You (You #1)(59)

“Those kids are not cuter than you, Beck.”

You’re not in a suspicious mind-set, thank God, and you laugh, assuming that I’m making an assumption. “All kids are cuter than adults, Joe.” You sigh. “That’s just the evil nature of Mother Nature.”

“Well, fuck her,” I say and I get a laugh out of you. “You did your part. You saw him and his family. Did he help you out with some dough?”

You stretch your arms up toward the ceiling and stretch to the right and notice the hole in the wall right behind you. “Jesus,” you say. “That’s a big fucking hole.”

I swallow. “A pipe burst upstairs and they had to get in there.”

“And apparently they did,” you say and now you’re tuning into your environment. You notice Larry, my broken typewriter on the coffee table. You look at me for permission to touch him. I nod. You tell lies. I hoard typewriters. We are different, hot.

“His name is Larry,” I say. I’m gonna be honest like you.

“Do you name all your typewriters?” you ask.

“No,” I say. “I don’t name them. They tell me their names when I bring them home.”

It is fun to fuck with you and you can’t decide if I’m pretentious or insane and I can’t tell if you’re being sweet or patronizing when you laugh. “Right.”

“Beck,” I say. “Of course I name them. I’m just kidding.”

“Well, Larry is handsome,” you say and you lean forward to say hello to him and tinker with his keys. I can see your panties. You ask me a question: “Can I hold him?”

“He’s heavy, Beck.”

“You can put him on my lap,” you say and you’re wearing pink seamless bikinis, size small, from the Victoria’s Secret Angels collection. I pick up Larry and set him on your lap and pray that you don’t notice that your panties are identical to the panties shoved in between the cushions of the sofa. I tell you that Larry is broken because he fell (hahaha), and you pet him, sweet.

“Well, Larry may be broken, but he’s a handsome beast, Joe.”

“He’s a one of a kind,” I say.

You study Larry. “He’s missing an L.”

I have to lie because I can’t have you looking around for the L. “Since the day I brought him home.”

You look at me. “Do you have anything to drink?”

I don’t have anything to drink. Fucking Curtis. You return your attention to the typewriter and you want to look between the cushions and make sure the L isn’t lost but if you do that, you will find your panties, which you will know are yours if you have a keen sense of smell, which I think you do. You’re like a toddler that needs distraction and I take a Twizzler and you grab the last one.

“Do you have any more of these?” you say.

“Afraid not,” I say and now I’m worried because you stop chewing and your eyes lock on something in my bedroom.

You squint. “Is that the Italian Dan Brown I gave you?”

I want to close my bedroom door but that would be weird so I turn around and follow your gaze and realize you are looking at the special shelf I built for the Italian Dan Brown. It could be worse; I could have put the Book of Beck on that shelf.

“I think that’s your book,” I lie.

You pet Larry and you grin. “That’s sweet, Joe.”

I swallow the rest of my Twizzler and I have to get you out of here. “You wanna go get some more Twizzlers?”

“Hell yes,” you say and I walk over to you and you look even smaller with Larry on your lap and you pat him. “Lift, please.”

I lift him off your lap and your powder-blue cords have new dark scuff marks and I put him in his normal spot on the floor and you step back into your boots and slip into your little furry jacket and walk across the room away from the evidence of my affection, your panties and your bras. What a relief to open the door and lead you out of my home, and it’s a whole new world with you in it. You pause in the stairwell and point to a smudge on the wall. “Blood?” you whisper, alive and jocular, my furry nymph, and I nod in affirmation and you raise your eyebrows. “Larry’s blood?”

I smack your ass and you like it and you hop down my stairs and I’m the only one who knows about your dad and soon it will be time for the red ladle. You push open the door that I’ve been pushing open for almost fifteen years. We walk to the bodega and you’re practically skipping.

“Is this the part they’re trying to make into a historical district?” you ask. “I read about that somewhere.”

“No,” I say. “This is the other part of Bed-Stuy.”

My section reminds you of “Sesame Street and Jennifer Lopez songs” and every guy in the shop wants to bang you but you’re with me. You like the attention; you tell me you feel like a celebrity in here and you giggle. I pay for the Twizzlers and the Evian and you shove the Twizzlers in your back pocket, as if you need to draw more attention to your ass. So this is what it would be like if you lived here with me. It would be good, warm. Before you know it, we are back on my stoop.

We sit close and tear into the Twizzlers and share the Evian. A couple of teenage girls from the block pass by and mad-dog you with your Evian and you get sweet, defensive and assure me that you only drink Evian because Peach says it’s alkaline and you’re not wearing a bra, the way you weren’t wearing a bra that first day in the shop and it really does feel like a new beginning.