Real Life(22)

The white tiles are an ocean of light in midafternoon, and gray pages shift under Wallace’s tender eyes. He presses his thumb to the knuckle of each of his fingers, eliciting a solid crack from the joints. A bird rests on the flat white ledge outside. It’s pecking at the inside of its wing. Small, round thing, gray feathers and white belly. Its head is small, nearly indistinguishable from its body. Just a round ball of fluff. The bird’s shadow hops along the floor, and Wallace watches until it’s gone, vanished into the air. On his way to lab, Wallace stopped at the library and found that book that Thom had mentioned.

He reads in lab on Saturdays, when it’s less likely that Simone will be around. In Wallace’s second year, Simone came into the kitchen and found him reading and eating cup ramen. That day a strong storm had been blowing through the area, and the world had turned an eerie shade of aquamarine. Simone stood standing at the window watching the wind and the rain, the sallow glow of the streetlights below. She turned to him with a restless, angry look and asked sharply, Do you not have better things to do than reading Dr. Seuss or whatever the hell that is? And Wallace set the book down very slowly and gave a weak, defenseless shrug. It’s Proust, he said. He’s French.

Wallace is thirty pages into the novel when there’s a shadow pressed to the corner of the page, as insistent as a thumb. Miller’s impassive expression, his eyes distant and cool. There is accusation in his gaze. Messy hair. A gray sweatshirt, the shorts from last night, miles of tan leg, the coppery hair like down.

“You left me.”

“I left a note,” Wallace says.

“I read it.”

“Well, don’t cry about it.”

Miller grunts, but there is a smile. Wallace is relieved, an uneasy buoyancy like drifting out to sea.

“I’m just saying you could have woken me up.”

“You looked peaceful, though,” Wallace says. Glossy with condescension, he settles back into the stiff purple booth with more confidence than he feels. Miller has a giant’s natural indifference to the world, hanging back, watching from under the rims of his eyelids. Wallace wavers. The edges of his body tingle, like the electric range coming to life. A whine spreads through him, coils heating. Some inner surface goes slick and hot.

“Still,” Miller says, “you didn’t have to bail on me. In your own apartment.”

“Do you want to sit?”

“I can.”

Wallace makes room on the seat, drops the canvas bag to the other side of himself. Miller’s skin is warm. They’re thigh-to- thigh. The sticky sweat of the plastic cushion beneath them, Wallace shifting to make room, the dampness of his skin pressed to Miller, who is dry and not quite so warm. They tuck their arms tight by their sides. They are sitting closer than is exactly necessary. Wallace glances down at Miller’s bony ankles. The bare, pale cartilage at the back of his feet. Remembers too the salty taste of Miller’s skin, so different from his own, the bodies of others somehow always so different, as if made from rare elements, strange metals. Miller pops his knuckles, glances back over his shoulder at Wallace. A look—shame or something else. He puts his head down against the inside of his shoulder. A shy boy, then, Wallace thinks, shy and watchful.

“How are you?” Miller asks. Disappointment. A conventional question. All that playful teasing gone to waste.

Wallace puts his elbows on the table, which rocks sharply, dangerously. The tea shifts. Sloshes. Miller’s eyes widen just so, and Wallace holds his breath until the table and the cup and the whole world steady themselves.

“Are we strangers now?” Wallace asks. “How are you?”

Miller frowns. The disappointment sharpens. “How are you” is the kind of question you ask in a doctor’s office. There is no meaning in “How are you.” But perhaps that is why Miller asks this question. A soft reset. A denial of sorts. Wallace runs his tongue around his mouth, thinking it over. Trying out different answers. Miller’s frown goes taut. The edges of his mouth pull and then relax. A sober, dark light in his eyes.

“I didn’t say that. I just asked how you were, because of last night, I mean. You know.”

“Is this junior high?” Wallace asks. “You’re an adult. Say it.”

The exasperation on Miller’s face lights Wallace up. A silver thrill, a frisson of pleasure.

“Don’t be obnoxious, Wallace,” he says. “Come on.”

A reward then, Wallace thinks. He will be generous. He kisses Miller’s shoulder, rests his face against its solid shape. It is a relief to rest his eyes, if only for a moment. Miller’s large hand on his thigh then. Cool and dry, coarse. A low laugh in his body.

“Hey now,” Wallace says, but Miller has already taken his hand away.

“What are we doing?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.” The crinkling plastic. The wood frame beneath them groaning. Wallace slides away; his skin sputters. Miller slowly rotating the mug with this thumb on the handle.

“I was just trying to be considerate. That’s why I asked.”

“Is that what this is, then? Your consideration?”

“Don’t be a brat.”

“Don’t lecture me,” Wallace says in another momentary flare of pride, of cantankerousness. Miller briefly looks stricken, but he recovers, turns more fully on Wallace, which puts his back to the rest of the kitchen. They are in a corner. The sun streaks across the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, everything bright and golden. They are close. The room a chattering gray static. Miller’s eyelashes seem so painfully soft. Wallace presses his palm over Miller’s eyes, feels the edges of his eyelashes tickle his hand. There is another current, relief at not being watched, seen up close that way. Miller’s face a gentle boy’s face again, sullenly patient. Another reward, Wallace thinks. Gets up on his knees. The cushion sinks deep under his weight. He steadies himself with a hand on Miller’s shoulder.