After dinner, we sit on the sofa, and Stuart talks at length about things he and my dad used to get up to as kids. I make a point of watching my posture and sitting up straight. I spend the rest of the time trying not to wonder what the fuck has happened to my life. Things were so good. It was all going so well, but it came crashing down so fast. This time last week, I was out with my friends. I was living large, making the most of what might well have been the height of my slut era.
Look at me now. Home on a Saturday night with a dude in his forties who seems to have a major penchant for talking about the old days.
“I was eleven when I moved to Carmel. I lived two doors down from your dad. He was a couple of years older than me and way cooler than I had any hope of being. We went to the same school and took the bus home. It dropped us at the corner a few hundred yards from our houses. The first day of term, your dad noticed me walking behind him and he stopped and waited for me. We didn’t talk about anything important, but we laughed a lot. Right from the start, we got on like a house on fire. We had our own friends at school because of our age difference, but when school was out, we were inseparable.”
As Stuart drones on, I find myself lulled into a strange calm. He speaks quietly, but his voice carries. I watch him as he talks, paying close attention to how he holds his body and moves his hands. There’s no uncertainty about him. No hint of it. Not so much as a flicker of hesitation or indecision. Make no mistake about it: Stuart Wiseman is a man who knows what he’s about. He’s so completely and utterly together it makes me think that for once, I do know what’s brought on my awful compulsion to act like a total idiot around him—on the scale of together versus hot mess express, Stuart and I are as far apart as two people can possibly get.
Despite the fact I’ve spent years working on myself,yearstrying to get to a point where I don’t base my self-worth on whether my dad calls or comes to see me, I obviously still have a latent craving to know him. As the evening wears on, I find myself listening intently as Stuart speaks.
My dad lives supremely in the moment, and when he remembers that I exist, he spends most of his time talking about things and people in his life right now. Other than snippets my mom has told me over the years, I don’t know anything about the person he was when he was younger.
I can’t help it. Even though I know he’s a shit, I want to know him.
I check my phone half-heartedly, glancing at the screen surreptitiously so Stuart doesn’t notice. I brace myself to feel upset because I’m almost positive everyone will have forgotten I exist. I’m pleasantly surprised to see messages from my friends Luke and Jessie, Wyn, and Trouble and his two boyfriends, Mat and Will.
Later, when I’ve climbed into bed and managed to kick loose sheets tucked into the mattress so tightly they feel like a straitjacket, I find myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, living here won’t be that bad.
*
I know I’m not perfect. I have a bunch of flaws. I’m working on some of them and doing my best to ignore the rest, but one good thing about me is that when I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.
I was wrong when I thought it wouldn’t be that bad living here. Very, very wrong.
It’s exactly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Maybe worse.
I’ve been here for a week now, and every day, Stuart has managed to find fault with something I’ve done. I mean, Jesus, Iknowyou have to put a tablet into the dishwasher. I forgot, okay? And Iknowleaving my shoes on the stairs is a tripping hazard. I was going to come back to get them. And I would have if he wasn’t so quick off the fucking sofa to reprimand me.
That’s another thing that’s driving me insane. The way he tells me what to do is one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever experienced. He speaks softly, gently scolding as if he’s under the full impression he’s doing it to help me. His voice slithers under my skin and rakes its nails against me from the inside. It makes my temperature and my blood pressure skyrocket.
Lots of people have told me I’m oversensitive. So many people. All the people. Enough people that I’ve had to at least entertain the possibility that it might be true. But in this case, it isn’t. I’m not imagining it. Stuart Wiseman definitely has it in for me. He seems absolutely positive that I need help with adulting, and what’s more, he seems sure that he’s the man to help me with it.
It’s fucking annoying.
“Elliot!”Ugh, speak of the devil. “Dinner’s ready.”
“I’m coming!” I yell before he has time to call me again.
We perform our nightly ritual, but now, instead of being allowed to stand to one side and help by staying out of his way, he orders me around.
“Elliot, could you put the placemats out?” As I start moving to the chest he keeps them in, he adds, “The round basketweave ones, please. No, not those, the ones in the middle drawer.”
He asks me to lay the placemats out every night. And tells me which ones to use. And tells me to put them back again after dinner. And tells me how to do it. Fuck knows what his obsession with placemats is, but he’s super pedantic about it. I get the distinct feeling that in the world of Stuart Wiseman, people who don’t use placemats are classed lower than animals.
I sit at the table and he serves my food all plated up. Chicken casserole tonight. It looks and smells great, but it irritates the living shit out of me that he insists on dishing up for me. I hate it. There are too many veggies and not enough meat on my plate.
“So,” he says, fixing me with one of those creepy smiles your high school friends’ parents would give you when you first started going over to their houses, “how was your day?”
“Good, thanks.” There’s no need to mention that I went to a big meeting today without my laptop, a pen, or so much as a piece of paper. The last thing I want to do is give him more ideas for things I need to improve on.
He doubles down on the faux concern. “Everything okay at work?”
“Smashing.”
Hmm, not sure where that came from. Must be a side effect of living with an old fart.
I shovel in a big mouthful and follow it with another as soon as I swallow.
“Careful.” He smiles knowingly. “You’ll get indigestion.”
