Laugh Page 9

  “We should do that all the time,” he said, twisting up her hair into his fist, off her neck, exposing the sweat there to the cold air in the office.

  “We’d never get anything else done.” Her voice sounded rough, and now she didn’t know if it was from tears or feeling so physically good.

  “There isn’t anything we’ve been doing before that could be as noble as that was.”

  He said that seriously, and it seemed like he meant it. She had no choice but to take it at face value.

  “I’m worried about Tay.”

  Sam looked behind him, at a digital wall clock. “She’s likely in recovery, maybe still snoozing, or maybe up enough to try some fluids. I’ll walk with you and ask about when she can make an appointment to talk about the results.”

  Nina felt her mind come into her body, where before, there had only been her body. It made her feel tight, queasy.

  “Would they tell you anything?”

  He looked at her, reached back to play with her hair again; it made her eyes feel drowsy, if not her body. “They might give me some idea, but they’re restricted from telling me anything. Please don’t count on it, though I’ll try to make sure she can go in and hear the results as soon as possible.”

  “Okay.” She looked at him closer. “How are you?”

  “Horny,” he said. Not hesitating. “You’re so pretty when you come. It’s the best thing I’ve seen in forever.”

  How he made that sound remotely conversational was a mystery. “Look—” she started.

  “I know.” He grabbed her hand. “I know you said we should be friends, and work together, and if I thought about doing all the dirty things I want to do with you, I should eat pie or something, but Nina, come on.”

  “That’s the woo you’re gonna pitch? ‘Come on’?”

  “I already told you you’re pretty.”

  “When I come.”

  “All the rest of the time, too. I didn’t say that? I must have been too distracted by all the noises you were making while your tongue was in my mouth.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I think you were saying that, too, it was hard to tell with all the wiggling and heavy breathing.”

  She felt the smile soak into her facial bones but schooled it back before it surfaced. “I know you like my legs, and the way I wiggle and breathe and look when I come—”

  “And say my name,” he said.

  “Say your name?”

  “I like how you wiggle and breathe and look and say my name when you come.”

  Then she didn’t feel like smiling. Something was getting in the way of it.

  Hope, maybe.

  “Okay, but besides all that. What do you like about me, Sam Burnside?”

  “How I feel,” he said, again without hesitating. She wondered if he ever hesitated. At anything.

  “How’s that?”

  “Like I’m doing something right for once. When I’m around you, that’s how I feel. It makes me want to give you things, not just help you or fix something, but give you things. Things you don’t need, but that you might want.”

  “Like orgasms?”

  “I want to give you orgasms, Nina Paz.” Sam grinned. “About a million different ways, all of them filthier than the next.”

  “And that makes you feel like you’re doing the right thing?”

  “No, that makes me feel like boning you and getting naked with you. I feel like I’m doing the right thing just by being with you.”

  Nina had to look away then.

  “Look, Nina.” Sam took her hand. Stepped close. “Let me do the farmhand thing this summer, whenever I can. Let me help you with this stuff with Tay, as much as I can. Let me hang you with you, talk to you. I’ll eat your pie, and I’ll clean my plate every time, but don’t make me try to be just friends.”

  “I don’t know why I tried to insist on it.”

  “Well,” Sam said, “I don’t know either. I know why I went along with it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Because this stuff going on between us, the stuff we have going on ourselves, it’s scary.”

  “It is.”

  “Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good at fucking things up.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “It’s true.”

  Nina looked at Sam, and what she thought of, looking at his gray eyes, noticing the dark flecks through them, was when they took care of Kate’s black-and-white chickens. How he was as out of his element as he could possibly have been but had seriously and gently checked a chicken over for lice and then held it, petted it like a cat, unselfconscious.

  He was someone the entire world would assume shouldn’t have anything to do with chickens, and yet he had taken care of one and charmed her easily.

  Sam, eldest of four, a doctor, opening a clinic for a whole neighborhood, a man who would drop the work of a whole day to hang out with a woman and her friend to be as helpful as he could—he was underestimated.

  He thought he was a fuckup.

  He wanted to be with her because she made him feel like he was doing the right thing, though as far as she could tell, he was always doing the right thing, though she bet that his smart mouth kept him from saying the right thing, saying what was really going on in his heart, in his head, most of the time.

  “What if we just told each other?”

  “Told each other what?” he asked.

  “Told each other when the other one was fucking up. Straight up, and then that person had to do something else, without arguing about it.”

  “What’s something else?”

  “Just whatever is not what you’re currently doing.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Calling someone on their bullshit and them actually listening?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Because I’m pretty sure that’s some kind of magical unicorn myth.”

  “We’re fully grown adults. We’ve both been through a lot. We’re going to go through more. Depending on each other to see us for what we are, and to be the friend to help us avoid more bullshit seems like it’s worth a shot. I’d say we don’t have anything to lose, but that’s the thing, isn’t it, Opie? We both know exactly how much we could lose, all the time, and that’s why we’re so scared. So this doesn’t work, we lose each other. Maybe we’ll learn something?”

  “Now I feel like you’re talking me into what I’ve been wanting all along.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m in. Call me out. Whenever. I’ll try whatever I’m screwing up a different way. Probably screw it up more, but I’ll try. Because what I want is you. And I’ll take your terms.”

  “Even if this doesn’t work?”

  “Even if. It wouldn’t be the first time, and all the other times started out with a lot less than what you’re offering.” Sam grabbed her around the hips and it felt good.

  “We might not work. We might work for a while and break up. We might work for longer than that and the breakup would much harder, and we’d be much older.”

  “Also,” he said, “it could work. Without the other stuff.”

  “Maybe.”

  Nina didn’t think now, ten years on, that she couldn’t love again, that she was so active in her grief that loving another felt like turning her husband away.

  But the state of her own heart made her wary, even as she felt the same way she had standing with Sam in her field: that she liked him, and that she felt hopeful about him, and that he woke up something in her heart that made her want to believe there was something ahead, with so much heartbreak behind.

  Right in the middle.

  A middle age.

  Joy and pain behind her, surely the same in front of her, and now she was about to do something that would either add to one or the other—be more joy, or more pain.

  “Nina,” Sam said.

  “You’re impulsive,” Nina said, and didn’t resist touching his hair, the color so bright it should be a taste, a sm
ell. “Every one of your actions follows right along with the first thought in your head.”

  “I know. You know. I don’t think you’re so different, at least not with some things. You said there was a time, after your husband died, that you got involved with men to deal with your grief.”

  “Not involved. I didn’t get involved. Sometimes, Sam, I didn’t even get their names.”

  He didn’t even flinch, just held her closer. “Well, we’ve got more than that, more than our names, in the bank.”

  “You still have to work hard.”

  “On the farmhand stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve seen these guns, right? You think I can’t work hard, farmer?”

  Sam let go of her to yank up the sleeves of his T-shirt and flex his arms. He managed to look perfectly serious, as if she really needed to consider how cut his freaking arms were.

  “I don’t know. You’re a little scrawny.”

  He didn’t hesitate; he pulled his shirt up right over his head and started flexing everything on display, bending at the waist, even, to harden his pecs into freckled humps. “You wish you had another farmhand this built, Paz. I’m like five of your others.”

  “They all look like Tay.”

  “Then I’m like one of your others, but you can’t tell me the others are better-looking, and if they are, I’m the best at first aid. I have muscles, I am at least comparably good-looking, and I would not panic if someone’s part got stuck or amputated by your farm equipment. If I’m incredibly lucky, I might even save the person or the amputated part if all extenuating circumstances happened to be nearly perfect and there was a good cell phone signal.”

  “You know what, Opie? I think that’s good enough.”

  “Yeah?” He pulled her back in close. His skin smelled wonderful, soapy and human. His freckles were dense over some places, and scattered over others, and she followed the islands of them with her fingers, combing through the auburn hair that arrowed down his chest, over his belly. “Should I take off my pants?”

  She laughed.

  “I’m serious. I don’t really see the point of them around you.”

  She laughed again. She laughed in his arms, in his cold and barren temporary hospital office, in the hospital, the one where her best friend was at the very beginning of a war.

  It meant something; that he could make her laugh, just where she was.

  He kissed her laugh.

  Kissed it until he couldn’t, because he was laughing, too.

  Chapter Nine

  Des—

  It was no problem to authorize your cash card. Linda was the one working at Fifth Third and she said she had already talked to you. I hope you don’t have any more problems.

  I like the picture of you at the London Eye.

  Do you remember when Mom took us to the fairgrounds and they had a Ferris wheel? PJ was too young to ride, and so Sarah stayed with him, but Mom and Dad wanted to go up, and so did you. I was pissed that I couldn’t do the fair with my friends, but you cried until I said I’d take you.

  I was so mad that I remember I grabbed your arm too tight getting you into the seat. There was just a bar that came down over both of us, no other safety belt, and you were so small and skinny that the bar didn’t even do anything, you were practically free in the seat. You were crying because I was being such a dick, but I didn’t care. Dad kept yelling at me to be nicer, ruining what was supposed to be this romantic ride for him and Mom.

  Then the ride started moving, and you stopped crying, looking around. The ride was jerky and loud, and it went so much higher than it looked from the ground.

  I was scared, but all I could be was mad. You were fearless and kept trying to look over the edge, and nothing was holding you in. I could only keep holding on to your arm, so tight, because I was certain you’d fall right out, and as we dipped over the top, the cab starting swinging. You were trying so hard to jerk away from me, and it only made the cab swing harder. My nuts were sucked into my fucking gut, and you were yelling at me, “Let go! Let go!”

  I held on to your tiny arm, which didn’t even feel human, more like some kind of small animal, yanking you back, and you had tears in your eyes because I was hurting you, but you were laughing, too, because you loved it. How high it was, the motion of the ride, the hot air and the noise.

  When we got to the bottom, Mom and Dad were really angry at me, because they could hear me yelling the entire time. When you got out of the cab, you went to Dad, and he picked you up even though you were too big for that anymore.

  You had finger bruises on your upper arm from where I grabbed you too tight. I tried to tell Mom and Dad they were from keeping you safe, but they didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night and wouldn’t let me hook up with my friends. The thing is, you felt bad for me, and walked with me, and held my hand. Told Mom and Dad not to be mad, and I remember, you told them that you bruised easy and then showed them all these weird little kid bruises all over your legs as evidence.

  Miss you, Des. I promise I’ll go see Sarah.

  I do like the farming stuff. If you can believe it, I think it’s kind of relaxing, but also a hard thing to do, if that makes sense. Lots of things to think about that I didn’t even know were a thing to think about. Like, Nina’s store sells these garlic scapes, the young flowering part of hardneck garlic. It’s really hard to make all your money with small yields in a small farm, so they’re always thinking about things to sell, and garlic scapes are one of them. Normally they would just get cut off and thrown away so the garlic itself can grow bigger and fatter, but they are actually good to eat, so they harvest them and sell them, making way more money from their garlic yields.

  Nina’s friend Rachel makes them deep-fried, and they are really good. When you come back, we’ll share an order.

  Love,

  Sam

  * * *

  “What are we doing, again?” PJ had his sunglasses pushed back on top of his head, raking his big hand through his dark curls, so much like their mother’s.

  He had that wrinkle in his forehead he’d been getting lately when his older siblings gave him a hard time. He was always a bit sensitive, but in a watchful and serious way that meant no one knew he was hurt until they realized he hadn’t spoken for hours.

  Sam had told him to wear clothes he could work in, and somehow this meant jeans that had fucking embroidery on the back pockets and a shirt that looked like something a country-western singer would wear, except it was really small, tight all over, and PJ had it unsnapped to halfway down his chest.

  Sam knew better than to say anything about PJ and fashion, however.

  “We’re going to harvest some onions.” Sam looked at his Garmin on the dash again, a little nervous. Even just ten miles out of Lakefield, with fields on both sides, sometimes the satellite feed would lag and he was afraid of missing his turn. Everything looked the same out here, and his sedan was kicking up dust from the gravel road. He couldn’t see anything. He was certain he was going to hit a fucking cow or bear or something.

  “You said that, but what I mean is what’s with the Outward Bound brotherly adventure?”

  “I thought we could talk.” Sam slowed down and finally saw the turnoff, labeled with nothing but a small green reflective sign and a number. When Nina had driven him out here, she had navigated all of this farmland like she could see everything from above or something. Made it look easy.

  After she had taken Tay home on learning that her oncologist would use her biopsy and the MRI and blood tests to do a preliminary stage on her cancer. Sam had gone back to the clinic. Later he’d gotten an email from Nina with his farm shifts.

  Without thinking about it too hard, he called to ask PJ to join him on the next one. He didn’t know why. Maybe if he got himself and PJ in the middle of nowhere they’d have to really deal with some stuff because neither of them could just walk off.

  Also, something about what he and Nina were trying to do, trying to l
earn at this point in their lives, got him thinking about what she’d said when she’d first met him. How he had loss all over him.

  If he did, if he was just a walking representation of all the people he had lost, it seemed that he should plug the hole somewhere, and yelling at people might not be working. So he called PJ and asked him to come to the fields with him, and PJ had said yes. Just like that.

  Yes.

  Now PJ said, “We can’t talk at the diner? Over a beer?”

  “You old enough to drink yet?”

  “Yeah, baby, and think about this: the years between us are nearly old enough to drink.”

  “Jesus. That’s not really true, is it?”

  “No, but the years between us could go to prom.”

  “Would they want to?”

  “Hell yes, the years between us want to go to prom. They want to wear a tux, and dance with a pretty girl in one of those dresses that go all low in the back and make you think about bras all night, and they want to sit in Dad’s limo and get to second base.”

  “You never got to second base in Dad’s limo.” Sam rolled down his window, despite the dust, so he could see better what rut through what field he was somehow supposed to find so it could break his Honda and he could bond with his brother and his onion-picking outfit that was better suited to American Idol.

  “You’re right, I did not, but the years between us did. The years between us, in fact, may have rounded third, but I’m not sure, because they don’t kiss and tell.”

  Sam stopped the car, realizing it might work better to get out and walk around until he had his bearings. Though how he could get his bearings in the middle of nowhere he had no fucking idea.

  Sam looked at PJ, sprawled in the passenger seat, his hair messy but in some fucking way that made him look like a male model. “What do you know about third base?”

  PJ grinned. “Nothing, except what the internet tells me.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t know that I was.”

  “You’re good-looking, college-educated, twenty-two years old, you’ve seen the world with the orchestra—”