More Happy Than Not (2 page)

She comes down a couple minutes later, still in the ratty white shirt she wears to paint. She smiles before hugging me, and it's not one of those half smiles I've grown used to. There's nothing worse than seeing her sad and defeated. Her body is tense, and when she finally relaxes, the pale green tote bag I got her for her birthday last year slips down her shoulder. She's drawn a lot on the tote; sometimes there are tiny cities, other times it's an imagining of a song lyric she loved.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi,” she says back, tiptoeing to kiss me. Her green eyes are watery. They remind me of a rain forest painting she gave up on a few months ago.

“What's wrong? My armpits stink, right?”

“Totally, but that's not it. Painting is stressing me out like whoa. You're rescuing me just in time.” She punches me in the shoulder, the aggressive way she chooses to flirt.

“What were you painting?”

“A Japanese swallow angelfish walking out of the ocean.”

“Huh. I was expecting something cooler. More magical with hippogriffs.”

“I don't like being predictable, dumb-idiot.” She's been calling me that since our first kiss a couple days after we started dating. I'm pretty sure it's because I might've accidentally bumped heads with her twice like the biggest amateur in the history of inexperienced kissers. “You in the mood to go see a movie?”

“How about a Trade Date instead?”

A Trade Date is not a date where you trade your date for someone else. A Trade Date—Genevieve made it up—is when I choose a spot to go to that will interest her, and she does the same for me. And it's called a Trade Date, obviously, because we're trading favorite pastimes with each other, and
not
each other.

“I could settle on that, I suppose.”

We play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Loser has to choose first and my scissors cut the hell out of her paper. I could've just volunteered to go first because I already know where I want to take her, but I'm not 100 percent sure yet of the words I want to say, and I could use the extra time to make sure I get them right. She brings me to my favorite comic bookstore on 144th St.

“I guess you're done being unpredictable,” I say.

comic book asylum

We've Got Issues

The front door is
painted to resemble an old phone booth, like the kind Clark Kent dashes into when he needs to change into Superman. While his monogamous relationship with that particular phone booth outside the
Daily Planet
never made much sense to me, I'm as close to super as I've felt in a while. I haven't been here in months.

Comic Book Asylum is geek heaven. The cashier in the Captain America shirt is restocking seven-dollar pens shaped like Thor's hammer. Pricey busts of Wolverine and the Hulk and Iron Man gloriously line a shelf modeled after the fireplace in Wayne Manor. I'm surprised some forty-year-old virgin isn't having a seizure over the Marvel and DC clashing going on here. There's even a closet full of classic capes you can either buy or rent for an in-store photo shoot. But my favorite spot is the clearance cart with the dollar comics, since, well, they're carrying dollar comics and that's a hard price to beat.

They even have action figures Eric and I would've played with when we were younger, like a combo pack of Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Or a set of the Fantastic Four, though we would've probably lost the Invisible Woman—Get it?—since my favorite was the Human Torch and his was Mister Fantastic. I even had a soft spot for the bad guys, like Green Goblin and Magneto, because Eric always preferred the heroes and that made it more fun.

Genevieve continues to choose this place on Trade Dates because she knows it makes me happiest, although the community pool where I took swimming lessons used to be a close second before I almost drowned. (Long story.) She wanders off and looks through their posters, and I cut straight for the clearance cart. I rifle through the comics for something badass that might inspire me to work on my own comic some more. I left off on a suspenseful panel of Sun Warden—my hero, whose origin story involves him swallowing an alien sun as a child to guard it. Right now he only has enough time to save one person from falling off a celestial tower into a dragon's mouth, and he's torn between his girlfriend and best friend. There's no doubt Superman would save Lois Lane, but I wonder if Batman would save Robin over his girlfriend of the week. (The Dark Knight gets around, man.)

Some guys are talking about the latest
Avengers
movie, so I quickly choose two comics and rush over to the counter so I won't have to Hulk out if they spoil anything. I never got to see the movie when it came out in December because nobody wanted to go. We were all in a funk over Kenneth.

“Hey, Stanley.”

“Aaron! Long time no see.”

“Yeah, I had a bit of an episode going on.”

“Sounds mysterious. Leaping over tall buildings with a mask on, maybe?”

I take a second to answer. “Family stuff.”

I hand him my gift card and he swipes it for the two-dollar charge. He swipes one more time before telling me, “Zero balance, dude.”

“No, I have a few dollars left.”

“I'm afraid you're poorer than Bruce Wayne with a frozen bank account,” he says. He should be ashamed of himself—not because that's a rude thing to say to a customer, but because he's been recycling that same weak joke for months now. No shit I would be poorer than Bruce Wayne on his poorest day.

“Do you want me to put them on hold for you?”

“Uh, you know, it's cool. Yeah, I'll be fine.”

Genevieve comes over. “Everything okay, babe?”

“Yeah, yeah. You ready to bounce?” My face warms up and I'm getting teary, not because I won't go home with these comics—I'm not eight years old—but because I'm just really fucking embarrassed in front of my girlfriend.

She doesn't even look at me when she reaches into her tote bag and pulls out a few bucks, which somehow makes me feel even worse. “How much is it?”

“Gen, it's fine, I don't need these.”

She buys them anyway, hands me the bag, and starts talking to me about an idea for a painting, one where starving vultures chase shadows of the dead down this road, unaware the corpses are above their heads. I think it's a cool enough idea. And as much as I want to thank her for the comics, her changing the subject so I didn't have to feel shitty about myself was probably a better move.

“Remember that time Kyle
got the Leteo procedure?”

Remember That Time is a dumb game we play where we “remember” things that have happened very recently or are going down now. I'm getting the game running to distract her while we walk through Fort Wille Park on 147th Street, close to the post office where my dad worked, near a gas station where Brendan and I used to buy candy cigarettes whenever we felt stressed. (We occasionally joke about how dumb and childish that was.)

“How can anyone know for sure if no one's seen him?” Genevieve is holding my hand as she hops onto a bench, walking along the back with the worst balance ever. I'm positive she's going to crack her head open one of these days and I'll be begging Leteo to make me forget witnessing it. “A lie could've snuck its way into Freddy's mom's rumor mill. Also: saying he
forgot
Kenneth is a little extreme since Leteo
suppresses
memories. They don't erase them.” She's never believed in the procedure either, and she once believed in the power of horoscopes and tarot cards.

“
I think it counts as forgetting if you never remember it again.”

“Good counter.”

Genevieve finally loses her balance and I catch her, but not in tha
t heroic way where I could carry her away into the sunset, or even in a funny way where she lands perfectly horizontal on top of me and we kiss. It's more like her body twists and I catch her under her arms but her legs drop and skid back, and now her face is facing my dick, and it's awkward because she's never seen
it. I help her up and we're both apologizing; me for no reason, and her for almost falling nose-first into my crotch.

Well, there's always next time.

“So
. . .
” She pulls her dark hair away from her face.

“What would your battle plan be if zombies came at us right now?”

This time I change the subject so she doesn't have to feel embarrassed. I hold her hand and lead her through the park. She shares her half-assed strategies about climbing apple trees and waiting them out. Spoken like a true dumb-idiot.

Genevieve's mother used to bring her here as a child, when it was more kid friendly with seesaws and monkey bars. She stopped coming here as much after her mother died in a plane crash a couple years ago on her way to visit family in the Dominican Republic. Whenever we have Trade Dates, I usually take her to other places, like the flea market or the skating rink on half-off Wednesdays, but today we're going to remember that time she asked me out.

We get to the sprayground—one of those fountains where water sprays up from the ground in timed bursts. All ten hoses are now clogged with filthy leaves, cigarettes, and other trash.

“It's been a while,” Genevieve says.

“I thought it'd be cool if I asked you out here,” I say.

“I don't remember us ever breaking up.”

“Is that really necessary?” I ask.

“You can't ask me out if we're already dating. That's like killing a dead person.”

“Good point. Break up with me.”

“I need a reason.”

“Fine. Um, you're a bitch and your paintings suck.”

“Broken up.”

“Awesome,” I say with the biggest smile. “I'm sorry for calling you a bitch and telling you your paintings suck just now and for trying to you-know-what myself. I'm sorry you had to live through that and I'm sorry I was such a dumb-idiot to think I didn't have any reason to be happy because it's pretty damn clear you're my happiness.”

Genevieve crosses her arms. There are still spots of paint on her elbow she missed when washing up. “I
was
your happiness until I broke up with you. Ask me out again.”

“Is that really necessary?”

She punches me.

“Okay. Genevieve, will you be my girlfriend?”

Genevieve shrugs. “Why not? I need something to do this summer.”

We find shade under a tree, kicking off our shoes as we lie down with our feet in the grass. She tells me for the millionth time I never had anything to apologize for, that she didn't hate me for grieving and suffering. And I get that, but I needed this fresh start for us, even if we were just joking around. Not everyone can afford to go to Leteo to have life undone and I wouldn't if I could. If I did, I wouldn't be able to re-create big life moments like today without the memories to remember.

“So
. . .
” Genevieve is tracing my palm lines like she's about to tell me my future, and she kind of is. “My father is going upstate with his girlfriend on Wednesday for an art show.”

“Good for him, I guess.”

“He's going to be gone until Friday.”

“Good for you.”

Only then do I see where this is going. A sexy lightbulb moment flashes, and when it does, I get up and jump so high I think I might've left an Aaron-shaped hole in the clouds. But when I come back down, I remember something very crucial: Fuck, I have no idea how to have sex.

3

MANNING UP

I
am so screwed later on.

Okay, poor choice of words, but yeah, I'm going to give it my best, and once Genevieve sees how seriously I'm trying she'll probably laugh so hard she'll cry and I'll cry too but not because I'm laughing with her. I was hoping I could watch an unhealthy amount of porn to memorize techniques, but it's almost impossible in a one-bedroom apartment. I can't even wait for Eric to fall asleep because he stays up all night gaming. I've considered maybe watching porn in the morning while he's knocked out, but even naked bodies can't wake me up.