Page 52 of My Own Kind of Person

Tony sits forward. “I’m just trying to—”

I hold up a hand. I can barely speak. “You’re right.”

“Sean?” comes a voice that isn’t Tony’s.

I tell Tony, “We’ll rehearse soon and we’ll get more laughs.”

“Thank you,” Tony says. “I’m sending you a document with your greatest hits from all your performances so you can practice it in English on Wednesday. Then we’ll have a rehearsal that afternoon.”

“Great. Thank you.” I give a thumbs-up and hold it until Tony ends the call.

“Sean!” It’s Warren. He’s glaring down at me, an enormous model ship in his hands. “I need you to set up the Columbus Day display.”

I show my thumbs-up to Warren.

My chest is shaking as I follow him past the empty shelves that once held books on gender. It keeps shaking as I go downstairs and arrange the ship on a table under an American flag. I surround the ship with books Warren has chosen, which the back covers tell me are about Italian American heritage, the Age of Exploration, and Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European who landed on Long Island about a hundred and fifty years after Columbus landed in the Bahamas.

My chest is still shaking after work, when Tony sends me a document called THE GREATEST HITS, and instead of reading it I sit in my car rereading my texts to Christy and looking at the space where she still hasn’t replied.

I whisper to the phone, “I’d like to rewind my life, please,” but no one is around to laugh.

Chapter 16

Christy does reply, at night after I’ve had two peanut butter sandwiches and tucked myself into bed.

Are you around?

I’m here, I reply.

Can you pick me up? she says. I have to get out of this house

I’ll be there in five, I say.

I don’t wanna bother you, she says.

See you in five

My brain is blank and my breath is short as I drive.

Christy’s yellow house waits at the end of a dead-end street, surrounded by fruit trees and flowers. She doesn’t come out when I pull up. In the downstairs unit, I see her half brother playing a first-person shooter on the TV while his kids watch. Up in Christy’s unit, her bedroom light is on.

I’m not certain what’s best, but I walk to the front door and knock.

Mrs. Ryan opens the door, rolls her eyes, and shouts behind her, “You running away?”

The living room lights are off and the blinds are drawn. Mr. Ryan doesn’t take his eyes off the TV. On the screen, women shout at each other.

“Hello,” I say, possibly to no one.

Down the hall, Mrs. Ryan speaks too quietly for me to hear while Christy repeats, “I’m not talking to you.” Christy keeps saying it as she rushes past me with her little backpack. Mrs. Ryan follows, her eyes wide. She stops when she gets to me.

“Why are you standing here?” she says. “Shouldn’t you be rescuing your girlfriend?”

I don’t play music while I drive. Christy pushes her shoes against the dashboard and bites her nails. I take us to the part of Lake Ronkonkoma where there’s the biggest beach. The clouds have cleared and the full moon is shining bright and white.

I unbuckle my seat belt. “Are you—”

She screams and slams her feet against the dash. She throws her arms in the air and flails her head and shouts until she’s out of breath.