Chapter 21
I didn’t think it would happen this fast, but that’s life.
That’s magic. We’re a thing. An item. Carrie and Big in the sweet spot, after the second breakup when he cooks veal for her.
Steve and Miranda and the night of the full moon.
Joe and Vail holding hands as they walk down Broadway after yet another delicious date night.
We climb the six floors to our abode—I mean, I’ve slept here four nights this week; it is ours—and love happens fast. Habits too.
When we climb your stairs, I cup my hands on your bouncy J.Lo peaches.
It’s our thing, and you get a kick out of it, to say the least. Last night, you said you wish it was a twelve-floor walk-up, and I kept my mouth shut, but there it fucking is.
Love is wanting a steep, tedious climb to last a little longer.
We’re like a little fucked-up family. I love it when Cynthia comes in smelling like a Long Island iced tea and groans.
Just what I need…the happiest couple on planet effing Earth.
You love it too, the way you kiss the back of my neck and remind me to lock the bathroom door because of her.
Last night, she was drunk, whining. I love you guys, but do you always have to be so effing happy?
Why don’t you have a big brother for me?
You whispered in my ear: There could never be another you.
They broke the mold with you, babe. And you’re breaking it again, making me into the man I am meant to fucking be.
You possess me. You hate the idea of any other woman seeing me.
You Carrie me to Big new places with your smile, with your Gollumy little scowl when my phone rings, when I slip out of the room to take a call.
It’s equal parts you want me and you want everyone else to stay the fuck away.
I come back and you run your fingers through my hair. So much is so good. You know what to do with your eyes now. You are free to stare at me, to take me in.
“So who was that?” you ask.
I hold your eyes. You are mine. “That was Virginia.”
You make like a cat and hiss, and it’s fun having a girlfriend!
That’s what you are. I mean, I assume that’s what you are.
Do I have to ask you to go steady? Do people do that?
No. I don’t need to do that. I kiss the side of your thumb, one of your many oddly erogenous zones.
“Relax, Vail. She was just calling in sick.”
“What did we say about that word, Joe….”
I like the way you help me about stuff like that.
Girls don’t like to be told to relax, but I only do it to get a rise out of you…
which gets a rise out of me. And it’s not just the sex.
It’s this too. You fit in my arms. We go together, like lovers in a movie poster, all wrapped up for consumption.
I’ve never had that with anyone, and you haven’t either.
I wasn’t “eavesdropping.” It’s a small apartment and Cynthia is loud.
You snap a picture of me with one of your disposable cameras—you’re obsessed—and I tell you I’m gonna take that fucking camera and it’s on.
I chase you around your tiny little apartment and you squeal and gurgle and Cynthia says she’s going to jump out the window if we don’t stop being so cute (ha!) and you lead me back to your just Big enough bed.
I pin you down. You are breathless. We don’t need that stupid camera, not now.
After the second fuck of the morning, we hop in the shower—we shower together—and you get down on your knees—you really can’t get enough of me. Then I cook a mini-breakfast for you and Cynthia—I am better than Big; I am me—and your bare feet feel good on my lap, like a pet I never had.
Cynthia pushes her eggs into the ketchup. “So do you have any friends, Joe?”
I don’t like that and I don’t like her. “My best friend Jeremy just moved to San Francisco.”
You choke a little and pet my arm and now I am the pet. “Babe, she just means anyone you could fix her up with.”
I’m not gonna go exposing Cynthia to Dick and Schlitz. Our life is good the way it is, with boundaries like those TV dinner plates where the mashed potatoes don’t touch the meat.
“All right,” you say. You wiggle your toes. I squeeze all eleven of them. God, it’s so easy with you. “Shall we?”
“We shall!”
Off we go, leaving Cynthia and your cabinets full of SnackWell’s. We get dressed for the day—I’m done with white button-downs, you like me in sweaters—and I help you into your cape and you smile at me for no reason.
“You know she didn’t mean anything by that, right? I mean, she’s just lonely.”
Amazing that you think I care about your roommate, who, as you say, is not even your true friend. And I smile. Because that’s all I do now…smile. “Oh, man,” you say. “This nonstop happy thing, right? I’m so fucking cheesy that I might…”
“Might what?”
You smack my ass and wink. “Maybe later.”
You lead the way down the stairs as I lay my hands on your shoulders and you call it the magic touch.
I know it’s true because you know everything about everything.
You knew to trust Craig and his list—we are sending that man a fruit basket—and he hasn’t come through for us just yet, but we will find a new home for me…
a home that we both know just might be for us.
On the street, we linger, and we kiss like those couples I used to want to kill.
“I’ll miss you,” you say.
“Me too.”
We are gooey as fucking teenagers, me, the kid I never got to be when I was young, and you, the girl you didn’t think you could be until me. “I can’t do it, Joe.”
Same thing every day. You won’t leave me, and I can’t bear to leave you. “I know.”
You shiver and glisten and there’s no such thing as moving too fast, not when it’s like this, when it’s right. You breathe in my scent. “Okay,” you say. “You first.”
As the man, it’s on me to walk away, to let you stand there and watch me and worry about all the Vaginas in the city that might pull me away.
But that’s where I come in. I look back to show you that I care.
You bite your little lips that feel so good on my Portnoy, and that’s all you need. A look. A wave. A promise.
Work is a drag and a blast all at once. I have a girlfriend and I am a boyfriend, and the bookstore is a beautiful place, a happy place where I say things like My girlfriend loves that book and My girlfriend and I ate there last night and I’m so good with people, telling this customer dude that you too have a tattoo…
for my eyes only. He laughs like we’re bros—we are Red Bull and Jim Henson—and the greatest part about saying these things now is that they’re true.
I think. I mean, of course you’re my girlfriend. Right?
“Joseph!”
Ugh. Mooney. I know what you’d say, Vail.
It’s time to leave that jerk and find a new job.
A boss who respects you! Mooney’s been good to me, but I don’t need anyone barking at me, treating me like a little bitch.
Yesterday, he asked about the last great book I read.
I told him about ’Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy.
He sneered at my “descent into drivel,” and yeah, it is kind of true.
I really don’t read anymore. But I think you’re right.
Life is seasonal, like a tourist trap island or those old couples in diners with nothing to say to each other.
How could I read a book when all I wanna read is you?
Mooney eyes the door. Shut it. I shut it.
“Sit.”
I sit. Something’s off. His glasses are on the desk. His shirt’s a little damp.
“You okay, Mr. Mooney?”
“Have you found a new home?”
“I’m seeing something later. Vail’s got a lead.”
“That’s one,” he says, and I don’t get it. One what? “Where is this abode, Joseph?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Vail has the address. She found it on Craigslist.”
He grins and holds up two fingers, and I get it now. He doesn’t like it when I say your fucking name. “Joseph,” he says. “I am happy that you appear to be content.”
Only Mooney would put it that way, and I laugh. Content. “I know you’re not a fan, Mr. Mooney, but she really is a great girl.”
“Irrelevant,” he says. “That you’d choose that caped little Philistine over a tits-out broad like Virginia…Bygones. In any case, you’ve been doing well these past few days.”
“I’ve been feeling it. I mean, I just sold that Bukowski that’s been in the window for years.”
He nods like he already knew this and he slaps a check on the desk. A check made out to me. My first bonus. I don’t know when it happened, but in the jizz-soaked haze of the last few days, I learned to fucking whistle. Kind of. Almost.
“Whoa,” I say. “This is five hundred bucks.”
“You’ve earned it. And you’ll need a deposit for your new quarters.
As in, don’t spend it on anyone with an extra hole.
” He shudders, because he just has to be a dick.
“Be careful with that one, Joseph. Beware the women who go by the name of a place. Dangerous as the men with two first names or, the worst of all men, the ones with three first names.”
Whatever and I’m outta there.
—
Later in the day, you ask me to meet up on one of those SoHo blocks that makes you know the city is slowly turning into a mall. I show up to find you standing there like a goddess. Scratch that. You are God. No ess.
You beam at me. The sinking living room rises every time I see you and God, if you ever leave me…Stop it, Joe. Stop it.
I kiss you. You kiss me. You squeeze. “You ready to be blown away?”
I like the way you said that, and you wave a set of keys. “Barry for the win!”
You are proud. Puffed.
You found me a home, a SoHo fucking home.
I normally don’t even look at apartments around here because they’re all so fucking expensive.
Alas, you told The Others at work about me and Barry knew someone who knew someone and that has to mean that I’m your boyfriend.
I kiss you. On the way up the stairs you are bubbling.
You told everyone I need to move, and Barry thought I’d like this place because of the bookshelves—you’re my girlfriend, you are—and of course there are disclaimers.
It’s only temporary and you’re worried that I won’t like the wide open space, the art gallery meets warehouse feel of it.
“Vail,” I say. “I can tell you right now, it’s perfect.”
You hand me the keys. “You first. I mean, it is your home.”
You have to say stuff like that—it’s too soon for you to ask to move in—and I know it before I know it. I know it the way you know about a melon. This is home, Vail. I carry you across the threshold and deliver you to the giant couch where I kiss your face all over and tell you I love the couch.
You run your hands along my head how I like. “Technically, it’s a sectional. But the best thing is behind this white curtain.”
You leap up to pull a white curtain and yes. Yes! It’s a big fat California king. Just like Mr. Big’s.
We christen the bed and the sectional—you are always teaching me, always—and we order Chinese and loaf around until we have the energy to go again. We christen the shower and we christen the kitchen and it’s too good to be true and you pull your hair into a ponytail.
“Okay, it kind of is too good to be true.”
The first scratch on the CD in a long fucking time, but I don’t panic. I pull my sweater on. I make like Mr. Big. “Speak.”
“Well, like I said, it’s not, you know, forever. Just a sublet for six months and then…”
You look to the left and blush a little, and I know, Vail. I know you want to move in together and I know anyone would tell us it’s too soon to think about that.
“Vail,” I say. “You never know. Things change. Maybe it will be forever.”
Oh, you liked that and I have you right where I want you.
Wrapped around my little finger, a finger I never knew I had until I found you.
I aced it, the Seduction and the Destruction…
It’s second nature to me now. I don’t smother you.
I don’t ask when I can see you again and I don’t take the bait when we walk downstairs and you ask if I’d rather live farther east, closer to Virginia.
Girls are funny and I have to laugh at you. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, I don’t know. We haven’t talked about stuff and…”
“Vail, I’m not interested in Virginia, or any other girl.”
You look down at the ground like I’m too good to be true. I can barely hear you above the street noise, but I can hear enough. “Oh, Cusack,” you murmur. “You really are the sweetest.”
Yes, I fucking am. You have to go to a night shoot and I lie that I have to get back to the shop.
As always, it’s not easy saying goodbye.
There are models and modelizers all around us, and it’s fucking scary to fall in love in a place like New York.
But we are there, in love. I mean, hello…
What “stuff” is there to talk about? You found me a home!
“Okay,” you say. “Time to get back to the real world. Call you later?”
“I’m sure that I’ll call first, Vail. I mean, you got me a fucking house.”
You laugh a little and you blush a little and I get it. This was a first for you. You put yourself out there in a Big way and that’s a big deal for a girl. We part ways and I do the thing we always do where I turn around to find you already waiting for me to see you.
This time is different. You’re not there.
The old me might’ve freaked out. Not the new me. They talk about this in books, in songs. Things that get too good too fast tend to crash and burn. Girls get scared when they give a guy a lot. You made a grand gesture and it’s my turn. The best grand gestures are sometimes small.
Fuck it. I call you. You pick up right away. “That was fast. Is everything okay?”
“It’s the nicest thing anyone ever did for me, Vail. I wanted you to know.”
The quick call was a good call, and of fucking course it was. I’m a cool cat…tapping on the toe with a new hat. RIP Amelia Bedelia. Mr. Big does everything right.