You (You #1)(32)

You fake a cough and you look from me to her and back again and your voice is high. “You guys are also both New Yorkers.”

Peach speaks slowly, like I’m ESL. “Which borough are you from?”

Cunt. “Bed-Stuy.”

“I read that people are starting to move there,” she says. “I hope the gentrification doesn’t destroy all the local color.”

The only reason I do not bash her head in is that you seem so nervous about us meeting that you don’t notice her dissing me. I didn’t ask her what she does for a living but for some reason she is talking about her job. “I’m an architect,” she says. “I design buildings.”

I know what a fucking architect is and nobody is ever an architect in real life, only in movies. And did you tell her I am dumb? I try to stay afloat. “That’s cool.”

“No, what’s cool is the fact that you didn’t go to college,” she gushes. “I’m such a follower. My parents went to Brown, so I went to Brown.”

I smile. “My parents didn’t go to Brown, so I didn’t go to Brown.”

She looks at you. “He’s funny, Beck. No wonder you’re so into him.”

You smile. You blush. I’m okay. “He’s pretty good, yep.”

She raves about how amazing it is that I eschewed formal education entirely.

It is not a compliment but I thank her anyway. She tightens the scarf around her neck and chastises you for lighting a cigarette as some asshole packs a bong a foot away.

She is done with me, for now, and she asks if you’ve heard from Lynn and Chana. You apologize. You’re nervous about what she thinks of you and I wish I could pull you out of here and take you to my borough. She’s a hypocrite, a fucking nightmare of a person, worse than I imagined. You are soft and she is hard in skintight red skinny jeans you would never wear. She’s anorexic and slightly tattooed with thick frayed hair and a big red blow-job mouth and a Joker’s smile and long, spindly, hairy arms that end in sharp, unpainted nails bitten to the quick. You ooze joy and she is an open wound, shrill and wan, unfucked and unloved. She clearly wants you to herself and I don’t want to make life difficult for you so I interject, “Sorry, girls. Is there a bathroom nearby?”

You point me toward the bathroom and I flee. No wonder Lynn and Chana didn’t come. If she were a dog, shooting her would be the humane thing to do. But I can’t very well shoot her. What I can do is walk around to find the library I saw in the blog. I gasp when I turn on the lights in the library. It’s that fucking great. The Salinger family doesn’t fuck around and I reach for a first edition of Saul Bellow’s second novel, The Victim. The poor Bellow’s dust jacket is torn. Peach’s parents know how to buy books and make babies but they clearly aren’t very good at caring for their purchases and their products. Brown people are singing “Hey Jude” again (how original!) and I miss you. I return the broken Bellow to its home and you and Peach walk into the library. I freeze. I hope I’m not in trouble.

“We figured we’d find you here.” Peach laughs, as if you two are the we and I am just me. “I would let you borrow a book but my parents are so possessive of their babies.”

“I’m all right,” I say and I never asked to borrow a fucking book. “But thanks.”

You link your arm through mine and it feels good and you sigh. “Isn’t this amazing, Joe?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You could spend a year in here.”

Peach again: “Sometimes I feel like college ruined reading for me, you know?”

“I do know,” you say and your arm is not linked through mine anymore. “Joe, I bet you’ve read more books in this room than me.”

Peach approves. “A good salesman has to know his product, right?”

I hate Peach more than Sare. She called me a salesman and in the living room, the Brown people applaud themselves for knowing the words to “Hey Jude,” as if it’s not one of the most famous songs in the world. Peach sneezes and pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket. She’s probably allergic to me and you leave me and run to her, lovingly. “Do you have a cold?”

“I bet you’re reacting to the dust in here,” I say. “You’re probably not used to it.”

“Good point,” you say and Peach is silenced, temporarily, as you lead us back to the party. I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life and we pass the Brown people as they maul “Sweet Virginia.” You get a text from Chana. She’s not coming. Peach huffs. “You know, if I were Chana, I might be embarrassed to show my face here too. Is there any guy in this house that she didn’t sleep with at school? Pardon my crassness, Joseph.”

I hate that I am so grateful to be acknowledged and you smile at me (hooray!) and Peach pulls us both into the dining room to greet some guests. It’s more high ceilings and high Brown people holding court and kicking back at the longest table I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re blowing lines off mismatched candy-colored plates. And the booze. There’s tons of it. “What’s your poison, Joe?” Peach wants to know. “Beer?”

“Vodka,” I answer and I smile but she doesn’t.

“Rocks?”

“If they’re little ones,” I say.