| |
It took Chris about two hours to get to my place, but to give him credit where it’s due, he didn’t have the kitchen make the order until he was about ready to leave, ensuring the late pizza was fresh. And he kept me updated over text messages the whole time. With each one, I thought I detected a hint of flirtation, but I couldn’t be sure. But I did want it to be there.
While I waited for him, I unpacked in the small bedroom upstairs. As I carried my bags, the stairs creaked under my steps, but I wasn’t alarmed. When I was a student on a retreat, they made the same noise, and no one had ever gotten hurt from that noise. It was likely harmless, though annoying, but back then, it scared us. No one wanted to be in the group sent upstairs because we were all afraid that we would be the ones who fell through the staircase. And then what would happen? Would we get hurt? Would we die? We were college students with somewhat untamed imaginations: anything somewhat horrible certainly seemed possible.
But no one ever physically fell. Hearts did. People did not.
My senior year was the only year I was in the group to take the stairs. Sr. Agatha thought it was only fair that the older students take on the monster, as it were. We had to be “older sisters,” good role models, stewards of the dorm, or something like that. No one ever paid attention to what she was saying; we were busy being frightened. But even still, I remember that retreat so well. It wasn’t just that I had to go upstairs or that the music was particularly good that year. I remember the conversation I had with Viola in the same small bedroom I would be sleeping in for the next year. It was a memory I clutched more fervently after her death, which made it more accessible.
We were settling into our small group when she asked me about Chris or “the pizza guy,” as she called him.
“What about him?” I asked, more curtly than I would have liked.
“Well, you seem to get a lot of pizza from his shop,” she teased.
It was one pizza a month at most. Although with my senior thesis and the book to finish, I might have ordered a bit more often than usual just to free up some of my time.
There was room for an impassioned argument, but instead, I just replied, “It’s good pizza.”
“And you talk to that pizza boy a lot,” she insisted, hoping to steer the conversation to where she wanted it to go.
Her word choice bothered me, but I tried to ignore it. “He’s a good guy to talk to.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh.”
There was a hidden accusation there. Or rather, there was a poorly hidden accusation in what she was saying. A fair portion of our senior class was engaged at that point, an occupational hazard of being a student at a religious university, and many of those who were not had some sort of prospect. I had neither a ring nor a prospect, which was something of a claim to infamy, all things considered. As a result, I was well positioned to become the subject of snarky and self-righteous whispers if I didn’t couple up soon. And maybe Violet meant well by offering me a means to avoid the condemnation. It was reasonable to think that I couldn’t handle being the subject of such scorn and ridicule. There was a chance of that, anyway. There was a chance she had good intentions but failed miserably on the execution. But I was inclined to assume she was being a bitch and reacted accordingly.
“When’s the last time you bothered to talk to anyone who brings your food?” I asked bluntly. “Or anyone in the service industry?”
Viola stammered because–to her–that was the sort of question that didn’t have a good answer. Of course she didn’t talk to the various food service workers who graced her path. It didn’t matter how frequently they came by; it just wasn’t something she thought to do. Hardly any student at Stella Maris thought to do it. And if no one did it, then it should be fine to not do it. Or so Viola had always assumed. But there I was, pushing against that assertion. In doing so, we both were seeing how delicate it really was.
With that one question, it had already started to crumble, but I pressed on anyway. “Doesn’t Sr. Agatha always tell us to remember the supposed meek and lowly? Or anyone we think is beneath us. Doesn’t she tell us to show them the most care and consideration?”
Viola didn’t answer. Neither did any of the spectators gathered around us.
The conversation was soon changed, and the small group segment of the retreat charged on. For that, I was grateful. I didn’t like lecturing people no matter how wrong they were because that typically required me to be in the spotlight, which was what I hated most. I have nothing against the stage; it’s just a tool I didn’t know how to wield properly. I always said too much of the wrong things. Like how, in that moment, I could have accidentally confessed that Chris once mentioned a girlfriend to me when I was trying to dance around my feelings for him, which worked as a clear but preemptive rejection. It struck a nerve hard enough to make any pizza I ordered from Happy Flour taste bitter. But I still had to order it to keep up pretenses. Luckily, this rejection was in the fall of senior year, minimizing the window of sad pizza.
Chris was probably married, I thought to myself as I unzipped a bag. How could he not be; he was a catch. He’s the kind of guy to get and keep his shit together. So if that girlfriend was a good match for him, he’d commit. And if she wasn’t a good match for him, he probably wouldn’t have dated her in the first place.
The thought turned excitement into dread, but by then, it was too late to call the whole thing off, which didn’t mean I wasn’t scrambling to come up with some sort of justification, some escape route to avoid the inevitable rebreak of my still fragile heart. But no matter how hard I searched, one didn’t come to me. And it would have had to be pretty good. excuse It would have had to be persuasive and not overly personal. But I couldn’t come up with anything at all, quality aside.
So I was stuck waiting for this reckoning with my suitcase open and my belongings strewn about. It was a hell of a situation to be in, and this was entirely my own fault. I had been saved from this potential embarrassment once before. My graduation freed me from any (perceived or real) obligation to keep ordering from Happy Flour, but one step in Dustford had led me right back into this mess. Or rather, with one nostalgia-driven food order, I was trapped again.
I tried to sigh, but when I did so, my chest locked up. It wasn’t clenched down like it had been before, but it was stuck in place, frozen and unwilling to move. It was a lesser evil, but all the same, I was concerned. Nervously, I took steady, consistent breaths in the time that I could have spent cleaning up my appearance. Putting on makeup tends to be a good thing to do before you meet (or re-meet) someone. Or maybe I could have changed out of the jeans and t-shirt I traveled in. But no, I was in the bedroom, doing little except groaning at an old memory and breathing. The breathing felt like an achievement, but it certainly was not.
Chris texted me when he was about ten minutes out. And with that message, I was pulled back into reality and into a moment that I was woefully unprepared for. With that, I started panicking, throwing a hairbrush through my hair just for it to get stuck halfway down. Then I remembered that said t-shirt that I put on that morning wasn’t great for a first impression. The logo printed on the front was starting to peel off, and the bottom hem was slowly coming undone. So I scrambled to put on a nicer black blouse, wrinkled from its time in captivity within my suitcase, but as I saw it (or hoped, really), that only made it a better match for my faded blue jeans.
It still wasn’t a great look. But there wasn’t much I could do with so little time. And so, when Chris knocked on my door, I was stuck as I was: a disheveled mess pretending to be human. With a firm yank, I freed the hairbrush and took off down the creaking stairs, yelling to Chris that I was coming.
All the while, my heart was pounding, and I felt the wind pull the air out of my mouth and nose. It was soon replaced, however, by the somewhat distinct smell of a well-crafted pizza with extra cheese. With the smell came a hit of nostalgia. Happy Flour had the best pizza in Dustford. That was an undisputed objective fact. I just didn’t always remember it as such because my feelings were firmly rooted in a different memory. I loved that pizza, but I didn’t love being pre-rejected romantically.
Those sentiments didn’t have to be equal nor did the balance have to fall the way that it did. I just let it happen. I could have put the joy of delicious pizza over a loss that wasn’t really a loss, but I didn’t.
The smell of pizza did nothing to alleviate my breathlessness, however. The sprint through that small home had taken more of a toll on me than I had expected. When I hit that last step, I was panting softly, and thinking I could just brute force my lungs into working properly, I held my breath as I reached for the front door. It was an attempt at something like a reset, though there was no guarantee it would work and the risk that it might just make me worse instead.
It didn’t matter anyway. Said breath was immediately taken by the sight of a small bouquet of brightly colored pink and yellow flowers in Chris’s hands. I couldn’t identify the flowers themselves if my life depended on it, but I knew there was significance there. There had to be. Said bouquet sat on top of an equally unexpected stack of smaller, branded food boxes on top of the expected pizza boxes.
There was no way for me to hide my surprise. I was flustered and out of breath on top of being a mess. Chris, more polished and put together than I had ever seen him, was not bothered but still pulled back a bit sheepishly at the sight of me. He lifted the flowers in his hand as a pale red flush filled his cheeks. When he smiled, I saw the same crooked grin that charmed my undergraduate days. Crooked but clean, I thought again, just like the rest of him. That’s how he was. While there may have been clear deficits in his appearance, what could be thought of as the important parts were set perfectly. His nose was a bit crooked, but his dark eyes were kind. His hair was a bit messy, but his hairline held strong.
Chris wasn’t perfect. But he was Chris. And I was me. Which was the problem. All my flaws aside, I was still the sort of person to fall for him a bit too hard.
“I probably,” he stammered, “should have asked if you wanted flowers. You know, to brighten the place up a bit.” He looked around. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it.”
I shrugged. “It’s not great, but I came from a tiny city apartment, so pretty much everything’s an improvement.”
I extended my hands to accept the flowers. And as I took them, my fingers brushed against his. From that brief touch, from that smallest point of contact, lightning struck the pads of my fingers. A spark of electricity quickly flew from him to me and then back again. He felt it too. His breath caught in his throat with the sensation, and he swallowed nervously.
Hurriedly, I cleared my throat before I said, “These will make it better though. It was nice of you.”
He nodded. His movements were just as hasty and rushed as my words. “I thought it could be a ‘welcome back’ sort of... gift... thing.”
I pulled back from the doorway and gestured for him to follow me inside. If he brought flowers, he meant to stay for a bit, right? Or that’s what I wanted it to mean.
The dining area was just inside the front door, past the small living area that now had a television set on the wall where the campus ministry banner used to hang. Chris set the pizzas on the table while I got the flowers situated in their new home: a beautiful pale blue vase I had found in the cabinet earlier. I could feel his gaze watch me as I moved about the kitchen. It wasn't a particularly heavy stare nor did it hinder my movement, but it was there. I couldn’t deny the warmth that came from the contact of his eyeline against my skin. It wasn’t the sharp spark from his touch, though. I almost missed that rush despite the slight sting.
“I also brought some of the new menu items we just launched,” he nervously said. “I figured you might want to try them.”
“You think of everything,” I told him. “It makes you a good boss.”
He chuckled. “Well, I hope I brought enough. I couldn't tell if you were, like, ordering for a couple people.”
His unspoken question caught against my ear. I came back out of the kitchen but stopped in the doorway, leaning against the battered wood of the frame. It was odd to be standing at this vantage point, to be in control like that. His nerves had risen to the surface, and I could see them in the summer’s late evening sun. As I considered my answer, I tapped my tongue against my top teeth, the buckish ones I inherited from my grandfather, and it was as if his voice was the one that came from my mouth, that quick-witted snappy soul everyone loved.
“A couple meals doesn’t mean a couple people when the food heats up well.”
My point wasn’t immediately obvious, but he caught it as it fluttered in the air just above his head.
He visibly relaxed and forced a chuckle out. “Yeah? You strike me as the cold pizza type.”
“I’m full of surprises,” I joked back.
Chris straightened up and shoved his hands into his pocket. “I can’t blame you for that, but I was just worried... with the flowers and all.”
I didn’t react. Before I could, I needed to know what specifically I was reacting to. So I asked, “Worried about what?”
“That maybe someone else was here,” he trailed off.
“You mean the dude that got this address blacklisted?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Kind of? But mostly no.”
After first, I shifted a bit in the doorway trying to alleviate some of the pressure building within me before I realized that my discomfort wasn’t physical. It wasn’t coming from the way my shoulder was leaned against uneven wood or the way my weight was concentrated on one foot. It was a discomfort with this conversation and the uncertainty around it. It seemed obvious, though. I thought I could see what he was dancing around, but it wasn’t like I could say it for him. He had to do it. He had to be the one to initiate this next step. After all, he was the one in a relationship back then. He had been the one to lay down the line, the boundary of respectability, so he had to be the one to pick it back up.
But as he hesitated, my frustration only grew. “Just say it, Chris,” I snapped as I retreated back to the kitchen for the plates that I probably should have gotten on my first trip.
The retreat was only about the plates, but his quick step to follow me suggested that he had a different interpretation in mind, one that caused some sense of panic and anxiety. Despite those feelings, however, he kept his manners about him. He stopped in the doorway as I rummaged through unfamiliar cabinets and drawers, unwilling to get any closer than I wanted him to be. He was waiting for permission to come inside, but I wasn’t sure about giving it. I didn’t mean to be in the kitchen too long.
But as he waited for my beckoning, he grew more impatient, and finally, he blurted out, “I heard through the grapevine you got engaged.”
At his words, my heart fluttered. He cared. Yes, the grapevine told him, but he didn’t have to listen or remember. He probably shouldn’t have, and I probably shouldn’t have liked the (new) owner of a pizza place I used to order from caring about my romantic history. But this was Chris, charming and awkward Chris. That made it okay.
I raised my now empty left hand. “I got engaged. And I got unengaged. Dude slept with my half-sister.”
Chris grimaced.
“Yeah,” I said. “There was no coming back from that.”
Ignoring that I had first tried to bring us back from that, I gathered up two full place settings, but it was only then that I thought to ask if I needed as much. But now that it was my turn to ask something, my once steady voice wavered a bit.
“Are you staying for dinner?” I asked.
He smiled. “I’d like to.”
That was the most noncommittal answer I could have gotten, which irked me. I liked things to be straightforward and set in stone. I wanted to know–one way or another–what someone was thinking. I wanted certain choices to be made for me. I wanted to know how things were going to go.
But more than that, I wanted him to stay.
Despite the doubt, I bought everything with me as I brushed past him while saying, “And I’d like you to stay, but I’m not going to kidnap you. I’m not that lonely.”
He accepted my offer with a warm, goofy smile. “Well, the restaurant’s going to be fine without me for a little bit.”
By then, I was already opening up the box and taking the biggest slice of the pizza without even sitting down. It wasn’t that much bigger than the others because consistency was a virtue over at Happy Flour. But still, I felt important when I took it for myself as the extra helping of cheese slowly and dramatically stretched into thin lines before breaking.
“Do you get tired of eating your own food?” I asked Chris as he joined me at the table. “I’ve always wanted to ask a restaurant owner that.”
He laughed. “Not yet. Lots of different pizzas. Lots of sides. Salads. Everything. And we’ve got to try new menu items to keep the place interesting.”
“Oh so you're doing research and development too?” I playfully asked.
Chris raised an eyebrow.
“I think that’s a business term.” I shrugged. “It’s the sort of term my agent pulls out on our calls. It’s like... Researching what sells and then developing the right products.”
And it’s Ellie’s field, I started to think, but I refused to finish the thought. I dove into the pizza instead. Before I even sat down, I hurriedly shoved the slice’s corner into my mouth. I stayed focused on the food until the third bite as Chris joined me across the small table.
With a shrug, he answered, “Right. Honestly, we don’t need to change the menu that much. Because most of our customers are college kids, so the market rotates out every four years or so.”
“And it’s the best pizza around,” I added with a soft smile.
Chris tried to respond in kind. He smirked, but the weight of the expression lowered his head. Beyond that, he didn’t offer any sort of reply. It caught my attention, and I thought I knew what to say, only because I knew to mimic Ellie in a moment like that.
I asked, “Why do you think I ordered it all the time?”
He blushed a bit. “Well, maybe I liked thinking that you wanted to see me. Maybe that’s the head canon I wanted to go with.”
I knew the term ‘head canon’ only vaguely: well enough that I suspected he was misusing it but not well enough to call him out on it. It’s the sort of uncertainty and indecisiveness that came from standing on the outer ring of online fandom. I was never brave enough to enter into that world when I was a teenager, and then when I got a little tougher, it felt like it was too late. For the longest time, I wondered if I was the only person in this limbo state. But Chris seemed to be there too.
And as much as I liked his company, there was a problem with those feelings or a specific fact of his life that posed some degree of danger. With each word, we seemed to be straying closer to it. Although I didn’t want to think about it, I couldn’t deny it was there. I tried to shoo it away with a click of my tongue, but when that failed, I had to say something.
“I seem to recall that you were the one with a partner back then, so bold of you to say that.”
That’s what Ellie would have said. Because she was bold and clever. But I wasn’t. She was also strategic: drop a line and see if the other person would take it. Meanwhile, I was stumbling through everything. Maybe I should have known to not bring up the girlfriend from years ago. But I did it. It was a thing that was done, and it was done by me. There was no going back. The cards had been released to fall where they may. And I held my breath throughout the descent, but it just meant I was trapped with a mouth full of my own nerves.
The bitterness coated my words as I began to say, “Look, if some jealous harpy is going to come and break my windows–”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Chris interjected.
It wasn’t as comforting as he thought, not with that ambiguity. And though his tone was somber, which led to a specific conclusion, he had given me no real clarity or answer. Instead, he offered the space to make whatever assumptions my delusional mind could come up with.
It was tempting to make that field my playground, but I knew I couldn’t do that. I had to stay in the moment. I set my slice of pizza down. There was something else I needed to focus on.
“I just don’t want to be the other woman. After being cheated on and with my sister–”
“You wouldn’t be,” he started, but then he didn’t like that route and redirected. “She broke up with me.”
It wasn’t the confession that surprised me but how happy I was to hear it. There was a relief that came with his words, washing over me with such abrupt force that I panicked. In that panic, I shoved the pizza slice back into my mouth, thinking it would buy me a second before I had to address what he said, but with that sense of urgency holding my throat in a vice grip, I choked. My throat clenched around a bite of pizza I had not bothered to properly chew. The bulky mass slid perfectly into that tunnel and blocked all flow of traffic. This more visceral panic hit me before the pain did, but once it did, the sharp burn cut across the width of my throat.
My hand reached up to my neck instinctively, but there was nothing it could do from outside. The same could be said of Chris who was instantly at my elbow the moment he realized something was wrong. It was a set up for some sort of alliance though, between the man and limb so desperate to act but incapable of real assistance. With a wave of that hand, I sent Chris to the fridge. I had some sparkling water in there, some random six pack that was left there to greet me. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t know who I could ask about it. But if it was in my fridge, it had to be for me.
In no time at all, he was back with two pale yellow cans, one in each hand. The faint cartoon lemon on the aluminum made promises I knew the beverage wouldn’t keep, but that didn’t matter.
Chris offered me both drinks, but I only took one. I gulped it down quickly, pushing the nerves and pizza down my throat. Although my recovery wasn’t instant, I felt slightly better with that first gulp. I couldn’t speak, though. The muscles involved were still too concerned with their own survival to attempt anything. And so, I couldn’t properly dismiss Chris or assure him of anything. That left him at my side, hesitant to leave me.
With that, the conversation could have stalled. It was my turn to speak, but I was left incapable for the time being. My recovery was slower than we both would have liked. Apparently, Chris couldn’t handle the silence and felt compelled to jump ahead, past whatever my response would have been.
“She left me for one of the university students,” he explained with a heavy sigh. “English major. Dude literally wrote her a poem, and she ran off with him. I think they got married.”
Only when I had emptied the can did I set it down. Though the carbonation gave the drink more texture than what my throat had wanted, it was willing to accept that beverage as some sort of olive branch. It calmed, and after another moment and another gasp for breath, I spoke with a still raspy voice, “If it makes you feel any better, she’s probably miserable.”
A cough chased the last syllable out of my throat. Once again, Chris tensed up, asking if I was alright.
“Fine,” I said, my voice even more strained, but I continued on. “But I went to school with those people. I know how it goes. Dude’s gotta be insufferable. He probably got a job at his dad’s uncle’s family friend’s company doing some management work, and he hates it because it ‘crushes his creative spirit.’ So he’s frantically writing what he calls ‘the next great American novel’ because he still thinks that phrase means something. But being able to talk about what themes other people used doesn’t mean he actually can write a book. In all likelihood he can’t because he has this weird fixation on what his masterpiece is going to be. And that initial image is not going to work. He needs to let it evolve. But he can’t. He won’t. And then he’s going to try quitting his job. But by then, they’d had a kid or two. So they have to move back in with his parents for housing and food. And she has to watch the kids because he needs to be able to focus to write, but they both know he’s not writing. Meanwhile he’s constantly showing off how well he knows the work of other authors. ‘The true masters,’ he calls them. And yeah, SUPER annoying. Oh and at some point, she found out that he didn’t write her that poem. He found it online, so she doesn’t even know why she’s with him at all. But divorce isn’t a thing she wants to jump into. She needs to but won’t. She might be scared to, frankly. She’ll just be stuck with him. And her in-laws.”
I twisted my mouth. The thought was left still hanging off of my lips, tethered by the faintest string that I cut with what I said next.
“Or so I heard,” I muttered.
Bizarre scenario, I could admit to myself. But I liked coming up with them, and that particular one was meant to be funny or even comforting to Chris. It might not have been, but that hadn’t been a possibility I was willing to consider until I had already said it.
Fortunately, Chris seemed willing to humor me. “You did go to school with those people.”
“Mm-hmm,” I agreed.
“So you would know.”
I laughed, but I could feel how shallow and airy it was. There was hardly anything to it now that my doubt had taken hold.
“A bit more than I would like but not as much as I should,” I explained with a shrug. “I wasn’t big on the social scene. I could fake it, though. Smile, joke, make people like me.”
I felt alive, somewhat. Or more alive than I had just moments ago when I was on the verge of choking to death. Regardless, there was still a fog hanging in my mind. It made it hard for me to see where my walls were supposed to be, what needed to be locked away in my mind and left untouched. Without those boundaries, my tongue was loosened. And the charm of the small gap between his front teeth did nothing to help me regain my senses.
“I wasn’t the typical college kid,” I abruptly confessed with a soft touch of sadness. “I wasn’t cut out for parts of it.”
Chris shook his head. “I read your book. You were cut out for it. You’re smart. Like really smart.”
My cheeks flushed. They shouldn’t have, though. I shouldn’t have been surprised, for one. The Friend of Damnation had been out for a couple years. And given how well it sold, a fair number of people had read it. I would have to know some of them despite how limited my social connections were. But on the other hand, Ellie had read it and offered me the same encouragement as Chris did. But I still wasn’t used to it nor did I know how to accept it. I didn’t even want to sit in the presence of it.
So I had no choice but to push onward to something else that I didn’t really want to talk about but whose presence was more tolerable than praise. “I meant the social part. I didn’t like parties or socializing. I never left campus. I tried and failed to join any clubs.”
With that, I caught myself. I was starting to ramble, starting to spiral into the depths of my personal hell with Chris as my plus one. No one wanted that position, that role or dubious honor. No one really deserved to go down there with me, so with a sigh, I pulled back.
“But I don’t regret it, you know?,” I added. “Some of us just need to get away from home.”
He didn’t reply. He probably didn’t know what I was talking about, considering his destiny was forever entangled with his hometown. Consequently, it was probably a stupid comment for me to make. But I appreciated him not pointing that out or trying any bullshit tactic to get ahead in this conversation, which might have been why the next bit slipped out.
“And then there was you, who I loved talking to but had a girlfriend.”
“But I don’t have one anymore,” he quickly reminded me.
“Yeah, but I think we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” I replied with a soft smirk and my thumbs drumming on the side of my empty can.