Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 5 страница

"Frank, hello," Mikey said. He extended one of his hands, and we shook weakly. "I guess jetlag is still catching up with you," he greeted, politely calling me out on my lack of response.

"You have no idea," I said, and gathering my bearings, invited him inside.

"Yeah, you're about right there. The last time I had a business trip it was to San Francisco and not anywhere near as far as you just came. How long was the flight? Eighteen hours?" I barely nodded and he went on. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and began to roll them up after he had discarded his coat. "I will be taking a business trip to Japan in the coming new year, and may want your advice once you've settled in on how to deal with the jetlag. It's always nice hearing first hand from people when I do my research."

"Uh, yeah, sure, I guess so." I was staggered and still trying to collect myself.

I wasn't sure what to make of this opening remark, but I figure it was good. He hadn't shot me down yet or visibly disapproved, even when it had taken me ages to open the door and invite him in. Wasn't that what I was waiting for? The approval? Did I need approval? I was twenty-five now and Gerard fifty-five. I looked at Mikey from head to toe for a second and realized that that made him fifty. I was half his age. I was dating his brother and I was half his age. I felt my chest constrict and my heart and lungs doing jumping jacks. I had gotten used to Gerard being older than me a long, long time ago. But Gerard never really acted his age until recently, and even then, it was a different type of age that Mikey possessed. He was refined, collected, astute, and organized. Gerard was still the same person with his age, but he himself had evolved. He had become this hermit figure - L'etranger. It was a different type of embodiment, and now, I didn't know how to deal with being intimate with an older man and not just a man. My father/son instinct was coming back to me because of this refined quality in Mikey that commanded respect, and coupled with his doubling of my own age, I found myself seeking approval.

Approval that it turned out, I didn't need at all. Mikey and I, if his brother and I were to marry in a perfect world, would also be brothers. Never mind the age difference. We were peers, like Vivian and I, like Jasmine, and I was sure if I was to meet his wife, like her as well. Peers, that's all these people were, I kept trying to tell myself. Gerard's use of the word family had thrown me off entirely, and for a while, as Mikey and I made awkward (but friendly, on his part) conversation, I resented Gerard for it.

Mikey said that he had brought dessert, and he put the brown paper bag on the counter, without revealing what was inside. I showed him to the croissants that Viv had bought, but that we were now using for appetizers since Gerard had been instructed to eat. Mikey nodded, and seeing his brother on the balcony, nodded to him. Gerard had been completely out of it until that point - too busy smoking cigarette after cigarette and gazing aimlessly at the city. Now he threw down what he had half-finished and rushed out to great his brother.

"Hey!" he cried as he entered the indoors. Mikey smiled in response - the first time I had seen him do it that was not out of politeness. I felt like a fool before, realizing the performed nature of the previous emotions, and envying the sincerity and closeness at which he greeted his brother. And the way that Gerard greeted him back. There was an enthusiasm that they possessed that was absent from our relationship, and the one he had also shared with Vivian. I was noticing all these different gauges and depths of emotions that Gerard possessed that I was not aware of, and it was becoming overwhelming. I felt deadened in the middle of the room.

"Way to leave the door open, Frank. Twice now you've given me a scare. Anyone off the street can just walk in and take advantage," Vivian said, coming up behind me and placing her hands over my eyes. She mocked her own entrance by uttering, "Guess whooooo?"

She was teasing, but I was so utterly relieved for a distraction, that I turned around and gave her a hug. "Well, Frank," she said, her voice giving in a bit as I squeezed the life out of her. "It's about time you started missing me."

We sat around the table, taking advantage of the extra space that would soon disappear, and talked over coffee again. My nerves considerably calmed once Vivian had returned, and I knew the next person coming was Jasmine. All the surprises were gone now, and the balance had been restored. I didn't talk much to Mikey, but I listened a lot, and it was nice getting to know him from a distance. I pieced together the story of his life - or at least the important parts of it - as he and Gerard caught up from the seven years apart. Vivian first tried to stop them, telling them to wait for food, wait for wine, for Jasmine and good company, but Gerard shooed her away by promising no Paris stories.

"But your kids, Mikey. That's what I want to hear about the most," he declared, his eyes lighting up.

So I heard the story of Mikey's family, which made it a lot easier to help me ease into the idea of family itself. He was married to Alexa, and had been for a long time now. They had met at work, but it was unclear how. It seemed like she never really held a job, or went to college either, but that she was always moving on from one thing to the next. The only real stability to Alexa's character seemed to extend from Mikey and their children, at least until the past few months. Now she was running a home business, making her own products, crafts, and jewellery, and actually making a decent living out of it. She felt good; like a spiritual entrepreneur. Once Mikey divulged that Alexa also did astrology and tarot readings for people, Gerard lost it.

"And people actually pay for this? This is fascinating. I would never have thought."

"How do you feel about this, Mikey? Doesn’t it kind of go against what you think?" Vivian asked the question that had been on my mind, thankfully. Mikey presented himself as so solely rational and gentlemen-like that I just couldn't see him married to someone who had a lot of odd jobs ad was now making a decent living doing life coaching and hosting new age material parties. Not that there was anything wrong with that, I caught myself thinking. I liked astrology just as much as the next person who read the newspaper (not that I really even read the newspaper anymore), but I had never given it this much authority and credence, at least, one to make a living off. And Mikey seemed to be all about business and capital with Oxford shirts with an extended, button collar. It just didn't seem to fit, and I didn't know how much I believed in the mantra opposites attract when it came to coupledom.

Mikey's response, however, restored my vision of him and made me like him even more: "She's happy. She's good at something. Why not let her do this, if she's good at it, and people pay her? It's helped us out significantly, especially when we had David."

"David? How many kids do you have now? I don't remember David." Gerard's voice suddenly lost its magnetism, and he pulled his chair closer to his brother, leaning into the conversation deeply to not miss anything and to commit it all to memory.

David had apparently been just a baby when Gerard had left for Paris. He was the middle child now; Rachel and Isaac preceded him, and Elizabeth followed David next, and Jonah had just been born last year. "Jonah has his first birthday next week," Mikey said, smiling. Like every proud father, Mikey had the wallet photos, and out them came now, but somehow didn't make their way around the table. Gerard coveted them as if they were gold. I wasn't too eager to see children, so I didn't mind. I was watching the two brothers interact, carefully cataloguing their actions and trying to decipher emotions. Mikey was a proud father. And he passed no judgements as he talked to his brother - he barely passed any emotion at all. But Gerard, there was something deep and twisting inside of him. He stared at the photos, as if trying to re-piece his own history, as if trying to create a story out of these images so he could remember. He remembered Isaac and Rachel, but now they were bigger people - preteen, almost, at that cusp of change - and now there were these new ones entering into his life.

"Don't look so shocked, Gerard," Vivian teased, but there was a stark reality and bitterness hidden behind her words. "Just because you put your life on hold, doesn't mean other people did."

Gerard seemed to have not heard her to anyone else not watching as intently as I was. But the way he blinked - I knew the comment had registered and hit him hard. He was devastated. My stomach lurched, and the croissants nearly came back to visit me. But I kept it together, and so did Gerard. We were good at hiding by then.

"Next week for Jonah?" Gerard asked and Mikey nodded, with a smile he added, "Alexa's original due date was Christmas, and she was ecstatic for that. Due to complications, though, Jonah was a c-section and had to come early. His birth was hard. The doctor recommended no more kids after him, and you know, five in that house is definitely enough." He held up his hands in a joking effort to signal a stop.

"Don't I know it! I can barely handle one sometimes. Cassandra. I love her, but wow, we're definitely in the teen years now. Good luck, Mikey. Just good luck," Vivian joked, and the two of them shared a private moment, while Gerard and I were silent.

He was too silent, and too disengaged, in fact. I rubbed my foot against his under the table, and though he responded a bit there, he did not look up from the photos. "I would like to see Jonah for his birthday, and everyone else soon, if you don't mind," Gerard finally said, relinquishing the photos.

"Of course. I wouldn't dream of it any other way."

"Do you think they'll remember me? Not David, of course, but Rachel and Isaac. Will they?"

I could not fathom the despair I head in Gerard's voice. Maybe I was hyper-sensitive to these types of things now, knowing him the way I did, because no one else seemed to react. But it hit me so hard I let out a breath and closed my eyes. I saw the children in the photos - they had worked their way around to me now - and though they meant nothing to me, it was a different type of nothing that Gerard felt. It was a nothing that should have been something for him. He was supposed to be there those seven years, but he was not, and there was no going back. He was older than his brother, and had no children of his own, while his brother had five. I knew that children delighted him and he lived vicariously through others instead of having his own... but in those seven years, he had lost even the vicarious living. And now these kids were getting older and older. Cassandra, if my math was right, was fourteen now, almost fifteen. That's two years younger than I was when I met him. It was unreal. It was completely strange how much life could be crammed into the beginning section of our lives, and how, past a certain age, it seemed to spread out into nothing, into infinity, repetition. I was twenty five -- did I start to stretch on and on now, or later? I wasn't a teenager anymore, and I wasn't growing. I was done. And now that I had been to Paris, there was another definite finality to my growth... and yet, I didn't feel done. Is this how Gerard felt? What was he missing, what did he lose that made his voice gush sadness?

I didn't know, and I wasn't given time to answer my own question, and Mikey wasn't given time to respond to Gerard's either. Just at that moment there was a knock on the door. It was past six - Jasmine had now arrived.

And my heart leapt forward in my chest again.

She was wearing combat boots. I know it was winter, and that really shouldn't have startled me. But there was no snow on the ground, and Jasmine was small. She had been tiny in high school as well, but I seemed to have met her at the end of her growth spurt. Although she grew up in how she matured mentally and emotionally, her body pretty much always stayed the same. She was about five foot and two inches, no more, and usually pretty thin with a small bone structure. She looked thinner that night, but that was possibly because she was wearing a huge parka and it seemed to swallow her up. And those boots! They seemed so unnecessary and they clunked behind her as she walked. I was used to comparing her to a dove, or at least a bird of some kind, but now, with this artillery of noise behind her, she was something completely different than when I had left.

Or maybe she had been changing all along, and I had just never noticed it. Jasmine - and Vivian - were people who I just sort of took for granted. They were always going to be there, they were always going to be the same. Being assaulted by Jasmine's change like this, made me rethink myself. I looked down at my clothing, and my new physique (skinnier like hers) and I felt a twinge of shame in the self-consciousness. This must have been how Gerard felt, being assaulted by his brother's offspring. For me it was Jasmine's physical difference, her own separate life in the apartment, and her apparent success.

Underneath her jacket was the clothing that she had worn to her interview: a white long sleeved sweater, and a casual purple dress over top of it. She had long and thick tights underneath, with those boots finishing off the ensemble. She looked... good. Really good. Extremely different, and there was something else I couldn't put my finger on.

"So, did you get it, Jasmine? Did you get the job?" Vivian asked excitedly as she took her coat.

Jasmine nodded, her small lips parting to let her teeth come through. "Yeah," she said. "I got it."

There were small cheers all around - ones that I came into late and gave some haphazard clapping because I was too busy watching her as she removed her boots as well. I realized what the other thing was that was new: she was utterly glowing. This job, whatever it was, was making her radiate.

"Oh, I brought some food for myself and others just in case," she mentioned quickly after removing her boots. She followed Viv into the kitchen and set her bag down and began to rummage through it.

"In case of what?" I asked, and my voice cracked as I said it. No one else seemed to notice. Jasmine looked over and directly into my eyes, and if I had been speaking, my voice would have cracked again. Her face changed; the smile she had fell a bit, and she turned her attention away from me.

"In case what Viv made I can't eat," she answered quickly, then focused on Vivian. "What did you make? It smells good, whatever it is."

"What else do I make? Marinara sauce, pasta, and chicken. I kept the chicken separate for you, though. Don't worry."

Jasmine smiled, but this was different than the job success - it seemed weary, as if she had gone through this routine a million times before. "Can I see the recipe?"

Viv nodded and passed it over to her. As she looked through it, Viv went through her bag. I noticed this sense of ease between the two of them - Vivian hadn't even asked for permission, and Jasmine didn't seem to mind. Viv made oohing and ahhing noises, commenting on the curry smell, and how delicious her last meal had been. I remembered what Viv had told me about the prior dinners, and realized that this must go on a lot between them, that they had developed a peer-like relationship as well. Or were they family?

"Did you add parmesan cheese? And white sugar, Viv?"

"Fuck," was all Vivian said. She poked her nose outside of the bag Jasmine had brought and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jasmine."

"What's wrong?" Gerard asked, overly curious. He was so used to eating without any type of restriction or reservation - especially when we had very little money for food - that the idea of being selective was unbelievable to him. Even economics aside, the idea of saying no to something - to an experience, a taste, a person - was unfathomable. He watched the two women curiously.

I was also a little confused, but not as much. I knew that Jasmine had been vegetarian for awhile, or that it at least interested her. But all else was lost on me.

Jasmine, taking a deep breath and full of that weary expression, explained; "I'm vegan. So no cheese." It seemed like such a small explanation for all of that prep work in her emotions, and I wasn't satisfied.

" Vegan? "

"Yes."

"Really? Why?" I just couldn't get it through my head, and it seemed like no one else was willing to ask it. I had always associated things like that with fanatics. People who would don ski masks and rob pet stores, or with people who would wear nothing but lettuce and demonstrate outside a store throwing red paint on customers who walked past. And this wasn't even a stereotype I was going on; I had seen this done before at a store around the corner from where we were now in Jersey. Jasmine didn't fit in with that crowd. I had known her since she was seventeen, like me, and though we had strong convictions - we often fought on her vegetarian ideals - we were never fanatics. About anything, really, but our own freedom. This seemed like a huge restriction; she seemed exhausted and blinked her eyes slowly as I asked my question. Why bother with this?

"I mean, I totally get the meat thing, but cheese too? Why?"

Jasmine's composure never faltered. Her voice was strong and clear. Aside from her prolonged blinks, she was rock solid. "How about I don't question your decisions and you don't question mine, okay?"

Her emphasis on decision making, and the way she twisted the your bit as it came out of her mouth made guilt race over me. I felt what Gerard must have, at least minutely, for disappearing for seven years in a second. I bit my lip realizing my overzealous error and then suddenly understanding why she had to prepare herself so thoroughly to give her answer. It wasn't because she was tired of her lifestyle, that it restricted her. She was questioned like this all the damn time. She dealt with people not understanding all the time. That was enough to make anyone tired, and I had now contributed to it. I felt like an idiot, though I still didn't quite get it - a restriction was a restriction, and therefore, not a freedom - I made sure I shut up.

Vivian helped with those matters, by quickly swooping in and saving the day right away. "Now that that cat is nicely out of the bag - sorry for the metaphor -" she gave sympathetic eyes to Jasmine, "can we all just be together and eat some fantastic food?"

"Hard to argue with that, Viv," Gerard commented, pulling his chair up. "Let's all dig in."

For the first little while, we were all so new to one another and voraciously hungry, that we filled our mouths and plates with food instead of conversation. Gerard sat next to me, and then Vivian on the other side. Next to Gerard was his brother, and then leaving Jasmine in the middle between the two child-bearing/having adults. Because the table was round and the placement wasn't quite the best for symmetry, it left me stare at the space in between the two people who intimidated me the most: Jasmine and Mikey. I felt my heart quicken as I ate, and guilt overwhelm me anytime I had chicken. I tried to camouflage it with sauce so Jasmine wouldn't see, but as we all settled in and she took out her food and began to eat, her demeanour changed and was not as confrontational. Vivian made sure the chicken platter was not near her, and after that, it was as if there wasn't this huge discrepancy in meals. It was nice, and I began to eat how I felt like eating, only to become highly self-conscious about Mikey and his table manners shortly thereafter. I felt like a barbarian next to him, as if I was eating with my hands and using the wrong fork. I sat closer to Gerard, and tried to mimic how he was eating. But he was too slow - he must not have been hungry after all of those croissants.

I was relieved when someone started the ball rolling with something to say. Of course, it was Vivian.

"Jasmine," she began. "Tell me all about your new job! You've been on a few interviews, is that right? Is this the first one you've been offered?"

Jasmine blotted her mouth with her napkin and shook her head. “No, technically not. But it’s the first that I’ve really wanted, and they offered it to me right after the interview, so I agreed.” She smiled and took a drink of water, her memory taking her back to her excitement from the prior day. “I’m still working at the cafe, too, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that up. I like it there, and they’ve been really good to me the past little while, so I’m hoping that I can juggle both before I really get in over my head.”

I listened intently. It was odd to hear her speak about jobs, in the plural. The cafe one I remembered; she had worked there throughout her college education. But it had been the college part of Jasmine that had always overshadowed everything in my mind. She was always in school. The cafe was a side thing, a weekend or weeknight gig, twenty hours a week at most. Even when she was there, she had books with her. During her break, at the times when I would come to see her, we'd sit and talk over coffee (milk and sugar for me, and at first for her too, but gradually she stopped until her coffee was blacker than the cup they served it in), and she would tell me about the awesome novel she had just read, and if I had been in school, I'd tell her about the painting I'd done or artist I had learned about. Most of the time, I was regurgitating what Gerard had told me because I hated school and never seemed to get as much as she got out of it. But the company was nice, and even though she had worked there since she was twenty-one, I never associated Jasmine with work itself. It was always learning, always conversation, coffee, and for awhile, freedom.

It had been so nice talking to her then. I'd often pick her up from work as well if she worked the later shift. She hated to walk alone at night, and again, we'd pick up what we were talking about before. She'd tell me her ideas, her essays, whatever was on her mind. She was an English major and we suited each other so well then on those walks in the middle of the night, still wired from caffeine and enlightenment. Most of the things I know about the English language and the history of books I learned from her and those walks to her apartment.

"Do you know who Lorca is?" she asked me one night as we walked back. She had been taking a comparative literature course that focused its efforts on Hispanic studies. I had just finished hearing about Gabriel Garcia Marquez the week before and the wonders of magic realism and how it made her feel like being alive and present in Jersey, of all places, was better. It was almost like it wasn't the garden state anymore, but an entire garden itself. It was a nice thought, especially in the middle of the February cold and I was out of school, missing Gerard more than ever. Magic realism let me suspend time for a bit, and have him here whenever.

But of course, my answer to most of Jasmine's queries were: "No, I haven't. Tell me more." And then, to prove that I was learning from her, I added: "Is he more like Marquez or Borges?"

"Neither, really, he's a poet. And a playwright. I don't think you can compare that to novel writing. Much harder."

I nodded and waited for her to continue. "Okay, so anyway, he was a poet and in love with Walt Whitman. I read his 'Ode to Whitman' just before I came out to see you - and it was gorgeous. But moving on, I swear I have a point with this. Whitman - he was very gay. So was Lorca, though he sort of kept it hidden and didn't want to deal with it. Do you know who his lover was?" She paused, looking at me with eager eyes. "You actually may know this one!"

But I shrugged my shoulders. It was more fun letting her tell me things.

"Salvador Dali! Yes! Isn't that awesome? I remember him from when you brought him up. Of course, Dali was sort of ashamed of it and tried to cover it up. Denied it completely. But there are conflicting reports. Either way, Lorca was in love with him. It made me smile - it's like our two worlds merging. Books and paintings. Poetry and well, gay love affairs." She smiled, really wide, and just as hard as it hit me then, it hit me again now, remembering it all. She was so supportive. So loving. She got the Gerard deal right away, and knew how much he meant to me. Even though I could be annoying with how persistently I hung onto his memory and how I seemed to wait around for nothing at all, she was there. And she supported me in her own way.

"So what happen to Lorca? To Dali? Did they ever get together?"

Her smile fell for a bit. "That's the sad part of the story. There always is one. It feels like only tragedy can make something good, and I'm kind of getting sick of it, honestly."

Her emotion was surprising; if I had known her better, or seen beyond myself, I would have tried to ask what was wrong that night. At the dinner table then, I looked at her as she spoke about her interview, and I wanted to ask her what was wrong that time years ago, but it was too late. In the street in my mind, however, that we walked down, we were at her place. She never told me what happened, but she explained that she had just been reading too much Hemingway - who shot himself - and Virginia Woolf - who drowned herself - that week.

"So things are a little bleak. Sometimes I just want to read good poems, or see good paintings, you know, and just not think about those things anymore."

"Trust me," I had assured her. "I know exactly what you mean."

Back at the table, Jasmine went on about her job to Vivian, and my perception of her kept altering and changing. I’d already had to rearrange the image of her in my mind to include this new veganism mentality. I wondered what type of vegan she was, what her views were exactly, but I knew better to hold my tongue while she was talking about her job, about her office space, where she would work, and how much she would be paid. What about poetry? What about novels? I wanted her to mention an author, a storyline, something other than facts. I knew these facts made her happy, and that it was a part of her, but I just had a hard time letting things go. I tried to listen.

"It's a magazine, and they were looking for a new editor. The old one went on maternity leave, so it's only a year contract so far, but they assured me that if things go well, I can go off on my own in another office, or they will figure something out. They were very explicit about that, but you know, this is one of the reasons I want to stay at the cafe, even though I'm looking at a forty hour work week with this new place."

"What type of magazine is it?" Vivian asked, at the edge of her seat. "Do they need submissions?"

"They always need submissions, they say, but they don't pay very well since the bulk of their content comes from the staff that is present at all times, and they want to ensure that they get a good pay. It's an art focused magazine, but it also comments on critical theory and political events as well. The interviewer basically told me that since their publication is small and independent, expect to never make news. But what we can make is commentary, and engage with different types of storytelling, politics, and points of view. That's what's exciting to me."

I smiled - storytelling and art. I began to recognize this person in a purple dress, vegan attitude, and combat boots.

"What's the name of the press? The magazine?"

"Mouth Magazine. Because we're Taking Talk To The Tips of Your Teeth. " She rolled her eyes after saying it, oozing with fake enthusiasm. "The tagline is kind of annoying, but they think they need one for a marketing edge. I get it, I guess. Apparently if I have to get the phone - which shouldn't happen that often - I have to say the tagline. For the most part, though, I really like this place. It reminds me a lot of the Women's Studies classes I took last year. The magazine's mission statement feels like what I did my thesis and graduate work on - which is why I'm super excited."

As soon as I had found her, I lost her again. This was another part of Jasmine that I vaguely remembered. Like her job at the cafe in the backroom, her other work in the humanities and women's studies department was lost on me in the face of the obvious poetry and literature. But I knew this Jasmine, too, I had to remind myself. We had had good discussions on human sexuality and typical gender roles when our artistic proclivities were put aside.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14