F*ck Love(8)

“Hungry?” I ask.

“Is that the kind with the pepper on it? From the deli?”

I nod.

He sits on one of my two barstools and folds his hands on the counter. “I don’t know how to cook. It’s a severe handicap.”

I shrug. “There are videos on the internet, cooking shows, and lessons you can buy for fifty bucks an hour. You just need some drive and you can be rehabilitated.”

He laughs. His smile isn’t centered on his face; it’s all up on his left cheek like it’s drunk. You wouldn’t really know that since he rarely smiles. He looks younger, mischievous.

“Maybe I should do that,” he says. “Become a self-made sous chef.”

“I predict you’ll love to cook in ten years,” I say, turning the bacon. “Then you’ll have to make me something great, since I started your love of cooking.”

“All right,” he says, looking at me. “What would you like?”

“Fish,” I say quickly. “That you caught yourself.”

“And after that, I’ll chop down a tree for you.”

I feel myself tingle, so I look down at my bacon. That happened so easily. The banter. The first time we’ve ever had a discussion alone, and we’re simpatico. I get the eggs and cheese out, too, because I need to stress eat.




“So you just—”

He makes the whipping motion I’m using to scramble the eggs.

“Yes,” I say. “Want to try?”

He does it to humor me; I know he does. Who wants to whip slimy eggs around in a bowl? He splashes them all over my counter, but it’s cute that he’s trying. I make him pour them into the pan, then, when I see he’s a willing helper, hand him the spatula. He watches as I finish the bacon and sprinkle cheese on the eggs. I wish I felt self-conscious about my hair, but truth be told, I look hella cute with psycho hair.

Too much? I ask myself. Who cares? I portion our food onto plates and walk ahead of him to my tiny dinette. While he sits, I go back for coffee.

“I don’t drink coffee,” he tells me.

I take a long sip from my mug and stare at him over the rim.

“That’s why you never smile. You’d be a better man if you drank coffee.” He laughs for the second time, and I feel a little high as I hand him his mug.

“What’s a Muggle?” he asks, taking it from me.

“I save that mug for special people, Kit. Don’t ask questions.”

Kit drinks his coffee. I wait for him to flinch, or make the usual complaints that non-coffee drinkers make. But he downs it like a pro, and I decide he’s not as bad as I thought. Maybe a little stoic. Melancholy. But, man, when you get him to laugh, it feels like a real goddam treat.

Thanks for teaching me to stir eggs, and also for feeding me,” he says when it’s time to go.

“No problem, Kit. See you tonight.” I sound all business. I want to pat myself on the back for not swooning.

“Tonight?” he asks.

“Yeah, Neil and I are coming with to Barclays.”

“Cool,” he says. “I didn’t know.”

“Della makes plans for everyone,” I say. I want to see how he reacts to that. If he’s annoyed by Della’s tendencies to control everyone’s free time. But he just shrugs.

“See you later then.”




When I look in the mirror after he leaves, I find egg in my hair. Also, I don’t look nearly as cute as I imagined.




Della shows up later while I am sorting through my box of mismatched socks. She walks right in, tossing her designer shit on my sofa.

“Oh no,” she says. “Why do you have that out?”

“What? No reason.” I try to hide the box, even though she’s already seen it.

She grabs me by the shoulders and looks in my eyes. “You don’t get that box out unless you have high anxiety,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

Della is correct. My box of socks has been around since I was a kid. My mom would complain that one of my socks was missing, and she’d throw the loner in the trash. Five year old me would get it out of the trash when she wasn’t looking and stuff it in my pillowcase. The other sock would turn up. I knew it even then. I was just keeping its partner safe until it did. When my mother changed my bed sheets, she freaked out about all the socks in my pillowcase. I heard her telling my dad I was a hoarder. I remember feeling shame. There was something wrong with me; my mother had said it with such conviction. Hoarder! Sock hoarder! Later, when my dad came to my room to speak to me, he told me that when he was little, he used to keep all the caps to the toothpaste tubes. He couldn’t bear to throw them away. He gave me a shoebox and told me to keep my socks in there instead. I hid it under my bed, my shoebox of shame, and when I felt anxious or lost I would pull it out and touch all of my socks. All loners. All waiting to be reunited with their twin. I eventually outgrew the shoebox … and by that I mean there were too many socks.