Page 99 of We Could Be So Good
“Thanks,” Nick says. “I mean it.”
“I don’t know why you have to make your life so hard, though. Find a girl, for Chrissake.”
Nick manages not to roll his eyes. Yeah, being queer isn’t exactly easy. Hiding is hard. Knowing what his family thinks of him is hard. But then there’s Andy—loving him, and letting Andy love him back, are the easiest things he’s ever done.
He goes back into the kitchen, where his mother is still on the phone. “Let it simmer twenty minutes, maybe?” Nick wonders who his mother is on the phone with. It can’t be one of his aunts or cousins, because then she’d be speaking at least half in Italian, and his mother would never saywhite beanswhen she could saycannellini. Probably some non-Italian from church.
“You know, this is why mothers want their sons to marry nice girls. Someone to look after them and make them good food. Men need someone to do that.” She goes silent for a minute, listening to the person on the other end of the line—now Nick’s money is on the new bride of an Italian man from church. “So you’ll make him some nice supper.”
Nick leans in and kisses his mother’s cheek before heading out into the street.
***
Instead of taking the train all the way home, Nick gets off while he’s still in Brooklyn. There’s still plenty of light left, so he walks from the Court Street station toward the Navy Yard.
He knows that there isn’t much happening there these days, even though at least one ship is being built. When he was a kid, the whole neighborhood was teeming with sailors, shipbuilders, and dockworkers. That had slowed down by the time Nick was old enough to become interested in the Navy Yard for reasons other than its ships. The waterfront from there to the Brooklyn Bridge was always good ground for cruising. There had been more than one queer bar, not to mention alleys, bathrooms, and all the usual places.
It had been maybe a fifteen-minute walk from the oldBrooklyn Eaglebuilding. Between the paper and that neighborhood, Nick discovered the first corner of the world where he belonged.
But as Nick walks along streets that had once been familiar, he realizes he can’t get to the Navy Yard. The street he used to take is gone, torn up to build a highway. He’d known the BQE was going to cut through this part of Brooklyn, but he hadn’t realized it would take this whole street off the map. He scans the area,looking for a way through, but he isn’t enough of a fool to start prowling around empty construction sites right before dusk.
In the back of his mind, he meant to look at the place where he’d been arrested. He thought that maybe seeing it would defang the memory a little, that maybe he’d see it was just an alley or something. But now he can’t even get to the memory. It’s like that whole messy time is closed off, bricked up, and he doesn’t know whether to be grateful or sad. That time is gone, that version of himself is gone, and there’s nowhere to go but forward.
He walks back to the subway stop and gets on the train to Manhattan.
***
At the top of the stairs, there’s a light under his door and the smell of garlic wafting out into the hall. Nick’s heart starts to pound, but he tells himself not to get his hopes up: it’s probably Linda heating up takeout next door, and the light he’s seeing is just a bulb he forgot to check earlier that day.
But when he turns the key in the lock, he’s holding his breath, and when he sees Andy at the stove, he feels something ease up inside of him, even if Andy anywhere within three feet of a gas burner is a pretty terrifying sight.
Nick goes over to the stove and puts his arms around Andy, hooking his chin over Andy’s shoulder. “Hey,” Nick says.
“I’d turn around and kiss you, but I don’t want to mess this up.” Andy’s stirring what looks like—
“Is that minestrone soup?”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be. Only time will tell what it actually is.”
“It smells good.” Nick presses his face into Andy’s neck. “You smell good, too.”
“I thought you might need soup,” Andy says.
In all the weeks Andy’s been living here, rarely has Nick come home to find Andy already there. Andy has a thing about being alone, and Nick usually tries to avoid making it an issue. But today Andy let himself in and cooked.
Nick tightens his arms around Andy. “I do. Thank you.”
“Are you going to let go of me so I can finish cooking?”
“No.” Anyway, the soup’s done, as far as Nick can see. He kisses beneath Andy’s ear, right where a strand of hair curls when he’s due for a trip to the barber. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he says. He doesn’t know if he’s ever said as much out loud, which probably makes him a jerk, but he hopes that this isn’t news to Andy. He can feel Andy smiling, can feel the thump his heart just gave.
“Me too.”
Eventually Nick pries himself off and they eat soup and crackers at the table. “This tastes like how my mother makes it,” Nick says, trying not to sound too surprised. Andy still can’t scramble eggs without nearly ruining a pan, and what’s more, he’s always leery of trying something new and then failing.
“It should,” says Andy, not looking at Nick. “I used your mom’s recipe.”
“My mom has a recipe?” He can’t imagine his mother using a recipe. And then the rest of his brain catches up. “How? How did you get it?”
