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I’m so tempted to say something about Gemma but I’m fully aware that I’m talking to my sister. I don’t discuss my sex life with her, though she doesn’t seem to have that problem with me. Sometimes I have to remind her I’m her brother first, friend second, and the freaky stuff she does with her older boyfriend, Mateo, is absolutely none of my business.
“Joshua?” she asks, using my full name to bring me back to attention.
“Yuh huh?”
“So, what are you going to do now? I mean, about your job.” I hear her swallow again.
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“Drinking,” she says. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Where’s Mateo?”
“He’s reading in the living room.”
“How exciting.”
“It is. I’m drinking on the balcony.”
“And you’re not freezing your ass off?”
“We have an outdoor heater thing.” Interesting. A few months ago, Vera would have said, “He has an outdoor heater thing.” She’s starting to really put down her roots, even after all the shit she and Mateo have gone through. Sounds like she’s there to stay now. I don’t know why that burns a bit. “Anyway, back to the school stuff. Are you going to look for a new job?”
I shrug, though she can’t see it. I don’t understand why everyone is so against me as a line cook. I mean, I’m not terrible at it. Sure, there was that one time I used cayenne pepper instead of smoked paprika, but anyone could make that mistake.
“I don’t know, I just got the letter. Give me some time to think.”
“Sor-ry,” she says, exaggerating the word. There’s a pause. “Oh, by the way,” she says way too casually, “I’m not coming home for Christmas after all.”
I’m stunned for a moment before I yell, “What?!”
“Yeah,” she says cautiously. “I just . . . I’d rather stay here with Mateo, and we don’t want to leave Chloe around this time of year, so . . . yeah.”
I feel my head get hot and my stomach sinks like a stone. “Vera, you can’t leave me alone with Mom and Mercy. You know that Christmas is at Mercy’s house this year, with all those stuck-up fucks. I can’t handle them alone. I can barely handle Mom.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” And she does sound sorry. But that’s not enough. “I’ll miss you, but I don’t know. I have my own life here. I was just at home in September. I just don’t see any reason to go to Vancouver and be surrounded by people who don’t really care if I’m there or not.”
“I care.”
“Only because you need me to take the pressure off of you,” she says quickly. “When I’m there, I’m the black sheep, not you.”
She’s right. With her overseas, she’s no longer the screwup of the family—it’s me. And yet I feel that even with her around, I’ll still be the one picked on. Vera has grown up a lot in the last year, and it shows. She doesn’t give a fuck about our sister, Mercy, or our mom, or any of the things she used to. It’s a good thing, believe me. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling jealous from time to time. Vera has something, someone. She has a life.
I’m starting to fear that I don’t.
“You’ll be so busy preparing for school, though,” she says. “You won’t even notice I’m not there.”
It’s a lie but there’s no point in resenting her. She’s got her new life. And come New Year, I’ll start to have mine.
But when I hang up the phone and spend the rest of the day working on sketches in my ongoing comic—Detective Demento—my mind keeps wandering. I find myself sketching a femme fatale who looks just like Gemma. She’s wearing a black sequined gown, her wavy, glossy hair over one eye. She comes from a land of fire and water, and as I draw, I remember the taste of her on my lips, the way she arched her neck when she moaned. She was incredibly, incredibly sensual but still had her sass, that smirk, those eyes. She had the whole package.
I sketch her all day in various stages of undress. It doesn’t bother me to draw her this way, though maybe it should. Whatever. The female body is meant to be appreciated, replicated. I do have to stop several times and jerk off—the memories are too much for my hormones to handle. I find myself having a fantasy about sketching her live, nude, while she fucks me. Screw Jack and Rose, that’s how it really should have gone down on the Titanic.
But when night falls and I hear my mom’s car pull up in the driveway, I realize that Gemma has been a pleasant diversion. My memories of our night together lead me somewhere, to some edge, and all I have to do is grab my dick and jump. Instead, I’m in my room and she’s some phantom I never knew, living some life far away.
I feel trapped and frustrated and I find myself crumpling up the last drawing and chucking it hard at the window. It rattles an empty beer bottle but it doesn’t fall. I want it to. I want it to fucking smash.
I should go into the kitchen and tell my mom about the school. She’ll probably be happy, but it won’t be a business degree like every other good son has, or a real estate course that she thinks would serve me better. It’s school but it’s art school, and even though I have the chops—my illustration won a contest that helped pay for my car—it’s still a fruitless career. To her, anyway. I know that the arts are hard and the odds stacked against you, but I also believe that the harder it is, the greater the reward. Besides, why not? Millions of artists have their art as their career. Why can’t that be me?
