You Love Me(You #3)(90)

“Well, they’re half brothers,” you say. “And Ivan’s so busy in Denver…”

He claps his hands and he almost hits your nose. “Stop that, Em. There is no half or whole. He was my baby brother. End of story.” His phone buzzes. He smiles and walks to the front door and you and I follow, like sheep.

Nomi is on the street, running faster than I’ve ever seen her move.

You are puzzled. “She said she was gonna stay in Seattle.”

He is smug. “I told her I was here.”

That selfish bastard pulled Nomi away from people who actually love her and she hugs him and he says she looks so grown-up and I don’t like his Rolex, sliding around his wrist so we can’t forget it’s there. “All right,” he says. “Where are we headed in the fall?”

Ivan’s got his arm around Nomi and they’re walking into the house and do I stay? Do I go? You wave at me—come on—so I follow you but this is all wrong. I’m more in tune with this family than this Ivan Come Lately but he’s the one Nomi is excitedly telling about NYU.

“You’re going to love New York,” I butt in.

We’re all back in the kitchen and there’s an awkward silence.

Ivan looks at you, not me. “Sorry, MK… who is this guy?”

You rub your collarbone the way you do when a Mothball asks for help with a fucking e-card and Nomi answers the question. “Joe’s a volunteer at the library. And he’s from New York, so of course he’s biased about NYU.” She tears at a loaf of bread and laughs. “Also he has three cats.”

I don’t need Ivan to know about our cats and I was a mentor to Nomi. I listened to her talk about books. I helped her discover how rewarding it is to help old people and this is how she repays me? You lighten the mood by pouring coffee and there are three of you and one of me and I’m not even allowed to be mad that you didn’t tell Ivan I’m your boyfriend because oh that’s right.

Our love is a secret. Nomi doesn’t know either. She thinks I’m a loser like Shortus.

You open the freezer and retrieve a casserole and Ivan claps his hands again and you and the Meerkat freeze up like this is a fucking improv class and he is your teacher. “Rule One,” he says. “Those casseroles go in the trash. That food is something that other people needed to provide in order to express their condolences. But that food is not for you to eat, girls.” Girls and he’s just another insecure prick, a tall fucking Shortus. “Rule Two,” he says, on his feet now, rolling up those sleeves like he’s about to manhandle a baby at a political convention. “Same logic applies to Phil’s things.”

“Ivan,” I say. “You don’t want to go there.”

You don’t look at me. Your eyes are glued to him and he puts his hands on your shoulders. “Emmy, I know you… Trust me when I tell you that death is a part of life. We are animals and we have to move forward. Your feelings are intense. But feelings aren’t real.” He points at his head and I wish his finger was a gun. “We have to use our heads to protect us from the spontaneous, reactionary urges of our hearts.”

The word is reactive and he’s talking about me, Mary Kay. He may as well pick me up and shove me in one of RIP Phil’s fucking trash bags and he is wrong. Your feelings for me are not a reaction to that dead rat—we’ve been falling in love for months—but what do you do? You tell him that he’s right and you are gonna gather Phil’s things today and I offered to get rid of those fucking trash bags less than an hour ago and you bit my head off. You’re all hugging and I may as well be back in the woods, on the trail, behind the rock. My chair squeaks when I stand. “I think I should get going.”

You keep your head where I can’t see it, buried in Ivan’s chest, and your voice is muffled—Thanks, Joe—and Ivan pats you both on the back and offers to walk me out as if this is his house. You and the Meerkat hide in the kitchen and he opens the front door before I can get my hand on the knob.

“Thanks for helping out around here…” His voice drops to a whisper. “But you and I both know that a recently widowed woman needs time on her own.”

“Of course. I just came by to help her with some stuff around the house.”

He mad-dogs me and my fucking shirt is inside out and does he still smell you on me? “Well,” he says. “That’s what I miss about this place so much, all that generosity…”

I leave and there is nothing I can do because his presence doesn’t change anything—our love is a secret, it’s too soon—but his presence changes everything. No more lingering in the bed with me. No more working through your grief the right way, behind closed doors, with me. Right now, you’re in that house and you’re regressing at ninety miles an hour, putting on a proper widow show for your dead husband’s no-show brother. You were Phil’s muse, and that was a problem, but this is worse, Mary Kay. Now you’re the one onstage.





34





One day passes. No word from you. I buy Oliver a violin. Minka is taking classes.

Another day passes. No word from you. I buy Oliver a fucking piano. Minka didn’t like the violin.

Another day passes. No word from you. I bite Oliver’s head off when he calls and he laughs. “I know,” he says. “But there’s this Casio on 1stdibs. It’s super eighties, my friend. You don’t have to learn how to play it. It’s intuitive… or sort of intuitive? Whatever it is, we want it.”