Mikey lowers his eyes to his plate of sweet potato fries and vinegary green beans. “Yeah,” he says, “I’ll be gone about three months. It’s summer, so I won’t miss out on any school. It’s a really big chance for the band. And I’m the manager, right? Manager slash van driver, I should say. I mean, I don’t get paid or anything, but maybe this will turn into something. Maybe a record. This is all super positive.”
He pushes the plate toward me. “You’ll be cool, right?” He looks at me with a look that really says I need you to be cool.
The fries I’ve stacked look like a tiny orange log cabin. There’s a buzzing in the air; some of the hanging lights on the restaurant deck are fritzing, going dim.
I count in my head: three months. June, July, August.
“It’s a long time.” He plucks a fry from the cabin and it falls apart. Salt glints on his lips. “A friend is subletting my place.”
I can’t stop thinking that when he goes, I will be alone again.
“Are you going to do Ariel’s class? That would be really good for you. You might meet some people, too.”
I move food around my plate. “She said they’d all be older.”
“She was just joking. I helped her last summer. They weren’t all old. And I think if she wants to help you, you should let her, you know? It might help her, too.”
I put down my fork, suddenly pissed. “Help her? How could I help her? Hello, look at me.”
Mikey frowns. “Don’t be like that. I just mean…” He takes a breath. “Her son died. A couple of years ago, before I moved into the guest house. Drug overdose. I think…I don’t know all the circumstances, really, but she hadn’t heard from him for a long time before it happened. She’s always talking about you to me. I think her wanting to help you…maybe makes her feel more hopeful? She really was in a bad place for a long time.”
I suck in my breath. Ariel’s son died. An overdose. Here I thought she had such a perfect, pretty life, filled with art and interesting things, all the time.
Now I know what she meant in the gallery. Why she said, “I know you.” Why that cloud passed over her eyes.
The thought fills me with a weird heaviness. Is that why she was so pushy with me about finding a place to live, finding a job, taking her class? To make sure I didn’t…become like her son? Disappear, too?
I think of the paintings in her house. So, so dark, with just a little light, but the light is turning away from the dark.
“Her paintings,” I say slowly. “Those really dark ones in her house. When I saw those, all I could think of was that only a really sad person could have made them.”
He nods. “She hasn’t painted since then. She did all of those in a rush, right after he died, then she just stopped. Zilch. Nothing.”
He says cautiously, “Bunny’s around, too, if you need anything. It wouldn’t kill you to get to know her.”
The mention of Bunny knifes me. I shred my napkin, gather the stained bits in a mound on the table, blow them away like snow. Mikey smiles. Michael smiles.
“Serious. She’s really cool. I mean, you don’t have to be such a cold fish, okay?”
My face colors. “Cold fish? What the fuck?”
“You know, Charlie, it’s just…well, you know. I mean, you’re not the most outgoing person, are you? You were always kind of…remote, right, back in the day? Now you’re more or less, I don’t know…” Mikey stutters, sighs. “I mean, plenty of people would like you, but you don’t even give them a chance. This is your chance, right here, now, to change some things. Make the right friends.”
“Make the right friends? What are you even talking about, Michael?” Make the right friends? I feel like our conversation has taken a weird turn.
“Charlie.” His voice has cooled. “Listen. Bunny says she’s seen you walking with Riley West. You know she works at Caruso’s, right? Across from Grit? She’s seen you two walking to Grit together in the morning.”
I twist a fry between my lips with my tongue and waggle it at him. I’m mad, and scared, that he’s going, and I want to be mean to him.
“What’s going on there, Charlie?”
“Why do you care?”
He grabs the French fry from my mouth and pushes it against my plate, an angry little mash of pale potato guts.
“Riley West was tremendously talented. But now he’s a tremendous waste. Don’t go there. He has a…history. You shouldn’t get messed up with him when you should be working on your own recovery. That’s what I mean by making the right friends.”
“He gave me a job. A fucking job washing dishes.” I push the plate away angrily. “He can’t fucking get up in the morning, so I go over and get him. Don’t worry, Michael, I’m just his alarm clock. I mean, who’s going to want to fuck me when I’m all scarred and crap? Not you, right? You wiped your mouth after we kissed.”
Mikey’s face flushes. “You tasted like beer, that’s why I wiped my mouth. I don’t drink, and you tasted like beer and I have a girlfriend.”
I can’t stop it, it all comes tumbling out in a hot rush. “And what kind of conversation should I have with my potential suitor, Michael, when he asks me how I spent the last year? Shall I tell him that I spent it eating rancid food? Or helping my friends rob men in the park? Did you know that, Michael ? You left and I lost Ellis. I was alone and I did what I had to do. And now I look like a freak. And I feel like a freak. I don’t think you need to worry about my dating life.”
His face is blazing red. “I’m sorry, Charlie. That’s not…just keep your shit together, okay? The object is to move forward, not back, right? I don’t want you to get hurt. More hurt.”
He reaches out and takes my hand. I try to pull it away, but he grips it tight. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Charlie. Not one thing. Can’t you see that?”
But that’s a lie, isn’t it? Because there are so many things wrong with me, obviously and actually. What I want Mikey to say is: There are so many things wrong with you and it doesn’t matter.
I have one hand on the stone in my pocket and the other one trapped in Mikey’s grasp. What I want to tell him is: You left once, and look what happened, and now you’re leaving again, and I’m scared, because I don’t know how to be with people, but I don’t know how to be alone, either, and I thought I wasn’t going to be alone again here.
And how is it even possible to be more hurt than I’ve been in the past year?
But all I say is “I’ll miss you, Mikey. I’ll be okay. I promise.”
—
When I get home, I wait until it’s dark and then I ride my bicycle over to Ariel’s house. I don’t lock my bike, just lean it against a pole, since I’m not staying. There are no lights on in her house, though I can see a stream of whitish light from the backyard, where she has some strands hanging. I walk quickly up her steps and put the little brown bag up against the screen door. Inside is the red, glittery cross, and a little note that says I’m sorry.
