Looked Over

I light uppa smoke as Bit and I walk to the restaurant where we’re supposed to meet Avan. If you don’t remember Bit or Avan, don’t worry about it, babe. They’re two friends of mine; that's all you need to know right now.

“I was listening to our interview again,” Bit says. He has a beamcast, and he interviewed me for it awhile back. Twice, actually.

“Oh, yeah,” I say.

“Yeah, and in it you were talking about Gnosticism and reincarnation and the emanations of aeons and cyclical existence.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“And I asked if that was all really in there.”

I remember the conversation he’s referring to, and it stings a bit. “Sure,” I say.

“Which books is that stuff in again?” he asks.

I take a drag, exhale, and say, “All of ‘em, really. But you might be thinking of These Are the Things I Know.”

“No,” he says. “That’s not it. Good title, by the way. You have great titles.”

“Thanks.”

We turn the corner, and start down Santa Monica Boulevard. You know, if you want this to be in Los Angeles. Otherwise, I dunno, it’s Sandrail Beachpass or some shit like that, if you want to go to the 32C.

“What’s the one where you have a show?” he asks.

“We Can Never Go Back,” I say and notice I’m smoking too quickly, getting a head rush, so I slow down.

Bit is quiet for a minute. “No, I don’t think that’s it, either.” Which is kind of funny because he’s in that one. Not very much, but relatively early on, so he wouldn’t have even had to read that much of it to know that, which tells me he hasn’t really read it.

“Maybe it has something about space in the title. Space Is Where We’re From, maybe? Or something like that?”

I sigh and flick away my cigarette as we reach the restaurant. “The Stars Call Us Home,” I say.

“Yes!” he says exuberantly. “That’s the one!”

But it isn’t, I think to myself. Somehow he’s paired the title he likes best with the themes he likes best, but it’s the wrong book.

I just smile and hold the door for him.

“Oh, thanks!” he says, then goes in.

I follow, smooth out my aqua velvet miniskort and pull up the tops of my over-the-knee boots. I’m not nervous about seeing Avan. Never am. But I do like to look good when I do. He thinks I’m beautiful, which helps my confidence a lot.

Bit’s voice is a bit quieter now that we’re inside. “So tell me about that one.”

I look at him and remind myself that he’s my friend and I love him like a younger brother because this is exactly the sort of thing that can send me over the edge when discussing my books. I want to say something like, “I dunno, how about you read it? Since I took the time to write it and say everything the way I thought best to say it the first time.”

But, I don’t.

Instead, I smile and try to look pretty, glancing around to see if I can see Avan.

“That’s a book about family,” I say.

“Hmm,” he says. “No, I mean the part of Gnosticism.”

See I could tell him more of what the book is actually about, which, as I said seconds ago, is family. Or I could tell him what he wants to hear.

“There’s a chapter about Abraxas,” which is in These Are the Things I Know, not Stars, “and then there’s the recursive universe, which I recall you liking during the interview.” It’s not in that book, either.

“Yeah!” he says. “And that’s all in there?”

“Um hmm,” I say.

Then, I catch sight of Avan at the table and get wet. I don’t make a thing of it, even in my own mind. We probably won’t make love tonight, even though I want to. I want to go over to him, kiss him—and not church kiss or Euro on the cheek kiss, like fucking full tongue porn kiss him—then whisper for him to follow me, lead him to the bathroom, kiss him some more, then put my hands on the sink and plant my feet, tell him to take me bare right then and there.

“It’s all in there,” I mutter.