The Future for Curious People

by Gregory Sherl

  I scan the club for Madge while Bart orders two Heinekens. “I don’t see her.” He starts a tab and hands me a beer.

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I’m going to walk up to her and say things I haven’t thought of yet.” I set my beer back down on the counter. “They’ll be damn good things, though.”

  There are three bands on the bill, and I don’t know which is set to go on first. But I’m sure all of them are here by now. We drink and scan and drink. I point at Bart’s Heineken bottle. “Another beer?”

  Bart looks at his beer bottle. He nods. “But make it a light. Amy’s been all ‘Those pleats look like they’re pinching your waistline . . .’ ”

  “Two Heineken Lights,” I tell the bartender. Bart’s staring at Leopard Tights and the guy she’s with. They’re still pressed against the wall. Someone’s scribbled THE BABYMAKERS STOLE YOUR GIRLFRIEND in permanent marker and in all capital letters on the wall behind them. It had to be Adrian or someone else from the band—I can’t imagine them having any fans, especially any willing to graffiti in the name of their art.

  Still, this is starting to feel so hopeless. I should’ve come clean that morning in Evelyn’s bed. I was too busy falling in love and too chicken shit that I’d screw it up.

  And then—apropos of nothing—I see Dot. She’s at the other bar. She’s holding a mixed drink. Next to her is a guy in an argyle sweater vest. He looks like a barista or an accountant, depending on the city. He sips from a bottled water. Dot laughs every few seconds, like an alarm.

  Bart follows my eyes.

  “That’s Dot. Evelyn’s friend. You don’t think . . .”

  The lights dim and the house music gets louder. I’m not familiar with the preshow music. It’s fuzzed out from the shitty equipment and what seems to be equally, if not more so, shitty acoustics, but it sounds like Passion Pit or maybe of Montreal—a repeated bass line with a half-dozen synths and a unisex falsetto. I’m scanning the crowd now for Evelyn.

  And then: past the bouncer banding everyone over twenty-one, not ten feet away from Leopard Tights and her boyfriend still going at it against the wall, is Evelyn. Just standing there. Right there!

  Evelyn looks like she was cut out of a magazine ad. She’s in a navy polka-dot dress under a tan trench coat. I almost choke. I think about telling Bart, but I worry if I look away and then back, Evelyn will disappear.

  Evelyn doesn’t look around the club. She’s obviously not a tourist. There is still no sign of Madge. Bart is still watching the couple dry-humping against the wall. I have formulated my plan: there is no plan.

  Evelyn is now heading toward Dot and Sweater Vest. This is my one chance.

  “Hold this,” I tell Bart, pushing my beer in his direction. He reaches out to grab it, but I drop the bottle too soon, and the Heineken Light falls on the floor, spilling all over Bart’s boat shoes. We both look at his shoes for a second. “You’ll thank me for that,” I tell him. I’m already backing away before I turn around and head straight for Evelyn.

  I catch her in the middle of the club. It’s pretty smooth, actually. It looks rehearsed. In a stroke, I slide my hand into hers and guide her to the most desolate part of the club, which ends up being the wall space between the men’s and women’s restrooms.

  Evelyn’s not shocked, which momentarily shocks me. She seems annoyed. I’m glad she doesn’t have a drink yet. She has nothing to throw in my face. I’m worried what Madge said to her when she was pretending to be me. A few strands of Evelyn’s bangs have fallen over her forehead. She pushes them to the side. She leans against the wall as casually as possible.

  There’s a steady flow of people going in and out of the bathrooms.

  “What are you doing?” Evelyn says.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “What are you doing?” she says again. “Godfrey, let go of my hand.” We look at my hand together. I didn’t even realize I was still holding hers. “Now,” she says.

  I let my hand fall to my side. It feels awkward. I stuff it into my pocket. I do the same with the other. I like to feel evened out.

  “What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “I found my father,” I say. “He’s been keeping himself seaside.”

  “What? I’m talking about the text messages. The bath salts, the clean pee, all that Twilight stuff.”

  Damn. Madge has had some sick field day. “Okay,” I say. “The truth. I didn’t send those texts. I still don’t have my phone.” I raise my hands as proof of my obvious phonelessness. “It was my fiancée. My ex-fiancée.” But since I can’t honestly fully claim the ex part, I say, “Well, technically—”

  “I’m walking away. Right now. Don’t talk to me. Or look at me with that face.”

  “What face?”

  “That face.”

  “But it’s my face. How can I look at you with someone else’s face?”

  Evelyn pushes herself off the wall. I’m losing her, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m about to give up when I catch Madge out of the corner of my eye. There’s no meandering in her steps—she’s on a straight march. I look back at Evelyn. Fuck it. I put my hand on her cheek. There’s a light gasp. I see the light freckles under her eyes.

  I know that I don’t have much time with her. “If you ever find a brooch,” I say, “a specific brooch . . .”

  “What?” Her face is still flushed.

  “Just promise me you’ll think of me and wear it. A pear brooch . . .”

  “A pear brooch,” she says, astonished. “You want me to wear it . . .”

  “In some future, any future at all!”

  And I don’t know why, but Evelyn softens into me. I slide my hands around her waist. I pull her to me. And I kiss her. We fall in place. Evelyn’s eyes were closed before my lips touched hers and I don’t want to feel left out, so I close mine and imagine everything that will probably not happen: days feeling like amusement parks, burying my mother together, following our kids into tubes, dying together in a bed the size of the moon.

  And for a few moments, Madge ceases to exist. For a few moments, I understand why we have lips. We give escalators of light a reason to wrap around our heads. I discover a new part of mouth and teach it to French. I study every movement like a history lesson.

  A tap on my shoulder jars me away from Evelyn’s lips. When I finally open my eyes, Madge is standing next to us, smiling like she just bought a winning lottery ticket and stuck it into her bra for safe keeping. My eyes go from Madge back to Evelyn. Evelyn looks confused. Madge looks disconcertingly confident, and I can tell by the infinitesimal droop of one eyelid that she’s already had a drink or two.

  Madge is about to win, and she knows it. It’s obvious she’s not going to speak first. She’s wearing the engagement ring, twirling it with her thumb like this was her wish all along.

  I feel like I’m fading. I want to find a backseat with Evelyn, melt into her until morning. I’ll explain everything when we wake up. All news is taken better in daylight, right?

  I could grab Evelyn’s hand right now and make a run for it. We’ll push right through Madge. I’ll high-five Bart on our way out of the club. Hell, there’s already a sound track going. The lighting is damp. Outside of the club, I’ll hold up a map. Close your eyes and point, I’ll tell her. This is an anywhere feeling.

  Evelyn speaks up first. “Since Godfrey isn’t going to introduce us,” she says, extending her hand to Madge, “I’m Evelyn.”

  Madge takes Evelyn’s hand. Madge’s face is a portrait at Sears. She got that smile surgically planted to her face. “That’s so Godfrey,” Madge says. “Always aloof. I’m surprised he remembered the ring when he got on his knee.” I’m sweating. Madge wraps her arm through mine and kisses my cheek. Madge’s voice jumps an octave. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

  I can see my future shape-shift right in front of me. In fifteen years my mom is still dead, I’m wearing middle management pants with an elastic waist, balding, in a basement jerkin
g off. There’s no Evelyn. I’m holding air.

  “I’m sorry,” Evelyn says. “You said something about a ring?”

  “Oh, honey, you didn’t think?” Madge points to Evelyn and then me. She laughs. “Oh, sweetheart. The wedding’s in June. I know, I know what you’re thinking. Summer wedding, hot, probably rainy, but my grandmother’s sick. Don’t worry, you look worried. It’s not cancer or anything; she’s just really old, and we don’t know how long. Godfrey here just adores her so much. He couldn’t imagine having the wedding without her. Isn’t he just the cutest?” Her grandmother is a real wise-cracker, but that’s the only truth here.

  “This isn’t true, Evelyn. Let me tell you everything from the very beginning. It’ll all make sense.”

  “Is she your fiancée or not?” Evelyn asks.

  “I want to start this over,” I say again, extricating my arm from Madge’s grip. “From the beginning. I’d like to start at birth, but I can speed it all up to this very moment in time.”

  The house music seems louder now. I feel dizzy. The bass line is a metronome. I wonder why we aren’t all talking in rhythm. Evelyn is breathing heavily.

  “Godfrey,” Madge says in her very calm voice. “Aren’t we engaged?”

  “You know it’s not that simple, Madge.”

  “I think it’s very simple!” Madge yells.

  “Are you engaged or not?” Evelyn says again, but this time softly, almost inaudibly. She’s beginning to shift from foot to foot, like she could bolt at any moment. She pulls a scarf out of the pocket of her trench coat and starts winding it around her neck. Her hands are shaking. She looks like she’s trying not to cry.

  “Tell her!” Madge says. “Tell her the truth!”

  “You slept with the Babymakers’ lead singer,” I say. “That doesn’t feel very engaged.”

  “You had sex with Adrian?” Evelyn says at first looking stung, but then she raises her hands close to her ears as if she’s overloaded.

  “Wait,” I say. “You know Adrian?”

  She nods her head ever so slightly.

  “You’re that Evelyn? The one who was obsessed about some future where you two fought over cheese? Small, small world,” Madge says.

  “You dated Adrian?” I’m the last to catch on here.

  “Yes,” Evelyn says. “But before I even met you. We were already broken up. See how that’s supposed to work?”

  “Wait.” I’m trying to figure out what went wrong. What happened to all of my decisions being made from the heart—that counting for something? “But I sent you the singing telegram, the duck. Didn’t you get it?”

  “The duck was for me?”

  “Of course! It sang the national anthem. Who else would it be for?”

  “The duck got robbed, Godfrey.”

  “Before or after the national anthem?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Does it? I mean, is that your definition of meaningful communication?” Evelyn fumbles with the scarf at her neck and that’s when I see the brooch. A pear-shaped brooch.

  I say, “Wickham Purdy!” just like that because, my God, somehow that brooch already made it to Evelyn!

  “Wicked what? What are you talking about?” Madge laughs loudly. “Is that a New England thing or a Southern thing?”

  Evelyn looks down at the brooch. “Dot,” she says. “She reverse-stole it back to me. Did you plan this?” She stares at me angrily. “Did you set me up somehow? And all you have to say to me is ‘wicked purdy’?”

  “No, I didn’t set you up. Why would I do that?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Evelyn says, motioning to Madge, but she’s not looking at me. She staring at the floor. “You were engaged. You must have loved her—at some point, in some way. You can’t just pretend that someone doesn’t exist.”

  Everything’s swirling around so insanely that I can’t grab hold of any part of the conversation.

  Evelyn taps her fingers on her forehead and says quickly, as if trying to cast a spell, “It’s all bullshit! It’s all bullshit! It’s all bullshit!” She shakes her head. “It’s not working!” She points at Madge. “You wrote those texts. You said he overly loves his mother and Twilight and that he smokes bath salts and . . . wait.” She swings back to me. “Are you on parole?”

  “I’m not any of those things! Though I care about my mother deeply and what asshole doesn’t love his mother?”

  Madge laughs. “You want the truth?” she says. “He lisped as a child, which his mother was very worried about because she was convinced that was a sign he was going to grow up gay.”

  “Did my mother tell you that?” I say because my mother has never told me that.

  Madge charges on and it feels like some horrible nightmare. “He sometimes hums while having sex. He’s part of a longstanding D and D group, like they’ve met for decades. And, and, the worst part of Godfrey Burkes.” She swings around and gestures at me sarcastically like I’m a game-show prize. “The saddest fucking part about him . . . is his potential. He could be amazing and he isn’t. And how can you be with someone like that day after day?”

  Madge reaches out and touches Evelyn’s arm. “Adrian and I met at our envisionist’s office. He told me he’d have never gone if it weren’t for you.” Madge then turns to me. “He handed me an ad for his band in the lobby, and after you took off, I tracked him down.”

  “You met at Plotnik’s?” I say as if this matters at all, but still, I’m pissed at Dr. A. Plotnik. She could have been more forthright in the restaurant, but she probably was on Madge’s side all along.

  “As if any of it matters. I mean, what with the news,” Madge says.

  “What news?” Evelyn says.

  “CNN’s breaking the story. Didn’t you hear? All that envisioning is bullshit. The FCC is coming down on all of them hard. I never believed it anyway. I mean, why wouldn’t someone just use it to fix the stock exchange, right?”

  “That’s what I said!” I tell Madge.

  She just stares at me. “What?”

  This explains why everyone had flocked to Chin’s—one last chance—and why Chin said he’d miss me. And why Dr. A. Plotnik accused me of being one of the people who turned them in. It’s not bullshit. There are all the things I saw and Evelyn showing up again and again and the brooch . . . Still, there’s a tide of relief—my mother might not die so young.

  “Too bad about Amy and Bart,” Madge says. “I guess they’re not going to end up rich after all!”

  Evelyn glances between me and Madge, sharp glares. “Chin is closing? I’ve got to go back before it all gets shut down.” And then she turns and starts to push through the crowd, which has gotten dense.

  “Evelyn!” I shout.

  “Don’t follow her,” Madge says, and then, with a flicker of compassion, she adds, “Give her time.”

  And maybe Madge is right. I’m not sure what to do. I can feel the distance between Evelyn and me stretching out. She’s past the woman in leopard tights and her boyfriend—dry-humping now with intensity. I know that I should maybe let Evelyn go, but I can’t. I have to follow her. I really have no other choice.

  I start to head after her, but Madge grabs my arm and says, “I loved you.” For a second her eyes flash with tears and the real Madge is there—the one I fell in love with. She exists. Madge’s chin bobs once and then she’s angry again, but she manages to say, “I don’t regret it. Don’t . . .” And then she stops and takes in a sharp breath. “Don’t regret loving me either.”

  I can’t look at Madge now. She’s become real and vulnerable when I least expected it. I feel sorry for us—all that time together not being real and vulnerable. I say, “I wasted a lot of time just trying to guess what you wanted me to say.”

  And then there’s a figure behind Madge—a man wearing a deep purple V-neck. He has just enough stubble on his face that it looks like he didn’t have time to shave this morning because he was up all night fucking and missed the alarm. He smiles at Madge and sh
e smiles back, like two people seeing each other in the wild for the first time after having sex. “Hey you,” he says, and he gives Madge’s shoulder a friendly punch. “You showed up!”

  “Godfrey, this is Adrian,” Madge says, beaming. “Adrian, Godfrey.”

  “Hey.” Adrian—lead singer of the Babymakers, former boyfriend of Evelyn, current lover of Madge, creator of the line “You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun” and now wearer of purple V-necks. “You’re going to love this set tonight. It’s rank with broken hearts.” I’m not sure if this means Adrian knows that I’m the ex or if Adrian is a salesman who thinks broken hearts sell?

  “Whether envisioning is real or not, I’ll still bet that in ten years the Babymakers will be selling songs to Volkswagen commercials,” Madge says, and then her viciousness is back. “And you’ll still be in a basement touching yourself.”

  Adrian puffs a little and says, “Hey, thanks,” to Madge.

  I turn to go, but then stop. And I realize as I’m turning around that, all this time with Madge, I’ve been terrified of her. From the first moment when she called my doodling vaginalia to this very moment now. From the moment she looked at me and seemed to see a better me, I’ve not wanted to lose that better me. But that better me is not me.

  “Give me the ring back,” I tell her.

  Without looking at me, she slides the engagement ring off her finger and shoves it into my open palm. I’m confused by its lightness. Shouldn’t something so important be heavier?

  “You know what? You brought me to Adrian,” Madge says happily. “There are no accidents, right?”

  I’m not afraid of Madge anymore. She’s just this human being in a bar who had sex with the guy standing next to her. I imagine that I should have to screw up all my courage to say what I have to say, but I don’t. “Adrian,” I say. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” I look at Madge, and the smile is easy and free. “Screw you.”