You in Five Acts(63)

Leave her alone! She’s not into you. You’re just embarrassing yourself at this point. Take your sad grain of rice and your awful poetry and go shove them in a drawer along with your blue balls.

But then three little dots appeared in a bubble on my screen. You were typing. They kept vanishing and then popping back up again, suggesting that you were revising the message, putting some thought into it. And then it occurred to me that a constantly disappearing ellipsis was exactly what you were, in general, in my life, and that I needed to use that metaphor in the next thing I wrote that wasn’t set before the dawn of cellular technology.

kk, when/where?

I must have made some kind of noise, some gasp of shocked elation, because my dad clapped his book shut and peered over at me.

“What is happening in the world?” he asked, like I would use my first minute of Internet connectivity to check the news.

“Nothing,” I mumbled. “I’m just texting with Liv.”

“I remember those days,” he said dreamily, with a humiliatingly conspicuous wink. It was hard to believe my dad, with his thick gut and the forest of gray hair covering every inch of his body except for half his head, had ever been considered a playboy, but part of the reason he didn’t settle down until he was in his mid-fifties was that he had been what people called “a confirmed bachelor”—before it was code for gay.

“She wants me to take her to dinner,” I said, puffing my chest out a little, even though moving at all still hurt a little because of my sunburn.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh?” He smiled and settled back into his seat, presumably thinking of the mountains of eager young women he’d gone through in his early years, as a dashing Russian immigrant with his own air conditioning repair shop in Queens.

Too bad he got such a cowardly, sensitive little virgin for a son.

Even before I met you, on my first day at Janus, I could tell I was out of my league. The only reason I’d even started acting in the first place was because I was small enough that I could still play all the little kid parts in community theater productions while being able to memorize lines and say them without crying. After the whole Big Sleep debacle, I begged my parents to let me go to high school off-island, with kids who didn’t know anything about me. I was gunning for LaGuardia, so when I got into Janus it was a total shock. It was true that I’d auditioned with the monologue from Saving Nathan, the depressing one Roth did right before he flatlined. I’d poured everything into it, all of the confusion and sadness and anger, all of the darkest parts of my tortured pubescent brain. “Your son is the most naturalistic actor I’ve ever seen,” Ms. Hagen had written in a personal note to my mother along with my acceptance offer. What she didn’t realize was that I had only been naturalistic because I was pretending I was dying. It was the one and only method trick I had.

I stared at my phone screen, trying to come up with something that would impress you, and simultaneously hating myself for even trying. You’d always tolerated me—maybe even liked me sometimes—but I’d known what I was getting into from day one. You were beautiful, cool, and instantly popular, my ticket to social acceptance and access. It took me awhile to figure out what I could offer you in return, but once it became apparent to everyone that my Janus audition had been a fluke, I saw a niche with my name on it. I could write for you, make you my muse. You might never want me, but I could make you need me.

Or think you did, anyway.

? ? ?


“Wow, this is fancy.”

You handed your chicly oversized army jacket to the ma?tre d’, who looked down at your outfit—motorcycle boots, leggings, and an asymmetrical gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the neon pink letters LOL JK—with weary trepidation. I’d chosen an old-school New York steakhouse famous for its romantic atmosphere and celebrity clientele, not realizing there was also a dress code. I shifted uncomfortably in my too-large brown suit jacket, which had been forced on me at the door, after an ID check had confirmed that yes, I was the Mr. Entsky with the 6:30 reservation and the credit card authorization from his daddy on file. At least I’d gotten there before you, so you didn’t witness that part.

Asshole, the Director sneered. Now she thinks you’re stuck up and the restaurant thinks you’re a low-class spoiled brat.

“It’s classic,” I said. “You look gorgeous, by the way.” I took your hand and started to lift it to my lips—so far, that move had been the only one I’d managed to pull off—but you pulled it back and crossed your arms over your chest.

“I’m underdressed,” you said, with a self-conscious half-laugh.

They didn’t bother giving us a wine menu, so we ordered Cokes—one regular, one diet—and sat on opposite sides of a round booth, examining the thick, leather-bound menus. I kept trying to catch your eye, but you hardly looked up. I could feel your boot tapping incessantly against the table leg, making my silverware jiggle on the maroon silk napkin. It made me nervous.

“I, uh, got you something,” I said, taking the little vial with the rice grain out of my shirt pocket. It felt so stupid and insignificant as I pushed it across the table, like giving someone a paper clip or a stray button, but you actually looked touched when you saw what it was.

“I used to want one of these so bad!” you cried. “Well, that and getting shells braided into my hair.” You examined the gift in the palm of your hand and looked at me guiltily. “I didn’t get you anything.”