Fiona and Jane(52)

I hesitated a moment. “He writes me poems,” I said, knowing how corny it must’ve sounded.

“?‘Roses are red, violets are blue,’ that sort of crap?”

“No one’s ever done something like that for me,” I said.

Ed had books stacked on his nightstand, brick-thick tomes of Céline and Sartre, and thin spines of poetry by writers with only initials for first names. I picked one up on a morning after he’d left for work; the margins were scribbled with notes in his slanting handwriting. I didn’t understand the poetry—it seemed worlds apart from those haikus on yellow stickies he’d leave in my pockets—and trying to decipher his cursive in the margins felt wrong, like reading his diary. I was afraid of what I might discover, like the time I came upon old Mrs. Chung in the basement laundry room wringing out something red and lacy at the sink.

“Poems,” Aaron said. He smiled. “Huh. I didn’t think you were into stuff like that.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“But if he can’t get it up,” Aaron said, “how do you—why—”

“You think sex is only about that? Man,” I said, “I feel sorry for Fi—”

“Why even date a dude, if you can’t, you know.” He put his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his hands. “I’m asking honestly, Jane.”

“Listen. I got a drawer full of dicks.” Aaron leaned back in the booth, put his hands up in the air in a sign of defeat. “You asked,” I said. “So I’m telling you. That’s not why I—”

“Then why?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t say fucking poems,” Aaron said. “Poems? Come on.”

“There is something,” I said slowly, “about being with someone Chinese.” I hesitated. “It’s not everything, but—I don’t know. There’s a secret understanding, maybe.” I wondered if saying this out loud sounded even cornier than what I’d told him about Ed’s poetry. “Less explaining. You know what I mean?”

He nodded. “Fiona is very happy with me. Bedroom-wise,” he added. “I’m sure she’s told you—I have a huge—”

“Okay, dude,” I said. “You can shut up now. For real.” I was laughing. We both were. The waitress came by and we ordered another round. When she brought the drinks she said we made a beautiful couple, and that started us laughing all over again.



* * *



? ? ?

Fiona was in the middle of saying she might delete her Facebook account altogether when Sam popped a head in the bedroom. “We’re about finished out there,” he said.

I removed the last of Fiona’s clothes from the closet, a section of dark blazers, and jammed the hangers onto the bar in the cardboard box. Sam carried the box out, and we followed him.

“Didn’t I say it would take no time?” They’d cleared out the entire living room and adjoining eat-in kitchen, all the furniture and the boxes, in the time Fiona and I were packing up her clothes.

“Well,” Fiona said. “My ex took half of it.”

Sam paused, about to say something else, but seemed to change his mind. He turned to Sonny. “Let’s get the bed out.” He added, “Nothing in the second bedroom, so we’re good to go.”

They left Fiona and me standing in the bare living room. The place felt smaller somehow, with all of her and Aaron’s stuff gone, the curtains off the rods. The cupboard doors in the kitchen hung open, and the ceiling fan in the dining nook spun in the bright emptiness, the only thing moving in the apartment.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I was just counting,” she said, “how many apartments I’ve lived in, the last ten years.” She was still looking at me as if with only the whites of her eyes, but the glare was gone from them. “And all the times we had to move around when I was a kid.”

I thought of Mah then. She still lived in the same house in the suburbs where Fi and I grew up. My old upright Yamaha in her living room, the bench draped with the same white doily. The Jesus painting over the sofa, the cerulean of His eyes faded to gray now. Even the Lord developed cataracts in time.

“Remember that yellow apartment?” Fiona said. “Did you know we were evicted from there?”

“Your neighbor had that mean dog—”

“No, that was another place,” she said. “The yellow apartment was when my brother was born.”

“Why’d they evict you?”

Fiona shrugged. “Why do you think?” she said. “We didn’t pay the rent.”

“I didn’t know—”

“You’re lucky,” Fiona said. “You still have the same home to go back to.”

A knot grew in my throat. What she said about home made me think of my father. I couldn’t stand the ceiling fan spinning around like that. Ten years ago. I’d just turned twenty-two not long before I got the call about my dad. Fiona was already in New York, or about to move there. I didn’t remember her; I can’t recall much of anything about that year, I realized all of a sudden.

I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. I pushed away the thoughts of my father alone by himself in the end, in some dusty apartment in Shanghai.