And Then There Was You

by Octavia Zane

  He got up so suddenly that he startled Target in her harassment of the toy mouse. Clenching the invitation in his fist, he stalked to the kitchen, stomped on the lever to raise the lid of the trashcan, and methodically tore the invitation, response card, and envelope into confetti. It rained down into the can. Then he tied off the bag and carried it outside to dump it in the bigger can, which he rolled down to the curb even though it was a day early for pick-up.

  His eyes stayed dry as he went back inside to finish his meal. Target just knew, as she always did, and abandoned her mouse to sit beside him and offer comfort with her chunky, furry presence.

  His cheek throbbed with phantom pain.

  In the sixteen years he lived with them, his parents hadn’t gotten physical with each other. When angry, they shouted and screamed, ranted and raved, cursed and growled. Life disappointed them greatly, and they weren’t shy about saying so. Mom was envious of her friends who married more successful men, escaped Poke, and lived in greater luxury. Dad was envious of the younger guy that he once was, footloose and fancy-free, without the shackles of marriage and fatherhood and work around his ankles to drag him down. Maybe they truly loved each other at the beginning, but Theo had no memories of it. Only their resentment.

  Yet their disappointment never swelled into blows. There was a line, an ever-present sense of what was off-limits, where any hateful word could be hurled at will, but fists stayed clenched to the sides. To hit somebody was the epitome of trashy behavior. Low class, and thoroughly unacceptable. Theo understood this sentiment without it ever being voiced.

  I think we need counseling.

  That was what kicked it off on his last night with Vaughn as a couple. Five quiet, nervously spoken words that transformed Vaughn into Mt. Vesuvius shooting shards of ice instead of lava. Theo hadn’t expected happiness as a response to his request, but the level of rage in Vaughn’s reaction was far beyond what he anticipated.

  Theo had phrased it so carefully. Not you need counseling, but we, preceded by an I-statement. It was advice that he got online from an article about improving communication. They were in this together; neither of them were perfect men but they could make themselves better with professional help. They needed strategies, coping mechanisms, language to resolve conflict rather than amplify it.

  They needed it so badly, because Theo couldn’t do this anymore.

  Vaughn’s nasty side was like an impingement on Theo’s heart, squeezing his love into the narrowest of channels and surrounding it with pain. Now when Vaughn brought out his nasty side, which was happening more and more often, Theo felt the love getting crowded out of his heart altogether. He dreaded holidays, parties, any sort of social gathering where Vaughn might go on the attack. He was even beginning to dread just being at home with him because any innocent mistake could set him off.

  He didn’t want to break up with Vaughn. He just wanted the two of them to fix this and walk away stronger. From the reaction he received, though, he knew that he shouldn’t have said anything. But he couldn’t let it pass unspoken either.

  For hours that night, Vaughn dissected Theo’s flaws as a human being. His timidity, his awkwardness, his shyness, down to his inability to recognize great art and mistakes so small that Theo could hardly take them seriously. Once he left the bathroom cabinet ajar. Once he accidentally interrupted Vaughn on an important phone call for work. He never gave Vaughn a surprise birthday party, despite Vaughn never asking for one.

  The first jabs were like porcupine quills settling into his flesh, but as the cool, crisp tirade went on, Theo’s skin started to deflect them. He refused to take responsibility for things that were not his fault, or things that were nobody’s fault, and he was appalled at the eight-year tally Vaughn was keeping in secret of his errors. Who held a grudge over the movies that their partner liked and disliked? Who got bent out of shape over their beloved mispronouncing the name of an obscure wine?

  He couldn’t shake the sense of surreal at these accusations. By the third hour, it simply felt like gas-lighting. At last Vaughn wrapped up his long-winded spiel, convinced in his utter and total rightness, and capped it off with the conclusion that Theo was the only one in their household that required counseling. He got in Theo’s face and corrected the kick-off statement in its amended form.

  Say it. Say that YOU need counseling. You don’t know how much I put up with from you, Theo, but I do. Because I love you, even when you make it hard. Is there something you want to tell me now?

  Theo was tempted to repeat the amended statement, knowing if he did, this would be over and he could figure out what to do next in the morning. All it would take was three words. I need counseling.

  He opened his mouth and heard himself repeat, in an unexpectedly strong voice, “I think we need counseling.”

  And Vaughn slapped him, for the first and last time.

  It was a swift and brutal blow that whipped his head to the side. With the slap still echoing in the room, it was hard to say which one of them looked more shocked. They just stared at one another as Theo’s cheek burned and something trickled from his lip.

  Maybe it wouldn’t have happened again, if he’d stayed. But a line had been crossed that could never be uncrossed, the trust breached, and he realized he could not live forever with the uncertainty. Vaughn spluttered look what you made me do and spent the night on the sofa in his study as Theo dumbly mopped up the blood and untangled their lives into his open suitcase.

  It was the right decision. He knew that. Yet it came at a high cost. Vaughn punished him for it by dumping off the cat at the shelter, by lying to his family and friends about what happened between them, and by sending this wedding invitation. Theo hurt him, so Vaughn would hurt Theo in return.

  And it did hurt. The slap hadn’t hurt half as much as its reverberations did, poisoning every good moment they ever shared in the past since this was its conclusion, and that poison stretching into the future all the way to today.

  He turned off the merrily chirping television, all thoughts of cooking and sports equipment long gone from his mind. Target relocated onto his lap to purr and stretch out.

  His cell phone rang. It was Riley.

  Theo made himself pick up. “Hey!” he said with forced cheer.

  “Well, it’s better you didn’t come over,” Riley said without preamble.

  “Why is that?”

  “Jesse has a project due tomorrow that he forgot about. A diorama. I’m currently painting the inside of a shoebox blue while he collects all of his plastic underwater animals from the kids’ toy chests. And Rivers is digging out the barf bucket because Gigi is complaining her stomach hurts. I think she just ate too much pizza. Some days, Theo. Some days. What are you doing?”

  “I’m being pinned to my sofa by a thirteen-pound tabby cat.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Theo had thought he was hiding it, but apparently he wasn’t doing a very good job. Deciding to come clean, he said, “That ex I’ve been telling you about sent me my own wedding invitation. It came in the mail today. He got my home address off the Internet, I assume.”

  “What?” Riley exploded.

  “He and his fiancé borrowed the designs I’d made for our wedding to use it for theirs. Merlot envelope, silver ink, rhinestone brooch, down to the wording itself.” In uncustomary sarcasm, Theo added, “I’m glad I could help out.”

  “But . . . but that’s insane!” Riley cried.

  Yeah, it was. It really was. “I can’t get away from him,” Theo said, a touch of hysteria in his voice. “It feels like he’s still all around me. This huge presence.”

  “You know that’s not true, right? He did that because he’s small.”

  Theo just listened.

  “He’s small, Theo,” Riley said strongly. “He knows it and he hates it. He’s small and he’s miserable.”

  “He looked pretty damn happy in his photo on the wedding site.”

  Riley scoffed with profound derision. “If h
e was so wonderfully, terrifically, awesomely, incredibly happy, why send you that invitation at all?”

  Theo had no answer for that.

  “If he was so fantastically happy, then he just would have wished you the best in his heart and gone on with his day,” Riley went on. “Happy people don’t go out of their way to upset others. He’s taunting you with that invitation like a bully on a playground, since that’s all he can do. That’s what he has in his arsenal, all that’s left to him.”

  Theo stroked the cat, who stared up to him lovingly and yawned. “It kills me to think that he’s been laughing about this since he dropped it into the mailbox.”

  “He put that in the mailbox laughing, but he did it because you won and he can’t stand it,” Riley countered. “If there’s one thing I learned from my parents, it’s that the only way to win is to stop playing. You stopped playing. He hates that. It reminds him of how small and pathetic he really is. All his money and his looks and his smarts and his fancy car weren’t enough to keep you. He’s like a cat puffing itself up at a dog to seem bigger and scarier than it actually is. He’s no huge presence in your life, but you’re a huge presence in his. That invitation is all the proof you need of how much space you still take up in his mind.”

  Silence.

  “Are you there?” Riley asked. “I was just rambling.”

  “You weren’t rambling,” Theo said. “That’s just a new way to see it.”

  “So, what are you going to do with yourself tonight?”

  “I thought earlier about looking at kayaks online.”

  “Then do that! That’s a great idea.”

  “Have you ever kayaked?”

  “Just once, but I had a great time. Look at kayaks instead of thinking about him. It would tick him off to know that’s what you did instead of moping about his stupid invitation.” Riley paused. “Why in the hell don’t they want to put on their own shin-dig? Why would you throw somebody else’s wedding for yourself? I can’t make head or tails of that. It’s weird and sort of insecure.”

  Theo had had that same thought when Derrick called. “Who knows?”

  “Don’t give him space in your head. That’s what he wants. Kick him back down to size and go on with your day.” A child’s voice burbled in the background. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “All right.”

  Theo sat there for another minute, the shadows growing long across the room. Then he hugged the cat and put her in her bed before turning the TV back on and getting out his laptop.

  Chapter Eleven

  Riley

  The Autumn Festival sprawled throughout the park from end to end. The entire populace of Weathership was in attendance at its highest point in the afternoon, plus a fair percent of Portland, or that was how it seemed to Riley within the bakery booth. Even the occasional splatters of rain didn’t thin out the crowds in any appreciable way. Everyone just pulled up their hoods or popped open their umbrellas, or let the drops soak their heads and continued on in enjoyment.

  All of the vendors were mobbed, and every table and chair was taken in the dining area. The pathways overflowed with people going back and forth with dogs on leashes, babies in strollers, and little kids piled into red wagons. Older children ran over to the flapping GAMES banners to compete in sack races, spelling bees, and to jump in the bounce houses. Jesse and Gigi had disappeared in that direction, on their own at the festival for the very first time and thrilled to taste their newfound freedom. Now and then Riley spied them over there, kicking off their shoes to climb into the bounce castle or lining up for the three-legged race.

  The bakery booth’s schedule was set up so that two people were working in it at any time, but the influx of customers was so extreme and relentless that it took Riley, Rivers, Koala, and Theo just to keep up with it. Theo was their stock-runner, replenishing the heaps of bread loaves and sheets of cupcakes and cookies from the supplies stacked up behind the booth. Sherlock was in the back, too, enjoying the festival from a safe spot while he chewed on a bone.

  Every time Theo passed by with trays and baskets, Riley smiled. He couldn’t help it.

  “Sorry about this,” he called out when the madness just continued hour after hour. They were supposed to be wandering through the festival together instead of manning the booth the whole time, and Theo hadn’t been on the schedule at all.

  “I’m having a good time,” Theo said with genuine pleasure as he restocked the loaves once again, and that made Riley smile all the more.

  He felt like a teenager again, goofy and giddy in love. Dreyer would have bitched incessantly about being stuck at the booth, and wandered off on his own in disgust. Theo saw that his help was needed, and pitched in without complaint. When hunger brought the kids back to their mom at lunchtime, Rivers spinning so fast between the money box and the customers that her braid swung crazily from shoulder to shoulder, it was Theo who took them over to the hot dog stand and waited in line with them. He just did it, because he knew how to be part of a family.

  “We are going to run out of food,” Rivers declared at a quarter to four. The siege of people at last diminishing around the booth, they finally had a few seconds to breathe. The kids had gone back to the games ages ago. “And here I thought we were bringing too much.”

  “We need more staff next year,” Riley commented.

  “You are not wrong about that.” The last of the bread loaves stuck up like staves from a handful of baskets; the cupcakes were sold out and only two trays of cookies were still wrapped up behind the booth. The cake spinners of muffins now held only crumbs. Riley had taken so many pie orders that he was nearly out of sheets in the booklet.

  Theo swept away the cake spinners and condensed what remained to two sides of the booth. Then he carried the empty trays and spinners to the bakery van, which was parked along the curb. Rivers cast him a wistful look. “Does he have a straight brother?”

  “No,” Riley said. “Don’t steal my guys.”

  “How exactly would I steal a gay guy from you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s what you said to me when I came out. How would I have stolen a straight guy from you?”

  “Touché. In my defense, I was sixteen at the time. What’s your excuse?”

  He put his arm over her shoulders. “You are my very favorite sister.”

  Rivers laughed. “I’m your only sister. Why don’t you, Theo, and Koala head out to enjoy the last of the festival? There’s so little left to sell that I can take it from here.”

  “Yoo-hoo!” a familiar voice cried.

  “Not it,” Riley said, and beat it out of the booth as Peppy Marden approached. Koala was right on his heels. Groaning quietly, Rivers plastered a smile to her face as she turned towards their least favorite customer.

  Riley scooped up an armload of baskets. The dog got up from the grass, wanting to come along, so Riley hooked the leash over his wrist and the two of them set off for the van together. Another sprinkle of rain pattered down and quit a few seconds later.

  “We’re done,” he announced to Theo, who was stacking everything up tidily in the back.

  “That was fun,” Theo said.

  “Chaotic, you mean.”

  “I said what I meant to say.” With a grin, Theo leaned out to take the baskets. “Can we go to the entrance of the festival? I want to walk the whole thing.”

  “Of course we can.”

  They finished loading and closed up the van. Leaves crunched under their shoes as they backtracked to the entrance. More people were leaving than arriving now, couples holding hands, tired but happy families carrying children and shopping bags towards the cars lining the roads. Everyone smiled down to Sherlock, whose tail swept back and forth in good humor.

  They reached the first booths where hand-crafted goods were being sold. Beautiful quilts were pinned to partitions to show off every square. There were jars of honey, lovely pieces of pottery, glittering jewelry, and skeins of yarn. Tie-dye shirts flapped
in the breeze on hangers. A couple of booths already stood empty.

  Every ten feet, someone called out in greeting to either Riley or Theo. “I’ve missed that,” Theo commented as clients from his practice went past. “Living in a small place has its pros and cons, but I liked how I always ran into a friendly face when I lived in Poke.”

  “That surprised me when I first moved here,” Riley said.

  “Running into people you know?”

  “Yeah. I was always surrounded by a sea of strangers before, and here I couldn’t go to the store without a person or two calling out. Since we opened the bakery, it’s been a lot more than one or two people.” It gave him a warm feeling of community rather than the facelessness of Seattle, Portland, and southern California especially. Nobody would have missed him if he wasn’t there; nobody knew who he was and he knew nobody.

  They proceeded to the food vendor avenue and waved teasingly to Rivers, who threw an exasperated look over Peppy Marden’s shoulder. And that was the con of living in a small place: you also ran into the annoying faces whenever you went out. But Riley was in a charitable mood right now, even with Peppy. She was annoying yet harmless, and she recommended Mad Batter Bakery to everyone.

  They bought soft pretzels and ate them on the path to the games area. It was winding down over here, too, the spelling bee stage being taken apart and a woman walking away with sacks under her arm. The bounce houses were still doing a brisk trade, Gigi spilling out with a squeal to say hello. She had gotten her face painted, a blue butterfly covering her left cheek. “Guess what? Guess what? Guess what?” she exploded at Riley and Theo.

  “What?” they asked.

  “The Enzmen kids got kicked out of the games for stealing the medals off the table! Jackie was wearing six of them around his neck and said he won them racing when everybody saw him steal. And Sofia bounced so much she got a headache so she had to go home. And . . .” A girl stuck her head out of the bounce house, calling for Gigi, who squealed again and ran back inside.