by Adi Alsaid
Before I could protest, Iris turned back toward her apartment, gesturing for me to follow along. Her building had a nice elevator with a mirror wall and shiny chrome panels, which we stood in awkwardly for the ten-floor journey upstairs. We passed through an elegant, spacious hallway, the kind you see in hotels, but with fewer rooms. Iris opened the door inside and jetted away, saying she was going to get one of those magical detergent pens. I stood in the entrance to her place, wondering just what the hell I was doing. Returning the wallet, confessing the eavesdropping, asking for permission to interview her, keeping your job, the practical side of my brain said. Figuring out how someone else wades through the insanities of heartbreak, some other side of my brain retorted. To keep those two sides of my brain from arguing, a third chimed in and said, Isn’t that artisanal rug hanging on the wall over there pretty? It looks Oaxacan!
Shut up, we don’t know what Oaxacan rugs look like! The other two parts of my brain shouted in unison.
Iris came speed-walking back, the pen in her hand. “I’m sorry this happened. The universe really chose to reward your good deed by being a prick, huh?”
“Totally,” I said. I uncapped the pen and started dabbing uselessly at the damp coffee stain, which easily covered half of my shirt. There was a quiet moment, thick with the awkwardness of our unfamiliarity.
“Damn, that’s not doing much, is it?” Iris said, pouting.
“It’s okay. This happens to me about forty times a week.”
“Oof.”
“Yeah, I’m a lost cause. Like this shirt.” I shrugged and capped the pen, giving it back to her.
“I’m sorry you have to walk around like that all day. Do you live nearby?”
“Not really, I live in Chinatown. But it’s okay. I don’t have any street cred or anything, so it’s fine if people judge me on the R train.”
Iris laughed, harder than she had to. She even did that thing only ’50s starlets do where they cover their mouths with their hands, as if laughter could be contained, or even should be for the sake of propriety. On the way over to her place, I’d imagined her looking as heartbroken as I’d felt, but looking at her now, and over her shoulder at the living room behind her, I saw no evidence that she’d taken her breakup harshly. There were no blankets crumpled on the couch, Netflix wasn’t paused on the TV. Iris even looked like she’d managed to shower at some point in the past few days, which was more than I could say for myself post-breakup.
“Well, I guess I should thank you for coming all this way. Especially since it came at such a high cost.” She gestured to my shirt.
“It’s really okay,” I said, reaching into my bag to grab Cal’s wallet. “I found out this shirt is from one of those evil places that uses sweatshops, so I’ve been meaning to, like, donate it and buy something more humane, or burn it in protest. I don’t know which is the most ethical option. Anyway, spilling coffee on it was probably just my guilt lashing out.”
Iris snapped her fingers. “Oh! I know what I’ll do.” She turned and walked away again, leaving me holding the wallet out to no one. I hoped there wasn’t anyone else in the apartment that might appear and ask me who I was. “I’ve got a bunch of shirts here,” Iris called out from what I assumed was her room. “You can borrow one.”
“You don’t have to do that! It’s almost dry.” I picked at the shirt, which was clinging to my ribs. “Kind of.”
Iris came back, holding a baby blue V-neck. “Please, I insist. I’ve got like three of the same one. It’s the least I can do for you coming out of your way to return my stupid boyfriend’s wallet.”
I froze, my jaw succumbing to gravity and clichés. I’m sorry, did you just say ‘ex-boyfriend’? Because if so you were super quiet on the ex part, I thought, but didn’t say, because I can still sometimes human. “Oh, he’s your boyfriend?”
“Yeah. He sucks at hanging on to his belongings. I swear he can’t go to a movie theater without leaving his cell phone under the seat with the day-old popcorn. The amount of times we’ve had to go back and...” She trailed off. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Anyway.” She stepped forward and held her hand out, offering the T-shirt. “Thanks again. This really means so much.”
Gingerly, I reached out and grabbed it, leaving Cal’s wallet in her open palm instead. “Yeah, it’s no problem,” I said, almost a whisper.
There could have been a different outcome.
Iris said “boyfriend,” not “ex-boyfriend,” so there existed a world, a universe, some parallel dimension where two people like me and Leo could love each other the way we did and not be split up by the circumstances of our collegiate plans. I’d entered that universe somehow, and now I knew why I’d hung on to that wallet.
I’d unknowingly pitched Hafsah gold. It wasn’t just a decent idea, an exploration of the murky ground of post-senior-year relationships, it was an actual blueprint. These two had lived through the same fight I’d had with Leo and survived. I wanted to know how. I wanted to share that how with others and help them avoid this stupid feeling I was in the midst of. Hell, maybe I could somehow be saved too.
“The bathroom is just here on the left.” Iris stepped aside and pointed at a door. “I was gonna make a pot of coffee. You want some? Your shirt made me crave it.” She smiled, humor in her eyes.
I nodded yes, then went into the bathroom to change. I was glad to get the wet shirt off me, and happy that Iris had offered coffee, not just for the comfort, but for the opportunity to linger there and work up the guts to bring up my ulterior motive.
When I walked out of the bathroom, I found Iris sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter looking at her phone. The smell of coffee was strong, the machine burbling loudly. Iris looked up at me and smiled again, flipping her phone facedown on the granite counter.
That was probably the moment that I’d been waiting for, to come clean about eavesdropping. I opened my mouth, then realized how hard it is to say the words, hey, so, the other day I was spying on you. Instead, I again opted for words that were easier to say, “So, you and Cal, huh? How long’s that been going on for?”
She answered politely at first, but I kept prying, my journalistic instinct kicking in (and kicking aside my subnormal social skills). She was clearly in the mood to talk too, running me through a brief history of their relationship. They’d met online, on Tumblr. They’d started off liking/reblogging each other’s posts, many of them little love notes to New York City. After enough of this casual e-flirting, Iris had sent him a private message. “I felt like we’d been looking at each other across a room all night, and I couldn’t take the eye-dancing anymore without saying hi. So, I just sent a ‘hi’ with a little emoticon smiley face.” They kept flirting online for a while after that, and a couple of months later they went on their first date. This was almost two years ago. Since then, it seemed like it was all roses and puppy love. No mention of fighting in the streets outside The Strand.
“What are you guys doing for college?” I asked, dipping my toes farther into ulterior-motive territory. Iris’s expression didn’t give anything away, but she didn’t answer immediately either. “I’m just asking because... Okay, this is weird, but have you heard of Misnomer?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but I’ve never really gone on it.”
“Well, I actually have this column on it that’s all about love and relationships and stuff.” I looked down at my lap, fiddling with my hands. “My newest piece is gonna be about couples who are facing the summer before college and the decision to go long-distance, or break up, or go to the same school or whatever. It’s so funny that you’re in that situation too!”
Iris raised her eyebrows, graciously passing over my stupid comment. “Wow, you have your own column?”
“It’s not that big of a deal. I don’t think a lot of people read it.”
“Still. What’s it like interviewing people about their love lives?”
“You can find out, if you let me interview you.”
She laughed, then flipped her hair over and ran her hand through the curls, fluffing them out. There was something enchanting about the action, something that spoke of a comfort within her own body that I just didn’t have. “Damn, girl, that was smooth,” she said. She pushed away from the counter and took our empty mugs to the sink. “I don’t know if I’m into that though. He and I had kind of a touchy talk about the topic the other day, and I’d rather not delve into it, especially in front of a stranger.” The faucet turned on, and she rinsed the mugs and put them away in the dishwasher. “No offense.”
She flashed a smile that I easily recognized as the desire to stop the conversation, but I wasn’t quite ready to face the turmoil of my thoughts if I walked away from here without the article that would bust me out of my writer’s block. “This is going to sound like I’m prying, but it’s just an excuse to say a phrase I’ve been dying to say since I became a quote-unquote journalist. Off the record, what was the touchy talk about?” Another polite smile, eyes averted. She bided her time by turning on the dishwasher. “I’m only asking because, well...” I trailed off, surprised I was ready to broach the subject with anyone but Pete. “I got dumped recently. My boyfriend and I had planned to stay together after graduation, then he... I dunno. Changed his mind, I guess.”
Iris looked at me for a moment, long enough for me to really think about what a weirdo I was. Here I was standing in this Upper West Side kitchen—with its granite countertops, decorative Mexican plates, and a freakin’ dishwasher, the light coming in through the big windows that didn’t just show the neighboring building but had an actual view—in front of a girl whose nonbreakup I’d witnessed and now wanted to take advantage of for my own personal reasons. And I was revealing my own broken heart to her. Within an hour of meeting her.
“I don’t know,” Iris said. “This seems...personal.”
“Personal is what my column is all about.”
“Yeah, but, I don’t know you.”
“Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Why us? For all you know we’re boring as hell.”
“Fair question,” I said. I couldn’t admit the fact that I’d eavesdropped on their conversation, heard lines coming out of her mouth that Leo had spat at me. “For one, I’ll admit, it’s convenience.” I threw out my most casual shrug. “I’m standing in your kitchen and you just told me you’re going through the exact thing I want to write about. I also like the coincidence of it all. I found your boyfriend’s wallet on the ground and it just so happens you fit the profile for my column. That’s kinda cool, right?” Iris considered this for a moment, then conceded my point with a nod. “Most of all, though, I’m just curious. My relationship failed where yours went right. I wanna know how you did it.”
The dishwasher started to whir. Iris looked down at it as if she was thankful for its interruption. “I don’t know what to say. We talked through it.” She fluffed her hair out again and looked at me, maybe hoping I would change the subject. Unfortunately for her, my journalistic instinct was still on, and I knew that if I didn’t say anything for a bit she’d feel the need to fill the silence. She turned her back to me and grabbed a dishrag that was folded by the sink, running it across the counter as if there was anything there to clean. “I don’t talk easily about personal stuff. You can?”
Of course, I’d talked about the breakup with Pete already. And a little bit with my cousin Cindy when she texted a couple of nights after. But there’s something about breakups and certain kinds of sadness that makes you want to return to the subject again and again, no matter how emotionally draining it can be. I guess that’s what heartbreak does to you. It makes you long to feel drained.
“To a fault,” I chuckled. “I work at a movie theater, and the other day during the thirty-second interaction I had with a customer buying a ticket, I managed to tell them not only that I’d recently been dumped, but that I was planning on a really great speech to win my ex back.”
Iris cringed, which was the most appropriate reaction she could have had. “Did the speech work?”
“I’ve tried to deliver it three times now. He’s bailed on me every time.”
The dishwasher whirred again. Iris folded the dishrag back up. She looked me in the eyes like she was really trying to look inside. Probably assessing whether I was on some nerfarious mission to tickle them or rearrange their furniture or something, which is a good assessment to attempt on strangers inside your home. “I’ll tell you what,” Iris said, adding a warm smile. “You and I can chat some other time. You can return the shirt, and maybe by then I’ll feel more like opening up. We’ll talk about boys and breakups and all that.” Then she led me toward the door, her hand touching my shoulder briefly to lead me out of the kitchen. “Off the record.”
BRIEF CHRONICLE OF ANOTHER STUPID HEART
On Being Super Annoying and Happy
By Lu Charles
September 27
Readers, I have to confess something. This weekend, I made out at Starbucks. Excessively, and unapologetically. I was responsible for propagating the image the world has of the uncontrollable, sex-crazed, inconsiderate teen. And it felt great.
We’ve all been on the witnessing side of this interaction, and it doesn’t feel great. That gross, wet lip smacking, the cringe-inducing prolonged eye contact, the not-at-all-inconspicuous butt grabs. It’s uncomfortable for everyone but the people involved in the make-out, oblivious to anything but their little world of two.
For those who haven’t shamelessly made out in a public place, I’d like to present a case on its behalf.
Imagine, if you will, a seventeen-year-old girl who’s been conditioned by art and media to crave companionship, and who’s been coaxed by her hormones and/or society to crave touch. Imagine (or perhaps I should say, recall) the lonely days and nights without companionship or touch. She spends her time thinking about love and why so many are so obsessed with it, to the point where she actually gets paid to do the pondering (how meta).
Then comes a boy. Sweet brown skin, a commandingly sexy stage presence when he’s in school plays, the ability to make every moment feel special. He laughs at the girl’s jokes and reaches for her hand often, every now and then bringing their clasped hands to his mouth and kissing her fingers, telling her he’s lucky he has her in his life. Kisses the way poetry describes kissing.
Now the girl and the boy are at a coffee shop, and they peck each other on the lips just to remind each other that this lovely thing exists in their lives. And it’s not like the outside world just falls away. They don’t forget about the people in the coffee shop trying to work on their computers or read their books or grumble to each other about their days. They just see each other more than anything else. The pecks escalate.
Should we fault the couple that is so enamored with each other? Why not dive into the joy? The world isn’t exactly considerate of its behavior toward them, it does nothing to avoid annoying teens, and in fact annoys them quite often. So why not make out at the Starbucks? Why not take on the sneers and frowns the world so often casts in their direction anyway? They’re momentarily protected by this force field of lips and tongues and flesh. What looks like PDA feels like refuge.
So, yes, for those who have been wondering in the comments, I am still in this wacky world of experiencing a relationship rather than philosophizing about them. It’s going well, I think, even if I have become a little more annoying. I’m in a safe haven of smooching, and your dirty looks will not bring me down.
7
CARTOONISHLY THWARTED
“Pete, save me.”
Someone else would have had the decency to at least offer a weary sigh before continuing on. Pete didn’t so much as inhale semiheavily into the phone. “You don’t need saving. You’ve still got a good idea for a column. It just won’t be about those two.”
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br /> “Will you let me mope for a second?”
“No. It even sounds like this Iris girl is interested in being your friend. You have nothing to mope about.”
I groaned, really doubling down on my effort just to show Pete how normal people were supposed to act. “I’m going down into the subway. I’ll meet you at The Strand in twenty minutes? Three hours? I don’t know how long it takes to get back from the Upper West Side.”
“Okay.” Pete hung up, and I reentered the sweaty underworld of New York. Good, the underworld. A fitting place for me and my doomed writing career and love life. Of course Iris and Cal hadn’t broken up. They were hip romantics with a true understanding of love. It was only me who sucked at these things, me who didn’t deserve the entirely unlikely but still wholly possible scenario of love extending beyond high school and into college.
It was pretty empty at the station, just one white dude with a backpack and headphones on. Great idea, White Dude in His Twenties. I pulled my headphones out of my bag and put on a thought-suppressing podcast.
About thirty-five minutes later I was standing in front of Pete by the biographies.
“Dude, who reads biographies?”
“No book shaming,” he murmured. “People are interesting. There’s some comfort in knowing that lives continue on as stories.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up an entirely too-heavy tome of President Martin Van Buren. Although I guess if a book were written about my life, I’d be okay with it leaning heavy. “Anyway. You rudely interrupted my attempt to bitch about my article going to hell.”
“You have an article. Just find someone else.”
