Necessary Restorations (The Walsh Series) (A) (12 page)

Kyle said the words as if they were another language, an upward inflection tagged onto the end to embed his removal from this little girl’s preferences. That kind of snobbery was rampant in music school, so much so that I barely noticed it anymore.

“There’s an opportunity to publish in here.” He set a file on top of my meager pile of graded essays, patting it twice like he was psyching it up to run the four-hundred meter dash. “You’re due to get another paper out.”

Kyle added some passing comments about clarifying my dissertation work and getting in on a research byline that would add some depth to my candidacy if I was hoping for tenure-track opportunities in the future. All the cheerful topics I knew and loved.

When he left, I blew out a heated breath that I’d been holding high in my ribs since Sam’s texts. My response was meant to rattle him, to give him shit about his incredibly hot reaction to the clichéd “what are you wearing” line. He could do better, of that I was certain, and I was comfortable telling him as much.

17:16 Sam:
I beg your pardon?

17:17 Sam:
Feeling a little hot and bothered? Do you need a minute to handle things?

17:17 Sam:
let me know how it goes. I like details. I also like to watch.

17:18 Sam:
pictures are always welcome

17:23 Sam:
did you say you wanted to catch a show tonight? Should I meet you somewhere or pick you up?

17:24 Sam:
yeah, you did mention a reggae show. Splendid. Interested in dinner?

17:29 Sam:
are we good?

17:33 Tiel:
do you text all your friends about coming on their nipples?

17:33 Tiel:
or is it more like the same story and slightly different (always happy for you) endings?

17:34 Tiel:
although it all comes (lol) down to your skill in fluid placement

17:35 Sam:
you’re fucking hilarious

17:35 Sam:
And when I text with my friend Nick, I can guarantee none of those conversations pertain to me coming anywhere near him. This was all for you, my friend

17:36 Tiel:
For Nick’s sake, that’s probably good. pick me up at 730

17:36 Sam:
wear that dress. I want to stare at your tits, friend

17:37 Tiel:
anything you want, friend.

17:37 Sam:
wait—does that include coming on your tits?

17:38 Tiel:
would friends do that?

17:39 Sam:
No. FRIENDS would not do that.

17:40 Sam:
are we still friends?

17:40 Tiel:
always

I tossed my phone to the desk and flopped back in my chair, unsatisfied and irritable, and in desperate need of some extensive alone time with my vibrator.

IT WAS ONE of the chilliest October weekends of the year, and I showed up at Tiel’s door with Thai food. She mentioned something about a recital earlier that morning and wanting to stay in tonight, and I was happy to oblige. We’d gone out most nights this week, and I was too freaking tired for much more than yam wunsen kung and a beer. I couldn’t even get it up for a sharp outfit, opting instead for jeans, a Cornell hoodie, and a long sleeved t-shirt. I managed some rainbow argyle socks, but only because they were on top of the pile.

I heard her violin’s squeal and hum from all the way down the hall, and though I had to think for a minute, I realized she was playing an old Rise Against song. I only knew it because she’d been singing parts of it for weeks, and now I couldn’t get it out of my head either.

The sound rose with smooth fury, and I listened, just leaning against her door. When she stopped, I waited, hoping I’d hear it again.

Instead, I got a text asking where I was with the red curry and pad kee mao.

“Sorry,” I said when she opened the door. “I was enjoying the show.”

She glanced at the bow in her hand and shrugged. “Yeah, it is not where I want it yet. We’re not posting that one anytime soon,” she sighed.

Like a creepy dick, I Googled her last month. I didn’t know what compelled me to do it, but I was sitting in my office one afternoon, talking myself off the ledge from another futile argument with Shannon, and decided to look up Miss Desai. It was that, or start another filthy text conversation and I couldn’t walk around construction sites with an erection. Again. That was begging for trouble.

I expected to find her course syllabus, maybe a bio on the college website, and the standard social media fare.

I found a YouTube channel with two dozen clips, each boasting more than a half million hits. She played popular songs—Fall Out Boy, Tom Petty, Paramore, Muse, The Shins, Britney Spears, Hot Chelle Rae, The Who—and they were the most fucking incredible things I’d ever heard.

I watched every video, some more than once.

If I was anywhere near as talented as Tiel, I’d tell people about it every day. I’d tattoo the fucking URL on my forehead and announce it every time I walked into a room. It took some strategic questioning—and shots, shots always worked on Tiel—but she divulged the whole story.

It started with her posting a clip of a Panic! At the Disco track for critical feedback, hoping to get some advice on how to blend the sounds the ways she wanted them. Instead, she got requests for more songs.

Tiel kept improving the Panic! At the Disco tune, but posted others from her early morning studio sessions. She’d even started recording multiple tracks, each with her playing different instruments, and layering them into one like her own self-contained quartet. She rolled her eyes when I suggested she was an internet celebrity and the only virtuoso I’d ever met.

Being famous wasn’t her concern; she did it for the music.

Once inside her apartment, she rehashed her morning with one of her kid friends, and how his parents arranged a small recital at their JCC, but he wasn’t interested in playing. After some warm ups, he came around, but she sat beside him on the piano bench the entire time.

“That sounds like torture,” I said, unpacking the boxes on her coffee table. I gave the particle board structure a baleful glare and mentally cataloged the wood in my workshop. I could build better shit while I was sleepwalking. She needed some furniture that hadn’t been passed around grad school apartments for the past six presidencies.

“It’s not,” she said. She popped open two beers and carried them to the table. “If you don’t push every now and then, you don’t grow.”

She talked about the tonality problems she was having with the Rise Against song, and while I didn’t understand half of what she was saying, I liked listening to her while we ate. There were bridges and chord progressions hampering her progress, and her ongoing struggle to feel as competent with the cello as she did with the violin. She was honest about her weaknesses, and rarely hid behind them by overcompensating the way I did.

Intellect was always my cover. I’d yet to encounter a situation beyond high school where my vocabulary, my expertise, my extensive reading didn’t protect me. Smart was intimidating, and it kept people from noticing anything beyond big words, off-handed references to literary texts, and endless amounts of sustainable preservation research at the ready.

Clothes were my second line of defense. If I was swagged up, no one noticed the bulge from my glucose monitor. An eye-catching tie, a fancy pocket square, some trendy color combinations. They were the ideal distraction, and I was careful to cut slits in my pockets to allow the tubing to thread beneath my clothes and through to my device without risking exposure.

It wasn’t entirely self-preservation, though. I enjoyed shopping, and when I started pulling in respectable money, I liked building out my wardrobe with designer suits. It was true what they said about looking the part.

She pushed the empty container away and reached over, fingering the medical alert bracelets on my wrist and turning them over to read the engravings. She was quiet, and I hoped she wasn’t noticing how my pulse popped into warp speed when her fingers brushed over my skin.

It didn’t matter how many times in the past two months she reached for me. I still wasn’t used to it, but not because I couldn’t handle her touching me; it was because I
could,
and that realization was still mind-blowing.

“How long have you been diabetic?”

“Since always,” I said.

“And this one?” She lifted the other bracelet. “You’re allergic to
all
antibiotics?”

“Pretty much. I prefer natural remedies anyway. You’d never believe what you can cure with some apple cider vinegar.” She gave me a sidelong glance clearly intended to communicate her distrust of my witch doctoring.

We settled in to watch a movie—
The Social Network;
her choice—and I kicked off my shoes, and draped her legs over my lap.

Within minutes of the movie starting, Tiel was talking. She
always
did this. She’d ask where she knew an actor from; I’d spend ten minutes searching IMDb. She’d want to know whether a specific song was on the official soundtrack; I’d pull it up on Amazon. She’d realize she’d chattered through the first half of the film and was confused; I’d recap it for her. She’d see an actress with great tits and hypothesize whether I’d fuck her or why I wasn’t fucking someone like her in a coatroom at that moment; I’d ignore that entire commentary.

“You remind me of Mark Zuckerberg,” she said, glancing at my jeans and hoodie. “Your style is obviously very different.” She gestured to my feet. “I mean, those are some snazzy socks, young man, but you’re smart and really cerebral, and more socially awkward than most turtles.”

“Thanks?” I muttered.

“Don’t look so offended,” Tiel said.

She pulled me toward her until we were lying together on the sofa, her back against my chest and her ass to my crotch. I held my breath for a long moment, terrified that she’d feel the infusion site and glucose sensor under my shirt. They were on either side of my abdomen, and if she leaned in at a particular angle, she couldn’t miss them.

“You’re far more likable,” she said, patting my thigh.

“Well that’s good,” I said, a breath rushing out with my words. “Because I doubt you’ll find Zuckerberg wandering the streets of Cambridge these days, and he’s definitely not bringing you Thai food and beer, Sunshine.”

I studied her while she watched the movie, and ran my fingers through her thick, glossy hair. She kept it short, about shoulder-length, and it was a bone-straight curtain of sleek ebony. There was no explaining my attraction to her ear or the tiny constellation of studs trailing up her lobe, but I loved the silky skin just behind it.

I usually waited for a sign from her, some indication that she wanted a bit more than friendly cuddles, but she was busy analyzing the evolution of Justin Timberlake’s music since his boy band days.

I didn’t want to wait for that sign tonight. I wanted to touch her and taste her without invitation, but I’d backed myself into this goddamn
friends
corner with Tiel, and that meant I’d lost my balls and what was left of my mind.

In the process, I’d also lost my taste for slutting it up and hadn’t enjoyed anonymous sex since August. I just couldn’t convince myself to want that anymore, and none of it made sense to me.

My world was gradually shifting and reshaping itself, and all I knew was that I felt different, but different in ways I couldn’t verbalize. There was the obvious—fewer blowjobs, less gin, more underground concerts, many more movie nights—but it was so much more. Part of me wanted to assign a name and some order to all this. A bigger part of me knew I wasn’t rolling around rock bottom anymore, and for that victory alone I should focus on savoring the sweet woman in my arms and the quiet peace we’d found in this absurd friends-but-more-than-friends construct.