You first, p.1
You First, page 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: now
CHAPTER 2: then
CHAPTER 3: now
CHAPTER 4: then
CHAPTER 5: now
CHAPTER 6: then
CHAPTER 7: now
CHAPTER 8: then
CHAPTER 9: now
CHAPTER 10: now
CHAPTER 11: then
CHAPTER 12: now
CHAPTER 13: then
CHAPTER 14: now
CHAPTER 15: then
CHAPTER 16: now
CHAPTER 17: now
CHAPTER 18: then
CHAPTER 19: now
CHAPTER 20: now
CHAPTER 21: now
CHAPTER 22: then
CHAPTER 23: now
CHAPTER 24: then
CHAPTER 25: now
CHAPTER 26: then
CHAPTER 27: now
CHAPTER 28: then
CHAPTER 29: now
CHAPTER 30: now
CHAPTER 31: then
CHAPTER 32: now
Yeah. There’ll be more.
Acknowledgments
YOU FIRST
by
J.C. Lillis
Published by J.C. Lillis
Follow the author on Twitter and visit her online at www.jclillis.com
Copyright © 2019, J.C. Lillis
Cover design by J.C. Lillis and Mindy Dunn
Formatting by Guido Henkel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, and events is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
now
They’re draping the Riverside Medal of Honor around my boyfriend’s neck when the pigeon hops up to my folding chair and tells me it’s all downhill from here.
“It’s all downhill from here,” she says, in that low tender coo only I can decipher. “Whatever comes next is going to hurt.”
I roll my eyes but I don’t bother shushing her or shooing her off, especially when I see the bare patch on her back and her battered tailfeathers. Pigeons aren’t assholes, really, just wearily honest because they’ve seen so much. Plus you try staying sweet when you have iridescent feathers and stunning navigational skills and people still treat you like a rat with wings.
“You’re the boyfriend, right?” she trills. “I’ve been watching you both since you got here. I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look good at all.”
I set my mouth in a neutral line and fiddle with my superband. If I ignore her, she might go away.
“There he goes, there he goes.” She bobs her head at the platform in front of us. “Man of the hour. Hobnobbing with the big shots.”
The mayor and deputy mayor both shake Jay’s hand, which hardly counts as a hobnob, and applause fills the Riverside town square. Jay takes the medal in his hands and flips it up so he can peer at it. Like he can’t believe it’s real. It’s a breach of etiquette, I guess, but a cute one, so the giggles that travel the crowd are kind ones. I don’t laugh, but I unclench. How could things change, when the first thing he did post-medal was so perfectly Jay?
“He’ll say things won’t change,” says the pigeon, “but they always do. Be prepared.”
There’s a broken saltine in my jacket pocket and I toss it at her. I try to be tolerant of the handful of animals I can understand, but there are times when pigeon hand-wringing (wing-wringing?) especially grates, and this is one of them.
“You know it’s true,” she says, pecking at the cracker. “You just don’t want to admit it yet.”
I fold my arms against her nattering and keep my eyes on Jay. He steps up to the podium, gold medal shining against the blue chambray shirt I bought him four birthdays ago. The medal’s so big and bright it looks unreal, like a plastic prop for a Halloween hero costume. But I know I’ll get to touch it later, and I’ll feel how heavy it is, and I’ll blush when my fingers leave sweaty prints behind.
My boyfriend, who has never once remembered to put the twist tie back on the bread bag, is an actual, authentic, grade-A hero now.
“Thank you. Wow. This is an honor,” he says, fidgeting with the mic. “I, ah, want you guys to know first and foremost that I normally don’t, you know. Save towns in peril.” That gets a laugh and I exhale, because when people like him I feel liked by extension. “But you seemed cool. I mean, pretty cool. So I made an exception.” Bigger laugh. “And—well, it was selfish too, a little bit. Your historic district has the best junk shops, so a flood would’ve been a bummer. Like, where would I go to spend twelve bucks on a Christmas ornament from 1945?”
Man, he’s killing it. Chuckles from all the Riverside hipsters who showed up for this half-ironically. They too have spent their disposable cash on chipped glass orbs and bubble-lights for their vintage aluminum trees.
“But seriously, guys, I’m glad I could help.” The crowd quiets. He clears his throat and his pale cheeks redden, like they do when we’re performing one of our weekend shows and he bungles a juggling trick. “There are moments in your life that push you, and test you, and sometimes you hang back because you don’t think you’re strong enough. But I’m glad I didn’t hang back that day. And I’m glad I could be strong enough, for you. That day sort of proved something to me, so I feel like…ah…” He runs a hand through his faded-gold hair and sucks in his lips, a sure sign he’s choking up. I hold my breath for him. “Like I should be thanking you instead.”
Spontaneous applause follows, because everyone loves a genuine hero who’s also genuinely nice. He’s winging this part and he’s handling it perfectly. Much better than I would.
“You’d never be a hero in the first place, probably,” warbles the pigeon, and did I mention they’re not literal mind-readers but maddeningly close? “You’re not like him, right? He’s not like you. Not anymore…”
I tune her out at this point, mostly, but the gist is she’s seen this before, this kind of sudden imbalance between long-term lovers, and it knocks everything off-kilter and leads to long rambling multi-day arguments and a calamitous breakup on a park bench at night. That’s not an exact translation. She doesn’t use calamitous, of course, but the word in pigeon sounds even more sinister.
“That won’t happen,” I murmur through my teeth, so low only she can hear. “I won’t let it.”
As soon as I say it, though, I feel like I’m auditioning for a cop show. Who am I to tell anyone, feathered or otherwise, what will and won’t happen? And when have I ever shown the talent—or the will—to sidestep something inevitable?
Jay changes currents, reroutes waves of destruction. Not me.
My lunch burritos roil in my stomach.
“So real quick, I want to thank my amazing family, who are all here today, and are frankly much more super than I’ll ever be.” All eyes on our row. I shrink down a little. “And also, a special thanks to my partner, Levon,” he says, his lips almost kissing the mic now, “for putting on a tie and coming here today, and most of all, putting up with me for thirteen years.”
He waves at me and I lift my hand and feel the warmth and mortification of a collective awwwwww. Even his mom gets in on it from the folding chair to my right. She’s always low-key tutted about my lack of ambition poisoning her son’s potential, but now that he’s suitably famed and acclaimed, I guess she’s ready to buy us a gravy boat. I accept her teary-eyed arm-squeeze and the carbon-copy smiles of his father and four golden super-siblings, and I grin back, thinking of how Jay said my name at the podium. With pride, devotion, easy intimacy. All good signs.
This thing that’s happening right now: it’s a good thing for him, a meaningful thing, a thing he’ll cherish on his deathbed. But it’s one small boat in the current of our life.
“One request, though?” Jay flexes his shoulders awkwardly, like they ache. “Next time you guys have a flood—can you ah, give me more notice? I’ll hit the gym first.”
The crowd chortles and claps again and the pigeon hops up on my shoe. I peer over my lap at her. Her sad beady eyes bore into mine. Over the din of grateful Riversiders, she quotes the words I’m trying not to dwell on:
“Next time.”
I joggle my foot and she pigeon-hops away across the cobblestones, leaving a warning poo on my wingtip.
***
The afterparty is at one of those typical Riverside wine bars, lousy with exposed brick and cheekily repurposed church pews. I hate Riverside—it radiates self-regard, with its three vegan coffee shops and boutiques that hawk hundred-dollar alpaca socks and the twee cobblestoned main street that Jay saved from three feet of floodwater—but I smile a beardy smile and hope I don’t look like a mugshot. No one notices, in any case, because everyone wants to talk to Jay.
He’s trapped in a corner with his second or third glass of wine, while a small crowd of Riversiders and probable super-groupies bend his ear. I say “trapped” because that’s how I’d feel, and how Jay would also feel in most social situations, but right now he’s laughing with his head thrown back like he does when I imitate the windsock guy that flails outside the Jiffy Lube. It’s a weird thing to watch from a distance. I turn to the intricate village of hors d’oeuvres, spread out on a long table cra fted from an old barn door, and try to guess which balsamic-glazed curiosity is least likely to give me intestinal distress.
“Is your power stuck in neutral?”
I hear the words behind me, two seconds after I’ve stuck a regrettable fritter in my mouth. I turn around without thinking. It’s this pimply redheaded kid, seventeen or eighteen maybe, wearing a blue polo shirt with a pyramid logo and reading haltingly from a glossy brochure. He looks like a younger version of the dog groomer Jay and I hooked up with months ago, the one who’d clipped his weird toenails on our coffee table the next morning.
“Um, is your power stuck in neutral?” he repeats, blushing. “Are you tired of your super friends surpassing you? Do you wish—” He peers at the Level-D superband on my wrist, attempting an eyebrow-lift of judgment. “—you could level up the safe and easy way, in just twenty days or less?”
He looks up. I swallow the fritter with difficulty.
“Do you want me to answer?” I say.
“Oh! No.” He taps the brochure, his blush deepening. “That was like, hypothetical. I was pausing for effect?”
“Gotcha.” I smile for encouragement, thinking of my first summer job wafting trays of sesame chicken samples at peevish mall-walkers. “Very effective. Go on.”
He looks down. I can tell he’s lost his place.
“Twenty days or less,” I prompt gently.
He nods. “Then try Harry Horton’s SuperStrides Power-Charging Powder the fast-acting great-tasting supplement that gives your gifts a natural super-boost, it’s chemical-free and easy to mix with your favorite beverage and paired with Horton’s rigorous exercise regimen it can advance your powers by up to two levels in twenty days, results not typical, try it and reach your full potential, advance to the heights you deserve, wow your friends and family, never feel left behind again.”
The last five words are a gut punch. Across the room, Jay’s performing for his captivated crowd, raising red wine from his glass in a shimmering stream and shaping it into an effortless star he freezes in midair.
“I’m supposed to give you a three-day sample?” says the kid.
“Oh. Great, yeah.” I accept the sample packets and stick them in my pocket. The kid looks at me like he expects a tip. My stomach complains. I have four linty quarters in my good summer pants and I need them to feed the meter. “Thanks so much?”
“Do you…think you’ll try it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He gives me a look I can’t fully decipher, but the primary ingredient is disappointment. In himself, probably, but I’m an expert at boomeranging the bad feelings of others back on me. I give him all my quarters. He wanders away, bewildered and possibly insulted, on reluctant hunt for his next victim.
I feel exsanguinated, like I do after every awkward social encounter, so I put five cubes of fancy cheese on a plate and find a lime-green velvet armchair under a white plastic deer head. The chair is solitary and discourages conversation, but the downside is it’s right next to the piano, where some guy with his hair in two braids is doing a cover of a cover of a pop-jazz version of “Creep.” He’s wearing something like a leather butcher’s apron over tweed walking shorts and I want to take his face in my hands and gently interrogate his life choices. I close my eyes, lean my head back. I wish Steve and Arlie were here. I wish my superpower was invisibility. I wish Jay would suddenly appear by my side, whisper “let’s go” in my ear, and fly us both into the endless velvet summer night sky.
“Hey.”
I open my eyes and he’s breathless, kneeling in front of me, his beautiful knobby hands on my thighs. His sudden wine-flushed presence makes me weak. I brush the side of his head with my fingers like I’m tucking his hair behind his ear, the way I used to when it was long.
“How you holding up, superstar?” I smile.
“Ummm…surprisingly kind of okay?” His eyes flick to the side. “I assume you’ve seen Piano Guy.”
“Yes. He’s been noted.”
“Do you hate every second of this?”
“No.” I cock an ear; a new song’s started. “I love ironic jazz covers of ABBA.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Nah. It’s fun.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I ate a fritter made of florist foam.”
“I’m sorry.” He giggles.
“Then some kid took all my quarters.”
“Whaaaat.”
“Don’t ask.”
“My dad’ll feed the meter. It’s fine.”
Beside us, Piano Guy tilts his head back and turns the word “waterloo” into sixteen syllables. Our eyes slide to him, then back to each other.
“I promise we can leave soon.” Jay threads his fingers through mine and wags our hands back and forth. “I’m just like, contractually obligated to mingle.”
“I’m cool here. Don’t worry.”
“Really?”
“I’m fine. I have cheese. There’s probably a rat in the kitchen I can talk to.”
“Come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He grasps my tie, a polyester Goodwill thing printed with anchors, and tugs me closer with a grin. “I want everyone to know I’m with you.”
He’s a little drunk or he wouldn’t say that out loud, but it still feels nice, like when he hooks his foot around my leg in his sleep. Our lips bump together—a little misaligned at first, but we fix that fast.
“Hey,” I rasp.
“Hmm,” he says.
“I’m proud of you,” I say, and I deeply mean it, but a bitter tang rises in the back of my throat. It’s strange that his life now contains this giant separate thing for me to be proud of. Pride flowing from me to him makes us feel distanced, like I’m holding the string of a golden balloon and he’s floating inside it, high in the sky, waving at me in a happy haze.
My phone buzzes against my thigh. I dig it out, relieved for the distraction.
“Who is it?” says Jay, because there are basically three options and he knows them all.
“My other lover. Raphael.”
“Ooh, what’s he want?”
I’m too tired to embroider the joke so I turn the phone to face him. It’s a selfie of Steve and Arlie from the last night of Triple S camp, where our do-gooder nonprofit-starting friends have been teaching a workshop for young supers called “Using Your Powers for (Literal, Actual) Good.” They must be at the wrap-up bash because Steve is wearing his gold Party City top hat and Arlie’s got her curls in beglittered pigtail-puffs. CONGRATS YOU STAR!! the text says. Wish we were there. Stuff your faces & drink ALL THE WINE.
“Let’s selfie them back!”
Jay slides onto my lap and I curl an arm around him. I would generally rather extract my nose hair with pliers than have my photo taken, but I don’t want to be a grump to my sweet boyfriend, the tech-averse thirty-three-year-old who uses selfie as a verb. He rests his cheek on my rumpled hair and holds my phone out and oh god, one can never prepare for the front-facing camera. The undereye circles. The funhouse nose. The wilderness of brows.
“Aw, that’s a good one.” He shows me the photo. “Right?”
“Yeah.”
We look like something out of a fairy tale. The Prince and the Bridge Troll. I am not a taker of spontaneous selfies; my last Facebook profile photo was the product of forty-five minutes on a plastic porch chair, practicing a series of smolders and waiting for the breeze to blow my hair into pleasing disorder. But I force a smile and whoosh it off to Steve, because me being agreeable is one of Jay’s turn-ons. He tangles his fingers in my hair and kisses me, a kiss too long and candid for any two introverts in any crowded wine bar, but fuck it, I don’t care.
“Hello hellooo!”
We break apart. In front of our chair are Jay’s parents, Joe and Sandy Jantzen, who look like every graying blond couple riding twin bikes in an AARP Magazine ad. They are flanking a tall older white woman with very pale skin, very red hair, and a kind of bony grandeur.
We bumble to our feet like teenagers.
“Sorry to interrupt, boys,” Joe says.
“We wanted to make sure you met Marian Golden?”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Golden.” Jay shakes her hand, so I do too. She’s wearing a houndstooth suit, villain-red lipstick, and a red Level-A superband on her wrist—the customized kind that costs more than our car, monogrammed and rimmed with jewels. I dislike her instantly, but at Jay’s request I’m trying to stop disliking people instantly, so I think of something nice about her. Her handshake could probably crack a nut. Which is nice, if you like nuts.
