Page 32 of We Could Be So Good
“Do you think she’d want one of those pastries?” Andy takes the box from the refrigerator.
“You bought cannoli?”
Andy is close to mortification at how far he went overboard. “Yeah, I remembered you getting one that time we went past that Italian bakery on East Eleventh Street.”
“Thank you.” Nick isn’t frowning anymore, but he looks dazed. Probably too much wine on top of the head injury. Andy ought to have put his foot down and stopped Nick from cooking.
Nick finally moves out of the way, but Andy feels his eyes on him as he leaves the apartment.
***
Andy’s awkwardness is worn away fifty percent by red wine and mozzarella cheese and fifty percent by the brute force with which Linda drags him into the conversation. And once he calms down a bit, he notices that Charlie isn’t only flirting with Nick, but with Linda, too. And possibly with Andy as well, but he can’t quite process that, so he doesn’t.
Nick only has three chairs, so they eat in the living room, Sylvia in the seldomly used armchair, Charlie and Linda cross-leggedon the floor in front of the coffee table, and Nick and Andy on the sofa. At some point Nick stretches his arm across the back of the sofa, his fingers so close to the nape of Andy’s neck that he can almost feel them, so close that Andy has a hard time thinking about anything else. When Nick gets up to bring the dishes to the sink, he claps Andy on the shoulder and, Jesus Christ, Andy needs to get a grip.
He tries to focus his attention on Sylvia, who reminds him of Emily in that she’s both sharp and beautiful. “Emily would have had fun tonight,” he says when Nick comes back.
Nick gives him an odd look, half sympathy, half something else. “You miss her.”
“Yeah.” Of course he misses her. He was ready to spend his life with her; it’s only natural that he’s feeling her absence and the loss of the life he thought they’d have together. But he isn’t over here pining or anything.
Why isn’t he, though? Is it strange that he doesn’t feel worse? It’s only been a week. He wonders if this is one of his deficiencies; maybe he just doesn’t feel things the right way. But part of him always expected her to leave, and so he couldn’t be too surprised when it actually happened. With the amount of wine currently in his system, Andy’s able to admit that maybe he’s always expecting people to leave. Maybe it’s a little safer to assume everyone has a foot out the door, someplace more interesting to be.
“Oh, hello, darling,” says Linda in a peculiar voice. Andy follows her gaze to where an orange cat is peering out of the kitchen doorway. “What’s your name, sweetheart? Nick, I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“He doesn’t,” Andy says at the same time Nick says, “I don’t.”
But there is, undeniably, a cat in the apartment.
“It’s a neighborhood cat.” Nick sounds the tiniest bit defensive.
“We’re on the fifth floor,” Linda points out. “He didn’t just wander in here.”
“Nick leaves the window open for him,” Andy says, remembering the kitchen window that has to be left cracked, allegedly for ventilation. Nick shoots him a betrayed look. “How have I been here a full week and not seen this fellow until now?”
“He doesn’t live here. He isn’t my cat. I just— Look, sometimes he gets up to the top of the fire escape and can’t get back down, so I leave my window open and then carry him down to the street.”
“You carry the cat down to the street,” Andy says.
“Otherwise he screams his head off outside my window!”
“He lets you carry him down.”
“Letsis a strong word. He doesn’t actively try to kill me, let’s say.”
“What kind of cat can’t get down a fire escape?” asks Charlie.
“I never said he was smart,” Nick says, and the other four people in the room scold him.
Andy’s had enough wine for the presence of a strange, likely flea-ridden cat not to matter much in the grand scheme of things, so he decides to ignore it. But he definitely wants front-row seats when Nick carries the poor thing downstairs. For now, he slides his mostly empty plate toward the cat, not that the animal looks like he’s missed too many meals.
Somebody puts on a record, and Andy knows just enough to be able to identify it as blues. He waves away the joint that Sylvia passes him, because he’s already boneless, so relaxed that he thinks he might never be able to get up again. He tips his head back, thinking to lean it against the back of the couch, but Nick’s arm is there again.
For a moment, neither of them moves. And then Nick jerks his hand away so quickly, it nearly hurts, like he’s pulling his palm away from a hot stove.
Chapter Seven
Andy isn’t expecting an epiphany at eight on a Monday morning when he’s still mostly asleep, when his first cup of coffee is still hot in his hand. Honestly, Andy isn’t expecting an epiphanyever.
