Cleopatra and Frankenstein(121)

“You grew up here?” Frank asks.

I nod.

“You’re lucky,” he says.

An emerald flash darts toward the bird feeder in front of us.

“Did you know hummingbird nectar is just sugar boiled in water?” I say.

Frank starts to laugh.

“What?” I ask.

“Why do we make life so fucking complicated?” he says.

*

We’ve been in the garden for about an hour, chatting in a general, nonre-vealing way about what’s been happening at the office, then lapsing into meaningful silences filled with shy smiles, when my mother comes home. We both leap up like we’re teenagers who have been caught fellating each other and turn toward the screen doors.

“Sweetheart, can you help me with this!” she yells.

“Ma, I have a visitor!” I yell back.

“A what?” she yells.

“A visitor!” I yell.

I open the doors and lead Frank back inside.

“This is Frank,” I say.

My mother turns from the wooden crib she’s lugging across our living room floor.

“Frank who?” she says.

“Frank from work,” I say.

“Oh!”

She flicks her eyes up and down him so quickly it would be imperceptible to anyone but me.

“So great to meet you,” says Frank. “Can I help you with—”

“No!” My mother raises her palm. “You’re our guest. I’ll get tea.”

This is not a good sign. The more solicitous my mother is to a person, the less she likes them. Get in her good graces, and you’ll be cleaning the gutter. Fall out of them, and she’ll insist on making you herbal tea. It’s a counterintuitive but undeniable fact. We follow her into the kitchen as she puts the kettle on.

“That’s a beautiful crib,” says Frank.

“For my new grandchild,” says my mother. “So he or she will have somewhere to sleep here once they’re born.”

Frank glances at my stomach with alarm.

“My brother,” I say.

“Phew,” says Frank. “I mean, congratulations.”

“Do you have children?” asks my mother.

“Not that I know of,” says Frank.

My mother sniffs and pulls the blackbird mug off the shelf. She only gives the blackbird to people she doesn’t like.

“Frank has to go now,” I say. “It’s late.”

“I do?” says Frank.

“Uh-huh,” I say, ushering him out the kitchen and toward the front door as he calls a goodbye to my mother.

“Can I come see you again?” he says. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

I go back into the kitchen and take the blackbird mug and throw it in the trash.

“What on earth—,” says my mother.

“We need to talk,” I say.

*

I take the eating couch. She takes the visitor’s one.

“Is he still married?”

“No. Well, technically, yes. I think. She moved to Italy.”

“And so now he wants to be with you?”

“I think so.”

“And you want to be with him?”

“I think so.”

“And you’re in love?”

“Ma, we’ve never even kissed.”

“And that has anything to do with it?”

“Okay, fine. Yes, I think so. But don’t tell anyone. Don’t even repeat it to yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s humiliating.”

“Sweetheart, love is humiliating. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

“Who would have told me that?”

“Do you know the word humiliate comes from the Latin root humus, which means ‘earth’? That’s how love is supposed to feel.”

“Like hummus?”

“Like earth. It grounds you. All this nonsense about love being a drug, making you feel high, that’s not real. It should hold you like the earth.”

“Wow, Ma.”

“What? I have a heart, don’t I?”

“You also have a blackbird mug.”

*

The next day I do something I almost never do, and that is get a haircut. Honestly, a root canal would be preferable. At least there are no mirrors at the dentist. I endure an hour and a half of lathering, combing, snipping, and small talk, all while avoiding eye contact with either the hair stylist or myself.

“So,” says the stylist. “What do we think of bangs?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “What do we think?”

“You’ve got a great face for bangs,” he says.

“Sure,” I say. “Let’s go crazy.”

*

Crazy, that’s what I am. Crazy. No one looks good with bangs. Bangs are just a beard on your forehead, a hair hat that you can never take off. As soon as I get into the car, I check the rearview mirror to see if it’s as bad as I thought. Even in that little sliver of reflection, the results are clear: I am a boiled egg in a wig.

*

Frank comes over that night promptly after work.

“Why are you wearing a baseball cap?” he asks when I answer the door.