Nervous

by SM Johnson

  Avery worked on revising the submission guidelines listed on the agency web page. “Stephanie’s either going to love me or want to kill me for starting this right as she’s leaving,” he muttered. Then a little louder, “Don’t get too gung ho, Jules. We probably won’t be able to really dive in until she gets back from visiting her sister.”

  A shock of alarm hit me when I remembered I wouldn’t be working from Avery’s office tomorrow. And then the shock eased, because I’d been able to put that out of my mind, utterly, until just this minute, and I could be proud of myself for that. It was a small success, but small successes mattered.

  “I didn’t know you took years of ballet,” I blurted, and then was mortified, because I hadn’t planned to say anything like that.

  “Oh, yeah. Mum loves the arts, I told you that. Livvie and I started ballet before we started school. I could dance almost better than I could walk. And Livvie! You saw the way she moves, right? She was better at it than me – cared more, I think. She loved the approval, and how our mum raved about her grace and her skill. There was talk in high school about Liv preparing for a professional career in dance, but she got involved in a school play, and her heart belonged to theatre from then on.” He shook his head. “Our poor mother – how we thwarted her. But I have to admit, she’s always supported us, no matter what it was we wanted to do. Well, except for me drinking myself to death. But you already know how that turned out.”

  I tried to imagine Avery falling down drunk, and couldn’t. He was so in control of himself. “I can’t picture you that way,” I said. “I mean, you’re intense, but trying to imagine you intensely unhappy – it just doesn’t compute. You seem so… I don’t know, comfortable, I guess, in who you are.”

  “It was a struggle, Jules. But I came out on top. I beat the demon.”

  “How?” I asked, still trying to envision an Avery so different from the Avery I knew.

  “By submitting to it, in some ways. By finally admitting, out loud, what I really wanted. What I needed. And therapy. Let’s not forget that part. If you don’t know who you are, how can you ever figure out where you’re going?”

  I knew who I was. I was nervous-wreck Julian Sparks. Except I was a lot less nervous when I was around Avery. Did that mean I was changing, and would the change be permanent? Maybe I’d never be the same person I was before I met him. That was a strange and disconcerting thought. Could other people change you? I mean, my mom scolded and ridiculed me all my life about being nervous, and it never changed anything.

  Avery didn’t scold. He implemented solutions – yeah, unorthodox solutions, like tying my wrists to my desk – but his ideas worked better than anything ever had. And it was more than that – it was something in the way he accepted me the way I am, even when he caught me chewing on myself. He didn’t… well, he didn’t make it feel like I’d failed, or at least, didn’t put the failure on me and use it to make me feel stupid. He was tender with me, careful. And that made me want to change. Not to please him, not exactly, but because I liked the way he made me feel about myself.

  I couldn’t fall asleep that night for worry about moving to a desk in the submissions department in the morning. I know, Avery told me not to worry until the morning, but I’m still me, and I was anxious.

  I ended up plugging in my headphones and poking my tablet’s guided meditation app. I listened to a man with a gentle voice guide me to my internal quiet place, and then give me permission to be happy, healthy, and safe. He tried to give me permission to live my life with ease, but I am still, after all, myself, and ‘ease’ is not a state of mind that I reach. And yet, for maybe the first time in my life, I could see myself reaching that state of mind someday.

  chapter seventeen

  may you be happy

  I woke up before the alarm and let my thoughts roam. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you feel safe. May you live your life with ease. I was disoriented for a minute, trying to figure out why I was telling myself this, and then discovered my headphone cord tangled around my arm. Guided meditation. Those phrases must have been repeated over and over in the medication, because they were circling inside my thoughts as if they’d taken up residence.

  “Big day,” Avery said, when I appeared in the kitchen as ready as I was going to get.

  “Yeah.”

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  “Who, me?” I said, trying to sound as calm and serious as I could be.

  “That’s my boy,” he said, and smiled at me. “Fake it till you make it.”

  I smiled back, but it felt like a gruesome skeleton grin. “That is pretty much the whole, entire plan for the whole, entire day.”

  Avery nodded. “Tomorrow will be easier.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Exactly. Now give me your phone.”

  I stared at him, startled, but handed my ‘dumb’ phone over.

  He looked at it, made a face, and somehow knew how to slide the tiny keyboard out. Then he browsed menus, typed something on the tiny keyboard, swore, typed some more. “Okay, I added my number to your contact list.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” It struck me as a little weird he hadn’t done that before now, but whatever.

  “Remember I said I’d give you fun rules to follow?”

  Oh, shit.

  I nodded again, feeling like a little boy about to be chastised.

  “Today’s rule is this: if you catch yourself chewing anything other than food, you are to call me and apologize for that behavior.”

  I think I went red up to the tops of my ears. I didn’t know what the part of the building called ‘submissions’ looked like yet, but I assumed it would be an area of cubicles that wouldn’t offer much privacy.

  It was actually worse than that.

  The ‘submissions department’ was one large office with three computer desks, two couches, and a recliner.

  Susan had a kind of walled-off ‘office within the office’.

  The whole department appeared to be me and Susan and two others. Susan was as I’d pictured her, mostly. Late middle-aged, salt-and-pepper hair, reassuring smile. She hovered a bit, insisting on shaking my hand and complaining that Avery had kept me ‘hidden away from everyone’ for far too long.

  “He didn’t,” I told her. “I’m terribly shy, and this is already so awkward for me.”

  “Oh, nonsense, we’re all friends here,” she said, waving her hands through the air as if she could swoosh my worries away. “Stephanie told us you’re quite the character, and that Avery’s taken you right under his wing. We’ve been dying to meet you.”

  Yeah, great, office rumors already.

  Jennie, one of the slush pile readers, was a pale, tired-looking wisp of a woman, maybe a couple years older than me, who wore glasses and had soft, brown hair twisted into a messy bun. She offered a very quiet ‘hi’. I thought maybe she was even more shy than I was.

  The other reader was Tasha, Jennie’s complete opposite. One side of Tasha’s head was shaved and the other side teased into a rat’s nest. She had bright blue eyeshadow, a fully tattooed arm, and at least five facial piercings. “Hi! Nice to meet you!” Her eyes sparkled and her voice boomed so loud I jumped a little.

  “Tasha keeps us lively,” Susan said.

  “So this is everyone?”

  “This is submissions, yes. We have three remote readers beside you, but most of them are super part-time, maybe respond to ten to twenty submissions a month. I’m sure you’ve met the agents, Mark, Mannie, and Linda. Evan, who’s in charge of finance, Stephanie, Avery’s assistant, and Avery, the big boss. That’s pretty much Phoenix & Phoenix. Well, Mrs. Phoenix is our CEO, of course, but she rarely comes into the office.”

  I didn’t know the three agents, not the way she thought I did. But I thought the agency was bigger, like hundreds of employees. “I thought the company was bigger – I mean, well, from the employee forums, anyway.”

  Susan snorted. “The employee forums are nonsense. You can
make up a new screen name every time you post. In fact, I think most of the threads about Avery were started by Avery.”

  I stared at her, not sure I quite understood what she was telling me.

  “Honestly, Julian. The whole thing is a joke. Entertainment.” She patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, just pick somewhere to work.”

  I picked the empty desk and set up my laptop.

  The first thing I did was send an acceptance letter to the author of the gay romance I’d finished reading on Monday. I mean, if I was going to start being an editor, I might as well grab the books I knew I liked.

  I pulled a few things from the submission feed, but nothing that was able to catch my interest. I held the optical mouse against my thigh and used it click and open files, and then abandoned it in my lap and tucked my hands under my legs to read. I did not want to have to call Avery from this not-private space.

  All this mouse moving and hand-tucking must have looked like fidgeting, because at one point Tasha said, “You okay? The bathroom’s out the door to the left and down the hall, and you can get up and go anytime you need to. Nobody much cares.” Her voice resounded in the quiet room.

  Great, she thought I had to pee. “I’m good,” I said in an almost-whisper, and felt embarrassment heat my face.

  “Okay, then!” God, that booming voice. “Just wanted to make sure you knew.”

  I cringed a little. I didn’t know her enough to either like or dislike her, but everything about her was loud. The hair, the piercings, that voice. Even her fingers tapping away at the keyboard.

  I dug out my headphones and hoped my music would drown her out.

  It felt like hours and hours before there was a tap on my shoulder. I jumped, startled once again. It was Avery.

  I tugged my headphones out of my ears. “What are you doing here?”

  “I promised you lunch,” he said. “Every day.”

  When he’d made the promise, I hadn’t realized that his appearance to collect me made us look like a couple. I mean, I liked the idea of looking like a couple, but maybe not in front of people in the office I’d just met. There was something awkward about it all of a sudden.

  Susan waved at him from her little office, then got up from her chair and poked her head out the doorway. “Good afternoon, Mr. Phoenix. It’s nice to see you.” I thought she sounded stiff and formal.

  Tasha swiveled her chair around and gawked, but didn’t say a word, which I found surprising.

  Jennie seemed to get smaller in her chair, but otherwise ignored him, the same way she’d ignored the rest of us all morning.

  Then I remembered the message boards and the dragon thing, and it all made a little more sense.

  “You haven’t called me,” he said.

  “No,” I agreed.

  “Let me see your hands.”

  I glanced toward Susan’s office, and then peeked in Tasha’s direction. Susan wasn’t paying us any attention, but Tasha was. She had earbuds in her ears, though, and I hoped she had music playing.

  “Jules. Let me see your hands.” His voice had that tone of dangerous again, the tone that caused a helpless roll in my stomach. Was it bad? Was it good? I couldn’t tell. I stopped thinking and held my hands up.

  Avery wrapped his fingers around my wrists and examined my hands, then transferred both my wrists to one hand, and ran the tip of his pointer finger across the edges of my fingernails.

  I held my breath while he continued his assessment. I hadn’t chewed on them. I was sure I hadn’t.

  “Very nice,” he finally said. “I’m pleased with you.”

  Tasha was still obviously watching us, but that didn’t stop the sunburst of happiness from exploding inside my chest. Avery was pleased with me.

  He took me to a café that was a three block walk. Once we left the building, he asked, “Why did you hesitate to show me your hands?”

  My abdomen tightened and squeezed with some emotion I couldn’t name. “Um. Well. There were people. Tasha and Jennie. And it already looked like a… a date, how you showed up to get me for lunch.”

  Avery let a low chuckle roll from his throat.

  “And you care, why?”

  I felt it again, a quick tight cringe, as if the question itself embarrassed me. Other than that, I had no answer. I told him I didn’t know. That it gave me a weird feeling in my stomach.

  “Usually one is happy or excited to see one’s boyfriend. And you hadn’t disobeyed me, except for that hesitation.”

  Boyfriend. Was he my boyfriend?

  “Last week, at the club, you said you d-don’t d-do public displays, b-b-but it almost s-s-s-seems like you d-do. Or at l-least want t-t-to.”

  He laughed out loud then, and ruffled my hair. “Oh, Jules. I do love that stutter. It seems I’ve made you nervous.”

  I didn’t bother answering.

  He took my hand, and we walked the rest of the way to the café with our fingers linked. As we sat down at a table, he said, “I missed having you in my office this morning. It’s very boring when work is just work.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. Not being in his office was like torture. I didn’t like being away from him. I didn’t feel calm or settled or confident. “If I have to be stuck there, I want them to like me,” I said, sounding pathetic even to myself.

  “That’s such an odd thing to say. Why wouldn’t they like you?”

  A waitress sashayed over, placed two glasses of water on the table, and handed us menus. I shrugged as I picked up my water glass. “I don’t know. I’m a little weird.”

  “Everyone is a little weird. I mean, did you see Tasha?”

  I spluttered and choked on the water. Coughed. Then laughed. “Yeah, she’s definitely different.”

  “And so?” Avery prompted.

  “So what?”

  “Do you dislike her for that?”

  “Of course not. I’m terrified of her.”

  That made Avery throw back his head and open his mouth and laugh so hard a few of the other customers looked at us. His shoulders shook and his eyes flashed with merriment. I got caught up in how much his face transformed, how beautiful he looked to me in that moment.

  After a minute or so we both settled and looked at the menus. I didn’t dare order anything more exciting than chicken soup, since there was clearly something going on in my stomach.

  “You are correct that I said I don’t do public displays. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like private games that are played out a tiny bit in public. There’s an energy to it, probably from the horrified look on your face. It turns me on. Can you make sense of that?”

  I thought about it.

  Stephanie coming into Avery’s office while I sat there with my wrists tied to my desk. E and Avery having a meeting about something boring while I hung, practically naked, from the bathroom wall. Avery examining my hands in front of Tasha. As I reviewed these moments, I felt that twinge in my stomach again. There must have been some expression on my face, because Avery said, “That. Right there.”

  “My stomach does a flip-flop thing, like sick or scared.”

  “That’s what I like. It’s in your eyes, too, and the shape of your lips.”

  “I don’t know that it’s a good feeling. It’s almost like… like I feel ashamed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? You want me to feel ashamed, like we’re doing something wrong? You like that?”

  “Not exactly. Think about it some more and see if you can figure it out.”

  I tried to, I honestly did, but I was more baffled than anything. I didn’t think Avery would embarrass me on purpose, because that would be unkind, and I thought I’d been around him enough to know that he wasn’t an unkind person. He praised me in ways that washed over me in bursts of warmth and made me feel like I was almost glowing. He dressed well, and dressed me well when the occasion called for it, and still managed to treat me like an equal, not an underling or a child. He introduced me to his mother, and eve
n to his sister, who was practically a movie star. So, no, he didn’t want me to feel ashamed.

  Our food arrived, and I snapped out of my thoughts and caught him looking at someone across the café, his intense gaze telling me he was making up stories about people again. When he met my eyes, I grinned. “You were staring.”

  He ducked his head, but it wasn’t a denial. “Maybe I was. Did you figure it out?”

  I picked up my spoon and tasted my soup. “Nope.”

  “Put your spoon down.”

  I did.

  “Now ask me for permission to put soup in your mouth.”

  I froze for a second, then forced myself to look around the café. No one seemed to be paying us much attention.

  “May I eat my soup?” I said, a little exasperated.

  “No.” Avery said.

  I sighed. “Avery –”

  “Try again. Think about the command I gave you.”

  He was exhausting me, but fine. I thought about the command. ‘Ask me for permission to put soup in your mouth.’

  Oh, I understood. Or thought I did. “May I put soup in my mouth?”

  “No. You’re almost there. Try again.”

  “Sir. May I please put soup in my mouth?”

  “Yes, you may. What I want you to understand is there is all of this stuff happening at our table, and no one else has any clue. I can turn anything, big or little, into something private and intimate. Even simply eating soup.”

  I ate my soup, whispering, “Sir, may I please put soup in my mouth?” before every bite. When I reached for my water glass, Avery cleared his throat.

  Oh.

  “May I put water in my mouth? Sir?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  For some reason all of this made the soup taste better and the water feel colder. I was one hundred per cent aware of everything that passed between my lips, every flavor that exploded on my tongue. Every swallow. It felt like the longest, most delicious and satisfying lunch I’d ever eaten.

  “I think I’ve figured it out. Using elements of the game in regular spaces makes normal things more intense.”