Barcelona Days

by Daniel Riley

“They’ll run you out,” Will said.

  “This is great,” Jenna said. “This is why we travel. To meet strangers and suck out of each other what’s worth sucking out.”

  There was a halt. Three of the four wineglasses elevated. Whitney looked at Jack to see if they were sharing in a conspiracy; Will was watching Jenna to see if it had been a joke. The temperature rose in their corner of the restaurant.

  “You know,” Jack said, running right through it, “some people think I’m pretty cool.”

  “Maybe in your athlete days of yore,” Jenna said.

  “Maybe that’s right,” Jack said.

  “But now,” Jenna said, “you’re just another bro from the North Shore who’s ready to start his life all over again in L.A.”

  Jack’s mouth smiled, but not his eyes.

  “JJ Pickle is still pretty cool,” Will said. “Just not as cool as…Jenna Saisquoi.”

  Jenna’s lips were flat and her eyes were still.

  “Isn’t that what that guy said last night?” Will said, flailing a little. “That whole weird thing?”

  “I forgot about him,” Jenna said.

  “Anyway…” Will said. “Does anyone want any more of these?”

  “The salmon,” Jack said.

  “Two,” Whitney said.

  “Two and a half,” Jenna said, undercutting her, so Will got four.

  While Will went to the counter, Jack went to the bathroom and Whitney tried her best to keep things normal with Jenna. She asked if there was any place she’d liked more than any other during her time in Europe.

  “When I was abroad in Paris,” Whitney said, “we traveled almost every weekend. I don’t totally know why, but I’m the same way now. I’m all excited to get to the one place, but then as soon as I’m there, all I can think about is where I want to go next.”

  “I liked Copenhagen,” Jenna said. “I liked Berlin. I didn’t go all that many places, though. I guess I was the same as you heading into the program, but I didn’t change in some big way once I arrived.…I’d waited all my life to live in Paris, so I didn’t want to waste it. There were the trips down here. But those were typically just a couple days. And then some trips with some friends, with my…with my roommates.”

  Jenna stumbled over the mention of my roommates as Jack returned. There was a shard of something that had emerged when Jenna had seen Jack. Jenna laughed a low, full-throated giggle, remembering something else.

  “The three of us got stuck in Copenhagen for a couple extra days in November,” she said. “It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and it was already dark and snowy. I got what the big deal was about that place, though. We rode bikes around the lakes as it snowed. We drank in dark bars and ate pizza down near the waterfront in an old warehouse. It was outrageously expensive—Fantas cost, like, seven bucks. And so until the tracks were cleared, we mostly lived on hot dogs from the 7-Elevens that were everywhere.”

  “What about Jack’s top three?” Whitney said.

  “What’s that?” he said, drying his hands on his jeans. She explained. “Besides the places I played, it was really in and out. We’d get to a city in the afternoon and leave that night if we could. Buses and trains. I could tell you my favorite buses and trains? And the places I lived: Bergen, Frankfurt, here obviously. I guess I liked Oslo. I liked Munich. We got a day off for Oktoberfest. A two-beer limit at Oktoberfest is not exactly the point of Oktoberfest, but it was fun to hang with teammates in a different context. Berlin, too, I guess. But it was the middle of winter and I stuck around the hotel most of the time, stayed near the big gate, near the memorial with the stones.”

  Will was back with the salmon toasts and another bottle.

  “The Eisenman,” Jenna said. “The Murdered Jews of Europe.”

  “Hmm?” Whitney said, regretting her show of ignorance at once.

  “The memorial he’s talking about,” Jenna said. “I went there, too, with those roommates. There’s something especially strange about being an American Jew walking around that thing with two blond Germans.”

  “You realize you have blonde hair, too?” Jack said.

  “We come in all shapes, sizes, and colors,” Jenna said, placing her finger on the subtle curve of her nose.

  Will and Whitney watched Jack and Jenna. Pinwheels spun behind their eyes. They possibly loathed each other, but craved one another nonetheless. Will and Whitney saw images passing between Jack and Jenna from their previous evening, from their morning, images of their bare bodies and whatever they’d done to each other. There was a taffy-stretched thickness of silence between them. Words only ran the risk of derailing the rest of their thing.

  Whitney opened her mouth to tell Will it was probably about time for them to head home, but he started talking before she could.

  “So I’m always thinking about this thing,” Will said. “And lately I’ve tried to get my boss to try it out in interviews, but he doesn’t want to fuck around with HR. I’m not long for that place, so what do I care anymore—but have you guys ever seen Bull Durham?” Jenna hadn’t. It was one of Jack’s favorite movies, of course. Whitney winced because she knew where this was going. “Well, there’s this famous speech. This speech where Kevin Costner’s character monologues to Susan Sarandon’s character about the stuff he ‘believes in,’ the stuff he truly lives for. We’ll show you.…Who can pull it up? Mine doesn’t have…”

  Jack reached for his phone. His international service.

  “The benefits of stardom…” Will said. “Anyway, I’ve always believed there must be no better way to do a job interview. Your résumé says where you went to school, where you’ve clocked in. But the point is to actually learn something about someone, right?”

  The clip loaded slowly and they watched it: I believe in the soul…the cock…the pussy…the small of a woman’s back…the hangin’ curveball…high fiber…good Scotch…and on and on.

  All four of them laughed at the hamminess. They were a little lit up by the wine.

  “So, Whitney,” Will said, turning to her stagily, “what do you believe in?”

  “Oh, I like this,” Jenna said.

  “Someone else start,” Whitney said, still ready to leave. “How ’bout you?”

  “Jack?” Will said, deflecting.

  “I can’t do it off the top of my head,” Jack said. “Can I take a minute and write something down?”

  Jenna moved across the crowded floor and squeezed between the elbows at the bar again. She put her chest on the counter. She returned with two pencils.

  They stood at their table scribbling for several silent minutes, taking breaks to sip wine, to refill glasses. They made lists. Will proclaimed there’d be a buzzer in five more minutes.

  Jenna was left-handed. Her wrist cupped over in a claw and she held the pencil like a murder weapon. She had a neat, angled script that stood tall in a mix of lowercase and capital letters. Jack focused completely, his tongue piercing his lips ever so subtly, like his hero’s, like Jordan’s. Will scratched away in a tight, tiny, twelve-point font. Whitney wrote like she was icing a cake. The lightest loops and verticals. Jenna marveled aloud that Whitney could get any of her lead to stick, as she’d already torn through two of the wax-paper napkins.

  “Whit?” Will said when time was up.

  “I still don’t want to go first.”

  “I’ll go first,” Jack said. “I didn’t know how many to do?”

  “I’m sure whatever you’ve got is the exact right amount,” Will said.

  Jack held his napkin to his nose so he could read his scrawl.

  “Okay,” he said, stuffing the smile back into his face, like a seven-year-old steadying to present a science project. “I believe in the jump shot,” he began. “The pick-and-roll. The alley-oop. I believe in grilled chicken. And fried chicken. And chicken à l’orange…”

  Will and Jenna burst out laughing, and Jack raised a long index finger to quiet them, to signal that he was just getting started.

 
“…I believe in the Loop, the lake, the Bulls, the Bears. I believe it’s better when teams win titles at home rather than on the road. I believe that Wrigley Field is probably the most important structure on earth. I believe in Christopher Nolan. And the Batman with Heath Ledger. I believe in brown-haired girls—and blonde-haired girls who are Jewish. I believe in Breaking Bad. I believe in big beds. I believe in imported cheeses and meats. I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—at least for my mom’s sake. I believe in America. I believe in basketball still. And…” He looked up. “That’s it, that’s as far as I got.”

  They whooped. They’d been smiling the whole time. They couldn’t believe it. He’d taken it so seriously.

  “Holy shit,” Will said. “I wrote down, like, five things.”

  “Look at that stack,” Jenna said. “He went through an entire napkin dispenser.”

  “See what I mean?” Will said. “You’re hired!”

  “What do you do again?” Jack said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Will said. “Follow any path besides mine.”

  “All righty, then,” Jack said. “Who’s up?”

  They were silent. Jack grabbed an olive pick in the shape of a plastic sword and dropped it from his height onto the table. The blade pointed to Whitney.

  Will looked at her and jutted out his lower lip expectantly.

  “I don’t want to go,” she said. “Mine’s stupid compared to that.”

  “Nobody cares!” Will said.

  “C’mon,” Jack said.

  “He’s right, literally nobody cares,” Jenna said, flat.

  Whitney looked at her, put off, then stared at her napkin, then stared at Will.

  “Whitney,” Jack said, doing his best Susan Sarandon, “What do you believe in, then?”

  “Well,” she said, seeing no way out but through, “I believe in the Met…”—she looked up to clarify—“…the museum, not the baseball team. I believe in the essays of Joan Didion. I believe in the paintings of Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner. I believe in Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Elisabeth Moss, and Nora Ephron. I believe in Shondaland. I believe that the television shows of Aaron Sorkin and David Milch are—what’s Costner’s line?—self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe in The Daily Mail. I believe in Us Weekly. I believe in The New York Post and TMZ. I believe in Ninth Street Espresso, Momofuku Noodle Bar, autumn in New York, and the MoMA corporate rate. I believe in MTV reality programming. I believe in dogs that look like their owners. I believe in Lorde and Cat Power. I believe in barre classes, even though they’re getting a little basic. I believe in RBG—and Hillary, still. And I, uh, I believe Save the Cat! ruined a generation of Hollywood screenwriters.”

  She looked up, a snapping to. She’d resisted the wave, then ridden it into shore until the words on her napkin ran out. They looked as though they weren’t certain she was through. But Will was smiling. Hearts were spilling out of his eyes like coins from a jackpot.

  It was halftime. They killed the bottle. Jenna flipped a euro and told Will to call it in the air. Will lost.

  “There’s a lot of pressure,” Whitney said, “given that you proposed it. That you must’ve thought this through before. That you weren’t coming to it blank like the rest of us.”

  “Honestly?” Will said. “I’ve never had the opportunity. I’ve never actually gone through with it. So lower your expectations. It’s as impromptu as all of yours, and a tenth as well-executed.”

  “I can’t wait till you get fired for harassment when you try to impose this on an applicant,” Whitney said, laughing loosely for the first time since they’d started.

  “They’ll be doing me a favor,” Will said.

  “C’mon, get on with it,” Whitney said, rolling her eyes.

  Will cleared his throat as a joke.

  “Ready?” he said. It was all for Whitney at this point, it was just the two of them again. “I believe in the taco, the burrito, the tostada, and free chips when you sit down. I believe in point breaks, grommets, and beaches in Baja. I believe in the Pacific Ocean and palm trees and the Sela del Mar pier. I believe in L.A. people who live on the East Coast and East Coast people who live in L.A. I believe that California can secede from the Union but shouldn’t. I believe that if it does, New York should turn into the capital from The Hunger Games. I believe in good governance, due process, and the Ninth Circuit. I believe that libel-law litigation is out of hand. I believe in William Goldman scripts. I believe in women who make way more money than men. I believe in summer-dress season in New York. Especially in the East Village. Especially at Young Lawyers happy hours…” He smirked without looking up and could feel the pleasant heat of Whitney’s face. “I believe hot weather is better than cold. And I believe that Boogie Nights is the only perfect film.”

  He turned up smiling.

  “Oh c’mon, that’s it?” Jenna said, with a new edge.

  It wiped the grin from Will’s face.

  “When’s someone gonna bare their soul here?” she said. “I don’t have a sense of what’s in your heart. It’s all surface, it’s all cute little jokes.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was kidding. She was clearly drunk, but he felt wrong-footed all the same.

  “Consider mine kept a little lighter, then,” Will said, his face changing before their eyes, his temples graying, his wrinkles dredging. “I guess there’s plenty of ways to skin it.”

  “But what about fate?” Jenna said. “What about love and sex? What about her?”

  “I didn’t say anything about any of that, either,” Jack said, stepping to Will’s aid.

  “You’ve been together, what, seven years?” Jenna said. “That’s a long time.”

  “You’re right,” Will said.

  “And so you must have something to say? We just want to know,” Jenna said. She was in control of the table now.

  Will shrugged. Whitney shrugged. They were at least a united front.

  “I’ll just come out and ask some questions, then…” Jenna said. Her eyes were bright, turned all the way up all of a sudden. They reflected the overhead lights like carved stones, and they were trained on Will. “People talk about the seven-year itch, right? So is it a real thing, or is it bullshit?”

  “Must be one of those things they made up for a Marilyn Monroe movie,” Whitney said.

  “Really?” Jenna said. “I thought it might’ve been like taste buds, you know? The way I don’t like the same food I liked when I was fifteen.”

  “‘I believe in the taste-bud theory of relationships,’” Will said, smiling, trying to lighten things again. “Is that the sort of thing you were looking for?”

  “You tell me?” Jenna said, looking at Whitney. “All three of you are a full iteration of taste buds further along than I am. What changes?”

  “You’re up next, aren’t you?” Whitney said, her own bright eyes dialing in a little now. “Don’t you still have to go?”

  “C’mon, let me in on it, Whit,” Jenna said. “Do you feel like a different person than you did when you were my age? Different ideas? Different desires, different kinks? It’s gotta evolve, right? To keep things fresh, to keep things hot? I just think about it a lot, you know: What happens to your brain? What happens to your code? What happened to your skin and your tits and your ass?”

  She’d shifted tenses. Whitney heard it if no one else did.

  “Guess you’ll have to see for yourself when the time comes,” Whitney said. “Some people know themselves right away; some people spend their lives figuring out who they want to be when they grow up.”

  A woman climbing a ladder for a bottle of wine bumped the light overhead, and they all strobed a little.

  “I wonder which one of those people I am,” Jenna said.

  “Like whether you’re Jenna or Leonard on any given night?” Whitney said.

  Jenna didn’t react. The men may as well not have been there anymore.

  “C’mon,” Whitney said. “Quit filibustering. You’
re up. The floor is yours.”

  “I went in a little different direction,” Jenna said. “It’s a different sort of…”

  Whitney opened her arms wide, like: Please, proceed. She’d seized the table back.

  “Well, uh…” she said, yanking a strap of her dress, maybe feeling the strain of the fabric. “I believe in life after death. I believe in the Buddhist’s conception of reincarnation and Dante’s conception of Purgatory and the secular Jew’s conception of Heaven and Earth. I believe time moves faster sometimes and time moves slower other times. I believe that marriage is a fallacy and that monogamy is obviously unnatural. I believe that women have all the power but that most are too weak to use it. I believe seduction is sexier than sex. I believe that Paris is sexier than L.A., which is sexier than New York. I believe in Picard frozen foods. I believe in cafés noisettes. I believe in Michel Houellebecq. I believe people have more control over their lives than they give themselves credit for. I believe that people deliberately make themselves miserable by making bad choices. I believe I could kill a person if I had to. I believe most people are fucked up in the head and that feet are super gross. And I believe”—she’d stopped looking at her notes, even though there were plenty left; she was bored suddenly—“in the taste-bud theory of relationships.”

  “And there you have it,” Will said. “A-pluses all around.”

  The four of them stood there breathing dumbly, a little worn out, a little beyond the threshold of amusement. They were out of wine but they’d already had way too much. The half-eaten salmon toasts were buried beneath the grave of crumpled napkins that they’d used to keep the honey off their hands. The air shifted around them. Behind their faces were four distinct temperatures, but each was ready to get out of there. Jenna moved first to retrieve the check. The same routine. Straight to the counter, into the in-between spaces. It was getting crowded now. There was a stack-up outside on the street. Whitney made a silent appeal to Will, but Will’s face was following Jenna. It made her want to murder him.

  When the bill landed, Will did some frantic accounting and determined it was somehow exactly right. The handwritten tabs hadn’t failed tonight, and maybe they never had. They settled up with cash—twenty-five euros each—and they bused their dishes and wiped down their table, erasing the evidence that they’d ever been there.