The neighborhood kids were dressed in their Halloween best. They passed a buzzing group of tiny robots, a gaggle of princesses, countless superheroes, a trio of mummies, several covens of little witches. There were plenty of food trucks over by the lake—kettle corn, s’mores, and caramel apples, too. And a small hay maze was set up with people snaking inside, defiant under the heavy gunpowder skies that seemed mere seconds away from exploding. A little girl wearing butterfly wings ran past, reminding him of the butterfly wings wilted and resting in his new backpack at Tallie’s place. Another little girl squealed at something behind them, startling Tallie, who threw up her hands and turned around before laughing.
“She scared me! Pregaming for tonight,” she said. “Oh! And there’s lots of food at this party. Plenty. Which reminds me, I need to stop by the bakery for a cake. It’s Lionel’s favorite.”
Since Tallie didn’t take his hand, he didn’t want to seem too forward by initiating it. The warmth of touch comforted him; he hadn’t realized quite how much he’d missed it. She walked close, occasionally touching his shoulder to guide him to look at something she wanted him to see—a small black dog dressed as a flower, a big brown dog dressed as a pirate, pint-size twin boys dressed as skunks. And he knew she was trying to steer him away from the house with the yard filled with fake tombstones. The silly pun-names, the skeleton hands shoving up through the leaves. If people weren’t actively grieving, they’d probably never think about how hard Halloween could be on those who were. So much death. The constant reminders of where everyone ended up, never leaving them alone for even a second.
“Let’s go. These tombstones…I hate these things.” Tallie tugged his sleeve.
She took his hand as they walked to the bakery for a pumpkin spice cake with white buttercream frosting. While she was inside, Emmett went across the street to the farmer’s market, lifted a bouquet of sunflowers from its water bucket, dripped it over to the cash register. When she stepped onto the sidewalk with the cake, he took it from her, trading for the flowers.
“Aw, what for?” she asked, smiling.
“For you. And for Van Gogh.”
“Oh, yes, our sweet Vincent. Thank you, Emmett,” she said and hugged the flowers to her chest.
A fresh round of rain had sent the costumed kids and their parents scattering, golf carts slicking across the asphalt. Emmett and Tallie—hands held, hoods up—took their time walking to her house. Past the lit-up porches and pumpkins, orange welcome mats and Halloween wreaths. Tallie waved and said hello to her neighbors. They were friendly to Emmett, too, everyone, smiling and busy and it’s Halloween happy.
* * *
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: i still care about you too
Tallie,
I don’t feel like I’ve won. No, that’s not how this works. And thanks for answering my question of whether or not you’re seeing someone. Thanks for not making me feel like a fool for asking. (He sounds perfectly lab-created for you, btw.)
Yeah so…I want to tell you a couple things and then we can take some time off emailing, yes. If that’s what you want. Again, I want to say I appreciate you for reaching out. And I know it’s not all about me but, it really has made me feel better.
I want to confess something. Something I assume Lionel hasn’t told you.
Lionel found out about Odette and me first. He was fucking pissed and I truly thought he was going to kick my ass. Lionel can be scary. I begged him to let me tell you myself, but I was a coward and I didn’t…you found out on your own because you’re not stupid. The only reason Lionel didn’t tell you himself was because we were in the middle of our fifth IVF cycle. He said it would stress you out too much, knowing. He found out because a mutual friend of ours from the art museum told him. And I promise I didn’t know this person knew. Odette and I…well it’s not like we were openly flirting at work. Like I said, I never set out for any of this to happen.
I know you look up to Lionel and think his life is perfect, but I know some things…
He’ll hate me forever for telling you this but he confessed to me that early in their marriage, he stepped out on Zora. It was one time, when he was still half-living in NYC…a woman up there. He and Zora had only been married for a year. He confessed to her and he said their relationship has been stronger ever since. He learned his lesson and didn’t lose Zora in the process. I swore I wouldn’t say anything, so here I am breaking that promise. But the way he told me made me feel like maybe he was telling me…to encourage me into thinking if he and Zora could stay together and work something like that out, maybe you and I could too. When I moved out of the house and into Odette’s…I still held out hope you and I could…make it work somehow. I wanted to. I feel like maybe we were both considering finding a way to stay together…but everything happened so fast…and then…Odette told me she was pregnant.
I felt like it was okay to tell you this now because…well, because you really do sound happy and healed and like you’ve moved on. And I don’t want to keep any more secrets from you. Odette and I have been going to counseling and I’m learning how to be more open and honest. Therapy is essential to you/your life…and I know how much you tried to talk me into it…I’m just sorry it took all this for me to finally go.
Another thing I want to tell you is that I haven’t changed my Facebook password on purpose. I know you log in, I know you check it. I can see when it happens. Is it weird I like that we have the secret connection? We aren’t connected anywhere else…I didn’t know if we’d ever speak again…and then you emailed me.
I hope you do adopt a baby if it’s what you want. And I don’t care how corny it sounds…I hope you have the best life and that you get everything you’ve ever wanted. No one deserves it more. You’ll be an AMAZING mother. You deserve all the love and best things the world has to offer. And my inbox is open to you. No worries if this is the last of our emails, but understand I am deeply (grievingly) sorry for hurting you/us like this. I know these words can never be enough. You’re the complete opposite of broken. And your forgiveness means the world to me.
J
* * *
He took a shower, not able to get Joel’s email out of his head. End communication with Joel. It was stupid, and it was over. Now Emmett knew things Tallie didn’t, and he wouldn’t tell a soul. He hated knowing her brother’s secret and that he’d kept things from her; her face lit up when she talked about Lionel, even when she was fussing about him.
Emmett turned the shower water up as hot as it would go in an attempt to wash away his sins, got out smelling like Tallie again. He’d taken his small bag of toiletries into the bathroom and bent over to drink water from the faucet after he put a beta-blocker on his tongue. Emmett flossed and brushed his teeth with his own travel toothbrush and toothpaste, used his own woodsy-smelling deodorant to remind him he’d be leaving Tallie’s soon. He put on the navy-blue suit Tallie had hung on the bathroom door. She told him she’d considered returning it but forgot. Thought of donating it instead but never got around to it. So it’d stayed in a zipped bag in the back of her closet alongside her coats and dresses like some sort of dark spirit. A harbinger of exactly what, she said she didn’t know. “Maybe tonight,” she’d said, wiggling her fingers in a supposed-to-be-spooky way that made him smile.
The suit was expensive and slim, a bit tight around Emmett’s waist and a little short in the leg. The jacket sleeves stopped perfectly at his wrists but snatched too much when he held his arms out or up. He looked at his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and held his arms straight up above him, like an upside-down diver who would make the tiniest Olympic gold–winning splash. Tallie had given him a white dress shirt and a gas-blue tie, a pair of thin navy-blue socks with small ice-blue polka dots on them. Emmett smoothed his hair and beard, leaned forward, and stared at himself for so long he began depersonalizing. To stop it, he closed his eyes and ke
pt them closed.
Tallie knocked on the door. His heart kicked hard, and he was thankful the beta-blocker would start working soon enough and soften it. He’d always been overly sensitive to his heartbeats, recognizing the smallest of normal electrical adjustments it made throughout the day.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
“You tell me,” Emmett said as he opened the door, his heart marching like an entire troop of soldiers.
“Oh, wow, it works! Suited and booted! It looks great on you!” Tallie said brightly from the hallway. She reached behind her to flick the switch. The bulbs on the ceiling cast wide angles on the walls and the slip of floor beneath their feet. Their bodies painted dramatic shadows in the corners like the darkness and light of a Caravaggio painting. She looked him up and down, stopping at his face to make eye contact and smile.
Emmett took her in. Steel-gray suit jacket and tight matching skirt that stopped at the knee. Pantyhose and a pair of black heels almost bringing her nose-to-nose with him. Scully was full-time sexy. Tallie in that suit in front of him? Equally irresistible.
(Happy and pretty in her pencil skirt. Creamy black makeup on her eyes, flicking up at the corners. Her lips are glossy and auburn. Wolf whistle.)
“You look really nice. Um, is that your pencil skirt? It’s the same color as a pencil. Is that why it’s called a pencil skirt?” he asked.
Tallie laughed at him after thanking him for the compliment.
“What? I’m wrong?” he asked, chuckling along. He really had no clue what a pencil skirt was, and apparently she wasn’t going to tell him.
“Men are ridiculous,” she said, patting his shoulder. She handed him the Mulder FBI badge they’d gotten from the Halloween store. He clipped it on to match hers. “Mulder and Scully wear trench coats a lot, and tonight would be a perfect night for a trench coat, but alas, I do not have two.”
“These badges will do the trick,” he said, holding his badge out so it was parallel to the floor. Mulder’s upside-down face looked back at him.
“Ready?”
“Hold on,” he said. He unclasped his necklace. “Scully wears a cross.”
“Oh, no. Are you sure? It’s precious to you, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”
“No worries,” he said, stepping behind her. She held her hair up for him; he did the clasp. The gold cross flickered like candlelight and dangled just below the hollow of her neck, above the unbuttoned top buttons of her white-as-death blouse.
TALLIE
After they stopped at the coffee shop for a pumpkin spice latte for herself and a black coffee for Emmett, Tallie drove to Lionel’s house with Emmett in her passenger seat. The cake was on the floor in the back; her car smelled like an October dream. Algebraic crackles of light flashed Emmett’s face and hers as they drove the wet roads all lit up with streetlamps. The sun had set gold, and she drove deliberately slow, wary of trick-or-treaters in the autumnal darkness.
“My brother’s house is wild,” Tallie said to him. She had the radio turned down low; Counting Crows faded into Fiona Apple. “He had it built by this waterfall that’s part of the design, and it powers…something. It’s so over-the-top and strange. It’s modeled after the Frank Lloyd Wright in Pennsylvania. The Fallingwater house,” she finished, seeing Emmett’s impressed face in the light. “I don’t mean to sound braggy.”
“You don’t sound braggy.”
“And if at any point you need to talk or you feel anxious tonight, please let me know. What’s most important is your mental health,” she said.
“And yours. I’m not the only person in the world.”
“I know, but it’s okay if we focus on you.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m okay. Right now, I’m okay.”
“You’re sure? Because crowds and unfamiliar spaces can—”
“Tallie, I’m okay,” he said.
She drove through the open gate leading to Lionel’s street, overflowing with cars parked on the sides and in the grass. Costumed partygoers walked on the edge of the road. Two skeletons wearing puffy white wigs, every member of the Village People, a hot-pink Care Bear, and Mario and Luigi.
“I usually park up here, and we can walk over the back way. There’s a gate, but I know the code. And a bridge…a wooden bridge,” Tallie said, speaking carefully. She glanced at him, wanting to be extra sensitive, in case hearing the word bridge could trigger an impulse.
“Your brother’s house has a gate and a bridge?” Emmett asked.
“I’m telling you, it’s like one of Gatsby’s parties,” she said, slowing to a crawl because of the people and parked cars. The rain had stopped, but the rivulets still slipped through the grass and across the pavement, catching in her headlights as they spilled to the sewers, fleeting.
“Have you two always been close?”
“He’s five years older, and he never let me hang out with him when we were kids. Unless his friends were busy, then he would. But I had to promise not to tell anyone he played with my Barbies. He said he’d kill me if I did, and at the time I one hundred percent believed he would’ve done it. He has a very strong personality. I’m making him sound like an asshole, and he’s really not! He’s just…well, you’ll see,” she said. “He graduated college summa cum laude and went off to New York and came back like Scrooge McDuck, swimming through a gigantic pile of gold coins. He’s one of those guys who knows everybody and is good at everything. Everyone loves him. All my girlfriends have had crushes on him at one point or another—even my best friend, Aisha, and she’s a lesbian half the time!” Tallie laughed. “I guess all of it could make me jealous. Maybe it would if I were a man. He can be difficult, but so can I. I love being his sister. His energy is gold. It’s always been gold.”
“So’s yours.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Yes. And I like how you make your brother sound. Simpatico. Larger than life,” Emmett said through the dark of the car.
* * *
Lionel’s place was encircled by the forest on his property, and Tallie knew the secret spot where she could park her car. She and Emmett would be able to walk over the bridge leading to the enormous patio with two huge fire pits flanking it and a heated infinity pool in the middle that seemed to spill out into the grass like an illusion. In season, the bridge was surrounded by a copse of fecund apple and pear trees and a bright patch of wildflowers that attracted myriad hummingbirds and bees. It was a genuine certified wildlife nature preserve and sanctuary. They had a gardener, but Tallie loved getting her hands dirty with Zora and River. In the spring, they planted rows and rows of sunflowers, although oftentimes the deer would get to them before long—the big sunny blossoms appearing in the afternoon, disappearing overnight.
She turned down a gravel road with a mohawk of leaves in the middle. The ride was bumpy and louder than the smooth street—popping rocks, wetness sucking at the tires. She stopped the car once they got to the edge of the bridge. There was a wide-bowl clearing under the sky. The landscaping lights leading to the bridge shone like little spaceships across the leafy black. Tallie smoothed her skirt after getting out of the car. She went in the backseat for the cake, which Emmett insisted on carrying. He also insisted on putting her car keys in his pocket, so she did him one better and gave him her lip gloss, too, so she could leave her purse in the trunk. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and Tallie wished she had that on a short video loop the same way she’d wanted one of him shaking the cigarette from the soft pack.
“Li usually has a big screen set up outside with a movie playing on it. Last year it was Psycho,” Tallie said after punching in the gate code. Her heels crunched up the wooden steps of the bridge. Emmett was right behind her, and she reached for his hand.
The quiet that ribboned through the darkness was slowly eclipsed as they got closer. Floody creek water gurgled over rocks below. Peppy chatter and music from the house rose like a heat shimmer, getting louder as they crossed th
e bridge out there alone. Emmett was fetching in that suit. Tallie imagined the two of them stopping, Emmett taking her in his arms, kissing her neck, her mouth, gently putting her earlobe between his teeth. She held the vision of him wet on the metal bridge over the river against the man in that suit next to her on the wooden bridge. Two completely different bridges, two completely different men. Two jagged, mysterious halves of a whole. The zapping was back—her heart, her body, her blood—like a mad scientist’s creation humming with life and green lightning.
“Ta-daa!” she said, motioning her free hand toward Lionel’s house. Gray stone, glass, and more gray stone and more glass sprawled out and up and over in front of them. A small rolling knot of costumed people hung on the hill to their left, next to a bricked fire pit. A pumpkin-carving station was set up not far from that, and another, bigger crowd spilled into the yard, down the rocky pathway leading to more gardens. No one seemed to mind the mud. Orange and purple lanterns floated atop the infinity pool. One woman wearing not much more than glitter stood near the edge of it with gigantic angel wings sprouting from her shoulder blades, casting two wing shadows on the glowy water. A movie Tallie loved was playing on the large projection screen. She pointed and turned to Emmett.
“Donnie Darko.”
“Aha. And wow, damn,” he said, fully taking in the scene before looking at her.
“It’s extra.”
“I feel underdressed.”
“No. You’re perfect.”
They walked across the patio, Tallie saying hello and waving to the people she recognized. She spotted Zora, dressed in full Athena-goddess-of-wisdom regalia, standing by one of the tall glass doors, drinking champagne from a flute. Zora, looking every bit the former Miss Kentucky she was, wore two armfuls of chattering gold bangle bracelets and a thin gold headband of leaves. Her black curls hung loose and wild around her face, over her bare brown shoulders. When she saw Tallie, she smiled and put both hands in the air.
This Close to Okay Page 17