by Neve Wilder
My parents’ house was a two-story coastal design set on pillars, with a wide front porch and large windows, stuffed to the brim with dark furniture and knickknacks. I’d always noticed a strange sense of disconnect coming here after they’d moved; the setting completely novel, but the furniture old and familiar. When I sprawled on the couch and looked at the ceiling, I couldn’t shake the expectation that I should see the cracked old popcorn of our Jersey semi-detached rather than airy, beachy-chic planking.
The summer before I started college, my father had gotten a new job as a history professor at Silverton, a small college outside of Savannah. Connected to the mainland by a wide spit of marshland and one highway, Nook Island, with its small population and retro vibe, was an ideal compromise of my parents’ desire to retire near the ocean in a place not subject to Northeastern winters. Summer had hated it, stayed long enough to finish her senior year, and fled to California before the ink had dried on her diploma.
“Where are you moving to?” Alex asked as we stood in the living room, taking in the heavy brocade of my mom’s couch, the austere wingbacks with their houndstooth pattern rubbed into indistinction in places. I followed his sightline around the room and was a little offended he assumed this was my place. There wasn’t anything wrong with my parents’ bric-a-brac, but it had the distinct flavor of retirement age and I was nowhere near that, yet.
“Nowhere. My parents are both dead and I’ve been tasked with packing up and disposing of their life. I live in Savannah.” I didn’t mean to sound so abrasive. It was part defensive reaction to his assumption that the house was mine, and part residual grief. I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing any more than Summer did, but I was nearby. Between my mom, my dad, and my ex, the last year had been one fragrant shitstorm after another, and at this point I wanted nothing more than to pack up the house, put it on the market, and be one step closer to leaving the whole pile of manure behind.
Alex’s expression was a quiet, sheepish apology, and I regretted that my response had composed his features that way. They were much nicer features when they weren’t drawn. The sensual mouth, strong jaw, high cheekbones. The kind of almost-jock look that I’d salivated over in high school and college, though my lot had usually been the eye-lined drama-club enthusiasts and angsty types. I think they were drawn to my steadiness. I was unremarkable and bland, even then, so they always remained center stage.
“It’s been months and months. It’s fine.” I waved a hand as if I could fan away my bitterness.
“This isn’t my dog either, for the record,” I said, aiming for a lighter tone. I’d harbored a brief hope that Winslow’s devotion was enough that he’d follow Dad into the grave, but it hadn’t happened yet and he’d had plenty of time over the past several months to consider it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like dogs. Dogs were fine. But something had happened with my parents: the older they got, the smaller and more undeservedly vicious their dogs had become. We’d grown up with a gentle, affectionate golden retriever named Bonnie, who’d curled up on my floor and allowed Summer to dress her in costumes. And somehow their legacy was this patchwork thing of wild tufts of hair that liked to raise five kinds of hell.
“What’s his name?” Alex asked, dropping to a crouch again and extending his hand like a glutton for punishment.
“Winslow.”
Winslow pranced around Alex’s hand a few times before drawing closer to sniff it. Alex waited as Winslow huffed and snorted through his decision before nudging his small head into Alex’s hand. He could have palmed the whole dog, and I watched with fascination as he turned his knuckles over and stroked Winslow’s back until the dog arched and twisted into his caress. I’d done much the same in that bathroom stall.
“You have the magic touch,” I said, before I could think about what I was saying. God, this needed to end.
“So I’ve been told.” His eyes lifted to mine, a playful if wary intimation in them. I could tell he was still trying to feel out the situation.
I pulled my gaze away to find Tom standing in the foyer where he’d rolled in the dolly, clearly waiting for instructions. Right. Packing up my parents’ belongings.
Once we’d walked through the house, it was decided that Tom would run the truck back and forth to the storage facility and Goodwill with smaller items while Alex helped me with packing. It wasn’t my decision, because I would have switched their places, but Alex seemed to be the ruling voice between the two of them, and they’d informed me rather than asking.
I’d packed a few boxes on my own and piled clothing on the bed right after Dad’s heart had finally given out, but then work had gotten busy and in truth, it had been depressing business to do alone and I’d welcomed the distraction of tax season. Thinking back on it now, my mental reflexes had been clouded with grief and I just hadn’t recognized it. I should have, considering I’d already gone through it a months before with my mother. Grief might have followed some kind of logical pattern, but the fine details of it didn’t, and for the past year, the only thing I’d managed to keep in a straight line was my career.
So when Summer had offered to handle setting up the moving and packing over the summer when work was less busy, I’d gone back to the city and left everything. Even Winslow, who’d initially been rehomed with a neighbor down the street until she decided she couldn’t take the yapping and informed me that when I returned to pack, she’d be returning Winslow to me. So I was now a dog and a house richer and felt the exact opposite.
Alex and I focused on the living room, Winslow running figure eights around us as I set him up at the bookcases. My brilliant plan: divide and conquer while avoiding conversation.
In the years my folks had lived there, I’d watched the wall-spanning shelves accrue knick-knacks, starting with the set of Reader’s Digest hardbacks and figurines that had traveled from Jersey and expanded in a patchwork array of more coastal-themed pieces: a watercolor of a sand dollar from some local artist my mom had gotten excited about, a few pictures of Summer and me in front of the fireplace over Christmas visits. Cold War novels mingled among Stephen Hawking, interrupted occasionally by delicate porcelain statues. My father had been a collector of history, my mother a lover of tchotchkes.
Alex, with his arsenal of boxes, bubble wrap, and newsprint, picked up one of Mom’s imitation Lladrós and turned it over in his hand, examining the bottom of it.
“That one can go in the junk box,” I said.
Alex glanced at me sidelong. “Are you sure?”
I must have appeared confused, because he crooked his finger at me, turning the bottom of the piece outward so I could see it when I stepped closer. “See the stamp there?”
He smelled faintly of caramel, an overture of sweetness mingled with soap and a hint of sweat. The sun poured in from the front window, spilling white-gold highlights over the crown of his head. His hair was the floppy sort that was in style, the kind of messy tousle that begged for fingers to straighten it. Or pull it. I gave a cursory glance to the stamp on the bottom, an inscrutable bit of gold cursive. Then I waited for him to continue, trying not to get too stuck on the shape of his mouth and the brown-gold fan of eyelashes I’d never planned on seeing in the daylight.
“It’s an imitation, sure, but the guy who did this one became famous in his own right later. This one’s worth something to vintage collectors. Not a lot, but not exactly something to put in a junk pile, either.”
I stared at my sudden Sotheby’s auctioneer. “How do you know that?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question, but Alex offered me a fleeting smile that stoked a warmth low in my stomach. “I’m an art major.”
“SCAD?” We hadn’t covered that in the club. We hadn’t covered much aside from how to get each other off.
“Holly Brook College. SCAD’s uglier, but way cheaper, stepsister.”
“Art history?” I liked art fine, but the idea of poring over brushstrokes or sculpture in minute detail might’ve put me
to sleep. Give me a column of numbers and a balance sheet any day. Numbers made sense. The vast theater of humanity and life played out in art? Not so much.
Alex chuckled as if he’d read my thoughts, “No. Three-dimensional design, sculpture, mixed media. But I’ve had a lot of art history courses. Took one in contemporary last semester and this guy”—he tilted the figurine side to side—“stuck with me because he didn’t nail his own style until his seventies. His career was basically five years of success and profit, then he died. All the time before was spent making replicas. Kind of sad, huh?”
Alex was increasingly intriguing to me, an enigma of art and existentialism wrapped in the package of a guy who looked like he should be wearing shin guards and kicking a soccer ball, and tied up with the silver loop around his lower lip. He was an anti-stereotype stereotype.
“At least he finally got it right.” I could commiserate with late bloomers. Some days it seemed as if I was waiting to see if there was still more left to unfold or if what I had now was the best that it got. Summer had suggested counseling and that conversation had been one of the few times that I’d bitten her head off, telling her I didn’t need psycho-analyzing, just a month or two where something didn’t fall apart.
I reached for the figurine, thumb running over the glossy ear of the lamb and right into the edge of Alex’s. I didn’t feel an explosive spark, not the magical kind you read about in books, this kind of ethereal certainty or soul connection. I just felt his skin. But there was a faint sense of thrumming current that pulled my eyes upward, only to find his were already on me. He smiled and it was a bright and brilliant thing that almost made me forget my devotion to pretending he and that night in the club didn’t exist.
Maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention, maybe it was because we were alone in a quiet room, but it felt as if I hadn’t been smiled at like that in forever. I let myself indulge in a fantasy of pushing him up against the bookcase, spreading his arms wide, and peeling his clothing off slowly, until I realized he’d spoken again.
“—if you were patient.”
I shook my head, not wanting to add anything else to my never-ending to-do list. “Let’s just junk it. Someone else can stumble upon it.”
Alex’s mouth twisted in something like regret as he reached for a piece of newsprint and wrapped the figure before setting it gently in the box.
“It’s yours if you want it,” I said.
His gaze jerked up to me. “Are you sure?
“Sure.” It wasn’t any skin off my nose and he seemed reluctant to let it go. With another quick smile, he retrieved the figurine and put it aside on the window sill.
“So three-dimensional art,” I said. “What’s that look like?” I slid a stack of books from the shelves and, after flipping through the covers, stacked them all in the open box at my feet.
“Very punny.” He grinned. “A lot of experiments right now. I’ve tried marble, metals, concrete.” He rattled through materials and subjects while pulling items off the shelves, holding them out for my direction if he was uncertain where they should go. He was efficient and quick, chattering as he wrapped and boxed, comfortable in the multitasking as he spoke of botched statues, a period where he’d thought he might like to portray the human figure in marble like the Italian greats until he’d decided he was too impatient. I liked his voice, the way it suffused the room with a life that had been lacking for months and I realized, quite suddenly, that my main affliction at this point was not sadness but loneliness. Whether one was more palatable than the other was hard to say.
“I think using a variety of materials is really where I’m at. I get too bored trying to stick to one thing, and I like interesting combinations of materials. It’s kind of modern alchemy, in a way.”
“Art always sounded like a tough business to me.” Too inconstant, too unpredictable. I didn’t know why anyone would try to make a career out of it.
“It’s a fickle one, yeah.” He shrugged. “It’s the only thing that ever felt like it fit me, though.” He slid a few more stacks of books on top of mine and then closed the box, sealing it with tape.
“What do you do?”
“CPA. The exact opposite of fickle,” I said.
His eyes lit up when he laughed. It was such a generic thing to say, but it was true. It wasn’t a blinding brightness, more a glossy, hazel-tinged twinkle, but it had the effect of making me want to make him laugh again. Which was unfortunate. Caustic I could do. Funny, not so much.
By noon, Tom had made three runs and the dining room was emptied of everything but cobwebs and layers of dust that had collected after my mom was no longer around to scare them off. She’d been militant about cleaning. Dad was her lifelong defector. In the months that it took him to follow her, the furniture, baseboards, and countertops had built up a thick reminder of her absence. I ran my finger across the windowsill and exhaled shakily.
I thought I was done missing her in that sharp, gut-check way that happened in the months surrounding death. But sadness was maddening in how it transformed through time, the way it could hide in plain sight, lying in wait in something as small and innocuous as a set of car keys, a pair of socks, a layer of dust—ready to sting with the vicious quickness of a paper cut.
Alex and I sat at the kitchen table with two glasses of water that neither of us were drinking while we waited for Tom to get back from the day’s last run.
Splay-legged and loose-limbed in his chair, Alex stared out of the kitchen window next to the table, turning the rim of his glass in his hand. He didn’t drum his fingers or bounce his knee, but the weight of the unsaid rippled in the air and made him seem impatient. Expectant. If I didn’t come up with something soon, it was going to out itself somehow. Alex gave me a pensive look. His lips parted. I wished I could think of something charming to say. I remembered charming. Had been accused of it at least a couple of times in my life, but my tongue felt clumsy in my mouth and I didn’t trust it to be anything other than literal and boring.
“When did you start with the moving company?”
“You forgot my name.”
We spoke at the same time, but my weak attempt at a detour faded into the background while his accusation hung bolded between us.
From the slight tilt at the corners of his lips, I got the impression he found all of this entertaining, whereas I just wanted it to go away.
He picked up his glass and took a sip, touching the back of his knuckles to his lips when he was finished. His eyes never left mine; they might as well have been pins in the wings of an insect for all the subtlety of demand in them.
“I did. But it was never supposed to matter.” I said, figuring blunt honesty was the best course.
“And you gave me a fake name.” He canted his head to one side.
“Same answer. It was never supposed to matter. Does it really, now? I didn’t get the idea you were looking for anything more than a hookup, and I thought I made it clear I was on the same page.” What with all the groping on the dance floor and lack of casual conversation. His tongue had been in my mouth within five minutes of exchanging names, fake or otherwise. “And to be honest, I was pretty drunk, so it’s all a bit fuzzy to me.” It was true, and I hadn’t bothered trying to dredge up memories of the night with any clarity afterwards, but it was seared against the back of my eyelids now, the way he’d held my hips, his fingers digging into my skin, the wet smear of his lips across my abdomen.
One shoulder hitched in a slow shrug, those long fingers going to work on his water glass again, twisting it and leaving damp circles behind on the table top. When I tacked on the last part about being drunk, he exhaled a light, sardonic chuckle that might as well have been an eye-roll.
“I wasn’t, so I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter.” His gaze slid to the window, then flitted back, lighting on the glass in my hand. A flash of heat sizzled through me when his eyes lifted to mine.
“You left me hanging, though. Was pretty rude, if you ask me.�
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I got up to carry my glass to the sink, dump the water, and replace it with a beer from the fridge—a more appropriate beverage for the conversation at hand since I didn’t have something harder like, oh, moonshine. I could feel him watching me and was irked at the self-consciousness with which I moved, too aware of what he was seeing. The damp ’V’ of sweat on my T-shirt, the muscles of my calves, the place where my hair curled over my collar at the nape of my neck, badly in need of a trim.
The can of beer hissed as my finger hooked through the tab and cracked the seal. I took a long swallow, then nodded. “It was, and I apologize for that.”
He waited a beat, then another, brows climbing higher on his forehead. “That’s it?”
“Sure.”
“God, you’re a fortress. Not even going to give me the benefit of an explanation? No I turn into an ogre at midnight—except I’m pretty sure it was close to two a.m.? Or…” He plucked at his lip ring, eyes narrowing. “I suddenly remembered I was straight after I blew my load?”
“I’m not straight.”
His lips pursed again and he put one elbow on the table, leaning his chin against his hand as he sighed. “You were freaked out by my handsomeness and skill, afraid you wouldn’t measure up. It’s okay, that happens often.”
He clearly wasn’t being serious, but the cockiness of the smile that followed still wrenched a laugh from me in spite of myself. Christ, I had to give him something—and while I thought I’d decided on honesty, I fudged it a little, because the bald-faced truth was rather embarrassing for a man of my age.
“I wasn’t feeling well.” Somewhat less embarrassing, but not near as pathetic as exposing the reason behind the sudden lurch of my stomach that night: my phone had started buzzing in my pocket, an unwanted intrusion that was easier to ignore when I was about to explode in Alex’s mouth and next to impossible once I had. Because I’d known who was calling and I’d known what I’d do, and in that moment, I’d hated myself for that. So to let Alex think I was saving him from vomit on his shoes—or other unfortunate places—seemed the better answer.