“Just one.”
“Must have been a pretty big one then.” I scoop her up in my arms and carry her in as appropriate a manner as I can manage across the lot to the doors, though Margo seems intent on draping herself around me like a flag at a parade.
“Thank god you live on the ground floor,” I say, as I rummage for her keys in her bag with one hand while keeping her from falling with the other. It’s not that I haven’t been to Margo’s place before, but when we hang out it’s usually at work functions or the occasional bar, and at the moment I can’t shake the feeling that I’m intruding a little.
“You know, you’re really fucking hot,” she slurs, giggling. My cock stirs at the brush of her lips so close to my neck, her warm breath against my skin. I have to shake it off.
“And you’re really fucking drunk,” I reply with a forced laugh, as the key finally catches and I kick the door open.
“No…I mean it,” she says as I step into her apartment, still holding her in my arms. “You’re like…the most beautiful man.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” I say, as I open a few wrong doors (closet, bathroom) until I find her bedroom. I walk in and lay her down on the bed, then pull away, setting her bag on the night table. “You should probably just rest a bit, let it pass.” I unlace her boots and ease them off gently, setting them on the floor before straightening up to go. This feels familiar, although I haven’t carried a too-drunk Margo home from a party and put her to bed since our undergrad years. “You need anything? Water, or—”
“Yeah.” Margo smiles.
“What?”
Instead of answering, she mischievously beckons me closer. I look at her, dress rolling up around her thighs, twisting her body up in the sheets, my imagination starting to whirl a little.
“Come here!” she yelps impatiently.
This could mean trouble—the problem is, I like trouble. I groan and go nearer to the bed.
“Closer,” she giggles, and I’m taken with the smile, the way she grinds into the bed…
“What?”
Her hand pulls on my shirt, her smile goes and instead her mouth is open now, weakened like she’s preparing to kiss me. I could so easily fall into her here, so easily bring my mouth onto hers, put my own hands under her clothes. I can almost taste her, appetite stirring…
Except being a real man doesn’t just mean knowing when to make a move, it also means knowing when you shouldn’t.
“Nice try,” I say, pulling back.
Margo laughs and pounds her fists onto the bed with disappointment.
“But I need to see what’s under your shirt. You still got those Grand Canyon abs, I bet.”
“Ok. That’s my cue to go,” I say, half-out the door. “See you tomorrow.”
“No! Come on! Please! I remember the view was fucking amazing. Just a little peek. A tiny little peek for old time’s sake. Come on, Owen! Don’t be an asshole. You know you want to show it off.”
I look back at her, hand on the doorknob, and find myself laughing.
“Happy now?” I say, pulling up my shirt a little way.
Margo screams and falls back onto her pillows laughing.
“I knew it! Just as perfect as that night you got locked out of the girl’s dorm,” she says, as I close the door and leave.
When I get back to my car, I’m still smiling.
2
Margo
I wake up with a hangover so bad it needs an exorcist. Since I don’t happen to know any, I decide to drag my body into a long, hot shower instead and then eat a breakfast of fruit and yogurt, thinking about going to work with all the enthusiasm of a woman on death row. With my sinuses feeling like I’ve just gone through chemical warfare, swimming in a sense of nausea each time I move my head too quickly, I somehow manage to pick out a semi-presentable outfit, grab my things, and head out the door.
“Shit,” I mutter as I glance toward the empty parking spot that usually contains my car. My gut sinks, both with the realization that I’ll need to get a ride to work, and the remembering of another piece of the puzzle. Owen drove me home. And then I basically threw myself at him, which he rejected. I cringe so hard I nearly turn myself inside out when I recall him carrying me up the steps, and refuse to let the memory play out in my mind any further than that.
After calling an Uber I wait on the curb, focusing on all the things I want to finish up when I get into work. It’s always been a refuge for me. Channeling all of your personal issues into your work might not be healthy, but it sure helps you get a lot done when you have to deal with as much shit as I do.
My phone rings, and as I pull it from my bag I’m already predicting with a sense of dread who it could be. My ex looking for round two of our argument. Work calling to ask why I’m late. Owen calling to remind me of how much I embarrassed myself yesterday.
It’s none of them. Instead, it’s a number I don’t recognize. Considering how things are going for me, I imagine it’s my Uber driver about to tell me he’ll be twenty minutes late, or that he’s also making a fish delivery and I’ll have to share the back seat with a few crates of smelly seafood.
I answer the phone with a ‘hello’ that sounds more like a defeated sigh.
“Is this Margo Lipman?”
“Yep. And you are…?”
“Hi. This is Cassandra Beale—from the New York Month. You sent an application to our HR department last month.”
“Yes!” I almost scream into the phone with excitement as I scrabble to my feet, bag tangling on my arm, phone almost slipping from my hand. “Yes,” I repeat, with false steadiness. “I did.”
“I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”
A phone interview. My heart starts to thump harder than a club speaker. If the New York Month was a person it would wear a beret, and not only pull it off, but make you feel deeply inferior because you don’t even own one. It’s a magazine that references Being and Nothingness in reviews of the new Batman movie, and talks about British post-modern artists as if its audience already knows all about them. Not so much magazine as dispatch from an uber-cool world where people communicate through raised eyebrows and where enjoying things can only be done ironically. Written by and for people who are so cool they probably don’t even know cat videos exist.
In short, it’s everything I hate, and everything I desperately want to be a part of.
“Absolutely!” I say, but at that exact moment my voice is drowned out by the incessantly-hammered horn of a Prius. I look up to find my Uber driver crawling along the street, punching his steering wheel as he scans the road.
“Absolutely!” I shout more loudly, as I run toward the car, waving at him to stop.
“Is now not a good time?” Cassandra says, and I wonder if I’m only imagining the wry grin and arch expression.
“No…I mean yes!” I mumble, as I manage to flag the driver and maneuver myself into the back seat. “Now’s great!”