“Now you’re getting pretty personal.”
“And you weren’t personal when you told me I was about to incarcerate myself in a prison? That you can fix that? Fix me? What was I supposed to say? ‘Gee, Jack, great and interesting point? I’ll think about that as I slowly entomb myself in that horrible city.’”
“I can see where you would see it as insensitive.”
“So it’s my perception that’s off-kilter? Is that it?”
That’s when I realized I didn’t have to do this.
I didn’t have to win. I didn’t have to argue. I didn’t have to persuade anyone of anything. I didn’t have to spend a minute longer with him. Jack was cute as the devil, was a beautiful man and he had his charms, but, really, why did I need to do this right now? I had a job to start. I had a career to get under way. It was pointless to argue. If we had been dating for months, okay, yes, I would try to get to the bottom of everything, but that wasn’t the situation. It felt great to realize that I could simply stand up and smile and be graceful and say good-bye.
So that’s what I did.
“You know what, Jack? I’m sorry. I truly am. I don’t want to fight. I’m sure you’re a great guy, but maybe, I don’t know, maybe we’re not matched up after all. Maybe we don’t want the same things out of life. Who knows? I don’t need your blessing to go to New York and start a career, and you don’t need my permission to spend some time wandering around Europe. So I’m going to count this as a wonderful flirtation, a great what-might-have-been, and let it go at that. If you’re ever back in New York City, visit me in prison.”
“Are you serious? You’re leaving? I thought we had a great morning.”
“We had a magical morning, Jack. Thank you for that. But when someone tells you twice that they have a better plan for your life than you do yourself, well, those are warning bells. You need to pay attention to that. So no hard feelings, okay? I’m just going to go lock myself away on that miserable New York island and count the days until I can expire peacefully.”
“Oh, come on, Heather.”
“No, I swear, honestly, no biggie. Besides, that was a joke about expiring. I swear it’s probably better this way. I have to be back in NYC in a few weeks, and I’m going to be flat-out busy. I go west and you go east, Jack. No harm, no foul either way.”
“Heather, I apologize. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Standing in front of him, a thought occurred to me.
I had read it a long time ago. It said something like: It is imperative to complete a gesture once started. You head out the door, don’t stop. You start to drive away, keep going. Don’t pull out the dresser drawers unless you intend to empty them.
So I had a divided mind. Part of me said, Atta girl, get the hell away from this jerk.
And another part of me thought, He’s right, I’m overreacting, why am I standing, why am I moving away from someone I care about, who might be important to me in my life, who seems to get me, who is as handsome as a damn movie lumberjack?
But if you start a gesture, you must complete it.
I left the bill with Jack. He didn’t chase me back to the bikes—did I want him to?—but I couldn’t turn around to see what he was doing. As soon as I reached the bikes, I realized a couple of things to go along with my need to complete the gesture.
To hop on my bike, I had to move his. Fate played a part. When I lifted his bike away from my own, I realized that, without much effort, I could roll it toward the canal. The canal was slightly downhill from where we had left the bikes, and it happened that the fence bordering the canal gave way to a small landing spot. My mind again did a quick calculation, and I realized I could roll the bike toward the canal, although the chances of the bike staying upright, moving in a straight line toward the empty spot in the railing, was a long, long shot.
So I shoved it.
I wanted to shove Jack. He had burrowed under my skin that much.
His bike tottered forward, lazily moving toward the canal, and as I swung my leg over my bike and pushed down on the pedal, I saw his bike rap once against the railing and fall toward the canal. Part of me wanted to whoop, and part of me wanted to grab the bike and stop it and hand it back to Jack, but my blood burned too hot inside my neck and arms and legs.
I pedaled off just as his bike came to rest with the front wheel spinning languidly in the canal water. It would be nothing to retrieve it, which I supposed was a good thing, and by the time I was up to speed, weird boy-tears took hold of me and wouldn’t let go.
Berlin
20
Have fun, bitches.
Love you, Amy.
Love you both. Don’t worry. All good. Heading home tonight.
Travel safe.
I will.
Wish you were here!
Did you really just type that? Send lots of photos.
We will. Here’s one of Constance.
Miss you already.
“I need a man in my life like I need a hole in the head. Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I said to Constance, even though she kept her eyes on the painting in front of us. “He was throwing me off schedule, gumming up the works. Seriously, now that we have a little distance, I can see it more clearly. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, that’s the point, I guess. I was thinking with my Barbie brain.”
“Your Barbie brain?”
“Oh, you know, Ken and Barbie in their Malibu house. Ken and Barbie going to the dance. Barbie brain. All that romantic foe-de-doe.”
She nodded.
The sun had already dropped behind the line of buildings somewhere in the city and turned the shadows long. It was the Museum Island in Berlin at four o’clock in the afternoon. Rain expected, clouds already covering most of the sky. Constance and I stood in the Altes Museum. We had also stood in the Neues Museum, the Bode Museum, the Pergamon Museum, and the Alte Nationalgalerie. To say that the pictures and statues and pieces of textile and flaked arrowheads and spear points and pottery shards and razor wire had run together was an understatement. I loved museums and loved viewing art and cultural exhibits, but I was a complete slacker compared with Constance. She had turned my legs to rubber; she had beaten me down into a whimpering mass of jelly. We had spent three and a half days in Berlin being the best tourists two human beings could be. We had seen everything. We had done everything. You could not find an important site in Berlin where we did not pose for a shot, eat the appropriate food, shop for the kitschy doodad that signified and commemorated our visit. If Michelin or Lonely Planet gave out awards for “the thorough examination of a major European city,” Constance and I would have won hands down.
Five stars.
And now it was threatening rain, and I was tired and grumpy.
“Then you don’t need to see him again,” Constance answered finally, her steps slowly moving her sideways to the next painting. “That settles it. Ignore the Barbie brain.”
“Right. Simple as that.”