Small Wonders

by Courtney Lux

  “Of course he wants to. It’s, like, a temporary big-deal exhibit. He loves that shit.” Trip lowers his towel to his lap. He turns to look at the showerhead that’s dripping steadily enough to send a fine mist onto the exposed skin of his back. “The only thing that’d make him happier is if there was a lecture, too.”

  “Hmmm, bookish; that’s cute.” Scarlett exchanges her mas­cara for her eyeliner. “Kel says he knows something about basically everything, like, could be on Jeopardy or something.”

  “Ask him about the Astor Place subway station.” Trip twists the shower knob left then right. The dripping gets worse. “On second thought, don’t. He’ll talk your ear off about beavers and the Astor family, then he’ll probably try to loan you a book.”

  “Maybe I want the book.” Scarlett smudges at a misplaced spot of eyeliner with the edge of a red-painted fingernail.

  Trip flips the switch to move the water from the showerhead to the tub faucet, but the dripping continues. “You hate reading.”

  Scarlett rifles through her makeup bag. “Says who?”

  “You. All the time.” Trip experiments with twisting the shower knob a few more times, but the dripping of the tub does not abate.

  “So do you, but I remember someone asleep on the couch last week with a copy of The Catcher in the Rye on his chest.” Scarlett looks at Trip in the mirror.

  Trip grunts and turns away from the leaky faucet. “If I was sleeping, tells you something about how much I liked the book, don’t it?”

  “You looked like you were pretty far into it.” Scarlett prods Trip’s knee with the edge of her powder brush. “It was adorable, by the way.”

  “Not like I had anything better to do. I was stuck watch­ing your fuckin’ baby.” Trip snaps his towel across the back of Scarlett’s calves.

  “You volunteered for that job.” Scarlett singsongs, “Trip Mor­gan—volunteer babysitter and avid reader. Who even are you?”

  “The man who’s about to turn on the shower and ruin your hair with the steam.”

  “Our water doesn’t get that hot.” Scarlett turns her head from side to side, inspecting her blush. “Is this even?”

  “How should I know?”

  Scarlett turns to face Trip full on. “You’re being pouty. Do you need to go take a nap with June?”

  “Would it get me out of this group field trip?”

  Scarlett shoves her makeup bag into the drawer beside the sink. The drawer closes with a loud grating noise. “Oh, my God, seriously, stop being such a baby. Why are you so opposed to this?”

  “A double date.” Trip makes air quotes around the words, sneers. “That doesn’t sound like the fuckin’ hokiest thing you’ve ever heard?”

  “We’ve gone on one before.” Scarlett looks disdainfully at Trip’s hands. “And please never use air quotes again. I can’t take you seriously.”

  “That was a deal I had with Liam, and you yelled at me for the whole ten minutes I was there.”

  “Our boyfriends are best friends. We are friends. We have to do it.”

  “Not my boyfriend and we don’t have to do nothing.” Trip stands and folds his arms across his chest.

  “Trip, I say this with complete and total affection: Get the fuck over yourself.” Scarlett rests a hand on her hip. “We made the plans, we’re meeting the boys in half an hour, and Liam agreed to watch June. This is happening.”

  “I hate you in mom mode.” Trip mumbles.

  Scarlett gives him a push toward the door. “Go put a shirt on—a clean one. I washed a couple of yours with June’s stuff yesterday.”

  “Still going to be wet, then.”

  Scarlett swats him across the back of the head, though there’s no force behind it. “Oh, my God, you are such a child. Just go do it!”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” Trip shuffles past her and out into the family room. “Where are the shirts?”

  “I hung them in your room; you’re welcome.” Scarlett closes the bathroom door in his face but then calls from the other side, “Don’t wake up the baby.”

  The planning of the double date with Scarlett and Kellan was not something Trip was a part of, nor is he entirely sure how it happened. They’re going to the Museum of Modern Art to see a visiting exhibit, though Trip doesn’t recall the artist or much about her work. He doesn’t mind the idea of going to another museum with Nate, but he has no interest in making it a group affair. He likes his time with Nate, likes listening to him prattle on about art and books and a thousand other mundane things. Though Trip won’t admit it—to Nate or Scarlett—he’s usually interested in what Nate has to say, and he likes the books that Nate loans him, though it takes him a long time to get through most of them. He’s not sure, exactly, what he dislikes about the notion of this double date. He just knows he has no interest in participating.

  Despite his reservations about the whole thing, Trip puts on one of his clean shirts and a zip-up sweatshirt, and then he tiptoes back out to the family room to wait for Scarlett.

  The apartment is quiet. June is napping in her playpen, Liam’s painting on the couch and Trip can see Devon asleep in his bed with one arm hanging off the edge of the mattress and his face obscured in the pillow. Trip considers waking him, but he thinks better of it. He goes to the kitchen and drinks water from a chipped glass at the kitchen table. There is a pile of Bekket newspapers, still sealed in their plastic bags, accumulating in a dilapidated pyramid on the far end of the table. Trip pulls one from the bottom and the whole pyramid collapses, but he pays them no mind. He peels back the plastic and shakes the paper out flat. It smells like ink and, Trip thinks, some hint of wet dirt roads and gasoline. He’d only been interested in checking the date to see how long the papers have been accruing here in the kitchen in their plastic bags, but he cannot help but look a little longer.

  The paper is from nearly a month ago; the front-page news is about homecoming, complete with a black and white photo of a high school couple wearing plastic crowns, seated on the back of an open-topped convertible and waving at the crowd gathered to watch the parade.

  Homecoming seems such a strange tradition to uphold in a town where so few of the alumni ever leave, but there it is all the same, and Trip is surprised to realize he knows the couple in the photo. Her name is Jackie Wilson; his is Mike Ford. They’d been only two or three years behind Trip in school. He stares some more at the picture, tries to make out the grainy faces in the crowd behind them. He thinks he might recognize a couple people, but he can’t be sure.

  He skims the article, but the words hold less interest for him than the picture had. He flips the page, scans the columns. The paper isn’t big. It’s only a few pages, and the content of the arti­cles is anything but provocative. There’s a piece on Halloween costume ideas, complete with interviews with the women who work at the Yarn Barn; an article about high school honor stu­dents going on a field trip to the University of Alabama; another on more details of homecoming.

  Trip flips the pages, noting the sports section (they’ve lost another football game, but the team still looks good), the student section (an article on school start times) and the classifieds (there’s a Massey Ferguson utility tractor for sale). He pauses at the police report section. He’d recognized so few of the other names, but this portion of the paper is filled with people and scenarios he remembers well. The first report is about a husband concerned because his wife had left after a fight and hadn’t come back yet and she was afraid of the dark. She’d returned safely a few hours later and no further police intervention was required. There are multiple reports from people calling the police station to file noise complaints about a dog barking, and then another slew of calls coming in because someone shot the dog. Trip is about to call out to wake Devon and ask why he wastes money on a paper filled with so little, but the words die on his tongue when he spies the name “Jeremiah Morgan” in the ne
xt report. He closes the paper, pushes it away.

  “Hey, you ready to go?” Scarlett scrutinizes him. “Are you okay?”

  “Peachy.” Trip pushes past her toward the door, fishing a cig­arette from the pack in his pocket as he goes. “Can we please fuckin’ go and get this over with?”

  • • •

  They meet Nate and Kellan in line at the museum. Scarlett walks faster, disappearing from Trip’s side to reach Kellan.

  Trip watches as she and Kellan embrace. When they finally part, they kiss. Scarlett swats Kellan’s arm affectionately when he whispers something in her ear.

  Nate watches the proceedings with vague interest, but he turns his attention to Trip when he finally reaches his side. He touches a hand above Trip’s elbow and leans in to kiss him. “Hey.”

  Trip turns his cheek to Nate. “Hey.”

  Nate’s hand stays on his arm, his eyes skimming Trip with mild concern. “You okay? You seem upset.”

  “Me? Upset?” Trip reaches for Nate’s wrist. “Not a chance.”

  Nate catches Trip’s hand. “Nice try.”

  “Well, shit, Nathaniel, you’re starting to get all right at that.” Trip masks his surprise at being caught in the act of try­ing to take something from Nate. “Gonna get you eventually, though.”

  Nate releases Trip’s hand long enough to unfasten his watch. He slips it over Trip’s wrist and latches it closed.

  The watch isn’t on tight enough and slides a few inches down Trip’s arm. “You’re no fun at all.”

  Nate steps closer, lowers his voice. “You know, Kellan’s watch is nicer than mine.”

  Trip inspects Kellan’s wrist. “Interesting.”

  Nate rests a hand on Trip’s back, shuffles them forward in line. “I might even help you with getting it off him.”

  “I’ll make a criminal out of you yet.” Trip steps in closer to Nate’s side and they spend the remaining time in line making quiet plans they have no intentions of acting on to steal items from the other people around them.

  They don’t have to wait long in line and soon they are at the front. Kellan supplies cash for Scarlett and him and Nate flashes a membership card that gets both Trip and him in for free. When they’re past the ticketing area, they shuffle as a group from floor to floor, pausing to study sculptures and paintings.

  “You know what I hate about museums?” Scarlett walks a slow circle around an abstract piece made of bent reinforcement bars. “I want to touch everything.”

  “You could touch some of Liam’s things at your apartment.” Kellan follows in Scarlett’s path, pausing to read the descriptive placard. “He makes some stuff similar to all of this.”

  “Liam doesn’t like us touching his work either.” Trip shifts his weight from his left foot to his right.

  “Not that it ever stops you.” Scarlett pauses beside Trip, tilts her head to study the statue. “He could have work in here, don’t you think? Someday.”

  “I saw a pile of garbage a room over, so yeah, why not?” Trip yawns.

  Scarlett ignores the comment. “You know what makes me want to touch it? The fact that I’m not supposed to. I’d never think to touch it if I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Children’s museums—you can touch things in a children’s museum.” Kellan looks up from the placard. “We should go sometime and you can touch anything you’d like.”

  Scarlett drifts closer to him as though pulled by some invisible force. “June would like that.”

  Kellan turns to face her, closes what space she hasn’t yet. “A family date.”

  They smile at one another, and then Scarlett wraps her arms around one of Kellan’s and tips her head against his. They stare at the statue with happy, hazy eyes.

  Trip wrinkles his nose and turns away from them. He wanders from the statue and pauses to stare at a large, abstract painting hanging on a wall alone.

  As much as he enjoys the Met, he isn’t partial to the MoMA. Modern art makes him simultaneously anxious and bored. He doesn’t like the chaos or seeming mindlessness of the items. Nate was shocked the first time they wandered into the modern wings of the Met and Trip expressed his dis­interest. Nate has tried to explain the pieces to him—offering books and anecdotes and documentary suggestions—but Trip has remained indifferent. He isn’t sure where Nate is just now, Trip abandoned him beside a splattered canvas when he could no longer tolerate standing still and he hasn’t seen him since.

  Trip looks back to where he left Scarlett and Kellan. They’ve wandered elsewhere as well, but he spies them standing close together not far away in front of another sculpture. He is bored looking around by himself, but he doesn’t feel comfortable inter­rupting the intimate space they have cre­ated together. He turns back to the painting and stares at it listlessly.

  “Oh, wow, this one’s great.” Nate’s voice is welcome music in Trip’s ear. “Interesting.”

  He continues staring at the painting. “Interpret it for me, why don’t you?”

  “Sort of Dada-inspired, I think.”

  “Nice try, but the placard says abstract expressionism. How’s it feel to be wrong for once?” Trip turns to look at Nate.

  Nate isn’t looking at the painting. He’s studying Trip, rubbing his chin in a show of studiousness. He raises his eyebrows as though surprised to hear Trip speaking. “Performance art? Even better.”

  Trip glances around, momentarily confused. “Are you high?”

  Nate circles him. “Incredible details. I really like the shoes. That broken lace and the hole—sort of pulls it all off balance in just the right way.”

  Trip twists to keep an eye on Nate, but he remains quiet.

  Nate is still making a show of scrutinizing him. “Interesting placement, too. You know that’s important, just as important as the art itself sometimes, I think—choosing where to place the piece.”

  A few other people have paused to watch the proceedings, cameras partially raised as though they are unsure whether Trip is truly a piece of the exhibit.

  “You gonna blush if I tell you that you’re causing a scene?” Trip speaks softly so that only Nate can hear him.

  “Reminds me a bit of Marina Abramović, you know?” Nate scratches his head. “A little more nudity in a lot of her work, but still.”

  Trip remains facing forward, content to keep his voice quiet in the name of maintaining Nate’s game. “If I get naked, we’re gonna get kicked out of here.”

  “Great from this angle, too.” Nate is still circling him. “I really can’t figure this piece out, but I think that’s part of the charm.”

  Trip remains facing forward. “So am I getting naked or…”

  Nate jolts to a stop when they’re facing one another again. “Christ, those eyes.”

  Trip’s cheeks warm when Nate steps a few inches closer.

  “I think this is my favorite thing here.” Nate holds his gaze. “Completely unique. Just breathtaking.”

  Trip forgets the small crowd gathered around them. He is strangely aware of the warm leather of the watch on his wrist, the tickle of his hair on his neck. He feels, not for the first time, an ache beneath his ribs and a tingling in his toes. “What if I told you this is an interactive piece?”

  “Really?” Nate looks at him with piqued interest. He steps closer.

  “Really.” Trip closes the space between them, and, as Nate’s hands come to frame his face and the familiar taste of spearmint mixes with the cinnamon of his own tongue, Trip thinks it might not be so bad to kiss Nate Mackey for the rest of his days.

  Nate breaks off the kiss after a minute; his hands slip from Trip’s face to his waist. “Are you dying of boredom? I know you hate this kind of thing.”

  “I’m doing okay right now.” Trip is surprised to find himself a little breathless.

  “We can lea
ve soon, I promise.” Nate touches a quick kiss to his lips. “Thanks for being a good sport.”

  “Thanks for making this at least a little interesting.” Trip looks around to see that their crowd has dispersed. “Remember that goal we had when we went to all those museums on the East side?”

  “That wasn’t going to work on a Tuesday afternoon, so it’s definitely not going to work now. It’s too crowded.” Nate releases Trip’s waist and takes his hand so they can walk. “We’ll get caught.”

  “Half the fun, isn’t it?”

  “I just renewed my membership.” Nate squeezes Trip’s hand. “Let me get a few more visits in, at least, before you get me banned for life.”

  Trip moves to walk more closely beside Nate. “Deal.”

  • • •

  They walk the museum for another couple hours. Kellan and Scarlett sit down on benches to gaze at the paintings with one of his hands tucked around her knee, their ankles bumping and her head on his shoulder. Trip and Nate speak in hushed tones while they create grand art-theft schemes where Nate chooses which pieces to steal and Trip devises the plan. When they all tire of the crowds and the art, they venture out onto the street and hail a cab to take them to Chelsea for dinner.

  They can’t settle on a place to eat, so Kellan suggests they get drinks beforehand. He leads them to a bar that’s lined with small red-leather rounded booths, is dimly lit offers a complicated-looking cocktail menu.

  “I’m going to put my finger on a random one and that’s what I’m getting,” Scarlett declares. She puts one hand over her eyes and drops a finger on the menu atop the little table.

  “I don’t know what half of the things in these drinks are.” Trip scrutinizes the menu.

  Nate slips an arm over Trip’s shoulders and leans closer so he can look, too. He points at one of the drinks. “You’ll like that. It should be strong but a little sweet.”

  Trip shifts closer to Nate’s side and skims the description of ingredients beside his finger.

  Nate points to another drink. “You might like that one, too. It’s got the same whiskey in it that we used to make Old Fashioneds a couple weeks ago. “