Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(24)
“I definitely already do.”
I laugh. “Miss you.”
“You too,” he says softly.
There’s this pause, which is a thing that’s been happening more and more lately, and I never quite know what to make of it. I guess it’s the part of the conversation where you’re supposed to say I love you, but Mikey and I haven’t really gotten there yet. I’m not opposed to it, exactly. I guess it just feels kind of soon. Though in a way, that pause makes it feel like it’s already out there. Like it’s a placeholder for an “I love you” that’s pretty much a foregone conclusion.
We hang up, and I drift through my morning routine—shower, teeth, shirt buttons. And the tie, because at the end of the day, I’d rather be Chad from corporate than a “snappy casual” bar mitzvah boy. At least it gives me a chance to show off my half-Windsor skills—born from hours of YouTube tutorials, culminating in flawless senior prom looks for me, Ben, and Dylan: my greatest high school accomplishment, hands down. Of course, now I’m stuck with the memory of Senior Year Ben’s eyes lighting up my phone screen the moment he tugged that last loop and realized he’d nailed it.
Kind of like how he lit up when he saw me in the post office yesterday.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the image out of my head. It’s unnerving how often Ben’s been haunting my brain lately. I’ll be sitting here minding my own business, mooning over my actual boyfriend, and then Ben just pops in out of nowhere, in a million different disguises. There are Bens on every hundred-dollar bill, every postcard of London. Even the mayor of my college town is named—what else?—Ben. He’s just perpetually there, and I don’t know how he does it. He’s like a volcano, always just an earthquake away from erupting.
Sometimes I wish I had twenty ex-boyfriends, just so I’d know whether this was normal.
What’s weird is how much this job feels like a first date—the way I’m so amped up and nervous, so desperate to make a good first impression. Jacob’s assistant, Taj, texted me subway directions two days ago, and at this point, I think they’re basically tattooed on my brain. I luck into a seat, which is great, because it means I can use the ride downtown to sneak one last peek at my script binder—sticky-tabbed and feverishly annotated, even though Jacob didn’t technically ask for notes. But that’s how hard you have to ride when it’s your dream job. I turn to the title page, and as always, those no-nonsense Courier capitals make my heart beat faster.
PLAY IT AGAIN
By Jacob Demsky
The play itself is so different from what I expected. I guess I thought it would be some kind of experimental multisensory performance art, like the dance concert Mikey and Musa dragged me to once at Wesleyan, where all the dancers emerged from a giant spandex womb, and the ushers handed out bags of dirt to sniff at critical moments. But it’s not like that at all. It’s just a story—conventional, linear, almost disarmingly sweet.
It’s about a pair of queer New Yorker best friends and the baby they’re platonically coparenting. I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times at this point, but I couldn’t stop myself from diving in again if I tried. But I’m barely past the second scene of Act One when we hit Columbus Circle, my transfer point. And from there, it’s just a few stops to the rehearsal studio.
In related news: I work at a rehearsal studio—an actual, legitimate, off-Broadway rehearsal studio. No, it’s not the iconic ten-story one near Times Square, where you run into Hamilton cast members on the elevator. But I’m pretty sure our studio’s better anyway, for about five million reasons, beginning with the fact that it’s in the East Village, aka hipster central. I don’t think a single city block has ever contained so much sheer coolness. There’s a pair of heavily tattooed guys speaking Spanish, a woman with a crocheted mandala pattern stretched across the spokes of her wheelchair, and a dapper-looking Black guy with gray locs and a reusable coffee mug. I’m surprised I haven’t sprouted a full beard and pompadour yet, just from breathing the air here.
I pace around near the front entrance of the studio for a moment, trying to calm my nerves. I’m still about fifteen minutes early, enough time to do a lap around the block if I want, just to scope out what’s here. I actually think I’m near Ben’s neighborhood. Not that Ben needs me showing up on his doorstep on what must be a very erotic Tuesday morning with Mario.
It’s just funny, I guess, because he spent so much time talking about how much he wanted to try being single. He kept insisting he needed “Ben Time,” and saying he wasn’t going to date anyone unless he was all in. It was this whole thing with him, how he’d rather be single than half-ass something just for the sake of being in a relationship. So clearly he’s full-assing Mario. But I guess that’s how it goes when you meet a guy who looks like that.
But you know what? I have my own full-ass adorable boyfriend. Mikey McCowan, of Boston, Massachusetts, who absolutely needs a selfie of me in front of the rehearsal studio. Discreetly, of course, so I don’t give off those just-flew-in-from-Georgia vibes on day one of my East Village avant-garde life. I’ll just angle my phone upward at chest level—
“Want me to take a picture of you?”
I look up with a start to find a guy with swoopy dark hair, clear brown skin, and a perfectly symmetrical face—early, maybe mid-twenties, I think, and South Asian. There’s something weirdly familiar about him, which means he’s probably an actor, maybe even a semi-famous one. But more than anything, it’s his outfit that leaves me speechless. Specifically, his tie and suspenders. His floral tie and suspenders. Pure fucking genius. A revelation.