Page 69 of Two Marlboros

On the way I got a call from Nelly. She wanted to know how I was doing, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. As soon as I saw my face reflected in the glass of the subway car, in fact, I immediately looked away.

“Listen here,” she then continued, perhaps realizing it was time to change the subject, “how did it end with that policeman? You never told me anything more!”

Next to me there were no other people sitting. I looked back, but there was only a group of people intent on minding their own business.

“I’m on my way to him right now.”

Only silence came from the other end of the phone, and I thought the line had gone dead. The next moment I heard her sigh.

“Didn’t you say it was better not to see him?”

“You said that,” I pointed out jokingly, “but anyway, we’re not dating. We’re just friends.”

“So, there’s nothing going on between you two?”

I giggled. “How curious you are. But really, there’s nothing between us. Although...”

“What?”

The images of the party blurred with the moment we had shared at his house, and that feeling of affection and warmth that I had felt just clutching his shirt also peeped out.

“No, nothing.”

“Nathan,” she said dryly, in the tone of someone who wanted to give me a lesson. “He is a grieving man, and you could be gone forever in a couple of months. There’s no point in you getting involved.”

“I’ll tell you again, we’re not dating. In fact, I just met with my ex, so you can rest easy.”

I thought he was going to ask me a few questions about Harvey, since she seemed so apprehensive about my love life, but she just bellowed in assent. Perhaps it had been for the best after all, though: I had no desire to talk about what had just happened with him, or the way he had made me feel.

“I’ll go make dinner,” she said finally to take her leave. I said goodbye to her, and once I hung up, I wondered what Alan had prepared, if he knew how to cook. We were going to eat together, which was what I had wanted to do with Harvey, who had instead seen fit to dump me naked in bed. I looked again at my image reflected in the glass and, out of the blue, found it bleak.

I arrived after half an hour and hoped that Alan would not be too fiscal with his schedule. It was almost late to eat, but he didn’t mind it too much and, in fact, greeted me at the doorstep with as big a smile as he was capable of.

As I saw him, I realized that the little boy at the bottom of the ravine was only a distant memory. I cast a glance at those figures still trying to climb back up, unsuccessfully, as I watched them from above. Alan had lowered my rope and reassured me; therefore, when I joined him at the door, I could do nothing but throw my arms around his neck and hug him.

14

Parallel Universes

(?Duran Duran - Ordinary world)

The first time I held Oliver in my arms I thought I was dying. I had seen him at a party with friends and I was immediately impressed by his way of expressing himself. Every sentence exuded knowledge and cognition; he was always knowledgeable about everything but did not flaunt superiority. His conversations ranged from politics to music of all kinds, a boundless panorama of interests ready to fill every dead moment of his day. Slowly, he began to fill my dead moments, too. Then it began to fill even the living ones, as well as the air I breathed and my own existence, without me really realizing it.

When we hugged each other the first time, like two friends, we both understood in that moment there was more, something he could not even find in the wealth of knowledge he always carried with him, but which I recognized immediately: love. Embracing each other was like finding each other again, from friends to lovers; the transition to a kiss was brief, almost obligatory, a goal on which we had both been lingering for some time and of which we had only become aware in that moment.

When my arms tightened around Nathan’s body, however, I got no revelation. He caught me off guard and I had responded just as instinctively, but I had not found the answers I was looking for. His back was warm, and his torso fit perfectly in my grasp, and the skin on his face smelled of tobacco. He pulled away shortly after with a smile, leaving me just enough time to realize what had happened.

My first intimate contact in many long months.

The only thing that hug had in common with Oliver’s was its obviousness: holding Nathan in my arms had seemed a natural gesture, a comfort from friend to friend.

Perhaps I was hoping for an answer. Perhaps I hoped to be able to catalog the dream that had featured him, to be able to name the feeling that, even at that moment, unsettled my stomach when I saw his bittersweet smile.

It is easy to face one’s ghosts when they have a name; you need to label feelings to exorcise them, and for me it had always been so simple, accustomed as I was to organizing thoughts. Instead, I watched Nathan, and I didn’t understand, I couldn’t do it; and when he opened his mouth to say something, I just hoped those thoughts would go away, like with a nagging headache.

“Sorry for barging in here out of the blue. I’m not disturbing, am I?”

He tried to smile, but in small moments his face grew gloomy, only to become serene again when he laid his eyes on mine again.

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