Chapter 10
Being Seen
If I had to put an image to the song playing in Zinrock, it would be an elephants’ graveyard under the torrid sun—agonizing but gripping.
And the place itself is the same way. There’s something run-down about it, shabby, but that makes it unique, with its dark wood and faint, flickering lights reflected on the glass bottles and the shelves behind the bar.
And in front of those shelves is where I find Will, looking distracted, drying off a mug.
The guy with the tattoos I saw weeks ago is next to him, and he turns toward me first. He smiles. They’re about to close—the tables are empty, and there’s almost nothing left to clean.
“Look who we have here.”
Will looks up. “Greta?”
“The very same. Can I still get a drink?”
The other guy nudges Will, laughs, and closes the cash register with a bang. He shrugs and drops a ring of keys on the bar.
“Something about you two tells me this could drag on awhile, so, Will, you close up. Don’t forget to turn off the lights,” he says, glancing back at me as I settle onto one of the wooden barstools. “My name’s Paul, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
He nods, puts on a worn-out leather jacket, and leaves.
When Will and I are alone, a sudden, almost frightening intimacy overtakes us both.
Or maybe I’m just imagining that because I’m tipsy.
I think about how alcohol takes away your inhibitions.
I can almost feel it sometimes going down my throat and spreading through me, and at those moments, my feelings pour out of my heart and into my stomach, where I might vomit them out.
Is it safe for me to do so? Will he know what to do with my deepest secrets?
Will dries one more glass before really looking at me.
“What do you want?” He doesn’t mince words.
“I was thinking… I’ve been thinking a lot. See, the thing you asked me, write down the stuff I like, it’s dumb, it’s just silly. Like it feels like the dumbest thing in the universe.”
“I get it. It’s dumb.”
“Exactly.”
“If you want to know what I think, I’d tell you it’s not dumb. In fact, I think it’s pretty reasonable,” he says, “and besides that, it goes along with the game: the Map of Longing. It’s all about what you wish for.”
“Yeah, but, Will, I don’t care about your opinion.
Don’t get offended. It’s just that I barely know you.
I mean, you seem interesting, but that’s on the surface and that’s the only thing I’ve seen.
Like a Cézanne painting—you look at it the first time, and you like it, but you have to know something about the context, the history behind it, to really get it. And with you, I have none of that.”
“You’re losing me.”
“What matters is the details, like knowing if you like strong coffee or how many sugars you stir into it or if you believe in ghosts or what season you like best. Getting to know someone is the art of anticipation. And between us, that doesn’t exist, so it’s uncomfortable, sharing with you this exercise of self-discovery or whatever you’d call the thing Lucy’s proposed. ”
Will looks unbothered. “You’re not making it easier, either.”
“Letting someone see who you really are, it makes you dizzy. We’re always kind of taught that the safest thing is to stay hidden in our shell.
Can you imagine if everyone just said the first thing that popped into their head?
The world would be chaos. If you think about it, we’re all just professional actors. ”
“What’s your role, then?” he asks. Will smiles and rests his arm on the bar very close to mine.
I try to count the inches between us: five, maybe six. And another thing: I’ve got goose bumps. I tell myself it’s just because it’s so cold. “The girl with the wet matches.”
“What’s that?”
“A girl who thinks she’s going to set the world on fire, and then she realizes she doesn’t have anything to make a spark with.”
“Nobody ever taught her to rub two sticks together at summer camp? That’s a good plot twist right there,” Will jokes.
“Let’s stop talking in metaphors.”
“Great, no more fun, then.”
“Speaking of fun, where’s that drink I asked for?” I demand.
“Haven’t you drunk enough?”
“No. Make it something sweet, please.”
Seeing Will ignore my request, I decide to go around the bar and grab a bottle of cherry liqueur without his permission.
I pour a big shot and get back on my stool.
He observes me attentively with his glassy, emerald eyes.
He’s wearing a dark shirt with a low collar, and his bangs are slanting across his furrowed forehead.
“Let’s get back to the game. We could start with a couple of things I know you like: disobeying rules and talking about everything and nothing.”
“You’re right there,” I say.
“Good. Then let’s keep going. Why don’t you close your eyes, relax, and tell me the first thing that comes into your head?”
I take my time weighing up his proposition. “Will you do it, too?”
“Give me a good reason why,” he says.
“Because of what I said before about being able to appreciate an artwork in all its magnitude. I need to see you so you can see me. And it’s only fair.”
“Justice according to Greta Peterson.”
“Right.”
Will sighs and shakes his head. He has this charm that he always tries to hide, but then a moment arrives where he can’t help himself, and he gives in.
He comes out from behind the bar, grabs a barstool, and sits next to me.
He’s so tall, his feet touch the floor (mine are dangling in the air), and still he has to look down at me from above.
His nose is haughty, very straight, very classic.
His jaw is stubborn, square, well-defined.
His cologne is subtle. It’s probably called sea mist or glacial fragrance.
Since I’ve drunk too much, I allow myself to wonder what it would be like to sink my nose into his neck and sniff.
“Good. Let’s get started.”
“I like your cologne,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows just before his eyes sneak down the tight dress I put on for the party, making stops on my shoulders, my breasts, my legs. For a minute, I wonder if he’s bold enough to say something about them, but his shyness returns, and he says, “I like your shoes.”
I push aside my glass of liquor. I need to really keep track of everything we’re doing and saying right now. I do what he proposed a few seconds before: close my eyes and take a deep breath. A memory comes to me, an autumn afternoon, in rubber boots, jumping in puddles with Lucy.
“Rainy days. Your turn.”
“Sunny days.” He smiles.
“Watching butter melt in a hot pan.”
“Traveling,” he murmurs.
“I like flies and their perseverance; human beings could learn a lot from them,” I say.
“Climbing.”
“Eating grapes and trying to dig out the seeds with your tongue and then crunching them between your teeth.”
“Reading,” he responds.
“Weird indie movies where they end and you’re like what exactly did I just see but then you keep thinking about them for days afterward.”
“Rock music.”
I shake my head and sigh. “Will, I’m the only one who’s really letting myself go, and it doesn’t work that way.
You told me before I needed to stop thinking.
So what about you? You’re being so basic.
The stuff you’re saying, anybody could say it.
You like to read—okay, great, but what exactly?
Or traveling: Are you trying to get away from what you know, escape yourself, or feed your insatiable curiosity? ”
Will suppresses a smile and rubs the back of his neck. “It would be easier if you were just some ordinary girl.”
“But it wouldn’t be as much fun either, admit it.”
He takes a breath and writhes in his seat, and his knee touches mine. I could move my leg away, but so could he, and neither of us does it.
I can see defeat in his eyes.
“Fine. Let’s see… I like astronomy.” He stops and I frown.
“Wait, let me finish. It’s not just the unknown and the unreachable that fascinate me.
It’s also that if I need to put my feet back on the ground, all I have to do is look at the sky for a minute or two and everything falls back into place. ”
I smile. Something’s finally flowing between us.
Something’s starting to grow. Differences coming together.
Words as a form of intimacy. I’ve always wondered how the process of two people growing close occurs, and it must be like welding, where the bond of the two metals is stronger than either of them on their own.
I rest an elbow on the bar, amused. “I like love stories in movies. Those phrases they say at the perfect moment, like, ‘We’ll always have Paris,’ or ‘I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her,’ or when Sally tells Harry, ‘You say things like that and it makes it impossible to hate you.’ I like it because even if those films last just a few hours, for that period of time, everything’s idyllic.
And that’s how it should be, because if they went on longer, the main characters would start arguing about who’s got to take out the trash or how the electric bill’s too high. ”
Will laughs. And that warm laughter banishes the cold and embraces me. “That’s one thing we agree about.”
“I figured. You’re up.”
“Mmm.” He runs the tip of his index finger over the grain of the wooden bar.
“I like pasta with cheese. Lots of cheese. Like so much cheese that it would make most people want to puke. And I love my mom’s pancakes with honey and raspberries.
And glitter, but I never told anyone that before.
When I was little, a girl from my class gave me a jar of it, and I spent hours lying in the grass turning it around and around to watch the sun make it shine. ”
“You’re finally starting to interest me, Will Tucker.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”