Whiskey & Ribbons Read online

  I closed my eyes so I could keep it in. Dalton’s words accompanied by the piano. A new song.

  He played some Oscar Peterson. At one point I stood up and started swaying. Dalton stood up with me and we danced together again, to nothing. The last thing Dalton played was “Desperado.” Yes, it was depressing. That’s how we’d been operating since the summer. My life is depressing now. Before? Eamon was alive and Dalton and I goofed off whenever we were together. He was always over at our place or we were over at his. Dalton was easy to be around and everything about him was familiar and comfortable to me. He was the only person I could stand to be with those tender days the week after Eamon’s funeral when I would sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry. He cooked for me and made me tea. African Honeybush in the morning, rooibos in the afternoon, and when the sun went down, vespertine chamomile with lavender. We sat together in silence and watched PBS. I especially liked the mind-numbing shows about woodworking, gardening. I liked listening to them list the names of things. At two o’clock it was American holly. African blackwood. Ash. Lacewood. Redheart. Bolivian rosewood. Burmese rosewood. East Indian rosewood. Honduras rosewood. At three o’clock it was Acantholobivia euanthema. Dhalia hybrida. Monsonia crassicaule. Zygocactus bridgesii, also known as false Christmas cactus.

  Back when I was knitting Noah’s baby blanket. Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one. Dear God, You promised to never leave me and I feel left. Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one. Purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one. Dear God, I cannot do this. I don’t want to. Fuck it.

  Back when ballet and teaching were the furthest things from my mind but the French terms I’d heard and known for most of my life still pirouetted across my brain—the sound of flowers, blooming. The sound of petals, falling. Arabesque. Développé. Échappé sur les pointes. Fouetté. Glissade. Grande jeté. Pas de chat. Port de bras. Relevé. Rond de jambe. Temps lié sur les pointes.

  Back when I couldn’t have a single thought without hearing Sergeant Royce had been on the force for ten years. He is survived by Evangeline and their unborn child. The words, rearranging themselves in my head—an ammonia migraine of syllables. Royce, unborn. He survived. Eamon Evangeline, ten. Their. He is Eamangelon. Evameline. And their child, force.

  Still, snow. Dalton played “Desperado” slowly and whenever he got deep into playing something he bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes. I watched him do it. Thinking of the kissing. Thinking of the fact that tonight was an accident. Thinking of the fact that there were no such things as accidents.

  I didn’t know if it was the snow or the kissing or the feeling like we were a fresh broken egg shattered on a cold concrete floor. Dalton played the piano every day—but it was like he couldn’t stop. Like if he stopped playing, we’d fade away. So, he played.

  Caesura.

  Thundersnow.

  We both turned to the window at the same time. The lights flickered.

  I don’t believe in ghosts but in that moment I felt Eamon near although I couldn’t read it properly—like I’d been asked to touch something but couldn’t feel it because I had on thick gloves. Eamon could feel a million different ways about me kissing Dalton or he could only feel one. Could he feel? Nothing made sense and I couldn’t make it, no matter how hard I tried. It was exhausting, infuriating, pointless. It made me feel impossibly small. The only thing anchoring me was Noah. And Dalton, but I knew he didn’t belong to me like Noah did.

  Later when we were sleepy enough to go to bed I told Dalton he could sleep in my bed if he promised no funny business. Right after Eamon was killed and before he moved in, Dalton would sometimes sleep on the floor in front of my bedroom door. Now, Dalton slept in the blue bedroom down the hall. When I came home and he wasn’t expecting me and he had his shirt off, he’d put it back on. He was a gentleman, deliberately.

  “No funny business,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Are you still drunk?” I asked.

  We’d stopped drinking an hour or so before, sat in front of the fire playing cards. I won both hands of Go Fish. Dalton annihilated me at War. He tried to remember the complicated rules to Asshole but we weren’t sure we had enough people so we gave up. We played one round of Two-Handed Rook. We also shared two cigarettes sitting on the kitchen floor with the back door propped open. We never smoked together before and now we did. We were a new beast. One thing when Noah was with us and a whole new thing when it was just the two of us. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself from wondering what my parents thought about us, what Eamon’s thought about us. Maybe everyone assumed Dalton and I had gone crazy together. But in truth, what other people thought about us wasn’t important. Eamon was dead so my list of important things had been considerably shortened.

  “I’m kind of drunk,” Dalton said, leaning against the frame of my bedroom door.

  “No funny business,” I said again and Dalton nodded, slowly.

  I got into bed and after a minute, Dalton slid in behind me. He was in his T-shirt, his pajama pants, same as me. He wrapped his arms around me. Eamon was the only man I’d ever been with. Dalton and I had never been in the same bed together, never joked about it. There we were, spooning. Not forking. The bedroom, softly ticking. The snow, whispering down from the February sky, glowing ballet slipper-pink.

  Eamon Royce

  WHEN I MET EVANGELINE I WORKED SECURITY AT THE megachurch, and yes, it was as glamorous as it sounded. The coffee was free and I had a cush spot by the exit door. I stood there, watched things. Nothing ever happened, not even close, but that was what I got paid to do—stand there in my uniform and keep an eye on things, make people feel safe while they worshipped. The first time I saw her, my mind was somewhere else. My phone had been blowing up. Lisabeth.

  You always do this.

  Fuck you Eamon!!!!

  Never speak to me again.

  Why aren’t you texting me back???

  Where are you?!?!?

  Have you seen my orange yoga pants?

  I hate you so much right now.

  Call me later.

  Whatever.

  Whatever Eamon.

  I was putting my phone into my pocket when Evangeline walked over to me, but I didn’t know she was Evangeline yet. I knew she was ridiculously beautiful, in purple—the same color of this grape jam my grandma used to make. Once I realized I was comparing the color of her dress to my grandma’s jam, I realized I was paying too much attention to her already. I had half a girlfriend but Evangeline was a goose.

  Dalton and I had code words for girls. We came up with them in middle school and still used the words when we were alone. We’d trained ourselves to think that way forever ago and I found myself thinking about it when I saw a beautiful woman. We made sure the words were inconspicuous. We didn’t want the girls or my mom to be able to decode them. Kitten would be a dead giveaway so we never used it. A goose was the highest level. It meant the girl was both pretty and hot, which could also mean cute and hot, but that was debatable. We’d decided on goose because it was a silly word that would never cause suspicion. A squirrel was a girl who was hot but maybe not so pretty. A duck was a girl who was pretty but maybe not so hot. A caterpillar was a girl who wasn’t particularly pretty or hot but we weren’t ready to count her out yet. Like maybe we could give her a couple years. A ferret was a girl who had no hope, so move on.

  Evangeline was a goose all the way. Lisabeth was a goose too. An angry goose. My phone vibrated in my pocket again. I turned it off without looking at it. Gave my full attention to the goose in front of me.

  “Hi. The little ones will be performing this morning so we’re going to bring them up through here and over this way,” she said, showing me with her arms. No wedding ring. The goose was unmarried. “So if you could make sure no one sits in these two rows that would be awesome,” she finished, dropping her arms to her sides.

  “Oka
y,” I said, nodding.

  “What happened to Russ? He’s our usual security guy,” she said, tilting her head at me.

  “Oh, he moved to Florida. So now, it’s me,” I said. The sanctuary was filling up quickly. The worship band tuned. I turned to look over at them. To at least give a semblance of doing my job. I didn’t want to do my job though. I wanted to talk to Evangeline. Leeny Goosey.

  “Aw, we’ll miss him. He was sweet,” she said.

  Two of the little ones she’d referred to came up to her, started playing peekaboo on either side of her legs.

  “Hey, you two, where’s Miss Donna? Go find Miss Donna since it’s almost time to start,” she said to them in a calm, measured voice. They ran off as suddenly as they’d appeared. She smoothed down her dress in the back.

  “I’m Eamon. Royce,” I said, pointing to my last name on my uniform. “And I’m not sweet at all so you will never confuse me with Russ.”

  I didn’t smile.

  But she did. It was glorious.

  “Oh I’m sure you’re sweet enough. We’ll see. I’m Evangeline,” she said, waving.

  A couple people stepped to the rows Evangeline had asked me to protect and I kindly told them they were reserved for her Sunday school class of little ones. The lights dimmed, the worship band started playing.

  “Nice to meet you, Evangeline,” I said.

  “You too,” she whispered, turning from me.

  I didn’t turn my phone back on. I hadn’t thought about Lisabeth in two whole minutes. I stood with my back against the wall, deliberately not looking for Evangeline, but it didn’t matter because she was already everywhere.

  When I got home, Lisabeth was still on fire.

  “It’s the middle of the day,” I said, closing the door behind me. “How can you be so angry in full sun? This is like, nighttime anger.”

  We didn’t live together but she had a key. She was in the kitchen wearing one of my old T-shirts over nothing else but a pair of panties. My body reacted. Her legs—gamine—her wild hair tucked behind her ears. This fight could end in fucking. I’d be fine with it. I’d always be fine with it. Or not. Maybe it was time for me not to be fine with it.

  “Eamon. Eamon! You are an asshole,” she said, pointing at me.

  “Okay,” I said, shrugging.

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “What do you want me to say, Lisabeth? Tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it and we can get it over with,” I said. I began walking to my bedroom, taking off my uniform.

  “I don’t want to have to tell you what to say!” she said, following me.

  “Honestly? I don’t even remember what this is about. I’ve been racking my brain all morning and I swear to you I have no clue,” I admitted. I put my gun in the top drawer like always. I took off my duty belt, started unbuttoning my uniform shirt. I wasn’t looking at her.

  “You said you’d come to dinner at my parents’ tomorrow night and then you said you had to work. I asked if you could switch with someone. You said no. You don’t remember this?” she asked so calmly it almost scared me. How did she turn off the crazy so fast?

  “Ah,” I said, remembering. I didn’t want to go to dinner at her parents’ because going to dinner at her parents’ would be a lie. This relationship was ending. Both of us knew it. The shot clock was running out. Any second now we’d hear the final buzz.

  “So you can’t switch with someone?” she asked.

  I took my shirt off, my undershirt too. I took my pants off, my socks. I stood there in my boxers, scratching my head.

  “No, Lisabeth. I can’t. And it’s not a big deal,” I said.

  “It is a big deal to me! You refuse to hear it.”

  “I’m tired,” I said.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  I let her go.

  Later I met Dalton out for beers and wings.

  “U of L has no three-point shooting. That’s the problem,” I was saying as we watched the basketball game flash on the flat screens surrounding us.

  “That’s the problem,” Dalton echoed, reaching for a fry.

  Dalton and I knew each other well enough to not have to talk all the time. We both had our quiet moments and could spend extremely long periods of time together in silence. We’d always been that way. But also, when we needed to talk, we’d talk. And I kind of needed to talk.

  “Hey. I’ve ended it with Lisabeth, I just haven’t told her yet,” I said.

  “Wow,” Dalton said, but his tone was duh.

  “I’m trying to avoid a long drawn-out conversation,” I said, watching the door. It was a habit I had and not one I was likely to change. I was a cop. I was aware of these things even when I wasn’t wearing my uniform or driving my patrol car. I couldn’t turn it off and didn’t want to. It was how my brain operated. A group of young boys came in, scrambling through their wallets, flicking through their glowing phones.

  “She’s crazy,” Dalton said. He leaned back in his chair, threw his arm around the empty one next to him.

  “I know. That’s what I used to like about her,” I laughed.

  “Now you got to pay the price. Hook up with another crazy girl and that may make the transition easier,” Dalton said.

  “Frances got a friend?” I asked, referring to Dalton’s sometimes-girlfriend.

  “I know exactly how to piss Frances off and I can’t help myself,” he said.

  “Mom thinks you’re being lazy in your relationship. You know how she feels about Frances,” I said. My mom had tried to make it work with Frances, invited her over, reached out to her, but no matter what she did, those two couldn’t get along. It wasn’t happening.

  “Mom’s right,” Dalton said, in easy agreement.

  “I saw a goose at church. That’s what I want. A new goose,” I said, watching the guy from our team ferociously dunk on the flat screen. I made a celebratory fist before finishing my beer.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Evangeline,” I said, giving her name a bit of flair.

  Dalton raised an eyebrow. “Fix your Lisabeth problem first, yeah?”

  “Yes, sir. Fix your Frances problem first, yeah?” I said back to him.

  “Fixing this beer problem right quick,” Dalton said, getting up and heading to the counter for round two.

  For the next couple weeks I stayed busy with work. Louisville’s crime rate in general was super-high compared to other cities in America. Louisville was the biggest city in Kentucky. A city of over a million people where the odds of being a victim of a crime was one in twenty. Our police department never got a real break. I tried my best to leave work stuff at work, came home in my uniform most days, showered the stench of my shift off me—the sadness and grime of the streets, the at-times blessed tedium of routine traffic stops. Lisabeth had this sharp minty body wash in the shower and I specifically used it when my shifts were over because it made me feel extra-clean. Like I could wash off the blood and evil of the world. Start new. But on Sunday mornings I saw Evangeline at the church. I started volunteering for Sunday nights too, hoping she’d be there. She was. Our relationship had progressed from police officer and Sunday school teacher to Eamon and Evangeline, but I’d never seen her outside of church. She always made a point of coming up to me, saying hello, thanking me for my service. Sometimes she’d remind me where the coffee was. I’d act like I didn’t know, because I liked listening to her explain things. She pointed a lot and I thought it was maybe because she was used to working with such small children, guiding them this way and that. She told me she taught ballet. I resisted the urge to tell her she looked like it, but she did. She had a ballerina body and walked with her feet turned out a bit. Evangeline was a light beauty. At times I’d be overwhelmed with wanting to pick her up, carry her out of the sanctuary, carry her to my patrol car, take her anywhere she wanted to go, just me and her. I found myself thinking about her a lot more than I should’ve.

  The first time I saw Evangeline outside of church
was at the theatre. I’d promised Lisabeth I’d go with her to see Les Misérables. I’d fallen asleep right before the end of Act I and made no real apology about it, seeing as how I’d been working a lot of nights and Lisabeth knew that and still wanted me to take her. She’d tried explaining the musical to me on the way to the theatre but none of it stuck. My feelings about Lisabeth hadn’t changed, but I hadn’t broken up with her either. She still came to my place, I still went to her place, we still had sex, I still thought she was sexy in the morning wearing my shirt. I knew we wouldn’t be together forever, but she didn’t. I felt guilty about how I looked forward to my conversations with Evangeline so much, how my palms would start to sweat when I saw the top of her head at church. She had this long, curly hair that looked like fluffy, twisted feathers.

  “This guy Javert, he’s a cop—so you have something in common,” Lisabeth had said to me as I was parking my truck in the garage next to the theatre.

  “Hold up. I thought he was the bad guy,” I said.

  “He is.”

  “So how do we have something in common? You think I’m the bad guy? No, honestly—be honest with me,” I said, almost too serious. I didn’t know if she would be able to let it go or not. I didn’t know if I wanted her to.

  “He’s a cop, but he’s constantly chasing after our hero, Jean Valjean. What do you mean I think you’re the bad guy? Why are you trying to start a fight? What is this about?” she asked.

  I turned the engine off, we got out. I instinctively took her hand as we crossed the street. I was still doing things like grabbing her hand, walking on the outside nearest the traffic when we were together. The thought of anything awful happening to her made me want to weep and I saw awful things happen on a regular basis. The day before the theatre I’d been called to a fatal car accident, directed traffic as the coroner zipped the body into a bag. I didn’t want to hurt Lisabeth. I didn’t know what I wanted. Maybe I didn’t want anything. My crush on Evangeline was just that. A crush. I was too old for a crush. I felt foolish and guilty.