Engaging Men (29 page)

And you’ll never see them, I thought, remembering well the worst part of losing my father. Knowing I would never get a chance to see his rare smile, to tell him that I loved him, more than I’m sure he ever was able to realize…

When I looked into Justin’s eyes once more, I saw it all. The loneliness that would never go away.

Maybe that was just it. Maybe no matter how many people we surrounded ourselves with, or whom we ultimately spent our lives with, that was all we were ever meant to feel.

Alone.

You’re bringing that big thing?“ Kirk said when he opened his apartment door the Friday night before our scheduled departure to find me standing there, sweaty and out of sorts after lugging my giant suitcase on and off the Third Avenue bus. ”I thought we were carrying on,“ he said, gesturing to the compact nylon duffel that sat in the foyer awaiting our early-morning flight.

“I…1 couldn’t fit everything in my other bag,” I hedged. Actually, I hadn’t even pulled it from the closet when I realized that no weekend bag could possibly hold the clothing options I felt absolutely necessary for my maiden voyage to Newton. There were the two pairs of jeans I couldn’t travel without— the boot-cut ones that looked so cool with my wedge espadrilles (and I had to take my wedge espadrilles); and the slim-leg style that was perfect with my sneakers (and I couldn’t go to the country without sneakers, now could I?).Then there were the four T-shirts—two short sleeved for day, one long sleeved in case we had a cool night and one tank in case the weather heated up. Two pairs of shorts (in case it was too hot for jeans), two pairs of capris (in case it was hot but shorts seemed inappropriate) and a thick cotton sweater (in case it was too cold for anything else). My denim jacket, because it went with everything. My beautiful new dress, of course. My strappy slides (for the dress), my strappy sandals (just in case I wasn’t in the mood for the espadrilles). Pajama pants (I was sure Kirk’s parents wouldn’t appreciate me marching around in Kirk’s boxers) and another (softer) tee to sleep in. Underwear (lots of it because I never could decide ahead of time whether I was going to go thong or brief).Bras, toiletries, makeup, brushes and a blow-dryer (because I really couldn’t count on the Stevens family to keep styling equipment with the kind of voltage required to keep my frizzy locks tame).

Then there was the gift, which I’d surrounded in bubble wrap that Justin “just so happened” to have around.

Oh, and then there was the required reading material that traveled everywhere with me, due to a fear I would find myself alone, awake and with nothing but my own anxious thoughts to keep me company (which was often the case whenever Kirk and I were together, as he usually fell asleep before me): three magazines, two books of monologues (because despite the fact that I hadn’t been auditioning recently, I somehow couldn’t help seeking out all those audition scenes I had rehearsed and was quite capable of playing, given the chance) and a somewhat ratty 1986 edition of Fodor’s Boston (in case we headed into the city) that Justin had bought for fifty cents at a book fair and was happy to loan me.

I mean, really, how could I expect to carry all that on the plane? I thought, watching (somewhat guiltily) as Kirk reluctantly lugged my (heavy) bag into the foyer and set it next to his own. “Jeez, Ange, we’re only going for three days,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at my bag, which dwarfed his neat little duffel. He sighed. “Never mind. Did you eat anything?”

“No, actually,” I said, realizing that in all my packing anxiety, I hadn’t had so much as a cracker since lunch.

Kirk glanced up at the kitchen clock, which indicated that it was almost ten (my packing had taken longer than expected) and well past any hour normal people (read: Kirk) would eat dinner. “Well, there’s some leftover Indian food in the fridge if

you feel like eating now,“ he offered, his tone implying that ten o’clock was no hour to be ingesting curry.

My stomach gurgled. “Sounds perfect,” I said, ignoring his disdain and heading for the fridge.

“I’m just gonna finish up some work I was doing,” he said, heading for the bedroom and his beloved laptop.

At the discovery that Kirk had none other than chicken tikka masala tucked away in the take-out bag in his fridge, I could have cared less if he and that laptop of his disappeared into the sunset together. I loved chicken tikka masala. Lived on it, which wasn’t hard to do, since I lived only a few short blocks from East 6th Street, the infamous Indian Food Row. Of course, Kirk had gotten his chicken tikka masala right in his own neighborhood, and in truth Murray Hill Indian couldn’t even come close to the fare on Indian Food Row. But the way my stomach was growling as I filled a plate and popped it into the microwave, I realized Kirk could have bought it next door to a cat farm and I still would have eaten it.

Two minutes later, I had settled on Kirk’s sofa to eat and tuned in to the ten o’clock news. Normally I wasn’t a news watcher. I got whatever bits I could handle from the headlines I read over people’s shoulders on the subway and whatever rambling discourses I happened to catch on NPR, which Justin kept on continuously in his bedroom. But as I had gathered together my clothes for my big weekend away, I had wondered what I would actually talk about with Kirk’s family, once I found myself in their presence. Then I had remembered Kirk’s father was big into politics, having even held a councilman position for a short while when he was first married. And Kirk’s mother had practically been an official member of the board of education in Newton judging by the number of petitions she had put before them when she was head of the PTA, a position she had given up when Kayla, her youngest, had graduated, but still… These were some smart people I would be spending the weekend with. And was I was going to look pretty dumb in comparison if the only current events I could chat with them about were the effects of El Nino (weather was the only thing I actually did follow, news-wise). I had some catching up to do.

But as soon as the studied seriousness of Belinda Chen, the bright-eyed and perfectly coiffed anchorwoman of Fox Five News, came on screen, I was filled with foreboding. And as Belinda and her helmet-headed male colleague bantered back and forth about a drive-by shooting on 125th Street, a fire that killed a family of five and a routine back surgery that had left the hapless patient paralyzed, I remembered why I didn’t watch the news. It was all about death, and as a person who during most waking moments was all too aware of her own imminent demise, I didn’t need any reminders.

And yet, I couldn’t look away. Especially when, just moments before the program cut to a commercial break, Belinda faced the camera dead on and announced, “Next up—are airline cutbacks a prescription for disaster? Don’t miss our special report on how belt-tightening choices made by major airlines could impact you and your loved ones this holiday weekend…”

You see? This was why I didn’t like to fly. I glanced anxiously toward the bedroom, where I saw through the half-opened door that Kirk was still working merrily away, oblivious to the fact that his love of flying was going to get us killed. My eyes were glued to the set as Belinda returned and began (somewhat cheerfully, considering the subject matter) to recount incident after incident where major airline after major airline had “overlooked” some seemingly minor mechanical problem in the name of saving money and maintaining flight schedules.

I almost swallowed my tongue when they cut to an interview with a recently fired mechanic, the airline he had reportedly worked for for twenty-two years clearly identified in boldface letters at the bottom of the screen: Metro-Air.

Oh, God. “Kirk! Kirk! Come quick!” I shouted, picking up the remote and making the volume louder.

To his credit, Kirk was standing next to the sofa within moments, a bewildered expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Look!” I said, gesturing wildly to the screen with the remote as the mechanic explained how he’d advised airline personnel that the fuel gauge was working improperly, only to have his assessment ignored.

“So you risked your job and reported it to the FAA?” the reporter said, his square-jawed face creased with concern.

“Hey, somebody has to protect the American people,” the mechanic said, a bit smugly, I have to admit.

“Angela…”

“What, it could happen! Especially on the shuttle. Do you know they run flights every hour on the hour from Boston to New York? Who’s to say they wouldn’t let one of those planes go up into the air just because some peon in maintenance figured a small splice in the fuel line wouldn’t be a big deal?”

“Are you done now?” Kirk inquired. “Can I go back to finishing my work, so I can get some sleep before our flight? I mean, if we are going to go down into the ocean, I at least want to be awake enough to figure out how to use my seat as a flotation device!”

I did feel a little dumb, especially when the formerly disgruntled mechanic smiled into the camera and mouthed, “Hi, Mom,” the minute the reporter turned to face the camera once more. What could I do but let Kirk go back to his bedroom and his laptop, leaving me to face my own anxieties alone?

And I was still facing them long after Kirk had drifted off to sleep and I lay beside him, eyes wide open against the darkness that blanketed the room, my stomach raw, whether from nerves or the spicy masala sauce I couldn’t help but scarf down despite Kirk’s warning tone. But I wasn’t thinking about spliced fuel lines or ungreased pistons—I was thinking about Grace, whom I’d called the night before only to learn that she was spending her Friday night with her new best friend and consort in sin-gledom, Claudia, at some hot new bar on the Upper East Side.

I sighed, imagining them laughing merrily at the men who would inevitably buy them drinks, probably more due to Grace’s magnetic beauty than Claudia’s glamorous yet utterly charmless demeanor. And though wild horses couldn’t drag me back to the bar scene, I wished I had Grace to talk to. Because with Kirk snoozing peacefully on the pillow beside me, as if he didn’t have a care on his mind, I suddenly felt the weight of the world.

I glanced at the clock, which showed just past midnight. I could always call Josh. After all, he never used to make any bones about calling me at any hour of day or night when anxiety or loneliness plagued him. Then I remembered that Josh was living with his soon-to-be-wife now, and I was certain Princess Emily would not be happy if I disturbed her beauty sleep. Besides, the rat hadn’t been acting much like a friend anyway.