Funny You Should Ask(83)

“Data was your favorite, right? Yeah. Yeah. He was. I like Data. But all these human feelings he wanted? Overrated. Over. Rated. Who needs them?”

I’d sat down on my stoop. It had been cold, but I didn’t go inside. The last thing I’d wanted was for Jeremy to ask who I was talking to.

After a while, it seemed as though Gabe had forgotten I was even on the line with him.

“I’ve read everything,” he’d slurred. “Evvvvvverything. All the words. I’m not as smart as he is. Not as smart, but I can read. Not just scripts. Books. I read books. Lots of books. You should see the books. I could send them to you. All of them. I could fill your whole house with books. I could buy you all the books. You’d be like that princess with the library and all the books.”

My fingers had gone numb from the cold and I’d kept switching my phone to the other ear so I could put my free hand in my pocket.

“Chani,” he had whispered. “Chani, Chani, Chani.”

“Gabe.”

“You’ll call me back, right? You have to call me back. I just…you have to, okay?”

“I will,” I’d said, even though I was sure he hadn’t heard me.

There had been a long silence and that’s when I’d realized he’d hung up.

“Wow,” Gabe says after I finish telling him.

The look on his face now—that surprise and shock—makes it clear that he doesn’t have the same recollection of that call that I do. He seems to have grown older at the memory. Sadder.

“You kept begging me to call you back,” I say.

“I thought I’d dreamt it,” he says. “I was drunk. So fucking drunk that night and I wanted to call you—I always wanted to call you when I was in a state like that, but I never did.”

“Except that one time.”

“Except that one time.” He glances over. “I was probably an embarrassing mess.”

I pinch my lips together. “A little,” I say.

He scrubs a hand over his beard.

“Jesus,” he says. “Did I make any sense?”

“Sometimes,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It was nice to hear your voice,” I say.

He smiles at that.

“What happened the next morning?” he asks. “Did you call me back?”

“Jacinda picked up,” I say.

“Oh,” Gabe says. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Shit.”

My hands had shaken a little when I called back the next day. I’d waited until Jeremy had left the apartment, watching him walk down to the end of the block, counting to ten after he was out of sight.

The phone rang three times and then it was a female voice that answered. A British female voice.

“Is Gabe there?” I’d managed to ask.

“No,” Jacinda Lockwood had said, her voice tart. “He’s in rehab. No phones allowed.”

“Oh,” I’d said.

Part of me was relieved because he had been so drunk the previous night that it had been worrying. The other part was selfishly disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to contact him.

“I just have one question,” I ask now.

“Hit me,” Gabe says, clearly still embarrassed.

“Who’s Tracy?”

“Tracy?”

“Just before Jacinda hung up, she called me Tracy,” I say.

“Don’t call again, Tracy,” she’d said.

Gabe sits there for a moment, and then he laughs, his palm hitting the steering wheel. It breaks the tension—heavy and somber—hovering over us.

“You’re Tracy,” Gabe says, shifting onto one hip, digging his phone out of his pocket.

He unlocks the screen, scrolls for a moment, and then turns it for me to see. It’s a contact for Tracy Lord. The main character from The Philadelphia Story.

“Call it,” he says.

I do, and there’s a buzzing in my pocket.

I’ve just called myself.

I stare at the screen and let out a surprised huff of a laugh.

“You put me down as Tracy Lord in your phone?” I ask.

Gabe grins. “It seemed clever at the time.”

We both burst out laughing. I laugh until my lungs hurt, crying just a little at how utterly ridiculous this whole thing is. Gabe leans his head back against his headrest, turning to look at me.

My breath catches.

Because this is it. There are no more secrets, no more forgotten moments. I’m vulnerable and exposed. Brand-new. Ready.

He’s watching me. Waiting.

“Let’s go inside,” I say.





PUBLISHERS WEEKLY


Interview with Chani Horowitz

[excerpt]


Though Horowitz studied fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she’s mostly known for her nonfiction. Her debut, Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, is a collection of her latest work, and out in paperback this Tuesday.

Though there are several personal essays, Horowitz’s claim to fame is her celebrity profiles, most notably the one she did on Gabe Parker a few years ago, which went viral.

“I never expected the reaction I got,” she says. “You never do.”