And you just kept talking about him. “Honestly, Peach, the last thing I’m gonna do is worry about Benji,” you declared. “Did he worry about me?”
“Down, girl.”
“Sorry, I’m just packing and it’s never easy, packing.”
“I have nightgowns you can borrow. You can wear all my stuff.”
Man, she wants you and you said you had to go and then you wrote to me to apologize for the abrupt ending and I wrote back to you and told you not to worry and then you went to town on one of your pillows and I listened. And I liked it.
Then again, three days ago: You and me and Peach met at Serenfuckingdipity because their chocolate is the only chocolate that she can eat and she really needed chocolate what with all the drama over the stalker. We sat at a table meant for children or people who have children and I watched Peach inhale an oversized bowl of frozen hot chocolate and I know from reading about interstitial cystitis that you can’t do that if you have that condition (not disease, Peach, condition), and she talked more than both of us combined and when I tried to hold your hand under the table you patted my leg, no. Then afterward we kissed good-bye on the street and your lips were pursed so tight, they were puckered.
It has not been a happy Thanksgiving. The holiday comes like it always does. Peach’s family comes home and you are busy with them and I am not your boyfriend right now and you do not invite me to eat turkey with her family. Curtis wants extra days off and I work all the time. The first time I run, it’s because I might fucking kill Peach. I go for walks when everyone else is busy with their family and I find myself drawn to her building because you’re there. I run because Peach comes smashing out the door and almost sees me. And if she saw me hanging out around her building, she’d go all nuts and start thinking that I’m a stalker. So yes, for a second there, I ran as fast as I could into the woods after her because I was going to grab her by the neck and make her stop running once and for all.
And I kept running the next day and the day after that because I was disgusted by the fact that I couldn’t fucking keep up with her. It’s cold in the morning and my thrift store high-tops don’t cut it and I bought special running sneakers at a sporting goods store (shoot me, please), and now my feet are covered in blood just like Peach’s and by the time I get to the shop every day, I am beat. Whoever said running in the morning gives you energy never had a day job that involves customer service.
By day ten, I miss your face so much that the pictures of the pictures don’t do it anymore. We talk every day, but you are different now that you pretty much live at Peach’s. I miss you and me at Bemelmans Bar and I go there one night alone and feel sorry for myself and get a nasty waiter who keeps asking me if I have a friend coming. It’s a dark lonely time and I really can’t go on like this, Beck.
On day eleven, I look like a real runner in my new sweats and kicks. I even have a freaking sweatband wrapped around my head. Peach gets a late start because you girls did some drinking last night, as I saw on your Twitter:
Vodka or Gin? Vodka and Gin is more like it. #girlsnightin
She’s slow and off and definitely hungover. She bends over like she’s gonna vomit and most people avoid high-impact exercise. It is cold and my legs are humming and I am sick of running through the woods every day. But one thing about running that I will agree to: It is fucking addictive. Less than two weeks into my life as a runner, and I don’t need to set an alarm clock.
She always starts out slow before sunrise with Elton John singing it’s four o’clock in the morning damn it, listen to me good and I know the song so well by now—someone saved my life tonight, tonight—and it’s not the kind of music that makes you want to work up a sweat. The reason I can hear her Elton John is that she has no regard for shared public space. Dignified respectful citizens of the world use earbuds or headphones to privatize their music. But not Peach. She tucks her iPhone into a band that she wraps around her upper arm. She has a special speaker attached and the music blasts. When people sneer at her or object to this, which has happened (I fucking love New Yorkers), she doesn’t apologize. She tells them to deal with it. And the music! The Elton John is slow and thus contrary and the exercise is a punishment to her body. She is joyless and ugly when she huffs and puffs and most girls run on well-lit paths, but Peach runs where she doesn’t belong, alone, save Elton John (you’re a butterfly and butterflies are free to fly, fly away, high away, bye-bye), and I follow her each day because you are not a butterfly as long as she exists. You are not free to fly, fly away because she is a dangerous fucking pervert, photographing you, coveting you. Is there anything sicker than photographing someone while she’s sleeping?
I have to stop her and I have to save you and I run faster and I am gaining on her, I can smell her now, sweaty, and Elton is louder now (someone saved my life tonight, toniiiiiight), and I am your someone and I will save your life. This is it. I summon all my strength and I charge at her and slam her bony body into the ground. She screams but the sound cuts off as her head thuds against a rock. She’s out, cold. Elton is sleeping with myself tonight, saved in time, thank God my music’s still alive. If only Peach could have been more like him: honest, grateful, true.
The music is still going and I’m breathing so heavily and shaking and I want to make the music stop but fingerprints are dangerous. But now that her defenses are gone I understand her music. It’s a security system. She was preparing for a moment like this. And while it’s annoying, shoving your music on other people, there is something intelligent and bold about it too. It’s a shame that Peach’s parents are such motherfuckers because there was potential for her to be a good person, an innovator. I let her music play on as a tribute, the irony, of course, being that the music did not save her life. But hey, she tried.
Nobody will be that surprised to hear about a dead girl in Central Park. Women who run alone in the dark deprive themselves of their senses. It’s a dangerous thing to do, running alone, and as the reality of her body in the woods sinks in, I quicken my pace. I have never run this fast, never known the depth of my lungs and I make it onto the street and disappear into the subway and now I might throw up and I heave and I smile.
Those Germans were right after all. There really is such a thing as a runner’s high.
And it’s a good thing that I’m a bit high on life because a little while later, I get a rather upsetting text from you:
Can’t get together tonight. Am at NY Presbyterian. Peach
She is supposed to be in a morgue, not a hospital. Because I have no idea what happened, because I am not a stalker I respond surprised and inquire about details. You tell me that she got attacked in the park. But there’s good news too, according to you:
She’s lucky. A girl found her right after it happened. Otherwise she might be, you know . . .
I write back:
But she’s gonna be okay?
You write back:
Well, physically yes. But emotionally, this is hard. She’ll be in the hospital for a while.
You’d never be talking to me if Peach got a glimpse of me, so at least I can be grateful for that. I offer to help and you insist that you don’t need me but I will show you that I am a good boyfriend and I will look beyond the injustice of her getting a bed in a hospital. She only gets to stay because her dad is on the board of the hospital. And it’s not fair to think of all the genuinely sick people turned away. But nothing is fair.
21
I’M not mad. Really. I’m not mad. You’re a good friend. I know that Peach’s parents have already gone back to San Francisco. And I know that you have to be there for her. I am not going to challenge you like Lynn and Chana who throw around words like codependent and refuse to visit Peach in the hospital. I’m not mad. I’m not! I prove that I’m not mad by sending flowers to her in the hospital. I even pay extra for a big yellow balloon with a smiley face.
Does a guy who’s mad buy the balloon? No, he doesn’t.
And I’m not being a d
ick to customers, either. You can tell I’m not mad because I’m more patient than ever. I don’t lay into Curtis about being late and I don’t bitch him out when he forgets to order more Doctor Sleep (the only book we’re moving, aside from the prequel, of course) and watching that book settle in at the top of the Times bestseller list makes me more and more aware of the fact that we’re not progressing. Our first real date was the day that book came out and now that book’s breaking records and having its third fucking month on the bestseller list and I’m reading about the inevitable movie adaptation on the Internet for no reason at all—and I am not mad at you or at King or at the customers or Peach or anything. I am not mad she’s a liar. I feel for the poor girl. She’s obviously a product of her family’s sociopathic tendencies and she’s tragically obsessed with you and honestly, if anything, I’m just worried for you.
And I can wait. Some good shit happens fast (a bestselling book), and some good shit happens slow (love). I get it. You are busy. You got class—I get it—and you got Peach—I get it—and you’re not avoiding me—I get it—and you have pages due—I get it—and Peach just can’t deal with being around guys—I get it—and you can’t e-mail as much with all that’s going on—I get it—and you think of me when you get into your bed that I made for you—I get it. You see, Beck, I am not a narcissistic asshole who expects his needs to come first at all times. I wake up and run to the water and back and my legs are firmer all the time—you’ll see, eventually—and I sell King and I read King and I eat lunch, alone, and dinner, alone, and not once do I bitch at you about blowing me off. Not once.
The balloon, Beck, it was almost ten more dollars with the tax and when I asked you if it got there, I could hear the Peach in you.
“Yeah,” you said. “It did.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Well, Joe, forget it. I mean for her everything is wrong right now, you know?”
“Beck, what the fuck?”
And I didn’t say that in an asshole way. I just wanted you to be straight with me.
“Joe, never mind. It’s fine.”
“Obviously, it’s not.”
You let out a sigh and you’re the one who’s mad and you sound different, like you’ve been drinking the green juice delivered to Peach’s each morning, like you’re starting to like this way of life, sleeping uptown, waking up without a single piece of IKEA in the room.
“Don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad, Beck.”
“We both just felt like the balloon was a little insensitive.”
“Insensitive.”
“I mean . . . it’s a smiley face.”
“It’s a get-well balloon.”
“Yes, but, Joe, it’s not that simple.”
“On the website it’s right there in the Get Well section.”
“Yes, but it’s not like she got hurt playing tennis.”
Tennis.
“Beck, be reasonable.”
“I am reasonable.”
“I meant no harm.”
“I know, Joe. It’s just that a giant yellow smiley face is kind of the last thing in the world you want to see when there’s some creep out there who broke into your home and attacked you. I mean, it’s a smile. This is just, like . . .”
“Jesus,” I said.
“It’s not a smiling kind of time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Beck, can we get coffee or something?”
“I really can’t right now.”
You never sounded farther away from me and I will take that balloon and stab the fuck out of it and at the same time I will take that balloon and tie it around Peach’s neck because WHO THE FUCK CAN CUNT OUT OVER A BALLOON?
WELL, it’s been seven hours and six whole days since Peach got home from the hospital. You are busy with school and busy with Peach, still living at her house. But you are not too busy to exchange e-mails with a stranger named [email protected].
You: Hey, can you call me??
Captain: Not right now. Are you still coming this weekend?
You: I’m really busy. Can’t you just call me?
Captain: I want to see you.
You: I don’t have a car.
Captain: Get one and I’ll take care of it. You’re still size small, right?
You: Yes.
When your plans with the Captain are finalized, you leave Peach’s place and get into a cab. I call you. I get voice mail and I do not leave a message. I am not the Captain and you ignore Peach’s call and she e-mails you, all caps:
WHERE ARE YOU?
You write back curt, swift:
Writing Emergency. Long story. I’m off to my “writing retreat” (haha) at Silver Seahorse in Bridgeport. You be good to you and lock the doors. Love love love Beck
And now Peach is mad at you, and honestly, I don’t blame her. It is a bitch to drive to Bridgeport. You rent a car because, as we all know, the Captain is paying. I am stuck in Mr. Mooney’s enormous, old Buick. I do a lot for you, Beck. You’d think I’d be the Captain by now and I don’t listen to any music for the entire drive to Bridgeport. I’m too sad for music, too sad for Elton John and my head aches.
O Captain, my Captain
I cry.
I get to Bridgeport first. The Silver Seahorse is a small motel near the water, one of those joints where all the rooms are off exposed walkways. Peach wouldn’t even set foot in a place like this but this must be the place because it’s the only Silver Seahorse in Bridgeport. I listen to local news and eat a gas station burrito. I am so scared for you, for me, for us, that I can’t finish the burrito. The Captain. Who is this Captain?
You pull into the lot and I slink down in the seat and watch you in the rearview mirror. You pop the trunk and walk around back but you don’t get out the bags because the Captain moseys out of a motel room. He’s at least forty-five, maybe fifty with Clooney gray hair—is this what you’re into?—and he flicks his cigarette out—fuck you, Captain, I hope you die of cancer—and he picks you up and spins you around and you know what, Beck?
Now I am mad.
Captain AARP Asshole gets into your car. I follow the two of you as he drives, the fucker (and you’ve never been in a car with me), and you two pull up to an ATM at a Cumberland Farms. You jump out of the car and come back with a wad of twenties. He makes you count the money (I hope he dies now), and you are angry and you count slowly, like a third grader practicing and I am reminded of your Craigslist “Casual Encounters” and I fear the worst. I follow you and the Captain back to the Silver Seahorse, and this is me, Beck. The Captain gets out first and opens the door for you and you walk around back and get your bags out of the trunk, and he already has a key and I am close enough to hear.
“Hey, can I have a smoke?”
He shakes his head. “Honey, I can’t do that.”
“So it’s fine for you but not me?”
“Did you bring a costume?”
Costume? Jesus.
“Do you think I brought a costume?” You groan. “Just one smoke, please.”
“Hell if I’m gonna give one to ya.”
“Are you kidding me right now? This is when you decide to be a fucking father?”
You said father and I might collapse as my brain waves sizzle and my heart stops. Father. You told me he was dead. You told everyone he was dead. Oh, Beck, why? I don’t know if I’m mad or sad because in the present moment I’m just so relieved that you’re not paying (or being paid?) to put on a schoolgirl outfit and get banged in a motel room. I breathe. The Captain is your father and your father has the key and you groan and follow him into Room 213. I want to know him and I want to follow you in there and I want him to shake my hand and tell me how happy he is to see that his daughter has got such a good man in her life. But you told me he is dead so maybe you’d be happier if I went in there and made that happen? I am confused and it is colder by the second.
It’s off-season in the
shithole that is Bridgeport and the activity of checking into the room helps me steady myself. It’s a lot to take in, but I’m relieved. I spout off some bullshit about lucky numbers and request the room adjacent to yours. They give it to me and it smells like bleach and Newports and the walls are thin and after I shower I throw one of the extra towels on the floor and sit down and listen to you fight with your dad (something about money, kids, you sound like adults in Peanuts cartoons). He slams the door and you’re alone. After you finish crying you shower and now you’re wet and clean, like I am, and I hear the door lock. You tear the blanket off the bed—it hits the floor, it’s heavy, I hear it—and you start to work away at yourself and you moan—you’re loud, I hear it—and now I’m working and you’re working and in my mind, there is no wall because I’m fucking you on that bed and you’re bent over begging for it and we’re in Bridgeport because we want to fuck in a motel and I’m pulling your hair and you’re screaming—you are, Beck, you’re loud and there’s no green pillow for you to cry into—and when it’s all done you turn on the TV and light a cigarette. I can hear it and I can smell it and I’m so heavy from doing it with you and not doing it with you that it takes a minute before it hits me.
You know the smiley-face balloon was fine and your father isn’t a dead junkie.
You’re a fucking liar.
22
MY, you have a way of making me do things I don’t normally do. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween since the third grade (Spiderman), and though it’s gotten harder over the years, I’ve managed to silently protest that whore of a holiday for the bulk of my life. Yet here I am in a mothball-scented dressing room at Bridgeport Costumes. The dressing room is so small that a fucking Smurf would be sweating. Celine Dion is singing about her fucking heart through the worst sound system in existence while the well-intentioned Irish shopkeeper prattles on a few feet from the dressing room.
“Have you got those pantaloons on yet, son?”
“No,” I say and I look in the mirror and I want to die. But I can’t die, because you need me. Your father is dragging you to the Charles Fucking Dickens Festival across the sound in Port Jefferson. You don’t want to go, but he rented you a costume and after the two of you finished arguing this morning, you agreed to go spend time with his family.
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