Chapter Thirty-One: Dim Sum

In the end, I don't check my email until the weekend's almost over. Instead, I spend Saturday with Ben. We eat the eggs benedict that he made, then take a shower together (ahem!), and then head to my place so I can get some clothes.

I don't check to see if my mother wrote me back,  if the messages in my inbox are from her. I went too far in my texts, but she went too far, too. I've wished for so long that we could have a better relationship, but what I said to her was true. I've never felt like enough for my whole life. Not enough to heal them. Not enough to make them happy. I thought that was my job for so long that I put my own happiness aside. It wasn't until I got some distance from them in college that I realized it wasn't normal what happened in our house. The silence. The memories tucked away. The way my parents' smiles almost never reached their eyes.

But I don't have to let Sarah's death define me. It's a terrible thing that happened, and I miss her all the time, but I have to live the life she never got. I can't waste it wishing for some different outcome. I need to take my chance at happiness when I have it.

I need to hold onto Ben.

That's what it feels like today.

So I change into something fresh at my house and pack a bag for overnight at his and then we decide to walk over the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan. Ben puts my backpack on his back and we hold hands and set out on our adventure.

"Will this heat ever die?" I ask Ben half an hour later.

Why do romantic things always sound so good and end up with me in a sweaty mess?

"Usually goes in the fall."

"When's that again?"

"Couple of months."

"Good lord. I'm not built for this."

He brings my hand to his lips. "You look cute in shorts, though."

I look down at what I chose to wear. A pair of white linen shorts and a featherlight tank top. It's as close as I can get to being naked in public. "I wish there was somewhere we could go swimming."

"Like the river?"

"Pretty sure that would kill us. But what about a pool?"

"Hmmm. There are a couple."

"Have you never been?"

"When I was a kid. Sure."

I laugh. "I can see you cannonballing into the water."

"That may have happened."

"Maybe we should rent a car and drive to the Adirondacks? I could go for a jump into a cold lake."

"Maybe next weekend?"

"You need to stick around for your mom, I get it." He'd called the hospital this morning and she was still stable. His sister and dad were visiting this morning. He is going to check in tomorrow and probably spend the day with her. All of which I knew when I suggested that we skip town, which makes me a horrible person.

"We'll find something fun to do, though."

"I know we will."

"Oh, have you been for dim sum yet?"

"I haven't."

He rubs his hands together. "Excellent. I know a fantastic place. I'm warning you now that it's nothing to write home about in the décor department, but the food is perfect. I'm usually the only white guy there when I go."

"Why is that relevant?"

"That's how you know it's good."

I smile at him. He has this boyish grin on his face that he gets when he's excited. It's weird, we've only been together a week and already it feels like I know so much about him, and vice versa. And then there are these whole swaths of things that I have no idea about.

"Where is this place?"

"Not too far. We can take the subway."

"Isn't it even hotter down there?"

"Good point. Hop-on hop-off bus?"

"Are we allowed on there if we live here?"

"Don't see why not." He takes my hand. "Come on, there's a stop not far from here."

"You know the schedule?"

"I do."

"Do I want to know why?"

"It was a perk of my mom's job. She got these free passes to it all the time. In high school, my friends and I would use it to get around the city."

"And terrorize the tourists?"

"Probably."

"Someday we'll go to Cincy and I'll show you all the places where I was a brat when I was a kid."

"Will there be marionettes?"

"One can hope."

We walk to the hop-on hop-off stop and get on the next bus. The guide is an old-timer, with a thousand stories and a voice that sounds like cigarettes. I listen to his patter, holding Ben's hand, seeing the city in a new way. There are so many things I should've done when I got here, but instead, I just settled into work and my little routine and now I barely know anything about the place that I live in except for what I've seen in movies or read in books.

When we get to Chinatown, Ben leads the way to a restaurant that can only be described as a hole in the wall. The décor is from the seventies, and the air is full of the smell of fried things. But it also smells amazing, and, as promised, we're the only white people in here.

A waiter leads us to a table and we sit down.

"You trust me?" Ben asks.

"Is this a trick question?"

"I meant about the food."

"Oh, yes, of course. I like everything but chicken feet." My grandfather loved Dim Sum and he used to take me to the one good place back home when I was a kid. When he was feeling playful he'd get a plate of fried chicken feet and make them walk across the table. I was never able to eat them; they look too realistic.

"Noted." A woman pushes a cart up full of steaming bamboo baskets. "We'll have the Har Gow, Shumai, and the peanut dumpling."

She plucks the containers off her cart and puts them on the table, then marks what we ordered on our bill, then leaves. Another cart will be by shortly, but for now, this looks like we're off to a good start.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," I ask Ben as I grab a dumpling with my chopsticks.

"What category of thing?"

"Doesn't matter. Anything."

"I'm enjoying Felicity."

"It's good, right?" We've only made it five episodes in. Ben hasn't won Felicity back yet, but she's thawing.

"It is. Ben makes some questionable choices, but I feel for the guy."

"This is really good," I say, pointing to the Har Gow.

"I know. Your turn."

"Okay. Hmmm. When I was ten I had scarlet fever."

"For real? Like in the olden days?"

"Yeah. I was pretty sick."

"Were you in the hospital?"

"Almost. My parents were super stressed. It was only a couple of years after Sarah died."

"What was she like?"

I smile at my memories of her. "She was so fun. Like always in a good mood, I remember. Some people don't get along with their sisters, but we did. I'm glad about that."

"What's your best memory of her?"

"It's weird to say it, but that day. Right up until the end, it was this amazing day on the boat. Perfect weather. I got up on water skis for the first time. We had this awesome picnic. I remember thinking: this is a perfect day. Which is a weird thing for a little kid to think. Maybe I had a premonition." I shiver at the thought of it. I used to think that when I was kid, if I'd said something, I might've saved her. But that's silly. No one would've listened to me. And my feeling wasn't specific. Just a generalized feeling of contentment.

Maybe that's why I don't trust being happy. Because it means something bad's about to happen?

Jack plays with his chopsticks. "The day my Mom got diagnosed with MS, we'd gone to the park together. To the bridge. And we were standing there and she was telling me about meeting my dad for the first time or their date, maybe how he proposed, and she was so happy and lit up and I had a similar thought. Like, I am the luckiest kid. My mom is so great. And then she got this funny look on her face and her knees buckled. It turns out she'd been having symptoms for a while but brushed them off and that was her first attack."

"That sounds really scary."

"Yeah, it was." He stares at the dumpling on his plate. "Sometimes I used to think that I made it happen to her. Like somehow my thoughts had given it to her."

"Kids think stupid things sometimes."

"They do."

I squeeze his hand. "Tell me something funny you did as a kid. Something cute."

"I wet the bed until I was eight."

"Um..."

"Too much?"

"No. I like it that you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me something like that."

"Your turn."

"Hmmm. No bedwetting stories, but I did use to make up songs when I was a kid and sing them to other people."

"Interesting."

"Embarrassing, you mean."

"I think it's cute. Do you still sing?"

"Only in the shower."

"I'd love to hear it."

"You really wouldn't. You're a professional. I'm not your next act."

"No?"

A woman arrives with a new set of baskets. Fried squid and greens and some items I've never heard of. Ben fills up our table again with food.

If I keep dating this man, I'm going to have to start limiting how much I eat.

"Everything is delicious, Ben, thank you for bringing me here."

"Of course. I want to show you all the New York things."

"You really love it here, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. You don't?"

"There are things I love for sure. But this city can be a lot."

"It can be, I get that."

"You'd never want to live anywhere else?"

He puts some fried squid on his plate. "Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity."

"I don't know. I've never thought about it. My company is here, my connections. My family. That would be a lot to leave."

I nod. "It was easy for me to leave Cincinnati."

"No regrets?"

"Not really. Kit was here and it's a good job. Not right now, maybe, but in general."

"How come not right now?"

"I just meant all that interpersonal stuff. That stupid story about us and the fight with Jameela. And Tabitha made me do this list ... Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"Matters to me."

"Thanks, Ben."

He smiles at me, then pats his stomach. "Do you think I'll ever need to eat again after this meal?"

"I bet you'll manage."

###

We slip through the rest of the weekend. When it's just the two of us, things are so uncomplicated. We created this bubble together and it's something we've done from the very beginning. I don't know what it is—Chemistry? We have that in spades, but it's more than that. It's like we've known each other for as long as I've known Kit but there are still all these holes that I don't know. I want to fill them though and we do a lot of that this weekend.

Oh God, I just heard how that sounds in my head.

Ahem.

Anyway, the weekend slips by and Ben leaves mid-morning on Sunday to go spend the day with his mom with a promise of telling her about the end of him and Rachel if she's up to the news, and I make my way to Kit and John's.

Kit answers the door in her pajamas—a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top with no bra underneath.

"I don't rate real clothes?"

She shrugs. "Guess not."

"Jeez, thanks."

"It's hot."

"It is."

"John's trying to fix the air-conditioning."

"He's dressed, I hope."

She cocks her head to the side. "Define dressed."

"I don't want to see parts I shouldn't."

Kit glances over her shoulder. "Should be safe."

"Phew."

She laughs and steps back, letting me in. They've done a good job of decorating this place in the short time they've lived here. She's painted one of the walls a bright yellow and their furniture is soft and comfortable. If I can ever afford a bigger apartment, I'm hiring Kit to decorate it.

"Ever thought of a new career in decorating?"

"What? Why?"

"Because you're awesome at it."

John pops his head out of the kitchen. He's wearing a shirt thank God, but it is hot in here. "I told her the same thing just the other day!"

"Great minds."

"But I like my job," Kit says.

"They fired you."

"I know, but theoretically. Like what I was doing before my boss became a jerk."

"Which was what, exactly?"

"You don't know what I do?"

"Something with computers?"

"I'm a project manager of a technical team."

"Oh right."

"You really didn't know this?"

I think about continuing the ruse for a few more minutes but then decide against it. "I know what you do obviously, silly!"

"Oh, thank God. I was going to have to fire you as my best friend, otherwise."

"How was the rest of the party?"

"It was great. Though we did miss you."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I was having a shit day."

"And now?"

"It's better. Especially now." I hug her impulsively. "I've missed you."

"One week with a boyfriend and this girl drops her friends."

"OMG, did I?"

"No."

"Phew. But you'll tell me if I do that, right?"

"Of course I will."

"Good."

"Are we sitting or what?"

I let her go. "Yes, we are sitting!"

As we move to the couch, my phone beeps. It's not a text; it's the sound I've assigned to my work email. It's not something I usually check on weekends, but I remember that I got some other work email yesterday and I never checked that either because I was worried it was from my mother.

I pull my phone out of my purse and open my inbox. There are three messages from Tabitha. The last one is marked: URGENT.

What the hell is going on?

I open it.

Chloe,

I'm going to assume you have not seen my last two messages but regardless, do not come in tomorrow. You are hereby placed on administrative suspension for one week while I try to sort out this mess.

Tabitha

What the fuck is happening?