Lukas Tallent

Wife Material

She flew down for the weekend with her new skinny jeans, a crop-top, and her scalp buzzed until she resembled a pop-rock monk. For good measure, she pierced her nose, too, and a silver hoop now dangled from her septum, but the lingering pain and metallic smell, while she waited outside McGhee Tyson, left her unsure of how he would react.

When the Uber dropped her on Gay Street, he was waiting on the sidewalk.

“Look at you,” he said, sweeping her in his arms like a little kid. He’d always hugged her like that, even after she told him he was a callous piece of shit or a coward for staying in Tennessee.

When he touched her scalp, she reminded him of how she liked dramatic returns, effusing every spare ounce of sweetness into her voice, as she had practiced again and again on the flight. His feathered, wavy hair, Def Leppard t-shirt, and denim cutoffs gave her courage. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

“Same,” he said and hefted her suitcase three flights of stairs to his one-bedroom in the Sterchi building.

The place was a wreck. Coffee mugs and take-out boxes littered every ledge, shelf, or counter. It seemed, too, as if he stripped in a different spot every night for tiny piles of clothes were scattered about his living room.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m doing laundry.”

“Or not,” she said, smiling in part to reassure him that she really didn’t mind and because to see him a mess was to see him vulnerable. You wouldn’t let just anyone see you that way.

He bought this condo a year ago, before he quit his job for the state and started bartending. During the latter half of his twenties, he had re-evaluated whether or not working for a paycheck was what life was really about. Then he learned how to make drinks, bought jiggers and shakers, understood the difference an ounce and a half could make.

“If only you’d known during undergrad,” she said, as she sipped the classic daiquiri he mixed for her. It was a new place, hip and Italian. When he explained the simple ingredients, she kept leaning closer, to where she could’ve licked his smooth, tanned face as if it were a caramel apple.

He worked that night, so she sat at his bar and drank whatever he made: the daiquiri, a negroni, and an espresso martini. All went right through her.

Flirty girls appeared and asked him questions she already knew the answers to.

“Where did you grow up?”

“How does your hair stay like that?”

One was blonde, the other two brunettes, and you could tell they liked him by how they twirled their curls. She ran a hand over her smooth scalp. No rings in their noses, but he was polite, deferential, leaning into their attraction. A few more questions, and she decided to walk back to his place.

After taking her pills, she got to work. She gathered the mugs and loaded the dishwasher. Only two failed attempts, and she figured out how to set the automatic coffeepot, then wiped the counters clean and put his clothes in the wastebasket. Around 3:00 AM, he found her curled on his couch and watching an old horror movie that no longer scared her.

“You didn’t have to clean,” he said.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. He smelled of booze and lime and sweat and cologne and the sweetness of life. Beside him, she fell asleep.

The next night, she didn’t go to the bar but kissed him on the cheek as he left. “Be good,” she said and started on his laundry, which required four separate trips up and down three flights of stairs. When she lost her breath, she would sit for a minute, and in case someone else entered the stairwell, pretended to be doing something important on her phone. It took hours—folding his shirts and shorts and jeans. Afterwards, she organized his chest of drawers, rearranged his closet, collars, jackets, and shoes. When she finished, she purloined a white dress shirt and some boxers that on her were like shorts. This was her last night in town.

At midnight, he didn’t know what to say.

“What’s a guy do to deserve a friend like you?”

“I think we’re more than friends. I’ve seen you naked.”

She had, five years ago. It was right before graduation, one night with a bottle of raspberry vodka and the fear that they’d never be as close again.

He sighed, and in that sigh were years and years of what hadn’t been said. “That was a long time ago.”

No, not really, she wanted to say. I’m not any different. The lights were dimmed, and as he went to bed, she lay wondering how to say it. I should’ve known then, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry, but there’s always now. About an hour later, she left her clothes on his couch and crept into his room. He slept on his side, and when she slipped under the covers, she realized he was naked, too, and warm. She pulled his arm over her and scooted back, felt his hard-on between the cheeks of her butt. But he didn’t stir, and under his warmth, she drifted off.

The next morning, he drove her to the airport.

“Come back,” he said, and her heart fluttered.

“Really?”

“Anytime. Maybe I won’t have to work so much, and we can go on the town, find you a man.”

She tried but couldn’t quite smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

Once she was through security, she looked back, but he had already gone.

Lukas Tallent lives in New York City. His work has recently appeared in Bending Genres, Vast Chasm, HAD, and many other places. His chapbook, The Compromising Position, is available now from Bottlecap Press. You can find more of him at lukas-tallent.com or on Instagram @lukastallent.