The History of Us (34 page)

The house was still and dark, of course. She let herself in quietly and closed the door as if trying not to wake someone. Though the sky was getting brighter, the rooms were still dim, but she felt a resistance to turning on the lights. She went into the living room and stood in the center of it looking around. She felt like a visitor to a museum of her life. All the framed photos on the surfaces, a pair of her earrings waiting in a decorative dish on the bookshelf. It was like a set designer had planned this place.

She walked up the stairs, trailing her fingers along the banister. How long would she remember what the wood felt like
beneath her hand? Maybe she wouldn’t remember at all, never having reminded herself to pay attention. Still, she knew. She knew without remembering. But without the banister there to touch, how would she ever know she knew? Sense memory doesn’t work without input from the senses. She needed the house. Why couldn’t Eloise understand how much she needed it?

She was walking past Josh’s room to hers when his door suddenly opened. Theo started back, clapping her hand over a scream. There, in a pair of boxers and his skinny white chest, was her brother. “You scared the shit out of me!” she said. She felt startled awake, jarred out of her melancholy mood.

He looked at her with a zombielike glaze. His hair was tufted out on one side, and he had a pillow crease on his cheek. “I guess I fell asleep,” he said. He scrubbed at his face with one hand and looked at her again.

“What do you mean you fell asleep? It’s pretty early for you. Weren’t you just asleep in the normal way?”

He shook his head, then said around a yawn, “I was up most of the night.”

“Doing what?”

He lifted a shoulder, looking away like he didn’t want to tell her.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I’m staying here for now. I came back on Friday.”

“Did you ask Eloise?”

“No,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair, making it wilder, and looking at him she saw the little boy he’d been. His hair a wild explosion of curls because their mother loved it that way, his big eyes, his endless series of T-shirts featuring pictures of guitars, because though their mother bought him other shirts
those were the only ones he’d wear. She remembered the intense look of concentration he used to wear in the backseat of the car, trying to learn the words to a song on the stereo, the way he’d mumble his half-understood version of the lyrics, the way she used to tease him about what he got wrong, her parents saying, “Theo, be nice. He’s your little brother, be nice,” and suddenly she felt a surge of tenderness for him like she hadn’t felt in quite some time.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He seemed to seriously consider the question before offering her a rueful smile. “I don’t really know,” he said.

“What were you doing all night?”

He sighed. “I feel stupid telling you.”

“I won’t judge,” she said, and he looked so skeptical that she was torn between defensiveness and laughter. “For once,” she said.

“I was writing songs.” He watched her for her reaction, and she tried to keep her face neutral, afraid if she responded with too much excitement he’d get mad. “I finished a couple that had been in my head awhile, and then I wrote two new ones.”

“Wow,” she said.

“I know, right? I don’t know if they’re any good, but they
feel
like they’re good.”

“I bet they’re good,” she said, and she grinned at him. “I bet they’re really good.”

“Well,” he said. “I appreciate your faith.”

She turned away briskly, because a nice moment should be preserved, and said, “There’s still coffee in the house, right?”

“Yup,” he said. “I picked up a few things yesterday, so there’s half-and-half, too.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said. She headed for the stairs.

“You’re such a baby,” he said. He grabbed a T-shirt from inside his room and followed her.

“You put cream in your coffee, too,” Theo said.

“Yes, but I can drink it black.”

“I can, too. I just have to pretend it’s medicine. Nasty, nasty medicine.”

“Medicine’s not always nasty. Remember how we loved it when we were little?”

“Oh, the pink ear infection stuff. That was my favorite.”

“I was always partial to cherry Tylenol,” he said.

“That stuff sucks,” Theo said, “but to each his own,” and then they were in the kitchen, and he wanted to use the French press instead of the coffeepot, and she called him a snob, and he said he just had better taste than she did, and then she made a show of seeking his approval about how well she’d ground the beans, and really, they hadn’t gotten along this well, this
easily,
in such a long time that she felt nearly giddy with the relief and pleasure of it. She wouldn’t press him on his situation. She wouldn’t ask him a single thing.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, when they were sitting at the kitchen table with their mugs.

“I’ve been feeling a little homeless,” she said. “I can’t decide what to do about that. So I came back home.”

“You’ve been staying with that guy?”

“Wes, yes.” She took a sip of coffee, burned her tongue, and grimaced.

“That rhymed,” Josh said.

“It did indeed.”

“Are you making faces because of him?”

She shook her head. “Burned my tongue.” He nodded and blew on his own coffee with an air of concentration. She could tell he, too, was trying not to ask too many questions. Sometimes she forgot, in her conviction that their problems were all about his sensitivities, that she, too, had buttons to push. “He’s a great guy,” Theo said. “But he’s a little young for me.”

“How young?”

“He’s twenty-two.” Josh looked so neutral at this news that Theo laughed. “You can react,” she said.

“That’s not so bad. He’s allowed in a bar.”

“True,” she said. “That
is
what I look for in a man.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I honestly don’t really know what I feel about him. Or where I should live. Or what I’m doing here.”

“Here at the house? Here in Cincinnati?”

“Here in the world,” she said.

Josh tested the coffee and pronounced it cool enough, so Theo drank some, and for a moment they sat there in silence. Then he said, “Why don’t you come back to the house, too? It’s silly for it to sit here empty while we impose on other people.”

“The way Eloise has behaved is just so unfair.”

“I don’t worry so much about fairness.” He grinned at her. “I’m the middle child. I’m more about negotiation.”

“You’re the good one,” she said.

“I’m the good one.” He sighed. “Allegedly.”

“Truly!” Theo said. “You came to pick me up that night from that bar, and you never asked any questions. I don’t even know if I thanked you.”

“Was that you thanking me just now?”

“I think it was,” she said. She pretended to consider. “Yes, it was.”

“I have to tell you, Theo,” Josh said, but then it took him a moment to go on. “About Sabrina. You were right. I was an asshole.”

Just the day before, Theo would have been thrilled by this admission. Now she resisted it. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

“I mean I was pathetic.”

“I know what you mean.” Theo shook her head. “You loved her, you know? What good did I think talking was going to do? I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You were right. Maybe when someone else is making a terrible mistake it’s your duty to tell them. Maybe the problem wasn’t you talking but me not listening.” There was a silence while they both considered that. Josh said, “But then again I was pretty fucking mad at you.”

“I noticed,” Theo said.

“You did?”

Theo laughed. “I’m astonishingly perceptive,” she said.

“And always right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m always right.”

A couple hours later, Theo knocked on Wes’s door, even though he’d
given her a key. He opened it frowning and stepped back to let her inside. “Where have you been? I thought we were going to brunch.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I went back to the house, and I ran into my brother.”

“Oh,” Wes said. “I thought nobody was living there now.”

“He’s been there since Friday,” she said. “He’s been writing songs.”

“Really? That’s awesome!”

She’d known this information would distract him. That was why she’d offered it. What a coward she was. “Yeah, I’m really glad,” she said. “He doesn’t know yet what he’ll do with them.”

“He should record a solo album is what he should do,” Wes said.

Theo made a noise of assent, moving past him into the living room. She felt a premature nostalgia for Wes’s indie-rock decor. “I really appreciate you putting me up all this time,” she said. “It’s been incredibly nice of you.”

“Nice of me?” Wes came up behind her and touched her arm. “What’s going on?”

She sat down on the couch and waited. He looked at her warily a moment and then sat beside her. “My brother thinks I should come back to the house, too, until some decision is made.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I like having you here.”

“I know, but, Wes, don’t you think this happened awfully fast? It’s like we’re living together.”

“We
are
living together.”

“But we barely know each other.”

He frowned. “Is that really what you think?”

“I mean we haven’t known each other long.”

“We’ve known each other nearly three years.”

“I’m not counting when you were in my class.”

“Why not?”

“Because that was different, obviously. That was a totally different thing.”

“We were the same people.”

“Look,” she said. “I just think we should take a step back.”

“You’re breaking up with me.”

“Breaking up?”

“Yes, Theo. We’ve been a couple these last few weeks, whether you realized it or not, which clearly you didn’t. So if you end things, people call that ‘breaking up.’ ”

“I didn’t say I was ending things.”

“No,” he said. “You said I’ve been ‘incredibly nice.’ You’re still wearing your jacket.”

She looked down at herself as if to confirm this. She hadn’t even unbuttoned the jacket. She’d sat down with her bag still on her shoulder. “I don’t think I want to end things.”

“But you don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know, and I told you that from the beginning! I’ve never made a secret of my lack of knowledge.”

Wes nodded slowly. “So this is about that guy.”

“No. Not really. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Did something happen with him?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t even seen him since we ran into him. But, Wes, I still don’t know whether I’m over him. Don’t you want me to figure that out? Otherwise, aren’t I being horribly unfair?”

“So you want to figure that out, and then if you decide you’re over him, you want me to be waiting for you, and if you decide you’re not, you want me to get over you. Or are you hoping even if you decide you’re not I’ll be waiting for you? Just in case you ever do change your mind?”

She began to protest that no, that wasn’t what she was doing, but yes, it was. Wasn’t it? “That’s awful,” she said.

“Yes,” Wes said. “Yes, Theo, that’s awful. And no, I won’t wait.” He stood up, walked into the kitchen, then came back, holding his wallet and keys. “I am an actual person, not just the idea of one,” he said. “And I love you.”

“You do?”

“Are we ever going to get to a point where I tell you how I feel about you and you don’t act surprised?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m tired of you being sorry,” he said. “It’s time for you to be something else.” He picked up his coat from the armchair and thrust his arms into the sleeves. He looked around—for his phone, she knew—but didn’t find it. “I’m going out while you pack up. You can slide the key back under the door.”

“Don’t go,” she said.

He said, “Neither of us will like me very much if I don’t.” He gave up on the phone, heading for the door.

“Wes,” she called after him, and he stopped with his hand on the knob, but she had no idea what she wanted to say, just that she wanted to say something. “You’re too young for me,” she said. She meant it as a kind of apology, but of course he didn’t take it like that.

“Oh, Theo,” he said, yanking the door open. “Fuck off.”

After he left, she found his phone under a book of hers on the coffee table. She spent a long time thinking about where she should put it that he’d be sure to find it, finally choosing the kitchen counter. Then she packed up her things, as he’d instructed, and made his bed with more precision than she’d ever made a bed in her life. It looked like a bed in a showroom. It looked like a bed no one had ever slept in. She sat on it and bounced the mattress like she was thinking of buying it, and then
she got up before the urge to lie down could overcome her. She had a lump in her throat, but she wasn’t going to cry. You could cry all you wanted when someone left you, but how ridiculous to cry when you left someone. How self-serving and foolish and unfair. She smoothed out the quilt again to erase all signs she’d been there.

She locked the door and then worked his key off her key chain and slid it under the door. A feeling of panic seized her, and she crouched down to peer under the door, but the key was gone. She couldn’t even see it. Even if she wanted to, there was no way to get back in. As she turned to go she thought about how happy he’d looked when he asked if she was moving in, the way it had seemed for a moment—for longer than a moment—that she could. But she couldn’t have stayed. Something so easy couldn’t possibly be right.

A
t dinner in downtown Chicago with Jason Bamber and two of
his colleagues, Eloise had three glasses of wine and a wonderful time. Chicago at night! She’d forgotten. After the wine Eloise suggested they all go up to the Sears Tower. “I never did that when I lived here before,” she said. “I was too cool.”

Jason and his colleagues argued for a while about whether the Sears Tower or the Hancock Tower was best, and Eloise thought they really were going, and was disappointed when the colleagues begged off, saying they had to get home. “So,” she said, putting her palms flat on the table and looking at Jason. “Which will it be?”