Chapter 39 #2
You are waiting for the Sex and the City tour bus to go by.
You never tell me that you see it. But I see you, Vail.
You grab the arms of the chair and sit up straight.
When you see that bus, you get a shot of adrenaline.
You came here. You made that. So what if your uncle threw his weight around?
You got in, you learned about pinks. You believe in yourself, and you remember that you did something with your life.
Then the bus glides on by, and you go back to sitting like a normal, anxious twenty-five-year-old girl who shacked up with her unbearably sweet teenage boyfriend.
Unbearably sweet.
That’s the way you described me to your mother. I didn’t keep it a secret. I told you that I overheard you on the phone and it was unbearably sweet, the way you turned red and sputtered on about how wonderful it is to be with me, to know I’d never cheat.
You run your hand through my hair. “Who are you?”
“Joe Goldberg. Seventeen and twenty-one. Did you hit your head and forget?”
“Well, how are you this sweet? I’m serious, Joe. I’m curious…. Your mother is, like, so close and she never calls and you never mention your dad and I just…How are you so sweet with me when no one was ever so sweet with you?”
I kiss your hand, the one that was just on my head. “Easy. I have you.”
And then I check my watch. We are late. One of your eighty zillion semi-friends is acting in a play a thousand miles off Broadway.
They’re doing Closer, and it’s your favorite play, so we’re going.
I’m nervous, Vail. I like it in our cocoon.
And things are so good. Do we really want to ruin it with a botanical garden of jerks in an undoubtedly small, smelly black box of a theater?
And yes, we do, which is why I don’t complain. I know you, Vail. I know how it is.
Girls.
I put on my Romeo jeans, the ones I was wearing on our first date, and you whistle at me.
I give you some golf claps. “Closer.”
“Ha.”
“No, I mean you almost did it then. You almost actually whistled.”
You clap your hands and that’s our little project this week. We are learning to whistle.
“All right, Cusack. Are you finally ready to blow this Popsicle stand?”
That was Dick speak—let’s blow this Popsicle stand—but you’ll stop speaking his language in time. You swat me with a new scarf. Black and white stripes. “Don’t say it, lover boy.”
“Then don’t call me lover boy.”
“Okay, lover boy.”
It’s one of those nights where it feels like spring isn’t a myth, so we decide to walk downtown. We pass a hot dog stand, and I tell you about Jeremy, how he likes to stop and smell the hot dogs. You ask about him and Sarah, and I tell you they’re still good.
“I’m so relieved, Joe. Ooh, and I would love to call Sarah and say hi. I won’t, like, tell her that I know about stuff. I just…I do feel like I could be friends with her.”
The loneliness of the girl with a million friends she doesn’t trust or know is real. The way you yearn to find your Others. The tragedy that I can’t help you.
“I’ll get her number from Jeremy, but part of their, you know, healing or whatever…She’s trying life without a cell phone for a while. The guy she cheated with, her boss…She was always sneaking off to call him, and she and Jeremy both…Well, it was her idea.”
You loop your arm through mine and lay your head on my shoulder. “That’s kind of sweet. Maybe I’ll ditch mine too.”
You are neat tonight in your black on black on black.
Professional. Honest. We go to the play, and then afterward we go to Veselka, and sometime after three, we leave a big fat tip that we can’t afford and walk home together.
We aren’t spoons, not tonight. Tonight, we face each other.
And it’s a first for me, Vail, to fall asleep in your arms, with you in my arms, wrapped up in a way that shouldn’t be conducive to actual fucking sleep.
My left arm should be full of pins and needles, and your neck should be on fire.
But bodies rise, don’t they? Like souls.
A few times, I wake up for a second or two. You look different tonight.
I’m pretty sure you’re doing what I promised you would do eventually. I’m pretty sure you’re dreaming. Your restlessness was never about work. All jobs are bullshit, to a degree, and you’re back in REM mode because of what really fucking matters: love, as in me.
And then the nightmare comes all at once.
I wake up alone. Bad. I like it when you’re here and you’re not here.
And then from bad to worse. I hear you crying.
You’re out there. The loft never seemed this big and I can’t get to you fast enough and I’ll kill him, Vail, whoever broke in and did this to you.
I can’t do that naked so I pull on shorts and I tear the white sheet.
You’re alone, seemingly safe. Killing someone does have its consequences.
I worry for you because of all the dicks still out there lurking in the shadows, picking locks on SVU.
It’s a relief to see you bent on the floor, down on your knees.
Physically unharmed. Pages of the Post at your feet.
I sink to your level, and you are scaring me, sobbing.
We’re the happiest people in the world and it’s hard not to feel a little miffed. I didn’t think you’d ever cry again.
“Vail. Are you okay?”
I reach for the cover of the paper.
Dead Man Swimming