Faking Life (6 page)

“Your loss.”

“Right. I bet you say that to all the guys.” John slid into the cab and closed the door.

“What was that about?” Paul asked.

“Nothing. You know these girls.” John lowered his window, letting the cool air wash over his face. “So what happened with that brunette? You two seemed pretty close.”

“Her name's Kendra. She asked to see some of my stuff,” Paul said after he'd given the driver the address. He smiled and looked at John wistfully. “I think she might be the one.”

“Well Lothario,” John said, tugging at his shirt, his mind and body like an overheated engine. “Just get through the first date and then you can start naming your children.” Paul shifted in his seat to face him.

“Did you see the way she was leaning into me, the way she had her legs wrapped around mine? If I weren't such a gentleman she'd be in this cab right now coming home with me. Us. Coming home with us.”

“Yeah, just what I need. Another night with my head stuck under a pillow while you jabber on about writing instead of having sex like a normal person.” Paul shrugged.

“Hey, I need all the flattery I can get. I'm twenty-eight, John. I only have two years to make the hottest 30 under 30 lists. If I miss that, I'm fucked.”

“Why not just enjoy yourself? What's with all these self-imposed deadlines?” Paul scratched his neck and leaned back against the seat, the leather squeaking under him.

“Come on, John. Let's be honest.” John laughed. Honesty was not what he expected in a half-drunken conversation at four a.m. “Teaching pays the bills, but if I really want to make it, not just live on a renewing lease like some blind painter, I have to make it big, get noticed. I can't expect to break out unless I get the big one done.”

“And how long have you been working on the 'big one'?”

“Three years,” Paul said with a sigh. “And I'm still stuck on page forty fucking eight. I feel like the ghost of James Joyce should leap up and kick me in the ass.”

“What's holding you back?”

“I'm not sure,” Paul said, sagging into the cushion. “Every time I try to write more, you know, to further the plot along, I get a great idea for a short that distracts me. And I can't stop
that
until it's finished. It's just frustrating.” John looked at him, then down at the floor. A lump rose in his throat. Paul's troubles felt so close. They were somehow familiar, yet light years away. “Maybe I'll run for congress, then sleep with one my interns. Seems like a surefire way to get publicity.” Paul paused, turned away. “Anyway, I don't expect you to understand.”

As they pulled away, Paul turned and stared out the window, the humming lights and intimate shops of downtown New York fading into phosphorescent blurs as they neared home. John watched Paul's reflection in the window, his eyes closed but fluttering as he tried to stay awake. Even though his body was ready to fall asleep at a moment's notice, John had an itch he needed to scratch. Something that if not taken care of might prevent him from ever sleeping again.

The taxi pulled up in front of their brownstone. John gave Mr. Singh six dollars and told him to keep the change. He found it was bad karma to stiff people—like him—whose livelihood depended on the gratuity of others.

They trudged up the stairs, one battle-weary solider tired from a night of serving the good drink, the other from drinking it. They passed the graffiti that they'd long ago given up trying to decipher, and unlocked the heavy black door to the apartment. The ceiling fixture sputtered dramatically before deciding to turn on.

Although John and Paul had similar tastes, their rooms coined the term 'polar opposite'. John kept his sparse, with only a few picture frames atop his small cherrywood desk. A small red carpet was the only sharp color; contrasting nicely against his gray comforter and bare white walls. Paul's room was a smorgasbord of posters, prints, and pictures that covered all but a select portion around his closet. Famous actors and actresses with their million-dollar grins stared at him as he slept. They were accompanied by an assortment of prints: Salvador Dali, Ansel Adams—and a Norman Rockwell whose price Paul refused to divulge. He had a nightstand of Yaffa blocks with piles of books three feet high strewn about haphazardly. Many were stuffed with crinkled bookmarks, indicating his inability to finish before moving on to new, perhaps more engaging material.

While Paul was brushing his teeth—door wide open and bathrobe hanging loose—John brewed half a pot of French roast.

“”Whaf're oo ooing?” Paul asked, his mouth foaming blue paste.

“I'm not that tired. Might write a bit.” Paul smiled and spit a gob into the sink. He had a bemused smile on his face, like a father informed by his son that he wanted to be an astronaut.

“Well, I shall see you in the morn' then. Don't work too hard.” He took a small bow before retreating to his room, closing the door gently.

When the drips ceased, John filled up an NYU mug and carried it to his room. He hit the power button on his laptop opened the file marked 'MEMOIR: J. Gillis'. He took a hesitant sip of bitter coffee and began to type. He rapped steadily, fingers loose, mind tense, the sun rising outside his calm window, until his nerves had calmed. Then John turned off the light and fell into a fitful sleep.

The hand…

Jesus Christ I can still see his hand burning, smoking like meat thrown on a grill and forgotten. One minute you're doing your job and the next you're being carried out on a stretcher, a young EMT throwing up at the scene when he sees the muscle exposed beneath your cooked skin.

Is that what Seamus dreamed of as a young man, growing old in a crappy bar and dying on the very grill he slaved over for years?

Is this how I see my life ending, decomposing behind a wooden counter, the years flipping like pages on a wall calendar?

I'll be damned if I go like that.

My life, in every shape and form, is mired in syndication.

Paul feels that his life is unfulfilled. I can empathize with that. But teaching children is a noble a profession, something I've never known. My job has never been noble. I joined this profession due to pure hedonism. I wanted to drink and get laid. My cup runneth over for so long that I'm having trouble mopping it up.

I can't concentrate anymore. My mind and my heart aren't in my work. They're somewhere else, somewhere I can't quite place.

It's easy to get lost behind the bar, just like it's easy to get lost in this city. Given the benefit of the doubt, I'd say I influence between zero and two people out of the nine million on a daily basis. Some days I feel like a prostitute, brandying my goods behind a wooden counter while Artie the madam makes people line up and shell out for liquid happiness. Then I go home tired and unfulfilled. You always see movies about hookers with hearts of gold, to whom intimacy is referred to as 'lovemaking' rather than 'having sex' or 'getting fucked.' They reserve something special for their personal lives, something they don't give to their customers. I have something like that too, only it's not quite as personal as sex. It helps me laugh, keep things in perspective. It brings me a sense of levity. Sometimes enjoyment isn't about price. Equilibrium doesn't have a sticker.

A bottle of Andre champagne retails for $4.99 a bottle at any liquor store, cheaper than your average six-pack. For five bucks I'm not expecting Dom. You don't order a Big Mac and expect a ribeye from Luger's. When I'm home and pop one open, I feel like it's unique and not just “John's night out with the boys.” I'm saving something for myself. I've had Dom and I've had Perrier-Jouet, and personally I don't think the $150 price difference holds its water.

My parents used to drink wine with dinner. They called it their dessert after a hard day. As a kid I loved the idea of wine after work. That is, until the first time I drank it. I cannot drink wine. It does something to my body and my mind that renders me completely incapacitated. I've been that way for years and I can't really figure out why. I can serve gallons of the stuff but if it touches my lips I feel the need to vomit.

Tonight a girl offered to “buy” me a glass of Chardonnay. Modesty aside, she wanted to sleep with me, as though she were a condolence prize for being stuck behind the bar instead of on the dance floor with my groin pressed against her hips. I laughed her off. I wasn't trying to offend the poor girl, but I needed to assert the fact that if I want a drink it'll be on my terms. If I want a partner it'll be on my terms. I'm not giving in anymore. I've spent too many nights with my body pressed up against someone who didn't care about me, someone I never saw again. Fleeting touches. Fleeting glances. Fleeting sex. I'm sick of fucking fleeting. Just like Paul, I want something—a talent, anything—that I can call my own.

But what scares Paul is that despite his talent, despite his work ethic and despite his desire, he hasn't been able to attain recognition from anyone outside his immediate family. He has a dream, but to this point his dream exists only in his mind. I'm scared that we'll be the same person years from now, hanging onto a dream for no reason other than the feeling that we should. When realism dies, we're left with a fool's hope. And that's what's supposed to keep us going. And that's what terrifies me. I don't want to think there's anything foolish about hope.

It never used to be this way. I never used to care about my future. Once, the one-day-at-a-time attitude would have been fine for at least fifty years. Now every day seems too short, each second a moment wasted. All I know is that I can't go on being stagnant.

It's almost five-thirty in the morning. I can hear Paul snoring in the other room. He sounds peaceful and I envy that. I wouldn't have been able to sleep if I hadn't gotten this down, and even so, if my brain weren't on the verge of pulling the plug I'd probably say more. I feel better. Somehow, this validates that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I think I'll lie down now and see if I dream.

“I
t's a no-brainer,” Nico said into the speakerphone, waving his pen in the air like a conductor's baton. Esther listened intently, her head tilted in the direction of his office. He was on the phone with Marlene Van Tripp, and there was an excitement in Nico's voice that Esther hadn't heard in a long time. Van Tripp was the publisher of Savant Books, a house boasting four Pulitzer Prize winners, a Nobel laureate, and close to a billion dollars a year in revenue. They'd been on the phone twenty minutes. Esther could practically hear Nico's mouth twitching, a smile being forced back.

A stack of papers sat on Esther's desk. A FedEx box lay empty in the trash. The return address was from John Gillis. She'd run off a copy for herself before giving it to Nico. Fortunately her desk was within earshot of Nico's office, and he rarely kept the door closed. It was as though he enjoyed the illusion of privacy more than the application of it. He knew she would listen to every word.

“Mare, this is a winner. It's what Gen X has been waiting for, an
On The Road
for a brand new generation. Just think: a twenty-something nobody with a dead end job decides to put his life down on paper and see where it takes him…it's a goldmine if it's handled the right way. It's a 180-degree turn from that sitcom wife who wrote about postpartum depression you guys lost big on. It's an honest, pull-no-punches, don't blame my parents, I'm gonna change the world whether you fucking like it or not book. Did you get the fax? He's a good-looking kid. Can't you just
see
him being interviewed by Diane Sawyer?”

Esther felt a mixture of pride and frustration as she listened to Nico pitch John Gillis's book. He was right in his proclamations. It
was
a refreshing change of pace from the memoirs that usually came through the transom, people who felt they had the right to be in print because they grew up on a farm, smoked pot as a teenager or went on a bender after making a few million by their early teens.

What Esther objected to was the hyperbole. A goldmine? Maybe, but that wasn't the point. Reading Gillis's thoughts sparked genuine warmth in her, a feeling she'd almost forgotten. She hated her emotions being referred to as the product of a commodity, but such was the nature of the beast.

“This thing will sell for years. Maybe you release a second volume after the first sells out. Good way to build momentum and…why thank you. Actually, that was my idea. A nice touch. No, I'm sure she'll go for it. Anyway, I have to run to a lunch meeting, I'll be in touch. Great talking to you Mare. We'll do Sparks soon, on me.” Esther heard him place the phone back in the receiver. “Esther, would you come in here?”

“What is it Nic?” she asked, trying to make eye contact. He wouldn't have it. Esther could feel blood rush to her temples as Nico ruffled some paper together. A lump of anxiety clogged her throat. She held her breath until Nico broke the silence.

“Marlene is
very
excited about the Gillis project. Real excited.” He let the last word end on an open note, and Esther could feel a 'but' coming. “But we need to talk.” Her breath caught.

“About what, Nic?”

“Don't get me wrong, she thinks what we've got so far is good,” he said. Esther realized it was now she who was being pitched. Nico changed tone, leaning across his desk, uncomfortably close. “Esther, let me ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly. How do you feel about the prospects for John Gillis?”

Esther paused. She didn't have any doubts about the book's potential, but she was wary of being posed the question itself. Why was he pitching it to her?

“I think it has great prospects, Nic. That's why I showed it to you.” Nico leaned back and smiled, satisfied. Then he continued.

“Say the book were having problems. Ones that didn't really have to do with style or composition, but
other
problems. What would you do then?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “It depends what kind of problems.”

“Say it wasn't fast-paced enough,” he said. “Or there wasn't enough…
action
. What would you do then, considering the work at hand?” She thought about it for a moment.