Page 44 of The Refusal

Iplace my phone carefully beside me on the kitchen bench and blow out a drawn-out breath. The offer of food was a stroke of genius. I press my hand to my chest. Swivels winds around my ankles, mewing, so I reach out and grab a sachet from the cupboard.

My parents are lovely, but they’ve been here for five days now, visiting me and my brother—a teacher in a deprived area upstate—and we are getting on each other’s last nerve. I understand that they have my best interests at heart, but they’ve nagged me from the minute they got here about how hard I work, how that’s the reason I don’t have a girlfriend, and I probably don’t have a girlfriend because what sensible woman would want to spend time with a man who leaves his apartment in such a state? My mom is a DIY supremo, and, despite bending over backward to force her to relax, she has fixed all the dodgy drawers and dripping taps as well as installing a new control on the shower. My dad has cooked me some of the best meals I’ve had since living here. He’s been waxing lyrical about how it’s the most relaxing thing he’s ever learned to do, and how this year he set himself an objective to learn how to make Indian food. My freezer is piled high with tubs of brown and yellow sauces.

When are they going to accept that I’m thirty-one, and they don’t need to look after me anymore? The relief that they’re off out for a day of exploring New York without me buzzes through my system. For once in a long-ass time I’m at home and I have a free day. And now I’m going to hang out with Jo. But hell, I don’t want them to get any hint of a woman coming over—I straighten up— they must be out of here before Jo arrives.

“So, what’s your plan for today?” my dad says, peering over his glasses at me as he sits at the granite kitchen counter eating his croissant. This question or a version of it got asked every weekend morning during my childhood over the breakfast table. Old habits die hard. I’m not sure if my parents grasp that I’m running a huge tech company; they seem to think they still have to chivy me into having a productive day. But something about this well-worn routine is like a pair of comfortable old shoes that I’ve slipped on after finding them at the back of the closet.

“A friend’s dropping by and we’re going to code together,” I say.

This is good. It won’t trip their radar. Ever since I got into computers when I was younger, someone has always been coming over to code.

“Sounds like fun, honey,” my mom says absently as she peers into the dishwasher. “Hmm, funny smell in here.” She wrinkles her nose as she straightens, and I can already see her cogs whirring about how to take it apart. “How do you know this guy?”

My heart sinks with this question. Now I’m stuck. Do I correct her?

“It’s someone I work with,” I say, neatly avoiding the gender problem without giving too much information. I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

But my dad is clearly way too smart for that and snaps his paper before placing it down on the bench. Damn.

“And does this someone have a name?”

“Jo.” I want to do a little victory moonwalk that Jo’s name could actually be male or female.

“Well, that’ll be lovely,” my mom says, like she ever had any idea what coding involved. She never checked on us. Honestly, we could have been watching porn when we were younger, and she would have been none the wiser.

I start clearing away the dishes and sorting the kitchen, and my dad shuts the paper and moves over to one of the large gray sofas in the open-plan space. My heart sinks. This is a surefire sign he’s settling in to read. Swivels reads it like a pro, too, jumping onto his lap and getting comfortable. My skin itches, and I wipe the countertop down to distract myself.

“Aren’t you meant to be heading out?” I say, looking at my wrist and—damn—over twenty minutes have passed. I have no idea how long it will take Jo to get here. Perhaps I should meet her at a coffee shop and keep her out of my apartment?

My dad inspects me again over his glasses. “You keen to get rid of us or something?”

I don’t like how assessing his stare is. He always had some sixth sense about my nervous ticks. I try and force myself to relax.

“No, just wanted you to make the most of the day.” I keep my tone light, glancing out of the wall of windows that face 21st Street, blithely wiping down the bench again so I don’t have to meet his piercing stare. He’s one of the few people who can still make me feel like I’m sixteen again, waiting for my girlfriend to come over. Although, to be fair, that never actually happened to me because I was an uber-geek and girls went for the sporty, jock types.

“We should stay and meet this friend of yours,” my mom says firmly as she settles on the sofa next to my dad, and I kick myself. I should have known—they are always mad keen to check out anyone I know.

“Excellent idea,” my dad says, disappearing behind the paper. “Make me another coffee there, would you, Janus?”

“I’m not sure—” I start, but my mom flaps her hand at me.

“Don’t be silly, Janus. It would be rude if we headed out before meeting this friend of yours.”

“Well, not so much a friend as a colleague.”

“From your company?” My dad’s voice drifts out from where he’s still buried behind his newspaper.

I’ve taken my parents into the business numerous times in the past, and we went in yesterday because I wanted them to see the offices we’ve moved into since they were last here. They enjoyed meeting everyone, and my mom told me it was, “all very nice,” but my dad didn’t say much, spending the entire time nodding and agreeing with my mother. This is nothing new: My whole life they’ve treated my achievements like this. I’m not sure why, but Ihaverealized that they have no clue about what it takes to run a business like this. My dad’s an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and lives in the past; my mom works in a nonprofit. Their idea of something big is a trip to New York to see their sons. When I mentioned in passing that the traveling was getting me down a bit, my mom lectured me on“staying home more”and told me she “didn’t understand why people wanted to go to all these foreign places.” When I explained we were setting up offices in the Far East, she asked me if we“needed to do that.”My dad coughs, and I’m pulled out of my reverie: His paper is down, and his eyebrows are raised. I realize there’s no way I’m dodging this.

“Someone who’s doing work for us. A subcontractor,” I say, getting my head around his earlier question, although something feels off about calling Jo a subcontractor. I am probably never going to hear the end of “that nice girl” if they meet her.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by the noise of the buzzer. Oh, fuck. She’s here.

* * *

I shoot out of the apartment like the devil is on my heels: I’ve got to give Jo some warning about my parents; they could say anything to her. Catching my reflection in the mirrored aluminum walls of the elevator, I realize that I’ve not touched my hair since I got out of bed this morning and tufts are sticking up on the crown of my head. I try to flatten it into some resemblance of style. The black T-shirt I’m wearing was on my bedroom floor this morning. I tentatively sniff my armpit. Not too bad. The doors slide open, and I nod at the concierge as I catch Jo’s eye across the lobby. As she starts toward me, too late I register how she’s dressed. A thin white T-shirt sits under a huge dark green sweater that swamps her tiny frame, her ubiquitous ripped jeans winding around her legs. Her hair is down and curling madly over her shoulders, fluffy and soft and my fingers clench and unclench like I have no control over them. It reminds me of the first time I saw it like this, and her smile shifts to uncertainty as I wrench myself out of my head.

I grimace at her and her eyes go wide. “Is everything okay?” she says.

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