Aftermath of Dreaming(106)

“Fuck you.” I want to swipe at the air to tear his words out of it so they won’t hang in my apartment where they can be real. “Things aren’t always so black and white. People don’t always have only one set of feelings for someone they love. Sometimes boundaries blur.” As the words leave my mouth, I suddenly have a new clarity about Reggie’s feelings for me.

An emptiness captures the line. It doesn’t feel like our breathing will ever be in sync again. I look out the window at the tree in the courtyard, wishing its brown limbs and silvery leaves against the blue sky could transport me.

“I think we need to not have conversations about this anymore. I can’t hear you talk about him. I care about you, Yvette, and all I see is trouble ahead.” Reggie’s words are like a boat leaving me at the shore.

“That’s probably a good idea.”

The line is empty. I watch the second hand on my clock sweep through time.

“I’m gonna go; this is uncomfortable.”

I start to ask if we’ll have breakfast ma?ana, but it feels inappropriate. “Okay, well, bye.”

Reggie hangs up the phone.



“I’ve been thinking about how beautiful you are.”

I was nervous picking up the phone, afraid it was Reggie calling me right back to end our friendship.

“Oh, hey.” I immediately am thrilled that it’s Andrew, yet something about it feels like I’m running on wet tile around a pool.

“So beautiful. I can’t get your face out of my mind—you’re all I’ve been thinking about.” I can feel myself getting warm as his words bathe me.

“I have to leave for the airport to meet my family in New York. But I’ll call you when I get back.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, sweet-y-vette.” His voice is sweet and growly just like it used to be.





29




So Andrew is back. In my life again as if he had never gone. Although for the past three weeks, he has been gone in New York City with his family for the holidays, but I feel we’re connected. Though I know we shouldn’t be. That I shouldn’t see him again for all the obvious reasons, but then I tell myself that I don’t know where this is going, maybe it will be like when we first met—sex once, then platonic. A friend, he can be. A mentor, someone to guide me. What’s wrong with that? So I’ll just let things unfold and not worry about where it will go. Though I think about him constantly.

Especially during the holidays, it was impossible to distract myself with anything else. Except I did notice that Reggie didn’t call on New Year’s Eve, our anniversary, which is the first time that’s happened. I know I could’ve called him, but the tradition was that he did and I wanted to see if he would. I kept checking my messages from the parties I went to, but there was nothing from him. Or from Andrew. Which felt shitty and I tried not to care—he was with his family in New York City—but at that point, it had been two weeks since I’d seen or spoken to him.



Now it’s been three and I’m starting to jones pretty badly to hear his voice again. His presence has been hovering over my life all this time like those high and beautiful clouds that never actually rain. The kind I see in the winter particularly when I’m stuck on the 10 freeway like I have been twice a week for over a month to go to boxing. I found a place in Santa Monica right off the 10 before it hits the PCH. An old rock star’s gym that he keeps running so he can use it whenever he’s in town. It doesn’t charge much to train, you just have to know someone to get in, and Bill, my old music-producer boss, hooked me up.



Looking at my jewelry in the display case at Greeley’s is how I had always hoped it would feel to be in an art gallery show. My work is displayed perfectly. Each piece is showcased under beautiful light, set against a complementary background with ample space around it, but close enough to the others that while you get a sense of each one’s uniqueness, you still see the greater unity. No gallery owner to show it incorrectly.

It is all I can do not to yell out to the shoppers bustling around, “That’s my jewelry!” The pearls are dazzling; the lemon citrine, green peridot, and blue tourmaline are winking; and the braided gold is gleaming. None of it existed a few months ago and now here it all is. I have an almost physical urge, like reaching for my morning coffee, to call Reggie to share this with him. I wonder if things will ever stop being weird between us. I miss him.



“What are you doing?”

I had been hoping it’d be Andrew every time the phone rang, but I figured it might be Reggie finally calling me back after I left a message for him two days ago.

“Are you back?” My heart has multiplied and is beating on every part of my body.

“Got in last night.” Andrew’s voice is like a bed I want to crawl into.

“That’s good.” Though what I meant was, “Thank God.”

“Did you miss me?”

“Every single day.”

“So, so, tell me…” Then a pause we could lie down in and have sex during. “Who are you f*cking?”

Besides you? I think, but don’t say. “Uh, no one really.” I sit down on my couch, wishing he were next to me. “I was involved with this guy, Michael, for a while—”