This Close to Okay(11)

He wasn’t flirting. Not intentionally. He liked to imagine he’d transcended sexual desire, since this could be his last day. He liked the sound of the rain against her windows; maybe it would never stop raining. The water would rise and rise and rise and rise and lift them up, float them away. The whole earth would be covered in water and no one would complain. This is our new normal, the world leaders would say. Or maybe he’d drown, maybe they’d all drown. Then he wouldn’t have to make the decision himself; the rain would do it for him.

“I promise,” she said.

“But a self-destructive suicidal man such as myself”—he touched his chest—“my energy must be reading somewhat unpredictable and crooked. Isn’t it like I’m a radio station that won’t come in all the way? Shouldn’t this be where you tell me what’s wrong with me?”

The Giants scored another run. If the Giants came from behind to win the game, he would wait to return to the bridge. And if he waited…and the Giants won the World Series…what then? His impulses buzzed on and off like neon as he considered his past, his present, a future that didn’t exist. All that could happen. How his world could change in an instant. He’d lived it and he was fucking tired. Didn’t he have the right to be tired? After what he’d been through? Regardless, his alligator tomorrows waited with open mouths, toothy snaps. Nothing wrong with waiting a few days.

“You don’t need me to tell you what’s wrong with you. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong with me?” she asked.

Her cat hopped in her lap, purring as Tallie smoothed the hair on its back.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. Well, wait…you’re too trusting,” he said.

“Clearly,” she said, opening her arms wide. “But I’m more distrustful of people in general than I might appear. When it comes to you, I’m just going with my instincts, which are much better now post-divorce. I trust those above all. And honestly? It’s kind of one of my rules now…not to be afraid to live my life.”

The Giants scored again, tied the game. Like the rain, maybe the inning would never end.

“Were you ever afraid of your ex-husband?”

“Ah, good ol’ Joel,” she said.

“Were you afraid of Joel?”

“Not really. He was never violent, but he had these heavy moods. Sometimes it still feels like a dream to talk about because it all happened so fast. I found out…he moved in with her…we got divorced. They got married and had a baby,” she said, miming a head explosion. “We didn’t really talk about it. There’s so much left unsaid, and now it feels too late. What’s the point? It’s baffling how you can think you know someone and not know them at all. Maybe not even a little bit…but that’s not what you asked. However, I do still stalk him on social media,” she finished, her words clomping out with sticky boots. She was buzzed like him. They were two tiny bees touching antennae. Buzzing.

“I’m not on social media,” he said.

“Smart move. I don’t enjoy it, but I snoop around on there. Joel never changed his password, so sometimes I look at his account.”

“What do you see?”

“Everything,” she said.

“And how does it make you feel when you look at that stuff?”

“Sounds like something I would ask you.”

“It makes me feel curious when you tell me you stalk your ex-husband on social media,” he said, stroking his chin.

She smiled and told him she was trying to stop spying on Joel, but he’d changed so much in such a short amount of time that she could hardly believe they were ever together. Montana Joel, she called him, saying it as if he were a new species of Joel that needed to be taxonomized, tagged, tracked.

“How can he be a completely different person now? He grew his hair out, and now he has this stupid ponytail I hate so much. He’s a father; they have a horse. He bitched about my two cats, and now he has a horse?” she said, raising her voice. Buzz.

“His loss,” he said. There was a reason for cliché—sometimes there was nothing else to say.

Where had Tallie put his letters? He looked at his backpack on the floor by his feet, touched his toe to it. He was wearing the fresh dry pair of socks she’d given him—white with a skinny gold stripe across the toe. Pitching change. The ball game went to commercial.

“I’m not the only person this has happened to…things like this happen every day, I know. But I need to find a way to completely move on with my life, I guess. I’m almost there,” Tallie said. She was staring off, like she was alone and daydreaming, not talking to him.

“What would help you move on completely?”

“A little more time,” she said and paused before adding, “and it would be nice if Joel would admit none of this was my fault and I couldn’t have done anything differently to stop it. I’d especially love to hear him say it wasn’t the stress of in vitro fertilization that pushed him away,” she said and stopped. Emmett didn’t say anything, just listened as she continued. “I know it in my heart, and I know better than to think I can control what anyone else does, but it would feel good to hear him say it. However, I’m never going to tell him I want that, so—”

“Maybe you’ll tell him eventually. Tomorrow can bring something new,” Emmett said, posturing. Wishing he believed his own lies.