One Life to Lose

by Kris Ripper

  Keith: It really wasn’t the beer talking. Anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  I stood in my little kitchen, staring down at my phone, wondering how to respond. Or if I should respond. He’d sent the last message at 11:23 p.m. and it was now 12:14. Was that too long? I didn’t want to wake him, if he was sleeping.

  Or Josh.

  I shut down my brain before it could conjure an image: a long shot of a bedroom, slightly out of focus, and two young men intertwined beneath the blankets.

  Cameron: I haven’t been on the Ghost Tour in a few years. I look forward to seeing you guys tomorrow. Good night.

  Did people say “good night” in text messages? I had no idea. But I’d already sent it.

  As I was climbing into bed, my phone dinged again.

  Keith: You should come with us. Good night. :-)

  Go with them on the Ghost Tour? Now I imagined the three of us, huddled in coats, with our little glow sticks clutched in our hands, walking through the cemetery behind a tour guide who told us scary stories. Ed had been a tour guide for years. I’d have to ask him if he was doing it again.

  My brain was becoming insufferable. I ordered it to cease and desist all fantasies in this vein immediately. Then I made my internal voice British and repeated myself. Something about American cultural immersion made British accents so much more authoritative than other accents.

  His Girl Friday would be fun without too much pressure. And I lived for the moment Cary Grant dropped his birth name into one of his monologues. No reason to be anxious whatsoever.

  Week three of the film festival passed without incident. I advised the audience to listen for mention of “Archie Leach,” and heard a few delighted laughs when it happened. I shook hands, made more small talk, and met Josh’s parents, who’d come to the movie with Josh and Keith.

  “I played basketball with your dad years ago,” Mr. Walker said to me, shaking my hand overlong.

  “Did you? Are you in that picture?”

  He laughed. “I’m the short black kid trying to see over everyone’s shoulders.”

  “Hold up,” Josh said. “Cam, your dad’s in that picture? The one where they’re all in their tux jackets and no pants?”

  I registered his use of the shorter form of my name and my breath seized for a moment. I recovered, but not before Mr. Walker answered for me.

  “Paulie Rheingold is the joker on the end. About five seconds after that picture was taken, he tossed Anthony McDonnell to the ground and jumped on him.”

  “Somehow he never told me that part,” I said, surprised and delighted by this moment of unknown history.

  “He was quite the clown.” Mrs. Walker nudged her husband. “And so attractive.”

  “No argument. Paulie was a good guy. Your mom, too. Really good to meet you, Cameron.”

  “It’s good to meet both of you.”

  Mrs. Walker kissed my cheek. “His Girl Friday is a great one. I’m sorry we missed An Affair to Remember.”

  “I show it every now and then. I’ll let you know next time.”

  She smiled warmly. “You do that. I wish we’d thought to bring you some food, though. The boys say you work long hours.”

  The boys. I darted a glance to them. “Oh, I’m all right.”

  “I’m sure you could use some ribs.”

  I was about to defer, when Josh said, “We’ll bring him something next week, Mom. Is that all right, Cam? Keith and I will bring something along that we can reheat after the movie.”

  “That’s my boy.” She kissed his cheek, then Keith’s. “Good boys.”

  Mr. Walker also kissed Josh’s cheek, and gave Keith a hug. “Be safe out there.”

  “We will.”

  I turned back to “the boys.” “You really don’t have to bring me food. You’re already buying me dinner.”

  “We don’t mind,” Keith said. “See you Monday.” Again, the near-hug, transformed into a handshake.

  “Good night.” Josh also shook my hand, smirking a little.

  It was early yet. I had to entertain for a bit before I could finally close, which at least distracted me from thinking about Josh’s smirk.

  Monday night came far too fast, and took forever to arrive. Our date-not-date had consumed proportions of my mental energy that made no sense in the context of a thank-you dinner, but I’d enjoyed imagining it on some level I couldn’t fully parse.

  What would we talk about? I tried to rehearse, but I had no idea how the dinner would go. I could picture them sitting, and if I concentrated, I could hear their separate cadences, the rhythms of how each of them spoke. I knew I’d heard Keith laugh, but I couldn’t remember it the way I could Josh’s laugh, low and warm and engaging, as if his laughter reached out to include everyone in range of it.

  Keith texted once, in the afternoon, to make sure we were still on. I said we were.

  And that’s when time sped up.

  Before I noticed, I was turning over the ticket booth to my closing crew and going upstairs. I went for a waistcoat embroidered in varying shades of dark gray, which looked almost black until you saw it up close and realized the dimension was down to threads arranged perfectly to offset each other.

  Someday I would learn embroidery. I’d always wanted to. But I doubted I had the eye for true artistry.

  Far too soon after that I was getting out of my car at the waterfront, staring out at the Bay. San Francisco was a pleasant fuzz of glowing fog in the distance; the bridges were bright jewels strung across black.

  The water at night was both beautiful and treacherous. I could hear it, not quite a siren’s song, but seductive nonetheless. It made me long for flight, literally, so that I could dive like the sea birds, down into the water in a column of air bubbles, then rise up again, breaking the surface, rocketing upward, shedding all traces of sea as I flew.

  Keith’s voice startled me.

  “I thought that was you.”

  I turned. “Hi, Keith.”

  “Hi, yourself. Uh. I didn’t make you uncomfortable the other night, did I? With the text messages?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh good.” He was facing the Bay now, features in shadow. “I didn’t mean to. I get a little goofy after a few beers.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Honestly. It’s rare anyone texts me. If I sounded stilted or odd, it’s probably due to lack of practice.”

  I caught the flash of teeth.

  “You didn’t sound odd. Or at least, no more than usual. We should go inside, it’s freezing.”

  We joined Josh just outside the door and went in, exchanging the sorts of pleasantries I find mostly intolerable, though I didn’t mind small talk with the two of them as much as I did with other people.

  “So tell us more about Cary Grant,” Josh said over an appetizer platter that managed to be both fancy and not merely decorative.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  Keith shrugged. “Why you like him so much.”

  “Oh.” I’d been prepared with a biography and highlights of his roles. This was different. I sipped my water for a moment, thinking about it, contemplating how sound was different in nicer restaurants. Thicker carpets, maybe?

  Cary Grant.

  “The story goes that when I was four years old my parents bought me a suit. We were holding the grand reopening after renovating the theater and they wanted me to look nice, so there I was, four, in my suit and tie. And they said after that I didn’t want to take off my suit. I wanted to wear it all the time because I looked like a movie star.”

  I blushed, but neither of them seemed inclined to mock my younger self.

  “My grandfather told me I looked like Archie Leach, which of course I didn’t understand, so one of my parents, I don’t remember which one—I don’t really remember any of this, of course; it’s all family history—told me about how a boy named Archie Leach invented a persona for himself to play, and spent the rest of hi
s life playing it.”

  “And his persona was Cary Grant,” Josh said.

  “Exactly. I thought it was such a cool idea to play a character all the time, just like actors in movies.” I paused. “I don’t remember it the way I remember things now. But my parents bought me more shirts and clip-on ties, and I knew that every time I put one on I felt different, better, happier. I could look down at myself and feel—” I couldn’t explain it. I floundered for a word, but none sprang to mind.

  “Invincible?” Keith asked.

  “Invincible,” I repeated in relief. “Yes. I could be this other me, who was stronger and faster and smarter, as long as I had on my suit. Which of course is silly, but I think it helped me get through school. We wore uniforms four days a week, and on Fridays, when the rest of the student body was in the rattiest clothes they could find, I wore a suit.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly at all.” Josh raised his glass. “To invincibility.”

  We toasted. They exchanged a look I couldn’t read, which I pretended not to notice.

  “I understand that. Like a lot.” Keith toyed with his utensils. “I wish I’d figured it out when I was that young, though. By the time I knew how to feel safe I was already . . . weak, I think. I already felt so exposed.”

  “If your parents had been more like the Rheingolds, that might have helped,” Josh murmured.

  “Yeah. Well.”

  I wasn’t going to ask, but after a moment Keith offered an explanation anyway.

  “My folks are not the most supportive people on earth.”

  Josh snorted.

  “They’re not the least supportive people. I think Merin’s parents might win that one. But they don’t really like who I’ve become. Or I guess they didn’t like who I was all along, but now we can all choose polite civility over a relationship.”

  Keith was the quintessential all-American boy: pale, blond, blue-eyed; ambitious; well-spoken.

  “How could they not like you?” I asked. “How could anyone not like you?”

  “Pretty easily. My dad wanted a football star.”

  “Your dad wanted someone he could bully,” Josh countered. “Who’d then bully other people and confirm his worldview.”

  “Regardless. Whatever he wanted, it wasn’t me.”

  “But you’re so . . . good.” I bit down on my tongue to stop it from talking.

  Josh’s fingers slid over Keith’s where he gripped his water glass. “You really are.”

  “God, I’m so embarrassed. Can we talk about anything else now?”

  “How embarrassed?” Josh half turned, pinning Keith with a dark gaze.

  Another look that had nothing to do with me, but that I could practically feel in the air.

  “Josh,” Keith murmured.

  “Now would be a good time to—”

  Keith shook his head.

  “All right. Saturday, then. In private.” Josh met my eyes. “You don’t mind hosting us for dinner after the movie Saturday, do you?”

  Saturday, then. In private.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. My apartment is next door to the theater, above the little gift shop.”

  “A short commute, huh?” His smile grew more casual and the slight tension between them faded.

  “Very short. We’ve owned the building for years, but after my grandparents died we didn’t use the apartment. I moved in when I turned eighteen.”

  “Definitely looking forward to seeing it. Do you have movie posters everywhere?”

  “No, not really. Though I do have Hitchcock bookends.”

  “I can totally see his face as bookends.”

  We moved on to other topics, but I didn’t forget that moment, and I didn’t forget the word private, which could cover anything at all, and now I was intensely curious as to how Josh was using it. Apparently I’d find out. Or perhaps I wouldn’t. Keith had seemed far less certain.

  I could admit a small twinge of envy at the way they worked together, at the way they frequently spoke in “we’s” and “us’s.” At the way that Keith expressed hesitation and Josh picked up on it, immediately, no questions asked.

  Despite never having fallen in love with anyone, I could recognize it when I saw it. Not like the movies, though perhaps they’d had that sweeping initial phase as well. This was so much grittier, the kind of love that came with arguments and dishes left unwashed and promises neglected. I’d never seen them fight, but I didn’t need to; in every thought left unspoken I could feel the history of their love driven all the way down to bedrock, through both loose soil and granite.

  We said good-bye huddled up against the Volvo, a sharp breeze cutting through my jacket.

  “We’ll see you Saturday!” Keith called, cheeks pink with cold. He reached for my hand, but this time, this time he pulled me into a hug.

  I bit down on my lip, aware that most roads now led to appalling awkwardness. I’d never been good at handling casual physical interactions. “Thank you so much for dinner. You really didn’t have to.”

  “We wanted to.” Josh hugged me as well, and it was the first time I realized that he hid muscle under his neat, informal clothes. “Good night, Cam!”

  They turned away, walking close enough to one another that their arms brushed.

  It was time to get in my car, where it would be warmer, where the wind couldn’t penetrate. But I watched them just a moment longer.

  I’d made friends before. But none had ever taken me out to the San Marcos Grill. And very few of them hugged me. What a profound and somewhat delightful surprise. And I hadn’t even made it awkward.

  My apartment has always been a place of blessed solitude. I’ve fancied myself a monk sometimes, though there’s nothing austere about it. Only in the way my steps are the only steps I hear, my movements in the kitchen the only disruptive force in an orderly environment. If something is out of place, it is so because I left it that way.

  It was left vacant too long before I moved in, so we ended up getting rid of everything that had belonged to my grandparents, and starting fresh. New carpeting in the bedroom, polished floors in the rest of the house, pristine paint. Curtains that my mom made, which echoed the heavy curtains of a theater, but these were in a deep purple, almost blue.

  “Indigo,” she’d said to me, kissing my cheek. “Many things at once, just like you, love.” I could hear her voice when I looked at those curtains.

  Pride of place was taken in the living room by my sofa, lush red velvet that brought to mind the throne of a king. And comfortable—neither too soft nor too firm.

  I felt ridiculous cleaning my house Saturday morning. First, because it was already clean. And second because I was cleaning enthusiastically, as if I expected them to spend the night. I’d cleaned my shower, changed my sheets. All things I do in the natural flow of cleaning, I assured myself, if with less anticipation. I rarely had company. It made sense that I was paying special attention today.

  I made up the dining room table with three settings from the matched dishes Mom had bought me the day I moved in. I tended to use sentimental favorites from my parents’ house, but for tonight I went formal. I did a fresh load of laundry so the cloth napkins wouldn’t be dusty. I changed my dish towels to the nice, not-fraying black ones that hardly absorbed water.

  The last thing I wanted to do, with the prospect of hosting dinner with Josh and Keith, was spend the next few hours at the theater. I resented the intrusion of the film festival into my Saturday, though of course I’d only met them because of it.

  My intro for To Catch a Thief was probably rushed or dull. My facial expression was probably neutral.

  I wasn’t thinking about the film. I was thinking about later, when I would bring Josh and Keith upstairs, to my home, where we would eat whatever they brought for dinner.

  It would likely be take-out Chinese, and I’d set out my best dishes. Cloth napkins! What had I been thinking? So foolish.

  The movie played, but I hardly watched.

&n
bsp; The reception afterward progressed. They were getting longer each week, and slightly smaller; the collection of people who kept coming were beginning to build themselves a little community of old-movie fans right there in the lobby of the theater, which was exactly what I’d been hoping they’d do. But that night I just wanted everyone to leave so that I could lock up and escort my friends—new friends—up to my apartment, where we would eat burritos, or maybe pizza, or no, Chinese was still most likely, on my perfect matching dishes with my fresh, clean napkins to hand.

  “We need to go out for a minute,” Keith murmured, voice low. “We’ll be right back, probably before everyone finishes off the grape juice.”

  I was startled, but tried to hide it. “Of course.”

  I tried to distract myself by sitting down with a few of the old-timers who didn’t require I speak. Listening to them made me miss my parents, and my grandparents, though I didn’t remember them well.

  Presences. They were the exact same height, my grandparents. My father’s parents. My grandfather had babysat me when I was a baby, and he’d always teased my grandmother that she despised infants. She’d always said the same thing back to him, some joke I no longer remember.

  I paid very little attention to the people sitting near me. When everyone began leaving I was relieved, but slightly worried. What would Josh and Keith do if they arrived and the theater was all shut down? Call, probably. It wasn’t a big deal. But I had pictured it as the three of us walking the stairs at the same time, the camera pulling back, getting all of us in the frame. Instead it was me, by myself, unlocking the door, walking into my clean, empty apartment. Hanging my coat.

  Standing there, uncertainly.

  My phone rang. Keith.

  “Hi, we just got here, sorry. I so didn’t think it would take this long. You’re the door on the right side of the Rhein?”

  “That’s me. I’ll come down and let you in.”

  “Thanks, Cam.”

  The nickname, this time from Keith. I glanced once more around my apartment (was it a flat? I’d always wanted to know what the difference was between an apartment and a flat), decided it was pristine, chided myself for stalling, and finally went down the dark staircase to the ground floor.