I understand that you need your space and I return to my chair and you let out a big sigh. “Have you ever carried a secret around? I mean, a secret as in a lie. And one day you just fucking can’t do it anymore. And you have to let it out?”
I see Candace’s musical fucking brother on TV sometimes and I want to smash the screen and tell him that his sister did not drown while body surfing. I nod. “Yeah, I get it.”
Your eyes skate around and they finally land on me. “Well, it’s a long story but, Joe, here’s the thing. I lied to you and to everyone. My dad is not dead. He’s very alive and very well and living on Long Island.”
“Whoa,” I say. You chose me.
“I couldn’t hold it in anymore,” you say. “I had to tell someone, or else.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do. And I think that you didn’t choose someone, you chose me. And that means something, Beck. You hunted me down, me.
“And you know how girls are,” you say. “If I told Peach or Chana or Lynn or anyone like that, then they’d tell someone and that person would tell someone and someone would send out some cryptic tweet about it and ugh. That’s why I thought of you. I knew you’d let it stay here.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do. I keep many secrets and now I have yours.
“And honestly, you know, in a way I’m not lying because in every way he is dead to me, Joe,” you rail on. “But the thing is, he married a lawyer and she’s rich and he has money and I’m broke. And of course he won’t just give me money, no. I have to troll around in a fucking Charles Dickens dress with his spoiled offspring in order to get anything out of him.”
“That was a lot of information,” I say. “Charles Dickens?”
You laugh and tell me about the festival. I have to be careful here and I act like I’ve never heard of such a thing and I let you share the details and I’m methodical in my reactions and then I shake my head. “This is a lot,” I say. “Is it worth it? Putting up with all that for a few bucks?”
“Well, life costs money,” you say and you cross your arms. “If he can pay for his new kids to eat organic candy apples then he should have to pay for his old kid too.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do. Your dad and his wife probably blew four hundred bucks on Dickens costumes, hot cocoa, and candy apples. And you’re not the kind of girl to wait tables. Your friends don’t worry about money; why should you?
You finish sending a text and relax your arms and lower your legs and when animals open up like that, they want to fuck. You’re my animal on my sofa and you look around my home. “Wow,” you say. “You really do like old things.”
“I found every single thing in here on the street,” I say, proud.
“I see that,” you say, disgusted. You prefer new, sterile IKEA, yet you tuck your dirty tissues into your mangy purse. Ah, women. You wiggle your toes and start in about your dad again: “Divorce is different when you’re from a poor-ish family, you know? My dad met Ronnie on the island when she was on vacation. Literally, Joe, he met her at a bar where my sister was working. And it was hard enough to start college as the girl who grew up where everyone else goes to vacation. I didn’t want to tell people that my townie dad ran off with a tourist. Enough already, you know?”
“It’s not fair,” I say.
“It’s not,” you say and I’ve never seen you so worked up. “Being an Ivy League townie is one thing, but a townie with an absentee father? Fuck that. It’s a cliché.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do. I love you for being the prideful, scrappy little fighter that you are. You’re powerful; you kill people. You’re brutal.
“I figured when I moved here I’d start all over but I didn’t think it through.” You sigh and shake your head. “Everyone from school is here and if I told my friends about my dad now, I’d have to deal with it, you know?”
“I know,” I say. “People can be judgmental about stuff like this. You have to watch out.”
“Nobody knows,” you say and your eyes are big, mine. “Nobody.”
“Except me,” I say and you blush.
“Except you,” you repeat and you smile, almost, and then you sadden. “And I know I shouldn’t be so insecure, but he didn’t just leave, you know? He built a whole new family with a younger, cuter wife and younger, cuter kids.”
“Those kids are not cuter than you, Beck.”
You’re not in a suspicious mind-set, thank God, and you laugh, assuming that I’m making an assumption. “All kids are cuter than adults, Joe.” You sigh. “That’s just the evil nature of Mother Nature.”
“Well, fuck her,” I say and I get a laugh out of you. “You did your part. You saw him and his family. Did he help you out with some dough?”
You stretch your arms up toward the ceiling and stretch to the right and notice the hole in the wall right behind you. “Jesus,” you say. “That’s a big fucking hole.”
I swallow. “A pipe burst upstairs and they had to get in there.”
“And apparently they did,” you say and now you’re tuning into your environment. You notice Larry, my broken typewriter on the coffee table. You look at me for permission to touch him. I nod. You tell lies. I hoard typewriters. We are different, hot.
“His name is Larry,” I say. I’m gonna be honest like you.
“Do you name all your typewriters?” you ask.
“No,” I say. “I don’t name them. They tell me their names when I bring them home.”
It is fun to fuck with you and you can’t decide if I’m pretentious or insane and I can’t tell if you’re being sweet or patronizing when you laugh. “Right.”
“Beck,” I say. “Of course I name them. I’m just kidding.”
“Well, Larry is handsome,” you say and you lean forward to say hello to him and tinker with his keys. I can see your panties. You ask me a question: “Can I hold him?”
“He’s heavy, Beck.”
“You can put him on my lap,” you say and you’re wearing pink seamless bikinis, size small, from the Victoria’s Secret Angels collection. I pick up Larry and set him on your lap and pray that you don’t notice that your panties are identical to the panties shoved in between the cushions of the sofa. I tell you that Larry is broken because he fell (hahaha), and you pet him, sweet.
“Well, Larry may be broken, but he’s a handsome beast, Joe.”
“He’s a one of a kind,” I say.
You study Larry. “He’s missing an L.”
I have to lie because I can’t have you looking around for the L. “Since the day I brought him home.”
You look at me. “Do you have anything to drink?”
I don’t have anything to drink. Fucking Curtis. You return your attention to the typewriter and you want to look between the cushions and make sure the L isn’t lost but if you do that, you will find your panties, which you will know are yours if you have a keen sense of smell, which I think you do. You’re like a toddler that needs distraction and I take a Twizzler and you grab the last one.
“Do you have any more of these?” you say.
“Afraid not,” I say and now I’m worried because you stop chewing and your eyes lock on something in my bedroom.
You squint. “Is that the Italian Dan Brown I gave you?”
I want to close my bedroom door but that would be weird so I turn around and follow your gaze and realize you are looking at the special shelf I built for the Italian Dan Brown. It could be worse; I could have put the Book of Beck on that shelf.
“I think that’s your book,” I lie.
You pet Larry and you grin. “That’s sweet, Joe.”
I swallow the rest of my Twizzler and I have to get you out of here. “You wanna go get some more Twizzlers?”
“Hell yes,” you say and I walk over to you and you look even smaller with Larry on your lap and you pat him. “Lift, please.”