Real Life(58)

When Wallace finally reaches his apartment, he realizes he has left his phone at Miller’s house. This is a complication, but not a serious one. Tomorrow is Monday. He will see Miller in the biosciences building where they work. He will ask him to bring the phone on Tuesday or another day—a simple favor, just two friends helping each other. Clean, efficient, nothing like the prying open of one’s life, the splitting of the past like an egg.

Wallace runs a hot bath and climbs into his tub, which is deep and white. He can barely stand the heat of the water, which is blue and up to his chest in the tub. The bathroom is quiet and too bright. If he were not afraid to sit in the tub in the dark, he would turn out the lights, but that might cause him to fall asleep, and he would not like that, to drown in his tub alone. Who would find him? A neighbor? His landlord? When the scent of his rotting body made its way outside and down the hall? When someone complained? Or would Miller come for him?

Wallace presses his knees together. The water ripples. He sinks lower into its scalding heat. He’s turning the color of clay, his skin reddening, stinging as if burning from the water. He soaps himself up and then rinses himself clear, and the water is gray with soap and dead skin and filth. He still smells like smoke, from the fire, and perhaps from Miller’s story of the time when he, smoking, punched a boy until he bled. Wallace dunks his face in the water, clears the smoke from his eyes. Slides deeper, until the water is level with his chin. His legs are floating. He would drown in an instant.



* * *



? ? ?

SOMETIME AROUND MIDMORNING, Wallace is awakened by a persistent knocking on his door. He pulls himself out of bed, where he has been drowsing on and off for hours. He is wearing a green sweater and blue cotton shorts. The apartment is blisteringly bright even with the shades drawn. Wallace opens the door and there is Miller, standing in front of him, his hair wet from the shower, his skin scrubbed and red and fresh. There is something raw about him.

“You left,” he says. “You left. After all that shit I said, you left.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to be a hassle.”

“Even after I said you weren’t, even after I said I wanted you to stay. You left. You left, Wallace.”

Wallace is already tired. Are they going to chase after each other this way? Across town, from bed to bed? He rests against the door. Miller holds out his phone.

“You left this behind.”

“Thank you. I was going to ask you for it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Miller asks. There is hurt in his voice, and annoyance. Wallace sighs.

“When I saw you at work. It’s not a problem. You didn’t have to bring it.”

“You left,” Miller repeats. He’s wearing some sort of cropped top beneath a cardigan. Gym clothes. His stomach is clenching and releasing. He’s out of breath. Sweat on his skin. He ran all the way here, Wallace realizes. Something in him softens.

“Do you want to come in?”

Miller kisses him hard on the mouth, takes two steps forward, shuts the door behind him. His mouth tastes fresh like toothpaste, of course. His lips are warm and close, insistent. Wallace lets himself be kissed and pressed to the wall. They knock the broom over with a loud clack on the floor.

“I didn’t know if you’d even want to talk to me again,” Miller says. “When did that become so important to me? I don’t know.”

Wallace wants to laugh at that, or feel insulted by it, but he can’t. Miller is so earnest, so sincere in his doubt that to make fun of it would be ugly. Instead, he gingerly extricates himself from Miller. He takes a seat on the couch near the window, and folds his legs under himself. Miller begins to fuss with the bar stool, shifting it around.

“Well, thank you for bringing my phone,” he says. “I appreciate it.”

“We’re having brunch,” Miller says quickly. “Some of us, I mean. You’re welcome to join.”

Wallace is already on his way to rejecting the offer when Miller says, “I’d like it if you came.”

Small favors, Wallace thinks. Small, clearly defined favors. He wets his lips.

“Okay,” he says.

“Good,” Miller says. “Good.”



* * *



? ? ?

THEY GO TO BRUNCH TOGETHER. It’s one of the places on the square, where there is seating outdoors behind green partitions. They sit at a broad table, just the two of them at first. Miller kneads Wallace’s knee anxiously under the table. Wallace stares down into his coffee. The world is too bright, too saturated. He would prefer to sleep, to be asleep. The traffic on the square is slow. Families on tours of the capitol, their thick Midwestern accents sailing through the air. Farther away he hears shards of music, buskers warming up for the day. The sun is hot on his neck. His sweater has a duck on it.

Soon, their friends appear. Miller’s hand drops from his knee. Lukas and Yngve and Thom and Cole and Vincent and Emma. They move to one of the long tables. Wallace can still smell the booze on their skin. They are all wearing dark shades. Cole and Vincent are holding hands on top of the table. Things must have put themselves back together over there. Wallace is relieved. Emma puts her head on his shoulder. Vincent’s shades reflect Wallace’s gaze.

“I’m starving,” Yngve says. “Lukas, what are you getting?”