Monkey Business

russ rings in the new year

Thursday, January 1, 2:10 a.m.

Is it time to go yet? I’ve had too much champagne and I’m now feeling frisky. I pat Sharon on the knee. “Shar, you ready?”

It’s two-ten, definitely time to leave her sister’s New Year’s party. All that’s left of the chips and booze are crumbs and bottles. Most of the thirty guests have left. Rena, unfortunately, is still here. Whenever I’m not paying attention, she corners me to harass me about school.

At eleven she wanted to know if I’d gotten any grades back. I told her I hadn’t checked. At eleven-thirty she asked me if I had gotten any interviews.

“Yeah. BCG, Accenture, Stewart & Co. and O’Donnel.”

“Good for you!” she exclaimed, while straightening her ridiculous tie. I’m not wearing a tie, so why is she? “Who are you waiting for?”

“Bain and McKinsey.”

“I’ll see if I can get you an interview with McKinsey. I may have some pull now, you know.”

Second-years had their interviews in October, and Rena has been gloating about her McKinsey acceptance all evening.

Sharon kisses me on the cheek and stretches off the couch. “Let’s get our coats.” She has a pimple on her chin. In all the years we’ve dated, I’ve never seen her with a pimple. She fought with it for twenty minutes before we went out tonight, with ice cubes and concealer creams, but it still shines through, red and angry. For some reason, the pimple calms me, reminds me of her flaws. If she finds out about Kimmy and never wants to speak to me again, I’ll remember this pimple. Since I’ve been home, I’ve found myself rejoicing in all of her flaws. Her short temper with her mother. How she won’t let me smoke dope. How she insists on manning the remote control.

I tell myself that this is what I won’t miss when she breaks up with me.

Inversely, every time she does something sweet, like bake my favorite chocolate peanut-butter brownies, or kiss my finger when I somehow slice it on a butter knife, or when she wears the purple V-neck mohair sweater that makes me want to lay my head against her stomach and be held for hours, the one she’s wearing right now, a knife spears through my heart. And not a butter knife. A machete.

We pick through the pile of haphazardly thrown coats on her sister and brother-in-law’s bed until we find ours. My scarf was once stuffed in my jacket’s arm, but is now missing.

Beep. Apparently there’s a message waiting for me on my cell, which was inside my jacket pocket.

Sharon looks at me with curiosity. “Who called?”

Beep. I should definitely have turned off the message alert. “I’ll check later.” Beep.

“No, hon, check now. It could be an emergency. You never know on New Year’s.” Her forehead scrunches, and I know her well enough to know that she’s imagining her parents stuck in an overturned car, their only means of survival getting in touch through my cell phone. I open the phone and type in my code.

“One new message, left January first at twelve-oh-three.

“Hi, it’s me,” Kimmy says. Oh, man. I press the phone tight against my ear in the hopes of shielding her voice. “Happy New Year! I’m at a bar right now, drinking!” She sounds hammered. “I miss you. I have something important to talk to you about…” I erase the message quickly and turn off the phone.

Sharon stares at me funny, as if I’m changing into The Hulk while she’s watching and she’s not sure if she should tell me I’m turning green. “Who was it?”

I shove the offending mechanism into my pocket. “Friend from school.”

She’s still staring at me. “Female friend?”

Could she hear the message? “She’s in my group.”

“Stop picking,” she says, swatting my hand away from my face. I’ve been staring at her pimple all night, I didn’t realize I had been picking one of mine. “You’ve never mentioned a female friend in your group.” Her fingers are doing up her coat, but her wide brown eyes are still on me.

“I haven’t?”

“No. You haven’t. What’s her name?”

I concentrate on looking for my scarf, which should be somewhere on the bed. “Kimmy. There are two girls in my group.” I’ve decided that the best way to play this is to act as though it’s totally normal that she called me practically at the stroke of midnight.

“Who’s the other one?”

“Good, here’s my scarf.” I pick it up and double wrap it around my neck. “Lauren.”

“Did she call you, too?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that this Kimmy-girl called you?”

I shrug. She probably wants to listen to the message. That’s why I erased it, in case she asks. “No. She probably called everyone in the group.” Good one.

“Is she pretty?”

Damn. She can sense something. “She’s all right.”

She folds her arms across her chest. “Maybe I should come and visit you this semester.”

Oh, man.