Page 14 of Sublimate
“I thought you might want to go have coffee,” I answered. “Maybe when you come home. Have a good trip.”
I had started the car and was ready to leave when he texted back. “I can meet you. Where do you want to go?”
Anywhere was fine with me, but I picked a place that I knew was close. In fact, I could walk there from where I was currently parked and I quickly turned off my engine to save the gas. I didn’t have to worry about running into Kolter or his friends because they didn’t meet to drink coffee in the middle of the day (or really, at any other time).
The airport wasn’t very far away so I started off and as I finally arrived, I saw a black car pulling up. Nolan emerged from it. “Where did you just come from?” he asked me.
“Over there.” I pointed. “Pretty close by.”
“Except it’s ten degrees. Are you cold?”
“Not anymore. Not much,” I said. I smoothed my hand over my new winter coat. But I was ready to go inside because the walk had been a little farther than I’d anticipated. He held the doorand let me enter first, and then he said that he would get me a drink.
“No, this is on me,” I told him. “You treated last time and I just got paid.”
He nodded a little. “Coffee, please. Black.”
Feeling very extravagant, I got him the largest size. “When I was leaving one of my jobs today, a neighbor came out and asked if I could give her an estimate. I might have another client soon,” I boasted when I returned to the table.
He held up his paper cup and I gently tapped mine to it. “How’s the laundry going?” he asked.
“It’s not. The dryer is still out of commission and…” I didn’t want to talk about the furnace. Who wanted to hear about furnaces? “Where did you go?”
“What?When?”
“You said you were at the airport,” I reminded him. It was early afternoon so he’d had plenty of hours to drink—I wondered if that had made him forget his trip. I glanced at his coat, where he had kept the flask in the inside pocket, but he didn’t move to take it out. Maybe it was already empty.
“Right. Well, I was recently in Maui, for golf,” he said.
“That’s Hawaii, right? You went there to play a game?” I asked, and he nodded. He did have a little bit of tan on his face. “What’s your job, exactly?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have a lot of responsibilities?”
“No, I don’t have a job. My grandparents left me provided for,” he explained. “I don’t work.”
“Holy bells.” I tried to imagine my family providing so generously but could only remember one time when my mom had gotten me a fancy dress. Unfortunately, it had been in her size instead of mine and it was pretty short and low-cut for a twelve-year-old, but she’d told me not to worry and she would find another use for it. She decided to wear it herself and it had turned into her next bridal gown. “That’s very lucky for you,” I mentioned.
“Yes, it absolutely is.”
“Do you share with your relatives? I was reading about all the Whitakers. The people I saw are doing really well for themselves, though. They probably don’t need your help.”
“They don’t need anything,” he assured me. “How have you been doing? I see you have a new coat.”
I nodded, smiling. “It was for Christmas.”
“From your boyfriend?”
I felt the smile slip. Actually, I hadn’t gotten a gift from him. “It was from me to myself,” I said. “I had bought Kolter’s mom a bottle of perfume but she thought it smelled terrible, so I used that money to get this coat. I had already picked it out because I knew that she would hate my present, since the same thing happened when I bought a fancy candle for her birthday. He had told me that she liked them but she said the one I gave her madeher think of burnt feathers. I never smelled that but I looked it up and it’s supposed to be awful so it wasn’t a compliment, not in the least. Anyway, this time I saved the receipt and when she said that the perfume I chose for her smelled worse than a man’s armpit, I knew what to do. I put the bottle in my bag when no one was looking, and now I have a new coat and I love it.”
“She sounds like a man’s armpit herself,” he commented. I watched his hand go to his chest. He patted it once and then picked up the coffee cup again. “I’m glad you got something you like.”
“Yeah. But Kolter wasn’t happy when he figured out what I’d done.” He had been furious that I’d taken back his mother’s gift, even as I’d told him that she hadn’t even noticed and that she’d hated the perfume, anyway.
“Why’d you get her something so cheap and shitty?” he’d demanded, and then he’d said that I looked fat in my new coat. That was probably true (it was very puffy) but he was wrong that my gift had been cheap. I’d done a little experiment when I’d bought the two bottles of perfume: the one that I’d gotten as his gift to her had cost five dollars less than the bottle I’d put my name on. So really, he’d given her the cheaper Christmas present. It wasn’t something I could bring up and argue about, though. I just secretly knew that I was right and it was enough—kind of enough.
“Why does he want you walking around cold?” Nolan asked me.
