I lift a shoulder. “Just some crazy plan I had. To plant my seed inside some baby mama.”
“Did you call me a baby mama?” She’s giggling.
“Nothing wrong with a baby mama.”
“Does that make you a baby daddy?”
“If we make a baby. Do you want to make a baby?” She nods slowly, and I pick her up, and take her to her room, and fuck her—two times, slowly first, and fast and hard the second time.
And afterward, I throw the duvet over her and go get her some cider.
She sits up slightly to drink it. “Always cider.”
“Do you want some coffee next time?”
She grins. “I don’t know. Cider is good. Where did you get this cider?” She takes a long sip, getting whipped cream on her nose.
“I ordered it. From New York. From an apple farm I like up there.”
“Wow—really? You’ve been to this apple farm?”
I nod, smirking, because she looks so fucking cute with her hair messy and her glasses pushed down slightly on her nose.
“Did it look healthy? And wholesome?”
I laugh. “I don’t know. It looked like a bunch of apple trees.”
“But did the soil look really richly brown? And did the grass look super green? And could you smell the apples?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe?” I can’t help laughing more.
“You’re a writer, you know. I feel like I need a better description of this apple farm. I’ve always imagined them to be these incredibly wholesome places that can cure cancer if you just go walk around there for a little while.”
“Then you’d probably be disappointed.”
“Nahh. I think it’s magical there. A land of unicorns…” She takes a long swig of her cider. I look down at the duvet. Probably time for me to get moving. I get up and start to dress. “So—tomorrow?” I ask, pulling up my boxer-briefs. I cast a glance at her. “You want two times?”
She nods. “Today is the big day—I think. So twice today and twice tomorrow is ideal.”
“Sounds good.” After I’m dressed, I turn a circle in her room. I scoop the remote up and toss it to her. “You need anything else?”
“I’m good.”
“You okay with some papers coming tomorrow? From my lawyers? Nothing funky.”
“Sure. I’m fine with that.” As I head to the door, she says, “So, Gabe?”
I look back at her. Smile a little.
“Friends?” she says.
I nod. “Friends.”
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
“No worries.”
All night, as I listen to her move above me, I make a liar out of myself.
Part Three
“I have so much I want to tell you,
and nowhere to begin.”
–J.D. Salinger
1
Gabe
After Marley left and I got sober, I decided I would take a scholarship from Northwestern. But through our lawyers and that paperwork, I found Marley living in Chicago. Because she’d gotten there before me, the whole city felt like hers. More to the point, maybe, I couldn’t stand to be near her.
So I went to Iowa. I didn’t like it there—I was enrolled for only three semesters before I moved to New York—but during my time in the dorms, I had a roommate I did like: a quiet, intense guy named Dave, who now works as a news reporter.
He had this quote that looked like it was cut from a newspaper taped to the wall above his desk. It was from the TV show The Sopranos. I saw it so many times, I still remember it, right down to the font:
Christopher Moltisanti: “You ever felt like nothin’ good was ever gonna happen to you?”
Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtieri: “Yeah. And nothin’ did. So what?”
For years, I didn’t understand why he would tape it to the wall. Was there really anyone out there who didn’t care if anything good happened to them? I’d been wanting things to happen since I could remember. Mostly any things, but good things in particular. What was so noteworthy about this conversation that Dave wanted to see it every day?
Something about it stuck with me, and every now and then, I’ll think about the quote again and wonder what the fuck it means—and what it meant to him.
This morning when I wake up with it in my head, I sit up, pull my phone off the bedside table, and Google it.
I rub my eyes, yawning as I peer down at my phone.
Christopher Moltisanti: “You ever felt like nothin’ good was ever gonna happen to you?”
Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtieri: “Yeah. And nothin’ did. So what?”
Christopher Moltisanti: “That’s it. I don’t wanna just survive. It says in these movie-writing books that every character has an arc. Understand?”
Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtieri: [Shakes head]
Christopher Moltisanti: “Like everybody starts out somewhere. And they do something, something gets done to them, and it changes their life. That’s called an arc. Where’s my arc?”
I can’t stop laughing as I listen to Marley get ready for work. Fucking Dave. Why the hell did he cut the bit off where he did? What kind of nihilism from the son of lawyers, raised on a fucking farm in Kansas?
I chuckle all morning and think of emailing him. Instead, I end up thinking about the Sopranos, which prompts an idea…and suddenly I’ve got 6,000 words on something new. I work until I hear Mar getting home for lunch, and then I walk upstairs, bearing another jug of cider for her fridge. Marley answers naked, and I fuck her on the couch, pulling her ponytail, and then I walk her down to her car.
In the afternoon, I write some more, and go for a long run.
The next two days are much the same. I realized how to make her smile. I do that when I can, and other times, I try to keep things casual. In the evening of the second day, I bring her legal papers, which she signs.
I fuck her good and hard, and when she asks me to stay for a beer, I tell her that I’m writing. Mar seems happy for me.
When I go downstairs, though, I don’t write. I jerk off twice and wait for it to be morning, and then at lunch I fuck her, and then in the evening.
Being inside her is incredible. I start to get hard at the first whiff of cinnamon—because she has a cinnamon broom hanging near her front door.
One night, I tell her, “You’re getting me hard in the fucking grocery store with this.” (They have those brooms there, near the registers).
Marley thinks that’s really funny.
When I’m not with her, I’m either jerking off or listening to her walk around. If I can stay in Marley mode, I almost never feel the yawn of darkness. After a night of the A.I. dream on repeat, I gather all my pictures of Geneva and stash them in a drawer. Just for a few days. She wouldn’t mind that, would she? I tell myself “no.”
The next day, I decide she would, so I pull them back out. I only look at them when Marley’s home, though. It feels less lonely that way.
I don’t feel like running anymore, for some reason, so I stop that. I try to take Cora on a walk in the morning, and that feels like enough.
It’s so cold outside. So gray. That night, I can’t sleep, even when I leave my windows open and jerk off until my eyelids sag.
I start trying to avoid my thoughts of Gen, and even take her pictures down again. Still, my stomach aches, and I feel weird and weighted. Restless.