The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [38]
I woke up to him covering me with the afghan.
"Hi," I said.
"Do you want to wake up and go home," he said in a low voice, "or sleep in the guest room?"
"Guest room," I said.
—•—
Archie told me he was reading a manuscript by a neurologist, and it made him wish he could talk it over with my dad.
They'd met only twice, at my aunt's funeral and then at the shore, a visit that gave new meaning to long weekend. What I remembered about it was that Archie had smoked a cigarette on the dock and thrown the butt in the lagoon. I'd looked at him as though he was a terrorist threatening our way of life and said, "We swim in there." My voice sounded as haughty as my mother's had the time a handyman had parked on our lawn, and I'd told her, "You can't expect everyone to know your rules." The whole weekend was like that, hating Archie and then hating myself for it.
What he remembered about the weekend was how much he'd enjoyed sitting on the porch with my dad. They'd talked mostly about publishing and books, and now Archie realized that my father had just wanted to put him at ease. "He was so cordial to me," Archie said. "If that weekend was hard on him, he didn't show it."
I remembered my father's relief at our breakup, though he'd never said a word against Archie.
Archie was watching me. "What did your dad say about me that weekend?"
I said, "He said you were charming," which was true.
—•—
We cracked open our fortune cookies and traded the little slips of paper, as we always had. My fortune was about the value of wisdom over knowledge. His was "Great happiness awaits."
When he took a bite of his fortune cookie, I said, "Don't eat it—Jesus! Now it won't come true!"
And he spit it out in his napkin.
I said, "You know what I've always loved about you?"
"What?" he said, resting his chin on two balled-up fists in imitation of a swooning schoolboy.
"You're willing to swallow your pride to make me laugh," I said. "Or spit it out in a napkin."
—•—
I said, "The good news is that these are the last manuscripts from my archive."
I said, "The bad news is that these are the last manuscripts from my archive."
He said, "Let's go to bed."
I I I
I once read that no matter how long an alcoholic was sober, as soon as he went back to drinking he would be exactly where he was when he'd left off. That's how it was with Archie and me.
I filled his closet with my clothes. My shampoos and conditioners lined the ledge of his tub. He stocked his refrigerator with diet root beer and carrots.
We ate dinner together every night, out or in.
Before bed, from the upstairs bathroom he'd announce, "I'm taking my Antabuse!"
I didn't know what to say. I tried to think what the right answer might be. Then, I'd call out, "Thanks," as though I'd sneezed and he'd blessed me.
I knew he wanted to have sex if he put on aftershave before bed. I called it his forescent. The sex itself was manual labor. I was there for what happened afterward—the tenderness that didn't come any other way.
Sometimes, we slept face to face, with our arms around each other; one night I woke up and his mouth was so close to mine I was breathing his breath.
—•—
The only friend I told at first was Sophie, the anti-Archiest of them all. I was afraid to, but she didn't even seem surprised. She said, "Does he make you feel better?"
I said he did.
"He's not drinking?" she said.
I told her about Antabuse and the poker chip from AA.
She looked over at me, and thought. Finally, she said, "But don't give up your apartment, okay?"
I told her that my aunt's apartment wasn't mine to give up, and that it hadn't occurred to me to move all the way in with Archie.
She said, "Call me if it does."
—•—
Archie asked if I'd told my parents about him, and I said I hadn't. "How much longer are you going to keep me in the closet?" he said. "It's dark in here. And I keep stepping on your shoes."
—•—
I was going home to the suburbs for