And it’s the worst kind of domino effect because we do have lunch the next day at some new place you say “is supposed to be as yummy as Sarabeth’s.” Again I don’t kiss you afterward and what do you want the day after that? You want brunch. What’s the only thing more sexless than lunch? Brunch, a meal invented by rich white chicks to rationalize day drinking and bingeing on French toast. And you don’t even drink when we get brunch and pretty soon we’re going to places where they don’t even have waiters. You’re into this fucking deli where you stand in line with nine-to-fivers who read Stephen King on their iPads while they wait for their turn to order their sexless green salads, fucking beans and dressings and scallions and onions (Red or white? Grilled or raw?), for fuck’s sake people, it’s a SALAD. Stop overthinking it.
You’re not on the outs with Peach but you’re not under her spell the way you were and I get it now that you like her because she’s obsessed with you. Lynn and Chana love you, but they don’t think your shit smells like roses. You like to be rocked and lullabied and sedated and our conversations about your short stories and your classmates always end with me telling you how special you are, how talented, how jealous they all are, how clearly better than them you are and you get taller as the clear disposable plastic salad bowl gets emptier and I mean it when I say it and you’re lucky that what you want to hear is what I actually think: “Beck, you’re really talented. If you weren’t they’d all just shrug.”
“Sometimes the best writers get hated before they get loved. Look at Nabokov.”
“I’m not competing with you, so I’m comfortable telling you I think you got it.”
And you do. When I lie on my couch listening to you go on about Blythe, I feel like I’m living inside of you, through you. I know what it’s like to be you and you’re right. Blythe does hate you. But hate suits you, inspires you. You rage, “She’s a little ball of anger and antidepressants who doesn’t speak to her mother, her sister, her father, his wife, or her roommate or her fucking cat or any of the many guys she fucked last week.” You break, you breathe. “I mean, Blythe calls herself a performance artist—a prostitute is what we call that in the real world. She has a webcam service that she calls art.”
“In other words she’s a ho.”
“Thank you, Joe.”
“You’re welcome, Beck.”
You go on. “And she hates me for being from Nantucket and liking poetry.”
“So fuck her, then.”
I try to help you move on, but you don’t know why she hates you and it’s all you want to talk about.
Every.
Fucking.
Night.
And it would be easier if these talks were happening on a park bench or your stoop or your sofa or your bed that I assembled but they’re happening over the phone. And I can’t smell you over the phone and I feel like a 1-900-Build-Me-Up hotline you call to feel good about yourself. You don’t treat me like I’m your guy; you go to drinks with people from school and call me after the drinks and you don’t act like there’s anything weird about the fact that you didn’t invite me to go along. I’m your phone bitch and I don’t like it. You don’t want to know about my day. You always ask me in the polite obligatory way.
“So how was the shop?”
“You know, shop’s the shop. It was okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And then I wait for you to want to know more about me and my day but I always cave and say, “So about you? How was school?”
But I can’t do it anymore. It’s time to save us and it’s my job to keep us afloat.
“Hey, Beck.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go out?”
“Oh, I’m in my pajamas and I have class.”
“No, no. Let me take you out next week.”
There’s a pause and you forgot how much you want to fuck me and you’re trying to live by Peach Laws: no guys, just stories, but you do want me or you would have made an excuse by now.
“Well, when did you want to get together?”
“Friday night,” I say. “No parties. I want to take you out.”
I can hear you smiling somehow and you say yes and then you say yes again and it’s okay for me to tell you that I read your story “Dust Bunnies” about the summer you worked as a maid. It’s okay for me to tell you my favorite parts—of course I liked it when the daddy of the house tried to get with you in the laundry room.
“Oh, you know that’s not me in the story.”
“But you told me you worked as a maid one summer.”
“True, but I didn’t throw myself at the men in the house,” you say and no wonder Blythe resents you. You are not a stalker and Benji will always be wrong, but you do covet, innocently, only because you’re not comfortable in your skin, not yet, but I’m going to help you. You continue, “Joe, I can’t say it enough, the level to which I would never have gotten myself into that situation. It’s fiction.”
“I know.” I don’t know.
“I’m not some townie whore. It’s a made-up story.”
“I know.”
“I don’t go after married rich guys.”
“I know.”
“So where are you gonna take me, Joe?”
YOU’RE happy I refused to tell you because it’s not often in life that you get all dressed up and have some place to go without knowing what that place is exactly. You’re in a long pale pink skirt with two giant slits and you’re wearing high-heeled brown boots—new, for me—the slits are so high I can almost see your panties and you have on a loose brown sweater that will be so easy for me to peel off of you. Your body is an offering, a payment for all those hands-off phone calls, those lunches. Your bra is pink, hot pink, so that I don’t forget about your tits under your sweater, not for one second. When I hug you I smell flowers and laundry detergent and pussy juice and I wonder how hard you had to go at your pillow and I’m proud of myself for not checking your e-mail for two solid hours so that I could give us all the suspense we need and you’re about to tell me fuck this date, come upstairs and I pull away. It has been so long, Beck. And while you are always adorable, you’ve never gotten this dressed up for me. Tonight you care what I think. We aren’t going to see your friends and nobody’s taking your picture and posting it on Facebook. Your body and your hair and your lips and your thighs, everything, is for me. Ever since that night I built your bed, you have forced us into asexual, sunlit spaces. I finally have you in the dark and you’re not hiding from me anymore and I’m gonna make this last as long as I can. I love this. I love you.
“Let’s go,” I say, and I take your hand and your hand is good in mine and we walk in silence and it turns out that there is something to all those fucking talks on the phone because there’s glue here now, between you and me, and we’re both surprised at how well we know each other and I squeeze your hand and you look at me and I hail a cab and one arrives because this is the way it’s gonna be for us from now on.
“Where to?”
“Central Park,” I say.
“Omigod, Joe. Really?”
“Where they keep the carriages.”
You squeal and clap and I did well and I wasn’t sure because part of me thought you don’t get cheesier than a horse-drawn carriage but in the end, it’s been almost two weeks since our IKEA night and I wanted our nocturnal reunion to be as hot as possible. The cab sails uptown and we’re there faster than I thought possible and this time, I get out of the cab first. And this time, I run around to your side of the car and open the door for you. I offer my hand. You take it. The cabbie checks you out. I tip him. And before you know it, you and I are side by side in the horse-drawn carriage, nestled like lovebirds.
“This is bold, Joe,” you say and you move closer to me, again.
“Those slits are bold,” I say and you spread your legs the tiniest bit and you want my help and I’m sliding my hand over your thigh and you’re turned on (the trot of the horse, the color of the leaves, me) and you whimper slightly and I get there. Lace panties, dewy with you and you whimper again and push just a bit toward my hand and I get under your panties and you’re a pillow-soft warm pond just for me and you say my name and I hold my hand there, just taking you in and you kiss me on the neck.
“Thank you.”