“You don’t really know very much about this,” I said, “if you don’t mind my saying.”
Why would I take advice from a woman who slept every night alone in her bed, cuddling up with some copy of Aristotle? What could she possibly tell me that I could use? And she was getting older by the minute, with her squinty eyes and her short hair stuck too close to her head.
It was snowing the day Boyd got released from Rikers. I was home with Oliver when his friend Maxwell went to pick him up. He didn’t want me and Oliver seeing him then, with his bag of items, with his humbling paperwork, with the guards leaning over every detail. By the time I got to view Boyd he was in our local coffee shop with Maxwell, eating a cheeseburger, looking happy and greasy. Oliver went berserk, leaping all over him, smearing his little snowy boots all over Boyd’s pants. I leaped a little too. “Don’t knock me over,” Boyd said. “Nah, knock me over. Go ahead.”
“Show him no mercy,” Maxwell said.
Already Boyd looked vastly better than he had in jail, and he’d only been out an hour. “Can’t believe it,” he said. “Can’t believe I was ever there.” He fed French fries to Oliver, who pretended to be a dog. Boyd had his other hand on my knee. We could do that now. “Hey, girl,” he said. The snow outside the window gave everything a lunar brightness.
The first night he stayed with me, after it took forever to get Oliver asleep in the other room, I was madly eager when we made our way to each other at last. How did it go, this dream, did we still know how to do this? We knew just fine, we knew all along, but there were fumbles and pauses, little laughing hesitations. I had imagined Boyd would be hungry and even rough, but, no, he was careful, careful; he looped around and circled back and took some sweet byways before settling on his goal. He was trying, it seemed to me, to make this first contact very particular, trying to recognize me. I didn’t expect this from him, which showed what I knew.
At my job in the vet’s office my fellow workers teased me about being sleepy at the desk. They all knew my boyfriend had returned after a long trip. Any yawn brought on group hilarity. “Look how she walks, she hobbles,” one of the techs said. What a raunchy office I worked in, people who dealt with animals. All I said was, “Laugh away, you’re green with envy.”
I was distracted, full of wayward thoughts—Boyd and I starting a restaurant together, Boyd and I running off to Thailand, Boyd and I having a kid together, maybe a girl, what would we name her, Oliver would like this, or would he? I lost focus while I was doing my tasks at the computer and had to put up with everyone saying how sleepy I was.
Jail doesn’t always change people in good ways, but in Boyd’s case it made him quieter and less apt to throw his weight around. He had to find a new job (no alcohol), which was a big challenge to his stylish self. I was sort of proud of him when he started in as a waiter in a diner just north of our neighborhood. This was definitely a step down for him, which he bore grudgingly but not bitterly. His hair at night smelled of frying oil and broiler smoke. His home was not exactly with me—he was officially camped out at his cousin’s, since his own apartment was gone—but he spent a lot of nights at my place. I liked the cousin (Maxwell, who had sometimes babysat for Oliver), but he had a tendency to drag Boyd out to clubs at night. In my younger days I liked to go clubbing same as anyone but once I had Oliver it pretty much lost its appeal. I had reason to imagine girls in little itty-bitty outfits were busy throwing themselves at Boyd in these clubs, but it turned out that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Maxwell had a scheme for increasing Boyd’s admittedly paltry income. It had to do with smuggling cigarettes from Virginia to New York, of all idiotic ways to make a profit. Just to cash in on the tax difference. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said. “You want to violate probation?”
“Don’t shout,” Boyd said.
“Crossing state lines. Are you crazy?”
“That’s it,” Boyd said. “You always have opinions. Topic closed. Forget I said a word.”
I didn’t take well to being shushed. I snapped at him and he got stony and went home early that night. “A man needs peace, is that too much to ask?” When would he be back? Did I give a fuck?
“You think I give a fuck?” I said.
I was with Kiki the next day, having lunch near my office. She was checking up on me these days as much as she could, which included treating me to the mixed falafel plate. I told her about the dog I’d met at my job who knew three languages. It could sit, lie down, and beg in English, Spanish, and ASL. “A pit bull mix. They’re very smart.”
“You know what I think?” Kiki said. “I think you should go live somewhere where you’d learn another language. Everyone should really.”
“Someday,” I said.
“I still have a friend in Istanbul. I bet you and Oliver could go camp out at her place. For a little while. It’s a very kid-friendly culture.”
“I don’t think so. My life is here.”
“It doesn’t have to be Istanbul, that was my place, it’s not everyone’s. There are other places. I’d stake you with some cash if you wanted to take off for a while.”
I wasn’t even tempted.
“It’s very good of you,” I said.
“You’ll be sorry later if you don’t do it,” she said.
She wanted to get me away from Boyd, which might happen on its own anyway. I was touched and insulted, both at once. And then I was trying to imagine myself in a new city. Taking Oliver to a park in Rome. Having interesting chats with the locals while I sat on the bench. Laughing away in Italian.
My phone interrupted us with the ping sound that meant I was getting a text. “Sorry,” I said to Kiki. “I just need to check.” It was Boyd, and I was so excited that I said, “Oh! From Boyd!” out loud. Sorry, Baby was in the message, and some extra parts that I certainly wasn’t reading to Kiki. But I chuckled in joy, tickled to death—I could feel myself getting flushed. How funny he could be when he wanted. That Boyd.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I just have to answer fast.”
“Go ahead,” Kiki said, not pleasantly.
I had to concentrate to tap the letters. It took a few minutes, and I could hear Kiki sigh across from me. I knew how I looked, too girly, too jacked up over crumbs Boyd threw my way. Kiki was not glad about it. She didn’t even know Boyd. But I did—I could see him very distinctly in my mind just then, his grumbling sweetness, his spells of cold scorn, his sad illusions about what he could do, and the waves of tenderness I had for him, the sudden pangs of adoration. I was perfectly aware (or just then I was, anyway) that some part of my life with Boyd was not entirely real, that if you pushed it too hard a whole other feeling would show itself. I wasn’t about to push. I wanted us to go on as we were. A person can know several things at once. I could know all of them while still being moved to delight by him—his kisses on my neck, his way of humming to the most blaring tune, his goofing around with Oliver. And then I saw that I was probably going to help him with the cigarette smuggling too. I was going to be in it with him before I even meant to be.
If Kiki knew, she’d wail in despair. I was going to pack the car and count out the cash; I was going to let him store his illegal cigarettes in my house. All because of what stirred me, all because of what Boyd was to me. All because of beauty.
I had my own life to live. And what did Kiki have? She had her job making deals between the very rich and the very poor. She had her books that she settled inside of in dusty private satisfaction. She had her old and fabled past. I loved my aunt, but she must have known I’d never listen to her.
When I stopped texting Boyd, I looked up, and Kiki was dabbing at her plate of food. “The hummus was good,” I said.
“They say Saladin ate hummus,” she said. “In the 1100s. You know him, right? He was a Kurd who fought against the Crusaders.”
She