God Help Me
“What are you going to do while I’m gone?” I asked. Steve and I were walking around Seward Park this evening. “Are you going surfing?”
“Well,” he said, “the waves are crap, so probably not. Besides, it won’t be as much fun, you know, alone.”
“Are you saying you’ll miss me?”
A pained look crossed his face. “Uh, yeah. Oh God, I feel ill now.”
I should interject and say this is perfectly normal for Steve; normal declarations of affection make him deeply uneasy. It’s a good thing I’m not very sensitive and that I don’t expect romance and roses because, God knows, I would never get them. His idea of a compliment? When we were going to the opening night of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I was wearing a vintage sparkly shell. It was one of those 60s sleeveless knit numbers with the beads sewn all over. I came out of the bathroom with makeup and high heels (which happens, oh, once a year), black velvet and this glittery top, expecting him to say something really nice. He looked at me fondly and said, “Ohhhh, you look just like fishing tackle.”
In any case, back to the conversation at hand.
“So you’ll miss me?”
“Uh-huh,” in a monotone.
“Horribly?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Rip out the kitchen cupboards.”
I said nothing. What could I say? That the bathroom’s not finished, the floors aren’t finished, or that all the trim’s a mess? No, I couldn’t possibly say that. So what I did say, after a long moment of silence in which I was contemplating who I could go live with, was, “Uh, so how long will we be kitchenless?”
“At least a month.”
And call me crazy, but there was more than just a hint of glee in his voice.