That night I go to my computer and open my email. If Levi can have a kid and Bernie can have an extra chromosome and Mimi can masturbate herself into unconsciousness, I should be able to do this. I ask for help from the air in the room, then open Frank’s email and type one word.
Come.
*
Levi and Min are heading back upstate. The hot food counter, apparently, waits for no man. My mother insists on strapping a pillow around Min’s stomach for the car ride, as though that could protect the baby from all that life will throw at it. We stand in the driveway with our arms around each other as they drive away. I guess that’s what life should feel like; setting off on a long car ride with all your worries and hopes strapped around you, the people who love you most frantically waving you off as you go.
*
I’m looking up how to make a grilled cheese, wondering what the hell I’ve been so busy doing all my life that I never learned this, when the doorbell rings. Frank is standing in the doorway. Ah, here is the man I love, I think. The thought comes so swiftly, so unapologetically, I almost say it aloud. Instead, I say, with an insane level of cheer, “New Jersey welcomes you!”
*
Frank and I pull up two chairs and sit looking out over the garden. The patio furniture is old and partially covered in bird shit. I consider being embarrassed by this, then decide it’s not worth the effort.
“You grew up here?” Frank asks.
I nod.
“You’re lucky,” he says.
An emerald flash darts toward the bird feeder in front of us.
“Did you know hummingbird nectar is just sugar boiled in water?” I say.
Frank starts to laugh.
“What?” I ask.
“Why do we make life so fucking complicated?” he says.
*
We’ve been in the garden for about an hour, chatting in a general, nonre-vealing way about what’s been happening at the office, then lapsing into meaningful silences filled with shy smiles, when my mother comes home. We both leap up like we’re teenagers who have been caught fellating each other and turn toward the screen doors.
“Sweetheart, can you help me with this!” she yells.
“Ma, I have a visitor!” I yell back.
“A what?” she yells.
“A visitor!” I yell.
I open the doors and lead Frank back inside.
“This is Frank,” I say.
My mother turns from the wooden crib she’s lugging across our living room floor.
“Frank who?” she says.
“Frank from work,” I say.
“Oh!”
She flicks her eyes up and down him so quickly it would be imperceptible to anyone but me.
“So great to meet you,” says Frank. “Can I help you with—”
“No!” My mother raises her palm. “You’re our guest. I’ll get tea.”
This is not a good sign. The more solicitous my mother is to a person, the less she likes them. Get in her good graces, and you’ll be cleaning the gutter. Fall out of them, and she’ll insist on making you herbal tea. It’s a counterintuitive but undeniable fact. We follow her into the kitchen as she puts the kettle on.
“That’s a beautiful crib,” says Frank.
“For my new grandchild,” says my mother. “So he or she will have somewhere to sleep here once they’re born.”
Frank glances at my stomach with alarm.
“My brother,” I say.
“Phew,” says Frank. “I mean, congratulations.”
“Do you have children?” asks my mother.
“Not that I know of,” says Frank.
My mother sniffs and pulls the blackbird mug off the shelf. She only gives the blackbird to people she doesn’t like.
“Frank has to go now,” I say. “It’s late.”
“I do?” says Frank.
“Uh-huh,” I say, ushering him out the kitchen and toward the front door as he calls a goodbye to my mother.
“Can I come see you again?” he says. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
I go back into the kitchen and take the blackbird mug and throw it in the trash.
“What on earth—,” says my mother.
“We need to talk,” I say.
*
I take the eating couch. She takes the visitor’s one.
“Is he still married?”
“No. Well, technically, yes. I think. She moved to Italy.”
“And so now he wants to be with you?”
“I think so.”
“And you want to be with him?”
“I think so.”
“And you’re in love?”
“Ma, we’ve never even kissed.”
“And that has anything to do with it?”
“Okay, fine. Yes, I think so. But don’t tell anyone. Don’t even repeat it to yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s humiliating.”
“Sweetheart, love is humiliating. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
“Who would have told me that?”
“Do you know the word humiliate comes from the Latin root humus, which means ‘earth’? That’s how love is supposed to feel.”
“Like hummus?”
“Like earth. It grounds you. All this nonsense about love being a drug, making you feel high, that’s not real. It should hold you like the earth.”
“Wow, Ma.”
“What? I have a heart, don’t I?”
“You also have a blackbird mug.”
*
The next day I do something I almost never do, and that is get a haircut. Honestly, a root canal would be preferable. At least there are no mirrors at the dentist. I endure an hour and a half of lathering, combing, snipping, and small talk, all while avoiding eye contact with either the hair stylist or myself.
“So,” says the stylist. “What do we think of bangs?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “What do we think?”
“You’ve got a great face for bangs,” he says.
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s go crazy.”
*
Crazy, that’s what I am. Crazy. No one looks good with bangs. Bangs are just a beard on your forehead, a hair hat that you can never take off. As soon as I get into the car, I check the rearview mirror to see if it’s as bad as I thought. Even in that little sliver of reflection, the results are clear: I am a boiled egg in a wig.
*
Frank comes over that night promptly after work.
“Why are you wearing a baseball cap?” he asks when I answer the door.
*
Luckily, I have less time to worry about what Frank is thinking of my hair because I am now worrying about the fact that my mother has insisted on making us dinner. The dinner is stir-fry in a wok, which is the only thing my mother can make except meatloaf.
“Looks great,” says Frank when he sees what’s happening in the kitchen. “Wok ’n’ roll.”
“You are an advertiser,” my mother says, then tells him to find the cutlery and set the table.
*
“You look pretty tonight,” says Frank as we’re clearing the plates away. “Did you change your hair?”
“I look like a boiled egg in a wig,” I say.
“Hey,” he says, grabbing my shoulders. “I want us to try something.”
We are looking directly at each other, his hands tight on me. This is the longest we have ever touched each other. My heart is a jackhammer.
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m going to say ‘You look pretty,’” he says. “And then you’re going to say ‘Thank you.’”
“But—” I say.
“No boiled egg jokes,” he says. “No jokes of any kind. Just ‘Thank you.’ Can you try that for me?”
I nod mutely.
“Eleanor,” he says. “You look very pretty with your hair like that.”
I want to slither down the sinkhole, turn on the garbage disposal, and grind myself into nonexistence.
“Thank you,” I choke.
He laughs.
“You’re welcome,” he says. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”