Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
“HOW DO YOU DO THAT?” I say, staring up at Peter. He looks so light and airy, his brown waves almost golden in the sun.
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is that makes people love you like that?”
“People?” he says, a sliver of a smile blooming on his face.
“Yeah, you know. Gordon. Lulu Bitch. Whatever,” I say extremely casually, ignoring the jolt of fire in my stomach.
Peter shrugs. “I just listen, mostly. People have a lot more to say than you think.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“No, it’s usually good. Everyone wants the same thing at the end of the day.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s so not true. Some people are doing, like, Doctors Without Borders and other people are poisoning reservoirs for fun.”
“I don’t think there are people poisoning reservoirs for fun …”
“You know what I mean,” I say. “There are pediatricians and there are politicians.”
“I get your point,” Peter says. “I just think most—not all, but most,” he adds before I can interrupt him, “people are just trying their best. And Ronnie was cool.”
“Wait,” I say. “The runner’s name was Ronnie? That’s so … relaxed. I thought it would be like Charlotte or Ansel or something.” Damn. How does he keep doing this? Seeing people?
“It’s almost like you can’t tell exactly who someone is by how tight their ponytail is,” Peter says.
“Whatever,” I say. “What was her deal, anyway? Why was she so emotionally invested in that water? She was clinging to it like it was a lifeline or something.”
“Well, it was Fiji.”
I can’t help but laugh.
Peter pauses for a second. “She just … hadn’t had anyone be nice to her in a while, I think.
She’d been having a rough go with her husband.
” I knew she was getting divorced. The ponytail doesn’t lie.
“I think she just needed to be reminded that not everyone’s an asshole.
” Peter looks me in the eyes. “You know anyone like that?”
“No,” I say, glaring back at him.
“It’s pretty cool, though,” Peter says, looking down the block where the runner took off. “I mean, I know she’s going to die really soon, but we made her last hours a little better. Maybe a lot better.” He turns back to face me. “We did that. You and me.”
“That was all you,” I say, looking away. “You’re the one making these connections. I’m just skulking.”
“Are you kidding? There is no this without you.” Peter runs his hand through his hair. “Shit, Sydney. I think you might be the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
Jesus, he really is delusional. Still, I can feel the heat creeping up my neck.
“I mean it,” Peter says. “You have to deal with this totally unprecedented thing. And I can tell it’s with you every day—even when no one is, like, ‘clocking out’ like you say, it’s there. And yet you’re so … cool.”
“Cool?” I laugh. Suddenly I’m very aware of my hands, and I have no idea what to do with them. I wrap my arms around myself.
“You see the world in this totally unique way.”
“You mean dark and horrible? I’m pretty sure every person here has the same ‘unique’ way of looking at the world.” I gesture to a woman in a long boho skirt cursing out someone on the other end of her phone.
“No,” Peter says. “You think about things no one else does. You understand death in a way literally no one else can. You read Heidegger at lunch, for god’s sake. You’re …”
“I’m insufferable.”
“I’d suffer you any day.” Peter looks at me, dead serious, and this moment, his eyes, his face, everything—it’s so small, but somehow it’s also too big.
I need to make a sarcastic comment, roll my eyes, do something to ruin it, but I can’t bring myself to.
So I just stand there in this liminal state, where I’m the same person I was twenty minutes ago, and also maybe I’m someone else.
Someone who can let things be for ten seconds. Or at least maybe five.
“Come on,” Peter says. “Let’s go get you some jelly beans.”