbowed my way through the throng of mothers in the vestibule of the elementary school and found her sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria, her head bent over a book. I was impressed at her single-minded focus. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on reading with hordes of screaming kids bouncing off the walls.

  “Picking you up from school. We got Cheetos, The Art of War, and a present waiting for you at my house.”

  She stood grudgingly, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “Are you trying to buy my affection?”

  I puffed out a sigh, sliding my hand behind her neck as I guided her out of the cafeteria, through the packed vestibule, and into the parking lot, where the opaline sky hung heavy with clouds.

  “Did you hear that one on TV, too?”

  “Mommy said it to Daddy one night when he came home with some new earrings. She was mad at him for forgetting to clean the garage out like he promised he would.”

  “Right.” I dug my keys out of my pocket as we drew nearer to my car. “Well, rest assured, I’m not trying to buy you off.”

  She dragged her feet, scuffing the toes of her shoes. “Is it supposed to be an early Christmas present?”

  “No.” I’d already given her Christmas present to Alanna, a supremely unimaginative gift card for Barnes & Noble. Carissa would have told me not to go that route—what little girl wanted to open an envelope for Christmas?—but I’d never been good at gift giving, finding that perfect I know you so well present. That type of thing had always been Carissa’s forte.

  “Then why get me a present at all?”

  I unlocked the back passenger door and helped her buckle herself in. “Because I love you, princess.”

  Her deadpan expression was proof she wasn’t buying what I was selling. I shut the door and headed to the driver’s side, feeling the beginnings of a headache circle my skull like a crown of thorns.

  K ylie dropped her backpack on the kitchen floor while I hunted down a bag of Cheetos. Looking like she was having an internal argument with herself, she finally asked tentatively, “Where’s Dexter?”

  “I don’t know. I let him out a while ago, before I came to pick you up.” I handed her the bowl of Cheetos. “Your present’s in the living room.”

  Her scuffling footsteps pursued me down the hallway, stopping beneath the arched threshold. I held the nail polish kit behind my back and tried not to let her complete lack of interest dissuade me.

  “Are you ready?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, not even the slightest glimmer of curiosity in her eyes.

  “Which hand?” I asked.

  She pointed to my left. It was in my right hand, but I pretended she won anyway, presenting it to her with a flourish.

  “Frankenpolish?” She’d forgotten to keep her scowl pasted on as she looked up at me, a wrinkle carved into her forehead.

  “It’s a make your own glitter nail polish kit. I saw it and thought of you.”

  “You went to a makeup store?”

  “I was just passing by and saw it in the window,” I lied impatiently, sinking onto the couch. “Do you like it?”

  She sat beside me, tracing the neon yellow letters with her pinkie finger. “Can we make one right now?”

  “Of course.” I ran a hand through the strands of hair escaping her messy braid. “Did I buy you off good, or did I buy you off good?”

  “You did all right.” She pressed the box into my hands. “Can you open it for me?�
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  Which was how I found myself playing amateur chemist, helping her mix the dyes into the gelatinous liquids, spilling more often than not. Half an hour later we had a bright red, glittery bottle of nail polish and a ruined coffee table in front of us.

  “Mommy would go crazy if she saw this mess on our coffee table.” She surveyed the carnage with round eyes. It looked like a high-def mini crime scene, feverish slashes of blood red slicing across the stained wood, dripping down the leg like melted wax, iridescent sparkles winking under the low lighting. The red puddle in the center of the table looked like a shotgun blast.

  “Good thing Mommy’s not around, then.” I tore pages out of a gaming magazine and slapped them down over the mess. “Hands right here.”

  She splayed her fingers but gave me a skeptical look. “Have you ever painted anyone’s nails before?”

  “First time,” I said, wrenching open the bottle. “How hard could it be?”

  Extremely hard, it turned out.

  “You’re supposed to wipe the extra stuff off on the inside of the bottle so it doesn’t drip,” she told me as I splattered globs of polish onto the magazine pages and swallowed the expletives climbing up my throat.

  “I’ll remember that for the next finger.”

  As I coated her pinkie inexpertly, she said, “And you’re supposed to start painting up at the cuticle, not at the white part of the nail. That’s what Carissa told me.”

  I wasn’t even sure what the cuticle was or where it was located. “Yeah. She was good at this stuff.” Kylie’s nails were so tiny it was difficult to keep the polish off her skin. “Painting your whole hand would be easier. I hope you don’t mind if we never do this again.”

  She studied my progress with an amused little smile playing around her kewpie mouth.

  “This sorta seems like something she’d give me as a present.”

  “Yeah.” I botched her thumbnail and had to wipe it down with a wet paper towel. “I tried to think about something she’d buy for you if she was around.”

  “Ben?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know what hypocrite means?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Where are we going with this, exactly?”

  “You asked her what you should buy me.” She wiggled her little fingers. “I can tell.”

  And, we’re off. “How so?”

  “Because you usually just get me gift certificates,” she said, but somehow made gift certificates sound like dog shit.

  “Yes, to places you like,” I said, stung, bent over her miniscule index finger. “And how does this make me a hypocrite?”

  “I asked to talk to her, and you told me no, it wouldn’t be good for me, and then I said well why is it good for you? And then you said, ‘I never told you it would be good for me.’ And then you still talk to her,” she said, for all the world like a prosecutor pronouncing me guilty in front of a jury of my peers.

  She would never let this one go. I supposed it had been naïve of me to think otherwise, that I could silence her with nail polish. Kylie had already considered Carissa an aunt, worshipped her just as much as I did, though in a much different way.

  “I don’t know whether that makes me a hypocrite.”

  “Well it’s still not fair.”

  I felt blood pounding behind my eyelids like fast-acting venom and tried to breathe the way Jackson had coached me in his deep, slow voice at Carissa’s funeral. In through the nose, keep breathing—longer, longer—out through the nose. “Life isn’t fair.”

  “You sound like Mommy.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. Mommy’s right.”

  “I loved her too.”

  I closed my eyes, willing myself not to snap but I LOVE-loved her, Kylie, and not just because she painted my nails or took me back-to-school shopping. I loved her so much it was like a physical ache; you have no fucking idea what that feels like, having your life taken away, having your heart ripped out and stomped on. You don’t have a clue how heavy this burden of guilt is, knowing that if I’d never left that night, she’d still be here. She’d be the one painting your nails and this fucking coffee table would be a hell of a lot cleaner.

  I couldn’t say any of that once I opened my eyes and saw her quivering cheeks hot with color, the tremble in her lower lip, the Ben reflected in the shiny ovals of her glasses.

  “I know. We both loved her, Kylie, but in…much different ways. She was my whole life. You might not get it until you’re older.”

  The thoughts climbing into her eyes were easy to decode, like they were reflected against her lenses. She didn’t need to voice her next thought. “I hate when old people tell me that.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, sliding the brush down her ring finger nail from top to bottom. “I know what you mean. I used to hate that, too.” I replaced the brush in the bottle, jiggling the handle. “I promise I’m going to stop soon, okay? Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but I will.”

  She didn’t look convinced.

  “New Year’s is coming up. Maybe it can be my resolution, huh? To quit. You can help me. Would that please the court?”

  She gave me a noncommittal jerk of the head.

  I added the last swipe to her pinkie and surveyed my admirable effort. “What do you think?”

  “You’re supposed to do two coats.”

  I felt my shoulders sag, like I’d aged ten years since I’d started.

  I flipped the collar of my coat up to protect against the sharp as knives winter chill and pounded on the entrance to 311 Emery for the millionth time. The buzzer I’d never used still had a sign above it, affixed with peeling masking tape: OUT OF ORDER.

  Jess had called that morning, asked me to come into the office whenever I had an hour to spare, but I’d wasted twelve minutes of that allotted time banging on the locked door.

  I’d decided to give it one last knock when from behind the frosted glass doors, a fuzzy shape grew larger and larger until it filled the glass panel, and someone swung it open.

  Nick stood there blinking at me, a screwdriver hanging from his hand. Three ragged marks of what looked to be motor oil stretched diagonally along his white T-shirt, as if he’d dragged his hand across his chest to wipe his fingers clean.

  “Yeah?” He used his forearm to rid his forehead of the sweat pearling at his temples.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting Jess. Is she here?”

  “She’s getting Chinese.” He shoved the screwdriver in his back pocket. “It’s Ben, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pulled the door open a little wider, waving his hand vaguely. “Come on in, I guess. You can wait for her at her desk.”

  I stepped inside, paused for him to lock the door, and felt my brow furrow.

  “When did you put up cameras?” I pointed to the corners of the foyer, where four lipstick red lights caught me from every which angle.

  He looked up at them too, then back at me. “We’ve always had those.”

  No, they hadn’t.

  Nick let the lie settle in until it swelled into some living, breathing, noisy thing between us, but I didn’t refute him, despite the smirk on his lips that begged me to try.

  I followed him down the labyrinthine corridor. Without a doubt, I preferred Jess over Nick. I didn’t believe for a second that I’d somehow miraculously missed seeing those cameras during my other visits to the office, or that he didn’t remember my name. How many “beta testers” could they possibly have, if recruitment consisted of him sending his girlfriend out to troll cemeteries? For all the computers humming on the otherwise empty desks, they had no other employees to use them. He had to be familiar with the goings-on of his own company. Even more familiar now that he’d added security cameras.

  “Hey, you decided to try the voice calling, didn’t you?” he called over his shoulder.

  I glared at the tag sticking out of the neckline of his T-shirt, resisting the urge to kick the backs of his knees, send him sprawling to the floo
r face first. If the only people in and out of this office were him and his girlfriend, what were the odds he couldn’t remember that yes, as a matter of fact, I had decided to try voice calling? He’d been there when Jess had explained it to me, he’d chimed in about Instagram and old biddies.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any complaints?”

  “None so far.”

  We arrived at Jess’s cubicle. Nick flung himself into the swivel chair and I took a seat too, his eyes on me all the while.

  “Really? No complaints at all?” He tented his fingers like some venerable old man.

  I wished I had serious complaints. Something to remove that smug look from his face. “Well, she didn’t say a certain word the way she normally did. I pointed it out to her.”

  He picked up a miniature rake from a Zen garden on Jess’s desk, twirling it between his fingers, his eyes on the tiny prongs. “Did she self-correct? Once you told her, she fixed it?”

  I know what self-correct means, you smarmy bastard, I thought, and I had a feeling he could read my mind as easily as a newspaper, if the way his nostrils flared was any indication. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” He grimaced, pressing his forearm into the arm of the swivel chair to lift himself up, and dug the screwdriver out of his back pocket, along with something I couldn’t see properly. It sounded like glass, whatever it was, as he shoved it behind the computer’s hard drive. “And no problems with being able to get her on the phone? No glitches? And by glitches, I mean instances where she sounds like a broken record, doesn’t respond in a timely manner, doesn’t give appropriate answers to questions.”

  I shook my head. Pressed my elbows on my knees and leaned conspiratorially close to him. I know what glitches means too, asshole. “Why do you have so much computer equipment if it’s just you and Jess working here? I’ve been here a few times. Never seen anyone but you two. Seems like a waste of electricity.”