Sweetbitter(94)

“I was sick.”

“That sucks.” He nudged the flowers toward me. “Don’t you like lilacs?”

“You know they’re my favorite,” I said. “You want a prize for paying attention?”

I moved them to the side, and Jake put his helmet up on the bar. Georgie set down Jake’s beer and retreated from our silence. Jake sipped and I matched him.

“I saw your bike. At her house. One of the few things I remember from that night.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Because I blacked out.” It sounded accusatory because it was.

He turned on me. “You think it impresses me that you know how to hurt yourself?”

I leveled his gaze back at him. “Yes. I do.”

He wanted to bite me. He wanted to pull my hair out. I could see it churning in him, his eyes, his chest, his fingers. It was unavoidable: the ignition when he reached for me, how I would strain against my clothes to get closer to him, how his breathing would turn ragged, a sound that made my body liquefy, and we would stop thinking.

“I’m pissed,” I said, leaning back from him. That was the first time I didn’t throw myself on top of the fire he laid before me. The restraint made me feel old.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as if he’d just remembered the protocol. “Seriously, I wanted to meet you, I was going to. I fully intended to—”

“This is the part where you give me the excuse.”

“I fell asleep over there.”

I tore off tiny shreds of my napkin.

“You fell asleep in her bed is what you meant to say.”

“Come on, you know it’s not—”

“Like that. Yes, I know it’s not like that. Not everything is something.”

He coughed.

“Here’s something: She’s bad for you. She would abandon you without a moment’s notice.”

It was like he hadn’t heard me. “I know how she gets, but she comes around. You will too. We’re all a little off from the restaurant being closed.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not hearing me. I will not be placated, Jake. You two have never let anyone close because you would have to look at how fucked up it is, whatever it is. You would have to explain why a grown man and woman who are not together still share a bed, vacation together, or why you’ve never had a real relationship with another woman. You’re thirty years old, Jake. Don’t you want a real life?”

“There’s no such thing as a real life, princess. This is it, take it or leave it.”

“Enough with the life-is-short-and-painful-and-you-die-alone bullshit. What a fucking scam that is, you never have to take any risks. You deserve better.”

His knee was bouncing; I watched the anxiety tense him, like when he got restless behind the bar. I rested my hand on his thigh and it stilled.

“You shouldn’t go to France for a month. You hate the French and their smug, racist version of socialism.” I elicited a smile. All my reliable tricks. I had a new one to try on him tonight. It was directness. It was truly my last one.

“I want you to quit with me. Or we can transfer. You need a change and I want to be a server.”

He cleared his throat. We kept drinking. I felt alone like I hadn’t since before I moved to the city, like I would never connect with another person for as long as I lived.

“Just think about it,” I said. My voice was desperate; I heard it but couldn’t control it.

“I have.” He blinked rapidly. He looked up at the lights. I kissed his hands and filthy fingernails. So many things he never said. I wondered who Jake would be if he said all the things.

“Say it.”

“I remember the first time I saw you.”

“That’s all I get?”

“You surprised me.” That was all I was going to get. I said, “I remember the first time I saw you too.”

Barbs of nostalgia sank in me, bringing a terrible weight, ringing with distance that I resisted. I had vowed to myself—since that first day of this new life—to stay in the present tense, to keep my eyes forward. I think his hands were on my neck, in my hair.

“I can’t leave,” he said.

“You can. This is still good between us.”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“All right, Tess.”

“You’re a coward,” I said. A cripple and a coward. Wine-Woman and Sweaty-Boy. Simone had been right. Our senses are never inaccurate, just our interpretations. This wasn’t on them. It was on me.

“Do you remember that morning you let me pick the record?”

His routine had never strayed: a cigarette, the stove-top espresso, a second cigarette, and the day’s record. That morning he had woken himself up hiccupping. He had been so scared, he clutched at me, still asleep, and I kissed his temple. I teased him about his hiccup phobia. He laughed. As a reward I got to pick the record. I put on Astral Weeks and when “Sweet Thing” came on he said, This one deserves a dance. We danced, him bare chested in stretched-out underwear, me in his shirt with no pants on, moving in circles on the carpets under the gauze of cigarette smoke. That was the morning I committed the first sin of love, which was to confuse beauty and a good sound track with knowledge.