Can I Get An Amen? (5 page)

“So,” he began, with an expression that was meant to put me at ease. “I hear you’ve been auditioning for
Girls Gone Wild
.”

I fished around in a steaming-hot bowl of brothy noodles with a pair of chopsticks. “Did Kat tell you that?”

“Well, I took a little poetic license, but yeah, she and Mom both said that you’ve been going out, like, a lot. Like a-Lindsay-Lohan lot.”

Shaking my head, I gave an exasperated little chuckle.
Oh, those two!
“I mean, I’ve definitely been going out, but I was married for four years and with Gary for two years before that. I’d say that I’m just cutting loose a little.”

“That’s kind of what I told them, but even Kat thinks it’s gotten…”

“What?”

He looked me right in the eyes. “A little out of control.”

“Lukie, come on! You know how Kat and Mom completely blow things out of proportion. It’s the one thing they have in common.”

“All right, but you should probably chill out a little. You need to start figuring shit out, you know?”

“What do you mean?” I was on the defensive now. “What do I need to
figure out
?”

“Like, what you’re going to do for money?” he began, astounded that I needed him to recite what should have been my ever-present concerns. “When you’re going to go up to Boston to deal with stuff? Where you’re going to live?”

I took a sip of wine, angry that Luke had managed to sour what was hitherto a perfectly enjoyable evening. “Well, thank you, Luke, for accurately framing for me what a train wreck my life is right now.”

Luke sat back and eyed me with that same look of serious yet tentative concern that I had seen on the faces of my parents, my sister, my childhood friend, even the occasional bartender. It was clear that the sudden change in my mood confirmed in Luke’s mind everything that Kat and my mother had been telling him. Breaking eye contact, he searched about the room for something, anything else to discuss with me. We spent the rest of the evening making the kind of meaningless chitchat that you might hear between two acquaintances who happened to sit next to each other on the bus, when they would really rather have ridden in silence.

I had driven to Hoboken and taken the PATH train—New Jersey’s version of a subway—into the city. After the de facto interminable wait during the non–rush hour time period, I finally boarded a car and made the trip back to my side of the Hudson. Hoboken was a busy town on a Friday night, chock-full of the sort of fresh-to-the-workforce college grads who slipped out of their Brooks Brothers suits and into baseball caps before heading
out for drinks. I made my way past the bars, their flashing flat-screens eternally tuned to ESPN, to the parking lot where I had left my car. It was an unseasonably warm evening, so I walked slowly, catching snippets of sidewalk conversations between friends, lovers, and those who fell somewhere in between. On the drive home, I was beginning to feel the nagging call for self-reflection that always followed sobriety, so before heading back to my parents’, I pulled off the interstate and headed to the bar that I had gone to with Kat on that very first night—and many nights since.

The bar masqueraded as a restaurant, so there were a few tables of customers finishing a late meal of pretentious but unremarkable fare. The bar was large and U-shaped, and the decor tried to approximate what the owners must have viewed as a New York look, but it was sadly a miss. Above the bar’s shiny, galvanized steel surface hung sleek, modern-looking pendant lights, which fought to illuminate the charcoal gray walls. It looked as though the renovation was a couple of years old, and all the clean lines and sleek surfaces had started to show some dings and dents, making the place look cheap and prematurely past its prime. The crowd was the usual, traders who should be home by now but were looking for a balm for the wounds they suffered daily in the floundering market; older men on dates with blond, manicured women who were hoping to achieve the enviable title of second wife.

I sat down and ordered a scotch on the rocks, which had become my go-to drink, as I imagined that men found it sexy to see a woman with her hand curled around a lowball full of the rich amber liquid. So much more sophisticated than any sort of idiotic ’tini. When ordering, I pretended to care about the liquor’s age and provenance, but all that mattered was that it would be
soothingly numbing. As I watched the bartender add one, two, three cubes of ice, I noticed a man sitting across the way who seemed utterly out of place. He looked like he belonged in a hip New York boîte, not in this slick Jersified imposter. He had honey brown hair that was just long enough to look slightly disheveled as it brushed the frames of his thick black glasses, the sort that could be worn well only by a man with his sharp, chiseled features and strong jaw. His fitted, faded gray T-shirt looked like it was tailored explicitly to showcase his long, well-defined muscles. He was a man at whom everyone in the bar, female and male alike, found themselves involuntarily sneaking glances. But no one approached him. Something about him was too uncomfortably authentic. In a bar that was full of pretense and posturing, he sat sipping a bottle of Budweiser and quietly laughing with two of his friends.

I had to will myself not to stare at him, at all three of them. But he, in particular, looked so comfortable in his skin, so en-grossed in conversation with his companions, that I found myself involuntarily drawn to him. After a few minutes, one of his friends, the tall, thin one, picked up a skateboard that was leaning against his stool, stood, gave his buddies a combo high-five/handshake, and left, still smiling as he slipped past frowning men and Botoxed, expressionless women on his way to the door. My eyes followed him out, and then I turned back to look for the man with the glasses, only to see that he had been watching me. His expression was not arrogant or mocking, but kind. I blushed and immediately turned away to see that someone had taken up the seat next to me, a man who looked about my age with a quick smile and well-cut suit.

He extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Ted.”

I smiled and shook it. “Ellen.” He launched into chitchat and
I was not at all surprised to learn that he was in sales. He was attractive enough, in a sort of frat-boy way, and had the kind of thick, dense body that looked strong and solid, but without much definition. He was easy to talk to, though, and provided a distraction from the man across the bar.

“So, where are you from?” he asked as he reached for the Asian snack mix in a small black bowl in front of us, pushing away the pieces that he didn’t care for and digging around for the sesame sticks.

“Well, originally here, but I just moved back from Boston.”

“Boston! Nice!” he said, happy to find a connection. “I went to school in Boston.”

We went through the Boston thing. Where precisely I had lived, restaurants I liked, all of that. I steered clear of any reference to my marriage.

“So, Ellen from Boston, Sox or Yankees?”

I hated this question. Baseball didn’t mean a thing to me, but to the type of person who asked this question, it definitely did. And ambivalence was unacceptable. I tried anyway. “Oh, I don’t know… Baseball’s not really my thing.”

“Come on,” he said, playfully pressing on. “You’re from Jersey but you lived in Boston; you have to be either Sox or Yankees.”

I could tell he was not going to give up. “Fine,” I said, lifting my hands as if weighing my options. “Sox.” It would be my final act of loyalty to Gary.

He lifted his glass in a toast to my apparently correct answer. “I knew I liked you, Ellen.” And he bought me a drink. But unlike on dozens of evenings past, I found myself unwilling to overtly flirt, as I was constantly aware of the man across the bar. Ted was clearly interested, and he continued to try to make
conversation, turning the topic first to real estate and then back to sports.

“I have a few trips planned to Boston this winter.” He was staring straight ahead now, but I could see that he was gauging my every reaction, hoping to find my sweet spot. “My buddy works in management for the Celtics, so I go up there for some home games. I get amazing seats.”

“Oh, I love the Celtics!”

Bingo. His eyes brightened and something flashed there that I didn’t quite recognize. I would later describe it as victory. He turned his whole body to face me. “Really?” he asked, clearly pleased. “You like hoops?”

I nodded, thinking back fondly to a very different time and place. A very different me. “Yeah, I do.”

“You know, I’ve met a lot of those guys,” he said, referring to the Celtics. “I have a basketball signed by last year’s starting five.”

I paused, remembering Daniel’s face, ecstatic and engrossed, as we sat in the thundering Fleet Center, watching agile, superhuman bodies rocket themselves off the ground. “I know someone who would love to see that.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the door. “It’s in my car right now. I just brought it for an appraisal. Want to check it out?” He saw my hesitation. “My car’s
literally
right outside.”

I didn’t really want to leave the bar to check out a basketball, even one signed by the Celtics, but Ted looked so eager, so proud. It would have been like disappointing a child. “Sure. Why not?” I said with a shrug.

I walked next to him with my arms crossed over my chest. Ted’s hand hovered behind my back to guide me in the direction of his car, which was on the ground floor in a nearby parking
garage. I started to feel inconvenienced by walking even the block and a half, which by definition was
not
literally right outside. Ted seemed like a nice enough guy, but I found myself wishing I’d found a way to politely decline.

It was late and the parking garage was all but empty, illuminated only by the streetlights outside. Ted hit a button on his keys and a huge black SUV gave an alert double-beep, beckoning us in its direction.

We were a few feet away from his car when I heard him stop. I reflexively tensed, some long-dormant, primal, preylike sense awakened. Glancing nervously back, I saw him gesture forward toward the car. “It’s right in the backseat,” he said with a smile that under the shadowy light no longer looked so innocent. “Just open up the door.”

Only then did it occur to me how strange it was that he happened to have a signed basketball in his car. Frame by frame, I played out what was about to happen. I would open the car door, leaning in to look for the basketball, with a 225-pound man behind me in a dark, barren parking garage.

The car’s interior light was on, but by now I didn’t expect to see the ball. “Actually, Ted, I really need to get going.” I started to step back, but he was right there. Spinning around to face him, I was now backed up against the cold, black metal.

“Come on, Ellen,” he said, reaching for the handle and effectively wedging me tight between him and the car. “I thought you loved the Celtics.” He was still playful, but this no longer felt like a game. None of it did.

“No, Ted, I really have to go.” My heart started to race and I tried to push past him, but he caught me around the waist and pulled me into him from behind. Laughing and swaying, he held me tight, his arms reaching up around my chest to restrain me.
From a boyfriend or lover, it would have been an affectionate hold. “Whoa, where you going, huh?” he whispered in my ear, his breath thick with alcohol.

“Let me go!” I yelled, trying to twist free, but his hand darted up and clamped down over my mouth.

“Shhhh,” he said, chuckling. “Relax, baby. I know you’re the type of girl that likes to have a little fun.” I could feel now how hard he was. He wanted me to feel it as he pressed himself against me. His damp mouth was again at my ear. “I’ve seen you before.” And finally the tears came. They rolled down my cheeks in frantic, crisscrossing lines, forming tiny pools where they met his hand. I wondered if this was how it always happened, if all the aggregate mistakes of a lifetime suddenly crystallize the very second it becomes too late.

I didn’t hear any footsteps and neither did he, but I felt him startle when we heard a man’s voice from behind us say, “Let her go. Now.” Strong and clear, the words overtook the empty garage.

Ted’s body reluctantly relaxed; his grip loosened. An on-looker definitely put a crimp in his plans. I immediately broke away and reeled back to see the man with the glasses standing with his arms crossed, staring—almost menacingly—at Ted.

“Hey, man, listen,” started Ted casually—he had slipped right back into his charming salesman mode—“I can totally see what this must have looked like, but I was just joking around. I wasn’t going to do anything.” He was so convincing, so totally believable, that I almost wondered if I had been imagining the danger, wondered if I was some hysterical girl who constantly had her finger on the trigger of a can of pepper spray, certain that every man was a potential rapist.

Without taking his eyes off Ted, the man with the glasses pointed in my direction. I was trying to steady my breath and
control my tears, halting gasps ineffectively filling my lungs. “Does it look like she thinks it was a
joke
?”

Ted made a face, a petulant little puckering of his mouth that made clear it didn’t matter what I thought. It was probably the same face he had been making since middle school: at teachers, at his parents, and at women he just happened to meet at bars. “Dude, whatever,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “That chick is nuts. I was just trying to calm her down when you came.”

The man with the glasses moved immediately, grabbing Ted by his shirt and slamming him hard into his shiny black car. Their faces were now inches apart. What the man said, I couldn’t hear; I wasn’t meant to hear. He spoke in low, whispered words, and from my vantage point all that I saw was Ted’s face change. After a few breaths the man with the glasses slowly let go, then tentatively turned to me, as if not to alarm me.

“Are you all right?” he asked me softly. I only nodded, as I was still fighting the hysterical breaths escaping my mouth. “Come on,” he said, his head tilted toward the street. “Let’s get you out of here.” And not for one moment did I hesitate.