Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Life is a sewer, I text him the next day. He said I should call, but…I’m working my way up to it.
Noted. He’s such an empathetic texter.
I’m serious. Life is absolutely terrible.
You’re just now noticing this? This is basic stuff. Life is pain. Duh.
There’s a long pause while I ponder this and then, Wait, he texts. What’s going on?
What?
Why are you texting me about life being a sewer. Something bad must be happening. Where are you.
Nowhere.
Lenny.
Oh, fine. I MIGHT be crying in a laundromat.
Why are you in a laundromat? I have laundry at my place.
I stare at my phone, turning this sentiment over in my mind when he texts again:
How much longer will you be there?
I’m packing it up now.
I’ll meet you at the studio apartment. There’s something I wanna do with you.
I hobble the three blocks and reflexively scowl when I see him haunting my doorstep. He hoists the laundry from my back and runs it upstairs.
When he comes back I’ve got my hands on my hips. “What, exactly, are we doing?”
“It’ll be fun.” He stops midway through jogging down the brownstone steps. “Actually, there’s a good chance it’ll be terrible.”
“We need to work on your elevator pitch.”
Thirty minutes later I find myself standing on a gigantic sailboat moored off the financial district at sunset, staring at a list of cocktails that have first, middle, and last names and cost more than my hourly babysitting rate.
It’s one of the few bar/boats that dot the coastline of Manhattan, permanently moored and apparently lovely on a late-August night. I glance around at the beautiful people swilling drinks and flashing bone-white teeth in the candlelight. “I don’t think we’re supposed to wear ripped jeans and sneakers here.”
“Yeah.” He’s frowning like everyone is stupid and he’d really prefer if this boat were sinking. “Well, let’s get a drink.”
He orders a beer from an unimpressed bartender with hair like the Fonz. And I order something called a Madam President Obama. It’s the most delicious drink I’ve ever tasted, and I clutch it with two hands.
“So…why are we here?”
Miles takes a huge swig of his beer. “For that.” He points at the prow of the ship. He sighs. “And that.”
The second “that” is apparently my right leg. I frown in confusion.
“The list, Lenny,” he prompts, nodding with his chin toward my front pocket.
“Oh! Oh. Oh no.”
“Yup.” He looks resigned as we weave our way through couples. “Let’s do it.”
I don’t even have to pull the list out to reread the bullet point. Apparently, neither does he.
“So.” He clears his throat as we approach the prow of the ship. “Number eight, was it? Find a big boat and do the Titanic thing. ” He glances at me. “Which Titanic thing exactly?” He’s leaning over the railing and eyeing the sunset-dyed water distastefully. “Should I be taking off my boots?”
I laugh. “No. It’s the…” I hold out two arms and sway to show which part I’m talking about.
I expect him to look even more embarrassed about what we’re about to do, but he only looks resolute. “Okay.”
I ignore all the trendy people behind us, stepping up right where the two railings meet, and press my midsection there.
Oh, why not?
I throw my arms out and wait.
Nothing happens.
I turn around and glare. “Miles!” I hiss.
He sighs but steps forward, behind me; his clothes touch my clothes and his arms extend six inches beyond either of mine. We sway and I burst out laughing.
“Is this it?” he asks, understandably with a hint of incredulity. “There’s no line or something we’re supposed to say?”
“I…don’t think they say anything at that part of the movie? I mean…we could sing the Celine Dion song?”
“Knock yourself out.”
He’s starting to step away so I reach back and grab his shirt, tugging him back into position.
“I know!” I assert. “Say If you’re a bird, I’m a bird. ”
“That’s not even from the right movie!”
“Just say it!” I’ve started swimming my arms like I’m doing the breaststroke because they’re running out of blood flow just hanging out in the air like that.
“Isn’t that the girl’s line?”
“You know The Notebook well enough to know who says which line?”
“I’ve had girlfriends, Lenny. Part of having a girlfriend is that she makes you watch The Notebook. ”
“Well, it’s a classic and all your past girlfriends have wonderful taste. And since it was clearly so formative for you…”
“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” he grumbles, deadpan, presumably to get this all over with faster.
Still, I take the W and throw my head back on an overjoyed cackle. The crown of my head bumps into his collarbone and when I open my eyes, I can see up his nose, and that the center of the sky is just starting to turn the blueberry blue of twilight. Instead of panicked sadness, I simply feel that I might be briefly living inside a wonderful moment.
“Did we do it?” he asks, tipping his head down slightly, hands on his hips, waiting patiently for me to stop leaning on him.
I stand up straight and stomp a foot. “By God, I think we’ve done it!” I yank the list out of my pocket and draw a line through number eight with my finger. It’s laminated so all line-crossing has to be imaginary.
That’s two down. I’m feeling tingly and slightly unsettled. Am I living again, yet? Who can tell. Probably I won’t know until every single thing is crossed off and Miles appears from behind a curtain with a flower sash. I feel slightly ill. Also I’m dying for a Titanic rewatch.
He takes another two inches of his beer down and then glances back at the people who are looking at us with mixtures of amusement and embarrassment. “I think it’s time.”
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” I agree.
We leave the second half of our drinks and wander through Lower Manhattan, vaguely toward the train.
“So,” I say, hands in pockets. “You’ve had girlfriends.”
He laughs. “You say that like it’s weird.”
“It is weird. But only in an existential way. Not because you’re gross. I just mean, it’s also weird that you were once in second grade or if you ever went to Disneyland, that would be weird. It’s weird because you’ve got a whole life I don’t know anything about.”
“?‘Girlfriends’ with an ‘s’ might be pushing it. I’ve dated. And had one serious girlfriend.”
“And?”
He frowns. “And?”
“Nothing more you wanna say about her?”
We pass a narrow alleyway and between the two buildings we get a glimpse of the half-red, rising moon. He eyes that instead of me. “Not really.”
A world opens up between us. It’s unexpected. Heartbreak Miles. First Date Miles. First Kiss. I’m Sorry Flowers. Miles leaning over someone in bed to click the lamp off for the night.
“Huh.”
“What?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Just thinking about all the experiences other people have. Through all the, you know, grief, I’ve kinda forgotten that the entire world is filled with all these other realities…possibilities…that I’ve never even considered before.” A man in SpongeBob pajama pants walks his pug past us and I wonder who he’s going home to. “I think when you’re depressed sometimes it’s easy to think that everyone is depressed? But right this very second, there are billions of people having happy moments. I kind of forgot about those people. I thought I knew how everything worked. And that all of it was terrible.”
He weighs his head from one side to the other. “Only some of it is terrible.”
“That’s a much better percentage than I was working with.”
“Yeah,” he says with a resolute nod. “It is.”