Yolk

by Mary H. K. Choi

  Our food arrives, so I proceed to cut it all into pieces and move it around. Breakfasts are easy because there are so many stations—your egg area, the potato pile no one finishes. Bacon’s easier to fake than sausages, but that’s fine. Fried eggs are a cinch because once you pop the yolks, no one checks how much you’ve eaten.

  He cuts the donut with a knife. I take a huge, enthusiastic bite of my half and widen my eyes. I can practically hear my pupils contract into pinpricks. Sugar always does this to me. “Mmm,” I moan, and deposit the rest of it back onto the plate. I’m glad we’re sitting next to each other and not across. It makes the optics easier. Patrick tucks in with zeal, going nuts with the hot sauce and the ketchup and talking about his father.

  I only vaguely remember his dad, but another memory of Patrick coils up to the surface. It was later that same year. He’d been gone all summer, and when he returned, he’d changed. Enough so that June noticed it first. “Did Patrick get hot?” she asked, jabbing me in the ribs when he and his family walked in.

  All of a sudden, he was a head taller than his sister, who’d always been modelly. That wasn’t it though. There was an ease to the way he moved. I’d wondered all summer where he’d been. But I couldn’t admit that to June.

  Right after mass, before the communal meal, Mom asked me to put the hymnals back in the car, and when I did, I saw him. He was at the other end of the lot and suddenly an adult. I kept my eyes on the ground, wishing I’d had earphones, debating whether or not to say hi. But just as I glanced up, he’d gotten a call, and the way his face broke into a smile, I could tell he was talking to a girlfriend or a crush or something. I kept my eyes straight ahead, ignoring him, even as I purposefully marched at an angle where he’d see me.

  “How was it?” he asks, nibbling on his last triangle of toast. I swallow at the memory. God, I was such a dork.

  “Great.” He glances down at my plate, so I drape my napkin over the leftovers and order another coffee. I hit the bathroom, and then we head back to his apartment and watch TV. He checks his phone for some work things, and while I try not to look down at his screen, I wonder what his real life is like. How I’d fit into it. If there’s any room. I wonder if he’s dating anyone. Who the Tinder match was. Whether or not he’s dated any of the models he’s previously photographed.

  He smiles, apologizes, and puts his phone down on the coffee table, and while I’m overjoyed that this man’s idea of a good time is to watch Bake Off on Netflix sprawled on the couch, and even though I’m nestled beside him, I can’t help but wonder if I’m getting too comfortable.

  I let my eyes wander over to him. It’s Patrick from church, but it’s also profoundly not. Me and Patrick need a reset, I decide. I have to keep this from going off the rails.

  “Do you mind if I shower?” I ask him suddenly, springing to my feet. He tilts his head up sleepily and smiles. “Go for it.”

  I don’t wash my hair, but I scrub my face, removing all my makeup, and wipe the foggy mirror down to start over. I fluff out my hair. It’s wavy and full, and I give myself a little pep talk. Part of me is intrigued. Flattered even. No dude has ever set out to be my friend, but what does this mean philosophically? The thought of him not being attracted to me is unbearable. I can so easily imagine him keeping me apart from his work life, his personal life, the way Jeremy did. I need to convince him of my value.

  “What do you have to drink?” I ask him when I emerge, still in his sweats but so much cleaner. So much more focused.

  He looks up. The laptop on his coffee table drones on about the temperament of hot-water crust pastries in a hand-raised pie.

  “Bourbon and…”

  “I’ll have that.” I nod. “Don’t make me drink alone,” I admonish. He pads to the kitchen, then hands me a drink in a squat glass and clinks his to mine. He toasts me, watchful.

  “Maybe I should shower too,” he says. “I need to wake up.”

  “Do it,” I tell him. He drains his drink, Adam’s apple bobbing, ice cubes clinking as his head tilts back. He disappears into the bathroom. Sometime in the last half hour, I’ve made the decision that we should sleep together. I want the data. I need to know how I’ll feel after. If Patrick will be different.

  I’m reminded of Malcolm Ito. Malcolm Ito was a forty-year-old Japanese furniture designer with a big beard and tinted glasses who had recently divorced a French socialite filmmaker fifteen years his senior. We’d met at a party at the New Museum. It was a springtime launch event for an art magazine that Ivy’s ex-girlfriend was involved in, and I was wasted on champagne. We kissed on the roof deck. It was terribly poetic. His beard rubbed up against my chin. I touched his face, and when we broke away, I heard him gasp. He was the first Asian man I’d ever kissed. I decided to fall instantly in love with him.

  It was as though I could feel my heart fasten to his like the interlocking of precision machinery. It was everything I’d imagined it would be if I’d kissed someone tailor-made for me. Someone worthy and good who would accept me for me. Who I’d see with such a deep and profound recognition that they’d never be able to leave me. He excused himself for a phone call and never returned. I’d waited, shivering in my drunk haze, handkerchief-thin dress fluttering against me. I stared at a far-off water tower, convinced he’d come back. When I googled him a few months ago, he was engaged to a Norwegian model with a dynamic ceramics practice. That’s how they described it. Dynamic. Ceramics. Practice.

  Suddenly Patrick feels like the answer to a question. He belongs with me. I belong with him. I’ll finally know how things went wrong all those times before.

  I’m not great at drinking and I’m not great at sex. So far, I don’t particularly excel at adult things. I’ve tried it. Sex. And it’s never how I’d want it to be. For all the talk of first base, second base, third, it’s more like a light switch. You go from not having it—barely kissing really—to all of a sudden having it. Full-on sex. When it’s over, I feel like I’ve failed to make it better for myself. That it’s somehow my fault that I’m startled each time.

  It’s the way they aggressively and incessantly initiate sex. The way I always feel cornered, by the text, in the bar, in the car, in their apartments. Sometimes I wonder if I’m confused by how purposeful they are. They’re so sure they want sex that I try to convince myself I must be wrong about my ambivalence.

  I go to pour myself another drink. It’s noon, but it may as well be the weekend. The booze bottles are on a silver tray on top of his fridge. They shiver, clinking slightly when the refrigerator runs, but the bourbon’s been left out on the counter. I quietly ease out another inch, so he doesn’t think I’m a lush.

  I look at myself in the circular wall mirror hanging just outside the kitchen. I watch myself take another sip. I marvel at how convincing I am as an adult. I rub my lips between my fingers, hard. Pulling them so they color and hopefully swell a little. They’ll stay bruised and puffy for at least thirty seconds after he comes out of the shower.

  Men don’t enjoy the taste of lipstick though they like the look of it.

  It’s as if the transmission was fed into an earpiece, it’s so fully formed and not mine.

  I smile silkily. I look crazy. I suck in my cheeks and make fish lips. Clear my throat. Suck in my gut, let it out. Take another sip. Put the glass down on the counter and slap the apples of my cheeks with the pads of my flattened fingers. I drink even more, warming my insides. I want a third glass and listen for the running water, but I shouldn’t risk it.

  I settle on the couch, wishing there was music on. Arrange my arms and legs so they don’t flatten against the leather and appear wide. Even with the boozy buzz, another layered distraction would be good. I can’t deal with bodies. The smells, the tastes, all that rubbing, the occasional mortifying flatulence if my chest suction cups his in a way that I wish we could laugh about but never do. It’s the worst. Usually he’ll grunt in a porny way, masking it, so I’ll do the same in a whinier, pleading tone, and we’ll both k
eep ignoring it because breaking character would reveal how fucking embarrassing it all is.

  Consent?

  Yes.

  Yes?

  It’s like a spell we’re taught the words to, but how do you cast it? Where am I supposed to stand? What do I do with my arms? There should be a laminated poster in all bedrooms. The way restaurants have Heimlich maneuver guides. Why is the invocation so awkward? All the sex I’ve ever had seemed inevitable. It wasn’t wrought but ordained. It was like watching someone fall from a height. We all know where it’s going.

  I hold an ice cube in my mouth to quiet my brain. I know this will be different. It has to be. When Patrick returns to the couch, back in sweats, I climb onto his lap, on my knees, facing him, and touch my lips to his. He tastes like toothpaste. His mouth is cold, then warm. The alcohol begins to blur the lines, soothe the spikiness of my thoughts, the impatience. I feel and hear the tremble, a low rumble in his throat. His hands find their way to my waistband and pull me into him. I pull away a fraction. His face is blurry up close, and for a brief moment, as if a single foreign frame has been spliced into the reel, reality warps and my mouth is full of some random I hooked up with the first time Jeremy left. I never learned his name.

  I pull away completely.

  Wordlessly, I get up, take his hand, and lead him toward his bedroom. He follows.

  Everything is as I’ve left it. Queen bed. Striped linens. But in the blued afternoon light, each article throbs with a new significance. The bedside table with a stack of books. His half-drunk water. Reading glasses.

  I insert myself into his future. Slot my copy of The Secret History onto his table. A scrunchie by his water glass. If I leave something—an earring, my compact, an eyelash—it would secure my safe passage back.

  I wonder if we’ll know each other after this.

  I sit on the edge of his bed while he stands. Watching. The rest is muscle memory. Old choreography. I touch the soft hem of my sweatshirt, holding his gaze while I pull it off, judging from his expression how much he’s into this. Into me. How much of him I’ll get to keep afterward.

  He drinks me in. I’m not wearing a bra. I tug on his pant leg, and he joins me on the bed. We’re kissing, scooching higher up on the mattress as he lies on top of me. From this angle he could be anyone. I close my eyes, waiting. But then the warmth of him leaves. He pulls away, propping himself up. I peek just as he hooks his finger against my cheek—pulling—and a hair slides out from the back of my throat, tickling the wet of my mouth, and is freed. It’s such a small movement. Tender. Patient. There’s a pleasant buzzing in my ears as my senses go all syrupy, and then the room snaps into focus. That Patrick would consider my comfort above his even for a moment grounds me back into my body. I freeze.

  “Let’s pump the brakes a little,” he says, studying me. I nod. He pushes away and lies on his back, holding my hand as we stare up at the ceiling.

  I raise his hand to my mouth and kiss it. “Do guys hate the taste of lipstick?”

  I feel the tremor of him laughing beside me. “What?”

  “I don’t know… Is it a thing where you like the way it looks but hate the way it tastes?” I shift to my side and kiss his cheek.

  “I have never noticed that it has a taste, and I have no real opinion on its appearance. I guess it’s nice.”

  He goes quiet. “Is this a quiz?” he asks after a while. “I’m trying to remember if you were wearing lipstick last night.”

  This time I laugh. “No. I just had this dumb thought that men have these strong feelings, but I don’t know where it came from.”

  “I like mouths,” he says, facing me and kissing mine. “Humans like mouths. I’m indifferent to the ornamentation, I think.”

  We lie there for a while. Listening to the street. Not talking. I want to ask him about everyone he’s ever slept with.

  I creep closer to him, pressing my entire body to his side as he rearranges us so that I’m nestled in his arm. You’re mine, I think, wondering if he can read my mind. How else would he have known that for all my bluster, I needed a moment to breathe? That I was scared of all we stood to lose? That I wanted to know him first?

  “I think I’m going to get going now,” I whisper after a while. It’s better to go before they want you to.

  He turns to me, expression unreadable. “Let me get you a car.”

  My heart sings. It’s such a small gesture, but I’m grateful for the offer. I shake my head. Hopefully he’ll see my refusal as I intend it. That I don’t take up too much space. That I’m agreeable, low-maintenance, chill. I decide not to leave anything on his nightstand. It wouldn’t work on a Patrick.

  I hope this ensures that he’ll want to see me again.

  “I love the subway,” I tell him in a small, light voice. “I’m easy.”

  chapter 26

  Patrick walks me to the train. We’re huddled under his umbrella, and he’s tilting it to favor my side, his shoulder getting soaked in the process.

  When we get to the subway, he pulls me under the marquee of the Mediterranean restaurant on the corner. He closes the umbrella and hands it to me.

  I shake my head, like a child, leaving the umbrella to hang between us.

  “I’m older than you,” he says, urging it forward. “You’re taking it.”

  It’s a nice one, a real one, not even the five-dollar kind you buy off the street.

  “Thank you.” I smile at him.

  He pulls his hood up and smiles back.

  We stand there, cheesing.

  He grimaces right as I feel it, the rude flick of cold water spraying us both as we’re almost decapitated by an advancing golf umbrella to our left.

  I wipe my face as Patrick ushers me close with a hand to my hip.

  We resume grinning, this time for being so oblivious. I nod at the subway stairs behind me.

  “Wait,” he says, taking my hand. “When do you leave for Texas?” His warm thumb brushes the length of mine.

  “Friday.”

  “Let’s hang out before you go.”

  “Really?” The hopeful lilt in my voice is mortifying.

  “Yeah, really.” He chuckles.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  He leans in and kisses me.

  “I’m glad you called,” he says, mouth inches from mine. I hug him hard. “You can keep the umbrella,” he says in my ear. “But I want my fucking sweats.”

  I hug him tighter, my New Yorker tote stuffed with clothes mashing between us. I want to tell him I love him, but instead I say, “We’ll see,” and clatter down the stairs. I wave before disappearing around the corner.

  I imagine Patrick talking to his friends. The dude group chat. Wondering if he’ll say we hooked up anyway. That I took him in my mouth. Or that I led him on. Calling me a prick tease. Immature. I close my eyes. Things seemed fine, but you can never know what anyone else is ever thinking. Or what they’ll say about you.

  I dig for my MetroCard, hitching my bag onto my hip so I can feel through the different shapes for the right one. My fingers catch loose change and various hard crumbs native to the bottoms of purses before curling around the metal carabiner of June’s keys. I fish them out along with my wallet.

  Instead of going to Brooklyn, I take the F uptown. On the train, seated across from me, is an older white guy with wire-frame glasses and an orange beanie pulled up high on his forehead. He has his notebook out. He’s doing line drawings of different passengers. Sketching quickly as if trying to capture everyone in New York. I want to take the seat next to him and flip through his book to look for Cruella.

  The New Yorkiest New Yorkers aren’t exactly like Pokémon Go, but they also sort of are.

  I wonder if Patrick has any favorite New Yorkers. I’ll bet he does. He loves details. I replay the last twelve hours in my head, plucking out different aspects of his apartment. The movie poster. His heavy art books. That goddamned avocado egg timer. The way his kitchen towel felt in my han
ds as he washed and I dried. I don’t know what this feeling is, this crawling, spreading sensation that feels at once joyful and like shame. Why didn’t I know before this that Patrick was perfect for me? I can’t believe he has that flower hair catcher thing in his tub. I picture us in London. In Paris. At Léon in front of Jeremy, who I can pretend not to recognize as I walk by. I hug myself, smiling.

  “Jayne!”

  I look up, stunned. Suddenly I’m at June’s building and I’m still smirking stupidly with my arms wrapped around my middle. June gets off the elevator with her eyes wide. I let the smile drop. I thought I’d have a few seconds to get my bitch-face situated.

  “What are you doing here?” She’s wearing denim overalls and a raincoat with a hood. Meanwhile, I don’t remember the last time I saw her in jeans, let alone dungarees. She’s holding a neon-yellow plastic folder. Something about the color reminds me of a crossing guard.

  She glances at my oversize sweatsuit. And then down to my clothes from last night, which are swinging in my bag. “Where were you?”

  “I’m just gonna grab my stuff,” I tell her, sticking my foot in the elevator door before it shuts. “I’ll leave the key with the doorman.”

  “Okay,” she says. Her expression’s unreadable. “I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  A beat. “Uptown,” she says.

  “Doctor’s appointment?” I nod at the folder in her hand. She’s always bitching about crosstown traffic when she’s headed over there.

  She looks down at it and frowns.

  “Nah, I’m just meeting with an old client,” she says with a penetrating gaze. “Are you still coming to Texas? At least tell me if I should cancel your ticket.”