Time Not Looking

Leslie never looked at me wrong. As the lesser-twenties-year-old friend of my brother, this was not a surprise. It was unlikely that my brother had ever told him that I was “off the menu”, but Leslie never went there. We weren’t like that to one another. We were hardly even friends. It didn’t matter that I knew almost everything about him, and that I’d catalogued it in my brain (which catalogued most things, whether I wanted it to or not). I also had my own best friend’s birthday memorized. Her favourite food. Her idiosyncrasies. May 16. Sweet potato tempura. She has an innate and extreme sympathy for lobsters.

But I doubt Leslie knows that much about me, and I never put any effort into knowing that much about him. It never matters, because he doesn’t look at me like that.

Which is why, when we got off the ferry on Kerry, and Leslie turned to help me down, not to take my bag or one of the others’ bags, it took me a very long moment to reply. In that long moment his face didn’t change. Sometimes he could be so still it was like he’d grown out of the landscape around him. Like he was a part of the moss and rock under his shoes.

He gripped my elbow, because it was close to him and because I was born all angles, and I’ve grown into even more angles. The knobs of my elbow give a person perfect indents to dig their fingers into. I’m light. I’m practically made for hauling around. Or for helping down off a ferry.

His fingers were solid on my elbow. He wore a ring on his right hand, his non-dominant hand. He almost never took it off. I felt it pressed into my skin now, as warm as his skin, and, strangely, almost as soft, as if it weren’t even there.

Leslie had met me in the same year as he’d met my brother, but, in the way that people do when they’re making a new friend, he had only eyes for his new friend. I was a wave, or a nod, not even an afterthought, for several months. I was Travis’ little sister to the world, and not sure what that made me to Leslie, except maybe Travis’ little sister. I didn’t even know if there was an adjective thrown in there. Travis’ annoying little sister. Precocious little sister. Maybe he forgot Travis had a little sister. I was twelve when they first met. Now a senior in university, I’d had plenty of years to evolve into a grey area. Not a friend, but more than an acquaintance. A carved banister in the architecture of his relationship with my brother. Not a function, but a presence.

Leslie let me lean into him, and took a single step back. In that way that one can see accidents coming, I could see immediately that the distance between myself and his back foot was not enough to stop me from bumping his shoulder with mine when I descended. I could see the shoulder I was going to hit, just touched by sunlight, covered in his soft maroon tee shirt. It had been cloudy, and raining earlier, and his shirt had somehow dried, but there were wrinkles in the sleeves where he’d wrung it out.

The others came behind me, with suitcases and equipment for the shows. When you start in a band, you bring your own equipment. You save up with your friends and look for cheap used stuff- good quality – on the web, and buy it off people who can only meet you at the border. Then you pray to God that you don’t leave anything behind while you’re packing it all, tight as Tetris, in the back of your van. The others had written checklists, while I only had a mental one, kept sharp and up-to-date only by my anxiety. I could never relax; I was either an inch from panicking, or so unbothered I was comatose. Part of why my brother had first been against me touring with them, even if I did play and could replace any one of them were they to get too drunk or sick to make a show. Leslie had stood up, physically, quietly, and that was almost all he needed to do. My brother was one of the few people who could argue with him, but not for long.

I’d come simply to escape school. I followed the music, but I knew that this was my brother’s music. This was in my brother’s bones, and though it made mine hum, it always left me feeling bereft. I never mentioned it to my brother. I have time, I kept saying to myself. Time for music. I played with Leslie my brother and the band, or kept an eye on their stuff while they played. I did what I was doing now; loaded and unloaded equipment and bags on and off ferries. Of course, I had help. Right now, Leslie’s hand under my elbow was supporting half my weight as I dropped unsteadily to the ground.

Our shoulders bumped. And more than that. My side brushed his ribs. My hair whispered against his bicep. I was aware of every way that I was touching him, in case he wanted me to pull away. Because Leslie and I did not do this. He still held my elbow, as tightly as though I were falling, though I was completely steady on my feet.

I’d gotten used to watching them play, or finding another way to amuse myself while they played. A way that didn’t involve getting hit on, or drowning myself with guinness. As long as I was back for the last set. I got the occasional comment about how inappropriate it was that I travelled with my brother and his band of vagabonds, but none that apparently made this assumption based on more than a cursory glance at our lifestyle form the corner of a pub. The first time such a remark was made to me in front of the others, I tried to scoff, lost my nerve, and turned away until the offended left of his own accord. The others looker neither impressed, nor unimpressed. Now I could scoff or, if I was feeling particularly contrary, I could turn it into an argument, and continue until the other party left, feeling assaulted and stunned.

Leslie held my elbow when I stepped back. His fingers hooked themselves in the knobbly geometry of my elbow. His breath on my ear was faint as the touch of a bug. I had to resist the urge to scratch my ear. The warmth of his breath stirred the hair at my temple. I had the thought that he was going to kiss me, and I did not know how to feel. This was Leslie. And we were never interested.

I held his gaze. More out of fear than anything. I was caught. I’d looked straight into his face before, hadn’t I? But the more I stared, the more I thought of all the time I spent not looking at Leslie, or thinking of him, the more I was convinced that I hadn’t ever seen him that way. I felt a couple of the others looking at us now. If I stepped away, we can pretend this never happened.

Leslie tugged me a few feet from the ferry, out of the others’ way. His hand is still on my elbow. He wasn’t looking at me any certain way. But it could be, absolutely, no wrong way. The thing is: he’s never looked at me that way. Never looked at me. I try not to tell myself that it means something.

Art by Adam S. Doyle

Text by Lucie MacAulay