The Vanishing Half(34)
She tried to imagine being so bold, walking up to Reese and telling him what? That she thought about him relentlessly, even now, while she was staring at a textbook filled with confusing symbols and talking to a man applying lipstick?
“We’re friends,” she said. “What’s so wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” He glanced at her through the mirror. He was trying a new look—classic Hollywood, Lana Turner—but the blush was too pink, tinting his skin orange. “I’ve just never seen Reese with no friend like you.”
Once, carrying her groceries up the stairs, Reese had joked that he sometimes felt like her boyfriend, and she’d laughed, unsure of what was funny. That he wasn’t? That he would never be? That in spite of this, he had, somehow, found himself playing this role? What she didn’t say: she felt like his girlfriend sometimes too, and the feeling scared her. A big feeling. It took up all the space in her chest, choking her.
“We’re friends,” she said again. “I don’t know why you can’t see that.”
“I don’t know why you can’t see that you’re not.” He sighed, turning to face her. One cheek was covered in full makeup, the other half of his face still clean. “I don’t know why you’re fighting it neither. What could be better than being eighteen and in love? Oh, you don’t even know. If I could go back, I’d do everything different.”
“Like what?” she said.
“Oh, everything.” He turned back to the mirror. “This big ol’ world and we only get to go through it once. The saddest thing there is, you ask me.”
* * *
—
THAT SUMMER, she moved out of the dormitories and into Reese’s apartment.
She gave herself a list of logistical reasons why it made sense: she was working on campus, which was the obvious choice even though she hated how disappointed her mother had sounded when she told her she wasn’t coming home. She hadn’t found an apartment yet for next year and she could save money, splitting rent and groceries. She could make a foolish decision if she pretended it was based on thrift alone. So when Reese asked, she said yes, and soon, the two were carrying her boxes up the narrow stairwell. Reese told her that he would sleep on the couch.
“Trust me, I’ve slept worse places,” he said, and she thought of him hitchhiking from Arkansas. Sleeping at truck stops or squatting in abandoned buildings like the ones he’d photographed, over and over again.
At first, she felt strange in Reese’s apartment, like a guest overstaying her welcome. Then she started to feel at home. Tiptoeing through the living room on her way out to her morning run, Reese curled under a blanket, hair falling in front of his closed eyes. Sharing a bathroom counter, running a finger along the handle of his razor. Returning in the evening to find him boiling hot dogs for dinner, or ironing his shirts along with her own, or listening to records with him on the couch, her foot pressed against his thigh. He taught her how to drive, surprisingly patient as she slowly guided his creaking Bobcat around an empty mall parking lot.
“You know how to drive, you can go anywhere,” he told her. “You get tired of this city, you just head off for another one.”
He smiled over at her, an arm hanging out the window, as she made another slow lap. He made it sound so easy, leaving.
“I’ll never get tired of this city,” she said.
During the week, she reported to her job at the music library, where she pushed a heavy cart down the aisles and slid thin scores onto the shelves until her fingers dried from touching their dusty covers. When she returned home, West Hollywood felt so different from that idyllic campus, the brick buildings she still felt cowed to enter, always lowering her voice as if stepping inside church, those endless green lawns, the bicycles constantly whisking past. In the dormitories, she’d been surrounded by the relentlessly ambitious, but in that West Hollywood apartment building, all of the neighbors she met were people whose dreams of fame had already been dashed. Cinematographers working at Kodak stores, screenwriters teaching English to immigrants, actors starring in burlesque shows in seedy bars. The people who did not make it were ingrained in the city; you walked on stars emblazoned with their names and never realized it.
On the weekends, she and Reese wandered Santa Barbara beaches, or explored the Natural History Museum, and even once went whale watching in Long Beach. They’d only seen dolphins, but what she remembered was how she’d lost her balance on the deck and he stepped behind to steady her. She stood like that for the rest of the boat ride, leaning back against his chest.
Some Saturday nights, they passed under the cascade of rainbow flags and ducked inside Mirage to catch Barry’s show. Other times, they saw a movie at the Cinerama Dome, where, in the darkness of the theater, she thought Reese might reach for her hand. But he never did. At Barry’s Fourth of July party, everyone crowded on his rooftop, watching fireworks crackle across the sky. All around them, boys drunk and kissing, and she thought Reese might even kiss her—a friendly kiss, right on her cheek. But instead, he stepped inside to get a drink, leaving her alone washed under red and blue light. What did he want from her? It was impossible to tell. Once after Barry’s show at Mirage, Reese asked her to dance. The night was nearly over; the DJ had already started playing slow songs to usher lovers out the door. He held out his hand and she allowed him to guide her onto the dance floor. She’d never been held so closely by anyone before.