Chapter 36
But then we hit traffic on the bridge and the high fades as the truth surges like fucking cab fare.
I wish the cabbie would shut up about his medallion and his wife.
I’m not safe. And neither are you. You called me, sure, but it’s not that simple.
You only called me when you couldn’t have him, and here I am, going to see you as if I don’t know that. I know what I am, what I have.
I have stage IV cancer of the heart.
We make it into the city and I look out the window at all the pretty girls, girls who might be less deceitful than you.
But they don’t interest me. I can’t see myself hand in hand with them.
I love you. Can’t stop, won’t stop. Same way I was with that book, the one you coauthored in real time on Instant Fucking Messenger, and that’s another thing I forgot to be mad about.
You told me you couldn’t do that anymore. You just preferred to do that with him.
Am I Carrie with the whip? Am I a masochist or something?
Possibly, because here I am now, jumping out of a taxi and hugging you in your bad blue cape (the first red flag). You smell like you, and my whole body tingles. It’s like I never read that awful fucking AOL IM book and love is crazy.
Stage IV cancer is crazy. A beast without boundaries that doesn’t quit.
You request the table, the one from Serendipity, and we are in luck. It’s available.
We climb the stairs in the wake of a hostess who thinks we are adorable young romantics, and you raise your eyebrows at me and the cancer spreads like wildflowers.
I want you no matter what and I am Angus with his little crystals of meth and crack.
This is all I ever wanted. It’s the opposite of a fear of intimacy.
You’re safe with me, and Dick can fuck off.
You’re not a monkey and you’re not a hamster.
You’re a woman. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to cut him off.
It’s okay, Vail. You made it to Serendipity.
And because you are safe, I can breathe.
Relax. Dick won’t escape. He only pushes himself when someone’s around to see it.
At heart, he’s a lazy fucker. He’s sure as hell not busting those cuffs while we eat our frozen hot chocolate and even if he does manage to get free… Who cares?!
I am the man, the motherfucking gunslinger.
I have Dick’s phone in one pocket and I have my phone in the other and I have you in my crosshairs.
You really don’t know what I did for you today, and it’s pretty fucking cute, the way you are still going on about your stupid freezer, my poor battered hands.
Oh, Vail, if you ever knew about the other fucking freezer…
You raise your spoon, so I raise mine. “To the man who did the undoable…” I tied up Dick so he can’t fuck with you. “To the man who brought my freezer back to life.”
We click our spoons, and I can’t stop loving you.
I don’t want to stop. Not here, not like this.
Same way I didn’t stop loving you when I saw the yellow hat.
Or the night you left me alone with Angus.
Everything between us was fine then, it’s fine now.
Better, even. Which is impressive, when you think about what I’ve been through today…
the IMs, the betrayal, the rewrite of our Missed Fucking Connection.
Yes, I ought to have my head examined, but there is no fucking point. Love is a disease. A cancer.
The waitress delivers our bowl of frozen hot chocolate, and you clap and shine and, God, there is a world in you.
A disposable camera in your pocket because we just have to remember every second of this.
I smile for the cardboard plastic camera and I should’ve stopped loving you in the bathroom at Passerby.
So rare to see one in the States. But I didn’t stop loving you then, and it is real to me now.
One True Thing by Anna Fucking Quindlen.
I will never stop loving you, Vail. Ever.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “But I’m like…This is good. I say we make it our thing. We go to every place from every rom-com.”
We’re on fire, back-and-forthing about New York City movies. I tell you that Taxi Driver is a rom-com just to fuck with you, and you say in that case, so is American Fucking Psycho. I ask if you read the book, and you flick a lovin’ spoonful at me. Adorable. Creamy and wet. You.
“So,” you say. “How is it going with Jeremy?”
I sip my water. Think, Joe, think. You used me to get to Dick. I built Jeremy from scratch to get to you. Your cancer is a thing we can beat, this thing you have for Dick. And I think my buddy Jeremy can help us out.
“Ugh,” I say. “The poor guy…I dunno.”
“Well, did you tell him what I told you about Sarah?”
“Yeah, but, Vail…it goes a little deeper than that.”
“How do you mean?”
Gently, Joseph. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“My favorite kind, honestly. Lately I think I do prefer TV over movies because TV just goes on and on, you know?”
One day, you will become a reader, but that day is not this day. “Okay. A few weeks ago, Sarah’s boss threw a binder at her head. She had to get stitches.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Exactly. Jeremy wanted her to quit.”
“Understandable. That’s physical abuse. She could sue him. Did she go to the cops?”
Did Dick get free? Did he go to the cops? No. “You didn’t hear the whole story.”
“Joe, the man threw a binder at a woman’s head. He deserves to be castrated.”
“The thing is, Sarah told Jeremy that her boss apologized. He was going through some stuff, having a hard week, and she’s worked for him for two years and she swears by him. She says he really is a good guy.”
“That’s just the cycle of abuse. And the only way to end that cycle is for her to leave.”
YES. “Agree.”
“So why won’t she go to HR or quit or kick him in the balls or whatever?”
“Well…there’s a little more to it, Vail. Last night, she confessed. Turns out, Sarah was cheating on Jeremy with…her asshole boss. Poor guy was blindsided. He had no clue. And now he really wants her to quit.”
You sigh. “I wish I could call her, but she told me she was leaving her family plan and said she’ll have a new phone soon and will give Jeremy the number to give to you, to give to me, blah blah blah.”
Betty Named Sarah and Carl Named Jeremy deserve Oscars, they really do. I nod. The waitress delivers a second helping of frozen hot chocolate. You lay a fresh napkin on your lap and it’s exciting. You dip your spoon in and come all over it. “Oh God, fucking glorious. Why did we wait so long?”
Because of Dick, and I do the same. I come too. “Jesus Fucking Christ, this one is even better.”
“Right?! God, I wish we could live in here, you know?”
For a minute, we’re little pigs in love, pretending this is our new home as we push the whipped cream and chocolate shavings to make sure we’re both satiated, to keep things fair. And then you put your spoon down.
“Okay,” you say. “Sarah…I can’t believe this.”
“I know. I can’t believe she cheated.”
“No,” you say. “People cheat. It happens. The real shitty thing she did is she went and told Jeremy what she did. That is so selfish.”
I can’t eat. Can’t see. You’re fighting it, us. Pushing off the medicine we need to get better, to be at our best. This is not who you are, and you are wrong. “You think cheating is okay if the other person never finds out?”
“Well, you know how it is…Sarah cheated. That’s on her. That’s her baggage to drag around. When you tell someone what you did, it’s not honesty, Joe. It’s cruelty. What is Jeremy supposed to do with that? I’m not confused here, right? Like, Sarah didn’t break up with him.”
“No.”
“Sarah wants a future with Jeremy, and they’ve been together a long time. They’re committed and solid. They moved away together. I mean, they’re not…”
Us, and it hurts. But life is not a competition; we’ll get there in time. “Yeah,” I say. “They’ve lived together for a year or so, at least.”
“If she really wanted him to love her and be happy and trust her, she had the perfect way out. The blood on her forehead, the stitches. She could’ve quit the job, told the boss to piss off, and taken it to the grave.
But no. She did the selfish thing. She dumped it on Jeremy, so he has to drag around her baggage.
Dating is nice. So is living together, but it’s not married.
You can’t break a vow that doesn’t exist. I mean, that’s how I see it anyway… ”
I never loved you more than I do as I watch you try to apologize for what you did to me. The person you need to forgive is yourself and you’ll do that, in time. “Makes sense to me.”
“It’s funny,” you say. “They almost remind me of my parents.”
“I thought they were still married.”
“They are, but that’s what I mean. When I was like twelve, my dad came home from a business trip and told my mom about some stupid affair he had…
. It ruined their marriage. My mom was never the same.
Either trying too hard to be sexy, or paranoid and sniffing his shirts, digging through his pockets, blowing his head off about nothing.
And my dad…he’s not that guy, you know? He hated himself for the fling.
He was going through some midlife crisis stuff, and yeah…
he messed up. But he loved my mom. And if he never told her about his stupid crisis, if he had been strong enough to carry that on his own…
I wish he’d never told her. They’re not married because of ‘love.’ It’s partly financial, but it’s mostly this thing where she spends the rest of her life punishing him and testing him, and he stays because he thinks he deserves to be punished, tested.
I think that’s why we went on so many vacations. ”
You laugh and tell me it will be so much fun when I meet your parents. I stare at you. Your Beverly Hills soap opera of a family is almost worse than mine. “Wait…I’m confused. You really don’t wish it were simpler? I mean, you don’t just wish he never cheated?”