SO ANYWAYS, the following is a story the professor jizzed himself over. Is it a lot like The Hours? Yes. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE. Yes, I'm bitter, but in a funny way. *
1/20/10 Update: This'll be in Stork.
The last time I saw Fin, four years ago, he was getting sicker. He wouldn’t say anything about it, but it hung there like a heavy overcoat in June, pervading what would have been a pleasant breakfast. It was all I could think of—his vaguely medical smell, sort of like mint, but heavier, and his skin so pale I could see the roadmap of his veins.
“Fin, how are you feeling?” I hoped he could only hear half of the meaning in my question. I was lucky to get him out of his apartment at all. Since the first round of treatments hadn’t worked he was taking no calls. By chance I ran into Fin’s boyfriend, Paul, in the supermarket and told him I would not let another month go past without seeing my old friend. Paul looked rather flustered, but when doesn’t he, and said that Fin was still under the weather. I told him that I understood; of course I did, but that it would be good for him to see his friends. Paul had melting ice cream in his cart so he had to dash but promised me he would talk to Fin.
Back in college, when Fin first found Paul (at a discotheque, of course) I wasn’t sure about him. He seemed like just another boy with stars in his eyes that would enchant Fin for a while before moving on to the next thing. But he stuck around. They got an apartment together in the springtime and filled it with potted plants and chipped teacups. Every night they rolled up the living room rug to dance, and they spent each Sunday in bed, reading the newspaper. I remember it was rainy that year, and their fingers became stained in violet from the soggy paper they bought from a woman on the corner. She smiled so sweetly, was just so compelling, selling newspapers in a downpour, that they bought them even though could never read a word of it. I still pass her today. On rainy days her wet, inky fingers remind me of Fin, but I still don’t buy a paper.
After they moved in together, I was lonely for a while. I had no one to talk to, no one to tell everything to late in the night, like I used to with Fin. I’ve seen Fin now and then throughout these past twenty years, at reunions and parties. We’ve traded off interest in each other’s lives, always disappearing when there was nothing new to tell, anything to save ourselves from a boring phone call. I suppose it’s taught me that there is no one out there who wants to hear everything I have to say.
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little worn out I guess,” he said. Sitting across from me, picking at his sunny-side-up eggs, I see that so much of what I adored about him has melted away. His golden hair is duller, his lips chapped, his green eyes are darker, somehow, and hollow.
“You’re not very talkative,” I said and shifted in my chair.
He laughed and looked out the window. It was Halloween-time and raining. Our coffees steamed in curls and wet orange leave smacked the café’s windows from time to time. “I haven’t been a chatterbox in years.”
“That’s not true,” I purred. “I saw you at Molly’s party, what was it, a few Christmases ago, and you were the life of it. Everybody’s friend.”
“Well, those days are over. I’m happy to be a little quieter.”
“Has it been like that since…well you, know, you got sick?”
“Mallory, can we talk about anything else, please? How’s your husband doing?” Fin said.
“Oh he’s fine, same as always. But please Fin, satisfy my curiosity. No, that’s the wrong word. I’m sorry, you know me, always saying the wrong thing. I just—I just want you to know I care.” The waitress came by with the check. When she left I whispered to him, “Does Paul have it too?”
“Of course he does. What would make you think he doesn’t? God, Mallory.”
“I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve never understood anything,” he said. “But you think you understand everything.” I watched him pick a piece of lint off his argyle sweater. I watched it fall the rustic wooden floor. He folded his arms and waited for me to speak.
“No I don’t. I thought I understood you. I still think I can if you’ll let me.”
“You can’t just come back into my life when you hear something went wrong. It’s not fair. You have to stop doing that.” He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and sighed. I bit my lip and tried to think of something else we could talk about. But all I could think of was hospitals and blood work and what would happen to both of them. So I told him I had a busy day ahead of me.
We settled the check and I hugged him before for getting on the train. I had the feeling, even then, that we would not see each other again.
Last week I found out Fin outlived Paul by three years. I never would have guessed.
1 comment:
i hate emerson
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