This Close to Okay(30)
tallie.
He was stung by those words, his own choices. Tallie had invaded his privacy, and now he’d properly invaded hers. Started it drunk, but still keeping it up sober. Maybe he could spin and sweeten what he’d done by forwarding the emails to her real email address as a gift when he left her. Spill the secrets of what Joel obviously hadn’t been man enough to tell her before, help her heal.
Emmett used the bathroom and ran his hand through his hair—an oil slick. He poked his head out the bathroom door.
“Miss Tallie, it’s okay if I take a shower? I haven’t taken one since Wednesday. I plumb forgot to this morning, with everything going on,” he said loud enough for her to hear him. The Miss had escaped accidentally, out of country-boy habit. The cats walked down the hallway to investigate what the fuss was about. He opened the door all the way and crouched to pet them as they purred and filled the hallway with their tiny-thunder meows.
“Miss Tallie? That makes me feel old,” she said, now standing across from him.
“Forgive me. I promise I don’t mean it that way. I’m from the country.”
“Yes, you can take a shower,” she said, stepping toward him so she could open the linen closet he was leaning against. In such close quarters, her arm slipped across the hem of his shirt; he felt the warmth.
“Sorry,” he said, moving for her.
“You’re fine,” she said. She got out a folded fluffy towel and gave it to him. “Body wash, shampoo, conditioner, it’s in there. All of it smells really lovely.” She pointed toward the ruffly curtain behind him. He thanked her before closing the door and stepping into the entirely new and confusing planet that was someone else’s shower. Took him a second, but he got the right pressure, the right temperature.
(Five bottles of body wash: wild cherry, apricot, lavender, peppermint, Chanel. A thick cake of pressed-flower soap. A frilly pink pouf resembling an overripe peony. A translucent shower mat that looks like bubble wrap. Clean. Everything is very clean.)
He imagined living there, making a life with Tallie. He imagined taking a photo of himself, soapy and dripping in Tallie’s shower, sending it to Joel. Emmett smiled thinking about how much Tallie hated Joel’s ponytail as he lathered up his hair with her shampoo. He held the bottle in his sudsy hands, mouthed the words as he read it: orange blossom and neroli, a lemon tree by the ocean. The water steamed up like a jungle, rained him clean.
*
Once Emmett got out, he realized he hadn’t asked Tallie for any clothes to put on. He could wear what he slept in last night, but those clothes were out there on the couch. He dried off completely, wrapped the towel around his waist. He’d dripped on his white shirt. He put it over his head and stepped out into the hallway. The TV was down low; British accents and a sharp laugh track. Tallie’s argument of dark curls hung loose over the side of the couch.
“Could I put those same clothes back on? Is that okay?” he asked.
One of her cats stretched up on the arm of the couch, sniffed the air, the cloud of citrus following him. The rain had eased up, but the gutters were overflowing, rushing and dripping against her windows. He was sleepy and dizzy from the heat of the shower, from her cozy house, their dinner. From the emotions of yesterday and now tonight. He felt simultaneously light, like he could float away—and so heavy it was as if he were sinking into Tallie’s blond hardwood floor, her plush rugs. For the past three years he’d been suffering from lingering headaches, black-hole moods. His body weight felt doubled and cursed by the burden of gravity. He swallowed the little fire in his throat, petted the cat’s head with one hand, rubbed behind its ears. He kept his other hand wrapped around the towel knot at his waist.
(The laugh track on the television show erupts. A character on the show is eating popcorn, listening to his office mates argue. Another character enters the office with a look of shock. The laugh track roars. Tallie giggles lightly, shakes her head.)
“Everything was fine?” Tallie asked, putting down her refilled mug of tea and reaching for the clothes. When she saw he was wearing only a towel around his waist, she turned her head away and cleared her throat.
“Your bathroom is so nice. This whole house is super nice. I shouldn’t have glossed over it yesterday.”
“Thank you. And I promise it’s okay. You’ve got plenty on your mind. My brother made a lot of money when he was younger. Finance, stocks, investment stuff I don’t fully understand. He’s a math whiz. I couldn’t have bought this house without his help. You’ll get to meet him and the rest of my family tomorrow at the party.”
Emmett got the charger from his backpack and plugged his phone in, leaving it on the living-room floor. He took the clothes from her and went to the bathroom to change. Did looking forward to something feel like this? Living had felt so much like dying that he could hardly remember. Did it feel like concertina wire unraveling? Like his heart was a cracked, tipped cup, running over?
TALLIE
Tallie told herself she wasn’t going to watch Emmett walk down the hallway. He’d surprised her, being in a towel. Joel’s favorite red towel; Joel, pre-ex, pre-baby, sans ponytail. Had she really given him that towel? Had it been an accident or on purpose? Sure, Emmett may have walked out dripping like a romance novel, but he had mental health issues he needed to deal with—so many scarlet warnings that he might as well have been a matador in a traje de luces. Still, her stomach dipped when she saw the towel and the way his water-dark hair curled behind his ear. Bridge, Mr. Probably Handsome, Mr. Definitely Handsome, Emmett No Last Name, steamy hot and blushing like a peach.