You (You #1)(34)
“So your grandfather’s not J. D. Salinger,” I say, because fuck her and she shoots you a look and you sigh and she’s not done.
“Anyway,” she says. “It’s funny that your favorite scene in the movie is the one scene that he didn’t want.”
“Peach,” says Beck. “Do you have any club soda?”
“There’s a case of Home in the fridge,” she says, smirking, eyeing me, knowing exactly what the fuck she’s doing.
I raise my glass. “To your grandfather.”
She doesn’t raise her glass. “The Hollywood monster who slapped sappy, happy endings on every movie you ever saw and avoided his children like the plague and single-handedly ruined the tone of some of the most iconic pictures in America? No. No, Joseph. You don’t want to toast that man.”
You’ve practically crawled into the Subzero and I bet you’re thinking about Benji and it’s not in the way that I’m thinking about Benji and you emerge with your glass—red now, you chose cranberry juice, you choose me. And at long last, you correct her, you tell her I am Joe, not Joseph and I thank you as I raise my glass even higher because I can give her what she wants now that you’ve corrected her, now that you’ve picked sides.
“To you, Peach,” I say in the deferent voice I reserve for persnickety older ladies. “For schooling me on my favorite movie.”
She looks at you. You shrug like, yeah he’s that good, and she looks at me. I sweeten the deal. “In all seriousness, Peach, I could pick your brain for hours. I love Woody Allen.”
She doesn’t sip after the toast and she sighs. “Okay that’s one good thing about college. Staying up all night and talking about movies. You would have loved it, Joseph.”
Instead of punching her in the face, I raise my glass for another toast. She stares down into her asshole sangria and asks you if you told Chana that some guy Leonard is here. You step away from me to hunt for your phone. You’re sorry again and Peach forgives and this party is never going to end, ever. You are too tipsy to text and you growl in frustration.
Peach raises one eyebrow and she probably learned how to do that the summer her parents undoubtedly shipped her off to Stagedoor Manor Acting Camp, hoping that she might flower into Gwyneth Paltrow, the same summer she perfected the art of bulimia and learned how to insult people like me.
And then I look at you and what’s this? You’re cradling your phone in your hands and smiling. I have to know what has captivated you and Peach doesn’t exist anymore. Nobody does. When I stand behind you and look down into your phone, I see a clip from Hannah and Her Sisters, the part where Woody’s character goes to a Marx Brothers movie. It was all worth it and I put my hands on your shoulders. We watch the rest of the scene together and God bless Groucho Marx.
WHEN we get into the elevator at the end of the night that threatens to never end, you don’t wait until the doors are closed. Ever since I caught you watching my Hannah, you have wanted to be closer to me. And now, you are. I haven’t even pushed the button when you drop your purse to the floor. You pull my face to yours and hold me. You pause. You drive me crazy and then. And then. Your lips were made for mine, Beck. You are the reason I have a mouth, a heart. You kiss me when people can still see us, when we can still hear Bobby Short—I’m in love again, and I love, love, love it—because you made Peach play the soundtrack from Hannah and Her Sisters because you want to know what I know and hear what I like to hear. Your tongue tastes like cranberries, not like club soda, not anymore anyway. When the elevator doors close and we’re alone, you start to pull away. But I pull your hair and bring your mouth to mine. I know how to leave you wanting more. And I do.
13
I fucked up. The day after our date, I left you a voice mail asking to take you to a movie at the Angelika. Fucking amateur. You responded with a text two hours later:
Already saw it actually and still hungover kind of and have so much writing to do. But see you soon!
In truth, you hadn’t seen the movie and you weren’t hungover and you weren’t writing, unless by “writing” you mean e-mailing your friends about Benji.
Fucking Benji.
I look at my phone and it’s been fifteen hours and two long days since we kissed. You told Chana and Lynn that you’re not “ready” for me because you have “Benji Brain.” I can’t kill Benji until you kill Benji and I try to stay calm. I’ve spent two days selling books, minding Benji, and remembering our kiss, our kiss. You described it to Lynn and Chana:
Joe is really intense. I don’t know, he’s a maybe. . . . Anyway, do you guys think I should write to Benji?
Your maybe hurt worse than Benji and there was nothing maybe about our kiss. I win the case every time I go over it in my head: You like my hair. You said so in the cab. You grabbed on to me, Beck. You weren’t drunk. You find me intense and that’s a compliment. It is. I try to be calm. I won’t achieve definite status until you have the honor of receiving my cock. But this morning I woke up to this tweet from you:
That day when you can’t not go to IKEA anymore. #procrastinationation #brokenbed
I kicked one of my typewriters. How could you send #brokenbed into the world knowing that I would see it? Are you trying to drive me nuts? Chana wrote to you right away:
Broken bed. WTF?