When I heard tires on the drive, my first thought was that Michael had called the cops before high-tailing it back to Boulder, which would have served me right. He wasn’t Jamie; we weren’t teenagers. We were grown men and I had assaulted him.
Whatever the case, I remained seated at the kitchen table, one hand cradling a glass of whiskey. I had a reasonable buzz going, enough to numb my mind so that my thoughts tumbled along softly instead of cutting up my brain with their clarity.
Michael let himself in, which actually caused me to smirk.
“It’s me,” he said carefully, though I could very well see him on the periphery of my vision. “Figured I could ... let myself in.” He chuckled half-heartedly. He saw the humor in it, too.
“A learning machine,” I mumbled.
“That’s me.” He edged his way into the kitchen. For the second time that month, but more seriously now, I wondered if I was going insane. It made no sense for Michael to have returned. Only in my imaginings would this person come back.
I spent a lot of time alone in my house. Too much time, maybe. Was it possible that I had conjured up the entire thing—the profile, the journalist, these visits? But I had talked to my agent. I had talked to my ex-wife. Or could my mind produce something that elaborate? I supposed I shouldn’t put anything past it, my mind.
“Do you mind if I sit?” He was standing at a safe distance.
I gestured to the chair across from mine, at the far end of the table. He sat, opened his laptop. I watched without looking directly at him. I was preoccupied, and embarrassed.
“That new?” I said after a while.
“Yeah. Brand new MacBook Pro. Sixteen gigs of memory, i7 processor, retina display, SSD—you name it.”
“The works.”
“The whole works.” He sounded happy, but he cringed as I pushed away from the table and wandered past. I retrieved a glass and set it near him. I slid the bottle of whiskey over and retook my seat.
“Oh. Thanks.” He poured himself a modest amount and sipped it. “Good stuff.”
I drained my glass in agreement.
For a while then, we sat in a semi-comfortable silence. Wind pressed against the house. He scooted the whiskey toward me. I poured myself another two fingers and slid the bottle back. He drank, typed, refilled his glass. I informed him that my Wi-Fi had no password, seeing as no one lived close enough to take advantage of it.
“So have at it,” I said. I was still staring at the table, feeling pleasantly lightheaded. A damp spot crept along my inner thigh, as if blood were leaking through the gauze and medical tape I had put there. No matter. After my shower, I had changed into a sweater and black jeans, just in case.
“You might regret saying that. I can eat up a lot of bandwidth.”
I smiled faintly.
More silence, more wind and branches scraping against the house, and then he cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?” He had made his voice as soft, as unobtrusive as possible. It could almost have been the wind.
I nodded a little.
He moved his glass slowly from hand to hand, the heavy base dragging against the grain of the table. I liked the noise. I was calm, almost sleepy.
“Did something ... happen to you?”
I could have played dumb, but I knew what he meant, and he deserved some answers after coming back. The more I reflected on the fact that he had come back, the more supernatural it seemed. I was glad, though, so glad he had.
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said, because I knew he was imagining that I had been abused. That would rationalize my jumpiness, my outburst. “I had a good childhood. Practically perfect. My parents never did any wrong by me. I’ve lied about other things, and I’m sure I’ll lie again, but about this, I’m telling the truth.”
“What is it, then?” He leaned forward.
I shook my head and he let it go.
But I was in the mood for conversation, surprisingly, so I asked how he could stand living in cramped Boulder with all its hippies and vegans and he told me about his life there, his girlfriend and corgi.
“Furio? Is he furious?”
“Not at all.” He laughed. “It’s from The Sopranos. My favorite character.”
I admitted I had never seen the show and he insisted that I should.
“I would re-watch it with you,” he said. “Seriously.” Two shallow glasses of whiskey and his face was already flushed and he wanted to marathon a television show with me. That made me think about how easy it would be for someone to take advantage of him, which made me angry.
“Like I said”—I gestured toward the TV with my drink—“have at it.”
I went out to smoke while he logged in to his HBO account on my TV. He was still fiddling with it when I came back in.
“I can’t get over the smoking and running,” he said.
“The eternal mystery.” I brought the whiskey to the family room and refilled both our glasses.
“What’s the motivation for working out?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I slouched into the corner of the couch, closed my eyes, and propped my feet on the coffee table. “If it’s not health, and it’s not health, it’s vanity.”
“Oh.”
I laughed a little, low in my throat. What a child he was.
Out of fear or respect for my space, he sat at the opposite end of the couch. We would have looked slightly ridiculous to anyone else.
I watched the show and he half-watched while working on his laptop.
“By the way, thank you,” he blurted out at one point.
Whatever he was thanking me for, I waved it away.