Please don’t say Austin, please don’t say Austin, please don’t say Austin, I thought to myself only for Jarod to respond, “Austin.” Still in New Hampshire a couple days after Thanksgiving, it was so cold I could barely move my fingers to type these texts but nevertheless, I was out for my walk. Jarod had just interviewed for another job and, after asking him how it went, he said, “Honestly, I was very distracted because I was receiving unrelated and upsetting texts.” They were from a particular friend of his. I’d him met once before, at Jarod’s birthday party back in April. He was sweet, this friend, his face as warm and dopey as a cow’s. In what felt like nothing more than a friendly gesture, he invited me to his own birthday party a few weeks later. An invitation that, in Jarod’s eyes, was so ridiculous he laughed and laughed until he was red in the face. It’s always something with Jarod’s friends. Wondering what he said to him during the interview, Jarod stopped me dead in my tracks when he replied, “Do you want the whole truth?” Because before I even got his dreaded answer to my question about who this whole truth involved, despite all my pleas, I knew—Austin. And I was off to the races. Suddenly imagining that he’s done x-y-z with so-and-so, or that he’s already in a serious relationship with someone hotter and younger but mustached all the same. Bracing for the worst, I told Jarod to tell me what he’s heard. And anticipating destruction, that I was seconds away from losing my mind, what I felt instead was relief. Austin is on a dating app. Compared to my delusions, this was nothing. This was almost okay. But this wasn’t everything.
Again, Jarod asked if I really wanted to know, giving me an out while I still could, even though he knew, even though we both knew, that I never stood a chance. And so Jarod sent me what this friend had to say about Austin—but also about me. Mentioning some specific boys by name who Austin has liked, this friend said I should forget about looking for another man’s shoes at Austin’s apartment when, in his eyes, and in as many words, he has obviously moved on. That he is out in the streets. And that, above all else, I should be embarrassed for still hemming and hawing over this unbelievably deep soul connection of ours. Of course—he doesn’t know me, not really. And he certainly doesn’t know Austin. But he does know how I feel. He reads my writing, so he knows. And when he delivered this news to Jarod, he was gleeful. This was his pleasure. I wasn’t just surprised by the meanness of these remarks, I was unmoored by it. A blow to the head would’ve felt less violent, I swear. Because I don’t fault Austin for putting himself out there, I can’t, especially now that I’ve done some putting out of my own. It may have been over the clothes and stopped before anything even began but it was with Jarod—my friend and coworker of several years, whose name Austin heard me mention many, many times. If our roles were reversed, this would kill me. I have to let Austin do what he wants to do, even with boys whose names I recognize, boys I’ve met, boys with mustaches. It’s just that these boys with mustaches are all friends with Jarod. Jarod knows too much, and I know he knows too much, and that’s too much to bear. He has more access to Austin’s private life now than I do. If I was feeling knocked off my feet—and I was—this was why. Insisting he never wanted to know, that he didn’t ask to be burdened with information that suddenly had to become some sort of secret, Jarod said he felt awful. But I felt played with. Just totally bought and sold. Mocked in a group chat of gay guys who make navigating this mean world of living single look so stupidly easy. All of a sudden, I felt like a child. Because maybe this was a concerted effort, some grand plot. That if Brian could only learn that his ex-boyfriend has moved on, that Austin’s shoes just might be on some other boy’s doorstep, perhaps Brian will permit himself to do the same. Who exactly I’m apologizing to here, I don’t know, but I’m sorry to say—it didn’t work.
I’m always looking. On certain train platforms, at particular street corners, just in case—I look. “...and thinking you’ll be there, I walk a little faster…” Knowing he’d want to see this movie as badly as I did, and as soon as he possibly could, and that this theater is within walking distance of his apartment, I took my seat at BAM for the 7:15 showing of Queer and I looked for him. The lights went down and the film began but still I searched, straining to hear a laugh I’d know in a crowd of thousands. It was a packed house, but he wasn’t there. Jarod also went to the movies that night, joining a group of friends that included, naturally, one of Austin’s Hinge matches. “Resisting the urge to ask the question I want to ask,” I said to Jarod. Because surely it had been a topic of conversation for them. Surely there was more to know, new details that have emerged, and Jarod heard all about it. But still I resisted, knowing I needed to stay in the dark. But Jarod wouldn’t let me. “R— did not message him back, just confirmed,” he said. “I think Austin just commented on a photo/answer, that’s all. But I also found out he commented on K—’s answer. Too much!” Too much. Much too much too much. I had already made something clear to Jarod: I did not want to hear about this again. That if he was privy to any more gossip, or any new details, he was not to tell me about it. But now there was yet another name for me to worry about, another person I already knew, another boy with a mustache. “Jarod stop,” I said. He did but it was already too late. I was out of my mind. Feeling just absolutely insane. Jarod said he was sorry, that he wasn’t playing with me, that it was all so unfair, but when he asked “Do you want me to call?”, I was being wholly sincere when I asked, “Call who?” Call me, of course. It seems that was all the encouragement I needed. Hovering one finger over my phone, just a couple minutes before midnight, I couldn’t bear to look when I finally pressed that button and placed the call. With a racing heart, and breath already catching in my throat, I waited for Austin to pick up his phone.
With concern and fear in his voice, a voice I hadn’t heard at all in a month and a half, Austin asked where I was and if I was okay. God knows what he was thinking. And breathless with nerves, I was no help. Minutes went by before I managed to string together an entire sentence and, even then, it hardly soothed—“I don’t know if I should share this with you.” All week long, I deliberated, wondering if being a 24 year old’s subject of gossip was worth sharing, let alone worrying about. Questioning if I wanted to bring that old exchange of ours back to life, a conversation that slips further down the inbox with every passing day, on account of something so petty. But it was always the same thought that kept me from doing it—that Austin would ask “Who told you this?” and I’d have to say “Jarod.” That thanks to the first boy I kissed since the end of our relationship, here I was to—do what, exactly? Warn Austin? Scare him? Police how he’s going about his single life with this implicit reminder of my saintly goodness? Having my cake, this bitter, bitter cake, and eating it too. But when Austin said I could tell him anything, I knew to believe him. He listened to me and what he was right to consider absurd, he considered absurd. And what I hoped he’d consider cruel, he considered cruel. “He’s probably never been in love before,” said Austin, who didn’t recognize Jarod’s friend by name but by Twitter handle, thereby speaking volumes. We were on the same page about everything, Austin and I, and no one in my life, not a soul, had ever brought me so much comfort. A thousand pounds lifted clean off my heart and flew right out the window. “None of that’s true and, honestly, I wasn’t even planning on using Hinge,” Austin said. “But then I read that you’d, you know…that you kissed your friend and I thought—whatever, I guess I will.” I had a feeling. That up until he got word I’d had my first date, my first whatever, he’d hold off. That Austin would wait for me. Figuring that that’s just the kind of person he is. After maybe twenty minutes or so, we put this topic to bed. But then we kept talking.
For the first time in a long time, the first time since summer, he didn’t feel like a stranger to me—he was just Austin. We laughed so much. He told me about Wren’s new braids, and how his niece got lost for three terrifying minutes at Aerlie Gardens, and that he recently went to a Broadway show where he recognized his seatmate as the cello-playing child actress from School of Rock. Realizing we were both making our way through the audiobook of Cher’s memoir, Austin said, “I was just telling Kiera that it’s actually been making me sad, listening to it, because every other line out of Cher’s mouth has me thinking, God, Brian would crack up at that.’” Hanging up, always, was the hardest thing. Every other time we talked on the phone since I moved out, I’d bargain and beg for more. No amount of silence on the line stinging as badly as silence on my own. But when it seemed we’d caught each other up on everything, that there was nothing left to say, I didn’t fight it. It was past 1:30 in the morning by then. We talked for an hour and forty-five minutes.
I was about to leave for my next tour when I heard Jarod reading aloud my text messages to him. I was down on the first floor of our break room while he was up on the second and, even though he was technically only talking to Willa, his voice carried clear through the whole building. Our correspondence, suddenly, public record. During my minute of eavesdropping—if overhearing things I myself said can even qualify as such—I didn’t hear anything new. Because if this was how I learned of the newest happenings in Austin’s life, and I think about how I might’ve reacted to that—it terrifies me. “Jarod!” I texted him, to no avail, as he continued rattling on. “I can hear you! I don’t appreciate this! Quit it!” A face-to-face confrontation would have to wait because, in the meantime, I had people to impress. My cousin Kelcey was visiting the city with her French fiance and they wanted to come to the museum. It’s always risky having people who know me on a tour, but the visitors were great so I was great. It can feel like nothing short of ministry, a good tour. Telling Kelcey and Arnaud I’d join them for drinks just as soon as I freshened up, I went back to the break room to yell at Jarod. In the closest thing to an inconspicuous corner of that ceaselessly conspicuous break room, I told Jarod I had no interest, no desire, and no tolerance to be swept up in all this gossip. That I’m too sensitive for it. That it will destroy me. And that, above all else, I’m just not used to it. That my friends, even at his age, never acted this way, and shooting to kill when I said, “Birds of a feather, Jarod.” He was hurt. I saw shame on his face, and disappointment, and sadness. Walking away from him, I felt a harshness settle in my heart. I can be just as cruel as the rest of them.
Cheersing drinks on my mother’s dime, I wished Kelcey a happy birthday. Her mom is my godmother and my mom is Kelcey’s and, when I told her about our plans for the night, she sent me money for a first round of drinks. Kelcey turned 30 that day. Waiting for us at the bar was a friend of theirs who recently moved to New York. He was straight but wore a necklace and had long blond hair that fell to his shoulders in these tight, moussed ringlets. After the initial plan to go to a “hot dog speakeasy” fell through, we just hung around a couple bars. In another life, Kelcey and I would be sisters, not cousins. Telling me stories about the kids she works with as a speech pathologist, I looked at the clownish elasticity of her face, and listened to the goofy depths of her laugh, and I didn’t just see myself—I saw our mothers. We also have the same little crooked tooth, something we both got from our dads, two men who are only related by marriage. Sitting around a table at a place called Goodnight Sonny, after spending most of the night engaged in separate conversations, we all started chatting—about artificial intelligence. Disturbing me to my core, I see AI as a truly apocalyptic technology that will only make dumb people dumber and poor people poorer. This isn’t the washing machine, or the television set, or the locomotive striking fear into the heart of a Luddite. This is the mind. But with a kind of irony only a real human spirit could properly appreciate—I couldn’t imagine anything quite so boring as talking about it. But I played nice, biting my tongue, hard enough to draw blood, as their friend said to Kelcey, “You know, you should really think about optimizing your workload. You have assistants, right? Two? Wow. Cause, look, there’s no way around the human connection. The relationship you have with the students—that’s not going anywhere. Instead, just let it streamline things. All that work those two assistants do? AI can do it instead.” I was appalled and thankfully, ever my sister, so was Kelcey. Reminding him that those assistants are people who do that job to earn the money that supports their families, he wasn’t convinced. AI won’t take jobs away from people, he argued, it will free people from those jobs, from the jobs no person should have to do. And, for his example, he mentioned grocery store cashiers. What a fool. My mother and Kelcey’s mother both work in grocery stores. They ring people up at the register. That is how they make a living. “My mom would never retire,” said Kelcey. “She needs to work. She loves it.” And my mom, I said, is the same way. But still he insisted that our mothers would just find other ways to fill their time. And maybe that’s true. Maybe we are thinking too small. Like just a couple feeble-minded humans, bound together by something as pointless as blood.
Looking fabulous in these fuschia pleated shorts and a black cashmere sweater that she found, naturellement, out on the sidewalk, Billie took my coat and welcomed me to her birthday party. The pleasure was all mine. This was my first time at her house and my first time meeting her family, let alone all her other friends in attendance. And even once another Educator from the museum showed up, I was still the only attendee speaking only one language. And that includes Billie’s 11-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. A true blue American. Dinner was served and we took our seats. To my right, there was a woman from Austria who used to direct music videos and documentaries but has stayed at home the last couple years to take care of a daughter with autism. It’s a tricky thing, talking to someone about the work they no longer do, art they no longer make. And to my left, there was a couple—a college professor with a little ski slope nose and a writer named Hakim with these great, brooding brown eyes. She was all right angles—in conversation, in appearance, in spirit—while he was all curves. And as one, they were perfect. “Memoir, I guess, I write about myself,” I said, after she asked what kind of writing I do, a question and answer that didn’t feel nearly as embarrassing as it does with museum visitors. Likely insulting them in the process, I asked if they’d ever read Annie Ernaux. “She’s just…everything to me,” I said, “She is my ultimate inspiration.” Telling them I keep a diary, privately and—as of late—publicly too, Hakim asked if it’s cathartic and I said that it’s not. I’m not letting go of anything, not a thing, in writing about my life. I’m hoarding it. Saving as much time as I possibly can, and as much memory. And soon, Hakim shared a memory of his own.
“I’m Palestinian but I grew up in Israel,” he said. “Two million Arabs live in Israel, of course. But anyway, for really my whole upbringing, Israel was at war with Hezbollah. And Israel, as I’m sure you all know, has its Iron Dome which blocks rockets and missiles. This military capacity to block attacks. But also a capacity to choose which attacks they block. Where we lived, it was all Palestinian, all Arab, and the apartment building right across the street from us one day—bombed to bits. So we’re encouraged, by the Israeli government, to create makeshift bomb shelters in our own homes and eventually…eventually…they distributed gas masks. My father, I remember, he made our shelter out of one of the closets, sealing all the cracks with duct tape and soaking a towel in chlorine to jam under the door. And, one afternoon, the air raid sirens go off and there’s fear of an attack and my father is begging us all to go into the closet but my brother—typical teenager, you know—he refuses to do it. And so my father, finally, he yells, ‘Okay, your choice—you die!’ Well. Nothing happened. But uh, years later, twenty years later, it was revealed that all of those gas masks? The gas masks that Israel provided to its Palestinian citizens? They were all faulty. They never worked. We would have died.”
It was past six o’clock on a Friday evening and Sophie and I were the last two Educators still in the break room. She was getting dinner that night with an old boss and I was meeting up for drinks with Ashleigh but it was still too early for either of us to get going. Showing me a picture of Timmy Chalamet wearing a sweater styled as a scarf during some recent promo for A Complete Unknown, Sophie was surprised to learn that I love Bob Dylan. According to Apple, Madonna was my most-listened-to artist each and every month this year—except for October, when it was Bob Dylan. “What happened in October?” a couple people have asked. “What didn’t happen in October?” is how I’ve chosen to respond. Talking about his mastery of the long song, and how much I love a long song, Sophie disagreed. Something really short, for her, often carrying greater weight. I asked if she’s ever heard “Bless the Telephone” by Labi Siffre and, reading my mind, she pulled it up on her phone and played it out loud. For the next minute and forty-one seconds, Sophie and I listened to the music. There’s this part where he sings, “...It’s nice to hear you say hello, and how are things with you, I love you...” and what he does with that “I love you”—it’s like a miracle to me. And maybe to Sophie too. Because with the softest little groan, Sophie rested her head right down on the table in front of us, a moment after hearing his “I love you.”
It was Kiera’s birthday that night. And as I walked up Orchard Street en route to Lucien for drinks with Ashleigh, I wondered what was happening in Clinton Hill. If Austin and Kiera were throwing a party at the apartment, or hosting a dinner, or getting ready for a night out. They’re close. Even before I moved out, it was clear they’d make good friends. And I really meant it, back in August, during a conversation in our living room that we both figured was our last, when I told Kiera how relieved I was to know Austin would be living with a roommate he likes. Since I left, Austin and Kiera rearranged the furniture, and have had weekend guests, and put up a projector to watch movies together, making the living room into a room for living. We never spent much time in there, Austin and I, never. Some of these changes to the apartment, he himself told me about. The rest, I figured out on my own. Scrolling through my feed or tapping through stories only to be waylaid by a picture of a place I once called home, a place I loved so dearly—that I barely recognize anymore. It was then that something occurred to me, like a matter of fact. It was 29 degrees, I just listened to “Bless the Telephone” for the fifth time in a row, Ashleigh would get to Lucien at 7:10—and I will never live in that apartment ever again. They have their own dynamic, Austin and Kiera, their own rapport, two people who’ve gotten used to the pleasure of sharing an apartment with one less person. I don’t need to hope they’re in good company, I’m certain of it. They’ve made a life and I don’t live there. Because even if all the twists of fate coiled toward reunion, and we got back together, and once again we shared that home—how strange. Strange for her, strange for me, strange for Austin. Not long ago, this felt inevitable. It felt simple. But there are a million things in the way. A million things would need to happen, perfectly, and at just the right time. Pulling up my scarf to cover my face, bracing the cold as best I could, I thought, It’s never gonna happen, is it?
“Am I being a bad person?” I asked Erica and Grace, seated for dinner at Nam Son, the Vietnamese place on Grand Street that’s become something of our go-to. Like Carrie and the girls at the coffee shop. (We wish.) It was a Saturday night and, after hearing I had time to spare before an 8:30 movie but not enough time to go home first, Erica suggested we get dinner. Erica is always suggesting we get dinner. No sooner did we take our seats than the waiter delivered us a hot pot of tea. A couple tables away, we noticed an old man with bushy eyebrows, long hair, and a huge white beard. Off the clock, Santa Claus was enjoying a steaming bowl of pho. It was bitterly cold out, frigid, and we all woke up that morning to a scant inch of snow on the ground. And before we even ordered, the conversation landed on Jarod. I was seeing Carol with him that night. Every year since it came out, and always at Christmastime, he’s seen it in theaters. It’s a very important film to him and he bought our tickets well in advance. But a couple days after our spat in the break room—when I was still smarting from hearing my texts read aloud—Jarod came up to me and asked if I’d changed my mind. Making sure I still wanted to join him to the movie. I wanted to hug him, he looked so nervous. “Of course, I’ll go,” I said. Erica and Grace know it all. I tell them everything and I know Jarod does too. But tucking into our dinner, as Erica handed me chopsticks and Grace passed me a soup spoon, something had seemed to shift. This wasn’t just some frothy gossip about a workplace crush—asking me what I want, and how I feel, and where I see this going, it was a mediation. Though Grace did stand her ground, and in my defense, arguing that Jarod is a willing participant in all this, that he knows full well about that other person in my heart and on my mind, and if he keeps at it anyway—that’s on him. But Grace is young, of course. Younger even than Jarod. And it was Erica, only one year my junior, who reminded us of this. “So, what, I’m the Carol now?” I said. “I was always the Therese!”
Pointing at Grace’s phone, Erica said, “Your mom.” It only lasted a minute or so, their conversation, with Grace mentioning something about her North Face as Erica and I figured out the bill. Hanging up, Grace told us that her mom was just wondering if she got home yet. Calling to make sure that her daughter, on this cold, cold night, was warm.
I’d only been here once before but I was certain I sat in this same exact seat. Pulling my scarf out from the collar of my coat, I found Jarod over on the left side of the bar, already finished with his drink. Years ago, I swear I sat right there with a certain boy who, in time, put things in such stark relief for me. That this wasn’t what I wanted but that! I tried to be gentle about it, when the time came, but I never heard from him again. “...Everything comes full circle…” When they announced overhead that the theater was now seating for Carol, I let Jarod choose. I wanted his experience to be perfect, which is just to say: I wanted him to cry. For him, the possibility of that was frightful. Telling me that, after masochistically watching Call Me By Your Name the previous week, his roommate was so “terrified” by his “intense wailing” that she gave him her vape as consolation. But that was unusual. He’s tough, Jarod. A brash, blazing character whose young little life hasn’t been easy. Though he does have his protectors. Izzy and Smidge, Ray and Hannah. And tonight, Erica and Grace. His tender heart so rarely gets its chance to burst, but there are people who look out for him, birds of another feather who look out for that heart, and I’m so happy for it. Almost as happy as I was sitting there beside him as Therese read Carol’s letter in front of the diner. Because as she wept in the backseat, and raced out of the car to throw up in the grass, suddenly, I heard something new in his breath. A sharp and quickened pace. I didn’t look at him but I knew. Jarod was crying.
Looking out the window of the B26 on a Sunday afternoon, riding the bus from Ridgewood to Clinton Hill, I was on my way to break into my old apartment. Earlier that week, I got a text from Kiera about having some mail for me, specifically a package that Aunt Patti mistakenly sent to my old address. “Austin is out of town now,” she said. “But I want to make sure it gets to you before the holidays.” But she made a huge mistake. Because when I offered to come by on Sunday and grab it from the hall, Kiera told me her plans for that afternoon—she had tickets to see Meet Me in St. Louis at the Museum of Moving Image. Immediately, I did the math. A 31 minute drive, multiplied by two—just in case she indulged in a car both ways—plus a 113 minute runtime equaled three hours of an empty apartment. For three hours, there’d be nobody home. “Shannon, it’s going to take everything I have not to go into that apartment,” I said, hoping to hear some voice of reason from my best friend. “Well, when you do,” Shannon said. “Facetime me.” Grace was the only other person who knew about this and I was just as surprised to hear her say, “Do it.” Problematic counsel perhaps but considering the sources, and the goodness in both their hearts, I I took their word. Triple-checking that I had both sets of keys in my pants pocket, both old and new, I boarded that bus and felt worried for feeling so calm. Like I was on my way to the dentist’s office, not my ex-boyfriend’s apartment. Steady as can be, I imagined what I’d find. That I was about to see for myself everything that had changed, everything they moved, and removed, taking stock of every remaining token of my time there—and every erasure. Stepping into Austin’s bedroom, would I wonder, again, about men’s shoes? And if he started keeping a diary, and he didn’t bring it with him to North Carolina, and I found it sitting there on his desk, would I be able to leave it alone? No matter what I found, I couldn’t be mad at him and even worse—there could be no talking about it. Nevertheless, as a Technicolor Judy Garland was only just beginning to dazzle a roomful of moviegoers in Queens, I knocked on the apartment door. Christmas music was playing and I swore I heard footsteps but, telling myself it was just Travis and Kelly up on the third floor, I knocked again. Harder and louder this time, really ensuring that no one was there. And just as I was reaching for the lock with the key in my hand, the door opened and Kiera said, “Hi!”
Caught red-handed, all I could think to do was point a shaking finger inside and ask Kiera if I could use the bathroom. I can’t believe she lied, I thought to myself, as I pretended to pee and lamented my suddenly foiled attempt at burglarizing her home. Kiera was in the kitchen by the time I finished up my charade and I figured this was it. That I’d thank her once again and, out of sight, she’d insist it was nothing before I saw myself out and returned to the cold. Instead, drying her hands on a dish towel, she joined me in the living room and asked, “How have you been?” She stood over by the mantle while I stayed close to the door, still wearing my backpack and winter coat. Nervous enough to have cottonmouth, my lips were fully catching on my teeth as I tried to make small talk with Kiera, and tried even harder to keep my eyes from probing every square inch of the apartment. But before long, and much to my surprise, Kiera and I were just having a conversation—and all it required was a little ego boost. Telling her how much I love living in Ridgewood, she said, “Yeah, I’ve had a couple friends send me pictures of you on the M, asking, ‘Isn’t this your old roommate?’” Like a latter day Greta Garbo. Kiera doesn’t love Clinton Hill and I can understand that now. Now that I live in a neighborhood where I hear New York accents, and where so many of my neighbors are immigrant families, and where I once saw a man with slicked-back hair and mutton chops heave himself out of his car on a Sunday evening after working—I have to imagine—the Elvis impersonator circuit. Clinton Hill was the be-all-end-all for me but now, thinking back to those tree-lined streets, to that pocket of brownstone Brooklyn I adored so much, in all its beauty, I see no charm. But when I asked if she’d keep living here come May, when their lease is up, she said she’s still not sure. She mentioned him a couple times and how couldn’t she—we wound up talking for over an hour—but casually enough for this “Austin” person to sound almost like a stranger. Knowing Kiera had errands to run and a holiday party to go to, and that it was these frenzied demands of December that nixed her plans to go see Meet Me in St. Louis, I put it plainly, “I’m going to ask you a very naked and vulnerable question—does he miss me?” With a withering glance that nevertheless brimmed over with care, she said, “Now, that’s a leading question…” Of course he misses me, and I know that, and she knows that I know that. But we also both knew what an impossible corner she’d suddenly found herself backed into. She could either betray Austin’s trust or further break my heart and, as generous as Christmas, she made a choice.
“It was only recently that he stopped saying my boyfriend Brian,” she said. “He mentions you a lot. And whenever you’d come up in a story, he’d always say my boyfriend Brian. He’s stopped that. But he doesn’t call you his ex, I’ve never heard him say that. Now, you’re always just Brian.”
Earlier, just before I got off the bus, I reached out to Grace telling her I was about to do it, that I was on my way to my old apartment. Among other things, she said, “I hope you find something beautiful in this experience.” And that became my prayer. Stepping onto Putnam Avenue and rounding the corner onto my old block, I acknowledged that I was about to do something wrong, that I was being dishonest, that this was a transgression and I was aware of it—but that I still hoped I might find something beautiful. Agreeing to Kiera’s surprising suggestion that we get coffee sometime soon, I said goodbye to her and stepped back outside. All week, when I thought about this ploy of mine, and imagined this exact moment of departure, I anticipated destruction. That all my ugliest fears would suddenly ring true after spending the last several hours hungrily seeking their confirmation and that, leaving the building, I’d be broken. But as I walked all the way home to Ridgewood that afternoon, firm on my two feet, I was okay. Not bothering to look through the bag of mail until I got back to my apartment, I pulled out the package from Aunt Patti, and a card from her as well, and an old sweater of mine that somehow got lost in the move. And tucked inside that sweater, I found a gift tied up with ribbon. Written on its brown paper wrapping, blurry through my almost endless tears, I read, “Merry Christmas, Brian. I couldn’t resist. Love, Austin.” Nothing happened as I thought it would, and I thank God for that.
It was a couple days before Christmas and, other than me and Jarod, all the other Educators still working at the museum were old New Yorkers or native New Yorkers. It was Jarod who pointed this out to me. I’m not sure I would’ve noticed—but he did. “I know you do,” he said, when I admitted to putting on an accent, Yiddish-inflected to boot, whenever I’m talking to Ruth. She was among the holdovers. I’ve gotten into the habit of recording our break room conversations on my phone. Maybe this is wrong, seeing as I’ve never asked for her permission, but I’m certain of the greater sin—for there to be no document of everything and anything my cherished 77-year-old colleague has to say. I could listen to her forever. She’ll tell me where she and her sons went out to eat in L.A. or how much she loved Emilia Perez and the joy I feel—it’s like I’m meeting my hero. She grew up in the city but Ruth was born at a displaced persons camp in Berlin to parents who survived the Holocaust. To a father who was lovely but a mother whose survivor’s guilt kept her at an embittered distance from all life’s pleasures. “Wherever she was, whatever apartment we were in, she was never happy, never liked it. Moaned and groaned, she’d want to move. But the minute we got to the next place, it was a mistake. One time my father signed a lease—and she fainted. And then he looks at the landlord and says, ‘I’d take this back but…she’ll do this wherever she goes.’” I laughed so hard, and so did she. “Like her, I suffered from depression, and that made me dislike her more because we were similar. Of course! But I remember when I went for therapy when I was 18, I didn’t even know that depression was an illness. I just said, ‘My mother’s in me.’ And he would go, ‘Well—kick her out.’ And I would go, ‘Well—I can’t.’” No, we can’t.
On the corner of 34th and 6th, I called my mother. Surrounded by European tourists spending the holiday in the city, I was a half hour early for my train to Aunt Karen’s house, where I’d spend the afternoon with Jillian, Nana, Aunt Patti and Uncle Steve, but not my parents. Spending the night at Lindsay’s house so they could wake up with their grandson to the wonder of Christmas morning, they stayed in New Hampshire. I was closer to her than I’ve been in years, New Jersey several hundred miles nearer to them than North Carolina, but the clipped, remote tone in my mother’s voice was the same as ever. Christmas, it makes us both blue. And then she tells me, “Nana’s not coming.” Insecure about her mobility, Nana didn’t feel up to the challenge of getting in and out of a car, and in and out of someone else’s house. God forbid something happen, none of us pushed the issue. But it was Christmas Day and Nana would be all alone. As I walked to Penn Station, I wondered how she felt. If she was depressed to spend the day by herself, or relieved. I wondered how often she cries, and what it was that mostly recently brought her to tears, and if it made her feel any better. I could ask Nana these things, and record her answers, and deliver us from that mortal sin of this woman’s life coming and going without a trace. Whether or not I’ll ever do this with her, with or without her permission, I really don’t know. But looking out the window at snow on the train tracks, it wouldn’t be this Christmas.
I woke up that morning and went to bed that night in New York City. In my six years of living here, this was my first time sticking around for the holidays. A New Yorker becomes a New Yorker as soon as they want to be, that’s my belief, but there is something to be said for a rite of passage. Offering to make us dinner one night, I went straight to Ethan’s apartment from work. The museum is only closed on Christmas and New Year’s so I was there all week—though we do get a daily bonus of $60 for working those days. I’ll try not to spend it all in one place. Asking me if I was a music-while-cooking person, I didn’t make it too far into my yarn about listening to celebrity memoirs during my weekly preparation of slop before Ethan said, “That was my way of saying ‘put on music.’” Hospitable in spirit, with a million friends who always show up for him, Ethan is having a hard time living in his studio apartment. There’s just not enough space to offer what he wants. Only just starting to prepare the meal, Ethan explained that the afternoon got away from him after answering a call from a friend who clearly needed to talk. Every relationship has one perpetual fight, that’s something I first heard from Ethan himself, back in March during his one man show. And when I told him just how often I still think about that idea, he said I’m not alone. That more than anything else, that’s what resonated the most with his audience. Rolling my eyes, I said, “What an original.” I did most of the talking, which still astounds me, even after all these months. That this year has given me so much to talk about and, all the more astounding, that I’ve found so many people who will listen. “You don’t want ‘Fuck the Pain Away’ by Peaches to soundtrack this moment?” I said after Ethan pulled out his grandfather’s menorah and asked me to turn off the music. Striking a match, he lit the candles and sang the prayer. “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid'shanu b-mitzvotav, v-tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.” Not thinking, Ethan put the plastic bag full of candles on top of his radiator and, by the time he realized his mistake, they were one big molten clump. Something aptly “Talmudic” about that, I’d say, though maybe I shouldn’t. Thanking him for dinner, Ethan replied that a meal is only as good as its guests—a meal he himself considered “just alright” after our first bites. Reminding him of this, Ethan said, “And I meant it.”
This morning, I will wake up on New Year’s Eve at 7:30 to the sound of my alarm, a piece of music by Bach from a cantata that translates to “Awake, calls the voice to us.” It has been my alarm every morning for the last five years and only just now am I learning this. Hannah will leave for work as I assemble my percolator and cook my oatmeal and she’ll say goodbye to me by name, and I will wonder if she understands how warmly that touches me. Fighting with Jarod once again about the latest example of the same old thing, I will question how much I can trust him and he will tell me he feels sick to his stomach because of it. I’ll write until it feels finished and then I’ll change my clothes and leave for my walk. I’ll call Shannon and, if she answers, we’ll laugh for as long as we can. With no plans tonight, no parties to attend, I won’t be in any rush. Every last minute of this year will be my own, time will be all mine. And I will think about Austin. On my walk to the Ridgewood Reservoir, and then again on my way back home, I will pass by Mount Judah Cemetery with its 54,000 gravestones. Fifty-four thousand people who held babies in their arms, and washed the dishes, and squeezed the fat on their hips, and wondered at midnight about someone they love. Men and women who led an entire life as richly as they possibly could—without a single living soul on this earth who still remembers their name. There’s a mausoleum on the corner with a mosaicked message on its facade and though I’ve read it many times before, I will read it again. To the reader. As you are now, once were we. As we are now, you must be. Be honorable, act always kindly. This is a long journey. The words are made up of many broken pieces but it’s written still in stone.
Nice read my B❤️