Free Welcome to Envy Park by Mina V. Esguerra Page B

seven
thousand times previously. My mom had a boyfriend since high
school, someone my grandparents approved of, and wanted her to
marry. Ten years later and this guy hadn’t proposed marriage, gave
no indication of ever wanting to do it, so she dumped him, dated my
dad, got pregnant, and was married to him all within a six-month
period.
    Strangely enough, the moral of this story had always
been that it was the best decision of her life. We may have had our
differences but she was always supportive of all my efforts to
change things up, and be somewhere else.
    She did wish I were pregnant, for sure. It would
give her one less thing to plan on my behalf.
    "I’ve actually been working out
more," I told her. "When you next see me, you’ll be disappointed at
how fit I am."
    "Did you get my text about the job
at Yoly’s?"
    "I did," I said, gritting my teeth
through that answer because I had already deleted it. "I’ll get
back to you on that."
    "Are you sure? Because she’ll be
near NV Park on Sunday—"
    "I’ll be busy on Sunday, Mom, but
I’ll let you know if I can meet her."
    Which was going to be never, unfortunately, but I
had a feeling she knew that immediately too.
    Once the Beckett interview sked was set, Ethan made
dinner plans with me for the night before, to help me prepare for
it. I agreed cheerfully, but also decided not to make plans with
him for any day or night in between. Didn’t want to appear all
needy.
    What did I just say about closing doors and opening
windows?
    On Tuesday, two days before the
interview, one day before my next "date" with Just My Neighbor
Ethan, I ran into JM at the mail room. He was picking up his stash,
which looked mostly like the pile of snail mail spam I got (food
delivery, massage, laundry service flyers), but he was doing it
with such ease that I felt somewhat proud.
    "You’re an expert," I couldn’t
help but say.
    He smiled and approached me, and I was suddenly
aware of how small the space was. It was actually him, his body was
larger than most, so imposing, and suddenly glaringly obvious to me
now. I became aware of it exactly when Ethan became an
impossibility. The body, clever, it adjusted based on need, never
mind what the brain said.
    "You want to get lunch or
something?"
    Not Shakespearean, but who was I to nitpick.
    "Sure," I said.
    "Great."
    He smelled great, I thought at the time. His breath
didn’t seem like a smoker’s at all.

    -/\/\/\-
     
    So JM was on a strange diet and could only eat meat
for lunch. But he didn’t like any other preparation of meat that
would usually require rice eaten with it, so we could only really
eat at a burger place. But not just any kind of burger place,
because the regular fast food joints didn’t serve big enough
patties. It was a good thing we found the small gourmet burger
place beside the frozen yogurt chain, because by then we had gone
around the park twice and I was ready to eat my hand.
    "You should just say Do you want to get a giant burger with me? all the time when you invite people to eat with
you," I said.
    "Sorry," he said. "Usually my
meals are sent to me. But not today."
    "Why are your meals sent to
you?"
    "So the portions are
right."
    "Someone sends you big burgers
every meal, every day?" It was like something from a dream, or at
least one of the dreams I had as a child, before I learned about
cardiac disease.
    I ordered a wasabi burger, and he
ordered a plain giant Wagyu burger. No ketchup or any other
seasoning. As he ate it without any discernible joy, he told me
what the deal was—he was a TV host, for one of those lifestyle
entertainment shows on cable, and he had to maintain a certain
look. Beefy, I guessed.
    "I’m very new," JM said. "I
haven’t actually started yet. We’re still in rehearsal and they
just want me to focus on my upper body right now. It’s TV hosting,
so the upper body’s really important."
    "Actual hosting is important too,"
I muttered into my own beef.
    "I was hoping you could help