by Leslie Cohen
I had her thinking about it. I had this girl’s attention. But who knew for how much longer?
I looked up. I went and kissed her, and it was a damn good kiss. It was actually perfect. When I moved away from her, I saw that she was about to change her mind. She squinted at me.
“I don’t want to go to New Jersey.” She smiled.
“Nobody does,” I said, and then lifted her up and carried her to the Ninth Street PATH station.
EVE
* * *
FIFTH STREET, MY APARTMENT, A ROOM OF MY OWN
The trail of rose petals began at my door and led to the bed. I looked down at my feet, at the faded yellow petals strewn across the wood floor. My initial thought, honestly, was: I am about to get murdered by a very creative serial killer. But then I realized that the petals were familiar. There had been roses of that exact color, in a vase on my kitchen counter, for about a week.
“You used old rose petals?” I went into the kitchen, where Ben was standing in his boxers.
He turned around and looked at me. “Yeah? So?”
“You’re not supposed to use old rose petals!” I started to smile. “You’re supposed to use new ones, assuming this is the romantic gesture that I think it’s supposed to be.”
“But we had roses already.” He looked perplexed.
“We didn’t have anything. I had roses that were about to die.”
“Exactly! They were dying, so I gave them a new purpose. People use new rose petals?”
“Yes!”
“But that’s such a waste.”
I stared at him. “What are you still doing here anyway?”
He shrugged. “Well, after you left, I fell back asleep. And then I decided to be romantic, with the rose petals, so that you’d have something nice to see when you got home. And then I made myself a sandwich, which was delicious, by the way.”
I went at him with a book I grabbed off the table. “Get out!” I swatted him on the shoulder, as if he were a fly. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
“But . . .” He turned and looked helplessly at the kitchen counter, where every single one of my condiment jars was open and had a knife sticking out of it. He took a deep breath, like he was about to say something profound, and used a concerned voice. “But I haven’t even told you about the sandwich yet.”
He started to remove each knife from its appropriated jar and ran them under the tap water. When he was finished, he dried them all off with a towel.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” I said, watching him. “I’m just worried that you’re going to confuse our relationship with a proper one. No rose petals, okay?”
“So you aren’t really my girlfriend?” He smirked, waiting for me to take the bait.
My eyes narrowed on him. “You know that we’re just sleeping together.”
He grinned and interlocked his fingers, stretched them over his head, yawning.
“It’s weird how you keep kicking me out and then the next weekend texting me, I missssssss you, where arrrrre you? What are you up to? Some people might think that you don’t know what you want.”
“Funny. I don’t feel confused.”
He was right, and I was wrong. But that all seemed like much less of a concern if he was no longer in my apartment.
“I’m just not sure why you’re asking me what my plans are on any given Saturday night, when you know that it’s the same answer every time.”
“What?” I said quietly.
“If you go, I’ll go.” He reached for me.
I walked over to the bed, picked up his T-shirt from the floor.
“That’s pathetic,” I said, throwing the shirt at him. He caught it and laughed.
Ben tried to explain, as I was pushing him out the door, that it was the result of serendipity that led him to me, over and over again. In the field of engineering, he said that it could be a measure of great progress to figure something out by chance, something that was not sought after deliberately. It was to stumble upon something much better than what was originally desired.
“It was a fluke,” I said, and then walked away from him, started to clean up my apartment, to gather a few glasses scattered about, collecting them in the sink.
“Synchronicity,” he insisted.
“I don’t know what that means!” I yelled behind me.
Ben took on a professor-like tone. “It’s the idea that just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Rather than being ‘meant to be’ or a result of fate, some things just fall together in time. It’s a principle of explanation, a hypothetical factor equal in rank to causality. So I didn’t seek you out. X didn’t cause Y. But I think the fact that we kept running into each other punctured a hole in rationalism. It broke intellectual resistance. We’ve come into each other’s lives over and over again, and that’s fine. No big deal. But because we have, we begin to feel a destiny with each other that tests whether we actually have one, and then we do, because we thought that we might.”
“You thought that we might.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Oh come on. It’s a meaningful coincidence. Look. Think about how easy it would have been for this not to have happened, or for some variation to have taken place instead. That’s the phenomenon of parallel universes, the theory of quantum physics that we are all somehow navigating through alternate worlds that are correlated to our past histories, among the myriad possible other worlds that are not as correlated.”
“I don’t believe in parallel universes.”
“How would you know? Maybe this version of you doesn’t believe, but others might. All I can tell you is that I think back on all those times that we ran into each other and I think, Thank God you were there, you know? You could have been anywhere, in any number of places, and you were there.”
“So this is destiny? Is that your little theory? I don’t think so, Ben.”
“C’mon,” he said. “What are the chances that we’d ever even interact with each other, let alone have the best sex of your life?” He smiled.
“GET OUT!” I shouted.
I watched him get dressed. I didn’t stop him through the T-shirt and pants and belt, but then once he started lacing up his shoes, the guilt came on. I examined the floor around his feet, the brown suede shoes, his hands fiddling with the laces. I thought, What are you doing? I didn’t want him to leave. I went over to him and put my head against his shoulder. He stopped moving.
“I don’t think we should have any more sleepovers,” I said. He laughed and put his arm around my waist.
“No more cuddling then,” he said, his mouth close to my ear, his arms wrapped around me tightly. “Your loss.”
* * *
After he left, I picked up the rose petals from the floor and threw them into the garbage. I put everything back in order—dishes and glasses into the dishwasher, the comforter smoothed evenly over the bed, clothes folded into piles. The sun was creating a big block of warm light in the middle of the apartment. I decided to go out for a walk, to get rid of some of the energy inside of me, the chaotic thoughts. I was ready to make the city work for me, as it always did, when I felt this way. I’d walk for a while, stomp the pavement. I’d lose myself in the activity around me, in the strange faces and hodgepodge of stores and restaurants, and then I’d come home, feeling restored. I grabbed a jacket from my closet and bounced down the single flight of stairs, past the double doors, the entrance hallway with its pink tiles lining the walls.
Once outside, my preference was always to go left, toward Astor Square. Fifth Street was a row of walk-ups and townhouses, with trees planted every so often, which made it charming and picturesque. All the buildings on the block were around five stories high. There was very little traffic, few pedestrians walking by. Fifth Street was always my savior. Whenever I turned onto it, I felt an immediate sense of relief. My building was a pink walk-up with a mint-green door and a steep white staircase leading up to it. It was less
authentic-looking than the other dark red and brown walk-ups on the block, and more like the cartoon version, but I loved the fact that I could see it from down the street. I told people who came over to look for the “cutest” walk-up on the block, and they always found it easily, the walk-up that looked like it was frosted pink for somebody’s birthday.
As I walked, thoughts about my mother were turning every which way. I hadn’t told Ben yet about her, or about my father. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t worth it, that my relationship with Ben wasn’t important enough. We didn’t talk about our parents. And from what I could tell, his family life was perfect, which would only make me, even more so, the damaged girl. She’ll be so dependent on me, he’ll think. Her father left, and she’ll never trust another man. When Ben returned my mother’s card to me, I could have told him then. I was so relieved to put it back into its rightful place in my wallet. It had felt so empty, with the card gone. I’d kept it there ever since the day she gave it to me. There was nothing extraordinary about the card itself, or about the fact that she gave it to me. At the time, it was a mostly practical measure. She was giving me a way to contact her at work, in case her cell phone wasn’t working. It was actually sort of annoying. “Just don’t turn off your cell,” I had said. “Nobody shuts off their cell phone these days, Mom, like ever.” She had the habit of turning it off when she wasn’t using it, which my sister and I found infuriating.
Looking back on it though, I think she was actually sort of proud of that card. It symbolized something larger—how she’d managed to move on from what happened with my father. She had a new husband and a new job—both located in Manhattan. When she first got the card, she pointed out to us how the letters were raised slightly, explained that that was a sign that they weren’t cheaply made, that the letters were embossed and not simply printed. “Only fancy companies do that,” she’d said. Then she showed us the address, that ever so important address—“downtown Manhattan,” she’d declared, in case we hadn’t noticed.
I had rolled my eyes, took the card, planned to plug the number into my phone and then forget about it, toss it. But then, after a few days had gone by, I found that I rather liked having it in there, tucked away, a small white rectangle that was visible whenever I opened my wallet. It was a reminder of how well she was doing now, and thank God, after all she’d been through. I didn’t have to worry about her anymore. It also served as a kind of connection to her, something that I could feel. And then once she was gone, really gone, I was certainly not removing it then. I guess I liked to think back on that time when she gave it to me, of her desire to protect me.
It was just a small, reassuring object. It wasn’t sentimental, really, but it was her, present. I pictured her outstretched hand, handing it to me, with no idea of the wrenching moments that would come later. I literally could not remove it from my wallet. It was silly, no rhyme or reason to keep it there. I had more sentimental things, so many objects that meant more, but the card reminded me, each time I saw it, of the first time I saw it, a time before, when my life was intact, not perfect of course, but intact. Back when I had more of a grip on things, a safety net beneath me. Don’t get me wrong. There were a few holes in the net. I’d discovered them over the years, one cavernous hole for my father, but I knew where the holes were, and I was grateful for the part that was strung together. At least I had that. Actually, you know what, I wasn’t grateful for it. It was just there. I lived my life, dealt with whatever small problems came up, and it was just there, in case I needed it. But then when it was gone, I so missed that time. I missed life with that hole-filled but somewhat solid object beneath me, life before it all became untethered, before I found myself not tied to anything. The funny thing was I kept looking around for a replacement—left, right, up, down—scanning for something to ground me. I didn’t care. Just tie me to something! It wasn’t like I was alone, really. I had my sister and friends and various certified adults who cared, my mother’s friends, my stepfather. But it wasn’t enough. It felt profoundly like not enough. Losing my mother, the biggest adjustment was to a life untethered. I had this feeling like I could do anything and go anywhere and it wouldn’t matter, like nobody was keeping track of me. I had this freedom that I hated.
* * *
It was dark outside by the time I got home. Emma was sitting on the steps in front of my building, bags piled next to her.
“Learn to answer your phone,” she said, and then gave me her signature look of hostility.
“I couldn’t hear it on the street,” I replied, coming up the stairs. “I thought you were coming later.”
“My friends are already out,” she said. “I need to eat before I meet up with them, and Arthur says I have to spend time with you first.”
“That’s very generous of you.” I unlocked the door, and she walked ahead of me.
“Look at this place,” she said. “Everything is so ordered and immaculate. It’s so unrepresentative of who you are.”
She was wearing jeans and a sweater, but she had long blond hair and long legs, so everything that she wore made her look statuesque. Her hair had gotten blonder lately, which made her look more like our mother. “Where’s a good place to get food?” She got on her phone and started typing. “Are you hungry? Do you want anything?” she asked.
An hour later, she was lying on my floor with a salad and a container of french fries. Emma drifted between my apartment and Arthur’s, while she saved up to afford her own place. Arthur and I didn’t mesh, didn’t have any chemistry. Basically: if life were a sitcom, Arthur and I would never have been given our own subplot. We were okay, as two parts of a larger group, but the writers would never have put us alone together. Emma was better with him. They talked a lot about sports. Even went to a few games together, a James Taylor concert. But whenever Arthur and I were alone together, silence blanketed the room.
“I can’t believe he’s not driving you bonkers,” I said to her. “When I lived there, he annoyed the hell out of me. So many jokes.”
Arthur couldn’t pick out a tomato at the grocery store without making conversation with those around him, without doing a little comedy routine in the produce aisle. When waitresses at restaurants asked him for his drink order, he said, “Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm,” with great joy, as if there was such great joy in being asked, and then declared his choice with gusto, as if he were giving them the thrill of the century.
“I don’t get annoyed,” Emma said plainly. And I thought, Right. Emma behaved as if everything didn’t affect her, whereas I always felt like I was wrenched out from underneath.
“Have you heard his latest ringtone?” I asked.
“I think so.”
“ ‘Stayin’ Alive’?”
“Yeah, I think it went off when we were at dinner once.”
“I never thought I would hear that song so many times in my life.”
“Yeah,” she said distantly. “It’s an odd choice.”
I sat there in silence as Emma got up to use my computer. I lay on my bed. She barely regarded me, or looked up from her typing. She eyed the notepad that was next to the computer, and then picked it up, held it in front of my face. I looked closer. At the bottom of the page, it read, “Remind me to tell you something about LES Jewels.”
I took it from her, ripped the sheet from the pad, and crumpled the paper into a ball. The note was from Ben. LES Jewels, a.k.a. Lower East Side Jewels, was a homeless person known throughout the East Village. Ben and I had seen him the night before, asking for spare change outside of Tompkins Square Park, and then again by Ray’s Candy Store. LES Jewels knew everybody. He was what one might call a lovable neighborhood eccentric. He talked to people. But he was also mentally ill and kind of a problem. He would stop cars in the middle of the street and refuse to move. Ben and I often discussed him, along with the other characters who frequented the East Village, but Ben was the one who drifted into full-on research mode about it, always coming up with new tidbits to tell me.
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br /> “Who is this from?” Emma asked. “And why are you smiling so much?” I forced my face into a frown and studied her. She stood up, looked at my closet with a thin layer of mistrust. She rifled through the T-shirts that were folded near the foot of the bed.
“What is going on?” she demanded, holding up a COLUMBIA ENGINEERING T-shirt.
I gave her a wide-eyed look. “What if I were dating someone? Would that be so crazy?”
She made a face as if she were sucking on something sour. “Who would date you?”
She smiled and sat down in my desk chair. “I’m just kidding,” she said. “Sort of.” She grabbed the paper and pen and started writing.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s just some guy.”
“What guy?”
“This guy, Ben.”
“Who is he? Do you have a secret boyfriend?” Every now and then, Emma still fell into the role of the younger sister who didn’t want to be left out. The one screaming “Welcome to the family!” to my childhood crush.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said quickly. “Last night, we went to this stupid Christmas party in the community gardens on Ninth Street. There was this potluck and they built a fire in a wheelbarrow and . . .” I started to talk about the party, getting increasingly animated. “There was this guy there, Biker Bill. He’s one of the Hells Angels. You know the Hells Angels? He has a ponytail and a goatee and he’s this huge guy. Everyone calls him Biker Bill. Anyway, Biker Bill was like . . . not moving from in front of this fire and the cops started coming by. There was this man claiming to be a veteran paratrooper with a gun collection. It was a bunch of weirdos. Anyway, Lower East Side Jewels tried to put out the fire with his shoe and . . .”
“Why’d you go to that?”