“I don’t know,” I say.
“I think maybe you do,” Melanie says.
Her insistence surprises me. I feel her fingers curl in my coat, and she doesn’t pull her hand away.
“He’d like you,” I say. “He’d probably say you’ve got fire in you too.”
“You mean like your dog?” Melanie says.
“Well, you know, man’s best friend . . .” I say, and I know the punch I get in the arm is exactly what I deserve.
When our laughter subsides, we sit in silence, my arm aching. I watch Melanie flip her hair out of her eyes. Her eyelashes flicker against her cheeks like a camera shutter.
I want to take her picture.
“Do you think your mom would like me?” I ask.
When I try to meet her eyes, Melanie is looking away. The sun is sinking lower in the sky, the light less glaring, soft-focus.
“Yeah,” she says. “She would.”
• • •
Melanie claims she has to go do actual homework, but I make her promise to come over for dinner the next day. I know she says yes because she can’t think of a reason to say no. I imagine many of her meals these days are taken alone since her dad’s working at the diner so much, leftovers heated through in the microwave and eaten in front of the TV, or occasionally at the restaurant at the metal tables in the kitchen, trying to stay out of the way of the line cooks as they holler orders and clang their pots and pans. One place is quiet, the other is noisy, but both seem lonely. There’s no looking across the table and catching someone’s eye and thinking, Yes, we are in this moment and here we are.
This, Melanie, I can do for you.
My mom greets Melanie with a warm smile when she arrives home, saying, “Oh, good, we can chat! Yesterday Damon spirited you away before we got acquainted.”
I raise an eyebrow. I’ve told my parents very little about Melanie. I don’t talk to my parents much anymore. I don’t know what to say.
Melanie looks terrified, but my mom simply laughs and pats Melanie on the arm, saying, “It’s okay, honey. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
We stand around the kitchen while she pieces together a simple meal of lemon chicken and rice and string beans. Melanie suggests adding a pinch of dill to the marinade and then backtracks, saying, “I’m sorry, my dad’s a chef. I think I inherited his habit of backseat cooking.”
“Never apologize for helping to create something, Melanie,” Mom says.
Melanie looks down at her shoes, black motorcycle boots with silver buckles and chunky heels, and says nothing. I rest a hand on her shoulder until she looks up at me and shares my smile.
“So what are your favorite classes?” Mom asks her when we’re all seated around the table and digging in.
“Um, I like English,” she says.
“You like to read?” my father asks. He’s wearing his wire-rim glasses perched precariously on the edge of his nose, and he leans forward as he speaks. “Maybe some of that will rub off on Damon. He’s only ever interested in this acting stuff, but I keep telling him that reading is important too—”
“I read,” I cut in. “I do, Dad.”
“The backs of cereal boxes, maybe,” he jokes, but a smile pushes at his lips.
“What do you like to do outside of school?” Mom asks. “Any extracurriculars?”
“Mom,” I say, a warning.
“I’m sorry for the inquisition,” she says, though she doesn’t seem all that sorry. “I’m just curious.”
“I’m working on painting sets for the play,” Melanie says.
“Is that how you met Damon?” Mom says.
Melanie catches my eye, then nods.
Ah, I see Melanie’s not so bad at lies of omission either.
“Do you like art? Painting?”
Melanie hesitates. “I do, yeah,” she says.
“That’s wonderful,” my mother says. “The world always needs more artists.”
Especially because it’s lost one.
“It does,” Melanie murmurs, and I watch her bask in my mom’s wide smile.
I don’t know what Melanie’s mother looked like, but I can imagine her, paint-splattered and laughing, gesturing at Melanie with a brush tipped with red. Now you try it, I see her saying, pushing a stack of thick paper over to Melanie. Now you.
• • •
After Melanie’s gone, I poke my head into my father’s study to say, “I took out the trash.”
“Thank you,” Dad says, adjusting his glasses so he can peer over them. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, automatic.
My parents do this now: constant check-ins.
“Melanie seems sweet.”
I can’t think of a worse word to describe Melanie than sweet, except maybe perky.
“Melanie’s great,” I say. “I really like her.”
“I’m glad you’re making friends at Hamilton,” Dad says. “That’s a good step.”
Step toward what? But I know—a step toward moving on, moving away. A step toward thinking about Carlos less, letting him fade. Replacing him. Filling up the space.
But Melanie will never fill up that space. She fills a different space that is Melanie-shaped, a space I didn’t even realize I needed to fill until she appeared in my life. It doesn’t make sense to expect her to fill the Carlos space, the one shaped like our inside jokes and shoving matches, like Halo battles on Saturday afternoons, like late-night conversations about serious shit we couldn’t talk about in daylight.
Nobody will ever fill that space, and now I must learn to build around it, to insulate it with distance. These are the bricks and mortar of grief, the worst kind of construction. You never build anything beautiful. You just caulk the cracks and hope nothing crumbles.
I stop by the restaurant a few days later after play practice when Melanie’s working and settle in at my usual table. She brings me coffee and gives me a small smile.
“Terrible ate one of my Nikes this morning,” I lament. “He gutted it, man. There were little pieces of shoelaces all over my room.”
“Did you forget to walk him?” Melanie asks.
“Oh my God,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I only need one mother.”
“Sneaker death.” Melanie nods, sympathetic. “The most tragic.”
“It is tragic,” I say, stirring my coffee. “I was thinking of burying them in the backyard, but my dad says that’s not good for the environment. Something about Nikes not being compostable.”
“You could put up a headstone,” Melanie suggests. “Something decorative and subtle. ‘Here lies one tennis shoe, destroyed in its prime by a wild animal . . .’”
“‘It will be missed,’” I continue. “‘It is survived by its close friends, Air Jordans and Vans.’”
Someone clears his throat behind us. I peer around Melanie, curious.
A tall, dark-haired man with a slightly receding hairline stands there. He gives me a careful smile. “Hello. I’m Gary.”
I’m slightly confused. “Hi, Gary.”
He takes my hand and shakes it. He raises his eyebrows.
“I own this place,” he says. “You know. Gary’s.”
I nod, and then realization dawns on me. “Gary. Right. Good to meet you, sir.”
Nice save.
“I understand that you and my daughter have a thing,” Melanie’s dad says, and Melanie cringes.
“A thing?” I say. Possibly my voice cracks a little.
“This is what she calls it,” Gary says. “Melanie’s always been good with words.”
“That’s why I like her, sir,” I say. “She’s so articulate.”
Gary throws his head back and laughs, and Melanie looks like she doesn’t know who she wants to smack first, him or me.
“You’re both
bastards,” Melanie mutters. “I have to work.”
“I want you to come to dinner sometime, Damon,” Gary says. “Not at the restaurant. I’ll make something you could never get at a diner. Something French.”
“That sounds amazing, sir,” I say. “I would love that.”
Melanie’s expression is a mixture of frightened and annoyed. As she turns to leave, I reach out and catch her by the arm, saying, “Hey, Mel, is this going to affect our ‘thing’?”
Melanie shoots me a look that could’ve killed Rasputin.
“Friday,” I say. “Are you busy?”
I give her my best smile.
“Why,” she deadpans. “You want to hang out with my dad, since the two of you are getting along so well?”
“I’d rather hang out with you,” I say.
I can see her wavering.
“Come on,” I say. “It’ll be awesome. You know it will.”
“Okay,” she says. “But it better be fabulous.”
I grin into my coffee as she walks away.
I leave the restaurant feeling light on my feet, but the more space I put between myself and Melanie, the heavier my feet become. The week ahead skims through my mind, and my mood quickly fades and sours.
Soon we’re going to begin rehearsing the final acts of the play. I plan to go in with my game face on, but I’m not looking forward to it: the rapid disintegration of Othello’s sanity, the way his anger grows with each line, the torturous, inevitable fall.
Lacey Andrews is a striking Desdemona with her long, blond hair and flirtatious smile. She plays Desdemona as a simple young girl who’s infatuated with Othello but doesn’t truly understand him. Every time we do our final scenes, her look of surprise when Othello’s deep love shifts to confused hatred feels like pinpricks under my fingernails.
Sometimes I wonder, Why am I doing this? Why? Why do I put myself through this, make myself experience these horrible things that aren’t even real?
But it feels real. It feels real and wrong and terrible—the betrayal, the anger, the grief. As real as anything feels these days.
And I need it. I need all the moments that feel real to make up for all the ones that don’t.
• • •
It doesn’t help my generally shitty mood that I run into Prague on Wednesday just before play rehearsal for the first time in weeks. I’m about to give him a quick nod of acknowledgment and sprint away, but dammit if my cousin doesn’t keep walking toward me.
“’Sup,” Prague says. “You got a minute?”
My stomach drops. The look on Prague’s face is no joke.
“Uh—I got rehearsal—”
“One minute,” Prague promises, and tugs me into the boys’ bathroom.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“You tell me,” Prague says. “I hear you got a girlfriend.”
I shrug. “I don’t know, we haven’t exactly given it a label or whatever—”
“Look, I’m not trying to get up in your business,” Prague says.
“Sounds like that’s exactly what you’re trying to do,” I retort.
Prague crosses his arms. “I just—I think maybe you don’t know about how this works, you coming from a private school and all.”
I lift an eyebrow. “How what works, Sam?”
Prague tenses at the use of his real name. “Dating white girls.”
“What, is there some kind of handbook? A how-to guide?”
“Don’t be a dick, D. I’m trying to tell you—”
“I don’t know if I need dating advice from you, man. No offense.”
“I’m just saying—people do it, it’s not that it’s wrong or anything, but you’re new here and it looks like you don’t like your own kind, D, that’s all I’m—”
“I think Melanie is my kind,” I say. “What, are you telling me you aren’t thrilled to see I’m dating a girl? In the future, you want me to run my choices by you first? You need to screen each girl before I decide to get with her?”
Prague’s eyes are dark.
“I’m not trying to be an asshole, yo. I’m telling you how it is.”
“Maybe you don’t know how it is,” I snap.
Prague puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Never mind, then. Forget I said anything.”
“I will,” I say.
I slam out of the bathroom, face hot. I clench my hands into fists and unfurl them slowly. How dare you, I think, but I’m not brave enough to turn around and finish that conversation the way I want to finish it. It looks like you don’t like your own kind? Jesus Christ.
It’s lucky we’re rehearsing one of Othello’s rage-filled scenes today, because moments later I find myself standing onstage, body tight with fury as I face Lacey-as-Desdemona.
“Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell,” I spit.
“To whom, my lord? With whom?” Lacey gasps. “How am I false?”
“Ah, Desdemona, away, away, away!” I shout.
“I hope my noble lord esteems me honest,” Lacey whispers.
“Oh, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles, that quicken even with blowing! O thou weed,” I hiss, “who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet that the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne’er been born!”
“Alas,” Lacey says with wide, frightened blue eyes, “what ignorant sin have I committed?”
I falter.
What ignorant—what ignorant sin—
Fuck you, man, I hear Carlos say.
The anger shivers up my vertebrae, unwelcome electricity.
I can see Carlos sprawled against that tree, head lolling to one side, eyes fluttering shut.
Stay with me, stay with me—
I can see Carlos, hunched over and fighting tears on that fire escape as we tried to talk over the shouting going on inside. Carlos’s hands shook. Our voices rose until our throats were raw. I imagined passersby puzzling over why these two boys were yelling about Halo, why we were so passionate about Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, but all I could do was watch Carlos’s lips move, forcing myself to block out the sounds of “Bitch, you can’t even take care of your own kids right, why should I give you anything?” and “José, you don’t know nothing about these kids, you don’t know—”
What ignorant sin—
I tried to help. I tried to distract Carlos, to give him things to think about other than his messed-up family. I listened whenever Carlos wanted to talk—well, I tried to listen, but Carlos didn’t talk much about that stuff. He never wanted to, and how could I make him talk about what he didn’t want to talk about?
I tried to be a good friend, tried to be there, and still, still, whatever I did, it didn’t matter.
In the end it was Carlos who made that decision, Carlos who—
What ignorant sin—
I could have stopped it. There were so many times—there were so many things—
What ignorant sin—
The words run together in my mind and separate out and trip over each other, jerking and repeating like samples in a hip-hop song. I back up, putting out one hand as if to shield myself, and stumble.
“Damon?” Lacey says, and the feigned fear on her face is replaced with genuine concern.
I take another step backward and trip and fall. The dusty wood of the stage comes up to meet me. I hear a thump and then the sound of clicking heels on wood, and Lacey is beside me.
“Damon. Damon, are you okay?”
“I’m all right,” I say. “I just—I don’t feel so well.”
Mrs. McAvoy’s face appears above me, eyebrows drawn together in worry. “Damon, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you just fine,” I say.
Jesus, it’s not like I fainted, and I’m definitely not deaf.
“Maybe we should
call it a day,” she says. “You haven’t been getting enough rest.”
“Okay,” I say.
I like how she’s decided on an explanation. I’m just tired. Sleep, and all of it will go away, take care of itself.
“We’ll pick this up tomorrow,” Mrs. McAvoy says. “I’m sure you all could use a break, yes?”
The rest of the cast disperses, but Mrs. McAvoy stays with me. She even sits down on the stage, her long, ruffly skirt spread out beneath her.
“Damon,” she says, “I want you to know how much I appreciate the work you’re doing on this play.”
I blink at her. I still feel dizzy and off balance, even with the solid wood of the stage beneath me.
“Thank you?” I say.
“You’re welcome,” she says. “I think you’re incredibly talented, and that’s why I cast you. But I also recognize this is a tough play to do, emotionally. It’s a lot for someone to take on who’s just transferred to a new school—”
“I can do it,” I say. “I know I messed up today, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Damon,” she says, her voice soft. “I know you can do it. But if you need to take a break at any time, you can ask for it. Okay?”
The look on her face is one I’m not sure how to read, but I think it’s one of understanding.
What do you know? I think, sudden and paranoid, and then push that thought away.
“Okay,” I say.
Tristan appears then, a knight in skinny jeans, his eyes wide. He’s not in these scenes, though Cassio is certainly a constant presence in Othello’s mind at this point in the play. Tristan holds out his hand and helps Mrs. McAvoy to her feet. I get up on my own, slowly and carefully. When I’m standing Tristan places one hand between my shoulder blades and keeps it there, saying, “C’mon, let’s go somewhere.”
Tristan helps me gather up my stuff, and we both slip on our coats—Tristan’s a soft navy peacoat, mine black and puffy and stuffed with down. Tristan leads me along with a press of his fingers to my wrist, out of the school and down the street, and soon we’re sitting in a coffee shop a couple blocks away.
I settle into a chair at a fake-wood-covered table. Tristan orders coffee and brings me a cup.
“You didn’t have to—” I say, but Tristan waves me off, pushing it across the table. I sip it, savoring the bitter taste. I never sweeten my coffee. I like how coffee tastes when it’s being honest.
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