Charmed Thirds

by Megan Mccafferty

  “I know, Mom, I know.”

  “Is he still premed at Cornell?”

  It is one of life's inexplicable ironies that my mother is more invested in Len's Ivy League education than my own. “Uh . . . I have no idea,” I said.

  “How can you be going out with him tonight and not even know his major?”

  Again, this was of strange importance for someone who had never had a college major. Thankfully, the doorbell rang before I pointed this out to her. My mom scurried to greet him.

  “Len!” she gushed. “So lovely to see you! Come in! Come in!”

  Len had showered since the last time I saw him. He looked clean and clean-cut in a sky blue Le Tigre polo and pressed khaki shorts. Through the glass in his wire-rimmed specs, I could see that the whites of his eyes were still pink with sadness, which somehow only enhanced the intensity of his green eyes.

  “No really, Mom, we have to get going if we're going to . . . uh . . . catch our movie,” I said, glancing at my watch. “But before we do, Len, would you please tell my mother what your major is?”

  He turned to my mother and said, “Biological Sciences.”

  “And what is your GPA?” I asked.

  “3.82.”

  “And what do you want to do after you graduate?” I asked.

  “Apply to medical schools.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Yale.” Then he darted a look at me before saying, “Columbia.”

  “And what do you foresee as your specialty?” I asked.

  “Cardiology.”

  I looked at my mom. “Anything else?”

  My mother had rolled up the Restoration Hardware catalog so tightly that she could have used it as a weapon.

  “I'll arrange for him to send you his MCAT scores when they arrive,” I called out before she could answer, ushering Len out the door.

  “So. Um. We're seeing a movie?”

  “No,” I said. “We're getting something cheap to eat. Cheap being the operative word there.”

  “Helga's?”

  Helga's. I hadn't been to Helga's since the last time I saw Len, which was when I'd gone there with Pepe after saying good-bye to Marcus . . . what? Two summers ago?

  “Helga's,” I said, slipping into the passenger side of the Saturn. He's been driving the same car since we dated in high school, and though the new car smell had faded, it still looked fresh off the lot.

  We didn't say much on the ride over, choosing to fill the silence with the CD player. I could have guessed the three CDs in random rotation: In Utero (Nirvana); Vs. (Pearl Jam); Rubber Soul (The Beatles). John Lennon sang about an irresistible girl, one he should have known better than to fall for:

  “She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry / Still you don't regret a single day . . .”

  I thought it might be like pouring salt on Len's open wounds. For his sake, I talked over the words.

  “Do you still play?” I asked.

  “Play what?” Len asked, keeping his eyes on the bumper precisely three seconds in front of us, as is recommended in Driver's Ed for cars traveling at 30 mph.

  “Guitar.”

  His Heineken eyes bulged in surprise. “Oh. Um. Guitar. Right,” he said. “I almost forgot I used to do that. No.”

  “No?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “School,” he said simply.

  I didn't respond.

  “Do you still write?” he asked.

  Eddie Vedder sang: “I seem to recognize your face / Haunting, familiar yet can't seem to place it . . .”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Why not?”

  I laughed quietly to myself. “School,” I lied.

  Len tapped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand as if to say, Well, there you have it, without actually having to say it.

  “That's too bad about your guitar,” I said. “You were really good.”

  “So were you,” he said. “Um. At writing. You know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

  “It wasn't as much fun. Um. Once I stopped collaborating with Flu,” he said. Marcus's nickname. His face broke out in crimson panic. “Oh! Um! Sorry.”

  “It's okay,” I assured him. “You can say his name. I'm over it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, Len,” I said. “I am.”

  “That's good,” he sighed as he pulled into Helga's parking lot. “Because I don't feel like I'll ever . . . Um . . .”

  Eddie moaned. “Hearts and thoughts they fade . . . fade away . . .” And Len failed to finish his sentence, as if he interpreted these lyrics as a command.

  With all the things that had changed over the years, Helga's was as refreshingly dingy as ever. We requested a booth way, way in the back. We ordered coffee. We sat quietly, without really looking at each other. I decided to break the silence.

  “I went on Accutane, just like you,” I said, immediately recognizing that this was, perhaps, the most retarded conversation starter ever. Why remind him of his—of our—zitty history now that our complexions were clear?

  “You did?” Len asked. “Why would you do that?” He seemed truly baffled, and curious to hear if there was a non-acne-related reason why someone might go on this particular drug.

  “Cysts,” I said, hoping my curt response would close the topic I had stupidly opened in the first place.

  “Oh?” he replied skeptically. But that was all he said, and I was grateful.

  “So,” I tried again. “I'm thinking that you might be able to help me out.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “Well, as the first of a string of guys to drop me,” I said. “Maybe you can give me some insight as to why I'm so dumpable.”

  He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if this gesture might somehow improve his hearing.

  “Um. What?”

  “Kieran, my sham of an ex-boyfriend from school, said I was too much woman,” I said. “I think that's only a problem when you're too much annoying woman.”

  “I never thought you were. Um. Annoying.”

  “Then what's wrong with me?” I asked.

  “Nothing's wrong with you,” he said. “It was us that was the problem. As I can only assume it was with you and. Um. Kieran.”

  “And Marcus?”

  He let that line of questioning drop and offered another. “Have you. Um. Heard from him lately?”

  “Not since last Christmas,” I said.

  “Me either,” he said.

  We both took long slugs of coffee. I resisted the urge to ask him about the nature of his correspondence with Marcus, and what it had revealed, mostly because I knew that anything Len could tell me wouldn't make one bit of difference.

  Instead I asked, “What did you see in Manda anyway?”

  “I think. Um. That I appreciated that she was willing to change for me.”

  I groaned. “That's so Freudian, Len.”

  “I don't know much. Um. Freud.”

  “He theorized that we don't fall in love with an actual person, but with a projection of our own desires. By changing, Manda became less of herself and more like you.”

  “Maybe,” he said in an offhand way that let me know that he wasn't a fan of undergraduate psychobabble. It put me in my place, that's for sure. But I wasn't offended because sometimes I need that.

  More coffee.

  “Remember when you asked why you might be so. Um. Dumpable?”

  “It was only about a minute ago, Len.”

  “Um. Right,” he seemed embarrassed by the error. “I can only speak for myself here. But. Um. I think I knew that you wouldn't change for me. Um. I don't think you would change for anyone. It's like what makes you you is unassailable.”

  “And that's been working so well for me,” I deadpanned.

  “Not changing who you are isn't a bad thing . . .”

  “If my romantic history is any indication, it can't be a good thing.�
�

  Len drained his cup in lieu of a response.

  “So you're really. Um. Over Marcus?” he asked after a few seconds of silence.

  “Really,” I said. I enjoyed being able to say it like I meant it.

  “Do you still think about him? Because I still think about Manda all the time.”

  I contemplated the question. Do I think about Marcus?

  The honest answer is that I try not to. But making a conscious decision not to think about someone is, by definition, thinking about them. Not to mention those studies I've mentioned that suggest the more energy you spend trying to forget about someone, the more likely it is that the person will pop up in your dreams.

  Recently, my dreams all relive real moments from my past. Me buzzed at the West End in my Barnard T-shirt. Me sweating on the corner of 110th and Amsterdam. Me sparring in my dorm room. Me serving a custard cone on the boardwalk. Only instead of Mini Dub, instead of Bastian, instead of Kieran, instead of Len is Marcus, Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. And he never says a word.

  “Jess?”

  I'd forgotten that Len was waiting for an answer, one that would bring him peace of mind.

  “I don't think about him at all.”

  And Len heaved a sigh of relief, confident that one day he, too, would forget the person who was the source of so much pleasure and pain.

  As the evening wore on, I couldn't help but think about how mature this was, for me and Len to talk over coffee at Helga's. Len was my first real ex (Scotty doesn't count—it was, after all, eighth grade), and one of only three guys who have seen me practically, if not totally, naked, even though it was a very, very long time ago and the cutaneous landscape has changed a bit. Still, I thought it was a really grown-up thing. It wasn't weird at all. Though I suppose it might be different if Len and I had done it. I wonder if I would feel as comfortable sitting across from Kieran. Or Marcus. I doubt I'll ever know.

  Tonight I was okay with that conclusion.

  As we returned to Len's car, he said, “Um, Jess?”

  “Yes?”

  “I never thought you had bad skin,” he said. “I always thought you looked . . .” He shyly looked down at his keys instead of at me. “Radiant.”

  And I told him that was the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time.

  The rest of the ride home was filled with more music than conversation. And that, too, was okay. Kurt's words seemed to express exactly how I was feeling as I rode alongside Len.

  I think I'm dumb . . . Or maybe just happy.

  the twenty-fourth

  For a Sunday night, it was pretty dead. So I got off work early enough to call Len and ask him to meet me at Helga's. It had become a sort of routine, hanging out on the nights he had off from saving people's lives and the nights I had off doing the opposite via junk food. With Bridget and Pepe off in LA visiting her dad, I really don't have anyone else here to spend time with. So I'm grateful for his company, even if we've strayed little from our usual dialogue. I want to think that I've helped Len feel less alone in his pain. But I should have been tipped off to the contrary when he made a surprising request tonight.

  “How about. Um. I meet you at. Um. AJ's?”

  “AJ's?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let's live a little.”

  This was an unusual turn of events. First, because Len doesn't drink. And second, because AJ's is the darkest, dankest, least-inviting drinking establishment on the boardwalk. It repels bennies, and therefore is most appealing to locals and semilocals like me. AJ's only concession to any sort of décor is the hundreds of plastic potted plants hanging from the ceiling, all ashen with decades of cigarette-smoky dust. At AJ's, only two varieties of music are played: Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I'd told Len that I'd always wanted to get a drink there, for kicks, but never had anyone to go with me and I didn't want to go alone because that's the first sign of alcoholism. And while that will give me something to talk about with the street-corner winos with whom I'll be keeping company after I graduate, there's no need to get an early start on my addiction.

  When I got there, Len already had a half-empty cup of beer in front of him. I decided not to make a big deal about this uncharacteristic libation. I ordered whatever they had on tap. I got Budweiser, served in plastic. Klassy.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said.

  Usually that precedes something that I don't want to hear. But I was open-minded.

  “Go on,” I said.

  Len swallowed his beer, then looked straight ahead at his reflection in the Miller Lite mirror across the bar. “I don't want to be a doctor.”

  “I don't want to be a shrink!”

  We toasted each other, our plastic cups making more of a crunch than a clink.

  “Why don't you want to be a doctor?” I asked.

  “It turns out that I'm not very good with people,” he said with a shrug.

  “Me either! What do you think you'll do after graduation?”

  He shook his head slowly, somberly. “I have no idea.”

  “Me either!”

  “You sound very happy about your uncertain future,” he said, his eyebrows crumpling.

  “Oh, I'm totally freaked out,” I said in a blithe tone that undermined the message. “But it's comforting to know that I'm not alone in my cluelessness. At least you've got an extra semester to figure it out. I'll be unemployed and homeless come January.”

  “That's unfortunate,” he said.

  “It is,” I said.

  We swiveled back and forth on our bar stools for a few seconds.

  “What happened to us?” Len asked, staring into his cup. “We were Most Likely to Succeed. Now we're both a mess.”

  “Yes we are,” I said. There was a fingerprint smudge on the left lens of his glasses that in his younger, more-together days, he would have rubbed off immediately with a small, square piece of felt that he kept in his back pocket for such a purpose. But this Len just ignored it, or didn't notice it at all, which was also very unlike him.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Actually, we're messes. Plural. We're our own separate messes.”

  “Hey, Len, you're not stuttering,” I pointed out. “Did you notice that?”

  “Actually, yes, I did notice that. People stammer less when they're drunk. It's a counterintuitive but common phenomenon studied by linguists.”

  “I bet it's because drinking helps you let your guard down,” I said. “You're not as self-conscious about what you say. You just say it.”

  “That's probably it,” he said.

  “Probably,” I agreed.

  He leaned in very close to my face, like he was about to say something. But he didn't. I could smell his hot, yeasty breath. Normally, this would gross me out. But there was something about seeing Len so obviously drunk and disheveled that was not unappealing. He was still very geek cute.

  “Len, can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Sure,” he said, laying his hands flat out on the bar in front of him.

  “Are you still a virgin?”

  I tried to keep my eyes in my head when he nodded in the affirmative, making his glasses slip yet again.

  “You did everything but . . .”

  “Everything but.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow,” he replied, underwhelmed.

  At the far end of the bar, a man and a woman with many tattoos and few teeth flirted with each other.

  “You one dirty mufucka!” the woman cackled.

  “Naw,” shouted the man. “You tha dirty mufucka!”

  “That's nice,” Len said wistfully. “They're a nice couple.” He was so earnest it hurt.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Len, I don't think Manda is really a lesbian.”

  “They sure looked like lesbians to me when I walked in on them—” he paused midprofanity. “What do lesbians call what they do, anyway?”

  “They
call it fucking,” I said.

  “Ooooooooooooooooooooooh.” Len was quietly moaning into the foam in his cup. He was falling apart again. After sprucing himself up for the past few outings, he was reverting back to sketchy.

  “I didn't want to do this,” I said, swirling the beer around in my cup. “I've been saving this story, but you obviously need to hear it tonight.”

  And then, I put my personal mortification aside and began a tale that I hoped would convince him that walking in on your girlfriend having lesbian sex is not the worst thing in the world.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I walked in on my parents . . . ?”

  This is what friends do.

  Not long after, I drove Len home. He sunk into the passenger seat with his eyes closed, and I thought he was passed out. Quite frankly, I had no idea how I was going to drag his drunk ass into his house without his psycho mom finding out and accusing me of leading him into a life of debauchery. As we pulled in front of his colonial, a Beatles song came on that snapped him out of his stupor. He had leant me Revolver a few weeks back and had insisted I listen to it.

  “This is the song!” he said, swaying back and forth. “It's so true! When you love someone, you need them all the time . . .”

  “I will be there and everywhere,” sang the cutest Beatle. “Here, there, and everywhere . . .”

  I know this promise is meant to be a positive thing. A show of devotion. But what happens when such omnipresence outlasts the actual love? What happens then?

  You end up like Len. And me.

  the thirty-first

  So much for a mature, grown-up relationship.

  “I've been thinking,” Len said as he finished off a beer. AJ's was our new standard. It is important, though perhaps unnecessary, to explain that Len is a lightweight. One beer and he's already silly.

  “About what?”

  “We should fuck,” he said very seriously.

  Budweiser splooshed out of my nostrils.

  “But not in the lesbian way,” he clarified, as if that would make it any less hilarious.

  I was still choking.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was wrong.”

  “No, it wasn't the wrongness that got me,” I said, in between slurpy gasps for air. “It's just that it was probably the funniest thing you've ever said.”