Chapter Twelve
It wasn’t like I wasunhappy.Or even all that dissatisfied with my life, on balance.My mom had always stressed the reality that no situation was ever entirely good or thoroughly bad; her challenge, to see the flip side of whatever mood I was in, had been a regular frustration growing up.
Annoying then, but - though there was no way I’d give her the satisfaction of telling her - arguably useful now I was an adult.
The thrift store could be tedious at times and the volunteers there infuriating.Still, once you’d sifted through the dumpster-ready trash, there was enough in the donations pile to leave your heart at least slightly warmed by the generosity of your fellow man.Seeing someone short on cash come in and discover a warm coat, or the right sized clothes for their kids, or a cheap tchotchke to simply brighten up their day, all prompted the sort of job satisfaction I knew I wouldn’t get working in an office.
My friends would tell me I should combine that with moving out of my parents’ place, too.
I’d not intended to stick around.Hadn’t expected to be well into my twenties and still under my mom and dad’s roof.Had helped Catherine move into her tiny studio apartment not long after she’d turned eighteen; done the same with Kyle, less than a year later.They’d moved since, too, and I’d been happy to be the “friend with a truck” called upon to shuttle furniture and boxes.Each time fending off first subtle, then - as the years went on - blunter and blunter questions about when it’d be my turn to pack up.
My parents, I pointed out, weren’t getting any younger.They needed me to shovel snow in the winter and mow the lawn in the summer.To climb ladders, before my dad could try to do it; to lift bags, before my mom threw her back out attempting it.And anyway, why move when I was able to put at least a little into savings each month?
To which Catherine and Kyle nodded, and agreed, and said yes, those were all perfectly good, respectable, admirable reasons.Rapidly followed by a list of equally good reasons why it was beyond high time that I get a place of my own.
It’d become such a rote discussion, we all knew the point where I’d scoff, and say “which guys?”when they suggested having my own apartment would mean I could bring men home.
Then we’d laugh, and they’d say I was only grumpy because I was sexually stymied, and I’d counter that by asking when, exactly, either of them had got laid.And then we’d laugh again, and - in what I always took as a quiet victory and had no doubt that they each did the same - we’d move the conversation on to other things.
Not like, of course, I couldn’t see the appeal of my own place.Even if I did genuinely think the reasons for sticking around in my childhood room just about outweighed the upsides to leaving it.Perhaps it was simply that the idea had got lodged in my head, that my first move needed to be something decisive and significant.Not just swapping one bland bedroom for another; under a different roof but with the same prospects ahead of me.
That felt a little too much like settling.Like conceding that this balance of good and frustrating was about as rich as my life was going to get.
#
Somehow, it seemed, I’d ended up with the world’s largest collection of unpaired gloves.After the fourth would-be customer turning up their nose at the deep bin I was calling the “can you find one to match” challenge, I decided it’d be down to me to do the legwork.Or handwork, even.
The spill of mismatched fingers across the counter felt like a scene from a low-budget horror movie.
As tasks went it was pretty tedious, but it did have the side-benefit of occupying my brain.Apparently I couldn’t overthink my life while whichever chunks of cortex responsible for pattern-recognition were lit up.
The door chime rang out, and I looked up to see who’d braved the cold morning.
“Morning, Mrs Gallagher.”
Somewhere nebulous in her fifties and fantastically frugal.Not, as far as I knew, for any particular reason of poverty; just that, as some men enjoy tracking game, Irene Gallagher relished chasing bargains.
She gave me a terse little nod, grudging, though I knew better than to take it personally.
For a while we went about our respective hunts in silence.Her between the aisles - generally organized, but in practice a hodgepodge of fresh stock and old - and me at my counter.A stack of the reunited alongside me, everything from colorful knitwear to outsized mittens in ballistic nylon.
“Married, yet?”
I shook my head at the called-out question, still looking down at the unpaired gloves.“Not yet, Mrs Gallagher, no.”
A noise somewhere between a grunt and a harumph.The sound you’d make when unsurprised, but still broadly disappointed.
“A handsome young lad like you, you shouldn’t be on the market, still.”
I glanced up, to wink at her.“Are you flirting with me, Mrs Gallagher?”
She shook her head, as though I was the most ridiculous thing she could imagine, but I still caught the very faint coil of a grin at the corner of her mouth.
“After a while, handsome young lads playing the field get themselves a reputation, you realize.”
Considering the last girl I’d done anything with was Laura Patterson, in 9th grade, and that’d been an awkward kiss on the cheek as the result of a spin-the-bottle dare, I suspected my reputation locally was pretty safe.Dull, even.
“I’m sure you’ll let me know, should the neighborhood whisper network start badmouthing me.”
