The Year of Second Chances, page 4
Great, I told Colin Q. As long as we met somewhere public. He agreed. Looking forward to it. The period at the end of the message seemed too formal, too final, so I added a smiling emoji. I got into bed.
After a minute, I scooted toward the space where Gabe had slept for ten years. Sometimes I imagined it still warm, as if he’d just gotten up to go to the bathroom. Tonight I paused before I reached his side and propped both pillows behind my head. It felt strange, to stretch my legs out in a V across the cool expanse of sheets. But I must have stayed long enough to fall asleep. I found myself waking up the next day there, in the center.
4
My secret . . .
Nice try.
My office is almost exactly the average size of a walk-in closet in a suburban house. A framed picture of Gabe and me from our wedding sits next to my monitor, along with my company mug full of highlighters and pens, and an old family photo from when Dad was alive. The place where I work, which towers above most buildings in Minneapolis’s jagged blue skyline, has products in nine out of ten residences in the United States. To put it simply: we make chemicals. I work for the sticky division, including paper notes with sticky backs, and my job is essentially to make sure the sticky people get paid. And when everyone gets paid, I play Sudoku.
Whenever I opened the Bubbl app, which I had been doing more and more, I turned the wedding photo toward the wall, keeping Gabe’s past self innocent of my indiscretions.
I was starting to recognize the flood of dopamine I got when I pressed the icon and found more messages—same as when I saw my initials on the leaderboard in my Sudoku app. You waxed? You look like a tightass. I want to lick your feet. Little fires they would set in my head, little fires I had to put out. It was becoming a game, and in the game I’d chosen, my avatar’s job was to deploy insults I’d never be ballsy enough to use in real life. Did I give you permission to talk about my anatomy? I would type, adrenaline pumping as I ignored the chimes of my work inbox.
The problem was that many of the men found me telling them off just as titillating as if I had welcomed them into my bed. Others just blocked me.
There were nice men, too, who hugged dogs and asked me what I was up to, and I never knew what to say. Sitting at my desk? Heating up leftovers in the microwave? Watching teenagers run from psychos in masks on my TV? Nothing interesting, I’d tell them, and somehow I would always find myself drifting back toward the vulgar advances, eager for battle.
I’d almost forgotten about Colin Q until he sent me a message on Friday evening, asking—what else—what I was doing. I looked beyond the small screen of my phone to the large screen of my TV, which was playing the cursed carnival-ground scene of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Watching Leatherface be Leatherface, I responded to Colin Q’s query.
When I had run out of reality shows, I had started filling dead air with all the old slashers and horror I used to watch when I was younger. I liked to look up how the wounds were carefully constructed from glue and strawberry syrup, how monsters were made from liquid latex and spirit gum. Now, I knew it was a little messed up, but there was something comforting about watching people scream and run from death when I couldn’t. Their hurt would be over, for better or worse.
After a few minutes, Colin wrote, Texas Chainsaw?
Yep.
Confession, I had to google “Leatherface,” he wrote.
That must have been an interesting set of results . . . Most people didn’t like this one compared to the original, but this was some of Tom Savini’s best special-effects work.
Are we still on for a date?
My stomach churned. A date. I’d pushed out the invitation last week like an inconvenient chore I’d wanted to get out of the way. I looked at Colin’s pictures again. Since our last message, he had added another photo in what appeared to be his bathroom, looking at his own reflection with an exaggerated eyebrow cock. “Oh, Colin,” I muttered to myself.
I can’t, I typed, then erased it. I pulled up the profile Gabe had filled out, as I often did when the thrill wore off, when I felt overwhelmed by the stream of rectangled faces. I could picture my husband in the exact spot where I sat on the couch, sprawled next to a bowl of plain Chex, laughing to himself as he composed all my dating-profile answers on his gamer laptop with its clunky keyboard. I imagined snuggling up next to him, reading them over his shoulder, giggling together as he poked fun at me in ways only he could. Seeing myself through his eyes was making me fall in love with him all over again.
I’d made a commitment. To Gabe, if not to Colin Q. The guilt at not following through would be worse than the nerves. Probably.
Name the time and place, I typed and pressed Send.
That Saturday, I wandered through the aisles of Target before the date, loading my arms with amenities. Extra makeup in case I was feeling insecure about my lasagna-puffed face. Green tea to keep me from yawning after a long day of shopping at all the stores we didn’t have in Brokenridge. It would soon be time to meet Colin Q at the restaurant he’d chosen, something with the word Bowl in the name, and I was beginning to panic.
What if he asked about my relationship history? What if my breath smelled like the Swedish meatballs I had eaten for lunch in the IKEA cafeteria? What if—and I had a feeling this was already happening—I sweat through my dress? Did I really care about any of this, and if I did care, did that mean I liked this person I barely knew? Did I want him to like me? Was I actually attractive, or was I just a woman on the internet? A passing glance at the mirrors in the clothing section of Target revealed someone I didn’t recognize. The dress was navy, tailored, recycled from my early twenties, back when I thought I needed to look nice for work. Stomach full of Swedish meatballs pressing against tights I’d bought for some ancient Thanksgiving. My skin looked anemic, like one of those miserable women in Dutch medieval paintings. Maybe a visit to the candy aisle would help.
“Robin? Holy shit.”
I turned. The giant shoulders of Gabe’s best friend seemed to take up the entire oral care aisle. “Levi.”
His neck-length brown hair was held back with an elastic headband, creating a curly halo around his face, and his meaty arms were almost completely covered in tattoos. I always thought he and his hound, Harpo, kind of resembled each other: both handsome if a bit jowly, both with big, sleepy eyes. We met in front of the toothpaste.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you since . . .” At a loss for words, he threw up his hands, one of which held a lemon-lime Gatorade. “Fuck,” he finished.
“The funeral, probably,” I supplied.
“How are you?” he asked, leaning closer to me as if he were speaking softly, but his voice still held the same deep, nasal volume. Even louder, he added, “Wait, you don’t live in Minneapolis now, do you?”
“No, no. Still out in Brokenridge.”
“Still in—” A puzzled look accompanied his slight smile. He pointed behind him, as if Brokenridge were in the dairy department. “Still in the old farmhouse?”
“Our house. Yes.” I pointed to his shirt, which was emblazoned with the logo of Palmer’s, the bar where he worked. “You working today?”
“I was last night.”
Now it was my turn to be confused. Palmer’s was across the city, as was Levi’s apartment, last I knew. “Did you move, or—?”
“No, I was—” He let out a gruff laugh, avoiding my eyes. “I was at a friend’s.”
“Ah,” I said. I looked at him, unable to keep the gotcha out of my smile. “Another friend, eh?”
He pointed. “Don’t judge.”
“I wasn’t!” I assured him, entirely unconvincing.
“You’re silently judging me under the guise of politeness.”
“I don’t have a guise.”
“Bullshit,” he sang in a falsetto. “I know Minnesota-nice when I hear it.”
“You’re Minnesotan, too.”
Levi scoffed. “I try not to be.”
They were mostly younger than him, Levi’s so-called friends, and they varied in size, appearance, vocation. Gabe used to come home from Levi’s shows and tell me about the latest server or activist or dancer that Levi had declared The One, and we’d make bets about how long it would last before the woman started realizing the dreamy-eyed, giant teddy bear of a man who took her on trips to his family’s cabin and fantasized about what they’d name their kids was the same Levi who prioritized NBA fantasy-league drafts over date night and ate lunch meat straight out of the package. It was the same every time. As the sheen faded, Levi knew he’d never be able to live up to the perfect-boyfriend image he’d built at the beginning, and he’d become evasive.
I tried to lower my level of upset down to nonsweating. “Sorry you thought my tone was judgmental.”
“You can’t even admit it.”
“For god’s sake. Sorry I judged, all right?”
“No, I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly self-critical. “I actually have been seeing this person for a while. And why are we even talking about this? It’s great to see you.”
I kept my eyes on the toothpaste labels. “Welp, I have to get—” I gestured toward the cash registers with my full arms.
Levi didn’t pick up the cue. Or he did and chose to ignore it. He popped open his Gatorade and wandered down the aisle, away from me. Over his shoulder, he called, “How’s your mom?” He turned, waited.
To stay within earshot, I’d have to follow. “Fine.”
“The restaurant’s good?” he asked as we walked.
“Not great. Not terrible.”
Levi nodded as he wiped his mouth after a large swallow. “Glad it’s surviving, at least. Your brother graduated, right?”
This was a common misconception about Theo that I was having to correct more and more as he entered his mid-twenties. “Not yet. He’s still got a few classes. How is the, uh . . . the band?”
Levi gave me a knowing smile. “You don’t give a shit about band stuff.”
I bristled. “That’s not true.”
“What’s our name?”
I opened my mouth, but my mind was drawing a blank. Levi and his brothers had been in a regionally famous band since Levi was in high school—successful enough to allow him to pay his rent with only occasional stretches of bartending, at least. All I remember is Gabe coming home from afternoons of watching them supposedly practice, smelling like Hamm’s, and speaking at an unnecessary volume. I sputtered, “Something about a pond?”
Levi guffawed, drawing startled stares from people near us in the aisles. “The Hidden Beaches. Don’t know why I’m even bothering to tell you, because you’re probably going to forget, but whatever.”
“So sensitive,” I muttered. Levi ignored me. The whole thing could have been avoided if he had just given me a generic Pretty good and moved on like a normal adult.
He was always doing this, poking at everyone with the truth, even when it was unnecessary. Gabe had once bought a shitty electric guitar in an attempt to join the band, and when I told him he was doing great and would probably get even better with lessons, Levi had simply said, “You suck, dude.” They didn’t speak for a month.
“Man, you hated us,” Levi was saying. “You had to be dragged to our shows. This one time, I remember seeing your face in the crowd. You literally looked like you were in pain.”
“It’s just very loud.”
“That’s the point,” he said, bumping me playfully with his shoulder. “It’s rock ’n’ roll. You get into it, you feel the energy.” He bumped my shoulder again. “There it is.” He was grinning, framing my face with his Gatorade-free hand. “There’s the face. Such an expressive disgust. Truly have never seen anything like it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What are you listening to these days?” he asked. “Recaps of Storage Wars?”
“Nothing, really. But yes, I do still watch Storage Wars. Sorry I’m not cool like you.”
He snorted. “Yeah, a thirty-three-year-old man buying butt medicine for his roommate, who happens to be a dog, so cool.”
I had to laugh. I realized we’d moved from toothpaste to the pet section.
“Harpo misses Gabe, you know. For real.”
At the mention of Gabe, we both became quiet.
Levi broke the silence. “I don’t know if you knew this, but Gabe and I always used to meet halfway between Brokenridge and the Cities at this dog park in Lino Lakes. Whenever we go there now, Harpo always looks at me confused like, Where’s our friend? He won’t even run around without me reminding him that Gabe isn’t coming.”
Imagining the hound’s confounded expression, I was surprised to find a lump in my throat. I swallowed it. “I didn’t know you guys did that.”
“God, I miss him. I keep trying to write songs for him, but I was always bad with lyrics. How do you pick words for all of those moments, you know? How do you take—what?—fourteen years of friendship and sum them up with a few lines? Whenever I’m trying to remember the big stuff, it never comes. It’s always just random moments. I’ll pick up my controller and start playing Call of Duty and I’m, like, waiting for Gabe’s voice. Waiting for that ‘Hey, dude.’” He took a deep, shaky breath. His eyes were a little wet, I noticed. “I always wrote about stupid shit so it never mattered, but now I’m, like, tearing my hair out as if Gabe is out there waiting for me to get it right.”
“Well, if he were somewhere beyond, you know, looking down on us, I’m sure he’d love whatever you came up with. It was really good to see you, Levi—”
Levi stopped in his tracks. “And I think if I miss him, you must be . . . Jesus.”
“It’s hard.” I kept moving, hoping he’d follow. We were approaching the self checkout. Levi’s declarations were having an effect, burrowing into a tender place I didn’t want to visit at the moment. My arm was cramped, and I needed to look at the time.
He didn’t move. “So what about you?”
A shopper with a cart maneuvered around us. I moved out of the center of the aisle toward the sodas and magazines. “What about me, what?”
He held his arms out. “How has it been for you? The grief?”
A businesswoman excused herself as she reached behind me for the cooler, grabbing a Diet Coke. I sidestepped. “That’s kind of personal.”
“Oh.” Levi looked confused, scratching his head with his half-empty Gatorade bottle. “Okay,” he added, trying to collect himself. “I was just asking because I hoped we could, like . . . Never mind.”
“I’m just not sure what to say.” I could feel the eyes of people nearby. I felt the familiar panic of air being vacuumed from my lungs, the tingling in my fingertips. I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel close to you that way. You and Gabe had your little thing going on, and I appreciate you sharing . . .”
“Our little thing? He was like my brother.”
It was true, and Gabe had loved Levi, too. It wasn’t as if I had hated the guy, but I didn’t like him hovering over me now, trying to claim me, trying to pretend like we were the same. “I don’t know what you want from me.” Levi looked taken aback. Heat had risen to my neck. Now I knew I was sweating, and I didn’t care. “I mean, what am I supposed to do, tell you about how I can’t sleep, and how I can’t get rid of any of his stuff? Is that what you want to hear? I haven’t seen you in a year, Levi.”
Levi stood still, blinking. “Understood.”
I didn’t move, either, trying to find normal breath and failing. His face had gotten a bit thinner since the funeral, I was noticing now, making the lines around his hazel eyes more pronounced. Levi had one of those gazes that bore into you, that made you feel as if he were inviting you to some spiritual acid trip of a place. When he was in a good mood, he was intoxicating to be around. But I had always been immune, always resisting his probing questions, his invitations to come along to dive bars. The two of them would get together every week, either in person or over gaming headsets, and I’d leave them to it.
Shame suddenly tumbled from my chest to my stomach. A shame I didn’t want but knew was probably well-deserved. Levi wasn’t the first person I’d shoved away like this, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. What was wrong with me? “I should probably get going.”
Levi pressed his lips together, held his breath, as if bracing himself for a leap into the deep end. “Listen, I do have something else. If you can stand my presence for two more seconds.”
“Of course I can,” I muttered, because unlike him, I could lie.
Levi had gotten an idea, he’d told me as we walked across the wind-blown parking lot. “It was the whole kickball team that was thinking this, actually . . .”
Every year Levi and Gabe had played for a recreational kickball team sponsored by Palmer’s, and they were as serious as they were formidable, which was not very. The whole team had driven all the way up to Brokenridge for the funeral, wearing their neon-green kickball uniforms under formal jackets. I smiled at the thought. Had I sent any of them a card? I couldn’t remember.
“We were thinking we could have a memorial game,” Levi was saying. He drummed his fingers on a box of dewormer for Harpo, speaking with excitement now. “Maybe donate the proceeds to a cancer-related charity Gabe would have liked. I wish I had thought of it earlier, so we could have done it for the one-year anniversary, but hey, better late than never.”
I paused unlocking my car door and looked at him. “So, is this you asking me to help out, or just telling me about it?”
“Whichever you want. You were always so great at putting stuff together. You are, I mean.”
I tossed my items on the passenger seat. “For charity, you said? Which charity?”
“I don’t know, I mean . . .” He swallowed. “If it’s all right with you, I was thinking we could use any money we raise to help families dealing with cancer. Since you saw the toll it can take firsthand.”
“Oh.” I faltered. “Yeah. Totally.” So many numb, grayscale days. I looked at Levi. “We both did.”
