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Deliriously, the image of Jane with her house and her plants and her windchimes swims into view, and August is there too, wearing the shape of her body into an old bed. Jane slots between her legs and she thinks, fifty years. Jane bites down on her throat and she thinks of framed photos and stained recipe cards. Jane tightens against her fingertips and she thinks, home. Her eyes shut for Jane’s mouth and a good night’s sleep just the same.
I love you, she thinks. I love you. Please stay. I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave.
She thinks it, but she doesn’t say it. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
14
new york > brooklyn > community > missed connections
Posted October 12, 2004
Woman with red Converse on the Q (Brooklyn)
Apologies if this isn’t the right place for this, but I’m not sure where else to post. Not looking for a romantic connection. I was riding the Q with my son on Wednesday evening when a short-haired mid-twenties woman approached us and offered my son a pin from her jacket. It was a 70s-era gay pride pin, clearly a well-loved antique. My son is 15 and hasn’t had the easiest time at school since coming out earlier this year. Her act of kindness made his whole week. If you’re her, or you think you might know her, please let me know. I’d love to thank her.
In the end, it takes exactly one phone call for Gabe to agree to meet Myla for coffee.
“What can I say?” Myla says, pulling on an extremely flimsy top. “I’m the one who got away.”
“I’m going with you,” August tells her. She slings her bag over her shoulder, double-checking the pocketknife and mace. “This could be a ploy to get you alone so he can exact a bloody revenge.”
“Okay, Dateline, reel it in,” Myla says, shaking her hair out. “Love the instinctive mistrust of cis straight white men, but Gabe is harmless. He’s just boring. Like, really boring, but thinks he’s really interesting.”
“How did he get a job at Delilah’s?”
“He’s from one of those New York families, so his dad’s the landlord. He’s very straight.”
“And you dated him because…?”
“Look,” Myla says, “we all make mistakes when we’re young. Mine just happens to be six-foot-three and look exactly like Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“Revenant or Inception?”
“You really got me fucked up if you think I’d settle for anything less than Romeo + Juliet.”
“Damn, okay, I guess I get it.” August shrugs. “But I’m still going with you.”
Gabe lives in Manhattan, so they take the Q over the river, Jane wedged between them as they catch her up the latest status of the plan.
“I have to say, I’m impressed,” she says, throwing her arm over August’s shoulders. “This is definitely the most organized crime I’ve ever been involved in.”
“When are you going to tell me about all the other crimes?” August says.
“I have told you. They were mostly vandalism. Squatting. Disrupting the peace. The occasional breaking and entering. Maybe some light petty theft. One incident of arson, but I was wearing a mask, so nobody could prove it was me.”
“Those are some of the sexiest crimes,” August points out. “For people who are into crimes. Very Bender from The Breakfast Club.”
“That’s—” Myla starts.
“I know,” Jane says. “August told me about The Breakfast Club.”
Myla nods, mollified.
August forces Myla to let her go into the coffee shop a minute ahead to maintain cover, so she’s perched at the bar with an iced coffee when Myla enters. She tries to case out which of the twenty-something guys with black coffees and dogeared moleskines could be Gabe, until one with floppy hair and a pointy chin waves Myla over. He’s got a flannel tied around his waist and a faded Pickle Rick button on his messenger bag. August cannot imagine what he and Myla ever had in common. He looks almost pathetically happy to see her.
August sits back and sips her coffee and swipes through the substation homework she gave herself this week. She’s narrowed down which substation they need access to, so now it’s just about making sure they can get into the control room. Myla will take care of the rest.
Myla and Gabe wrap up after an hour, and she hugs him goodbye and throws him a call me! gesture before easing out the door. August hangs back for a minute, watching him stare after her. He looks like he might cry.
