Avery

I hung up the phone with my sister, and said: “My nephew broke his arm. He’s home from the hospital, but I have to go to Queens.” I started running around my apartment, putting on my boots and big puffy coat.

“Oh no that’s awful. What happened?”

“He was inner tubing down a hill in the snow and he smashed into a tree. He has a cast. This all happened yesterday and they didn’t tell me.”

“Oh no. Inner tubing?”

“Yes. He was using an inner tube, like as a sled. I got it for him, for Christmas. I also got him a helmet. I can’t believe he broke his little arm. Poor guy! It’s all my fault. I can’t believe they didn’t call me as soon as it happened!”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. I broke my arm when I was a boy, it happens to most of us at some time or other. Children’s bones heal rather quickly, you know. How old is he? What’s his name?”

“Jackson. He’s seven.”

“Okay. And what’s an inner tube?”

I made an exasperated sound. “It’s a thing—a big rubber donut, you’re supposed to float in it, like in a river or a lake, but you can also ride down a hill in one when it snows.”

“Got it. Well, let’s go see Jackson. Do we take a taxi?”

“No, I’ll get a Lyft.”

“Great. With whom?”

Suddenly I was feeling the cultural differences. “It’s a car service. Like Uber but less rape-y.”

“Awesome. Let’s get a Lyft.”

“But you have meetings in the morning. You’re leaving tomorrow night. You need to sleep.” I couldn’t find my gloves. “Where are my gloves. Shit.”

“I’ve gone this long on a few hours sleep, I can sleep on the plane. I came here to be with you.” Luke found my gloves and handed them to me.

My jaw tightened. I kept looking for my scarf. He was so wonderful. Why didn’t I want him to go with me? “But I’m going to my sister’s apartment, you don’t want to spend the rest of Valentines night in my sister’s apartment in Queens—trust me.” Because my family is guaranteed to humiliate me by asking you questions and telling you things that will make you think I’m a total loser.

“Avery.” He picked up the scarf that I had been wearing earlier that day.

“No not that one! I need to wear the one he gave me for Christmas! It’s green. That’s his favorite color.” I tore through one of my drawers, frantic.

“Alright, calm down, I’ll help you find it.”

“I don’t need your help. Here. I found it.” I wrapped the extra long Kelly green scarf around my neck, practically choking myself.

Luke had already put his shoes and coat on.

“But you don’t have boots. You need thick socks. Shit, I should have bought you warm socks! I’m so sorry I didn’t even think—you must have been so cold out there! All this time! I suck!”

“It’s alright, Avery, I’m fine. Shall we go?”

“No, you need to sleep. I’m sure Queens sounds very nice and fancy and familiar to you, but trust me, it ain’t nothing to write home about.” It ain’t nothing to write home about?

“Avery, if you don’t want me to go with you, just say so.”

I can’t say that. I want you go with me and be with me and I also don’t. It’s complicated. I sighed and hugged him. “Of course I want you go with me. You’re lovely. I’m sorry, I just feel really weird right now. I feel guilty. I feel like I broke his arm.”

“You did not break his arm—nobody thinks that.”

We literally spent five minutes arguing about whether or not my buying Jackson an inner tube made me responsible for his broken arm. It was ridiculous. We barely spoke on the ride to Queens, largely because Luke kept nodding off. I texted my sister that he was coming and wrote: do not humiliate me

My brother-in-law Jimmy opened their apartment door before I’d even knocked. Jimmy was a great guy. Cute. Down-to-earth. Just the right amount of nerdy. Great husband and father. I was fully prepared to murder him if he embarrassed me in front of Luke, even though I was fully aware that I had been embarrassing myself pretty much since Day One.

“Hey Ave. I can’t believe you guys actually came tonight, get in here.”

I could tell from the way that Jimmy was grinning at me and Luke that my sister had just explained to him who Luke is, that we’ve had sex, that I spooned him while sleep-walking, and that my previous boyfriend was a plug-in vibrator. Jimmy hadn’t met one of my dates in about three years, and the last time was an accident because we ran into him at a Yankees game. I always made it a point to fly solo missions to family get-togethers, in order to avoid having to explain to them why so-and-so isn’t coming to Thanksgiving this year, and to keep the guys from getting any information about me from my family that I don’t want them knowing. Like what a lame love life I’ve had. I was pleading with Jimmy, with my eyes, to be cool.

“You must be Sir Flirt—I mean you must be Luke!” he says, grabbing Luke and pulling him in for a bro-hug.

“An you must be Jimmy.”

“Pleased to meet you, jolly good old chap, welcome welcome. Join the party.”

I rolled my eyes.

Jackie held out her hand to shake Luke’s. “I’m Jackie the big sister, it’s so nice to meet you, you’re very handsome and clean. Sorry our place is such a mess, it has been cuckoo bananas insane around here.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Jackie, I wish it were under better circumstances and you both seem very nice and clean as well.”

“Oh my God say my name again.”

“Jackie.”

“It’s not that different, but it’s so different, right?”

Please kill me now.

“I already want to kiss him.” Jimmy patted Luke on the back.

“Perhaps we should have a drink first,” said Luke, without missing a beat.

Jimmy and Jackie burst out laughing. “Boy do we need one! Good show, good show, old chap.” Jimmy gave me the thumbs up.

“Soooo,” I said. “Where’s the injured child?”

“He’s in his room, with his leg propped up.”

“Is he still in pain?”

“He’s on ibuprofen. He’s fine. He’s just itchy under the cast.”

As we headed down the hallway to Jackson’s room, I tried to distract Luke from the gallery wall of framed family photos, especially the ones of me when I was a dorky teenager. “Is this you? You had braces? You’re so cute.”

“Nope, not me, identical cousin. I never had braces or weird bangs, ever.”

“Oh my God you should see her class photo from sophomore year—Babe where is that?” Jimmy nudged Jackie, laughing.

“Um, it’s up your ass with your head, Babe.”

“I’ll leave it to my imagination, thanks.” Luke squeezed my hand.

When we got to Jackson’s room, Franny was holding Mr. Bunny up in Jackson’s face, making the enormous stuffed animal do a dance, and saying in some bizarre squeaky voice, “Mr. Bunny says get better now! Mr. Bunny commands you!”

“Get out of my face Mr. Bunny,” said Jackson.

Franny screamed at him. “Mr. Bunny will kill you! He will eat your face!”

“Franny!” Jackie, Jimmy and I all yelled at her.

She turned around and looked innocently at us, all wide-eyed. “What?! I can’t control Mr. Bunny.”

“Way past your bedtime, young lady.” Jackie tried to wrestle Mr. Bunny away from Franny. Franny literally growled at her parents, and her eyes may or may not have flashed red (it was late, I was tired). Jackie and Jimmy left the room to get Luke and me some decaf.

“Luke, this is my niece. Franny.”

“Hullo Franny. I’m Luke. I like your bunny, he’s very large.”

She was suddenly the sweetest little angel. “Hi. I love Mr. Bunny. He’s from my aunt.”

“Well done, Avery.”

“I have my moments.”

Franny stared up at Luke. I put my hand on her shoulder, so I could pick her up and haul her away as soon as she started saying anything remotely mortifying. “Are you my aunt’s friend?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you her booooyyyyyfriend?”

“Say good night Franny!” I picked her up.

Luke laughed. “Anyone who is her boyfriend would be very lucky.”

“Do you kiss her in the bushes, like muah muah muah oooh I love you I love you I love you?!”

“Not in the bushes, no.”

“My dad thought Avery only liked girls because she never—”

I covered her terrible little mouth. “Off to bed you little monster!” I hurried out of the room with her.

When I returned to Jackson’s room, Luke was holding a hair dryer over my nephew’s broken arm, aiming it into the space between the cast and his arm. Jackson’s eyes were wide and happy. It was a weird thing to see.

“It’s on cool mode,” explained Luke. “The cool air helps with the itchy skin.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “Exactly how experienced are you with broken bones?”

“Let’s just say I was a rambunctious and energetic child.”

Luke spent the next half an hour drawing on Jackson’s cast with a Sharpie pen and playing Tic Tac Toe on his cast with him. I basically didn’t even have to be there. When my sister insisted that Jackson go to sleep, he kept asking when he’d see Luke again. I went completely silent and stiff. Jackie wrinkled her forehead at me. Luke said he’d have to check his schedule, but he’d very much like to see all of them again. And then Jackson laughed at the way Luke pronounced “schedule.”

We adults drank decaf in the living room for at least an hour. While the other three were laughing, I stared into my mug. As soon as Jackie went into the kitchen, I followed her. It was almost midnight.

I wrote Jackie a check for two thousand dollars and put it in her jeans pocket. She immediately took it out and tried to give it back to me. “I don’t want your money, Ave!”

“Please just take it. It’ll cost around twenty five hundred, probably? None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me.”

“Oh my God get over yourself. He’s a seven year old boy, it was just a matter of time before he broke something.”

“I have to go home and sleep and then get ready to go to the office. Shit.” She watched me look out the door, over at Luke, who was chatting with Jimmy in the living room. I had no idea what they were talking about, but they were getting along so well. “I need to go.”

“Why are you being so weird with him?”

“What? I’m not. He’s leaving later today.”

“Have you talked about what this is? When are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know. On Skype. We’ll be working together.”

“Avery.”

“What. It is what it is, we haven’t discussed it. It’s just a workation fling. That’s a thing.”

“You need to tell him how you feel.”

“And how do I feel, dear sister, please tell me.”

“Avery Gwendolyn Davis.” She lowered her voice even more. She was exhausted and she was in no mood for messing around. “You need to tell him how much you care about him. Don’t break his heart twenty-four hours after you broke Jackson’s arm.”

My jaw dropped. “You did not just say that.”

“No I didn’t. Delete that last sentence.”

I made a face. “Oh my God—you were the one who was all ‘just shag him on the island you don’t have to think about what comes next!’”

“I know but that was before he crossed the Atlantic even further to be with you and then came here in the middle of the night and was great with my kids. That was before I saw how he looks at you.”

“He came to New York to meet with clients.”

“Please.”

“Why aren’t you happy that I had a fling with a hot British guy? We seized the moment by the balls and blah blah blah now it’s time to get back to life.”

“Avery, that man is in —”

“Don’t say it.”

“I’m serious.”

“Please, it’ll just make it harder.”

“Harder for what—for you to be happy?”

“For me to...say goodbye to him.”

She gave me that Big Sister look, the one that made my insides collapse. “You know. I wasn’t ever going to tell you this, but before Mom died, when you were at Wharton, she made me promise her that I wouldn’t let you drive away happiness.”

“Wow. You’re actually saying this to me now?”

“’Drive away happiness,’ that’s what she said. That is what you’re doing right now, and I will not sit here and watch you do it, not to him.”

“I’m not doing anything—I have priorities—I have to deal with things at work—you wouldn’t understand.”

She stiffened. “Why, because I don’t have a career?”

“No, because you married the love of your life right out of college and have two beautiful kids who will always love you!”

“Wait—what?”

I shifted in my seat so that Luke couldn’t see me behind my sister. My voice was small and child-like. “I just feel so vulnerable with him. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like I could lose everything and I can’t afford to feel that way. Ever.”

“That’s intimacy, Avery. Jimmy has literally seen a load of crap come out of me when I gave birth to our daughter, but he still wants to get up in there. When men are in love they are wonderful and that man, Luke, he is very wonderful and you deserve to be happy with him.”

“Mom deserved to be happy.”

“Mom was happy. She was never vulnerable. Dad left and she did what she had to do and she got over it. For some reason you never did. Not every man is like Dad. We may never understand why he left, but that’s his problem, it’s not ours. And Mom didn’t lose everything. She had us. She did everything for us. If you push Luke away, then what did she do it all for?”

My eyes were flooded with tears. I blinked and dabbed at my eyes, with my Kelly green scarf. “I can’t do this now. I have to go to work. Love you, I’ll call you later.”

“Avery. Do the right thing!”

Again, Luke and I barely spoke during the ride home. I pretended to sleep, and he pretended not to care that it was so bloody obvious I was pretending to sleep. He took my hand and my hand automatically squeezed it. My brain was being a crazy bitch but my body just wanted to touch him and make him feel good. It was so much feeling. It was so many feelings. I had spent the last thirteen years building the kind of life that was supposed to be a fortress that protected me from these feelings.

When we got back to my place, we slept in my bed, until six. We did not spoon. He was too tired and it was too cold to go running, so he gave himself a break. I was about to give him a break too. I was going to give him a way out, the only way out that he knew—out the door and away from the crazy lady who didn’t live in the same country as him.

I don’t even remember how I started picking a fight with him. It may have been about a toothbrush, but it led to: “I mean you obviously only slept with me because I don’t live in the same country as you or even on the same continent—and guess what—that’s great! That’s exactly why I shagged you too!”

He was exasperated, but also still amused by me. “Don’t say shagged—you aren’t allowed to say ‘shagged’ unless you’re British.”

“Well I’m definitely not British, which is why you banged me, which is my point.”

“Which is not true—the truth, Avery, is that I think the reason I’ve been doing that for the past year is that I didn’t want to get seriously involved with anyone because I wanted to stay available for you.”

Well, that is…unexpected. What am I supposed to do with that?

“Look, you’re anxious about the future, I understand. I am too.”

“I’m not anxious—I have a plan for the future and this was never a part of it. I’m glad we had this time together—you’re wonderful. You are truly wonderful, and you should go back to your Chiaras and your Amelies and I’ll go back to my career.”

“Wait—how do you know about Chiara?”

Shit. “I mean, you must have mentioned her when you were talking about your girlfriends.”

“I don’t recall discussing my girlfriends with you, and she is not my girlfriend.”

“Okay fine—I saw your phone! Okay? It was on your bed back at the villa and I saw the names. I didn’t read the messages—I’m not crazy. But I mean, whoah, those ladies are mad at you for some reason, huh? I’m guessing because you’re more focused on your career than on them—which is why we’re so perfectly not perfect for each other, if you know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Why don’t you come visit me in two weeks?”

“What?! No—I can’t just leave town again.”

“Why not? If you leave on a Thursday night —”

“No I can’t—I’ve barely even gotten home from the Bahamas—I haven’t even had time to read The Wall Street Journal in a week! You expect me to just drop everything—everything I’ve been working for my whole adult life and just go to London to have sex with you again?”

“Well no, just that last part.” I didn’t laugh. I wanted to, but I didn’t. He seemed unfazed. “Fine, I can come back here. In a month.”

“I didn’t invite you.”

“Oh…Right.”

I took a deep breath. Here goes. Deploy Level Four Crazy. “Look, if you’re really serious about this, then you need to know that I am a member of the Transhumanist party.”

“The what?”

“I am an alien conspiracy theorist. I am devoted to the philosophies of Zoltan.”

“Uh huh.” He could see right through me.

“I can send you a pamphlet, or you can read about it online.”

“Right.”

“So. Cards out on the table.”

“That’s some hand of cards you’ve got there.”

“Well. Let’s not forget how creepy it is that you didn’t tell me we made out while I was sleepwalking.”

“Says the adult woman who pretended to have a boyfriend.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“Okay, right. You’re right,” he said, as he gathered up his belongings. “Let’s nip this in the bud before either of us does anything even creepier so we can still work together if we have to.”

“Great! So we’ll cc each other on our progress reports for Bucket, and obviously email and IM and Skype about whatever.”

“Work, you mean.”

“Yes, of course work. We work together. We work so well together, so let’s keep doing that. In the way that we used to. Before.” Let’s go back to flirting on Skype without the consequences…

“Right.”

“Right. Right, you’re not going to fight me on this because that’s not your modus operandi. You’re going to let me whip myself into a frenzy and then calm down and realize how awesome you are and no hard feelings.”

“Are there hard feelings?”

“No! And it would be like really a lot easier if you could give me some hard feelings so I don’t have to feel like such a crazy asshole.”

He gave me a look, a look that clearly meant: “But you are a crazy asshole.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, the wind knocked out of me. “Thank you for that.”

He took his things and left. I thought about running down the stairs to catch him before he was out of my building, but I didn’t. I thought about sending him a text that morning, so his last day in New York wouldn’t be totally ruined, but I didn’t. I thought about calling him before he left for the airport, but I didn’t. I tried to picture myself running to the airport and declaring my love for him. But I couldn’t. He didn’t text or call or run after me either. He was gone.