The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  He made quite the picture: wrinkled khakis and shirt, hopelessly messy hair, heavy stubble, black eye. Somehow that didn't deter several customers from eying him up and down, and sending longing gazes in his direction as he returned to me.

  I know how you feel.

  Once the caffeine and carbs hit my veins, I was a happier woman, and again capable of speaking in complete, logical sentences.

  "Feeling better?" Sam asked. Too hungry to stop eating and respond properly, I nodded. "Yeah. I can tell. So…random question. Can I ask you about your apartment?"

  Mouth still full of bagel, I nodded again.

  "Do you have a roommate?" He stirred his coffee, his brow wrinkled. "Also—what's the story with the art?"

  "Mmhmm, yeah. About the art," I said. The drawings were in every room, and though I was told it was odd to have so much nakedness in one small apartment, I did not care. "My great-grandmother, and she was a painter. She mostly painted ordinary things, like fruit, landscapes, children, but when she died, my father discovered this whole crate full of, well, you know…erotic art. And now I haul them around with me, wherever the wind takes me."

  "Is that a way of saying you move frequently?"

  I shook my head. "No. Not really. I go where I go. After I finished college, I didn't know what to do with myself. I knew I wanted a new city, so I moved here. I bounced around for a while, playing with a few different theatre companies, some bands, living in different parts of town, trying out the private music lesson thing, starting a grad program at Berklee." I finished that chunk of bagel and thought for a moment. "Eventually, the wind will take me somewhere else."

  "And the roommate?"

  "Oh, yeah," I laughed. "Miss Ellie Tsai. We met in college, in the strings program. She was T-si and I was D-si. Obvious love connection. She's on tour with a folksy pop band right now. She's the lead fiddle. Very important role."

  "I can imagine," Sam said. "So you're a professor at Berklee?"

  "Adjunct," I clarified, my mouth full. "Adjunct professor."

  "What's the difference?" Sam asked.

  "I teach more classes for a fraction of what tenured profs are paid. I'm obligated to assist the department chair and do all his grading. Plus research. Tons of research. Never-ending research. But that's the deal until I finish my doctorate." I redistributed the cream cheese to an even layer and took another bite. This wasn't the time to tell all of higher ed's dirty secrets. "I'm not convinced academia is for me. Like, forever. I don't like making forever plans. I'd rather see where life goes."

  "I guess that's fair," Sam said. "What do you teach?"

  We talked about my introductory music therapy courses, and the path I took into the discipline, which came after spending two years with a family who hired me to give their autistic daughter piano lessons. Lillian didn't speak much, and she struggled to interact with her family, but she loved music. We didn't have to talk to understand each other; the music spoke for us.

  I didn't do anything miraculous or special with Lillian. I just taught her to control the notes, and she was the one who turned it into complex compositions. Her mother referred me to another family whose child experienced similar challenges, and soon I had more than my share of unique, incredible children who possessed my passion for music.

  "So...After finishing work on a graduate degree in strings performance, I wanted to learn why music spoke to these children when nothing else could," I said.

  "My sister's like that," he said. "She just kept finding new reasons to stay in grad school."

  I stared at the table, debating whether I wanted another coffee or another bagel.

  Most likely both.

  "So you teach them violin? The kids, I mean. In your private lessons?"

  Shrugging, I swirled my straw around the empty glass. "Sometimes. Sometimes piano. I'm working with a percussionist now, and there's one who wants to learn guitar."

  "You can teach them all that?"

  I nodded. "Most people who go to music school can play a few things. Not unusual."

  Sam leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs, and folded his arms over his chest. The movements pulled his shirt open at the neck. He was slim yet strong—beautifully sculpted—and I wanted to taste the dips and curves of his shoulders.

  "These kids, they're prodigies or something?"

  I wanted to drag my teeth over his skin. Bite, lick, savor.

  "Tiel?"

  My tongue swiped over my lips, and I inhaled deeply. "Hmm?"

  "I asked you whether these kids are prodigies, and then you zoned out on me," Sam said. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah, I'm great. I'm just…" I stared at my glass. "Nothing. I don't like calling anyone a prodigy. Some people can just play."

  "And you're not a prodigy? You can 'just play' all those instruments?" he asked.

  It was funny how the rest of the world offered a certain degree of reverence for children with boundless musical talent, yet my family saw it as a nuisance.

  My parents seized on an opportunity to channel my hyperactivity and teach me some focus when I was five, but I knew they deeply regretted putting me into the area's early orchestra program. They never expected it would turn into an entity that defined my life.

  Unless I was playing traditional Greek songs at the restaurant, I was an expensive, time-consuming annoyance, but not playing wasn't an option for me. It was the movement my heart and soul required, and once it became clear they didn't support that for me, I was willing to invent solutions to every obstacle.

  My mother found my Rachmaninov and Prokofiev pieces "screechy." I took to practicing in the garage when I was seven, and cut the fingers off my mittens when winter rolled around. When my lessons and practice time were squeezed out by Greek school and church activities, I secretly woke up before sunrise to play. When I grew out of my three-quarter violin and my parents couldn't afford the full sized, I started babysitting to cover the expense. In high school, I saved my camp counseling salary for new bows, sheet music, and trips to see the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.

  I might have known—even when I was very young—that my violin was my ticket out. My talent and skill made me different, and it helped me leave.

  "That term is kind of…hmm," I started. "Everyone has gifts and talents. Music is mine."

  Sam opened his mouth to speak, but sneezed instead. Then he sneezed twice more. "Sorry," he said. "There might have been a little dairy milk in there." He pointed toward his half-empty latte and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket.

  "And that's why you're sneezing?"

  He nodded. "I'm allergic to dairy. It'll pass in a minute."

  "Wow," I said as he sneezed again. "That is unfortunate."

  When the sneezing subsided, Sam pointed toward my empty cappuccino. "Would another one of those make you happy?"

  "Very," I said, smiling when his hand brushed over my shoulder to grab my cup.

  There was a gentleman hiding underneath that obnoxious player and he was too adorable for me. Just too freaking adorable. He could spend three months in the wilderness, come back looking like a mountain man, and I'd still want to nibble every inch of him.

  "How much longer do you have in grad school?" he asked, placing a fresh cappuccino in front of me.

  "Until I finish my dissertation, which is a small eternity. Still figuring those pieces out. I haven't exactly committed to a topic yet." I gestured to Sam, and his cup of tea. "You said you're an architect, right?"

  "Right," he said. He produced a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket and worked the liquid into his skin. It was methodical, and more than a little mesmerizing. "We specialize in sustainable preservation, which is basically the idea that the most ecologically sound option in building is to restore and improve existing buildings."

  "That's cool," I said. "And you work with your brother?"

  Sam laughed and scratched his chin for a moment. "I work with two older brothers, one older sister, and one younger broth
er. Third generation family firm, actually."

  Multiple generations, three brothers, and a sister felt all too familiar.

  I grew up stacking dishes and filling baskets of pita bread at my family's restaurant. It had been in business for over forty years, and all of my mother's brothers and sisters worked there, too.

  Cooking, prepping, waiting tables, washing dishes, carrying deliveries—whatever it was, we did it. Me, my sister, and all nineteen of my cousins.

  But I never belonged there.

  It worked out well for Agapi. Manning the hostess station five nights a week was her dream job, and she met her husband on an emergency trip to the meat market when the restaurant was running low on provisions. It was amazing we hadn't added a butcher to the family until then.

  "Third generation. That's impressive," I said.

  Sam barked a laugh. "It's a fucking circus, and if we could hide a body in this town without getting involved with the mafia, we'd have killed each other by now."

  Surprised, I looked up from my coffee to find Sam gazing at my chest again, and I'd never enjoyed gratuitous ogling quite so much. He was overt about it, but in a charming, curious way that I was finding increasingly tolerable.

  "What are you doing today, perv?" I asked.

  "I'd be interested in staring at your tits some more, and I wouldn't mind you sucking my dick like you promised."

  "I told you to stop thinking about that," I said.

  "And I told you I probably wouldn't," he said. "I haven't."

  I didn't know what to do with his words. Was this flirting? Or friendly ball-busting? Or…something in between? What happened after a near-death experience, a drunken night, and a cuddlefest?

  Ultimately, it didn't matter. I wanted to hang out with Sam, and I didn't care whether we were flirting or sparring or forging strange, new ground in the middle.

  And that was the sweet little lie I was telling myself today.

  "There are a couple festivals this weekend. A few bands I wanted to see. Let's be the random, mismatched people who don't look like they belong together."

  "Speaking of which," he said. "What the fuck are you wearing?"

  I glanced at my aqua shorts and ruffled red top. "What are you talking about? This is cute."

  Exaggerated annoyance flashed across his face. "Let's start with the nine necklaces, and that one—" He gestured to the pendant just below my breasts. Of course he was staring at that. "Is that a fucking mermaid? You know what? It doesn't matter. Sure, all these colors and fabrics go together, but there's no losing you in a crowd, Sunshine."

  "And that's why we need to hit some festivals," I said, stifling a laugh. He was adorable when he got fired up.

  Sam frowned and leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest again. The closed-off, arrogant look worked for him. "Or I could go somewhere that's heard of Whitley Neill gin and takes the health codes seriously."

  I pulled my lip between my teeth and moved my head with the My Chemical Romance tune, "Helena," as I considered his comment.

  I couldn't compete with Sam's posh club scene and all the cocksucking, but I also knew he was at least eighty percent bluster. Probably more. He enjoyed getting a reaction from me, and for some reason, I liked giving it to him.

  Sam reminded me of Ellie, but it wasn't until now that I understood that thread. Ellie and I found each other at freshmen orientation, our eyes meeting across a herd of orchestra dorks. We shared identical degrees of exasperation for self-aggrandizing professors, made a run from the team-building exercises at the same moment, and found ourselves chatting off to the side at every opportunity. We thought alike and had the same humor, our families were the pinnacles of weird, and we immediately understood everything about each other. And just that fast, she was my person.

  It was like that with Sam, sort of. We were drawn together, magnet to metal. There was something inside him that I recognized, and maybe it was something inside me, too. I didn't know what it was or whether I wanted to find out, but quickly and without analysis, he was becoming one of my people.

  "You can stare at my boobs all you want." I lifted a shoulder. "I could be talked into another drunken dance party."

  He sat forward and folded his hands around my cup. "Where are we going and do you want more coffee before we leave?"

  After stopping at his place, Sam met me in the North End for St. Anthony's Feast, a gigantic Italian event with food, music, parades, and more food. Later, we made our way downtown to the Black Rose for an Irish folk festival. Sam passed on every snack I picked up along the way and looked mildly horrified when I offered, but he didn't mind admiring everything with breasts.

  There was no escaping the obvious: Sam was a shameless flirt. I wasn't sure it was entirely intentional so much as it was an ingrained behavior like chewing with his mouth closed. I was gradually—grudgingly—realizing that his eyes automatically landed on boobs and bums.

  Without a reminder, he'd speak directly to my cleavage.

  I'd wanted to equate those habits with a lack of respect for women, but the more time I spent with him, the more I saw that argument teetering on unsteady legs. He held doors open for me and grabbed my hand when we crossed busy streets and insisted on paying for all four of my cappuccinos and said 'pardon me' every freaking time he blew his nose.

  Sam talked about my boobs and asked for oral sex on the hour, but that was his shallow, derpy way of enforcing the perimeter. It kept me—and everyone else—far enough away to miss the sweetheart under the surface.

  He rolled his eyes when I said, "You haven't eaten all day." I pointed to the device tucked inside his pocket. I'd seen more than enough diabetic band campers to know regular meals were essential. It didn't make me an expert on the topic, but I didn't mind being the voice of snacking reason. "Let's sit down and get something."

  "I'm fine." Sam glanced around, shaking his head as if he wouldn't be able to find anything palatable. "Don't worry about it."

  His words were terse, and he was stewing in obvious distress, and I probably should have backed off. Reaching into his pocket, I glanced at the monitor. Being one of my people meant I didn't back off. "What's low for you?"

  He offered a tight shrug and some under-the-breath swearing, looking uncomfortable, and murmured, "Around the fifties or sixties."

  According to the screen, his blood-glucose was forty-one and falling. I gestured to it, meeting his eyes with a please-tell-me-you're-seeing-this stare. "Right. You don't like anything here." I waved at the stalls set up around Quincy Market and he shook his head. "Is there something you do like?"

  Sliding the device into his pocket gave me an opportunity to get a little closer and run my hand down his back. I could feel all the muscular notches and grooves that I saw this morning, and reliving that memory was a bit sinful. The sin probably had something to do with my inability to stop rubbing him.

  "There's a place near the Aquarium that isn't awful," he said. "But it's fine. Let's just stay here, and I'll get another beer."

  "That seems like not a good idea," I said. "Let's go, Freckle Twin."

  The city was bustling, and every corner revealed a new celebration, and this was how I loved Boston the most. It would never be New York, and the longer I lived here, the more I enjoyed that.

  Sam led us to Rosemary and Sage, a sparklingly clean, shiny restaurant with big communal tables and floor-to-ceiling windows. It was mostly empty. I assessed the menu, quickly finding salad, more salad, and sandwiches filled with salads. Everything was organic and locally grown, with the origin attached to every ingredient.

  Ward tomatoes. Apponagansett peppers. Langwater spinach and kale. Barden apples. Aquidneck cheeses.

  "Do you see anything you'd like?" Sam asked. He sounded apprehensive.

  "Yeah, I'm good with this." I nodded toward the menu. "I'm easy."

  We ordered, and once a greens-and-berries smoothie was in his hands, the clouds left his eyes and he loosened up. He smiled, laughing to himse
lf as if he suddenly remembered a hilarious moment. He met my furrowed eyebrow with a devious grin.

  "So you're easy?" he said. "You could have mentioned that sooner."

  "You're such a slutty beast," I murmured. "Drink your juice."

  Our meals arrived—caprese panini for me, wheelbarrow of vegetables for Sam. I saw an armful of greens topped with asparagus, artichoke hearts, zucchini, peppers, carrots, celery, apples, beets, cranberries, radishes, cucumbers, mushrooms, seaweed, and bean sprouts. I didn't think it was possible to have an entire garden in one salad, but Sam proved me wrong. He went hard with the herb vinaigrette but picked a few stray red onions from the bowl and set them aside with a contemptuous glare.

  If he looked at me the way he looked at those onions, I'd promptly shrivel up and die.

  "Not a fan?" I pointed to his discard pile and he shook his head. "My family, they have a Greek restaurant in New Jersey. I'm Greek, by the way. And Indian. Like the subcontinent, not the native peoples. Anyway. Everyone is conscripted into the workforce around the time they master walking and talking. For about two years, eighth and ninth grade, I think, I was stuck on pepper and onion prep. All I did, every afternoon, was chop. My entire life smelled like onions. The scent haunted me. Even when it was gone, I could still smell it. To this day, I can't look at onions without wanting to wash my hands with vanilla extract."

  Sam wiped his hands on his napkin, laughing. "That sounds like child abuse."

  "Finally," I cried. "Someone who sees it my way."

  We ate and talked, covering everything from college to local politics to regional accents to my issues with the garbanzo bean, but we never discussed last night. I was dying to talk about it. I knew my flirt game was hardcore, but I didn't go around kissing dudes in bars. I didn't wake up with them, half naked, either.

  I wanted to know whether we were laughing it off as 'oh my God, I can't believe we got that drunk and kissed' or giving each other the side eye like 'oh my God, we kissed and we want to do it again.'

  I craved that kind of structure. I preferred to organize relationships into clear boxes and know all the boundaries up front, but in every other part of my existence, I let life happen and didn't worry too much about the details. If there was one thing I knew to be true it was that life would almost always go on.