Chapter 17
17
When I make it home, I don’t even bother going to my apartment. I just start pounding on the door across the hallway.
After a moment, the door opens, and Hot Josh looks at me, confused. He’s wearing a nice sport coat and button-down shirt, paired with jeans, and barefoot. Working remotely, I realize dimly. Possibly still at work, even though it’s pretty late. Maybe his office is on Pacific time. Or London time. Is London ahead of us, or behind us?
God, I’m drunk.
“All right, Eve?”
“Great,” I say, brushing sweaty curls from my forehead. Why am I so damn sweaty again? It’s freakin’ December. Must be the booze. Ugh. Whatever.
“Is there something I can help you with, or...?” Josh asks.
“Yes, so look,” I say, barreling forward before I can stop myself. “My little sister’s getting married this weekend. Saturday night, out at Camp Heller-Diamond—do you know Camp Heller-Diamond?”
“Oh, er, actually—”
“Anyway I’m the maid of honor and that’s a whole thing, but also kind of not a big deal because her best friend, Layla, is the real maid of honor, I’m more like a whaddayacallit...a fountainhead.”
“A...what?”
“Fountainhead,” I repeat, like he’s stupid, until I realize that actually I’m the stupid one. I try to laugh it off quickly. “No, hahahaha, sorry, tang got tongue—I mean, tongue got tangled there. Not a fountainhead, a...a...a figurehead! That’s it, that’s what I was trying to... I’m a figurehead .”
“You’re a figurehead,” he repeats, still just as confused.
“Yeah, total fucking figurehead. But anyway, that’s not even the point. The point is, I’ve also been like super busy— so busy, like so so busy! —and this thing is just sneaking right up on me and long story short, I don’t have a date yet, so do you want to go with me?”
Hot Josh stares at me.
I stare right back, unblinking. What’s that they say in negotiations or deal-making or whatever? Whoever speaks first, loses? I’m not going to speak first.
I made my pitch, and now I’m gonna wait it out. And I think it was pretty slick, throwing in the whole I’m-so-busy thing, right? I don’t have a date not because, like, I can’t get a date. I’m just overscheduled, obviously. Haven’t prioritized dating or sexing lately.
“Uh,” says Hot Josh, swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple bobs. “That’s, erm... That’d be this Saturday?”
“Yep,” I say confidently.
Then, reeling a bit internally and probably externally as well, I start to second-guess myself: Wait, what’s today? Maybe it’s actually next Saturday? No, no, pretty sure it’s this Saturday. Yes, it’s this Saturday. I am seventy-five percent certain that I manage to keep all of this in my head, but honestly, I can’t swear to that.
“I...can’t,” says my alarmingly attractive neighbor, glancing down at his phone. Maybe checking the calendar. Maybe faking a text alert. Maybe just checking the time and wondering how he’s wasted so much of it having this inane conversation with me. “I have, er, an appointment Saturday.”
“An appointment,” I repeat dully. “Saturday...night.”
“Yes, actually,” he says, somewhat defensively. Like he can tell I don’t believe him. Which I don’t. “Hey, Eve, are you all right, because—”
“Fine,” I say, and I think I might be talking too loudly but I can’t really tell. “I’m fine. I’m great. It’s just also—it’s also my birthday this weekend, so that just kinda makes it more, I don’t know...like kind of a big weekend for me...”
Shit double shit, why did I say that?
“Oh,” says Josh uncomfortably. “Well, ah, happy early birthday. After this weekend, perhaps we could—”
“No, no,” I say, waving away whatever pity offer he’s about to make. God, I’m so pathetic. “Don’t worry about it, it’s all good, all good—it is all good. Oh, and hey, I hope everything’s great with your appointment. I mean—yeah. Appointment. I have lots of appointments, too. You know what? I have one right now.”
My cheeks are burning as reality and humiliation begin to set in. I turn on my heel and walk the three steps to my own front door. I fumble for my keys, and, of course, jam the wrong one into the lock.
“Can I help you with—”
“Nope! Got it!” I yell without even turning around. I yank the wrong key from the lock, shove the right one in, half fall into my apartment, and shut the door firmly behind me.
Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
I’m starving, but there’s no food in my stupid apartment. I know I shouldn’t have another drink. But my stomach is howling and I’ve never felt more humiliated in my life and if there’s even a prayer of a chance that it’ll take the edge off, I’m having another drink.
I stumble to the corner of my kitchen where a deep built-in shelf serves as my singleton liquor cabinet. It’s bare bones in there. An empty bottle of gin, an empty bottle of vodka... What the hell’s wrong with me, why do I have two empty bottles and nothing else?
I vaguely remember purging a bunch of stuff at some neighborhood give-and-take this summer. God, I wish I had whatever half-full jug of peach schnapps I must’ve given away. My kingdom for an old bottle of Smirnoff!
Reeling, I open up my fridge, hoping maybe I’m wrong and some food will have magically appeared there. A snack might chip away at all these awful feelings. But my fridge is almost as empty as I am, displaying only the same sad collection of condiments, empty bottles, and forgotten vegetables languishing since sometime before Thanksgiving. Despite my constant hunger, I haven’t prioritized getting groceries in weeks now. One more item to add to my never-ending list of failures.
I slump down right there on the kitchen floor, defeated, stomach still noisily complaining. The ominous feeling is tugging at me again, cruelly teasing me in my altered state, making me see shadows in every corner. My head is already starting to throb with a dull ache that will split me wide open in the morning. The inventory of every bad thing I’ve got going on—what do you call that? A lint, a listy thing...no: a litany . My litany of woe—that’s what those things are called—is rolling through my mind.
Alone.
Attacked.
They’ll bomb us and come for us on the train.
No job, no partner, no self-respect.
Alone, alone, alone...
Hauling myself from the floor, I reach once more for the liquor bottles, confirming they’re empty. They sure as hell are. Angry, I drop them into my recycling bin, hearing at least one of them shatter and feeling vague satisfaction at even that small destruction. I look back over at the corner of my kitchen where they came from, and spot something in the recesses of the old built-in shelf. I reach in and pull out a dusty bottle of Mogen David Concord grape wine.
I think I brought it to my parents’ house for seder three or four years ago. I distinctly remember my father sending it home with me, assuring me lovingly but firmly that he would never drink that shit. Worse than Manischewitz , he told me, and that’s saying something . I thought I’d put it directly into the trash. No one in our family has ever liked Mogen David. No one but Bubbe.
Bubbe, is this from you?
Hot, stupid tears spring to my eyes.
Dammit.
Can’t have that.
I grab a bottle opener and pour myself some shitty, syrupy-sweet kosher wine. It truly is awful, cloying and heavy. I remember how Bubbe would drink glass after glass on holidays, until her eyes went dark and shiny.
As I gaze off into the middle distance, another memory bubbles up. A scene I haven’t pictured in years. The first Hanukkah after Bubbe moved in with us, when she said something I never quite understood. Vision blurring, I close my eyes and drift toward a night I haven’t thought about in years.