The Wild One

by Gemma Burgess

  “That’s Professor Guffey,” Topher whispers, nodding in her direction.

  “Today we’re talking about Anna Karenina and the depictions of women in Russian literature through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries…” she continues.

  I smile. I think I’m going to like this.

  Her lecture zips around, touching on different novels and events and politicians I’ve never heard of, but everything sounds interesting, everything sounds like it matters. I’ve never heard anyone talk about literature like this, as though it were an essential component of the world, a mirror that shows us who we really are, not just who we want to be.

  For a second I have a small fizz of panic. I’m not smart enough to understand this. I’m just … I’m not.

  Then she dives into discussing Anna Karenina. And what it meant to be a mother in the time before women had rights, what value love held when the law decreed that the husband was god, how Tolstoy presents the situation and the problem in a way that tears us apart, how Levin’s love provides a purer, colder alternative, how we judge Anna compared to how contemporary Russian readers would have judged her.

  Something inside me is waking up.

  I want this to last forever. I want to ask questions, I want to say what I’m thinking, I want to find out more. I want Professor Guffey to keep talking all day, and I want to read everything Tolstoy ever wrote, I want to move to Russia, I want—I want—

  “Who do you think Tolstoy sees as the true heroine of this book? Anna or Kitty?”

  “Kitty!” pipes up a girl in front, one of those intimidating popular Connecticut types with perfect honey hair. “Anna dies. She makes a bad choice, loses her kid, and then dies. But Kitty ends up happy with Levin.”

  “I, like, totally agree?” says the girl next to her, the ubiquitous sycophant that popular girls need for reassurance when mirrors aren’t available. “Anna never thinks about consequences. She’s a loser.”

  “Bullshit!” I exclaim, and then clap my hand over my mouth.

  Everyone in the entire class turns to look at me.

  “Bull … shit?” repeats Professor Guffey.

  “I’m sorry, I just, I think, um, I think … she just fell in love. But she didn’t have independence, Russian law at the time gave women no rights…” My cheeks are burning. “Um, so, the cost of her adultery, falling in love with Vronksy, was that she loses access to her child, and to her newfound happiness, and then…”

  I trail off. Why did I speak up? I’m not even supposed to be here. The professor is probably about to kick me out.

  “Exactly!” booms Professor Guffey, pointing at me.

  Everyone jumps.

  “Independence!” she exclaims. “That’s right. Exactly. Female emancipation. The desire, the right, to make your own decisions, to follow your instincts, to not just do what your father tells you, what your husband tells you … that’s what Anna wanted. But she couldn’t have it. Eighteenth-century Russian society wouldn’t allow it. So Tolstoy didn’t allow it either. Instead, he made the novel into a warning against love. Fall in love, he says, and lose everything. Your family, your happiness … Even your life.”

  Topher looks at me and winks. “Teacher’s pet.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Nothing attracts a twenty-something like a two-dollar drink,” says Joe, surveying the crowd at Potstill.

  “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to save cash in New York City,” I say proudly. I put Potstill’s happy hour on a couple of ‘Broke in Brooklyn’–type blogs. And it worked. “People will go anywhere for a cut-price buzz.”

  “Yeah, must be real hard to save cash in the giant brownstone you inherited.” Joe reaches out to pull my hair. I shriek and throw a piece of ice at him.

  I can’t believe how totally nonweird it was seeing Joe back at the bar tonight.

  Considering all the things we did to each other’s naked bodies, I should be all shy or embarrassed or something. But I’m not. I was a million times shyer around Topher today. Around Joe, I just feel totally normal.

  I feel almost happy.

  Maybe this is exactly what I need. I’ll hang out with Topher at lectures all day and work in the bar with Joe all night. I’ll be buddies with Topher, and fuckbuddies with Joe.

  “What are you thinking so seriously about?” says Joe. “You’re all frowny and adorable. Like a stoned kitten.”

  “How many kittens have you seen stoned?”

  “Hundreds! Thousands. There’s a real feline drug problem in Ireland. No, don’t laugh, it’s a nightmare.”

  I laugh so hard that he picks up half a lemon.

  “Stop laughing at me, or I’ll make you eat this.”

  “You will not!” I back away from him as he advances. For a petrifying—and, to be honest, thrilling—second, I think he’s going to pounce on me.

  “Calm down, lovers,” says a voice. I look up. Angie! I feel like I haven’t seen her in ages! Okay, it’s only been one day … but I guess since I now work nights, and she works days, we’ll be missing each other a lot. Which kind of sucks.

  “Angie! How was your day?”

  “Fun, tiring, bitchy, degrading, badly paid. You know, the usual lament of the junior fashion employee.” Angie takes a seat at the bar. “Line me up some cheap drinks, bitches. Two for one, right? I will literally go anywhere for a cut-price buzz.”

  Joe and I exchange glances and start laughing again. That’s exactly what I said.

  Angie takes out her cell, assuming her default position. “God, you two really are in love.”

  “We are not,” I say, shocked out of my hilarity.

  “Actually, we are,” says Joe. I glance at him in horror. “In fact, we’re getting married. And we’re going to have litters of children, like all good Irish immigrants.”

  “Gnarly.” Angie arches her eyebrow at me, and I look away. I know she thinks there’s something more going on between Joe and me, but we’re just friends. With benefits.

  “Pia and Julia are on their way. We’re having an emergency house meeting about Pia’s, shall we say, complicated love life, so we wanted to have it here so you could be a part of it.”

  “Thanks!” I’m so surprised and flattered.

  “I texted Madeleine too, but she’s rehearsing with Spector tonight.” Angie pauses. “Something is up with that chick. Something more than usual. I can feel it.”

  Joe pours us all a shot of Lagavulin, which burns my throat like delicious fire. It still feels naughty to be drinking behind the bar, but I’m getting over it.

  Imagine if Topher just turned up here right this second.

  I must really have a crush on him if I’m already imagining him turning up, by surprise, to random moments in my life. If Topher was here right now, he’d make everyone laugh and pay special attention to me.

  Pia arrives, and rather than parting the crowd at the bar with her confident stride like normal, she apologetically shuffles around people, like she just wants to be ignored.

  “Is Pia sick?” asks Joe.

  “Yes. Guilt is a sickness,” says Angie. “It’ll fucking kill you if you let it.”

  “Hi, guys,” Pia’s voice is a whisper. “Can I have a drink, please? Something strong. Very strong.”

  “For fuck’s sake, put some makeup on,” says Angie. “You look like a smallpox victim.”

  “Please, don’t be mean to me. I can’t take it right now.” Pia reaches into her enormous bag and pulls out an entire box of Kleenex.

  “Wow, you came prepared,” says Joe, handing Pia a very large glass of whiskey.

  Pia blows her nose and then takes a slug of whiskey.

  “I did it,” she says. “I told Aidan I cheated on him.”

  “And?”

  There’s a long pause. Then Pia looks at us, her eyes brimming with tears. “We. Broke. Up.”

  “Oh, shit!” Angie reaches out to give Pia a hug. Angie’s become a big hugger since she met Sam. Love has made her all squishy. And yet she
’s still kind of scary. “Drink up. It’ll help numb the pain.”

  Pia drinks her whiskey, eyes staring at us over the rim of the glass like a little kid drinking milk.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” says Angie when Pia finishes gulping.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t think about it,” Pia says. “I need to get drunk. Will you hold my hair back when I throw up later?”

  “It would be an honor.”

  At that moment Julia charges in, all perky ponytail and smiles, still in her suit and little rucksack from work.

  “Hi, gang. Whiskey Smash, please, Coco.”

  Julia arranges herself on a barstool, putting one of her bag straps under the stool leg so the bag can’t get stolen, taking out her phone to check her work e-mails, and keeps up a steady stream of hyperactive chatter the whole time, oblivious of Pia’s dramatic meltdown on the stool beside her.

  “Well, I just had the best day. I’m working on this new deal. And it’s going to be intense. It’s like, the biggest thing ever. Way bigger than that other stupid one. So from tomorrow forward, say good-bye to Ju-ju because I will be Little Miss Workaholic for the next month or so, and then I’m going to make billions of dollars, get a promotion, and my ascent up the corporate bitch ladder shall commence.”

  I hand over a Whiskey Smash—a perfect one, if I do say so myself—and Julia takes a long slurp. “That is excellent.”

  “I told Aidan,” says Pia dramatically. “We … we’re over.”

  “That sucks,” exclaims Julia. Man, she’s hyper tonight. “You’ll get back together. He’ll get over it. You’re the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  Pia bursts into loud sobs again. Joe shoots me a look, and I nod and pour her some more whiskey.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” says Angie. “Julia, tell us more about your impending work hell, and why you look so happy about it.”

  “Yeah,” says Pia, carefully wiping away her tears so that her eye makeup isn’t smudged. “I don’t like my friends being happy when I’m miserable. It’s against the friend code. Like borrowing a piece of clothing before I have worn it.”

  Julia smiles beatifically. “It’s Peter.”

  “The Magnificent,” the three of us chorus in turn.

  “Yup. We have a date tonight.”

  “Peter the Magnificent is a keeper,” says Angie. “Well, I never.”

  “Peter and Julia. Julia and Peter,” Pia enunciates slowly. “Yeah, I can see that. Julia Russotti and Peter the Magnificent.”

  Joe looks up, interested, from his drinks order. “You give your hook-ups nicknames? What am I? Wait—let me guess. Joe the Glorious.”

  “Right. Joe the Glorious. That’s just what we call you,” says Angie.

  Julia takes another slurp of Whiskey Smash. “There’s lemon in this, right? Good. Vitamin C.”

  Pia looks around. “Is it just me, or is the lighting in here better than it used to be?”

  I grin triumphantly at Joe. “I told you! We’re trying to make the bar better,” I explain to Pia. “You know, so people actually want to drink here.”

  “It is way more crowded than last time we were here,” says Julia, looking around. “Why don’t you do it up all retro, like every other bar in New York City? You know, like a speakeasy.”

  “You mean a speak-cheesy,” says Pia.

  “Total cliché,” agrees Joe.

  “And so passé,” says Angie. “I’ve been going to speakcheesies since, like, before I got my first period.”

  “Why do you have to bring your vagina into everything?” asks Julia.

  Joe grimaces. “There is way too much estrogen in this conversation.” He walks out from behind the bar to go collect dirty glasses.

  Pia slams her empty glass back on the bar. “More whik-sey. I mean, whiskey. Please.”

  I hand over another.

  “So, did you and Topher spend the whole afternoon together?” Julia grins at me and waggles her eyebrows.

  “What?” I feel myself blushing. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, we just hung out and went to one of his classes.”

  “He’s a great guy,” says Julia. “Really smart. He’s going places.”

  “You’re so middle-aged,” says Angie. “Going places?”

  “I’m just saying, if Coco wanted to date him, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  My blush-rush doubles. “Don’t be crazy. He’s way out of my league.”

  “I totally thought he liked you today. And Topher is more in your league than some womanizing Irish bartender,” says Julia, glancing at Joe disdainfully as he ducks into the stockroom. I frown. He can’t hear her, but still, it’s not a nice thing to say.

  At that moment my phone buzzes in my back pocket.

  Topher: Want to come to my Rilke lecture next Monday?

  Maybe Julia is right. Maybe he does like me.

  “Coco, did you just get a text from a boy?” says Angie, just as Joe walks back over.

  “No,” I say.

  “Then why are you blushing?”

  “I’m just, uh, it’s hot behind the bar,” I say, giving her a shut-the-hell-up face.

  To my surprise, she does.

  “Still heartbroken here, by the way,” says Pia loudly. “Can someone please tell me everything is going to be fine?”

  Angie steps up. “Of course it will. This is just a blip. Cheating is a symptom, not a cause, of problems. Aidan loves you. This is going to bring you guys closer together.”

  “But he broke up with me.”

  “It won’t last!” Angie is smiling so widely, it must hurt. “I am sure of it. You and Aidan are meant to be. So you made one mistake! It’s okay.”

  “The things you girls do for each other,” mutters Joe. “She’s clearly lying. That guy’s not going to want to see Pia again.”

  “How do you know?” I whisper back.

  “Because she cheated on him. That changes everything.”

  Shit. I hope he’s wrong. I get busy serving drinks. Potstill is starting to feel like an extension of Rookhaven. It’s just so homey. All of us here, just hanging out, conversations ebbing and flowing, someone having a crisis, everyone else helping her through it. Best of all, I can avoid too much attention, and just work away here behind the bar. Just like I used to when I was in the kitchen baking.

  It’s perfect.

  And then Madeleine comes in, to complete the scene.

  But she’s not alone. She’s with someone else. A guy.

  Who the heck is he? He’s kind of cute, wearing a suit, his tie undone, top button open … Is this the guy who gave her that unexplained bed head the other day? I never followed up on that, I wonder if she’s dating him. Wait a minute, I know this guy, it’s—

  “Peter the Magnifi—Peter!” says Julia. “Hi! I mean, what are you doing here?”

  “Julia?” Peter is swaying slightly. “I have some bad news.”

  “You don’t want to go out with me tonight?” Julia looks like she might faint.

  “No, I do, but—” Peter drops his wallet on the floor and bends over to pick it up. When he stands up, he seems to have forgotten where he is.

  “I found him passed out on the stoop at Rookhaven,” says Madeleine. “He got fired.”

  “He what?” Julia is horrified. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “My phone belonged to the company. I had to leave it. My phone—my life. Everything.” Peter suddenly looks so vulnerable and sweet, gazing beseechingly at Julia. “I wanted to tell you but I didn’t know your number by heart. I don’t even know my mom’s number by heart. Isn’t that insane?”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century, buddy,” says Madeleine. “Okay. Now that I’ve dropped off your drunk boyfriend—”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” mumbles Julia.

  “Whatever. I’m going to Amy’s apartment to write songs. Later.”

  She leaves, and all of us turn back to Peter, who’s still swaying on the spot, a small frown
on his face as he tries to look sober and fails.

  “Can I get a beer?” says Peter.

  Joe glances at him. “No. You’re langers.”

  “I think you should go home, Peter,” says Julia.

  “But…” Peter seems at a loss. “But we have a date tonight.”

  Julia shakes her head. “Call me tomorrow—oh, right. No phone. Hang on.” Julia grabs a coaster and a pen from the bar, and writes her number on the back. “Get a phone tomorrow. Then call me.”

  Peter nods miserably. “You don’t like me anymore because I’m the kind of loser who gets fired, right?”

  “No!” she exclaims, though obviously that’s exactly what she’s thinking. I can tell. “Of course not. Um … Let’s have dinner next week. It’ll be ace.”

  Peter puts the coaster in his pocket. He seems more sober now. And kind of sad.

  After he leaves the bar, Angie turns to Julia.

  “You’re totally going to dump the first guy you’ve liked in however long, just because he got fired?”

  “I can’t dump him. We’re not dating,” says Julia. “It was just a hookup.”

  “He likes you. You like him. It’s just a matter of time and semantics,” says Angie.

  “Semantics? What a big word,” says Pia. “Can you spell it?”

  “B-L-O-W-M-E,” says Angie.

  Joe cracks up.

  “I just don’t see a future for us, you know. I’m totally … I’m just really focused on my career, anyway. That’s not a bad thing, right?”

  “Not bad at all,” agrees Pia. “But…”

  “He’s good-looking. And he seems so nice,” interjects Joe. We all turn to stare at him. I thought he was a womanizer. “Sorry, I’ve got a lot of little sisters.” He shrugs. “I’m used to hearing this kind of chat.”

  “What do you think I should do, then?” asks Julia. “Just date an unemployed guy?”

  “Hold your horses, he’s been unemployed about six minutes,” says Joe. “And he’ll get another job. Like immediately. Cutbacks aren’t personal. They can happen to anyone.”

  “My dad always says that companies cut back just to get rid of the dead wood,” says Julia. “I don’t want to date dead wood. I like people who are winning at life.”