And then he’d discovered heroin. How perfectly 04/14/1984 had blended into that moment. The mysterious past and the confusing present felt continuous. Or perhaps he just felt good and didn’t give a fuck about reconciling the two. He felt perfect, and even when he wasn’t high, he consoled himself with the thought that he soon would be again — on the weekend, say. He felt he had found a way to cope with what he wanted for his future even when the past came knocking too loud.
But now, in this moment with Keiko and Fenimore, he pushes past the warm anticipatory feeling in his stomach. “I have to get home and work,” he says. He has a school crit in three days.
“Can I come to your place for dinner?” Keiko asks.
“Why do you wanna come all the way to the East Village for dinner?” he asks. “I’m just gonna have to send you back; I have work tonight.”
“I like your parents,” Keiko says. “I like being in a real home with people’s parents, especially when the parents are artists. It makes me feel good.”
“Me, too,” Fenimore says. “Can I come, too?”
Mateo sighs, but he’s not against it, because it’s easier to be around the Parentals when his friends are around. The friends kind of fuzz them out. He pulls out his cell.
“What’s up, honey?” Millimom says when she picks up.
“Hey,” he says. “Can I bring Keiko and Fenimore over for dinner tonight? They want to come.”
“I thought it would be just us tonight!” she answers. He hears cars in the background; she’s on the street. “Dad’s in his studio — they won’t even get to talk to him about building and welding. It’ll just be me, a boring, bougie old-lady painter.”
“I’ll tell them that,” Mateo says. He relays the information.
“We still want to come, Millimom!” Keiko shouts into the phone.
“Yeah,” Fenimore shouts. “Bougie old-lady painters kick butt.”
“Tell Fenimore I’m very flattered,” Millimom says. Then: “Why does he call himself Fenimore anyway if his real name is Carl? Is that an art project?”
“Sort of,” Mateo says. “He’s a work in progress. What do you want me to bring home? Is there wine?”
“None of you should be drinking wine,” she says. “You’re all underage. They’ll send me to jail for being an unfit parent.”
“Dad would let us.”
“We’ll bring wine, Milly!” Keiko shouts.
Millimom sighs. “Whatever. Also bring a head of romaine lettuce and a baguette. And, um, a good jar of red sauce. We’re only having pasta, Mateo.”
“We don’t care.” She starts to say something else but Mateo says, “Bye, see you soon!” and hangs up. In a few minutes, he and Keiko and Fenimore are on the train into the city. After they pick up the groceries, walking into the Christodora, they bump into Ardit, the humorless, square-headed super, and nod hello. Mateo’s stomach jumps a bit, as it always does now when he sees Ardit, because once a few months ago, Ardit caught Mateo nodding by the elevator at three A.M. and Mateo had to make up some bad lie about being so tired that he’d fallen asleep standing up. A few occasions since then, when Mateo came home nodding, he watched the building until he saw Ardit step out for an errand, or ducked immediately into the stairwell and climbed the six flights to avoid waiting at the elevator. That was murder. He’d slump down in the stairwell for up to an hour after that haul, undiscovered by anyone because it was the middle of the night.
When Mateo and Keiko and Fenimore enter the apartment, Milly is at the kitchen table, in front of her laptop, drinking iced tea. Hellos and hugs go around.
“Look at this work, you guys,” Milly says. She’s grading final projects at LaGuardia Music and Arts High School, where she’s taught painting the past thirteen years, and she shows the trio some gouache on wood abstracts by a girl named Cláudia Torres. “What do you think?” Milly asks.
Milly enlarges the image and the three peer at it awhile. “I don’t mind it,” Fenimore finally says. “It has some energy.”
“I like the pale colors,” says Keiko brightly. “She has ideas, I can see them.”
“I hope she’s taking an accounting class,” Mateo says.
“Oh, come on, Mateo!” Keiko protests. “Mean.”
“Harsh, bro,” Fenimore drawls. “We can’t all be as brilliant as you.”
Milly turns and looks at Mateo. She opens her mouth to say something, then just closes it and shakes her head, still looking at him. Yeah, yeah, he thinks. I know all your beefs with me, lady. How full of himself he is. His swagger as an artist. It’s very unbecoming to her, he knows. This isn’t an easy life, she always says, the artist’s path, and we have to support each other, be generous and gentle with our words, pay it forward, and all that. Fucking Saint Milly, who teaches city kids how to make art even though, with her and Jared’s family money, neither of them really needs to teach. But they’ve both taught all these years, to be “real people,” to show Mateo “values,” supposedly. He knows his bubbes and zaydes are paying for his college, but Jared and Milly still make him have those summer- and winter-break jobs so he learns these “values.”
“You’re impossible,” Milly finally tells him softly. Milly had turned forty this year, but the moment after Fenimore left the Christodora the first time meeting Milly, he grabbed Mateo’s arm and said, “Dude, your mom is a fucking babe.” All Mateo’s friends think that, the guys and the girls. The guys are in love with her and the girls either want to be her or are in love with her, too. That warm, kind, but gently droll Julia Roberts thing she exudes. That thing Auntie Drew, who’s not really Mateo’s aunt but he’s always called her that, describes as “l’air de Milly.”
Mateo tilts his chin at Milly and grins and says, “It’s too bad you think I’m impossible since you gotta live with me.”
Milly laughs; she’s game. “No, my friend, I think that might be the reverse unless you can come up with the money for your own rent while you’re in school.”
“Don’t be a turd to your mother,” Fenimore says, grabbing Mateo and Keiko. “You work, Milly, we’ll make dinner.” Fenimore opens the bottle of red, pouring everyone a glass, and the three of them make a salad and pasta while Milly continues working, chatting here and there. At one point Mateo looks over at her: ebony hair up in that loose knot, cat-eye glasses perched on her nose, legs in skinny jeans crossed, bare foot bobbing, toenails painted glossy black. That permanently worried frown on her face she gets when she looks at art. Mateo allows himself a moment of affection for her. Then Milly glances upward and catches a soft look on his face. Taken aback, he sticks out his tongue at her and looks away — not so soon, though, that he doesn’t see her face break into a small, triumphant smile as she turns back to her laptop.
The wine relaxes Mateo. The dinner is good, informal, everyone passing around the baguette and tearing off pieces for themselves to mop up the spaghetti sauce. Keiko retells her Marina Abramović story; Milly plays down the fact that she and Marina have known each other for years, just saying, “It’s amazing she’s doing this, good for her.” Keiko and Fenimore babble and bitch about school and professors. Mateo fuzzes out on his wine, twirls his pasta, clears the table and loads the dishwasher when everyone’s done so folks can keep talking.
He comes back to the table with ice cream for everyone. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Milly says when he sets hers down in front of her — just one small scoop, all she’ll ever have, because it’s not like she stays looking the way she looks without putting some thought and discipline into it. Then after the dessert Keiko and Fenimore are getting up to leave.