Joanna drove her mother’s car up into the mountains. Tess wouldn’t need it—Clive was driving into Reno from Fallon so they could spend New Year’s Eve together. She pouted about Joanna leaving but then brightened at the idea of both of them having “someone to kiss” at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Like everyone else who grew up in Northern Nevada, Joanna had spent half of her summers up at the Lake, getting sunburnt at over 6,000 feet, swimming in melted snow, sitting on golden sand under Ponderosa pines. But as she headed up into the Sierras, she began to doubt the wisdom of joining Malcolm and his parents. First of all, she didn’t ski. And more importantly, she and Malcolm were supposed to be easing into a new, monkish phase of their friendship. The whole point of sleeping with him in the first place had been to get him out of her system.
But what if it they weren’t out of each other’s systems? In that case, they would be obligated to keep working at it, eventually burning each other out, leaving nothing but smoldering ashes. From these ashes, their new, improved friendship would rise up, ready to take flight.
But … this was a vacation. Things work differently on vacation, the rules become more relaxed. You might eat dinner every night at 6:00 p.m. at home, but go out at eight o’clock on a trip, for example. Perhaps it would make more sense to give up Malcolm as a New Year’s resolution, along with starting the garden earlier and doing better about grading papers in a timely manner.
With the last shred of light still clinging to the sky, she pulled in to a snowy driveway. The house was built up the side of the mountain, with the entrance at the back. Her feet crunched over day-old snow, up a redwood plank leading to the entryway. She knocked and the door seemed to swing open almost immediately. Joanna had never seen a photograph of Malcolm’s mother, but she recognized her at once: long-limbed and dark-haired. Her hair was twisted up and piled on top of her head, with a perfect streak of gray shooting out from her widow’s peak.
“Joanna!” Maxine Martin smiled hugely and enveloped Joanna in a long embrace. Joanna could feel the ridges of her ribs through the luxurious softness of the cream-colored sweater Maxine was wearing. “We are so thrilled you could join us. Come in, come in. Where’s your coat? Malcolm … has his hands full at the moment.” She chuckled to herself then, as if on the verge of divulging a secret.
Joanna followed Maxine up a half-flight of stairs, leading into a huge, open room with vaulted ceilings and a postcard-perfect view of the lake framed by trees and a darkening sky.
“Malcolm! Stephen!” Maxine cried out. “Joanna’s here!”
Joanna sat down at a stool on a granite-covered island to observe Malcolm and his dad in the kitchen. Somehow, in the hour and a half since Malcolm and his parents had checked in, they had managed to litter the countertops with cardboard boxes, canvas shopping bags, pots and pans, egg cartons and shells. Malcolm was holding two eggs in each hand, his fingers curling around them like talons. “Check this out, Joanna,” he said, holding the eggs up for her to see.
“Uh—nice,” she said.
“We’ve been listening to NPR,” his mom explained.
“We do that on road trips,” his father elaborated. The three of them—Malcolm, Maxine, and Stephen—stood in a line on the opposite side of the island. They were so clearly a family, all so lanky with the same dark eyes. Variations of each other. And apparently Malcolm’s love for layering had been handed down to him from his father, Stephen, who had on a button-down shirt under a forest green sweater under a corduroy jacket with patches at the elbows.
Malcolm waited until he had Joanna’s full attention. She rested her eyes on him, her tall and lean friend, wearing a narrow red sweater she had never seen before, his hair slightly shorter than the last time they had been face to face. In a swift movement, Malcolm cracked all four eggs down on the side of a glass bowl, which Joanna now saw was filled more than halfway with yellow orbs floating in clear gel. The whites and yolks slipped free and joined the others in the bowl. In a final flourish, Malcolm shucked the shells to the side, then raised his hands up like a magician’s. His parents hooted and applauded.
Joanna, impressed, clapped as well. “What is going on here?”
They explained, all talking over each other, that they had been listening to a fascinating radio program on their drive and learned (among other things) that breakfast cooks in Las Vegas needed to crack four at once to stay on the top of their game, which had inspired the Martins to stop at the store on their way up. They had spent the last hour cracking their way through over four dozen eggs.
Maxine poured Joanna a glass of wine and pushed it across the counter. Joanna smiled her thanks. Malcolm raised his eyebrows and nodded at her, and she returned the gesture. During the discussion about the radio show, he had transitioned from egg-cracking to vegetable-chopping. He peeled the skin from an onion, attacked it with a gigantic knife, and slid the contents of the cutting board into a skillet his father was shaking and tossing over the blue flame of the stove. His mother cleared a space on the island, began to cut butter into flour, working without measuring or even looking at her own hands, chatting away.
They had all refused Joanna’s offers to help make dinner, and she was relieved. She couldn’t keep up with them. On her way over the mountain pass, Joanna had practiced a few short but polite answers to the questions she was sure his parents would want to ask her—all the boring small talk she detested so much—what do you do, oh do you like doing that, where did you go to school, what do your parents do, and so on. Instead she could just ease into the chatter, speaking up only when she had something useful to contribute, letting the flurry of activity settle around her.
And then—dinner was served: omelets, a green salad, and biscuits, straight from the oven. They would serve flan for dessert, for which Maxine apologized in advance. Already Joanna saw they’d be dipping into the clear glass bowl of eggs right into the new year.
Cleaning up after dinner brought on another production. This is how Malcolm’s family operated. They clanged pots and pans, ran water, threw dishes in the dishwasher, yelled over each other, tossed sponges through the air, laughed and sang along to the radio as they worked. It was like a movie; she half expected birds to swoop in the windows with dishcloths in their beaks.
Once the dishwasher was humming and the flan was steaming in its bain marie, Maxine suggested that Malcolm fetch Joanna’s bag and show her where to put her things. Malcolm went out to the car and returned with Joanna’s bag. He gestured for her to follow him downstairs to the bedrooms.
She followed him down to the cool, dry depths of the lower floor. She had arrived at this house over three hours ago. In that time, she and Malcolm had not exchanged more than a few words. They hadn’t hugged or even so much as brushed their fingers together as they reached for the salt shaker during dinner.
He switched on a light in a bedroom. “This room has a complete lake view in the daytime,” he said. He set her bag down on the floor and walked to the front of the room, by a large picture window. Underneath the window was a double bed with a thin, navy blue bedspread. Shelves along the walls held books, games, and framed pictures of sailboats.
Malcolm’s suitcase lay propped open on a chair next to the bed. She looked at the bag, his clothes arranged in neat stacks, then up at him. He was standing just a few feet from her. He held his hand out, and she took it. He pulled her toward him, slowly. “Hmm,” he said, when their bodies finally made their way to each other. She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him.
He pulled her into him and then bent down to kiss her neck. They stumbled their way to the bed, kissing, and fell down onto the mattress. They both laughed. When his hands went up under her shirt, touching bare skin, she pushed him away.
“We can’t do this with your parents right upstairs!” she whispered.
“Sure we can.” Malcolm lifted her shirt, bent down to kiss her stomach.
She let this distract her for a moment but then shook her head. “Malcolm?” She ran her hands through his hair, trying to divert his attention from her navel. “Are you staying in this room?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Where am I going to sleep?”
He lifted his head up then to look at her. “In here. With me.”
“In here?” She tried to ignore the way his fingertips felt against her skin. “What did you tell your parents about us?” He pulled her shirt all the way over her head and threw it over his shoulder.
“I told them you were my girlfriend.” He squinted at her, leaned in to kiss her.
“Malcolm!”
“What did you want me to tell them?” Malcolm put on an innocent expression. “I guess I could have told my mom that we’re friends who fuck, but girlfriend just seemed easier.”
“Or you could have said we’re friends.”
“Yeah, but then they’d expect you to stay in a separate room. Is it such a stretch to act like you’re my girlfriend for a few days?”
She tried to give the impression she was thinking very hard about this prospect. It was difficult to appear angry when she wasn’t wearing a shirt. “So what does acting like your girlfriend entail?”
“You know … holding my hand, laughing at my jokes, sleeping with me sometimes.”
“I could probably handle that.” She reached for his sweater and pulled it over his head. He wore a button-down shirt underneath. She started at the top button and worked her way down, revealing what she hoped was the final tier of his clothing: a T-shirt. “And what does the Boyfriend do?”
Malcolm let her unbutton the shirt, made no attempt to help her push it off his shoulders or take his arms out of the sleeves. He answered immediately: “Gazes at you fondly, tells you you’re beautiful, makes you breakfast, bakes you cookies. Makes you furniture, fixes up your house. Fulfills you emotionally, intellectually, sexually. That kind of thing.”
Joanna studied Malcolm’s face. He was looking back at her, his expression unreadable. “Okay,” she said. “I can’t argue with that. If all I have to do is laugh at your jokes every once in a while. I guess you have an okay sense of humor.”
“Good. I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”
Absurdly, they shook hands. Shaking hands led to kissing, which led to other articles of clothing falling to the floor.
“We can’t just do this with your parents making flan upstairs,” she whispered. “They’re expecting us to join them for dessert in a minute!”
“We can make them wait. They wouldn’t mind. They know we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
“So they’d be fine with us getting it on down here while they sit and wait for us at the table.”
“Yeah. They’re cool. They’d probably enjoy it.”
“Ugh!” Joanna pushed him off of her. “Okay. Let’s go back upstairs.”
Malcolm laughed and pulled her on top of him. “I was only joking. Come here.”
“Let’s just wait until later tonight!” she said when her mouth was unoccupied. She spoke in syncopated breaths. “After your parents go to sleep …”
“They go to sleep very late,” he said. “So there’s no use waiting. We can be very quick and quiet.”
“Tonight!” she whispered, in her best seductive voice. “We won’t have to be quiet—or quick.”
Malcolm stopped caressing her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s compromise. Quick and quiet right now—then a slow and soulful round at midnight or so.” He unbuttoned her jeans, pushed them down over her hips. He reached back to pluck them off her legs and returned to her, running a hand down her stomach, then between her legs. She gasped as quietly as she could manage, then let herself sink back into the mattress.
“Five minutes,” he said into her ear. “That’s all I would need to guarantee your complete satisfaction.”
“Five minutes, huh? This a skill you picked up from reading Maxim during our time apart?”
“Mm, no.” He was on top of her now, pressing himself against her. “Just a few things I’ve learned over the last couple months. About you.”
Sure enough, after just a few minutes, Malcolm was smirking down at her. He reached up and brushed back wayward strands of hair from her face. “Wow,” he said. “You must have really missed me.”
Joanna frowned and tried to squirm out from under him, but his weight was pinning her to the bed. “Why do you have to go and ruin it?” She turned her face away from him.
“No, no.” He dotted her neck with light kisses. “I like it when you … demonstrate your enthusiasm.”
“Look,” he was saying. He twisted around to show her his back, pink from the pressure of her hands. His back was mottled with crescent-shaped indentations where her nails had dug into his skin—some drawing pinpricks of blood.
She reached up to feel the ridges, surprised. “Sorry,” she said. He wasn’t supposed to know that every time she was with him she needed more of him, had to stop herself from smashing her mouth onto his, digging her fingernails into his skin deeper and deeper until she broke him open. It was like her first months in Portland, when she could walk and walk all night and into the next day and still not know the streets, each crack in the sidewalk, every leaf and thorn and weed. She wanted to take off her shoes and feel the wet cement on the soles of her feet. Claw up a giant elm with her bare hands, scraping her face along the bark, higher and higher, sending raindrops glittering to the ground, until she collapsed on a branch thick with dark green moss and live there, tearing tender young ferns from the tree with her teeth and chewing them for nourishment.
“We should get dressed,” she said to Malcolm. She offered him a tight smile and patted his thigh.
“Hey,” he said. Joanna sat up and began rooting around for her clothes. The bed cover had gone askew, pillows and clothes lay scattered on the floor. She found her underwear and bra, slipped into them quickly. His jeans were crumpled up on the floor. She tossed them in his direction.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said.
“Do what?” she occupied herself in straightening the room, pulling the covers tight over the bed.
Malcolm watched her the way a teacher observes a rowdy classroom—waiting for her to calm down on her own. She sat next to him. “Do what?” she asked again.
“You don’t have to act like that.”
They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, their bare arms touching. She hadn’t noticed the hairs on his arm before, dark against his pale skin. Without thinking she began smoothing them down with her fingertips. “Listen,” she said at last. “I just don’t want things to get confusing. The whole point of this—”
She was interrupted by his mother calling them up for dessert.
When they went back upstairs, she felt exposed, as if she had grass stains on her back, leaves in her hair. “There you are,” his mother said absentmindedly. Malcolm opened and closed all the drawers, looking for spoons. To make herself feel useful, Joanna took charge of the coffee.
As they sat at the table eating still-warm flan out of mismatched teacups, his parents began telling a story about Malcolm as a child. Joanna listened, nodded, and laughed at appropriate junctures in the conversation. She tried to catch Malcolm’s eye, but he was entranced by his parents’ tandem storytelling. They talked through dessert, spinning the tale of Young Malcolm, who had prepared breakfast in bed for them every morning on their anniversary. Early attempts had involved sludge-like instant coffee cooked in the microwave. Then as a twelve-year-old he’d successfully recreated a full English breakfast, complete with baked beans and a grilled tomato half.
Joanna couldn’t remember seeing him quite like this before. He was happy, his eyes gleaming. He didn’t return her gaze but seemed to sense her looking at him, and put his hand on her thigh. She leaned into him.
“Oh, young love!” his mom trilled out. Joanna’s face flushed with heat. Maxine was laughing. Malcolm tightened his grip on her thigh. How long could she stand this—sitting here, pouring cup after cup of coffee, all this talking? When Stephen brought out a deck of cards she almost groaned out loud. She didn’t know what had come over her. When Malcolm squeezed her thigh, she could swear she felt every bone in his hand, even the lines in his palm, through the fabric of her jeans. They couldn’t go on like this. It was good she had come here—she obviously didn’t have him out of her system. Getting him out of her system needed to be her top priority.
His father dealt some cards and she picked up her hand, began organizing by suit.
Finally, finally, his parents retired to bed. “Come on,” she said, leading Malcolm downstairs by the hand. They went into his room and shut the door behind them.
“I don’t think my parents are asleep yet.”
She pushed him on the bed. “I don’t care.” She climbed on him and once again began the task of peeling away the layers of his clothing. “We had a deal, remember?”
He flipped her over and ran his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head with his hand before kissing her. “A promise is a promise,” he said.
The next morning Joanna woke up with Malcolm’s arms wrapped around her. It was early. She had grown so used to falling asleep to the sound of rain, waking up in thick gray mist. The sun streaming through the window had nudged her awake after just a few hours of sleep. The lake sparkled in the snow-covered mountains. Blue tea in a Dutch teacup.
She eased out of his embrace and propped herself on an elbow to observe him while he slept. He looked so worried, his eyes closed tightly, as if his subconscious had taken on the task of unraveling a complicated math problem.
Malcolm’s eyes opened. He squinted up at her. “Hey,” he said in a creaky voice.
“Hey.” Joanna smiled, leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Good morning.”
She reached for him under the blankets, leaned in to kiss his neck. He was warm from sleep and sun. So many days and miles from work, and he still smelled like sawdust.
“You’re wearing me out,” he said, closing his eyes and smiling.
“That’s the point,” she said.
When they went upstairs they found they had the place to themselves—his parents had gone skiing. Malcolm and Joanna went into town, walked up and down the sidewalks, breathing in the thin mountain air. By that time the sky had filled up with clouds. Adapting to her role as his “girlfriend,” she took Malcolm’s hand in hers; they swung their arms as they walked, like children. They stopped in a coffee shop in a wooden-shingled strip mall, ordered oversized coffee drinks and stale pastries. When they came out into the parking lot, hand in hand, it was snowing. She turned to him and kissed him on the lips, right in front of everybody.
She’d done it impulsively, because she had never kissed him in public before and never would get the chance again. She grabbed him by the pockets of his coat, pulled him closer. She kissed him again, harder this time, until she ran out of breath. She bit his lip so forcefully she tasted blood, hot and metallic.
He let go of her, startled. “What’s gotten into you?” he said.
She looked at him, his hand held up to his mouth. For some reason this image made her laugh. “You, you, you!” she cried. “And I have to get you out!” She laughed crazily, ran across the parking lot, and spun around, still laughing. She looked back at him through the static of snow. He was just standing there, his hands in his pockets.
When they got back, his parents were sitting in front of the fireplace, sipping red wine from large glasses. Their hair was wet. They huddled under a thick quilt, working on a crossword puzzle. “You two should try out the hot tub before dinner,” his mother said. “It’s the perfect temperature. Did you pack a suit, Joanna?”
“Oh yes.” She always packed a suit—one useful piece of advice handed down from her mother. She was more surprised that Malcolm even owned swim trunks. “We look like aliens,” she said to him as they walked outside, towels wrapped around their waists. They sank into the hot water. It was almost dark. “Wow, this is the life,” she said. She held out her hand to catch a lone snowflake making a lazy descent into the tub. She couldn’t catch it; it landed in the water and melted on contact.
They sat for a moment in silence. More flakes started to fall, whirling over them, sticking in their hair. “You’re so lucky, you know?” she said. “I can’t believe you grew up like this.”
“I can assure you I didn’t spend my youth drinking wine and hot-tubbing with my parents.”
“I know, I know.” The funny thing is that she could hardly imagine Malcolm growing up anywhere else—she pictured the three of them here, in this house, Mom and Dad doing crossword puzzles by the fire, little Malcolm in the room with the sailboat pictures and the navy bedspread. She looked out, into the forest. It was too dark to see the lake now, just trees and snow. “I mean … this is nice. I’m glad I came.”
“Me too.” He turned his face upward and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to stay with my mom this whole time. I probably would have killed her at some point.”
“So that’s why you came here? To avoid a homicide charge?”
“No. Not the only reason.” She laughed. It came out strained, like a bark. “I had this crazy thought, when I was down in Reno, that I’d have to return one day. That in a few years I’d be living in that townhouse, spoon-feeding my mother canned soup. Laura is married, having a baby; she wouldn’t be able to do it. So it would have to be me.” She looked over at Malcolm. He was watching her, waiting for her to continue. “Anyway, I’m being ridiculous. But I had to get out of there.” Joanna tilted her head back up to the sky. The snowflakes had already begun to thin out. One or two hard, white flakes drifted down. She lifted up her hand to catch one, but the breeze carried them away before they could land on her palm. “And I wanted to see you,” she said. “I did.”
“I wanted to see you, too.” He was frowning. He reached over for her hand and pulled her weightless body to him.
On New Year’s Eve, their last night together, Malcolm and his parents introduced her to “The Dictionary Game.” This Martin family tradition involved a gigantic dictionary, scraps of paper, and an elaborate scoring system. Joanna caught on quickly, racking up points by scribbling down plausible-sounding definitions for archaic words. At ten minutes before midnight, Stephen poured them glasses of champagne. When the clock struck twelve they made a big deal over it, toasting and drinking and kissing.
But just five minutes into the new year, they sat hunched over the dictionary and scraps of paper again. By this point “penalties” had been added to the scoring system, and Joanna found herself knee-deep in a drinking game with Malcolm and his parents. Stephen emptied two bottles of champagne into their glasses. Then they switched to oversized shots of bourbon, measured out in juice glasses.
“You will sphacelate for this, Joanna!” Maxine cried, downing the last of her glass in one valiant chug. Joanna had won the game with the old medical term “sphacelate”: to get gangrene, rot, and die. Malcolm and Stephen followed Maxine’s lead, drinking in defeat.
“Thank you, thank you!” Joanna said, standing up and raising an empty glass into the air.
“Speech!” Stephen yelled.
Joanna laughed and dropped back in her seat. The room was spinning, which made whatever she was laughing at even funnier. She loved it here. She belonged here; she didn’t want to go home. She should stay here pretending to be his girlfriend forever.
Years from now, Malcolm would have a wife, a kid. They would be the ones sitting around scribbling on scraps of paper on New Year’s Eve with Maxine and Stephen. And what about her? She looked around the table, at her hosts’ faces, their eyes happy and half-closed. There would be no place for Malcolm’s dear old best friend at the table. No dark-haired, big-eyed kid calling her “Aunt Joanna” and begging for her Dictionary Game strategy.
A shiver ran through her. She had to stop thinking like this, like she had glimpsed into the future and couldn’t find herself there. Like she was just a ghost.
Maxine and Stephen stumbled downstairs to bed. Malcolm put his arm around Joanna’s shoulders. “Tired?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. They went down to the sailboat room. The air was cold and still. She shivered, quickly stripped off her clothes, and jumped under the sheets. “Come in here,” she said.
Malcolm walked over to her and sat down on the bed on top of the covers. He looked down at her and patted her hair. “It’s late,” he said.
“Come on.” She began yanking at the covers, trying to get them out from under him. Somehow she’d pull him under, wrap herself around him. “It’s so cold in here without you,” she said. This struck her as very funny. She tried to stop herself from giggling and then gave in.
Malcolm stood up, stepped away from the bed, and returned with one of his T-shirts and a pair of her underwear. “Here,” he said. “Put these on.”
“Aw.” Joanna gave him an exaggerated frown. “Then will you come to bed?”
“You’re drunk,” he said, but he took off his jeans, pulled off his sweater, and climbed in next to her.
“So?” she said. She pressed herself against him, ran her hands up and down his torso.
“Joanna—”
“Come on,” she said. “We need to do this. One last time.”
He shooed her away, laughing, until he fell off the bed and landed on the floor, taking half of the blankets with him.
“We’re both drunk,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll get us something to eat.”
“No eggs!” she yelled after him. Joanna gathered the blankets around her again. She was tired; she tried to close her eyes but felt her insides lurch. Malcolm returned in a few minutes with a plate of buttered toast and two mugs of hot tea.
“Oh, Malcolm,” she said, taking a piece of toast from the top of the pile. “You’re such a good friend. Such a good, good friend.”
The next morning she had to wake up early to drive back to Reno so Tess could take her to the airport. She had taken two ibuprofen to clear her head, to take away the sting from her eyes. Even that and two cups of coffee hadn’t helped though. When she hugged his parents goodbye, she had to keep herself from crying.
Malcolm walked her out to her car and kissed her in the driveway. “It’s cold out here,” she said, but she didn’t let go of him.
They sat in the car so they could have a few more moments together; she turned on the heat. They bent into each other, trying awkwardly to hug in the car, with their coats on. They laughed. He kissed her again, and she responded. Five minutes later, his hand up her shirt, she broke free, breathing heavily. “I should probably get going.”
Malcolm frowned. “Too bad.”
“You’ll be back home in a week, right?”
“As far as I know. We’re finishing up this job for sure. They had some more work for me, a property in the Bay Area. They seemed to like my work, but I turned them down.”
“Malcolm,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. “You can’t afford to be turning down jobs like this.”
He turned toward her. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”
Joanna’s head pounded. His voice sounded muffled, far away. “It’s just that—maybe it would be better for you to stay away for a little bit longer. It seems like we could use … a breather. A break.” When Malcolm didn’t respond, she kept talking. “The thing is, if you turned this job down for me—even if that was just a part of the reason—you might regret it. You’d resent me. That’s just the kind of thing we need to avoid. Maybe what we need is a fresh start for the new year, you know?”
“A fresh start,” he repeated in a flat voice.
“We can’t keep going on like this.” She willed herself to talk steadily, through the thick white cotton wadded up in her head. “We need—I need to get over you. This isn’t good for us.”
Malcolm sat back in his seat. He seemed to be concentrating on the text written on the sun visor, up at the top of the windshield. He shook his head with tiny movements while Joanna talked.
“I mean, all this time we’ve spent together—spent here—has been so, so great.” Her eyes were red and stinging but remained dry. He was staring out of the front window, his jaw clenched. “But we agreed to end it before it went too far. Right, Malcolm?” she said. “Isn’t that what we’d agreed on?”