Chapter 5 #2
And then you don your cape and I guess that’s it. Off we go, outside, and was it good? Do you like me, Vail? Do you like me?
You rock back and forth. “So here I go again. Speaking of another big day…”
“New Year’s Eve.”
“Joe, honestly, I despise it. And I actually still can’t drink right now, so if it’s okay…can we skip it?”
“Absolutely.”
“I mean, I would say that we could hang out and watch movies or whatever, but I don’t want to do that to you. Every year I get really blue and I just…”
“Vail,” I say. “You don’t owe me an explanation. And I fucking hate New Year’s Eve. It’s amateur night.”
“Totally.”
“Can I kiss you?”
You come a little closer. “Totally.”
The second-date kiss goodbye is better than our first-date kiss hello, and it’s the next milestone in my Moleskine.
#5 MR. TONGUE DIDN’T FUCKING CHOKE
The second date was so good that we meet for coffee on New Year’s Eve, before the shitheads take over the city.
You are late and frazzled, and you do most of the talking.
You are blue, as promised. Preoccupied with the enemies in your life.
Slutty Cynthia. I might have to put a padlock on my door because of the rando creeps in our house.
I have to move out, I do. Bossy Barry is no good either.
If I do become a director, I will never sexually harass the girl who gets my wife’s dry cleaning, and in 2002, so help me, I will quit.
It’s only the third date and already I am the shoulder for you to cry on.
It’s not third-date sex, but it is third-date progress.
“What about you, Cusack? Do you have any resolutions?”
“Not a one,” I say, because I am looking at my resolution, you. “But if this goes on…us…I mean, I’ll kick your ass about yours whenever you need reminding.”
Your Polaroids flash. Your cheeks turn red. “I probably shouldn’t say this.”
“But you will.”
“It’s just…With a lot of guys, you get the feeling they’re just letting you talk so they can talk. But you…you listen. I mean, you really, like…you listen.”
“I try.”
“Are you on AOL IM?”
I don’t know what that is and you don’t make me say it out loud. You write down your screen name on a napkin. “I’m gonna be busy at work, so get on your computer and find me, yeah?”
We kiss on the sidewalk and race back to our respective homes to hide from all the idiots and a new year dawns in every fucking way!
I get a little worried when you don’t take my Happy New Year call at midnight, but the fear is short-lived.
You hit me back in the morning. You had a full house.
Fucking Cynthia, Joe…I really need to move.
Yes, life after Serendipity is good. Rebirth-level good.
I am a new man. “My” computer? Even that’s different!
It’s a magical portal that lets us talk with our hands on AOL Instant Messenger, AOL IM for short.
Best fucking thing in the world. You are VailInTheCity and I am NYCBookstoreBabe, and we can’t keep our virtual hands off each other.
I’m at work, daydreaming about your panties—Are they silk?
Is that only in Skinemax?—and then a little ding, and there you are, reading my mind, pining for me in a little white box.
You: Sup Bookstore babe
Me: Well, hello, Miss Gunderson.
That’s your name. Vail Gunderson. You are twenty-four.
You: 22nd and fuck it…Never mind.
Me: What about it?
You: That’s where I live. I was a little evasive the other day but now…
LOOK AT THAT SMILEY FACE and oh, you like me.
Why else would you pop up and tell me every little thing?
Old stories, like the time you had your appendix out sophomore year of college.
New stories about your roommate who stole sheets from Loehmann’s.
You worry the cops are gonna barge in to arrest her, but you also know you’re silly.
If there was a book about you, I would read it.
And I know you feel the same, because we’re planning our fourth date, and it won’t be in the fucking computer.
Soon, there will be sex. You don’t say it. I don’t say it. But it’s in the ether. In the white box we share when we can’t be in the same room.
You: How’s tricks? Did you watch Sex last night?!
Me: Ha. I am halfway through The Lovely Bones. It’s unreal. How goes it with you?
It’s a lie. I can’t read, can’t focus. But I did read the first three pages, and you don’t read at all, sooo…
You: Cool
Me: Cool
And then you disappear, because that’s how it works.
Your boss, Barry, is demanding, so when he shows up, you shut down.
And it’s good. I need the downtime to be happy and prepare for greatness.
I buy Trojans. I score a shiny fake ID off a kid I knew back in middle school.
Same name because why would I want to be anyone but Joe Fucking Goldberg?
I like having two IDs in my wallet, and I’ve never been this good at being me, galloping like a well-hung stallion to the register, where a patron awaits.
She’s chipper, excited about her Dan Fucking Brown, and I am chipper.
Work is no longer the center of my world; it’s just a place for me to practice being me, being yours.
I smile at the woman. I do not picture her naked. “After you finish, come back, because you’ll want to know more about NASA.”
“Ooh, thank you for the tip, but honestly…I’ll probably just want another page-turner.”
We laugh, and this is what you don’t get about bookstores, what I’m going to tell you when we meet at La Bonbonniere tomorrow.
We have fun in here, we do, and I check AOL IM.
You’re still busy, so I grab the tape, the knife.
I’m trying not to think about you too much, trying not to analyze every tiny thing and replay every second of every date.
But it’s hard not to think about you as I slice open the boxes, as I smell fresh books and wait for tomorrow to arrive… which it does.
Fourth date. Day date. La Bonbonniere. A West Village joint where a tabby cat jumps on your lap, and you order the jelly omelet just because it’s there. My cell phone rings. You.
“Ugh,” you say. “I hate to do this, but I can’t make it.”
“Are you okay?”
“You are so sweet to ask, and yeah, I’m fine, but Cynthia ‘accidentally’ gave some guy her keys, so we had to get the locks changed, which was a whole nightmare, and now Barry is making me go to Syosset to pick up his wife and…Do you hate me?”
I tell you the truth. “I could never hate you. Just let me know if I can help.”
“You really are the sweetest, Cusack.”
I puff up at my table for two. “You too, Sitcom.”
“And Joe, next time we meet up, we are going to fucking Serendipity, okay?”
You follow through. The very next day you hunt me down on IM; Are you free tomorrow, Bookstore Babe?
Fuck yes, I am free and tomorrow. Tomorrow we go to Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate and steaming hot sex.
Tomorrow, we are going to fucking fuck. Forty-one minutes later, my screen lights up.
You really can’t get enough of me, can you?
You: You still there?
Me: Always.
You: It’s cheesy, but I left you a little present at that coffee shop in alphabet city lol
Me: The Beanery, right?
You: Yep, just a little something…that you might want to wear tomorrow night
I pull my Moleskine notepad out of my back pocket. Black leather. Cool. It might be cheesy to write down every little thing but what guy wouldn’t want every little life-altering, dick-hardening moment on the record?
#6 YOU BOUGHT ME A FUCKING PRESENT AND WE HAVEN’T EVEN FUCKED
“Excuse me, son. Do you have a restroom?”
Oh, right. Real life. The here and now. A poor woman with a walker and two French cookbooks.
I relieve her of the heavyweights. I am gallant, helping her to the back of the shop, standing guard as she unloads in a way that makes me wish we had another bathroom.
Normally, this kinda thing would set me off, but I live in a new world now. I live in a world with you.
After my shift I make a beeline for the Avenue B Beanery and the bald guy sees me coming. He remembers me. I am memorable.
He grabs a black bag off the counter. “I think this is for you, guy.”
I take the bag. Never got a present from a girl before. “Thanks, dude.”
He gives me another bag with a free muffin. “No prob,” he says, nodding at my gift bag. “The things we do to get some, right?”
I laugh like it was so fucking hard to make a pit stop for a present. “Thanks again.”
He nods. “Eat up, son.”
Love is like that Janet Jackson video from the ’80s where New York is a fun place and the whole city dances for you, with you, even the bald barista!
I wait till I get home to my cardboard box to open my present.
I still can’t believe it, Vail. You saw something and thought of me.
You put your money where your mouth is, and there is tissue paper.
Black. I never did this before, never pulled out the thin party paper to discover…
A hot pink Ralph Lauren shirt. Giant fucking polo player on the chest. It’s not me, but you’re psychic, so of course my phone is ringing…you.
I answer with a lie: “I love it.”
“Do you? I felt silly and I don’t want to scare you off. It’s not like I spent money on it. Our costume designer had an extra and…”
“Vail, seriously. I love it.”
“Good,” you say. “And more good news. Cynthia is staying at her quote-unquote boyfriend’s tomorrow night, some guy she met at Don Hill’s.”
Oh. Big O. Orgasm! “Oh?”
“So after Serendipity, I mean, I do have the place to myself, as long as you don’t think I’m coming on a little way too slightly strong…”
Impossible. You are my girl. Nervous. Hopeful. Feathers all fluffy and shiny. The next day is the longest day of my life but eventually it’s time for me to go into the restroom and change into my pink fucking shirt for lucky number seven….
#7 SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX
It’s D-Day as in Dick Day. Sex day. I’d be whistling if I could whistle. Serendipity-do-dah-unzippity-my pants…My oh my what a wonderful—
“Joseph!”
“Coming!”
Buzzkill, but I jog to the back of the shop—Mooney needs to hear my feet pound the ground—and I guess it was inevitable.
Predictable as a fucking rom-com. Love always has an enemy, a form of cynical, toxic Cholera.
And in our case, that would be Mr. Mooney, the Fox Books to your Shop Around the Corner.
He sneers at me. “Wipe that grin off your face.”
“Sorry.”
“Has this girl even sucked you off?”
I don’t answer that—you’re a lady—and he stabs at his papers with his long, pale fingers.
You haven’t kissed my Portnoy. You made it clear that you don’t approve of Cynthia and the way she moves fast, a nonstop parade of sketch pads from Passerby and Don Hill’s.
It’s your way of telling me that you’re a good girl.
And good girls only do bad things for nice boys like me who are willing to wait.
“Stand by,” says Mr. Mooney. “And stop fidgeting with your wiener.”
I adjust my Portnoy, but he’s excited about tonight, and who can blame him? Frozen hot chocolate. Sex. “Sorry.”
“All right, Joseph. These invoices need to be filed.”
I reach for the invoices, but he pulls them back. Dick move, but I feel for the guy.
His old lady (his phrase, not mine) hasn’t laid a hand on him “since American Psycho was in galleys.” It’s easy to put up with his shit, to be the bigger fucking person.
“So, what’s up with the invoices?”
“ ‘What’s up’? Are you twelve?”
“Sorry,” I say, relieved that you hate bookstores, that I don’t live in a world where there’s a danger of you popping in and hearing Mooney lash out at me, or even worse, overhearing me refer to you as my girlfriend before we even do it. “What can I do for you?”
“For starters, I asked you a question. Did she suck you off?”
“Tonight, I’m staying at her place.”
He grunts, and the poor guy really should leave his wife. “Moving on,” he says. “How much is Ralph Lauren paying you to advertise his wares?”
“It was free. Vail got it from the wardrobe department at her job.”
“Real men don’t wear hot pink billboards.”
He throws a raggedy old flannel at me, but I can’t do this. It’s your shirt. It’s my sex shirt. “Well, I’m just about to go, so…”
“You’re in my shop, Joseph. And I’m taking that blouse home to burn it in the fireplace.”
No. You gave me this shirt. You want to see it on your bedroom floor, but then something bizarre happens. Butterflies swarm inside of me and number eight is motherfucking great…
#8 YOU LIKE ME FOR ME AND CLOTHES DON’T MATTER
No stupid shirt can come between us. I strip like a convict and don his old, ugly flannel and head to the subway.
To you.