Love Lettering

by Kate Clayborn

  “Absolutely,” I say, nodding and smiling before I walk away.

  When I first moved to New York, one of the hardest things for me to get used to was not having a car.

  It isn’t that I thought I needed one—there’re cabs and buses and the subway and your feet, obviously, and there’s never anywhere to put one unless you’re a billionaire or a person who doesn’t mind having a lot of unpaid parking tickets. And it isn’t that I’ve got some kind of American love affair with lengthy road trips, either, because I have a small bladder and a short attention span and also probably cannot be trusted to change a tire myself.

  But getting my license at sixteen had been my most profound escape hatch, the thing that changed my life in relation to my parents’ home the most. When tension would flare between them—more and more often as I got older, though back then I didn’t really know why—I’d cheerfully call to them that I had an errand to run, or an extracurricular event at school, or some plan with Sibby. Then I’d grab the keys to my tiny, used Toyota and hit the road.

  Sometimes I’d pick up Sibby; sometimes I’d go it alone. Either way, inside my car, I’d crack the windows no matter the temperature outside, a pressure release valve for all that tension, all the frustration I’d feel—at them for being so loud and messy with each other, at myself for being so quiet and accommodating. I’d queue up some pop-hits playlist, something where the beats were fast and the lyrics were easy to remember. I’d sing along, crowding out whatever words I’d heard between my parents, whatever words kicked around in my own head, desperate to be said out loud. I’d drive the suburban outerloop for as long as it’d take me to feel better.

  City walking eventually became a substitute, though there were times, especially initially, when there were still so many strained conversations to be had with my parents (for example: what to do with that old Toyota, once I told them I wouldn’t be coming back), where all I’d want is an hour—thirty minutes, even—to be behind the wheel of a car. Going fast, wind in my hair, noise drowned all the way out.

  After I leave Lark’s, I really, really wish I had a car.

  I’m rattled, that’s the thing. For the rest of the afternoon, I run over those last few minutes in my mind, chastising myself for saying too much. I try to work, but that’s a comically terrible idea. Letters—speaking and unpredictable—are the last thing I want to look at.

  I want fresh air and a break from the words I shouldn’t have said, and I want the kind of relief that only one person has made me feel in recent weeks.

  So I call Reid.

  “I guess I didn’t think about the—lack of signs,” I say to him now, as we stroll along my favorite part of Prospect Park, a curving path around Long Meadow. From here, you can look out over the vast expanse of green, the thick boundary of trees, and forget you’re in a city at all, and even as much as I was longing for fresh air myself, I picked this specific place for Reid. Because I thought he’d enjoy it.

  “It’s fine.” While it’s not exactly curt, it’s not exactly warm, either. It’s not exactly, I’m really enjoying this nature walk and this hot tea you brought me. Beside me, he’s Masterpiece Theatre stiff, the jacket of his suit—dark, dark blue again—draped neatly over his arm, his slim-cut white dress shirt doing everything to recommend swimming laps. But he’s kept the sleeves down, buttoned at the wrists, still no concession to the warm air.

  Maybe I’ve made a mistake, calling him—no matter that he’d texted me right back to tell me he’d come. No matter that he made me laugh with his reply, passing on my offer of a smoothie by telling me he preferred his fruit in “regular format.” No matter that he walked up the subway stairs and swoonshed, as though he’d been waiting to see my face all week. Whatever made him agree to come, it hasn’t been enough to chase away what I’m sensing is an awfully bad mood.

  “No game, though,” I say, and even to my own ears my voice sounds false, almost manic in its effort to stay light, to pressure valve my way out of this frustrating, tension-filled day. “Maybe we can play—”

  “Meg,” he interrupts. “Are you okay?”

  I shove my smoothie straw in my mouth, suck up more of its mango-banana sweetness to stall. Once I swallow I smile and—oh no. Nod. “Sure,” I add.

  “You seem—” He breaks off, clears his throat. “Different. Sort of . . . wired.”

  My cheeks heat in spite of the cold drink. I’m running through the stream of chatter I’ve kept up for the last half hour—the nice night, the guy who’s passed us on a unicycle a bunch of times, my curiosity in general about people who play Frisbee. I should know by now I can’t hide anything from Reid, not really. What he sees, what he hears—he asks about.

  I shrug. “A lousy day at work, that’s all.”

  “Your sketches didn’t go well?” That he asks—that he knew—is a reminder of how much closer we’ve been over the past week, how much we’ve stayed in touch.

  “They were fine. It’s . . . a difficult client. Not a big deal.”

  “Difficult how?”

  I feel cornered. I don’t want to say anything about Lark, anything that would violate the privacy that’s so important to her. So I settle for putting the blame where it really belongs.

  “He’s rude,” I say, keeping my eyes up and ahead, on all the signless placidity surrounding us.

  Reid pauses on the path, his body going still.

  “Rude how?”

  Standing there, Reid doesn’t look all that different from the man who came into the shop all those weeks ago. Cold, determined, impatient. Looking for answers. And what am I going to say, that I went to a client’s house and judged her marriage? That I think she’s living a worse mistake than the one I so recklessly, secretly warned him about? That’ll be a great reminder for him, I’m sure.

  This is worse than being cornered. It’s like being in a minefield, danger in every step I take.

  “Well, first of all,” I say, trying for a joke, “he wears these bracelets.”

  Reid blinks. “Pardon?”

  I sigh. “Never mind. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Meg.” He manages to make that single syllable sound shorter than usual. “Just be—” He breaks off and shakes his head in exasperation, and I can tell it’s not with himself. “Was he rude to you?”

  Oh.

  He’s being—protective? I definitely don’t want Reid to go all the way to Red Hook to punch Cameron in the face, but I am also not entirely opposed to adding this to my growing library of Reid-specific fantasies. Alas, cravats, pistols at dawn.

  “He was rude to his wife. In front of me. It’s not my favorite thing, being around that kind of tension.”

  I should ask Lachelle to make me a calligraphy certificate for Understatement of the Year. It’ll be worth it, if Reid drops this.

  At first I think he will, giving one of those tips of his head that I take as a cue to keep walking. But then he says, “So what did you do?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. “I made nice and got out of there. He’s awful, and I’m pretty sure she knows it, but it’s not really my business.”

  “Well,” Reid says, and even from that one syllable I can hear an edge, an unkindness in his voice. “I suppose you could always hide it in some of your letters.”

  Everything—Reid, the park, my heart—everything goes still. Maybe the smoothie in my belly doesn’t, but I sure wish it would. This is it—this is the confrontation I’ve been dreading with him. This is the one I’d stupidly let myself think we wouldn’t need to have, ever since his perfect, quiet Especially me.

  Today of all goddamn days.

  Reid lifts his hand, scrapes it through his hair. “Forget I said that.”

  For a few seconds all I can do is stare at him. I’m stunned and shocked and hurt.

  And then—then I’m suddenly so angry. I’m the mine, long-buried but still explosive, and I have definitely, definitely been stepped on. Why couldn’t you have left it alone? I’m thinking, for the second time t
oday, but this time all my frustration is leveled at the person standing in front of me. The person who never lets me keep it light. The person who’s unblocked me into all this trouble.

  “Forget you said it?”

  “Yes,” he answers. As though this is a perfectly reasonable request.

  “This is what we’re doing here? This is you being my . . . my friend? Waiting for your perfect opportunity to bring it up again?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not holding it against you. I’ve—listen, I’ve not had a good day.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “It doesn’t.” He takes a breath. “It’s just that . . . some days, here, it feels to me like no one says what they mean. No one means what they say.”

  “Here?”

  “Here,” he repeats, gesturing to the air around us with his to-go cup. “This city.”

  I blink with a fresh wave of hurt. My hidden letters, his hatred of this city. This, this whole entire thing is what I should have left alone all those weeks ago. I shouldn’t have taken that card as a sign. All these walks we’ve been on, and nothing, nothing has changed between us.

  “It’s not the city,” I say, my voice hard, harsh—unrecognizable even to me.

  He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

  “You think you know it here? Your extensive network of people on Wall Street?” All my disdain, I put it into those italics. “At your big job that you never talk about, anyway?”

  He stares at me, his jaw clenched.

  “It’s not the city,” I say again. “It’s the way people are. Not everyone says exactly what they’re thinking all the time, in the most blunt way possible. People have to be nice to some jerk at their job so they don’t get fired. Or they have to grin and bear it while a family member is being obnoxious so they don’t make it worse. Or they have to put up with some annoying personality trait a friend has, because it’s not the worst thing, in the grand scheme of things. People are only trying to . . . they’re trying to protect themselves.”

  My mouth snaps shut, my face flushes. Too much, again. I’ve unblocked myself into another dimension, and that shaky-stomached feeling is back.

  “Meg,” Reid says softly, and this sympathy—it humiliates me further. All I can think of is distracting him from it.

  “You think it’s not easy to understand here,” I say, loud enough that I think a few heads turn. “But that’s not everyone else’s fault. It’s yours.”

  As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I know. I know it’s a direct hit, the worst thing I could have said to him. I think of Cameron, saying to Lark the exact thing that seemed to hurt her the most. I think of my parents. I think of myself.

  Neither of us says anything for a few seconds. We both seem to have to stay still to absorb the shock.

  “Maybe we ought to forgo the rest of this walk,” he says, finally.

  “Reid, let me—I didn’t say that right.”

  “You said it right.” These four words—they are so sans serif they slice me in half.

  He raises his head, quickly scans our surroundings. The park is busy, the sun not set yet.

  “Will you be all right getting home?”

  I nod, still shocked. I couldn’t add a smile if I tried.

  But when he starts to turn, I make my second—or third, or fourth, who even knows by this point—impulsive move of the day. I reach out to stop him, and I don’t know what happens—don’t know if I jerk back in surprise at myself, or if he’s startled, or if some electric current lives between us—but suddenly Reid’s cup of tea is upturned, spilling across his arm, all the way up to the crook of his elbow. All over the white expanse of his perfect shirt.

  The cup hasn’t even finished rolling on the ground before Reid has yanked open the buttons at his wrist, his face set in pained tolerance. I’m close enough to feel the heat from the liquid that’s soaking into his skin.

  “Oh, no! I’m so sorry!”

  I set my smoothie on the ground, take his suit jacket from his arm before it slips. He pulls his sleeve to his elbow, getting the hot fabric off his skin.

  “Reid,” I breathe, failing to keep the alarm out of my voice. “What happened?”

  Because this, what I’m looking at—this cannot be a burn from that tea. Along the edge of that forearm I’ve longed to see, there’s a bright red patch of skin that tracks from the middle of his wrist to the bend at his elbow. It’s wet from the tea, but I can tell it must’ve been dry before—it must’ve been itchy and uncomfortable and so, so painful.

  I look up. Reid’s face is blank, severe. He holds out his hand for his jacket.

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s not nothing. Have you seen a—”

  “It’s nothing. A psoriasis flare. I’m used to it.” He’s pulling on his jacket, his movements stiff. It can’t be comfortable, putting that wet sleeve inside the tailored lines of the jacket.

  I’m watching closely enough that I see him cringe, minutely, as it settles over his skin.

  “Reid.”

  “Don’t,” he replies. I see the word in my head, shaped as a set of double doors closing— on one side, on the other. A tiny sliver of space between, narrowing and narrowing as they shut in my face.

  He bends, picks up his now-empty cup, and gives me one brief nod of farewell.

  And before I can think of any words to stop him, he’s gone.

  Chapter 11

  “It’s the guy, isn’t it?”

  Lachelle has basically shouted this at me across the small table we’re crammed around at Cecelia’s favorite neighborhood restaurant, a vegan place that serves all-organic cocktails and menu items featuring an abundance of kale. It’s Friday night, and the place is packed with regulars, but also with the many guests who’ve come out for a happy hour in honor of Cecelia and her husband Shuhei’s anniversary. When I’d walked into the somewhat shabby, too-small space, determined to stay at most for an hour so I could get back to my very important schedule of staring at blank pages and moping, I’d been met with a crush of people, the room noisy with conversation and the sizzle of the grill at the back, wafting delicious, spicy food smells into the dining room.

  I’d pasted a smile on my face and felt a clenching pang of longing for Reid.

  Reid who has been ignoring me for a whole week.

  “What guy?” I say, and Lachelle throws a kale chip at me.

  About a half hour ago, after I’d given my gift to Cecelia and Shuhei, smiled and small-talked my way through the rounds, I’d started inching toward the exit, toward the silent safety of my apartment. Sibby’s at Elijah’s tonight, probably opening up an advent calendar of “days until I move away from Meg,” and I’d been thinking of how much I needed to tidy my bedroom, evidence of my newly returned block everywhere. Crumpled paper on the floor, half-done sketches scattered across the desk, pens left outside their color-coded cups.

  But then Lachelle had spotted me—why did I wear this dress with gold Hello Kitty faces on it?—and had pointed at her table’s empty chair. “You’re staying, Meg,” she’d said. “I’m not going home until after the kids’ bedtime, and you’re the only person here other than Cecy I know well enough to talk to for another hour.”

  That’d been fair enough, so in spite of the self-imposed exile I’ve been in for days, I’d taken a seat. And once I’d settled in, I’d been grateful for the way Lachelle had taken over with a very long story about her very passive-aggressive sister. By the time I’d ordered my second cocktail, I’d thought, Well, this is better than moping, at least.

  But now? Now there’s a kale chip stuck to one of my Hello Kitty faces, and Lachelle is looking at me like she knows exactly what guy, and my moping plan is mocking me for abandoning it.

  “The guy you went on a date with last month.”

  I pick off the kale chip. “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Okay. But it was the guy, then?” She smiles, self-satisfied. “I knew something was wrong with you
this week when you came in for supplies.”

  I sigh, resigned. I open my mouth, thinking I’ll say, We’re just friends, but then I close it again. The expression doesn’t seem right for what Reid and I are.

  Or were.

  “I don’t think it’s going to work out.” That feels—accurate. It’s not going to work out with me and Reid, whatever “it” is. These last seven days of silence have proven that.

  “He lives in the city,” I add, which I figure will be effective as an explanation, since Lachelle thinks people from Manhattan should have to get a passport before they come to Brooklyn.

  It doesn’t work. “Yeah, that’s a real barrier, given all the mass transit options. What’s the problem, really? No job? Lives with his parents? Oh, is he in a band?”

  That last one makes me smile, imagining Reid in a band. “No, none of those. He works on Wall Street.”

  Lachelle’s eyes widen comically. “I hope you only met him in public,” she says, clearly remembering the day I’d been headed to the Promenade. “That’d be terrible, having you get murdered by an investment banker on my conscience. A friend of mine went out with one who wanted her to dress up like that blue woman from the comic book movies. He was going to pay for her to get painted all over, scales and shit.”

  “He’s not an investment banker. He’s a quant.”

  “I don’t know what that is, but he’s probably still got something wrong with him.” She takes a drink of her martini. She’s wearing a gauzy black cape and a pair of beaded hoop earrings. I suddenly feel as if I’m on a field trip and she’s the chaperone.

  “He doesn’t. He’s a nice guy. A really nice guy.”

  A nice guy with a great face and terrific shoulders and a completely frank way of dealing with menstrual cramps. A nice guy whose feelings I hurt.

  A nice guy who hurt mine.

  “Oh?” I can see that question mark expand—a big, metallic party balloon, hanging right over our heads.