by Ted Michael
“I’m sure,” she says, nodding. “He can’t like you that much if he’s still crashing parties, Garrett.”
Her tone implies that I have failed, somehow. It frustrates me. If Henry’s still crashing Sweet Sixteens, I’ve got my work cut out for me.
“I wonder if he hooked up with anyone,” Jessica says. “That would be so … rusty.”
I can’t help but wonder the very same thing. I thought we connected during our date. But maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe I need to do more.
“Did you guys decide on a dessert?” Devin asks, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
“Yes,” Jyllian says, squishing her boobs together with her arms. “We’ll have the tiramisu for two for four.”
“Coming right up!”
“And a cappuccino,” London calls after him.
“And another one,” Jessica says.
“Make that three,” I say. Then I look at Jyllian. “Do you want one?”
She shakes her head. “Oh, no thanks. My parents don’t believe in cappuccino.”
“What?”
“They think it’s the devil’s drink.”
“Back to you,” says London, reapplying lip gloss with her pinky. “It sounds like you really like him. Like, really like him.”
I need to steer this conversation away from dangerous territory. “I have no desire to date Henry. I just want to win.”
London looks at me skeptically. “Are you sure?”
My hands start shaking and I hide them under the table. “Absolutely.”
“Well, whatever you do,” she says, smacking her lips together and staring at me with smoldering eyes, “don’t fall in love with him.”
I try to mirror her intensity, but instead of coming off smoldering, I come off cross-eyed.
“Did your contacts dry up?” Jyllian asks. “I have re-wetting drops in my bag.”
“I’m fine.”
“Because you look a little wonky …”
“Garrett said she was fine,” London says sharply. She continues to stare at me, even once the cappuccinos arrive and the tiramisu disappears and we pay the bill. She only breaks her gaze when it’s time to leave.
“So how was dinner?” Henry asks me later that night on the phone. It’s incredible, really—the way he pays attention to everything I say.
“Fine,” I say. “We talked a lot about Destiny’s Sweet Sixteen. They’re all really excited.”
“I’m sure.” I can hear the laughter in his voice. God knows what he thinks of the J Squad. Probably that they’re nasty and why the hell am I friends with them anyway? I want to ask whether he’s hooked up with any of them, but I can’t tell if Henry is someone who likes to talk about that kind of stuff or not. I assume not. He hasn’t asked me about any of my past relationships (not that I want him to—awkward), but it does strike me as odd that we’re skirting around the fact that I know he has a reputation as a total player. I’m dying to know why he told people that we hooked up, and why he’s still crashing parties, but I keep my mouth shut.
“Are you excited?” he asks.
“I guess. I’ve never been to anything that’s been filmed for TV before.”
“I was an extra once,” he says.
“Really?”
“Not on purpose or anything. I was at this amusement park a few years ago and they were filming that awful movie with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, where he’s some, like, aging pop star.”
“Music and Lyrics?”
“That’s it. Anyway, you see my face for all of five seconds.”
“Wow,” I say. “I had no idea I was talking to a movie star.”
“Oh yeah, baby. You know it.”
There’s a bit of silence after he calls me baby, even though I know he meant it casually.
“Well,” I say, “you must be pretty excited for Destiny’s big bash.”
“Oh?”
“Seeing as how you love Sweet Sixteens and all.”
He laughs.
“It’s true!”
“I’m actually not,” he says. “That excited.”
“Why not?”
“I’d rather just hang out with you.”
More silence. Honesty. I am about to say We could just skip it and watch a movie, but the entire point of this charade is to show up with Henry as his date. I know that if I do, he’ll get his feelings hurt, and if I don’t, the J Squad will make my life miserable. Either way, this has become a lose-lose situation.
I go back and forth about how to respond until I remember the rumor about us hooking up and why I started on this quest in the first place.
“We could go together,” I suggest. “You could show me what a Sweet Sixteen is like through Henry Arlington’s eyes. If you want.”
“I’d love to,” he says. Judging from how quickly he answers, I know he means it. “I would love to go with you.”
This makes me feel a bunch of things at once: happiness (at getting one step closer to completing the J Squad’s plan), sadness (at getting one step closer to screwing Henry over), and general confusion about how to move forward.
“Okay then,” I say. “It’s settled.”
We continue talking about anything and everything. There is no filter with Henry. We talk about movies and music and art and TV and Duke and Nigel and the J Squad and college basketball (he’s a Duke fan). Before I know it, it’s practically three a.m. We’ve been on the phone for nearly four hours.
“We’ve been talking for a long time,” I say.
“I know. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with anyone that lasted longer than five minutes.”
I’ve had longer conversations than that, sure, but never like this. Not even with Ben. I don’t say anything. I am thinking about what—if anything, and surely the ease at which we can communicate is something—this means.
“You know what’s crazy?” he asks.
“No. What?”
He takes a breath that is so deep I can hear it. “I could keep talking to you. Forever.”
I’m not heartless, you know. When I hear him say this, everything inside me screams Tell him about the bet you made with the J Squad! I don’t, though. If I tell him, he will stop talking to me; I’ll lose the bet and then I will be left with no one. With nothing. And I do like talking to Henry. A lot, actually. But I also like hanging out with the J Squad.
I’m not sure what to do. I need more time to think.
“I’m tired,” I say. “I should probably go.”
“Okay,” he says, sounding slightly disappointed. “See you tomorrow?”
“Mm-hmm. G’night.”
I hang up the phone and wonder if I’m a terrible, horrible person or if, unwittingly, the game I have been playing is in fact playing me.
HENRY
In 2002, the American Film Institute (AFI) published a list of the one hundred greatest love stories on film. I don’t particularly believe in lists like this one (what qualifies the AFI to decide the “best” movies in any genre?), but Roger thought it would be a good gimmick for the cinema, so starting tonight we’re showing the Top Ten films on the AFI’s list, one per night.
ROGER
It’ll be good for couples. Y’know. Romantic and shit.
When I ask Garrett to see all ten movies with me, I assume she will say no. It’ll require some rearranging of our work schedules, and I ask her mostly as a joke anyway, but she says yes without hesitation.
I am pleasantly surprised.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Huntington as a moviegoer. I’ve traded in my uniform for a light blue V-neck sweater and a pair of jeans. “This is me going to pick up a girl,” I say out loud, dabbing on some cologne and heading out the door.
Now that I’ve broken the No Dating seal by taking Garrett to Night of the Living Dead, there’s nothing else to do but go full-steam ahead. To drive at a reckless speed and see what will happen and hope I don’t get hurt.
INT.—HUNTINGTON CINEMAS
(It Takes) Ten Movie
s to Fall in Love
10. City Lights, 1931
Monday Night
Garrett and I watch this movie in one of the smaller theaters. She’s wearing a dress that shows off her bare shoulders and she smells like honey. City Lights is a silent Charlie Chaplin movie in which he plays his slapstick tramp character, but this particular film happens to be pretty heartfelt. The tramp falls in love with a blind flower seller, who mistakes him for a millionaire, and Chaplin tries to raise money to pay for surgery that will restore the girl’s eyesight.
I’m a huge Chaplin fan, and the movie doesn’t disappoint. I’ve seen it before, but I forgot how touching the ending is, when Chaplin is released from prison (he’s mistakenly arrested for stealing money) and encounters the flower girl months after her surgery, and she can see. Or maybe forgot is the wrong word. Maybe I never realized how touching the ending is in the first place.
9. Love Story, 1970
Tuesday Night
This movie is about a guy named Oliver whose family is all Harvard grads and are generally pretty stuck-up. He meets a spunky girl named Jenny who goes to Radcliffe and they fall in love. They graduate from college and decide to get married. Oliver goes to Harvard Law School, and when Jenny wants to have children, it becomes clear (to Oliver, at least) that she has cancer.
I’m not wild about the premise. I think it’s pretty sappy (she dies, and Oliver reunites with his father, who’d shunned him), and I don’t think there’s anything too inventive about the storytelling.
“Do you like this?” I whisper to Garrett about halfway through.
“No. I want more popcorn.”
“I like the way you think.”
8. It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946
Wednesday Night
A guy about to commit suicide is visited by his guardian angel, who helps him appreciate life by showing him what the world would be like if he’d never been in it. Sort of cheesy, but the good kind of cheese (e.g., Brie).
“Was that screenplay written by a man?” Garrett asks once it’s over. We’re outside the theater, walking to my car.
“I have no idea. Maybe?”
“I bet it was,” she says, shaking her head. “Why is it that if George hadn’t existed, Mary would be some old spinster librarian? She was cute. Are you seriously going to tell me she couldn’t have found another guy? I don’t buy it. It’s totally misogynistic.”
“I think you’re reading into it too much,” I tell her. She seems really enraged; I’m totally turned on by the fact that she has such a strong reaction to the film.
I kiss her.
“You taste good,” I say. “Like M&M’s.” When I look at her, I feel so much. “Are we crazy?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Kiss me again,” she says, and it almost sounds like she’s begging for it.
7. Doctor Zhivago, 1965
Thursday Night
This movie is hard to follow. I think it’s all the Russian names. It’s based on a book about this guy, Dr. Zhivago. It’s set against the Russian Revolution of 1917 (and, I think, another war that follows). A lot of the film is about how Zhivago’s ideals and dreams as a young man are ripped apart by the violence in his country. He is torn between the love of his life (Lara) and his wife (Tonya).
I can definitely relate to the guy-with-two-ladies aspect, but I don’t particularly like movies with characters who “tell the story” in flashbacks, and either does Garrett. The movie is also way too long. There is something endearing about it, though.
“The score was beautiful,” Garrett says on the way home. “Isn’t it interesting how music can really make or break a film?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that, you know, the actors don’t hear the music when they’re performing. It’s added in afterwards. Yet it’s so important. It totally sets the tone. I can’t imagine a movie without music.”
I agree. “That’d be a pretty cool job, huh?”
“What?”
“Picking the songs that get played in movies. Figuring out exactly where they go. Working with the composer on the score. That kind of thing.”
I watch her; I can tell she’s seriously contemplating this. “Yeah,” she says, “it would.”
I ask her to come back to my house, but she declines. “We’re still on for tomorrow, right?”
“We are,” I say.
She kisses me so softly I can barely feel her lips on mine. I wrap my arms around her. Don’t stop, I think. I’m wild about you. Don’t stop.
Eventually, she stops, opening the car door and stepping outside. “Good night, Henry,” she says.
Later that night, I check my phone. Four voice mails. Two from Duke, two from Nigel, wondering where the hell I am, and why I haven’t returned any of their calls. I debate calling them back (I know it’s rude not to, and I’m only delaying the inevitable), but there’s really only one person I want to talk to.
Even though I just saw her, I dial up Garrett. We talk about things like whether Dr. Zhivago was actually a doctor and if we could eat anything right now what would it be and what it means in the Killers’ “Human” when Brandon Flowers sings the line “Are we human or are we dancer?” even though it doesn’t really matter because we both love the song so much.
I fall asleep with the phone on my pillow. I know this because I wake up in the middle of the night and feel it there, and I wish so hard that it were Garrett resting next to me.
6. The Way We Were, 1973
Friday Night
“You’re not sick of me yet?” I ask jokingly. As soon as the words are formed, though, I realize it’s not really a joke. I’m nervous. Is she tired of me? Am I boring her?
“Shut up, Henry,” she tells me, turning on the radio in my car. “And drive. I don’t want to miss the movie. I love this one.”
Barbra Streisand plays an intense political activist who marries Robert Redford even though they don’t have all that much in common. They have a baby, and once they, you know, realize they don’t have all that much in common, get a divorce. Years later, they meet in New York. Redford has a new gal and seems happy; Streisand is also shacking up with another dude. Basically, Redford realizes that no one has ever challenged him like Streisand did, and even though he’s middle-of-the-road happy, he’ll never have everything without her. At least, that’s how I interpret it.
There’s something to be said, I think, for the past remaining in the past. So many people try holding on to things that simply aren’t working: jobs, friendships, relationships. Maybe certain things only exist in a certain time, though. Maybe things aren’t meant to last forever. And that doesn’t mean they didn’t change our lives. Garrett and I sit and watch the credits and I wonder how long this whole thing between us is going to last, and what I will be left with once it’s over.
5. An Affair to Remember, 1957
Saturday Night
Garrett and I are working tonight, so we skip this one. I’ve already seen it anyway. Missed connections, misunderstandings, pride, injury, Cary Grant, and true love. It’s a pretty good film, but after five days of melodrama I’m in need of a rest.
After our shift, Garrett comes over to my house. She hasn’t met my father yet; tonight he’s already retreated to his room when we come home.
“He works a lot,” I say casually, as if that explains his behavior.
Upstairs, we make out for a while and listen to James Morrison’s album Songs for You, Truths for Me.
“He must really miss your mom,” Garrett says, still in her work clothes. I run my hands up and down her back, pressing her body to mine. I feel her shiver.
“He does,” I say. “A lot.”
I have never spoken about my mother to anyone, except for Duke and Nigel. Even then, I never revealed how much my father still longs for her.
“How did she die? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I’ve been waiting for this question. It’s the moment of truth. It would be so easy to lie and make something up.
Oh, cancer. You know how it is. But I look at Garrett, I feel her against me, and I know I cannot lie anymore. Not to her.
“I have to tell you something,” I say. “My mother isn’t dead.”
She pulls back a little. “She’s not?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. She left when I was twelve and I haven’t heard from her since. I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing. I told you she was dead because, well, basically she is. To me. She’s dead to me.”
Garrett slips her arms around my waist and hugs me. I feel a light wetness on my skin; I can’t tell if it’s her kisses or her tears.
“Henry,” she says quietly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
But it’s not okay, and we both know it. I try to cry and mourn the loss of my mother, but I can’t. Nothing escapes. So I hold still and let Garrett feel the things I cannot seem to feel, and hope that someday I will be able to grieve like she can.
4. Roman Holiday, 1953
Sunday Afternoon
Trouble arrives around eleven a.m. in the form of Duke and Nigel, who pull up to my house just as I’m about to leave.
They run toward me and bang on the window of my Jeep.
ME
Uh, hey, guys.
DUKE
Where ya goin’, Henry?
ME
Work.
NIGEL
We’ve been calling you all weekend.
ME
I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been crazy busy.
DUKE
Doing what?
ME
Stuff … with my dad.
They look at me as if I’m going to elaborate. But since I’m lying, I figure brief is best.
NIGEL
You’re always busy these days. What gives? Didn’t you have fun the other night, Phantom?
ME
No. A little. I don’t know.
