Chapter 8 #3
“Well, I started messing around with video editing when I was in middle school,” Ben says.
He tries, as he talks, to lean into how much he’s had to drink, to sound confident and over it and like it never bothered him at all.
It’s easier, now, than it’s ever been—it always is, with each telling of it.
“So by high school, I sort of knew what I was doing, and I started helping out with some audio-video stuff in my spare time.” He keeps from them, though it’s the more complete truth, that he’d done this mostly because it kept him out of Trattoria Luciana until as late as five or six at night, and thus generally got him out of being asked to cover a call-off.
“Thrilling so far,” Ezra says, with a pointed yawn.
Ben ignores him. And since he can’t bring himself to look at Pete, or anywhere that might risk making eye contact with Pete, as he tells this particular story, he focuses his eyes on the dartboard on the far wall as he continues, “And every year my school did this big boring assembly right before Christmas break, giving out like, honors to the teachers, and talking about the year to come. So they were doing one of those, and I was supposed to play a video on the big screen, a like ‘Our District’s Year in Review’ type of thing?
Only…” Ben swallows, trying to force back the resistance clawing at his throat—it was years ago.
It’s funny! It’s not like it matters now.
Still, he’s proud of the way the ache doesn’t show in his voice as he says, “It, uh. It wasn’t that video… that I played.”
For all Ezra’s complaining, he sits for a beat of breathless, anticipatory silence with the rest of them, and then, very satisfyingly for Ben, snaps, “Well? What was it?”
“It was,” Ben says, and closes his eyes briefly, surprised to find himself laughing on the words a little for all they’re still mortifying.
“Well, it was a shot-for-shot recreation of an episode of Star Trek? The one where Kirk and Spock seem, um, really gay for each other? More than the usual amount of gay, I mean. And I was kind of… playing all the parts.” In the yawning silence, unable to totally stop the words as they tumble out of his mouth, Ben can’t help but add, “And, um… once it started playing, the computer I was using froze, so it took—about ten minutes? To get it to stop? And the whole school was there? So. Ah. You know. Hard to top that one.”
The silence is, for a moment, quite painful.
Then someone snickers; a second later they’re all laughing, some harder than others, even Ben.
There are tears running down Brogan’s face; Adina has gone so red from amusement she looks like a tomato; even Ezra is howling, shaking his head, chuckling, “All right, all right—you’re right. Can’t beat that, good Lord.”
The only person who isn’t laughing is Pete: When Ben finally turns to look at him, there’s a smile on his face, to be sure, but not an amused one. He looks—glad, maybe, or grateful. The word “fond” floats by in Ben’s slightly overserved mind, and he tries, as it does, not to notice it.
But Pete mouths, “Thank you,” while the rest of them are looking away, so clearly sincere that Ben can hardly bear it.
They hold eye contact for a long moment, and then Brogan asks who wants another round, and the conversation turns, and before long the bar is spitting them back out again, all a bit unsteadier and somewhat worse for the wear, but in good enough spirits.
In a happy coincidence, Pete and Ben are both walking the same way for a few blocks; they break off from the others and set out again, the air colder now than it was a few hours ago.
The snow is still falling, the flakes thicker and more aggressive, and Pete sounds almost wistful when he says, “Okay. Don’t tell the others or anything, but: You want to know my most embarrassing story? ”
“Oh,” Ben says; it’s an exhalation more than a word, and for a hanging, confused second Ben entertains the thought that it’s shock freezing his breath in the air. Then, recovering himself enough to speak, he stammers, “Oh, but you didn’t want… You don’t have to—”
“It’s okay.” Pete shrugs, and then, slanting a wry, slightly self-effacing glance at him, adds, “It’s not like you haven’t seen me at my lowest, right? Anyway, you told me yours; it’s only fair.”
“But,” Ben argues, not sure why he’s doing so even as the words come out of his mouth—after all, he is desperate to know. “So did the others, and you didn’t want to tell—”
“Eh,” Pete says, waving a hand. “They didn’t really.
Ezra wanted to tell that story, you know?
I think he brought the whole thing up just to tell it.
Brogan, okay, that was a good one, but she wasn’t embarrassed, I don’t think.
She knows it would be embarrassing, for someone who embarrassed more easily than she does, but I’m not sure anything embarrasses Brogan.
And Adina…” Pete sighs, and shakes his head, a little smile slipping onto his face that makes a brief and irrational jealous rage flare within Ben, for all he likes Adina, and knows her to have been happily married to Tom for more than a decade.
“Both those stories were genuinely embarrassing for Adina, but I’m not sure she’s ever been bad at anything in her whole life.
She’s great, don’t get me wrong, I love her like a sister, but she doesn’t know, I don’t think.
Not what it’s really like, to be properly, publicly humiliated, and then have to carry it around with you, how that felt.
None of them know.” He slants another glance at Ben, assessing this time, before he sighs and says, “But you do. Don’t you? ”
“Yeah,” Ben says, after a second, with an uncomfortable shrug. “I guess I do.”
Pete nods sharply, just the once. “Right. So it’s different, okay? Telling you is—it’s not the same. It’s just not.”
“Okay,” Ben says quietly, afraid to put too much volume behind the word. A little part of him, less than logical but quite upsettingly strong, is sure that Pete will take it back, say he didn’t mean it, if Ben draws too much attention to the fact that he’s said it at all.
He’s distracted anyway, as they reach the edge of Bryant Park; to his surprise and pleasure, Ben realizes the Winter Village has opened for the season at some point in the last few weeks.
It’s always up this time of year, transforming the park’s open courtyard into a series of little pop-up shops and restaurants, but he hasn’t been by, too wrapped up in everything at work.
There’s a large, if temporary, outdoor ice rink set up in the center of everything, multicolored string lights and a steady backdrop of Christmas music making even the sloppy, stumbling skaters currently on the ice look picturesque.
The holiday season has never meant much to Ben; every year back home in Michigan had been pretty much the same, with his parents constantly trying to balance things out between Hanukkah, Christmas, and the restaurant, and inevitably ending up giving the bulk of their attention to the restaurant.
But he likes the Bryant Park Winter Village, and has ever since he stumbled upon it his first year here; it was his first taste of New York’s tendency to deliver unto you, on an otherwise unremarkable day, a small wonder.
“Want to go in for a minute?” Pete asks, following Ben’s gaze.
“I haven’t been yet this year, and I could really go for a beverage that doesn’t have alcohol in it.
And, uh. It might be easier to talk about this not, you know.
” He ducks his head and looks away for a second. “Surrounded by a bunch of people?”
“Oh,” Ben says, surprised and pleased both to have been asked to go in, and that Pete had noticed he wanted to go in at all. “Sure, yeah. If, um… if you don’t mind. That sounds nice.”
They end up getting hot chocolates, which is to say Pete gets them each a hot chocolate, and Ben manfully resists the urge to shout, “DOES IT COUNT AS A DATE IF HE BOUGHT ME A HOT CHOCOLATE??? ISSUE A RULING AT ONCE,” at random passersby.
But it’s good, rich and nicely spiced and warming, and Ben follows Pete over to a tiny wrought-iron table tucked up against one of the hedges marking the park boundaries.
It’s in an odd place and looks like maybe it was forgotten or left behind when they reset the area for the Village, but it gives a good view of the ice rink and is fairly well isolated from everyone else.
They sit in silence for a moment, sipping their hot chocolates. Then Ben says, “Did you want to tell me the story, or…?”
Pete grimaces briefly, then shakes his head, then sighs, then nods. “Okay. Yeah. God. So—do you remember, back in like the eighties and nineties, a show called America’s Best Home Videos?”
“Oh, sure,” Ben says, his brow furrowing as he tries both to bring up the show and imagine why on earth it would be relevant. “The host was—that guy from that show, right?”
Pete gives him a sideways little smile, and says, “Okay, well, technically, that could be anyone, but I’ll grant you that I know who you mean, so.
Yeah, that was him.” He sighs and takes another sip of his hot chocolate with the same energy that someone might sip at a stiff whiskey for strength.
“Anyway, my parents recorded this, well… home video, right? Of me. And I was maybe seven or eight, and learning to skateboard, and so I was kicking around in front of the restaurant, and I hit a rock.” He shrugs, his mouth twisting.
“Sometimes that’s all it takes, you know?
You hit a rock and then, ten years later—hell, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. ”
“It’s really fine,” Ben says, a little at sea but hoping to be encouraging. “I’m not, like, grading you here. There will be no scorecards at the end of this process.”