Something's Come Up Read online

  Later, as we proceeded through the ruins of the Roman Forum, I felt the pendulum of my mood swaying back and forth between awestruck and depressed. The history this place had seen made me feel minuscule, and the beauty and endurance of the structures had me marveling at the legacy great men were capable of leaving behind. I said as much to Steph and she simply nodded dismissively and continued snapping pictures. Though I felt my resolve strengthen about my motivation to practice law, any conviction I felt about Stephanie and I was wavering in the treacherous waters of my self-reflection.

  We stopped at a small outdoor cafe for some lunch and over a bottle of wine, I flung open the can of worms.

  “What do you think, Red? Is it worth it?” I huffed out a breath as if purging the poisonous words from deep within. “Is it worth all the self-doubt and hassle, the misunderstandings and fights, to try to turn this into something real?”

  She’d been dipping a chunk of bread into a mixture of olive oil and spices and froze. Her eyes shot to mine and she seemed surprisingly hurt. I’d known it would be unpleasant for her—to discuss anything emotional always was—so I didn’t relinquish my hold on her eyes. When hers swelled with large, genuine tears, my mouth fell open. Her youth was showing and I could no longer hide from our small yet cavernous age difference any more than I could our many other incompatibilities. When she spoke, her voice quivered.

  “I thought this was something real.”

  Steph, Rome 2009

  We lay as far apart from one another as we could be without falling off the bed and onto the floor. Listening to his exasperated sighs made me want to shove a pillow over his face. I needed to get up and walk the streets, snap some nighttime pictures and try to think about all the things he’d said about why we were a bad idea, but I knew if I left it would just cause more drama, so I dug my nails into my palms and tried not to fidget.

  He turned toward me and by the light of the streetlamp I saw him up on one elbow. “So you have nothing to say? You're just going to freeze me out?”

  My eyes glued to the shadowy ceiling, I responded, “What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything, Red.”

  “What, like sorry I’m not good enough for you? Fuck that.”

  He sat up. “Don’t be a bitch. You know it’s not like that.”

  “Really? How about we recap. It’s not that I’m too poor for you. No fucking shit. A bit nouveau riche, perhaps, but hey. Nobody’s perfect. I’m not too stupid for you. Just maybe a bit of an underachiever. Terrific. What a fucking relief!”

  “Stephanie…”

  That condescending sigh again. Thanks for punctuating my point, you elitist bastard.

  I continued as if I didn’t want to wail on him till the feathers exploded from my pillow. “Not too white, not too ugly, not too needy, not too young. Maybe a bit too religious, but you could live with that. My biggest problem is that I’m just too...frivolous. No matter how good I am, what I do doesn’t matter or contribute to society. Wow. I think I would have preferred any one of those other excuses, Pace.”

  “Quit putting words in my mouth.”

  He sounded like he was reasoning with a toddler in the midst of a tantrum. I wanted to backhand him.

  “I get it. You want to leave your mark on the world. And not just a mark, a big fucking sizzling brand. I get that more than you know.” I was so angry I almost started to cry again. He’d taken me off guard at lunch when he suggested we go back to being “friends.” As if we were ever friends. Laughable.

  I was livid, and I hated that anger made me teary. It was a stupid hormonal response for my fucking gender but I would be damned if he would get any more tears from me.

  I sat up suddenly and tried to focus on his face in the dark. “But I just want to say one thing. Do you know what else is all over this city besides the ‘feats of architecture and scientific history’ you’re so wowed by? Art. Art endures, Pace. Art survives the ages, just like the other oh-so-important legacies of great men.”

  Pace grabbed my shoulders and their tension showed he wasn’t letting go any time soon. “Steph. What the fuck are you talking about? I never talk to you about money or thinking you’re dumb—which I fucking don’t. If you’re having insecurities about your career, maybe that’s something you need to think about on your own. You’re not going to take it out on me.”

  “I don’t have any insecurities. About anything.” It was a lie, but he didn’t need more ammunition.

  He didn’t buy it.

  “You’re full of shit, Red. Tell me what the fuck all of that was about.”

  “You were a fucking brilliant medical student and now you’re a fucking brilliant law student. I take pictures of bulimic idiots.”

  “So? You made more money as a senior in high school than I have in the past four years.”

  “You have a kick-ass apartment that your family doesn’t pay for.”

  Pace blinked in confusion. “You think I fucking pay for that thing myself? With what? I’m good, Red, but not that good. Grandma Turner gave me my trust fund money early. I bought that place and plan to make more back when I graduate.”

  “See?” I held out my hands. “I even didn’t know you were planning to leave the city after you graduated. I don’t know shit about you.” I realized I was making a different point than the one he was trying to illustrate, but rational was so not how I was feeling.

  Pace stood and put on his boxers. It was rarely a good sign when he started putting clothes on. “You’re from Chicago, Stephanie. That’s where your dad’s business is. The one you’re working for. Were you planning on freelancing in New York your whole life?”

  “So, what, after you graduated in two years you were just going to say goodbye with a note next to my pillow?”

  “You’re graduating next year!” He held out his arms as if sealing in a closing argument to a trial I didn’t have a lawyer for.

  “So then what the fuck are we doing here?” I snapped back.

  He took a deep breath and put his hands down on his hips, hanging his head in silence. He lifted his face and bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

  Three words hit us both like a ton of bricks had been released from the ceiling. I got out of bed and wrapped a robe around my seething skin.

  “Damn it,” he whispered, sighing again. “It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.”

  “Well,” I snapped, “I’m sorry—”

  “Not you, Red.” He prowled toward me, once again taking my shoulders. This time it was tender. “This.” He waved his finger between us.

  “Yeah,” I huffed.

  “This was supposed to be fun. Easy. So fucking sexy.”

  “It is all of those things.” My heart started to race. I wasn’t sure what it was we had left, but I didn’t want it to go away.

  “It is, and a whole load of other shit. We didn’t let each other all the way in, but pretended like hell to. Then all of a sudden we were sitting on top of a skyscraper with a shoddy foundation.”

  I backed up and stuck my finger in his face. “Fuck that, I let you in. Look around you, Pace, we’re in Rome. With my brother, for the love of fuck!”

  He grabbed my finger and dragged me over to the bed. “Sit.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Steph. Let’s talk like adults. Please. I think we got a little ahead of ourselves.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t say.”

  “Somehow we got swept up in wanting to possess each other that we confused that with wanting to be with each other. Christ, I really can’t stand even the thought of another man’s hands on you. And that’s…a problem. Isn’t it?”’

  I snorted. “And I want to rip the face of any girl who looks at you.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to fall for you.” He turned his head and looked at me without an ounce of ire in his eyes.

  “You…you fucking fell for me?” I stood and paced the short length of the bed.

  He rolled his head back
like he was exasperated. “Look around you, like you said. We’re in Rome. I don’t do this. Take trips with women. Meet their families.”

  “Then why have me meet your parents if it wasn’t serious? Because they caught you feeling me up? Or was that just your money showing?”

  “Class and money aren’t the same thing, Steph.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you saying I don’t have class?” As if that wasn’t obvious, even to me.

  “Jesus! Not everything is about you!”

  I grabbed a beer from the mini fridge and made my way to the restroom. “I guess that’s the problem. It used to be. And I was pretty fucking content that way, Turner.”

  I was twenty minutes into a bubble bath when he picked the lock.

  “Look. Another Pace Turner hidden talent,” I chirped.

  He ignored it, sitting on the edge of the tub. “Why don’t we try to keep an open mind the rest of the week? Enjoy the city. Enjoy each other. Reassess on the flight home?

  “Sounds reasonable,” I mumbled. Reasonable was not a characteristic I valued or sought out in companions, therefore I reasonably assumed we were pretty much fucked.

  Pace

  When the wheels of the airplane touched down at JFK, it was like I’d been woken from a bad dream with a splash of cold water. Red and I were back in the neutral territory of New York City. No Rome, no priest brother, and my parents tucked safely away in Philadelphia.

  We didn’t talk on the flight. Not a goddamn word. We both slept, off and on, and had our headphones in the rest of the time. Once the plane taxied over to the gate, I reached into the overhead compartment and took out both of our carry-ons. Steph had had her cheek pressed against the window, but snapped her head around as I closed the compartment.

  “I can carry mine.” She spoke softly, and it was hard to tell what was underneath her tone.

  “I’ve got it.” I shrugged and held both bags in my hands.

  She tugged on the handle to her bag. “I don’t need you to carry my bag.”

  I smiled, clenching my back teeth. “Well, I need to carry it. Shut up and let me do it.” I playfully elbowed her arm and she rolled her eyes.

  For the time being, it seemed, things were back to whatever normal we’d had before Rome. Normal, though, wasn’t something I was ready for with a woman. And she made it very clear she wasn’t normal.

  As we waited by the luggage carousel for our baggage, I overheard Steph arguing with someone on the phone.

  “JFK… Yes, now. I’ll pay double, I just need to get to The Dakota—”

  I snatched her phone away from her and pressed “End.”

  “What the fuck, Pace?” She swatted for her phone, but I held it up.

  “You’re not getting a ride from anyone. I parked my car here, remember?”

  “It’ll be easier if I get my own ride.”

  I spotted our luggage and dove for it, breaking off her argument. I set our suitcases next to me and handed back her phone, turning to walk toward the parking garage. She followed. Once we reached my car, I opened the back and tossed our luggage in. She stood just to the side of the car with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Look, Red, just get in.”

  “I’m good. Really.”

  “Your luggage is already in my car, and you followed me out here under your own volition. Just get the hell in and we can talk.”

  She climbed in and started playing with her phone as I pulled out of the parkade.

  Once we were out of the airport and back in the thick city traffic, Steph started pushing buttons on the stereo. I placed my hand over hers.

  “Let’s talk.”

  “Okay.” She sighed and sat back in her seat.

  “I think… I think it’s safe to say we can’t do this anymore.”

  “I agree. We killed the joy.” Her tone was flat but sane.

  I nodded. “We did.” I thought back to the first time I saw her at the photo shoot, bent over her camera bag like an open invitation into my life.

  She shifted in her seat, facing me. “Look. I don’t want to be one of those annoying, bitter couples that continues to hang out for no apparent reason. We had our fun, Cary. Let’s not spoil the good stuff by dragging this out.”

  My chest hurt a little, and that was exactly why we had to go through what we were going through. I didn’t have the time or emotional space for that kind of…emotion. I told myself it would only suck for a few days.

  “Pace?” Steph snapped her fingers as I navigated toward Central Park.

  “Huh? Yeah, sorry.”

  “So…we’re good here? I don’t think I left any shit at your place.”

  I chuckled. “No, I don’t think so.”

  She’d left a pair of panties there the night before we left for Rome, but I’d be keeping those. I smiled as I reached for the “play” button on the CD player. Like a smack in the face, Louis Armstrong’s “If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight)” came on. Steph had indulged me and let me teach her the ways of Louis. On our way to the airport—which seemed like a lifetime ago—she had only shut up during this song, which happened to be my favorite. I was stuck. I couldn’t turn it off and I couldn’t listen to it for one more second.

  “Turn it off. I don’t need your fancy goodbye.” She didn’t move to change the song.

  “That’s not what this is…” Each note tore a tiny hole in my facade.

  “Sure it is.” She grinned and leaned her head against the glass. I made a move to change the station, but she stilled my hand with hers. She said nothing but her eyes briefly met mine. When she turned her gaze back to the window, I realized I’d been holding my breath. Her silence was all I’d needed to understand that this car ride marked the end of something significant to her. With Red, sometimes what she didn’t say spoke volumes.

  Our drive ended before the song did, but she made no move until the last note sank into the static of the recording.

  “Well...” I reached my hand for the door handle, but she jumped out before I did.

  “Don’t. No deep-dipped kiss, no longing gaze. Just open the back so I can get my shit and get inside. It’s fucking freezing.”

  With a grin, I pushed the button to release the back. The luggage hit the sidewalk and she slammed the tailgate shut. I rolled down the window and stuck out my head as the wind whipped icy snow pellets into my eyes. The scene reminded me of that movie she took me to see… Casablanca. She turned to face me and I couldn’t resist.

  “Of all the rib joints in all the city, you had to walk into mine...” I had to speak over the howling wind, but I still managed to grin.

  In true Steph Brier fashion, she smirked like a shrew and flipped me off, turning on her platform heels and walking away.

  I ducked back into the car and put up the window. Shaking my head, I turned on Jay-Z and drove to my side of the Park.

  A couple of days after Easter, when my parents were in town for the week, I’d received a card from Steph. I left it on the kitchen counter, above the trash can, trying to decide what to do with it. Which was a righteous mistake.

  I was at the bar pouring my mother her “holiday tolerator” when I heard her gasp so loudly I was sure I needed to perform CPR on her. Racing to the foyer, I found her clutching Steph’s card in her hand, her skin pale as...well...as a Brier’s.

  “Tell me you aren’t serious with this...this…” she trailed off and, taking her drink from my hand, thrust the card into my gut.

  Astonished, I looked down at the Photoshopped Easter card from Steph. She’d take a tradition picture everyone’s familiar with of the Virgin Mary gazing down into the radiant face of baby Jesus, but where the son of God should have been, Steph had inserted a gigantic black penis.

  The caption read, “He is Risen.”

  She hadn’t signed her name.

  Pace, July 2012

  The familiar strains of Mary J. Blige woke me and the light of su
nrise seared my retinas as I tried to open my eyes. The music stopped and I heard Steph’s voice, gravely with the inactivity of sleep.

  “Yeah?”

  I wanted to laugh when I heard my little white girl’s ringtone was “I’m Goin’ Down.”

  She sighed tiredly. “Cheyenne, pipe the fuck down. I’m fine. What’s up?”

  Cheyenne? Who the hell names their kid Cheyenne?

  “Screw Kevin and the horse he rode in on. I’m not ready to talk to that tool. Tell him I’m out of the country and you don’t have my new number.”

  She stood and started dressing. “Top secret assignment? What? Really? Who else knows?”

  She turned over and mouthed the word “sorry” to me. I waved her off.

  “I'll talk to Dad this morning and see what’s up. Tell Gerald I’ll be back early tomorrow. How urgent? Christ. I’m a photographer, not a miracle worker. I promise you, Cheyenne, she’s going to look like shit no matter who shoots her. Fine. I’ll catch the earliest flight home and hire someone to drive the car back.”

  She tossed her phone on the bed, put her hands on her hips, and shrugged. “Well, Cary, duty calls.”

  I sat up, stretching my arms overhead, still feeling the place on my shoulder where she’d rested her head most of the night. She’d die if she knew, so I decided to keep that to myself. “Everything okay?”

  “It is. In this industry, emergencies are never emergencies.” She crawled back on the bed, straddling me.

  I grabbed her hips and pushed her down, needing to feel her pressure there for just a minute more. “I’ll give you a ride to the airport, that way you don’t have to pay for someone to drive it from there. You can leave it here.”

  “Stay in bed,” she whispered, kissing me once on the mouth. “You look too good naked to fuck it up with clothes.”

  I laughed and she slid off me, tying her hair back. “It’s fine, really. I’ve got to drive Adrian back to Barnstable this morning to get his car anyway. I’m surprised he hasn’t been banging on the door yet.”