“You could learn French, too,” she tells me, after a while. “Creole zydeco is kinda crunk.”
“You say ‘crunk’ now?”
“I am crunk now, Pops,” Tal insists, but the white-girl shrug that follows is the same as it ever was.
Home. I go to my desk, try to draw it without predetermining what the image will be. I find myself starting with a street, and then that street becomes Germantown Avenue. I know its cobblestones better than any surface on earth. I know the story, that they were carried from England as ballast on the first ships, and then used to pave the road that stretches from here to downtown. Yet it offers no comfort in connection. Halfway into the sketch, the basic pencil lines already etched, I realize this image is about leaving this place, not loving it. That road for me is about getting the hell out, which has always been the central dynamic in my relationship to Germantown. So I scrap it, and think of Swansea. You make me feel like I have a home in this world. That if a great hand shook the planet, I wouldn’t fall off. I wrote this at the bottom of an illustration I did of Becks, around the time I asked her to marry me. She hated the picture, but didn’t tell me for years, then did it silently by leaving it behind when she moved out. And then I thought, I can fall off now. I can finally disappear into nothing.
But Tal is here, and now I can’t anymore. And she makes me not want to either. She makes me want to build something, for her.
At car. Got the new issue of The Walking Dead. Bring water. The text comes and I look out the window and Sunita Habersham’s station wagon is on the street. I know she’s not in her car. She’s in mine. Waiting for me. This is how she does it. No forewarning, no arrangement. Just a text, like this one. Bring water is actually a major step forward in our electronic foreplay.
I bring a glass of water, with ice, and think, Tal won’t notice if I don’t rush. I walk from the kitchen to the front door trying not to spill and Tal sees me and says, “You’re not kidding anyone,” and looks back at her homework.
At the Bug, Sun’s sitting in the driver’s seat. She’s got the seat pulled all the way back, and stares up at the tattered ceiling. I don’t get in. I stand next to her door.
“Look, why don’t you come inside? At this point, it’s just weird. We could order some more food, maybe? I had a big lunch but we could just get a coffee or something.”
“Nah, I’m totally stressed out. Just get in here,” Sun tells me. There’s a wink offered, but I don’t want it.
After a few seconds, acknowledging that I am not going to move farther, Sunita deigns to look up at me. Her eyes are passive and bored. Then she looks away again. It’s not until I tap on the window that she sits up and rolls it down, the seat still supine behind her.
“The night is young,” I tell her. I want to get in and read comic books, enjoy the physical aspects of our friendship. But if I get in and we do this she’ll just leave. I need to build a home. This automotive pied-à-terre, what is it constructing? This is no longer new sex. Now it’s just sex. Just sex is good as well, but without the novelty it must meet more stringent requirements. I need more. Tal deserves more, a woman in the house who is actually willing to come inside the house.
“It’ll get cold soon. We could forget the comics and just get to the finale.” There’s Sunita’s smile popping. It doesn’t erupt; she puts on her face like a pair of sunglasses.
“Let’s just go inside. I was about to make dessert. Got a muffin mix. Let’s break bread this time. Tal said there’s supposed to be an amazing new series on Netflix. We could watch it together, when she’s done her homework. Or something by ourselves, something date-like, that would be nice. We could even just go upstairs. But not in the car this time.”
“Upstairs? With Tal home?”
I say, “She knows you’re here already. This isn’t about her,” then sigh. It comes as a completely physical reaction to holding my breath a bit in the moment, yet it works perfectly as an emotional statement. I open the door, hand her the glass of water. Sunita Habersham takes it, sips.
“I need something more,” I tell her. I almost say we need, which might have scared her even if she realized my “we” is Tal and I. “I don’t know what this is, but I need something more if you and I are going to continue.”
“Want me to dress up like Catwoman?” she asks. She isn’t kidding. From her handbag, she pulls out a black whiskered mask and shakes it at me.
I turn and walk away. I’m at the steps when Sun honks the horn. When I turn around, she’s gotten out.
“Fine. We’ll go on a date then. A proper one.”
“Okay. When? Now?”
“Tomorrow night. There’s an acoustic concert, downtown. At Acousticism. It’s every first Thursday, a lot of us go, from Mélange. Mostly the so-called Oreos, but some of the sunflowers too. Even One Drop’s crew. We’ll get something to eat first. Ethiopian.”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. Good,” I say, my humorless, declarative tone matching her own. I don’t say, I was just going inside to get condoms. I have no defenses against Catwoman-related seduction. “The restaurant is called Almaz. Elijah will be there too; it’s his favorite place. Then we can see what this is. We all can.”
—
“You know that crazy bitch invited me out on a date with her boyfriend?” I ask Spider. We’re in the back of the faculty meeting the next day. I still can’t believe it. I can’t. I start thinking it’s a test, that I’ll show up and it will just be Sunita, that if I go I prove that I don’t care and I still want to be with her. Or, it’s a test to see if I’m a big enough eunuch to put up with something like this. Then I think of Sun’s face when she said it, the utter lack of humor.
“Don’t use that word. The b-word. Bitch. It’s misogynistic and too easy and loses your argument before you even start. Also, ‘crazy.’ Mental illness is a serious thing. It’s an illness. And it’s also misogynistic: guys are always saying women are crazy. Why not try describing her as a ‘deluded asshole’ instead?”
“Thank you, Spider. Thank you so much. Can you believe what that deluded asshole asked me to do?”
“Yes, I can. It’s foul, but yes. She has a boyfriend, man. She told you that. That means: mess. And this is messy.” Spider sticks his tongue out, twinkles his fingers like everything’s falling to the floor.
“But I thought she would get some of my good stuff and then she’d like it so much that eventually she’d leave him and Tal would have a new mommy and we would all live happily ever after.” I say it, and I start laughing, at myself, because that’s exactly what I believed.
“So Warren, I hear you’re going to join us tonight at Acousticism? That’s wonderful. You’re really engaging in our little community, aren’t you? What about you, Spider? Are you coming this time?” Roslyn is standing there, behind us. Her posture implies no movement, as sturdy as a tree in spring. She may have been standing there the whole time.
“Oh no. This one I might have to sit out.” He looks over at me, his eyes smiling so big the lids should be curved.
My mind slides down a run-on sentence: Roslyn couldn’t have overheard that I was going to this music thing, because I didn’t say the name of the place I was going, because I just said “a date” and that’s all, which means Sun told her about us all going out, which means Sun probably tells her everything, which is why Roslyn smiles at me now like she not only knows everything I’ve been up to but has the pictures to prove it.