You don’t think. You know. Yeah. But you didn’t know you’d want to tear my clothes off and you shake my hand, skin on skin, and I breathe you in—you smell like Florida—and the power inside of my body is restored. Zing.
You look at me now. “Can I have my hand back?”
I held on too long. “Sorry.”
“Oh no,” you say, and you lean in, closer as in the movie Closer. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I ate an orange outside and my hands are a little sticky.”
I sniff my palm and I lean in. “Are you sure it wasn’t a tangerine?”
You laugh at my joke and smile. “Let’s not tell the others.”
Already it’s us against them and I ask if you finished the Lisa Taddeo—I am a good guy and good guys remember the shit the girl said on the phone—and yes you did finish and you loved it and I ask you if I can ask you about your daughter and her Columbine and you blush. “Yeah,” you say. Yeah. “Well, as you saw… she’s a little obsessed with Dylan Klebold.”
“The school shooter?”
“Oh God, no,” you say. “See, according to my daughter, he was a poet, which is why it’s okay for her to write her college essay about him…”
“Okay, that’s a bad idea.”
“Obviously. I say that and she calls me a ‘hypocrite’ because I got in trouble for writing about Ann Petry instead of Jane Austen when I was her age…” You like me so much you are name-dropping. “I can’t remember…” Yes you can. “Did you say if you have kids?”
Stephen King doesn’t have to murder people to describe death and you don’t have to have kids to understand being a parent and technically I have a kid, but I don’t “have” him. I don’t get to wear him like all the khaki fucking dads on this rock. I shake my head no and your eyes sparkle. You hope I’m free and you want us to have things in common so I steer us back to books. “Also, I love Ann Petry. The Street is one of my all-time favorite books.”
You’re supposed to be impressed but a lot of book people know The Street and you’re a fox. Reserved. I double down and tell you that I wish more people would read The Narrows and that gets a smile—fuck yes—but we’re in the workplace so you put your hands on your keypad. You furrow your brow. No Botox for you. “Huh.” Something bumped you on the computer and do you know about me? Did they flag me?
Play it cool, Joe. Exonerated. Innocent. “Am I fired already?”
“Well, no, but I do see an inconsistency in your file…”
You don’t know about the money I donated to this library because I insisted on anonymity and the woman on the board swore that she would spare me the nuisance of a background check, but did she lie to me? Did you find Dr. Nicky’s conspiracy theory blog? Did the lady on the board realize I’m that Joe Goldberg? Did she hear about me on some murder-obsessed woman’s fucking podcast?
You wave me over and the inconsistency is my list of favorite authors—phew—and you tsk-tsk in a whisper. “I don’t see Debbie Macomber on this list, Mr. Goldberg.”
I blush. The other day on the phone I told you that I got the idea to move to the Pacific Northwest from Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Fucking Cove books and you laughed—Really?—and I stood my soft, picket fenced-in ground. I’m not a dictator. I didn’t command you to read one of her books. But I did say that Debbie helped me, that reading about pious, justice-seeking Judge Olivia Lockhart and her local newsie boyfriend Jack restored my faith in our world. You did say you’d check ’em out but that’s what all people say when you recommend a book or a fucking TV show and now here you are, winking at me.
You wink at me. Your hair is red and yellow. Your hair is fire. “Don’t fret, Joe. I’ll eat the beef and you eat the broccoli. No one has to know.”
“Ah,” I say, because the beef and the broccoli are a reference to the show. “Sounds like someone went to Cedar Cove to check it out.”
Your fingertips hit the keypad and the keypad is my heart. “Well I told you I would…” You’re a woman of your word. “And you were right…” BINGO. “It is a nice ‘antidote to the hellspace reality of the world right now’…” That’s me. You’re quoting me. “All the bicycles and the fight for equity, it kinda lowers your blood pressure.”
On you go about the pros and cons of escapism—you learned my language and you want me to know it—you are sexy, confident—and I forgot about sexual tension. Beginnings. “Well,” I say. “Maybe we can start a fan club.”
“Yeah…” you say. “But first you’ll have to tell me what got you into it…”
You women always want to know about the past but the past is over. Gone. I can’t fucking tell you that Cedar Cove helped me survive my time in prison. I won’t tell you that it was my Mayberry-scented salve while I was wrongly incarcerated and I shouldn’t have to spill the details. We all go through periods when we feel trapped, caged. It doesn’t matter where you suffer. I shrug. “There’s no big story…” Ha! “A few months ago, I hit a rough patch…” Fact: The best prison reads are “beach reads.” “Debbie was there for me…”… when Love Quinn wasn’t.
You don’t badger me for details—I knew you were smart—and say you know the feeling and you and I are the same, sensitive. “Well, I don’t want to bring you down, but I must warn you, Joe…” You want to protect me. “This isn’t Cedar Cove, not by a long shot.”
I like your spunk—you want to spar—and I tilt my head toward the empty table where you stood with that old man. “Tell that to the Mothball who just went home with the Murakami you suggested. Now that was very Cedar Cove.”
You know I’m right and you try to smirk but your smirk is a smile. “We’ll see how you feel after you’ve made it through a couple winters.” You blush. “What’s in the bag?”
I give you my best smile, the one I never thought I’d use again. “Lunch,” I say. “And unlike Judge Olivia Lockhart, I brought a ton of food. You can eat the broccoli and the beef.”
I said that out loud—FUCK YOU, RUSTY BRAIN—and you get to hide in your computer while I stand here being the guy who just told you that you can eat my beef.
But you don’t torture me for long. “Okay,” you say. “The computer’s acting up. We’ll take care of your badge later.”
The computer has some fucking nerve or maybe you’re testing me. You’re leading me toward the break room and you ask if I went to Sawan or Sawadty. When I say Sawan your Meerkat looks up from her Columbine and makes a barf signal. “Eew. That’s so gross.”
No, kid, being rude is gross. She raves about Sawadty and you side with her and I don’t speak your language. Not right now. You put a hand on my back—nice—and then you put a hand on the Meerkat’s shoulder—you’re bringing us together—and you tell me that I have a lot to learn about Bainbridge. “Nomi’s extreme, but there are two kinds of people here, Joe. There are those who go to Sawan and those of us who go to Sawadty.”