“You should see the other guy,” I say, and he laughs.
“I’ve got to skip sixth period,” he says, “because I promised to drive somebody somewhere. But Pablo and I are coming to help out at the vet’s later; I’ll stuff envelopes and he’ll lick. So I’ll see you there. Maybe we can grab a bite or something.”
I’m paralyzed. Frozen. So of course I say something surpassingly stupid. “So we can talk about Siddhartha.”
He leans across his desk toward me. “So we can talk about anything we want.”
The bell rings. He reaches down and grabs his bag, looking up at me with those eyes. And I will myself to move. As I pack up, it sinks in. That was a date. He asked me on a date. Not even with the cover of an excuse. He wants me to know that he wants my company. He wants to be with me. Alone.
I just sit there as the room empties, and just as I’m about to dissolve into a blissful wisp of smoke, two little words break through my ecstasy: Amanda Porcella. The someone he is driving somewhere during sixth period. The someone he is probably having sex with on a daily basis.
Wow. I’m an idiot. He’s way too decent, and certainly way too smart, to think he could two-time his girlfriend in a class of eighty kids, all of whom watch and gossip about them constantly. Obviously, this isn’t a date at all. He would think of it as grabbing a burger with a friend from school. Same as if I were Gordy or The Weed. It is only a date in my mind because that is my fondest wish in all the world.
I’m not ashamed for wanting Amanda’s boyfriend for myself. Every girl at this school wants him. Nothing bad just happened. James simply asked if I wanted to hang out, and if I can keep from mooning over him and be fairly intelligent and entertaining, we can become people who hang out together. And I would like that. It won’t be horrible because I want more; this will be second best and I will make that good enough.
I find Gordy and sit with him at lunch. I apologize for not calling him yesterday, explaining that I was into some heavy reading all day. I want him to know how wonderful my birthday was, thanks to him. Gordy thinks it took second place to my roller-skating party in fourth grade when he broke his wrist trying to “shoot the duck” (a challenging skating move). He asks if we can grab dinner together tonight. I can tell something is up, and he faux casually mentions that he took my advice and shit-canned the odious Melissa. Good freakin’ riddance.
He seems a little sad about it, even though he’s trying to play it off lightly.
“Want to grab dinner at Pizzetta? I could use a breakup pepperoni pie.” His big shoulders shrug and he takes a sip from the tiny straw sticking out of a juice box.
“Of course,” I tell him. There’s no way he’s eating breakup pizza alone. Even though I never would have accepted James’s offer of dinner anyway (for fear that Amanda or others would misconstrue), I feel some regret at having given away the possibility. But he’s Gordy, and he’d do it for me.
James never shows at the vet anyway. Not a very reliable volunteer. I probably won’t mention it to Dr. French, though. Obviously, driving someone somewhere wound up being much more exciting than hanging out with me and the animals. Not my problem. Not my business. I’m off to cheer up my best friend on the occasion of his slut-ectomy.
I kiss all the creatures good night and lock up. The envelopes with Dr. French’s monthly newsletter can wait another day. I unlock my bike and wheel it out to the curb just as—
An old red Porsche Targa whips around the corner and skids to a stop right in my face. He leans out of the window with a goofy smile. I would never in a million years guess he owns a goofy smile, and it makes him more devastating than ever.
“I’m so glad I caught you. I got held up.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” It sounds a little too snippy the moment I say it. Hopefully he won’t take it that way.
“Anyway, if you’re still free to grab dinner…”
I walk my bike to his window. In my nicest, softest voice I say, “I never said I was free for dinner. You just assumed I was, probably because you don’t get a lot of people turning you down.”
“I think that’s a compliment, right?”
“A little bit of both.”
He laughs. “So. Are you? Free for dinner, I mean.”
“No, sorry.”
“Me neither. How about tomorrow?”
This is more than heart-pounding. This is not enough air to expand my lungs. This is tingling in all weird places. I look down at my feet and try to create a look that is ironic, gently disapproving but still friendly. I’m not sure Meryl Streep could invent a look like that.
“What?” he asks pleasantly. I decide not to look up.
“I’m just wondering what Amanda would think of what you just said.”
The silence is so long I’m not sure he’s actually still there.
“Look at me,” he says in an especially sweet way. So I do. “Everyone thinks Amanda and I are together, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you think it too.”
Does that mean he’s not dating her?
“We’re not. I’m not dating her or anyone. I actually never dated Amanda. We hung out for two weeks during Outward Bound and stayed friends after.”
“So she was never your girlfriend?”
James turns a little red. “I mean, we hooked up. And it was pretty clear that she was hoping things might continue. But then I met someone. Someone I’m not with anymore. Amanda knows all of this. And everything is fine between us. You can ask her and she’ll tell you that.”
I hold my breath. Unfortunately, he seems to have no more to say.
“And you’re telling me this because…?”
“Um, you asked.”
“Oh yeah.” And we both laugh. Here we are, in the vet’s parking lot. Laughing at me. I have no idea what to do. So I just keep laughing. I must look like an idiot. At last he says something.
“Sloane, I asked you out on a date. And to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve asked anybody on a date in a long time. And I really hope you say yes.”
What on earth could someone like him ever see in me?
“Yes. I’d like that very much.”
We just look at each other. He’s still in his car. I’m standing at his window with one hand resting on the door. He reaches out and strokes my pinky finger. It feels like I’ve stuck it in an electrical socket. But in a good way.
“So, can I drop you somewhere?” he asks.
“Um, I’ve got this bike, see.”
“Right. But I could pick you up tomorrow morning and drop you back at the bike, in time for school.”
This isn’t real. Maggie is dreaming this. By osmosis she picked up something from that book Emma gave her and she is making this happen. I’ll never find a way to thank her enough for the opportunity. Too bad I have to turn him down.
“If I leave this bike out tonight, I’ll be in even more trouble with my mom and dad than I already am, which is considerable.” I feel like a little girl saying this to a guy driving his own Porsche.
“I met your mom on Saturday. I think she likes me. I could put a word in.”
“Rain check.” I force myself to mount my bike, give him a casual wave, as if this is all in a day’s work for a girl who was frequently asked out for burgers by the hottest guy to ever blow into our sleepy town. The sophistication is somewhat undercut when I strap on my monumentally dorky bike helmet.
He’s just sitting there watching as I pedal away. Too giddy to steer straight.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
maggie
I decide not to mention my audition for Innuendo to Nicole or even to Jade. It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, or even that I want to avoid Nicole’s comforting when I lose the role. It just feels like too big an opportunity to casually chat about. I have Thomas to talk to, and he’s on the inside, so I’m leaning on him quite a bit. I actually consult him about what socks to wear and whether it’s best to eat oatmeal or eggs for breakfast. He humors me by
considering the choices as heavily as I am. I wind up going for one of Jade’s neon pink Pop-Tarts because that’s probably what the character would choose.
Two hours before the most important audition thus far of my life, I’m scheduled to meet with Emma. I debate canceling since Thomas is much more fun to talk to and can give me actually helpful advice at the moment. Despite my dropout sensibilities and artistic bent, I am not a flake. So I show up on time for the appointment.
I start off by telling her I haven’t read the book she gave me and that Sloane is off-limits as a topic for the next hour. Instead we could make good use of this time by preparing me for the audition. I envision meditating to some relaxing music, maybe sneaking in a nap while she guides me to my “happy place.”
Emma has other plans and says that she can help me “focus” by reaching back into life experience to channel the wild, tempestuous, promiscuous, and downright crazy Robin.
My entire experience with sexual intercourse was once, at the ridiculous age of fourteen. Of course, I’ve been forced to talk about this forgettable moment in about 80 percent of my sessions with Emma, who just considers this a treasure trove of Freudiana. In reality, the penis involved belonged to Robert Parkens, who was nearly seventeen and the big brother of my friend’s friend who was hosting a party where (shocker) booze reared its ugly head. In fairness, I had been mooning over Robert, who was attractive in a tubercular artist kind of way (he’d actually written forty pages of what was never to become his novel), and that made him some kind of bohemian dreamboat. My luck, he thought I was hot, which I promise I was anything but.
So, cautionary tale, he got me up in his bedroom, and I got really drunk (which I thoroughly enjoyed until about three o’clock in the morning, waking up in bed in my own puke). We started making out, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, at least as much as he did. This (along with the little white lie that I was sixteen) encouraged him to believe that this was the magic moment. It wasn’t horrible, it was slightly painful, and what it was not was magical or thrilling or anything like it was supposed to be. The making out had seemed spontaneous and exciting. The last part got kind of technical, and fumbly, and was over in about fifteen seconds.
Emma takes the position that this is some deep wound and maybe, somehow, could have created virginal Sloane. Boy. I explained one hundred times that I was not raped, and although I hadn’t really thought about the deflowering aspect until I was too drunk to think about much of anything, I was basically down with it and the only negative consequence was that I didn’t want to go through exactly that experience again and have been sort of afraid that maybe that’s how it will always be for me, a non-event. On the positive side, I try to look on it as simply a matter of the wrong guy and that the next time will be with someone, well, I’m truly in love with.
For the record, Robert is a perfectly nice guy. He wanted to see more of me (no pun intended) even after he found out that I was fourteen and didn’t want to sleep with him or anybody for the indefinite future. The truth is I just felt too young for it and didn’t have a mom like Sloane’s to tell me so—or that it was okay. Sometimes I wonder if I always will be too young to date.
So, of course, Emma awkwardly tries to connect this to the whole Thomas thing, and it just makes me want to slap her silly. For all of my confusion about how I feel toward Thomas, Robert Parkens is not in the mix. Emma feels conflicted about Thomas too. And so we spend the hour discussing her conflicts instead of mine, which is a relief.
It seems that while the last thing she wants is for me to jump into a “sexual relationship” or become “sexually active” with anyone before my psychosis is resolved, she also wonders whether falling in love and having a genuine attachment would obviate the need for Sloane entirely. Then there’s the inappropriateness of Thomas’s age (like he was fifty or something), the complications of potential workplace conflicts, and my own ambivalence about how I want to feel toward someone I do that with.
The part I don’t tell her is that for all my bravado, I’m more than a little bit scared to be in a genuine relationship, where God forbid the guy I might fall in love with would learn that there’s no there there in me and I would have my worst fears confirmed, that I am not deserving of the right guy’s love.
With five minutes to go, Emma brings out the hammer, ignoring my request to keep Sloane out of this. Why haven’t I brought up the relevance of Sloane to the whole Thomas question? Maybe because there isn’t any? Wrong. To truly be in a relationship, I need to be ready to share my whole self, my true self, and I’m not. In fact, my secret is about the most disabling one she’s ever seen in this context.
She goes on to remind me of the potential danger of simply going permanently and irrevocably bananas (a technical term), which terrifies me, particularly when she explains that the panic I might feel hiding Sloane from the hypothetical man I will love could be the very thing that pushes me over the edge.
Three hundred dollars, please.
Thus prepared for my audition, I wander around Central Park in a complete daze, actually contemplating calling in sick and begging for a do-over. Right. That would certainly happen. So instead, I decide to get in character. I buy a chili dog and flirt with the Sabrett’s guy in Robin’s New Orleans accent (conveniently borrowed from my Glass Menagerie triumph). He actually asks me out. Maybe I’ll tell him about Sloane and see how it goes.
By the time I get to Rosalie’s offices, I have expertly gone through my scene thirty times and am feeling pretty cocky. Thomas greets me very professionally and reintroduces me to Rosalie, who is super-supportive (which means treating me both as an actress she respects and someone she personally likes). I’m introduced to Macauley Evans, the director. He has the most intense eyes. They are laser-focused on me. I don’t think he blinks for the entire five minutes we chitchat. Game on.
Of course, Macauley wants a different scene. In fact, five different scenes. I tell him about the scene I’d been asked to prepare, and he says that’s great and we’ll do it last. As in, I don’t really care about that scene, but I’m throwing you a bone to see if you can impress me. All eyes on me, I feel totally confident going through the scenes. And I wind up killing. Meaning, I’m very, very good. I know it, they know it. It feels almost like a dream.
People ask me if the best performances are when you lose yourself in the character and actually are channeling Robin. Absolutely not. You need to do both things at once. You are always in control, always know what you are doing, but are so completely fluent in what your character would do that you are confident you can’t make a false step. I guess it sounds a little bit like lucid dreaming, like what Emma wants me to do with Sloane.
In the goodbyes, no one is falsely encouraging, which is completely expected and at the same time devastating. I’m sure there will be more experienced, more marketable, and more talented actresses reading for this, and one of them will get the role. Today is a total triumph, great for my future, I tell myself. Sure. That’s why I feel so deflated as I head out the door.
Thomas walks me down to the street. He tells me I did wonderfully, knowing that’s not what I want to hear. When he says that I have a terrific chance, I can tell he’s lying through his perfect teeth. What I don’t know is whether I should be angry or grateful for the lie. Andrew would tsk-tsk me and ask me to forget what I should be feeling and dig around to find out what I was actually feeling. This is why Andrew is a pain in the ass, and Carmen is welcome to him.
Thomas surprises me with a goodbye kiss on the street. It makes my stomach do a tiny flip. He gently pushes me against the wall of the building and plays with my hair.
“Please have dinner with me tonight. I’ll cook for you. I’m a good cook,” he assures me with a smile.
I feel nervous and confused and can’t think fast enough. So I lie.
“I have a family thing. But I’ll call you in the morning so we can pick a date for you to impress me with your Iron Chefness.”
He seems happ
y enough, repeats his lie about my chances, and goes back to work.
I walk down the street toward the subway. My stomach is growling from only eating a chili dog all day. My heart hurts from having clearly lost my big chance to play Robin. My head aches from wondering what to do about Thomas. I pull out my phone and text Andrew to see if he’ll meet me at Union Square Café.
I get there before him and take a seat at a table by the window. Jimmy starts to clear the silverware and I tell him I’m expecting someone. You would’ve thought I told him I poop gold bricks.
“Good for you,” he says with a big encouraging smile and takes time to polish Andrew’s fork with his uniform. Jimmy thinks I’m lonely.
Andrew arrives thirty minutes after me. He looks different. It’s not a haircut. It’s something in his attitude. I’m not sure I like it.
“How’d it go?”
“I crushed it. They loved me. And I’m still probably twelfth on a list of ten.”
He can see how disappointed I am. And that’s why I texted him.
“I’m sorry. You’re probably right. Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t feel sad about it. Because wanting it so bad is part of what you need to go where you’re going. What you were able to do today shows you’re going there. And I’ll bet very soon. It just takes one role. And maybe this wasn’t the one.”
What a lovely way to put it. He is back on my good-guy list.
Jimmy comes over and shakes Andrew’s hand like he’s meeting the fireman who rescued his cat from a tree. I’m not lonely or in need of rescuing! Jeesh, Jimmy.
I order my chicken Caesar without the chicken, dressing on the side, and wedges of lemon. Andrew adds something called a Maker’s sour. He then orders two burgers and another Maker’s sour for himself. I don’t complain because I really enjoy the look that Jimmy gives me, which is: You’re going to drink and expect me not to card you? I just smile, waiting for the inevitable carding. Which doesn’t come. Probably because he’s afraid he’ll scare away my one and only dinner companion.
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