“You’d have to check with my ex-husband about that one,” she said.
“Ah.”
“I’m afraid of some men, but I’m not afraid of you.”
“Because I’m a lilac kitten puff,” he said.
She pointed the knife at him.
“Emmett what. What’s your last name?”
“It’s just Emmett. Like Bono.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve been very kind to me. Not a lot of people would do what you’re doing. I realize that,” he said.
The vegetables hissed in the pan as the pasta water came to a rolling boil. He opened the box of rigatoni, rattled them in. Tallie finished chopping the tomatoes and stood there drinking her red wine, looking at him like she really could read his colors. His mind.
They ate their dinner with Parmesan and mozzarella cheese, drank their wine, and sat on the couch when they were finished. He sat on one side; she sat on the other. She tucked her feet underneath her and tuned the TV to the World Series. It was soothing how she never ran out of things to ask. Their talk didn’t feel so small anymore.
What’s your favorite movie? Where’s your favorite place you’ve ever been? Do you have a favorite book? What other kinds of music do you like? If you won’t tell me your last name, will you at least tell me your middle name?
Hers was Lee. Tallulah Lee Clark. TLC. He told her his middle name was Aaron and his favorite movies were Back to the Future and Badlands, but he didn’t tell her how much Sissy Spacek reminded him of his mom. His favorite place besides Kentucky was Paris. He loved too many books to pick a favorite. He liked other kinds of music besides Radiohead. Frank Ocean, Sturgill Simpson, Solange, John Prine, OutKast, Alabama Shakes, A Tribe Called Quest, the Roots, Free.
Emmett rarely listened to music anymore. Hadn’t read a book in a year. Couldn’t remember the last time he watched a movie.
“Your turn,” Emmett said. She’d lowered the volume on the TV, but he could still hear the murmurs. The wine in his bloodstream—an eraser that had lightened him, like he could balloon-float away. He could almost mistake it for happiness.
“I love a lot of movies and musicals. Every James Bond. Singin’ in the Rain and Funny Girl…those classics…I’ve seen them all a million times. When I was growing up, my mom and I would watch them together. That’s why California’s one of my favorite places…because I love old Hollywood so much,” she said. She kept talking, mentioning that she was an official member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and how Austen’s books were her favorite. She talked about the Outlander series and how she listened to a lot of folksy, quiet music and oldies.
“Also Sade, Patty Griffin, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Ben Harper, Florence and the Machine, One Direction—”
“One Direction? The what…British boy band?”
“Yes, and don’t try to tease me, because I have a Harry Styles mug I can legally use as a weapon. Absolutely One Direction, the British-Irish boy band that was,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “I make no apologies for loving sunny, happy music! The world is dark enough. But I can tell I probably shouldn’t let on how much I love ABBA, though, at least not yet.”
Emmett raised his hands in surrender and laughed. An accident. It was the wine. The fake happiness held him under his arms, lifted him up and up. He couldn’t help but smile, betraying the darkness in his heart. He nodded, kept drinking. The goal was to get as drunk as possible without making himself sick or blacking out. Two more glasses should do it. The Yankees ace threw a wild pitch, allowing the Giants a run. Emmett went into the kitchen, ferried back the warm bottle of red to the living room after asking Tallie if it was okay. She’d hesitated before relenting.
They drank. It rained. They drank more. It rained harder.
“What color is all my energy now?” he asked. The all stumbled out because his blood was wine. The room was wine. He, Tallie, and the cats, along with the entire house, would dissolve into a puddle of wine, drip and slip off into the rainwater.
“Oh, it doesn’t change. Well, not usually. You’re still a lilac puff,” she said. He poured more wine into her glass, his own.
“You’ll tell me if it changes? Promise?” he asked.
He wasn’t flirting. Not intentionally. He liked to imagine he’d transcended sexual desire, since this could be his last day. He liked the sound of the rain against her windows; maybe it would never stop raining. The water would rise and rise and rise and rise and lift them up, float them away. The whole earth would be covered in water and no one would complain. This is our new normal, the world leaders would say. Or maybe he’d drown, maybe they’d all drown. Then he wouldn’t have to make the decision himself; the rain would do it for him.
“I promise,” she said.
“But a self-destructive suicidal man such as myself”—he touched his chest—“my energy must be reading somewhat unpredictable and crooked. Isn’t it like I’m a radio station that won’t come in all the way? Shouldn’t this be where you tell me what’s wrong with me?”
The Giants scored another run. If the Giants came from behind to win the game, he would wait to return to the bridge. And if he waited…and the Giants won the World Series…what then? His impulses buzzed on and off like neon as he considered his past, his present, a future that didn’t exist. All that could happen. How his world could change in an instant. He’d lived it and he was fucking tired. Didn’t he have the right to be tired? After what he’d been through? Regardless, his alligator tomorrows waited with open mouths, toothy snaps. Nothing wrong with waiting a few days.
“You don’t need me to tell you what’s wrong with you. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong with me?” she asked.
Her cat hopped in her lap, purring as Tallie smoothed the hair on its back.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. Well, wait…you’re too trusting,” he said.
“Clearly,” she said, opening her arms wide. “But I’m more distrustful of people in general than I might appear. When it comes to you, I’m just going with my instincts, which are much better now post-divorce. I trust those above all. And honestly? It’s kind of one of my rules now…not to be afraid to live my life.”
The Giants scored again, tied the game. Like the rain, maybe the inning would never end.
“Were you ever afraid of your ex-husband?”
“Ah, good ol’ Joel,” she said.
“Were you afraid of Joel?”
“Not really. He was never violent, but he had these heavy moods. Sometimes it still feels like a dream to talk about because it all happened so fast. I found out…he moved in with her…we got divorced. They got married and had a baby,” she said, miming a head explosion. “We didn’t really talk about it. There’s so much left unsaid, and now it feels too late. What’s the point? It’s baffling how you can think you know someone and not know them at all. Maybe not even a little bit…but that’s not what you asked. However, I do still stalk him on social media,” she finished, her words clomping out with sticky boots. She was buzzed like him. They were two tiny bees touching antennae. Buzzing.
“I’m not on social media,” he said.
“Smart move. I don’t enjoy it, but I snoop around on there. Joel never changed his password, so sometimes I look at his account.”
“What do you see?”
“Everything,” she said.
“And how does it make you feel when you look at that stuff?”
“Sounds like something I would ask you.”
“It makes me feel curious when you tell me you stalk your ex-husband on social media,” he said, stroking his chin.
She smiled and told him she was trying to stop spying on Joel, but he’d changed so much in such a short amount of time that she could hardly believe they were ever together. Montana Joel, she called him, saying it as if he were a new species of Joel that needed to be taxonomized, tagged, tracked.
“How can he be a completely different person now? He grew his hair out, and now he has t
his stupid ponytail I hate so much. He’s a father; they have a horse. He bitched about my two cats, and now he has a horse?” she said, raising her voice. Buzz.
“His loss,” he said. There was a reason for cliché—sometimes there was nothing else to say.
Where had Tallie put his letters? He looked at his backpack on the floor by his feet, touched his toe to it. He was wearing the fresh dry pair of socks she’d given him—white with a skinny gold stripe across the toe. Pitching change. The ball game went to commercial.
“I’m not the only person this has happened to…things like this happen every day, I know. But I need to find a way to completely move on with my life, I guess. I’m almost there,” Tallie said. She was staring off, like she was alone and daydreaming, not talking to him.
“What would help you move on completely?”
“A little more time,” she said and paused before adding, “and it would be nice if Joel would admit none of this was my fault and I couldn’t have done anything differently to stop it. I’d especially love to hear him say it wasn’t the stress of in vitro fertilization that pushed him away,” she said and stopped. Emmett didn’t say anything, just listened as she continued. “I know it in my heart, and I know better than to think I can control what anyone else does, but it would feel good to hear him say it. However, I’m never going to tell him I want that, so—”
“Maybe you’ll tell him eventually. Tomorrow can bring something new,” Emmett said, posturing. Wishing he believed his own lies.
“For you, too,” she said.
“I guess so.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“I guess so,” he said again. He poured the last of the This is my blood wine into his glass and looked at it in there for how long?
“Emmett, are you comfortable staying here tonight?” Tallie’s voice said, fracturing the deep ecclesiastical spell he’d gone into.
“Only…if you’re absolutely sure it’s okay. I do like it here.”
“Would you like to sleep on the couch or in the guest bedroom? Forgive me for not giving you a proper tour.” She stood and pointed, ticking off the rooms for him. “Laundry room, my bedroom, guest bedroom, office. And the hallway bathroom is yours. I have my own in my bedroom.”
“I’ll take the couch. I appreciate it,” he said.
Tallie disappeared down the hallway. Emmett heard a door click open, the slip of fabric across wood. She reappeared with three thick-knitted blankets: purple, brown, and gray. She put them on the couch and went into the closet again, returned carrying a pillow.
“I knit these,” she said, touching the blankets. “Knitting calms me down. I always have a project.” She reached into a basket by the couch, held up a thick ball of yarn attached to rows of neat knitting hanging from a circular needle. “I’ve started giving most of the blankets away to the homeless shelter. For Christmas and Valentine’s Day, I knit tiny red hats for the hospital nursery.”
“Oh, wow, so you’re actually, like, a good person,” he said. “You aren’t worried I’ll, at the very least, rob you blind while you’re sleeping?”
“Not really. I’m kind of a hippie about that stuff. It’s not like I have a trove of jewels here. The most precious things to me are myself and these two, and we’ll be locked behind the door,” she said, nodding toward the cats.
(A truck shifts and grumbles down the street. The ocean-deep bass of a slow-moving vehicle rattles through the rain, thumping Tallie’s windows.)
“I…um…I wrote my parents a suicide letter and mailed it to them. They’ll get it tomorrow. Saturday at the latest,” he confessed once it was quiet again.
“Oh, no.”
“So yeah…that’s awkward.”
“How did it make you feel, writing the letter?” she asked. Her presence—a cool, minty balm working its way onto his skin, through his muscles.
“I hated it, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. If I didn’t write it, that wouldn’t be fair. If I did…if I had to write it, period, that would be awful, too. So I chose the least awful choice.”
“How do you feel about it now? They’ll get it and you’re still here. I’m so glad you’re still here,” she said, tilting her head to the side.
“Shitty, I guess,” he said.
“Well, don’t you want to call them and explain? Try to intercept it somehow? We could do something,” she said.
“I don’t know yet.” So much darkness, Tallie couldn’t possibly understand, even if he laid it out for her. And he didn’t. Wouldn’t. “But yeah, I’ll sleep on the couch. I appreciate this. I would never…look, I promise not to uh…kill myself in your living room,” he said, noticing her pale pink toenails—Brenna’s favorite color. His eyes burned and welled; he put his head in his hands. He couldn’t believe the thing that broke him open, what finally made him cry, was the color of Tallie’s toenails. That whisper of pink, those screaming memories. Emmett was embarrassed he’d told her too much by crying in front of her. The Giants scored, taking the lead in the bottom of the eighth.
“Listen to me. I hope you’ve heard it plenty of times before, but it’s okay to not be okay. And it doesn’t make me uncomfortable, you crying. So I don’t want you to worry. I’m totally fine with emotionalism,” Tallie said, her voice soft and sweet as that pink polish.
“Do you have to work tomorrow? I’m assuming you have a job,” Emmett said. Sniffed.
“I do have a job. I have the day off tomorrow, though.”
“What do you do?”
“What do you do?” she asked.
Emmett sniffed again. His throat was thick and wobbly. Hot. He wiped his nose.
“I’ve worked a lot of places,” he said.
“But not anymore?”
“Not anymore.”
“I teach high school. English. I scheduled tomorrow off so I could have a break from teenagers,” she said. She drank some wine, put the glass down. Picked it up again and finished it, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb.
“Easy, tiger,” he said.
“Ha! Why do men think women can’t hold their alcohol? It’s like you guys depend on us being weak and vulnerable even when we’re not. You’re drinking tonight, but I can’t?”
“I’m sorry. I was only kidding. Really. I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t seem vulnerable. Maybe you should behave more like it, but you don’t,” he said.
“Wait…I should?”
“Hell, yeah. You invite a stranger…a man to your house? A suicidal stranger. I know you can’t stop thinking about that part. Look at me. I’m not all there up here, apparently,” he said, pointing to his head. “I could be anyone.”
“And so could I.”
“Yeah, but it’s different and you know it.”
“Okay, so…want to arm-wrestle?” she asked, squinting.
(The blue mood of the room flashes and catches the light. Prism-quick.)
They got on the floor, cross-legged, with the coffee table between them. She put her elbow on the wood.
“Drunk arm wrestling,” he said.
“You expected something else entirely when you woke up this morning.”
His eyes still burned from crying, his temples throbbed.
“I did,” he said. “And I’m left-handed, so you have the advantage here.”
“Yes, a southpaw. I noticed,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I should warn you that I can handle myself.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
He wrapped his hand around hers, the pales of their wrists kissed. Tallie counted to three. He put up a decent fight before letting her win, and she knew it. She didn’t say it, but he knew she knew. She stayed there on the floor and so did he. Quietly, they watched the Giants pitcher retire another batter and another before winning the game.
So it was official.
He’d wait.
When Tallie said she was getting sleepy, she showed him how to unlock the front door if he needed to get out for fresh air. Told him he was welcome t
o anything in the kitchen.
“I have lots of snacks,” she said, pointing to the pantry. “And I’ll toss your clothes in the dryer.”
“Thank you. And is it okay if I use your computer if I promise not to nose around?” he asked. Her slim laptop sat on the coffee table—a glowing silver island on that cherrywood ocean.
“Of course. Feel free,” she said. “Good night, Emmett.”
“Good night, Tallie.”
Emmett watched her walk down the hallway, go into the laundry room, then her bedroom, and close the door. He listened for the click of the lock. When he heard it, he opened her computer and broke his promise.
Tallie was logged in to her ex-husband’s Facebook account for stalking purposes, like she’d said. Joel had to know Tallie stayed logged in, snooped around. Probably wanted her to. Emmett clicked through Joel’s messages first. Found some from Tallie. Her profile pic was of her with Jim the cat held next to her face. She had her hair pulled on top of her head; her lips were a cranberry red. She looked pretty. Her full smile wasn’t a total surprise like some other people’s. It was natural, as if her face preferred it to frowning. He liked that she wasn’t one of those people whose profile pics didn’t look like them, the people who used all sorts of filters and camera-angle tricks to lie to the world. Tallie looked like Tallie.
Emmett had finished his glass of wine and was drunk enough to stop drinking. He was now in a happily tipsy state he would live in, if possible. He made himself more comfortable on the couch. Tallie had also given him a new pack of boxer shorts and a cozy, thick navy-blue cardigan sweater that Joel had never worn. Still had the tags on it. She’d taken a small pair of gold stork scissors from the kitchen drawer and cut them off. He loved it on his arms, so heavy and warm. He snuggled into it more, put his feet up on the coffee table, the laptop screen robot-glowing his face as he read Joel’s messages. The most recent one from Tallie was written over the summer.
last call. if there’s anything else still in the house you need, just let me know. there’s a box of books and some of your old albums. i’m donating this stuff to goodwill if i don’t hear from you. there’s nothing left to say i guess.
This Close to Okay Page 4