Chapter 4 #2
Kid. Is that good? Bad? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, and you want to sit in row ten, so we sit in row ten, and you want to be smack-dab in the middle, so we are smack-dab in the middle.
You dump your messenger bag in an empty chair.
You’re the captain and I’m the guy with the big, sloppy tongue and it doesn’t feel like a date, the way you talk about the plots, the bullshit actors, the sets. The movie doesn’t matter. We matter.
You open your box of peanut M&M’s. I don’t hold out my hand.
“Oh,” you say. “Are you allergic?”
Are you allergic to my tongue? “Nah,” I say. “I’m just not a peanut guy.”
As in YOU brOKE MY NUT SACK. But then you fiddle with the box like you don’t hate Mr. Tongue, like you wish you brought the good M&M’s. “I didn’t know,” you murmur. “Sorry.”
Fuck it. I offer my hand, the palm. “Maybe I should give them another shot.”
You pour cheapo, chemical-drenched nuts into my left hand—I wish I were on the right, I’m a righty—but you’re smiling again. Girlish. Maybe you would give Mr. Tongue another shot. “So,” you say. “My boss knows the director of this movie.”
There is no part of that sentence that interests me or distracts me from your legs, but I know the drill. Guys with bad tongues have to play the game. “Oh yeah? That’s cool.”
“Well, yeah. I’m in the industry…. In TV.”
Ugh. “Cool.”
“Oh, I’m not like…I’m not in it in it. It’s not my ‘dream’ or anything. My friend had an uncle who knew someone who knew someone, and I’m just assisting this director dude.”
Oh, great. A friend with connections and an older man with a shiny big job and a dozen or so years more practice with his Mr. Fucking Tongue. “That’s cool.”
“Anyway,” you say. “It’s not glamorous or anything. Mostly I run errands for his wife.”
I like you for that, for knowing that I needed a little boost. “Cool.”
“But the thing is…yeah. So, I work for Sex and the City….”
You say this like it’s a coup, like you edit Philip Roth. I don’t watch that show, but I know the gist. Is that what comes next? You sit with the girls and tell them about Mr. Fucking Tongue over pink, stupid drinks? “Cool.”
“And before you ask, I mean, no, I can’t tell you what happens with Carrie and Aidan.”
I say the only word I have left. “Cool.”
You tuck the box of M&M’s into your giant messenger bag. “Okay then. Message received…. I know I sound pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic.”
“Oh, come on. I’m a big girl. I hate the sound of my voice when I get nervous and start bragging about my job and you’re just like, ‘Cool,’ as in not cool.”
I touch your hand and smile. “It’s all right. It’s…”
If there’s any chance for me and Mr. Tongue, you’ll finish the sentence for me and then you do it, Vail. You look me in the eye and say the magic nervous word. “Cool.”
I want to kiss your hand the same way I kissed your mouth, but no. Not yet. I tell you I’m even worse, self-conscious and nervous, obsessing over every word, every move. “Even the book.”
“The book?”
“Why did I say you bought Portnoy’s Complaint? Why didn’t I go with Goodbye, Columbus, or American Pastoral? Why did I pick the perviest one in the bunch?”
It’s time for you to assure me that there is no such thing as bad Philip Roth, but instead you just stare at me. “Huh?”
“The book I told Mooney that you bought…Portnoy’s Complaint.” You furrow your brow, and I say it again. “Portnoy’s Complaint…. The book I said you bought so you could get in the loo.”
You laugh now, as if you already forgot the origin of our love story, as if Mr. Tongue really did kill the potential. “Ah,” you say. “I guess I didn’t know it’s a real book.”
“It’s Philip Roth.”
“Who’s Philip Roth?”
Blasphemy and your Polaroids flash in the bad way.
“Was it made into a movie?”
I choke on the end-of-the-world air in this dank, daytime dark slimy abyss of a fucking theater. “It’s the kind of novel that you just have to read.”
You shiver. You say it’s cold in here and I didn’t wear a coat so I can’t offer you a coat and are you a Philistine?
Is that the best you can do? Whine about the cold as if every fucking theater isn’t an icebox?
Who’s Philip Roth? You fidget with your box of M&M’s.
This is bad. Maybe. I stare at you. “Sorry,” you say. “I’m not like…Books aren’t my thing.”
This is all wrong. You seem like a reader, what with your messenger bag and your Woody Allen role-play and your writing, your beautiful, bold writing. “Oh. Okay. Cool.”
Cool and you shrug again, candy girl, TV girl. “So, Phil Roth…. Did any of his other books get made into movies?”
“Philip,” I say and FUCK YOU, MR. TONGUE.
You didn’t like that—don’t correct girls, ever—and the lights are dimming. The coming fucking attractions. My leg is shaking, and there are guns on the screen, blood. You elbow me and whisper. “How good does this look? That production design is whoa.”
Maybe Mr. Tongue was right, the way he tried to poke your eyeballs out from inside of your mouth. “It looks good. And Philip Roth…he’s…the man is a god.”
“Mmm. Speaking of gods, do you know Mira Nair? Such a visionary. Her films, all film…It’s everything to me. Everything. It sounds cheesy, but I love cinema…movies…I’m a visual person and oh my God, did I just say that out loud? I’m gross, I know.”
You’re not gross but my tongue is too big for my mouth—I freeze up—and you pick up your messenger bag and set it on your lap. A literal fucking cockblock. This is bad. Tense. You pout. “So, I guess you’re a book snob?”
You are sassy and love is war. We are sparring. You judged Mr. Tongue and you don’t know Philip Roth. I can do this, I can talk. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’m just a book person.”
“Ah, well, just so you know…I’ve done that whole pretend-to-be-into-books-to-seem-deep thing or whatever. I mean, I like movies. I only went into that bookstore to pee.”
“Okay.”
“Truth is I actually…I kind of hate bookstores.”
“You what?”
“Oh, come on. You know the way people act in bookstores, around books, all pretentious and performative like they’re superior or whatever.
Monsoon Wedding—the Mira Nair movie—it feels deeper than a lot of books.
I mean, if it’s a choice between a museum and a bookstore and a movie, I am always going to the movies. Always.”
You cross your arms, and it’s confusing. You took a dig at me. But in the dark theater, where it’s almost just us, it’s hard to let go of the thing with feathers. Hope. You are pretty and you smell pretty, and I want you to love books. Me. Bookstores. “It’s okay, Vail. Seriously.”
“The last guy I dated would drag me into bookstores and drone on about…No. I’m sorry.”
I never dated anyone, which is probably why no girl ever told me what to do with Mr. Tongue. I don’t ask for more details about your ex, and I don’t launch into a defense of books.
You squirm. I squirm. We have nothing in common right now except the screen in front of us.
It crackles. Another preview begins and it’s bad, the way your Polaroids go crazy, as if the screen is a fucking Poltergeist and you’re that little blond girl.
Consumed. Enthralled. Possessed. You called them coming attractions, but that’s bullshit.
Those are advertisements. They don’t make previews for books.
My leg is shaking. Worse than Mr. Tongue, and you plunk your giant bag back in the chair.
Was that your way of telling me to stop fucking shaking?
I clamp my hand on my leg. I thought I’d be holding on to you by now, your thigh.
And then you whisper in my ear. “He’s amazing, right?”
I don’t know who he is. “Yep.”
I can’t give up on you. Not yet. You showed up in a skirt.
Maybe you’re not a Philistine. Maybe you just haven’t found the right book, the one that alters your soul and makes you want more.
Who’s Philip Roth? I glance at you, but you’re still in it.
Entranced by propaganda. I may as well be invisible.
The last guy I dated…You’re a woman, and my most recent relationship started at an eighth-grade fucking basement party.
Well, hello, Mr. Tongue. The darkness falls to a deeper level—Serendipity is upon us—and you clap your little hands and curl up into yourself, all your lovely bones.
It’s almost like you came here to see a movie more than you came here to see me.
If I made a run for it, you’d probably stick with Cusack.
The comedown is hard, a boner crusher. I was excited for you, for us.
I thought of you in the shower this morning.
I thought by this point we’d be knee-deep in conversation about Philip Roth, tempted to ditch the stupid movie so we could keep talking.
I was a fool, naked with my Portnoy in my hand.
But we are what we are. You can’t read, and I can’t kiss.
This is not the ride of life, the beginning of my first love.
It’s just the predictable prefab setup of a schlocky fucking rom-com.
Boy meets girl. Boy plays it cool because boy knows better than to kiss her on the street. Fuck that boy.
Fuck you, Cusack. Fuck. You.