“But my fantasy isn’t sexual assault, it’s that you’re seducing me. Me, overcome by lust, not you crying through a blow job.”
We reset.
Ash knocks again. “Ms. . . . Huffington?” He sounds like Marilyn Monroe, each syllable a puff of cotton wool.
“Yes?”
He slinks in the room. I have flashbacks to the year we did Chicago. “I have those”—the word’s a naughty whisper—“reports you were looking for.” He hands me the bill, leaning over in a way that suggests he’s showing me his cleavage.
This is certainly not what I was expecting, but I find myself oddly intrigued. If Ash is playing a woman, am I playing a man? The thought of fucking Ash-the-girl is . . . interesting. “Thank you.” I lower my voice. “Remind me of your name?”
“Real name’s Cindy, but the boys call me Sugar.” He hops up on my desk neatly. “On account of the fact I taste so sweet.”
I get up, so I’m looking down at him. If I had a dick, it might be getting hard. “I’m surprised we’ve never met. You’re very, very fetching, Miss Sugar.”
He bats his eyelids. “It’s a hard business to get ahead in. So I make it my business to give head and get hard.”
“Get hard?” I say. “Oh, I thought you were a . . . lady.”
Ash blinks. “Yes. I am a lady. A lady man.”
“You’re transsexual?” I’m not keeping up. “Pre-op or post-op? Wait, I don’t think I’m supposed to ask that—”
Ash calls cut in exasperation. “I got confused. Sorry, Lace. I’m no good at this.”
“You know what might be easier?” I put my hands on his shoulders. “If we just played ourselves. I’m me. You’re you. We just haven’t met before.” I do up a few of my buttons and extend my hand. “Hi. I’m Lacey.”
He smiles at me, getting it. “Ash.”
We talk. It’s not exactly role-play, but it’s working. As we pretend to be two strangers meeting in a Brooklyn bar, I find I’m presenting the very best version of myself to my ex-boyfriend. The me that’s funny and warm and witty and interested. I’ve always told myself I’m a bad flirt. “I just don’t get it,” I’d whine to Vivian and Steph. “What even is it? Double entendres? Drunk giggling?” But as we sit here and pretend to be ourselves, I realize not only am I flirting . . . but I like it. I’m energized and present. It’s just being playful. That’s all flirting is: play. I can play. I can flirt.
Our conversation deepens. I tell Ash about the difficulty in balancing my sales job and the app, and how neither is like what I expected. He tells me about the finance job he just quit, the lease he just broke. The way New York is stripping away old skin, helping him reinvent himself. He is more self-assured, but there is a sensitivity to Ash that I’ve always found very attractive. When I make him laugh, he touches my arm and I shiver. The air crackles with sex-and-the-city possibility. I can’t help but wonder: Am I actually into my ex? Can you ever get over an old love if love hasn’t gotten over you?
Meanwhile, at the other end of the sofa, Ash refills his wineglass and faces me in full. “If you could change anything about your life, what would it be?”
To not be BRCA positive. “I’d like to be closer to Mara.” The answer catches me off guard. It takes me a moment to recognize it as truth. “I’d like for us to love each other more.”
His gaze traces the contours of my face. “That’s beautiful.”
You’re beautiful, Ash. Heat rises inside me. I want to kiss him. But not like in college.
A real kiss.
A New York kiss.
I edge toward him. “Tell me a secret.” I run my thumb up and down the edge of his hand. I feel each stroke in my own body. “Tell me something no one else knows about you.”
His lips part. I imagine swinging my legs over him, his hands on my bra, and will we do it on my bed or the love seat, and maybe I still love Ash and maybe I always have . . .
“I’m gay.”
“Mmm.” I lean toward him. “Hot.”
He stops me. He looks terrified. “No, I am. I’m gay.”
“Let’s do it on the kitchen floor!” I grab his shirt.
“Lace, I’m gay. I’m gay. I’m a gay man. I think about gay things, all the time.” He lets out a sound that’s partway between a moan and scream. “God, I said it. I said it out loud.”
Something very weird is happening. The air in the room ripples. “Are we still . . . Sorry, I’m a bit confused—”
Ash is on his feet. “I’m gay. I like cock. I love it. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Are you serious?” Emotion, crazy emotion that I can’t even begin to identify is rocketing through me. “Are you being serious right now?”
Ash is nodding very, very fast. “I can’t believe I said it. I can’t believe it.”
“That’s great,” I say in a dazed whisper, because I know that’s what I’m supposed to say, but I don’t really mean it, what I mean is, “Wait, what? Since when?”
Ash looks at me as if for the first time. His face crumples into something strange and new. Pity. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“Since when?” I shriek.
He sits back down next to me. “Well, always, babe.”
“But we were together for three years!”
“I know. Oh, I know.”
“You told me you loved me. I lost my virginity to you.” My head is whirring like a piece of broken machinery. “Sorry, I know this is good for you, I know it is, but I’m just . . . having a little trouble . . . Who else knows?”
He shakes his head. “No one. You’re the first.”
Fuck it. I need a drink and I don’t even care if it gives me cancer. I run to the kitchen and unearth a dusty bottle of whiskey from under the sink. I slam a shot, straight from the bottle. Ash does the same. The booze hits me like a truck, a wonderful, wonderful truck. I immediately do a second. “Fuck,” I say. “Fuck.”
Ash is looking at me with big, wild eyes. He’s breathless. “Do you hate me?”
My gay ex-boyfriend is vibrating like a spinning top. He looks like he’s just been rescued from some lunatic’s basement, stunned to be in the outside world. I could tell him to get back down there: that it would be a terrible idea to come out, that he’d destroy his family. But I can’t do that. My future isn’t getting back with my ex. It’s hours of him deciding whether he’s a twink or just into them, Chris Pratt versus Chris Pine. “Of course I don’t hate you,” I say. “I’m just . . . surprised.”
“I’m so sorry, Lace. I really am.”
I’m not okay with this. Not yet. But I hand him the bottle and make myself sound blithe. “So which of my friends’ boyfriends did you jerk it to when we were together?”
He laughs, grateful. I smile back and pretend that my bewilderment isn’t already becoming pain.
20.
* * *
For me, fashion is something that helps me understand and express myself. But honestly, it’s also a form of armor. Sometimes I dress to impress, and sometimes I dress to deflect or even intimidate (who’s going to assume a girl in bright red six-inch stilettos is nervous about saying something dumb?). What truly scares me about a mastectomy, and medical stuff in general, is how much it exposes me. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s about me, just as I am.
Me, just as I am, is not an easy thing to think about this week. I’ve always accepted I am a little behind the eight ball when it comes to the boudoir. But discovering that my ex-boyfriend, my only ex-boyfriend, never found me truly desirable—that he was essentially lying to me for three years—hits me very hard. It’s that big twist moment in a movie that rewrites the whole script, beginning to end. Ash’s sexuality is the Keyser Söze of my life. All the good times—the kisses, the cuddles, even our pretty bad sex—he wasn’t feeling it like I was, to the limited extent that I felt much at all. Ash just wasn’t that into me.
What else have I invented? What else isn’t really there?
After the dust settles and I’ve indulged in a few weep
y shower moments, I make two very firm decisions. First, I’m going to tell Steph that I like Cooper. Then, I’m going to ask him out. I am. I’m going to ask a guy out, and not some wimpy-ass “we should get beers sometime”: the invite that could be a hang or a date or nothing at all. I am going to declare my intentions, unequivocally and in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
* * * *
I’m outside Steph’s building when my phone rings. The name stops me in my tracks.
Elan Behzadi.
At first I’d been obsessively counting the days he’d been away, ticking off a month in my mind, but after I never heard back from him, I’d stopped. Hard to believe it’s been a whole month since I sunk my teeth into a piece of baklava in his West Village pad and all but bragged to him about my health, or lack thereof.
It’s a rainy Saturday evening, and Steph and I have big plans to make Alfredo pasta and watch Postcards from the Edge. I’m not just excited about carbs or the wit and wisdom of Carrie Fisher (bow down slash RIP). Some light social media stalking of Steph’s Instagram comments has confirmed Cooper is en route back to Brooklyn.
Elan was only ever going to be trouble; everyone in the world could see that. The sensation that he could see through me, like my skin was made of cellophane, has faded. I remember it, but no longer feel it in my bones. And I am distinctly pissed he hasn’t contacted me until it served him: his needs, his schedule. Who’s too busy to send a lousy text? Honestly, I would’ve settled for emojis. Emojis.
Feeling like a straight-up boss, I send his call to voice mail and hit the buzzer.
* * * *
“I’m being so bad.” I help myself to a second serving of delicious cheesy pasta. “This is so bad.”
“No, this is Saturday night.” Steph tucks her feet underneath her, cozying into the couch. Outside, rain rattles the window.
“I remember.” I lick my fork. “Living with you was terrible for my beach bod.”
“Lace, every bod is a beach bod.”
“I know, I know. I just want mine to resemble an ironing board with a nice pair of tits.” I say it without thinking. Then I remember.
No tits for me. If I go through with it.
Steph touches my shoulder. “You’d still have a nice pair of tits. You’ll always be a hottie with the lottie, Lace. Always.”
I put my fork down. “I wanted to talk to you about . . . something.”
“Oh?” She sits up, alert. “Yeah?”
I brace myself. The prospect of honesty, and it being something someone doesn’t want to hear, makes my heart thud and my palms sweat. Maybe she’ll storm out, slam the door. Leave me alone in the loft. But I want to be honest. In the way Ash finally was with me. “I like your roommate,” I say. “I want to ask him out. Sexually speaking.”
“Oh.” She deflates. Of course: she was expecting cancer stuff. Inwardly, I slap my forehead with my palm. I get ready for her to whine something about what a good roommate Cooper is and not to complicate things with shagging. “Fine,” she says. “Whatever.”
“Really? I had this whole speech about being respectful and putting our friendship first but needing to go after what I wanted—”
“I said, ‘Fine.’ ”
I push my luck. “Is he dating anyone?”
“Don’t know. Don’t think so. He’s never brought anyone back here, thank God.”
I bite back a smile. Perfecto.
She slides her big brown eyes at me. “There isn’t anything else . . . on your mind?”
“Like what?” I twist pasta around my fork. “You want me to beg you to accept my heirloom jewels if I get cancer and die?”
Steph tuts. “I’ve just been thinking a lot about what you can do. They say it’s important to connect with the community. Do you want to do a fun run?”
Part of me knows I’m not handling this like the Good Cancer Patient: socially minded and proactive, beautifully brave, admirably strong. But another part wants to tell everyone to fuck off. No one knows what I’m going through, and even if I was the best orator in the world I wouldn’t be able to communicate how it feels to know that your own body is a ticking time bomb. The pasta sits sludgy in my stomach: I ate too much. Great, now I feel sick. I can’t quite look at her. “I know you’re just trying to be a good friend. But I have to do this my way.”
She opens her mouth.
I glance around for the remote. “It’s getting late. We should start the movie.”
* * * *
Hours later, Steph’s snoring at the other end of the couch when I hear the front door open. The sound of a suitcase being wheeled in. A zingy swirl of excitement pulses my eyes open. Cooper comes into the living room quietly. I pretend to wake, rubbing my eyes.
“Oh, hey,” he whispers, his voice hitching up in surprise.
I blink groggily and look around as if I have absolutely no idea how I’ve ended up here. “What time is it?”
“Just after two.”
I switch off the TV, which has been playing the DVD menu on a loop. The room flips into darkness. “Guess we fell asleep watching the film.”
Cooper pulls his suitcase toward his bedroom, not breaking my gaze. “You didn’t wait up for me?”
“No,” I say, defensive. Oh, wait, I like this guy. I reconsider. “Maybe.”
He grins, and my stomach does a fun little flippy thing. “See you in the morning,” he whispers.
“It is the morning,” I whisper back.
“Then see you soon.”
You betcha.
21.
* * *
I wake to Steph pulling on jeans and sneakers. “Leaving so soon?”
“Sunday study group,” she says. “Christ, I’m so late.”
“Bummertown.” I prop my head up. “I thought we’d do brunch.”
She gives me a look. “You’re such a shit liar. Have fun hitting on my roomie.”
I give her a wan smile, thinking that, actually, I’m a pretty good liar. Because when Cooper emerges, yawning, semi-naked and in search of coffee, our plan to go get ingredients for his World-Famous Blueberry Pancakes feels both effortless and entirely spontaneous. “I’ll just shower,” I say, giving him the chance to admire my ass cheeks in strategically chosen boy shorts as I head to the bathroom. It’s only after I’m in the shower that I realize (a) I just displayed my buttocks as part of a mating ritual, like a brazen chimpanzee, and (b) I’ve never done that before in my life.
* * * *
It’s a gorgeous March morning. The snap in the air feels fresh and vibrant, no longer brutally cold. Last night’s rain scrubbed the streets clean, and the promise of spring hides in every unfurled bud and patch of pale sunlight. With our canvas bags in tow, we pass young families with red-cheeked kids on wobbly scooters and groups of friends hoping to beat the brunch rush, daring to do so without a thousand winter layers. Cooper looks real cute in a forest-green parka. His dark blond hair peeks out from a plaid red lumberjack hat. He dresses well, even for a boy. I am slightly nervous, in a good way. I feel alive. Ready. “How was Berlin?” I ask. “What brought you there?”
“Meetings,” he replies. “But I just love it there.” His eyes are shining, even though he looks a bit jet-lagged. “It’s gritty and romantic and modern and historical. It’s everything.”
“Do you speak German?”
“Ja. I’m a quarter German.”
I smile up at him, charmed and intrigued. “What’s your story, Coop?”
“My story?” He smiles back, playful. He likes me. For sure. “Which version: white kid from San Francisco overcomes the burden of middle-class privilege, or liberal tech geek rethinks life plan after getting exactly what he wants?”
All of you. I want all of you. “I’ll take the lot.”
Cooper’s last name is Cooper. His first name is Noam. After Chomsky. His dads—yes, Cooper is a gayby—are both socialist academic types, one professionally (Moritz, assistant professor of religion and human rights, half-German)
, one personally (Alan, radio journalist reporting out of NPR West). He speaks of them fondly and with respect, as if they are friends. I can picture his adolescence: grass-fed beef burgers sizzling on a solar-powered electric grill, eaten with accomplished adults at a long table, where he’s encouraged to speak up, share an opinion that’s thoughtfully received. Coop and his dads and the crème of the Bay Area intellectual crop kicking back, enjoying being multiculturally cool and radically open-minded.
College in Berkeley; Cooper, nerd genius, gets a full freaking ride. Majored in computer science. Dormed with Liam Ryder, a name that is instantly familiar but I can’t think why. Liam was charismatic, hungry, and from real wealth: Father-buys-yachts-and-senators kind of wealth. They became best friends and talked about starting a company, like all boys of a certain age did. After a few failed starts, something took off, midway through senior year.
“Wait,” I interrupt. “You had a start-up too? I didn’t know that.”
“Buckle your seat belt, sister,” Cooper says. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Cooper created See365, an educational platform that used virtual reality to train people in hands-on topics. He was excited for how it could be used to train doctors and surgeons in rural or developing areas, where they didn’t have access to universities and proper hospitals. The technology seemed like it had a lot of promise, and Liam wanted to go all in, fast. Cooper didn’t really think they needed to raise a bunch of money and hire a big staff, but Liam convinced him this was the best and only path. They raised a huge seed round of $10 million at a $35 million post-money valuation, solely from one investor Liam brought in, a family friend, a Rockefeller. They hired forty staff members—engineers, designers, marketing, and salespeople. They dropped out of school to work ninety-hour weeks. No days off. No social life. They slept in their office. It felt like weeks went by in between seeing the sun. But the buzz was huge. Liam was telling everyone they’d be a billion-dollar company in twelve months’ time.
The Bucket List Page 14