by Una LaMarche
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh?” He smiled and settled back into his seat, presumably thinking of the mountains of eager young women he’d gone through in his early years, as a dashing Russian immigrant with his own air conditioning repair shop in Queens.
Too bad he got such a cowardly, sensitive little virgin for a son.
Even before I met you, on my first day at Janus, I could tell I was out of my league. The only reason I’d even started acting in the first place was because I was small enough that I could still play all the little kid parts in community theater productions while being able to memorize lines and say them without crying. After the whole Big Sleep debacle, I begged my parents to let me go to high school off-island, with kids who didn’t know anything about me. I was gunning for LaGuardia, so when I got into Janus it was a total shock. It was true that I’d auditioned with the monologue from Saving Nathan, the depressing one Roth did right before he flatlined. I’d poured everything into it, all of the confusion and sadness and anger, all of the darkest parts of my tortured pubescent brain. “Your son is the most naturalistic actor I’ve ever seen,” Ms. Hagen had written in a personal note to my mother along with my acceptance offer. What she didn’t realize was that I had only been naturalistic because I was pretending I was dying. It was the one and only method trick I had.
I stared at my phone screen, trying to come up with something that would impress you, and simultaneously hating myself for even trying. You’d always tolerated me—maybe even liked me sometimes—but I’d known what I was getting into from day one. You were beautiful, cool, and instantly popular, my ticket to social acceptance and access. It took me awhile to figure out what I could offer you in return, but once it became apparent to everyone that my Janus audition had been a fluke, I saw a niche with my name on it. I could write for you, make you my muse. You might never want me, but I could make you need me.
Or think you did, anyway.
• • •
“Wow, this is fancy.”
You handed your chicly oversized army jacket to the maître d’, who looked down at your outfit—motorcycle boots, leggings, and an asymmetrical gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the neon pink letters LOL JK—with weary trepidation. I’d chosen an old-school New York steakhouse famous for its romantic atmosphere and celebrity clientele, not realizing there was also a dress code. I shifted uncomfortably in my too-large brown suit jacket, which had been forced on me at the door, after an ID check had confirmed that yes, I was the Mr. Entsky with the 6:30 reservation and the credit card authorization from his daddy on file. At least I’d gotten there before you, so you didn’t witness that part.
Asshole, the Director sneered. Now she thinks you’re stuck up and the restaurant thinks you’re a low-class spoiled brat.
“It’s classic,” I said. “You look gorgeous, by the way.” I took your hand and started to lift it to my lips—so far, that move had been the only one I’d managed to pull off—but you pulled it back and crossed your arms over your chest.
“I’m underdressed,” you said, with a self-conscious half-laugh.
They didn’t bother giving us a wine menu, so we ordered Cokes—one regular, one diet—and sat on opposite sides of a round booth, examining the thick, leather-bound menus. I kept trying to catch your eye, but you hardly looked up. I could feel your boot tapping incessantly against the table leg, making my silverware jiggle on the maroon silk napkin. It made me nervous.
“I, uh, got you something,” I said, taking the little vial with the rice grain out of my shirt pocket. It felt so stupid and insignificant as I pushed it across the table, like giving someone a paper clip or a stray button, but you actually looked touched when you saw what it was.
“I used to want one of these so bad!” you cried. “Well, that and getting shells braided into my hair.” You examined the gift in the palm of your hand and looked at me guiltily. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“You didn’t go anywhere,” I said. “Plus, your presence is present enough.” I tried to soften the corny line—which I’d basically stolen from my mom, who always told me not to get her anything for Mother’s Day because I was the gift—with a wink. You opened your mouth and then closed it again.
“You look like you got . . . some color,” you finally said, squinting.
A waiter came to take our order. I asked for a porterhouse, you asked for a mixed-green salad. You insisted you weren’t hungry, which was kind of inconvenient considering we were out to dinner.
“Don’t be the starving actress, that’s such a cliché!” I joked, but you got quiet for a while after that, so I guess I hit a nerve. At the table next to us, one elderly man was telling another elderly man about his nephew’s prostate cancer.
“So,” I finally said, “when are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?”
“Huh?” Your eyes flitted up, widening briefly, before returning to your lap. “What do you mean?”
“The play. I didn’t hear anything from you or Roth over break. So did you make it work, or am I going to have to redo the whole thing as a black-box monologue?”
The truth was, even though I wanted badly for it not to suck, I had the least at stake of all of us when it came to Showcase. I’d already gotten into the dramatic writing program at Tisch, anyway, so all I really needed at that point was the credit. The fact that you and Roth had been acting like it was a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? since the beginning of March was bizarre and disappointing, but I’d made my peace with it. That night I was more interested in what your motivations were in real life. And big surprise, even when you were right in front of me, I still wasn’t sure. What had you been doing for the past two weeks? I wondered. You looked flushed but drawn, your eyes bright and bloodshot. Only you could manage to fade and glow at the same time.
“We rehearsed,” you said vaguely.
“What,” I pressed, “like . . . once?”
You shrugged, but your boot kept tapping, and my silverware kept jiggling. “Once was enough,” you said. “We fixed it.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“We just . . .” You weren’t looking at your lap, I realized. You were looking at something under the table, next to your leg. Your phone, probably. “. . . worked out the kinks,” you finished.
She’d rather be anywhere but here. You thought you could buy her attention with an expensive dinner? LOL, buddy. J fucking K.
“Oh, well . . . good!” I said cheerfully, trying to change my approach. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Your eyes darted up from wherever they’d been, and I saw what looked like a flash of pity.
“What were you doing, if you weren’t rehearsing?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Hanging with Joy, mostly.” You reached into your bag and I heard the telltale sound of Tic Tacs rattling. “When she wasn’t with Diego, anyway.” You popped one into your mouth and raised your eyebrows. “They finally hooked up.”
“Good for them.” My voice was dry ice; it was hard to work up much enthusiasm for someone like Diego Ortega, hardly an antihero with his curls and dimples and muscles, who had girls swooning left and right without even trying. And besides, I doubted Diego and Joy were spending their night having a wooden, awkward conversation over a stuffy early-bird dinner. They were probably alone somewhere, all over each other, the way you’re supposed to be when you finally hook up with the person you’ve always wanted.
Only she’s never wanted you. An important difference.
“Here we are.” The waiter reappeared with our food, making a big show of setting down the plates and grinding fresh pepper onto your architectural pile of $16 lettuce.
“Are you sure you don’t want some steak?” I asked. You looked like you could use some, but I couldn’t think of a way to say it that wouldn’t sound insulting or like I was trying to hit on you.
“Nope.” You poked at your salad, your eyes still dropping down to some unseen distraction every thirty seconds. Your right hand disappeared under the tablecloth.
“Hey, are you—um, I mean, do you need to make a call or something?”
You froze for a second but then flashed a quick, apologetic smile. “Just texting Joy. She’s new to this, so . . . you know.”
Actually, I didn’t, and I think you knew that, too. “Well,” I said, “Maybe it could wait until after.” I could hear my own voice, whiny and high-pitched, like I was one of those sixteenth-century Italian singers who got their nuts cut off so their voices wouldn’t change. No wonder you weren’t jumping my bones. But then again, I’d always looked and sounded like me, and you’d kissed me anyway. So—what, then? I couldn’t ask you why you’d done it without sounding like a complete idiot, but it was all I could think about. Your lips on my neck, your tongue in my mouth, like I was having some surreal, waking wet dream in front of the whole school. The only reason I hadn’t given up yet was the chance it might happen again.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” you announced.
“Have fun,” I said. Like an asshole.
You’d only been gone for about ten seconds when I realized I could look at your phone. I had a sudden, paranoid need to know if you’d really been texting Joy about Diego, or about how stupid and lame I was. If you’d really been texting Joy at all. Luckily I could scoot around the booth without drawing too much attention to myself. I moved a foot closer to your side and then reached my arm around. Your bag was so big, it was easy to grab one of the handles and pull it closer to me.
In the dim, “romantic” lighting I’d been so excited about, it was hard to see much, but since 95 percent of your purse’s contents seemed to be bottles and tissues, it didn’t take too long to find the flat planes of your iPhone. The screen was locked on a picture of Madonna from the 90s, when she was in her lackluster Marilyn phase. I tried your birthday and then, in a fit of desperate delusion, the keypad numbers that spelled out my own name, but I didn’t want to have the phone lock you out and reveal my trespassing, so I quickly threw it back in. I couldn’t stop, though. I waded my fingers through the detritus of your private life, feeling for a clue that would tell me something that might complete the ellipsis and put me out of my misery. Keys, Tic Tacs, coins, wallet, something long and crinkly that turned out to be a tampon . . . finally, I stumbled on a bumpy foreign object. Glancing over the banquette to make sure you weren’t coming back, I pulled it out.
It was a little fabric zipper pouch—screen-printed with big yellow letters that spelled out WHAAM!—and inside was a small Ziploc bag. It was cloudy with chalky dust, but in the bottom corner there were a few visible chunks of white pills, a clear plastic cylinder that looked like some kind of salt shaker or something, and a rolled-up dollar bill. I stared at it for a few seconds.
What in the actual fuck?!
That was something you would have said. I was even thinking in your voice. But if I loved you that much, if I was so completely obsessed with everything about you, wouldn’t I have noticed that you were on what looked like pretty hard drugs? I sat there motionless, tingling with adrenaline.
At least it’s not another dude.
I hated myself for it, but there it was.
Or maybe she had to get high to want to touch you in the first place.
You had definitely been blitzed at the party, that was never up for debate. But the rest of the time—I wracked my brain, trying to separate out the hours and hours we’d spent together since then, but there was no incident that I could remember, no red flag marking the dividing line between “before” and “after.” You’d been sort of erratic and mean, but that wasn’t totally abnormal. You’d also devolved into a mediocre actress, but maybe the WHAAM! explained it.
That’s when I heard a door swing open and realized I was still holding the pouch. As fast as I could, I zipped it shut, stuffed it back into your bag, and pushed my way back to my spot in the booth. I made it just in time to see your head bob into view.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” you said.
I forced a smile. “I’ll always wait for you,” I said.
• • •
I walked you home, despite your protestations that it was close and still light outside. I decided that if you blew me off three times I would stop trying—obviously in most situations no means no and there’s no gray area, but I was trying to be gentlemanly, and I was worried about you after my discovery at the restaurant, and besides, you didn’t know that the Staten Island ferry left every thirty minutes, so you believed me when I claimed I was stuck until eight—but on the third ask you just kind of shrugged and took out your phone, so I fell into step with you on 9th Avenue, trying to keep up, so that people would think we were at least friends, if not together.
We’d used to be friends without having to try so hard. Freshman year, during Godspell rehearsals, you’d seemed to think I was cute, treating me in a slightly condescending but affectionate way, like I was your adorable sidekick, or some talking Pixar animal (apparently Joy never really played that role the way you wanted). You would call me Jesus, but pronounced the Spanish way, and ruffle my hair, making all the pretty, strong-chinned drama boys wish they were Ginger Rogers, just to get that kind of attention. But your love, such as it was, was conditional on remaining nonthreatening. Once I started to get ambitious, when I realized I could stop pretending to be able to act and write my way into a new major instead, that was when we started clashing. The tension only made me want you more, although the one time I made the mistake of talking to my mom about it, she told me there was no such thing as a “love-hate” relationship.
“If there’s any hate, then it’s not really love, is it?” she’d said, like she knew what she was talking about. Apparently she never watched TV.
After five blocks of monk-like silence, we got to your building, a 60s monolith of butter-colored brick and a big plate glass entryway. It was a balmy night, so the door was propped open, and the elderly doorman smiled at us from his chair just inside.
“Miss Liv!” he called out. “No puedo seguir el ritmo de todos sus novios.” He chuckled and waved at me. It was the first good response I’d gotten since the rice grain. If your doorman remembered who I was, then you must have at least mentioned me. Then I wasn’t completely delusional.
“Ignore him,” you mumbled, looking tense.
“So, see you tomorrow, I guess—”
“I had a nice time,” you said brusquely.
“—unless you want me to . . .” I shifted from foot to foot, tried on a smile. “I could come up and . . .”
And what, moron? Make awkward small talk with her parents? Stage an intervention? Or do you think if you manage to get her alone and stand in the right light, she’ll suddenly realize her animal desire and drag you into bed?
“Actually, I’m pretty tired.” In the harsh lobby lights, your pupils were comically dilated. I wondered what you were on, and how I’d never noticed it before.
“Right,” I said.
“But thank you for dinner.” You leaned forward and braced yourself on my shoulders, delivering a dry peck on my cheek. It felt like some cigar-smoking mogul stamping a letter in a black and white movie while cackling maniacally. VOID. REJECTED.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and watched you walk to the elevator, jamming the button impatiently, digging in your bag for something you’d never, in all the years I’d known you, seemed to find. Only maybe you had found it, and maybe I finally knew what it was.
Once the doors had closed and you were gone, I stood there for another minute, wondering what I was supposed to do. A good boyfriend, a stand-up guy, would probably tell you he knew, and that he was worried about you, and that you needed to stop. But I was more of a stand-down kind of guy, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t your boyfriend, either.
&nbs
p; “Hey, man, everything OK?” the doorman finally asked, noticing my impression of a sad statue.
“Yeah, sorry.” I moved to leave but then stopped short. I had to say something. Even if it wasn’t directly to you. “Has she . . . um, has she been OK?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, she’s tough,” he said with a dismissive wave. “She takes care of herself.” He smiled. “And besides, Miss Liv’s got lots of friends. Someone’s been here all week. They barely left.”
“Joy?” I asked hopefully. “Black girl, like my height?” He narrowed his eyes, and I tried to backtrack. “I mean, like African American . . . woman?”
“Nah, I know Miss Joy,” the doorman said. “I don’t know the new one. They never stop to talk to me. He’s—”
He.
My face must have changed, because he stopped short. “You know what, I can’t really keep track,” he laughed. “She’s always making new friends.”
“Right,” I said hollowly.
It could be her dealer! my brain practically screamed, as if that would be good news. If you were using so much that you saw your dealer every day, then you were really in trouble.
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“I—you know, I didn’t get a good look, man,” he said. “So many people coming and going.” But his expression had changed; there was pity in his eyes. And there it was. The boom I’d been waiting for. The remote detonation I hadn’t seen coming.
There was someone else. The radio silence over break, the texting under the table—it all made sense. Listen, I wasn’t stupid; I knew you never loved me. What hurt was that “he,” whoever he was, had weaseled his way into your life—maybe even into your bed—in a matter of days when I had put in so much time already. I was the only one who had always been there for you. I was the only one who really knew you.
Or was I?
It’s trite to say you broke my heart, so instead I’ll say you broke my brain.
Because the thing of it was, if I did know you better than anyone, how could I have missed two such glaring omissions from your biography? My love wasn’t of the oblivious greeting card variety that everyone else seemed so blindly happy to practice; I’d always thought I saw you for exactly who you were—smart and funny and gorgeous, sure, but also manipulative, self-interested, insecure, and a little devious, which frankly made you all the more glorious in my eyes.
