The Break(38)

Inside our apartment Sean’s standing in our crappy kitchen wearing an actual freaking apron. There’s a laugh fizzing on my tongue like Pop Rocks, and thank God I swallow it down, because in the split second it takes me to process the scene I realize he’s not trying to be ironic with the apron. He’s completely serious, standing there with a butcher’s knife raised like he’s about to take off a chicken’s head. Half-split garlic cloves are everywhere—on the cutting board, the counters, the scent wafting through the apartment in a cloud so thick I’m surprised I can’t see it. We don’t have a kitchen table because our apartment is way too small to fit one into, but our coffee table is set with antique china and meticulously arranged silverware in what I know is the correct order because of my waitressing days.

“Sean,” I say, whistling appreciatively. “Holy cow.”

“Yes,” he says, setting down the butcher’s knife. He’s got a thing for knives. He always carries around a Swiss Army knife like a Boy Scout. “Literally: holy cow,” he says, pointing to the food. “That’s meat sauce you see, one hundred percent grass fed.” There’s a heaping pile of pasta sprinkled with parmesan. (I would never, ever tell him that I hate parmesan—I would rather eat dirt than speak those words out loud in this moment.) I watch him move to the old-fashioned record player he keeps near his aquarium. “You’re late, June,” he says, taking a Johnny Cash record out of its sleeve. I’ve noticed he uses my name when he’s annoyed at me.

“Am I?” I ask, not sure how I can be late coming from an interview I had no control over.

Sean places the needle onto the track as carefully as you’d set down a newborn. Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” starts playing, soft and oh so solemn. “You said you’d be home by six,” he says, not looking at me.

I said I’d probably be home around six. But when he looks up at me, I smile instead of saying anything. The music makes it easier.

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to a spot on the floor.

I crouch down in front of our coffee table—but in doing so I feel too much like an obedient dog, so I get up and walk to our sink. I try to take some control back as I wash my hands, gently swaying to Johnny Cash. I’m happy to be a cooperative roommate, especially after Sean went to all this trouble to make dinner, but I also don’t like the way he sometimes makes me feel like a windup doll he can control. I flash another smile over my shoulder as I dry my hands. “The table looks divine,” I say. “And the food smells amazing.” The compliment clearly pleases him. His face is so insanely readable.

I move back to the table, but this time I grab a pillow from the couch to put under my butt before sitting down on the floor. It’s embroidered with a kitschy HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, and as soon as I sit on it Sean is bending toward me. “Not that pillow,” he scolds, his face darkening. He practically rips it out from beneath me and sets it on the couch as carefully as he handled the record. It’s weird. Or maybe I’m weird for sitting on one of his throw pillows. I don’t know, I wasn’t really brought up in a fancy enough way to be sure of myself with stuff like that. “Sorry,” I say quickly. “My tailbone has just really been bothering me.”

He glares at me like he doesn’t believe me, and he’s not wrong; I keep finding myself in a tangle of white lies when I’m with him.

“My mother made that pillow,” he says in a monotone, and I realize I’ve never asked him about his parents, and he’s never brought them up. “Use this one,” he says, tossing me the kind of pillow that’s too hard to be comfortable.

“Thanks,” I say, trying to position it beneath me, already sliding off the curve.

Johnny Cash talk-sings at us as Sean sits on the floor across from me and admires the gorgeous table setting. “Wait, we need candles,” he says. He goes to get up, but I don’t want candles—I don’t want this to feel romantic at all.

“I have good news,” I blurt. “Sit. Don’t worry about candles.”

“Fine,” he says with a sigh, suddenly dispassionate about the whole thing. He sits and considers me with a suspicious look on his face, like I’m about to say something that will set fire to this bizarre game of house we’ve been playing.

“Louisa Smith gave me the assistant job on the spot today,” I say, so happy about my news I can’t do anything but hold it out in my hand like treasure.

Sean’s mouth drops so far, I almost laugh. And then he says, “Shut up,” like a preteen.

“Swear to God,” I say, hand on my heart.



“Wow, June, that’s amazing!” he says. He sounds like a little kid on Christmas, and it feels so genuine I give him my first real laugh in days.

“Thank you so much for getting me the interview,” I say.

“It was nothing,” he replies with a gracious wave. “We have to do a toast.”

“Okay,” I say, still grinning.

He pours us each three inches of cabernet from an already-uncorked bottle on the table. We raise our glasses, and it all feels so adult.

“To you,” he says. I’m about to take a big sip when he adds, “And to us.”

The wine sours a notch as I force myself to repeat the words. “To us,” I say, and he looks so pleased. I start to drink along with him and the wine burns down my throat. I cough. I swear I can feel it land all at once inside my stomach in a dark red pool. And then Sean says, “Tell me everything, my pretty little thing.”