You (You #1)(24)

You like to be on display. And whenever there’s an unexpected silence, we joke about my sneakers.

“Now those are seriously white, like Ben Stiller white.” You laugh.

“Yeah, I’m gonna tell my shoe-shine man you said so.”

“Well, I should hope so. He did a bang-up job, Joe.”

You said bang and you said Joe and that has to mean something, it does.

“I tipped him,” I say and you start telling a story about accidentally stealing shoes from an outlet and we’ve been on the steps for almost twenty minutes and you’re so nervous and excited that you keep talking about shoes as if you have to keep talking about shoes or you might jump me right here, on the steps. I chose this spot because my whole fucking life I’ve walked by these steps and seen couples that make me feel alone, rejected. And now there are loners passing by you and me, jealous, and you’re still talking and fuck, it’s hard to listen when I can smell your body wash.

“So I’m like, I didn’t steal these. I accidentally kept them on. I mean who steals from a shoe store on an island, right?”

“A very brave and lovely lady who goes by the name Beck, apparently.”

I said lovely and you smile and it was just right. You think I get you and all my reading was not for nothing.

“You must think I’m a psycho,” you say. “Why did I even tell that story?”

“Because it’s a first date. Everybody has an anecdote they tell on a first date. It’s always funny and it’s always based in truth, but it’s always a half-truth.”

“So I’m a lying bitch,” you say, and then you smile and you cross your legs and even though you’re in jeans two motherfuckers check you out as if they can see through denim. New York.

“No,” I say. “You’re a thieving, lying bitch.”

You laugh and you blush and I laugh and you stretch and you’re in your red bra and your white tank and your Thursday-night jeans and your pink cotton panties teasing me as you reach for the sky and uncross your legs and lay back and rest your little head on the cement and I want to mount you right here on these steps, at this inappropriate hour, in front of the motherfuckers checking you out and the Rasta hawking hemp bracelets and the angry bitches going home to read Doctor Sleep on their iPads. I want you here, now, and I can’t get up when I’m this hard.

“You seem young,” you say and just like that I’m soft.

“Huh?”

“No, no, no. Don’t get upset, Joe. That came out wrong.”

“Good, because I just turned seventeen and I’d hate to think I look sixteen because then you’d look like a pedophile and that’s no good.”

You slap my leg and you like me more all the time and you hunch, you bite your lip the way you did at your reading, when you’re about to make a little revelation. “I just mean that a lot of my friends are in a rush to be settled,” you say. “They seem old to me sometimes, like they lost that thing, that openness that makes a person seem young.”

“How much weed did you smoke before you got here?”

I get what I wanted, another light slap and I love to make you laugh and I love you for giving me what I want without losing your focus. Like a laser beam, you go on. “See, I started to feel old my junior year of college. I was gonna go to Prague and I backed out at the last minute and a lot of my friends, they made me feel old, like I’d missed out on something I could never get back, as if Prague was going out of business. As if that was it, forever, as if you have to be in college to go abroad.”

“We could go now,” I say and my joke isn’t funny and please stop talking about college because it makes me lose my game.

“Anyway, my point was that you have a young vibe. It’s good. Like anything is possible and we could still theoretically run for president or learn sign language or visit every castle in Bruges.”

All I heard was we and I smile. “You want me to gas up my NetJet?”

“I’m serious,” you say and you move your body closer to mine. “What about you? What did you want to be when you were little?”

“A rock star,” I say and I follow your lead and lean back, closer to you and now we’re both looking up at the sky. I bet we look great from above, lit by stars, in love.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a singer.” You sigh.

“Is that why you like Pitch Perfect so much?”

You turn your head and sit up. I fucked up.

“How do you know I like that movie?”

“I was just guessing.” Fuck. “I know it’s really popular.”

“Huh,” you say and fuck. “Do you like that movie, Joe?”

“I don’t know,” I say and I’m beet red and fucked. “I haven’t seen it. But if you like it, I mean, it’s probably good.”

“Note to self,” you say and you’re not looking at me. “Become less predictable.”

You don’t say anything and I don’t know what to say and fuck that Anna Kendrick, it’s on her. I can’t tell if you feel bad about yourself or creeped out by me. How could I be so careless? I worked so hard to prepare and I blow it on a movie when you finally look at me there’s new sadness in your eyes and it’s my fault. I did that. And there’s only one way to fix it.