Monkey Business

kimmy has a heart-to-heart

Sunday, February 8, 12:37 a.m.

“What do you want to do this coming Saturday?” I ask.

We’re lying in my bed. We’ve already had sex and are now watching Daredevil. He’s recently realized that his laptop doubles as a DVD player. I keep dozing off. You’d think Ben Affleck would keep me more awake, but with the laptop balanced on Russ’s knees, whenever he shifts I see a glare on the screen instead of the movie. I noticed that Layla has the entire Sex and the City series on DVD in her room. Maybe Russ’ll watch it with me. I’ve never watched a single episode. I know now that the series is over, people will probably stop talking about it, but I might as well catch up.

Boring. “Russ?”

“Hmm?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.

“Saturday night is Valentine’s Day.” As soon as I mention the V-word I feel stupid. Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your mistress? Maybe that’s a faux pas.

His ears flush. So cute. Does he have something planned? Maybe he’s surprising me with a romantic dinner. Or with breaking up with Sharon.

“Actually…” he says.

Pause. “Yes?”

“Well…”

Pause again. “Well, what?”

“Sharon is coming this weekend.”

What? Panic grabs hold of my throat and squeezes. “Coming here? To school?”

He squirms, and the laptop slips off his legs, banging me in the knee. “Yeah. She wants to visit.”

Visit? What? “Why can’t you go and visit her?”

He shrugs. “I was just there. She wants to see how I live.”

“You’re going to give her the tour?” I wave my arm around the room like a Price Is Right girl showing a new car. “Show her where you spend your nights?”

Maybe I should suggest she take one of Layla’s tours. Only we’ll modify it slightly and make it far, far away.

He pauses the movie. “You know I can’t tell her about us.”

That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. I throw the duvet off me, sit up and turn my back to him. This is the last straw. It’s one thing to keep dating us both, but to bring her here? How could he? “Why can’t you? Why are you sleeping with me if you’re in love with her? Who do you think you are? Don’t you care at all about me?”

There, I’ve said it. I know I’m not supposed to say it, not supposed to suggest it, not supposed to think it. But too friggin’ bad.

I’m looking at the door instead of him. And he doesn’t respond. And then I realize that he’s never going to break up with Sharon. He’s just sleeping with me. While he’s out of the country. I don’t mean anything to him. I’m just someone to help pass the time.

I hate him. I feel like shit. Why do I need to feel like this? I don’t need this. I don’t need him. Two full minutes later he still hasn’t responded. What, is he napping? I turn around. Tears are streaming down his face. What? He’s…crying?

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes glistening. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a jerk. To both of you. It’s just that I honestly have feelings for you both. I never thought I’d be-” He interrupts himself to wipe his eyes on the back of his hand.

I can’t believe he’s crying. I hand him a tissue.

“I know this is no excuse. But growing up, I never thought in a million years that a girl as beautiful and smart as you would ever look twice at me. I was scrawny and geeky. You know, the boy who was always picked last for gym class.”

He laughs and then wipes his eyes again. I squeeze his leg.

“I spent my entire childhood buried in comic books. Hung out in the world of superheroes and villains instead of real people. And then in my last year in college I met Sharon.”

I hold my breath. He’s never talked about Sharon directly to me. “And what happened?”

“We had a class together. Pop lit. It was a mandatory for her Education degree. I took it because I heard that the prof put comics on the reading list. She sat next to me on the first day.” He shrugs. “She asked me out.”

I try to imagine him, shy, skinny, not knowing what to do with his hands. I can’t.

“I don’t know what she saw in me. She thought I was funny. I went to the gym with her, started boarding-”

Boarding? I would have pegged him as the downhill type, but what do I know?

“I stopped picking at my face. And then for the first time, I came out of my shell. I didn’t run home between classes to hide my nose in a comic book. I talked to people. Started playing ball. Socialized. I’d wanted to go to business school in the States, but only after starting to date Sharon did I think I had a chance of getting in. And then I came here and met you. I couldn’t get you out of my head. I still can’t, but I can’t just throw away everything I’ve experienced with Sharon, either. I owe her.”

I don’t know what to tell him. I know I can’t tell him what to do or who to choose. Instead of feeling angry, I feel relieved that he’s opening up to me. I lie back down and pull him close.

“I want to be with you,” he says, his breath soft on my cheek.

“But you also want to be with her.”

He stares into my eyes and nods. “I don’t want to give either of you up.”

I half smile. “Isn’t that a little selfish?”

“Yes.” His fingers draw loops on my bare arms. “Do you want me to leave?”

Never. “No.” I kiss him tenderly on the lips. “But is she really coming for the entire weekend?”

He kisses me back. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I can’t tell her not to come now.”

Yes, you can, I think but don’t say. “Okay. No biggie.” I tickle his tummy. “You gonna tuck her in and then sneak in here?”

“Yeah, right.” He lays his head against the pillow. “Did you set the alarm?”

Sigh. “Yes, Russ, I set the alarm.”

I am so bored. I can’t believe I’m taking a tour of the school when I could be sleeping. It’s nine o’clock Sunday morning as I trail behind the eight potential students, through the Katz building.

My entertainment is trying to guess why these people are here. Two nerd boys in navy suits and freshly shaved faces keep asking questions about how to get accepted. Losers.

Then there’s the man who’s already been accepted. He’s about forty and he’s here with his wife. I know he’s been accepted, because she keeps saying it, rubbing it in to everyone else on the tour. “If we decide to go here instead of Harvard…” Blah, blah, blah.

Then there’s the guy who’s on the waiting list and has an interview today. He keeps checking his watch, as though he’s afraid he might be late.

There’s a woman here who’s on the wait list, too. She’s with a nerdy-looking boyfriend who has horrendous skin. Hmm. That could have been Russ and Sharon.

I’m here to give Layla moral support. Instead of coming up with a fake persona, I’ve elected to keep my mouth shut.

I wonder if Sharon came to check out the campus with Russ, when he came for a tour. I can’t believe I’m finally going to meet her. At last, I’ll be able to check out the competition. Will she be gorgeous? Skinny? Brilliant? How will she compare to me when no longer in separate countries, but on the same floor? We’ll be sharing the same bathroom. I will so not be able to brush my teeth next to her.

“Honey, what do you think of the library? Not as nice as the Harvard library,” the annoying wife says.

We end up in the cafeteria, where Layla wishes the group goodbye and good luck, then bolts toward me. “What did you think?”

Today is her first tour, a practice tour for when Brad arrives. When she came back to her room with the news that he hadn’t signed up for a tour, I decided to call him to encourage him.

He answered on the first ring. “Hello, may I please speak to Bradley Green?”

“Speaking.”

“Hello Bradley, this is Grenadine from LWBS student services.”

Layla looked like she was going to pass out. “Grenadine?” she mouthed. “You’re a drink syrup?”

I hushed her away.

“Hi, Grenadine,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He had a sexy voice. If it wasn’t for Russ…and Layla, of course.

“I want to personally congratulate you on your LWBS acceptance,” I said. “We’re thrilled to have you as a prospective student. We’d like to schedule a tour of the school for you at your earliest convenience.”

“Hmm. I wouldn’t mind seeing the school. Do the tours run daily?”

“I…I believe the tours run daily,” I repeated loudly, looking at Layla expectantly. She nodded. Then I mouthed, “What time?”

She held up three fingers.

“Every day at three,” I added.

“Three is convenient,” he said. “I have a meeting in Greenwich on Wednesday morning. I could be at the LWBS campus by three for a tour.”

Oh. My. God. I gave Layla a thumbs-up. “Fantastic. So I’ll pencil you in. Directions are on the Web site. Meet the group in the Katz building at two-fifty. Your leader will be the gorgeous blonde with the clipboard.”

Layla covered her face with her hands and I hung up the phone.

Her hands started waving around the room. “How am I possibly going to be prepared to be an LWBS tour guide by Wednesday? I only know a fraction of the school’s history, not nearly enough of the architecture-”

“Stop freaking out. We have to start planning the final P. Packaging.”

Then she started jumping up and down on her bed, screaming that she was about to meet her husband. She froze in mid-leap, then sprinted off to the library for books on the history and architecture of LWBS, and then back to Dorothy to sign up for Wednesday’s tour. Dorothy agreed, but only after Layla agreed to do the early-bird weekend tour as well (nobody likes to volunteer on the weekend). But that was fine, as it would give her a chance to practice, and that’s how I came to be in the cafeteria so early on a Sunday morning, congratulating her on a job well done.

I pat her arm. “You were the best guide ever. Award winning. If I were Brad, I would certainly want to sleep with you.”

She shushes me. “Fall in love with me you mean.”

“Sleep with you, love you, what’s the difference?”

“You are kidding, right?”

Kind of.