Know Not Why: A Novel (14 page)

“If I may,” Arthur says.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.”

“I don’t like any of those things,” Arthur says,
“and I
am
gay. So maybe you’re just girly.”

That?

That’s
his answer?

“I’m not
girly
,” I say, affronted.

“Just an observation,” Arthur replies
innocently.

“You didn’t like Mamma Mia?” I ask, feeling like
I just got kicked.

“I’m not even really sure what it is,” Arthur
replies, frowning thoughtfully.

Useless bastard.

“You kissed me,” I add. I don’t know if there’ll
ever be a
good
time, but I doubt I’ll find a better one. So.
“We – kissed.”

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. He suddenly sounds almost
as awkward as I do. It’s comforting. “That was gay.”

“Uh, yeah.” Oh, Christ. Here goes. “I – didn’t
hate that.”

“Me either,” he says gently.

And even though I’m pretty sure I just doomed
myself to a whole lifetime of freaking out – always, forever,
completely – well, there’s at least a part of me that goes calm
when he says it.

“I don’t know,” I finish. I look at the floor.
“I’m just really fucking confused.”

“Well, I’m here,” Arthur says, surprising me. I
look up at him. He looks like he means it. “And I can’t guarantee
I’ll understand a single thing you’re talking about, but I hereby
subject myself to your future spastic rambles.”

“They’re not spastic,” I protest. It’s easier to
do that than to be serious and tell him it means something to me
that he said it.

“Queeriest queerdom?” He raises his
eyebrows.

“That’s just wit. Sterling wit.”

“Okay, then,” Arthur agrees easily.

We sit in silence. I look around. There’s a
bunch of framed pictures on the end table next to the futon. One of
the bigger ones is Kristy and her boyfriend. He’s standing behind
her, arms looped around her waist, and she’s leaning back into him.
They’ve both got big, open-mouthed grins on their faces, like they
were caught in the middle of laughing. They look really happy.

It’s just – it’s
supposed
to be easy.
It’s not like that’s news, it’s not like that’s some grand
revelation, but it sure feels like one right now for some reason.
It’s like that thing that Cora said, the thing about falling in
love with somebody because they make you feel good.

“So, how’d you know?” I find myself asking him.
“About the gay – you know, the being gay thing?”

“I realized that all of the people I found
myself attracted to were men,” Arthur replies. Like it’s that
simple.

“Oh,” I say. I don’t really know what else to
say. “Huh.”

“Yep.”

“Did it suck?”

“Somewhat.”

“Oh.”

I can’t really think of anything else to say,
and apparently Arthur’s okay with the quiet. I find myself paying
actual attention to the opera. It does kind of swallow you up, the
sound of it.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Arthur
asks.

“Like, in a date way?” My heart does a panicked
leap.

“In a
now-you’ve-made-me-self-conscious-about-eating-alone way,” Arthur
replies, smiling slightly.

And, well. When he puts it like that.

+

We eat, and sure enough, it’s great. I can’t
remember the last time I had chicken that wasn’t Kentucky-fried or
McNuggeted. At first, conversation’s kinda stilted, but then we
start talking about work. I compliment him on his Santa-ing, which
seems more like it was five thousand years ago than five hours ago,
and he confides that he spent the whole time wanting to ‘perish
from shame.’

“Sometimes I suspect I’ve gotten
too
good
at doing what I have to do,” he concludes, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” I say sympathetically. “You were pretty
damn good.”

He smirks at me over his wineglass. “You were a
fairly lackluster reindeer.”

“Yeah, well. Lackluster’s my specialty.”

“I thought sterling wit was your specialty.”

“Oh, ya know.” I shrug. “Many talents.”

He chuckles.

Feeling sly, I add, “I’m also pretty badass when
it comes to being insufferable and obnoxious.”

“I’m aware of that, yes,” he replies, not
getting tripped up at all.

“If you feel the need to apologize, I’m not
gonna stop you or anything.”

“I said you were insufferable and obnoxious,”
Artie answers pleasantly, not falling for it. “Not that I didn’t
like you.”

I like that more than I probably should.

“I didn’t like you.” Maybe it’s the sort of
thing that I ought to keep to myself, but I’m feeling nice and
relaxed for the first time in ages.

“I suspected as much,” Arthur replies. He smiles
a little, not seeming bothered. “Why?”

“No idea,” I say. And maybe that’s true. It
suddenly seems really hard to pin down one solid, concrete reason
why
I was so eaten up with hatred over this guy.

We finish dinner and carry the dishes to the
sink. Artie gives them a quick rinse – of course he’s a subscriber
to the cult of obsessive rinsing – and then turns back to look at
me. I’m contemplating the shopping list on the fridge, looking at
Kristy’s loopy half-cursive ‘dishwasher detergent!!!’.

“What’s this?” Arthur asks, catching me
off-guard.

“What?” I turn around so I’m facing him. There
isn’t a whole lot of empty space between us. It’s a small
kitchen.

“Your ear.” He touches it with his pointer
finger lightly for the slightest of milliseconds. It’s a good
millisecond.

“Cora bit me,” I tell him, remembering.

“Ah.” He sure accepts that easily. It gets a guy
wondering what other bodily harm Cora has inflicted upon her
coworkers.

But Cora doesn’t stick around in my brain for
long, what with Arthur being right there. We just stand, looking at
each other. La Boheme keeps on being operatic. In the back of my
head, in some distant unaffected place, I wonder why it is that I
like
looking
at this guy so much. The simple act of
directing your eyes at somebody else shouldn’t be all-consuming,
should it? That seems weird. Impractical.

I think about taking a step or two in.

“Arthurrrrr, we’re hoooome!”

We both jump a little at the sudden shock that
is Kristy.

“Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what this guy
said to Nikki—” She freezes abruptly at the sight of us. A gigantic
smile blossoms on her face. A cute strawberry blonde – Nikki, I
presume – trails in after her. “Howie!!”

“Hey,” I reply awkwardly. Arthur turns around
and goes back to fumbling with the dishes in the sink. As he does
it, his hand catches my elbow for just a second. I try not to
ponder whether it was deliberate.

“What are
you
doing here?” Kristy asks
me, but it’s in this way where you can tell she thinks she knows
the answer.

“Just admiring your sweet kitten posse over
there,” I say, pointing at the poster.

“That was a present from my niece,” Kristy says
with stalwart defensiveness that is just plain adorable. “She’s
six.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you to put it on
prominent display. With absolutely no intention other than to
appease her.”

“Thank you,” she replies, with great
dignity.

Three … two …

“But it’s
super
cute, isn’t it? Because
kittens are cute, and baby angels—”

“Cherubs,” Arthur mutters.

“—are cute, and when you put them together,
it’s—”

“Super cute,” I finish.

“Yep! And you don’t get to make fun of me.
Arthur hates it, I can tell.”

Arthur looks up from washing a glass to protest,
“I don’t—”

“You do,” Kristy says, proving that bouncy
blonde ponytails and heightened discernment aren’t, in fact,
mutually exclusive. “You totally, totally, totally do.”

“I’m a dog person,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, me too,” I say. He smiles at me. Kristy
smiles at both of us, the kind of smile that makes Julie Andrews
look like a jaded crack whore.

“Okay, I’m takin’ off,” I announce. “Before I
get converted.”

“Men can like kittens too, Howie, it’s okay!”
Kristy calls after me.

I head to the front door. Arthur comes
along.

“She might let you off the hook about the
kittens if you tell her about your true feelings for Mamma Mia,” he
mutters, his voice low and full of laughter.

“Right,” I say. “If that gets out, I’ll hunt you
down.”

He’s mighty cheery for a threatened man. “You
know where to find me.”

“See you Monday.” I stifle the urge to linger.
Mostly.

“Goodnight,” Arthur says pleasantly.

I step out into the cold and throw one last
glance over my shoulder. He smiles at me, then closes the door.
Driving home, I’m careful not to think. The truth is, I’m feeling
pretty damn okay right now. It’d be a shame to wreck it.

Chapter Eleven

“You were out late,” my mom observes the next
morning. She’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee
and her laptop in front of her.

“Yeah,” I reply, getting a mug out of the
cupboard and pouring myself coffee. “You weren’t worried I was out
wreakin’ havoc, were you?”

“Please, kid, I have better things to do.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, sweetheart.” She resumes typing
away, but she abandons Gwendolyn and Captain Horny when I sit down
next to her. She minimizes the window, revealing her snazzy new
desktop background: reindeer me, giving the camera the finger.
Cute. “So, where were you? Out with Amber and Mitch?”

I’m about to answer in the affirmative to this
handy-dandy, Mom-provided, just-add-nodding lie, but then I realize
it’s not the greatest idea. My mom happens to see Amber and Mitch
on a pretty consistent basis – hell, she’s got the pictures from
yesterday already! One might go so far as to say my mom and my best
friends are
in cahoots
. If I go along with this and Amber
and Mitch find out, they’re either going to reveal to my mom that I
wasn’t telling the truth, or they’re gonna demand to know what was
going on. And why going over to a coworker’s house for dinner is
worth lying about.

So I tell the truth. More or less. “I went over
to Kristy’s, actually.”

“You did?” My mom sounds surprised. “I thought
she had a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I killed him. They’re probably going to
need you to, like, testify at some trial? I don’t know, I didn’t
really get the details. You might want to keep your schedule free.
Also, I’m arrested.”

“Oh, sweetie, you could never kill anyone.”

“No, Mom, for real. I am so serious.”

“So am I. They’d beat you down, honeybun.”

“Man, you are all about the supportive parenting
this morning.”

“Sorry,” she apologizes, but her eyes are
dancing. “I think Gwendolyn might be turning me saucy.”

“Blech, ‘nuff of that,” I say, sticking my
tongue out. “Anyway, it was just a friend thing. Boys and girls
can
just be friends, you know.”

As long as she doesn’t ask about boys and boys,
I’m good.

“Well, that’s very nice. I’m glad you’re
branching out a little bit. It sounds like this job is really
working out for you.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I like it.”

“I’m happy.” She smiles at me. Then she asks,
“Is Arthur still living with Kristy?”

Curse my tendency to bring home entertaining
tales of Arthur Kraft the Second, non-fist bumper and mad boss man.
I should’ve known it’d come around to bite me in the ass.

“Um, yeah,” I say.

“Was he around?”

“Yeah, he was.” No biggie. It’s cool. “He made
dinner for – us all, me and Kristy and her roommate. It was pretty
decent.”

“So you two are warming up to each other?”

“We’re doing okay,” I answer. Mighty neutral. “I
guess.”

“And he cooks?” my mom goes on, because she’s
obviously got some kind of unhealthy fascination.

“Yep.” Simple stuff. One-syllable responses.
We’re gonna get through this.

“Well?”

“Pretty well.” Three syllables, not ideal, but
I’ll survive.

“Ooh.” She lifts her eyebrows, mischievous.
“Maybe I should go after him. Do the cougar thing. We’d never have
to order Chinese again.”

“Good luck with that, Mom.” I courteously don’t
throw in
Already got it covered.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“I like Chinese, by the way,” I throw in. For
security’s sake.

+

When I go into work the next day, the front
room’s empty. I can hear voices coming from the kitchen. Voices of
the Kristy-and-Cora variety.

“I don’t know,” Kristy’s saying, bubbly and
super-excited. “I came home, and they were standing reeeeeally
close.”

Oh, shit, she’s talking about
us
.

Unless Nikki’s got some steamy new romance going
on that Cora cares about for no discernible reason.

Or Arthur’s in the habit of bringing random
dudes home.

… Arthur’s not in the habit of bringing random
dudes home, is he?

“Howie left right after I got there, though,”
Kristy continues. I feel a surge of – not relief, no sir, why would
it be relief? “So I didn’t see much. I tried to ask Arthur about it
after, but all he said was—”

“You can get your ass in here, Nancy Drew,” Cora
cuts in.

At a
really
inconvenient time, I gotta
say.

Kristy looks over and spots me. “How
ie
!
How long have you been there?!”

“Oh, ya know,” I don’t-really-answer. Turning to
Cora, I ask, “How did you know I was there?”

“Superpowers,” Cora replies dryly. “I can see
through doors. Especially when people are leaning past them to look
into the room.”

“That’s skills right there,” I tell her. “You
should start wearing a cape.”

I sit down at the table, lean back in my chair.
Real casual. “So. What were you guys talking about?”