“Do you really think he’ll be okay?” Tallie asked. She was shaking. She’d started when Lionel caught fire and hadn’t stopped.
“Yes,” he said calmly and nodded.
“You…you just sprang to action. How’d you know what to do?”
“It’s important to get the person on the ground. Our natural impulse is to remain standing or to run, which makes everything worse.”
“Shit. Thank you,” Tallie said. “Are your hands okay?” She took his right hand in hers, turned it over. Emmett winced and returned it to the steering wheel. His clothes clutched a fiery funk she could taste.
“We’re almost there. He’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.”
* * *
At the hospital, Zora was with Lionel, and everyone else sat in the waiting room. Tallie’s parents and stepmother walked through the automatic doors at the same time.
“Zora’s back there with him,” Tallie said as she went to them.
“But he was awake? Talking to you?” her dad asked. He and Glory stood there in jogging suits, squeaky sneakers, and raincoats.
“Right after it happened, he was talking to Emmett. Emmett put his jacket around him and got him on the ground. He put the fire out,” Tallie said, pointing toward Emmett, who was sitting in a chair by the wall. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his tender hands curved in c’s, straight out in front of him. Tallie had begged him to let a doctor look at his hands, but he’d refused. His palms were red and raw. She’d gone across the street to the twenty-four-hour drugstore and gotten aloe, antibiotic ointment, and gauze. Talked him into letting her tend and wrap his hands herself as they waited.
“So Lionel’s okay? Is Emmett okay? Is anyone else hurt?” her mom asked, furiously chewing her nicotine gum.
“We’re waiting to hear more. Everyone else is fine,” Tallie said. Her parents and Glory followed her to the chair where Emmett was sitting.
“How long has he been back there?” her mom asked over Glory, who had opened her mouth to say something.
“We’ve been here for twenty minutes,” Tallie said.
“He’ll be okay,” Glory said with faith. Her dad put his hand on her back, and Judith turned to Tallie and rolled her eyes.
Being at the hospital was bad enough without having to play referee between her mom and Glory when Glory wasn’t even participating. Tallie sat between them, leaving Emmett on the edge of the aisle next to her mother, who was now talking to him, telling him he was a hero.
“No, ma’am.” Emmett shook his head with that bridge-hollow look in his eyes.
“Mama?” Tallie said, hoping she’d shut up. Emmett had rolled up his sleeves, revealing hot pink splotches on his forearms. She asked him if he needed anything for them. More gauze, aloe? He shook his head.
“Tonight has made me start smoking again. I’ll be back,” her mom said, standing and grabbing her purse. Tallie watched her walk out the automatic doors. There were a couple of costumed people in the waiting room. A little boy dressed like Spider-Man holding what appeared to be a broken arm and a little girl in a banana costume, sleeping on her mother’s shoulder. A man wearing a polar bear suit sat flipping through a magazine, the bear head in its own chair beside him.
Tallie’s dad leaned forward and touched her knee. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s tough,” he said. “And thank you, Emmett. For helping him.”
“No need to thank me, Mr. Clark.”
The waiting-room televisions flashed an episode of Law & Order: SVU that Tallie had seen a hundred times. Glory pulled her knitting out of her bag, and Tallie asked her about it. It was a nice distraction. She listened to Glory talk about the dishcloth pattern she was using, how she’d found a sale on cotton yarn instead of ordering it from her usual place. The details were comfortably mind-numbing. Ben sat across from them in his LeBron James costume with his arm around the owl woman from the party. Popeye and Olive Oyl sat beside them, friends of Lionel and Zora.
* * *
“Lieve schat, are you all right?” Nico asked when he showed up, not long after Tallie’s parents. He’d ditched his blazer and bloody bolts but was still greenish-yellow-faced, standing there in his THE MONSTER’S NAME IS NOT FRANKENSTEIN T-shirt, scratching at his head. “Is Li okay?”
Tallie hugged him, told him what she knew.
“Chips,” Nico said quietly, frowning. It sounded like ships, and he said it oftentimes instead of shit because he’d grown up hearing his Dutch mother say it. Nico slacked his shoulders and let out his breath. He looked at Emmett. “Is he okay?”
“Burned his hands a bit,” she said. Emmett had his head back, his eyes closed.
“Your boyfriend?” Nico asked close to her ear.
“He’s my friend…a new friend,” Tallie said, thinking about the kissing. Madness. How had everything happened so fast?
“Well, do you need me to stay here with you? Do anything? Have you eaten? I could grab you something. Where’s Aisha?” he asked, looking around as if she’d appear at the mention of her name.
“Lake Tahoe. She’ll be back tomorrow. Today,” Tallie said, realizing it was Sunday. “I’m fine. I’ll get some food. Thank you. I’ll text you later.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Go home and sleep,” she said, hugging him. He said goodbye and took her face in his hands, kissed her forehead before walking away.
* * *
Tallie was quiet sitting next to Emmett, in case he was sleeping. She closed her eyes and slipped her heels off, let her head lean on the wall. Was Lionel alive? She opened her eyes in panic, looked at Emmett, still beside her. She glanced at the flashing television before letting the wallpaper pattern blur and come back into focus. Is this how it happened? The family cautiously hopeful but worried, waiting in those chairs until the doctor or surgeon came through the doors with a mournful look on their face, warning of bad news? Tallie closed her eyes again, tried to concentrate on breathing to quell her seasick stomach. Lionel couldn’t die. Lionel wouldn’t die. But what if Lionel died? Poor Zora. Poor River. Her parents, his friends. All of them. People really did die from things like this. Freak accidents killed more people than Tallie cared to think about. Lives gone in an instant, unexpected last heartbeats happening every terrifying waking moment.
Lionel had been in New York City on 9/11, and for those three hours that morning when Tallie couldn’t get hold of him, she’d attended his funeral in her mind. And several years back, Lionel had been in a snowmobile accident during a work trip to Green Bay. Judith had called Tallie and said “Lionel’s hurt,” and Tallie’s brain had done the anxious work of putting him in the ground before her mom could tell her that he’d only had a small fracture in his wrist. The thought of losing her big brother was overwhelming. How would any of them go on without him? She was crying again, attempting to hide it but couldn’t, and waved her dad and Glory off before they could make a fuss over her. She put her head in her hands. Shook. She felt Emmett’s warm hand on her back, and, besides knowing Lionel was okay, it was the only other thing she needed in the world in that moment.
She let herself cry, caught her breath, and leaned her head against the wall again. Would she fall asleep? Did she? She wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when she opened her eyes to see the scary doors slide open.
Emmett stood. Tallie got to her feet and touched the cool wall to counter the asleep-to-suddenly-awake dizziness. Her dad and Glory creaked in their chairs. They watched in silence as Zora, wilted, stepped into the waiting room in her Athena costume, the white fabric ethereally floating her across the floor—a ghosting that could be a sign Lionel didn’t make it.
When did the walls go liquid?
Tallie looked over at her dad and Glory. Where was her mother? Was her mother really going to miss this? She needed to fucking be here. Tallie made eye contact with Zora.
“Lionel’s…okay. Or will be. But he won’t be in his own room for a few hours. So honestly, y’all should go chan
ge and get some rest and come back in a little bit,” she said to them. “And thank you for saving him, Emmett. I didn’t see it, but someone told me what you did,” Zora said, going to him and hugging tight.
“He’s awake? Talking? He’s okay?” Tallie flipped the words out quickly. She couldn’t remember the last time it’d felt so good to cry. Emmett put his arm around her shoulder. Her dad and Glory joined the circle they were standing in and expressed breathy relief at Zora’s news.
“He’s knocked out now because of the medicine. He was in so much pain. That was beyond scary,” Zora said, crying, too.
Her mom returned from outside with a ripe cloud of smoke clinging to her. The anger Tallie had felt toward her mother, thinking she’d miss some awful announcement about Lionel, melted away. Lionel was okay.
Her mom stepped closer to Zora, who shared the news again.
Lionel was okay.
“I’ll stay here. Y’all need food? Something to drink? I’ll go downstairs to get it,” her mom said.
“Could you bring me crackers? And tea?” Zora said. She told them she’d called her parents and River was safe and sound, sleeping at their place. “What time is it?”
“Almost two,” Emmett said, looking at the clock. Tallie could feel it—she always felt like a skinned, raw version of herself in the middle of the night.
“We’re supposed to set the clocks back an hour tonight,” she mumbled, remembering. Everything was stretched and pliable, like taffy. Even time didn’t make sense anymore.
“Please go get some rest,” Zora said.
Her dad and Glory said they were going to the diner across the street for coffee.
“He looks at you like he’s in love with you,” Tallie’s mom said to her when she hugged her.
“Who, Nico?” Tallie whispered. Her mom had always liked Nico, but she’d been out smoking when he’d stopped by. She hadn’t seen him.
“No,” her mom said. When she pulled away, she nodded her head toward Emmett.
“That’s enough. I’ll see you soon, Mama,” Tallie said before Judith went down the hallway.
“We’ll be back. Soon. Tell Lionel that. Tell him we love him,” Tallie said to Zora, hugging her.
“I will,” Zora said. “He loves you. He loves you so much. Like you wouldn’t believe how much a guy could love his baby sister,” she said to Emmett.
“I love him so much. I don’t know what I’d do without him,” Tallie said and wiped her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath. “And please call me if my mother gets out of hand,” she added with a whisper.
“I will, I promise,” Zora said. “See you in a little bit.”
* * *
At her house, Tallie and Emmett stood in the hallway outside the bathroom.
“Here—I don’t want to lose it. Thank you for letting me wear it,” she said, reaching behind her, unclasping his necklace. Emmett was unbuttoning his shirt. “Wait. I’ll help you. Really, you should be careful with your hands. You should probably take ibuprofen, too. Does that work for burns? Works for any pain, right?” she said. She got behind him and clasped the necklace around his neck. She stood in front of him and began unbuttoning his shirt for him, his arms lank at his side. The smoky smell coming from him was so intense it could’ve set off an alarm.
“My hands are fine. They’re just tender.”
“Emmett, will you let me do this?” she said, her frustration spilling over. She’d scheduled the weekend off to take care of herself and ended up taking care of everyone else. Again! She was tired. So tired.
“Yes. I will let you do this.”
Tallie was on the verge of tears, unbuttoning one of his buttons and then another as he stood there quietly, not moving, his back now against the wall. Her cats were in the hallway with them, squinty and blinking in the light.
“You’re so fucking stubborn,” she said. Hungry, exhausted, worried. It felt good to curse at him, to let it out.
“I know I am,” he said, nodding.
“It’s fucking annoying.”
“I know it is, but I like when you boss me around.”
She was careful pulling the sleeve off his left arm, careful turning him and pulling the entire shirt off his right. And when he was facing her, standing there in his white T-shirt, she reached for the hem and pulled it over his head. Slowly. His skin blushed like a mild sunburn. Once he was shirtless—nothing but his gold cross around his neck—she gently pressed herself to his bare chest and kissed him, breathing in deeply. He shared her breath. His bandaged hands went to the sides of her face, the gauze like feathers.
“We didn’t get to talk about the kissing,” she said, kissing and pulling away. Emmett was quiet, kissing her neck. “And it’s confusing, I know, because it’s Sunday. It’s officially Sunday now, and you’re leaving today. And something’s up with you, I know it. Everything you won’t tell me…you close up and I can’t get it out of you and we barely know each other. You didn’t even flinch when my brother caught fire!” she said, eyes closed, head turned to the ceiling, Emmett still kissing her neck, her earlobe.
“Is this okay?” he asked before kissing her mouth more aggressively. She nodded.
“Is this okay?” he asked, unzipping her skirt. She said yes.
“Is this okay?” he asked, getting on his knees in front of her, pulling her skirt down. One black-stockinged foot stepping out of the circle it made was her yes.
“Is this okay?” he asked, looking up at her. “Tell me this is okay.”
“I like when you boss me around, too.”
“Good girl.”
He tugged at the strip of lace between her legs, moving it aside. The black lace she hadn’t worn since Joel left; the lace that matched the top of the thigh-highs clipped to her garter belt. Tallie heard lieve schat and Nico, Nico, Nico in her head, telling her Joel didn’t have the only cock in the world when she said yes to Emmett. Emmett had one, too; of course he did. This Emmett Aaron Baker—genuflecting before her as if she were a goddess—hooked her knee over his shoulder.
EMMETT
(Two fluffy decorative pillows on Tallie’s bed, one long king-size pillow, a knitted blanket on top of a butter-colored comforter. Nightstand: her glasses, a squat lamp, two bobby pins, a black elastic hair band, a flat tube of hand lotion, an empty glass, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton. The top of her dresser: two candles, a small tube of lip balm, dried roses poking from a slim bottle, a pale green milk-glass dish covered in earrings, airy necklaces hanging from the long neck of the lamp, a black-and-white photo-booth strip of her and Nico Tate, glass bottles of perfume—circle, rectangle, square.)
Tallie sat on the bed in her black lace, unbuttoning, unzipping his pants. The intimacy of being in her bedroom rushing, flooding his veins. A riotous, overwhelming shrine to femininity, as if a pink puff of powder would smack him from overhead and knock him out. Above her nightstand lamp: Courbet’s L’Origine du monde, Klimt’s Frau bei der Selbstbefriedigung.
“Is that you?” Emmett said, looking at the erotic postcards, then at her, lifting an eyebrow.
“It was last night…and…I thought about you,” she said, falling back, her hands covering her face. The end of the sentence almost lost to the muffle.
“While I…was on the couch?” he asked, having stepped out of his pants. Emmett had held his thoughts captive, never allowing himself to imagine Tallie fantasizing about him, slamming the door on his own fantasies about her before too much could tumble out. Her telling him she’d touched herself thinking of him was a fat, blinding rip in the space-time continuum. The wind howled deep inside him, the icy black. Lightning flashed the shadows. He lay next to her in his underwear, every cell throbbing.
“Oof, I can’t believe I told you,” she said from behind her hands. “I’m not being myself. I’m acting like someone else. It’s tonight…this weekend…everything’s making me feel crazy.”
“Now you’re depersonalizing. You’re not crazy.” His hands ach
ed as he placed them on his bare stomach.
“What else do you think about me?” she asked. They stared at her ceiling—whipped egg whites and sugar.
“I kept myself from thinking about a lot of things. But now since you told me that, and after the hallway, I’m thinking about other…things,” he said, tenderly readjusting himself with his wrists, still hot and smarting. His mouth tasted like Tallie, like sweet and salty fruit. Honey, too. What women tasted like. And even in the moments when he’d doubted the existence of God, he’d remember how God had made women taste. Proof alone.
If an artist had been scritching briskly in the darkness—capturing them like the Klimt—they would’ve drawn Tallie’s bedroom, lit by one lamp. M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands come alive, penciling Emmett watching Tallie boldly shed her lace while simultaneously limning Tallie with one hand, touching herself, wet with both of them. Tallie putting her finger between his lips, into his mouth. Tallie reaching between his legs. Emmett, at the same time, hungrily kissing her mouth and breasts. Pushing his face against her. The taste of her on his tongue again and again until the crest. Tallie, scrabbling at the comforter beneath her, writhing in a rasped blur. Tallie breathless, sitting up in a fuss and carefully placing his arms above his head before licking a warm trail down his chest. Tallie sliding beneath the elastic of his underwear and taking them off, greedily destroying him. Tallie’s body and hair and redolence pouring all over him like water, him inside and on top of and underneath her. And the artist, now finished, blowing the spent scratchings across the paper before wiping it clean. Leaning back and looking at it, completely sated. Chuffed.
* * *
The alarm Tallie had set busily buzzed on her nightstand, waking them. They’d slept in her bed together, naked and touching. Flash to separate showers and Emmett making cheesy eggs and toast in her kitchen. Zora had texted, letting them know Lionel was in his own room now. They could see him but there was no rush; he would be sleeping for a while. Emmett had dressed in his own clothes, had his new black backpack waiting by the door. The yellow-white line of sunrise stretched across the navy of Tallie’s window.
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