Broken Enagement

by Gage Grayson

  “I know I wasn’t too useful during that meeting,” I tell her.

  “Um, I’m not sure how to describe what you were, but it’s not like I was expecting anything from anyone this time.” Maddie’s gathering a pair of large accordion folders from the Board table as she speaks.

  “Is there anything in those folders?”

  Maddie shrugs. “Odds and ends.”

  Maddie continues to stare at the table, her hands holding down the folders, and smiles.

  “You’re not still using the dog filter, are you?” she asks.

  “What? It’s a classic.”

  “Dude...I don’t know.”

  Maddie’s smiling, still looking at her folders. She’s not ready to leave, and neither am I.

  “Are you going to that show at the Highline Ballroom on Saturday? That band Dead Guys? Their album just came out.” I don’t know why the fuck I asked that, or why the fuck I’m ranting about some band from Brooklyn.

  But Maddie looks up from her folders, surprised.

  “Seriously? Nobody could get tickets for that. I tried, but they never play at a place that size.”

  “I can get tickets, if you want to come.”

  Maddie laughs. “If I want to come? If you can get tickets, I’m so fucking there. Give me a call.”

  Ethan

  Tonight is one of those nights that reminds me that I need to stop spending ninety percent of my time either at work or at home.

  Live music is everywhere in this city, all the damn time. And at its best, it can stop time.

  That’s what it feels like right now, standing in the middle of the general admission with Maddie.

  The energy from the stage, the all-encompassing barrage of crystal-clear sound, the energy in the crowd—it all creates a moment bigger than the future or the past.

  Time keeps stopping. Maddie and I acknowledge these moments together, looking at each other, then back to the stage.

  But then time marches on, and after two encores, the time-stopping show comes to an end.

  The house lights come up, and I immediately ask Maddie a hard-hitting question.

  “So, are they coming out again, or what?”

  “No,” Maddie tells me, “not likely.”

  “Now what?” I ask.

  “Now, we dance.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No.”

  But then we dance anyway. Slowly, to the Louis Armstrong song playing over the Highline Ballroom’s PA system.

  The crowd clears out as we dance, and the staff comes in to start cleaning plastic cups from the floor.

  “After we dance, then what?” I inquire.

  “You tell me,” Maddie responds.

  The song ends, the house lights get even brighter, and now the only sound is the cleaning staff doing their jobs.

  “Is it time to leave yet?” I ask.

  Maddie watches the exit, scoping out the hallway.

  “Yeah, I think it might be safe now.”

  We leave the brightened auditorium and enter the emptying corridor.

  “Maybe we can squeeze in one last drink at this bar, if it’s not closing down.” Maddie gestures towards a small bar in the hallway as we pass.

  The bartender’s closing shop, taking down the beer cans and wine bottles he has on display.

  “I’m not sure if it is,” I tell her.

  “Not quite yet, folks,” the bartender informs us.

  “We’ll have two red wines, please.” I point to the sole bottle of red wine on the bar. “Actually, you can give us the whole bottle. That’ll be fine, too.”

  “You can have the display model.” The bartender uncorks the bottle and hands us two fresh plastic cups.

  The house music is still coming through the hallway speakers. Now it’s a clarinet playing Down by the Riverside.

  “Mm,” I say, commenting about the music as I take my first sip of the cheap pinot noir.

  I don’t know if Maddie knows why I said “Mm.”

  “Mm, indeed,” she responds.

  “I’m liking this jazz motif tonight,” I tell her.

  “Yeah,” Maddie says, looking at something on the ceiling for a second.

  “I like tonight in general,” I blurt out. “I don’t know why, but I really do, and I can’t keep it to myself.”

  Maddie nods. “Me, too.”

  I glance over at the bartender counting his tips.

  “What do you really think?” I ask Maddie.

  “Um, I think it’s in the fucking greatest. That show...it’s been fucking great. And this wine, well, it’s not bad, either.”

  “But what now?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I’m probably going to have to pee sooner or later, but I guess we’ll both have to stay in suspense about that.”

  I want to tell Maddie that when I left my apartment at five-thirty in the afternoon, I thought I could face anything.

  I was well-rested for once. I felt healthy. I had nothing else to do but see her.

  But I felt like there was something else I had to take care of, something missing.

  It wasn’t boredom. I don’t know what it was.

  But now, being here with her at the show, watching her sip wine from a plastic cup, that feeling’s gone.

  “When do you think that’ll be? I wasn’t really thinking about when you needed to...you know.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Maddie says, and laughs at her own nonsense.

  It’s fucking Maddie. She’s really here.

  I laugh, too.

  “The wine can’t be helping,” I remark.

  “Oh, I think it’s helping. I mean, I’m used to the Trader Joe’s two buck chuck...”

  “It’s four buck chuck in Manhattan.”

  “Fucking tell me about it, right?”

  “This is just slightly better, isn’t it” I ask.

  I look over at the bartender, who heard me. He shrugs.

  “I know I don’t have the same line Trader Joe’s always has out the door,” he points out.

  “Yeah, that place is like Studio fucking 54,” Maddie says, which gets me thinking.

  I got us into the show, I might as well take Maddie wherever the hell she wants to go.

  “Do you want to go there now?” I ask her.

  “What, Studio 54? Do you have a time machine? Or do you just mean Trader Joe’s?”

  “Anywhere, everywhere. Where do you want to go?”

  Maddie gulps down the rest of her red wine, and I do the same.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” she says.

  It sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.

  I hand the bartender a fifty. “No change,” I tell him. He’s silent as we leave.

  “That was like, what a two-hundred percent tip?” Maddie’s growing gleeful, her eyes shining with amusement. “Christ, you do like to tip well, don’t you? Now I remember...”

  Maddie’s face falls, and she sighs deeply instead of finishing her thought.

  “Remember what, Madeline?”

  “That I believe in tipping generously.” Maddie sounds barely believable herself.

  “What else to you believe in?”

  “I guess I believe in the Highline Ballroom. The sound was pretty good tonight, it seems like the crowds are managed well...”

  “Do you state all your beliefs in the form of a Yelp review?”

  “Do you not?”

  “I don’t, but it’s not a bad idea. What else do you believe in that rates at least four stars?”

  “Hey, that wasn’t a four-star review!” Maddie responds as we walk side by side towards the exit, seeing the last few stragglers leave in front of us. “I don’t believe in hanging out in Manhattan most Saturday nights.”

  “Ah. So, wait, where do you hang out?”

  She responds by smiling blushingly.

  “I knew it! Williamsburg. That is who you are.”

  “Sometimes. Or...yeah. More than sometimes.”

  “Oh. Do you wa
nt to go there?”

  “Fuck, no, not tonight,” Maddie says pointedly. “Let’s just go for a walk. Around here—Williamsburg is too fucking far. But we’ll see.”

  Frankly, if Maddie wanted to walk all the way to the Lower East Side, across the Williamsburg Bridge, all the way up to Bedford Avenue, I would do it in a second.

  I’d walk with her all the way to Queens, Long Island, the Bronx, upstate, wherever the fuck she wanted to go.

  But right now, we’re just going for a walk.

  “Okay, let’s go for a walk in Chelsea. It’ll be a start.”

  “O...kay.” Maddie says it slowly with a big nod and an even bigger smile.

  A wonderful, goofy smile.

  Goofy. There’s a word that I haven’t thought of in five years, and that I’ve said maybe never.

  Walking with Maddie through the exit, each of us pushing open one of the glass doors, I’m enjoying that word a whole fucking lot.

  “Oh, man, it’s like seventy fucking degrees out.” I know it’s Maddie’s voice saying this, but it’s a perfect mirror of my thoughts.

  What a seriously beautiful night.

  “Tonight is perfect. The weather, I mean.”

  “Sure…and how the fuck did the crowd vanish so fast? Just where are they?”

  “Williamsburg.”

  I watch Maddie sign which direction she wants to go. Her feet are pointed uptown.

  “Yeah, probably. They scattered to Brooklyn and everywhere else.”

  “Now it’s nobody here in the city, nobody here but us.”

  “Nobody here but us chickens?” Maddie enquires brightly while grabbing my hand.

  Maddie’s grip gets tighter, and I have another moment of questioning whether I’m in a dream while we cross an empty West 16th Street.

  “What else would we be?”

  Now that we’re on the uptown side of the street, I begin guiding us west, walking towards the High Line itself.

  “What are you doing?” Maddie complains with a laugh. “We can’t go any further. The river’s right there, and chickens can’t fucking swim.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “How would I know that? Ever seen a chicken swim?”

  “Don’t be chicken; we got a couple blocks of dry land before that. And Del Posto.”

  “Del Posto? Is that in the cards for tonight, Eth?”

  I see the empty blocks stretching in front of us, the columns supporting the High Line, the sparse, twinkling lights of Hoboken across the river…

  It almost seems to good to be true.

  “Look into your heart, Madeline. Whatever you truly want, that’s what’s in the cards.”

  Madeline and I both stop at the exact same time. Even in the low light, the emerald of her eyes slices through everything.

  Our hands are clasping with growing intent. I feel my temperature rising, and I’m sure Maddie’s is, too.

  “Part of me wants to make you regret your offer,” she coos quietly.

  “Which part?”

  “To be determined, Eth. Our walk’s not over, yet.”

  Maddie and I start walking again, staying on our path to the waterfront.

  Ethan

  “Let’s just break into the fucking park, already.” Maddie’s looking up at something—it might be the night sky, or it might just be the High Line Park looming overhead.

  “Already? How long have you been thinking about this?”

  “Since the High Line closed at seven.”

  “You mean before the show started?” I’m watching Maddie as we walk, enjoying her expression as she looks up at whatever she’s looking up at.

  “Yeah, I guess,” she says. “Fuck it, let’s go get a drink instead.”

  I scan the street in front of us and my mental map of the area for a good place to drink nearby.

  “Have we seen even one other person since we left High Line Ballroom?” Maddie’s scanning the area herself, unabashedly confused.

  “Have you? Have I? I don't know.”

  “Maybe we're ghosts,” Maddie surmises.

  “You might be right,” I reply.

  I think carefully about saying what I want to say next.

  I think about caution and all that it means at this moment, which is not much. So, I just say it.

  “Maybe we're still parasailing. Maybe that's where we ended up.”

  Maddie looks at the Hudson River.

  “I know they do trapeze lessons out there,” she says, changing the subject. “I don't think they do parasailing, though. Where are we going to get that drink, anyway?”

  “Let’s go to Wright’s Place. I think that's the closest.” The name of the bar just slips out.

  “Wright’s Place?”

  “That’s right. Wright’s Place.”

  “What kind of fucking name is that?”

  Holy shit. It really is Maddie. There’s no doubt about it.

  “It’s not the best name,” I admit. “But it’s right here.”

  We’re already entering the small AstroTurf park under the bar. There are a couple benches, a fenced-in dog run, and a patch of sand facing the river.

  The park is abandoned, but I hear a Lorde song blasting from the bar, and some laughing voices.

  “There it is.” I point to the outdoor, wooden stairwell leading up to the second-story bar. “Let’s go.”

  “Okay, let’s…but, what’s in that first story?” Maddie points to the plain, brick ground floor of the small building, with its two unadorned steel doors.

  “Just a restroom. Come on, let’s go get that drink.”

  Maddie doesn’t need any more inspiration, she’s on her way up the stairs before I even finish the word drink.

  Wright’s Place is a single room. It’s maybe a hundred square feet, always a little too small for the crowds it attracts. When we walk in, there’s only a minor throng of people clumped at end of the bar, waiting their turn for the sole bartender’s attention.

  I never really understood this place or its weird décor. The wine-colored carpeting suits the dark wood-paneled walls, but the two black and yellow art deco-patterned rugs clash with the carpet. The fifties-style jukebox and random painting of a ship are also out of place.

  Seeing it through Maddie’s eyes, watching her take in the room for the first time, I’m finally learning to appreciate it. The design decisions are all unintentional and there’s no theme, but there’s no other place like it.

  “I like it.” Maddie’s taking in the glass chandelier, which is also out of fucking nowhere.

  We’re at the back of the misshapen line, the entrance just behind our backs.

  “I like it, too. They just need to install some touchscreen kiosks to cut down on the lines.”

  Maddie’s eyes move down from the chandelier, and I get a small jolt when she faces me, lit up with the perfect grin.

  “What? So, this place can be another fuckin’ Panera or something?” Maddie’s smile grows sassier, and that little jolt of power I felt is now growing, as well.

  I look over at the jukebox to stop myself from getting too out of sorts.

  There’s a woman standing by the jukebox. Her hair is dyed bright blue and tied back into two buns with turquoise scrunchies.

  “Yes, what’s wrong with that?” I look back at Maddie—a much more pleasant sight.

  “You know what? Nothing. They should also have soup, bread, cookies and Wi-Fi.”

  “They might already,” I respond, but Maddie now has her eyes on the drink the bartender’s making currently. He’s pouring from two bottles into a plastic cup, somehow creating a fluorescent green-tinted cocktail.

  “What am I supposed to order?” Maddie asks, still facing the bar.

  “Try the Island Punch.”

  Maddie does another quick scan of the room’s furnishings. “It’s really called that? There’s nothing island-y about this place.”

  “Except that drink name...”

  “And we are on an island
.” Maddie’s contemplating the view through the window, and I start to crack up. “The fuck you laughing at, mister?”

  “You look so serious. I love it.”

  “Don’t be condescending, I’m trying to figure this shit out. Now, we’re on an island, there’s sand downstairs...”

  The bartender now has the line moving, and we shuffle forward a couple feet.

  “...and there are string lights outside the windows,” continues Maddie. “That’s kind of tropical, right?”

  “I appreciate your positivity, but I don’t know if that’s connected to the drink name.”

  “I’m not asking what you know, Mister Barrett. All I need is your opinion on the goddamn string lights.”

  A Drake song begins playing. A guy in a three-piece suit starts flailing wildly to the music coming out of the retro-looking jukebox. The blue-haired lady looks on coolly.

  “My opinion is it’s all connected. The lights, this island, this city made of islands, the sand outside, it’s all part of the experience of the Island Punch.”

  Maddie studies my face with her jade-green eyes. To her, this discussion is of the utmost importance, and there will be no rest until it’s resolved.

  “I concur. Still doesn’t explain why this is called fuckin’ Wright’s Place.”

  “We could ask the bartender,” I offer.

  “Nah, fuck that. We need to leave some mystery unsolved for next time.”

  As much as I like the sound of those words—next time—this is a moment to bite my tongue and leave some mystery unsolved myself.

  There may or not be a next time, but this time is happening right fucking now. And it’s almost our turn to get a drink.

  The man in front of us, wearing a fucking pea-green leisure suit of all things, is asking slow, infuriating questions of the bartender.

  “Do you have wine?” he inquires.

  “Merlot.” The bartender, wearing a vest and tie, swings the green wine bottle up from under the bar for the leisure suit guy to see.

  “Merlot,” the leisure suit guy repeats, “Merlot, totally. Can you pour that with some cola?”

  “Sure thing.”

  The bartender begins work on the bizarre order right away. Everything about him seems friendly and pleasant, and he’s dressed nicely enough to wait tables at L'atelier.

  “Madeline, would you like to eat at L'atelier after this? Or Del Posto, maybe?” I want to get the suggestions out before I forget about them, and I also want to keep this evening going as long as I can.