![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieBesides, even though my parents and I are on speaking terms again and I'm trying not to be quite so antagonistic, I could not be less interested in doing anything for my mother that involves any more effort than finding something vaguely inoffensive to wear when I see her.
“It's in three months,” Tristan goes on. “I have some ideas. I think a surprise party would be fun.”
“Do you know our mother at all? She'll be pissed we planned a party for her without her.”
“Just let me tell you my ideas. I know she'll like at least one of them.”
“How about you send them to me, and I'll close my eyes and pick one? That's about as much involvement as I want. I'm busy, Tristan. I don't have time to spend on planning a surprise party for someone who's just going to pick it apart. Well, she'll pick apart what I did.”
“No she won't. We'll plan it together, I'll call all the places, I'll deal with the invitations, you won't have to actually do anything. But I need your opinion.”
“My opinion is that you're setting yourself up for trouble.” I gently push Diego out of the way and sit on the couch. He sniffs my bowl of ice cream. Kay picks him up and puts him on his lap, but Diego is more interested in stalking something invisible around the room, as we discover when he jumps off the couch and starts prowling around. “Can you call me later?” I ask my sister. “It's late and I can't think about anything other than why my cat is staring at the wall.”
“When did you get a cat?”
“A few weeks ago. Don't change the subject.” I don't know where Tristan learned that from – our mother will hang on to any point of discussion and beat it into the ground, whether you want to keep talking about it or not. She can't be dissuaded, and she can't be distracted, and she will refuse to let you be distracted either. And Tristan's husband, who I actually mostly like, doesn't argue. He'll say his piece, let you say yours, and do what he wants anyway. There's no back-and-forth, so there's no chance to change the subject.
“You want me to call you tomorrow,” Tristan says, “so you can tell me a second time you don't want to be part of the planning.”
“Pretty much. Mom doesn't like me, you know that. Why should I put myself out to plan something for her?”
“Because she's your mother! Because she and Daddy will have been married for forty years! That's a milestone.”
I wonder what the traditional fortieth anniversary gift is. Whatever it is, the present I end up giving them will be my part of planning and paying for this ridiculous surprise party that my sister wants to throw.
“You want to do the equivalent of having me pick out a card and you just sign it,” she continues.
“Pretty much. I'll write you a check for my part of it.”
She makes a frustrated, annoyed noise. “You're hopeless.”
“You're just figuring that out now? People have been telling me that for years.”
“Forget it. I'll plan it and let you know what I decided."
“Just don't make it a whole weekend, ok? I can't take that kind of time off.”
That isn't strictly true – if I want to take a vacation, I can, because it's my studio and I can set my own hours, although I'd have to make sure my appointment book was clear – but it is true when the whole weekend means being stuck somewhere with what Tristan probably wants to be the entire family, on both sides.
“Sometimes I can't believe we were raised by the same parents,” Tristan sighs. “I'll talk to you later. Have a good night.”
“You too.” I hang up. “My sister wants to plan a surprise anniversary party for our parents,” I tell Kay, who has been petting Diego absently and trying not to pay attention to my conversation.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asks.
“For me? Yes. My mother doesn't like surprises because she likes to be in charge. I don't want to spend time and money planning a party for someone who won't appreciate it, especially when it's someone who doesn't appreciate me.”
To his credit, he doesn't argue with me and try to tell me that of course she appreciates me, she's my mother.
“I'll be perfectly happy if she plans it herself and just lets me know what she's done,” I add. “I'll send her a check and show up at the appointed time with the appropriate clothes and hopefully an appropriate gift.” I finish my ice cream. I'm done talking about it. “Don't think I hate my parents. I just don't like my mother that much. My father's much easier to get along with.”
“I don't talk to either of my parents,” Kay says. “My dad bailed when I was ten, and my mom is, um, I don't know where she is.”
And here I am bitching that my mother doesn't like me. I know there's more to it, but Kay doesn't, and now I feel like an insensitive bitch. Because I don't know that much about him, I don't know what kind of home he grew up in, but I do know he lives in a house with friends and not relatives, and now I know his grandfather doesn't want to put up with him for more than a week, and I can only assume he went to his grandfather's house in the first place because his parents wouldn't have sent him money for the bus.
Not that my mother would have either, if I needed to leave the place I was living and didn't have enough money of my own to go anywhere. But Grandma Dolly would have, and I like to think that if I were in Kay's situation and I called my Aunt Donnie, she would have sent me money and had me come stay with her.
“That sucks,” I say. “I'm sorry.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. It's ok.”
“Well, you're here now, and you know if you're stuck somewhere, you can call me and I'll come get you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He grins at me. I roll my eyes.
Diego gets tired of chasing his invisible prey and climbs up my leg, walks across me, and makes a loaf between me and Kay on the couch. I get up and take my bowl and spoon into the kitchen, and Kay follows me.
“I want to think my mom tried,” he tells me, “after Dad left. I don't know if she ever even wanted kids – Grandpa said something once that made me think maybe she didn't, like I was a mistake – but I don't think she wanted to be a total failure. You know what I mean? Like, she had a kid, she had to try and be a mother. She wasn't... she wasn't a great mom. But at least she was there, for a while.” He leans against the counter, watching me rinse the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. “Grandpa was kind of around, but he wanted her to do it herself. I heard him tell her once, he said she was a grown-up, she wanted to be treated like one, so he was going to do that. And that meant he wasn't going to raise her kid for her. I was, I think I was ten or eleven. He said I couldn't raise myself yet, so it was up to her to raise me.”
“So if you'd been sixteen, they would have left you to your own devices?”
“Probably, yeah. I don't know. It might've been better.” He pushes himself off the counter. “I don't think I meant to tell you that.”
“Should I pretend you didn't say anything?”
“No, it's out now. It's ok.” He shrugs. “You were just talking about your mom.” He abruptly goes back to the sitting room, where I can distantly hear him talking to the cat. I follow him.
The movie we were watching is almost over, and by the time the credits roll I want to go to bed. Kay has been sleeping with me – and I have never been so grateful I have a big bed – it's still a little weird but it's like sharing a bed with my brother, if I had a brother, and I can't bring myself to mind that much. The only problem is that Diego also likes to sleep in my bed, and he's capable of taking up at least half the space available to him, whether that space is one side of the bed or just the tiny stretch of mattress between myself and Kay. Sometimes I wake up, or am woken up, feeling a little crowded in my own bed.
But mostly what this means is that Kay has been going to bed when I do, because he doesn't want to be left alone. He said he doesn't feel the same sense of foreboding that he did before he up and left, so I don't know what he's afraid of, but I don't really want to ask. It seems like prying, and while I can be as nosy and gossipy as the next girl, Kay is my friend and I don't want to ask him about something that's really none of my business.
What it also means is that I tend to wake up first, usually because Diego wants to be fed and can wake me in the most insistent and yet most polite way possible, and I can feed and water him, change my clothes, do my morning yoga, and be making coffee and contemplating a shower by the time Kay rolls out of bed.
This morning he surprises me by getting up not long after I do, so I ask if he wants to learn my morning yoga routine.
“I've never done yoga,” he says.
“Is that a yes? Because it doesn't sound like a no.”
“I guess. Sure, why not.”
I show him some basic poses, roll out my mat, put on my yoga playlist – songs I know well enough that I don't have to pay attention to them, making them good background music – and take him through the routine. It's a lot of stretching and holding poses, intended to wake me up both physically and mentally, and Kay is not very good at it. He seems to be flexible enough, but none of the poses are things he's done before, and yoga as a whole isn't something he's used to, and I don't want to take the time to keep correcting his form and showing him how to get the most out of it. But at least he's game to try, and he's trying to keep up with me, and that makes up for a lot. Diego tries to climb all over both of us, but while I nudge him off, Kay lets him have his way.
I shower, Kay makes breakfast, I clean up, he helps me make the bed, I take him with me to run all my morning errands. He hangs out at Suzume Tattoos for part of the day, and then he tells me he's finally ready to go back to the house he shares with his friends.
He gets me lost twice, apparently unused to giving directions to someone in a car, but we get there eventually. The house is old and run-down and way off the beaten path, although he tells me there's a bus stop about a quarter mile down the street. It doesn't quite look big enough to house eight people, although it's not a small house and it does look like it has a basement. I don't know why I thought Kay and all his housemates would each have their own room, but I did, and this place doesn't look nearly big enough to have eight dedicated bedrooms. But they could be sleeping in the attic, or the basement, or they're probably just doubling up in however many bedrooms there are.
“Thank you,” Kay says as I pull up. There's a driveway but unsurprisingly no cars in it. The lawn needs to be mowed and landscaped. I realize how much like my mother I'm starting to sound in my head, and remind myself that when I was in college and for a couple years after I graduated, I lived in places much like this one, with about the same degree of outward care.
“It was nothing,” I tell him, and I mean it. It's really no hardship for me to let him stay at my house for a few days. “You're a very good houseguest. You play with my cat and make me breakfast.”
“I had to do something to kind of pay you back.”
“No you don't. But the next time you feel the urge to take off, let me know first, ok?”
“Ok.” He leans across the front seat and hugs me. “I think everything's ok now. I mean, I don't see anything, I'm not totally overwhelmed.”
“Good. Come by the studio sometime, let me know how things are going at the house.”
“Ok.” He slides back across the seat and out of the car, grabbing his backpack on the way. “Say goodbye to Diego for me.”
“I will. Take care of yourself.”
“I'll try.” He waves and heads up the walk to the front door. I wait for him to go inside before I drive back to the studio.
There are surprisingly three people waiting for me – Ben and Alene, Kay's friends from before, and another girl with a gold heart painted on her cheek and bleached-blonde hair held back with a bunch of little heart-shaped pins.
The Queen of Hearts, my brain helpfully supplies. That can't possibly be her real name, and it reminds me of my art school days and some of the pretentious things my friends and I wanted people to call us.
“If you're looking for Kay,” I tell them, “I just took him home. That means your timing is either really good or really bad.” I know which one it is for me. I have work to do.
“What was he doing at your house?” Alene demands.
“Playing with my cat. Doing my dishes. Watching TV. Maybe even meditating. Now if you don't mind, I have things to do.” I brush past them.
“Is he ok?” the other girl calls.
“He's better than he was,” I call back. “Other than that, you'll have to ask him yourself.” I hear them murmuring to each other behind me, but I'm on my way to the office and don't have the time or the patience to pay attention.
They're gone ten minutes later, when I come back out of the office with the stencil for my next client. I'm relieved.
“They waited almost half an hour for you,” Kona tells me. “They were pretty quiet, at least. I thought the girl with the heart on her face might actually book an appointment with one of us, but no dice.”
“If their situation is anything like Kay's,” I say, “none of them have the money to pay us.”
“I'd work something out. Hey, you want to come over for dinner tomorrow? Royal's gonna grill everything before we make him put the grill away for the winter.”
“Why would you put your grill away? It's still warm enough to use it.” I put on some gloves and start spraying everything at my station and wiping it down.
“That's what I said. Billie says we should cover it for the season and Royal can't say no to her.” Billie is their girlfriend. I think she's originally from somewhere in New York – not Manhattan, but somewhere up north, like Buffalo – somewhere it snows, where people might conceivably have a very defined grilling season followed by an equally-defined not-grilling season. The fact that Royal will be putting his grill away for the winter probably makes more sense to her, considering that she's probably used to having too much snow and cold to use it.
But we don't get that kind of winter, and I know people grill well into the colder months. Besides, even if they didn't, it's still warm enough to cook your food outdoors.
“I promise he won't try to make you eat sausage again,” Kona says.
“That was one time,” I reassure him. It was at a brunch at Kona and Billie's house, and Royal tried to convince me the sausage in the breakfast scramble he made was vegetarian sausage. It wasn't, and I knew that the second I tasted it. I did not spit out the scramble, because it was eggy and filling, with potatoes and onions and cheese as well as the sausage, and it was very good, but I did give Royal the hairy eyeball every time he offered me anything to eat that I hadn't already tried. He apologized later for trying to trick me into eating meat, possibly because Kona said something to him, and while I did accept his apology, I'm wary of anything he makes that isn't readily identifiable.
But you can't grill a casserole or a scramble, and it's hard to hide bacon, as an example, on a grilled eggplant.
“So is that a yes?” Royal asks me.
“It's a yes. Should I bring anything?”
“A salad, I think. It doesn't have to be a lettuce salad. Oh! Bring that corn salad you made last time.” I've made it before for gatherings. “Maya and Jonathan are going to bring a dessert. I looked at the appointment book and we should all be done by seven. You can come over right after you close up.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I think I have everything I need for the corn salad at home, but I should stop by the store on the way home, just in case.
My next client is late, so much so that I try to call him to see where he is. He must be in transit and unwilling to answer while he's driving, because the phone rings and rings without even going to voice mail. I wait. And wait. And talk to a couple of walk-ins. And cross him out of the appointment book with a notation that says “So late I had to cancel”. This doesn't happen often – usually when a client has to cancel, they call and let us know – and when it does, I get really annoyed. This is how I make a living, and if I know someone's going to cancel, sometimes I can find someone else to take their appointment.
On the other hand, I do get two new appointments from the walk-ins, although one of them is clearly only interested in the flash, which is a little disappointing, because given a choice, what tattoo artist worth his or her ink wouldn't want to put their own original design on someone? The fact that I've designed some of the flash myself isn't the same thing.
Fortunately I'm booked when the person who wants the flash can come in, so I foist him off on Maya, because she's not here to say no, and her schedule is open. I share this with Kona after the two walk-ins leave, and he laughs at me.
“You're a bad person,” he says.
“I am not,” I say, pretending offense. “I'm a good person. I was booked, and Maya was free, and she hadn't blocked off that time for personal reasons, so I gave her a client. If he likes his first tattoo, he'll come back, and maybe she'll get to design something herself for him.”
“I still think you're a bad person.”
I let it slide and take advantage of my unexpected free time to inventory my station and Maya's, to make sure we're not running out of anything.
Maya comes in eventually and I tell her I took inventory of her station and why didn't she tell me she's running low on bugpin needles? I would've ordered them a couple days ago, when I was on the phone with the place that supplies all our needles and tattoo machine parts.
“I didn't count them,” she says. “I didn't know I was almost out. I figure I could borrow some from you or Kona when I run out.” She grins brightly.
“You should have enough at your own station.”
“I have lots,” Kona calls. “I don't use them as much as you do.”
Bugpins are very thin needles, used a lot for shading and making nice gradients. I don't like them so much, but Maya uses them for portrait work. Consequently I don't tend to keep many of them at my station, so if Maya's looking for some, she shouldn't come to me.
“I don't think I'll need them today,” Maya tells me. “I don't have any portraits until tomorrow.”
“I'm going to order some,” I say, “but just make sure you let me know when you start to run low again.”
“Yes'm.” She grins again and I go back to the office to place the order.
A little later I notice something that looks suspiciously like an eggplant floating around Kona's head before disappearing, and for once I'm amused more than anything else at my random vision. I take it to mean that Royal will be grilling at least one eggplant tomorrow night, so I won't starve. I know from past experience that when most people say “I'm going to be grilling tomorrow”, they mean “I'm going to be slapping a lot of meat on my grill tomorrow”, and that can be hard on the vegetarians in the group. The presence of an eggplant, as hallucinogenic as it is, is reassuring.
I haven't seen anything else all day, which is also reassuring.
I meet Maggie the kickboxer for a drink after work – it isn't our second date, because one or the other of us keeps having to cancel and reschedule – and discover a new and fun magical talent. I'm telling her about the guy at The Drip and Donut who turned into a hedgehog, which has become an interesting story, rather than a way for me to ask people if they've ever heard of that kind of thing before, and when I say “Suddenly he turned back into a person, just like that”, with a snap of my fingers, I hear bells, like the bell over the door at Suzume Tattoos.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
“The bells?” Maggie says. “Was that you?”
“I don't know.” I snap my fingers again, and there's the bells again. They ring twice and stop, but it's enough for someone to hear them. “I guess it is.”
“Fascinating!” Maggie's eyes light up. “Could you always do that?”
“Never did it before tonight.”
“Really! Is that normal?”
“What, to spontaneously generate a little magic trick? Not that I know of. Well, except for now. I think I already inherited a skill from one of my friends, if you can inherit someone's magic. I guess you could consider that spontaneous.” I don't know if that's the word I'd use, but it fits well enough.
“That's so interesting. Does your friend still have it?”
“He says not. I think that's how I ended up with it, although why it chose me I have no idea.”
There's a school of thought that says that if you have any magic, it's because the magic chose you, and whatever way it manifests also chose you as the vehicle to manifest through. I don't know how I feel about that – most magic is so piddly and useless, and most of the time it doesn't have anything to do with anything else about the person who has it, there doesn't seem to be any plan or pattern for who can do what. There's also a school of thought that says if you already have some magic, you're more susceptible to another kind, as if magic talents were magnets that drew other talents closer. I never believed that because I never believed people could suddenly acquire a new little skill without training for it or even trying for it. But here I am, with three magical talents – if the snapping is really a new one, and if I'm stuck with Kay's visions – only one of which I was probably born with.
“You think magic chooses you?” Maggie asks.
“I don't know. If I did get my friend's skill, why me? I've already got some magic. Someone else who doesn't should be gifted with this one. It's only fair.”
“What is it?”
Kay never liked to talk about his, but I don't mind. Besides, Maggie sounds intrigued and curious, and I like that in a potential date. “Sometimes I'll see something, like a vision, around someone, but it only lasts for a few seconds before disappearing. I don't know if they're visions of the future, or the past, or if what I see is a representation of something in the person's life right now, or what. Earlier today I saw an eggplant floating around Kona's head, but he'd asked me over for dinner tomorrow and told me Royal was going to grill. So I assumed the vision meant there was going to be grilled eggplant. They're not all like that, though.”
“Do you see anything about me?” She leans closer. I tilt my head, purse my lips, and pretend that she has an aura I can read.
“Nope,” I say after a while, sitting back and looking satisfied.
“Bummer.”
“I can't force it. It doesn't happen for everyone.” I snap my fingers again, just to hear the bells. “That's going to be reliable, though.”
“I like that one. I don't have magic myself – maybe you could've guessed – but my last girlfriend could tell where something had been by licking it. If I'd left my wallet on the table, she could tell that I'd left it there and not on the dresser. She knew if someone had borrowed something of hers at work and put it back before she realized it was gone. It was kind of a useful skill. It meant she had to lick things she didn't want to lick – I mean, who wants to lick a car tire? Just to see if the car had gone to the grocery store or not? - but it was helpful a bunch of times. It didn't work with people, but we had some fun figuring that out.”
“My last girlfriend didn't have magic either, but she also didn't believe that I did. It didn't help that she couldn't see it.”
“Was that the visions?”
“No, that's new. I can sometimes calm someone down a little bit by touching them. It helps at work, if I have a client who's really nervous, but I can't control it and I just have to trust that it works at least some of the time.”
Maggie holds out her hand. “Touch me.” I stroke the back of her hand, in a way that's slightly more suggestive than I was planning. She smiles. “I don't feel any more relaxed. Maybe it's busted. How do you know it still works? Maybe you changed one magic skill for another.”
“I don't think I did, but you're right, I don't know. But if I didn't, that means I have three skills now. I've never heard of anyone having more than one.”
“You're a new and exciting case.” Maggie beams. I want to beam back, because I like feeling her interest in me, but at the same time I feel a little like a specimen in a lab, like a sociological experiment. A magic experiment.
“I wonder if someone else just lost the ability to make a bell ring by snapping their fingers. Do they miss it?” Kay was relieved he couldn't see anything any more, but that was probably because he'd been seeing so much in so many places, so not being able to see anything all all would have felt really good. I haven't had the same problem, but if I lost my ability to calm people down – even though it's an unreliable skill at best – I think I might miss it. It's a part of who I am, as tiny a part as it is. It's a piece of my identity.
“Does your friend miss his visions?”
“Not at all.”
“I think I'd miss it, if I had some magic and suddenly I lost it. But maybe that would depend on what it is.”
“I'd miss it too. It's part of me. A very tiny part, but still something I've known about myself for a long time. I can't rely on it, but I like knowing it's there, and if I concentrate, I might be able to soothe a nervous client or get someone to relax. The visions, they're new, and if I woke up tomorrow and knew I'd lost them, I wouldn't mind.”
“This is so fascinating.” Maggie finishes her bourbon. Bourbon on the rocks, very simple. But good bourbon. I had a beer, because I've been in a beer mood for almost a week, and I don't generally drink wine in bars unless I'm getting dinner too.
“I don't talk about it that much,” I say. “It doesn't come up a lot.”
“I want to know more, but I really have to go. I have a huge presentation tomorrow that I still have to prepare for. Can you do brunch on Sunday?”
“I think so. I have to look at my appointment book to see when my first client is, but I should be able to make it for brunch. How about I call you tomorrow?”
“That will be good.” She pulls out her wallet, extricates some bills, and puts them on the bar. She leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “Eventually we'll have a real date.”
“Some day,” I agree.
“Drive safe.” She slides off her stool and waves goodbye as she makes her way out of the bar. I finish my beer, pay for it, and go home.
I am surprised as hell to find Kay sitting on my front steps, his backpack at his feet.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. My tone comes out a little more negative than I'd like, and Kay blinks at me, probably shocked at my reaction. I get a grip on myself. “I just took you home today. Why did you come back? How did you even get here?”
“The bus?” he answers, as if that should be obvious. “I haven't been here that long.”
“What are you – never mind, come in.” I unlock the door and usher him inside. Diego comes running and wraps himself around Kay's legs. “Diego, stop,” I tell him, as if he has any intention of listening to me. Kay picks him up and rubs their noses together. “Did you come back because of my cat?”
“Maybe.” He drapes Diego over his shoulder. “I like it here better.”
“Not permanently. Kay, you can't stay here indefinitely.”
“Why not?” He doesn't look at me, but rather addresses his question to the cat.
Because I'll want you to pay rent and you don't have a job, I want to say. Because you'll have to move into the guest room and stop sharing my bed. Because you're not my kid and I don't want to be responsible for you, and I don't want to have to keep feeding you, and I can't take care of you.
“Because you can't pay rent,” is all I actually do say.
He doesn't say anything.
“You'll have to get a job,” I go on.
“I could work at your shop,” he says quietly. “I could sweep and clean the kitchen and answer the phone and make sure your appointment book is in order.”
“I don't know if I can pay you to work full-time. I'm not sure how much I can pay you to work part-time.”
“I don't care. I can find something else too.”
You haven't so far, is what I don't say.
“Please,” he says, and now he does look at me. “I can't stay at the house. There really are too many people. Even if I'm not seeing anything any more. I just... I don't want to talk to them. Alene won't leave me alone about me going to my grandpa's house and not telling anyone. The Queen of Hearts thinks I should be left alone, but she keeps saying that – 'Leave him alone, leave him alone, Kay you should be alone, we'll let you be'. Bucknell wants to find me something to do, but I don't think I'm gonna want to do anything he finds. I can't concentrate on anything. I can't, I can't do anything. They won't leave me alone. They can't be quiet. I can't – I can't be there any more.”
His voice is urgent and desperate by the time he's finished, and I don't know what to do. I like living alone. I don't have a roommate because I don't need one. Kay hasn't been any trouble the few nights he's stayed over, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for him to move it. What if mine and Maggie's relationship gets to the point where we want to sleep together? (I'm pretty sure it will, and I'm also pretty sure it will happen sooner rather than later.) We'll have to go back to her place, assuming she doesn't have a roommate either. I don't think she does, but we haven't talked about it and while she hasn't mentioned one in either of our short sort-of-dates, that doesn't mean she doesn't have one.
But on the other hand, I like Kay and I'm apparently a soft touch where he's concerned, because I can't turn him away. He cooks and cleans and takes care of Diego's litterbox unprompted, and that's worth something to me. Sometimes I want company, and he more than fits the bill. Diego likes him. Someone is going to have to help me eat all the tomatoes currently ripening in my garden.
I could ask Alicia if there are any jobs at the university that she knows of that could go to a nineteen-year-old without a car and (possibly) without any job history. I could take a hard look at the studio's finances and work out whether or not I can afford to hire a part-time employee. I could forgo actual monetary rent in favor of just asking Kay to cook and clean as payment for living with me.
“Ok,” I say. “We'll probably need a couple of house rules, but right now I just want to eat something, and I have to make a corn salad for tomorrow night - oh, shit. I'm going to Kona's for dinner tomorrow. I can ask if you're invited too, if you want.”
“That might be weird. I can feed myself. It's ok.”
“I'll have to start shopping for two.” I swear Diego looks up from where he's draped over Kay's shoulder and gives me an expression that says “You're already shopping for two”.
“I'll find a job, I promise. I went to the animal shelter before I had to leave. Maybe they have something for me.”
“You'll probably have to volunteer. I don't know if they'll be able to pay you. I'll see if I can afford to take you on at the studio. My neighbor across the street might know of something at the university. She's a professor.”
“Thank you. Seriously. Thank you.”
“What else am I going to do? If you can't stay at the house, you can't stay at the house. It didn't sound like your grandpa would take you back. I can't turn you out.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Is that why you came here and not somewhere else? Because you knew I wouldn't say no?”
“There isn't anywhere else.” He peels Diego off his shoulder and puts him down on the floor. Diego makes a disappointed noise and sits on my feet.
“I was your only option?”
“Yeah.”
That's so inexpressibly sad I don't know how to respond to it. “Bring your stuff into the guest room,” I say, heading in that direction. Kay follows, drops his stuff on the bed, and then goes into the sitting room, where Diego is loafing on the couch, apparently asleep. I make the corn salad for Kona's dinner and then join them. Kay watches TV, Diego snoozes, and I sketch some things for future clients. Kay makes no move to join me when I go to bed, which I consider some kind of progress, but in the morning I'm unsurprised to find him sound asleep on the other side of my bed. We'll have to work on that.
A week later I've gotten my bed back, I've had a client pass out on me (a skinny guy getting his fifth tattoo, this one of a sandpiper on the back of his shoulder), I've successfully brunched with Maggie, I've learned that she does indeed have a roommate but that he's gone a lot of weekends to see his girlfriend in Charleston, I've talked to my sister about our parents' anniversary party, meaning she's talked and I've listened (which is ok with me, because she hasn't asked me to form any opinions or make any decisions), and I've played a lot of phone tag with Nila. When I finally do get to talk to her, she asks me to come over and I tell her sure, no problem, and oh by the way I've met a nice girl and we really hit it off.
“I'm not asking you to fuck me,” Nila says, apparently affronted.
“I didn't say you were,” I tell her serenely. “I'm just heading you off at the pass for the inevitable confession that you still love me and want me back. I'm pretty sure I've told you before that I'm not going to be your excuse to break up with Lora.”
From her silence I know I've hit it on the head. I'm not stupid, and I know what she's like.
“I still care about you,” I go on, “but I'm not going to get back together with you. We broke up for good reasons, and those haven't changed.”
I can only hope that's the end of it. I don't want to never see her again, but I don't want to keep having to tell her no, either.
In the week after Kay moves in with me, apparently permanently, I'm visited by Alene and Ben again, although at least this time Ben does easily half the talking, and I realize that my little soothing magical talent, the original random skill, has not left me, and even seems to be getting stronger. I think I can actually control it now. I still have no control over the visions I still think I inherited from Kay, and I'm no closer to figuring out what they all mean – is the sudden image of a natural-looking full head of hair on a bald man an indication that he's going to get a really good wig, or that he's getting implants? What does it mean when I see a coin rolling through the fingers of the woman standing in front of me at the grocery store, when she hands the cashier her money? - but they're not as distracting as I would have expected, and sometimes, if I can turn them into a decent puzzle, they're fun.
Maggie and I have a third date – we decided brunch counted as the second one – this time the traditional dinner and a movie, and because it's a Friday night, and her roommate is out of town visiting his girlfriend, I can go back to her house afterwards. We have coffee and chat, she kisses me and I kiss her back, and we spend a very pleasant half hour making out on the couch like horny high schoolers. She's a good kisser – she kisses like she knows exactly what she wants from you and how she wants you to respond, and she is more than willing to show you how to respond if you're not sure. I can take a hint, and I've been told I'm a good kisser too, and aside from the fact that we both want to lead, we're so far pretty compatible. And even the fact that we both like to be the dominant kisser is arousing, because we end up taking turns taking control.
“Can you stay?” she asks me after a while. “I want you to stay. I have something to show you.”
“I should call my roommate and tell him I won't be home, so he doesn't panic.”
She lets me roll off her so I can call Kay, and after I've explained where I am (Maggie's) and when I'll be home (tomorrow morning), I field exactly one question - “Yes, she's cute” - and hang up. Maggie takes me into her bedroom where she shows me the something – a strap-on.
I tell her it's been a while. She says it's like riding a bicycle. I ask if she has training wheels. She laughs. We lie on her bed and kiss some more, and start peeling each other's clothes off, and eventually get to the point where she asks me if I want to fuck her with the strap-on, and I say yes.
It is and isn't like riding a bike. I'm not afraid of falling off and scraping up my arms and legs, but while the basic technique comes back to me, the finesse doesn't. Maggie doesn't seem to mind. I do, because I used to be good at this, but what am I going to tell her? Her orgasm doesn't matter as much as my satisfaction over a job well done? I used to be good with a strap-on? I could tell her that my first experience with one was with a boy in college who wanted me to fuck him in the ass. He insisted he was straight, he was just a straight boy who sometimes liked to take it up the ass, until he started dating another guy. Even then he insisted he was straight. He never dated another girl, and the last I heard, he'd gotten enaged to his boyfriend at the time. I'm sure they're married by now.
I might actually tell Maggie that story someday. But not now. Now we have other things to think about.
It takes a little while, but I finally figure out what I'm doing enough to get her off. She returns the favor with enthusiasm, and afterwards we sprawl on the bed next to each other and she says “What did I tell you? Just like riding a bike.”
“A little more fun than that,” I tell her. “At least I didn't need the training wheels.”
“Are you saying I'm not your first lesbian?” She giggles. “I've never been anyone's first.”
I don't think this is even the first time I've slept with someone on the third date. With Nila, I waited two months, which confused her and pissed her off. The girl before her took me home on the second date. We almost lasted a year, which was one reason I wanted to put Nila off.
Now Maggie and I have slept together on the third date. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad idea.
She makes me breakfast in the morning, we set a time and day for the next date, and I go home. As I'm driving I decide I'll shower, forgo the yoga, find out how Kay survived in the house alone for a night, say hi to my cat, and plan out the rest of the weekend. Kay is asleep in my bed when I get in, so I tiptoe around my room, collect some clean clothes, and tiptoe into the bathroom to wash. Diego is sitting on the toilet when I get out of the shower, having somehow pushed the door open. I must not have closed it all the way. He just stares at me reproachfully for forgetting his breakfast, so after I'm dressed I give him food and water and pet his fuzzy head and let him eat.
I stick my head in the fridge and then the pantry, to see if I can determine what Kay fed himself last night, and it looks as if he just had eggs and toast. (The frying pan in the drying rack next to the sink is a dead giveaway, as is the fact that I just have one egg left, when I bought half a dozen just last week.) I water the plants, pull some dead leaves, go outside to see what's ready to be picked in the garden, and by the time I've brought in a double handful of tomatoes, Kay is up and in the kitchen and rummaging around for some cereal.
“Morning, sunshine,” I say, depositing the tomatoes on the counter. “Have you ever had a tomato pie?”
“Yuck,” he says to the pantry.
“I assume that's a no.”
“Yeah, it's a no.”
“Would you try it if I made it?”
“Maybe. I don't know.” He finds a box of Froot Loops, dumps some in a bowl, and pulls the milk out of the fridge. “How was, um, how was your date?”
“Good. It was good.” How non-committal of me. It was a bit better than good.
“I think Diego was a little weirded out that you didn't come home.”
“Did you tell him where I was?”
Diego's ears perk up, and because our conversation must be more exciting than his breakfast, he leaves his food bowl and ambles over to us and sits on Kay's feet. Kay shuffles him off so he can sit at the kitchen table and eat his cereal. Diego jumps on a chair, then the table, and smells the spoonful of cereal that Kay is lifting towards his mouth.
“Did Kay tell you where I was?” I ask the cat. He just blinks at me, as cats do. “Did he tell you I met a nice girl?” That garners a yawn. “I didn't ask if she likes cats.”
“Are you going out again?” Kay asks.
“Oh yes. Not for a week, though.”
“Are you, um, are you bringing her back here?”
“If I do, it will just be for coffee, or because I talked about my garden and she wanted some tomatoes. I won't bring her back here to sleep with her, I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Was it weird being here alone? For you, I mean.”
“Kind of? I mean, this is still way more space than I'm used to having to myself, even when you're home. I almost left the TV on when I went to sleep, just because it was so quiet. I, um, I slept in your bed, I hope that was ok. I didn't want Diego to be alone.”
“You're very considerate.” I smile at him. “I saw when I got home. I don't mind.” A pair of cat ears appear on his head, as if he's wearing them attached to a headband, and then they blink out of existence. I glance at Diego, completely oblivious from his position on the table. It's the first time I've had a vision around Kay, and I'm a little relieved that I think I can interpret it. Although if he ever shows up with actual cat ears on an actual headband, I will be really, really surprised.
words: 8083
total words: 40,596
“It's in three months,” Tristan goes on. “I have some ideas. I think a surprise party would be fun.”
“Do you know our mother at all? She'll be pissed we planned a party for her without her.”
“Just let me tell you my ideas. I know she'll like at least one of them.”
“How about you send them to me, and I'll close my eyes and pick one? That's about as much involvement as I want. I'm busy, Tristan. I don't have time to spend on planning a surprise party for someone who's just going to pick it apart. Well, she'll pick apart what I did.”
“No she won't. We'll plan it together, I'll call all the places, I'll deal with the invitations, you won't have to actually do anything. But I need your opinion.”
“My opinion is that you're setting yourself up for trouble.” I gently push Diego out of the way and sit on the couch. He sniffs my bowl of ice cream. Kay picks him up and puts him on his lap, but Diego is more interested in stalking something invisible around the room, as we discover when he jumps off the couch and starts prowling around. “Can you call me later?” I ask my sister. “It's late and I can't think about anything other than why my cat is staring at the wall.”
“When did you get a cat?”
“A few weeks ago. Don't change the subject.” I don't know where Tristan learned that from – our mother will hang on to any point of discussion and beat it into the ground, whether you want to keep talking about it or not. She can't be dissuaded, and she can't be distracted, and she will refuse to let you be distracted either. And Tristan's husband, who I actually mostly like, doesn't argue. He'll say his piece, let you say yours, and do what he wants anyway. There's no back-and-forth, so there's no chance to change the subject.
“You want me to call you tomorrow,” Tristan says, “so you can tell me a second time you don't want to be part of the planning.”
“Pretty much. Mom doesn't like me, you know that. Why should I put myself out to plan something for her?”
“Because she's your mother! Because she and Daddy will have been married for forty years! That's a milestone.”
I wonder what the traditional fortieth anniversary gift is. Whatever it is, the present I end up giving them will be my part of planning and paying for this ridiculous surprise party that my sister wants to throw.
“You want to do the equivalent of having me pick out a card and you just sign it,” she continues.
“Pretty much. I'll write you a check for my part of it.”
She makes a frustrated, annoyed noise. “You're hopeless.”
“You're just figuring that out now? People have been telling me that for years.”
“Forget it. I'll plan it and let you know what I decided."
“Just don't make it a whole weekend, ok? I can't take that kind of time off.”
That isn't strictly true – if I want to take a vacation, I can, because it's my studio and I can set my own hours, although I'd have to make sure my appointment book was clear – but it is true when the whole weekend means being stuck somewhere with what Tristan probably wants to be the entire family, on both sides.
“Sometimes I can't believe we were raised by the same parents,” Tristan sighs. “I'll talk to you later. Have a good night.”
“You too.” I hang up. “My sister wants to plan a surprise anniversary party for our parents,” I tell Kay, who has been petting Diego absently and trying not to pay attention to my conversation.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asks.
“For me? Yes. My mother doesn't like surprises because she likes to be in charge. I don't want to spend time and money planning a party for someone who won't appreciate it, especially when it's someone who doesn't appreciate me.”
To his credit, he doesn't argue with me and try to tell me that of course she appreciates me, she's my mother.
“I'll be perfectly happy if she plans it herself and just lets me know what she's done,” I add. “I'll send her a check and show up at the appointed time with the appropriate clothes and hopefully an appropriate gift.” I finish my ice cream. I'm done talking about it. “Don't think I hate my parents. I just don't like my mother that much. My father's much easier to get along with.”
“I don't talk to either of my parents,” Kay says. “My dad bailed when I was ten, and my mom is, um, I don't know where she is.”
And here I am bitching that my mother doesn't like me. I know there's more to it, but Kay doesn't, and now I feel like an insensitive bitch. Because I don't know that much about him, I don't know what kind of home he grew up in, but I do know he lives in a house with friends and not relatives, and now I know his grandfather doesn't want to put up with him for more than a week, and I can only assume he went to his grandfather's house in the first place because his parents wouldn't have sent him money for the bus.
Not that my mother would have either, if I needed to leave the place I was living and didn't have enough money of my own to go anywhere. But Grandma Dolly would have, and I like to think that if I were in Kay's situation and I called my Aunt Donnie, she would have sent me money and had me come stay with her.
“That sucks,” I say. “I'm sorry.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. It's ok.”
“Well, you're here now, and you know if you're stuck somewhere, you can call me and I'll come get you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He grins at me. I roll my eyes.
Diego gets tired of chasing his invisible prey and climbs up my leg, walks across me, and makes a loaf between me and Kay on the couch. I get up and take my bowl and spoon into the kitchen, and Kay follows me.
“I want to think my mom tried,” he tells me, “after Dad left. I don't know if she ever even wanted kids – Grandpa said something once that made me think maybe she didn't, like I was a mistake – but I don't think she wanted to be a total failure. You know what I mean? Like, she had a kid, she had to try and be a mother. She wasn't... she wasn't a great mom. But at least she was there, for a while.” He leans against the counter, watching me rinse the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. “Grandpa was kind of around, but he wanted her to do it herself. I heard him tell her once, he said she was a grown-up, she wanted to be treated like one, so he was going to do that. And that meant he wasn't going to raise her kid for her. I was, I think I was ten or eleven. He said I couldn't raise myself yet, so it was up to her to raise me.”
“So if you'd been sixteen, they would have left you to your own devices?”
“Probably, yeah. I don't know. It might've been better.” He pushes himself off the counter. “I don't think I meant to tell you that.”
“Should I pretend you didn't say anything?”
“No, it's out now. It's ok.” He shrugs. “You were just talking about your mom.” He abruptly goes back to the sitting room, where I can distantly hear him talking to the cat. I follow him.
The movie we were watching is almost over, and by the time the credits roll I want to go to bed. Kay has been sleeping with me – and I have never been so grateful I have a big bed – it's still a little weird but it's like sharing a bed with my brother, if I had a brother, and I can't bring myself to mind that much. The only problem is that Diego also likes to sleep in my bed, and he's capable of taking up at least half the space available to him, whether that space is one side of the bed or just the tiny stretch of mattress between myself and Kay. Sometimes I wake up, or am woken up, feeling a little crowded in my own bed.
But mostly what this means is that Kay has been going to bed when I do, because he doesn't want to be left alone. He said he doesn't feel the same sense of foreboding that he did before he up and left, so I don't know what he's afraid of, but I don't really want to ask. It seems like prying, and while I can be as nosy and gossipy as the next girl, Kay is my friend and I don't want to ask him about something that's really none of my business.
What it also means is that I tend to wake up first, usually because Diego wants to be fed and can wake me in the most insistent and yet most polite way possible, and I can feed and water him, change my clothes, do my morning yoga, and be making coffee and contemplating a shower by the time Kay rolls out of bed.
This morning he surprises me by getting up not long after I do, so I ask if he wants to learn my morning yoga routine.
“I've never done yoga,” he says.
“Is that a yes? Because it doesn't sound like a no.”
“I guess. Sure, why not.”
I show him some basic poses, roll out my mat, put on my yoga playlist – songs I know well enough that I don't have to pay attention to them, making them good background music – and take him through the routine. It's a lot of stretching and holding poses, intended to wake me up both physically and mentally, and Kay is not very good at it. He seems to be flexible enough, but none of the poses are things he's done before, and yoga as a whole isn't something he's used to, and I don't want to take the time to keep correcting his form and showing him how to get the most out of it. But at least he's game to try, and he's trying to keep up with me, and that makes up for a lot. Diego tries to climb all over both of us, but while I nudge him off, Kay lets him have his way.
I shower, Kay makes breakfast, I clean up, he helps me make the bed, I take him with me to run all my morning errands. He hangs out at Suzume Tattoos for part of the day, and then he tells me he's finally ready to go back to the house he shares with his friends.
He gets me lost twice, apparently unused to giving directions to someone in a car, but we get there eventually. The house is old and run-down and way off the beaten path, although he tells me there's a bus stop about a quarter mile down the street. It doesn't quite look big enough to house eight people, although it's not a small house and it does look like it has a basement. I don't know why I thought Kay and all his housemates would each have their own room, but I did, and this place doesn't look nearly big enough to have eight dedicated bedrooms. But they could be sleeping in the attic, or the basement, or they're probably just doubling up in however many bedrooms there are.
“Thank you,” Kay says as I pull up. There's a driveway but unsurprisingly no cars in it. The lawn needs to be mowed and landscaped. I realize how much like my mother I'm starting to sound in my head, and remind myself that when I was in college and for a couple years after I graduated, I lived in places much like this one, with about the same degree of outward care.
“It was nothing,” I tell him, and I mean it. It's really no hardship for me to let him stay at my house for a few days. “You're a very good houseguest. You play with my cat and make me breakfast.”
“I had to do something to kind of pay you back.”
“No you don't. But the next time you feel the urge to take off, let me know first, ok?”
“Ok.” He leans across the front seat and hugs me. “I think everything's ok now. I mean, I don't see anything, I'm not totally overwhelmed.”
“Good. Come by the studio sometime, let me know how things are going at the house.”
“Ok.” He slides back across the seat and out of the car, grabbing his backpack on the way. “Say goodbye to Diego for me.”
“I will. Take care of yourself.”
“I'll try.” He waves and heads up the walk to the front door. I wait for him to go inside before I drive back to the studio.
There are surprisingly three people waiting for me – Ben and Alene, Kay's friends from before, and another girl with a gold heart painted on her cheek and bleached-blonde hair held back with a bunch of little heart-shaped pins.
The Queen of Hearts, my brain helpfully supplies. That can't possibly be her real name, and it reminds me of my art school days and some of the pretentious things my friends and I wanted people to call us.
“If you're looking for Kay,” I tell them, “I just took him home. That means your timing is either really good or really bad.” I know which one it is for me. I have work to do.
“What was he doing at your house?” Alene demands.
“Playing with my cat. Doing my dishes. Watching TV. Maybe even meditating. Now if you don't mind, I have things to do.” I brush past them.
“Is he ok?” the other girl calls.
“He's better than he was,” I call back. “Other than that, you'll have to ask him yourself.” I hear them murmuring to each other behind me, but I'm on my way to the office and don't have the time or the patience to pay attention.
They're gone ten minutes later, when I come back out of the office with the stencil for my next client. I'm relieved.
“They waited almost half an hour for you,” Kona tells me. “They were pretty quiet, at least. I thought the girl with the heart on her face might actually book an appointment with one of us, but no dice.”
“If their situation is anything like Kay's,” I say, “none of them have the money to pay us.”
“I'd work something out. Hey, you want to come over for dinner tomorrow? Royal's gonna grill everything before we make him put the grill away for the winter.”
“Why would you put your grill away? It's still warm enough to use it.” I put on some gloves and start spraying everything at my station and wiping it down.
“That's what I said. Billie says we should cover it for the season and Royal can't say no to her.” Billie is their girlfriend. I think she's originally from somewhere in New York – not Manhattan, but somewhere up north, like Buffalo – somewhere it snows, where people might conceivably have a very defined grilling season followed by an equally-defined not-grilling season. The fact that Royal will be putting his grill away for the winter probably makes more sense to her, considering that she's probably used to having too much snow and cold to use it.
But we don't get that kind of winter, and I know people grill well into the colder months. Besides, even if they didn't, it's still warm enough to cook your food outdoors.
“I promise he won't try to make you eat sausage again,” Kona says.
“That was one time,” I reassure him. It was at a brunch at Kona and Billie's house, and Royal tried to convince me the sausage in the breakfast scramble he made was vegetarian sausage. It wasn't, and I knew that the second I tasted it. I did not spit out the scramble, because it was eggy and filling, with potatoes and onions and cheese as well as the sausage, and it was very good, but I did give Royal the hairy eyeball every time he offered me anything to eat that I hadn't already tried. He apologized later for trying to trick me into eating meat, possibly because Kona said something to him, and while I did accept his apology, I'm wary of anything he makes that isn't readily identifiable.
But you can't grill a casserole or a scramble, and it's hard to hide bacon, as an example, on a grilled eggplant.
“So is that a yes?” Royal asks me.
“It's a yes. Should I bring anything?”
“A salad, I think. It doesn't have to be a lettuce salad. Oh! Bring that corn salad you made last time.” I've made it before for gatherings. “Maya and Jonathan are going to bring a dessert. I looked at the appointment book and we should all be done by seven. You can come over right after you close up.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I think I have everything I need for the corn salad at home, but I should stop by the store on the way home, just in case.
My next client is late, so much so that I try to call him to see where he is. He must be in transit and unwilling to answer while he's driving, because the phone rings and rings without even going to voice mail. I wait. And wait. And talk to a couple of walk-ins. And cross him out of the appointment book with a notation that says “So late I had to cancel”. This doesn't happen often – usually when a client has to cancel, they call and let us know – and when it does, I get really annoyed. This is how I make a living, and if I know someone's going to cancel, sometimes I can find someone else to take their appointment.
On the other hand, I do get two new appointments from the walk-ins, although one of them is clearly only interested in the flash, which is a little disappointing, because given a choice, what tattoo artist worth his or her ink wouldn't want to put their own original design on someone? The fact that I've designed some of the flash myself isn't the same thing.
Fortunately I'm booked when the person who wants the flash can come in, so I foist him off on Maya, because she's not here to say no, and her schedule is open. I share this with Kona after the two walk-ins leave, and he laughs at me.
“You're a bad person,” he says.
“I am not,” I say, pretending offense. “I'm a good person. I was booked, and Maya was free, and she hadn't blocked off that time for personal reasons, so I gave her a client. If he likes his first tattoo, he'll come back, and maybe she'll get to design something herself for him.”
“I still think you're a bad person.”
I let it slide and take advantage of my unexpected free time to inventory my station and Maya's, to make sure we're not running out of anything.
Maya comes in eventually and I tell her I took inventory of her station and why didn't she tell me she's running low on bugpin needles? I would've ordered them a couple days ago, when I was on the phone with the place that supplies all our needles and tattoo machine parts.
“I didn't count them,” she says. “I didn't know I was almost out. I figure I could borrow some from you or Kona when I run out.” She grins brightly.
“You should have enough at your own station.”
“I have lots,” Kona calls. “I don't use them as much as you do.”
Bugpins are very thin needles, used a lot for shading and making nice gradients. I don't like them so much, but Maya uses them for portrait work. Consequently I don't tend to keep many of them at my station, so if Maya's looking for some, she shouldn't come to me.
“I don't think I'll need them today,” Maya tells me. “I don't have any portraits until tomorrow.”
“I'm going to order some,” I say, “but just make sure you let me know when you start to run low again.”
“Yes'm.” She grins again and I go back to the office to place the order.
A little later I notice something that looks suspiciously like an eggplant floating around Kona's head before disappearing, and for once I'm amused more than anything else at my random vision. I take it to mean that Royal will be grilling at least one eggplant tomorrow night, so I won't starve. I know from past experience that when most people say “I'm going to be grilling tomorrow”, they mean “I'm going to be slapping a lot of meat on my grill tomorrow”, and that can be hard on the vegetarians in the group. The presence of an eggplant, as hallucinogenic as it is, is reassuring.
I haven't seen anything else all day, which is also reassuring.
I meet Maggie the kickboxer for a drink after work – it isn't our second date, because one or the other of us keeps having to cancel and reschedule – and discover a new and fun magical talent. I'm telling her about the guy at The Drip and Donut who turned into a hedgehog, which has become an interesting story, rather than a way for me to ask people if they've ever heard of that kind of thing before, and when I say “Suddenly he turned back into a person, just like that”, with a snap of my fingers, I hear bells, like the bell over the door at Suzume Tattoos.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
“The bells?” Maggie says. “Was that you?”
“I don't know.” I snap my fingers again, and there's the bells again. They ring twice and stop, but it's enough for someone to hear them. “I guess it is.”
“Fascinating!” Maggie's eyes light up. “Could you always do that?”
“Never did it before tonight.”
“Really! Is that normal?”
“What, to spontaneously generate a little magic trick? Not that I know of. Well, except for now. I think I already inherited a skill from one of my friends, if you can inherit someone's magic. I guess you could consider that spontaneous.” I don't know if that's the word I'd use, but it fits well enough.
“That's so interesting. Does your friend still have it?”
“He says not. I think that's how I ended up with it, although why it chose me I have no idea.”
There's a school of thought that says that if you have any magic, it's because the magic chose you, and whatever way it manifests also chose you as the vehicle to manifest through. I don't know how I feel about that – most magic is so piddly and useless, and most of the time it doesn't have anything to do with anything else about the person who has it, there doesn't seem to be any plan or pattern for who can do what. There's also a school of thought that says if you already have some magic, you're more susceptible to another kind, as if magic talents were magnets that drew other talents closer. I never believed that because I never believed people could suddenly acquire a new little skill without training for it or even trying for it. But here I am, with three magical talents – if the snapping is really a new one, and if I'm stuck with Kay's visions – only one of which I was probably born with.
“You think magic chooses you?” Maggie asks.
“I don't know. If I did get my friend's skill, why me? I've already got some magic. Someone else who doesn't should be gifted with this one. It's only fair.”
“What is it?”
Kay never liked to talk about his, but I don't mind. Besides, Maggie sounds intrigued and curious, and I like that in a potential date. “Sometimes I'll see something, like a vision, around someone, but it only lasts for a few seconds before disappearing. I don't know if they're visions of the future, or the past, or if what I see is a representation of something in the person's life right now, or what. Earlier today I saw an eggplant floating around Kona's head, but he'd asked me over for dinner tomorrow and told me Royal was going to grill. So I assumed the vision meant there was going to be grilled eggplant. They're not all like that, though.”
“Do you see anything about me?” She leans closer. I tilt my head, purse my lips, and pretend that she has an aura I can read.
“Nope,” I say after a while, sitting back and looking satisfied.
“Bummer.”
“I can't force it. It doesn't happen for everyone.” I snap my fingers again, just to hear the bells. “That's going to be reliable, though.”
“I like that one. I don't have magic myself – maybe you could've guessed – but my last girlfriend could tell where something had been by licking it. If I'd left my wallet on the table, she could tell that I'd left it there and not on the dresser. She knew if someone had borrowed something of hers at work and put it back before she realized it was gone. It was kind of a useful skill. It meant she had to lick things she didn't want to lick – I mean, who wants to lick a car tire? Just to see if the car had gone to the grocery store or not? - but it was helpful a bunch of times. It didn't work with people, but we had some fun figuring that out.”
“My last girlfriend didn't have magic either, but she also didn't believe that I did. It didn't help that she couldn't see it.”
“Was that the visions?”
“No, that's new. I can sometimes calm someone down a little bit by touching them. It helps at work, if I have a client who's really nervous, but I can't control it and I just have to trust that it works at least some of the time.”
Maggie holds out her hand. “Touch me.” I stroke the back of her hand, in a way that's slightly more suggestive than I was planning. She smiles. “I don't feel any more relaxed. Maybe it's busted. How do you know it still works? Maybe you changed one magic skill for another.”
“I don't think I did, but you're right, I don't know. But if I didn't, that means I have three skills now. I've never heard of anyone having more than one.”
“You're a new and exciting case.” Maggie beams. I want to beam back, because I like feeling her interest in me, but at the same time I feel a little like a specimen in a lab, like a sociological experiment. A magic experiment.
“I wonder if someone else just lost the ability to make a bell ring by snapping their fingers. Do they miss it?” Kay was relieved he couldn't see anything any more, but that was probably because he'd been seeing so much in so many places, so not being able to see anything all all would have felt really good. I haven't had the same problem, but if I lost my ability to calm people down – even though it's an unreliable skill at best – I think I might miss it. It's a part of who I am, as tiny a part as it is. It's a piece of my identity.
“Does your friend miss his visions?”
“Not at all.”
“I think I'd miss it, if I had some magic and suddenly I lost it. But maybe that would depend on what it is.”
“I'd miss it too. It's part of me. A very tiny part, but still something I've known about myself for a long time. I can't rely on it, but I like knowing it's there, and if I concentrate, I might be able to soothe a nervous client or get someone to relax. The visions, they're new, and if I woke up tomorrow and knew I'd lost them, I wouldn't mind.”
“This is so fascinating.” Maggie finishes her bourbon. Bourbon on the rocks, very simple. But good bourbon. I had a beer, because I've been in a beer mood for almost a week, and I don't generally drink wine in bars unless I'm getting dinner too.
“I don't talk about it that much,” I say. “It doesn't come up a lot.”
“I want to know more, but I really have to go. I have a huge presentation tomorrow that I still have to prepare for. Can you do brunch on Sunday?”
“I think so. I have to look at my appointment book to see when my first client is, but I should be able to make it for brunch. How about I call you tomorrow?”
“That will be good.” She pulls out her wallet, extricates some bills, and puts them on the bar. She leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “Eventually we'll have a real date.”
“Some day,” I agree.
“Drive safe.” She slides off her stool and waves goodbye as she makes her way out of the bar. I finish my beer, pay for it, and go home.
I am surprised as hell to find Kay sitting on my front steps, his backpack at his feet.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. My tone comes out a little more negative than I'd like, and Kay blinks at me, probably shocked at my reaction. I get a grip on myself. “I just took you home today. Why did you come back? How did you even get here?”
“The bus?” he answers, as if that should be obvious. “I haven't been here that long.”
“What are you – never mind, come in.” I unlock the door and usher him inside. Diego comes running and wraps himself around Kay's legs. “Diego, stop,” I tell him, as if he has any intention of listening to me. Kay picks him up and rubs their noses together. “Did you come back because of my cat?”
“Maybe.” He drapes Diego over his shoulder. “I like it here better.”
“Not permanently. Kay, you can't stay here indefinitely.”
“Why not?” He doesn't look at me, but rather addresses his question to the cat.
Because I'll want you to pay rent and you don't have a job, I want to say. Because you'll have to move into the guest room and stop sharing my bed. Because you're not my kid and I don't want to be responsible for you, and I don't want to have to keep feeding you, and I can't take care of you.
“Because you can't pay rent,” is all I actually do say.
He doesn't say anything.
“You'll have to get a job,” I go on.
“I could work at your shop,” he says quietly. “I could sweep and clean the kitchen and answer the phone and make sure your appointment book is in order.”
“I don't know if I can pay you to work full-time. I'm not sure how much I can pay you to work part-time.”
“I don't care. I can find something else too.”
You haven't so far, is what I don't say.
“Please,” he says, and now he does look at me. “I can't stay at the house. There really are too many people. Even if I'm not seeing anything any more. I just... I don't want to talk to them. Alene won't leave me alone about me going to my grandpa's house and not telling anyone. The Queen of Hearts thinks I should be left alone, but she keeps saying that – 'Leave him alone, leave him alone, Kay you should be alone, we'll let you be'. Bucknell wants to find me something to do, but I don't think I'm gonna want to do anything he finds. I can't concentrate on anything. I can't, I can't do anything. They won't leave me alone. They can't be quiet. I can't – I can't be there any more.”
His voice is urgent and desperate by the time he's finished, and I don't know what to do. I like living alone. I don't have a roommate because I don't need one. Kay hasn't been any trouble the few nights he's stayed over, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for him to move it. What if mine and Maggie's relationship gets to the point where we want to sleep together? (I'm pretty sure it will, and I'm also pretty sure it will happen sooner rather than later.) We'll have to go back to her place, assuming she doesn't have a roommate either. I don't think she does, but we haven't talked about it and while she hasn't mentioned one in either of our short sort-of-dates, that doesn't mean she doesn't have one.
But on the other hand, I like Kay and I'm apparently a soft touch where he's concerned, because I can't turn him away. He cooks and cleans and takes care of Diego's litterbox unprompted, and that's worth something to me. Sometimes I want company, and he more than fits the bill. Diego likes him. Someone is going to have to help me eat all the tomatoes currently ripening in my garden.
I could ask Alicia if there are any jobs at the university that she knows of that could go to a nineteen-year-old without a car and (possibly) without any job history. I could take a hard look at the studio's finances and work out whether or not I can afford to hire a part-time employee. I could forgo actual monetary rent in favor of just asking Kay to cook and clean as payment for living with me.
“Ok,” I say. “We'll probably need a couple of house rules, but right now I just want to eat something, and I have to make a corn salad for tomorrow night - oh, shit. I'm going to Kona's for dinner tomorrow. I can ask if you're invited too, if you want.”
“That might be weird. I can feed myself. It's ok.”
“I'll have to start shopping for two.” I swear Diego looks up from where he's draped over Kay's shoulder and gives me an expression that says “You're already shopping for two”.
“I'll find a job, I promise. I went to the animal shelter before I had to leave. Maybe they have something for me.”
“You'll probably have to volunteer. I don't know if they'll be able to pay you. I'll see if I can afford to take you on at the studio. My neighbor across the street might know of something at the university. She's a professor.”
“Thank you. Seriously. Thank you.”
“What else am I going to do? If you can't stay at the house, you can't stay at the house. It didn't sound like your grandpa would take you back. I can't turn you out.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Is that why you came here and not somewhere else? Because you knew I wouldn't say no?”
“There isn't anywhere else.” He peels Diego off his shoulder and puts him down on the floor. Diego makes a disappointed noise and sits on my feet.
“I was your only option?”
“Yeah.”
That's so inexpressibly sad I don't know how to respond to it. “Bring your stuff into the guest room,” I say, heading in that direction. Kay follows, drops his stuff on the bed, and then goes into the sitting room, where Diego is loafing on the couch, apparently asleep. I make the corn salad for Kona's dinner and then join them. Kay watches TV, Diego snoozes, and I sketch some things for future clients. Kay makes no move to join me when I go to bed, which I consider some kind of progress, but in the morning I'm unsurprised to find him sound asleep on the other side of my bed. We'll have to work on that.
A week later I've gotten my bed back, I've had a client pass out on me (a skinny guy getting his fifth tattoo, this one of a sandpiper on the back of his shoulder), I've successfully brunched with Maggie, I've learned that she does indeed have a roommate but that he's gone a lot of weekends to see his girlfriend in Charleston, I've talked to my sister about our parents' anniversary party, meaning she's talked and I've listened (which is ok with me, because she hasn't asked me to form any opinions or make any decisions), and I've played a lot of phone tag with Nila. When I finally do get to talk to her, she asks me to come over and I tell her sure, no problem, and oh by the way I've met a nice girl and we really hit it off.
“I'm not asking you to fuck me,” Nila says, apparently affronted.
“I didn't say you were,” I tell her serenely. “I'm just heading you off at the pass for the inevitable confession that you still love me and want me back. I'm pretty sure I've told you before that I'm not going to be your excuse to break up with Lora.”
From her silence I know I've hit it on the head. I'm not stupid, and I know what she's like.
“I still care about you,” I go on, “but I'm not going to get back together with you. We broke up for good reasons, and those haven't changed.”
I can only hope that's the end of it. I don't want to never see her again, but I don't want to keep having to tell her no, either.
In the week after Kay moves in with me, apparently permanently, I'm visited by Alene and Ben again, although at least this time Ben does easily half the talking, and I realize that my little soothing magical talent, the original random skill, has not left me, and even seems to be getting stronger. I think I can actually control it now. I still have no control over the visions I still think I inherited from Kay, and I'm no closer to figuring out what they all mean – is the sudden image of a natural-looking full head of hair on a bald man an indication that he's going to get a really good wig, or that he's getting implants? What does it mean when I see a coin rolling through the fingers of the woman standing in front of me at the grocery store, when she hands the cashier her money? - but they're not as distracting as I would have expected, and sometimes, if I can turn them into a decent puzzle, they're fun.
Maggie and I have a third date – we decided brunch counted as the second one – this time the traditional dinner and a movie, and because it's a Friday night, and her roommate is out of town visiting his girlfriend, I can go back to her house afterwards. We have coffee and chat, she kisses me and I kiss her back, and we spend a very pleasant half hour making out on the couch like horny high schoolers. She's a good kisser – she kisses like she knows exactly what she wants from you and how she wants you to respond, and she is more than willing to show you how to respond if you're not sure. I can take a hint, and I've been told I'm a good kisser too, and aside from the fact that we both want to lead, we're so far pretty compatible. And even the fact that we both like to be the dominant kisser is arousing, because we end up taking turns taking control.
“Can you stay?” she asks me after a while. “I want you to stay. I have something to show you.”
“I should call my roommate and tell him I won't be home, so he doesn't panic.”
She lets me roll off her so I can call Kay, and after I've explained where I am (Maggie's) and when I'll be home (tomorrow morning), I field exactly one question - “Yes, she's cute” - and hang up. Maggie takes me into her bedroom where she shows me the something – a strap-on.
I tell her it's been a while. She says it's like riding a bicycle. I ask if she has training wheels. She laughs. We lie on her bed and kiss some more, and start peeling each other's clothes off, and eventually get to the point where she asks me if I want to fuck her with the strap-on, and I say yes.
It is and isn't like riding a bike. I'm not afraid of falling off and scraping up my arms and legs, but while the basic technique comes back to me, the finesse doesn't. Maggie doesn't seem to mind. I do, because I used to be good at this, but what am I going to tell her? Her orgasm doesn't matter as much as my satisfaction over a job well done? I used to be good with a strap-on? I could tell her that my first experience with one was with a boy in college who wanted me to fuck him in the ass. He insisted he was straight, he was just a straight boy who sometimes liked to take it up the ass, until he started dating another guy. Even then he insisted he was straight. He never dated another girl, and the last I heard, he'd gotten enaged to his boyfriend at the time. I'm sure they're married by now.
I might actually tell Maggie that story someday. But not now. Now we have other things to think about.
It takes a little while, but I finally figure out what I'm doing enough to get her off. She returns the favor with enthusiasm, and afterwards we sprawl on the bed next to each other and she says “What did I tell you? Just like riding a bike.”
“A little more fun than that,” I tell her. “At least I didn't need the training wheels.”
“Are you saying I'm not your first lesbian?” She giggles. “I've never been anyone's first.”
I don't think this is even the first time I've slept with someone on the third date. With Nila, I waited two months, which confused her and pissed her off. The girl before her took me home on the second date. We almost lasted a year, which was one reason I wanted to put Nila off.
Now Maggie and I have slept together on the third date. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad idea.
She makes me breakfast in the morning, we set a time and day for the next date, and I go home. As I'm driving I decide I'll shower, forgo the yoga, find out how Kay survived in the house alone for a night, say hi to my cat, and plan out the rest of the weekend. Kay is asleep in my bed when I get in, so I tiptoe around my room, collect some clean clothes, and tiptoe into the bathroom to wash. Diego is sitting on the toilet when I get out of the shower, having somehow pushed the door open. I must not have closed it all the way. He just stares at me reproachfully for forgetting his breakfast, so after I'm dressed I give him food and water and pet his fuzzy head and let him eat.
I stick my head in the fridge and then the pantry, to see if I can determine what Kay fed himself last night, and it looks as if he just had eggs and toast. (The frying pan in the drying rack next to the sink is a dead giveaway, as is the fact that I just have one egg left, when I bought half a dozen just last week.) I water the plants, pull some dead leaves, go outside to see what's ready to be picked in the garden, and by the time I've brought in a double handful of tomatoes, Kay is up and in the kitchen and rummaging around for some cereal.
“Morning, sunshine,” I say, depositing the tomatoes on the counter. “Have you ever had a tomato pie?”
“Yuck,” he says to the pantry.
“I assume that's a no.”
“Yeah, it's a no.”
“Would you try it if I made it?”
“Maybe. I don't know.” He finds a box of Froot Loops, dumps some in a bowl, and pulls the milk out of the fridge. “How was, um, how was your date?”
“Good. It was good.” How non-committal of me. It was a bit better than good.
“I think Diego was a little weirded out that you didn't come home.”
“Did you tell him where I was?”
Diego's ears perk up, and because our conversation must be more exciting than his breakfast, he leaves his food bowl and ambles over to us and sits on Kay's feet. Kay shuffles him off so he can sit at the kitchen table and eat his cereal. Diego jumps on a chair, then the table, and smells the spoonful of cereal that Kay is lifting towards his mouth.
“Did Kay tell you where I was?” I ask the cat. He just blinks at me, as cats do. “Did he tell you I met a nice girl?” That garners a yawn. “I didn't ask if she likes cats.”
“Are you going out again?” Kay asks.
“Oh yes. Not for a week, though.”
“Are you, um, are you bringing her back here?”
“If I do, it will just be for coffee, or because I talked about my garden and she wanted some tomatoes. I won't bring her back here to sleep with her, I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Was it weird being here alone? For you, I mean.”
“Kind of? I mean, this is still way more space than I'm used to having to myself, even when you're home. I almost left the TV on when I went to sleep, just because it was so quiet. I, um, I slept in your bed, I hope that was ok. I didn't want Diego to be alone.”
“You're very considerate.” I smile at him. “I saw when I got home. I don't mind.” A pair of cat ears appear on his head, as if he's wearing them attached to a headband, and then they blink out of existence. I glance at Diego, completely oblivious from his position on the table. It's the first time I've had a vision around Kay, and I'm a little relieved that I think I can interpret it. Although if he ever shows up with actual cat ears on an actual headband, I will be really, really surprised.
words: 8083
total words: 40,596
