Cult Classic(8)

“I hope you didn’t pay for dinner,” I said, “since Amos is the property of another woman.”

“More like the other way around,” tittered Roger.

“By which you mean that Amos makes women his property? Is that a thing we’re admitting in public now?”

“Can you believe we used to date?” Amos asked, and then to me: “Are we getting a drink or what? Roger has to go home so he can wake up to a screaming baby.”

Roger released a theatrical sigh. My eyes zipped down to his left hand as my brain confirmed the improbable calculus—yes, his left was my right and there was a gold band on it. The roach traps vanished, replaced by soft toys and frozen breast milk. I could feel Death stringing cobwebs along the walls of my uterus like Christmas garlands.

“I need my jacket,” I announced.

I left with the understanding that Roger would have absented himself by the time I returned. It was helpful to have a buffer, but I did not enjoy this version of myself made uneasy by a young family.

Inside, my jacket was waiting, zombie-like over my chair.

“We went through your pockets,” said Vadis.

“Anything good?”

“Nothing. A pen. It’s broken.”

“Keep your coat off,” instructed Clive, stretching his arms. “Stay awhile.”

A waitress was flipping the chairs upside down, slamming wood against wood.

“Nope,” I said, “I’m leaving you all.”

“Booo,” said Zach, who was now drunk enough to express emotion.

Alcohol knocked the intellectual out of him. He would not like knowing that Amos Adler was outside. Amos was a more successful, more confident version of Zach. They were the same species. Same politics, same takes. This was the primary source of Zach’s distaste, a conclusion so obvious, he never reached it. Instead, he spent years analyzing why Amos Adler “sucked so hard.” I kissed them all in the vicinity of their faces, but when I got to Vadis, I whispered: Amos. Outside.

“What?!” she hissed, with a sharp “t.”

She twisted in her chair, as if taking in more of my body would reveal further truths. If there was further truth to be had, it was that I was shocked Vadis would remember Amos. She had inverse retention skills when it came to men. The more firmly planted someone was in my life, the more likely she was to give that person a dismissive nickname or forget his name altogether. One night, I told her that the reason she made up names for these men was so they could never be real. Because if they weren’t real, they couldn’t take me away from her. I don’t think I meant a word of it. But this is how you speak when you’re in a bathroom stall in your twenties, high on cocaine, and testing the depths of your friendships.

When I went ahead and got engaged to someone with the nickname of an unborn baby, it was like I did Vadis’s job for her.

“Amos,” Vadis stage-whispered, looking toward the door. “I can’t believe it.”

Then she turned abruptly and shouted: “Clive!”

“What?!” he shouted back. “Jesus.”

“Vadis,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, “don’t.”

“Nothing!” she said, before turning back to me. “How did he get here?”

“Well, to be fair, how did any of us get here?”

“Obviously. Right. It’s just … Okay. Have fun. Report back. Be careful.”

“Of Amos? I’ll let you know if he stabs me in the neck with a quill pen.”

“Just, you know, in general. Take notes.”

She tapped at her temple as if turning on a button.

“Okay,” I said, patting her on the head, “you’re weird. Cute, but weird.”

I left quickly, feeling pressure to get back outside. I was sure the reality of seeing each other felt just as tenuous to Amos. He could just vanish. But when I stepped back through the curtain, there he was.

“Where to?”

I was disappointed by his reliance on me to pick a place. During the years of not speaking, I’d superimposed a new person on Amos, composed of all the things I liked about him as well as an eradication of all the things I didn’t like. In this case, an inability to select venues.

“Give me a second.”

I removed my phone and began rapidly scrolling through my texts. I’d gone on a date with Boots to a perfect bar around here, but I could never remember the name. It felt less like a betrayal to take Amos to the bar than it did an insurance policy that I’d be reminded of my relationship, of who had become responsible for my healthy associations. I held the phone close to my face, putting a spotlight where Amos was already looking.

“And when you’re done,” he said, “you can tell me about this.”

I let him hold my arm up by my engagement ring. My hand went limp in his, a napkin in its napkin ring. Which is about how big the ring suddenly seemed. The ring had belonged to Boots’s grandmother. Why my generation assumes that entire generations before us had taste when only a few of us have taste now is a mystery. The diamond is cloudy and pear-shaped. It’s fixed in a setting that brings to mind the word prongs. I learned the hard way to turn it around every time I put on a sweater.

“It’s dual-acting,” Boots decided, “a shiv and a ring in one!”