Chapter 22
It’s been three weeks, and you basically live with me.
It started one night when you called me, exasperated, something about crabs and Cynthia.
I told you to come over. I think you were lying—Carrie and The Others had a crab attack in the Hamptons—but who cares!
You showed up with a backpack and a toothbrush that you stashed in the cup next to my toothbrush.
I’m not Mr. Big. I didn’t pack up your stuff.
I love your stuff in my place! I love using your toothbrush too.
It’s soft. Last night you got a little testy when you found it all wet, but I saw you smile.
You looked like Carrie when Big lends her one of his toothbrushes.
And real life is supposed to be messier than TV.
More saliva, less money. Everything clicks.
You slept over and we’re about to part ways and I tell you it’s bullshit, the way we have to care about anything besides us.
And then you wince. Too much? Too pathetic?
“No, Joe. You’re adorable…” I’m adorable. “It’s just…it’s a little early but there’s no way to not tell you…. It’s my birthday on Friday.”
I know about your birthday. The other night, Cynthia spilled the beans while you were in the bathroom. I think I know what I’m gonna get you. “Cool.”
“If you’re busy, it’s okay…. I feel like I’m sucking up all of your time as it is.”
I wink at you and smile. “And then some.”
You lick your lips. “So I’m having a tiny get-together at Botanica at eight in that back room.
It’s nothing major, just a quarter-life crisis hen party I planned before we…
I’m such a Pisces and I hate my birthday.
There is truly nothing worse than being the center of attention.
And I’m not putting any pressure on you. ”
I knew you were part astrology slut and it’s almost refreshing. Like all girls might be the same seeker underneath. I laugh. “I get you.”
“Joe, seriously. You don’t have to go. And I don’t expect you to get me a present and I’m not trying to like…you know…I know you’re not my boyfriend.”
It’s the best worst thing you ever said to me, and I can already see you bouncing off the walls in a sexy little slip dress, clocking me as I walk into the bar with a dozen roses, a mixtape called Pop Rocks and a raspberry beret.
I will charm your friends, but I won’t be too charming—your Vagina envy is real—and I can’t wait for a new kind of sex… birthday sex.
“We’ll see how it goes,” I say. “I’ll try to stop by.”
I played it cool because you play it cool but of course I’m your fucking boyfriend.
Fact: The other day, you begged me to play hooky.
I caved, as good boyfriends do, and we watched a few episodes of your show.
You love it when I yell at the TV like it’s sports.
I was Mr. Fun Boyfriend. I put on my show for you, playing the dumb guy who thinks Big is the problem.
Man up, Big! Stop dicking her around! You peed your panties, you were laughing that hard.
Would I do that for you if I wasn’t your boyfriend?
Would you hang your panties in my shower and wear my sweats if you weren’t my girlfriend?
It’s in the writing on the walls, literally. You bought me a calendar. You said adults have a calendar. You’re right. Even Angus had a calendar. You also bought me a snow globe like the one in Sex and I told you that it’s me and you in there.
“The Twin Towers? Joe, um…it didn’t work out so well for them, ya know?”
I lifted the globe and shook it. “It did in here, though.”
You kissed my hand and called me sweetness and you knew what I meant. Love is a hermetic seal. And come on. Would you be helping me turn my house into a home if you weren’t my fucking girlfriend? I don’t think so, baby!
I test the water. I call in (love)sick and dare you to do the same. You do it, and we go to the movies to see Crossroads. Side note: I’ve never seen so many movies in my fucking life. Ordinary People and Good Will Hunting and yeah. That’s some boyfriend shit right there!
And I know what the people around us see as we sink into our seats, Vail.
They see a hot, happy couple. Of course I am going to your fucking birthday party, the one you mention six hundred thousand times during the previews.
You call it a “glorified girls’ night” that’s “no big deal.” You swear that you have no expectations of me, but I want expectations.
I want the fucking pressure. The lights dim.
We are holding hands in the dark, sharing plain M CD is a bad acronym—when you are wearing nothing but the beret, thanking me for the best birthday of your twenty-five-year-long little life.
And I get where you have to be so cautious with our titles.
You work for a machine that teaches women to think men are incapable of being a fucking boyfriend.
But you feel me, Vail, don’t you? You feel me doing things for you, preparing for you.
That’s why you called twice today. Once to bitch about Barry—I am not a location scout, location scouts get paid!
—and once to say you miss me—What are you wearing right now?
I like you like this. Wanting me to walk through the day with you.
Torturing me by spending the night at your place instead of mine.
Girls need alone time or we stop looking like girls, my dear.
Ah, you’re adorable. And in the morning, my bed is too big and I miss you but that’s okay.
It’s okay because it’s fun to exit my loft in SoHo and feel tourists eye me like I must be special.
Amazing, the way strangers who don’t matter have the power to make you realize you do fucking matter.
I spend an hour picking out a hot pink gift bag in a dainty little stationery store, and Mooney has a point, he does.
Fucking SoHo, fucking tragedy, what it used to be, but at the moment, fucking useful.
The girl at the register hands me the receipt. “Wow,” she says. “You’re the world’s best boyfriend. I never saw a guy spend that much time and look at that much stuff.”
I laugh at her because of you. I know you’re not my boyfriend.
Ha. And then I thank the girl and run before she can put the moves on me.
I’m feeling myself, and Mooney’s Benjamins are burning a hole in my pocket, so I glide into Marc Jacobs and buy a soft black sweater.
A birthday suit for me to match your raspberry beret, the birthday suit I got for you.
My Motorola rings, and I forgot about the world. About people who aren’t you.
“ ’Sup, Dick?”
“So he is alive.”
I let Dick ride my ass about being pussy-whipped and before you know it he’s talking to me about all the boring shit in his lonely life. The indie movie he’s maybe shooting and a disease Schlitz caught off some girl. The poor guy is jealous and how could he not be?
“Fuck,” I say. “STDs…bad dates…I’m glad I’m done with that sleeping-around shit.”
He laughs. “Right, Goldballs. Sure thing.”
I slip on a scab of ice, and Dick cackles. First time in weeks that I’m not a cool cat.
I cling to my precious cargo. He’s like Mooney, just jealous. “I slipped is all, I’m fine.”
“So there’s a rave where every prep school chick in the city is looking to get down.”
Gross under any circumstances, but I humor the poor guy. “Ah, were that I was single.”
“Don’t be a doormat, Goldbitch. You’re not married…. I hope.”
“No, but I am out shopping for birthday presents and she did invite me to her party so, ya know…. It’s like that.”
“Huh.”
I stop in my tracks. I don’t like that sound, that silence that follows. Does he know something, Vail? Did he see something? Did I miss something? Did you do something?
“Kid,” he says. “I think you’d better get down here. I think we gotta talk.”