“That feels good,” he said. I don’t know how much time passed before he said, “Simone told me my mother was a mermaid, and that it had always been her destiny to return to the ocean because it was her real home, and someday she and I would return too. My mother swam away. I think I knew better, even then. I got older, I found the newspapers, I learned what drowning is, I know. But when you asked me that, my first thought was, she swam away and went home. Funny, right? The way we can’t unlearn things even when we know they aren’t true.”
I rolled on top of him, torso on torso, stomachs breathing convex and concave into each other. I thought about saying a lot of grown-up things: I lost my mother too. I think it would have been harder if I’d ever had her, could remember her. I know that trust is impossible with other people, but mostly with yourself because nobody taught you how. I know that when you lose a parent a part of you is stuck there, in that moment of abandonment. I thought about saying, I know you’re falling in love with me too. Instead I said, “I told someone you were my boyfriend.”
“Who?”
“Some guy who was hitting on me.”
“Who? Where?”
“Just some guy.” I had never seen him jealous, or even prickly, except for maybe when we talked about Simone and Howard’s friendship. But his tone had gone from laconic to lucid. “He was like, a fancy rich guy at Grand Central Oyster Bar. He wanted to have oysters with me.”
“You went to Grand Central? Without me?”
“Are you mad or impressed?”
“Annoyed and intrigued. How did it feel?”
“It was totally magic in there, I was thinking we should go back—”
“No, how did it feel telling that guy that you had a boyfriend?”
How did it feel? It felt—possibly, potentially—true. “I don’t know. I mean, he left me alone after I said that. So that was…good.” We looked at each other. I kept resettling my head on the pillow. I was terrified. “How does that make you feel?”
“I’m not big on labels. You like labels?”
“I’m not trying to have a talk about labels.”
“But I will say…” His hands found me again. He traced underneath my breasts. He traced the round part of my stomach. He traced my ribs. I watched his rings. “I don’t want you to eat oysters with anyone else.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I like it when you’re mine.” He pushed me onto my back and my head banged against the wall, hollow. “Now, can I ask you a serious question?”
“Yes,” I said, breathless.
“What does a guy have to do to get a blow job in the morning?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I see three rays of sun over there on the wall.”
“That’s the neon sign from across the street.”
He kept my wrists above my head. He rubbed his chin and lips over my breasts. “Let’s see,” I said. “I got my eight and a half minutes of cuddling, I got the sensitive-man monologue, I got my bohemian ‘nonlabel,’ so I guess I just need…”
“What else for fuck’s sake?”
“A sign,” I said, catching his eyes. He made fun of my tendency to invoke fate. Simone made fun of me too, but said it was very old-world, which was a compliment when we talked about wine. Jake and I looked at each other, and I thought, How can you believe everything is accidental when we’re together and it feels like this?
Suddenly, dozens of pigeons thrashed against the fire escape, their wings flashing the light, hammering the windows, and I said, I don’t think it was out loud, Okay, I accept.
—
WILL CAME DOWN from the mezz whistling, and stopped to drop off the last round of silver at the bar. Nicky and I were down to one guest, Lisa Phillips, who was on that precipice between tears and laughter. Nicky, in retrospect, probably shouldn’t have let her have six glasses of wine, but she was a notoriously exceptional tipper, and her husband, she’d just found out, was leaving her.
“If we can’t let her get drunk here tonight, what good are we to anyone? She came here ’cause it’s a safe place,” Nicky said when I suggested that we should cut her off. So I watched. Her eyes grew unfocused, her mouth gaped, and even her cheekbones seemed to slump.
“Oh, Lisa,” Will said to me. “Who’s gonna pour her into a cab?”
“I think Nick is on it. It’s really sad though. He left her, and the new one is like, my age. She won’t even look at me.”
“Yeah, it’s always about you, huh.”
“Hey!”
“Joking,” he said, his hands up. Lisa’s head dropped onto her arms, and Nicky pulled away the bread basket, then her silverware, then her balled-up napkin. She didn’t move.
“Are you going for one?” Will asked.
“Are you cut already? Nick hasn’t even gotten me the list yet.”
“You want a quick treat for the close?” He touched the tip of his nose with two fingers.
“It’s a bit early,” I said. I polished the glasses and looked at him. “You’re into it during your shift now too?”
“Tonight was an exception. Heather, Simone, Walter—it was diva night on the floor, they ran me fucking ragged.”
“Isn’t it always diva night?” I asked. “You look tired, babe.”
He nodded. I thought of how selfish I had been with him, but couldn’t summon the appropriate guilt. It was another instance of something that failed to hold its prescribed meaning. He was just a boy.
“I’ll go for one. Save me a stool?”
Mrs. Glass, one of our elderly regulars, approached us. It wasn’t my job, but she reached out with a coat check ticket. The hostess stand was empty.
I never had much use for the coat check room. Occasionally I pulled high chairs from there. The door was already ajar.
For a split second I didn’t see them. I saw empty hangers, a vacuum cleaner, the mop bucket. But sitting in the corner was Misha, with her fake breasts affixed to her bird-boned Ukrainian thinness, and Howard, as dense and secure as another piece of furniture. Misha was perched on his lap sideways, her skirt fanning out over his knees and to the floor. She had her hand over her mouth, like she was afraid of making a noise, and he had one of his hands on the small of her back like he was a ventriloquist.
“Yes?” Howard asked calmly, quizzical eyes. Neither of them moved.
“Sorry,” I said and ran out, shutting the door behind me. My head twitched around in a circle, trying to sense signs of movement in the restaurant, but I was unseen. I remembered Mrs. Glass.
I knocked on the coat check door. There was no sound inside.
“Misha,” I whispered into the door. “I need Mrs. Glass’s coat. I’m sliding the ticket under the door. She’s waiting.”
I ran back to the barista station.
Mrs. Glass was just perceptibly rocking. She inhabited another parallel time, where all faces, all places had been assimilated. Her days were on repeat. Nothing shocked her.
“People are so stupid,” I said under my breath. She turned her ear toward me. “Your coat will be right out.”
I mixed Cafiza with scalding water and threw the portafilters in. I grabbed the micro-wrench and very carefully unbolted the hot mesh screens from the group head. I dunked them. I kept my hands moving, but a jittery, unstable giggle hung around me.
“What the fuck, Fluff? You didn’t last call. Maybe Lisa wanted one.”
“Nicky,” I said, my voice loaded, “it’s too late for espresso.”
Misha came out carrying a short fur coat and Mrs. Glass clapped her hands. They walked in tandem to the door and Mrs. Glass was off into the night. Nick came around the bar and took Lisa by the elbow. She tried to protest.
“Does he know what he did?” was all I could hear her say, and I shook my head, trying to get it out of my ears.
“I know,” Nicky said, helping her off the stool, standing her up. He put on her coat so gently, and did the button at her neck. There were no tears, but her face was contorted, confused, as if someone were trying to wake her up. I thought about how her life didn’t belong to her anymore. I thought of Simone. Nicky kept saying, “I know.”
Howard came out. I wiped my face clean of expression. He walked behind the bar and pulled down two rocks glasses and grabbed a bottle of Macallan 18. I watched him pour it out, more intrigued than ever. He wore his power so lightly most days, as if he wasn’t attached to it, but in fact, it informed every step he took. Highly, highly off-limits, this scotch. He slid it to me and I caught it. It burned my entire mouth.
Howard watched the street where Nicky was hailing a cab in his stripes and apron. He sighed. “It’s a dangerous game, isn’t it? The stories we tell ourselves.”
IV