Losing Johnny

by Rachel Dunning

“They were just friends.”

  “Do you always kiss friends like that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s different in Brazil. The...customs...are different.”

  Photos of tattoos, male and female. A girl of maybe seven, dancing, her hair splayed magically in a haze around her as she spun. A mob of fans hugging a yellow-shirted soccer player. Magnificent waterfalls. And then...nudes. Male and female. Studio shots. Tasteful. Some of them full-frontal, both sexes, strong contrasts.

  “You’ve taken a lot of photos for your age,” I said.

  “For my age?”

  “Yeah—eighteen, nineteen, something like that?”

  “I’m twenty-one.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just assumed.”

  “Yeah, it was a late decision for me to study. I’ve been photographing intensively for the last three years. Just...finding myself, I guess. I needed some time off. But I’ve taken shots all my life. Most of this, however”—he pointed at the tablet—“is from the last three years.”

  “Do you sell any of these?”

  “Sure. I make a few hundred a month, sometimes a thousand. Those photo sites are great for the consumer but not great for the artist. I mean, I make between ten and fifty cents a shot for the bulk of my sales. The real money comes from the premium catalogs I’m a part of, but those sales are less in number.”

  I told him how Nicole had helped me set up my own site and how I started making so much more after that. I suggested he try it.

  He shrugged, put his tablet away. “I don’t want to put too much effort into it. It’s not what I want to do with my life. The last time I uploaded anything was quite a few months ago. It makes me some pocket change for when I’m here.”

  My neck hurt from how long I’d had it turned.

  When I looked up, the sun was going down. “My God, I didn’t realize how late it was.”

  “I’m sorry. You said you needed to work.”

  I looked over at him, rubbed my neck. “I still owe you a look at my own shots.”

  “The private ones.”

  I hit him again. More lightly.

  He laughed. “It’s OK.” He looked away. “You promised me one day. And I hogged it all with my own photos.”

  “Oh, OK.” I didn’t want to force anyone to look at my work. “That’s cool. Well, then—”

  “Are you offering?”

  “Offering what?”

  “Another time...for us to get together.”

  I looked at my sandals. “To look at photos.”

  “Amongst other things,” he said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “When are you not ‘so busy’?” he asked.

  “I’m flexible.”

  “Are you free now?”

  I was. The whole ‘needing to work’ thing had been a ruse. “Sure.”

  “Wanna eat?”

  We grabbed some hot dogs and pizza slices and started walking down Macdougal Street, not really going anywhere.

  “So, who broke your heart?” he asked abruptly.

  “Huh?”

  “Your heart. Who broke it? It’s pretty obvious.”

  “It is? How’s that?”

  “You’re skittish. But only around a potential... How do I finish this sentence?”

  “Prospect?”

  “Yes, a ‘potential prospect.’ And your poetry screams of a broken heart. Pain. Lots of emotion there. Lots.”

  I stared at the rushing people on the street, trying to gather my senses again. “That’s...embarrassing.”

  “It shouldn’t be. You’re an artist. Artists’ emotions come through in their art. We’re open books.”

  “So what’s your emotion?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  I was.

  “So?” Tiago prompted. “Who?”

  We turned into a quieter street, and I leaned against a red-brick wall. “Would you believe it if I told you it was no one? That life itself broke my heart?”

  His dark eyes flashed with something sudden, something heavy. He looked up beyond my head to the bustling street we’d just left. His words were rough when he spoke. “Yes, I could believe that.” He looked back down at me, swallowed.

  “Let’s leave it at that then, OK?” I said.

  “OK.”

  “Now you. What makes you take those dark photos that are first-up in your portfolio app?”

  He looked at me, wondering, thinking.

  “My mother, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t dig too deep inside. I just shoot. But you asked, so I gave you the first answer I thought of.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about her?”

  Another long pause. His eyes went to my lips, my forehead, my ears. “She, uhm, she...passed away...when I was little.”

  “Oh, sorry—I mean, sorry for asking. I didn’t mean...to pry.”

  “It’s no problem. No problem.” He looked down, kicked a stone. Shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “I am sorry about your father,” he told me.

  “Huh?”

  “Your father. The comments on your Facebook page—they give it away.”

  And just like that—I was back there again.

  Back in that horrible place.

  Just like that.

  -2-

  “Walking helps,” Tiago said. “Come.” He turned and I followed, almost like a zombie. “Walking and looking. Look at that tree,” he said. “That street. That wall.”

  I did.

  “Just look around, walk, look around, don’t think. That’s the only thing that helps. The only thing. Thinking doesn’t help. You’ll drown in your thoughts if you think on it too much. Drown.”

  We walked.

  And I looked.

  And he held my hand.

  -3-

  “I want to see you again, Catherine. Soon. Tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  He grabbed both my hands, squeezed. I could feel his eyes on me. Finally I looked up.

  People streamed past us into the subway entrance behind me.

  He tugged at my hands, wanting me to get closer. I held firm, didn’t move, knowing where this was going but not being ready for it.

  He tugged some more.

  My foot took an inadvertent step forward. Our chests almost touched.

  He waited, gauging me, not wanting to make a fool of himself, but not willing to let me go either.

  Sweat broke out on both our hands.

  He eyed my lips. His own were dark and moist, parted slightly. His face contorted into a slight frown.

  Then, deliberately, he guided my hands around to the small of his back, pushed against me. I hit the railing behind me. And then I was pinned. He put both his hands around my body, gripped the green railing on either side of me, moved his lips down. They were right by my ear.

  “Your heart is hammering,” he said. “I can feel it against my chest.”

  “I know,” I croaked.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I...don’t know.”

  His hands slid up my back. “OK.” He squeezed me against him, and I felt what he’d meant. My heart. Jackhammering.

  “Shhh...” he said.

  My hands slid up under his vest, clutched his shirt. Gripped. Pulled.

  His right hand pushed against the back of my head, and we stood there forever.

  If I kiss you, I said to myself, I’ll be letting something go. The grip on a cliff, maybe. I don’t know what exactly, but something.

  At one stage I needed to jump. That was clear to me now. Reasoning had not worked in over a year. I was afraid, yes.

  And I needed to conquer that fear, not analyze it.

  I tried to push him away.

  He kept his hands gripped on the railing around me. Still pinned.

  Good thing, otherwise I would have run.

  I looked up at his face, the seriousness in it, th
e chestnut of his eyes. For a moment, I lost myself in him. Just a very brief moment. And I said, “You’re beautiful, you know that?” I couldn’t take it back once I’d said it. It had just slipped out.

  His expression showed confusion.

  “You’re beautiful. Dark, chiseled, beautiful.”

  His lip tugged up on the left, stayed there.

  I felt that jackhammer again. At this rate, my heart would tear through my chest and land face up on the floor between us soon.

  He moved an inch closer, noticed that I didn’t move away. Moved another inch.

  And on his next movement...his lips touched mine.

  -4-

  I actually groaned.

  It felt like bungee jumping, and Tiago’s lips were my cord.

  I couldn’t let them go.

  My left hand clutched his head, and my pelvis pushed hard against him below.

  I yanked him to me with my right hand, still clutching his tee madly behind him.

  Don’t let go. Don’t let go.

  His tongue found mine. I licked his lips, his beard. It prickled my skin, and raised goosebumps all over my body.

  The rush was so hard I moaned again and again. Almost the sounds of soft orgasms.

  Cars honking intermingled with my hard breaths. I wanted to pull his shirt off, his vest, his pants.

  Everything.

  Blind, furious lust. No explanation. Unthinking, jumping, flying.

  “Get a room, sistah!” someone said with a laugh.

  I was glad we weren’t in one. I was out of control. Lustful and yearning. My eyes closed. My hands all over his hair, his beautiful, thick hair.

  His were at my back, a deathgrip pulling me to him.

  My whole body opened up.

  We must have kissed easily for ten minutes.

  I was dazed when we were done, when the shock of lust had eased off. Spinning. The world was wobbly...and something about it had changed. A different color or...not sure.

  I pushed him back, caught my breath. Waited. My hands against his chest. He leaned down against them, wanting to come closer, but I held him at bay.

  My lips tasted of salt. His salt.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “OK. Yeah.” My words were barely a whisper.

  He stood back, smiled.

  And then I bolted.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ~ That Girl ~

  -1-

  Nicole met me at the promenade. I was leaning on the railing looking over at Manhattan when she arrived.

  “Whoa, what happened to you!” Her left hand rubbed my back. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

  “I got kissed.”

  “That good, huh?”

  I closed my eyes, shook my head. “Confusing.”

  She said nothing.

  “You not ready to let Johnny go?”

  “I let him go already. I can’t keep waiting anymore,” I said. “We were good together, you know, me and Johnny. We were...great together. I look back at it now...” I sighed, turned away from the skyline, faced the kids’ park with the slide and swings. Lifted my elbows high on the railing behind me. “I got no one to blame but myself. But it’s over. It’s been over since September.”

  I would find out months later that Nic decided not to mention her conversations with Johnny right now, because she figured it would confuse any chances I might have with Tiago. All she wanted for me was to settle in with a guy I loved—or could come to love.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna see him again.”

  She said nothing.

  “Nic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You look like you wanna say something.”

  “No. No. Nothing.” She looked away.

  “What do you think?”

  She cleared her throat. “Does this Tiago have any substance to him?”

  “Uhm, yeah. He seems...deep.”

  “Is he a good guy?”

  I shrugged. “You’d know better than me. He’s artistic. Thoughtful. I’d have to get to know him some more.”

  “Then get to know him some more. If you’re not ready to jump in the sack with him, don’t. Could that work?”

  I frowned.

  “What?” she asked.

  “First you wanted me to jump him and now you want me to hold back. What the hell’s up?”

  She looked away. Waited. Looked back at me. “Do you trust me?” she said.

  “With my life.”

  “Then just go with your heart. The guy’s a player. Friday night was a party. You could have gotten laid. But this looks like it might be something more serious. Screwing a player at a party is one thing. Dating him is another.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  And then her face changed, relaxed a little. “I’m sorry. Look, forget it. I just get...a little protective of you is all.”

  “You were right though. The kiss was like being hit by a train. And I don’t know if it’s because he’s the first guy I’ve kissed since Johnny—and technically only the second guy I’ve ever kissed in my life. Or if it was electric in itself.”

  “I repeat—that good, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Different.”

  “Sexual energy.”

  “Too much of it. Remember you said that me and Johnny lit sparks in the corridors?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was like that. Only—these were Tesla coils.”

  “Tesla what?”

  “Major electrical charge, basically.”

  “Fuck me.” She bit her lip. “That’s hot. You think you can ride it?”

  “I do now. I didn’t five minutes ago.”

  She smiled. Yanked me to her by the neck. “You know I got your back, don’t you?”

  I kissed her on the forehead.

  “Hey, don’t go getting all lesbo on me!” she said.

  “Nic, this is Brooklyn. You can’t be using words like ‘lesbo’ around here.”

  “I can say whatever I want.”

  We sat on a bench, looked out over the city-lit ocean. (I know they call it a river, but it’s really an ocean.)

  “Anybody interesting in school?” I asked, my arm behind her.

  “Nah, you got the only interesting guy there.”

  “What about this other guy? This... The sexy one. I forget his name.”

  “Jase?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Nah. Christ. What a fuckin airhead. He’s about as intelligent as Mike was.” Mike had been the quarterback at school, Nicole’s boyfriend for a while, and the guy Johnny almost killed after Mike’s fist inadvertently landed on my nose.

  “Surely there are other guys there. Everyone at that party seemed cool.”

  “I told you. I don’t wanna get it on with anyone at the school.”

  “I’m not talking about a one-night thing. I mean...”

  She smiled, shook her head. “Nah, I’ve seen what a relationship did to you. It totally fucked you up. I’d rather stick to my one-nighters and keep my head straight.”

  I had no argument to that.

  -2-

  I’d forgotten about Tiago’s photos of me.

  Only when I was downloading them did I notice them again.

  They were stunning. Magnificent. Beautiful.

  I didn’t recognize myself.

  The girl in the photos (not me, because this wasn’t me) looked young and carefree. She looked seventeen, not nineteen. Her chestnut hair looked like burnt gold because of how he’d captured the falling light behind it. Her eyes—my eyes—seemed bluer than I’d ever seen them. The shots reminded me of those Young Adult covers where there’s only a girl, and she looks innocent, and life hasn’t broken her yet.

  I liked the girl in the photos.

  I wanted to be that girl.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ~ The Promenade ~

  -1-

  Thursday, May 21

  I messaged Tiago on FB.

>   Me: Hey, I never got ur number. Where and when we meeting today?

  Tiago: Cat. Nice to hear from u so early. You’re in Brooklyn Heights, right?

  Me: Yeah

  Tiago: I love the view from there. Are you near Pier 1?

  Me: I can get to Pier 1.

  Tiago: I’m swamped with classes. Is 7PM too late?

  Me: No, that’s cool. Do u know where the ice cream factory is?

  Tiago: Sure. Meet you there.

  Me: Wait. R u coming straight from NYFA?

  Tiago: Yeah, why?

  Me: If u catch the 4 train and get off at Borough Hall, I can meet u there instead and we can walk to Pier 1 together.

  Tiago: :) That’ll save me some time. Make it 6:30 instead? And send me ur number.

  -2-

  Tiago bounded out of the subway station. His head spun left, right, behind him, looking for me.

  “Tiago!” I called.

  He turned to see me standing under a black lamp post, just ahead of the back steps to the Brooklyn Tourism Center (which looks like a big City Hall building).

  He beamed, and strode toward me so fast that I thought he’d knock me over. He stopped abruptly in front of me. And then his hand was on my cheek, and I sensed it was coming, the kiss...

  His lips collided with mine, his hand caressing my cheek meanwhile, my camera perched awkwardly between us.

  Sweat poured out of my every pore. My legs went wobbly and I went into a paralytic daze, almost choking on my spit as my head lolled back and I faded...

  He pulled away, smiled. Pecked me again. And again.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” The dope had struck right to my brain.

  His eyes were fire, flicking to every part of my face as if trying to take me in all at once.

  “Should we go?” I said.

  He just stood there and stared at me, awestruck, grinning.

  I couldn’t help it. The look exhilarated me. I wrapped my hand around his neck, pulled him down.

  And I kissed him again.

  -3-

  “You wanna go via the promenade?” I asked.

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to turning right down that road, and cutting diagonally to Pier One.”

  “What’s better?”