You (You #1)(39)

It turns out IKEA is pretty fucking awesome.

You grab onto the base of something called the HEMNES bed and you look up at me. “Does this work?”

“Yep,” I say and you nod. You want me to like your bed. You know it’s gonna be our bed and you take the little pencil out of your back pocket and scribble down the numbers and letters.

You hand me the slip and smile. “Sold!”

Some girls would take all day and go back and forth but you are gloriously decisive and I am crazy about you. You peck me on the cheek and tell me to have a seat “on my new bed” and you skip off to the ladies’ room and maybe you pee and maybe you don’t. But you do send an e-mail to the guy you hired off Craigslist to assemble your new shit: Hey Brian, this is Beck from the ad. I’m so sorry but I have to cancel today. My boyfriend got the day off so he can do it. Sorry! Beck Boyfriend. When you come out of the bathroom, your eyelids are a little red from the quick job you just did on your brows and your lips are glossed and your tits are a little higher and you’re smiling and I almost think you rubbed one out in there and you take a deep breath and clap your hands.

“So can I buy you some meatballs?”

“No,” I say. “But I can buy you some meatballs.”

You smile because I’m your boyfriend. You just said so, Beck. You did. We park the shopping cart outside of the café area and the noise level in here is too much and there’s a line but you say it’s worth the wait. You are prattling on about meatballs and that damn Chinese family is in front of us and how did they get here first? They are taking forever and they are ahead of us, in line and in life—married, with kids. The clouds are forming in my head because you didn’t say boyfriend to a friend, just to some dude on Craigslist. What if you don’t mean it? What if you were quick to pick out a bed because you looked at beds online? What if you don’t care what I think? What if you’re not thinking it would be nice to go to bed with me, to make a family with me? The Chinese dad is taking too long and I can’t take it anymore and I reach over his arm and grab the other meatball ladle. Ladle. He shoots me a dirty look and you apologize to him, as if I’m the bad guy in the buffet line, in the world, and you still haven’t told me about the red ladle. You look at me. “Is something wrong, Joe?”

“They were rude.”

“It’s just crowded,” you say and you think I’m harsh and I am.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Your jaw drops and your mouth opens and then it closes and your eyes are wide and you are dazzled. You purr. “He says he’s sorry when he’s wrong and he lets me spend two hours looking at couches I don’t need? Joe, are you for real?”

I beam. I am. When the Chinese mother shoves my hand out of the way to reach a napkin, I don’t even react. I don’t have to withhold my anger because I’m not angry. You pick out the meatballs and I pay (I’m your boyfriend!) and you choose a table and I follow you. We sit, at last.

“You know, Joe, I am totally going to help you put the bed together.”

“You bet you are, missy.”

You split a meatball down the middle and pop half into your mouth and you chomp, mmmmm. Now it’s my turn and you pick up the other half and I open my mouth. I’m your seal, open, and you pop the half ball into my mouth and I chomp, mmm. The Chinese family interrupts, again, when the boy rams a spatula into the white table, which reminds me that you still haven’t told me about the red ladle and suddenly these meatballs taste like shit. You told Benji about that ladle. Why not me?

“Are you okay, Joe?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “Just realized I gotta take care of some online orders at the shop.”

“Well, that’s actually good,” you say. “I can shower and clean up and you can come over when you’re done.”

Everything about what you just said is ideal but you still haven’t mentioned the red ladle and for all I know you never will. I take charge.

“I just gotta pick up something.”

“Really?” you say like it’s so hard to believe. “What do you need?”

I can’t say ladle. “A spatula.”

“A spatula for Joe,” you say. “Sounds like a kids’ book or something.”

The Chinese family sails past us, hightailing it to their next destination in this plastic zoo. You look longingly at them and their full cart and we’re on the move again. I search the signs for COOKING UTENSILS and you sigh. “I’m beat.”

“Just gotta get the spatula and then we’re out of here.”

You’re done, lazy. “I can stay here with the cart.”

“Do you mind coming?” I say. “The last one I got was a piece of shit.”

You follow me into COOKING UTENSILS and I walk slowly and hope that the spatulas will be right next to the ladles. I see red ladles and my heart leaps. You don’t react to them. You need a push. I pick one up. “Maybe I’ll get all red things,” I say. “Is that lame?”

You look at the red ladle. “This is really weird.”

“What?”

And now, at last, you pet the red ladle in my hand and tell me the story of your red ladle. You were a little girl in a little bed, and the smell of pancakes woke you up on Sunday mornings. Your dad used a special red ladle on Sundays, just Sundays. He would sing along to the top-forty countdown, screw up the lyrics, and make you and your brother and your sister laugh, winter, spring, summer, fall and you couldn’t fall asleep Saturday nights, you were so excited for Sunday mornings. And then, he started hitting the bottle. And the Sundays went away and the red ladle stayed in a drawer and your mother’s pancakes were greasy and burnt or wet and undercooked and your father was gone but the ladle was still there and bad pancakes smell like good pancakes and he’s dead now so there will never be pancakes again. There’s nothing dirty about your sweet, sad story and fuck Benji for making you feel bad.