Really Good, Actually(42)
Lydia was an ideal companion, a peaceful being whose only interests in this life were being fed and scratched on the head—I related. Sometimes the old gals wouldn’t hear her barking at the upstairs door, and she’d saunter down to my entrance, scritch at it with her paw, and whimper until I let her in and gave her a bite of whatever I was eating. I liked our hangs—me working or dyeing my eyebrows or noodling around online, her sprawled across my lower half, farting. I had so far not succeeded in convincing her to sleep in my bed overnight, but I was working on it.
On the twenty-third, Amy took me for a festive manicure. We drank cheap eggnog, flipped through magazines, and talked about whether we had the bone structure for those big hats women were always wearing in California. Amy was in a great mood. She had recently been promoted to charge nurse on her floor at the children’s hospital and was seeing someone new: a therapeutic clown from the juvenile oncology ward. “He took off his nose and the whole floor flipped out,” she said. “It was pandemonium, girls falling all over themselves, but competition brings out the best in me, so.”
They’d been on three dates in two weeks, including one where he’d packed a winter picnic, complete with a hot water bottle for each of them. He’d serenaded her with gentle acoustic covers of popular R&B songs while she sipped mulled wine from a thermos.
“It was a dream,” she said, though she was describing my nightmare. “He’s an amazing singer and great with the kids . . . such a Pisces.”
I congratulated her on the promotion and the new man and admitted I didn’t think astrology was real.
“Probably not,” she said, examining the jeweled holly on her index fingernail. “But someone’s relationship to the idea of their sign is still interesting information to have. Plus, I blame anything bad I do on being a Cancer.”
I asked what traits made up a Gemini. She told me they were “the real psychos of the zodiac.” Amy said you could tell a man had been in a heavy-duty relationship if he knew what house his Venus was in.
Later that night I went to Simon’s, to drink cider and show off my sparkly new nails. We had been seeing each other often, grabbing coffee between my classes, eating for free at restaurants Simon was reviewing, texting each other where u at last call. Initially I’d worried he might be a bookish-presenting himbo, because of his face and hair and tidy little outfits, but he was smart and funny and didn’t even go on about “sous vide” despite being a bona fide Food Guy.
He was surprising, too. One morning, hungover and wearing sunglasses at brunch, I noticed him staring at me intently. I examined my scrambled eggs and flagged the server down for ketchup. She brought some, and I dumped a pile of it on the edge of my plate. When I looked back at Simon, he was still staring, a small, moony smile on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t not do this.”
He reached across the table and grabbed the glasses off my face. I steeled myself for whatever romantic bullshit he was about to pull, complimenting my eyes or telling me he wanted to be able to look—really look—at me, when he pulled a small square of white cloth from his pocket and started cleaning the lenses.
“These are disgusting,” he said, still smiling. “You’re an animal.” He blew on them and gave the bridge a final wipe before settling them back on my nose.
“You carry a shammy around with you?” I asked. “All the time?”
Simon smiled. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
This slightly fussy thoughtfulness turned out to be his calling card. He once figured out I had used his cologne because I’d returned it to the shelf with its label turned inward. When he called me out on this, he gave me a small sampler bottle to keep in my purse.
“Relax,” he said, when I started stammering that I didn’t think we were at a gift-giving stage. “I got it for free when I bought my face wash.”
These incidents in mind, I took my shoes off in the hall when I got to his place. I walked in on socked feet and found him steam-cleaning his couch cushions, intently focused.
“What’s your star sign?” I asked. “Or like, what are all your star signs? Rising and stuff.”
Simon paused, steamer in hand. “I’d have to call my mom for my exact birth time,” he said. “But I’m fairly certain I have a lot of Virgo placements.”
We had sex and watched old episodes of The Simpsons, and he prepared a very simple meal with an almost impossible amount of concentration, like he was worried that if he looked the wrong way, the pre-made gourmet ravioli would take its moment to fall spectacularly and purposefully apart. He protested so long about me doing the dishes that it threatened to turn into our first major argument, then eventually relented and settled for hovering behind me with his hands on my hips while I cleaned two plates and a large pot with a strainer attachment.
“You smell good,” said Simon, nuzzling my neck.
I told him it was the funk of my hopes and dreams rotting inside my body (one of my lackluster essays had been rejected by a third academic journal that week).
“Christ,” he said, pulling his arms away.
I turned around, bubbles on my hands: “What is this . . . what’s happening right now?”
“I wish I could say one sincere thing without you turning it into a joke,” he said. “Take the compliment, man.”