When he arrived she was already there. Kelvin hadn\u2019t been sure she\u2019d show, but here she was, sitting at the table, wearing a sweater over a cami, not showing too much skin, her hair twisted into some kind of brown knot. It\u2019s not what she\u2019d looked like when they\u2019d met.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d met rock climbing. Not really, but that\u2019s what he\u2019d told his Mom when she\u2019d asked. Kelvin told her he\u2019d been tagging along with his climbing buddy Russell when he\u2019d met the woman in question, and Kelvin\u2019s mom said that sounded wonderful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know how to climb,\u201d he\u2019d told his mom, \u201cbut by trying to copy Russ I could kinda fake it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d gotten the reaction he\u2019d wanted from his mom, her retroactive concern at his bold recklessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Kelvin. You could have been hurt\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d come along with a group of her friends. They\u2019d scored some kind of group rate, and by the end of the day Russ was colluding with the non-single women in their group to pair me up with Jill\u2014that\u2019s what she said her name was\u2014their only single friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
His mom had been appeased, titillated by the story, hopeful it would turn into some kind of long term relationship that would involve her in some tangential, yet meaningful way; she wanted to smile knowingly at this Jill and they could share something true and unspoken and rare.<\/p>\n
Kelvin and Jill had not actually met rock climbing. Kelvin wished their first encounter had been some kind of meet cute where they\u2019d played idealized versions of themselves and told each other white lies that later came out as such but were quickly forgiven. Instead it was a typical bar type of hookup where alcohol and sexual urges led them to admit their base and carnal attractions toward one another. That method had been pretty common throughout Kelvin\u2019s adolescence, but it was becoming more rare as everyone he knew had started meeting people with apps that seemed to indiscriminately pair people together. Kelvin, suspicious of and overwhelmed by that proposition, had refrained from that method.<\/p>\n
They’d both, Jill and Kelvin, went out with friends and as the bar started to empty their two groups gravitated toward one another. They hadn’t decided to approach each other, nor did they have designs on one another. They were drunk and looking for something and their nights had crashed and sunk and they had all ended up in the same life boat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She would look different with her makeup done, he was sure. He wondered if he’d recognize her. He knew she was tall. Of that he was sure. He remembered noticing that she was a little taller than him while they\u2019d talked in the parking lot. He wasn\u2019t sure if he wanted to show up places with her if he was going to be a head shorter than her, but he decided to make a decision about that at a later date.<\/p>\n
At the restaurant, she sat alone at a small table. She drank a water, having waited for him to arrive to order. Ellie had already dropped off a complimentary appetizer.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompliments of the chef,\u201d she\u2019d told her.<\/p>\n
Ellie was Kelvin\u2019s secret weapon. After Kelvin arrived he would kiss Jill on her cheek and then casually say hello to Ellie and ask about her if she was still looking for a new car. He liked to surprise his dates by being on a first name basis with her, a young woman, slightly more attractive than the woman he was on a date with, who acted like Kelvin was a super-guy to know. It wasn\u2019t the first time he had used the maneuver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the guy who owns this place,\u201d Kelvin would explain. \u201cI know the whole wait staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHome field advantage,\u201d Jill stated.<\/p>\n
He liked her skepticism. He felt like he could tell her father had ignored her as a girl and then not ignored her at all. He liked that she knew to be skeptical of men. She was cold and precise. Her eyes were mean.<\/p>\n
They made small talk and then he confessed he hadn’t been sure she would come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I just lack trust?\u201d He said as if it were a question, as if it weren’t a melodramatic thing to say to a person you hardly know.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how that goes,\u201d she said. \u201cI’m just getting over a bad break up too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI could tell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you a Gemini?\u201d she asked. \u201cNever mind. I told myself I wouldn’t bring up astrology.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo astrology?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. In your breakup.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing worse to talk about on a date than astrology is your ex.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd here we are,\u201d she agreed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They ordered and smiled at each other, drank their drinks and talked about their exes. He noticed that she had a little blemish under her chin. He found it human and sweet and charming.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what happened?\u201d he asked as they sipped their beverages. \u201cWith the ex?\u201d<\/p>\n
“Oh,\u201d she said, wiping lipstick from the corners of her mouth and slipping her fingers into the plump of her hair. \u201cYou know how it goes. We just woke up one day and we were completely different people.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI know all about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s gonna sound weird, but I wasn’t always like this. Like, how I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow were you?\u201d He asked<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to drive a truck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t look like a truck driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I did. And I did that for years. For fifteen years, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t look old enough to have done anything for fifteen years.\u201d<\/p>\n
She blushed and took a sip of her wine. \u201cNow you are just flattering me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Really. You must have started driving when you were ten.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I wanted to get into publishing but then I accidentally became an account executive for an online resume company. Now I\u2019m in grad school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is change at a breakneck pace,\u201d he said, slitting his eyes and trying to detect any sarcasm in her voice, reviewing the conversation for insight into her age. \u201cI got the bends just listening to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She waved his comment away and sipped her wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you married?\u201d he asked. \u201cTo your ex?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. We never got around to it, but we were together for a long time. I met him not long after I started driving. I started driving right after I turned twenty and I left it all behind at thirty-five.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at her, trying to find the signs of middle age. She wasn\u2019t beautiful, but she certainly wasn\u2019t older than him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry. I\u2019m not thirty-five anymore. I\u2019m in my twenties now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t really drive a truck did you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my ex started out as this real intellectual. He was one of these math guys who is so smart that a University made him a professor, but didn\u2019t give him any classes. Just put him in a room and made him do proofs all day. He listened to symphonic music, got me onto Debussy and Milton Babbit. He was into the so-called \u2018math guys\u2019 like Bach and Bela Bartok. Do you know Bela Bartok?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Bach.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll that stuff is far out. And, of course, Jon Cage. Anyway, he stopped listening to all that. Became all outdoorsy. Got into fishing. Bought a boat and spent all his time out there. Grew a beard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see. Completely different people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. We just grew apart, as they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still can\u2019t tell if you are the best looking thirty-five year old in the world, or if you are just teasing me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWouldn\u2019t you like to know,\u201d she said and wiped her mouth.<\/p>\n
She stood and excused herself to the bathroom and her light, curly hair bounced behind her. He sipped his beer and checked his pocket to make sure the condoms hadn’t fallen out. He had heard keeping them in your wallet could crush and tear them, but he was worried he’d drop them if they were in his pocket all night. However old she was, he still planned to have sex with her. She was good enough and he was still trying to put some distance between him and Dawn. He wanted some experiences to reckon with so that the things that had happened with Dawn wouldn\u2019t loom so large.<\/p>\n
When Jill returned from the restroom she was no longer taller than Kelvin. She was a small Asian woman with tasteful shoes and a smart blazer.<\/p>\n
She sat down across from Kelvin and told him she was a paralegal for one of the bigger law firms in town.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid that happen to you in the bathroom?\u201d Kelvin asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you are Asian?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother is Chinese and my father is Korean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God. Now I\u2019ll never be able to figure out how old you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jill nodded her head, pursed her lips, and returned to her salad. She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them the opposite way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just trying to break the ice,\u201d he said. \u201cWith a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d she told him and waved at the waiter to bring her more wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is,\u201d Kelvin said, relieved to find this new person before him, \u201cthat I know exactly what you are going through. I\u2019ve been through it too. I\u2019ve never turned into a well-dressed Asian woman, but my ex turned into a completely different person on me as well. I loved her. She had this little cluster of freckles on her neck that just drove me crazy, but\u2026 she changed on me. She went from being this little sports freak to becoming Holly Homemaker and wanting kids and watching HGTV all the time. What happened to my beer-drinking Cubs fan, ya know? Where\u2019d that girl go?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe that\u2019s who she was all the time. Little Holly Homemaker pretending to be a Cubs fan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe, he said. But she was such a huge Kyle Schwarber fan. Like insanely huge. But maybe it was all fake. Who knows.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to fake that kind of dedication. People, really do change, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been with an Asian woman,\u201d he said and bounced his eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither have I,\u201d she said. \u201cBut who knows who we\u2019ll be by the end of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The waiter brought their entrees, two different ones than they had ordered, but neither complained nor sent them back. Kelvin liked that Jill was able to deal with things changing. But then he wondered if she\u2019d had their order changed when she\u2019d left the table. If she was somehow manipulating him, seeing how he deals with change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is,\u201d he said, cutting into his steak, \u201cis that I\u2019m not really this guy either. I\u2019m not this fit, alpha male guy. The guy you met at the bar the other night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho even was that guy?\u201d Jill asked, using her finger with precision to slip her straight, dark hair, cinching it behind her ear like she was opening a curtain in a dark room.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that it\u2019s all just a front and Dawn probably came to realize that eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHappens to us all eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that I\u2019ve had these tendencies to be with a man for a long time. I think, at heart, I\u2019m this kind of queer homebody who just wants to stay in his bathrobe all day and build model ships or something else fastidious and quaint. I know I shouldn\u2019t bring that up here, now, on this date, but \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut here we are,\u201d Jill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not even that I am afraid to come out of the closet, it\u2019s just that I think my mother\u2019s expectations are that I will live a particular type of life. A sort of standard, white-picket fence kind of existence and I don\u2019t even really know how to mention any of this to her without it being super-awkward. I guess I just don\u2019t want either of us to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd why are we even talking about your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Kelvin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to be a gay man who could keep a secret,\u201d Jill said.<\/p>\n
They paid the check after Kelvin made a joke about how, now that Jill was a man, that maybe she should pay the check, but they were both in such a rush to get back to Jill\u2019s place that Kelvin wasn\u2019t even sure who paid what in the end.<\/p>\n
By the time they got to Jill\u2019s, Kelvin was feeling self-conscious. He\u2019d retreated into a shell and felt nervous.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry about it,\u201d Jill said. \u201cHow do you think I feel? I\u2019ve only been a man for a half an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
They laughed, like they were both in on the joke and they recaptured some of the light jokiness that they had felt when they\u2019d been paying the bill.<\/p>\n
Jill\u2019s apartment was not huge, but it was appointed in such a way that their voices seemed to escape up to the ceiling and bounce there like lost balloons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like your place,\u201d Kelvin said of the small, neat apartment with dark curtains and a rich and masculine smell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been here before,\u201d Jill said and smiled.<\/p>\n
Jill tried to offer Kelvin a drink, but Kelvin refused. She offered again and Kelvin accepted the glass of scotch, but did not drink it. Handing a man a scotch was something she had seen someone do in a movie and thought she wanted to do so as well. Her shirt was off and her pectoral muscles were defined and tan. Her chest was waxed, her cologne smelled like sandalwood. Kelvin could tell she had shaved before their date, but the whiskers on her face still scraped against Kelvin\u2019s face. He\u2019d never kissed a man before and he felt like he was getting away with something.<\/p>\n
There was a mirror against the wall and Kelvin looked at his hands wrap around Jill\u2019s strong back, the muscles piled up beneath her shoulder blades, a small cluster of freckles emerging by her collar bone. He could taste Jill\u2019s tongue and his own and he knew how they were different, like a writhing caduceus alive and tangled.<\/p>\n
The drinks he\u2019d had were making him slow and he could feel his mouth twist into a grin even as they kissed.<\/p>\n
Jill became forceful and pushed Kelvin backwards, wrapped her wide hands around his wrists and pushed him back against the bed.<\/p>\n
After they were done fucking they crumbled onto the mattress, breathing heavy into each other, having gotten something neither realized they needed. They were exhausted and wet with each other\u2019s sweat. Jill reached for Kelvin, but Kelvin rolled to the side of the bed. They fell asleep with Jill\u2019s arm over Kelvin and neither one dreamed of anything strange or sad.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When they woke up the next day, Kelvin was a woman with large breasts and Jill was a black man, married to and cheating on a thin Indian woman. Jill kissed Kelvin on the cheek and smiled. I can’t see you anymore, Jill said to Kelvin. Jill’s penis throbbed even as she kissed, even as she smelled Kelvin\u2019s perfume, glanced down at his breasts, spilling out to the side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just can’t do this to my wife anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelvin nodded, pulling a shirt on and he left as a thirty something systems operator, twice divorced with three kids who wished he’d never let his first wife get away.<\/p>\n
He called his mother and asked if she wanted to meet for lunch. He told her his relationship with Jill had not worked out. He said he was thinking about getting back together with Dawn, or possibly his wife.<\/p>\n
His mother was incensed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen will you meet someone nice? I never liked Dawn and I never liked your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never even met my wife,\u201d Kelvin argued. \u201cThis current identity just manifested itself this morning. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I\u2019ve ever met my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill,\u201d his mother responded, drinking her coffee.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s true that I never liked her. How could I have?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always hate whoever I\u2019m with,\u201d Kelvin accused before storming out of the restaurant. It was the first time he\u2019d ever stood up to her.<\/p>\n
When Kelvin and Jill met again one day later, Kelvin was nearing retirement as one of the only female self-made billionaires in the country and Jill was a male underwear model with a thing for mommy-types. Kelvin made Jill smirk at a dumb joke that always worked and Jill scooted closer on the ferry they rode together out to the island at sunset, the myth of the moment ossified into permanence. Kelvin\u2019s mom learned to love Jill, even when Jill was a gruff, cold contract lawyer who reminded her of her deceased husband.<\/p>\n
Jill and Kelvin bought a house they could afford on their retail associate and receptionist salaries and they moved everything in. They sometimes had pets, sometimes did not. Sometimes had children, sometimes did not. They sometimes loved each other, sometimes did not. And they lived that way for a long time. Despite the temporal contortions inherent in their changing personhoods, the decay of the world occurred without consulting them. They were beholden to it the way a bird is not free from the wind.<\/p>\n
Candace did not change. Kelvin met her on the subway platform where he was a track operator. She had spilled her shopping bags on the tracks near the third rail and Kelvin sent out an emergency stoppage to keep the trains from running while he retrieved her dropped items, dirtied, but returned. Candace was looking for a simple man, ruddy, who wanted to solve problems in a straight-forward manner. Kelvin wanted to think of himself this way, so he became that kind of person. He left Jill, left her the house, left everything behind. Kelvin\u2019s mother was long dead by this point and Candace was his chance to try to achieve some kind of order. Some kind of consistency. It didn\u2019t work, of course. Kelvin tried to maintain the persona Candace had been attracted to, but being that it was a fa\u00e7ade, the act spun out of control, a too-wet vessel spun into a heap on a potter\u2019s wheel. Kelvin could come home as a man drunk and needy, a woman furious and jealous, a person bitter and mean having failed to deliver on their promise. There Kelvin was, in the back seat of a car with one of his students at the university, there Kelvin was in an expensive hotel with several men, some wearing shirts and none wearing pants, there Kelvin was high and lonely at a sporting event, getting arrested. Candace never changed. She was always that woman who had dropped her shopping bags on the tracks of the subway and she could not, like Jill had, understand the vicissitude. It ruins them, of course, (when hasn\u2019t it?), but can you even blame them for trying?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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