I’m momentarily paralyzed. With another gulp of liquid courage—the end of bottle number one—I tell him that I do, indeed, want to hang out. In a moment of less-than-stellar judgment, I tell him he can come to the house. I’ll leave the gate open.
I scramble around, cleaning up take out boxes and empty wine glasses. After a bit, the house looks presentable enough though I recognize that a part of me doesn’t really care. I just want another warm body in the same space. The fact that it’s not Wes’s warm body isn’t lost on me.
I recall the scent of his aftershave again. A moment that I’ve savored multiple times in the last week, leading to the bittersweet realization that it was probably the last time I’d ever smell it. At least on him. The thought occurs to me that I could buy a bottle to keep here. This wins the award for the saddest thing I’ve thought all day.
I kill another glass of wine while waiting on Philip. He shows up in an ancient Geo Metro that, like his haircut, reminds me of high school and those first months of college. That period of adjustment to real life that was just a primer for the adjustments waiting on the other side of my degree. He comes to the door, rings the bell, and I answer. He stands there and holds out a sack from Chipotle. He comes bearing gifts.
I smile and swing the door wide, taking the sack from his hand. I try to be a good hostess. He steps in and makes eye contact with the bobcat.
“Don’t mind him. He hasn’t bitten anyone in a really, really long time,” I say.
Philip smiles nervously as though he’s just stepped into the H. H. Holmes murder hotel.
I grant that my grandparents’ choice of décor isn’t the friendliest. And I also admit that their preoccupation with death might have done something to stoke the embers of my own, leading to the publication of my first book. But tonight isn’t about psychoanalysis. I just want to eat the Chipotle and not sit on the couch alone.
Philip’s youth makes me uneasy. Partially because it reminds me of my age and partially because it makes me feel a bit like a creep. I’m thirty years old. Cringing to myself as I pour another glass of wine and Philip gets comfortable on the couch, I imagine Wes’s disapproving furrowed brow above his throwback Ray-Ban glasses. A quick drink of the wine helps to wash away the image of his face. I return to the living room and join Philip.
He digs through his pockets and produces a small plastic bag, some rolling papers, and a lighter. I haven’t smoked weed since college and my first thought is that it’s going to stink up the house—another painful indication of our age difference—and my second thought is that I’d like a vacation from reality. So, I let it slide.
“Do you smoke?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah.” I realize that I sound too much like an older person trying to appear cool to today’s youth.
He eyes me with skepticism. I flash a smile to win him over. He smiles back and rolls a joint. While he does, I ask him a few questions about himself. His answers are minimalist. Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes. I find out nothing about Philip through my line of questioning and it doesn’t seem that he wants to find out much about me. Finally, he makes a comment.
“Quite a place you’ve got here. You rich or something?”
“Not really.”
He grunts in response and lights the freshly rolled joint. He passes it to me, and I cough tremendously after my first hit. He laughs, clearly aware that I don’t smoke nearly as often as I’ve indicated. I pass it back and excuse myself to get some more wine. I offer him some. He declines, telling me that alcohol is poison. I shrug and kill the second bottle.
I return to my place beside him on the couch. About a foot of upholstery sits between us. That and the ten years I’ve lived beyond him. We make small talk, stilted and awkward until the weed kicks in, then we’re laughing. That quickly descends into the metaphysical, a favorite topic of stoners everywhere, I think. I’m ill-equipped for this talk. My brain is spreading out like the smoke, tendrils licking at whatever thoughts pass in front of them. It goes in twelve different directions at once, blossoming like a time-lapse video of a blooming flower. Philip has a better handle on the situation.
He passes the joint back to me and I hold up a hand.
“I’m good,” I say. The statement is a monumental effort. The herculean task of matching sounds to thoughts seems to stump me. I’m higher than I originally thought. He shrugs as if to say, More for me, and I’m okay with that.
Before he finishes the joint, I turn on the television with the intent of finding a documentary on Netflix. I’m not sure that I want him to stay for the entirety of Inside the Criminal Mind, so my goal is to find a one-shot show. But before I can navigate off of regular television to the Netflix app, the local news pops up.
A perky blonde whose name escapes me looks into the camera. Her eyes shine in the studio lights, looking almost watery. They’re almost too alive. It occurs to me that being surrounded by death might color my perception. She delivers the story with the solemnity of a eulogy.
“Last night we brought you breaking news of a shooting that took place between two ranches in the panhandle of Oklahoma. Marcy Williams has more details on that story tonight. Marcy?” The anchor waits for a response, and the feed cuts to a dark-haired young woman standing next to a
