Page 10 of Center of Gravity

Plastic crackled as Alonse reached behind the counter and pulled out a couple of wrapped magazines. Not the sort that usually were kept behind the counters and wrapped in plastic, these covers showed diminutive figures laid out upon a miniature battlefield. The title:Civil War Times.

“He asked me to carry it for him. Never mind he could have just subscribed to it. Said he liked to have a place to go and something to look forward to when he got there.” Alonse’s smile curved with a fond sadness that stung my eyes the longer I stared at it.A place to go and something to look forward to when he got there; that sounded just like my dad.

I hadn’t cried at his funeral, and I hadn’t cried at the stagnant vacancy of their house when I’d returned to it a week ago, but I was close, very close, in the convenience store with the rusting postcard rack and the laughable selection of wine. It was one of those inexplicable moments where I felt my father’s absence keenly. It moved through my chest like an ice floe, stealing my breath. My relationship with my father had been more complicated than my relationship with my mother, but that wasn’t what caused me to rub at my chest as if a piece of my heart had been excavated. It was that with him gone too, something fundamental about my existence had been uprooted and set to the wind. We had no relations that I knew of remaining on my mother’s side, and my father’s brother had flown in for the funeral and left the following day. They hadn’t been close.

I pushed some soggy bills across the counter then tucked the magazines into the waistband of my shorts and gathered up the wine and water. “Thank you for doing that for him.”

Maybe it was because of that moment where my sentimentality had been heightened and I was vulnerable, thinking about all of the things in life one might look forward to, but when I spied the boxes of Cracker Jack lined up in a rack beneath the counter, I picked one up without a second thought and handed over another pair of bills. “This, too.”

Alonse brightened and slid the money into his drawer. “Still a prize in every box.”

“Something to look forward to,” I agreed, my smile becoming more genuine.

* * *

“I can’t tellif he had a favorite side.” Alex picked up a figure of Robert E. Lee and held it in a shaft of afternoon light. “But, he was really into the details.” He rotated it on his palm, examining my father’s meticulous brush strokes, while I in turn, examined him. I couldn’t help it. Everything about him was magnetic and I might as well have been made of iron filings. All morning I’d tried to come up with a way to start over with him, to find a more satisfying sense of closure from the way we’d left things yesterday. But since he’d arrived, he’d been single-mindedly focused on the remaining packing and joking around with Tom as they moved furniture around and out of the house while I directed from the background. This was the first time we’d been alone all day.

Alex glanced up, catching me watching him. His expression didn’t change and he didn’t look away either. Maybe I blushed. I had no idea, but I forced my gaze to remain steady. The politics of attraction were navigable, and I thought I’d learned them well enough. Looking away abruptly might suggest I knew I’d been caught or that I was ashamed. And beneath that would have been the implication of an attraction I had no business alerting him to, given our previous encounter and my current situation.

“He didn’t have a favorite side and he was obviously against slavery.” I tossed Alex the horse that went with the general. He caught it and studied it, as well, thumbnail tracing a tiny, brown-painted hoof. “I think it was all about the process.”

Tom had gone to make a donation run of kitchen items and small electronics to the local Goodwill, leaving me and Alex to finish boxing up the personal items I’d put aside to keep. I knew Summer would want some of Mom’s things—if she could deign to come back here and get them. I suspected I’d end up shipping them out to her.

Since I’d not managed to squeeze in a shower before they’d arrived, my skin was tacky with a layer of dried sweat and my hair had dried in an unkempt mess that looked not unlike Alex’s, minus the artfulness. That was fine, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone—rather, I shouldn’t have been—even if Alex was five feet across from me, standing there like a bronze Apollo.

“I’m not even sure he was into the Civil War at all except that to him it was an acceptably masculine hobby for men who like small figurines and painting.” My smile was droll as I tossed another General—Nathan Bedford Forrest, I was pretty certain—into the box.

“Like running is for men who like being in the path of other shirtless men.” Alex cut a sharp-edged look my way, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

I blinked, and I think I did blush then. The kid was teasing me. Or flirting. Or being passive-aggressive. I couldn’t decide. “Sure,” I said mildly, picking up another figurine and wrapping it in newsprint. “Or, you know, for the cardiac and mental benefits that come along with regular exercise.”

Alex let me get away with that, asking, “So what else are you into besides running?”

That question earned him more scrutiny. I wasn’t sure whether he was making the casual small talk of a polite employee trying to pass the time or if he was fishing for something deeper in his semi-subtle fashion. At the moment, I was stuck on the sunlight filtering through his hair, falling across the side of his cheek and flecking his eyes with bits of gold. He was truly devastating. HowhadI been able to ditch him that night? Yet more evidence that I hadn’t been thinking clearly. Of course, if I had been thinking clearly, that night would never have happened in the first place.

“Is this an I-like-long-walks-on-the-beach-and-reading-Pride-and-Prejudicekind of question?” I asked.

Alex grinned at my dubious expression, his eyes bright and sharp and twinkling in a way that I was quickly learning meant he was amused. “It was more of a we’re-boxing-up-civil-war-figurines-and-I’m-making-conversation-to-pass-the-time.”

Well. That resolved it. I cleared my throat. “I’d like to paint a picture of a well-rounded human being who serves on boards, attends art openings, donates fiendishly, helps the poor, and competes in Iron Man triathlons in his spare time, but I don’t. I work ungodly hours crunching numbers. I run. I socialize some. I do like art openings, though. I’ve always liked art, but the skill never really aligned with the desire, and my father wouldn’t have approved anyway.”

“Why not?” Alex put his packing on hold to sit back on his hands.

“See previous answer: acceptably masculine hobbies.”

“What about Pollack and Rothko? They were masculine as hell.”

“Hippies, beats, and weirdos, according to my dad.” I shrugged. “It’s not his fault. It was a different time. He had a tendency to measure life by financial success or scholarly acclaim.”

“So are you a success?”

“In his eyes, yes, I am.”

Alex canted his head to one side, eyeing me. “But what about your own?”

We were edging into territory that seemed a bit heavy for a college kid on a moving crew and a mid-level accountant on a self-inflicted work sabbatical. Then again, what else would we talk about—the weather?

“That’s more complex.” Then, to get the attention off of me, I asked, “You? You aiming to be the next Banksy?”