Page 3 of Hushed

I look back out at the street, wanting to see the trumpeter, but instead, I see a young man across the street from me, standing off to the side, texting.

I swallow hard. He’s easily the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Short blond hair that catches the sunlight like a halo. His T-shirt is stretched so tightly across his pecs I’m pretty sure it’s about to give up the ghost and rip right down the middle, Incredible Hulk style. I stare at him, and like I always do when I’m confronted by a man I can’t have, I spin a story for him in my head. I study his half-smile and the way he taps out his answer to her on his phone. Okay. He’s messaging his girlfriend. He’s crazy in love with her. You can tell. Her name is…Charlotte, but she hates that name, so she wants to be called Charlie. She’s stolen or appropriated all his plaid shirts and looks sensational in them. He’s probably picked out the ring.

I watch as he looks up at the building near him. He runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek, like he’s thinking of the perfect thing to say.

Oh yes, he’s bought the ring. Because he knew on day one. She’s found it, of course, because he hid it in someplace stupid like the sock drawer, but he doesn’t know she knows.

He smiles again and starts typing, but then stops. He grins and looks up at the building.

“What are you doing, Mr. Man?” I murmur.

I look back out at the man and realize that he’s scanning the windows. And then, he turns in a slow circle, looking up and down the street. His smile is big and warm, and at this moment, I want him to look straight across the street at me with that smile. Maybe he could wave, and I’d wave back, and…I’m not sure what would happen next.

His eyes glide past the shop window. I exhale in a combination of relief and disappointment. Then he gets a funny look on his face, like he’s been playing hide-and-seek all along and just figured out where I am, and turns and looks directly at me.

A bus crosses between us. I step back into the shadows and take a deep, panicked breath. Putain. I almost got caught staring at a strange man in public.

“Can I help you, sir?” a saleswoman asks.

“No, thank you. I’m just looking.”

“For yourself or for someone else?” She gives my wardrobe a professional once-over.

I look back out the window. The bus is gone, and he’s still standing there, but now he’s not smiling. His brow furrows. He takes out his phone again, looks around once more, and hesitantly starts texting.

Go back to Charlie, I tell him. I’ll complicate your life.

“Sir?” the saleswoman asks.

I turn back to her and for the first time, I register where I am. This place is too young for me. Not that it’s selling kids’ clothes. These clothes feel fashionable and sexy. The jeans are ripped, the models are all in their very early twenties at best and have physiques that Olympians would envy. I feel fifty-one, not thirty-one.

The blond has started to walk away, and I feel his absence so sharply that I put my hand to my heart. I can hear that trumpet wail, and I look back at the saleswoman and the too-trendy clothes that will never be right for someone like me, and I hate everything. I hate the way I composed my look this morning and the way the tie makes me feel like I’m strangling myself. I hate that I wore a vest to this meeting. Because it wasn’t like I wore a three-piece suit, where everything was the same color. No, I did some mixing and matching like a popinjay. Because I had to be defiant at the last moment.

“I’m fine,” I say to the woman.

“Well, let me know if there’s anything you want,” she says, turning away.

I am about to go out into the heat and slink off in the opposite direction, but then my eye settles on a shirt.

“Yes, there is,” I say. I pick up the shirt. “This color is called Mexican Rose.”

“It is?” she asks.

“It symbolizes charisma and bravery. It’s everywhere in Mexico.” I feel the fabric between my fingers. I could never pull this off. I know that. But something is cracking open in my chest, some wall that held through four hours of interrogation, and I can feel the collapse coming and I don’t care. “Fuck it,” I say. I drape the shirt over the rack and pull at my tie, loosening it enough to pull it over my head like a noose. I toss it onto the floor.

The saleswoman takes a step back.

“You know what I want?” I shuck my coat and start undoing the buttons on my vest, and I can hear myself and I know I sound unhinged. “I want to get out there and play that piano like a goddamned badass, even if it means making a total spectacle of myself.” The vest hits the floor. I want to kiss a man so beautiful that even when I close my eyes the image is imprinted on me like a brand. And most of all, I want to pretend, just for today, that I am not scared of everything.

I must look deranged. A man in his undershirt, standing over a pile of his own discarded armor, breathing hard in a store that was never meant for someone like him.

I look down at the shirt, then at the racks around me. “The shirt,” I say. “And jeans. And shoes.” I take out my wallet and hold it out to her. “All of it. Please.”

She takes it. She doesn’t say anything, but her expression suggests she’s weighing whether to call security or a therapist.

This will not last. I know that. By the time I sit down for coffee at the shop across the street, the adrenaline will be fading and the fear will be creeping back in. By the time I get to Fairhaven, all of it—the shirt, the jeans, the shoes—will be buried at the back of my closet, never to see the light of day. I know myself that well. But right now, standing in this ridiculous store in my undershirt with my tie on the floor and a stranger’s alarm written all over her face—right now, I don’t care.

Do your worst.