by Gabrielle G.
“Talk to me, Snot.” I start drawing circles on the knuckle of her pinky with my thumb. She’s not relaxing. Angling my body toward her, another tempting bead of sweat catches my eye. This one is not on her lip though, but just on the nape of her neck. I inwardly grunt for her not to hear and shift in my seat.
What were the reasons I came up with a couple of nights ago?
We’re grieving.
She’s a friend I can’t lose because my dick wants her.
Her family will never forgive me.
She sees me as a brother.
I already had something with her brother.
We live together.
Every time I look at her that way, I hear Jordan telling me he was right, and that’s why he jumped.
Nevertheless, my hand decides to reach for her, and I drag my index finger along her neck to swipe the temptation. Better my hand than my tongue.
She jumps in her seat while my hand takes hers back on the armrest.
There is a certain fire in Salomé’s eyes. It flickers between anger and something else I don’t really have time to decipher before it disappears when the plane enters some turbulence, and Sal’s face whitens.
“Are you afraid of flying, Sal?” She nods slightly, exhaling. “You know there is no reason to be scared. In fact…”
“I don’t need a lesson in flying,” she scoffs and removes her hand from my hold.
“How did I not know this about you, Snot?”
“Know what?” she mumbles, her eyes back at being closed, her fingers now fidgeting with one another.
“That you’re afraid of flying. I’ve known you all your life, and I don’t know something as important as this.”
“I guess we never flew anywhere together.”
“Yeah, but, I mean, I know you’re afraid of spiders and ice cream trucks. I know you hate eating anything vanilla, but you smell like it. I know you lost your virginity to a douche named Guy who loved to wear pink polos and beige khakis, I know your favorite meal was, and maybe still is, salmon, rice and broccoli, which is extremely strange for a kid, but I didn’t know you were afraid of flying… I don’t get it, Snot.”
She opens one eye and looks at me with curiosity. “You do know a lot of useless information about me, but maybe you don’t know all there is to know about me.” She shrugs.
“I would love to know though. You know you can tell me anything; I would never judge you.” She’s back to ignoring me, her head firmly on her chair, her eyes closed. She’s chewing on her bottom lip while her hand rubs her tattoo.
“What does your tattoo mean?” I nudge her leg with my knee for her to pay attention.
“That’s not something I’m ready to share with you Christopher Lachlan Harbor.”
“Wow, breaking out the whole name? And since when do you know my middle name?”
“That’s something you learn when you organize weddings…” She lets her words hang between us, and a weight falls on my shoulders. The conversation was so light, so easy before we remembered why we’re on a plane on our way to Nevada.
“What’s your second name?” I ask, trying to bring back the conversation to her.
“Snot.” She smirks.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I shove her shoulder playfully. “Come on, Sal, is it something ugly like Harriett?”
“It’s not, and Harriett is not ugly. It’s an old name, but it’s not ugly.”
“You’re telling me that if you have a daughter one day, you’ll consider Harriett?”
“I would. But it’s not my first pick.”
“What’s your first pick?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not giving you more things to know about me. You tell me what name you have considered, and I’ll see if you’re worthy of me sharing the names of my hypothetical children. For all I know, the next thing you’ll do is meet someone and steal my baby names before I’ve time to find someone and get pregnant.”
I have never thought of having children. Never have I ever wanted to have kids. But thinking of Salomé pregnant from another man, is weighing on me the same way as when I remember Jordan died. Anger and sadness overtake me. I turn my head toward the window to hide my emotions from Sal and clear my throat to chase them away.
“I guess I never really thought about it, but I always loved your name…”
“Come on, you barely ever call me by my name, and why would you want to name your daughter by the name of a biblical dancer. Your mother would die. She’s so religious, you can’t do that to her.” She laughs. “You need to call your daughter Mary, Esther or Miriam.”
“I don’t know, Sal, your parents gave very biblical names to you four, and they never set foot in a church.”
“Not anymore, but Mom was raised in an Italian Catholic family. I don’t think she shook off all her roots when it came to naming us.”
“So, if I follow your logic, your kids will be named something a little hippie, like Peace, or Flower,” I tease her.
“Yes, you got me. Leaf for a boy and Puddle for a girl.”
“Seriously?”
She laughs, totally relaxed, and warm goo spills over my heart. I’m glad I could distract her to forget we’re flying. I smile at her.
“No, you goof. If I tell you, you have to promise you’ll never tell Barn, or use it.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell Barn?”
“Because he’d use the names. I think just to spite me; he would even go as far as getting your sister pregnant and use the names I’ve chosen.”
“Hey! That’s a low blow, Snot. Patricia isn’t the nicest person and did a lot of shitty things to Aaron and Alane, but she’s still my sister.” She shrugs.
Patricia has tried to be part of the Gritt family since we were teenagers.
First, she was in love with Luke and hated me for a while when she realized he was gay and my kind of boyfriend. Then she moved on to Aaron, but as he was madly in love with Alane. She kind of separated them by telling all her secrets to our mother, the church gossiper, and to Alane’s dad, who was Pastor of the town at the time. Once she ruined her chances with Aaron, and Barnabas was old enough, she slept with him, but without success, as he just fucked her and tossed her aside. I should have been mad, but knowing Barnabas was twenty-three at the time and she was thirty-four, I didn’t think it was any of my business.
“Sorry, not sorry. What is she doing these days anyway?” Sal brings me back to our conversation.
“You’re not distracting me from revealing your secret baby names by talking about my sister. Good try, but I’m waiting, Snot.”
She winces, sighs and then looks at me with such vulnerability; I want to embrace her and never let her go. Sal is almost forty, she hasn’t had a stable relationship in at least five years now, and I’m pretty sure she’s wondering when, and if, it would ever happen. Furthermore, I know her mom is breathing fire down her neck to be a grandmother again and hold a baby in her arms.
“Arthur Ridge Gritt or Adelaide Bella Gritt.”
Those are beautiful names, but my heart squeezes when I repeat them silently, and I realize she gave her family name to her hypothetical children.
“You know their family name might not be Gritt, right?”
“Why not?”
“Well, wouldn’t you take your husband’s name?”
She looks at me as if I’m the craziest person on Earth.
“You think I would take the name of my husband and give my children his name? You know my family. Even if I feel like an outsider most of the time, I’m my parent’s daughter. My mother never took my father’s name. I’m a Gritt and would stay a Gritt, and my kids will be Gritts.” She’s almost offended. It’s cute how she always says she doesn’t feel like she belongs to her family, but she’s the first one to go to battle for any of the Gritts and defend the name of the family. I laugh, remembering a time she punched a girl and got suspended because someone at school had slurred something homophobic about Luke. She was thirteen
and Luke twenty-one. Luke and I were in town because Aaron was bringing his girlfriend home from Seattle. We were catching up and decided to go pick up Sal and Barn at school. We were kind of fooling around, remembering the fun we had together in high school when a girl saw her and called us faggots. She didn’t even have time to finish saying it when Sal turned around and knocked her teeth out.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Just remembering when you broke that girl’s teeth, defending Luke’s honor.”
She blushes and rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t only defending Luke. And how can you remember those things, you were like twenty-three at the time, I was only a bug on your shoulder.”
“I remember a lot about you, Snot.” She blushes some more and avoids my gaze, but I continue, “I remember the first time I saw you crying your eyes out.”
“You told me the story so many times. Please stop.”
“Not a good memory?”
“Not a memory. It’s part of the stories others told me, and I remember it only because other people told me, like a fake memory.”
“Okay, so what’s your first real memory about me?” She frowns and rubs her index finger on the tip of her nose. I remember her doing that while she was doing her homework once, she couldn’t find the answer to a math problem. I was passing by to say hello to her parents, even though neither Luke nor Aaron were in town, and I ended up helping her with her homework and being fed cookies she baked for me to thank me. She was fifteen or so. After that day, I noticed every time she touched her nose.
“I think I was ten, Barnabas pushed me off my bike, and we went for ice cream. I have no idea why you were around, but you were at our home.”
“I always came by to check on you. That’s something I promised Aaron when he left for Seattle. It was that day I learned you didn’t like to eat anything vanilla. You were so disappointed in me for having vanilla ice cream.”
She chuckles. “Well, yeah… Imagine learning your hero loves the thing you find the most boring. I think that day you became more human in my eyes.” I feign indignation.
“And that is your first memory of me? When I stopped being your hero?”
“I said you became more human, I never said you stopped being my hero.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was flirting with me. I repeat the list of reasons why my brain should not go there. And then, Jordan comes to mind, and maybe in hers too, when a shadow of sadness slowly creeps up on her.
“Do you mind if I use your shoulder to sleep? You distracted me enough, but we still have a few hours of flying, and I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“My shoulder is all yours, sweetie.”
“I think I prefer Snot,” she mumbles in a yawn, putting her head against my shoulder. I lay my head on top of hers. I undoubtedly prefer it too.
12
Chris
Salomé slept the rest of the flight, and we never regained the lightness we shared on that plane. When we arrived, Jason was waiting for us in a stooped posture. It took him precisely two minutes to break into Salomé’s arms, apologizing to me for not being there for his brother and not standing up against his father when he kicked Jordan out for being gay.
I understand. My mother is very religious, and telling her I was bisexual wasn’t easy; nevertheless, I persisted and never gave them the choice to not be part of my life.
After consoling Jason, we met Cassandra at a diner. Her husband didn’t want to meet me and wasn’t planning on attending the funeral of his own son the next day. If being gay was a sin, committing suicide was for him the worst Jordan could have done to his family. His pride and ego were blinding the love he had for his son, and only time would make him realize he was wrong, and even then, nobody was sure of the outcome. I was paying for the funeral, as Jordan’s father refused to do so. It seems fitting with the story of my life. I was helping strangers unburden themselves for someone they rejected, someone who’d hurt me even when he loved me, someone who’d hurt people I truly adored and respected.
That night I cried myself to sleep, exhausted from hating Jordan as much as I loved him. All I wanted was to let go of the feeling I felt toward him. His mother didn’t answer many of the questions I had about why he killed himself. She thought it was possible that because his father refused to come to the wedding, that was the last straw to break the camel’s back.
I wasn’t so sure.
He knew from the beginning his parents wouldn’t come and had been surprised when his mother reached out and said she was coming with Jason. It had been all Sal’s doing. She had called her parents, put them in contact with his, and Bella had worked her magic.
Over the years, I’ve counted only a few people who resisted Bella Gritt, and in a way, Sal has the same power as her mother.
She’s a force to be reckoned with.
She can convince anybody that her idea is the way to go.
She observes, analyzes and then spurts into action.
Whatever she touches is always a success. That’s why she’s taking Jordan’s death so personally. She thinks she has failed him. She hasn’t told me yet, but I know her well, and she can’t forgive herself for not seeing that something was wrong.
The funeral had been difficult.
I didn’t exist in the Nevada world of my dead fiancé. Most of Jordan’s friends I knew didn’t fly from New York, and when the few who did talk to me and offer their condolences, I didn’t feel like I deserved words of compassion.
His family, his high school friends, his Nevada people, avoided me like a radioactive plague.
When it was time to cover his coffin with roses as a last farewell, my feet stayed stuck on the ground. My body refused to move. My mind shut down and all I could remember was Salomé supporting my pain and easing my mourning, until she cracked as well in the taxi driving us back to the airport.
We’re now having a quick meal before flying back to New York where decisions are waiting for me; the biggest one being if I should stay in New York or go back to Miami. I’m making more money in New York than I ever did. I’m closer to my friends and my family. I’m surrounded by love, but every step I take in the city reminds me of Jordan. Dex took care of the apartment Jordan rented and has everything planned out for when I’m ready to rent another place. I just have to tell him so. I just have to choose between Miami and New York, between living the life I had or the one I wanted. The one I don’t want anymore.
“What are you thinking about?” Sal asks, sipping her water with extra ice and extra lemon, the way she likes it.
She’s so beautiful, even when she’s tired and sad.
Her whiskey brown eyes are puffy from the tears she shed the last forty-eight hours, her hair is a mess from touching it too much under stress, and her clothes are baggy, hiding the banging body that I discovered she sported when she was seventeen. I can’t think of her that way.
I had never really looked at Sal the way I saw her since Jordan died. I knew she was pretty, smart and fun, but I never saw her as beautiful and attractive as she really is. I never allowed myself to do so.
“What to do next…” The Clash song is screaming in my head. Should I stay or should I go? If I leave, it would be trouble, but if I stay it would be double. I want her to let me know, but it isn’t fair, we aren’t anything serious to each other. We aren’t meant to be anything ever. I won’t allow us to be anything more.
“You can stay with me as long as you need, Chris. You know that, right?” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it.
“And then what? I go back to work? The work I took to be with him? Walking streets I strolled with him? Going places I went with him? You have no idea what I’m going through!” I snap at her, angry at myself for wanting her to tell me to stay.
“Okay, so New York isn’t it…” She removes her hand from mine and crosses her arms. “You’re right, erase Jordan from your memory. Go away. It’s not that there are people who love you and would do anything for you in that same
city. There,” she takes her wallet, opens it and throws her credit card at me, “change your flight, and take the first one out to Miami. I’ll pack your shit and send it your way.”
Pushing her chair away, she stands, her eyes filled with tears, showing me how much I hurt her. She leaves me with her credit card and turns her back to me. It feels like she’s walking away from me, and this is upsetting me more than it should, not more than learning my fiancé is dead but a close second with the fact that he abandoned me at the altar. And just like that, I know what I have to do.
The flight back to New York is dreadful. Salomé isn’t talking to me. She gave me no smile when she saw me in the seat next to hers. She didn’t utter a word when I gave her back her credit card. She didn’t try to engage with me once. She’s listening to music, her eyes closed and her earbuds blocking me from talking to her. I remove one from her ear, not being able to stand her cold shoulder anymore.
“I’m sorry, Snot.”
“Whatever.” She shrugs, motioning to put the earbud back in.
I stop her, taking her hand in mine. “Sal, please, I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice strained with pain.
She shakes her hand and moves it away.
How many times have we made the exact same movement in the last week?
It’s a dance I’m not a fan of.
I want her hand in mine, but I don’t want to touch her.
I need to touch her, but I feel guilty about what I feel when I do.
I need her, but I don’t want to.
I want her, but I shouldn’t.
I’m lost.
“There is nothing to be sorry about. You lost the love of your life, and you want to be free. It’s okay. You can leave. I just got you back, and I feel terrible for being happy about it when what rekindled our friendship is J dying, but I can’t force you to stay if you don’t think we’re enough to get you through your grief.”