You (You #1)(33)

She looks at me and then at you and then at me and she guffaws. “Excuse me?”

“Crushed ice does better with vodka than cubes.”

I learned that from Benji and Peach crosses her arms and you’re fumbling in your purse for something to say, for a tunnel away from me, and I gotta fix this and get rid of her and I try: “Whatever ice you got will work.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, Joseph. Sweetness, what do you want?”

“Vodka soda.”

“Nice and easy,” says Peach and she’s gone.

Some dude appears with a bag of coke and there’s clapping as more Brown people flood the dining room. I feel like Ben Stiller in Greenberg, misplaced in the bad way. Too many guys have slept with you. I know because they look past you; you’re a restaurant that’s easy to get into. And all of these people talk. Constantly:

Remember that spring break in Turks? You have to listen to Tom Waits when you’re sober. Remember spring weekend when you got locked out of Pembroke? You have to listen to Tom Waits when you’re stoned. Remember that class we took, that graveyard class and we took that field trip and we had those mushrooms? You have to come to Turks with us. Everyone is going.

I don’t speak the language and it’s a relief to get a drink. Peach simpers. “So Joseph, are the rocks small enough for you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was just playing.”

She moves us into the kitchen and it’s the biggest kitchen I’ve ever been in and I’m trying so hard not to look around like it’s the biggest kitchen I’ve ever been in. It’s like the kitchen in that movie where evil rich Michael Douglas tries to have Gwyneth Paltrow murdered because she falls for a poor artist. Everything is stainless steel or marble and the island in the center is the size of a small car. I can’t remember if the poor guy gets Gwyneth in the end of the movie and it feels like it matters a lot right now. I can’t seem to find a place to put my eyes. I’m either staring at Peach, which is no good, or staring at you, which is worse. A CD juts out from under the Times Book Review. It’s the soundtrack to Hannah and Her Sisters, thank God.

“Nice tunes, Peaches,” I say. I can’t control the tone of my voice, not in a room this noisy, this smelly, and she looks at me like I just asked her for spare change.

“Peach,” she says.

“Peach,” you say and sometimes I understand why Mr. Mooney gave up on women.

“Sorry.”

“So you’re a big fan, Joseph?”

I pick up her fucking CD. “This is one of my favorite movies. It’s his best movie.”

Peach ignores my proclamation in favor of a Brown girl she hasn’t seen in forever. It’s not fun to share you with all these people and you’re drinking really fast, too fast. Do you like me? Do you want me to be more like those flattened cokeheads in the dining room with the Arcade Fire T-shirts and high cheekbones? Is that what you want? God, I hope not and I am holding the Hannah CD so hard that it cracks. I put it down. Peach picks it up. You smile at me, and you do like me and I’m going nuts.

“I love Hannah too, Joseph.” Peach sighs. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

“I’ve seen it a million times,” I say and why am I competing?

She says I win and she looks at you like she approves. You’re happy to see that rich kids and poor kids can get along after all and I almost want to spit in Peach’s pointed face to prove a fucking point. She could have been nice to me from the get-go. She didn’t have to put you through all this anxiety. But she still wants to talk about Hannah.

“Best Woody Allen movie ever,” she says. “Scene for scene.”

“Song for song,” I say and I reach for the CD. Peach holds onto it like I’m inherently dangerous and we’re back to square one and you’re touching my arm again. “What’s your favorite scene, Joe?”

“Oh the end. You know, when Dianne Wiest tells him she’s pregnant,” I say. “I’m a romantic and I’ll own up to that all day long.”

I like you tipsy and gazing at me. Peach is disgusted. “You’re kidding right?”

She laughs at me and you’re not looking up at me anymore. She’s acid, this Peach. There’s no fuzzy warmth, unless you count the tiny little hairs all over her narrow body. “Joseph, you can’t be serious.”

“Very much so. I love that shot of them in the mirror. The way they kiss when she tells him she’s pregnant.”

But Peach is poking at the newly cracked jewel case of the CD with her starved fingers and shaking her head. You touch me in the bad way, like you want me to stop and the Brown singers know the words to “My Sweet Lord” and someone found a fucking tambourine and somewhere in my head I remember that George Harrison’s son went to Brown and I hate knowing that at this particular moment.

“Well, Joseph, it’s funny you mention that scene because you know that’s the one scene that Woody didn’t want in,” she lectures.

Woody.

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“Actually, it is true. It’s the truth.”

“No offense, but I kind of doubt it. I think they let him do his thing, you know?”

“My grandfather worked at the studio and he told Woody he wanted a happier ending. And Woody being Woody objected, but my grandfather, well, he was the guy, you know? The guy.”