Crazy About You

Chapter 1Content-wise, Greek mythology is a cornerstone for a lot of modern pop culture, and D’Aulaires is as good an introduction as any for a young child. Devante rubbed his eyes and sat back in his chair. A glance at the clock on his laptop told him that this essay, the last paper of his Children’s Literature course, was due in exactly ten minutes. He took a sip of water from the bottle to the right of his computer, rubbed his eyes again, and scrolled to the top of the document to read it through. Nine minutes later, he saved and renamed the file, DMiller_LIS481_Final, pulled up his browser, where the submission form was already loaded, and hit Submit just as the clock ticked over to five P.M. He took a moment to relax, his shoulders sagging with relief, before picking up his phone where it had been sitting, face-down and silenced, to the left of his laptop. Done, just in the nick of, he texted Preeda. You? She didn’t respond right away, so Devante stood, stretched, and slipped the phone into his pocket. He clicked the laptop closed, pushed his chair under his desk, and turned the light off in his bedroom on his way out. As Devante stumped down the stairs, he heard his father grumble from the living room. Devante sighed and lightened his steps until he hit the landing. His father, as he always did, had his face hidden behind his newspaper, as he sat in his armchair by the window. Devante could just see the top of his head, tight curls cropped close to his scalp, and his fingers as they held the pages open. Brain still a little fried from his frantic paper-writing, Devante pulled a face. Without moving the newspaper, Carl said, “You’ll get stuck that way.” “How did you see me?” Carl twitched one side of the paper down to peer at Devante over his green reading glasses. “You’ll figure it out when you have kids of your own,” he said. “Finished?” “Yes,” Devante said. “Just in time.” “Good.” Up went the paper again. “You can choose dinner tonight,” Carl said from behind it. “Menu for that new Jamaican place came in the mail yesterday. It’s with the rest.” “It’s open already?” Devante had been watching the progress of the new restaurant with interest. “I thought it wasn’t supposed to open for a week.” “Got a Grand Opening sign in the window, and I saw customers when I went for my walk this morning.” Carl turned the page. “Jamaican it is,” Devante said. “Did you circle what you want?” “Ain’t my first rodeo, kid.” Devante dropped onto the couch, a solid leather structure covered in colorful throw pillows. His father had picked the couch, an investment when Devante was twelve; Devante had picked the pillows. Every now and again, when he was bored or gloomy, he went shopping, and ordered a new one to add to the pile. Carl Miller had strict thoughts about eating dinner before seven P.M., so Devante had a little under ninety minutes to kill before he could place the order. He fished his phone out of his pocket to see if Preeda had responded. She had. Five mins late, hope she doesn’t dock me. Drinks 2morrow???? Of course, he wrote back. He was just opened the TFG group chat when his father abruptly said, “If.” Devante looked at him. “Huh?” “If you have kids of your own,” Carl said. The page of his newspaper was curled down again and he was looking at Devante with a serious expression. “Don’t mean to assume. We haven’t talked about it.” “Oh,” Devante said, a little startled. “Uh, it’s okay.” “Do you?” Devante blinked. “Do I what?” “Want kids,” Carl said. “For next time.” Devante flushed. “I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t really thought about it. I’m only twenty-five.” Carl grunted. “Fair enough.” He snapped his paper back up and Devante, a little winded, turned back to his phone. Preeda had already texted the group chat, creatively titled The Friend Group. PC: As per tradition, I’m calling an off-schedule drinks night 2morrow to celebrate Dev and me finishing our semester MC: HELL YEAH NM: First round’s on me MC: Good of you, Nat NM: To be clear: first round for the students and people with taste. You can buy your own Pabst, I’m not sullying my credit card with that shit MC: Damn CG: Wait, do you think I have taste? NM: In beer, yes. In women, no CG: That’s fair DM: Stop murdering Mike when I’m not here to see it, Nat NM: No promises Devante muffled his snort in his sleeve. Carl had carefully circled Cowfoot soup and Plantains on the Jamaican menu, when Devante pulled it out of the drawer. Devante perused it himself, then dialed the number on the cover and placed an order for cowfoot soup and curry shrimp, with a side of plantains and some steamed vegetables. “Twenty minutes,” he said to Carl, coming back into the living room. “Great.” Carl folded his newspaper and added it to the stack on the floor by his armchair. “We got something to drink?” “I went to Lee’s this morning,” Devante said. “Should be cold by now.” Carl nodded and pulled his shoes on. “Back in thirty.” Devante set the table while his father was out fetching their dinner—stained but impeccably clean white plates, forks, knives, and napkins all in their place. When Devante was seven, his father had taught him how to properly set a table. “It’s important for a man to know how to keep house, and how to present himself,” Carl had rumbled, his big hand on Devante’s shoulder. “Fork and knife on the right sides, crisp fold in your napkin, and you’re halfway to a good impression.” To be honest, Devante still didn’t get it, but every other day he set the table for dinner, everything in its place like his father taught him, and it did feel good when Carl looked over it all and gave him a nod. On Carl’s nights to set the table, he took his time with it, nudging each utensil into exact alignment, and Devante always made sure to give him a smile for it. It was the little things. Devante took two bottles of beer out of the fridge when he heard his father’s key in the lock, cracking off the caps into the trash can and settling one down by each place setting. The kitchen filled with the aroma of well-seasoned food when Carl came in and set the bag on the table. “Soup’s on,” he said. “Been smelling it the whole walk home.” Devante fished out his packages, shrimp and veggies, as Carl decanted his soup into the bowl Devante had set out for him. They settled into their chairs and dug in. The food tasted as good as it smelled, and for a long while there was nothing but the sounds of two men eating. Finally, Carl set his spoon down with a sigh. “Damn satisfying,” he said. Devante nodded, mouth full of the last of his shrimp. “What was your paper on?” Carl asked, balling up his napkin from his lap and setting it to the side. Devante smiled. “Had to pick a book I remembered from childhood and write about it in light of what we’ve learned about children’s literature,” he said. “One of my easier finals.” “What’d you pick? Plenty to choose from, you always were a reader.” “D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths,” Devante said. Carl picked up his beer bottle. “That the yellow one you read the cover off of?” He tipped the bottle back and drained the last of the beer inside. “Yeah,” Devante said. “It held up, too, which was nice.” “Good.” Carl nodded at Devante’s plate. “Done?” “Yes.” Devante slid his plate forward and Carl stacked it on top of his own and put his bowl on top. Devante handed him his silverware, which went into the bowl along with Carl’s own, and then Carl laboriously stood up and carted the whole lot over to the sink to start the washing-up. Devante slept deeply that night, the sort of sleep he could only ever get at the end of a semester, when all the stress and labor rushed out of him for a week until the next one started up. Only one left to go, a voice in his head chirped when he woke up. Then it’s nothing but adulthood. Devante groaned and shoved his face deeper into his pillow. Devante, when he’d moved back home from college, had re-designed his room to be easy to wake up in. The windows were already southeast-facing, and he hung them with thin, translucent curtains to let the light in without too much of a glare; he’d bought a new mattress, to sleep better and be more rested when he woke up; and before all that, he and his father had spent a messy weekend painting over the dark green on his walls with a much lighter blue. For the most part it worked: Devante rarely made use of his alarm clock’s snooze button, and he drank less coffee in the mornings than his father. The only downside was that it made sleeping in when he didn’t have to be up more difficult. When he finally gave up and made his way downstairs, his father was just sliding his omelet onto a plate. “Bacon in three,” Carl said, picking up the tongs and clacking them together. Devante took the plate to the table, where a chipped mug stood waiting, filled with coffee and just the right amount of sugar. “You working today?” Carl asked over his own eggs once he was finished cooking, a plate of bacon on paper towels in between them on the table. Devante shook his head. “Tomorrow’s my long day,” he said. “Today’s off. Gonna clean the kitchen and my room.” Carl nodded over his coffee. “God knows the kitchen could use it,” he said. “Don’t forget to empty the vacuum out when you’re done.” “Yes, Dad.” Carl worked at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center as a trainer. Decent hours, good pay, and he’d been there as long as Devante had been alive, almost from the opening of the place. He clapped Devante on the shoulder after they’d finished their breakfast and he’d changed into his work clothes. “Back at six,” he said. “I’ll be gone,” Devante told him. “Drinks with my friends. I’ll probably be back late.” Carl nodded and headed out, the door clicking shut behind him. Devante washed and dried the breakfast dishes, then used the momentum to scrub down the sink, counter, and table. The fridge they cleaned together once a month, so he left the machine closed and moved onto the floor. Cleaning his bedroom took him through to lunch, and the combination of exertion and a hearty sandwich dropped him into a deep couch nap. Perhaps prompted by Carl’s questions the day before, Devante dreamed of himself as a father, faceless children running around his knees, a wedding ring on his finger. He woke never having seen his dream spouse, and a little shamefully glad of it. Devante dragged himself upstairs to the tiny bathroom on the landing. There was one downstairs by his father’s bedroom that was larger, but Devante enjoyed having counter space to himself enough to put up with the squeeze. There was only just enough room for him and his body wash in the shower, which kept his showers quick and to the point. He carefully washed his cornrows through his hairnet, then scrubbed his body down and rinsed off. The bathroom was so small that Devante usually did his drying off in the bedroom; he had a bathmat in the corner to stand on and protect his rug. Dry and sparkling, he went back to the bathroom long enough to hang up his towel and oil his scalp between his braids, then went back and perused his closet. Dark jeans were a given: wearing slacks out with his friends was a surefire way to spend the evening getting teased. Trickier was the shirt; in the end, he picked his bright yellow button-down with pineapples printed in vertical stripes, top few buttons open over a white undershirt. By the time he was dressed, it was time to leave. He slipped his wallet into his pocket alongside his keys, shook off the phantom Natasha in his head that screamed about gender-based pocket discrimination, and locked the door behind him. It was a twenty-minute bus ride and a ten-minute walk to The Friend Group’s usual watering hole, a bordering-on-hipstery bar named Mood. When he got there, it was to Mike and Charlie already posted up at their usual table, Mike’s Pabst and Charlie’s Corona open and sweating onto cardboard coasters between them. “Dev!” Mike crowed when he caught sight of Devante. “Hey, man, how are you?” He scooted down the bench, even though there was plenty of room. Devante signaled to Katie at the bar, who nodded at him and pulled a bottle of scotch down from behind her. He dropped down next to Charlie just to see Mike’s mock-wounded face and laughed at him. “I’m good,” he said. “Thanks, Katie,” he added as she set his scotch and soda and a coaster in front of him. “Glad to be done with classes?” Charlie asked, slinging an arm around Devante’s shoulder. He had to reach up quite a way to do it, and Devante slouched a little to make it easier. “Glad enough,” Devante said, taking a sip from his glass. “Only one more semester to go, though.” “And then you’ll be all grown up,” Mike said, grinning. “Ready to be a real boy?” Devante shot him a glare and he laughed, throwing his head back. “You’ll be fine, Dev.” “Don’t jinx me,” Dev grumbled. Natasha arrived before Mike could say anything back. Dev always imagined he could see a whirlwind around her whenever she arrived anywhere, dust and makeup and the powdered remains of her enemies. Her dark hair was perfectly set and her eyeliner, as usual, could kill a man. “I need a drink,” she announced, dropping her purse on Charlie’s other side and marching to the bar. When Devante blinked the stars from his vision, it turned out Preeda had entered in Natasha’s wake, which Devante discovered when she plopped down next to him on the bench and sighed. Her knee knocked against Devante’s under the table. He coughed. Across the table, Mike gave him a knowing glance, which Devante avoided meeting. Natasha returned bearing a glass of dark red wine, which she passed to Preeda, and something bright blue and terrifying-looking, which she kept for herself, settling in next to Mike. “To the graduates,” she said, holding her glass up. “Don’t jinx us,” Devante and Preeda said together, holding their drinks up too. Preeda caught his eye and grinned. “To the soon-to-be graduates,” Natasha amended. They all clinked and drank. “May they continue to kick every ass at Simmons on their way out.” “Hear, hear,” Preeda said. Natasha gave her a proud look, and then threw an expectant one at Devante. “Hear, hear,” he said, a little less sure of himself than Preeda had sounded. “Good enough,” Natasha declared. “Now, somebody ask me about my day.” “How was your day?” Charlie asked obediently. He finally took his arm from around Devante’s shoulders, and Devante straightened gratefully. Natasha launched into a story about some blowhard white boy—“No offense, Mike”—in her ethics seminar who, apparently, wouldn’t know objectivity if it waved its t**s in his face. Perhaps grateful that she’d let him put her drink on his tab, Charlie took on the responsibility of making all the right noises in all the right places, leaving Devante and Preeda to start up a conversation of their own. “Remind me what you’re taking next semester?” Preeda asked, leaning back against the booth wall and regarding him. “Library services for children, and organizational ethics,” he said. “You’re taking cultural heritage outreach, right?” “Mhm.” Preeda rolled her eyes. “Another useless course in my useless-but-necessary degree.” Preeda worked full-time as a cataloging assistant at Boston University, and had a lot of thoughts on the requirement that cataloging librarians have a Masters in Library Science. Devante could mouth along with her “It should be an apprenticeship” monologue almost perfectly, after two years in the program together. “It sucks,” he said now, in an attempt to head it off. “It’s elitism,” she said, but subsided. “How’s your dad?” “Good,” Devante said. He checked his watch. “He should be home by now. I told him not to wait up.” “Did you try the new Jamaican place?” Devante nodded. “It was really good, you should check it out.” “I will.” She winked at him. “Maybe I’ll crash next time you have it for dinner.” “You’d be welcome.” She raised her finger warningly. “Ah, but then I’d have to stay the night so I can have one of Carl’s killer omelets.” Devante fidgeted, tugging a finger under his collar. Preeda’s expression was light and laughing, a twinkle in her eyes that he knew well. Natasha spared him having to respond. “You two aren’t listening to me,” she accused, pointing a finger in Devante’s face. “Sorry, Natasha,” they chorused, turning back to her. She waved her hand dismissively. “From what I gather, this boy’s never had an opinion he didn’t share, so I imagine you’ll have plenty more stories from me to hang off every word of.” “Truly, something to look forward to,” Mike drawled. Without looking Natasha smacked him on the arm. “Hey, before I forget,” Charlie said, leaning forward to get everyone’s attention. “I wanted to ask how everyone feels about me bringing someone new on Saturday.” Mike gasped, overdramatic and theatrical. “Are you cheating on us with another friend, Charlie?” Charlie laughed, one of his big laughs that shook his whole body. “You know I’d never cheat on you, Mike,” he said. “No, a new guy moved into the apartment next to mine a few weeks ago. We’ve talked a few times in the elevator, he seems nice, and he mentioned he was new to the area and looking for new friends.” “Well, I don’t know any better friends than us,” Natasha said expansively. “Exactly,” Charlie said, pointing at her. “What’s his name?” Preeda asked. “We need a little bit more than, ‘He seems nice.’” “His name’s Michael—” “Uh-uh,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Instant disqualifier.” “I asked, and he only goes by Michael, never Mike,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t bring a duplicate to you, Mike. I know how you value your individuality.” “Why does that sound like an insult?” Mike asked, looking at Charlie suspiciously. “Anyway,” Charlie plowed on. “His name’s Michael, he’s new to the area, just moved here from Texas.” “Why would anyone make that move?” Devante asked. “He’s a figure skater,” Charlie said, “and apparently he switched coaches to one in Boston. So he’s here now for at least a year. He seems like a cool guy.” “Figure skater, huh?” Mike said. Devante eyed him warily, but all he said next was, “Cool.” “I’ve watched some of his programs, he’s good,” Charlie said. “So? Can I bring him?” “I like figure skating,” Natasha said firmly. “I say yes.” “Sure,” Devante said. Preeda nodded. All eyes turned to Mike. “You’re sure he’s a Michael?” he asked. “One hundred percent positive,” Charlie declared. “Then fine,” Mike said. “We’ll give him a trial run.” “Great! I’ll let him know,” Charlie said. The conversation moved on, Devante’s scotch and soda getting emptier and emptier. When it was finally gone, he nudged Preeda, who slid off the end of the bench to let him out. “I’m done for the night,” he said. “See you all Saturday.” “See you tomorrow,” Mike countered. Devante smiled at him and nodded. Preeda slid back in to occupy his spot on the bench and gave him a smile of her own. When Devante cracked the front door of his house open half an hour later, it was with a clearer head and a desperate need to pee. Seeing his father sitting in his armchair, a different newspaper in front of his face and the final minutes of a football game on the television, Devante gave up attempting to be quiet, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door and kicking his shoes off. “I don’t know why you try and sneak back in after you’re out with your friends,” Carl said mildly. “You never come home past nine, and I’m not old enough to be asleep by then yet.” “I don’t sneak,” Devante said. “And you never know. What if one night you have gone to bed, and I wake you up?” “Then I wake up, and I know my son is safely home after an evening carousing with young people.” “I don’t know what’s worse, carousing or young people,” Devante remarked. Carl threw him a scowl from behind his paper. “You gonna sit down, or stand in the doorway all night?” Devante loped over to the couch and dropped down. There were only five minutes left in the game. He could stay up that long before dragging himself to bed.