Epilogue

 

 

December

 

GINGER’S SHOP window looks like some kind of insane Victorian-era Chanukah circus exploded in a burst of needles and lace. Blue and white velvet ribbon tacked up with tattoo needles spells out “Tattoo Bitch” in scrolling cursive. The Bud Light can angels hover in the corners of the window and old tattoo machines are stacked on top of each other to make a metal tree. Everything is dusted with blue and silver glitter. It actually looks kind of awesome.

“Yaaaay!” Ginger calls as I step into the shop. “It’s Chanukah!”

“Well, technically, Chanukah’s over, but—”

“Shut up. Chanukah is never over. The oil will burn for eternity!”

Good thing no one’s in the shop because Ginger is clearly in giddy mode. I can’t help but grin into her hair as she launches herself at me for a hug.

“Okay, you can tell me everything while we go get the food.”

I stow my bags behind the counter and Ginger leads me back to the door, her elbow linked in mine.

“Everything about what?”

“Everything about how you look stupid happy.”

She squeezes my elbow in the crook of her arm and grins at me.

“Huh. So do you,” I tell her. “I hope we don’t get hit by a bus to even it all out.”

“Pff. On South Street? As if the traffic ever moves fast enough for that to kill us. Golden Empress?”

“Of course.”

As we get our takeout, Ginger tells me about going to Christopher’s parents’ house for dinner and how she made a mostly good impression until she accidentally laughed in his dad’s face when he said he loved Neil Diamond because she thought he was kidding.

I tell Ginger what Virginia said about the Temple job and about Rex asking me to move in with him. What I don’t tell her much about is that Rex and I talked a lot about the future last night. About our options. About how he’d feel leaving Holiday. I don’t tell her that last night, when we went to bed, I put the key to Rex’s cabin—our cabin, now, I guess—on the bedside table so I could see it until I drifted off. Or that, when I fell asleep in Rex’s arms, his big hands all over me, I felt certain that he would be there in the morning. That I wouldn’t wake up to find that the world had disappeared.

While we eat, Ginger plays Christmas music DJ, putting on everything from Scottish boy choirs to Scott Weiland’s Christmas album. I practically choke to death on a mouthful of sweet and sour chicken when I crack up at a YouTube parody of a Time Life CD commercial featuring A Very Eddie Vedder Christmas in which some genius has manipulated Pearl Jam songs into the form of Christmas carols. Finally, she puts on The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is her favorite Chanukah movie because she says it’s obvious that Jack Skellington—a skinny outsider who tries to gain access to Christmas by studying it—is a metaphor for Jewish kids growing up and trying to figure out what the big deal about Christmas is.

“So, you got the text from Colin, but you haven’t heard from him since then?” Ginger asks as Jack discovers the portal to Christmas Town.

“No.” I didn’t really expect to, either. Mostly, I think the only reason he sent me that text was because he was afraid that if I didn’t hear from him I might tell Brian and Sam what I saw at dad’s funeral.

“What did the guy look like? The one at the cemetery?”

“I didn’t get much of a look at him. Big. Like, Rex big. Maybe bigger. Dark hair, dark eyes. I don’t know, man. He looked kinda hot, I guess. Mostly I just noticed he was, like, crazy still. He didn’t react to anything that happened. Didn’t step in and fight. Didn’t try to help Colin when we were fighting. Rex pulled me off him, but this guy just stood there. It was weird, actually. He didn’t even say anything, but….”

“But?”

“But not like he didn’t care. I mean, when I walked in he was… holding Colin. Like, cradling him. Gently. Colin was sobbing and this guy definitely cared. It was more like… maybe he knew what was going on? Like, knew what was at stake for Colin and didn’t want to intrude or something. Fuck, I don’t know.”

“They care about each other, then, right? I mean for Colin to have this guy at your dad’s funeral—”

“Yeah, I know. I guess so? Ugh, I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I’m going to try and find Colin tomorrow and see if I can talk to him.”

Ginger flops upside down on the couch, her hair trailing the carpet, staring at her little Chanukah tree. It’s wrapped in white twinkle lights and hung with hundreds of stars cut out of blue paint chips from the hardware store. Every shade of blue you can imagine, from the palest baby blue to the deepest navy. It’s beautiful.

“Do you think Colin’s a top or a bottom?” she muses.

“Dude, stop! He’s my brother.”

“Well, I’m just saying. Do you think he likes—”

“Jesus, Ginge, seriously. No. I refuse.”

“Is it wrong that I think Colin’s kind of hot now that I know he’s gay? And tortured.”

“You are seriously fucked-up.” I think about it for a second. “Okay, I would totally think that about someone who wasn’t my brother.”

“Okay, but just for one sec—you saw this guy. Can’t you guess if he—”

“Presents! You want your presents?”

Ginger pouts, but it’s well established that presents are a subject change that she’ll allow.

We have a firm rule that we can’t spend money on gifts and an equally firm one that all gifts can be regifted, recycled, or trashed without any concession to sentimentality. Ginger nearly always gives me a tattoo, so that rule mostly applies to my gifts, which I always used to find by picking through stuff that people left at the bar. They usually weren’t great, but one banner year some girl left a red leather jacket and I’ll never be able to top it. Even so, I’m pretty pleased about this year’s gifts, especially since I didn’t have the bar as a hunting ground. Luckily for me, Ginger loves the intersection of functionality and kitsch and, if I’ve learned anything since moving to Holiday, it’s that almost all Michigan souvenirs live in that intersection.

I hand Ginger the lumpy packages that I wrapped in extra handouts from my classes.

“Oh, thank god,” Ginger says, fanning herself as she accepts them. “I was getting seriously concerned that I wouldn’t know how to structure my conclusion!”

“Don’t worry. The other one’s on thesis statements, so you’ll have a well-balanced essay.”

“The tart cherries!” Ginger examines the jar of tart cherry preserves topped with a square of red and white plaid cloth. “This does not look free, you cheater.”

“Oh, it was free. The lady who owns one of the touristy shops near campus gave it to me.” Ginger narrows her eyes. I suppose it’s justified: one year I did try and convince her that I’d gotten a sheet cake for free. To be fair, the week before, one of my friends had gotten a whole cake from a Trader Joe’s dumpster. Still, since this one said “Happy Chanukah, you animal,” with a picture of Animal from the Muppets done in frosting, it was a hard sell.

“She just handed it to you for no reason?”

“Um, well, no. Her daughter was in one of my classes and I, um, accidentally used the shop’s sign as an example when I went off on a rant about unnecessary apostrophes….”

“Oh, jeez. What was her sign?”

“She seemed like a Capricorn.”

Ginger swats me.

“It’s called Nifty Things, and the big sign is fine, but then in the window there are two signs and one says Nifty Thing apostrophe s and the other says Nifty Things apostrophe. Anyway, I guess my student told her mom and her mom got the signs fixed. Then, one day when I was walking past the shop, she just popped out of the front door like she’d seen me coming and gave me those preserves.”

“Creepy.”

“So creepy. Dude, seriously, half the shit that happens in Holiday would seem like something out of a horror movie if there was scary music playing in the background. Or a David Lynch movie.”

“If it had happened in Philly, that lady would’ve come out of her shop with a baseball bat.”

“Right? Rex says I’m pathologically negative because I’m afraid if I admit that things are good, then I have to be scared they’ll go away, so I just make myself expect the worst. Even if it’s a quaint old couple with chainsaws at a Christmas tree farm.”

“Uuuummm, that sounds… accurate? Wait, a quaint old couple with a chainsaw like in that fucked-up movie?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Ginger sighs and slumps onto the floor.

“I like him.”

“Who?”

“Duh, Rex. I think he’s great for you.”

“Well, I liked Christopher too.”

“Obviously.”

I slide onto the floor next to her and push the other gift into her lap.

“This one, I totally cheated on. It wasn’t free and I won’t pretend it was, but it’s awesome and I have a job now, so deal with it.”

“Ooh, babycakes, I love it when you’re so forceful. Oh crap, that’s awesome!” she says, tearing the paper off the novelty ice cube trays. “Let’s make some right now.”

In the kitchen, Ginger fills the little Michigans with water.

“Wait, I know what we have to do.”

Ginger pulls coffee ice cream out of the freezer, the only food she can always be counted on to have in the house. She scoops some into a bowl and mushes it up until it’s soft, then she packs it into the second ice cube tray, smoothing it into perfect little Michigan ice creams.

“Hang on,” she says, rifling through her cabinets. “Ah ha!” She pulls a dusty box of toothpicks from the back of a cabinet and sticks one in the center of each ice cube. “Do you think I should put one in the upper peninsulas too?” she asks. “So they don’t detach when we pop them out?”

“Um,” I say, staring between Ginger and the ice cube trays. “Who the fuck are you right now?”

Ginger drops her gaze to the floor for a second and when she looks back up her expression is sheepish.

“Okay, so maybe I saw Christopher do something like this once.” She rolls her eyes. “Okay, and maybe he’s teaching me to cook a little bit.”

I fake gasp and put my hand to my heart.

“Ginger Marie, as I live and breathe!” She flips me off. “Um, well, Rex may be trying to teach me to cook, too….”

“Oh god, what’s to become of us? Domesticated!”

“It’s just ice cream in an ice cube tray, Ginge, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Oh? And what culinary masterpieces have you achieved?”

“Uh. None. I made eggs that actually tasted like what I would imagine it feels like to die. Though I did somehow manage to infuse normal toast with such a strong scent of fire that I think it might be considered molecular gastronomy.”

“Molecular what now?”

“Molecular gastronomy. I saw it on one of Rex’s cooking shows. It’s kind of awesome. It’s like, they use dry ice and a bunch of other chemicals to make one food taste like or look like another. So, like, they could make something that looked like coffee ice cream, but then when you taste it, it’s actually meat loaf or something.”

“That’s the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would anyone want meat loaf when they could have coffee ice cream?”

“Um, I don’t think I explained it well.”

We put the ice cube trays in the freezer and drop back on the couch as Jack Skellington’s minions are abducting Santa.

“God, Oogie Boogie has the sexiest voice,” Ginger says, and I nod.

“Oh, hey, Rex wanted to get you a Chanukah present, but when I told him about the whole free thing—”

“Which you cheated on.”

“Which I cheated on. Anyway, he says that if you want, he’ll build you new shelves in the back of the shop if he’s in Philly again. He says he noticed that yours were uneven.”

“He was only downstairs for, like, two minutes.”

“Dude, he’s creepy observant. It’s….” I shake my head, remembering how I reaped the benefits of Rex’s incredible powers of observation last night. How he held me down and explored every inch of my body, watching my reactions and zeroing in on all the places that had me squirming until, after what felt like hours, I was trembling in his arms, every touch electrifying, begging for him to be inside me. I shiver and shake it off, but Ginger is watching me like she can see the film reel playing in my head. I clear my throat.

“Well, that’s nice of him. Tell him I’ll give him any tattoo he wants in exchange.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“What? Why?”

Because Rex is perfect as he is. Flawless. Because he’s already a work of art. Because I don’t want anyone touching him but me. Not even Ginger.

“Um, I just… like him as he is….”

“Wait, what do you mean if he’s in Philly again? Why wouldn’t he be?”

“His words. I think he just didn’t want to assume.”

“Why shouldn’t he assume?”

“No, I mean, he should. I just. I don’t know. Who knows what’ll happen. If I’ll get the Temple job; if Rex would actually move if I did get it.”

“Didn’t he say he would?”

“Yeah.”

Ginger pulls out her phone and clicks around, giving me a very Ginger look.

“Hey, Rex,” she says.

“What the hell, Ginge?”

“I’m going to need confirmation on something. Did you or did you not tell Daniel that you would move to Philadelphia with him if he gets the job at Temple?”

“Ginger!” I hiss.

“Uh-huh, that’s what I thought. And did he or did he not agree to move in with you, whether or not that happens?”

“Ginger, give me the goddamn phone.”

“Excellent. I’m so happy for you both.”

“Ginger!”

“Hey, are my shelves really so crooked that you—”

I grab the phone from her and glare.

“Hi,” I say. “Sorry. She just, um, called.”

“Hi,” Rex says, his warm voice growly over the phone.

“Um, what are you up to?” I ask. I can picture him, drinking a beer in front of the Food Network, Marilyn curled by the fire, our Christmas tree lit up. God, I already miss him and I haven’t even been gone for twelve hours.

“And what are you wearing?” Ginger yells from the kitchen.

Rex chuckles softly.

“Actually,” he says, and he sounds a little shy all of a sudden, “I was using your computer. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure. What for?”

“I was looking at a slideshow of stuff to do in Philadelphia.”

“Yeah?” There’s a warm flutter behind my ribs.

“Mmhmm. And as for what I’m wearing, well. I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

I groan, Rex’s words turning the warm flutter in my chest to a heat that dips considerably lower.

“Ooh, they’re perfect!” Ginger calls from the kitchen.

“What are you guys up to?” Rex asks.

“Making Michigan-shaped ice cream thingies.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your Chanukah,” Rex says seriously. I love that he respects how important my traditions with Ginger are.

“Okay. I… I miss you.” My voice is almost a whisper. I don’t know why I’m so self-conscious that Ginger might hear me.

“Hey, Daniel.” Rex’s voice is liquid heat. “I love you. I miss you too.”

I can feel myself flushing. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to hearing those words in Rex’s deep voice. They’re like a brand, marking me, claiming me.

“I love you too,” I say softly, hunching around the phone like I can direct the words more precisely to him.

“I’ll see you in a few days, baby.” I can practically see Rex’s smile, tender and satisfied.

“Bye.”

When I turn around, Ginger’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her expression soft. She’s licking an upper peninsula thoughtfully.

“So, what’s your pleasure this year?” Her expression turns mischievous. “Maybe Rex’s name on your ass? Ooh, or the cabin? I do a really good wood grain.”

I flip her off and she grins, but I can’t help but wonder how Rex would react if he pulled my pants down and saw his name scrawled across my ass in Ginger’s gorgeous script.

I fumble through my jacket pockets and pull out my keys.

“I want this.” I hand Ginger the wooden keychain in the shape of Michigan that Rex put the key to the cabin on. “And a little heart here.” I point to where Holiday would be.

“Oh crap, babycakes, that’s so good.” She sounds awed. “Let me grab the stuff from downstairs.”

It’s a small piece, but it turns out beautifully. In the end, Ginger convinced me that we should add the chain and the key. It’s so detailed and realistic that it looks like Rex just dropped the key on my chest.

“You’re sure it’s not too sappy that we put it over my heart?” I ask her, gazing down at it in awe.

“Too late, sucker,” she says, but she’s looking at the piece with satisfaction. She takes a picture with her phone. “No, I think it’s perfect.”

“It is perfect.”

“Should I send Rex the picture?”

“No. I want to surprise him.”

I stroke lightly over the key, glad that I’ll take the slight ache of the needle with me tomorrow when I try and confront Colin.

I lean back and let my eyes go unfocused as I look at the Chanukah tree. It’s a beautiful blur of green and blues. It’s almost like I’m looking through the window at Rex’s cabin—our cabin. Like it’s early in the morning and I’m still half-asleep, Rex’s warmth behind me, his face buried in my neck, and I’m looking out at the pine trees and blue sky. I can almost feel his arms around me, smell that mixture of cedar and pine and wood smoke that is Rex’s alone.

I close my eyes and let my hand rest on my chest. I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the next year. Whether I’ll get the Temple job or not. Whether I’ll stay in Holiday or move back to Philly. But, for the first time, the uncertainty isn’t freaking me out. Because I know that Rex will be there—wherever there is. And now I can look down at this key anytime I want and see my connection to him. See my way home.