32. LesbianLesbianLesbian

That night’s Saturday Chinese dinner out with Thad was considerably more quiet than normal. He stared at the wall as I picked at my mu shu pork. Everyone around us seemed to be having fun. There was an Asian birthday party on one side and two elderly country woman gossipying on the other. The restaurant was full.  

I coughed.

“Huh?” Thad said expectantly.

“What?” I asked, not looking up.

“Did you say something?” he asked.

“I coughed.” I said head still down.

“Oh, sorry.”

I dug into my plate. He had told me just before we left that he would be staying the night at his new place starting tomorrow. So tonight was it: his last night before he was gone. I could focus on nothing other than the negative, nothing but how this was the beginning of our end. I could not even see the nice evening before us, all I could see was catastrophe.

“I’m glad I got most everything moved today…” he said as if I cared.

“Uh huh,” I said to no one in particular.

As I thought about his move, it seemed he had hardly moved anything out at all. And this was comforting, as it made it seem maybe he wasn’t really moving out, but also offensive, as he was really moving out and causing me all this strife, so why wasn’t he just taking everything of his? He hadn’t even touched the closets.  

“Why are all of your clothes still in the house?” I asked abruptly.

“Pardon,” he said, fork in mouth.

“If you’re moving out tomorrow, why are all of your clothes still in the bedroom? You’ve hardly packed any of them.”

“Oh, I packed a bag and took that over,” he smiled. “That’ll do for tomorrow.”

He was trying to keep things light; I was not. I was mad and wanted blood.

I frowned. “So you’re not taking all your clothes?”

“Well, no. That would be silly.”

“And why would that be silly?” I said aggressively. “You’re moving out, right?”

“Well, yes…and no. I just thought I would leave most of my clothes and just take what I need back and forth. It would be ridiculous to take all of my clothes out of the house.”

“You mean my house?” I said.

“Yes, whatever Michael. Yes, fine, your house.” Now he was defensive. 

“So, were you going to ask me if you could just leave all of your clothes junking up my closets and bureaus?”

“I just thought it would be okay,” he said taking a bite of fish.

“And all of the coats in the coat closet? Are you just leaving them too?”

“Well, it’s spring, duh. I won’t need those till next year.”

“So now I’m just your storage closet? Like your parents’ house? I’m just a place to store your shit, while you get to run off and play?”

He frowned and sat his fork down. “Do we need to go?” His nostrils were flared and I knew if I pushed him much farther he would just walk out, and I did not want that. Then I would have to chase him in the car and there was a great chance, given the opportunity, I might then just run him over…so to avoid a charge of vehicular manslaughter, I decided I needed to take it down a notch.    

“No.” I said, making myself eat another bite of pork. And then after a second, in what I tried to make a conversational tone but I’m sure came out as a Nazi rant: “But you could have told me you were going to leave stuff.”

He looked at me with hatred. I returned it.

“Do you mind -if I leave -some things -at the house-I mean-your house?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“No,” I lied. “That’s fine. Just good to know what’s going on-at- my-house.”

We sat in silence and listened to the Mandarin version of Happy Birthday to You sang from the table behind us. Everyone looked so happy there; I just hated them. 

Having satiated my blood lust for the moment I forced myself into small talk. I told him two random work stories, which I knew he hated to hear, but was obligated to listen to at this juncture of our fight. To entertain myself I made them gruesomely detailed with lots of English Department jargon, littered with literary references.

As I rattled, he smiled along, trapped.  

I ended with “…and then I said, ‘Oh, that’s just so Chaucer…’ and everyone in the meeting laughed.”

He looked like he was in such pain, which I enjoyed.

To meet my story he then began a long tale of Bettina and her boyfriend Bayne.

“His Christian name is Bayne?” I asked in my most professorial tone.

“He’s young and in a band called Eyeball. His real name is Barry or something,” Thad said with a whip of his fork. He continued, and his story was just as painful as mine, but in a myriad of different ways: trite, juvenile, offensive, illegal.  

Thad then spoke of their new house and how fun and fabulous it was and about all the work Bettina had done on it.

“Oh, I did go to that home store on Lindsey Street over past that cute little bakery, to look for paint today,” he interjected. “Did you know the girlfriend of the owner of that lesbian gift shop on Campus Corner works there? The ones you introduced me to on the Art Walk last month?”

 “You mean LesbianLesbianLesbian?” It was the nickname we had for Celtic Wind, our local lesbian-run gift shop.

“Yes.” he said, “So I was looking for paint-I want sea shell pink for the bathroom-and I saw her so I went and said ‘hi. ’ I mentioned that I had met her and her girlfriend at LesbianLesbianLesbian the other night, and she was kind of rude to me.”

“Really?” I asked. “She’s always seemed quite nice.”     

“I know. And I had just met her and all. And at first I wasn’t sure she recognized me, but then I said “I met you during the last Art Walk at LesbianLesbianLesbian,” and she said “yeah,” and just walked off. 

“That’s so weird.”

“I know. And she seemed so nice the other night.”

And then it hit me and I burst out laughing. Poor, poor Thad!

“What?” he asked.

“Did you call it LesbianLesbianLesbian?” 

“Yeah. That’s its name isn’t it?” He said, head hung and mouth open.

“No!” I shrieked, “Who would name a store LesbianLesbianLesbian?”

“Lesbians,” he said matter-of-factly.

“No!” I laughed, “Honey, that’s just what we call it! Its real name is Celtic Wind. You really thought it was called LesbianLesbianLesbian?”

“Well, that’s what you’ve always called it.”

“And we call Poor Becky, Poor Becky, but we don’t say it to her face!” I roared with laughter.

“You are kidding!” he looked mortified. “And I said it to her! No wonder she just stomped off like John Wayne.”

“Good lord! You ought to be glad she didn’t smack you in the head!”

“Oh my God I am so embarrassed!” he said, red-faced, hooting.  

We both laughed till we wept. 

And in that moment I could not help but forgive the transaction Thad was perpetrating against me: for he does not know what he does. It was part of his charm, his naiveté, his innocence, his youthful vigor. His lack of…shall we say, foresight. His petty demands and selfishness. It was all him, and I loved him, so I had to love it all, even his move. And that somehow made tonight a little better and less painful. At least we had tonight.     

“LesbianLesbianLesbian” I muttered as my breath returned, wiping my eyes.  

“Stop it!” he said, still red.

We ate a few more bites and exchanged caring smiles and giggles. I took a deep breath; it was good to be calm.

“Oh, and I guess I should tell you, or ask you. Bettina can’t afford a washer dryer for a while, so we’ll be doing laundry at the house for a while, okay? Is that okay?””

And with that I rolled my eyes realizing that maybe this move wouldn’t cause us as much separation as I had feared.