Love in Many Languages

by Jamie Bennett

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “No, Rahab. But Jesus is definitely in the Bible too. What’s your number?” I asked him.

  His color deepened. “That’s personal.”

  “No, not your lucky number, silly! I’m asking about the number of people you’ve had sex with.”

  “I understood you. I’m not telling you that.”

  “Open heart,” I reminded him.

  He just shook his head. “Why are you dating Fox if you don’t want to sleep with him?”

  “He had a lot of good arguments,” I explained, and Cooper started laughing.

  “He talked you into being his girlfriend?”

  “I’m lonely. I want to be with someone, so why not try? That’s what Karis has been telling me, that I should just get out and date someone, not wait for a sign, that maybe he won’t be my one, but that at least I would be out and not home by myself painting all the time. It’s easy for her to say, when the man she loves acts like she hung the moon and stars.” I shrugged, impatient. “Anyway, Fox and I got into a big argument about Corrie, and we talked it out, and he had a lot of good reasons, so we decided to try it. To try to be together. But so far, I can’t even kiss him, not with an open mouth, and the thought of his penis makes me want to start laughing. I mean, if you think about it, they’re kind of funny, right? You have to really like the guy, or you’re going to laugh. And I think it would really hurt his feelings if I did that.”

  Cooper was laughing. He was laughing so hard that he had to pull over and stop. “I never gave that subject much thought,” he said when he calmed down, and he wiped his eyes on his cuff.

  “I have.” Lately, I had been spending a lot of time, probably too much time, thinking about penises. “I don’t know, Fox is fun, and I know we get along because we already live together. So far, nothing has changed, except that he keeps touching me all the time, and then I tell him I’m not ready. He did clean the bathroom, which was very nice, and this weekend we’re going to try to clear the back yard which he never would have done without the possibility of sex, so there’s that.”

  Cooper pulled back out into traffic. “What were you fighting about, about Corrie? Is that place ok with you?” He pointed to a restaurant.

  “As long as they have air conditioning. We were fighting about Corrie because I caught them together. See, the way I met her was when she came home with Fox, and he thought she was so into him, but it was only because she needed a place to sleep for the night. Isn’t that awful? For both of them. I explained it to him, how she was trying to get away from her boyfriend, and she was afraid, and also how I don’t believe her when she says that she’s eighteen.” I got out of the car in the restaurant parking lot and slammed the door, already feeling like I was drooping in the humidity with the afternoon sun beating overhead.

  “She’s underage?”

  “I’m almost positive. So when he was in her room again last Friday—”

  “Hang on.” Cooper stopped in the parking lot. “Hang on a second. He knows that she’s underage, that she’s in a bad relationship and you’re trying to help her get out, and he was going to sleep with her again? Is that what you’re saying?”

  I nodded.

  “Because I thought he was just a garden-variety idiot, but now I’m thinking that this Fox is a terrible person. Am I right about that?” He looked over at me.

  “That’s what Karis and Reid think, too.” I took his hand and pulled him toward the restaurant. “I explained to Fox again why it was such a bad thing to mess around with Corrie.”

  “But that’s something that should have been obvious to anyone. Anyone would have known that. There’s right and wrong, Ione. What he did was wrong, absolutely wrong.”

  We got into the restaurant finally, with me pulling Cooper along behind me.

  “I know, but I do think he gets it now. I think he was trying to get my attention by being with her.” And as he had said, it worked, didn’t it?

  “That’s no excuse.” Cooper was back to the granite face as we took seats at the counter.

  “I know.” I breathed out. “It’s just, that’s Fox. He’s been around forever! Longer than anyone else, now. I don’t have my friends from high school anymore, because they were all bad news, and most everyone I knew from the neighborhood has moved away. Even when I was a kid, you could hear people speaking Polish, and it’s so different. Not bad, just different. I met Fox just after my grandma died and he moved in and he’s been there the whole time.”

  “Longevity isn’t an excuse for being an asshole,” Cooper said, but he said it quietly, not like he was judging me.

  “I know.” I breathed out again, and this time it was definitely an unhappy sigh. “I’ll talk to him again, because I have been thinking about it a lot. I couldn’t pay attention during class because I just keep thinking too much. I do think,” I promised him. “I think a lot. And I’ve been reading a lot more, about all different things, like the Silicon Valley, and pneumatic pressure, and titanium. I’m trying to catch up on things a little.”

  Cooper put down the menu. “Can you explain to me why you’re always trying to convince me that you’re smart?”

  “Because I think that’s one of the reasons you don’t like me,” I explained. “I’m not smart enough for you, not school-smart enough.”

  “That’s not true, not at all.” His voice had gotten very quiet. “I like you just fine. I’m not—I don’t want the kind of relationship that I think you do, but I like you. Plenty.”

  There it was, then. I was not going to be able to convince him, I just didn’t ring his bell. I looked at the menu and at the same time tried to accustom my mind to Fox’s penis.

  ∞

  “Oh, wow. Augusta, you were right. You’re not going to need cardigans over these,” Karis said.

  Augusta started to laugh. “Not every outfit needs a cardigan.” She ran her hand over the fabric. “I have to admit, these are nicer than I thought they would be. I’m pleasantly surprised.”

  “I love them!” Karis said solemnly.

  The bridesmaid dresses had come in, and Augusta and I were trying them on in her big bedroom where I had gotten dressed to have dinner with Cooper.

  “Ione, do you have on a bra and underwear?” Augusta demanded. I checked, then nodded. “Ok, I have to see this dress on you,” she said, and smiled. “I think you’re going to look unbelievable in it.”

  “Go ahead and change in the bathroom,” Karis suggested, anti-nudity as always.

  “I really don’t care, and a bra and underwear are the same as a bikini,” I reminded her. I preferred to swim naked anyway. But I went into the bathroom so she wouldn’t turn all red. The dress was really beautiful, a sort of blue-green wispy thing. When I had it on, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought that I looked like an underwater fairy, with green eyes. I liked that idea.

  “If I can just get off those last seven pounds, then mine will look fine too, and I won’t embarrass myself standing next to Ione,” I heard Augusta say quietly, as I opened the bathroom door. It sucked all my enjoyment right out of wearing the dress.

  “I won’t wear this if it’s going to make you feel bad. I don’t want that—you’re Karis’ best friend. I don’t need to be in the wedding,” I said. I didn’t really understand it. Seven pounds? She had her wonderful family and all her friends. What did that matter?

  Augusta got off the bed. “No, no. You don’t make me feel bad. I’m being silly, because I feel weird about how things are looking after Phoebe.” She glanced down at her stomach. “Not everything in my body went immediately back to the right spot like I expected it all to.”

  “But you have an amazing baby!” I said. “I mean, anything would be worth her, right? And your body made a miracle.” It just made me feel awe to think about it. I put my hand on my own stomach, wondering if I could produce a miracle like that, too.

  “I know you’re being sincere when you say that, so thank you, and yes. Anything would b
e worth Phoebe. Sometimes I get caught up in my stomach…”

  “Hips for me,” Karis put in.

  “…but you’re right, Ione,” Augusta continued. “I’m going to wear the dress and be happy for Karis, seven pounds or not. Of course you have to be up there with me.” Karis nodded emphatically and started pinning various spots on my dress, taking up the hem a tiny bit, nipping in the waist.

  “This won’t need much alteration,” she said. “Millimeters.” She helped me get it off, averting her eyes until I had pulled my t-shirt back on.

  “How is your dress coming?” I asked, as she moved on to fitting Augusta.

  Karis put in one more pin then took out her phone and showed us pictures of where her mom was with things. “The muslin version fits me perfectly, and she’s done with some of the foundational stuff for the real dress, but it’s taking her longer than she thought it would, with my dad.” Karis’ face changed, going from excited to sad. Her father had dementia, and he had been deteriorating a lot over the past year. “My mom wants him to be at the wedding,” she continued, then stopped, and wiped her eyes. “Sorry. She’s doing that thing again, where she’s pretending that things are different from what they are, that they’re better than our reality, I mean. The doctor has talked to her, and I have, and Reid. She doesn’t want to hear it right now.”

  “Oh, Karis,” Augusta murmured, and I hugged our tiny friend. I understood about caretaking, and not wanting to give up, even when you might know in your heart of hearts that it was over. It made me get a little teared-up, too, remembering.

  “I want to talk about something else,” she told us. “Something happier.”

  “Are you done with me?” Augusta asked, and started to struggle out of her dress when Karis nodded. We helped Augusta peel it off. “Let’s talk about Ione’s love life,” Augusta suggested when she was free, and they both turned on me.

  “There’s not a lot to tell.”

  “I got in touch with him the other day. Cooper Hughes,” Augusta said.

  I sat up straight from where I had been lounging on her comfy bed. I kind of missed having a bed. “Why would you do that?”

  “Remember how I told you that I was doing some work on a robotics project? Well, I connected him with a manufacturing plant in Ohio that’s looking to upgrade their equipment. He might be able to supply them. They’re pretty excited about what your boyfriend Cooper is doing with his company.”

  “He’s a school friend. Maybe. Augusta!” I jumped off the bed and hugged her as hard as I could.

  “Oof,” she grunted, and wiggled away. “You’re welcome! I’ll take that as a sign that things are going well between you.”

  “No, about the same. It’s not going to happen.” Since we’d had lunch last Monday, we’d had another Japanese class, and Cooper was just as friendly and attractive as always. And still not attracted to me. “I’m trying to let it go because I’m seeing Fox now.”

  “What?” Augusta almost screeched it. “That rude little guy who sponges off you?” She turned on Karis. “You didn’t tell me she was dating the nasty runt!”

  “He’s not, either!” I defended him. “I mean, he doesn’t pay rent, and he gets a little lippy…”

  “I’ve never seen Reid so close to knocking someone into next week,” Augusta said.

  Yes, he and Fox definitely didn’t get along. “He’s not that small, either. Size doesn’t matter.”

  Karis and Augusta glanced at each other.

  “I don’t mean in the way you’re thinking right now,” I informed them. I still hadn’t seen his penis, so I wouldn’t know, anyway.

  “I still don’t understand why, Ione,” Karis said in her soft voice. “Of all the people you could have said yes to, why him?”

  “I know him so well,” I started to say, but then stopped. Fox and I had gotten into another big argument about Corrie, about why he had been with her again. I had considered what Cooper had said to me about it, and that was what I had told Fox: it was just wrong. He still didn’t seem to understand that, and it had made me question how well I truly knew him.

  “Corrie and I both wanted to,” Fox had argued, but then got a huge smile. “I think you’re jealous!” he’d said, and would not believe me when I said that I absolutely was not. I didn’t get jealous, for one thing, and for another, I—I just wouldn’t feel that way about Fox.

  “I think he finally wore you down,” Augusta said. “What did he do, threaten to move out?”

  I looked up, amazed. “How did you know that?”

  She shook her head. “I may not have your ability to ‘read’ people, but I can tell when someone is manipulative. He knows you don’t want to be alone, Ione. He’s been biding his time until he could drop that on you.”

  “I don’t think he’s that calculating,” I argued. “It turns out that yes, he’s had feelings for me for a while. And yes, he told me that he was going to move out if we didn’t step things up. But that wasn’t manipulative, it was just stating his truth.” I could see immediately that neither one of them accepted this explanation. For one thing, both of their auras looked very dark, and for another, they both rolled their eyes at me.

  “How are things going with him?” Karis asked.

  “Not great. I’m having trouble with my emotions. I’m not quite sure where they are.”

  Augusta opened her mouth but Karis spoke quickly. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, without our help.” She directed the last part to her friend.

  Augusta nodded. “I’m sure it will be fine,” she agreed.

  I left them to go home to work some on my yard. It was marginally cooler, maybe only 1,000 degrees instead of 1,010, and I thought that it was a good day to take on the back of the house. Fox was supposed to help, but he was nowhere to be found when I got home. Neither was Corrie. She had come to dinner with me the day that Cooper and I had found her, acting tough for a while until she remembered that she didn’t have to, not with me. Then she had said that she would go ahead and stay, like she was doing me a favor. But the whole time she said it, she had been looking at me nervously, as if she expected me to tell her no, and to get out. I told her how happy I was to have her back.

  It was just hard to have her there with Fox, because really, I didn’t trust him around her. And I wasn’t sure that she understood that no one expected anything from her, she didn’t have to do anything to stay in my house—like sleep with Fox. I had told her, and she said she got it, but she needed to put the feeling into her heart. I had also told Fox that I would kill him if I found them together, which didn’t scare him at all and instead made him happy because he thought that I was jealous again.

  I pulled on my grandpa’s hat and started working my way from the back door down, trying to clear a path over to where the shed had stood. It had fallen down a few winters before and I wanted to see what was left of it, of the tools that my grandpa had out there, and also to determine if one of our guests really had parked a car under the debris as Fox had claimed. It wouldn’t be so bad to have a second car.

  I worked and worked, chopping, cutting, bagging, as the sun started to sink lower in the sky. I took off one of my new gardening gloves, just like the ones that Devesh had loaned me, and wiped my sticky forehead with the back of my hand. I hadn’t gone that far off the porch and I was nowhere close to the shed, but I was pretty proud of my efforts in clearing a few feet of semi-circle around the back steps. I had also already unearthed a big snow shovel, a deflated soccer ball, and a lot of bottles that I would redeem for 10 cents each. Now I picked up a pile of cardboard that had been under a piece of plywood. I turned over one large, faded paper square and saw that it asked “Who?” in block letters.

  It stopped me in my tracks: it was a sign. Yes, a literal sign, but also it was like a sign from the cosmos, I thought. I held it in my hand and stared at it for a while. Who?

  The noise of a motorcycle engine woke me up from my cardboard reverie. I walked around to the front and found Tanner pull
ing up in my driveway. “You said I could stop by,” he said right off the bat, as he pulled off his helmet.

  “Of course, come on around to the back. I’m working there.” I took off my hat and fanned myself.

  Tanner studied me. “You look hot.” His head tilted and he stared for a moment before snapping back to reality. “I mean, like your temperature, you seem overheated.” He started blushing, just like his brother did.

  “I’m almost dead of the heat. Actually, I was going to head inside to see if we have any glasses…”

  I trailed off as a car shot up my street, music pounding, tires squealing. It stopped—more like, paused—in front of my house and Corrie kind of tumbled out, green hair flying. She fell on the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk and the car sped off again.

  “Corrie!” I was running to get her, but Tanner was faster.

  “Are you ok?” he asked, kneeling down. “I can help you up.” He did, putting her carefully on her feet. “Are you ok?” he asked again. “Why did they push you out of that car?” He was staring at her.

  “I’m fine,” she told us, but she was crying, her leg was bleeding, and so was her lip. I didn’t think that particular injury was from her fall out onto the grass.

  “Let’s all go inside. Can you walk?” When she tested it and nodded, I put my arm through hers and we went up the steps and into the kitchen where I got ice for her, and Tanner, who was nice and tall, found some of my grandma’s old canning jars that had survived at the back of a high cabinet to pour out glasses of water. I dabbed at Corrie’s lip and leg with a wet paper towel, wiping away blood and dirt. I winced at the damage. “I have some big bandages upstairs. These are pretty deep on your leg.”

  “No, it’s ok, Ione.” She moved my hand away.

  Tanner was staring at her still. “Why would someone push you out of a car?” he asked her.