The Pisces(21)

guess it didn’t work out with the other dude?

haha, I said.

want to come to downtown? i work in a loft down here. meet me on the roof of the Ace Hotel tmrw @ 7

sounds good I wrote, so casually.

Immediately after that message came a text. It was from Jamie.

How are you? I miss you.

My stomach dropped. Claire was right! It was like he could smell that I was out with other men. Now it was raining attention. There was Adam, Garrett, Theo, and Jamie. I wanted to wait to text him back but wrote immediately, of course.



I’m fine. deep in therapy, as instructed

And how is megan?

There was a pause.

She is good

Well, that was that…

She’s no you, of course

Now this was getting crazy. Was I a sorcerer? Had I conjured all of this? What was he trying to do? It was like I was the other woman and Megan was the one he was stuck with. I suddenly no longer felt hurt that he was with her. I liked being the desirable one. Also, I liked playing with him. I was going to ignore him. Already high on Garrett and our impending date, I would be able to do it. This was what I needed—multiple men at all times. Then I wouldn’t need any of them. Put me naked in a clamshell. Let them all fawn around me.





16.


“You’re absolutely glowing! You’re not dating anyone, are you?” asked Annika.

She was standing on the balcony of her hotel wearing a long embroidered caftan. Through video chat I could see the Provence sunset behind her.

“No, I’m keeping to myself.”

“Good,” she said. “Get that kundalini shakti recharged. Don’t go scattering that chi anywhere and you’ll be a warrior by the time I get back. How is the group?”

“A nightmare,” I said.

“But you’re going?”

“I’m going.”

“Let me see my baby.”

I held the computer screen up to Dominic. She made cooing noises and he pawed it, whined a little.

“He looks a touch sad,” she said. “You’re spending ample time with him?”

“We’re thick as thieves.”

“Good,” she said. “Maybe add a bit of coconut oil to his dry food. It keeps his coat nice and shiny.”

“Already doing it.”

“Thanks, and you should cook for him. That turkey, zucchini, and peas dish I left the recipe for out on the counter. He loves it. Vegetables are good for his blood sugar.”

“Will do.”

“I hate being separated from him for so long. You don’t think I’m a bad mother, do you?”



“No, it’s the twenty-first century, don’t be a helicopter parent.”

“But—”

“That’s just patriarchal guilt. Enjoy your trip, Aunt Lucy is taking great care of him.”

When we hung up I felt like an asshole. Annika had always tried to be a good sister to me. By the time my mother died she was already in college, out of the house, but she tried her best. She called often to check in on me and never made me feel like I had been forgotten. She sent me mix tapes, weed, and makeup, so that I could feel cool in high school. Before she was even rich she paid for the abortion I had at nineteen so I wouldn’t have to ask my father for the money. How was I repaying her? By neglecting the most beloved thing in her life for strangers on the Internet.

I looked around the living room. There were pictures of Dominic everywhere: Dominic on the beach in Malibu with his ears blowing back, Dominic dressed as a bumblebee on Halloween, Annika cradling Dominic as a little puppy, her face serene and dreamlike. Dominic himself now had his head in my lap and was looking up at me from under his dog brow.

“I’m going to do better,” I said to him, scratching his white diamond. “I promise. From now on it’s only going to be you and me. As soon as I get back from this date.”





17.


I got to the Ace at five and had time to kill. I decided I would go up to the roof and maybe try to think about my book a little bit. Once again, I’d somehow shoved Sappho under a man: multiple men this time. I’d come to Venice to purge the influence of dick on my life and had wound up becoming Helen of Troy. What would Sappho think? The advisory committe said the thesis draft was due by fall semester. Did that mean the beginning of the semester? Day one? I knew that it did. But I pretended I had some wiggle room: that I could just pop in there on Halloween, draft in hand, like, Sorry for the delay! and my funding would go on.

I’d always been scared not to finish the thesis but maybe even more scared to finish it. What would happen then? Would I apply for teaching jobs in other cities? I had thought that maybe I would, in the hopes that it would make Jamie ask me to stay—that the catalyst of my moving somewhere else would make him finally step up. But somewhere in my mind, I always knew he wouldn’t. I hadn’t wanted to face that.

On the Ace roof there was flamenco music playing, or bossa nova or something. It all seemed so contemporary and pleasant. The sun was setting and I ordered a white wine. Was this how everything was now? Just nice? I wondered if other people felt comfortable within niceness, or whether they didn’t even notice that things were nice. Maybe they expected everything to be nice. Maybe nice was like air to them.