The Big Rewind

by Libby Cudmore

  I put the lid on the Boyfriend Box and shoved it into the closet. But I kept the bear out and took it with me when I got back into bed. I fell asleep holding it but dreamed instead of Sid.

  I SLEPT UNTIL about one, waking only when Sid texted me about coming over that night. The Rutgers bear was on the floor; there was an empty mug on the bedside table and a message from Gabe in my inbox.

  So good to hear from you!!!! Has it really been ten years!?!?! I still smile when I think of you. I still have those chili pepper boxers. Brooklyn, huh? I’m in Pittsburgh these days, translation work for top secret instruction manuals. I’ll probably have to kill you just for mentioning it. J/K. I’m actually in NYC until tomorrow, short notice, but can we get dinner?

  And a phone number. Not a bad way to restart the day.

  I texted Sid and told him that I got called in for an evening shift. It was easier to lie over static characters than fumble for an explanation and a way to make it up to him later, but I still tasted ash in the back of my throat.

  I called Gabe and got his voice mail. One P.M. on a Thursday; he was probably in a meeting. Meanwhile, I was sitting around an apartment I was all but squatting in, unshowered, in an oversized Michael McDonald tour T-shirt I’d permanently borrowed from my dad. I felt like a slacker.

  The phone rang, but it wasn’t my general ringtone. It was MetroReaders, and I snatched it up. “Can you go in to Hartford at three?” asked Susan.

  It would be a tight squeeze, but if I didn’t fully blow-dry my hair, I could make it. I gathered up Philip’s lingerie as I agreed. “And there’s a note for you here,” she added. “‘Bring the documents’—does that mean anything?”

  I looked at the bra in my fist. “Just a little homework,” I said. “Tell Hartford I’ll be there at three.”

  PHILIP WASN’T IN, so I slipped the packet into his bottom desk drawer before returning to the temp lounge, where real work awaited. I drank a lot of coffee and marked a lot of sticky notes, and my heart beat so fast with caffeine and anticipation that I swore I was disturbing everyone else in the room. We weren’t allowed to have our phones on, so every time I went to the bathroom, I checked for a message from Gabe. At four I resorted to the desperate girl’s move of texting him despite having already called, just to let him know that I couldn’t check my phone and texts were probably the best way to get in touch with me. I went to the bathroom twice more, just to see if he’d responded. He hadn’t, and I was starting to regret canceling on Sid.

  At four thirty, I texted Sid. He got back to me quickly and said he had plans. Just to make my day worse, I asked him what he was doing. He said he was going to see Cinderella. I fumed and didn’t write back.

  At five, when I was out of drafts to read, Susan let me go. I was about to get on the subway and call it all quits when my phone rang.

  “I’m so sorry about not getting back to you,” Gabe said. “I was in this insane meeting all day, and just as I was about to text you back, my boss called and yammered through the rest of my lunch break. I swear, every time I tried to pull out my phone, something distracted me. But I’m all yours now and I hope you haven’t made plans for dinner.”

  I had, but they involved digging some half-forgotten TV dinner out of the back of the freezer and feeling sorry for myself in front of a rerun of Parks and Recreation. Whatever Gabe had planned, even if it was hot dogs at Gray’s Papaya, sounded infinitely better.

  “I’m free,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “This probably doesn’t sound ideal to you because you live here, but everyone and their brother has been telling me that I have to go to the Shake Shack, that they can’t believe I’ve been coming to New York without going to the Shake Shack, that I should light a candle and confess to my priest that I haven’t been to the Shake Shack. So I was thinking the Shake Shack. How does that sound?”

  I laughed. “I’ve always thought Markburger on St. Mark’s made a better burger, but if it keeps you in the good graces of your lord and savior, we can do Shake Shack.” Early April still had a chill in the air, but I wasn’t about to say no to anything Gabe suggested, even if it meant shivering in an outdoor line for half an hour.

  “Oh thank God,” he breathed in fake adulation. “Where are you?”

  “I’m right on Union Square, so even six blocks away, I can just see the end of the line.”

  “Then why don’t you hop on queue and I’ll be over in a few.”

  “Will you recognize me?”

  I could hear him grin through the phone. “Jett,” he said. “I could never forget your beautiful face.”

  He hung up and I started the walk up Broadway, sweating with excitement. I wished I had time to change; my work clothes, bought on the quick and cheap, weren’t exactly date-night fashion. Black pants, a red polo, and a black cardigan with polka-dot flats. Though in the right light, it had a chill, Amy Winehouse vibe to it. He was probably in a suit. But it didn’t matter—if the dinner went really well, it wouldn’t matter what we were wearing. Only what we weren’t.

  Chapter 23

  LIKE A VIRGIN

  I saw Gabe before he saw me. He didn’t look any different at twenty-nine than he had at nineteen, except the zip-off cargo pants had been replaced with khakis, and his preppy striped polo was now a crewneck sweater. When he spotted me, he rushed over and swept me up in a hug like he’d never put me down. He still wore Eternity, only slightly less than he used to.

  “It’s so good to see you!” he kept saying. “You look amazing!”

  My face got warm and my knees got weak. The long line gave us time to make small talk. He asked what I did and I left out the part about trying to solve my friend’s murder—at least on the first date, anyway. He was living in Pittsburgh, spending his days translating instruction manuals and his evenings watching Netflix with his dog. “My sister Trisha’s watching Madmartigan while I’m gone,” he said, holding up his phone to show me a picture of a bright-eyed schipperke.

  “Of course you would name your dog after Willow,” I said. “She’s beautiful.”

  “She’s the only girl in my life right now,” he confessed. “What about you? You got anyone wondering where you are?”

  “Not unless you count the cat,” I said. I still felt bad about blowing off Sid. The worst part was that he was probably relieved—this way he could go see his Cinderella. I soured at the thought.

  “That’s a shame.” He smiled that same dreamy smile I’d picked out of the audience during my show choir solo. “For guys, I mean,” he said, correcting himself. “They’re all missing out. They should be lined up outside your door.”

  We ordered: two ShackBurgers—mine without tomato—and fries. He got a beer and I got a glass of wine in a tulip-shaped plastic cup that could have passed for fancy glassware to a distant eye. He started to go for his wallet, but I got to mine faster. “You’re a guest,” I said. I was a liberated woman on payday; I could splurge for Shake Shack. “Besides, you paid for all our dates back in high school. Let me treat.”

  “One condition,” he said with a wicked grin. “You let me get dessert.”

  WE DIDN’T GET dessert. He kissed me in a moment of soft silence, long after our burgers were crumbs and just as Manhattan was starting to turn neon against a deepening sky. We kissed in the cab back to his hotel in Midtown, and by the time we got into the elevator, it was all I could do not to tear his clothes off in the thirty-second ride to his floor.

  His hotel room was a far cry from the backseat of his Buick Century—spacious, sleek, and white like heaven, with a bed the size of a cruise ship. My heart thumped in my chest like a rockabilly bass line. This was really happening. I was finally going to have sex with the beautiful, silver-eyed man who should have deflowered me a decade ago. If I had the ability to travel through time, I would have used it to go back to my seventeen-year-old self and give her a high five.

  But I was still thinking about Sid. I wondered if he was banging Cinderella in the alley between
dances. I wondered if he was thinking of me, lamenting the night we’d lost to my lie.

  Of course he wasn’t. He was up to his glitter-stung eyeballs in silicone and overpriced well whiskey.

  I yanked Gabe’s sweater up over his head. He mimicked the action with my polo shirt and pulled us both down onto the bed, me on his lap, him hard through his slacks. He kissed me, his mouth savory with beer and wanting. He lay back and I felt like a goddess. I wanted to run to my phone and tweet I’m having a one-night stand with an ex! I am a liberated woman!

  Gabe rolled me onto my back and turned on his side, reaching into the nightstand and pulling out a three-pack of condoms he had next to the Bible. “Please don’t think I’m presumptuous,” he said, his expression sweet and soft and almost afraid. “Just hopeful. As soon as you messaged me, I went out and bought these, on the off chance that I might finally get to be with you.”

  I was surprised at how turned on I was by the gesture. In the back of my head, I’d always thought I should have given him my virginity in a fit of Eternity-scented passion.

  In reality, it had been a very calculated affair; Ryan and I had decided on a time and place to mutually surrender, and there were ten minutes of well-rehearsed foreplay we’d been practicing in the backseat of his dad’s Subaru, followed by another ten of awkward pumping. It wasn’t the worst way to give it up, but it wasn’t the most romantic or exciting either.

  And it had been so long since I’d had sex that it was almost like I’d gotten my virginity back. That was at least one advantage to involuntary celibacy.

  I kissed his shoulder while he tore one off the strip. He left it waiting on the bedside table as he pried open my zipper, guiding my pants down my legs. I wrangled open his pants. He was wearing chili pepper boxers. “Not the same ones,” he admitted. “But I guess even these new ones are lucky.”

  I forgot about KitKat, about Baldrick, about Sid and Cinderella. For the moment, there was only Gabe, his chili pepper boxers, a condom on the bedside table, and my wanton, lonely lust.

  I GOT DRESSED the minute he went to the bathroom. I was never into hanging out naked after sex; even if I was spending the night, I had to at least have panties on and, ideally, a T-shirt and maybe a pair of socks, because my feet get cold easily. I didn’t see the point of remaining unclothed; the part that required you to be nude was over, anything else just felt like an awkward tease. After all, you don’t wear your cheerleading uniform off the field or your tux at ten A.M. Nudity was the uniform of sex, and I was eager to get back to my work clothes.

  “You want me to order room service?” he asked when he came out of the bathroom.

  Gabe was beautiful and he was good in bed, but in the time between climax and comedown, I’d realized there wasn’t much else to him than that. We’d only kissed because we’d run out of things to talk about. Already the conversation felt awkward as he stood there, clearly fine with post-sex nudity.

  “I should go,” I said, pulling on my socks.

  “You can stay,” he said. “My plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow afternoon. We can have room-service brunch sent up.”

  I didn’t want to stay, not even for room-service brunch. “I’d love to,” I lied, “but the cat doesn’t have any food.” As a pet owner, I hoped he’d sympathize. If he didn’t, well, I’d have to come up with some other excuse.

  Disappointment registered on his face for a brief, fleeting moment. “I understand,” he said. “Can I call you next time I’m in the city? After all, I still owe you dessert.”

  “Sure,” I said. But I didn’t expect him to, and even if he did, it might not be much more than a booty call. He wasn’t the same teenage boy; he was a man, and a good one at that. But he wasn’t a man I knew anymore, just a blind date, a sweet stranger, a decent lay. We couldn’t reconstruct the sand-castle love affair we’d had with one night of sex; the tide had come in and washed away the foundation, leaving only pleasantries and half-hazy memories.

  We took the elevator down in silence. He kissed me at the door, got me a cab, and waved until I turned the corner. My apartment seemed darker when I got home. Baldrick was asleep on the couch and my Rutgers bear was facedown on the floor. I put the teddy back in the box, put on the pajamas Philip had bought me, and went to bed.

  Chapter 24

  SING FOR ABSOLUTION

  The low ceilings of the Brenner Gallery made Mac’s band, Chicken Puppet, sound even louder than normal. The place was packed with Egg School regulars, record nerds from Ol’ Vinylsides, SVA art students, and all the other wonderful Barter Street ilks. I was proud of myself—I’d finally had a flyer to leave at Hartford, and sure enough, Marty was there in his porkpie hat. I had worn KitKat’s red dress even though I hadn’t sewn the torn sleeve back on, hiding the damage under a gray cardigan.

  “I brought this for the Irony Auction,” I said to Natalie, holding out The Bridge.

  She rolled her eyes and snorted. “You’d have to pay someone to take it.”

  I sighed and shoved it back into my lobster tote bag. Sid was already there and two drinks in, but he was clean shaven and bright eyed. He gave me a heavy, half-drunk hug and shoved a glass of boxed wine into my hand.

  “Terry said we can borrow his car!” he shouted over Chicken Puppet’s cover of Head East’s “Never Been Any Reason.” “He wants us to do him a favor first, but he won’t tell me what. I’ll let you know, though.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any favor Terry would ask of me, but I had to get to Binghamton soon. “I still need to call George, but do you think we could go next weekend?” I asked.

  “Hopefully,” Sid said. “I’ll try to get whatever he wants us to do out of the way.”

  Mac handed the microphone over to Natalie while Chicken Puppet started packing up their equipment behind her. “We’ve got a lot of good stuff tonight,” she announced. “All the art on the wall’s for sale and we’re going to start the Irony Auction soon, but right now, we’re opening up the stage for anyone who wants it.” She held up a Barbie beach bucket. “Ten bucks gets you two minutes of mic time for your poetry, shitty stand-up—Sid, I know you’ve got that great joke about Panera Bread.” Sid laughed and raised his glass in toast. “Fuck, read the dictionary if you want, but seriously, get up here and make an ass of yourself. All the proceeds go to the Save Bronco Fund and the KitKat Memorial Scholarship, so if you’re not going to entertain us, at least buy something.”

  A guy with flippy girl hair and an ill-fitting T-shirt got up first to play a comatose love song on his guitar. Josie sang in German while her friend Elliot backed her up on the accordion, and Marty growled Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat.” I took a deep breath and two fives out of my wallet.

  “What have you got planned?” Sid asked.

  I hadn’t sung solo in front of an audience since that senior recital; even the few times I’d gone to karaoke, I’d stuck to group songs and hid in the back. When Catch and I split, I may have gotten Warren Zevon, but Catch had taken my voice like a hostage. But suddenly, I had to be back on that stage again. “You’ll just have to see,” I said, dropping my dead presidents in the beach bucket and signing my name on the list.

  “Whatever it is,” Sid said, reaching down and squeezing my hand, “you’ll be great.”

  They called my name after a pretty bad stand-up act and bids for an ET cookie jar and an unopened case of Surge. I climbed onto the makeshift stage and took the microphone out of the stand. “Th-this one’s for KitKat,” I stammered. “I know she would have loved it.”

  I closed my eyes, and then quickly remembered what my choir teacher Mrs. Whiteman told me about singing with my eyes closed: It tells the audience you don’t know what you’re doing. But I didn’t know what I was doing. I was singing a song I’d only heard once and might have misheard the lyrics to. But I was up there and I’d already spent the only cash in my wallet—I had to at least try. I couldn’t be any worse than the guy with flippy girl hair.

  “I wither
without you,” I crooned. “I crumble before you . . .” I fixed my eyes on Sid but couldn’t read his face. He was watching me like I was a stranger, like he might drop his glass, like my song was cutting straight into his heart. I muscled up on the second verse and put everything I had into it. “Stars fall flash and slash my heart . . .” I sang for KitKat, for George, for Catch, wherever they were. And I sang for Sid because he was right there in front of me, because he was all I had in the whole fucking world.

  And I hit that last note so perfectly that it hung in the air like a crystal chandelier. I’d never hit a note with such clarity, such perfect roundness. I wished Mrs. Whiteman was there to hear it.

  I smiled when I murmured my thank-you and the audience cheered with the same wine-drenched adoration they gave everyone. I wasn’t special, I didn’t blow anyone’s mind, but I hadn’t totally screwed up, and it was all worth it, just for that one note. Natalie hugged me. Marty grinned and shook my shoulder. Mac gave me a high five and Josie squeezed my hands with a squeal.

  But when I tried to find Sid, he wasn’t anywhere to be found.

  Chapter 25

  LETTERS FROM THE WASTELAND

  My throat was a little sore when I woke up the next morning. I hadn’t warmed up properly, probably hadn’t had enough water to drink beforehand, but I was still glowing with post-performance warmth. I made tea instead of coffee and texted Sid.

  Where’d you go last night? He didn’t respond.

  But Terry had promised us his car, which meant that I had one last piece of our itinerary to put together. I pulled up George’s class page, his office phone number. I stared at his photo, wondering how the hell I was going to tell him.

  I fed Baldrick, put a load of laundry in one of the basement washing machines, finished my tea, listened to the entire A-side of Warren Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School and finally, finally got up enough nerve to call George Parker Lennox. Knowing he wouldn’t be there on the weekend, I left a nervous message on his office phone. “Um . . . hi, my name is . . . Jett Bennett and I’m . . . uh . . . a friend of KitKat’s. . . . I need to talk to you, so if you could, um, call me back, maybe we could meet. I have something for you. Thanks. Bye.”