by Jana Casale
Moments later John appeared in the courtyard. He stood with his hands in his pockets and looked clumsy and nervous. It was endearing. She got up, paying a light glance to the brooding boy who was watching her leave.
She ran up to him. “John,” she said. And he turned around. “You’re so late,” she said.
“I’m sorry. Did you think I wasn’t coming?” he said.
“I wasn’t really worried.”
“I was going to text you, but my phone died on the way here.”
“Likely story.” She smiled. Does he know that I am flirting? Because I am trying to flirt. Maybe I don’t know what flirting is. Maybe I never have flirted and I should be at home eating leftover spaghetti.
“Should we go eat?” she asked.
“Let’s do it.”
The sun was low in the sky and over the river the light had dissolved from blue to copper as it touched down on the current. The air smelled like springtime, the brisk freshness of it something she would later associate with the early days of dating. A tall, thin girl in a romper walked her bike past, looking first at Leda and then at John and then back to her. Leda felt a rewarding sense of superiority. She shot a glance at the girl and smiled. I’m the prettiest, she thought, but it wasn’t even a thought at all. It was more a rising up in her, a boiling that would rise and fall her whole life through, a barometer of self-worth.
They chose the Mediterranean place on the corner. She had only ever been there once before, on a particularly terrible blind date with a pudgy British guy who wore a bowler hat and informed her that “rape accusations ruin the reputation of many fine men.”
“If they don’t want to be accused of rape, maybe they shouldn’t rape,” she’d said.
She thought about telling John about the date, but considering he’d suggested the restaurant, she worried he’d take it the wrong way.
They ordered a hummus and falafel vegetable platter. Leda had been conscious not to order meat, as about a month before John mentioned he was a vegetarian. When he asked what she wanted to order, she hardly let him finish the question, saying in a quick over-panicked voice, “Vegetable platter.”
“I don’t mind if you order meat, you know,” he said.
She took a deep breath and calmed herself, figuring there was only room for one nervous, vegetable-related outburst. “No, I really do want the vegetable platter.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, definitely.”
As she ate dinner she worried over having something on her face or in her teeth. She unconsciously covered her mouth with her hand as she chewed. She didn’t want to eat the last falafel even though she was still hungry. I’ll eat the leftover spaghetti at home, she thought. He paid for dinner, which was something she wasn’t used to but always hoped for. Her mom had told her, “The man should always pay for dinner.” She’d considered this piece of advice an outdated relic of a bygone dating era.
“Mom, things are different now,” she had said.
“Things will never be different. Women will always give more of themselves to men; at the very least let them pay for dinner.”
With her ex-boyfriend she’d split the bill or paid for both of them pretty much every time. He treated her about four times in the six-month relationship, and when they broke up because he wanted to move to North Carolina to join an energy-efficient farm, she came to realize how foolish it had all been. She’d tell friends, “I looked back and thought: All that money I spent and for what?”
After dinner she and John got tea and sat on a bench in the courtyard in front of the coffee shop where they had met up at the beginning of the date. It was cool out now that the sun had gone down completely. She shivered slightly at first, but drinking the tea kept her warm. John talked in the quiet way she had begun to adore. He asked her about living in Cambridge and what she liked to write about and if she’d ever been published.
“I like to write about women,” she said. “But I haven’t really been published. Well, actually, I was published in this school journal, but I don’t think it really counts.”
“That most certainly counts. What was the story about?” he asked.
“It was about a girl whose friend wants to be in Playboy, and she’s all against it, and then she ends up with the opportunity to be in it, and so she considers it even though she’s this feminist and she thinks it’s horrible and all that. For a minute she’s flattered.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, well, I feel like we all like to believe we’re above wanting to feel pretty.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Soon after, it was time to go home. It was getting late and her tea had grown completely cold. They walked together to the subway and had to part ways, as their trains ran in opposite directions. Will he kiss me? she thought, but at the same time didn’t want it to happen. She wasn’t sure why; it was anticipation and fear and tiredness from the night. She decided to hug him quick and to not give him the chance. “Goodbye, John. Text me,” she said.
Their first kiss would take place on their second date, and it would be at the train station in a moment similar to this one. John would hold her shoulders and the kiss would be simple and short.
She sat on the train and watched John walking off from their first date. Her heart felt fluttered, as if someone had run their hands over it. An older woman who sat beside her started chatting with her about a play she had just seen. Leda nodded and asked all kinds of questions about how it was and where it was and who was in it. She was very interested in the play, as if she and this woman shared some experience that night that was exactly the same, a blazing exuberance between them that was intimate and destined to be brief. As the subway came to the woman’s stop, they nodded to each other in a silent agreement about which neither of them knew.
When Leda got off the train she checked her phone, and then checked it again right after she got in the door of her apartment. He hadn’t texted. It’s not reasonable for me to expect him to text tonight, but god I hope he does, she thought. She ate cold leftover spaghetti standing at her counter. And as she put on her pajamas, she heard her phone buzz. It was one of the best sounds she would ever hear in her entire life. She wouldn’t consider why or how it was possible to feel so different from the day before, to feel so much because a man sat beside her on a bench and listened to her talk and bought her a tea. She wouldn’t ever believe how it could send her afloat and light her up and be everything to her.
“I like you,” the text said.
CHAPTER 17
The Phone
And so began the obsession with her phone, every buzz, every vibration, every moment, needing it by her side, checking it nearly constantly. The feeling of hope when she’d hear it or feel it at the bottom of her bag and that utter, and merciless, joy at seeing his name.
John
it would say and then she would open the text or answer the call, her heart rising inside her throat, and she would always stop breathing for a second and then swallow. The day she stopped the pattern of heart rising, stop breathing, swallow was the day that the relationship actually became serious. It was a Tuesday and John had texted, “What park? I’m on the corner now.” They wouldn’t commemorate the moment, although they did happen to have cake later that night by coincidence. The cake was red velvet and she had two pieces.
In those early days together, the pulse of her existence was beating almost entirely by when she’d hear from him. She’d check her phone first thing when she woke up, before she could even fully focus her eyes, when she still felt tired and weak from sleep. If he did text her, the morning would seem more lucid; she’d be energized for the day ahead, ready and excited for the next texts. At night they’d always talk before bed. He often went to bed later than she did and so she’d stay up and wait for him, sometimes so late that she’d have to sit up to ke
ep from falling asleep, but then she’d hear her phone go off, and she’d feel rejuvenated, her heart rising, her breath stopping, her swallow. “Hi,” she’d say.
She and John could easily talk for hours. They could maintain conversations about the most useless topics.
“I don’t understand why people like string cheese.”
“I like string cheese,” he said.
“I’m not surprised you like string cheese. You like all sorts of disgusting food.”
“But string cheese isn’t disgusting. String cheese is like a phenomenon of cheese.”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you, because you love disgusting food,” she said.
Anne was jealous of it. It became a wedge in their friendship, one that would take years to fully play out and was mostly handled with catty remarks and the occasional backhanded compliment.
“How is it possible to talk on the phone for five hours with someone?” Anne said as they ate pizza.
“I don’t know. We just talk about everything.”
Anne shifted in her seat. “I just think that’s, like, a really long time. I mean…five hours just seems crazy.”
“You know—but we don’t realize it’s five hours.” Leda felt compelled to defend herself, her pizza growing cold in the attempt. I can’t really explain the boat conversation, but maybe she’ll understand if she realizes how funny the boat conversation was.
“We had this conversation about boats where…you know how boats can sometimes have, like…I don’t know what they’re called. They’re, like, those big things. It was just, like, about the Titanic basically, but my point is it was really funny and so we just ended up talking about boats.”
“Boats?”
“Yeah.” She took a bite of crust. It was cold.
“You guys are weird. Five-hour phone conversations are weird,” Anne said.
“Don’t you and Jory talk on the phone?” Jory was the guy Anne was currently dating.
“No. We text, of course, but you know how I don’t like to talk on the phone. It’s just different. It’s more about passion with us.”
And that’s when Leda realized Anne was jealous.
“Passion is everything, isn’t it?” she said.
Anne texted less frequently after that, but Leda didn’t mind. She had John now, and anyone else’s texts just seemed like a letdown anyway. She’d feel her phone go off and then reach for it with so much hope and anticipation, only to be dashed by friends and family. I don’t care about your damn haircut, Katrina!
All of this was a certain kind of wonderful suffering, a pain she put herself through. She’d send a text, and if John didn’t text back fairly soon, she’d wonder, and she’d worry, and she’d let her day be so wielded by his word. “How are you?” and that was happiness. She’d be over the moon and flying through her life, looking down on everything else so shrinking below her.
She remembered an old friend who was dating a terrible guy. His name was Omar, and he was always showing up or not showing up or talking to her or not talking to her on whatever whim he felt. The girl’s name was Allison. She was tall and blond and really, really pretty. Leda remembered envying the way she could effortlessly wear such low-rise jeans. They took a photography class together and Allison would often talk about Omar and all of their problems. Leda would listen but think her own thoughts as Allison would tell horrible story after horrible story, all the while saying things to the effect of, “But he does care about me—I know he cares about me—he does care about me.” She remembered Allison telling her about how Omar had invited her out for dinner, one of the rare occasions that he actually did, and then halfway through started rushing her out so he could go hang out with his friends.
“We were only there a half hour,” Allison said.
“What did he say to make you leave, though?” Leda said.
“He didn’t really say anything. He kept being like, ‘Are you done? Are you done?’ I just knew all of a sudden that he had plans so I stopped eating.” She stood on her tiptoes to pin her print to the clothesline to dry. It was of a flower with raindrops on it. Only part of it was out of focus. “I had my hair cut that day and everything ’cause I was so excited that we were actually going to go out for dinner.”
“But that sounds so crazy. Why would you stop eating?”
Allison kept moving as she spoke. She looked even more brilliant in the red of the darkroom light. “I just know how he acts when he has plans.”
“But what I mean is, why would you do that just because he had plans? Why not eat really slowly? Why not tell him it’s not okay to act like a dick?”
“I know. But he did text me like an hour later…See.” She smiled and held out her phone. The text said, “Hey.”
Leda never met Omar, but she did see him across the quad once. She and Allison were on a break midway through class. It was a warm spring day and they sat opposite each other at a picnic table. Allison smiled and laughed and looked so blond and so pretty. All of a sudden her face changed, and she jumped up and swung over beside Leda.
“Oh my god, he’s over there,” she said.
“Where?”
“Over there. Do you want to meet him?”
“Yeah, where though?”
Allison pointed to a very short, fat man standing with a group of guys. He was laughing and talking, and he looked so small and fat.
“That’s Omar?!” Leda couldn’t believe that this was the man who had brought so much misery to Allison’s life. He looks like you could just flick him, she thought. And there he is just laughing like that. As stupid as hell.
“I don’t know if I should introduce you,” Allison said. “He looks busy.”
“You’ve slept with this person, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, who cares! Just go up and talk to him.”
“It’s…I…ummm. I’ll introduce you another time.”
The last time she saw Allison was the day of their final. Allison said something at the beginning of class about a fight or some disagreement that she and Omar had. She said she’d cried all weekend and hadn’t eaten. But she didn’t seem that sad, she seemed so used to it all and ready to move on, and so they talked about other things, about the summer ahead and Allison wanting to go to Europe next year to study abroad. All the plans seemed good, as if she were letting go of it all, and it seemed then as if she were happy. And then in the middle of talking about Paris and Milan and boating at her parents’ lake house she said, “He hasn’t texted me.” Leda could only see her back as she spoke, her thin back and her arm reaching out, supporting herself on the photo enlarger beside her, the curve of the muscle, her elbow, her wrist. And that’s when she noticed that Allison’s arm was shaking.
She hadn’t really thought much about Allison until meeting John, and then she only thought of her once. It was a Thursday, and she decided she needed bronzer. She took a shower and lay on her bed naked, flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog. There was this picture of a model wearing a pink floral corset. “Spring into Spring,” it said. Leda didn’t care for the corset, but the girl’s contoured face and languid expression made her think, Maybe I should get bronzer.
She ate an apple as she walked to the train and texted John about getting dinner later. She hadn’t seen him that Saturday because he said he was busy. He hadn’t said why, and although she didn’t really think anything of it, it still bothered her that he hadn’t given an excuse. They’d talked that night, and he hadn’t mentioned anything in particular that he did, which made it even worse. Anne said, “So he just didn’t even give an excuse?” Leda said back, “No, but I’m not worried.” And then she ate nearly an entire package of Oreos.
As she got to her stop she checked her phone. He hadn’t texted back. She walked the six blocks to the mall and checked it again, nothing.
In
the makeup store she immediately felt overwhelmed. Apparently there were many, many bronzers, and she certainly had no sense of which one to choose. She checked her phone again. A salesgirl with green mascara asked her, “Do you need help?” Against her better judgment, Leda responded, “Yes, I’m looking for bronzer.”
“What kind of bronzer are you looking for?” the girl asked.
“I don’t know, actually…”
“Well, what does your skin look like in your most sun-kissed state?”
It was then that Leda regretted ever saying that she needed help. The girl took a test compact from the shelf.
“This is my absolute favorite. It’s from this company called Irrational Discord. It has a very smooth, bold look.”
She took a cotton makeup pad and wiped the sample bronzer.
“You always want to wipe the samples first,” she cautioned.
Leda wondered whether she was speaking from experience. The girl wiped the top layer of powder off and then, taking a second pad, acquired a generous amount of bronzer.
“Just along your cheeks,” she said, swiping the makeup across her face.
“Take a look.”
Leda looked at herself in a nearby mirror. She didn’t look more contoured at all. She did look her most sun-kissed, though. She looked as though the sun had kissed her many, many times.
“Do you love it?” the girl asked.
She knew that if she protested in any way, she’d be in for more time with the green mascara girl. She certainly didn’t want to try on any more bronzers with her, nor did she imagine that the two of them would come to a consensus on what makeup aesthetic could be considered successful, but more than anything she wanted to check her phone and see if John had texted.
“I love it!” she said.
She checked her phone. John still hadn’t texted. It’s been almost an hour, and I haven’t heard from him all day, she thought. She wiped her face almost immediately after the salesgirl walked off, but she held on to the Irrational Discord bronzer for some time before stealthily discarding it behind the liquid foundation. Leda had a sense that Green Mascara would be offended if she saw this, so she took great care that she did it while her back was turned.
