You

12

THERE is this girl I fired a couple of years ago. Her name was Sare, which was irritating. Her birth name was Sarah but she wanted to be original and all that bullshit. Sare was a nightmare. She acted like she was doing us a favor by showing up. She suggested Meg Wolitzer books to everyone, even old Asian men. When she had to give change, she reluctantly offered a light fist of coins and made the customer reach over the counter to get it. People hated Sare. She ordered lattes extra hot and left at least three times a week to go back to Starbucks and complain even though an extra-hot latte is obviously not going to be extra hot after a ten-minute walk in the cold. She had dreadlocks even though she was white. She kept a book on the counter to make sure that everyone knew that she was reading Edwidge Danticat or whatever of-the-moment minority woman everyone was supposed to be so jazzed up about. And she read the New Yorker, which meant 98.9 percent of her small talk while cleaning up started with “Did you see that piece in the New Yorker . . .” She never flushed the toilet when she peed, claiming that her parents taught her to conserve. But her pee reeked because she was a vegetarian who lived mostly on asparagus. She wore bullshit eyeglasses and had a boyfriend in med school and when she was at the counter she always curled up and wrapped her body in a shapeless wool cardigan, which made customers feel that they were imposing on her.

When I fired her, I left her a note that her last check was in the bathroom. And I left her check in the toilet full of her asparagus-scented piss. She never came around again. She works for a nonprofit and married the doctor who must be the second-most annoying person on planet Earth simply because he married her. In terms of sheer annoyance, nobody I have ever known has compared to Sare Worthington, saver of the environment, native of Portland, Maine, forever wishing that she were from Portland, Oregon. Bitch should have just moved there.

But I envied her, I did. She was so cool, so unflappable. She was never impressed by anything. We’d get a signed James Joyce and she’d shrug. She made me too aware of myself. I hated that I wanted to impress her and I hated that I was so easily impressed, sniffing the dead ink on the James Joyce. I’m impressed right now, in this cab with you. I couldn’t believe it when you wanted to take me to a party at your friend’s house. It feels early for friends, but you insisted. And I’d be nervous no matter what because I’m not a party person, but I’m doubly anxious because we’re not just going to some random house. We’re riding uptown to your friend Peach Salinger’s house. The cab jostles us and we’re not used to cabbing together and I’m trying to relax but you’re not the girl from the Corner Bistro. I’m also damn proud of my work with Benji (Mr. Mooney and Curtis have no idea!) and I don’t want to accidentally start bragging about what a good manager I am. So I gush, like some starry-eyed loser. “Salinger. That’s something.”

“Yeah,” you say, too cool. “She’s related to him. It’s like that.”

Sare wouldn’t be nervous about going to a Salinger party, but I’m rattled with nerves. I can’t believe I’m about to meet one of J. D. Salinger’s relatives, on our second date, no less. When I called you to set up a second date, I planned on whisking you uptown to the planetarium where we’d make out in the back row. But you cut me off. “I have a party,” you said. “Want to come?”

I said yes. I’d go anywhere with you. But the closer we get, the more nervous I am. I’m scared everyone will hate me and you are scared everyone will hate me. I can tell, Beck. You’re fidgeting. A lot. And when I’m nervous, I get nasty. It’s a problem.

“So is J. D. her uncle?”

“Nobody calls him that,” you say. When you are nervous you get nasty too.

“So how are they related?”

“It’s just a known thing.” You sigh. “We don’t ask. He was so private.”

I breathe and I have to remember how you described me in an e-mail to this Peach today:

Different. Hot.

You invited me to a party because I’m

Different. Hot.

But what if I fuck it all up? I feel more insecure with every passing block. We are going to Woody Allen land, where I’ve always wanted to live. I sell Salinger and your friend is Salinger and you are still putting on makeup even though I have already seen you. You’ve been smearing black shit under your eyes since Fourteenth Street and I’m the one who should be gearing up for a battle. I have a tough time with college people, let alone “Brown people.” You scowl at the driver. “I said Upper West Side not Upper East Side.”

You have a Prada bag and a glare and I feel like I picked up the wrong Beck. You must be psychic because you blush, defensive. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound bitchy. I’m just nervous.”

Phew. I tease you. “Me too. I’m worried your friends won’t like you.”

You get a kick out of me and you give up on whatever it was you were searching for in your purse and start talking to me. You don’t just tell a story, you live it. When you tell me about your favorite birthday party ever, which was when your dad let you and two friends take the ferry to the mainland to see Love Actually and you met a guy, I learn that I am capable of envying a thirteen-year-old boy. Talking to you is like traveling through time and you sigh. “He meant a lot to me.”

“You still know him?”

You smile at me. “I was referring to Hugh Grant.”

I’ll fucking kill Hugh Grant. “Ah.”

“You know, Joe. Hugh Grant works in a bookstore in one of his movies.”

“No shit?” I say and I won’t kill Hugh Grant. We’re about to kiss, I can feel it, but your phone buzzes with a text.

“It’s Peach,” you say. “If I don’t respond right away, she freaks out.”

“Is she as crazy as Uncle J. D.?”

You don’t laugh at my joke and Peach better know how lucky she is to have you. Now she’s calling, as if you had time to respond to her text. “We’re almost there,” you tell her and then I hear her scream into the phone, “You are not a we, Beck.”

You get off the phone and our vibe is off. You don’t laugh when I say that J. D.’s niece seems like a piece of work. No, Joe. She’s not his niece. I don’t like the way you say my name and I should shut up but I don’t; my instinctive hatred of Peach is winning. “I just don’t get it. You’re such good friends and she doesn’t tell you how she’s related to one of the most famous writers in the world?”

“It’s a boundaries thing.”

You’re pushing me away on our second date even though I’m

Different. Hot.

You’re afraid of love and it’s sad and I don’t want to walk into a roomful of strangers. But we are here and I am your escort. The doorman opens the cab door and you let him help you out. I wanted to do that. “Come on,” you say. “I don’t want to be late.”

If Peach hadn’t called, you would have said, we don’t want to be late.

THE elevator is like a reset button and we agree that it smells like lavender. The walls are papered with flowers. Violets, I think. It’s an old elevator and there’s a small bench and we stand side by side and watch the buttons light up as we pass each floor.

“Penthouse, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say and you shift your Prada to your right shoulder, between us. “I’m so happy I remembered to switch bags. Peach gave me this bag for my birthday last year. I would have felt terrible if I forgot to bring it.”

There is no way we are going to talk about purses before we have sex so I pretend to be curious. “Did Peaches go to Brown too?”

“It’s Peach,” you say and you lick your finger and smudge your eyeliner. You’re nervous and the elevator is slow and why can’t we just hit the red button and stay?

“Ah.”

“It’s never Peaches,” you say in a tone so serious you’d think we were talking about politics. “Well, actually, that’s not true. Her middle name is Isabella so sometimes we joke around, you know, Peach Is.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You get it? ‘Is’ being short for Isabella?”

I look at you because I know that you think I’m

Different. Hot.

I don’t ask permission to touch you, but I raise my hand to your cheek and rub off a speck of eye makeup with my thumb. You swallow. You smile. Your pupils are fat with desire. I look away first. I got you.

“Anyway,” you say. “She’s an old friend. Her family summered on Nantucket and we met when we were kids. She’s a genius.”

“That’s cool.”

“She prepped with Chana at Nightingale and she knew me from summers and Lynn was her freshman roommate. She’s like the connector.”

I laugh and you blush. “What?”

“You just used prepped as a verb.”

“Fuck off.”

“That’s a demerit, young lady.”

“And what happens when I get another?” you say and I’m this close to throwing you against the wall and you’re this close to grabbing me. The closer we get to the party, the more you want to slap the red emergency button and go at it right here, right now.

I should kiss you but we’re almost to the floor marked P for Penthouse. You move your purse to your other shoulder; you want me. I graze the palm of my left hand over the small of your back and you almost whinny. Your fingertips brush my leg as the elevator shimmies. I lower my hand slowly. You anticipate. You dangle your fingers, ready. And when my hand finally nears yours, you gasp, lightly, as you open your fingers and latch on to mine. We are holding hands and your sweat is mixing into mine. Wow.

It’s time to kiss and I want to kiss but the doors open up and we’re here. And I’m speechless. Are we on the set of Hannah and Her Sisters? Desire for you is mixed up with jealousy of all this and people know your name but not mine. Your world is bigger than my world and you hug Brown people and some of them have instruments—are you kidding with a fucking drum circle, like it’s 1995? They’re covering “Jane Says” and singing as if they know about lust and weakness. You squeeze my hand.

“Joe,” you say. “This is Peach.”

Yes it is. She’s even taller than I expected with enormous frizzy hair swept into a tornado above her head. She makes you look too little and you make her look too big. You’re from two different planets and you’re not meant to be standing together. She claps as if she’s meeting a five-year-old and I don’t like it when girls are taller than me. “Hello, Joseph,” she says, overenunciating. “I am Peach and this is my home.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say and she looks me up and down. Cunt.

“I love you already for not being pretentious,” she says. “And thank you for not bringing any wine or anything. This girl is family to me. No gifts allowed.”

You are, of course, aghast. “Omigod, Peach, I completely flaked.”

She looks down on you literally. “Sweetie, I just said I love it. And besides, the last thing we need is more cheap wine.”

You are acting like you committed a felony and she looks at me like I’m the delivery guy waiting for a tip. “I’m stealing our girl for two minutes, Joseph.”

You allow her to steal you and I really must look like the fucking delivery guy as I stand here, not knowing anyone, not being known. No girls are coming on to me and maybe I don’t look good in here. The only certainty is that I hate this Peach as much as I knew I would, and she hates me right back. She knows how to work you, Beck. You are apologizing for no wine, for not bringing Lynn and Chana, for not taking better care of your purse. And she is forgiving, stroking your back, telling you not to worry. I’m invisible to you in her presence, just like everyone else. Peach Is . . . in the way. I look around but nobody wants to say hi to me. It’s like they can smell the public school on me. A skinny Indian chick mad dogs me before she nosedives into a line of Adderall or coke and I get out my phone and send a tweet from Benji:

Everything in moderation especially moderation. #homesoda #gobulldogs #smokecrackeveryday

I look up this address on Zillow. This place is worth twenty-four million dollars and I find an article about the decor in a fucking society blog. Peach’s mother looks even meaner and taller than Peach and who knows? Maybe it’s tough to come into this world and crawl on rugs that cost a hundred grand. Peach learned piano on a mint black Steinway and went to the planetarium whenever she wanted. Of course she takes the glories of the Upper West Side for granted. Of course she loves you for fawning over the Prada. I see a hand-carved credenza and I move in for a closer look. It’s an excellent piece, one of a kind. One door has a Jewish star and one door has a cross and maybe I have a shot in this scene. Peach is like me, half Jewish and half Catholic. I grew up with no religion and she had all religion. She celebrates everything and I celebrate nothing and you’ve come back to me, with her.

“Isn’t this piece cool?” you say and you lean against the credenza.

“It’s great,” I agree. “You know, Peach, I’m also Jewish and Catholic.”

“Oh, Joseph.” She is correcting me. I can feel it. “I’m not Catholic. I’m Methodist, but you’re sweet.”

“That’s cool,” I say and I want to go home. I also want to tell her I’m Joe, not Joseph, bastard spawn of Alma Goldberg and Ronnie Passero.

You fake a cough and you look from me to her and back again and your voice is high. “You guys are also both New Yorkers.”

Peach speaks slowly, like I’m ESL. “Which borough are you from?”

Cunt. “Bed-Stuy.”

“I read that people are starting to move there,” she says. “I hope the gentrification doesn’t destroy all the local color.”

The only reason I do not bash her head in is that you seem so nervous about us meeting that you don’t notice her dissing me. I didn’t ask her what she does for a living but for some reason she is talking about her job. “I’m an architect,” she says. “I design buildings.”

I know what a fucking architect is and nobody is ever an architect in real life, only in movies. And did you tell her I am dumb? I try to stay afloat. “That’s cool.”

“No, what’s cool is the fact that you didn’t go to college,” she gushes. “I’m such a follower. My parents went to Brown, so I went to Brown.”

I smile. “My parents didn’t go to Brown, so I didn’t go to Brown.”

She looks at you. “He’s funny, Beck. No wonder you’re so into him.”

You smile. You blush. I’m okay. “He’s pretty good, yep.”

She raves about how amazing it is that I eschewed formal education entirely.

It is not a compliment but I thank her anyway. She tightens the scarf around her neck and chastises you for lighting a cigarette as some asshole packs a bong a foot away.

She is done with me, for now, and she asks if you’ve heard from Lynn and Chana. You apologize. You’re nervous about what she thinks of you and I wish I could pull you out of here and take you to my borough. She’s a hypocrite, a fucking nightmare of a person, worse than I imagined. You are soft and she is hard in skintight red skinny jeans you would never wear. She’s anorexic and slightly tattooed with thick frayed hair and a big red blow-job mouth and a Joker’s smile and long, spindly, hairy arms that end in sharp, unpainted nails bitten to the quick. You ooze joy and she is an open wound, shrill and wan, unfucked and unloved. She clearly wants you to herself and I don’t want to make life difficult for you so I interject, “Sorry, girls. Is there a bathroom nearby?”

You point me toward the bathroom and I flee. No wonder Lynn and Chana didn’t come. If she were a dog, shooting her would be the humane thing to do. But I can’t very well shoot her. What I can do is walk around to find the library I saw in the blog. I gasp when I turn on the lights in the library. It’s that fucking great. The Salinger family doesn’t fuck around and I reach for a first edition of Saul Bellow’s second novel, The Victim. The poor Bellow’s dust jacket is torn. Peach’s parents know how to buy books and make babies but they clearly aren’t very good at caring for their purchases and their products. Brown people are singing “Hey Jude” again (how original!) and I miss you. I return the broken Bellow to its home and you and Peach walk into the library. I freeze. I hope I’m not in trouble.

“We figured we’d find you here.” Peach laughs, as if you two are the we and I am just me. “I would let you borrow a book but my parents are so possessive of their babies.”

“I’m all right,” I say and I never asked to borrow a fucking book. “But thanks.”

You link your arm through mine and it feels good and you sigh. “Isn’t this amazing, Joe?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You could spend a year in here.”

Peach again: “Sometimes I feel like college ruined reading for me, you know?”

“I do know,” you say and your arm is not linked through mine anymore. “Joe, I bet you’ve read more books in this room than me.”

Peach approves. “A good salesman has to know his product, right?”

I hate Peach more than Sare. She called me a salesman and in the living room, the Brown people applaud themselves for knowing the words to “Hey Jude,” as if it’s not one of the most famous songs in the world. Peach sneezes and pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket. She’s probably allergic to me and you leave me and run to her, lovingly. “Do you have a cold?”

“I bet you’re reacting to the dust in here,” I say. “You’re probably not used to it.”

“Good point,” you say and Peach is silenced, temporarily, as you lead us back to the party. I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life and we pass the Brown people as they maul “Sweet Virginia.” You get a text from Chana. She’s not coming. Peach huffs. “You know, if I were Chana, I might be embarrassed to show my face here too. Is there any guy in this house that she didn’t sleep with at school? Pardon my crassness, Joseph.”

I hate that I am so grateful to be acknowledged and you smile at me (hooray!) and Peach pulls us both into the dining room to greet some guests. It’s more high ceilings and high Brown people holding court and kicking back at the longest table I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re blowing lines off mismatched candy-colored plates. And the booze. There’s tons of it. “What’s your poison, Joe?” Peach wants to know. “Beer?”

“Vodka,” I answer and I smile but she doesn’t.

“Rocks?”

“If they’re little ones,” I say.

She looks at me and then at you and then at me and she guffaws. “Excuse me?”

“Crushed ice does better with vodka than cubes.”

I learned that from Benji and Peach crosses her arms and you’re fumbling in your purse for something to say, for a tunnel away from me, and I gotta fix this and get rid of her and I try: “Whatever ice you got will work.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, Joseph. Sweetness, what do you want?”

“Vodka soda.”

“Nice and easy,” says Peach and she’s gone.

Some dude appears with a bag of coke and there’s clapping as more Brown people flood the dining room. I feel like Ben Stiller in Greenberg, misplaced in the bad way. Too many guys have slept with you. I know because they look past you; you’re a restaurant that’s easy to get into. And all of these people talk. Constantly:

Remember that spring break in Turks? You have to listen to Tom Waits when you’re sober. Remember spring weekend when you got locked out of Pembroke? You have to listen to Tom Waits when you’re stoned. Remember that class we took, that graveyard class and we took that field trip and we had those mushrooms? You have to come to Turks with us. Everyone is going.

I don’t speak the language and it’s a relief to get a drink. Peach simpers. “So Joseph, are the rocks small enough for you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was just playing.”

She moves us into the kitchen and it’s the biggest kitchen I’ve ever been in and I’m trying so hard not to look around like it’s the biggest kitchen I’ve ever been in. It’s like the kitchen in that movie where evil rich Michael Douglas tries to have Gwyneth Paltrow murdered because she falls for a poor artist. Everything is stainless steel or marble and the island in the center is the size of a small car. I can’t remember if the poor guy gets Gwyneth in the end of the movie and it feels like it matters a lot right now. I can’t seem to find a place to put my eyes. I’m either staring at Peach, which is no good, or staring at you, which is worse. A CD juts out from under the Times Book Review. It’s the soundtrack to Hannah and Her Sisters, thank God.

“Nice tunes, Peaches,” I say. I can’t control the tone of my voice, not in a room this noisy, this smelly, and she looks at me like I just asked her for spare change.

“Peach,” she says.

“Peach,” you say and sometimes I understand why Mr. Mooney gave up on women.

“Sorry.”

“So you’re a big fan, Joseph?”

I pick up her fucking CD. “This is one of my favorite movies. It’s his best movie.”

Peach ignores my proclamation in favor of a Brown girl she hasn’t seen in forever. It’s not fun to share you with all these people and you’re drinking really fast, too fast. Do you like me? Do you want me to be more like those flattened cokeheads in the dining room with the Arcade Fire T-shirts and high cheekbones? Is that what you want? God, I hope not and I am holding the Hannah CD so hard that it cracks. I put it down. Peach picks it up. You smile at me, and you do like me and I’m going nuts.

“I love Hannah too, Joseph.” Peach sighs. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

“I’ve seen it a million times,” I say and why am I competing?

She says I win and she looks at you like she approves. You’re happy to see that rich kids and poor kids can get along after all and I almost want to spit in Peach’s pointed face to prove a fucking point. She could have been nice to me from the get-go. She didn’t have to put you through all this anxiety. But she still wants to talk about Hannah.

“Best Woody Allen movie ever,” she says. “Scene for scene.”

“Song for song,” I say and I reach for the CD. Peach holds onto it like I’m inherently dangerous and we’re back to square one and you’re touching my arm again. “What’s your favorite scene, Joe?”

“Oh the end. You know, when Dianne Wiest tells him she’s pregnant,” I say. “I’m a romantic and I’ll own up to that all day long.”

I like you tipsy and gazing at me. Peach is disgusted. “You’re kidding right?”

She laughs at me and you’re not looking up at me anymore. She’s acid, this Peach. There’s no fuzzy warmth, unless you count the tiny little hairs all over her narrow body. “Joseph, you can’t be serious.”

“Very much so. I love that shot of them in the mirror. The way they kiss when she tells him she’s pregnant.”

But Peach is poking at the newly cracked jewel case of the CD with her starved fingers and shaking her head. You touch me in the bad way, like you want me to stop and the Brown singers know the words to “My Sweet Lord” and someone found a fucking tambourine and somewhere in my head I remember that George Harrison’s son went to Brown and I hate knowing that at this particular moment.

“Well, Joseph, it’s funny you mention that scene because you know that’s the one scene that Woody didn’t want in,” she lectures.

Woody.

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“Actually, it is true. It’s the truth.”

“No offense, but I kind of doubt it. I think they let him do his thing, you know?”

“My grandfather worked at the studio and he told Woody he wanted a happier ending. And Woody being Woody objected, but my grandfather, well, he was the guy, you know? The guy.”

“So your grandfather’s not J. D. Salinger,” I say, because fuck her and she shoots you a look and you sigh and she’s not done.

“Anyway,” she says. “It’s funny that your favorite scene in the movie is the one scene that he didn’t want.”

“Peach,” says Beck. “Do you have any club soda?”

“There’s a case of Home in the fridge,” she says, smirking, eyeing me, knowing exactly what the fuck she’s doing.

I raise my glass. “To your grandfather.”

She doesn’t raise her glass. “The Hollywood monster who slapped sappy, happy endings on every movie you ever saw and avoided his children like the plague and single-handedly ruined the tone of some of the most iconic pictures in America? No. No, Joseph. You don’t want to toast that man.”

You’ve practically crawled into the Subzero and I bet you’re thinking about Benji and it’s not in the way that I’m thinking about Benji and you emerge with your glass—red now, you chose cranberry juice, you choose me. And at long last, you correct her, you tell her I am Joe, not Joseph and I thank you as I raise my glass even higher because I can give her what she wants now that you’ve corrected her, now that you’ve picked sides.

“To you, Peach,” I say in the deferent voice I reserve for persnickety older ladies. “For schooling me on my favorite movie.”

She looks at you. You shrug like, yeah he’s that good, and she looks at me. I sweeten the deal. “In all seriousness, Peach, I could pick your brain for hours. I love Woody Allen.”

She doesn’t sip after the toast and she sighs. “Okay that’s one good thing about college. Staying up all night and talking about movies. You would have loved it, Joseph.”

Instead of punching her in the face, I raise my glass for another toast. She stares down into her asshole sangria and asks you if you told Chana that some guy Leonard is here. You step away from me to hunt for your phone. You’re sorry again and Peach forgives and this party is never going to end, ever. You are too tipsy to text and you growl in frustration.

Peach raises one eyebrow and she probably learned how to do that the summer her parents undoubtedly shipped her off to Stagedoor Manor Acting Camp, hoping that she might flower into Gwyneth Paltrow, the same summer she perfected the art of bulimia and learned how to insult people like me.

And then I look at you and what’s this? You’re cradling your phone in your hands and smiling. I have to know what has captivated you and Peach doesn’t exist anymore. Nobody does. When I stand behind you and look down into your phone, I see a clip from Hannah and Her Sisters, the part where Woody’s character goes to a Marx Brothers movie. It was all worth it and I put my hands on your shoulders. We watch the rest of the scene together and God bless Groucho Marx.

WHEN we get into the elevator at the end of the night that threatens to never end, you don’t wait until the doors are closed. Ever since I caught you watching my Hannah, you have wanted to be closer to me. And now, you are. I haven’t even pushed the button when you drop your purse to the floor. You pull my face to yours and hold me. You pause. You drive me crazy and then. And then. Your lips were made for mine, Beck. You are the reason I have a mouth, a heart. You kiss me when people can still see us, when we can still hear Bobby Short—I’m in love again, and I love, love, love it—because you made Peach play the soundtrack from Hannah and Her Sisters because you want to know what I know and hear what I like to hear. Your tongue tastes like cranberries, not like club soda, not anymore anyway. When the elevator doors close and we’re alone, you start to pull away. But I pull your hair and bring your mouth to mine. I know how to leave you wanting more. And I do.