Real Life(69)

It has gotten much darker, the water almost invisible. The clouds from earlier are overhead, thick and purple. A moist wind is blowing. Wallace can tell even at this distance that there’s rain coming fast, thunder on the horizon. It will rain, certainly.

Their table is occupied when they return to it, so they find another, unfortunately close to the band, where the tables have been left conspicuously unoccupied. Hundreds of people are gathered now on the pier and at the tables, thronging the area. It’s maybe the last good weekend of weather for such things. Soon, they’ll have to shut it down. Just a few weeks left before the end.

They’re at a yellow table. Brigit has both her feet up on a chair, and she is thoughtfully licking her ice cream. Wallace is eating slowly. His stomach is still uneasy, tight, quivering. There are wasps swinging through the night, attracted by the stickiness of beer left on the table and by their ice cream. He frowns at them, as if that will drive them away. Brigit laughs.

“Can you believe tomorrow is Monday?” she asks, groaning, throwing her head back and giving it a shake. “I cannot believe this.”

“It happens every week. It’s like some sort of trend or something.”

“You are not a funny person.”

“I’m aware. We all have our faults. And our gifts.”

“You are unkind,” she says, dryly, but with no menace. “I heard you had a talk with Katie.”

“Who you told you that?”

“Katie.”

“Oh, I might have figured,” he says.

“If you want . . . well, you know.”

“I know,” he says. “I know, thank you. But there’s nothing for it but to do it, I guess.”

“Okay,” Brigit says, but she is not convinced. There is worry knitting her brow. Wallace wonders just what it is that Katie said, how she might have put it. “She was not thrilled you left today, by the way.”

“I know, she seemed pissed. But she always seems pissed.”

“That’s true. She does. It’s just because she’s graduating, though—soon she’ll be gone and all will be well.”

“And then you,” Wallace says quietly. “Then it’s your turn.”

“And then it’s your turn!” Brigit chirps, which makes Wallace shrink, quieten. The ice cream is cold and perfect. The vanilla is an empty flavor. He draws the spoon around his lips, letting them numb. The paper wrapping for the waffle bowl is soggy now. Brigit, sensing that she has crossed some line between them, shoots him a look of apology. But for what is she apologizing? What is the point of apologizing to him at this point?

“Simone—” he begins, pressing his tongue to the back of his teeth, looking out over the water. “Simone wants me to think about what I want. If I really want to stay here. To stay in graduate school.”

“Oh god,” Brigit says, rolling her eyes. “What a pretentious cunt.”

“Brigit,” he says.

“She is. What kind of question is that?”

“A very serious one. There was shit with Dana yesterday. It’s not worth rehashing, but Simone is on my case.”

Brigit grows more serious. “Is she thinking about kicking you out?”

Wallace does not answer. He spoons more ice cream into his mouth, savors its perfect coldness. Brigit squeezes his arm.

“Well, is she?”

“She wants me to think very carefully about what I want,” he says. “And that’s fair. I get it.”

“I don’t,” she says. “I don’t get it at all.”

“Don’t pretend, Brigit. You know it’s been rough.”

“It’s rough for everyone.”

“Not you.”

“That’s not true,” she says. “It’s been hard for me too. It’s been really fucking difficult.”

“Has it?” Wallace asks, and he can tell that the question hurts her feelings. There’s a look of shock, surprise shifting into indignation.

“You can be so selfish sometimes, Wallace. Yes, it’s been hard for me. Do you think I enjoy being in a place full of white people working myself stupid every hour of every day? Did you know that Simone asked me for Japanese recipes?”

“You aren’t Japanese,” Wallace says, trying to be funny, but Brigit makes a disgusted sound under her breath.

“And then—nothing I do is good enough, Wally. I could literally cure cancer and Simone would look at me like, Of course, that’s what your people do. I’m not a person here, Wallace. I am not Brigit. I’m the Asian girl. I’m just a face to them. And sometimes not even that.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry.” He hates this, the reflexive way that he responds to her. I’m sorry has so little use, is of such little worth, that to offer it seems almost an insult. He wants to swallow the words back, choke them down. In her eyes, as she absorbs the empty words, he sees the hard flat surface that separates even them, the closest among the group. They’re pressed up against either side of it, but cannot break through, cannot get to what is real. “Brigit.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Brigit.”

“Wallace,” she says.

Both of them are tense. The ice cream slides down her fingers, and she lifts her hand to lick it clear. There are tears at the corners of her eyes. He has underestimated her suffering.