With Love, from Cold World, page 5
“Thanks,” Kiki said. “Asa already lived here with other housemates when he heard I was looking for somewhere to live relatively cheap and close to Cold World. I met with everyone and we just clicked. Elliot is a freelance writer, and they’re home a lot but mostly holed up in their room under deadline. John is super quiet—like, even when he plays his guitar he plugs it in and wears headphones. It’s a lot more chill than I worried it would be.”
“Mmm,” Lauren said, glancing around. Two strange houses in one night. This had to be a record.
The living room featured two overstuffed leather couches, arranged in an L around a large-screen TV, paused on some slick-looking show that wasn’t familiar to Lauren. There was a bike propped against one wall. An IKEA shelf unit packed with records. And a Christmas tree, already decorated, a star on top and everything.
“It’s been up since the day after Thanksgiving,” Kiki said. “If you think Asa is only like that at work, you’re wrong. The boy loves Christmas. By the way, what was that whole thing all about, where Dolores asked you guys to stay after the meeting?”
Lauren hesitated, not sure if it was supposed to be a secret or not. Eventually, she just decided to answer the question but keep it vague.
“She’s looking for some suggestions on ways to improve for the holidays,” she said. “Not a big deal.”
“Huh.” Kiki was clearly not convinced by the explanation, and Lauren pointed at some artwork hanging on the wall to change the subject.
“That’s really cool,” she said. “Where’d you get it?”
It was the size of a movie poster, the colors vibrant and saturated. Magenta background, stairs painted in gradients of purple leading diagonally up to nowhere. A boy leaned from the stairs on tiptoes, reaching out toward a hand of someone out of the composition. In his other hand, he clutched a tangle of lines and swirls that seemed to lead to balloons, or vines, or jellyfish—something abstract that Lauren couldn’t quite make out. The picture made her feel happy, her spirits buoyed by the colors and the whimsy, but then the more she looked at it the more that she felt like there was something sad about the boy, painted in shades of light blue and reaching for someone he might not be able to grasp before falling off the stairs. She wished she could see the expression on his face, but it was turned away.
“It’s Asa’s,” Kiki said. “You want to see the other outfits I’m considering for Marj’s work party?”
Lauren gave the picture one last look before scooping the red dress off the back of the couch where she’d set it and following Kiki into her room. There were two other dresses laid out on Kiki’s bed—one sparkly as a disco ball, the other a rather severe black—and a green jumpsuit. Lauren knew Kiki would look amazing in any of them. She was one of those people who had natural style, on whom everything looked intentional and cool and easy. In the end, Lauren hadn’t even tried on the red dress. It had seemed like the kind of thing she could never pull off.
“Too much?” Kiki asked, pointing at the sparkly dress.
Lauren bit her lip, considering. “Maybe? For a conservative law firm party.”
Kiki nodded, like the answer was pretty much what she’d been expecting. “This is probably the one,” she said, picking up the black dress. It had a high collar and long sleeves, although the swingy skirt saved it from seeming totally puritanical.
“I kinda like the jumpsuit,” Lauren said, reaching out to rub the silky green fabric between her fingers. “I bet it looks great on you.”
“You don’t think it’s too . . . gay?”
Lauren grinned. “Considering you’ll be at the party with your girlfriend, I say lean in.”
She thought back to what Asa had said earlier, about having dated dudes before. She’d had a vague idea that his relationship history was more varied than hers, but she didn’t know exactly what that meant for how he defined himself now, or who he was interested in. A part of her was dying just to ask Kiki, but she knew that it wasn’t really any of her business, and it would be squirrelly to put Kiki on the spot just to satisfy her idle curiosity. Because that was all it was—his comment had made her curious.
Another comment from Kiki that afternoon also kept sticking in her brain. “What did you mean earlier, when you said you’d read into my reason for not coming to Thanksgiving?”
Kiki shrugged, still looking down at the jumpsuit, spreading it across the bed as if she needed to see the whole thing to better assess it. “Everyone knows you and Asa don’t get along,” she said. “You think he’s a clown, and he thinks you’re the ultimate wet blanket.”
Something about the way she said it—the ultimate wet blanket—made Lauren positive that it was a direct quote from Asa himself. She could hear the way he’d say it. It would come out exasperated, both fists in his hair as he pulled it away from his head, as if she was driving him so crazy he almost couldn’t contain it. Or it would come out snarky, a casual aside while he was busy doing something else, a flippant comment tossed over his shoulder.
The ultimate wet blanket. That was Lauren.
“I’m thirsty,” she said, her throat feeling suddenly tight. “Would you mind if I—”
Kiki waved her hand vaguely toward the door. “Sure,” she said. “Help yourself. Sorry, I should’ve offered.”
Lauren found a glass in the cupboard and filled it from the filtered water dispenser in the fridge door. She took a long, cool gulp of water before holding the glass to her cheek. Her face was getting that hot feeling like it did before she was about to cry, which was ridiculous. She knew what Asa thought of her. And although she’d never used the exact word, clown was fairly accurate for the way she’d always thought of him. He seemed to treat everything like it was one big lark, from his job to his stupid hair.
There were various papers cluttering the surface of the fridge, held in place by quirky magnets from a bouffant-sporting psychic in Cassadaga, a local pizza place, and a quote from John Waters—“True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.” There was also a sticky pad grocery list with a pen clipped to it, and maybe it was the John Waters quote, or maybe it was ultimate wet blanket still rattling around in Lauren’s head, but she set her water down on the counter. Ripping off a piece of the sticky pad, she drew a little word bubble and then wrote inside: I’m getting a strong “A” vibe . . . Asa? Ass?
She slapped the note on the fridge, making it look like the words were coming from the psychic, and replaced the pen where she’d gotten it. There.
It might be juvenile as hell, but it certainly wasn’t wet blanket. And weirdly, it made her feel better. That would teach him to mess with her to-do list.
Chapter
Four
It was almost ten by the time Asa got home from work. Somehow Marcus had convinced him to do the dirtiest parts of the closing checklist, including mopping the lobby, taking the trash out to the dumpster, and checking under the bleachers for gum. There was always gum.
He was tired, and what he definitely wasn’t up for was a call with his older sister, who’d probably want to make the case again for why bygones should be bygones, family was family, and on and on. But Becca’d called three times in a row, and it was the rule of sisters—any summons made thrice had to be answered. Or maybe he was thinking of fairy-tale witches.
It might be too late to call by then, but Asa dialed her anyway, figuring that was what she got. Sure enough, she picked up almost right away, sounding annoyingly undisturbed.
“About time,” she said. “What’s the point of having a cell phone at all?”
“I was at work,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. He had no direct issue with Becca. She’d been collateral damage when he’d moved out of their parents’ house. Been kicked out. Whatever the current party line was.
“Did you get the baby shower invite?”
“Uh . . .”
“Shut up,” she said. “I know you did. The United States Postal Service is extremely reliable, no matter what the check-is-in-the-mail people want you to think. I addressed it very carefully and mailed it out three weeks ago.”
“Didn’t realize you were part of the USPS lobby,” Asa said, but she had him and she knew it. “I do live with housemates, you know. And I’m not the one who usually gets the mail—that’s Elliot.”
He’d pulled into the driveway, holding the phone between his cheek and his shoulder as he climbed out of the car. He could picture the invitation—he’d sliced open the egg-yolk yellow envelope himself, turned it over to see the dancing brown sock monkeys with their red yarn bow ties. Becca had always had a thing for sock monkeys.
The lights were all on in the house. Asa really didn’t feel like continuing this conversation with an audience, so he leaned against the hood of his car, sighing down into the phone.
“Becca,” he said. “They’ll be there.”
“Well, it’s a Sunday. But yeah, they might be—they’re about to be grandparents. And you’re about to be an uncle, and I’d just—” Her voice hitched with an unusual emotion coming from his no-nonsense big sister. “I’d really like you there. Please? It’s the nineteenth, at ten in the morning. My house. I can send you the address if you don’t have it.”
“I have it.”
She was quiet for a moment, and Asa could almost hear all the things they could say to fill that silence. He could ask if they’d considered names yet, if they were doing stuff like putting plastic covers over all the outlets, or he could apologize for not coming to her wedding. And she’d talk about painting the nursery and how much she missed being able to drink and tell him it was fine, she understood.
But it wasn’t fine. It killed him, but he also didn’t see any way to change things. Not unless his parents were willing to change, and he doubted they ever would.
“I gotta go,” he said. “You take care of yourself, all right? And the baby.”
“Of course. And you’ll—”
Asa hung up. It was a coward’s move, but that was what he was. A big, fat coward.
When he walked through his front door, all three of his housemates were on the couches, watching a terrible dating reality show John was obsessed with and the rest of them tolerated. Well, secretly more than tolerated.
“Just in time,” Elliot said, looking over their shoulder. “They haven’t made the eliminations yet.”
Elliot claimed to watch the show out of purely professional curiosity, based on the one article they’d written about the trans representation last season. As a health writer, Elliot’s main beat wasn’t usually entertainment, and they’d vowed to never write for that particular publication again after it took six months to chase down their fifty-dollar check. And yet here they were, still watching the show. For research.
Kiki never turned down anything she could make fun of, and she was Asa’s main partner in watching Hallmark holiday movies until they couldn’t stand another second of ex–sitcom stars in henleys. The trick was not to watch anything you actually liked with Kiki, as she showed no mercy in ripping any media to shreds.
Of all his housemates, John was the biggest mystery. He used to be the guitarist in some one-hit-wonder band, apparently. Asa had no idea how royalties worked, but he knew that John still made money off that song—enough that he didn’t need to work aside from playing a few gigs here and there with various local bands. Despite any rock-star stereotype, though, John was a homebody and kept to himself. Most nights, Asa found him a lot like he was now—his wild black curls sticking out over the top of the couch as he watched this show, a bowl of cereal in his lap.
“It’ll be that guy,” Asa said after watching a few minutes of the episode. An earnest ginger was doing a talking head about how much he’d given up to be on the show, but how worth it the experience was for the chance to meet the love of his life. “He’s talking sacrifices. That’s a death knell.”
“Yeah, but the other guy cried on his phone call home,” John pointed out.
“Fuck,” Asa said. “They’re onto me.”
So far, he’d been able to predict who was going home the last five episodes. He was very proud of his streak. He would’ve liked to settle in and hang out, see which unlucky bastard would have his dreams crushed on streaming television, but he’d told himself he would at least start thinking about his idea to revamp Cold World. He went into the kitchen to grab a drink from the fridge, planning to take it back to his room while he worked.
He almost missed the note, but his own name caught his eye. There was a word bubble suspended over one of their magnets: I’m getting a strong “A” vibe . . . Asa? Ass? It was a fairly regular occurrence at the house, them all riffing on one another, coming up with new and creative ways to call each other names. But he would know that scratchy, crowded handwriting anywhere, despite only really studying it for the first time that day.
He leaned out into the living room, grasping the kitchen doorframe with one hand. “When was Lauren here?”
“Oh, uh,” Kiki said, not taking her eyes from the TV. “Earlier.”
“Why was she here?”
That got Kiki to peel her attention away from the show. “She was returning my red dress,” she said. “What’s it to you?”
It was nothing. It was weird, that was all. The day that they both got an opportunity at work, the day that he’d offered to work together and she’d shut him down in no uncertain terms . . . that was the day she showed up at his house for the first time? And he wasn’t even there.
Plus, he thought she’d had some big plans for tonight. He wondered if that meant they’d gotten canceled or pushed back. He wondered if she regretted saying no to Daniel’s dinner invite.
He couldn’t get her voice out of his head, the way she’d said there had to be something in it for the winner of Dolores’ little contest. Whatever it was, she’d made it clear that she was in it to win it. Well, so was he.
He did know Cold World better than anyone. Maybe better than Dolores herself, at least in a boots-on-the-ground kind of way. When he’d gotten hired there, he’d been barely out of high school, staying at a friend’s while he figured out where to go. Someone from the church had seen him making out with his then-boyfriend, and had sent pictures to his pastor father. He never did discover who it was, but it didn’t really matter—the damage was done. He was out.
Officially, his first job at Cold World had been Snow Globe Guard. That wasn’t a recognized title, but was essentially what the role had amounted to. He would stand just inside the doorway to the Snow Globe and make sure people were being responsible with the fake snow (mostly, that there weren’t kids shoving it into their younger siblings’ faces when their parents weren’t watching). He’d ask people not to put it in their pockets, reminding them that it would melt. After ten minutes, he’d politely encourage them to move on to another feature, to give the next group of people a chance to play in the snow.
He definitely knew Cold World better than Lauren. She’d only worked there for two years, and in the front office. He doubted she’d even been in the Snow Globe.
Asa pulled out a sketchpad from his desk, settling onto his bed with the pad on his lap. Art had always been one way he could express himself, a place where he could tuck every emotion or memory or whim without needing to explain it. Just colors and lines and composition. He could draw a boy on the stairs, reaching for a hand he’d never grasp, and Elliot would say something like, “Cool, man.”
He liked the idea that he could put so much into a piece and then let it speak for itself. But for whatever reason, he didn’t like the idea of just anyone entering into that conversation. At one point, he’d thought maybe he’d try to make a career out of his art—selling stuff independently, or looking into graphic design school, or whatever that might entail. But then he thought of putting himself out there over and over, and he just couldn’t do it. Big, fat coward.
Well, maybe this was his opportunity to do something with his art, even if it was just to design a new look for Cold World. The problem was that his mind was a total blank. He doodled a few snowflakes, wrote out the letters and traced over them several times, even drew a little snow globe with a wintry scene inside.
Lauren would hate playing Snow Globe Guard. She’d overly police everyone’s fun, and get flustered if people didn’t seem like they were moving on fast enough. He might be struggling to think of an idea to revamp the place, but suddenly he had a hell of a good idea as to how to make the competition more fun.
* * *
• • •
He showed up early for his shift the next day, heading into the Chalet to see if he could find Dolores. She had an office there, technically, but could be found just as often wandering around the place. There were some days when she didn’t come in at all, taking off-site meetings with possible vendors or representatives from the city who were always changing some minor code or regulation that sent Dolores into a tailspin. No matter what, she always stayed hands-on with the business, and Asa respected that about her. It would’ve been easy for her to be an absentee owner, signing their paychecks but otherwise invisible to most of the staff.
Asa had no doubt that if Daniel ended up inheriting this place, that was the kind of owner he’d be. Not that Asa would be around long enough to know—a change in ownership from mother to son would be the one thing guaranteed to make him quit.
Luckily, Dolores was in her office, and he gave a perfunctory knock on her open door to get her attention. Today’s outfit included a blouse printed with polka dots of all different colors, and she had her silver-streaked hair piled high on the top of her head. He had to marvel at how rare it was to see her in the same look twice.
“Asa!” she said with a huge smile. “Let me guess. You have a question about the presentations.”
