All the Better Part of Me Read online

  Sinter: Sure, I have 20 mins before I have to be on

  I slipped out the door into the alley so my conversation wouldn’t earn Be quiet scowls from our stage manager. Cold evening air flowed around me, curry-scented from nearby restaurants. Traffic hummed at the ends of the block. A light buzzed above the door, illuminating a span of pavement and wall. I made sure the wedge of wood was where it should be, propping open the door a crack, then started pacing back and forth in front of it.

  My phone rang half a minute later. I picked up. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He sighed. “So okay, here’s the quick version.”

  My mouth pulled into a nostalgic smile at the sound of his voice, tired but familiar, awash in West Coast American vowels. “Hit me with it.”

  “Things hadn’t been great between us for a while. But I’d thought they were getting better.” He sounded jagged, broken, the way people tended to after a breakup. It had been a long time since I’d heard that tone from him, probably not since some instance of college-era heartbreak, and it swelled the knot of sympathy in my chest. “I mean, we’d leased the apartment together, right? That was a commitment, sort of.”

  “For sure.”

  “But apparently, I was wrong. Because there’s this coworker of his—older, like forty—who Mitchell’s been in love with for a long time but thought he couldn’t be with, because they work together, and because of relationship-baggage issues, and I don’t even know what all. This just came out the other night. It was complete news to me. Anyway. Now they’re together.”

  My costume boot heels clicked on the pavement as I paced. “Wait, so he left you? For someone else?”

  “Oh yes. I got dumped good and proper.”

  “What the fuck? Just out of nowhere?”

  “Pretty much. He’s moving in with Jeff, and that’s that. And you know, our apartment is expensive. It’s on Capitol Hill. It has a view. We could just about afford it when we split the rent, but now? I have to find a new roommate. I can’t live there alone. Not forever, anyway.”

  “What an asshole. God.”

  “Well …” Andy sighed. “He did pay his share for the next month, to give me time. Which is something, at least.”

  “Still. He didn’t deserve you.”

  “I don’t know. I must have failed somehow. I … wasn’t enough.”

  “No. That’s not true. It was all his deal, man.”

  “But if it was all him, then I was so deluded, thinking he wanted to be with me.” He sounded miserable. “How did I get that deluded?”

  I suffered from emotional contagion, catching people’s moods, which was useful as an actor but hurt like a hundred paper cuts at moments like this. Andy was the person I cared about most in the world these days, given I was single too, which made the pain even sharper. I had friends in London, but no one here—in fact, no one anywhere—had ever known me as well as he did. I adjusted the phone against my sweaty ear and attempted an ironic tone. “You’re talking to the king of delusions, so I’m not sure I should try to answer that.”

  “Ha. Fair enough. So you said you had to be ‘on’ soon? Like onstage?”

  “Yeah, in a bit.”

  “Wait, are you wearing some sort of costume right now?”

  “I am dressed as the ghost of a medieval prince.” It was a weird play. Even after rehearsing and performing it for weeks, I still didn’t understand what it all meant, and neither did any of the reviewers.

  “You’re … okay.” A dash of interest shored up his voice. “Then you know what, I’m switching to video.”

  “God,” I complained, but when the video-call request pinged in, I tapped the button to allow it. You had to humor your recently dumped friends.

  His face filled the screen. His skin looked a little more sallow than usual, and he had dark smudges below his eyes, though the shadow of his glasses could have been contributing to that. His brown hair glinted in the sunlight, short but edging into “needing a haircut” territory. He was evidently outside his work building, getting some midday sun, which was as much a rarity in late October in Seattle as it was in London. A green fleece coat was zipped up to his neck. I only had a second to register the marks of exhaustion in his features before he transformed, breaking into a grin and squinting at me in wonder.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “Is that actually you?”

  “Yep.” I held the phone at arm’s length to let the camera take in the costume.

  “You look like you’re covered in powdered sugar.”

  “This is spray paint.” I flicked the shoulder of my quilted jacket. “On my skin, it’s powder.”

  “Is that a cape?”

  I lifted the edge of the cape, draped over one shoulder. “Uh-huh.”

  “And is your hair in a ribbon?”

  “Yeah, I’m a prince, duh.”

  “What did they do to your face? It’s freaking me out.”

  I brought the phone in closer to display the white-and-brown blend of special-effects makeup. “Supposed to help me look ghostly under the stage lights. Do I look dead?”

  “Yes. It’s creepy.” He grimaced. “Send me a selfie when you’ve washed all that off. I need to make sure you still look like you.”

  “If you insist.”

  He twisted his mouth. “I miss you. Why aren’t we on the same continent?”

  “We will be. Someday. I mean, I probably can’t stay here forever.”

  “And I’d love to come visit, but apparently I have to save all my money for double the fucking rent.”

  I heard the whispered shuffle of a scene change from backstage and glanced in. “Oops. Got to go. We’ll talk soon.”

  “Thanks for humoring me. And listening to me whine.”

  “After all the times you’ve listened to me whine, I think I owe you.”

  After the show, I caught my train and hopped off at the Mile End stop. The stairwell in my building smelled perpetually of fried chicken from the ground-floor shop, along with worse scents I didn’t want to contemplate. Holding my breath, I took the steps two at a time and locked myself into my studio flat.

  I stayed up until two a.m. researching screen tests. Since its inception in high school, my acting career so far had been entirely in the theater, unless you counted roles in friends’ movies recorded on iPhones, so I needed to learn what I was getting into.

  The main tips I took away from the internet were to get a feel for whether I had rapport with the director, and to remember that film was about intimacy and nuance, and therefore I should tone down the projecting and gesticulating I might bring to a stage audition.

  I also googled Fiona Saanvi Wyndham. She was twenty-nine years old, had been born and educated in London, and so far had writing, casting, and/or assistant-director credits on four films made for the Hart Channel on satellite TV.

  Clicking through, I also learned Fiona’s mum, Leela Sharma, worked in HR for the BBC, and Fiona’s dad, Alec Wyndham, was the chairman of Islands Broadcasting, the company that owned Hart Channel and several others.

  I glanced around my pocket-size flat with its crusty carpet worn bare in spots, its crack in the kitchen wall from which cockroaches sometimes emerged, and its thin window glass that did basically nothing to mask the Mile End traffic noise. She wanted me for this part? She wouldn’t, not once she realized what a nobody I was.

  I shut my laptop. No point stressing out. Without a script to study, I couldn’t do anything further except get some sleep.

  Remembering my promise to Andy, I snapped a selfie after showering and drying off: wet hair, bare shoulders, and face making a Grumpy Cat expression. I sent it to him and put on sweats for bed.

  He answered in a few minutes.

  Andy: Wow shirtless even. Aren’t I lucky

  Sinter: It’s not everyone who gets my sexiest pics

  Andy: Haha much obliged. Thank you

  Sinter: I’m about to go to bed. You doing ok?

  Andy: I guess. As ok as I could hope

/>   Which surely wasn’t very. The first few days after getting dumped sucked worse than anything. I remembered the pain too well from the time the gorgeous, bewitching Jo at U of O had thrown me over for another guy. And it was only six months since my relationship had ended with my latest girlfriend, Vicki—a mutual decision, but it had still depressed me for a couple of weeks. It was easy to feel like an unlovable failure at those times. I wasn’t enough, as Andy had said. How did I get that deluded?

  Sprawling on my bed, I chewed the inside of my lip and finally responded.

  Sinter: Message me as much as you like. Whine all you want. I’m cool with it

  Sinter: And if there’s anything you want from London let me know. I’ll send it

  Andy: Really, you’d ship over Tom Hiddleston? That’s sweet

  Sinter: Haha

  Andy: Nah your selfies are the most important thing I could want from London right now. Thanks man

  I smiled, every bit as charmed as when a woman complimented me. Weird.

  Sinter: Cheers mate. As they say here

  Andy: Cheers. Goodnight

  Sinter: Goodnight

  I set the phone to “do not disturb,” switched off the lamp, and lay back. The never-ending street traffic whooshed like the ocean and sent white and red lights careening across my ceiling.

  Something disturbed me about all this. Not just that he’d been grievously hurt and I wanted to punch any bastard who did that to my best friend. I was also disturbed because I felt a little bit relieved. Victorious. Like, Good, now that Mitchell’s out of the way, I get top spot in Andy’s affections again. I didn’t want to be petty like that.

  But best friends sometimes did harbor a touch of jealousy concerning their “mate.” That must have been all it was. After all, I wasn’t gay.

  Yeah.

  But.

  CHAPTER 3: IT’S A SIN

  ANDY CAME OUT TO ME WHEN WE WERE FIFTEEN. ONE ORDINARY WEEKNIGHT AFTER DINNER, WHILE I was trying to sneak in some TV-watching during my homework, he texted me.

  Andy: What if I told you I was gay?

  I dropped all interest in Netflix and stared, astounded, at my phone. He was messing with me … right?

  Sinter: April fools?

  Might as well check that possibility. Even though it was October.

  Andy: No. I honestly am

  In that case, I sucked as a best friend, because the possibility had never occurred to me.

  I could guess what my parents would say. My whole life, they’d been dragging me to their church, where people threw around words like “unnatural” and “deviant,” and the older I got, the more I simmered in fury at it. This was the Portland area in the twenty-first century, for fuck’s sake. Even in our high school, people were mostly cool about LGBTQ issues—though sure, they did make “you’re so gay” jokes at the same time. Understandable that Andy hadn’t felt like leaping out of the closet yet.

  But he at least knew I disagreed with my parents. Didn’t he?

  That was probably a good place to start.

  Sinter: Well that’s ok with me. I’m not like my parents or the people at their church

  Andy: Thank you. Good to know

  Sinter: Have you told anyone else?

  Andy: No you’re the first. I just didn’t want to lie to you anymore

  My heart was racing, though I hadn’t moved from my desk chair. Why was I freaking out? Was I freaking out? What was this?

  I tried to sound calmer in text, at least.

  Sinter: It’s cool with me, seriously

  Andy: I can see how you’d be weirded out though

  I bit the side of my lip hard enough to hurt. This was weird. It felt like talking to some entirely new and different Andy. Ordinarily in our texts, we ridiculed teachers or classmates, bitched about our parents, or made ass jokes. This was all … adult, or something. As to my being weirded out: was I? Did it bother me that he thought about guys? Had he thought about me?

  Sinter: Ha well luckily I’m too ugly for you

  Andy: No you aren’t. But you’re into girls and that’s ok

  While I pondered what that meant, he added another line.

  Andy: Though now would be a good time to tell me if you feel the same I guess

  Sinter: I do like girls … I’m sympathetic but … idk?

  Andy: No that’s cool. Guess it’d be too awesome a coincidence if you were gay too, heh

  Sinter: Shit why did I never know this?

  Andy: Because I was trying my best to hide it? :)

  Sinter: Ha well good job

  Andy: Hasn’t been easy. Has kind of sucked actually

  Sinter: I bet

  Now it would suck for him even more, because I still liked girls. I bit my lip more savagely.

  Andy: Arrrrgh. Look I don’t want this to screw everything up. That’s the last thing I want

  Sinter: No it won’t

  Andy: Just still be my friend. And since no one else knows yet, if you could not tell anyone? And like delete these messages, heh

  Sinter: Totally, yeah. But wouldn’t your parents be ok with it?

  His parents were Catholic, but they affixed Democrat-candidate bumper stickers to their cars, which suggested they were more liberal than my parents. Or such was my fuzzy understanding of anyone else’s politics at the time.

  Andy: Idk, probably but I really don’t want them to know yet

  Sinter: Ok no problem. I won’t say anything

  Andy: Thanks. Guess that’s all. We have Hughes’ test tomorrow, better study

  We had a US government test the next day, but did he think I was going to be able to concentrate now?

  Sinter: Ok then …?

  Andy: Really it’s fine, just promise me things won’t be weird with us

  Sinter: No weirder than my usual :)

  Andy: Ha, good enough. Thanks man, see you

  I read over our texts about a hundred times, then deleted them in case my parents or anyone else got hold of my phone. Then I went back to staring alternately at Netflix and my government textbook without absorbing much from either. All the while, I pulled at the roots of my short ash-blond hair until it stood up like a tumbleweed.

  The next morning, when Andy and I encountered each other at the locker we shared, we froze and exchanged a moment of charged eye contact. A nervous grin seized control of my face. He snorted softly and shook his head. We stashed our backpacks in the locker and went to take our government test. All day, he was quieter than usual, but picked up conversations readily when I introduced them, so I supposed he was just worried I might act weird, and was relieved when I didn’t.

  Meanwhile, I mulled over the possibility—the likelihood, even—that he’d been checking out other guys, including me, the way I checked out girls. I waited for that notion to creep me out, but it never quite did. I mean, he was still Andy. There he sat beside me as ever, taking notes like the rest of us, eating lunch like the rest of us, detesting or admiring certain teachers like the rest of us. He surely had crushes too (like the rest of us); the only real adjustment I had to make was the kind of person he daydreamed about.

  By the end of the school day, I’d fully reached the place where I was ready to tease him about it.

  “So which guys at our school are cute?” I asked while we hung out at my house after school with South Park playing on my computer screen. The house was silent beyond the walls of my room. I was an only child, we had no pets, and my parents were still at work. Andy and I were sitting on my bed, two feet of space between us.

  He splayed his hand across his face. “Here we go.”

  “Come on, no one’s around. Who’s got the hottest ass or whatever?”

  “You were doing so well with the not being weird, too.”

  I settled my elbows on my knees, facing the screen. “I’m just curious. I’m fine with it, I swear.”

  Andy fell onto his back on my bed and blinked at the ceiling. “But how fine with it would you really be? Like, me kissing a gu
y. You’d be okay with that?”

  “I think so. Why? Planning to suck someone’s face in the halls?”

  He smirked. “I wish.”

  “Have you ever kissed a guy?”

  “Not yet. Unfortunately.”

  “So who? Who do you want to make out with?”

  “Oh my God,” he mumbled. “You’re so dense.”

  “Why am I dense? What does that mean?”

  He draped his arms across his eyes and spoke with careful slowness. “I’ve only told one person. I’ve asked him if he’s gay too. He isn’t, which is what I figured. So.”

  My face grew hot; it must have been turning redder than a cherry. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit. Sorry. You’re right; I’m dense.”

  “I’m actually kind of glad you never noticed.”

  I stared at South Park for a minute. Andy lay still. Eventually, he dropped his arms beside his head instead and gazed at my bedroom wall.

  “But I am okay with it,” I insisted.

  “Great. Good.”

  “I wish I could …” I failed to find the right word and shrugged.

  “Reciprocate?”

  “I guess.”

  “Me too. But thanks anyway.”

  A bleak sadness shaped his eyes and gave a downturn to his mouth. He had a full lower lip, much like the mouth of a girl I liked. I’d never noticed that before.

  I thought about the hateful things my parents and their church said. I thought about how I detested them for it. I thought about Andy, who clicked with me better than anyone else ever had and who’d been suffering without my having a clue, and whom I could absolutely kiss if that’s what he wanted.

  The allure of rebellious behavior always danced somewhere within reach, tempting me to do things my parents would hate. I usually resisted its call, because why invite trouble, but that day …

  I turned and pounced on top of Andy—not actually touching him, but with my hands and knees on either side of his body and my face hovering above his.

  “Okay,” I said. “One-time offer.”