Apprehensively, I said, “Have you asked October specifically if there’s someone else?”
“See, this is where it gets complicated. I can’t ask her that. I’m not allowed.”
“I don’t understand.”
It was getting cold out, and I zipped up my jacket. Cal didn’t have a jacket. He dropped the last remaining twig, put his hands deep in his pockets, and hunched up his shoulders.
“We have this arrangement,” he said. “Since we spend so much time apart. We’re supposed to be allowed to see other people, as long as it’s a no-strings-attached sort of thing. You know, casual. Believe it or not, it was her idea. I went along with it because in theory it sounds awesome, right? And because I was in love with her and wanted her to think I was open-minded and all that shit. But I’m not, really. Anyway, not asking each other about our extracurricular activities is one of the rules. It’s the biggest rule. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Our relationship is like the fucking army.”
Thank God for that, I thought.
It was almost fully dark, and Cal said, “You know where we are, yes?”
I could see Beanstalk up ahead and nodded. “Less than a quarter mile from the house.”
Cal was looking at me like he was waiting for me to give him advice, but I was at a loss and ended up asking him a question that was more pertinent to me than to him. “So, you see other women then?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Though I usually feel guilty as fuck when it happens, even though I’m allowed to do it.” He rubbed his hands together to warm them and blew into his palms. “And not that this makes it any better, but it never means anything, you know? I follow the rules. What’s going on with October is different. She doesn’t just connect with random people. She’s not like that. I can count her friends on one hand. She’s pulling away from me, and I’m freaking out. I don’t want to lose her.” He came to a halt in the middle of the trail and said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask . . .”
I braced for it. Because I knew that if Cal asked me straight up if something was going on between October and me, I wouldn’t have been able to lie to him.
He said, “Have you seen anyone around? Anyone coming or going that may be worth mentioning? Is she ever gone all night?”
Cal misinterpreted the look on my face and said, “Fine, fine, I know. It’s not fair of me to be asking you this. But the only other person I could ask is Rae, and I have no confidence in her. She’d tell October I was prying.”
“I haven’t seen anybody,” I said.
That wasn’t a lie.
“Thanks, man.” Cal stepped closer and put his arm around my shoulder the way you do when you trust someone. “You’ll keep an eye on things while I’m gone, right? Let me know if that changes?”
I told him I would.
But that wasn’t even the shittiest part. The shittiest part was that when I got back to my apartment, I didn’t sit around thinking about what Cal was going through. I thought about what it meant that October wouldn’t have sex with him. And while I came up with numerous possible conclusions, the only logical one seemed to be the same one Cal had come to.
She was thinking of somebody else.
FOURTEEN.
Guitars are like people. Each one is an individual. Especially vintage guitars. And almost all of the guitars on Cal’s Wall of Dreams were older than I was.
The morning Cal left to go back on tour, he gave me a key to his studio and told me I was welcome to hang out and play the guitars whenever I wanted. In the days following his departure, I spent virtually all my free time doing just that.
The guitars saved me. Being around October all day was tougher than I thought it was going to be. I felt like I’d spent my life perfecting the art of pretending—pretending to care, pretending not to care, pretending I didn’t feel things, pretending I did—but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to pretend I didn’t want to be with that woman.
I had a little over a week to finish the birdcage, and that kept me busy in my corner of the studio without having to interact with October too much. Plus, Rae was around a lot then. She usually worked out of the house, doing whatever it was she did—taking care of October’s personal business and eating trail mix—but following Cal’s departure, Rae seemed to find myriad reasons to stop by the studio throughout the day. I figured she was there to make sure I was keeping my distance, and I was.
In the meantime, October had begun working on the series of vintage ship paintings that had been lying dormant against the wall since my first day on the job. The series was part of a nautical-themed exhibit she would be debuting at a Thomas Frasier popup gallery in Chicago the following summer. When she wasn’t working on selfies and Ribble scribbles, she focused on those.
But sharing the space with her was hard. Sometimes I would glance up and watch her from across the room, the way she puckered her lips and shifted them to the side when she stepped back to survey a canvas; the way she tilted her head, squinted and bit at her left thumbnail when she was focusing on the details of a piece; the way she had to lift her head up to see when her hair fell across her eye.
She was extra quiet that week. Kept to herself and seemed pretty down. And the minute she left at the end of the day, I felt lonely. If it hadn’t been for Cal’s guitars, I’m not sure what I would have done.
Actually, I do know.
I would have left.
And in hindsight,
