You First by J C Lillis

Author:J C Lillis [Lillis, J C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. C. Lillis
Published: 2019-05-22T22:00:00+00:00

then

“Parsons has a love,” Jay sang.

Our fifth anniversary. We were spending it in the woods behind Wishpenny, like always. Parsons usually hung out with us, but today he was playing by the creek outside our clearing, scuffling a ball around with his new stray-mutt friend. A young dog barely out of puppyhood. Short curly fur, a splotch of white on her chest that looked like Italy. This was the third time they’d shown up together, and each time they seemed closer, their gaits matching up and their eyes sharing secrets.

Jay and I sprawled out on the blanket we’d brought: a hand-me-down quilt from his parents’ house, ocean-blue with a red lobster print. We watched them romp around in the throes of new love. (I was guessing here, because animals never talked to me about their love lives.)

“They’re pretty damn cute,” I said.

“Should we name her?” Jay said. “I feel like we should call her something.”

“Emmylou,” I said, with barely a pause. I’d listened to his stories about Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris so often they felt like old friends. How they sang together all night when they first met, their voices entwining as if they’d spent a lifetime in wait for each other. How he died right before she could confess her secret love. How she still sees herself as the keeper of his flame, even though he’s long gone.

“Emmylou,” he repeated, smiling.

The dog lifted a leg to pee on a tree.

“Oh,” Jay said.

“Lou,” I amended.

“Lou,” he agreed.

“We made heteronormative assumptions,” I said, pinching buzzwords from Lynette’s new blog, “based on deeply internalized biases and societal reinforcement of the gender binary.”

“He just looked like a girl to me.”

“Exactly.”

Jay let out a short laugh and reached for the cake box. He’d brought home a two-day-old shower cake from Sunrise Foods that he’d decorated with a pink frosting horseshoe and LUCKY TO BE IN LOVE in smooth blue cursive. Its owner never claimed it, so now it was ours. I didn’t mind—an abandoned celebration cake still tasted as good—but he’d balked a little when I insisted on bringing it to the park with us.

He opened the box and frowned down at the cake. One edge had gotten mashed against the side, and the frosting now proclaimed it was UCKY TO BE IN LOVE.

“It’s completely fine,” I assured him. “It’ll taste the same.”

“Right.”

“What’s the matter?”

He shook his head. I’d been seeing this in him occasionally—hints of impatience with the limits of our life, a touch of self-scorn I could usually kiss away before it had a chance to snowball.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“I wish I could afford to take you someplace nice.”

“This is someplace nice.”

“It’s nice because it’s tradition.”

“That’s the best kind of nice.”

He did that slow nod you do when you aren’t convinced but you’d like to be. Jay’s family wasn’t rich-rich, honestly, but no one in his house used a teabag twice, or endured home haircuts from their mother, or clomped around in cheap too-big shoes they would someday grow into. I guess when you grow up with kind of a lot, ending up with a little will chew at you sometimes.

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