CAN'T YOU SEE I'M THE BLUE IN YOUR SKIES
I was walking outside, just stepped outside the French doors onto the back patio when I saw the lights on in the pool house. Curious, I trod, skipping down the stone steps from the patio set up to the stone path leading up to the little guest house. I didn't see anyone moving in the front room and I didn't think we were expecting guests, but then again, I haven't spoken to my mother today.
Going up more paving stone steps and past the faux fireplace that looked over the pool, I approached the door and knocked, receiving no answer. I tried the knob and it was locked, which was hardly unusual, but I still was intrigued by the unexpected light.
Deciding to check the back window, I left the doorstep and went around the building to the matching French sliding doors that led from inside the pool house to another, more private patio, one that Nate and I have become very familiar with over the months.
I was surprised to see Joseph leaning against the patio table, his back to me. For a moment, I hesitated, calculating whether to approach him or back away. I stood there, watching him raise a hand to his mouth and exhale a pool of smoke that dissipated as the wind blew softly around the corner. I was about to turn back when he stood up and looked towards the door, seeing me in his peripheral vision.
"Christie?" he said, his surprise turning into a warm smile. "What are you doing?"
"Sorry, I don't mean to be spying... or whatever," I said with a short laugh, hopefully one that was believable. "I just saw lights on and I didn't know anyone was staying with us."
"Hm it's no problem. But your mother didn't tell you?" he asked. Again, he raised the cigarette to his lips, inhaling causally.
"Tell me what?" I asked, watching the smoke trail away as he exhaled.
"Just that I'll be staying here for a while, a few weeks or something."
"Oh," I said, puzzled, but still flashing a polite smile.
"You want one," he asked, offering me the box of cigarettes.
"Mm, no, I don't smoke," I replied, making a face. He laughed. "What?"
"Nothing, just that I went to high school too. 'I don't smoke' is a fragment. At the end you have to add 'cigarettes.'"
"I don't smoke anything," I told him defensively, raising my chin and watching him with steely eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, I grew up here too, you know. I still remember what to tell the adults when they ask."
He was laughing when he looked at me evenly. If he wasn't so tall, I would have looked down my nose at him as he looked at me like that, as though we were peers. As though we were the best of friends. When I didn't say anything, just smirked back at him, he took another drag on the cigarette before dropping it on the ground and crushing it under his heel.
"So..." he said, leaning back on the table again. "You're a senior, right? Do you have plans tonight?"
I walked toward him, taking a seat on one of the wrought iron chairs to his right, crossing my legs regally.
"Well I was thinking about hanging out with Nate," I began.
"Nate?" Joseph asked.
"My boyfriend," I clarified. "We were probably gonna see a movie or something. But nothing was really settled."
"Does he go to the high school?" he asked.
"No," I answered, my face twisting into a smile. "He's attending UCLA right now."
"What's so funny?" Joseph asked, his own smile appearing. His accusatory tone was obvious, however, his voice dropping to a deep octave.
"You just sound so much like a parent right now." I added, "You don't have kids right?"
"No, I don't. So that's pretty weird for me. To sound like a parent, I mean."
"Oh, okay. Cuze I know you and your wife..." I trailed off. You can never tell how the word "divorced" sounds to people who've experienced it. Some are tender, others much more apathetic.
"Hm, yeah," he replied quickly. "We never had kids though. I'm kinda glad. No one else had to get tied into all of this."
"So it was messy?" I asked tentatively.
"Unfortunately more messy than I had expected." He slumped his shoulders as though just talking about it cause fatigue. "You know, you meet this person and you think you couldn't love any other person this much. So you make it official, get married, get a house and shared bank accounts and all that stuff. You spend every day together and pretty soon you know everything about them. You find out they aren't really the same person you fell in love with. And then you don't know if you're in love at all. Soon you are both questioning it, first the love and then it's about finances or family or sex and it's all these fights and more fights." He brought both hands up to his temples and ran them through his hair in agitation. "That's just the jumping off point. Before the divorce. Before all the mess."
I watched him spit these words angrily, observing how his face changed from easy going and very young to a level of maturity I didn't expect, though I'm not sure why I didn't expect it. He wasn't greying or anything and only his crows feet showed a few more years of laughter than, say, someone in their early thirties.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, still watching him in a trance, hearing a true experience for maybe the first time. All the other adults spoke of their divorces in hushed tones, as though they were simply an embarrassment, not an ordeal. They rolled their eyes at their ex-spouses terms or waved off who got custody of their spoiled children. Never was an adult so serious while also under the eyes of what they usually considered a child.
"No, I'm sorry," he said with a frown, a furrowed brow and flat mouth, only the corners turned slightly down. "I shouldn't be giving you such a weight. Love is out there, it just doesn't exist between my wife and me."
I laughed this time, surprised that I felt comfortable even in the midst of this tense conversation.
"I've seen so many marriages and divorces in my life, love doesn't really mean anything to me anymore, honestly," I admitted. He looked at me, aghast.
"You are so young though, how could you know?"
"Just because people make bad choices when they are in love. And in this class, love is more fleeting than money. And usually, there is a direct correlation between how much is in the bank and how much you love someone."
"Fuck, why couldn't you have been there when I was twenty-eight?" he groaned, his head lulling in my direction, swiveling on his shoulders, his dark eyes amused. "You are what, eighteen? And you know more than I did when I got down on one knee."
"I'm nineteen as of last month and it is all just simple observation. Maybe it's different other places, but here, that's how it is."
"Not very promising," he said softly.
"No," I agreed.
He leaned back again, staring off into the sky, looking more away than up though. I did the same, following his gaze but not really looking at anything in particular.
Looking back at him, I found myself following the line of his neck to that spot where the top button of his shirt was undone. I tranced his jawbone with my eyes, sizing him up just as I did my own boyfriend, surprised to be thinking of him in similar terms. But I saw the scar of a once pierced ear and a little patch of stubble he must have missed when he was shaving. I saw the movement of his shoulder blades when he crossed his arms, the light from the porch reflecting off the tops of his eyes, his straight nose and youthful hairline.
"So you're gonna hang out with your boyfriend or something?" he asked, making a weird face with his mouth sort of smooshed to one side of his face.
"Yeah, probably," I replied simply, mimicking his expression and mirroring the sort of unresolved tension that still hovered between us.
"So how do you deal with it?" he asked, his brow furrowing a little, lines forming on either side of the bridge of his nose.
"Hmm?" I asked.
"How do you stay with boyfriends knowing that it's temporary?" he asked, stumbling over the question, knowing that he was wording it strangely.
"Well I don't expect to marry Nate. And I don't expect to get married any time soon..."
"Yeah, yeah I know that, but why bother if you are so sure you won't stay with him?"
"You know that song? 'Can't be with the one you love so love the one you're with'? I would rather be with someone even if it's just for a few months or a few years."
"And you're still young so..." he said, as though he was dismissing my statement as well as agreeing to it. I still smiled politely, getting up from my chair.
"It was good talking to you, Joseph," I said, flashing him another quick smile.
"Just 'Joe' is fine, Christie," he smirked. "Have fun with Nate. I'll see you around."