He touched his fingers to mine. I don’t know if he meant to. I put my hands in my lap. My beer was flat but I knew I would drink all of it.
“Absolutely. It’s absolutely the same straw.”
He nodded, impressed that I knew.
—
NOT BEING ABLE to swipe into the subway when people are backing up behind you. Waiting for him at the bar. Leaving your purse open on a stool with a mess of bills visible. Mispronouncing the names while presenting French wines. Your clogs slipping on the waxed floors. The way your arms shoot out and you tense your face when you almost fall. Taking your job seriously. Watching the sex scene from Dirty Dancing on repeat and eating a box of gingersnaps for dinner on your day off. Forgetting your stripes, your work pants, your socks. Mentally mapping the bar for corners where you might catch him alone. Getting drunker faster than everyone else. Not knowing what foie gras is. Not knowing what you think about abortion. Not knowing what a feminist is. Not knowing who the mayor is. Throwing up between your feet on the subway stairs. On a Tuesday. Going back for thirds at family meal. Excruciating diarrhea in the employee bathroom. Hurting yourself when you hit your head on the low pipe. Refusing to leave the bar though it’s over, completely over. Bleeding in every form. Beer stains on your shirt, grease stains on your jeans, stains in every form. Saying you know where something is when you have absolutely no idea where it is.
At some point I leveled out. Everything stopped being embarrassing.
Winter
I
YOU WILL KISS the wrong boy. It was an easy prophecy. They were all the wrong boy. The night before Thanksgiving was a drinking holiday you didn’t know about until you moved to the city. The streets in the Village were clogged with people, server people, the shops closed, orange-and yellow-papered windows darkened. No one had anywhere to go. A celebration ensued, mildly destructive, mildly bored—it was a night of driftings and nowheres.
—
YOU THREW UP and kept drinking, pulled the trigger and doused the trigger. Throwing up was effortless, like nothing, kissing like nothing. Your head full, then emptied, ready to be kissed.
—
YOU WERE ON Will’s lap, staring at his buttery lashes. You knew you shouldn’t be but his arms enclosed you while he told you about the latest movie script he had written. He modeled the superhero after you. You: in red patent-leather boots. You: able to jump buildings and shoot lightning out of your eyes. Sunrise came like an undisclosed verdict. The wind was salient, persistent, and you shivered. You were blown out on cocaine, sitting on a rooftop and he tasted like a malt shop. Every time you pulled away, his eyes were welling like puddles in his face. You opened a beer warmer than the air, spilled your beer on your shirt. The sky rushing up now, anxious, and you knew you were doing something wrong. You kissed him harder and the sky abated. When you had sex you were totally dry and it felt like scratching. For one second, every face you’d ever seen, you forgot.
Pigeons flew in diminishing waves between the low buildings. The sun rose. It said, Now that you’ve done this, you can never have that. Now that I’m like this, I can never go back.
—
THE FIRST TIME I came into work really hungover—ill hungover—my shoes were gone. It had a muddled logic that I accepted. When I woke with my head rattling I knew that every step of my day would be harder than normal. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I was the three p.m. backwaiter, but the trains were running irregularly, and while I had heard one sighing into the station as I ran down the stairs, my card was out of money. Which is to say, I was late.
I had seen the sun come up. Two mornings in a row actually, I had watched in real time as the night weakened and the authoritative blue of morning, flat as a sheet, hung itself in the east. There are many romantic reasons to watch the sunrise. Once it started, it was hard to leave. I wanted to own it. I wanted it to be a confirmation that I was alive. Most of the time, however, it felt condemning.
The door to the locker room opened but I didn’t look up. I was on my hands and knees looking for my clogs. Server clogs were indestructible with a utilitarian ugliness. They were built for labor, for standing on tile for fourteen hours. They were not cheap.
“You’re late,” he said. I turned to Will and he looked as sick as I felt or maybe it was the bleak light in the locker room.
“Will, I can’t talk, I can’t find my shoes.”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“Please.”
“When in your life did you get so good at disappearing?”
“Will. The sun was up. I had been saying I needed to leave for hours.”
“You said you were going to the bathroom.”
“I meant the bathroom in my apartment.”
“You seemed like you were having a nice time.”
“Please, let’s not talk about this.”
“I was having a nice time.”
“Yes.”
“It’s funny because you laugh like a little girl one second—”
“Will, stop.”
“Is your phone broken?”
I started opening every unlocked locker.
“I texted you yesterday. We had a big dinner. With turkey and all the stuff.”
“I was busy.”
I had spent Thanksgiving Day napping, masturbating, ignoring phone calls from distant relatives who probably didn’t even know I had moved, and watching all three Godfathers. I had pad Thai for dinner. As a gesture of holiday goodwill they turned on the heat in my building. Every ten minutes the radiator sounded off like a firecracker and within an hour I had to open all the windows. My roommate had invited me to his mom’s house in Armonk. It was a pitiful moment, in that he pitied me enough to invite me, and I pitied him for having familial obligations. I probably would have been a nice buffer and we could have had a real conversation for the first time. But the parade of it, the shallow, ancient family dramas, the hours of being polite. I waved him off happily.
Scott texted me that the cooks were going out in Williamsburg. It was already ten p.m. but he promised to pay for a car home if I came. So I brushed my hair. They were raging when I got there, drinking whiskey hard, like taking bullets to the throat. I couldn’t keep up, I kept up. Scott ladled me into a car at seven a.m.
“My shoes are gone,” I said, incredulous.
“Maybe we can grab a beer tonight. Take it easy.”
“I’m not drinking again. Ever.”
“You just need hair of the dog. Ask Jake to slip you something. Or wait, he’s gone.”
“Lovely,” I said under my breath.
Will squatted next to me as I looked in the dark space under the lockers. I wanted to hit him. You did this to yourself, I said, my eyelids twitching.
“But you did have a nice time the other night.”
I didn’t answer. Was I going to get written up for being late? I had worn my Converse to work, there was no way I could wear them on the floor. Ariel and Heather were both on the schedule later, so I couldn’t steal their shoes, and Simone’s were too big for me.
“I wore them literally two days ago,” I said. “I wore them, I put them in the corner, under the coats.”
“But that’s not where they go, doll, they go in your locker.”
“But they make everything in my locker dirty.” My teeth hurt. Something in my back felt broken. “I usually put them by the coats.”
“You went out with the cooks last night?”
“How do you know that?”
“Scott told me you were wasted. He said you fell down in the middle of a crosswalk.”
“He was wasted,” I said. I didn’t know if that had happened. It might have happened. When Will said his name, I faintly remembered making out with Scott, and felt injured.
“You’re cute when you’re hungover.”
I took a deep breath.
“Will. I am very sorry. For any misinformation. I mean, misleading. I mean I’m sorry if you have ideas. It’s been a very…tipsy week.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t quite feel I’m in control of my life. I’ve been hitting it a little hard, you know?”
“Okay,” he said. He thought about it. “You can lean on me.”