Good On Paper

by Jennifer Millikin

  “He’s not my type, Mari. That’s why we work. That girl you just met?” With my thumb, I gesture behind me in the direction they went. “He met her on an app. They are going to have sex. He won’t see her for longer than a month, two at the most. That’s what he does.” I shrug. “That’s what he has always done.”

  Mari makes no attempt to hide the skepticism in her eyes. “For someone who only fucks for fun, he seemed very interested in how you were feeling.”

  With a wave of my hand, I dismiss her words. “He’s not an unfeeling asshole. He’s actually very kind. He doesn’t” —holding up my fingers I air quote— “fuck for fun because he’s a jerk.”

  “Then why does he?” Savannah asks.

  My mouth opens as if I have an answer, but really I have nothing to say. My head shakes. “I don’t know.”

  “Childhood trauma,” Charity says, smacking her lips and chewing her last bite. She rolls the foil from her burrito into a ball and tosses it into a nearby garbage can.

  “No.” I shake my head. “No childhood trauma. His parents are the personification of perfect. Remember the book For You I Will?”

  Mari and Savannah nod. Charity says, “I only saw the movie. But” —she pretends to drive a knife into her chest— “oh my god, I cried like a baby. Best romance I’ve ever seen.”

  “I think it’s universally agreed upon that was the best love story of our generation. And Aidan’s mother wrote it.” Three shocked expressions look back at me. “It’s based upon her relationship with his dad.”

  “No,” Mari gasps, grabbing ahold of my forearm. “The marriage of convenience when she was actually in love with him, but he was in love with the other girl?”

  “He wasn’t in love with the other girl,” Savannah breaks in. “He was in lust. And the other girl didn’t truly love him back. That’s why Grace married Alejandro. So he could stay in the country and pursue his feelings for the other girl. She loved him enough to sacrifice for his happiness.” A gargled sound comes from the back of her throat. “We have to stop talking about it. I’m going to cry.”

  “You know how it ends,” I remind her. “They fell in love, made a baby, and lived happily ever after.”

  Mari looks over my shoulder as if Aidan is still visible. “And that was the baby they made? Dammmn they did a good job. He’s dark, like his father. Wait.” She holds out a hand, her face serious. “Is Alejandro really Venezuelan?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, he is. A lot of the story is accurate.”

  Charity stomps her feet on the ground and crosses her arms in front of herself. “Can we go somewhere warm and dissect how gorgeous Aidan is?”

  “Nope,” I say quickly. “It’s time for this girl to go home. Savannah?” I turn to her. She nods and gives both Charity and Mari quick goodbye hugs.

  We make it three blocks when Savannah starts talking. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the way Aidan looked at you tonight… well, Henry never did that.”

  “I’m not sure what look you’re talking about, but you only knew me when Henry and I were failing.” I feel the need to point this out, to defend Henry in some weird sort of way. Maybe I’m not defending him, but our marriage. I don’t fucking know.

  Savannah doesn’t respond, so I look at her. She’s staring at me pointedly.

  I sigh. I know what she wants me to ask. “How did Aidan look at me?”

  “Like your breath was more important than his own.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Oh please. Have you been reading my romance novels?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, a little. But only the sexy parts.”

  My hands fly into the air. “Only the sex? Seriously?” There’s no way I’m telling her about my most recent declination.

  “That’s not the point. We were talking about Aidan.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’ve seen you guys together, what, twenty times? And you’ve always acted like permanent fixtures in one another’s friend zones. Like little statues. But tonight—” Savannah lifts her hands the same time as her shoulders, then she drops them. “Tonight it looked like maybe your stone is crumbling and you were actually being human. Both of you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Savannah lets out a short burst of a laugh. “Yeah. Sure. You didn’t look like someone popped out from behind a tree and yelled boo.”

  “I was surprised, that’s all.” My voice is a murmur. “I’ve never seen him on an actual date. I was caught off-guard.”

  “If you say so.” Savannah steps into our building and I follow. We make it all the way up to our apartment without another word and I’m grateful. Talking about Aidan is low on the list of things I want to do right now.

  After an hour of sitting on the sofa watching HGTV, I say goodnight and go to my room. I’m physically exhausted from the spin class and emotionally exhausted from feeling awkward around my best friend. The second my head hits the pillow, my mind begins to wander. I can’t stop seeing the way Allison looked up at Aidan. So flirtatious. So bold. So ready for whatever was next for them.

  Did they take it slow? Or was it fast and hot? Did they make it all the way back to his place or did he pull her into a dark alley and start there?

  How long has it been since I’ve had sex? A long freaking time.

  Henry was the second person I had sex with, and there was a time when I thought he would be my last. Unlike his sometimes harsh personality, in bed, he was gentle and kind. Unless he’d had too much to drink. Then he was rougher, whispering things into my ear he’d never say otherwise.

  Maybe it’s because I miss Henry, or what he represented.

  Maybe it’s because I know Aidan is getting some tonight and I’m alone again.

  Or maybe my hand slips over my abdomen and into the waistband of my pajama pants because it’s been so long.

  A young Henry floats through my head. He’s high from a win on the football field, drunk at an after-party with his arm around my shoulders. I’m half-drunk too and high on knowing I’m his girl. The football god and the dancer. Picture perfect. The scene floats around me, and my present self knows what my past self doesn’t. That night, Henry and I will fall asleep together, and in the morning we’ll have sex for the first time, and he’ll take me to a high I’d never experienced before.

  My body welcomes the memory, and my shoulders relax as my thigh muscles tighten.

  Putting the scene on replay in my head, I let go completely and hope to reach the same high I experienced that morning. My brain, however, remembers what happened after, and it won’t let me press the replay button one more time. As hard as I fight it, the scene keeps going and now I’m in the kitchen of Henry’s apartment. I’ve just come from his room and I’m wearing his T-shirt only. I wouldn’t have walked out, but I was parched. Aidan is in the kitchen, shirtless, standing in front of the open fridge and drinking milk from the container. He takes in my appearance, says nothing, but offers me the milk. I walk closer, accept the milk, drink, and wipe the back of my hand across my lips. Aidan takes it from me and puts it back in the fridge. Drawing me in with one arm, he tucks me into his side and lays a cheek on top of my head.

  “You okay?” His voice floats down around me, and I know that he knows what Henry and I did.

  “Yes.” My voice is small.

  “That’s all that matters.”

  Henry appears a moment later and frowns at us. I jump away, but Aidan doesn’t move. We hadn’t been doing anything, but our close proximity feels wrong. Maybe it was the fact Aidan and I only made one whole outfit combined. It could have been Aidan’s ridiculous body, with abs that rippled like water rescinding over sand. That morning, I took Henry’s outstretched hand and let him lead me to his bedroom. I didn’t look back, but I’ve always wondered what the look on Aidan’s face was.

  Henry is gone from my head. Aidan takes his place, and my hand stills. This is wrong, but it’s bad in a delicious way. My hand moves, and in my head, i
t’s Aidan’s hand moving over me. Aidan, with his lopsided smile, lies beside me in my bed and reaches down.

  My phone pings and a light glows from my nightstand. With my free hand, I reach over and peer at the screen, shock rolling through me for a second time tonight.

  Aidan: Hi.

  Panicked, I look around my room as if somehow I’ve been caught. There is nothing there but darkness and the glow of the moon peeking around the drawn curtains. Slowly sliding my hand from my pants, I wipe it across my comforter and start typing.

  Hey. Date over already?

  Aidan: The date ended shortly after I saw you.

  The alley. I knew it.

  Never took you for a minute man.

  Aidan responds with the middle-finger emoji, then the three dots appear, so I wait for more.

  Aidan: You looked disappointed when I saw you tonight.

  Disappointed in what?

  Aidan: Me.

  Hardly.

  Aidan: In what, then?

  I wasn’t disappointed. Just surprised.

  Aidan: Gotcha.

  He doesn’t say anything else. Three dots don’t appear. I wait five minutes, then turn off my phone.

  In the darkness of my room, I reach back down and bring myself to the high I was seeking. I christened my new bed all by my damn self.

  10

  Aidan

  This is exactly what I needed. Cold beer, greasy bar food, and the Yankees on every TV in my vicinity.

  “We’ll have another round,” Rob tells the girl who dropped off our baskets of burgers. With a full mouth, I stare at the screen closest to me. It’s the bottom of the ninth and we’re tied four-four with the Dodgers. I want this win more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. In this moment, anyway.

  Finishing my bite, I wash it down with the dregs of my beer and grab a handful of fries. Just as I toss them in my mouth, Rob utters one of those information seeking sentences I would rather ignore.

  “Best hasn’t been around much lately.”

  A caveman-like grunt winds its way around my mouthful of fries, but it doesn’t deter Rob.

  “Thought with her divorce she’d be around a lot more.”

  “Why do you care so much? Do you want to date her? Break the rule?” My voice is sullen. I wipe my mouth with a paper napkin and ball it up, then toss it on the table.

  Rob glances at me, then back to the screen. “Maybe. She’s cute. She has that smart-girl vibe. The older I get, the more I appreciate smart girls.”

  “I was kidding,” I mutter, beyond grateful for the fresh round of beers the server is dropping off. Grabbing mine, I drink until it’s half gone.

  “So was I,” Rob says, loudly clapping my back three times. My shoulders curl in each time his hand comes down. “I mean, yeah, Best is a catch, but I know better. So do you, obviously, because you won’t move beyond the friend-zone.”

  Rob is right that I know better and wrong that Natalie is cute. She’s not cute. She’s beautiful. Her lower lip is bigger than her top, and in the center of her upper lip is a ‘V’ shape so pronounced it looks like the top of a heart. Her nose is slightly upturned, and her eyes are wide and round so that she always looks like she’s interested in what’s happening. Her eyes are the opposite of mine. According to Natalie, my squinty eyes make me appear to be perpetually brooding. I certainly am right now. Listening to Rob talk about Natalie, serious or not, doesn’t help my mood.

  “I told you what the deal was the first day you met Natalie. We’re best friends, and that’s it.” I stare at the screen as I talk, and watch the Dodgers hit the ball deep into the outfield. My breath sticks in my throat until the ball lands safely in the glove of the outfielder.

  “She’s divorced now. I think the rules you’ve always abided by have changed.”

  “I’m her best friend, not some asshole who wants to jump her bones because she no longer wears a ring on her finger.”

  “Who said anything about jumping her bones? I was talking about you getting yourself a real girlfriend.”

  “You know I don’t date.”

  Rob gulps his beer and sets it back down. “I guess I was holding out hope that you were waiting for Natalie to be free from that dickhead.”

  Despite my irritation at Rob, I laugh. Rob never liked Henry. It didn’t help that the first time they met, Henry took one sip of his beer and sent it back, complaining it was too ‘hoppy.’ Henry was at a disadvantage after that, and every time he talked over Natalie or interrupted her, his stock fell lower and lower.

  Rob wanted me to talk to Natalie about Henry, but I refused. The fastest way to hurt our friendship would’ve been to tell Natalie her husband was an ass. I learned my lesson the hard way almost a year after she began dating Henry when I told her she needed to look past the good boy side-parted hair, perfect teeth, and hero-like, big man on campus status. She’d stalked away from me, refused to answer my call for three weeks, and that was when I learned that Natalie wanted to recreate what her parents should’ve had. The perfect marriage. When all you can see are external characteristics, you can begin to match them up like puzzle pieces.

  You’re single. Me too. We fit.

  You want kids? Me too. We fit.

  One day you want to leave the city and settle down in a nice suburb? Me too. We fit.

  On and on and on it goes, until soon you’re thinking the words match made in heaven.

  But what happens when the external dries out, then turns to dust and blows away? What’s underneath isn’t so shiny. Like the veins that run beneath our skin, the hopes, dreams, embarrassments, and shames of our life ebb and flow. This is where the ugly resides, and if you based your selection on pieces that fit together too easily, the ugly will be rejected. The second layer needs love, and love is not what it will get. All the love was used up on the luminous outer layer, the external. The perfect. Natalie loved Henry because he was good on paper. A handsome, loyal man who would one day be a good provider. Henry loved Natalie because she was beautiful, kind, and would one day become the stay-at-home mother of his dreams.

  Henry didn’t know that Natalie hums songs on repeat until a person could drown in their own irritation, or that she keeps a dresser drawer full of dirty laundry she doesn’t want to wash. I watched Natalie fall in love with the relationship she had carefully constructed to ensure a better ending than her parents’. Maybe I should’ve opened my mouth again, let the warning spill out and damn the consequences. It’s too late now, though, and Natalie learned the lesson the hard way.

  “Are you seeing this?” Rob bumps me with an elbow.

  I nod and drain my beer. I’m staring at the giant TV in front of us, watching as the Yankee’s ringer steps up to the plate. There’s a guy on first and one on third. The one on third edges away from the bag, only to creep back when the pitcher turns and pretends to throw it to his third baseman. Finally, he winds up and throws it to home plate. My heart stops at the crack of the bat, and my breath stays near the top of my throat as the ball sails high, and it goes, goes, goes, until it’s somewhere in the stands.

  Pushing off my bar stool, I stand and yell, my cheer lost in the sea of celebration. High-fives from strangers feels normal for a minute, and then the excitement dies down until it’s only a buzzing in my chest. I pick up my phone to text Natalie, wanting to share the excitement even though I know she doesn’t care, but our most recent text conversation distracts me.

  When I told her about not taking Allison home that night, I’d wanted Natalie to be happy. I’d wanted her to tell me that, yes, she was disappointed when she saw me.

  I’d certainly confused Allison, especially after working so hard to get her to understand why I’d left in the middle of our previous date. After we’d run into Natalie, I couldn’t bring Allison’s back to my place and do what we’d both thought we’d do that night. I’d faked a migraine, and walked Allison to her building. On my walk home, instead of seeing Allison’s confused expression, all I could see was Natalie’s
shocked face, the emotion swimming in her eyes.

  Why not us, Aidan?

  Her question is never far from my thoughts, bouncing from brain cell to brain cell. A question like that must’ve come from somewhere, but the indifferent tone of her messages says otherwise.

  My thumb hovers over the screen, in limbo, when three little dots appear. What? She’s writing me?

  The dots disappear and return. Disappear and return. Her message pops up.

  Congrats! Your football team won.

  Her message is followed by an upside down smiley face.

  Smiling at her football reference, I write back and hit send.

  Football is my favorite sport.

  Natalie: Mine too. So about Thanksgiving…

  You’re canceling on me?

  Natalie: Not exactly. But I talked to my mom and she laid the annual guilt trip on me. Hard.

  Hard like concrete or hard like the erection of a man who should admit he needs medicine to get it up?

  Natalie: Ewwwww.

  Well???

  Natalie: Concrete hard. Can we go to her place first and then to your parents’?

  Sure. What about your dad?

  Natalie: He’s coming to the city this year. I’m seeing him the night before. At a Chinese restaurant.

  Nothing says Pilgrims and Native Americans like a steaming dish of Lo Mein.

  Natalie: I know, right? Pick me up at eleven?

  Her assumption that I’m renting a car is accurate. It’s one of the few luxuries I allow myself. The winding street on the way to my parents’ house is thick with trees on both sides, and a street like that deserves a car hugging its curves. Taking the train out to Pound Ridge feels like an implied insult.

  I’ll be there. With my driving gloves. No arguments.

  Natalie hates my driving gloves. To be honest, I wear them to annoy her. Though it doesn’t hurt that my hands are encased in soft fabric while I’m doing it.

  She responds only with an eye roll emoji.

  I run a finger above my top lip and scroll through tonight’s conversation. No mention of what happened a few nights ago. Not even a joke to smooth things over. I could have made a facetious comment like I haven’t talked to you in four years, to which she would’ve replied, Actually it’s been five.