Page 10 of Sublimate
“I put it away, like you wanted.”
“No, I told you to get rid of it,” he said, but he still didn’t seem mad. “Bring it back out.”
I carefully carried it to the place it had sat before. “It does take up a lot of room,” I said.
“It won’t be there for long. Christmas is in two days,” he reminded me.
I knew that. I had been scheming for a while about his gift and that was also hidden in the coat closet: seat covers for his car, since the leather-like stuff was peeling.
“My mom says to make a pie for the dinner at her house,” he mentioned. “I like apple but she said pumpkin would be good, too.”
“I can buy one,” I said, and I watched him get miffed. He must have forgotten that the oven wasn’t working, and he didn’t know me well enough to realize that I wasn’t yet a baker. “I’m sorry. I’ll get apple for you.”
He nodded, trusting that I would look out for his interests. “She never made a pie either,” he said and smiled at me. I smiled back, out of relief. When he patted the spot next to his hip, I happily sat and I didn’t mind that I was on the stiff, taped part of the cushion. “What did you get for her?”
“What?” I asked. I snuggled against his arm and put my head on his shoulder.
“What did you get for my mom? For Christmas?”
“I thought that you and I would give her something together. Like, we’re a couple, so we give couple gifts,” I said. The presentI’d gotten her for her birthday, with only my name on the tag, hadn’t gone over very well.
“Why would you think we’d do that?”
I had felt him stiffen, his muscles tensing, and I sat up. “I assumed it. Sorry,” I apologized.
“You know what they say about assuming. It makes you an asshole,” Kolter said. “That’s what assume means.”
“It makes an ass out of U and me—not you, not really!” I quickly added as his mouth tightened into a thin line. “That’s just the saying. I’m not calling you names.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, I don’t know why I said that. And I’ll buy your mom something nice, I’ll go early tomorrow and get it,” I said. “What about perfume?” She used that very liberally so she probably went through a lot of bottles.
“Good idea. Get two and I’ll give her one,” he directed, and I nodded. Slowly, I leaned back, but I didn’t relax this time.
He finished eating and I took up his plate, and then he told me about the problem he’d had at work, the thing that had made him so mad earlier. It was all about his boss and her terrible disrespect of him. I was aware that my role was to nod and insult the people who had wronged him, so I did.
“That woman is an idiot,” I said. “I don’t like her at all.”
“I showed her.” He laughed.
“What did you do?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told me, but I didn’t trust the way he was smiling. It was proud and self-satisfied rather than happy and amused. There were all kinds of smiles and some of them actually felt threatening.
That night, when he was asleep, I got back up to try to fix the ornaments that had broken. As I sat at the kitchen table with my glue, I thought about the risk I had taken by leaving with Nolan. I also thought about him coming to find me because he didn’t remember what had happened that night when he’d been out on the road. It must have felt so strange to have a chunk of your memory missing.
I wondered if he had gotten home all right after he’d left the hamburger place, to wherever he actually lived. I thought about his silver flask and how he’d bought me lunch/dinner. I really had been hungry, and then he’d given me that money…
I glued and reflected until the stool wobbled underneath me and I realized that it was about to give way. I would need to un-tape the hammer from where it supported the lamp and learn to use it to fix this furniture for real. Maybe I’d figure it out tomorrow as I went to get two bottles of perfume. I shrugged a little and returned to bed, leaving the ornaments to dry and the problems for the morning. My boyfriend rolled over and kicked me in his sleep and I scooted to the edge of the mattress to make more room for him. I also curled into a ball because it wasn’t very warm in here.
And it must have gotten even colder that night because I had a dream about walking on the side of the road in the snow and the dark, lost and confused. Just like Nolan.
Chapter 3
Istartled to attention when the woman cleared her throat. “Hun, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need this table,” she said, and I glanced around and realized that she was right. There was a semi-pro football team that practiced and played in a huge orange building not too far away from this restaurant, and they were back in season. The room was pretty full of large men eating huge meals off their trays.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized back.
