Know Not Why: A Novel (28 page)

“Uh, yeah, okay.”

“Great!” Kristy waits ‘til Nikki’s got her coat
on, then grabs one arm and drags her over to me. “Up up up! I’ll
get the door!”

“I’m not actually—” I say, but then Nikki puts
her arms around my neck, so I pick her up as best I can. Which, to
be honest, is not super-well. It may involve some ungallant
hoisting.

This is not lost on Nikki. “Don’t drop me.”

“I’m not gonna
drop
you!” I scoff, like
the idea’s ridiculous. Which it is. Probably.

We make it down the stairs. I don’t drop her,
for the record. I put her in the car safe and sound. Sure, there
might have been a stumble or two, but there’s no problem with that,
right? Keeps life interesting.

Kristy gives me a wave. Nikki does not. Then
Arthur’s car peels out onto the road with a screechy turn.

For a little while, I stand down at the bottom
of the stairs, looking at nothing. It’s getting close to pitch
black out, and it’s really damn cold. I don’t really know why I’m
freezing myself out here. Going upstairs just seems … well, not
like the brightest of ideas, at this point. All I really wanted to
find out was whether or not Arthur and Douchey Patrick were doin’
it like gay bunnies, and I did. I even got the answer I wanted.
Mission accomplished.

But I don’t exactly feel better. Just because
they’re not together doesn’t mean they’re not
together
. They
looked mighty cozy standing next to each other, and it’s not even
that it was in such an obvious way. It’s more like … like they
spent years together, and they’ve still got that thing. That couple
thing, that vibe. Douchey Patrick might be a douche named Patrick,
but he knows Arthur way better than I know Arthur. He knows all the
trivial stuff, the stuff that’s important because it’s unimportant.
Favorite books, family members, broken bones.

Not to mention that Arthur must care about him
way more than he cares about me. That one hits me all of a sudden,
hard.

He has to, right? Like, it’s not even a
question. He might be the only one I’ve got. Arthur, he’s not in a
category with Heather Grimsby and Lindsay. Arthur, he gets his own
category. But me, it’s not like
I’m
something epic and novel
to him. He’s got the gay thing down. There’s some guy out there in
the world, existing, who was to him what he is to me. Maybe it’s
Douchey Patrick. Maybe it’s some entirely different douchey
dude.

The point is I don’t exactly
matter
, in
the grand Arthur Kraft scheme of things. There are two and a half
year relationships, and there are storage closet rendezvoux.

I’m suddenly so jealous of Douchey fuckin’
Patrick that I can feel it, like, everywhere. It freaks me out a
little bit to hate him as much as I do right now. It’s in my nerves
and the pit of my stomach, and for some reason I can’t remember
feeling something this hard since my dad died. That just makes me
even madder. It’s not the same at all. Douchey Patrick might be a
douche and a menace, but whatever, he’s just a person whose
existence inconveniences me. The same could be said about Arthur,
even. Like, in the grand scheme of things, none of this is exactly
monumental. I wish I didn’t feel it so fucking much.

I climb the stairs slow, then step back through
the front door, which got left open. It’s chilly in the entryway.
Arthur’s standing there waiting for me, light confusion on his
face. He’s wearing a pair of blue checkered pajama pants and a gray
t-shirt. The fact that he’s in his pajamas makes things weirder for
some reason. I’ve never seen him in normal human, non-Arthur
clothes. His shirt doesn’t have any buttons. It’s alarming.

“Kristy and Nikki went out,” I inform him. My
teeth are chattering as I close the door behind me. It makes me
feel like a dumbass. Dumbassery, kind of my specialty.

“I thought they were staying in for the
evening.”

“Yeah, well. They’re out.”

“I see that.”

I wonder whether I should get rid of my shoes
and my coat. There’s not exactly a
sit down and stay awhile!
warmth in the air.

“What are you doing here?” Arthur asks, which
doesn’t help me with my shoe dilemma.

“Oh, ya know.” It’s all I can come up with.

“Weren’t you out with your brother?”

“I was,” I reply. Brilliantly. “Now I’m
here.”

“Yes,” he agrees, “you are.”

There’s a pause. A really, really excruciating
pause.

“Would you like some tea?” Arthur asks then.

“Sure, tea’s good.”

He heads into the kitchen without waiting for
me. It’s not encouraging, but I doggedly follow after him. He’s
putting the teakettle on the stove when I get there. I sit down at
the table and watch him as he opens the cabinet.

“World’s Best Grandma or Garfield?” he asks,
holding up two mugs.

“Whatever.”

He puts Garfield back, leaving me World’s Best
Grandma.

“What kind of tea would you like? Not
chamomile.”

The fact that he remembers that I don’t dig
chamomile – it makes me feel better. It’s like this shot of
all’s-right-in-the-world. Then I feel like a moron for caring so
much.

“Whatever you have’s good.”

“Peppermint?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He puts a teabag in the cup, then stands there
at the stove and waits for the water to boil. It’s just barely
hissing now.

The movie’s still on in the living room. Kristy
forgot it in her mad dash. Too bad for Cliff the Hugh Grant Fan.
I’m sure he’ll be crushed.

“Amber hates this movie,” I say, because I can’t
think of anything else and the silence is terrible.

“Amber seems to hate a lot of things,” Arthur
replies crisply.

There’s something about the way he says it that
makes me want to defend her honor. “Not really. She likes stuff.
Peach sorbet. Buying shoes. My brother. Jane Austen—”

“I believe you,” Arthur interrupts. “I don’t
need a list.”

He says it nicely, but it still sort of pisses
me off.

“You want me to turn this off?” I ask, gesturing
to the TV.

“Sure.”

I go over and turn the TV off. It leaves the
room horribly silent. Okay, that decision lacked foresight. I’m not
exactly crazy for ol’ Hugh or anything, but if it’s a choice
between his droll British tones and awkward silence, boy oh boy do
I pick the former.

I take my coat off – the zipper is some freak of
zippery nature, the loudest of all zippers – and drape it over the
back of my chair. Then I sit back down and stare at Arthur some
more. It should be illegal to feel this awkward around someone once
you’ve had their spit in your mouth.

The teakettle finally whistles. Arthur pours one
cup, then brings it over to me.

“Aren’t you having any?” I ask. The idea that
he’s not prompts this uncomfortable twinge in my brain.

“No,” he replies, sitting down next to me. “I
just brushed my teeth.”

I stare down into the golden depths of the
granny mug. “Well, now I feel like a jackass.”

“Because you’re the only one drinking tea?”
Arthur asks. He makes it sound like this is weird and pathetic
reasoning for feeling like a jackass.

“No,” I say. “I dunno. Yeah.”

He gives me a slight smile. I simultaneously
want to, like, build shrines to it and punch it off his face. It’s
complicated. “I promise, I won’t judge you too harshly.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I try a sip of the tea, but it’s too hot; I can
tell even before it touches my lips. Burnt tongue, avoided. At
least there’s that. My life is full of tiny highlights.

Arthur watches me. Neither of us says anything.
It’s riveting.

Apparently, our awkward silence tolerance is the
same, because at the exact second that he starts asking, “Would you
like sugar, or honey—”, I say, “Are you back with Douchey
Patrick?”

“Douchey Patrick?”

I am overcome with a sense of ‘DAMN IT’ that’s
promptly followed by a sense of ‘WHATEVER.’ It doesn’t matter at
this point. “It’s what I call him in my head. It’s stupid.
Whatever. He seems like a douche. He’s probably not, if you like
him so much or whatever, with his sexy glasses, but he just seems
like one. So that’s what I call him.”

“In your head.”

“In my head.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Probably trying to
determine why he ever got involved with such a crazy-ass
motherfucker. I’m trying to determine how I ever became one, so.
Aren’t we a damn pair.

“No, I’m not back with Douchey Patrick,” he says
at last. “That is very done.”

“You sure? ‘Cause you looked chummy.”

“Yes, I’m sure. We were just discussing what to
do with the apartment over dinner.”

“Oh.”

“He’s moving to Seattle for work. It looks like
I’m going to keep it.”

“Oh. Congrats, man.”

“Thank you.”

There goes Douchey Patrick. Just like that. I
feel sort of annoyed that I wasted all that torment on nothing.

“You’re gonna miss him, I bet.” It sounds like
taunting when I say it. I don’t even know
why
I say it,
other than that I’m mad. I’m just mad at this whole fucking stupid
situation.

“A little, I suppose,” Arthur agrees.

I stare angrily down into my stupid tea. Fuck
you, tea. Fuck you, awkward silence. I ask, and so hate myself for
asking, “Why didn’t you want him to know about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, man. You told him I was a
perfectly decent employee
.”

“I wasn’t aware that was a bad thing.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s peachy, but—”

“And besides,” he interrupts loftily, “you don’t
seem to want anyone to know about me.”

“Yeah, but that’s different.”

“Is it?”

“No fucking duh it is.” (Eloquence.) “You’re
gay. I’m—”

“Not?” He arches an eyebrow.

I want to punch him in that eyebrow.

“Well. Fuck. I don’t know. Whatever. You’re
out
. It’s not like this big secret. So why didn’t you
just—”

“Just tell him a month after we broke up that
I’m having a fling with my much younger, sexually confused employee
who says ‘yo’?”

“I don’t
mean
it when I say ‘yo,’” I say,
hating oh hating him. “I’m fucking kidding, it’s fucking
ironic
, okay. And I’m not
much
younger. I’m not
fucking
twelve
or something.”

“Fine, slightly younger. You’re right, that
makes it sound much better.”

“What’s so
bad
about it?”

“It doesn’t exactly put me in the best of
lights.”

My stomach twists. “What do you mean?”

Arthur takes a sharp breath in and steeples his
fingertips. “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want him to think I’m having
some sort of rebound relationship. It’s uncharacteristic of me, to
say the least, and I don’t want to deal with how he would
react.”

“Rebound relationship,” I repeat blankly.

“Well. To an extent, I think. If you want me to
be truthful.”

I want to hurl the World’s Best Grandma mug at
him. A whole new kind of mugging, a
better
kind of mugging.
“Wow. That’s fantastic. Thanks for sharing. That’s just fuckin’
adorable.”

“Howie—”

“No, really. Thanks for fucking up my whole
fucking life so you could get your rebound on. You, sir, are a man
among men. You should have your own holiday. They ought to christen
nations after you—”

“Howie, come on.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

He sighs. “I’m not saying I don’t care about
you. Obviously I do.”

“Oh, obviously,” I mock.

“I don’t think that was adequately expressed,”
he says, frustrated. “I—”

He looks at me, then looks at the mug of tea.
Then he reaches over and grabs it, pushing it to the opposite side
of the table.

“What the fuck was that?” I demand.

“You were going to throw it at me.”

“I wasn’t gonna
throw
it at you. I’m not
a hyperactive five year old.”

“You had a look.”

“So what if I had a look? That doesn’t mean I
was gonna—”

“You might have.”

“Maybe I was gonna drink it.”

“I don’t think you were going to drink it.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know everything.” I
pause. “And if I was gonna throw it, you earned it.”

“I suppose that sounds fair.”

“You say that now that it’s out of my
reach.”

He gets this weird little look on his face. It’s
like he can’t decide whether to smile or just be horribly confused.
“I do like you,” he says at last. “I very much like you. I don’t
quite know what to do with how much I like you most of the time. It
isn’t something I planned to do—”

“You usually plan out liking people?”

“Well, yes.” His brow rumples. “Sort of.”

Of course he does. I shake my head. “Man, do I
know how to pick ‘em.”

“Patrick and I went very well together on
paper,” he continues, a little brisker.

Oh, just what I wanna hear. “I hate that
expression. On paper. What paper? The paper of
what
?”

“The figurative paper of
would-you-please-let-me-endeavor-to-explain this.”

“That’s some pretty dumbass paper,” I grumble.
“I know: let’s get some and sell it for a jillion dollars a pack.
Look out, Holly’s.”

Arthur rolls his eyes at me.

“Sorry,” I say. “Whatever. Keep talking. I
guess.”

“He and I were very similar. Maybe too similar.
I guess it was inevitable that we would eventually get bored and
frustrated with one another. Still, we had a life together, and I
found it hard to let go of that. I still find it hard to let go of
that. I like … I like the idea of planning things, planning them
once and … and getting it right, and always having that there as
something fixed, and certain. And it goes without saying that I’m
unsatisfied with the course my life has taken professionally. I
suppose that with Patrick, that was the one area in which I could
do things right. And I didn’t.”