Love and Chaos (22 page)

Then Madeleine starts singing. God, I forgot how good she is.

“The night we met, I knew I … needed you so…”

Somehow, her voice is whispery and husky at the same time, and every word sounds sad but sort of sexy. Like she’s promising you something.

“And if I had the chance, I’d … never let you go…”

Pia and Aidan are kissing so hard there’s a fighting chance one might collapse from oxygen deprivation.

“Get a room, you two!” says Ethan the Cheesemaker, coming back from the bar with a glass of red wine. He didn’t bother to get anyone else a drink.

Coco giggles, skipping behind him. “Yeah! Ooh! Aidan! Hi! Madeleine’s singing! Yay!”

Pia and Aidan stop kissing, and he whispers in her ear. She nods, then turns back to our table quickly, grabs her bag, and smiles at me, her face lit up with happiness.

“He flew back last night. He’s been trying to find me all day but I’ve been ignoring his calls, then he saw my Facebook update that I was here.” She smiles, happy tears filling her eyes. “God, I love Facebook. We’re out of here. Tell Maddy I’ll make it up to her. Love you, ladybitch.”

And boom, just like that, I’m left with Coco and Ethan the Cheesemaker.

Ethan clears his throat loudly. “Angie, do tell me all about your family. I understand your mother is British? Now, the British healthcare system is fascinating, deeply flawed, but some would say, better than our own. Or it was. These days—”

And off he goes. I can get away with ignoring him, if I gaze at the stage. “Be My Baby” finishes and the bands starts playing “The Wanderer” by Dion.

“Well, I’m the type of guy who’ll never settle down…”

Madeleine has such a beautiful voice, but she lacks confidence onstage. Her eyes are almost shut; she’s practically singing to the floor. And the rest of the band is thinking the same thing: Heff is exchanging looks with Amy, and the ringlet-haired drummer is hitting the shit out of his drums in an attempt, I think, to make Madeleine give the song a little more energy.

“I gotta go to the little girls’ room! Excuse me!” whispers Coco, hurrying off with her head down, as though we were in a movie theater.

I don’t want to talk to Ethan the Cheesemaker, so I pretend to be enthralled with the band. Actually, I don’t have to pretend: they are really good. If only Madeleine would give it a little oomph.… If only she’d smile. Watching someone not-really-enjoying singing is kind of excruciating.

A minute later, I feel a warm, slimy hand on my bare knee.

Ethan!

He’s touching me!

“Angie…” he says, his voice low and froggy.

I instinctively jerk my knee away, look into his little eyes, and just have time to hiss “
Don’t touch me
” before Coco returns from the bathroom, smiling happily.

“The bar snacks here look great! I got us each a menu!” She sits down, oblivious to the tension at the table.

Oh God, why,
why
does she like Ethan the Cheesemaker—hereafter known as Ethan Wonderslime—so much? In her current vulnerable state, she really doesn’t need to fall for a fuckwit who will inevitably disappoint her. On the other hand, he seems to make her happy right now, and maybe that’s more important. On the other hand (uh … the third hand), he just came on to me.

Ignoring them, I stare at the stage, where Spector is now playing a pretty awesome cover of “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly.

The ringlet drummer dude is really enjoying his little drum solos in this song, but Madeleine still looks nervous and uncomfortable as hell. If she wasn’t onstage, if I didn’t feel like she might need my support, I’d leave. Run away from this whole messy Coco-Ethan thing, from annoying know-it-all hipsters. But I know that impulse, that almost overwhelming urge to escape that I always get, isn’t the answer.

Instead, I put myself in Madeleine’s shoes: a bar full of strangers, songs she’s not sure about and maybe doesn’t even know that well, no one smiling, no one applauding, no one even dancing.…

Hang on. Why
don’t
people dance in bars anymore? They should. Right? Why the hell is everyone here too cool to dance?

Without even thinking about it, I stand up and walk to the bar, where the Square Nails hipster coffee business dude is still sitting.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Say what?”

I stare at him. “You heard me. Let’s go.”

Square Nails gazes at me for a second before standing up. “Okay.”

I hold my hand out and pull him toward the space in front of the band, suddenly very aware of everyone in the entire bar looking at us.

We start dancing, doing those semi-twist-n-shout moves that you do when you’re too self-conscious and not drunk enough (pretty much the same thing in my book). Dancing wasn’t my strongest talent, even in my vodka-fueled days of yore—a lot of nonchalant nodding, a lot of shoulder shapes—but right now, I give this dance floor everything I’ve got.

“You’re a great dancer,” says Square Nails.

“Thanks. I was professional when I was younger, but I had to give it up. Steroids, you know?”

Square Nails stares at me for a few seconds, confused. Sigh. My kingdom for a dude who thinks I’m funny. (Yeah, I totally have a kingdom.)

The song finishes, and the band segues straight into “Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals.

I look up at Madeleine and wink, and she returns the most brilliantly huge smile I’ve ever seen. And then, something magic happens: her voice is louder, her words are clearer. Madeleine is shining.

More people join us on the dance floor, and within thirty seconds, it’s a churning mass of twisting, turning, jiving couples. Halfway through the song, I glance back at the table where Coco and Ethan Wonderslime are sitting and suddenly, behind them, I see Julia and Sam walk in just as Square Nails grabs my hand and spins me out in the other direction.

“Dipping you!” he exclaims, and I make the involuntary “whoop!” sound that I always do when I’m dipped. I’m such a cliché.

Then he twirls me again.

Mid-twirl I glance over to our table and see, through the crowd, Julia and Sam.

Kissing.

A split second later, he spins me back into him, but I can hardly see where I’m going and land against his body with a bang.

Julia and Sam are kissing.

Julia is kissing my Sam. I mean, my
friend
Sam. That’s weird. Why is that weird? It’s normal! They were on a date! I quickly try to arrange my face into some kind of happy serenity and keep smiling as Square Nails pings me around the dance floor. He’s getting pretty confident with the dips and turns.

But my brain is racing. Julia and Sam. Julia … and
Sam
. All I can see is that image of them kissing, like a snapshot that’s been burned into the back of my eyelids. I feel strange, as if I’ve been punched, or winded, like when you’re a little kid on the monkey bars in the playground and you fall off and land hard on your ass. Yeah, that’s how I feel. Like the breath has been whacked out of me.

Julia and Sam were kissing
.

By the time the song has ended, I’ve pulled myself together. It’s totally normal to feel weird when your friends kiss. Right? Right. But it’s only a thing if I make it a thing. It’s totally fine for my friends to like each other! They went on a date! What did I expect? I don’t want to be one of those people who won’t share friends, or who gets jealous when their friends start a new relationship. It’s fine. It’s so fine.

I walk back to our table, smiling as wide as I can, focusing on nothing.

“Hey!” I say, trying to sound supernormal and happy. “How are you guys? How was dinner? Was it great? That’s great!”

“Hey, stranger,” says Sam. “You lose your phone or something?”

I haven’t returned his calls since he asked Julia out. I mean, it’s no big deal, I just had nothing to say. “No, just busy, you know, working.…” I can’t even look him in the eye; instead I pretend to be really interested in the dance floor.

“Hey, you’re wearing the dress!” Sam says. “The Drakey dress. It looks great!”

Turning around so I can avoid replying, I notice that Square Nails has followed me to our table. I turn to face him. “Thanks for the dance. You can go now.”

Looking shocked, he walks away.

Julia and Sam are laughing.

“You’re right! She is so goddamn harsh!” exclaims Sam.

“Told ya,” says Julia. “She goes through men like water.”

“That sentence doesn’t mean anything,” I say. Since when do Julia and Sam talk about me?

“We were wondering where you guys were so I texted Maddy, and she told me about her surprise gig,” says Julia. “She’s amazing!”

“She is,” I agree. I don’t know where to look. If I focus on Julia’s smiley face I feel angry and guilty about feeling angry, and I can’t even look at Sam.

I think I might cry if I see how happy he is with Julia.

I guess it’s just because he won’t be my friend now. Now that he’s dating Julia. I mean, we won’t be unfriends or anything … but it won’t be the same.

And that makes me want to cry even more.

Thank God for the band. I turn to face them, trying to look serene and tough and normal and conceal the chaos inside me, just as they start playing “Do You Wanna Dance?” by Bobby Freeman.

“WOO! Madeleine, you ROCK!” screams Julia.

“Let’s dance!” says Coco. “Me and Ethan, and you and Sam!”

“Yeah!” shouts Julia.

“Oh, no…” says Sam. “Angie, help…”

But I ignore him, and Julia grabs his hand and pulls him after her like a recalcitrant child, followed by Coco and Ethan. They’re quickly swallowed up by a mass of churning couples on the dance floor.

And here I am. Alone at the table. I wonder again if I can just crawl under it and hide.

This
is why people don’t dance in bars. Because being the only person not on the dance floor makes you feel like a fucking loser.

I’m out of here.

I grab my bag and head for the exit without turning back. Sam didn’t even think about the fact that I’d be left all alone at the table when he went off to dance with Julia and Coco and Ethan Wonderslime. Even though Sam and I have been practically inseparable for weeks. What ever happened to bros before hos? Not that Julia is a ho, exactly, but you know what I mean.… Does everyone just dump their friends when they fall in love or what? Fuck!

Once I’m outside, I angrily light a cigarette and take out my phone. There must be someone I can call, no not Stef, no one like that, but someone to distract me from everything …

Gabriel.

The nice guy from Turks. The one with the plane.

Done.

I tap out a quick text.

I think I owe you a dinner for the plane ride. How about a hot dog and a beer?

CHAPTER
28

Back at work. The Gap.

Thegapthegapthegapthegapthegap.

You wouldn’t think it, in a city the size of New York, but the entire store has literally been vacant since I got here. Midtown Manhattan is not shopping central on a rainy Monday morning. So I’ve been counting the seconds while arranging and folding and generally trying to look busy whenever a manager cruises by.

I have
literally
been counting the seconds, that’s not a figure of speech. I count to sixty, and then hold out one finger behind my back. Then I count to sixty again and hold out another finger behind my back. Every time I use up all my fingers, I move location and try to look busy again.

It’s seems like such a long time since I walked out of Pijiu on Saturday night, and yet nothing has happened. On Sunday morning I got up extra early—6:00
A.M.
—and got out of the house, and then had a long, silent breakfast alone down at the New Apollo Diner. Great pancakes, bad coffee.

I tried to read the Style section of
The New York Times,
but the words just swam in front of me. So then I stared into space, wondering if Sam had slept over and whether it upset me more to imagine them having sex or to imagine them just kissing and whispering and giggling together in bed, and then getting annoyed with myself for caring when it’s none of my business, and then thanking God that I wasn’t at home to run into him as he walked out of Julia’s room. Because it would be weird. Why? Because it just would, that’s why. My thoughts ran around and around and around. I tried to ignore them, but they chased me.

Then I took the subway to work and stared into space and felt my blisters throbbing and tried not to think about anything.

I’m so stupid! Sam and I were always just friends. I know that. I guess I just haven’t had a platonic male friend before, so I don’t know how to handle it. Of course he’s going to date. And Julia has liked him for ages. I need to get a grip. And not think about my twenty-third birthday tomorrow.
Bonjour,
adulthood.

I haven’t seen any of the other girls since Saturday night, which has to be a record. Pia texted this morning that she and Aidan commenced some kind of sex marathon after he showed up at the bar, and both took today off work as a “personal day” so they can “try to come up with a solution” (i.e., have more sex). And no one else has been in touch. I guess Coco’s been with Ethan and Madeleine’s been with Heff. And Julia’s clearly been with Sam.

Whatever. I’m not really feeling that social, anyway. I’m just going to meet up with Gabriel tonight for a hot dog, go to bed early, wake up tomorrow, avoid everyone, and pretend it’s not my birthday. And work at the Gap.

Argh.

“Excuse me, blondie!” says a voice, and I turn around. It’s a gorgeous spike-haired guy wearing such skinny jeans that he absolutely has to be gay.

“How may I be of assistance, sir?”

“I need help with sizes. We need to get my boyfriend, Adrian, a pair of white jeans for a Euro-trash party, and his budget is forcing us here! No offense!”

“None taken. So, what size is Adrian?”

“I’m a twenty-eight regular!” says a voice. I turn around. It’s the little hipster waiter from Rock Dog, who spilled lingonberry juice all over me!

“Don’t I know you?” Adrian frowns, cocking his head to one side.