Someone else is watching him, too, waiting at the bus stop leaning against the M15 sign. He’s older, stout, light-skinned. He’s so focused on Ben that he doesn’t see another man, perhaps in his twenties, sneak up behind Ben and grab him. Ben doesn’t seem surprised. He turns to face this new man, drops the towels and the sprayer, presses his palms firmly on his cheeks and kisses him lightly on the lips. The two of them laugh and then take each other by the hips and turn in profile to me. This new man is handsome in a romance-novel-cover sort of way — rugged, olive complexioned, short, straight dark hair. Ben mutters something, but his friend doesn’t seem to notice. He’s focused on the man waiting for the bus who stares at them, his face contorted in an ugly pucker. He coughs up phlegm, loud enough for me to hear, and spits into the gutter. Ben turns, finds the man, and stares back, never moving his hands from his companion’s hips. And for a moment it looks as though he may say something. He doesn’t. Still staring, he pulls the man to him — belly to belly and kisses him again, defiantly this time. The traffic stops, allowing the kiss to continue uninterrupted. And then the M15 runs the light. Someone honks. The bus blocks the scene. When it pulls away, only Ben is left. He sees me. I can tell he’s scrambling in his head for damage control — to explain. I want to tell him it’s okay. I fumble for a sign. All I can offer is a short wave. He waves back, bends quickly to gather his things, and hustles to get inside before I reach him.
Inside there’s a cold grilled cheese waiting for me, cold coffee, too, but Ben and Joy are gone. I sit down and look at the limp sandwich. The bread looks to have gone soft again and the cheese, hard — condensed vapor on the plate. No more Marley, just some strange, computerized dub playing.
I want to pay and go, wander downtown until it’s time to go to the other job—the other job. I kind of shudder when I think about it, about her. At first I think I shouldn’t, but then I sit down, lean into the cushion, and dare myself to re-create her — that little faux-English accent, the various hues in hair loops, and those strange brown eyes that didn’t seem to belong to her. In my head, she’s still not whole, only parts, long limbs, a little chuckle I imagine she has. Feeney’s pug nose invades the frame for a moment. I wonder if I broke it.
Joy materializes beside the table and slips the check onto it. I look up at her, and she frowns.
“You didn’t even try it,” she squeaks.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just got back.”
“Well, it’s ruined.” She slowly reaches for the plate, but I stop her attempt by softly pinning her hand against the table. It feels like the sandwich would. She pulls it away with a discreet revulsion, as if it was my touch that made her hand go clammy.
I hide my hand in my lap. “I’m going to start on it right now. I promise.” I try to deliver it with gentle conviction, to her eyes, but she’s looking out to the gray day, the passersby. Perhaps to the end of her shift — home — where she can hold her pained lip in any way she wants.
She leaves me without speaking and I look at the bill — two cups of coffee, a scone, and a cold old sandwich — sixteen dollars. I take out my fold and leave a twenty — then twenty-one. What the fuck is Claire doing in Boston? The question, along with the grilled cheese sitting in its sweat, twists my stomach. Then it straightens out again and I wonder why it did so quickly. I feel the pulse of my whole body — my hands atop my thighs, my legs against the seat, my back against the rest. I fight back a yawn, finish the coffee, and wait for my stomach to twist again. Nothing happens — just another yawn.
I wonder if this is what it feels like, falling out of love: feeling yourself fading out of existence — the gray sky, the coffee shop limbo — everything a way station of sorts. Making promises you know you can’t keep. Making promises — period. People in love shouldn’t have to vow or demand, petition or exhort. Nothing. Not even question. No collisions with your surroundings or yourself — you move gently, unknowing, in time. Wondering if you ever were in love: false compassion; skinny girls with bad teeth; tall men and long kisses in diesel residue; kisses as political acts, which makes me wonder if there really is love. I wonder where Ben has gone and want to apologize to him for what happened outside, then for all the times I’ve said nancyboy without thinking. Why wouldn’t anyone want another to love the one they fall in love with?
Can you even fall out of love? I remember mocking those who claimed they had. I certainly remember not wanting to love Claire — that little crooked laugh from that long crooked mouth — how it made me feel that I could make that face go rosy, make her forget her loneliness, the loss of her own specific garden; everything good now, flashing back to then. I’d been proud, so proud not to have been bullied or guilted out of it — the stares and snickers, the pure stupidity of people involving themselves in your own affairs, them knowing what’s best. And it burns more, the understanding that I may have been wrong. Wrong to take that stand, mistaking her for the eternal face of the eternal heart I believed was beating somewhere. It burns me, but then it goes, the heat like waves of sleep. Then there’s nothing.
I wonder if this is what it feels like to fall out of love — mirthless, but too spent to rage or lament its passing; numb to old shames; alone, watching the sun bleed and not having the vision drop you to your knees. My bride across the summer lawn — not even a memory, one thin image — the empty gesture of a desperate man who knows it but won’t feel himself going down.
13
There’s a surge of sun at the end of the day, one last push for heat and light. I can sense the moon. It will be low and orange in the east and then gradually rise and fade to yellow — high in the late summer sky. At Edith’s the moon is just over the guery pond, not yet lit but bigger than anything else you can see, dwarfing even the sunset in the opposite sky, making you almost forget that night is coming.
She’s waiting in the window of the hallway. She sticks her head out. Her hair rolls down. She waves and calls out to me like we’re friends.
“Hey, you.”
She hangs her arm out and dangles a ring of keys.
“Catch.” She swings them, trying to give them a high arc, as though it will slow their descent. I catch them. “It’s the one with the blue.”
She’s waiting in her doorway, still open just enough to slide her body through along with dim orange light and the murmur of music. She backs away from the door, still holding it, but blocking entry. I wait outside. We study each other. She’s wearing flip-flops, painter’s pants stained and cut off at the knees, a pink tank top, and a violet bra — the straps exposed. She’s tied her hair up — piled it on her crown. A few loose tendrils snake down to her nape. I get caught up in it. It takes a moment to register her broad smile.
“How’s it going?”
“Fine, I suppose.”
She takes it in for a second, cocks her head to the side, and mimics me, “Fine, I suppose.” I nod at her poor imitation. She steps to the side, pulling the door open with her, and waves me in, but I stay where I am and try to get a look in and see what I could possibly be doing in there — if there could be several thousand dollars’ worth of work to be done tonight. She waves again, shrinking her smile, wrinkling her face almost to a pout. I give her the keys, taking care to not let our fingers touch. She gives me a wider berth. I go in.
I expected something else, but the orange light is only a colored, low-wattage, bare bulb, naked in a plain porcelain socket — mood lighting for a makeshift mudroom.