This Love Story Will Self-Destruct

by Leslie Cohen

  “What does that mean?” Kate asked. I held up my glass and eyed it suspiciously. “It means I almost died in an avalanche, several times, trying to be a fun girl.”

  “They were that cute?” Maya reached for her drink.

  “Yes. I told you. I almost died. No, but reeeeeeaaaalllllyyyy, even with Jesse, it was the same way . . . between the charm and the bad moods . . . I’m always trying to keep up, always changing myself to be what I think I’m supposed to be. I’m always the sad victim going after the same dysfunctional guy. I’ll tell you one thing: I am not sitting around in my pink pajamas anymore waiting for some guy to call. It’s too cliché and unfair, you know?”

  “You do that?” Kate said.

  “Metaphorically speaking, yes.”

  “I’ve missed you, Eve,” she said. “You’re the only one I know who wears metaphorical pajamas.”

  “It’s unfair compared to who? Men?” Maya exclaimed. “If you compare yourself to men, you’re going to feel like an insane lunatic.”

  “I’m telling you, guys! It is hard work to be a wide-eyed romantic,” I insisted.

  “Is that what you think you are?” Kate started to laugh. “You take pretty much a doomsday approach to every relationship that you ever get involved in.”

  “So don’t be such a romantic. Come visit me at the hospital one day,” Maya said. “People are dying everywhere.”

  “I’m serious! I think I’m ready for a grown-up relationship with someone normal.”

  Kate gasped. Maya stared at me. “Someone normal?”

  I nodded.

  “But that really flies in the face of your whole policy,” Maya said, horrified.

  “Congratulations!” Kate shook my hand, her grip strong and sure, much like I imagined it was in her business meetings. “Welcome to adulthood. Let’s find your first victim.”

  Before I could stop myself, I glanced guiltily at Ben, who was watching Glick shove chopsticks up his nose and unsuccessfully try to keep them there, and then looked down at my plate quickly.

  But not quickly enough.

  “BEN?” Kate shrieked.

  “Shhh! No! Shut up! Shut up!” I paused. “But what do you think of him? Do you think he’s too quiet and maybe too nice?”

  “Eve. He was on the hockey team. How nice can he be?” Maya said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure he’s thrown a few punches, if that makes you feel better,” Kate added. I thought about the slight dent at the bridge of Ben’s nose, which made it look a little broken, and was the only flaw on his face.

  “It does!” I said.

  “You can take the girl out of the insane asylum. . . .” Maya looked at me and shook her head slowly.

  The restaurant emptied out until we were the only table left, along with a few teenaged girls in the corner, the sushi chefs plying them with drinks. Glick got up and then came back to tell us that there was a bar upstairs and that he was in love with the bartender. He told us this as if he was dead serious. “I asked her what time she was getting off,” he said in a daze. “And then I asked her to fix me a gin and tonic. And then I gave her all the money in my wallet.” He took out his wallet, as if to verify the story, and opened it up for us and shook it over the table. It was, in fact, empty.

  When the check arrived, it came with plastic cups of colored sugar, which we were meant to take over to a vintage cotton candy maker. I fought for a pink cup. Ben stood up, and the first thing I noticed was that his hooded sweatshirt went down to his knees. He was a good-looking guy, but it was hard to tell, with the baggy clothes, the orange T-shirt with a series of holes at the neck.

  I pranced over to the corner and dumped the sugar inside the machine, then watched the colored cotton whirl onto my chopstick. I took a few bites and then gave it to Maya, who took one look at it and threw it into the garbage. “I feel sick enough already,” she said, as if I’d insulted her. We all trooped upstairs to the bar on the second story. It was crowded, with deafening electronic music and a balcony overlooking Saint Marks, where people were smoking cigarettes. The walls were red, with gold Japanese letters painted on them. There was a small chandelier in the center of the room. We were standing at the bar, shouting at the top of our lungs. Maya was talking to us about her birthday, which was a week away.

  “Maybe we should just go to Dave and Buster’s!” She started laughing. “It’s a pretty trashy crowd and the food is disgusting but they have some salads. . . . Should we do that? Do you think you could stomach it?” She looked at me. “It’s so fun! They have skeeball!”

  “May . . . be. Where is it?”

  “It’s in Times Square,” she replied.

  Kate groaned. “Of course it is.”

  “Or we could go to O Ya?” Maya said. “But it’s omakase only, and it’s three hundred dollars.”

  Kate stared her down. “So our choices are Dave and Buster’s or a three-hundred-dollar-per-person omakase?”

  Suddenly, Ben tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Do you want to go out to the balcony?” he asked.

  The music had become a throbbing bass loop of the same four notes, on repeat, shaking the floors. I was dying to escape it.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Once we were out there, I leaned over the railing and looked down at the people on the street below. In my new apartment, my preferred spot was right next to the window, sitting on the ledge, watching everyone on the street walk by. Since it was on the second floor, I was close enough to see faces, to hear words, to feel like I had company. It was the city equivalent of hiking a mountain—a way to get lost in something outside of yourself. Except in New York, there was the added advantage of glimpsing into another person’s existence. When observing, I always started from the ground and scanned up. I watched their feet pound the pavement; catching the urgency of their stride, then examined how they had dressed for the day, their facial expressions. Then, I waited for some piece of conversation. The juicier bits usually came from someone on the phone. People on the phone tended to forget that they were not in their own private universe.

  I got into the hypnotic rhythm of watching people, until I heard Ben clear his throat behind me.

  “So, what was that downstairs?” he asked.

  I smiled and said, “I think it was a moment.” He moved to stand next to me.

  “What should we do now?”

  I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a flash of yellow. Inside the room, a Japanese man was blowing fire through a hoop.

  “Okay, seriously where are we?” I said.

  He looked inside. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re at a Japanese circus.”

  I laughed.

  “I feel like I should say something right now though . . . regarding the moment?” He looked at me for approval.

  “You should.” I nodded.

  “Should I say something about your eyes?”

  “Blech. No.”

  “Well, what’s your preference then?”

  I slowly shook my head. “No way, man. I’m not going to help you out.”

  “Oh come on. Give me some topics. Should we talk about college? Your job? Oh! Your cuteness?”

  “My cuteness?” I gave him a threatening look.

  The longer the silence lasted, the more nervous he looked, and the more confidence I gained. I’d never made someone nervous before. Everyone made me nervous. Didn’t he know?

  I looked over at my friends back inside. More people started coming out onto the balcony. We were jammed into a corner. He put his hand on my back, and the contact gave me a little rush. Even once his hand left, I could still feel his thumb there. I felt myself falling for just a few seconds as we stood there quietly, that feeling like I had no base, like I wasn’t safe. Look down. Look down. The alcohol and the balcony were making it worse.

  “I feel like this thing is about to collapse,” I said, staring at my feet.

  He shook his head. “All the balconies in this neighborhood are over a hundred years old,” he said. “This
is no less safe than the ground.”

  “Why do you sound like an expert?”

  He smiled. “I know a lot of random facts about the city. It’s part of my job.”

  “Where do you work?” I said, trying to focus. There’s that anxious feeling in my stomach. It’s happening again.

  “Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. It’s an architectural firm. I work in their structural engineering department. We’re building the Freedom Tower,” he said proudly.

  “Really? That’s pretty cool.”

  “Yeah, except it’s a mess.” He straightened his back and looked less like the hunched-over, hands-in-pockets, hooded-sweatshirt guy I’d vaguely registered in college. I had a flash of looking out the window of my dorm room, sophomore year, and seeing Ben with his baseball cap and hood on, walking to the bookstore.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a nonstop back-and-forth between the architects and the engineers in terms of what’s possible. But there’s been a lot of frustration on both sides. Plus, it’s an emotionally loaded project, politically charged. But,” he said, with a sigh, “there is a certain satisfaction in bringing order to the ideas, I guess.”

  He started telling me about the history of Saint Marks and the buildings that surrounded us. “They were built in 1831,” he said. “Look at the divisions of the building, the contradictory shades of red and brown. It’s four buildings now, but it used to be one very large ballroom with a balcony.” He pointed to the ceiling inside. “They plastered the walls and got rid of the right angles so that people would feel like they were in a big cavern.”

  “Saint Marks is such a weird mash of cultures,” I said.

  “It feels like it’s on its last breath though, doesn’t it? I mean, all the music venues have closed down. Punks don’t hang out here anymore. There’s nothing dangerous. There are no muggings. The drug dealers have all moved to Avenue D. It doesn’t have an edge. It’s like the ghost of a bygone era.”

  “Sure,” I said, with a laugh. “Once the drug dealers go . . .”

  “The Seven-Eleven,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What’s wrong with a Seven-Eleven?”

  “It depends on the location, but once that gets built in a place like this, it is the end. The East Village has a deep distrust of any chain stores, doesn’t matter what kind, upscale or not. There’s a lot of pride here. The local residents are invested. The community board is active. Which is why this neighborhood has been slower to change than any other part of the city.”

  I looked up at the awning on the store above us. SEARCH AND DESTROY was printed on it. There were various doll parts stacked in the window with menacing faces, a plastic pig, Mickey Mouse dressed in an Uncle Sam costume, a gas mask, a sign that read NOBODY INNOCENT.

  “I came down here a lot when I was sixteen,” he continued. “I used to hang out on the street with my friends before and after shows.” His voice was low, steady, solid, matter-of-fact. I felt like I was meeting Ben for the first time. Our entire interaction before this, in college and throughout New York, at a party, standing around in a group of people, faded from memory.

  “But you look so clean!”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, confused.

  “Oh, I just meant, um . . . nothing. Never mind. So you hung out here after the shows?” I was about to be all This guy just does not get me, but I stopped myself. Grown-up relationship. Grown-up!

  “Yup, and I got pretty beat up right over”—he extended his arm and pointed down the street—“there.”

  “What’s that mean?” I was beginning to see some rebellion in Ben, and that right there got me, a little bit. He had some edge, I thought, hidden under there, beneath the spotless exterior. Thank God.

  He shook his head. “There were all these groups. Everyone was very specific about which bands they liked. And they took it seriously.”

  “Why?”

  “Why were there groups, or why did they take it seriously?”

  “Umm . . . both?” The wheels in my head were turning with a possible headline, first sentence. But then I realized that even if this was an interesting topic to write about, I was about ten years too late.

  “I don’t know. I went to a show at CBGB and I guess I bumped into the wrong guy. Then we came to Saint Marks and his friend punched me. Actually, he didn’t just punch me. He broke an orbital bone next to my eye.”

  I cringed.

  “I have to say, it’s funny to be here talking to a cute girl in the exact location where ten years ago I got smacked in the face,” he said, concentrating on me. “See. I managed to say something about your cuteness after all.”

  “Phew!” I said. He laughed. I couldn’t help but notice how happy he seemed. What am I doing that is pleasing him so much?

  Oh, I can see where all this is going. How can I resist? There isn’t the faintest chance I am going to miss this. I am cured now! Ben’s orbital bone had recovered and I am no longer worried about being left. This is my chance to break through. Ben is smart and sweet and haven’t I been through the wringer already with guys who I couldn’t trust? They leave too. Maybe this one will fix something inside of me.

  “Do you ever feel like you experience the city differently? Because of your job?” I said, with searching eyes, playing with my hair, doing my best.

  “Definitely,” he said. “Like when I’m in the subway and I’m staring at a column or a beam. I don’t even realize it, but I’m tracing the load path, trying to figure out how the loads are transferred.” I gave him a confused look. He started to get more enthusiastic. “So in the subway station, you have the street traffic above, which is supported by a series of beams running across the street, and the columns that you see support the beams. If you look at them closely though, you can see the connections in the beams and that’s interesting to me. Like, you can see whether they used rivets or bolts. Rivets were used until the sixties, and after that, technology advanced and bolts were developed and could be installed easily in the field. Whether you see rivets or bolts or some combination tells you when something was built. It suggests what has been refurbished and what is really old. So in the subway you might see riveted connections next to bolt connections, and then you know that someone in the eighties made a change, which tells you the history of the station.”

  I nodded, unsure of how to respond. I didn’t know anything about rivets or bolts, but I did know about the larger situation at hand. A boy liked a girl.

  The nice ones never come to you.

  “Ben.” My eyes narrowed on him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want to make out?”

  He looked at me as if I’d asked him the dumbest question imaginable.

  “Umm.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Yes.”

  BEN

  * * *

  500 SIXTH AVENUE, BETWEEN TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH STREETS, WEST VILLAGE

  I woke up at her apartment and my first thought was: Oh shit. Because that was my general reaction whenever I woke up in bed with someone familiar. In my experience, it is far less scary to wake up with a borderline stranger. As I lay next to her, staring at an amalgam of her arm and pillow and hair, I gave myself the third degree.

  Did I just do something wrong?

  Did I just get into something I . . . didn’t want to get into?

  But then I told myself that I had no reason to worry. I went from oh shit to oh, wait a minute, that was fine. My arm was sore. I moved it from under her. I regained feeling in my forearm first, but my shoulder had been shifted so badly all night that it took longer.

  One of Eve’s legs was visible at the other end of the bed. Her hair was strewn across her back, below her shoulders. It was an even shade of brown, although a few strands were catching the sun peeking through her window shades and looked lighter. Last night, she’d kept it half tied in this clip at the back of her head. The clip was now lying on the night table, flat and small and with three red stones in a line. I looked over a
t the table, which also had a pair of blue earrings in the shape of triangles lying next to a tissue box and a black alarm clock.

  I examined the sliver of her face that was showing. She was pretty, the kind of pretty where you could stare at her face for a while. I’m not one for making a big deal out of eye contact or anything like that, but last night across the table we’d definitely had something. Jesus, what was that? I made fun of her and all of a sudden she was smiling. It was definitely a moment. How to describe it I’m not sure. But it was interesting. It caught my attention. Even though I’d been around her before, that was the first time we’d actually smiled at each other. It was enough to spark something. Enough that it led to this. I made the decision that when she woke up, I would ask her to go for breakfast. If it had been a one-night, zero-strings, sort-of-anonymous thing, I would have gotten the hell out of there, no questions asked. But Eve and I had gone to college together. We had an overlapping friend circle. We could share a meal. I was tired of those one-night things anyway. I wanted to give this a shot.

  I looked around at her place. The paint on the walls, which looked to have been recently rehabilitated, revealed a few irregularities near the ceiling. To the right of the bed, there was a dresser with a rectangular mirror over it. There was no clutter, no superfluous objects of any kind. From the bed, I could see the outline of a colored carpet, the top of a pile of scarves, all folded in a basket. Its nicest feature was that from the window next to the bed, you could see Fifth Street and the bare branches of a tree. It was quiet out there. It was unlike lying in my own bed in Hoboken, where I heard every truck barreling by all night long. But that apartment had its advantages—my roommate and I got to keep some of the furniture and porcelain egg collection from the two ninety-year-old women who lived and died in the apartment before us. Stuff that screamed bachelor’s paradise.

  As I waited for Eve to wake up, I thought back on whether I did anything embarrassing during the night, if I was snoring, the sexual experience. I pieced together the sequence of events that led to me falling asleep there. We were hooking up at the bar, and next thing I knew I was walking her home and when we got to her door, instead of saying good-bye, she just kept talking and walking into the building, up to her apartment. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to follow her, but she wasn’t telling me not to follow her and I didn’t need a whole lot more than that to boost my confidence. She showed me around her apartment. The only part I remembered was how she stopped in front of a bookshelf and drunkenly explained her whole organizational system. She had four of the books isolated, alone on a shelf, and told me that those were her favorites, that they’d earned their position above the masses. “Don’t worry. They don’t get lonely. They have each other,” she had said reassuringly. After that statement, I remember grabbing her for no reason I could understand, other than instinct. Why? Because she was a voracious reader? Never did it for me before. But okay, in this scenario, somehow it was working for me, and we ended up in her bed and neither she nor I were making too much of the whole deal. We were acting like this was just something that we did.