"I'll take care of your cat."
His hand lifts off my chest. He opens the door and turns back with a grin, and then he turns and doesn't look back. Even when I can tell he wants to turn around.
I close the door. Parker is already on the couch, paws tucked, watching me like someone who has decided I'm adequate. My mouth still feels like him. I press my thumb to my bottom lip where his teeth were and stand there a second longer than I need to.
***
I meet Guy and Nan for lunch on Friday at the pho place on Buford Highway that I’ve been going to since high school. The one Berger gave a six-point-five.
A six-point-five. For the best pho in Georgia. Berger has never eaten at a table without cloth napkins and he walked in here once with Thompson and gave this place a six-point-five and I have been keeping my mouth shut for months about this.
Guy is already at the table. Nan is across from him, her purse on the chair beside her because Nan does not share a booth side with anyone she hasn’t vetted, and the purse is the checkpoint.
“Isaiah.” She stands when she sees me. “How are you? Are you eating enough?”
“Nan. It’s been three weeks.”
“And?”
Guy grins. “She’s been giving me the full treatment. I’m basically family now.”
“You are not family,” Nan says, sitting back down. “You are a person I tolerate because my grandson likes you. There is a difference.” She slides the menu toward me even though I have ordered the same thing here since 2019 and she knows it.
Our server comes over to take our order. He’s good-looking. I notice it the way I notice good bone structure on an X-ray. Automatic, clinical. If I mentioned this out loud, Guy would tell me to stop comparing men to imaging results and he would be right.
“Berger gave this place a six-point-five,” I tell Guy.
“Who is Berger?”
“A player. He has a restaurant ranking system. He calls it a methodology. He docked points because the fluorescent lighting doesn’t, quote, create a dining atmosphere.”
Guy looks at the fluorescent lights. Looks at me. “I like the lights.”
“The lights are fine. The lights are honest. He gave Fox Bros a seven-point-five for brisket and this place a six-point-five for pho. But this pho is a nine.”
Nan sips her water. “Is the brisket a seven-point-five?”
“The brisket is probably an eight. That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is his methodology has a bias toward ambiance that punishes every restaurant on Buford Highway because they’renot trying to be atmospheric. They’re trying to feed you excellent food.”
I am aware that my voice has risen. I am aware that this is not the measured register I use in the facility, not the clinical tone that keeps the treatment room clean and professional and exactly the right temperature. This is the other one. The one that argues about pho scores at full volume in a booth on Buford Highway with the two people who have known me longest and best. Guy is grinning. Nan is studying me over her water glass. Both of them are seeing a version of me I don’t really let out when I’m at work.
The food comes and we eat. Guy talks about his boyfriend Michael’s promotion. Nan talks about the magnolia in her backyard that is threatening the foundation and how she will not be cutting it down because it’s been there for decades and the foundation can adjust.
Then Guy sets his spoon down and looks at me.
“You’re seeing someone.”
“I’m eating pho.”
“That’s not a denial. Who is it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated with you. You make toast complicated. Just tell me.”
