Page 56 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Chapter 15: Begin as You Mean to Go On
Reg woke drowsily athis desk at dawn with tight and aching muscles.He crawled into bed and didn’t wake again until noon.Joel’s bedroom door was shut, and in the kitchen, he found a clean bowl and spoon on the draining board and a note on the table written in perfect cursive:
I’ve gone out.I’ll be back later.
—Joel
Reg took coffee and toast upstairs to his room and worked over the draft of the poem he’d written the night before, to help him bear the waiting.Sometimes, when the words flowed, the writing came out clean and seamless, but last night’s writing was choppy—perfect, fragmented crystalline pieces—and the revision involved fitting the pieces together in a reasonable order and smoothing the edges so the seams didn’t show.The work was painstaking, and he lost track of time.
When he next looked up, his bedside clock read two o’clock, and he decided he had done as much wordsmithing as he could stand for one day.He went downstairs.Joel’s bedroom door was still shut, and the kitchen was still empty.He sat in the living room, fretting and staring at nothing before realizing what he was doing.He wandered around the swimming pool, across the lawn to the empty tennis court where everything had changed, around the entire perimeter of the grounds, smoking one cigarette after another.
He didn’t find Joel, and really, he should not have been looking, as clearly, Joel wanted to be alone.Reg felt guilty, and he knew he deserved it when he thought about what he had done and how young and inexperienced Joel was.
He went to the library inside the house, took down one book after another, flipped through their pages, and put them back.He was looking for something, but he didn’t know what.
At five o’clock, Bethan called Reg to tell him supper was ready.Reg thanked her profusely and sent her home, telling her he would clean up afterwards.After the front door closed behind her, Reg looked at the food.He couldn’t eat.He sat at the kitchen table, gazing through the window.
The fact that had been distressing him all day was that he had only been rejected once in his life, and he had never really recovered.He wasn’t used to being at the mercy of someone else’s feelings, and the fact was, his heart was entirely in Joel’s hands.
He heard the front door open and thought it was Bethan, but a few moments later, Joel stood in the kitchen doorway, looking tired.He was wearing dove-grey scrubs today.
“Have you eaten dinner?”said Reg.
“I didn’t have any money to buy anything.”
“Bethan’s made some fresh pasta.Would you like some?”
“Yes,” said Joel.“What time is it?”
“After five.Left your watch behind?”
“I forgot to put it back on.”Joel looked at his wrist.“My arm feels lighter.”
“Do you like that?”
“I’m not used to it.”
Reg plated the food and opened a bottle of wine.He poured Joel a glass.“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to finish it.”
Dinner was awkward at first.Reg wasn’t sure whether to wait for Joel to raise the subject or to broach it himself.The situation had been so different with Flip.They’d both been equally inexperienced.They’d also been equally keen on each other, so Reg had known where he stood from the outset.This wasn’t the case with Joel.
“What did you do today?”said Reg.
“I went to the park and threw a boomerang I found in my bedroom.”
“Oh, that.”
“It doesn’t work,” said Joel.
