I said, So you work here?
It was a stupid question. The room smelled like cigars and wet wool.
Ben said, I do. But I’m actually a landscaper. Work dries up in the rainy season.
He didn’t look like the type to be out there with a shovel and a sunburn. He fit right in with Rich’s dim light. I said, You should come over and look at our yard sometime. My dad’s been saying he wants to do something with it.
Neither of my parents ever talked about our yard, unless it was my dad saying he was about to mow or rake it. My mom had once planted tomatoes.
Ben said, Really? That’s cool of you. He said, We could at least have a consult before planting season. Do you know what he’s thinking about doing?
I said, Oh, bushes. I said, Flowers. I thought of Erika’s mom’s wild, loaming garden. She said the eggplant wasn’t worth the trouble. I said, And eggplant.
Ben said, Right on. He said, Still at the same number? And then he said my phone number.
It should have felt creepy to hear this stranger say my number, but what I felt was annoyed. There was some kind of brag or claim in saying my phone number from memory like that, and I was sure I had never met this guy. I had never heard of him.
I said, I should go. I have to meet my friend.
Ben said, Right on. You buying that? I was still holding Rolling Stone. He said, You like R.E.M.? You’re probably too young to have heard the old stuff. I should tape you some.
Just because this Ben knew my brother, or said he did, didn’t mean he knew me well enough to tape me things. It didn’t mean I would want a tape he made me. He really didn’t look like the type to be out planting in a garden. He didn’t look wholesome enough in his T-shirt of a naked guy from a band that nobody cared about.
THE AWNINGS UP over the booths at the River Market kept the rain out somewhat. I let Erika lead me around. The incense guy told us five sticks for a dollar. A long ash hung on the stick in the wooden stand. The guy said, Strawberry, best seller. Erika bought a few sticks for her mom. It was hard to make conversation. I kept thinking about Ben. How he said he’d just been thinking about me. The way he knew my phone number and acted as if he knew me. If I told Erika about it, she’d ask me if Ben was cute. Erika lingered at the wooden bowl guy and I kept walking. It was more boring to not buy anything so I got a new Guatemala wallet. Sometimes the white woman who ran the booth had two girls who were probably Guatemalan with her. It felt easier to buy something when the Guatemalan girls, who wore dresses in the same patterns as the wallets, weren’t there. It felt embarrassing to give them money for something from the country they were from, that they or their grandmothers might have made. The booth next door had these little clay pots. They were elephant gray, very plain. I picked one up. I really liked how smooth and simple it was. They were more like cups than pots. They would have made a good present for someone. The person at the booth said, I’ll give you a last-day-of-the-market deal on those. She had shortish, curly hair and a nose ring and a really cool-looking jacket, like a jean jacket lined with some material, sheepskin. Jean jackets didn’t usually look that warm.
I said, How much?
She said, I could go down to twenty-five each.
Twenty-five dollars felt like a lot for little clay cups. The only people I got presents for were my parents and Erika. None of them would like the cups enough. I thought about asking the seller if she sold the cups anywhere else, so I could ask my parents to give them to me for Christmas or Hanukkah, but it wouldn’t be the same if I had to tell someone to get them for me. I wanted someone who would just look at them and know I’d love them.
I wished I knew how to stay standing around the booth without buying anything, just to keep looking at the cups, to pick them up and put them down again, and maybe ask the seller how she’d made them like that, so thin and smooth, and also ask where she had gotten her sheepskin-lined jacket and if she thought it was a place where I could find one like it. Usually blue eyes felt icy but hers seemed nice. I saw Erika coming down the aisle and made what I hoped was a smile at the seller and walked away before Erika got there. Erika asked if I’d found anything cool. I showed her my wallet. I said, Are you hungry?
Under the coffee-shop awning by the fountain was still the best place to eat our noodles.
Erika said, I think I might be over skaters.
My noodles steamed. I pushed a scallion out of the way.
Erika said, I don’t know. They kind of seem like assholes. They think they’re interesting but they only care about skateboarding. She said, The only problem is they’re hot.
The steam from the noodles warmed me. I’d be warmer in a jean jacket lined with sheepskin.
Erika said, I don’t know. What do you think?
I said, About what?
She said, Do you think they’re hot?
She was looking at me as if she really wanted me to say yes. As if that would make her feel better for liking assholes. I did understand what Erika liked about skaters, whether or not I agreed with it. Erika took a forkful of noodles and blew on it. She blew on it again and then let the noodles fall back into the container. She said, Can I tell you something, even if it might sound crazy? She said, Last night I went to the skate park by my dad’s house and was sitting on the bench watching these guys skate, and I decided that if one of them came over and wanted to make out with me, I would do it.
I said, On the bench?
She said, Or maybe behind the clubhouse? Just somewhere. She said, I decided I would let him get to second, but not any further. She said, Is that crazy?
I said, It’s not crazy. Raindrops hit the water in the fountain. It was completely crazy. Partly because it was dangerous, but even more crazy because how did all the blanks in a story like that get filled? Something dark swam through me. How did the guy get from skating, to the bench, to sitting close enough to Erika that he could, because she’d let him, get his hands up her shirt? I said, Did you even know his name?
Erika said, Nothing actually happened. She moved out of the way to let a man come out of the coffee shop. She waited until the man was a few steps away and said, The cutest one, though, I thought his name should be Aidan. Isn’t that a good name?
I said, Sure.
Erika said, Don’t worry, I’m not saying I would really have done something like that.
I felt very small or very old. I said, I know. Erika wanted me to reassure her, to tell her that I had had exactly that same kind of feeling, but I’d never had a feeling even close to that.
We stood there looking at the empty fountain. It was too cold and wet out even for the skaters. A pigeon pecked at a Mounds wrapper. Erika said, Wasn’t it weird, the other week, that girl who was skating who looked like a guy? I guess she was a pretty good skater.
The pigeon flew up to the statue in the middle of the fountain. I said, I forgot about that.
Erika blew on a forkful of noodles and slurped it down. She said, You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I thought she was cute, too, before I realized.
THAT NIGHT, AS a test, I imagined myself on a bench watching skaters. I imagined one separating from the pack and rolling himself over to me. He was tall and he had hair that fell into his eyes. He said, Julie, right? and I liked that somehow he knew my name. His lips looked rough. He leaned in to kiss me and his breath smelled like cloves. I focused on that smell. I pushed my sleep-shirt up and put my hands there. My hands felt like paws. They felt warm on my skin. I pushed them around and eventually I felt my nipples get harder and I felt something else, not in my hands or my chest. I let my crotch pound. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be me or the guy. I tried to see the guy’s face again. It was somewhat familiar. I saw a bead on a cord around his neck. I took my hands out from under my shirt and rolled over onto my side, fists under my cheek, and pressed my legs together. I had talked too much to Ben. I hadn’t asked him the questions I should have asked him. What did he and my brother used to do together? Had they been good friends, or just acquaintances? Had my brother ever given Ben something that had once belonged to him, my brother, that Ben kept now in a special clay cup, or wore on a cord around his neck, even when he swam, when he showered? I curled my fists tighter and pushed myself toward sleep.