Yolk

by Mary H. K. Choi

  Our frosty martini glasses arrive. She leans over to slurp the top of hers before picking it up, and I copy her. It’s briny, slippery, and cold.

  June takes her cardboard coaster upright and absentmindedly saws the edge of the bar with it. “I did talk to them. The fertility people. I even talked to Steph, and I’m not a good candidate for ovarian preservation. I asked. I can physically do it all—go on hormones, put it off as long as possible, try to have a baby—but nobody advises it. The thing is, I don’t want to find an angle on this one. I always try to game things, and it’s never worked. The reality is, I don’t want to risk it…”

  She raises her glass to me. “I got to get knocked the fuck up right now.”

  “Okay.” I raise mine. “To you conceiving however briefly at your secret hysterectomy sex party.”

  We clink glasses.

  “And to the science fiction horror show of me giving birth to my own fucking uterus and ovaries.”

  “Jesus, June.”

  She keeps her glass held aloft, so I touch it with mine.

  We drink.

  “Life is fucking weird,” she says.

  “It is.”

  “Do you think it gets worse?”

  “Probably?”

  She laughs and toasts me again, which makes me laugh. My sister hugs my shoulders and squeezes. I wrap my arms around her middle. In her stripper heels, she’s taller than me for once.

  “Fuck, Jayne,” she says after a while, blinking rapidly, eyelashes fan-dancing. “I hate this.” She exhales slowly. I hand her a cocktail napkin, which she touches to the corners of her eyes. Her fingernails are shellacked in an oystery color. “But at least semen is an antidepressant, I think. It’s also basically all protein, right?”

  “Totally.” I have no idea if this is true.

  “Promise me you’ll have kids.” June blots her nostrils and inspects the contents of her napkin.

  “June.”

  “You’d be a good mom,” she says. A lump forms in my throat. “Everyone fucks everyone up, but you’re so fucked up already, you’ll be understanding about stuff like that.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “You’re a good teammate.” She clears her throat.

  I think about the two of us. Our tiny cult.

  “And you’re sure you don’t want to talk to Mom about any of this?”

  June shakes her head and extracts the olive at the bottom of her glass. “They have enough going on.” My sister places the furry olive pit on her napkin.

  I think of Dad’s lump of dough, parceled off and tossed into deep-freeze time-out so that the rest of the family can thrive. I wonder if that’s what June’s been doing all along in plain sight. Hiding her vulnerabilities so as not to be a burden.

  When her second drink arrives, she takes another healthy slug.

  “Wish me luck,” she says, heading back toward her friends. “Gotta get my organ basted.”

  chapter 41

  Patrick walks in as I’m giving June a thumbs-up. Heat prickles my scalp. When we lock eyes, he smiles. I take a sip of my drink to know where to look and what to do with my hands and face.

  My heart hiccups against my diaphragm.

  “Hi,” I say once Patrick’s too close to ignore. The effort in my smile makes my left ear pop. All of this is intolerable. My chest is a too-small shoe for the blood-filled foot of my heart. I feel like I’m going to pass out.

  “Hey,” he says, smile faltering slightly.

  I take a step toward him and offer my cheek as I squeeze his shoulder. “Guess I can’t get rid of you, huh?”

  He slides his beanie off, and his hair is messier than usual. Plus, he’s got a good bit of scruff going on. His cheek is cold from outside, and he’s as rumpled as I’ve ever seen him.

  He leans in, flashing his teeth with uncertainty. “Actually, wait, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  I’m close enough to feel the heat of his neck on my lips. “It doesn’t matter,” I mumble, pulling back. “I said, um, whatever.” I flap my hands near my face unbecomingly. “Sorry.”

  “Is it June’s birthday?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “June…? She made it sound like it was her birthday.”

  I shrug. “It’s just a regular get-together.”

  “You want to sit down?” he asks.

  The things I do for my sister.

  My thoughts go scribbly with pent-up bitterness as I pick a small round table and pull out a seat.

  I’ve had three cups of coffee today and little else. I couldn’t possibly hate myself faster.

  He unzips his leather jacket as he sits and sets it on the back of his chair. The image of the two of us in matching sweatpants feels both so long ago and so far in the future that I’m racked with a sense of vertigo.

  He runs his hands through his hair again. He looks tired.

  The past few weeks come hurtling into memory, a deranged carousel of indignities that frankly have so little to do with him. The cockroaches at home. June’s rage at Dairy Queen. My inaccessible, unknowable parents. Rae’s thin thigh. Calling Jeremy after everything that happened. The actor’s mouth on mine. The hot scrape of old-man tongue.

  I’m lit bright with shame when the kaleidoscope of images refracts all the way back to me groping Patrick in that disgusting bathroom, so slobbering, needy, and frightened.

  Of course he has a girlfriend. And she doesn’t even have social media. I checked. It’s just one more way she’s better than me.

  I pull my phone out as if to peruse important emails. My arms may as well belong to somebody else.

  Patrick clears his throat. “So, I brought her a present.” He shows me a tastefully matte shopping bag.

  That he went out of his way to buy something for my sister fills me with small, hard, mean thoughts.

  “How touching. She’ll love it,” I hear myself saying woodenly. “You should go say hi.” I point to the back corner, where June’s meaningfully grabbing the shoulder of a baby-faced brown-haired guy that she’s towering over. She’s making huge hand gestures. They must have changed the Spotify playlist because indeterminate U2 blusters all around us.

  “Yeah, okay,” he says, pushing his chair out and glancing back to the bar. “I’ll get us drinks first?”

  “Sure. A Bombay martini. Up. With two olives. Um…” I try to remember the rest of the order. “Yeah, that’s what I want.”

  “So, no vodka soda.”

  I shake my head, disgusted with the part of me that shimmies giddily that he remembered my drink from last time.

  I watch him walk away. His shoulders rise as he leans against the bar. He hitches his foot on the bar railing, and the way his sweatshirt rides up a little in the back, the way the break of his jeans falls on his pristinely clean sneakers, just the way everything seems so effortlessly boy and attractive and unperturbed finally ignites some sense of unfairness. He’s so fucking okay. Just so fucking aboveboard and respectable with his stupid thoughtful gifts and his insouciantly mussed hair.

  When he returns, I’m braced by the overwhelming urge to hit him. Hard. Right on the arm. Just to see if my discomfort lessens. I’m incensed that his leather jacket doesn’t make him appear as though he’s wearing a costume, which is how I feel when most men wear leather jackets. I’m insulted that when he sets my drink down in front of me, he smiles easily and that the silence is somehow comfortable when he does.

  Remember when you said that New York was waiting? I want to ask him. That you wouldn’t forget about me? Was that literally, figuratively, or bullshittingly? I want to sustain this anger and indignation in a stalwart display of feminist outrage, anything that even remotely hints to a sense of pride, but it’s flagging already.

  When he leaves to greet June, she lights up and pulls him in for a hug. I can see by the slack of her torso that she’s wasted. She introduces him in what may as well be a silent film, her gestures are so comically exaggerated. She hugs him again when
he hands her the bag, holding the embrace a beat longer than necessary and whispering something in his ear. The sudden, piercing thought arrives that she’s invited him as an option. My sister is absolutely conniving for sex with Patrick. I can’t tell if I’m repulsed or impressed by how undeterred she is by his girlfriend.

  My mouth is rank from the olive particles carpeting my tongue.

  I stare at the black square of cocktail napkin under the foot of my glass. There isn’t even a ring. Fucker didn’t even spill a drop on his way over. That’s what we’re dealing with. As I lift it, it dribbles onto my lap.

  I’m heated when he comes back around. Worked up into a full lather.

  “Well, it’s definitely not her birthday.” He pulls his chair out and sits down.

  “I told you it wasn’t.”

  He looks over his shoulder “Man, I don’t know what the fuck that energy was.”

  I follow his gaze and laugh. I can’t help it. It is a deeply weird vibe. June’s standing with her back to us, one hand placed on the shoulder of two different dudes. It’s as if they’re posing for a family portrait in which she’s the dad. I’m astounded by the adult she’s become. It both makes total sense and none at all.

  “What’d you get her?”

  “Macarons,” he says. “Nice ones.”

  Jesus, what a suck-up. “That’s such a gift you’d give an aunt,” I tell him. “Were they sold out of boxes of fruit or what?”

  “I have no idea,” he says stiffly. “It’s been a long week.”

  I check the time. It’s just after ten. A perfectly respectable hour to leave, but of course now I don’t want to.

  “So did your friend Aliyah make it back okay?” I take a phantom sip of a martini from the glass that is now clearly empty. “She seems nice.” I don’t know why I’m opening this portion of the conversation with the unveiled contempt of a sociopath from a reality dating show.

  “Yeah,” he says, observing me with the appropriate level of caution.

  “She’s so pretty,” I insist. Honestly, I can’t stop myself.

  “She had some things to deal with in town.”

  “Nothing bad, I hope.” I say this to seem classy even if bad things happening to Patrick’s girlfriend isn’t entirely without appeal.

  “It went okay,” he says. He removes a pack of mints from his pocket and eats one.

  “May I?” He shoots me a quick look as you would someone who says “may I.”

  He holds the tiny metal tin toward me. My hand extracts one with the precision of a metal claw game at the amusement park. I accidentally take four and quickly shove them into my mouth as if he won’t notice.

  He snaps the box shut, and I’m struck by how much I want to reach out and grab his hand. Hold it to my face like a freak.

  “I mean, like, so pretty.” I have no idea who’s piloting the control center of my brain at this point.

  He takes a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you about her.”

  I smile brightly. “Well, now you don’t have to,” I demur. “We’re fine, Patrick. Honestly, you don’t owe me an explanation. We don’t owe each other anything.” I am the very picture of detachment. A person with options. I may not have the job he has or the apartment or the significant other or the art, but one day I might.

  “I’m getting another drink,” he says.

  I watch him leave and realize that the bar’s suddenly heaving with activity. I check the time. It’s leapt to midnight somehow.

  Patrick returns with his beer and takes a long swallow. I notice that I’ve torn the cocktail napkin into little strips. Trying to get from end to end without ripping the strand.

  “I called a car.” June stumbles over to us. “This is Kazmi,” she says, placing her entire open hand on the chest of the guy whose arm is around her waist. “First name, Salim.”

  “Hey.” He up-nods and stumbles back a half step, laughing as he recovers.

  “Analyst,” she adds. Her eyes are closed as she says this, but then they snap open to follow brightly with “Aries,” as if to justify her choice.

  Salim’s Adam’s apple juts out at a true ninety-degree angle, and he’s tall and scrawny—a collision of corners—but the rest of his face is all circles. He has huge dark eyes—Disney eyes—a bulbous nose, and bee-stung lips.

  “What’s up?” he says. They’re both spectacularly wasted.

  “I think I should go back with them,” I tell Patrick, gathering my things. “So she doesn’t get murdered.” I can’t deduce if she knows Salim or she’s picked him from the bar.

  “I guess I’ll head out too,” he says, slipping on his jacket.

  We trudge upstairs, and I’m overcome by the urge to shake him. We’ve held hands before. He’s cooked for me. I slept in his bed. Pops! I want to scream at him.

  Patrick waits with us until the car comes. I catch snippets of June’s conversation.

  Patrick. Church. Can you believe it?

  A black car pulls up. Gleaming and morose. June gets in the far door. Salim in front.

  “Hey,” Patrick says into my ear as I open my side. I stall, wondering what sage parting words he’ll leave me with. Instead he asks, “Where are you gonna be while, they’re, you know…?” He nods to the lovely couple we’ve poured into a car. “Like, is this a one-bedroom?”

  “Fuck,” I whisper more to myself than to him.

  “You getting in, buddy?” my sister’s sperm donor calls out from the front seat. “It’s a party,” he continues.

  “Party, party,” June mutters with her eyes closed. She’s leaned up against the window. Little exhales fogging up the glass by her mouth.

  “Scoot over,” he says. I roll my eyes, nod, and scoot over. He gets in and shuts the door.

  chapter 42

  Smooth classical music washes over us in the dark. I can already tell by June’s stillness that she’s asleep.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper to Patrick. This is the closest we’ve been since that night. His thigh is pressed up against mine, and I’m holding myself as still as I can. Not even leaning into his side as the car turns sharply.

  June’s snoring softly. He smiles at her, then back at me, and even in my irritation I smile. The bastard’s breath smells like mint. “We can take a walk when we get there,” he whispers. “Or get a cup of coffee.” He leans in closer to me. “Do you really want to be third-wheeling it on this little scrimmage?” He looks out the window for a moment. “Look, I can get out and go home once we drop them off,” he says. “Entirely up to you.”

  He holds my gaze for a long time. “I just… I know I owe you an explanation,” he says. “If you’ll let me.”

  My resistance gives. “Fine.”

  “You go on up,” I tell June when we arrive at her building. Her eyes dart to Patrick, then to me, and back to him. She shrugs, and the two of them shamble through her lobby.

  It smells bright and clear outside. As if it’s about to snow. We’re posted up on the street in front of the glass-enclosed white entryway. I cross my arms to conserve heat and tuck my head as low as I can. Anyone reading our backlit body language across from us would take this for a breakup.

  “I’m going to sound like an asshole however I say this,” he begins, hands shoved in his jeans pockets. I peer at him over my jacket collar. “Aliyah and I broke up.”

  Maybe it’s the cold, but I don’t feel immediate relief. I search for a tremor of glee. I locate an ugly speck of smugness, but mostly I wonder who broke up with who.

  “You got a Tinder alert,” I say accusingly. “In the bathroom. That first night we met at the bar.”

  This has troubled me more than anything else. The fucked-up truth is that if he’d cheated on his girlfriend with me, I could have forgiven him. Hell, I’m damaged enough that I might have been flattered. But I wanted to believe better of him. The Patrick I knew—rather, the Patrick I thought I knew—is a much better person than I am. Better than some dude trawling dating sites for Strange.

/>   “Right…” He sighs. “But it’s…”

  “Oh God.” I throw my hands up. “Please don’t say it’s complicated.” I feel so stupid.

  “We’re not actually together,” he says. The “actually” zips up my spine, settling into an exquisite twinge at the base of my skull. I find myself smiling.

  I imagine Jeremy putting it exactly that way when he was hooking up with other people. “We’re roommates,” he’d whisper to yet another aspiring performance artist. “We were together, but now we’re not together-together.”

  I am the common denominator. Patrick is an improvement over Jeremy, who is leagues beyond Holland, and for all three I am utterly disposable.

  “I don’t know if it’s complicated,” he says. “More that…”

  He’s shifting his weight from foot to foot. I realize how impractical his leather jacket is and I’m relieved to experience aversion. Vain men are weak, I reason. I congratulate myself for dodging a bullet. Fuck this man and the rest like him.

  “Why does it bother you that I was on Tinder?”

  I roll my eyes at the past tense.

  “Look,” he begins. “You’re the one who hit me up in the middle of the night to meet you at the skeeviest bar in all of New York, including Staten Island. I’m like, holy shit, it’s Jayne. Maybe she’s new in town. Maybe she’s just out and about. I know nothing. I meet you. We get shitfaced; it’s fun. Then you pull me into a bathroom even though there’s a huge line of people waiting to go before us.”

  I’m embarrassed to hear myself characterized like this.

  “Then you puke, not on the sidewalk but in the literal street, almost getting decapitated by a moving vehicle, and then, just as I’m wondering what exactly I’ve gotten myself into, you announce that you’ve got nowhere else to go. Honestly, Jayne, if you were literally any other woman in this city, that would’ve been it. Actually, no, none of this would’ve happened in the first place. I would have tapped out a solid seven moves before that. But you’re you. I know your family. I’ve met your mom. I foster a healthy fear of your sister. I wasn’t going to leave you falling-down wasted in the gutter. So I loan you my clothes. You use my shower. I cook for you. I act like a fucking gentleman and give you the bed. We hang out the day after. I thought it was chill.”