R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

“Your mother’s not sad,” said Madeline.

“My mother’s not smart enough to be sad,” he said, blinking. “Anybody who really thinks at all about life realizes — it just gets worse.”

“Then, don’t think about it,” Madeline said. “Don’t think anything at all.” She pinched her lips into a small o and blew an imaginary eyelash off his face.

Dorian closed his eyes. “I mean, just think about us, all grown up, in offices somewhere. ”

Now I rolled against him and I tilted my head onto his shoulder. “That will never happen to us,” I said. I tucked my fingers between his clasped hands, and gave them a confident jolt. “Listen to me,” I said. “That will never, never happen to us.” My breath pushed the lingering smoke across us.

“Why? It happens to everybody.”

“We’re not everybody, though,” I said. “People who end up like that aren’t even alive like us. They’re weak, they’re sad. All they can think about is paying their bills. They don’t feel things the way that we do.” I pressed my cheek against his and said into his ear, “When we leave here, we’re going to change the world. We’re going to follow our dreams, and—”

“I don’t even have dreams.”

“Oh, of course you do,” Madeline snapped.

I sat up, and for a moment there appeared to be an unprecedented tear hovering in the corner of Dorian’s eyelid. I blinked, and the tear disappeared, a raindrop which one moment had been hovering on the tip of a leaf and the next had rolled back toward the stem.

“Where is this depressing nonsense coming from?” Madeline asked. “Kiss me.” She nudged him with her nose. Dorian opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, and she did it again.

The second time he flinched, like a bee had stung him.

“Don’t,” I whispered to her.

He grasped reflexively at my hand.

Madeline saw his hand wrap around mine. She stiffened. Pressed her lips together. Her face flashed with something new. “Then you kiss him,” she said to me.

Dorian stopped breathing. Our bodies suddenly were heavy and still, like logs that had been rolled together into a pile. Madeline traced her fingers over Dorian’s moonlit stomach again, while my own felt trapped in his clutch. Neither he nor I could move.

“We all love each other here,” she continued. Outside a moth flickered against the windowpane. The roof of the neighboring house glowed white in the moonlight, and beyond, a clock tower stood like a sentinel. “Do you love me, Ethan?” she asked.

I nodded slowly.

Madeline leaned over Dorian, her breasts pressing against the back of his hands. “Will you always love me?”

Before I could say yes, I would always love her, Madeline had pressed through the smoke and her lips were upon mine. She kissed me. I swallowed hard at the familiar taste, which was sweeter than a strawberry or a newly picked peach.

She pulled out my hand from Dorian’s grasp and rested it on the curve of her swanlike neck. My fingertips spilled across her pulse. I thought of Botticelli, and springtime, and everything teeming vividly with life. My own throat bobbed.

“You’ll always love me, right?” she whispered into my mouth. I felt myself nod. My heart pounded in my chest. She unstuck from me and my body followed achingly toward her lips. “Well,” she nudged Dorian, “nothing will ever change, boys,” she whispered, my saliva shimmering on her bottom lip. “Nothing will ever change.” She pushed her knee against his leg, and the mattress groaned. “Go on — kiss one another.”

Dorian didn’t stir, elbows still locked at his sides. We were both quiet. The heat of embarrassment prickled my cheeks.

“Don’t you love each other?” She made our hands into a bundle, surrounding them with her own hands like wrapping paper. “Don’t we all — love each other?”

Inches away, Dorian glanced sidelong at me. I felt his stomach tense as he lifted his neck. I closed my eyes, and felt a sudden rush of completeness. After this moment, I will have known everything good in life . Madeline’s breath, her taste, still lingered like a mask over my own face. My cheek struck his nose — a soft exhalation, a sudden, breathy “oh”—

The kiss was cold and stiff, yet, like a handshake between two adversaries, it softened upon contact. I melted onto him. After all this time — our first kiss. Madeline stroked our hands with her thumb, and unable to control myself, I pushed my tongue into his mouth.

Dorian pulled sharply away. I was torn, a shirt caught on a fencepost.

Turning away from me, he retreated to the pillow, burying his face in it. He breathed in deeply and his whole back swelled. Madeline reached onto the nightstand for the crystal saucer and brought the joint to her lips, handing me a red book of matches. I bent toward her over Dorian’s body, and, hands shaking, lit the flame.

BY THE NEXT MORNING ON MY COMMUTE TO RÉGINE, I HAD forgotten all about Dorian’s résumé. There were more urgent matters vying for my attention: the replenishment of the seat George had vacated, and the potential of his replacement to somehow alleviate the discontentment Régine had stirred in me. Contrary to George’s advice, I was never going to be the frigid, figurative Régine. To execute his policy of measured professional ruthlessness would require all the effort of a theatrical role: I could think of no undertaking more antithetical to my unrehearsed earnestness than to cast myself in his drama of schemes and subterfuge. Were I somehow to rise to the occasion — if the outlook of such an occasion should be considered an ascent, and not as I suspected, a downward spiral into deeper unhappiness — my first step would have to be enlisting a subordinate as my fellow intern. But wouldn’t I rather just have a friend?

On my arrival, unfortunately, the chair in which I hoped to install a new ally already had a person in it. He turned around as I approached him from behind thinking, “ No — no — this can’t be happening ,” expecting the face to belong to George and the first words out of his mouth to be, “You thought you could get rid of me, did you?”

Instead it was much worse than I could have ever imagined, yet somehow exactly what I should have predicted. The smile that greeted me was uninhibited — the blast from the heated entryway of a friend’s home on a winter day.

“Babe!” he chimed, and in his cheerful greeting I heard my inevitable demise foretold.

I was so stunned to see Dorian there that I froze about ten feet away from his open arms. I took a step back from him.

“What are you doing here?” I balked.

His guileless expression only exacerbated my alarm. “I work here!” he exclaimed, beaming, and to my horror he walked right over and enveloped me in a hug. I stood motionless beneath the blanketlike warmth of his arms over my shoulders, and he continued — in case his meaning had eluded me—“We work together now. I’m the new intern!”

The ground beneath my feet opened up. I plummeted. “But I haven’t even interviewed anyone yet,” I squeaked. I wasn’t sure if I had spoken the words aloud or merely heard them echo in the hopeless chasm of my head.

“Well, Mom sometimes vacations with Jane Delancey, and she mentioned to her they were going to need someone, so — here I am!” He separated from me and grabbed my hand. “Are you surprised?”

“I — yes, I’m definitely surprised, but—”

“Good! I wanted to tell you, but Madeline said it’d make a good surprise. Are you really surprised?”

For the love of God. “Yes, I’m surprised ,” I repeated tersely. “I just — I don’t understand.”