EMMA
I feel so much better when I wake up. My muscles ache, my neck throbs in particular, but my head is clear. My relief is overwhelming, almost like I needed to have that seizure to feel normal again. I hadn't even realized I felt it building. I stretch and look at the clock. Five pm. I have basically been asleep for an entire day since having the seizure, which means my inbox will be full and I'll have about ten messages from my mother in my voicemail. I decide to shower, find food, and then tackle my phone.
After marinating in the hot water for much longer than usual, I wrap a towel around my head and walk into the kitchen. One of my favorite perks of living alone, I decide, is the ability to sit stark naked at my counter and eat without worrying about getting food on my shirt.
I whistle, marveling at how clear my head feels, and walk to the sink to fill the coffee pot. While I turn on the water, I happen to look toward the living room and I scream.
I drop the pot to the tile floor, and the glass shatters as I keep screaming.
Thatcher Stag sits up on my couch, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and then staring at me, open-mouthed. "Shit," he says.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" My voice is shrill and, having nothing in my hands, I move to cover my breasts and crotch.
"Don't move," he says, walking toward me.
"Don't come near me!! I'm naked."
He keeps approaching. "I can see that, Emma, and I'll try to look away, ok, but there's broken glass and you're barefoot."
I start looking around, wildly, unsure how to proceed here. Thatcher steps into his sneakers and walks toward me. "Woah," he says. "You have red pubes."
"Fuck you, Thatcher!" This is like a nightmare.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says, walking toward me and averting his eyes. "I just…the women I sleep with don't really ever have pubic hair. So…"
"Can you spare me the sexy storytime?"
He nods, keeping his head turned. As he approaches me in the kitchen, he reaches toward my head. I stiffen, but he's pulling the towel off my hair. "Here," he says, his voice surprisingly gentle. "You can cover up with this." He walks toward the fridge, where I have the dustpan and broom wedged between the appliance and the wall, and I hastily wrap the towel around my body. I stand stock still as he stoops to clean up the glass.
"What are you still doing here?" I whisper.
He pours the fragments into the trash and squints, looking around the kitchen. "I think I got it all," he says, "but just to be safe." He picks me up effortlessly and carries me over to the hall, placing me down as I stare at him with wide eyes. "I told you I'd be here when you woke up," he says, shrugging. "Go on and get dressed. I have to tell you what happened."
Five minutes later, when I'm safely dressed in sweats, Thatcher reminds me that my parents were rude, tells me how my sister stopped by to complain and maybe gloat, and he shows me the feast Alice left. Since there's no way I can eat all this before it goes bad, and since I've just about gotten over my humiliation at Thatcher seeing me naked, I decide to share the chicken parm and fresh pasta with him. He did, after all, hang out while I slept to make sure I was ok. Twice.
He makes me laugh, impersonating my sister's hair toss while we wait for the water to boil for the noodles Alice hand rolled this morning. I fill him in on my family, avoiding eye contact. "My dad is a state senator," I tell him. "Our politics are polar opposites, Thatcher. I disagree with almost every measure he supports."
Thatcher tests a noodle and moans. "These are done," he says, shutting off the burner and draining the pasta. "Look, Emma. You can't help who your parents are and neither can I. Don't feel bad about that shit."
"Yeah, but it's not so easy figuring out how to navigate seeing your parents whose choices you hate, is it?" I know I've got him there. He's clearly thinking about seeing his father in the hospital as we go on to eat in silence. As soon as Thatcher finishes, he rinses his dishes and stands beside me.
"Don't make any plans after work tomorrow," he tells me. "I have a surprise for you." I raise an eyebrow, but he won't elaborate. "Call me when you get home from work, ok? We need to talk." He sidles out of the apartment, and I try not to stare at his ass as he leaves. Or the way his shoulder muscles move inside his t-shirt. Shit, I think. He just saw me naked. Thatcher Stag has probably seen a thousand women naked, and he basically admitted he was only taking a clinical interest in my bush. Of course the supermodels he fucks don't have pubic hair. There's no reason to think that he might still be thinking of this as anything but a mutually beneficial, non-sexual arrangement. I remind myself that he also saw me seizing on the ground at his brother's house, throwing up…but he didn't run away screaming.
Rather than think about why it would bother me so much if he had, I decide to read my emails and check my voicemails. After I call Nicole.
"Talk to me, Emma. You've been radio silent since the Reindeer party." I hit the major points of the disaster that was the past 24 hours while she runs on the treadmill in her office. "Do you need me to come over with tequila?" she asks.
"I know you're joking," I tell her. "But I appreciate the sentiment."