He's sitting on the edge of my bed, the one I now share with Calvin. One hand is folded over his lap, the other tugging his freshly grown beard. He's driving West again, he says, the way heroes say in old movies when they have to get away. That's ok, I think, leave me to New York and these quiescent rooms.
When James calls I tell Calvin I'm not going to answer it, but I do. When we meet on the street I say I'm not going to invite him over, but I do. He shows up with a bottle of cheap red wine, because he doesn't remember that I prefer white. Or maybe I didn't prefer white at the time, but now I do. Or maybe I just never told him that red wine gives me a headache.
Anyway, he pours three glasses and I drink mine fast even though splinters of cork are floating to the surface. The wine is sour and I see it in his face, even when he raises his glass to toast the air and say "pretty good for seven dollars." We give him the tour, Calvin and I, and I don't know if it's James or the wine but I feel uneasy. And my parents are on their way to see my apartment for the first time. There's that too.
I'm watching him react to the colors I've painted the rooms, and he's reserving judgment this time. Even the ones he normally hates — I've painted the kitchen pistachio green, for kicks — if he hates it now he doesn't say. Calvin makes jokes, tells him that we picked out colors together and then behind his back I picked out new ones. It's intimate, the way Calvin talks, like we've grown old folding the corners of sheets under our mattress and leaving blueberry pies to cool on the window sill.
James says, over and over, that he's going to leave, but he makes no motion to go. He sits down at the kitchen table and sips another glass of his crappy wine. It's the same table James and I shared when we lived together, one of the few pieces of furniture I own. The wineglasses, both red and white, belong to Calvin, just as all the knives, forks, plates and spoons had been James' before. He's eaten breakfast at this table a thousand times. The tablecloth that matches the walls is in the laundry; even the table's rough eggshell surface, which James preferred at the time, is exposed. He says nothing.
I dip into the shower while James and Calvin chat over newly full glasses. Over the sound of running water I can't hear what they're talking about, but it doesn't matter. How was your time in the mountains?, Calvin will offer politely, the question I wouldn't ask. It was good for me, James will reply, dark eyes docile, hands clasped closed. When the water stops I'm still not listening, just eyeing the towels hanging limply on their hooks. The bathroom door opens into the kitchen, and I remind myself this isn't the first time I've been in a towel near James. Still, when I step out, my hair wrapped up like an Egyptian's, I understand why my mother would never undress around my father and me at the same time. It's uncomfortable, these mismatched pairs of eyes, different agendas, different views.
I change in the bedroom for dinner. Beautiful, I hear as I return to the kitchen. You look beautiful, they both agree, but it's different in tone. When Calvin says it, it's quotidian: with James, a revelation. Neither is more or less sincere, I've learned. That's just who they are.
We take the rest of the wine up to the roof. The air is crisp, cold like pressed silk. James lights a cigarette, and he offers one to me but I don't smoke anymore. If I start to miss the smoky smell of nicotine on my fingers — I often do, holding sweet, soap-perfumed hands under my nose — I won't tell him so. James is telling a story and his lips buzz like bees, his tawny beard swarming around them like drones.
I want them to stop. I take James by the arm, sheathed in pilling plaid, and walk him silently to the edge. Pointing down, I show him where the building next door burned down, just a few weeks before.
"The demolition crews have been here for weeks," I tell him. A blue porcelain toilet rests sideways among crispy wooden stakes and pulverized tiles. It's the only piece of the rubble that suggests there once was a room. James nods, adds, "Don't you wish you could climb down there and poke around, bring something home?" Calvin isn't listening. Weeks ago we stood in the same place, laughing at how our toes inched away from the wreckage. How instinct can somehow revive the flames.
My Dad calls, he'll be here soon. The boys scurry down the stairs: Calvin to tuck in his shirt, James to disappear. For the moment, I'm alone. I see two church spires that used to act as signposts, before I moved, before I knew my way home.
Calvin beckons; Sweetheart, he calls me, guiding like his palm in the small of my back. "James's leaving," he shouts up the stairs, his voice ascending with them. James stands at the bottom of the staircase, strapped into his hiker's backpack. His head is cocked to the side, arms extended warmly, but also in humor. I wonder what it would be like, now, to dive into them. His brow looks heavy; he's standing in the shadows yet his orange beard glows. I hesitate for a moment, arms crossed for the cold.This is how I'll remember him, I think to myself. His eyes like two ink stains, blotted gingerly in the picture.