Other Works by J.A. Pak
Buy Her A Diamond Before It’s Too Late
One day Fen and I are walking through the Diamond District in midtown and this guy approaches us. He’s huge — maybe six foot six, built like Goliath, with long dusty hair in free-forming dreadlocks. He’s wearing an old army jacket that looks like it hasn’t been washed since the Civil War and he’s holding up a cardboard sign, the warning handwritten: The End Is Coming. An urban prophet. Just as we’re about to walk past him, he takes a step towards Fen and says in this low, incredibly menacing way, “Buy her a diamond before it’s too late.”
So what’s the safest thing to do in New York City when confronted with the bizarre? Keep walking. And we did. Fen even gripped my elbow in this protective gesture and hurried us along. We were well down the next block before we felt safe enough to stop. And then we looked at each other and burst out laughing. What a mad street performance, we thought!
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About the Urban Prophet and what he’d said. Buy her a diamond before it’s too late. Only, the message started to quickly change like a virus mutating to adapt to its host and for weeks I kept thinking, “Will he buy me a diamond before it’s too late?” It became a fundamental question. I saw diamonds everywhere.
I suppose in my heart of hearts, I knew Fen wasn’t the kind of guy who was ever going to propose. Not to any girl. So my diamonds began to sting a little.
Hmmm. Maybe before I continue, I should explain Fen a little. That is, maybe I should explain me a little. To explain who I am. To explain who I’m not. For instance, I’m not the kind of girl to jump into things. In fact, as a rule, I always prefer inaction to action. I even find a kind of beauty in not acting, the way you can go backwards and forwards, up and down, even sideways along all those wonderful theoretical pathways of what-ifs. Once you act, it’s all over. The road is a rut and the rut crisscrosses all the other ruts of everyone around you. And that scares me.
Fen had been a strange case of action. Of complete, uncharacteristic action.
About a year or so ago, I was having drinks at a bar with my best friend Lucy. I look across the room. There, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a bunch of guys, is a face from the very distant past. Fen. Without thinking, I get up. I start walking; in a heartbeat I’m right in front of him. I can feel his breath. Because my lips are on his and I’m kissing him.
And it wasn’t a quick peck. No, this lasted a good minute. Maybe more, my lips lingering and lingering, my hands moving to his neck and then to the base of his head. I’m a little fuzzy about exactly how long I kissed him because it was one of those moments when time totally disappears from the equation of the universe. Time, sound, other bodies. Except there was still smell, the dizzying smell of Fen which, just thinking about it, is making the world swirl around me even now. Do you know, you can still remember smells from your infancy? Maybe even the womb, they say.
And I wasn’t drunk either. At least, not from alcohol. Because I’d had just one shot of tequila, and I need at least three shots to get that drunk. Although, one itsy-bitsy glass of sake has me sliding off my chair. Lucy once told me it had to do with esters, these chemical compounds that make things like ripe peaches so irresistible. That made Fen so irresistible.
I hadn’t seen Fen since the sixth grade. I can’t even believe that I recognized him. Fourteen years had gone by and we were nothing like the kids we’d been. Of course, I hoped he didn’t recognize me.
After the kiss was over, and I still had his head between my hands, I looked directly into his eyes and smiled. I was so happy. How in the world could I explain that? Without one iota of embarrassment I released him and walked away like the kiss had absolutely nothing to do with me. I could hear all the guys in the room hooting and hollering and I still wasn’t embarrassed. I was just genuinely happy.
I’ve never had anything so odd happen to me in all my life.
Lucy, of course, was stunned. It took her about fifteen minutes to ask, “What was that?”
Lucy was my best friend and roommate. We’d been friends and roommates since freshman year in college. Friday nights had always been our night of drinking and fun. Lucy and I were creatures of habit.
We were walking home. The night air was so cold, but it felt good, like a refreshing ice water dunk after a sauna. I think I was finally beginning to blush.
“I have no idea,” I told Lucy. “I don’t even know what happened.”
“Did you even know that guy?”
“I think so. I think that was Fen. Someone I went to elementary school with.”
“You think that was someone you went to elementary school with?” Lucy was even more astonished. “What kind of elementary school did you go to?”
“It was great seeing him,” I whispered.
“And kissing him?”
“What did he look like?”
“What did he look like? You were the one kissing him, Marta!”
“I know. But strangely, while I knew who he was, I don’t think I really saw him. You know, saw what he really looked like. I think I was possessed or something. I feel really loopy. Was he cute?”
“I’d even bump him up to gorgeous. He works out. Although maybe in daylight he’d look different. It was pretty dark in there.”
Lucy took out her phone and snapped a picture of the two of us.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just want to have a record of this. It seems important.”
It was a great picture, two best friends, walking arm in arm, slightly drunk and totally happy. I look at that picture a lot. We’re like Siamese twins, Lucy and me, permanently joined at the heart.
So Easy To Love
Carter makes a surprising announcement: “I think I’m going to try out one of those online dating services.”
“You got a good pic?” Kirsten asks.
“No. Not anything recent anyway. Thought I’d take some new photos. You guys wanna help me take some shots?”
Carter has one of those professional cameras with extra big phallic lenses and Kirsten goes nuts snapping photos. We go all over town, shooting Carter from front, back, all around. He even takes his shirt off, doing Adonis shots. All those hours at the gym has made Carter’s muscles very, very happy. Back home we scrutinize the pics. Kirsten finally says, “I think this is it.”
It’s perfect. The photo looks exactly like Carter, only with shitloads of va va va voom.
“You look hot, Carter,” I say.
“I’d reply to that,” Kirsten says. “And it’d be short and simple: Dear Ethan, bring a condom.”
We scream with laughter.
It was a good day.
Seal Skin
I had told myself that I would not cry. That I would hold on to my anger so tightly, there would be no space for pity. And I did not cry, until the plane was in the air, and I was alone, and he was with her.
It was just a single tear, dropped because of a second of distraction—the remembrance of how much he had loved me.
And then there was another tear, and another, and another, and the man sitting next to me told me it was not an uncommon thing. People often cried on planes. Human migration tended to coincide with physical and emotional turmoil. It is not an uncommon thing, broken hearts, he said. His voice was like the waters surrounding a sacred temple, ancient, primordial; his voice was that ancient thing inside of me. I needed to hold him.
He asked me my name. Lily. He laughed because he could have guessed it, it was so natural to me, and for the first time, I felt it was my name and I was glad.
His name was Brenn. There was so much of him that seemed old, so much of him that seemed young, I could not guess his age. He was a beautiful listener and he listened to every part of me so that I was telling him my entire story.
I was all brittle fragments:
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