ON THE FIRST DAY OF REAL SUMMER, I DID NOT EVEN BOTHER to detour to check the mail at the studio before pedaling over the river to Artifacts.
Ted found most of his stuff at estate sales and auctions, though his official statement—people always asked—was that the midcentury elves had left it at the door. Still, people came in all the time trying to sell us their stuff. They’d been watching Antiques Roadshow. They’d found something in the Dumpster or garage, in their mother’s basement, or in someone’s jewelry box. They needed cash and were certain, or hopeful, that what they held was worth something. Usually it wasn’t. People, Ted said, always overvalue their own stuff. On gray days I was prone to a sense of doom that this was true of ninety-nine percent of the things in this world—in the end, nobody really wanted them.
The customer who jangled into the shop this afternoon was in her early forties, a little grizzled, testy. I was used to her type: they tried appealing to me woman to woman, but when I said it wasn’t my call and they’d have to talk to the owner, I became just another female obstacle between them and a man who could do something.
I glanced into her box of marbles and milk glass and told her it wasn’t the kind of thing we sold. When she feigned offense, I reminded her gently, “You didn’t want them either.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want them.”
“Then why are you selling them?”
She said that she wanted them to find a good home. I suggested Goodwill.
The door jingled and in the corner of my eye I saw the customer stop to take in the space. In the moment before his eyes met mine and I realized who he was, I automatically indexed him: Man, young, thinks he’s cool, will drop knowledge but no cash. Brace self. But then I saw it was Ryan. He paused with one hand in his jacket pocket and the other resting on the doorknob, a stance like his handwriting, upright yet at ease.
“Hi,” I said, and broke into a grin I couldn’t suppress. “You’re real.”
He pulled back his jacket sleeve and touched his wrist. “Apparently.”
“Thanks for the postcards.” The customer cleared her throat. “Hang on,” I said to Ryan, “I’m almost done here.”
“Is that so,” said the woman.
I advised her that speaking to Ted was possible but likely futile. “Try Antique Row in Sellwood. One of those guys might be more into it.” Her sour frown indicated that she had, and they weren’t. She threatened to speak to my manager.
“Okay,” I said. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”
Ryan stepped aside for her at the door.
“Charming lady,” he said.
“Happens all the time,” I said. “I’m due for a break.” I taped the BACK IN 10 MINUTES sign to the door and grabbed the keys. “Want to step out with me? I mean, unless you came in looking for something.”
“Just you.”
I knew I shouldn’t enjoy that, and this could only flag trouble, this guy showing up for me, but after a year of being the yearning one, it felt good to be sought. We pushed through into the sunny afternoon.
“So how are you?” he said.
“Good. How are you?”
“Good.”
“Good,” I said. It was like we were in an ESL class.
We walked down the alley and over to First Avenue, where tram tracks sliced through the cobblestones and the buildings were old and rococo with arched windows. Across a strip of trampled grass, the river sauntered along.
“So how was tour?” I nudged him with my elbow, went for the buddy approach. “Did you get any action on the road?” This was how many of my friendships had begun, with what my friend Molly called the Sexual Handshake. If there was sexual tension at the outset, you hooked up a couple times to release it, and once that was cleared out of the way you could get right to being straight-up friends. It might be a viable option here.
“What kind of a question is that?”
“You’re in a band. And you’re cute. I can say that objectively.”
“Objectively, huh?”
“Sure. You have symmetrical features, and you’re tall. Good smile.”
“Is this a dog show? Are you going to measure my tail next?”
“Nice tail too.”
“Yeah? You like?”
“Objectively,” I said.
He tugged the back of his shirt down and I laughed. He said, “I wasn’t really on the prowl.”
“Not on my account, I hope.”
“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“I’m not trying to make it anything for you.” I knew I was being glib to the point of cutting, but I couldn’t stop. My hand had shaken when I’d turned the key in the lock at Artifacts. I had to overcorrect.
Ryan sighed and slung himself down on a bench. “All right,” he said. “Well, when I was in Tucson I found something for you.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “It’s not wrapped, so close your eyes.”
I did, and held out my hand.
Smooth wood, warm from his pocket, touched my palm. I closed my fingers around a solid edge and opened my eyes.
It was a wood-type A for letterpress, the size of a small candy bar. I ran my fingers over it. The wood was nut-brown with age, and traces of red and black ink burrowed in its nooks. The A was raised and hard, clean, with a skateably smooth surface.
“Two of my nerdy favorite things in one,” I said. “A piece of type and an A.”
“Do you have an A already? You probably have a lot of A’s. You probably have a whole alphabet.”
“I have many alphabets. But I don’t have one like this. I love it. Thank you.” I sat down next to him. A small hard knot tied up my throat. I slipped the wood-block A into the pocket of my jacket and kept my hand on it, on the hard edges worn smooth.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can be flippant.”
“I know,” he said.
“I just don’t want to lead you on.”
He laughed in disbelief. “Oh, is that what you think you’re doing?”
“I hope not. Look, I don’t want to mislead you or hurt you.”
Ryan physically recoiled. The force in his voice surprised me. “That is not going to happen. I don’t get hurt like that. I’m not a commitment guy.”
“Good, because I’m not a commitment guy either,” I said.
“Great.” Our eyes were locked now, a game of chicken. We held our ground, radiating I mean it, each waiting for the other to look away, to acquiesce, You mean it. But the longer I looked the weirder it got. To look into someone’s eyes, even in the spirit of combat, is to hold their gaze, an act of holding, beholding. I worked to keep my breath even, my face nonchalant. I would not relent.
Ryan narrowed his eyes and glanced ever so slightly to the side for a second, just a flicker, but I took that as a win for me. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m glad to see your face.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m glad to see yours too.”
“Okay.”
Our smiles both cracked and we looked away.
He asked me what I was up to that night. My pulse quickened uncomfortably and I invented a plan with Lawrence. I stood. My break was over. “Anyway, don’t you need to unpack?” I said. We started walking.
No, he traveled light. He liked to come home with less than he’d left with. “By the end of a month you’ve worn those clothes so much you never want to see them again. I just leave them.”
This astonished me. I had lain awake many nights cataloging everything I’d ever lost or failed to save. “Don’t you miss any of it later?”
“No.”
“I can’t do that at all. I save everything.”
“You’re a pack rat.”
“An archivist. I have a system. It’s all filed and in order.”
“Why do you keep all that?”
I said I liked having evidence. Evidence of what, he asked. “My life, I guess.”
“Aren’t you evidence enough? You’ve got a memory.”
“But that’s so ephemeral. The artifacts are proof.”
“Who are you proving it to?”
I thought of the box of Nebraska photos, the volumes of albums of Portland, the library of zines, the drawers of band T-shirts from shows, the files of letters and ticket stubs and drafts of everything I had drawn or written over the last seven years. I wondered if my parents had kept anything of mine, if they’d boxed it up or tossed it. If they ever spoke of me, or if I had become that unfortunate event no one ever brings up, out of courtesy. “I don’t know what I’m going to remember and what I’m going to forget. I don’t know who will remember me and who will forget me,” I said. “What if you died tomorrow and you left, like, no trace of your life? It would be like you never existed.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “Less trouble for whoever has to clean out my place.”
“I want to make lots of trouble,” I said. “I want them to be overwhelmed by it. Especially if it’s my parents.”
“Impressive,” he said. “Hopefully you survive your parents.”
“I have so far.”
We arrived at the door. “Have a good time tonight,” he said, and then sneaked a quick kiss to my cheek before I knew what was happening.
“Thank you for the A,” I said, flustered. I let the glass door sigh shut behind me, and touched my cheek.
I rifled through the box of stuff on the counter. I couldn’t tell what any of it was worth.
Biking home, I crossed the river with the setting sun at my back. The sky was streaked with pink and purple clouds behind me, and deepened to blue ahead. Yellow streetlights lit the leaves a luminous emerald.
I cycled up Sandy Boulevard, glanced furtively down the intersection toward Ryan’s apartment only a few blocks away, lowered my head, and pushed up the hill, forward. But then I stopped and changed course. I turned off Sandy and glided down toward Ash, letting gravity carry me to his front door.
The buzzer, the wait, the wondering, and then footsteps coming downstairs, and Ryan turns the corner on the landing, leans forward to see the door, a quicker trot down the last few steps, a hand on the doorknob, in the entry I mount the first step and turn, take his rough face in both hands, and close my eyes.