Know Not Why: A Novel (41 page)

“What?” Amber says, (understandably)
baffled.

“I don’t know,” Mitch says, sort of miserably.
“That’s what you ladies look for in a fellow, right?”

“A
fellow
?” Amber says.

“Well, speaking of punctual, look at that, we
are running so late right now,” I say, not bothering to actually
look at a clock. Technicalities are for lesser men.

“What? You didn’t say there was a time we had
to—”

“There is a time. And the time is now. Later,
Mitch.”

“Our clock is broken,” Mitch says, frowning in
confusion. “It’s not really eight fifteen. Because, you know, it’s
light outside.”

“Doesn’t matter. Bye.”

And I drag Amber and her taco right the hell out
of there.

+

I wind up walking into Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N
Krafts alone, because Amber has a last-minute case of nerves and
insists upon eating her one remaining taco outside in bitterly
freezing peace. I can’t quite bring myself to take that away from
her, so I amble on in on my own – and walk right into the midst of
a show-stopping musical number.

There’s sweeping instrumentals, blaring so loud
off the stereo that I’m surprised it hasn’t exploded in protest.
Kristy and Cora are both standing on the counter and clasping
hands, singing in dramatic tones.

At the realization that the door is open, they
both freeze.

“Another gay workplace romance?” I say. “Really?
You could at least
try
for originality, ya posers.”

“Oh, thank gosh,” Kristy says, hopping off the
counter. “It’s just you.”

“It’s just me. What’s up, lady rebels?”

“Well, we’ve been here for a couple of hours and
nobody had come in, so we waited ‘til Arthur went upstairs
and—”

“I brought the Moulin Rouge soundtrack,” Cora
grins.

“And she let me sing the Nicole Kidman parts!”
Kristy says giddily.

“I’m Ewan McGregor,” Cora reports. “Which means
I want to get all up in my own business. Kinky, right?”

“There’s no way Arthur can’t hear you guys,” I
say, staring up at the ceiling. I’m pretty sure that the wrath of
God should be causing it to tremble.

“I don’t think he minds,” Kristy says.

I respond with the only possible response, and
that response is staring at her like she is friggin’ nuts.

“I know! It sounds crazy! But he’s all …
relaxed, and cheerful. He called us upstairs like a half an hour
ago, and I thought it was because we were in trouble. Our Lady
Marmalade got a little bouncy. But then it was just to show us a
really cute Weimaraner on the Puppy A Day website.”

Um. “What the hell?”

“It was going to Holly’s,” Cora says. “He
attained spiritual peace. Or maybe you’re just an exceptionally
badass lay.” She gives me this skeptical, scrutinizing look. It
isn’t super-flattering.

“Unfortunately, Ewan McGregor, I can’t in good
conscience wrench you away from your own business long enough to
allow you to find out.”

That seems good enough for Cora. “Goddamn, I’m
foxy.”

“Hey, Howie?” Kristy’s moved her way over to the
front window.

“Yeah?”

“Why is Amber standing outside in the snow
eating a taco?”

Oh, man. Having learned my lesson re: telling
Kristy stuff about Amber that Amber doesn’t want anybody to know,
I’m not sure how to answer. Finally, I solve the problem in
signature Howie Jenkins style, which is code for ‘I say something
random and dumb as hell.’ (It’s an art form, verging on a precise
and perfect science.) “That’s just how they get things done in her
homeland.”

“Isn’t her homeland here?”

Okay, so, not the best of my efforts. Deciding
that at least a tiny scrap of truth is necessary, I say, “She’s
coming in to talk to you.”

“Oh.” It’s not like she has some big, dramatic
reaction. There’s no slow-mounting dread on her face, no gasping or
fainting or hurling. But something gets a tiny bit less joyful and
more measured in her expression, and I feel kinda bad. No one
deserves to be stripped of their giddiness about singing the Nicole
Kidman parts (I … guess), especially not Kristy.

“If … that’s okay.”

“Of course it is.” I believe her when she says
it, at least.

“Why is there weirdness?” Cora demands,
abandoning her solitary tango through the yarn aisle.

“No weirdness,” Kristy says, peppy as ever. She
doesn’t waste any time in pulling the front door open and calling,
“Oh my gosh, Amber, come in, it’s freezing out here!”

+

After a couple of minutes, I leave the ladies to
their bonding. It becomes obvious pretty quick that no one’s going
to start any hair-pulling or pillow fights: as soon as Amber comes
in, she recognizes that there is Moulin Rougery at work, and this
sends them all into a weird frenzy that I can’t understand. I go
upstairs before any of them get the chance to recruit me into being
the sitar midget dude.

“Weimeraners?” is how I greet Arthur.

He looks up from the computer screen. “Good
morning to you, too.” He stands up and leans over the desk to kiss
me hello. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Yeah, well, that’s me.” I poke the A on his
nametag. “I’m sneaky as hell. Just when you
don’t
expect to
see me, bam. Plus, I’m doing the moral support thing. Amber’s
atoning to Kristy by agreeing to go on a blind date with one of
Fisticuffs Clifford’s bros.”

“What are the odds of you ever ceasing to refer
to him as Fisticuffs Clifford?”

“Eensy.”

“I suspected as much.” He sighs gravely. “What
about your brother?”

“Oh, the second he throws down the gauntlet,
he’ll be Fisticuffs Dennis. No question.”

“Good to know. But I was thinking more along the
lines of—”

“Her being crazy in love with him since the dawn
of time?”

“Right. That.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That.”

He looks at me expectantly. It goes quiet.
Downstairs, the Moulin Rouge instrumentals are still blaring; I can
make out the fuzzy, happy sounds of girl chatter underneath it.

Arthur just keeps on staring at me with his
pesky enthralling green eyes, backed up in their mission by the
most formidably excellent eyelashes known to the whole history of
man, and I can’t help it.

“Oh, it’s so fucking weird.” I sit down. It’s
not the badassest of sittings down: there may be a hint of anguish,
a tinge of floppy despair. Arthur sits down too. “Are you really
sure you want to invoke this? Because really, for real: you, my
gentleman, my scholar, are in for some grade-A insane irrational
heavy self-centered panic-laden whoa-now-simmer-down-freakboy
ramblitude.”

He rests his hands on the desk and clasps them,
serious business style. “I consider myself duly warned.”

“Okay. Swell.” I look at him. He looks at me. I
can hear singing from downstairs. “I – I know I should heartily
encourage this new thing, this whole Amber-dating-some-miscreant
thing. She’s been all stuck on Dennis since always, and it’s like –
I get it. She’s twenty-two. She deserves to venture into the giddy
world of pineless, two-sided lovin’. It’s not like I don’t wish
that upon her. And Dennis is with Emily, and Dennis is all about
the Emily, and Amber, she’s recognizing that and, I dunno. Manning
up. In a girly way.
Wo
manning up, and being practical, and
moving on. And that … is good to do. But it kinda freaks me
out.”

“That’s understandable, I think,” Arthur says.
His tone of voice alone dials down my crazy like twenty percent.
“You care about her, and it’s a big change.”

“Yeah. And it’s like – what are the odds that
this guy is worthy to even stand in the same room as her, let alone
do date-type things? But then it’s like … what if he
is
?
What if he
is
like the full-on actual perfect Amber Clark
dream fella, complete with … I dunno, cravat and white horse—”

“There probably won’t be a horse.”

“—Okay. Even horseless, though. Like – if he’s
all epic-awesome-bitchin’-cool, then that changes stuff too. I
mean, not like I’m jealous of her potential theoretical
maybe
cravat-wearing jolly splendid asshole boyfriend. It’s
just—”

“You sort of are,” Arthur says knowingly.

“I sort of am,” I agree. “It’s like, she’s been
… what I’ve
got
for such a long time. I don’t want Mystery
John, Faithful Squire To Fisticuffs Clifford messing with
that.”

“To be fair,” Arthur says, “you’ve got me now.
And Kristy, and Cora. That must be difficult for her to adjust
to.”

Friggin’ fairness.

“Well,” I say, “yeah. There is definitely
that.”

“And besides, it’s not only the two of you.
You’ve known Mitch for awhile, haven’t—”

“Oh yeah,” I say, maybe with the slightest lack
of jubilation. “Mitch.”

Arthur frowns. “Are you mad at Mitch?”

“What? No. Mitch is – Mitch is – Mitch is –” I
don’t so much want to say it out loud. Saying it out loud makes it
real. Still, Arthur is just sitting there, all attentive and there
for me and handsome as hell, and it’s like, here’s somebody who
will
willingly listen
to my psychotic madness so it doesn’t
get the chance to just boil and fester until my brain somehow
actually, literally explodes.

Possibly this is a good thing.

“I think,” I say, shifting my gaze to the
ceiling so I don’t have to experience the torment of saying this
directly to another human being, “Mitch might … have … thoughts
…”

It’s right about here that I get tripped up.

“Um,” Arthur says after a long time, “well. I
think so too. I mean, I always assumed so. Maybe on occasion he
doesn’t precisely give off that vibe, but just because he’s subtle
about having thoughts doesn’t mean—”

“Hey!” I drag my gaze down and bust out a
chastising glare. “Uncool.”

“What?”

“Obviously he has
thoughts
. Just because
he excels at exuding some doofery doesn’t mean that he’s not a
genius. He is. A very specific, very undeniable kind of
genius.”

“I believe you,” Arthur says – mostly, I think,
because he is afraid not to.

“I just mean that specifically, he is having
thoughts about … about …”

“Howie,” Arthur says, “you’re falling prey to
your ellipses again.”

“Amber.” I spit it out. “He’s having Amber
thoughts.”

“Of the romantic persuasion, you mean?”

“Oh! Ow. Okay, see:
no
. Going there, it’s
a thing we can’t do. Human brains aren’t designed to withstand it.
We are not – going to bust out the R word. Or the S word.”

“I didn’t say an S word—”

“Just. For future reference. ‘Sex.’ Don’t ever,
ever say it in relation to them.”

“Noted.”

“Mitch never has serious feelings about girls,”
I say woefully. “Like, he has girlfriends, and stuff, and he likes
them, but it’s never this big deal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
him get all … like this. And it’s
Amber
. Not some jolly lass
who loves, like, gummy bears and trampolines and gettin’ it on with
whoever!
That
is a Mitch-quality woman. But Amber? And yet
he just – I mean, it’s always been there in a way. He’s always
totally loved her. But now it’s like – like, holy shit, what if he
totally loves her?”

“Do you think Amber would ever be interested in
him?”

“No. Except – Jesus, I dunno, maybe. He read
some Coleridge, and she got all … there was a second there where I
wouldn’t have been entirely surprised, had she thrown her panties
at him.”

“Oh dear.”

“Uh,
yeah
.”

There’s a little bit of silence. There’s still
music and cheerful talking downstairs. I take a little while to
ponder whether I’m actually going to say the thing that’s been
bugging me the most. Normally I wouldn’t, but normally, I don’t
have Arthur to listen.

So I say it. “My mom is dating.”

“She is?”

“Yeah. One of my old professors.”

“Not the one that took five points off your
Shakespeare paper?” Okay, so maybe I ranted about that to a few too
many people.

“The very one.”

“Well, that’s Shakespearean in its cruel
irony.”

“Right?
Thank you
.” Fuckin’ Herrick. Who,
okay, I probably shouldn’t be harboring any
(some-might-call-them-irrational) biases toward at the moment. “I
didn’t know she was ready yet. I didn’t know she was even …” For
some reason, I can’t find a word to end the sentence with.

Arthur doesn’t say anything. He looks at me,
though – this really kind, really simple look. He’s here, and he’s
listening. It is a strange and wonderful thing to have that.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” I say to my
hands. “There’s a part of me that’s pissed off. And it’s like, how
awful is that. Of course I want her to be happy. I just – I guess
ever since it happened, I’ve always been thinking she wasn’t. Like,
losing my dad just fucked her up, and she was … like,
over
,
or something. I don’t know how to say it without sounding like an
asshole. But I guess I got that wrong. And now I’m like, well, what
the hell am I even doing hanging around here? Like, I thought I was
doing her some great service, staying home. The dutiful baby boy.
And now – whatever, I was just kidding myself into thinking I was
doing something important for her. But it’s cool. She’s all
better.”

I laugh a little. Not a ha-ha-funny laugh. “And
then it’s like, I just want to friggin’ bash in my own brain for
thinking like this. Because it’s a big deal for her. It must be.
And I know she was nervous about telling me, and … and she’s
probably scared about what I’ll think of him, and if I’ll like him,
and if I’ll be okay that suddenly he’s just this huge part of her
life. And it’s like … like, who the hell should be more sympathetic
toward that than me?? That’s exactly what I’m asking her to do,
with me and you. And if she just decided, ‘Okay, nope, that’s not
gonna roll, I don’t think I find that idea entirely spiffy,’ then
it would just … it would ruin me. Where do I get off deciding that
I can feel shitty about her having this new person, when I
need
her to be okay with it? And it’s like, that’s sort of
what I’m feeling with everybody, I guess. Not as bad with Amber and
Mitch, but it’s still there. And, like, Mitch doesn’t even
know.
But when he does know, I need him to be all right with
it, even though it wouldn’t surprise me if he got all weirded out
and, like, thought I’d been secretly yearning to tap that all these
many years of our friendship. If he
like
-likes Amber, or
what the hell ever, I need to be
okay
with it. And instead
I’m just like – why the hell did everyone pick
now
to
suddenly change and get all brave? It sucks. Except for the part
where, you know, it probably doesn’t suck. I suck for thinking it
sucks.”