“He’s coughing like he’s sick.”
“I’m Derick Haverford, and I assure you, I’m as healthy as a horse.”
“We used to have horses on this farm,” Alice says.
“How lovely. I bet they were fit as—”
“Most of them died of colic.”
“Oh.”
Her eyes narrow at him. “Can you work a paintbrush?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
That’s all she needs to hear before she pulls him across the threshold.
In the kitchen, Alice decimates one and a half strawberry doughnuts iced with sprinkles while she tells us about the repairs that need to be done. Upon closer inspection, the house really is a dump. The cumbersome buckets of paint she drops into our waiting hands can’t cover up all the cosmetic faults. This is more than our rookie skills can correct. This isn’t months of neglect. This is years of damage. I’m surprised she hasn’t taken a nasty tumble down the decrepit staircase at this point.
As we move all the furniture into the center of the living room and cover it all with plastic, it’s clear we’re not here to playProperty Brothers. Our goal is to give the place a facelift. Just enough to entice a potential buyer.
Despite the inhospitable welcome, Derick and I are joking and laughing while we lay out newspaper all over the floor so the blush-colored paint doesn’t drip everywhere. Alice packed up the picture frames from the mantel over the wood-burning fireplace all by herself, making certain neither of us snuck a look at what was in them. Cryptic.
TheMary Tyler Moore Showtheme song, with lyrics aboutmaking it after all, pipes in from the other room when Alice finally lugs her box of knickknacks out and away. I’ve learned they’re not frequent reruns. Alice has one subscription service—to Hulu so she can binge-watch her old favorite show for comfort.
Evenshe’sinto streaming!
Derick’s exposed biceps bulge and stretch each time he runs the roller across the wall in front of us. The more I look, the more that purple tank top reminds me of our history, of nights spent around backyard firepits and chasing fireflies, night swims and boardwalk games.
I force myself to look away.
The house is drafty, and the June weather is brutal. With no AC, the temperature will only continue to climb and the more sauna-like this room will become. I take a swig of cool ice water to trick my body into stasis.
“So when you said you’ve never been kissed,” Derick says out of nowhere sometime later, “does that mean you’ve never dated anyone either?”
I dab my brush into the bucket. “Not really. I’ve been on dates before. Most of them bad. I guess I was sort of dating Alfie, one of the other guys who got an email, during the summer between eighth grade and freshman year, but that doesn’t really count. I don’t think either of us knew what being queer was. We just knew we liked spending time with each other. We held hands on the dock after curfew one night and he showed me where different constellations were. Honestly, I think he made most of them up, but I was gullible and, frankly, couldn’t stop thinking about how warm his palm was. I didn’t care if Strega Nona was in the stars or not.”
“We readStrega Nonain school story time. What, did you think some pasta-cooking grandma was part of Greek mythology?” He gawks at me.
“Okay, whatever. I was a little more focused on whether we were going to kiss or not. I wasn’t caught up in the semantics. Plus, it would’ve been rude to interrupt. Some of them were factual—like the Medium Dipper.”
“Wrenji, there’s only a Big Dipper and a Little…”
“Gotcha!” I swat my brush at him. There’s a line of pale-pink paint across the bridge of his nose when I yank away. The imperfection makes the symmetry of his face even more striking. “That was a test and the paint is your punishment!”
“Don’t make me roller you.” He holds the instrument up as a threat. “I know how to use it.”
I laughingly back down, and together we zero in on the second wall. Two more to go and then a second coat all around. “To answer your question,” I finally add after a long stretch of focused work, “no, I’ve never dated anybody officially. You?”
“When I got to college, I started seeing this cute guy, Charlie, around all the DTD interest events I was attending. Long story short, we crossed paths at a lacrosse party freshman year. We kissed. I freaked. Classic crisis of conscience.” He laughs at himself.
“Ah, so Charlie is to blame for you missing our movie marathon?” I ask facetiously, attempting to mask my latent jealously.
“I mean, not exactly.” Derick grows flustered, looking away. “No, actually not at all. That’s on me. I take full responsibility for that.” It’s strange to wonder what right now would look like without our complicated coming-out experiences. What if the world were a place where being queer didn’t necessitate acrisis of conscience, as he put it, but rather was just accepted as part of the norm? Would we have gotten together back then if we didn’t have to cobble together our identities first?
Derick moves on. “Sophomore year, during rush, we ended up hooking up. He wanted to be exclusive. I wanted more hooking up. At the time, it seemed like committing to him was the easiest and safest way to do that, but it ended up hurting me more in the long run. When I called it off junior year, he didn’t take it well.” He steps back to get his bearings.
I’m cautious when I ask, “How so?”
