Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel

by Nora Zelevansky

  “I didn’t remember that you had met. I really do think those were pot brownies.” They fell silent. She examined Mac’s aristocratic profile, as he stared hard out the window. “Did you expect someone different?”

  “Sure. You made him sound blustery, like a hard-ass. I pictured him older, balder, thicker through the middle.”

  Marjorie snorted. “Oh! Not at all. You should see the two interns falling all over him.”

  Mac faced her, his tone casual. “What about you?”

  “They like me fine, I think.”

  “No. I mean, you don’t think he’s dreamy? It’s fine if you do.”

  His white lie tumbled out easily, as similar ones have from thousands of other mouths on tense nights. The pat response returned automatically like a boomerang from Marjorie’s own lips: “Me? No. He’s not my type. Too tall.”

  Mac chose to believe her fib. He sidled up closer, pressed his clothed right leg against her bare left one, and settled a possessive hand on her knee, as her head dropped against his shoulder. They screeched to a stop at a red light, Marjorie’s body traveling ahead of her insides, her soul playing catch-up, a millisecond late. It felt like free-falling.

  “You still too hot?”

  “Much better, thank you. But I need a cold shower.”

  “That’s doable. Just like you.”

  Upstairs, Marjorie did shower, but not alone. Mac’s company worked just fine for her. Pressed however awkwardly against the cool ceramic tiles, she felt nice and distracted.

  Nervous energy thus expended, she threw on Mac’s old oversize Radiohead T-shirt and stood before his bookshelves, brushing tangles from her wet hair. She thought she remembered seeing a leather-bound first edition of Franny and Zooey among the untouched tomes. Yes! On tiptoe, she nudged at its rough bottom corner until it dropped and caught it midfall. She rubbed a hand over the cover, enjoying the embossed lettering against her fingertips. Had she finished the book when it was assigned in school? Or was she too busy sneaking vodka and Cokes in Mac’s den with the other stoned fifteen-year-olds?

  He emerged from the bathroom, smelling of pine soap, his cheeks pink from steam, a towel wrapped around his waist. Considering the late hour, he looked refreshed, ready for a morning jog. Eyeing Marjorie bent over a book, the girl he’d had lodged at the back of his mind for longer than he cared to acknowledge, he felt good too.

  He flipped off the light and collapsed into the memory foam mattress like a fingerprint. Her bedside lamp cast a soft glow.

  “It’s weird. I know we showered, but I feel dirtier. In a good way. Should we go again?”

  She glanced at him, unseeing. “You’re funny.” She wasn’t listening.

  It was late. He was, despite appearances, tired. He threw his towel toward the laundry hamper in a rare instance of sloppiness and climbed under the covers.

  “Let’s go to bed.” He was already drifting. Before Marjorie, he had stayed up nights, plagued by hypochondria and heartburn. Now, he slept like the dead.

  “One sec.” Marjorie slipped between the sheets too and reread a sentence, having failed to absorb it the first time: “Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth.”

  Mac opened one eye. “Is that for work?”

  “No. It’s for life.” She giggled at echoing Belinda’s words.

  “Why is that funny?” Mac felt suddenly glum. “You’re a nerd. G’night. I’m already sleeping. Don’t try to cuddle with me. Okay, you can.”

  Marjorie hardly heard him. Soon after, though, she did begin to nod off, forgetting each sentence as she read it, words tumbling in and out of comprehension. She closed the book and drooped toward her pillow for the night’s slumber.

  That is until 4:23 A.M., when a crack of thunder erupted, signaling the city’s release from Big Mama Nature’s smothering, chesty embrace. The humidity broke. Dreamers relaxed into REM cycles, cooled down, and breathed easier. But Marjorie was wide awake. A dam had broken in her too.

  She stared at the ceiling, her thoughts nonlinear. She wasn’t sure from what dream she’d awoken, but suddenly she could more than recall, she could feel the sensation of cavorting toward Central Park with a pack of other at once insecure and cocky teenage girls—the wind at their backs, the boys at their destination, the ghostly trails of chatter and teasing shoves, the sense of her own grace as she navigated sidewalks’ cracks. She could taste her faintly perfumed mocha-colored lipstick, could sense the gazes of passing strangers, who recalled, with nostalgic pangs, their own disappeared youths. A cigarette lit, mostly for effect. Ferocity, strength, freedom. She’d been a nuclear conductor, unchecked, alive, awake. Awake, like she was now.

  That time in her life was hard to release because it felt so electric—all gusto, no consequences, like peeling off a sweater on the first day of spring. Now Marjorie recognized its ephemerality. Sooner or later the sun dipped behind a cloud and a confident strut was deflated by an imperfect reflection in a mirror, another girl’s nasty barb, a crush missing from among the crew of roughhousing boys or, worse, a crush focused elsewhere. To move on, she would have to let go and accept reality.

  Marjorie almost woke Mac to commiserate but stopped herself. She had naïvely assumed that her friends lived in homes as safe as her own, until he told her otherwise. Adolescence had been fraught for Mac. At school, it took effort to be the charming, funny guy, the one you couldn’t trust but did; his home was no better. His family members made bad choices, perpetuating “a cycle of semifunctional codependence,” so described the countless experts in their lopsided glasses, dishes of hard coffee candies on their tables. Cast as martyr—and, finally, brute—he had thanklessly tried to corral his drunk mother, reckless sister, and gruff father (who resorted to withholding silence). Mac wouldn’t recognize the romance Marjorie chased.

  She gave up on sleep. A pair of Uniqlo socks, made from some unearthly synthetic material, waited like a fuzzy friend at her bedside. She pulled them on, then slid along the floor toward the living room like a child.

  On the couch, Marjorie tucked a leg underneath her and wrapped herself in a chenille throw that she suspected was for show. On the authentic Noguchi coffee table was one large clicker in place of the requisite three remotes. Of course, Mac had hired someone to streamline the system. He would not tolerate anarchy.

  She clicked Power, muting before the picture manifested for volume’s sake, then began flipping through channels. In the dark, the TV’s light pulsed, the kind of relentless stimuli that cause seizures, Marjorie imagined. She considered watching Sweet Home Alabama on TBS and then Fargo on HBO.

  But, as she clicked past, CNN’s “Breaking News” ticker caught her eye. Somewhere far outside Mac’s apartment, something sinister had happened: a shooting in a place called Aurora. The tension had broken in New York City but descended 1,621 miles away. There, brows furrowed midsleep, as locals osmosed terrible news.

  The Colorado shooting would make most Americans think of 1999’s Columbine massacre, when two boys, gangly and acne-dotted, hid semiautomatic weapons in trench coats and terrorized their school’s teachers and student body, killing twelve students and one teacher before killing themselves.

  Marjorie was no exception. She shuddered, turning up the volume a notch. An unfamiliar anchor was getting her big break, while the tragedy brigade—Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Soledad O’Brien—was no doubt summoned. Experts were surely being woken for interviews on shooter psychology, the impact of violent film on today’s youth, and gun control.

  “A gunman opened fire at a midnight showing of the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises,” the anchor was saying.

  Marjorie’s unease mounted; movie theaters were like temples to her. Growing up, she had gone with her father every Saturday, first for kids’ fare like Mary Poppins at the revival house or, when she begged, The Last Unicorn. Then, later, he took her to grown-up films before she wholly under
stood them: Radio Days, My Own Private Idaho, Misery, Goodfellas. Even horror movies seemed safe as she sat beside him.

  What were the loved ones of these victims doing in the late hours before the shooting occurred? Watching syndicated sitcoms? Double-checking their alarms? They couldn’t have known how much they were about to lose.

  Suddenly, Marjorie had the urge to call her parents—to be picked up halfway through a sleepover party. As her eyes welled, she realized that the numbness that had characterized her last few years—was it that long?—was lifting. She was inside the world again, vulnerable to its joys and misgivings.

  “What’s up?” asked Mac from the doorway, making her jump.

  She recovered and tucked his blanket out of view, feeling that she’d somehow overstepped bounds by using it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

  He squinted, eyes glassy. He’d taken the time to throw on gray boxer briefs. “No, you come back to sleep.”

  She nodded toward the TV. “There’s been a shooting.”

  “Oh, no. Where?”

  “In Colorado.”

  “Of course. Colorado. Their biggest import.”

  “At a midnight showing of Batman. They don’t know how many people were killed. But there were babies there.”

  “People brought their babies to a midnight movie?” Mac sighed. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” He nodded toward the darkened bedroom. “C’mon. Let’s go back to sleep.”

  “But it’s so terrible.”

  “It is. But sitting here watching the news isn’t helping anyone. You’re gonna be exhausted.”

  She looked from him to the gigantic television screen. In her fantasy, would he sit down? Comfort and watch with her? “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  Mac frowned. “Honestly? Do I want to hear how some lunatic ruined people’s lives? Not really.”

  “But what about empathy?”

  “I have empathy. I do. But you can’t feel everything for everyone, Marjorie. And I don’t choose to marinate in other people’s misery.”

  She stared into his sleep-imprinted face. Mac had learned survival in the O’Shea household, where concern only won him disdain. He reached out a hand to her.

  “Let’s go to bed. You can save the world by watching CNN tomorrow.”

  Marjorie relented, though unsure. She did need sleep. She felt pressure behind her eyes. She switched off the TV and began folding the throw. Mac liberated it from her grasp and threw it over the couch. “We can do that in the morning.” He placed his hands on Marjorie’s shoulders and steered her toward the bedroom, a two-person conga line.

  As she lay cocooned next to him, his arm and leg thrown over her like a rag doll, she reasoned that emotional boundaries could be a good thing. Mac balanced out her neuroses.

  Later, along with the rest of the country, Marjorie would scrutinize unsettling photographs of a young man with an expression of constant alarm, hair dyed a comic orange to mimic the Joker. She’d learn that he entered the theater with a ticket, left through an emergency exit, and reentered with tear gas and guns, injuring over seventy people, killing twelve.

  Now, as she drifted off to sleep, she tried not to think about the people who would awake from dreams into nightmares.

  28

  The next morning, Marjorie was like a zombie—jerky and slow.

  After his morning meetings, Gus stopped by her office and proclaimed that she looked terrible again.

  “Gee, thanks.” She sat back, too tired to argue. “I couldn’t sleep. Then I turned on the TV and the shooting…”

  “Yeah, me too.” The only sign that Gus had lost rest was tousled hair. Why did sleep deprivation render him fashionably disheveled, but her undead? He sighed. “At five A.M., I wrote a letter about gun control to the New York Times.”

  “Oh! You’re that guy.”

  “Guilty. It’s probably good that I was alone, so no one had to listen to me rant, you know?”

  “Totally. Not that I was alone, but I get it.” Why did she feel the need to say that?

  Gus’s jaw tensed. “Right. Anyway, leave early. Leave now, if you want.” He turned to go, then reconsidered and pivoted back to face her. “So, that guy is your boyfriend now, the imaginary friend?”

  “Yup.”

  “Huh.”

  “‘Huh?’ What does that mean?”

  “It means nothing. It means, huh.”

  “It obviously means something.”

  “Not to me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing! Jesus. So paranoid. Go get some sleep; relocate your sanity.” Miffed, Marjorie narrowed her puffy eyes at him. He grunted. “Fine. You just seemed pissed at him at Fred’s party, and … I wouldn’t have pegged him as your type.”

  “What type is that?”

  “The type who would date you, I guess.” Marjorie’s jaw dropped, as he added, “Can I go now?”

  “Please do!”

  “Okay, bye.” Gus didn’t move; he rested a forearm against the doorjamb. “But if you feel judged, you may want to examine why. Just saying. The truth will set you free.”

  Before Marjorie could protest, he flashed her a rare million-dollar grin and left, for real this time.

  Eyes drooping, Marjorie headed home and passed out cold for several hours. When she emerged, Fred was downstairs, sorting through take-out menus and humming Roberta Flack, periodically spinning away from the counter Saturday Night Fever–style. It was so good to see her. Soon after, a delivery man arrived with enough aluminum containers of spaghetti and meatballs in marinara sauce, plump mozzarella sticks, and iceberg salad drenched in unnaturally yellow Italian dressing for a small army. God bless Brooklyn.

  Fred wasted no time. From the mountain on her plate, she slurped a strand of spaghetti, splattering her vintage AC/DC muscle T-shirt. “Oops!” She grabbed a napkin, dabbed ineptly, and returned to stuffing her delicate face.

  Watching from the kitchen, Marjorie couldn’t help but compare her to Vera, who expressed caloric guilt after fat-free Tasti D-Lite and would have treated the stain like an international incident. Fred didn’t stress such things; she was happier. A pang of sympathy snuck through Marjorie’s anger; she poured a little Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda out in the sink for her tightly-wound former homey.

  Rounding the island with her own plate, she settled next to her roommate on the battered couch. “So, I’ve waited a hundred years: Give me the dirt on Gus!”

  “Mmllhhm!” Fred was attempting, against all odds, to chew through a baseball-size meatball. “Righffft. Sorry. I’m not sure how much I have. He’s lovely!”

  “Yeah, yeah. So I’ve heard. Now tell me the truth.” Marjorie took a bite of her pasta—tangy. “Why is he such a grouch? How did he and sweet Michael become friends? Does he have a girlfriend?”

  Fred, having just swigged from her beer, clapped a hand over her mouth to stop a spit-take. “Mmphph, moppph!” She choked back the liquid. “Phew, that was close.” She turned to Marjorie, her upper lip ringed with a faint tomato sauce mustache. “Did you just ask if he has a girlfriend?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. Not the way you think. I was asking for details, you know? That wasn’t—I didn’t mean—that’s a normal question to ask about someone.”

  The pixie raised an eyebrow. “If you say so, Morningblatt.”

  Fred returned to eating, forgetting the issue at hand. Marjorie nudged, “So?”

  “Oh, right! So, Gus. Well, he’s sweet, brilliant, loyal. He and Michael were freshman roommates. In some ways they’re unlikely friends, but I think they were meant to meet. They needed each other, you know? Like us!” Fred beamed at Marjorie.

  “Right, right, right. Like us. And…?”

  “And Gus has been a lifesaver for our whole family, really. We love him. I practically have to stop my aunt from humping him whenever he’s around.”

  “That sounds disturbing,” said Marjorie, through a mouthful of cheese. “I g
uess he’s okay looking.”

  Fred shot her an incredulous look. “You guess so?”

  Marjorie avoided her eyes. “Continue, please.”

  “To answer your not at all suspect question, no, he does not have a girlfriend.”

  “What kinds of girls does he date?”

  “I guess this is another totally normal inquiry? His girlfriends tend to be beautiful but too serious. His hookups are usually hot and dumb. But then it’s LA and he’s a dude.”

  “What’s LA?”

  “Where he meets girls.”

  “He only meets women in LA?”

  “For the most part.”

  “That’s weird and location specific. Okay, tell me about his family.”

  “I don’t know his parents well. They have one of those divorced but amicable relationships. They live in Philly. They’re both high school teachers. His mother has some mental illness stuff that he never talks about. I know he’s close with them and gets bummed that he can’t see them more often.”

  “Why can’t he? Isn’t Philly only two hours away?”

  Fred wiped her mouth with a paper napkin; it came away fluorescent orange. “Not from LA.”

  “Wait, what?” Marjorie was being willfully slow on the uptake.

  “Morningshade, he lives in LA!”

  “O-ooh. I see.” The pieces puzzled together, revealing an image that was not to Marjorie’s taste.

  “He’s here covering while Michael’s in Italy. When my brother comes home this weekend, Gus goes back.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  Marjorie returned to eating, though her heaping plate seemed less enthralling.

  Fred considered her suspiciously. “So, how’s Big Mac?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “He’s good. I slept at his place last night. Well, not slept exactly…”

  Fred wiggled her eyebrows, “No sleep, huh?” She affected the nasal voice of an old school gangster. “Sounds like a wild night, buddy boy. A wild ride, see!”