by Rachel Cohn
"You're wearing his jacket," Tris says. "He never lets me wear his jacket."
It's Tris whose actions have caused me the night from heaven-hell, so I have no problem letting her pay for my Oreos. I leave her at the counter, fumbling for her wallet. I am ready for home. I am ready to sleep in my own bed, to wake up tomorrow morning and figure out a life plan, and maybe talk to my parents about us all talking to Caroline about getting some fucking help because if we've gotten to the point where Tris is more cool and less scary to hang out with than Caroline, there's obviously a big problem to work out here.
I head for the door, but not before imparting some last saintly wisdom upon Tris. "Be more careful next time, bitch," I tell her.
She doesn't look up from her fumbling wallet maneuver, she just lifts her middle finger with the Jersey-bitch rhinestone-studded black-and-yellow-painted nail tip at me. "Okay, bitch," she calls back to me.
I have enough cash for a cab ride all the way back home and the driver can go fuck himself if he tries to give me grief about a fare to Jersey. I look out onto the street in search of a cab but see Nick instead, leaning against a telephone booth outside the grocery.
I am not about hate anymore, or humiliation, or regret. I'm too tired for that, too done and yet too renewed.
I walk over to him, and mark the sign of the cross from his forehead to his chest to each side of his heart, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Norah. Then I caress that cheek of Nick's one last time, because I want one last touch, I deserve it. I tell him, "You are absolved."
I walk away, placing my pinkie and index fingers in my mouth to whistle for a cab, all alone on this almost-morning deep in the throes of big bad Lower Manhattan, but protected by the sacred shroud of Salvatore upon mine shoulders.
I'm fucking keeping Nick's jacket.
11. NICK
Fuck her.
Fuck her for getting in that cab. Fuck her for fucking with my mind. Fuck her for not knowing what she wants. Fuck her for dragging me into it. Fuck her for being such a fantastic kisser. Fuck her for ruining my favorite band. Fuck her for barely saying a word to me before she left. Fuck her for not waving. Fuck her for getting my hopes up. Fuck her for making my hopes useless. Fuck her for taking off with my fucking jacket.
Fuck me.
Fuck me for always getting into situations like this. Fuck me for caring. Fuck me for not knowing the words that would've made her stay. Fuck me for not knowing what I want. Fuck me for wavering. Fuck me for not kissing her back the right way. Fuck me for getting my hopes up. Fuck me for not having more realistic hopes. Fuck me for giving her my fucking jacket.
Fuck.
If I hadn't stayed those extra two minutes in the dressing room, staring at the mirror, as if my face would suddenly tell me the answers my mind didn't know. If I'd been able to push through the crowd instead of being stuck inside its haphazard body-maze. If I'd seen her in that grocery before she got to the door. If I'd said something when I saw her coming. If I'd managed any of these ifs-would I have been able to avoid the inevitable fuck-up, the full-force fuck-off? My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they ganged up on my hope and let her get away.
To go back into the club alone means defeat. To stay outside looking at the taillights of her cab means defeat. To go home and pass out means defeat. To sit right down on the pavement and stare at the curb means defeat-but it's the defeat that's closest, so I sit down and start tracing the edge of the sidewalk. I've moved myself to foot level, which is exactly where I should be. Foot in mouth, stomped all over, kick me kick me kick me. It's Ludlow Street, so the shoes that pass me are all somewhere between hip and porn. Neon-colored sneakers, vixen pumps, stiletto boots for men and women. If I had my guitar, I might be able to make some change. But instead all I have are the songs crashing together in my head. They're all sad. They're all bitter. And they're all that I have.
I didn't let her go. She went. It's not my fault.
She did it.
She could undo it.
This is feeling so fucking familiar.
Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else? Norah, don't you know it was as simple as the way you dragged me off the dance floor? You didn't have to make out with me to get me there. And now I know this. And now I can say this. And now you're gone.
It's my fault, isn't it?
Fuck this.
Fuck this wondering. Fuck this trying and trying. Fuck this belief that two people can become one ideal. Fuck this helplessness. Fuck this waiting for something to happen that probably won't ever happen.
"Oh, Nick-what did she do to you?"
Pink Pantherpink open-toed heels. I look up, and it's funny. Because I swear it's Tris standing over me, looking sympathetic. It's like being on one of those TV shows where the dead mother comes back every once in a while to talk. Impossible, but right when you'd most expect her.
"Tris," I say, because I can't think of anything else to say.
She shakes her head, brushes off a spot of pavement, then sits down next to me.
"Where's Norah?" she asks.
I shrug. "Probably three-quarters of the way through the Lincoln Tunnel."
"She never could take it," Tris says, pulling out a cigarette, then handing the lighter to me so I can spark it. "Never. Put her on the spot and she'll just refuse to admit that the spot is there. This one time? We were all going skinny-dipping. No big deal. We all have pools. We know what that's like. But I can tell right away that there's no way Norah's going to do it. This boy she likes-holy shit, I think it was Andy Biggs-well, he's going to be there. And she doesn't want to see him like that. But does she protest? No. Does she put up a fight? No. She comes over with us, plays DJ for a while, and when it's time for us to strip and get in the water, she disappears. Walks like two fucking miles back to her house without saying a word. The next day, she doesn't even pretend she was feeling sick or anything. Doesn't try to explain it at all."
She hasn't said this many words to me in four weeks-no, more than that. Because toward the end all the words started leaving. Except for the ones that had to lock up at the end of the night.
I don't know whether I can touch her. I mean, reach across those two or three inches and let my hand fall on her arm. Feel what that's like again. See if it feels like the past, or something in a different tense.
"Don't," she says. "Don't get fucking moony on me, Nick. Because if you do, I am out of here faster than Norah. Get it?"
I nod. Try not to look at her skin.
"Good." Tris lets loose a smoke signal. "I don't want to talk about us."
You never did,I think.
When someone breaks up with you, their beauty-which you took such satisfaction in-suddenly becomes unfair. It's like that with Tris right now. She's even managed to arrange herself in the lamplight so the shadows hit in just the right way. It feels like a rebuke.
We sit in silence for a second. She takes a drag. She's cinematic and I'm a fucking sitcom. The silence doesn't bother her at all, but it freaks the hell out of me. So I do what I always vowed not to do, and always found myself doing anyway. I throw "I miss you" into the breach. It even feels empty to me. Like I'm not saying it to the right person.
"Don't start that again," Tris says, but without the edge I was expecting. "It doesn't prove anything except that I don't feel the same way." Another drag of the cigarette, and an ear turned toward the club. "They sound kick-ass tonight, don't they? I thought the big time would ruin them, but maybe I was wrong. I should've slept with Owen O. while I had the chance. Then I would've been only one degree of spreaderation from whatever teen-movie starlet gets to him first. I just hope they don't name their daughter after a fucking fruit."
"April," I say.
"What?"
"April. You said you wanted to name our daughter April."
; Tris shoots me a curious look. "Did I? I don't know if it's sweet or scary that you remember that."
I find the courage to ask, "Aren't sweet and scary the same thing to you?"
She grins a little at my insight and nods. "Maybe. Sorry."
"Sorry?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
She draws more of the embers toward her, stares not at me but at the punks walking across the street from us.
"Tris, I-"
"Do you like her?"
"What?"
"Norah. Do you like her?"
"Can you like someone who confuses the hell out of you?"
"All the fucking time."
"Did I confuse the hell out you?"
It's really just a question, but this time Tris is annoyed, flicking her cigarette at me so ashes scatter on my shirt.
"Shut up, okay?" she says. "Enough already. ENOUGH. Yes, you confuse the hell out of me. Because not only can you not let go, but you don't even fucking realize that the thing you're holding on to isn't even there. You think I hurt you? Well, I could have hurt you so much more."
"How?" I have to ask.
"By telling the truth, Nick. I thought you'd see it. I thought you'd figure it out. I had no idea how completely blind you could make yourself. And yes, I could have just come right out and said it. But you were just so fucking vulnerable that I could never do it. And then I hurt you anyway. But fuck, Nick-you needed to be hurt. You needed to have the truth kicked into you."
"It's more like a stabbing than a kicking," I tell her, just so she'll know.
"For me it's a kicking," Tris replies. "But whatever. The subject of us is through. The subject of you and Norah is not. Let me give you some free advice. She's a runner for sure-she'll run away every time without saying a word. But here's the thing-you are not a runner. And deep down, I don't think Norah wants to run, either. She just feels like she has to. Partly because she's a tiresome spoiled-brat smartass with no fashion sense. And partly because she's a fucking human being."
She's making sense, and that's like a rebuke, too. Why couldn't we have had these conversations when we were together? I think. And then I realize what I've done-I've made when we were together a separate, almost distant place. I still feel the hurt, but I feel much less desire to undo it.
"I'm through with you for tonight," Tris says, standing up. "Find that other fuck-up and have fucked-up children together. Don't name them after fruits or months. Be original and just name them like children."
"But she's gone," I say.
Tris snorts. "Nick, Norah's not gone. She's clearly someplace. All you have to do is find out where that is."
"Any ideas?" I ask.
"Nope," Tris answers, walking out of my life once again. "You're on your own."
I let her leave. I watch her walk into the blast of music blaring from the open door of the club.
Then I look back to the sidewalk and try to map the possibilities.
12. NORAH
I am still hungry.
I am also still tired, and still vaguely interested in my future life of sainthood, but still. I gnaw. The stale Oreo I am munching in the cab, with the cookie part soggy instead of crisp, the white center near-gelatinous-like a room temperature ice cream sandwich-is brilliant, but not coming close to quelling this hunger. I'm not sure whether the gnawing is coming from my stomach or the Arctic vicinities around that area that, earlier, eerily melted under the greenhouse effect of Nick's touch.
"Are we going or not?" the taxi driver asks me. We've sat through five rotations of the light at Houston and West Broadway while I decide where I want to go. The driver is putting up with my uncertainty because he's hopeful I won't follow through on my threat to either be driven to Jersey or file a formal complaint if he gives me any more shit about leaving the city.
"Where to, lady?"
I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!
I can only process two rational thoughts. (1) I want more stale Oreos from that Korean grocery, and (2) I don't want some stupid fucking guy to be the reason I stop liking Where's Fluffy. I need to erase the memory of my favorite Fluffy song, their gay rights anthem "Lesbian Lap Dance," from being my last memory of the band, the song they were performing when genius girl decided to take Nick by the hand for some lap-dance action of our own. I need to get back to that fucking club.
"Back to Ludlow," I tell the driver.
Did I go too far with Nick, or not far enough? Or is it that I'm just plain unattractive? I never should have deleted all those spam e-mails advertising the vitamin supplements for fuller, firmer breasts. I'm more stacked than Caroline and Tris but mine go off in the wrong directions-over and out instead of up and in. It's probably time for me to wake up and accept the fact that I may be in need of a makeover.
The driver sighs, shakes his head, then pulls an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic from where we've been idling at the curb. He turns up the radio volume, perhaps hoping he will not hear me if I should change my mind again. How a former second-string player on the Kazakhstan soccer team came to be driving a graveyard-shift taxi in Manhattan and listening to Z100 instead of the standard 1010 WINS (all news, all depressing, all the time), which I had always assumed to be the one cardinal rule of taxicab radio etiquette, I don't know. Everyone has their story.
Vintage Britney sings from the pop radio station; she knows about toxic. Nick must think I'm toxic, marauding him in a closet at a Fluffy show. He didn't try to stop me when I left that room, or when I left him to get into this taxi. He didn't even wave good-bye.
The cab is careening down Bowery, whizzing by the club where earlier tonight Nick asked if I would be his girlfriend for five minutes, then made me like him, then looked right at me and made a public declaration with those magic words-"FUCK-SHIT-COCK"-that left me no choice but to make a play for him. I remember seeing Crazy Lou at the Where's Fluffy show, long after those five minutes had expired. Lou would only leave his club for someone else to close up shop if-
"STOP!" I shout at the driver over the music. I'm already where I'm supposed to be.
The driver slams the brakes so hard I toss my cookies-truly. The jolt sends my bag of Oreos to the floor. The taxi halted, the Kazakh poster king turns around and from the other side of the plastic divide yells back at me, "WHAT YOU WANT ANYWAY, LADY? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?"
Tal is across the street, ushering the remaining club inhabitants from the establishment, closing up his uncle's place for the night. His post-show usual, Tal's shirt is off and he's sweeping the sidewalk. I remember Tal's chest, all lean muscle, too scrawny, too vegan. I remember my hands on Nick's chest. I liked touching Nick. He had something to grab on to. I want more touch.
I don't know what's the matter with me, driver. But if I am destined to a life of loneliness and celibacy, isn't there some side rule that entitles me to go out in one last blaze of glory? One last booty call?
Three times I start to get out of the cab to pursue that last rite. I reach for the door handle and count the money in my wallet. Three times I stop and sit still again.
"What'll it be? Are you getting in or getting out?" the driver asks.
Over the tail end of Britney's song, I can hear The Clash wailing in my head, Should I stay or should I go?
I can't think with all these voices! I snap at the driver, "Lighten Up, Motherfucker." I bet Where's Fluffy are playing that conservative backlash song this very moment. Sucks that I am missing it. Nick's fault.
In a flash, the driver turns around to face me. "You want to sit in this cab and decide where to go, I don't care. It's your money." He points to the meter, still running. Time is always fucking me over. "But I'll tell you what I tell my five daughters when they get fresh. This is a gentleman you're talking to, not a casting director for The Sopranos. Watch your mouth or get out of the cab."
"Okay," I say. "Sorry." I bet he's a really nice dad. I bet his daughters make his favorite foods from Kazakhstan for him and nag him about getting his prostate checked regularly. "
But could you at least change the station?"
"Deal," he says. The next station is playing "I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline. I have no choice but to cry. The driver hands me a box of Kleenex from the front. "Want to tell me about it?"
"Boys are idiots," I tell him, sniffling. If I'm a horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, it's because boys make me one. "I hope you don't let your five daughters date them."
"I try not to," he laughs. "I try."
I ask the driver to turn his headlights off while we idle at yet another curb. I want to think before I decide whether or not to talk to Tal, and I don't want Tal to notice me in this cab before I've had time to figure this out.
The last time I saw Tal was also at Lou's club, before Tal took off for the kibbutz, just after he dropped out of Columbia. We were in the back hallway after a show, the club room empty and darkened, smelling of beer and piss and cigarettes, littered with bottles and cups and shirts and the accumulated, spent energy of that night's mosh. Tal stood over me-too tall Tal, he's almost 6-foot-4-and had to crouch down to meet my lips. His kiss was wet, sloppy. I used to suspect this was true, but before, I didn't have much comparison. "Norah," Tal whispered, and it was the Israeli half of his inflection I heard, whereas the other tired word in his English vocabulary-"baby"-usually came out with the American side of his accent. When I was sixteen his Israeli accent saying "Norah" did sound hot to me, exciting, but at eighteen I heard it differently: it was grating, ugly, like phlegm choking up from the back of his throat instead of a wanton call.
Caroline had two guys fighting over her outside the club, and I think Tris must have been with Nick at that point, because I was all alone with Tal with nothing else to do. It was soon after our fifth and supposedly final breakup, and all I wanted from Tal was for him to shut up so we could get down to business. Tal generally preferred to read the Forward while whacking off in his dorm room instead of have sex with me, so it must have been a dream come true for him in the back hallway of the club-there I was, doing the work for him, without wanting anything in return. He was satisfied to let this happen and not speak to me or touch me back.