House Rules

by Ruby Lang

  Yes, he made it easy to slide.

  At least that’s what she told herself as she sat down with the sandwich.

  She was still eating when the first text came from him.

  “Should I pick anything up for dinner tonight?”

  She considered it for a moment. Then typed back. “Going to be at work.”

  It didn’t take long for him to call. He sounded like he was outside. “Are you sure you should be going back today?”

  She breathed in deep through her nose. At least he wasn’t here to see her expression. “I have to. I’m still in my trial period. I don’t even know if I still have a job.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a great one.”

  This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have with him. “It’s a good stepping stone. And it’s not like I have a lot of choices. I don’t have my pick of work.”

  Not like he did.

  Another whoosh of air and a faint crackle.

  Maybe he sensed he was losing her, because he tried another tack. “I was hoping we could talk. Maybe pick up where we left off.”

  He’d lowered his voice. She could almost picture him, the collar of his dark, wool coat turned up, a private smile playing on his face, the intimacy of their conversation warming him against the cold wind. And this time she wished—oh, she wished—not that she was up to taking him up on everything he offered, but that he were here instead of out wherever he was, that his later was their now.

  “You’re trying to tempt me.”

  “I’m doing it because it hasn’t worked.”

  “And it’s not going to because I have to be a responsible adult.”

  “It’s the worst.”

  “Sometimes it really is.”

  He hung up, but not before asking what time she thought she’d be home, and telling her to wear three scarves tonight, and to sit down if she needed to, and to call him if she had to leave early, and he could come pick her up and yell at her boss if she needed it.

  She wished he could be there to yell. It was a tiring night, and Danny was terrible about yesterday’s incident, but not extremely terrible because he didn’t have time to really let out the full extent of his terrible, and he needed all the bodies he could get. At the end of the night, she stumbled onto the subway, sore and exhausted and almost missed her stop. The cold winds blew up the wide avenues of Malcolm X Boulevard. And when she finally got home—she thought of it as home, now—she was chilled and tired. She found Simon asleep on the couch with the lamp still on. He’d had a longer day than she had. After all, he’d brought her home last night, let her cling, gotten her medicine and the hot-water bottle, made her breakfast, and then taught his full day. She looked at him for a minute, at his long, dark lashes, his messy hair, his crumpled collar. Then she nudged him down into a more comfortable position, put a blanket over him, and turned out the light. He hardly stirred, never moving even after she’d brushed her teeth and gone through her nightly ritual with washes and serums and creams. She finally left again, reluctantly, as if hoping he’d wake up, and they could have their conversation. Or that he could at least hold her the way he had last night.

  One night and she’d already gotten used to leaning on him again.

  But she did have to be sensible, and she did have to be an adult. So Lana put on her braces, got into her own bed, and she went to sleep.

  * * *

  Simon woke up in a terrible mood. He’d fallen asleep in his clothing and missed talking to Lana again. He’d been wanting to speak with her in person for nearly a week, but between his schedule and hers, they hadn’t been able to find a moment when they were both present and conscious.

  He couldn’t even tell what time it was when he opened his eyes, because it was so dark in winter. He got up to go to the bathroom and on his way there, peered at the light on the microwave. Five forty-nine. Almost near his usual waking hour. Not enough time to crawl back into bed and take a decent nap. But early enough that he felt resentful at being up at all.

  Lana’s door was closed.

  Well, what did he expect? If he was asleep on the couch when she returned, then she was too considerate to wake him, or kiss him or sit on his lap. She’d been in such pain only a few days ago, for God’s sake. She needed her rest. She should never have gone back to work to begin with, and the fact that she had—the fact she’d dismissed his concern so breezily—needled him, even though he knew he was being immature.

  Mouth full of toothpaste, he gazed into the mirror. He didn’t usually worry too much about his looks, but he felt haggard. The highs and lows of the last week had been too much.

  The rest of the day didn’t go much better.

  Abena pulled him aside at the end of practice and said, “What’s going on with you? You’ve delivered your lecture about grit at least four times today.”

  “They need to hear it, don’t they?”

  “If they’re listening to the same lecture from you over and over again then they’re showing plenty of it.”

  “Concert’s in less than two weeks and the second sopranos are still muddy in ʻWanting Memories.ʼ Did anyone hear back from Monroe Webb about whether he’s going to be there?”

  “An extra practice was rescheduled for tomorrow. They’ll work on it. And Mr. Webb is coming.”

  “Great. Fine. I forgot about the sectional.”

  “You seem more stressed than usual.”

  “Our grant’s up for renewal. We’re using a different venue for our concert. The kids need to be in top shape. We have to have our board members out in force. And I haven’t been sleeping well because of Lana.”

  Abena raised a perfect, dark eyebrow.

  “It’s not the way it sounds. She was sick.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  Well, Lana hadn’t been sick for the past few nights. Or maybe she had. He didn’t know, did he? The thought that she’d been hurting and going to work all week made him angry. But he couldn’t exactly tell that to his intern.

  “She’s fine. She always is. I’m just tired. Maybe I’ll take off. You guys can handle cleanup?”

  “Of course.”

  He started to walk home, cutting across 120th Street, down the slippery steps of Morningside Park and past the elementary school. It was still early, but the winter sun was already setting. A man pedaled past him, boom box playing Otis Redding, the singer’s voice bright against the cold gloom. Simon tried to keep the sound in his head, to follow the thread of the melody home.

  As he swung open the door, his neighbor was checking the mail.

  “You kids, out ’til all hours.”

  It was six-thirty. “Hi, Mrs. Pierre.”

  “Where’s your wife?”

  “Still at work.”

  “Where’s her job?”

  “Downtown,” Simon muttered vaguely.

  “And she has to come back up in the cold and dark alone?”

  Well, Simon had just returned in the cold and dark alone, but he saw Mrs. Pierre’s point. “She’s a grown woman. And she’s stronger than she looks. She could probably braid my limbs like a challah.”

  Mrs. Pierre gave a crack of laughter. “You young people,” she said as Simon started his slow climb toward his apartment.

  But rather than collapse onto the couch by the time he got inside, he was jumpy. The warmth he’d craved was suddenly stifling. The cat was too wild to want to cuddle, running back and forth through the hallway for no reason Simon could understand. He watched for her progress—or lack thereof—for a while, drinking a glass of water.

  He should go out.

  And why not? He was still young, according to Mrs. Pierre. Single. Restless.

  A man had to eat.

  Before he knew it, he’d taken a shower, shaved, and changed into a clean shirt. He hopped onto the subway at 116th Street, and rode
down to Chelsea.

  As the hostess asked him if he had a reservation, he realized he hadn’t thought this through. He wasn’t down there to harass Lana. He didn’t want to make her talk to him while she was working. But he was lonely for her, and he wasn’t sure she felt the same way. Once, long ago, he’d been sure of her. Certain they were completely and utterly in love with each other and that they would be together forever.

  That had turned out great.

  “Well, since you’re alone,” the hostess said brightly, “we could squeeze you in at the counter.”

  She led him out into the loud, cavernous restaurant. Some sort of boy-band K-pop was playing, while beautifully rumpled people talked loudly at each other. Servers dressed in black dodged nimbly from table to table, ferrying drinks and food. Billowing red ceiling draperies did little to reduce the noise, but at least it was all very dramatic. Simon paused for a moment to gape at the huge iron fountain in the middle of the floor and then trotted after the hostess once more.

  He’d noticed none of this the last time he was here. He’d been too worried about Lana.

  Simon quashed the memory. He got to the counter and slid cautiously onto one of the high-tech stools, doubtless made of some dense polymer that was also used on several space stations and was now being employed to hold his ass. The hostess handed him a black matte menu folder, which he promptly smudged with his greasy, plebeian fingers.

  But his attention was diverted almost immediately by the view of the kitchens, by the sight of a station behind a line of sushi chefs, of Lana.

  She was standing in her chef’s whites, sleeves rolled up, arms dusted with flour. Her hair was pulled back neatly and covered by a dark kerchief, and she was holding a hank of dough, spinning and manipulating it like it was magic and elastic, not some ordinary mix of flour and water. At first, it seemed to be all one thick, smooth piece but after she doubled and stretched it several times, she paused a moment to sift it with her fingers, and it was revealed to be made up of smaller strands. She swung her dough, and lifted it to twist it together again. Another quick comb through the now even finer strands. She went through the process over and over. It was almost hypnotic. In another moment, she was handing the lengths to another white-jacketed chef to be cooked.

  He started to understand where she’d gotten the muscles he’d felt when he held her the other morning when they’d kissed. His tiredness was gone. All that remained was awe. When had she learned to do that?

  “Would you like a drink to start with, sir?” His server had been standing patiently while Simon stared.

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll just have the noodles.”

  Chapter Ten

  Simon was waiting for her. But she didn’t find out until she’d already cleaned up and was getting ready to leave.

  “Is anything wrong?” she asked, hurrying to the front where the crew were vacuuming and stacking chairs.

  He looked disheveled. Tired. She shook off the urge to reach up to him and touch his hair.

  But as he shook his head, he took her hands and kissed them, and she knew Talia, who had followed, was probably raising one dark eyebrow at the sight.

  Lana didn’t care. “You should have told me you were coming. I’m all right, you know.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. I know you can take care of yourself. It was—I wanted to see what you do.”

  “Oh.”

  She examined him more closely. At first, she’d assumed he was worried and exhausted, but a strange light was shining in his eyes when he gazed back at her.

  “It was really good,” he said. “I don’t even know how to say it.”

  They stood in the way of the rest of the staff, so she pulled on her things. He helped her with the jacket and scarf, and they headed out into the crisp night. He held onto her hand as they walked to the subway and as the train squealed into the station. They stepped onto a nearly empty car.

  He was still quiet, bright-eyed, watching her.

  It wasn’t until they reached 34th Street that she finally said, “So you ate at Lore.”

  “The fresh hand-pulled noodles.”

  The food she’d made.

  She said slowly, “And you liked them.”

  “I loved them.”

  His voice was low and fervent, so intense that she could hear it even above the rumble of the subway.

  She glanced down at her lap. She was still holding his hand.

  “Noodles,” she said. “It’s such a silly sounding word. Just flour, water, salt.”

  “What you did with it wasn’t simple. You must have spent years learning those skills. I can’t even begin to understand, especially because it was you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve witnessed you do other spectacular things. I’ve seen you get a roomful of little kids to hush and really listen to music with you. I’ve watched you handle all of your rambunctious older relatives, how you switch so easily from English to Taiwanese to cajole them. I’ve heard you play. I remember the way you touched the keys when you performed Gymnopédies, the reverence with which you’d play old folk songs. I’ve seen you, well, when we were together in bed, I saw all of you.”

  His voice had dipped even lower and he had pulled her—or had she leaned?—so that his voice was close to her ear, stirring the escaped tendrils at her temple. She shifted in her seat.

  “I always knew you were amazing,” he continued softly. “I think young, arrogant me congratulated myself a lot for seeing so much in you. But I feel foolish now, because I realize I didn’t see half of it. I didn’t see how much you work, how dedicated you can be. How, given half the chance, you can make something ordinary—flour, salt, water—make it move for you, transform it into something else entirely. I didn’t see half of anything in you. It came out of left field. And I guess the thing I feel now is strange, because I feel like I don’t know this whole part of you. I’m ashamed for how little I realized about you.”

  “Simon, this isn’t—”

  She was going to say that this wasn’t something he could have known about her. She’d hardly known it herself when she started out. It had taken years of apprenticing, years of messes and lumpy, recalcitrant doughs that broke or stuck together. It had taken forearms that trembled from fatigue at night, stiff shoulders, strange but obvious dreams about being tangled in noodles and cooked in soups, to come up to this point to make it something she’d gotten used to, to make noodle-making part of her muscle memory.

  She didn’t feel like a different person, because she’d been there the whole way, but she was different now. And so few people who’d known her for a long time seemed to be able to understand it—to see it. And Simon, in a way the last person she’d ever expected to want or acknowledge that, could. He did.

  He was amazed by her.

  She felt amazing.

  She turned her head toward him and kissed him.

  She kissed him as they traveled uptown, under the too-bright lights of the rattling, rumbling 2 train, her hands stealing up past the thick collar of this coat, to his warm neck, to his hair.

  “We’re disgracing ourselves,” Simon murmured, even as he nipped her earlobe and his fingers found the zip of her jacket and pulled it down. “Making out on the train, like teenagers.”

  He watched the progress of the zipper avidly, as if it would reveal more than her scarf, her sweater, more layers and layers of clothing, as if he could see down to her skin. Then he tipped his tongue up to catch her again in a lush kiss.

  She pushed her breast, or the area of her clothing that covered it, shamelessly into his hand, and he gave a muffled gasp that only made her wilder. The train seat felt too smooth and unsatisfying against her restless thighs.

  Every stop on the walk home was marked by where they paused to kiss, where Simon pushed her up against a wall, and she ground her hips agai
nst his. A car slowed once and honked while they were pressed on the brick beside a beauty salon. Its headlights illuminated their desperate bodies, causing Lana to bury her head in the front of Simon’s coat. Simon laughed softly, an edge of incredulity in the sound.

  “We should get back.”

  “Yes.”

  They hurried now, swinging around the corner and down the block, through the gate and up, up the stairs, the thumping of their footsteps loud and urgent. Lana couldn’t help blushing at how impatient their running sounded. She and Simon burst in the door and into their dark hallway. Before the door fully closed, they’d fallen on each other, tripping in their haste to kick off shoes and unzip and unbutton each other, to unwind. It was as if they expected someone would stop them, someone wise and mature who’d tell them to think this through. But of course, they were the adults here, they were the ones in charge.

  The fact that this was a bad idea only made Lana want it more.

  She groaned.

  Simon stopped unwinding her scarf and dropped his hands, panting. “Are you okay? Are you feeling all right? I should have asked first. We should slow down, maybe talk.”

  Talk, now?

  But he’d turned around and hung up her scarf. He was trying to get a grip on himself, and maybe that was what got to her again. Or maybe it was his erection, which when he faced her, pulled insistently against the line of his jeans under the thick fabric.

  She wanted it.

  Lana hooked her hand around his waistband and it was his turn to moan. He fought her with difficulty, the drag of her arm reeling him in until he was so close to her. She fumbled with his button, with the zipper. When she looked up again, he was watching her hand intently.

  “I don’t want to talk about anything except whose room we should go to.”