Love Show

by Audrey Bell

  If I had ever felt less cut out for serious journalism, I couldn’t remember it. I spat and washed out my mouth. And Jack and I had moved to sharing toothbrushes. Fabulous, I thought sarcastically.

  I crutched out to the kitchen where David was working seriously on blueberry pancakes.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile as I sat down. “Just in time.” He handed me a plate with two pancakes.

  “Ah, you’re the best. Seriously, the best,” I said. I smiled and took a bite. Jack came up behind me and kissed my neck, surprising me. I ducked away from the kiss, laughing.

  “So, I have another interview with the Times,” I told David.

  "Seriously? That's so amazing." David handed Jack a plate.

  I nodded. "Just have to come up with a good story for the crutches. I mean, I probably won’t get it, but—”

  “Oh, please,” David said. “You’ll get it.”

  I looked over at Jack, who was working on a large mouthful of blueberry pancakes. “Okay, now I get why you don’t want to have sleepovers,” Jack said once he swallowed. “I don’t have a David and you don’t want to share his breakfast.”

  David grinned. “You don’t need to share. There are enough carbohydrates for an army here.”

  “I am an army,” Jack replied. He gave me a sharky look and I took a bite of pancakes, rolling my eyes.

  “Hadley, what do you contribute to this operation?” Jack asked.

  “She makes the coffee. When she’s not wounded,” David explained.

  “Oh, that must be tough, pressing a button.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said. “You’re an asshole. Maybe that’s why I don’t have you sleep over.”

  “So, how did that happen?” David asked. He smiled. "I don't think I got the story last night. Jack said something about weak knees."

  “I told you,” Jack said. “I kissed her. She fell.”

  “I had just jumped out of a plane,” I said. "And I'd skipped breakfast. So, I'd say low blood sugar."

  David smiled. "So, wait, tell me about the interview. What's the job exactly?"

  "It's for a job that's split between New York and the Middle East. Responding to crises as needed, basically."

  "That's perfect for you."

  Jack nodded once. He stared at his pancakes. “What do you mean by crises?”

  “Like, violent conflict, mainly,” I said. “At least, in the Middle East. But, really, probably any major news in the region. I’d probably be focused in Syria, but it all depends on what needs to be covered.”

  “You really want to do that?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I mean, have you thought about it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, have you—have you really thought about what working in a violent, misogynistic region of the world could be like on a day-to-day basis?” he asked. "Are your parents okay with that?"

  "Obviously, I’ve thought about it. It’s my dream job. And I'm an adult. Though, I doubt my parents care."

  He sipped his orange juice. “I bet they care.”

  “Why?”

  "Why?" he repeated. "Because you're their kid and you're talking about going into an actual war zone. With a notepad instead of a gun.”

  I raised my eyebrows. "Are you serious right now?"

  "My mother would absolutely kill me if I told her I was going to be a reporter in Middle Eastern conflict zones. That’s all.”

  David met my eyes. “Will your parents care?”

  “Only if they notice,” I said. My father would probably care. But, I’d have to get the job first and then he’d have to decide to check up on me or my mom. I’d probably be in the Middle East by the time he figured it.

  “How are they not going to notice that you're working in like, Afghanistan or Syria or whatever?" Jack asked.

  “Look. I haven't even interviewed yet," I said. "And I have no idea what will happen if I do get the job. And my parents aren't going to notice because my parents are super self-absorbed. And it doesn’t matter. They don't want me to be any kind of journalist. So, if I end up doing it in the Middle East, it won't make any difference."

  “Why don’t they want you to be a journalist?” Jack asked.

  “They think it’s stupid. They think I won’t get paid anything and that it’s a huge fucking waste of my time and energy.” I snapped at Jack. “These, by the way, just so you have a little background, are two people who couldn’t stand to be on the same continent as one another, but on this, they agree. It’s a dying industry, it’s low-paying, and nobody gives a shit. Point taken. I still want to do it.”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s not what I said.”

  “Well.”

  “That’s not what I said,” he repeated stubbornly. “What you're trying to do is dangerous. That’s all. I didn’t mean you shouldn’t be a journalist.”

  I exhaled. “Oh.”

  He smiled. “So, you can relax.” He took another bite of his blueberry pancakes. I watched the lines of his shoulder. The way he moved his fork. Something about that made me fall a little in love. Or lust.

  He caught me looking at him and smiled. “You’re not getting any of my pancakes,” he said, glancing at my empty plate. “These are mine.”

  I laughed and for a moment, the tension diffused. But there were still so many unresolved things. The fact he slept over. The way I just freaked out at him over my parents. David’s boyfriend. The whole goddamned newspaper resting squarely on my shoulders.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “What would happen?” I asked Andrew. “If we just didn’t put a paper out.”

  He gave me a look. He had been none too impressed with my I-sprained-my-knee-while-skydiving story and he seemed further annoyed by my suggestion that Northwestern could survive a day without us. Added to the fact that I told him he needed to act as Editor-in-Chief when I left for New York for my interview, I was pretty sure Andrew had had enough.

  “If you need a break, I can do it today.”

  “I don’t need a break,” I said. “I’m just wondering what would happen.”

  “I don’t know, Hadley,” he said wearily. “I’d rather not think about it.”

  I chewed on my lip. I’d gone over my résumé two dozen times. I’d practiced answers to every interview question I’d ever heard. And I’d researched my interviewer fanatically. All that was left to do was to perform flawlessly in the interview.

  I drove over to Jack’s after I’d wrapped up all of the final details for the next day’s issue. He was lying on his bed, reading. He barely heard me clatter in on my crutches.

  “Mmm. Hey. You’re getting good at that,” he said with a grin.

  “Thank you, sir.” I tried to curtsey on the crutches and nearly wiped out.

  He nodded. “I have something for you.”

  I smiled. “Yeah?”

  He tossed me a New York Knicks sweatshirt. “For the plane. So you don’t look like a helpless Midwestern tourist.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t look like…”

  “Sh…” he said.

  “I’m from California.”

  “Helpless California girls and tourists from the Midwest are all the same to New Yorkers.”

  I rolled my eyes and pulled on the sweatshirt, balancing on one leg. He kissed me deeply. He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “Maybe we should have put the sweatshirt on after we fucked,” he murmured.

  “Mm,” I said, kissing him back. “You might have a point.”

  “Because I sort of like all of the stuff under the sweatshirt. I’ve really gotten in my own way here.”

  I chuckled as he kissed my neck even more gently than usual. He shuffled me to the edge of the bed and pulled the sweatshirt over my head. He pulled my t-shirt over with it. And then he undressed himself.

  “Can you do this?” he asked, gesturing at my knee.

  I nodded.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He smil
ed. “Good.”

  He was feather light with his touches. It was difficult for me to move, but he was perfect. He cradled one knee in his arm, barely allowing it to sway, and he was so sweet and he was so gentle that it felt like even more than just good sex. It started to feel a lot like a crush. Or maybe, if I let my guard down for half a second, a little bit more than even a crush.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I was just in New York for a single day. A single chaotic day that started at O’Hare airport and ended back there the same night. The interview process had been grueling, six hours of rapid-fire questions.

  I had taken a class once on the criminal justice system. I’d learned how aggressive investigators would ask the same questions over and over so the suspect would start to forget what he had said and would start to question what he remembered. I felt a bit like that by the time I was handed off to an editorial assistant who walked me out of the labyrinthine office complex.

  “We’ll call you,” she told me.

  “Great, thank you,” I replied. And then I crutched down 8th Avenue, hailed a cab, zipped through Kennedy airport, and got on a plane back to Chicago. I wearily passed out leaning against the window.

  I couldn’t believe all of that had happened in the space of one day. The way we travel now makes everything go so fast, it’s like it hardly happened at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I feel like you’re not eating,” Jack said. “So, I need to take you out for dinner.”

  Half of the fraternity was over for a pledge class celebration, and it was dinnertime. We were holed up in Jack’s room and I was not prepared to crash an all-male fraternity dinner.

  I gave Jack a suspicious look. “That’s against the rules.”

  “You broke the sleepover rule,” he pointed out.

  “That was your fault. I was drugged.”

  “I was ready to go. But you were all like stay,” he whispered in breathy imitation of me.

  I laughed. “I was not.”

  “It was like when the Titanic was sinking and the redhead was all like, oh my god, I’m so cold, let’s hold hands.”

  “It was not like that.”

  “Jack, never let go. I mean, what was I supposed to do?”

  “You weren’t on drugs,” I said, flushing.

  “Never let go, Jack,” he whispered. “Never let go.”

  “That is the worst imitation of Kate Winslet ever.”

  “I’m not doing Kate Winslet. I’m doing Hadley Arrington,” he grinned. “And I’m buying you fucking dinner. If you’re that worried about the rules, we can go to McDonalds. They don’t serve food. It’s all plastic products that happen to be edible. So, we don’t even have to call it dinner.”

  “Ugh—I’d rather have dinner.”

  “There you go again. Breaking rules.” He smiled.

  We walked down the stairs. Well, he walked. I crutched. I was getting good at crutching.

  I got into his car and put my feet up on the dashboard. He grinned at me. “So, when do you find out about the job?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to think about it,” I told him. I looked out the window. Jack still didn’t really know what he wanted to do. “What about you? You ever think about next year?”

  He laughed. “Fair enough.”

  “No, seriously. I’m not asking to be a bitch. What about you?” I asked.

  He made a helpless noise. “I—I feel like you don’t believe me when I say I don’t know. I just...I don’t know.”

  “What about skydiving?” I asked.

  He laughed bitterly.

  “What?” I asked. “You said you loved that. You could be an instructor.”

  “With a Northwestern degree?

  “Who cares? Do what makes you happy.”

  “That’s the thing, Hadley. I just...I don’t care about anything enough,” he shrugged.

  “You love to read. You love to skydive. You love your friends,” I said. “You care about a lot of shit.”

  “Point taken. Look, I’m sorry I asked. Can we drop it?”

  “What are you going to do if you don’t find a job?”

  He shrugged. “Might stay in Chicago actually.”

  “Really?” I looked at him.

  “Yeah. Bobby’s working on a book. He said I could be his research assistant.” He shrugged. “So, that’s an idea.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I said.

  He looked at me. I flinched at the look, which was one of sheer annoyance. “I’m not a pet project, Hadley. It’s not that I can’t get a job. I’m not looking for a reason.”

  “Well, what’s the reason?”

  “Everyone's always looking for something else to make them happy. New apartment. New girlfriend. New dog. New job. None of it every makes anyone happy. The looking just distracts the hell out of you from what’s actually going on, which is your life.”

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes briefly. “But even if doing something won’t make you happy, it could still be worth doing. And having worth…”

  “Hadley,” he said shortly. “You don’t even want to be my girlfriend. Why do you care if I have a job or not?”

  Well, that was a bit harsh. I looked at him while he drove. “I don’t want to be anyone's girlfriend right now."

  “Right.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  “I don’t think it usually works out. Everyone breaks up. Or else they get married. Or they get married and then divorced. Or they cheat.” I looked at him. “Or they turn out to be a liar. Or—and this is what really scares me—one person gives up everything they actually want for a few years of love and lust and they find out it wasn't worth it. But you don’t know. You can never really know what’s going on in someone else’s head. No matter how much time you spend with them or how much sex you have or anything. You don’t know.”

  He sighed.

  “And the point isn’t that I don’t want you to be my boyfriend. The point is that I don’t want anyone to be my boyfriend. Nobody."

  He breathed. “Christ. Forget it. Okay?”

  “I’m not ashamed of you,” I added, for emphasis. “I don’t care if you don’t get a job. You just talk about not having one an awful lot for someone who supposedly doesn’t give a shit. And we’re supposed to be friends.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—this is a stupid conversation. Sorry I brought it up.”

  I took a deep breath. We had reached a Mexican restaurant that I liked. It was popular with almost everyone who ever ate there. The quesadillas were always piping hot, buttery, and mouthwateringly cheesy and the guacamole tasted like it was imported from Mount Olympus. Plus, I’ve always been a sucker for margaritas.

  Jack opened my door, which was not just gentlemanly but actually necessary, with the crutches. He smiled when he took my hand and helped me out. “Sorry,” he said, sincerely. “My mom keeps asking me a lot of the same questions. It’s been bugging me a bit. And Xander thinks he should be on my case about it. And then, you know, after him, you’re like…basically my best friend.”

  That meant so much to me. “You’re basically my best friend too.”

  “After David?”

  “Well, I haven’t quite ranked everyone yet.” He laughed when I said that. “But you’re up there, kid. Don’t worry.”

  We sat in a corner booth and ordered margaritas and guacamole. I sat with my legs stretched out and Jack smiled at me when I knocked a whole margarita back in one long gulp.

  “Bad girl. I have to drive.”

  I grinned and ordered a second. “I don’t. And you said you wanted to see me really drunk.”

  He smiled. “As long as you stay conscious.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to fall asleep. I promise.”

  “You better not.” He dipped a chip into the guacamole and popped it in his mouth with a crunch.

  Maybe it was the sprained knee or the sleep debt or the interview. Maybe I just wanted t
o have fun. I don’t know, but I got drunk. Somewhere, in between the quesadillas and Jack’s joke about a set of triplets in Delta Delta Delta, I ended up really, really drunk and laughing really, really hard.

  And somehow so did Jack.

  “Fuck, I can hardly read this receipt,” he said squinting at him. “Call Z. Tell him we need a ride.”

  I took his phone giggling and called Xander. “Sup, Diamond?” he said.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Who is this?”

  “Hadley Arrington,” I said.

  “Oh. Jack gave you his phone? You guys are getting serious, huh?”

  “We need a ride.”

  “Tell him to call one of the pledges.”

  “He said call…”

  “No, tell him to come,” Jack said, pointing a finger at me and squinting one eye. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “He said no.”

  “Mergency,” Jack repeated.

  “Put him on the phone.” Xander said.

  “He’s too drunk to drive,” I said.

  “Is he too drunk to talk on the phone, too?”

  “Um. Yes.”

  Xander sighed heavily. “Where are you?”

  “Mexico.”

  Jack burst into laughter and grabbed the phone. “We’re at Pedro’s.” He laughed at whatever Xander said to him. “Yeah, well, I knew you’d say yes to her. See you in a few, buddy.” He put away his phone and looked up at me. “Got us a ride.”

  “I procured the ride.”

  “You didn’t procure shit. That’s my friend.”

  “Yeah, but I got him to come to Mexico for us.”

  When Xander called us to tell us to come outside, I moved as fast as I could on crutches. And Jack helped me into the front seat and jumped in the back.

  “You two are irresponsible,” Xander said.

  “We called you,” Jack giggled.

  “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “I gave him some margaritas,” I said indignantly. “Why aren’t you more concerned about me?”