Room for Love

by Andrea Meyer

  “Hey, watch this,” Will says, freezing a shot of Mikey giving his friend the finger. He proceeds to manipulate the Avid so that Mikey’s doing a “fuck off” rap, flipping his friend off over and over again, going, “Fuck off, man, fuck off, man, f-f-f-f-fuck off!” Anthony and Will laugh until tears stream down their unshaven faces. I get depressed.

  I wake up when Anthony lifts me off the couch at three A.M.

  “Hey, pretty,” he says.

  “Hey back,” I murmur, wiping drool from my cheek.

  “We’re getting you home to bed tonight, baby. Let’s try to spend a whole Sunday together, okay?”

  “You sure?” I ask skeptically.

  “Yeah, the cut is getting good. We’re taking a day off.”

  He half carries me into the elevator and then a cab, where I fall back to sleep until he carries me out of the cab and up the stairs to the apartment.

  “Yay, we can have clean-house day,” I tell him. “I weigh a ton, don’t I?”

  “Shhh, sleep,” he says. “My little wisp of a girlfriend.”

  I laugh as he strains on each step under my weight, then wriggle out of his arms and walk up the rest of the way.

  “Did you see the issue?” I ask him. “I left an advance copy in the editing room. I want you to read my Luke Benton article. It’s good.”

  “Tomorrow, baby. Let’s go to sleep.”

  In a hazy space between wakefulness and dreams, I imagine myself walking up our street and turning onto Bedford, deserted in the night, asphalt bare and glistening as if wiped clean by a recent downpour. I wonder at the absence of the usual night owls and grimy old men clutching brown paper bags as I float past eerily lit empty storefronts. My feet lift off the ground and a gust of wind carries me down N. Fifth Street past Driggs and Metropolitan and onto Havemeyer, where my bare feet touch familiar ground. I lie down on the warm threshold of Jake’s loft and wrap my arms rapturously around sleep.

  The next morning, when I get up, Anthony is already dressed and reading the paper at the kitchen table.

  “You’re up,” I say.

  “I’m heading in to work. Barrett wants to see a cut, so we’re gonna get some beers and watch it. He always helps me with my stuff.”

  “God, Anthony,” I say. “I thought we were gonna ‘have a weekend.’”

  His eyes turn hard for a second and then soften. “Editing is intense right now, I can’t stop thinking about it, but it will let up. Once we get the first episode done, we’ll settle into the rhythm of the show, and it will be quicker.” I nod, wondering if I’ll ever get used to this lifestyle. “Look, I’ll leave early tonight, so we can have dinner.”

  “Okay,” I say, pulling on the hem of his big T-shirt that I’m wearing, although I don’t really feel okay.

  “What?” he asks, getting out of his chair and dropping his coffee cup loudly into the sink. “Jacquie, don’t give me this guilt shit. I can’t feel bad about doing my job. This is my life. If you can’t live with it, fine, but don’t give me those fucking looks, like I’m hurting your feelings.”

  “I know. I just wish we could spend more time together—without Will and Delores and Mikey,” I say, ripping off a fingernail so it bleeds. I zap myself with the rubber band and wince at the pain as he quietly rinses out his cup and puts it on the dish rack. I know I shouldn’t, but I say, “This kind of thing happens a lot. I’m just sick of you letting me down. You know, we haven’t made any plans to go out of town like you said we would, I still haven’t met your parents, and you never really apologized about Chicago.”

  “Apologized?” he says. “For what? What the hell was I supposed to apologize for?”

  “You invited me down there and then uninvited me and then said we’d go somewhere else, but we haven’t, and I just want to know, you know, what the hell we’re—”

  “Oh no, we’re not even going there, Jacquie. Oh no. You knew the deal when you moved in here. This wasn’t some marriage, some kind of fucking lifelong commitment. This was, you know, what it was.” He shoves a bowl on the counter and it falls into the sink and breaks. “Oh, fucking great,” he says, looking around, flustered, before grabbing a sweatshirt and strutting out of the apartment. He slams the door behind him.

  Lucy, who’s been watching our fight like a tennis match, burrows her head under a couch cushion.

  “Sorry, Lucy,” I say.

  I spend an hour moping about, feeling sorry for myself and wanting to call him, but suddenly a flash of inspiration kicks in and I throw on clothes and run out to the hardware store to get a new mop, terra-cotta flowerpots, lightbulbs, and paint swatches. I’ve always liked hardware stores because they offer tangible solutions to your problems, whatever they may be. You trip on an electrical cord on your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night—they recommend special tape to attach it to the wall. You keep misplacing a pot holder or dropping it into the filthy sink—they sell you a hook. You spill paint on the floor—they suggest Goof Off (who knew such a thing existed?) to get it off. Whatever urgent domestic matter befalls you, the guys at the hardware store know how to fix it. They sell screwdrivers, spackle, hammers, nails, dustpans, plant food, lightbulbs, water filters, key rings, potting soil, duct tape, and Brillo pads, all the little things that make life easier. The owner of the place up the block from Anthony’s makes me ache for my old hardware store. He’s a cranky old bald man who sits at the register and grunts and points, without ever taking his eyes off the sports section of the New York Post. I pay for my wares and joylessly depart for the corner deli, where I order a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, a gallon of OJ, and an enormous latte, which I down on the way back to the apartment and arrive bouncing off walls.

  I spend hours scrubbing the floors, bundling old newspapers, gathering copies of Anthony’s production reel that I find lurking in corners and putting them neatly into boxes, which I stack in the spare room that still isn’t an office. I change burned-out bulbs, repot a pathetic basil plant that’s been dying a slow death on the windowsill ever since I moved in, tape color swatches to the bathroom wall, which someone, presumably Anthony, painted with streaks of potential colors ages ago but never followed up on. I think we should go with a warm tone: pink, peach, salmon. Screw all his test strokes; as trendy as it is, green in the bathroom makes you look sickly.

  At about three o’clock, ABBA blasting, soil scattered across the kitchen counter, the rest of the place in a state of chaos, I decide to confront a pile of framed photos stacked on the floor. While I’m pounding a nail to hook the first one (foggy beach scene, possibly Montauk), I slam my thumb with the hammer so hard that blackness crowds my vision. As I sit down to regain my balance, the phone rings. It’s my mother.

  “Hey, honey, what are you doing?” she asks.

  “Cleaning up the place. Hanging pictures, repotting plants.”

  “I wish you’d do that at your own apartment,” she says, her voice still deceptively sugary. “You own it, after all. It’s very disturbing to your father and me that you’re not living there.”

  “Well, you’ll be happy to hear that my subletter is quite the little homemaker and the place looks better than ever.”

  “Oh.” She pauses. “That’s nice. Where’s Anthony?”

  “Working,” I say. “Actually, I’m a little pissed because we were supposed to be doing all this together. Now the place looks like a hurricane hit and my thumb is pounding where I banged it with a hammer. I could use his help.”

  “Well, he has to earn a living,” she says.

  “I understand that. I just wish he were around here some of the time. He treats the place like a hotel. And he’s always flaking on me, making plans and then breaking them.”

  “You know, Jacqueline, a man has to feel like he can work to take care of his family and not feel criticized. Honestly, you should be more supportive.”

  I stomp over to the stereo and turn down “Dancing Queen,” which is giving me a worse headache than my mother. “You know,” I s
ay, “are you saying he’s supposed to earn a living while I’m home slaving away?”

  “You are exaggerating,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, you don’t even know Anthony and here you are taking his side. It would be nice if you could see my side for once. Anthony is always working and I’m always alone and now I’m getting all this work done and it feels great, but I do wish he were doing it with me. What is so wrong with that?” I hold up a bouquet of split ends and bite them off one by one. I really need a haircut.

  “You are so cranky today,” she says. “I will talk to you later. Goodbye.” And she hangs up. I blast “S.O.S.,” ABBA’s masterpiece, and take out my rage on the apartment, which I clean like a demon until I’m so exhausted that I tumble into bed and fall asleep immediately.

  When I wake up the next morning, Anthony isn’t there, as usual. I don’t even get angry, I’m so used to it. I shower, feed the dog, take her out for her morning poop, and head off to face the evil subway crowd.

  “I feel like shit,” I tell Sam first thing in the door at work.

  “How like shit?” she asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know, queasy, listless, no energy.”

  “Could you be pregnant?” she asks.

  “Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean everyone is,” I snap. “Sorry. No, I’m not pregnant.”

  When I sit down at my desk, I’m suddenly not so sure. I look at my calendar and realize that thirty-four days have gone by since my last period began and I usually get it every twenty-eight. Wow, I think, what if I am? My skin is sallow. I feel fat. Oh my God, what would I do? I picture lying in bed with Anthony and telling him that I’m pregnant, his sleepy face blissful with anticipation. I suddenly feel elated, imagining myself with a big, swollen belly under a totally stylish, bright red babydoll dress. I picture Anthony awed as he feels our baby practicing kickboxing maneuvers inside me, sitting nervously by my side in the hospital as I wait for another round of contractions to attack, falling asleep with our baby girl on his chest in front of a boxing match, throwing a football to a skinny little doll in shorts and a tie-dyed shirt with pink Popsicle on her face, zinc on her nose, and pale, freckled skin just like mine.

  I decide that if I were pregnant, I would have the baby. I would marry Anthony and have a baby. We could hold the ceremony at his parents’ place in the country (which I still haven’t seen, even though he keeps promising), just a small wedding for our closest friends and family in the lush garden I imagine with gently swaying oak trees and multicolored poppies everywhere, and then we could have a big party in the city, maybe on Jeremy’s fabulous roof deck, so that everyone we know could celebrate with us.

  I call Courtney, with whom I’ve been playing a cautious game of phone tag, and tell her that I’m worried I might be pregnant and that if I am, I think I would keep the baby. “Are you sure Anthony feels the same?” she asks.

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Totally.” But I’m not, really. He does care about me, but he sure doesn’t like to talk about the future. The serial-monogamist conversation springs to mind for the first time in a few weeks. In my mind, I tell him that I’m pregnant, and this time his face darkens with anxiety and suspicion.

  “Hmm, I don’t know, actually. I think so.”

  “Well, let me tell you something, Jacquie,” Courtney says. “Never believe you can read a man’s mind. You might think you’re in sync and your energy and desires mesh, but you never really know. Men are another species and it’s as different from ours as a monkey or a mule.”

  “I don’t buy that whole Venus and Mars thing. We’re all people.”

  “Well, I’m starting to think it makes some sense.”

  “Court, this doesn’t sound like you at all. Are you okay? Is everything all right with Brad?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she says. “We’re fine. We’ve had some hard conversations lately, but I don’t really want to get into it. It’s a big mess that I don’t want to lay on you.”

  “Courtney, if you can’t lay it on me, who can you lay it on?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel like I have anyone but Brad to talk to about my life, and he’s not around right now, so I guess I’ve been feeling pretty lonely.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t you tell me about it?”

  “You’re on another planet. You’re always looking over my shoulder at someone more interesting walking past or dragging the conversation back to Anthony or your job and I just don’t know how to compete with those things. And lately you haven’t even been around at all.” I’m floored. “Jacquie, I’m sorting through some difficult issues that I’ve got to sort through alone. I should really go.”

  “Court, come on. I’m sorry I’ve been preoccupied, but I really want to talk to you. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I will, Jacq, but another time, okay? I’m angry and busy and I should really go.”

  “But, Court,” I say, and realize she’s already hung up.

  On my way home on the subway, there’s an adorable little black boy in a Yankees cap eating M&Ms on the seat across from me. His animated face moves into bold shades of ecstasy when he’s sucking on chocolate, then horror when his mother, a young pregnant woman, asks him to give his grandma an M&M. He refuses, then reluctantly acquiesces only after his mom calls him selfish and orders him to hand one over. When he catches my eye, I hold out my hand for a piece of candy, and he looks perplexed, then grins and thrusts a handful in my direction. I shake my hand to let him know I was only joking. He grins at me again and I grin back. Then he frowns dramatically and I frown back. A woman gets on at the next stop and starts singing a hymn so loudly that it resonates through the entire car. As she repeatedly belts out the words, “I’m going to see the Lord, my Lord, oh Lord, the Lord,” the volume increases to an acidic shriek and people drop their heads to hide their laughter. The little boy smiles at me and once again holds out an M&M in my direction. I shake my head, as his mother hustles him off the train.

  Before bed, I call Anthony in the editing room. “Hey, baby, I wanted to ask you something,” I say. “Totally hypothetically, what would you do if I got pregnant?”

  “Throw you down a flight of stairs,” he says, without missing a beat. He laughs. “I’m kidding!” he says. “Jesus, I’m kidding. How cute would little Jacquie babies be?”

  I get out of bed and write a quick e-mail to Clancy proposing my next story: Are men really dogs—simple creatures who live to be fed and have their tummies rubbed—and women purring pussycats that will scratch your eyes out if they don’t get what they want? Are we two different species entirely? Let’s see what the movies have to say about people who love each other but just can’t get along.

  When I wake up, I have my period.

  12

  * * *

  24 YR OLD M SEEKS ROOM A.S.A. FRICKIN’ P. Moved into an awesome Gramercy apt with this awesome dude and 5 mins later he’s back with his chick & I’m out on my ASS. If u have a rockin’ 2bd in a rockin’ hood and need a rockin’ roomie, let me know. Can pay 800 buckaroonies. Gilbert.

  * * *

  I have been dreading the day my apartment article comes out. The excitement I know I should experience never comes, because I know that when Anthony inevitably finds out, I’m going to have some serious explaining (and ass kissing) to do. I wake up on Monday morning to a feeling of doom.

  Our weekend was glorious, like the early days of our relationship. Anthony came home late Friday night, nudged me awake, and said, “Guess what? I’m taking the weekend off.” He put a red rose, the kind you buy from vendors on the streets of Williamsburg on weekend nights, into my hands so I could feel its smooth petals and snuggled up to me. “Let’s just do nothing all weekend, okay?”

  Apparently he told Will to get the show as close to perfect as possible by Monday, when Anthony would be in to give him the thumbs-up. He said he was confident that Will could do final tweaks without him. We spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed, leaving only to walk the dog
, answer the door when food deliveries arrived, and once sprint to the deli to satisfy a rabid craving for strawberry lemonade on my part and Oreos on his. We ignored the phones, watched movies on cable, slept for God knows how many hours in a row, blasted tunes and danced on the furniture, and had lots of slow, stupid sex, as day blended into night blended into day again.

  And then it was Monday and I awoke with eleven pounds of steaming hot dread piled menacingly on my chest and preventing me from breathing right. As is usually the case with bouts of dread, this one turns out to be justified.

  My phone rings just as I’m getting out of the shower. It’s Clancy, shedding her clipped monotone for the first time since I’ve known her to shriek with delight.

  “Your piece is on the stands!” she says. “I put three copies in the mail to you, but you can go grab one at any newsstand. It looks incredible.”

  “That’s so exciting,” I tell her, trying to work myself into some semblance of gratitude.

  “And that’s not all!” she says, and pauses to let me wonder for a minute what she could be referring to. “You, my dear, are going to have a column, a regular, monthly sex-and-the-movies column. Sorry we’re going with sex over love or romance, but you know how salacious sells. We’re calling it ‘Reel Sex,’ R-E-E-L Sex.”

  “No way,” I say, plunking down on the edge of the bed and letting my wet towel fall around me.

  “Yeah way. Brought it up to the editor in chief weeks ago, but, as with everything else, she took her time. Got back to me this morning. She’s into it. One an issue. Eight hundred words, each at thirty-two hundred dollars. I’m putting a contract into the mail today.”

  “Wait, that’s more than two dollars a word.”

  “It’s four. You’re a columnist now. We’re very good to our columnists.”