“What happened?”
“Before my injury, would have been early in my sophomore year,” Lynn said. “I’d been dating a guy for quite a while. We were out for cheap Chinese food with friends, and I was sitting next to him. The bill comes at the end and they haven’t split it up, so he suggests we send it around the table, let everybody estimate what they owe. He says he’ll count up the cash once everybody’s tossed in. So, and I swear I wasn’t even paying attention to this, but it just caught me, snagged my attention, that my boyfriend didn’t add anything to the cash pile.”
Alice said, “He didn’t contribute any cash of his own?”
“Nuh-uh,” Lynn said, shaking her head. “He counts it all up, and sure enough, of course we’re short. So a couple people, myself included, reluctantly throw in a little bit more.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
“I wish I had,” Lynn said. “But I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the whole group if I was right about what had happened, and also a tiny part of me wasn’t sure. I second-guessed myself in the moment, like maybe he had thrown in and I had just missed it.”
Mikey said, “Or maybe it was an honest mistake? He thought he’d put his money in, just misremembered his own actions?”
“Sure. And that’s what really gets me about all of this,” Lynn said. “It was entirely possible that either my perception was wrong or it had been an honest mistake . . . Even so, it was like you were saying, Alice. My entire opinion of him just turned on a dime. My whole idea of who he was flipped in a single moment.”
Alice said, “Did you break up with him?”
“Well, that’s the happyish ending. I didn’t break up with him right away. We never discussed it; I was too nonconfrontational. For a while, I just tried my hardest to rationalize it or redo it in my head . . . Ultimately, though, I just couldn’t rid myself of the idea that he was a person who wouldn’t pay his fair share if he could get away with it. That he was, fundamentally, shitty.”
“Well, yeah,” Mikey agreed. “I’d say that is a fundamentally shitty thing to do.”
Alice said, “So where’s the happyish ending?”
“Oh, right,” Lynn said. “I made up some other wimpy excuse to break up with him a few weeks later. Said I needed to prioritize my music, make more time to practice or something like that. And then I found out not long after that he’d been cheating on me anyway. With a vocalist, no less. A soprano, matter of fact, to add insult to injury. So.”
Mikey laughed. “Is that the ultimate insult?”
Lynn nodded, and her curls bounced like springs.
Alice said, “You dodged a bullet, my friend.”
Lynn said, “I dodged a cheater. But to this day I don’t know if I was even right about what happened at the Chinese restaurant. Cheating aside, it could still be the case that I was wrong about the one tiny moment that changed my entire opinion of the guy. Night and day. Good to bad.”
“But . . . he was a cheater, so who cares?” Alice said.
“It scares me, that’s all,” Lynn said. “And it really makes me shudder to think how many things I’ve done over the years that might’ve caused someone to believe, or decide, that I’m bad. In a heartbeat. Jeez, how the hell did we get onto this anyway?” She returned to her bowl of pie, stirred the melted ice cream a bit, and took a bite. “I am bad, of course,” she said. “But you guys know that already.”
Mikey laughed. “You are not bad!”
Lynn said, “You’re my friend, you have to say that. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? To tell you you’re good even if you’re bad? Now I remember how we got onto this. Sam.”
Mikey said, “But I imagine it happens the other way, too.”
“How’s that?”
“A person can go from bad to good just as quick. I used to hate this guy I work with. He’s constantly complaining about how much harder he works than everybody else and how little money he makes. He’s just a melodramatic pain in the ass. Then once I saw him at Walmart. I was behind him in line, he didn’t see me there, and I notice what he’s buying: a box of ramen noodles and a bag of the nicest dog treats you can find. Organic. Real chicken in ’em. That’s all he’s buying, just those two things. And he’s counting out change, using his last dime to make the purchase. Spent twice as much on his dog’s treats as his own food. Made me . . . well, like you said, just changed the way I saw him from then on.”
Alice said, “You’re right, that’s a good man.” She took a sip of her bourbon and tapped her fingertips rhythmically along the glass for a moment, then said to Lynn, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
“Oh?” Lynn said, her mouth white, full of ice cream.
Alice said, “You’ve been with Issa for eight years. Why won’t you marry that good man who wants to marry you, you bad girl?”
“Oh.” Lynn laughed and swallowed.
Alice said, “What’re you waitin’ on? Grrrrrr.”
Lynn pushed red curls from her face and said, “Since when did you become some sort of champion for marriage?”
Alice said, “I’m not.” She swung her bourbon in a slow circle so the ice tinkled around the glass. “Just yours.”
“Why?” Lynn said again.
Alice said, “Because I like weddings!”
Lynn laughed.
Mikey said, “Always lookin’ out for number one,” and he tipped his glass toward Alice.
Lynn was quiet for a moment. “I guess part of me has always felt unsettled. Not with Issa, certainly not with our life together, but just unsettled with before.” She sighed. “I don’t have the healthiest relationship with my past,” she explained.
“Nor do I,” Alice said.
“Me either,” Mikey said.
“But what’s that got to do with getting married?” Alice said.
Lynn ate a bite of pie before continuing. “Maybe this is just a cop-out,” she said, “but I think a lot of the problems I’ve had as an adult came from losing Sally. If I really go back to the sort of center of the problems I’ve had, I think something had already changed inside me before I went to school and had the injury, and before the addiction became . . . consuming. I had already darkened. Much earlier.” Lynn wiped her lips with a napkin. “When we lost Sally, something inside of me changed, is what I’m trying to say.”
Mikey nodded. “Me, too.”
Alice said, “Me, too.”
Lynn continued, “Sally taught me something about people that I never wanted to know.”
Alice said, “What was that?”
“That people can disappear,” Lynn said. “Right before your eyes. That you’ll never understand it and there won’t be a thing you can do about it.”
Alice placed her hand over Lynn’s knee. “You’re afraid of the people you love disappearing.”
Lynn nodded.
It was quiet for a bit.
Alice turned to Mikey. “Are you?”
“What?”
“Afraid of disappearing?”
“Not particularly,” Mikey said. “Although I’d want someone to feed my cat.”
Lynn laughed.
“I meant of other people disappearing,” Alice corrected herself. “The people you love.”
“Sure,” Mikey said, and his mind tickled at something unpleasant.
He picked up the crust of his pie and ate it with his fingers.
Alice said, “Could be worse, Lynn. At least you didn’t marry a Saint because of Sally.”
“How’s that?”
“I was still brokenhearted,” Alice said, “even after I’d been away from home at college for years. So when someone came along who thought I was a little smart, laughed at my stupid jokes . . . I mean I just lapped that up like a sad, dehydrated little puppy. It was the first romantic relationship I’d been in since Sally,
and I was starved for affection. Validation.” She shook her head with disgust at the thought of this.
Mikey said, “So you were never in love with him? Is that why it ended so quickly?”
Alice shot him a look of annoyance. “That’s a story for another time, Inspector Clouseau,” she said.
Lynn yawned. “I’m gonna head to bed, you guys. Wake me up if Jimmy gets here tonight?”
Finn was stirring around in front of the fireplace across the room. Alice turned to Mikey. “Finn’s gotta be overdue for a pee. You up for a walk?”
Alice grabbed the bottle of bourbon, and the two of them suited up. Alice pulled Chris’s gloves from her black leather coat and offered them to Mikey since he didn’t have gloves of his own. They were very snug, but he managed to get them on over his fingers. He put on his coat. Alice pulled her vest over her sweater and zipped it. She withdrew mittens from the pockets in her vest and put them on.
Alice said, “All I got’s this vest. You think Sam would mind?” She nodded toward Sam’s large, puffy blue coat.
Mikey said, “Nah.”
Alice pulled Sam’s coat on and said, “Good God, it’s a perfect fit. How depressing. Let’s go.”
She retrieved a little baggie of bone-shaped biscuits from her purse. Then they walked out the side door, and Alice briefly surveyed their surroundings. Thick woodlands to the south, a few faraway lights to the north, the frozen lake out to the west. She nodded in this direction. “Wanna head down toward the beach?”
“Sure.”
Finn moved slowly, happily snuffling the snow with a lopsided grin, his blue eye bright.
Alice and Mikey trudged together through the thick snow. She unscrewed the cap of the bourbon, took a swig, and handed it Mikey’s way. He took a swig as well, felt the heat of it like a shock.
Alice said, “So’s there a special lady in your life? You never say so in your emails, but I always assume you’re just being coy.”
Mikey laughed. “No . . .” he said, and he tried to come up with some sort of joke to steer the conversation in a different direction, but nothing came to mind, so he just said “No” again. His glasses were covered in fog, so he took them off and wiped them clean with his fingertip.
Alice said, “What’s the matter with you? Are you on drugs?”
“Excuse me?”
Alice stopped walking for a moment, then moved into Mikey’s path so that he could not proceed without her. She looked him directly in the eye, through his glasses, which had already partially fogged up again. “Mikey, you’re like . . . I don’t say this
lightly . . . You are actually the best person I know. You are actually my favorite.”
“Thank you. And you were about to tell me what’s the matter with me?”
“Why aren’t you in a relationship? Do you date?”
“I have,” Mikey said. “It’s just, nothing quite took.”
Alice took a step back. She stared out over the frozen lake before them for a bit. The moon was fat and gray overhead. In addition to the pleasant heat and tickle of the bourbon, Mikey felt the lingering effects of the marijuana—the world was still a bit strange and slow. Falling snowflakes were big and lazy and funny, the white mist billowing from his nostrils with each exhale a wonder. The sky was packed with stars. A distant train’s horn sounded.
Alice said, “Are you a virgin? I’m not going to make fun.”
“Leave me alone, Alice.”
“Wait . . . Really?”
“Please shut up.”
“I’m not making fun. It’s just . . . Really?”
“Thank you,” Mikey said. “Your empathy is truly admirable.”
Alice stepped toward Mikey, very close to him, set the bourbon on the ground beneath her feet, stuck it straight into the snow. Then she rose and took Mikey’s right hand in both of hers. She tugged Chris’s glove off his hand and tossed it into a bank of snow. She held his bare hand.
She said, “Now close your eyes and pretend I’m not me.”
Mikey closed his eyes, but he found himself unable to imagine anyone other than Alice standing before him.
Alice took Mikey’s hand, and she didn’t unzip Sam’s coat or her vest but felt her way up under these layers of clothing, guiding Mikey’s hand first to her soft belly, then up underneath her bra, to her left breast. Mikey suddenly felt his own heart flashing. Alice’s breast was full yet light, warm, textured with goose bumps. Then Mikey felt Alice’s mouth on his own. Her tongue gently pushed into his mouth and around it, tasting of bourbon, tasting raw and scary and good. Then Alice’s hand was on his crotch, rubbing him through his zipper. He felt pressure everywhere, blood squeezing tight through every passage.
Alice’s lips moved to his ear, tugged it gently, her breath warm and ticklish, then back to his mouth. Lust was zipping through Mikey, a fist squeezing his chest. This is so unlike me, Mikey thought. This is so unlike me.
He abruptly pulled away from her and opened his eyes. “Alice,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I’m not in love with you.”
“What does that matter? You love me, don’t you? And you know I love you.”
Mikey paused. “I’m not sure what I think about love.”
Alice frowned. “I hope you’re not thinking about Christine. That’s not it, is it? We’re in what they call an open relationship, Mikey. All the kids are doing it.”
Mikey laughed and said, “Okay,” but when Alice leaned in to kiss him a second time, he backed away again.
Alice bent to grab the bottle of bourbon from the snow beneath her feet, rose, took a long swig from it, grimaced and coughed. “Are you not attracted to me?” she said. Her finger went to her chin. “Is it the zit cream?”
Mikey laughed. “No,” he said. “You’re very beautiful.”
Alice threw a hand in the air with exasperation. “Now you’re just telling lies, like I’m some kid you have to console. Like I’m not tall enough to ride the ride but you still want me to feel like I’m having fun. I’m not in love with you either, but, well . . . it’s so cold out here. I just wanted to warm up with you. I wanted to have some fun.”
Alice did a fast, funny little dance in the snow.
Mikey laughed. “It is cold out here,” he agreed. He tried to find the right words to explain himself. He said, “I don’t do things I haven’t thought about for a while first. That’s just not me.” He paused, then said again, “I don’t do things like that.”
Alice leaned her ear closer to his mouth. “Who?”
Mikey thought maybe she’d misheard. “Me,” he said. “I don’t.”
“Well.” Alice’s chin jerked into her neck, a look of irritation curled across her face. “I’m glad you know you so well,” she said.
She paused and took another sip of bourbon before passing the bottle to Mikey.
“Anyhow,” she said, “don’t make it weird, okay? Between us. I couldn’t handle that. Let me explain myself.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“I wanted to have an experience with you. Share something special. Anyhow, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
Mikey said, “We do share something special, don’t we?”
Alice said, “Blah blah blah.” She stared out across the frozen lake. “I don’t like what you said earlier though.”
“Which part?”
“You said you don’t know what you think about love.”
“Oh . . .” Mikey said. “Well, I don’t. Why, do you?”
“Not entirely,” Alice said, “But I’ve probably told fifty people that I love them, and I’ve meant it every time.” She paused. “Of course, I’ve probably told that many people that I hated them and meant that every time, too.”
Mikey laughed.
Alice said, “This is a serious question. Have you
ever in your life told someone that you love them?”
Mikey’s whole chest suddenly seized, as if he’d had the air knocked out of him.
Alice stared at him. “Mikey.” She took him by his shoulders and looked straight at his eyes. Her eyes were black and intense, like she could have been in great pain, or ecstasy. “Mikey,” she said again, “has anyone other than me, five minutes ago, ever told you that they love you?”
Mikey thought of Alice’s question from earlier, at the dinner table. The worst thing I’ve ever done. Suddenly, the words were right there, bubbling up like lava from a dark place.
“No,” Mikey said. “And I don’t think I love him either.”
Alice stared at him. “You mean your father,” she said.
Mikey nodded, still feeling these words deep and black in his chest. He said, “It’s not simple.”
“I don’t imagine it is,” Alice said.
“What I mean is, he hasn’t given me any good reason not to love him,” Mikey said. “And it’s not that I haven’t tried.”
Alice was quiet for a bit. Then she said, “Then why don’t you just decide that whatever you feel toward him is love?”
Mikey cocked his head sideways and looked at her broad, handsome face. “You can’t just change the definition of things to suit yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s straight-up delusional.”
“Maybe so,” Alice said, “but you’d never have to know it. And at least then you wouldn’t have to act like you’re completely at the mercy of yourself.”
“Aren’t I? Aren’t we all?”
“Good God!” Alice said. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard! Good God. That’s horrific.” She breathed into one fist, then the other and asked, “How are you so sure that what you feel for him isn’t love?”
Mikey considered this. “Because it doesn’t feel like it.”
Alice said, “You have a hopelessness that I’ve really come to cherish.”
The callus of bitter resentment was so thick it had overtaken Mikey’s heart like a tumor, and the range of emotion he could now access toward his own father felt practically microscopic. Long ago, Mikey had accepted that they would never have the relationship that he wanted, and he had lost his desire to change his father, understand him, or connect with him; Mikey only wanted to be as inoffensive to his father as possible. Nowadays, every word he spoke was an attempt to neutralize a situation or dynamic between them. His ultimate goal was that nothing of any substance or emotional value be revealed or exchanged—that nothing upset the balance. A net zero. Mikey had become so skillful at concealing his true self in his father’s presence, it was as if he had sewn himself in under his own skin. He only wanted to be agreeable. Flat. Nothing. Hollow.
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