Part 18 (1/2)
”The light's green.”
”No CliffsNotes, Laine.”
Cars honked behind us.
”Go!” I said.
He put the car in park. Someone yelled and honked, but our eyes were locked.
”I'm not going,” he said.
I swallowed. Why couldn't I tell him why I'd never felt anything after him? That I'd been taken by men I barely knew, men who shouldn't have touched me? That I'd been bruised, called names, been one body in scenes with many others? I'd wanted to believe that those were acts of love, protection even, because Jake was there setting boundaries. His boundaries, not mine, but something.
Behind us, a car door slammed.
”You have to go,” I said. ”They're going to recognize you.”
”So I'll take a few pictures on Western and Olympic.”
I felt pressure to answer, and pressure to not answer, and pressure from the ticking seconds. Michael could have sung ”The Star-Spangled Banner” and kept the pressure on with just his posture and his eyes. d.a.m.ned actors.
Even when the rap of knuckles on his window should have jarred us, he didn't move. The guy looking in the window behind Michael had a beard and slicked back hair. He looked like a few of the guys whose names I forgot, who I hadn't been in love with, all those years ago.
And Michael knew d.a.m.n well he was there, but he kept his eyes on me, waiting for an answer.
”Besides what I told you in the loft, it just hasn't happened,” I said.
”You haven't dated?”
”It's not that I haven't dated. I had one thing last five months. Two things, actually. A cop and an insurance adjuster. It's just, you know, I'm busy, and I bore easily.”
I was telling the truth. Two relations.h.i.+ps of about five months. Both had bored me into an emotional coma.
”Hey, you a.s.shole!” said the guy at the window, rapping on the gla.s.s. ”We missed the light!”
”There's more to this,” Michael said.
There was more. Plenty more. There were more men than I could even recall.
”I can't,” I said. ”Not yet. Don't make me talk about it.”
Michael's face changed, and I couldn't get a read on it. The bearded guy banged on the window, and Michael turned around to face him.
”Dude!” he said, pointing. ”You're Michael Greydon.”
”s.h.i.+t,” I mumbled, sliding down in my seat.
The bearded guy turned back to his car. ”Earl! Check this out!”
”He's reaching for his phone,” I said.
Michael turned back to me. Maybe it was my boneless posture, low on the seat, as if I'd been poured out of a jar of jelly, or maybe it was the fact that the light changed back to green, but he jammed the car into drive and took off.
”Thank you,” I said.
”I'm sorry.” He turned on Olympic and headed downtown.
”I don't mind a little fast driving.”
”That I tried to get you to talk about stuff you don't want to tell me. I can see you're not ready. I'm sorry. I was... sometimes I feel closer to you than I've earned.”
How could a person stand up under the weight of such kindness? Especially knowing we couldn't last? That he was the opposite side of my coin, always parallel, never meeting but by some chance bending of the universe? I looked straight ahead as the streets became my own with their worn billboards and cracked sidewalks. The body shops and convenience stores gave way to punk graffiti and hipster conveniences.
I must have looked as shattered as I felt, because he squeezed my hand.
”You all right?” he asked.
”You don't have to explain why you feel that way,” I said, ”but if you want to-”
”I didn't know what I felt for you. It was new and irrational. I couldn't even process it. And with Lucy and me leaving and everything else...”
”Me not having a family.”
”Everything,” he said. ”I spend a lot of energy worrying about what people think. It's in the job description. But what I felt with you was real, and I didn't have it with Lucy. So I thought I'd just move on and find it with someone else.”
”Someone with parents?”
”I was eighteen.”
I wasn't trying to press him or make him feel guilty. I was doing worse than that. I was using him as a bludgeon against myself, getting him to list my shortcomings so I didn't have to.
He continued, ”And you were barely fifteen.”
”I told you my birthday?” I hadn't. I knew I hadn't. He'd known I was fifteen, but if he knew my birthday, then he knew that I was even younger than my cla.s.smates.
”Matter of public record.”
”Screw the public record. You know too much about me.”
”The feeling's mutual.”
I didn't know whether to tickle him or punch him. Along with half the world, I knew too much about him because of the choices he'd made. Were we about to get into the age-old argument about the ethical and legal angles of his stardom and my job? Because even though I wasn't as educated as he was, and even though I was starting to cringe at the bitter taste of a life without privacy, I'd wipe the floor with him.
I looked forward to it, because that argument meant we were invested in fitting together. That thought, once it entered my mind fully formed, excited me more than chasing down a mark or getting a once-in-a-lifetime tip. Were we going to have some kind of relations.h.i.+p? Were we going to sit over breakfast together and discuss politics and movies? Could my job coexist with his if we kept it quiet?
He smiled a little, and I knew he was still in good humor. I was building a case in my head and calling up the rulings decided in the paparazzi's-my-favor, when I saw the blue Corolla parked on my block. Then Renaldo's SUV.
”Don't turn into the lot.” I shrank in my seat.
”What?”