“Do you know why food in hospitals sucks my ass? Because they do want you to die. It’s true, Joey. It’s true. It’s fucking cheaper and not as many people have to work doubles if you got more empty beds.”
“Do you know that I had this feeling like I was gonna meet someone tonight? I shouldn’t be fucking saying this, fucking Greyhounds, but, Joe, I had this fucking feeling. And then you were staring at me.” She burps. “That needs to come off, Joe.”
“My shirt?”
“That bandage on your hand.”
I forgot it was there. Look what you did to me. It started when I burnt my hand in the candle. Then the healing was interrupted because I picked at the scab because of what you did to me. Then Curtis beat me up while I was rushing to get ready to go see you. And then of course I crashed my car while I was looking for you. I see a pattern here and Nicky says life is all about patterns and now Karen Minty grabs my hand like it belongs to her. Karen Minty is fucking strong, and she whispers in my ear, “Save your energy, Joey. You’re gonna need it.”
She yanks the bandage off my hand and before I can wince, she kisses me. As it turns out, Karen Minty’s lips are strong too. My hand doesn’t hurt anymore.
By the time we get on a train I don’t think either of us knows which way the train is going. It’s a miracle that the train is empty, not even the random bum or gangster or ho. It’s a miracle that Karen Minty licks the place on my face where Curtis fucked me up and her tongue is sharper than yours and I fucking tear off her scrubs—she’s wearing a thong—and she grabs at me and we go at it on the fucking subway at four in the morning and when Karen Minty cums, she screams—yeah Joe yeah I’m yours cum now NOW—and she digs her claws into my back and her eyes roll around in her head and when she finishes, her legs are still wrapped around me, vibrating. I hold on to her tight, wishing she were you. She sticks that pointy tongue down my throat and she takes it back and she looks at me.
“I love you,” she says and what have I done and she bursts out laughing and hops off of me and wraps herself in my coat. “Your face, Joey, omigod. You should see your fucking face right now, I’m just fucking with you.”
“I know,” I say. And I will not worry; most girls go fucking insane for a few minutes after they fuck. That’s just the way it is.
She is defensive. “Obviously, I don’t even know you.”
“I know,” I say and she curls into me, not away from me and I look at us in the window. We come and go as the lights flicker in the tunnel and I will sleep tonight for the first time in a long time and Karen Minty will make me an egg sandwich and give me a blow job in the morning. I can just tell, something about those Greyhounds, something about that mouth. She does love me.
I am the best patient ever because already, I have found a stray cat.
THE next day, I get to the shop and I’m hungover as all fuck and full of an egg sandwich that was a bad idea. Karen Minty meant well, but Karen Minty was probably still too drunk to cook. I told her it was a nice time. She told me she’d come by the shop. I didn’t encourage her, Beck. And now I have Ethan up my ass—he’s early, again—and he wants to know if I’m sick.
“Do you have a cold, Joe? Or did you just have too much sauce?”
Only Ethan calls it sauce and I unlock the door and if I were a therapist like Nicky I wouldn’t have to deal with Ethan. I send him to Fiction to find staff picks and I turn on the music. Karma is a bitch. The first song that comes on is “You Are Too Beautiful” from Hannah and Her Sisters. I slam it off. Suddenly it hits me. I cheated on you, I cheated on us.
My head pounds. The doorbell chimes and every noise hurts, especially the one that comes now, the girl I just banged, Karen Fucking Minty. I want to slit my wrists.
But at the same time, I’m dying for coffee and she’s holding two hot cups—Starbucks, surprising—and she shrugs. “I didn’t know how you guys take ’em so I just got fucking everything.”
She plants a heavy paper bag on the counter. Ethan comes bounding to the front of the shop and she is scary friendly to him right off the bat. “You must be Ethan, right? Joe told me all about you.”
How drunk was I last night? Ethan can’t contain his joy at the idea of me telling some chick about him and he practically drools all over Karen Minty. She wastes no time making herself at home and she looks at me. “So, how do you take coffee, Joe?”
I tell her I’m fine and she rolls her eyes and winks at me and calls, “Hey, Ethan?”
He trips over himself running back. Only Ethan. And he tells her that I’m black, two sugars and he’s “Cream and Stevia. Or Truvía. Or Splenda. And if they don’t have any of that the real sugar in the brown packets. But never Equal!”
All the while, Karen is looking deep into my eyes and she thinks she’s gonna bring me coffee for the rest of her life. I love you, not her and oh fuck she’s one of those girls. She smiles at me hard and winks. “Thanks, Ethan.”
And there’s no way around it. I didn’t just pet this cat. I adopted it.
36
BEING with Karen is shockingly effective, at least in the sense that you’re farther and farther away from me. I try to see the good in it: I get to practice being a boyfriend, and that’s good for us. But I do feel bad when I’m caressing her ass in bed and folding her thongs at the Laundromat and sending her mother a handwritten thank-you note after Sunday dinner. It’s wrong of me to betray you. But, know this, Beck: Every day I find a way to visit the pictures of you in my phone. I’m faithful. Seven weeks into life with Karen Minty and eleven weeks into therapy and Nicky thinks I’m making good progress. I’m not as depressed anymore. I read your e-mail and I know you’re still doing your thing—no booze, no shopping—and now that I’m seeing Dr. Nicky, I totally get why he makes you want to focus.
“You look so much happier than you were the day you started in here, Danny.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I feel happier.”
“And things are good with Karen?”
“Things are great with Karen,” I say and they are, technically. Nicky laughed when I first told him about her. He said a girl is a much more effective cat than another YouTube video. He’s right.
“I know that look, Danny.” He grins. “After I met my wife, I don’t think I stopped smiling for two years.”
I blurt, “Oh, we’re not gonna get married, Nicky.”
He gets that know-it-all look and I go further. “I just mean, she’s not it for me.”
He pushes. “Now you don’t look so happy. Are you afraid to get married?”
“Not at all.” And it’s true. I’d marry you in a heartbeat.
“So what’s wrong with Karen, Danny?”
She’s not you. “She’s just . . . nothing.”
“She’s nothing,” he says and he raises his eyebrows. “Ouch.”
I groan. “I meant that nothing is wrong with her.”
“Regardless,” he says and that’s how I know our time is up. “I got some homework for you. I want a list of ten things you like about Karen. The cat helps the mouse stay away. And remember. Thinking about the cat is better than thinking about the mouse.”
“Okay, Doc,” I say and the “Doc” thing is our running joke, you know, because he’s not a doctor. I try to do my homework on the ride home, but I just keep thinking about you.
I’m still trying a few days later as I sit on the couch watching Karen Minty’s favorite show, The King of Queens. She laughs at a joke that wouldn’t make you smile and I love you because you don’t laugh easily. She picks her thong out of her ass and I love you for your healthy cotton panties.
She moans. “I fucking love Kevin James.”
“He’s good,” I lie. I love you because you don’t love Kevin James and if you laughed at one of his jokes, you still wouldn’t love him.