Chapter Twenty-Three The Mess
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Mess
Will had emerged, I suspected, from a spot between Madeline’s and the building next door, where he’d been drinking from what looked like a bottle of orange soda.
“Yeah,” I said. “Oh, wait.” I reached for my mic, unclipped it, shut it off, and stuffed it into my pocket. I dug in my bag and pulled out my wallet, and I walked over to him and held out a couple of bills, folded over. “He’s a terrible tipper.”
He just looked at it. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t give me money.”
I was so happy to see him—so happy to be talking to him—that I kept wanting to make it better than his face told me it was. “I feel bad,” I said.
He nodded, but he made no move toward the money, so I put it away. “That’s the doctor, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Michael.”
“Third date?”
“Third date.”
He nodded. “So it’s working out.”
I shrugged. “It’s only the third time I’ve ever met the guy, and this time wasn’t as good as the last one.”
“That was the Peruvian food,” he said. He’d really been listening when Eliza was ranting.
“Yeah. It’s a nice place.”
“I couldn’t have taken you there, that’s for sure. Can’t compete with that with my two jobs.”
I coughed out the kind of chuckle that you offer up when nothing is funny. “Were you trying to?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell I was trying to do.”
He was looking at the ground, looking grim, looking angry, and maybe it was the weird date or the weird show or Julie leaving, but the thin thread of patience I’d been carefully maintaining snapped. “You know, you seem upset, but you’re the one who won’t talk to me,” I said. “I called you. I’m sorry I said the thing about your furniture, I’m sorry if it sounded mean, I admit I was caught off-guard when Eliza showed up, but—”
“It wasn’t just that,” he said. “I heard you.”
“You heard me when?”
“I heard you tell her that you weren’t interested. I just didn’t know until she showed up and you started yelling at each other that that hadn’t changed, at all. Even after…everything.”
“What are you talking about? I never said that to her.”
“Yes, you did,” he said. It was the first time I’d ever seen him angry. “At the party at her house. You said whatever feelings I had, they weren’t mutual. You even said, ‘Believe me.’ And then everything else kinda happened, and I guess it wasn’t really great to hear you say it again.”
I briefly thought he had to be making this up, genuinely inventing it to hurt me, or to avoid me, or to get rid of me. “I would never say that, once or twice. I didn’t think that. I don’t think that now. I can’t even…” And then I thought about the word “mutual,” and something about it did ring a bell. What had happened? What had I said? I did say something. “Oh.” I said.
He looked at me. “Remembering it now, maybe?”
“Will,” I said, and I felt the muscles in my face soften. “That’s not what happened. I told her any interest in an actual relationship would not be mutual, yes, I said that.”
“Right.” He started toward the door.
“Will you listen? I said it because you were not interested in me. Because you are gone when your lease is up. Because you were talking about being able to pack up and get in your car and go. I wasn’t talking about my feelings,” I said. “I was talking about yours.”
“Really,” he said.
“Yeah, really. God, why didn’t you tell me you heard that? I could have explained it. I’m sorry you thought I had said that the whole time we were…whatever.”
“What would have been different?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’d still have been here, on this date, with this doctor. Right?”
“Sure, but I explained all this to you,” I said. “It’s work.”
He rubbed his eye with one hand. “You know, I’ve got to tell you, it feels a little bit like you want to have it both ways. You’re going out with these guys, but you’re not, but you are. You’re making this show, but you think it’s stupid, but you’re still doing it. You’re doing whatever this woman tells you to do, even though you think it’s a crock.”
“I don’t get why you’re upset,” I said. “I explained the misunderstanding from the party. And as far as Eliza throwing a fit on the street, I tried to tell you I was sorry and you wouldn’t answer me.”
“I heard why she was mad, Cecily. She was mad because she’d talked to you about me already. She said you promised her. You promised somebody I didn’t even know that you wouldn’t have anything to do with me, because it’s so obviously not worth your time,” he said. “And I guess because you’re bothered by my thrifted coffee table.”
“That’s not what I said. We were standing out on the sidewalk, she was freaking out, what did you want me to do?” I said.
“What do you want to do?”
I felt my jaw set. “I am so sick of this question. And given how you seem to feel now, I don’t understand why you care, what’s your—”
“Why do you think?” he said. “Look, it’s obviously fine that you’re dating these guys, we didn’t make any deals, I knew about it, whatever. But through this whole thing, people called me the waiter. That’s what she said, the waiter. She yelled it. ‘The waiter ?’ Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of this job, but she says it like it’s embarrassing, and you just sit there, and you sit here while your date stiffs me, and I hate it, Cecily. I really hate it.”
“Oh my God, it’s not like that,” I said. “She’s just referring to you by what she knows, she’s not saying—”
“Sure she is! Do you think she would say it the same way if I was your lawyer?”
I cleared my throat. “Probably not. But I don’t feel that way. I like your life. I like your place, I like your dog.” I looked at the ground and then back at him. “I can’t help it that she’s like that.”
He looked like he was freezing in his shirt sleeves, and he put his hands in his pockets, then pulled them back out. “Look,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like it right this second, but I really like you,” he said, stepping toward me. “Yeah? Is that okay? You are driving me nuts, but I…like you.” He put this emphasis on the word “like,” this very very hot emphasis. “And I think you don’t understand that you keep getting asked what you really want to do because other people can tell that part of you does want the doctor. You want a life that goes in a straight line from here to wherever. And when I’m looking at you, I wish I was built that way, but I’m not. I’m not even sure you are, either, deep down. But you are hanging on to it,” he said. “You are stubborn as hell and you are trying as hard as you can to walk in that straight line. And if you want that that much, I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
“You’re…you’re wrong about me,” I said. “I…you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But hey, maybe if I hadn’t flunked out of premed, I could get your coach’s full support. And yours, too.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get back. I hope all this turns out to be what you want.”