by Adi Alsaid
There were a couple of guys seated at the security station, their faces illuminated by the glow of what were probably—if television had faithfully portrayed security stations even slightly—a dozen different monitors. Iris knocked again, and the Latino one glanced up. At first he scowled, and then he squinted and stood up, approaching the door to get a closer look. His hand went to his nightstick, which is right around the time when I felt like it would be a good idea to retreat. Then his body relaxed, and he took his hand away from the nightstick and grabbed his keys.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open, standing in the doorway, his bulky frame blocking most of the entrance. “Hey, cuz. You here to get me in trouble?”
“Yup,” Iris said, dragging out the vowel for a couple of seconds and smiling.
He laughed and shook his head, turning to look at me and then at her. “You guys drunk or something? You know your moms would kill me if I let you up there and you fall to your death.”
“Oh come on. My mom’s a sweetheart. She’s not capable of murder.”
“Not literally,” the security guard, whose name tag read Hernando, said. “But she’d beat me down with guilt. My life would be over. I’d have to carry that weight around until my actual death.”
“We’re good, man. I swear we’ll stay away from the ledge. Except for when we’re throwing stuff.”
“Right, the usual rules.” He chuckled and shook his head again, then stepped back to let us through. The other security guard, an older black man, looked up from the monitors and started to stand up. Behind us, Hernando locked the door again. “Roy, this is my little cousin, Iris. Gonna let them up to the roof for a bit. If anything happens I’ll say I snuck them past while you were taking a leak.”
“Fair enough,” Roy said, offering a head nod.
We thanked them, then headed up the elevator to the highest floor, taking the stairs the rest of the way, probably too excitedly because when we pushed the door open we were both out of breath. Iris put her hands up behind her head, taking big heaving breaths. “Totally should not have run.”
I was taking the hands-on-the-knees approach, trying to appreciate the view while wheezing. “Yeah, that was stupid. Remind me not to ever do that again.” When my head and insides begrudgingly returned to normal, Iris and I walked forward to the front of the building, where the diagonal walls converge and look out at Madison Square Park. “Damn.”
“Yeah, right?”
Manhattan twinkled all around me. We took a lap around the roof. I looked around for The Strand and my movie theater, the bench where I was supposed to talk to Leo but ended up sitting next to Cal instead. The noise up there wasn’t the usual cacophonous orchestra of competing sounds. All the sounds of the city had time to merge together into something more complete, and quieter. (Duh, Lu, it was past midnight.)
“Of course you’d have access to the freaking Flatiron’s rooftop.”
Iris laughed, leaning her elbows forward on the waist-high ledge. Her dark curls hung over her shoulder, nearly brushing the stones. “What do you mean?”
Below us, I could see some cops in the park, talking to a homeless guy sitting on the curb. An Indian man scrubbed his hot dog cart clean, headphones in his ears. There was that lovely post-rain smell in the air, instead of the usual smell of hot garbage. “You just have that kind of life, don’t you? Charmed more than the average.” Iris frowned, and I rushed to elaborate in a way that didn’t make it sound like I was accusing her of something. “That didn’t come out right. It’s just...you’re so cool. You’re going to California because the ocean fills you with calm, you’ve got a fake ID and flawless style and seem so comfortable with yourself. You’re my age and you have the maturity to not delude yourself into thinking long distance will work with your high school boyfriend, and then the absurd level of maturity to stay with him with a predetermined breakup date.” The expression on her face was definitely not the reaction I was going for, like I was still complaining about her instead of the opposite. “I’m not saying all of this to bitch. I’m just saying...it feels like you deserve this kind of life. Like you’re one of those people that has it a little more figured out than the rest of us.”
A quiet moment followed, which made it feel like I’d messed up this awesome night and probably the rest of my friendship with Iris by being overly earnest. That thought almost made me want to cry, so I turned my head up to combat the threat of tears by having them fight against gravity. I was shocked to see a few stars visible overhead. There’s such little sky visible in the city, it almost feels like a waste to look up in search of stars. There’s a lot more interesting stuff going on down here.
“Well, I’m glad you think I’m this beacon of awesomeness,” Iris finally said, breaking the silence. “It’s not quite true, but it’s nice to be seen that way, I guess.”
I found myself mimicking her lean on the ledge, even though I felt like I hadn’t looked away from the view in front at all. It was hard to pinpoint what made the sight so beautiful. It was just a different angle of the same buildings and lights I was well versed in. “Which part did I get wrong?”
A breeze blew and Iris tossed her hair over to her other shoulder so it wouldn’t hit her in the face. “It’s like you’re seeing the duck above the surface, but not the feet paddling beneath. Things may look smooth, but there’s more to it than that, you know. I’m not saying I have this crazy difficult life. But I’m definitely more than what you’ve picked up from our two times seeing each other in person.”
An urge rose up within me, and I decided I’d try one more time. “So, let me see it. Let me see more of you and Cal, instead of this glossy, romanticized version that’s formed in my head.”
I thought maybe she’d just walk away, tired of my shit. Or that she’d groan and make a joke about how I didn’t quit. Instead she just stood there, looking out at the city, not quite swaying from the booze but not motionless either. “Why do you like writing about love?”
“I just like exploring the topic,” I said. No one had really asked me why I write about this stuff before. Maybe they just assumed because I’m a teenage girl that it makes sense, but I never felt like someone who obsessed over love. “This is when a lot of us experience love for the first time, and all we really know about it comes from books and movies and songs, which sometimes offer good advice, or a glimpse of what the experience is like, but it’s not the same thing as really experiencing love. We’re unprepared, all of us. We see a filtered version of love in art and media, but what do we really know about it? What have we seen, outside of our parents? And even then, how much is there? I don’t know what your parents are like but mine are divorced, and I have no memories of what they were like together. They’ve both dated other people, but they aren’t exactly open about that part of themselves. And the rest comes from our friends, but they aren’t exactly experts either.” Iris’s phone buzzed a few times in her hand. She glanced at the screen then set it facedown on the ledge, giving me her attention. “I don’t know. Maybe I think it’ll make me better at it all.”
Iris smiled, her eyes starting to droop with sleep. I was getting tired too, and had an early shift the next day. A yawn escaped me, and I thought of how Leo would make fun of the exaggerated scope of my yawns, how long they built up for. He would sometimes try to interrupt them by tickling me. It got annoying by the end of our relationship, but I remember how much I loved it when we were still just flirting. The rush of his touch, the intimacy of laughing together. I used to fake yawns just to get him to do it.
That was gone now. A joy in my life just flittered away. The thought caused me sadness, but not the kind of sadness I’d been feeling for weeks now. I didn’t think I was healed from the heartbreak, but I started to realize in that moment, looking out at a relatively quiet Manhattan, that I would, with time. A few more nights like this, a few more nights to forget the things I liked about Leo, a few more r
un-ins where he acted like a jerk. I’d heal, in the end.
I just didn’t know if I wanted to heal.
BRIEF CHRONICLE OF ANOTHER STUPID HEART
What We Talk about When We Talk about Talking about Love
By Lu Charles
November 10
Sometimes I wonder how people know that the feeling they’re experiencing is the same thing others experience. Like, when I call something “love,” am I talking about the same thing a certain boy with sexy stage presence is talking about when he talks about love?
The boyfriend and I exchanged L-words recently. I’ve written about this momentous stage in a relationship before, but I had no idea what the moment really felt like, could only imagine the layers of thoughts and hopes and fears that rush through a person’s mind in the lead-up and afterglow.
I would think it’d be a full relief, something akin to how it felt to finally become uncrushed and enter into that elusive stage of actual dating and kissing. Don’t get me wrong, there is joy. An unclenching deep within me. Since the beginning of our relationship, I had been wondering if it was one-sided, if I was deep in the pool while he was sitting at the edge watching me with only his ankles submerged.
Now that we’ve talked and agreed that we are both in the deep end, I wonder how deep we’re talking about. I wonder about the quantifiable measurability of love, and how evenly it can match up. We talk about love, but do two people ever mean the exact same thing when they say they love each other?
It probably depends on your outlook. If you’re a romantic, you say of course. If you’re a cynic you say we’re in actuality always alone and even relationships are an illusion. If you’re at a party, you back slowly away from the cynic and come up with a signal with your friends to make sure you don’t get stuck talking to him again.
Or. Maybe it’s just me. My neuroses. Maybe it’s just this relationship. Maybe it’s still too new for me to feel complete reciprocity. To trust that it’s there. I want that trust, but maybe that’s one of those stupid grown-up things that comes with time. Although the most neurotic part of me says that no, that’s not the case. Real love doesn’t come with a minimum age requirement.
Tell me, readers, is it just me? Does this ring a bell for anyone else, or are these insecurities mine alone?
12
EXCUSES
The next day, as I was walking to work, Hafsah called me. I stared at my phone, wishing I hadn’t been a huge tool and missed my deadline. Mornings are hard enough on a day-to-day basis, but I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before because I was out so late with Iris. I’d tried to improvise a last-minute article, but my head started lolling with booze and sleep and I had to succumb to bed. Mom had passive-aggressively grilled me during breakfast, which for sure helped with the whole sleep-deprivation thing.
Other than that, morning phone calls generally made me feel like some alien had zapped my brain and replaced it with one of those flimsy decades-old couch cushions my tita Marian refuses to throw away. So that’s the state of mind I was in.
“Hey!” I said, really lingering on the y to make it seem like I was totally cool with this phone call and how it would undo my future.
“Where’s your column, Lu?”
Small talk isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but I would have really loved the opportunity to let my panicking mind ease into the conversation. I sighed, and then decided on a bold, albeit not superintelligent approach. “What was that, Haf? I couldn’t hear you!” I even covered up my off-ear to the city sounds, as if it was onlookers in my vicinity that I had to convince.
All that did though was turn up the volume on Hafsah’s end of the line. She was so quiet that I could hear the subdued sounds of the Misnomer offices gearing up for the day. Interns chatting in the coffee room, office doors opening and shutting, people saying their good mornings. Someone tapped softly on their keyboard, a fridge whirred. I swear I could hear those things. Hafsah was really freaking quiet.
“Can you hear me now?” I could tell she hadn’t moved to a different spot in the office or closed her door or anything like that. Which meant she probably could sniff through my bullshit.
Abort, abort. “Yeah, that’s better.”
“I was expecting your column yesterday. What happened?”
I quickly ran through some possible excuses:
A grandparent dying. (Too disrespectful to my dead grandparents, too awful to imagine for my still-living grandparents.)
My dog ate it. (I don’t have a dog, and I don’t think dogs ever eat entire laptops or, for that matter, someone’s ability to access the internet.)
Someone elbowed past me so hard on the subway that it caused a weekend-long concussion and paralysis in my fingers. (Plausible, but Hafsah would probably ask for a doctor’s note.)
Heartbreak had rendered me wordless and now my future as a writer was over. (Not an excuse that would solve anything for me vis-à-vis losing the job.)
“I need more time,” I said. “The couple I’m interviewing just had a busy weekend and they kept canceling our phone call appointments.”
Another silence from Hafsah, during which I could physically sense my future falling apart. I was gonna work at the movie theater my whole life. I’d turn into Brad. Except Brad married his high school sweetheart, so I’d probably be a slightly sadder version of Brad, keeping an eternal stockade of notebooks which I would fill only with doodles because I’d never write another word again.
“You should have turned something in, Lu. A draft. A proposal. You’re putting me in a bad position.”
“It’s gonna be really good, Haf. I promise. They’re...” I reached around the empty recesses of my brain for a descriptor that would sell Hafsah, somehow landed on “...entrancing. It’ll be worth it, but I do need more time. I’m sorry.” Were they entrancing? Or was I just desperate?
I was still walking, and at that point I came within view of the movie theater. How this phone call ended could make the next eight hours excruciating or filled with sweet, sweet relief. I stood on the corner of Third Avenue and Eleventh Street, eyes glued to my feet and the sidewalk. I wish I could say I felt a moment of inner peace, knowing that the decision was out of my hands and worrying would achieve nothing. But that’s not how my mind works. I focused on a piece of trash rolling along the street, carried by the draft of passing cars.
“Since I needed something by the end of the month, you get one more week. After that, I’m going to look to fill the love column with someone else.”
“You are the best person alive. You won’t be disappointed. It’s gonna be great,” I said, my shoulders shimmying with excitement of their own volition.
I hung up and hurried into work. In the back room, I found Pete putting his things away in his locker. I stormed in and slammed my bag into the locker adjacent to his. “All is not lost!” I yelled.
“Oh good. I was worried when you bailed on me last night that you got stuck watching global warming docs. Clearly not the case.” Pete grabbed his maroon work polo and slipped it over his head.
“My editor is giving me another week,” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him as violently as I could. “I get another chance!”
Pete shrugged his way out of my grip. “You’re really excited for the extra rope to hang yourself with.”
I clapped my hands together. “I’m gonna ignore the rudeness of that comment because I bailed on you yesterday and you’re entitled to some snark. But this is good news! My future has not crumbled like the ice caps.”
“Now I’m confused. Did you watch documentaries last night?” We walked over to the clipboard on the wall to see where our shifts would start. We were both on cleaning duty.
“No. Iris and I hung out all night. It was actually really cool. We went to the Comedy Cellar and a speakeasy, and even made it to the roof of the freaking Flatiron.�
� Pete’s eyebrows went up. “I know!”
We both grabbed a broom and a dustbin and walked out into the lobby.
“Please tell me you’re not doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That ’90s rom-com thing where you strike up a friendship for ulterior motives, which eventually blossoms into a real relationship, and then it all falls apart in the third act when the other person discovers the aforementioned ulterior motives.”
“Don’t be ridiculous” I said. We started making the rounds of the theaters, sweeping up popcorn that last night’s cleanup crew may have missed. “I was completely up-front with her about my motives for friendship. But I could use some help in determining a way to trick her into agreeing to an interview.”
Pete was a few rows up from me in the otherwise empty theater, sweeping calmly. “Still?”
“Yeah. Get this: they are breaking up. But they’re delaying their misery by staying together until the end of the summer.”
Pete stopped sweeping and looked at me, furrowing his brow. I waited for him to say it was a ballsy move on their part, a bold acceptance of how all good things eventually end, they were living in the avant-garde of romance!
“Weird,” Pete said, going back to sweeping. “So she changed her mind about letting you interview them, then?”
“Well, no. She gets sad if she thinks about the breakup, so she didn’t want to dwell. But I think she might feel differently if I asked her this morning. We, like, bonded last night.”
“Hmm,” Pete went. I took that as a sign that his mental cogs and wheels or whatever a brain is made up of were starting to churn. We cleaned six more theaters without saying another word. Except every time Pete made a little noise I assumed he was about to drop some wisdom and I’d perk my ears up like a cat.
