“Did he say anything? About me?”
“Not really. Just that you were on a break.”
Della starts to cry. I hold the phone away from my ear and chew vigorously on my lip. I am feeling two things: pity, which is truly a nasty, condescending thing to feel for someone, and opportunistic. I don’t want her to have him back. I don’t want her to convince him she can be different. I know she can’t.
“It’ll be okay,” I tell her. “If he needs time to figure things out, you have to give that to him. Don’t call every five minutes either. Try to spend some time … thinking.” After we hang up, she sends a text to thank me, and also to beg me to call with anything I hear. I want to tell her I’m not her personal gossip girl. I feel sick. Sick for Della, sick for myself. A little bit sick for Kit, but not much. He deserves to suffer.
June texts to tell me she saw Neil’s baby at the grocery store, and its head looks like a squash.
Is it a boy or girl? I ask.
J: It’s a squash!
News of Neil’s baby looking like something you can find in the produce section of the grocery store should make me happy. I feel nothing. I don’t care to revel in infant ugliness. I don’t care to think about Neil at all. What does that mean? Have I moved on from my hurt? And is squash a fruit or a vegetable?
I am just getting off work when I get a text from Kit. It’s a photo of a staircase covered in bright red leaves. I know it. I’ve passed by on occasion. I walk without really thinking about it, and when I get there, my steps falter. I find Kit Isley, sitting on the bottom stair, his head dipped toward the ground. He’s wearing a peacoat, and there’s gel in his hair. The leaves stir around him, the soft trembling of mottled red. A little tornado at his feet. I sigh. It’s okay to have an appreciation for something beautiful, so long as you know your place. I wish I could take a photo of him sitting among the crimson leaves. And why can’t I? I take out my phone and snap a picture that I can already tell will be blurry.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey yourself.”
He stands up, hands in pocket. “You hungry?”
“Someone once told me I’m always hungry.” I smile. Kit smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I wonder if he spoke to Della. Nothing like a good dose of Della to wipe you clear of joy. That was mean, I think, but also true.
We fall into step. He seems to know where he’s going so I let him lead. I’ve come to think of these streets as mine, but they are really Kit’s. I just followed his shadow here.
“You know,” he says. “I always thought you were beautiful, but this weather suits you. Wild hair and winter coats.”
“That’s a compliment only a writer could give,” I say. I can’t even look at him. I want to throw myself off the side of a building, or in front of a moving car. I’m fidgety all of a sudden, adjusting my purse, and hair, and face.
“Helena…?”
“Yeah…? What?”
He grins, knowingly. He makes me feel so transparent. It’s so vulnerable to be under his gaze, emotionally naked.
“Shut up,” I say. “You don’t know me.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think anyone can.”
“What does that mean?” I’m ready to be offended. So ready. Ready like Freddy. Ready like—
“You’re not easy to know. That’s not a bad thing, so stop looking at me like that.”
“This is just my face,” I say. “It’s how I always look.” I’ve caught glimpses of myself in the mirror before, when I’m in emotional turmoil. All the lines in my face popping out, my eyes frightened.
He laughs hard. I like making him laugh. I really do.
“So, obviously compliments make me super uncomfortable. I’m not hard to know. I’m really simple. I don’t even know who I am yet.”“Helena!” Kit says. “I’d be worried if you said you did know yourself. Did you know that Albert Einstein never wore socks?”
“Huh?”
“He had a complex mind. Never stopped thinking, but socks complicated his life. So he just didn’t wear them.”
I think about the homeless dude in Seattle, the one who liked the socks I wasn’t wearing. I’m not sure why I’m thinking of that. Or why Kit is talking about socks. Oh my God, focus Helena. I shake my head, hoping to jolt my brain back to working order.
“Where are we going?”
“To eat,” he says.
“Yes, I know that. But where?”
“Trust.”
Lanzo’s of the Lanzo family. These people know food. I didn’t trust him. I grumble all the way there, and then look over the menu suspiciously. It’s called being hangry. Kit smiles at me the whole time, even when I eat all of the bread. His eyes are on me as I take my first bite. His own food left untouched until he knows that I like mine.
“Oh, good, Holy Mother of—”
“Shh,” he says. “They’re Catholics.”
“Zeus,” I finish.
He still hasn’t touched his food. He sips his wine, watching me.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I ask.
“I already ate.”
“So why are we having dinner?”
“So you can eat,” he says.
I slide his plate to my side of the table. “Kit, I know you have something to say. So go ahead and say it. Because I’m stress eating right now, and I’d really like to stop.”
I can feel the spaghetti slapping at my cheeks, but I’m not wiping shit away until he tells me why we’re here. Or why he’s here. Or…
He slides a napkin across the table. At first I think he’s telling me to wipe my face, but then I start choking. I can’t read the words because my eyes are watering. Our server comes over to ask if I’m all right. Kit nods calmly, his eyes still on me. He’s not smiling. I’m supposed to stop coughing. I cough a little more to buy myself time.
I had a dream. Don’t marry Della
“Where did you get that?” I ask. Though I know where. Such an idiot, Helena.
“You know where,” he says.
“I was drunk.”
“You were. But I know you. You’re extra honest when you’re drunk.”
He calls the server over. “Another glass of wine for the lady,” he says.