Transit Girl

by Jamie Shupak

  I’m tempted to pop the top on the pressurized bottle inside me where I’ve kept all my thoughts and feelings about him, about Sloane, and all the developments about Jake—but I know it’s not yet time to rip that NO TRESPASSING sign down. Instead it’s right to business. We agree on the same terms as last time—one game to twenty-one and you must win by two.

  “You ready?” Ben’s confident smile melts into competitive glare.

  We volley for serve, and I win that to go first.

  Back and forth. I’m up.

  Three to one.

  Back and forth. I’m still up.

  Seven to three.

  I stare across the table and think back to that first time we played—and how much things have changed. How much I’ve changed. I was so consumed by trying to hold it together. My life felt like it was being held tightly, too tightly, between my two tiny hands. Because when something’s not right and you’re trying so hard to hold on to it, you have to make it as small as you can so that you can manage to keep your grip. If your world gets any more expansive, you can’t deal anymore. And at the time, my universe was about the size of the stone that was still tightly affixed to my left ring finger—over three shiny carats worth—small for a world, enormous for a diamond, especially on a girl my size. I can’t believe I came here to Banter and played Ping-Pong against him with that thing still on.

  Shit, the game. I need to focus. Now he’s up fourteen-seven.

  “You alright over there, traffic star?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Banter boy.”

  “I’d hate for you to have to go on a real date with me.” He’s smiling.

  “I’d hate for our first real date to be one that you won in a bet.” Now I’m smiling.

  Back and forth. He lobs one up in the air, and I wallop it back to his side. He’s still up though, eighteen-eleven.

  Three points left and he wins. Three points left and I go on a date with Ben. I think about our walk home from the hospital that first day we met. I wanted to keep my mouth shut when the subject of my engagement was broached. It came and went, nothing to see here; keep it moving. But I unraveled holding it all in, and it wasn’t until long after I spent time with Ben—talking it all through, examining new guys and what they brought to the table—that it became clear that my time with JR left me marked. It’s like having a tattoo that your underwear covers, in a place only you (and very few others) will ever see. I let out a big sigh, happy now to never think about the tattoo. And happy—I can’t believe I’m thinking this, I can’t believe I’m thinking that I want to lose, but really truly happy—to have Ben win this game.

  I let myself drift off, and for the first time I also let my competitive spirit take the backseat. I think I want to go out with him. I nod to let him know it’s okay to serve.

  He clearly thinks my sigh was a sign of disappointment, because he says, “I know, you thought you’d win, little Layne.” He smiles, lifting his paddle in the air. “Game point. You ready?”

  Back and forth. Back and forth.

  He hits one to my left side, forcing me to draw a backhand, and I do, making contact with the little white ball. But I hit it a little too hard, and it goes right past him without hitting the table.

  “I win!” he exclaims as he throws his paddle down on the table. I too toss mine in front of me and we walk towards each other, meeting alongside the table, right by the net. I reach my hand out to shake his—congratulate him on the big win—and he draws me in close to him. “Sorry I had to beat you, but I couldn’t make all my Twitter followers jealous of you with a tweet about how perfect you are.”

  “I bet that’s not all you’re sorry for,” I say with a little sass, surprising both of us for broaching The Subject.

  “Guils,” he says, reaching his hand to my face. I’m standing so close to him that I can see the beads of sweat forming under his chin, then sliding down his neck and disappearing as they continue their path under his T-shirt. “I am sorry. I never want to hurt you again.” And with that, the NO TRESPASSING sign comes flying off its hinges and smashing to the ground. BOOM. He puts his other hand to my face and holds it tight, drawing me in for a kiss. It’s sweet, but with just the right amount of force and no tongue at all—just his sweaty lips pressed firmly against mine.

  I pull away, smiling up at him, and realize Gemma is still upstairs with Jake. I look toward the staircase that leads to his office, and Ben looks concerned. “Should we see if they’re okay?”

  “You stay here,” I say. “Go wipe off that winner’s sweat. I’ll just go get her, be back down in five.” I trot off towards the steps and make my way up one flight to the orange door with gleaming white lettering: JAKE SPEARS, EDITOR IN CHIEF. I don’t even knock—I know there’s no nonsense going on in there. We’re over that. I swing open the door, revealing a sprawling, dark room lit only by a candle in each corner. As if it would be any different. The light of those flames refract off his long glass desk and onto the picture frames along the wall above. My eyes glance down the length of the room, taking mental notes of each photo—Jake with various TV and Web executives, his son, his dog, his son with his dog, but noticeably only one with what looks like his wife. From what Ben has described, that has to be her—more Real Housewife of Beverly Hills than New York, with her long blond hair skimming the sharply toned edges of the nape of her neck. She looks like she spends as much time at Physique 57 as she does under the heat lamp at the hair salon touching up her highlights. Still, she’s stunning.

  “My god, this is the biggest I’ve ever seen,” I blurt out, assessing his desktop Mac. “How many inches is this thing?”

  “That’s what she said,” Gemma sasses as she swivels around in her chair, revealing a video that she and Jake had been reviewing before posting it to Banter. So that’s what was going on in here all that time. Could be worse, I think. Much, much worse.

  “Is today my lucky day? Two Gs for the price of one?” I roll my eyes. I can’t believe I used to think this guy was hot.

  “Lucky?” I say, turning to Gemma hoping for a nod—or actual words—assuring me that she’s made some traction with him. They’ve been up here together long enough. Just then, the door swings open and Ben walks in, startling all of us. Looks are being shot around the room like lasers. I was hoping to get a little more out of Jake and Gemma—or all of it out—before Ben entered the picture.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks Ben.

  “Um, I work here?” He looks at me for some consolation—or anything to help him understand what’s happening—but I’m at a loss. I can tell that he can tell something is up. “So what’s going on in here?”

  The three of us look at each other, then back to Ben. Crickets. Then we all cock our heads in suspense as we hear footsteps outside the door. It swings open as a familiar high-pitched voice sing-talks her way into the room.

  “Baby, what’re we gonna do about that picture of us in the Wrap?” It’s Sloane Smiley Riley. She looks like a deer in headlights. My heart is now beating through my chest. What picture is she talking about? The Wrap?

  “What are you doing here?” she says, looking at Ben. “I thought I saw on Foursquare that everyone was at …”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he says, smartly. Gemma and I quickly grab for our phones. I open Twitter and don’t even have to search for the Wrap’s feed, because everyone’s tweeting about it. I click the link and boom. There it is. A selfie of the two of them, him with his shirt off, her nuzzled up against his bare chest, both with that unmistakable look in their eyes. She actually looks a little more relatable with a bit of bedhead.

  When I can’t help but gasp, Ben grabs for my phone to see what all the fuss is about. I see him take the photo in, then the headline: BANTER IN BED: SPEARS BEARS ALMOST ALL. My heart sinks.

  “What the hell is this about?” Ben says, looking at Jake and Sloane for answers.

  At the exact same time, Jake and Sloane start talking. Only problem is they’
re telling two very different tales. I look down to the ground, ashamed for them, sad for Ben, and not wanting to be a part of any of this. Luckily Gemma jumps in.

  “We should get out of here,” she says, motioning to me, and the door.

  “Wait, I’m coming with you guys,” Ben says. “Just one second.” He looks at Jake and goes all in. “I knew about the sleazy messages you send to these two, but her too?” He looks at Sloane with disgust. The room falls quiet and we look around, taking stock of the damage that’s been done. Then Sloane begins to whimper like a dog who needs to be taken out for a walk. Or dognapped—wouldn’t that be appropriate now.

  “Did you fuck my girlfriend?” His voice has gotten remarkably lower, like he’s whispering, but his posture has gotten remarkably more intense as he walks closer to Jake. I’m nervous he’s going to hit him. “I’ll ask you one more time. Did you fuck my girlfriend?” He’s standing right in Jake’s line of breath, their noses just inches from each other. We all wait for his answer, which never comes.

  “Don’t ever talk to your boss like that again,” Jake finally says, matching Ben’s powerfully cold tone. “Get the fuck out of my office, all of you.”

  We all look around, waiting for someone to make a move. Ben stays right where he is and raises his finger to Jake’s face. “You’re not my boss anymore, you scumbag. I quit.” I gasp. Gemma too. And Sloane, loudest of all. Ben grabs for my hand and motions to Gemma to follow. “Let’s go.”

  Gemma and I don’t ask questions; we just follow Ben’s lead out of Jake’s office and down the flight of stairs, back to the Ping-Pong table. We embrace in a long, celebratory three-way hug, proud of what we just did, or rather what Ben did.

  “Who leaked that photo?” I ask, looking pointedly at Gemma.

  “Who cares,” Ben says. “I’m exhausted and need to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow though. Time to collect my winnings.” And he smiles for the first time in an hour. It’ll be his first day of unemployment and our first official date.

  CHAPTER 33

  I pride myself on knowing every twist and turn of the New York City subway system. (Not counting all the far-out stops in Brooklyn and the Bronx, that is.) It’s part of my job! And now I almost missed the Fifty-Ninth Street/Columbus Circle stop because I was daydreaming about last night. I’m sure I look crazy as I jerk myself back to the real world and slip through the doors of the uptown A train just before they squeeze shut. My baggy denim overalls, hanging loosely from my shoulders, don’t help much. But there’s a good reason I pulled these out of the back of my closet. They actually look kind of cute with my red high top Converse sneakers too, the ones I usually save for boozy brunch on a rainy Saturday in the East Village. My hair is fresh off the pillow from my after-work nap. I didn’t put a comb through it or a curling iron around it to smooth out the frizz, or even pat it down with a handful of gooey serum. I just left it as is. I put a touch of concealer under my eyes to soften the tired, blue rings around them, but I didn’t set it with powder or highlight it with mascara. I’m not wearing any jewelry either—not even the stud earrings I usually keep in as standbys between the sparkly dangling ones I steal from Gemma to wear on dates. Except for JR, no guy has ever seen me sufficiently stripped down like this. But I think Ben can handle it. Plus, in his email to me this morning, he told me to be “relaxed enough to sit outside for a few hours.”

  Ben’s waiting for me as I come up the escalator outside of the Time Warner Center. He has an eco-friendly bag full of groceries slung from his shoulder with a baguette sticking out of one side and a big plaid blanket tucked under his arm. “You weren’t kidding about this farm thing,” he says, eyeing my overalls. He called me when he got home last night—unable to sleep after the drama that went down—and we stayed up for hours, until almost two in the morning, concocting a plan for Ben’s unemployment. We would move to the country and buy a farm. We decided we would take naps in the field with the cows and grow all of our own food, only eating meals from what was fresh that season. We would ride bikes along long dirt roads and learn how to ride horses. We would have a chicken coop and then eventually open a bed and breakfast on the acres of free land we had, cooking our very own eggs in the morning for our guests. Imagine: a world with no traffic, no television, and no gossip blogs about the traffic or television.

  “I didn’t think they made farmers this cute.” He extends his hand to mine, and I latch onto it, blushing. I reach on top of my head to pull my sunglasses down and realize I forgot them. “So where are we going, anyway?” I ask, curiously peeking into his bag of goodies, trying to take inventory.

  “Well, we have to make one more stop over here at the wine shop, then we’re headed over there,” he says, pointing across Eighth Avenue to Central Park.

  We stop for two bottles of Riesling and make our way into the sprawling open fields of the park. He keeps checking his phone and I notice that he’s guiding us based on the GPS blue dot on his map. It’s cute, especially because we keep walking in circles, like we’re lost. But I don’t feel lost. I can feel him bending to my preferences, even in the smallest ways, and it makes me feel … special. A lot of guys have gone out of their way for me this year in one way or another, but not one of them made me feel special—ever. I start to see and hear a large crowd of people as we come around a turn and realize we’re heading to SummerStage, a seasonal concert venue where I saw Kings of Leon a few years ago before they were big enough to sell out arenas. We find a nice spot to put the blanket down, and I realize this doesn’t feel like a date anymore. It feels so natural, so comfortable, like two people who like each other are just hanging out. It just feels like life.

  Ben lays the blanket out in an open spot between two large trees and spreads out a lavish picnic: tubs of marinated olives, blocks of manchego cheese with fruity jam to put on top, and a whole slew of mixed vegetables and salads from the buffet inside Whole Foods. He has plastic cups for the wine, napkins, and even a big chocolate chip cookie for us to share for dessert. Every detail, like the ones we mapped last night for our fake future on the farm, he planned to a T.

  “So do you wanna know who’s playing?” he asks. I nod, barely able to speak, still looking over all the fruits of his labor in wonder. “He’s your favorite, and I only wish I knew further in advance so I could get tickets. But if we sit here just outside the gates, we can still hear everything loud and clear, and it’ll actually be better … like our own private concert.”

  Before he has a chance to tell me who, a voice I recognize instantly comes blaring out from the speakers. It’s Ray LaMontagne—my favorite.

  “Good evening, New York City, I’m so happy to be here with you tonight.” As the familiar drumbeat opening to his famous “You Are the Best Thing” comes echoing through the trees surrounding us, I slink into Ben’s arms, giddy like a high school girl wrapped in the arms of her crush at a Friday night football game. I grab the bottle of wine next to me to use as a makeshift microphone and start singing the lyrics.

  “Baby, it’s been a long day, baby/things ain’t been going my way/you know I need you here/here by my side, all of the time …”

  Just as Ray’s about to hit the chorus, I look down at myself and realize something feels different, and it’s not the overalls. I have a new bounce in my step, but it’s not from the Converse. I have a man who will create a perfectly romantic evening for me with all my favorite things. But no, it’s not him either. It’s something more personal. Life feels fun and relaxed. For the first time in a long time, I feel fun and relaxed. I feel like myself—the free, silly, teenage version of myself. I peek up and catch Ben looking down at me, smiling. I stop singing and let Ray do the talking for me as he croons the chorus.

  “So you’re a free man now. How does it feel?” I push through my elbows that I’ve been leaning on in his lap so I can sit up and face him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look this happy before—this relaxed, this at peace.

  “It feels great—but I’m a little nerv
ous,” he says smirking. “We have a farm to attend to … and I can’t run a chicken coop by myself.”

  “Stop it,” I say, giving his chest a little push, and we roll back onto the ground in laughter.

  When we sit back up a bit, he’s staring at me. “I do have a few interviews lined up for next week though. One is with the Toast! They need a new media reporter since that Josh guy left for the Herald.”

  “No way. What’re you gonna change your Twitter handle to? @ToastyBen?”

  “I’m not worried about that right now, Guils. My only concern is you.”

  I’m staring deep into his eyes, and I begin to see something different. I see a man I want to be with. I keep thinking as he keeps talking. “I want to be with you, and I’ll wait for you to be ready.” He pauses and I sigh, smiling, so impressed by his patience—a quality other guys have lacked this year. I’ve wanted a man to go at my pace, to understand that sometimes I feel ready and sometimes I don’t.

  He’s not done yet. “I want you and I to be an us.”

  We sit looking into each other’s eyes through an entire song—maybe two—as tears stream down my cheek. Thank god I didn’t put on any mascara. I’d blame it on the wine, but I’ve only had two plastic cups worth, and I’ve never cried until at least glass three. He eventually puts his arm around me and we lie down together, staring up at the star-filled sky. We try taking pictures, but even with HDR and a flash, and the help from his Snapseed app, they’re still not bright enough to see anything. Probably better this way anyway, because for the first time neither of us wants to tweet or Instagram anything. This isn’t a moment to share with the world; it’s just for us.

  I can hear his phone buzzing from inside his pocket, and he eventually reaches in and grabs it, checking the time. I notice he has a few texts, but no part of me wonders who it is or what they want. It’s a wonderful feeling, not wondering. I trust him, I think, as he looks up at me from the phone. “It’s almost 9:30, we should get out of here. It’s late for you.”