A Deafening Silence

I am standing in line at my local coffee shop. It is one of those places that is less than a block away from Starbucks and probably won’t last much longer considering their prices and the fact that their coffee tastes like chalk, but I come here anyway cause it feels like I’m committing activism. I am waiting and texting my co-worker/best friend that I’m going to be late when someone bumps me from behind.

I turn, ready to say, EXCUSE ME, but I am silenced by the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.

I don’t usually go for pretty boys. I like my men to be men and my women to be women. That sounds close-minded and living on the binary but it’s true. And I can’t deny my truth. I like my men to look like Captain Li Shang (with a bit more scruff) and my women to look like Mulan (without the armor). So. There you go. Now you have visuals.

But this guy.

This guy is an exception.

He looks like a French painting.

Do you know what I mean?

He’s lean, with big dark eyes, long dark hair, porcelain skin.

I want to ask if he’s related to Edward Mullen. Or is it Kullen? You know, the Twilight guy. (who is also not my type but you get the idea).

“Sorry,” he says, raising his phone, “Got distracted.”

“uhsdkfjd,” I respond and then gulp and then turn as red as a tomato, “Imeanit’sok.”

He laughs and then goes, “Let me buy your coffee. Make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say.

“But I want to,” he says.

And who am I to say no to a French god.

We are sipping our coffees and walking down Main St.

I have told my co-worker/best friend that I am not going into work today and to tell everyone that I am sick. When I tell her the real reason she responds with an eggplant emoji. It’s why we’re friends.

So, now I am walking. I don’t know where we’re walking. Just walking. He is talking about his music. He is a musician. A pianist. He plays for the LA Philharmonic and it is fitting somehow. It is so fitting that this man who looks like he stepped out of the renaissance, plays the piano. It is romantic. Other worldly.

He is talking about his favorite composers, but I am unabashedly thinking about his penis.

I’m not proud of this part of me, but I can’t help it.

Some people are sexual creatures, I am a sexual maniac.

Not a sex addict, to be clear.

I don’t have sex all the time with anyone I meet (though sometimes I wish I could do that).

No.

I do love sex and think about sex quite a bit, but for me, there needs to be chemistry. A physical pull between us that makes me want to pounce. And if that’s not there, then we are destined to just be friends.

The chemistry was there with Frenchie.

“Liam,” he says, snapping me out of my lustful trance.

“Hmm?” I say, looking at his jaw that could cut glass.

“My name,” he says with a knowing smirk, “It’s Liam.”

“That’s nice,” I say leaning into his face.

“And yours?” he asks, as he presses his lips to my neck.

We are in the middle of a busy street in the middle of the day with the sun illuminating us and I’m moments away from stripping off his shirt in front of everyone.

“Stephanie,” I whisper, “Stephanie.”

Liam is not just a pianist.

He is a gardener. He has the greenest thumb I have ever seen. The yard in his cute little duplex is covered with lavender, and a peach tree, and an orange tree, and different kinds of chiles, and rosemary, and various kinds of succulents. It looks like a little Eden. I expect to see fairies at night dancing among the cacti. In the mornings, he is always out in his garden, with a giant straw hat, and a hoe, and the shortest blue shorts I have ever seen. The shorts leave no room for the imagination. I stand by the window and watch. He asks me frequently if I want to come and help but I say no. That I’m fine where I am. And I am. I am just fine.

Liam is also a chef.

Do you know that scene in Julia and Julia where Meryl Streep as Julia Child is in the kitchen cooking a meal. She dances from the onions and the garlic to the stove, she chops the chicken with elegance, she sprinkles on the spices with such delicacy of movement it almost feels like you’re watching a ballet. Well, that’s Liam. Beef bourguignon. Chile con carne. Filet of fish with a butter cream sauce. Stuffed salmon artichokes. Crab cakes with lemon butter. Meals fit for a Michelin restaurant is what Liam makes. I like to stand in the doorway and watch him cook. Watch him move from the table to the stove to the fridge. Watch him mix the pot with those thin and sinewy arms. He always asks me if I want to help but I always say no. I prefer to watch.

Liam is also a painter. On Sundays he sets up an easel in the yard and does watercolors. He doesn’t think. Doesn’t plan. Just paints. Drips colors onto the canvas and allows the picture to paint itself. He has created sunsets, and sunrises, and abstract portraits of children at play and self-portraits, and nude pictures of me and others whose names I don’t ask about. I am not a jealous person. I don’t really believe in monogamy. Not really. Well. Not usually. But the more I hang out with Liam. Liam the chef. Liam the gardener, Liam the painter. Liam the listener of dreams. Liam the philosopher whose vision of the world is so beyond me and so beautiful and so intricate that I sometimes have a hard time following. He is magnificent. And brilliant. And sometimes, sometimes, especially at night when I hold him in my arms, sometimes I want him just to myself.

Liam is a pianist. He sits down every single day at his little piano in his little bedroom and he plays. He does his scales. He practices Mozart and Beethoven and Debussy. And then he plays his own music. And it is. Indescribable. It is varied. Some of it is jazzy, upbeat, made for dancing. Some of it is bluesy. Made to be sung by Billie Holiday and listened to with a glass of whiskey. Some of it is classic. Made for the ballet. And one night, one late night after a day full of gardening and cooking and love making, he sits down and he plays the most beautiful thing I have ever heard him play. And then he looks at me and goes, “It’s called Stephanie.” And I feel like I’m floating out of my body. Out of space and time. Of all the people I have dated, slept with, and yes there are too many to count, there are people I don’t remember. But Liam. Liam is indeed a special snowflake. An entity I didn’t know existed. A unicorn? A unicorn. And I can feel myself float above the earth and then come crashing down and breaking into pieces because I have fallen and I am done and no one will ever come close to this feeling and I’m praying to all the gods in all the universe when I tell him,

“I love you, Liam.”

And I rejoice to all the gods in all the universe when he says, “I love you too Stephanie.”

I am walking down the street with Liam. Our street. Main street. We are leaving the place where we get coffee. Our small little act of activism.

I am holding his hand and listening to him talk passionately about Climate Change when suddenly he is quiet.

He is looking ahead of us at the man coming toward us.

He lets go of my hand.

I watch him go pale, paler than normal.

The man stops in front of us.

“Is this her” the man asks, his voice shaking, his eyes filling with tears, “Is this her?”

My heart squeezes itself in my chest. I can see it start to shrink. Start to try and disappear.

I look at Liam who is still looking at the man. He is frozen. He is a deer in the headlights.

And I look at the man and I can see the way he is looking at Liam and it is the same way that I look at Liam. With utter desperation and need.

“It’s either her or me,” the man says.

Liam says nothing.

The man looks at me and he must see something because his face softens a bit and I wonder if he sees it too. The desperation. The longing. The need. The inescapable Need.

“We can both have him,” I hear myself say.

They look at me. Liam, still at a loss for words, looks like a shocked baby. Like he doesn’t know how to function anymore.

“We can both have him,” I say to the man, “Isn’t it better that way? We’re all satisfied, we’re all happy, we’re-

The man grunts in frustration and shakes his head.

“No,” he sobs.

And he looked between us once more and said, “It’s either her or me,”

And Liam sighed.

And Liam looked at me.

And my breath left my body and my body left my soul and the world shook and the universe shattered and all that was left was a loud and deafening

Silence.