Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 6 страница

But I had to admit, these debates were the more fiery ones. The passionate ones, the ones that were the most awkward now to recall. We usually had a lot of different views that did not always go together, and also, these were the discussions that took place once I got past the door of her apartment, or I invited her to mine. These were the ones we had over dinner some nights, the morning after, or sometimes right after, while we were both still naked and in bed together. The memory of these discussions hit me the hardest because it felt like I had really gotten to know Jasmine, all of her, and at the same time, it left me the most conflicted because we didn't agree on everything. And besides, I had Gerard. Even if he was a figment half the time, I had him, and I knew that a relationship wasn't a game so I couldn't cheat, but now that he was here, with me at the table, the recollections of Jasmine and I in bed together made me feel jumbled. I dropped my fork, but luckily, no one noticed.

As Jasmine talked about her job, I weaved in and out of her conversation, and back into our relationship, if you could ever really call it that. We were best friends, and I was comfortable with that title. We spent a lot of time together and in the winter, our apartments seemed far apart. The memory of Gerard stung me the most then, because it had been winter when we were together as well. The nights were longer, I was lonelier, especially without school. Jasmine had needed someone to walk her home, and then we were both hungry. It was always in the winter, she and I. In the summer, we seemed to always drift, she would get a boyfriend, but she hated commitment as much as I did. By Christmas he would be gone, and second semester would be starting, and I would be in her bed most of February.

"So what is this?" we would often ask one another, especially after the first night since the previous spring and we seemed to resume where we left off.

"It feels like a vacation in the winter. Like you're the one thing I can count on to escape to when things get shitty outside and in school."

I forgot who said this line first, but it was one that we repeated often.

People would always mistake us for a couple at school, and all the time, we would vehemently deny it. "No, absolutely not, just friends, only friends, best friends, but only friends." We even denied this after people had already seen us hold hands, kiss, dance together, and it was clearly obvious that we came out of the same apartment in the morning. Still, we were not a couple, never would be.

I thought it was great. I thought she was being understanding, and she knew how much Gerard meant to me and that no one would ever really replace him. Being a couple didn't seem right to us: it was ownership, and it was something that restricted freedom. So we never were a couple.

I looked around at everyone at the table right then, and then I looked back towards Gerard and I. Were we a couple? Had we been all this time? I never said I was with Jasmine because of him in the back of my mind, but did that mean that I was coupling with him instead of her? Did that mean I was claiming ownership anyway? And what did we do now that we were here, and there was no more waiting? How did I identify and place myself in all of this?

"What do I call you, exactly?" Jasmine once asked me in the morning. "I know we're friends, but even best friends does not seem to qualify this exactly. I have a best friend from college. She was my roommate. But I've never seen her naked or fucked her. It's different, you know? I don't know what to call this, or you."

"We're not a couple," I said, but that was all I could give her. She was in the bathroom, adjusting her necklace and her top before she was going to head out to work. I watched her reflection in the mirror.

"I know, Frank. It just feels difficult some days explaining things to people. To guys in bars, that oh no, I'm actually going to go home with someone else, he's my friend..."

"So go home with him, too. You don't always have to come back to me."

She sighed, fixing her necklace again. "Not exactly what I meant, or really had in mind."

I walked up behind her, put my arms on her waist, and kissed the back of her neck, over the clasp of the chain. "I'm Frank. You're Jasmine. Isn't that enough? Isn't that all we need?"

"What is Gerard?" She asked. She turned around so we faced one another, no longer dealing with reflections.

I was about to say, "He's Gerard," but I stopped because I knew there was more to it than that. I knew there was something my voice was missing, something in this society that was missing as a whole. This place holding between everything and nothing where it was impossible to find meaning and have it be recognized. Jasmine saw the stop and start of my response and nodded her head, closing her eyes.

"Yeah, I know, I get it," she had said, but then, even now, I still wasn't sure what she got. The inaccessibility of emotion and language. She did rally on afterwards a bit, resorting to her academic rhetoric that, "Well, this is how society functions. It subjugates and makes us feel like we're the idiots because we can't express ourselves, when really, how can we if we're not given the proper tools. Don't blame the builders, blame the boss. These tools just don't work anymore."

She went over to the bed then, to pick up her bag, but whatever little was in it, seemed like too much. "Fuck work. I'm not going in today."

"You feeling all right?" I asked - it was never like Jasmine to miss anything. She nodded "Just tired, and I don't feel like facing the world today."

I nodded. I had been out of school for a long time then, or at least it felt like a long time. I had worked or seen people even less. I sat on the bed with Jasmine, and she stared at her feet a bit. "I swear, our conversations depress me so much sometimes."

I nodded again, completely agreeing. But there was a difference in her movement, a way she wrote something off. I didn't get her, not completely - that was the whole point. No one got anyone completely, so how could there be couples? But we didn't bother to argue or say anything.

"A rule," I declared, hoping to be more light-hearted. "No more talking for the rest of the -"

I didn't have a chance to finish, before she was kissing me, sliding off the clothes I had just put on. She was naked too in a matter of minutes, the only thing staying on being her necklace. We were good to our words and were completely silent from then on.

That had been my clearest and most recent memory of Jasmine. After that, we had both gotten really busy with school and I had managed to get a photography job. By the time that was complete, it was summer and she was off again to do her own thing, and I was doing mine. It felt like so much time had passed since that last day together. I sat and watched her talk more and more about her job, about her degrees, and it made me feel altered. I realized she had a Masters in English and Publishing now - and I realized that I had been with her while she was working on it, but it never really registered. How could we both be the same age and yet, I had nothing? Just a high school diploma? She was now an editor at a magazine, with a Masters in addition to her college degree. Mikey had five children and a successful marriage - and Gerard had no kids. Vivian had a teaching job. Those grad students from before, she mentioned them again in dinner conversation, and I realized they were her graduate students. She was supervising two big projects and was part of the graduate department of arts for the school she was working at. She also had a daughter as a single mom.

I couldn't fathom the success around me. It made me very uncomfortable, and part of me wished we were back in Paris where no one knew our success or our failure, and we only had one another. I looked at Gerard, expecting him to feel as uncomfortable as I was, but he was listening closely, and giving Jasmine and Viv, the heads of this conversation, his full attention.

"Is editing something you like doing, Jasmine?" he asked when he finally spoke up. This was really the first time he had met her, aside from the small meeting back when we were both seventeen at the art show. I held my breath in anticipation, realizing these two people had the most dirt on me, knew me the best, and were now carrying on a conversation outside of my control.

Jasmine looked at Gerard the way she did most new people: slowly, and intently, gauging whether or not they were a threat. I always forgot that she did this until someone new came along; I always took for granted that I had that way in, that I was already deemed safe to her. Years in an abusive household made her this way, and I felt bad for forgetting her history.

"Yes, I do like editing, a lot actually. Especially about this topic," she answered him, assessing now done. He was safe. She smiled. "Thank you for asking."

"I can admire editors," Gerard commented, and I found myself raising an eyebrow without realizing it. "They do the work that I can never stand."

Jasmine smiled again. "Yeah, it is pretty tough, but I'm excited to not be in school anymore. I want to see what else there is."

I felt a pang of remorse, I supposed. Jasmine wanted nothing to do with school, and yet, she was school to me. Her knowledge complemented mine. I wasn't given too long to mope though, as Vivian brought me right back into the conversation.

"Frank, you should consider what wise Jasmine here is saying. Work. You two - both of you, don't think you're getting off the hook, Gerard, just because you're old - you both need to find jobs."

I let out a precursory groan, one that I figured Vivian expected of me, and half-anticipated. But when I looked over at her, she was staring astutely at me.

"I'm serious, Frank," she confirmed. "The rent and food does not pay for itself. And besides," trying to stay lighthearted, "it's Christmas soon. You'll be able to find some Christmas work for sure. Taking pictures of kiddies and families in ridiculous matching sweaters with bells on them or on Santa's lap. It will be good for you."

It sounded right up my alley, I said to myself sarcastically, never daring to verbalize it. What I did comment, though, somewhat ironically was, "It'll be just like Paris."

It worked. While Gerard laughed and understood what I meant, it got everyone else focused to what this dinner was supposed to be about: us. Us and art, and Paris, and the trip that took seven years in the making. Gerard looked at me with a smile, before I held out my arm to signal that he had the floor to give them the story. I wanted to hear how he figured it all out for himself.

He started like this: "Every seven years, we shed our skin. It takes that long for the cells to reproduce themselves. So, as of right now, I am a completely different person...."

The conversation began to fade as dinner blurred into dessert. The dessert that Mikey had brought was something he made himself: a large cake, frosted thickly with white icing. But as we began to cut through the layers, we realized something funny and beautiful was going on. Each layer was a different; he had dyed the vanilla cake mix with rainbow colours, and literally turned his cooking into a work of art.

"Alexa saw something like this on the internet. She saved it for me, knowing I would want to try it, and for a special occasion. This seemed like a good excuse."

I marvelled at Mikey's culinary skill - located in a person who I would have least suspected to possess such qualities. Vivian lamented her own cooking, and Mikey upstaging her, but he was not responsive. It seemed more important to him to serve up the cake than gloat on his prowess. So that is what we did - all but Jasmine, who, in spite of new dietary restrictions, was still in awe.

"I apologize," Mikey stated after the cake had been cut. "If I was aware of your intentions with veganism, I would have prepared this differently. Can I get you something else?"

Jasmine waved it off, opting for fruit instead, but still not taking her eyes off the cake as she peeled her orange.

Coffee was also doled out, and at this point, Gerard was pretty much done with his story. His story of Paris, for sure, but not quite our story as we understood it. We kept most of our exchanges in the cafe, the painful reunion in his apartment, tucked away for our own safe keeping. Gerard's story didn't have the drama that he apparently ate for breakfast. There were no sudden plot twists, surprise endings, merciless villains, or rash decisions. He told us that he became the stranger, (like Camus, as Jasmine pointed out), and he spent ages describing the meticulous nature of one painting he had done.

"And where is it now?" Vivian had asked.

Gerard waved his hand and took a drink, signalling that it was not of importance anymore. "What matters is the process, not the end result," he said, to which Vivian gave him an extended eye roll and disappointed stare. He took no notice, and went on to more important things, like the way the sun rises in Paris every morning, and how he wasn't sure he would see something as beautiful as that ever again.

"I'm sure you will," Mikey said, surprising me with his sudden interjection. He had been an observer through most of this and his tone was a stark contrast to Vivian's. He was calm, caring. He wasn't telling Gerard that he better find something in Jersey to like, he was telling him that there was possibility here for that. "It's just a matter of changing scenery."

Gerard nodded, taking his brother's words and not divulging much else. The two of them seemed to share a moment I was not privy to, and in a blink it was gone.

The night wore on, and we began to feel drained as a group. Gerard, leaving his leftover cake on the counter (I wanted to believe it was too beautiful for him to eat), moved closer to his brother so they could catch up and look at more photographs. I heard Jonah's name being mentioned a few times before Vivian stood up and took the cake away, placing it in the fridge and sighing. She excused herself to call Cassandra, since it was getting late and she wanted to make sure the piano teacher had given her a ride as she said she would.

That left Jasmine and myself, one last orange section for her, and myself, a full cup of coffee.

It felt like I hadn't seen her in years. It wasn't just the change with the job, the school, the focus, and the veganism. I sensed something much deeper than that. I thought that any distance between us was caused by the dinner itself and how she was literally separated out of it because of carelessness on everyone else's part, but she was good around Vivian, even Gerard and Mikey. But when left alone with me, there seemed to be this gate around us, and the ocean between us.

"So." She said, tossing her peel onto an empty plate. But she didn't offer anything else.

"So." I repeated, the decided to risk it. "How long have you been vegan? I don't remember you being so when I left."

"I wasn't. I changed over in September, a week or so later."

I made an agreeing noise, and she nodded again. Back to silence.

"I should go soon, I have to get over to the magazine tomorrow and do some paperwork."

"No, don't go," I said automatically. "I mean, not yet. Let's just..." I looked around the room frantically. "Let' go to the balcony. It's supposed to be nice out tonight." I had no idea if that was true or not, but it worked. She was heading over there, and I followed behind eagerly.

It wasn't all that nice out. Although the sky was clear and stars were visible, it was absolutely freezing. Jasmine didn't seem to notice - or if she did, she didn't say anything. She touched the railing of the balcony, looking out again. I shut the door behind me, and then, now sure what to do, stood next to her.

"Doesn't exactly beat Paris, I guess," she said. "What did you think? You didn't really get too much into that conversation."

"It was pretty much how he described for himself. When I got there, it was the same routine. We didn't do much, but somehow it meant a lot." I thought about his introduction, the time and space between us all, and our bodies changing from one place to another. "But it's different now. I'm different now. I'm pretty sure."

She smiled and laughed a bit. Even though I figured she was laughing at me, I took it as a victory. Her emotions were coming back, and we were bridging this gap. She said, still grinning. "Usually when you change, you're sure and aware of it."

"Not always. Sometimes it sneaks up, and the next thing you know...." I didn't finish. I wanted to say you're vegan and you're working 9-5, but I remained silent and let my words trail off awkwardly.

"Change isn't always bad, Frank. It's the only constant in life. And sometimes you just have to get used to it."

"Are you... okay, Jasmine?" I was apprehensive. There was something in her voice - it was different. She was changing right then before me. She was glowing inside the apartment, but now there were shadows, seemingly everywhere. Her voice was jagged, and I knew it just wasn't the cold. She shivered, but it seemed like she was trying to hold herself together more than anything. I moved a bit closer to her, hoping to offer at least some warmth if not companionship. I said, "I mean, I'm really glad you got the job, but something is off. I'm not trying to be mean, but I just worry, is all."

She gave me that gaze - and I realized she was sizing me up again. All this time, I thought I still had an in with her, that she knew I was safe. Suddenly she was revaluating me again. I said I was different, I knew that, but there were some things that I was sure were fundamental. I thought Jasmine's trust in me was one of those things, but now that was being shaken. After a tense moment of my stomach doing flip-flops, she shrugged. I had passed her test. She trusted me, but she was clearly disappointed. After awhile, she spoke, looking at Jersey and not me, "I'm surprised you're back. At first, I was angry you were here again and no one told me. But then I got over it. I expected it."

I furrowed my brow, still exasperated. "Why? Because people change? Because things change?"

She thought about this for awhile, also having a hard time articulating her emotions. "You know what, Frank. I think I was wrong before. Change may not be the only constant, because you don't change. You're still the same as when I met you in high school."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Now she was caught off guard by the antagonism in my voice. I usually never got mad, and she began to revaluate her own words, and proceeded more cautiously. "I'm sorry. I'm still....I guess I'm still upset that you didn't tell me you were leaving."

"Yes, I did. I never stopped talking about Paris."

"That's the point, Frank. You didn't change. You were always talking about it, but never going. I got used to that pattern in our interactions. Then the next thing I know - you're gone. You actually finally did it."

I wanted to feel pride after that remark - because yes, I had finally done it. I had been a talking-head this entire seven year span. Paris was what got me through my days and what I reverted to when I was sad or didn't want to feel things. It was my final accomplishment of actually following through with my words when I had left and abandoned so many other projects and that felt really good to me. But I let the guilt creep on too, even though I resented myself for feeling it, because I really had just suddenly disappeared. I suddenly found my mind lashing out and being defensive when I wanted to be happy and proud of myself. If guilt is such a fucking useless emotion, I thought, then why was I feeling it? I wanted it to go away and I verbalized this resentment.

"I'm sorry. But I'm back now. Things are going to be okay again. They're going to be good."

She smiled, and then shrugged her shoulders. Our apologies, no matter how brief, seemed to have helped matters between us. "I am excited about this job..."

Jasmine went on for a bit more, but hearing about work made me nauseated with all the things Vivian was expecting of me now. I still stayed engaged and close to her, but my mind wandered and I looked back into the apartment. Everyone was still busy, talking and chattering away, paying no attention to us out here. I looked up at the sky, the stars that were barely visible, the landscape of the garden state during the beginning of winter. The coldness had surrounded us to the point where it didn't feel bad anymore; it was an earthy chill, mystical, and like we were the only two people around.

My mind fell back towards our converging worlds, art and literature, and I suddenly wanted her to remember as well.

"Do you still read Spanish books? Like magic realism? Do you remember telling me before?"

She smiled really wide, glowing, and nodded. " One Hundred Years of Solitude is still my favourite book. Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking of Lorca earlier today. I want to tell Gerard later on. But I need the rest of the story," I bit my lip, wondering if I really did want to ask this, knowing that it would be nothing good. "What happened to him? And Dali?"

Jasmine sighed, but did not argue against telling me. Maybe the tragedies of life didn't bother her anymore, I thought, as she went on: "Lorca wrote during the Spanish civil war. Conservative country and government at the time. They realized he was gay and they caught him with a few other people. He was shot. He's buried in an unmarked grave somewhere."

It hit me in the chest, as if I had been the one who was shot. I didn't know the poet, or his work that well, but I knew that heavy weight that I sometimes felt I wore around my neck. The imminent mortality, but not only that - violent mortality. People had been killed for being gay. For being artists with not only their writing or painting, but their bodies and love as well.

Just when I thought the danger was over between Gerard and I, I remembered something else pressing against me and wedging us into a corner.

"What about Dali?"

She took awhile to answer, and I almost thought she didn't realize what I meant. "He still denies the relationship," she went on, knowing exactly what I meant, even now, with all this change. She clucked her tongue angrily. "Still stays that they were never lovers. As if it doesn't even matter." Jasmine was upset by this, almost as much as I was. But we were mad at two different things, we were both wearing two different weights around our necks, and we were both so into our own weight, sorrow, and tragedy, that we missed one another entirely.

"I've got to go. Early day tomorrow. Bye, Frank. Good to see you," all in one breath, as if it were one word. Gone.

I stayed on the balcony, watching the years fall away between us, and she pressed her way through the door again, into the apartment, gathered her stuff, and then went down the seven flights of stairs. I stood and watched as she got into her car and drove away. She pulled me with her and when my eyes couldn't follow the taillights anymore, I felt this hole in my chest from where I had been shot as if I was Lorca. I prayed for my body to heal itself, for the cells to reproduce, so I could have a new layer of skin. It had been seven years, I had waited long enough, and I still waited for this change in the cold December wind. When I finally went inside, my skin was red and numb and I couldn't feel a thing.

Everyone was gone. Gerard sat on the orange couch in the corner, smoking slowly as he looked at the photographs. Mikey was nowhere to be seen - so he must have let Gerard keep them. He was completely engrossed, if Mikey had tried to get them back, he probably wouldn't have been able to.

I felt as if I carried everything on top of me; the conversations, the feelings, the years and memories swelling inside a gaping wound and I wanted it gone. I appeared by Gerard's side, and nudged him with my leg. He grabbed a hold of me, and only put the photographs down when he realized how cold I was.

"Frank, wow, you're freezing. Here, smoke for a bit." He passed me his cigarette, and I sat on the arm of the chair, smoking with him. It reminded me of when I was seventeen, and I felt better. He smiled and put the photos away.

"Some night, huh?"

I nodded. Smoked and tried to make art with it. Failed.

"I'm a bit overwhelmed. I feel as if I've been in so many places at once, and yet, as if I've been right here and doing nothing this entire time. Like time hasn't existed for awhile. It may not feel the same for you, but do you understand what I mean?"

I nodded, finished the cigarette. He put his arms around me.

"Good, you're warming up. That's our bodies taken care of, and now it's just our minds that need to be fixed."

I laughed, feeling a little better with warmth and nicotine running through my body again. "If only, huh," I commented, and then fought a sudden yawn.

He looked at me tenderly and then tried to curl a piece of short hair around my ear. He yawned as well, and we both looked at one another as the impulse overwhelmed us. "Sleep is a little funny sometimes. It's the only place where our mind is going going going, but our bodies are relatively still. We can't get a break. Even if we don't dream - and what a horrible existence that would be - the brain must keep going. To make our lungs breathe, our heart pump, to stay alive." He grabbed my hand, and pulled me up as he rose from the chair.

"Tonight, I think this will be the only night where sleep is not a waste. Especially when it's marking something so much better."

"What?" I asked. He had already started to undress for bed, placing himself near the mattress. His clothing came off so quickly it seemed to disintegrate as it fell to the floor. I followed his actions, but my hands were never as efficient as his own.

He grinned, now naked, and under the covers, as he answered my question, "For the first day of our new life, of course. For the first day of new skin." He kissed me on the forehead, and then, pulled me on top of him. We got into bed together, wearing no clothing, skin to new skin, with seven years marking our losses and our gains, our successes and our failures all over our bodies. We were so tired from it all, that we fell asleep after exchanging only a few kisses. But my mind was still awake; it was cranking gears and sorting images, reproducing cells, and keeping the real life dream alive.

Chapter Two

I woke up in the middle of the night. It wasn't as dark in the apartment as I was used to in Paris; there we had no lights and were in a small building that was surrounded by larger ones that blocked out the sky. Now the night-time sky and streetlights flooded into our apartment, through the large balcony window, and over our bodies in the middle of the room on the double mattress. It was startling. I woke up from a sudden jolt; that falling feeling that comes just before a deep sleep. I had been walking and walking in my dream, along cobblestones in Paris, and gross dirty sidewalks surrounding the airports, and then I had fallen. I was surprised my sudden movement didn't walk Gerard up as well, but he was on the far side of the bed, face down, his mouth half open on a pillow. Over the time spent together in Paris I grew used to his sleeping patterns and his changes in breathing, and I knew that he was in a deep sleep right now. The arm that I was touching was like a dead weight, and as I placed my ear close to his mouth, I heard his small raspy snore. He was out of it. In the starlight, I could see his eyes move back and forth in a dream of his own.

Usually after sudden falling jolts like this, it was easy for me to get back to sleep, but the unfamiliar place, the jetlag, and all the excitement from before (and possibly the coffee) were interfering with this process. I laid on my back and tried to relax and close my eyes, but everything seemed too bright. I got up and went to the bathroom for something to do and then I walked back into the middle of the living room. As I left before, I didn't really pay much attention to the window and the fact that I was naked - I was leaving anyway. Now as I emerged from the bathroom, the window and the streetlights greeted me and I left nothing to the imagination. I was naked from head to toe. I stopped suddenly, feeling vulnerable. It was a different type of vulnerability - more like a patient at the doctor who was getting a physical, removed from sexual connotations. We had not had sex that night, merely taken our clothing off and fallen into bed exhausted. There would be plenty of time for sex later. But this new arrangement, with the bed in the middle of the room, not only was it inviting our sex life to become open and public to all those who entered - it was breaking the one rule we had made when we were together from before: no sex on the balcony, or even near it.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14