Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You (28 page)

Rachel nods her head. “It's okay, I get it.” Her bag, still unopened, sits up against the bed, next to her. No one says anything for a while. “I can ask my parents to switch my flight. Maybe I can still go back tonight.”

“No, it's cool.”

“No, it's not.”

“You should stay.”

“You're such a liar. You are.”

No one says anything. Rachel plays with a zipper on her bag. Darren keeps scanning his room, like he's trying to figure out what kind of room it is now that she's in it. They look at each other every once in a while but then look away. There's a chance neither of them is sure how they're supposed to do even that at this point.

“I feel so bad for Krista,” Rachel says.

“Yeah,” Darren says.

More silence.

“Hey,” Darren says eventually. “Can I play you something?”

“Sure,” Rachel says, her voice really soft.

So he opens his computer and searches for the song.

“It's kind of stupid,” he says.

“Play it,” she says.

The song starts, and soon some guy is playing the saxophone, but so softly it sounds like something else. Or like the guy playing is hanging upside down from a hot-air balloon.

“That's beautiful,” Rachel says.

“Right?”

“What's it called?”

“You don't want to know.”

“Why not?”

“You'll laugh.”

“No I won't.”

They listen without speaking for a while. Darren breathes through his lips, which are quite dry. He closes his eyes, maybe in order to think about Rachel. When he opens them, she's looking at him, smiling. A nice chunk of late-afternoon sunlight is coming through his window and passing not that far from Rachel. All the dust specks illuminated inside it seem to matter somehow. Maybe Rachel is beautiful, maybe he could love her, maybe his life would be ten times better had he been born in Minneapolis, or in 1936, or whenever this song was first recorded. Like what if you don't have to be alone in your whale? Like what if that's the point? To find the right person to sit there in the whale with you.

When the song ends, Darren starts it over. He makes sure Rachel can tell he's doing this. She seems to swallow something when she notices this is what he's doing. He loves this song so much right now, it makes him a little sad. Like his life will never be good enough to deserve this as part of its sound track. The guy on the sax holds some of his notes for so long, bending them a bit at the same time. It makes you feel like you're riding in the hot-air balloon. Or that you
are
the hot-air balloon. That he and his saxophone are inflating. With helium, and something else, something that makes it feel really good and just a little bad to be filled up like this.

So Darren goes and joins her on the bed. There are easily ten thousand things he'd like to tell her right now, and another ten thousand he wouldn't mind asking her. But instead he lets some combination of gravity and desire and soft mattress bring their shoulders together.

And then they're kissing again, this time because of Darren. And then they're lying back on his bed. He's so much bigger than her, but she doesn't seem to mind.

“I missed you, Darren,” she tells him. He didn't miss her, but maybe he should have. He could have sat alone in his room, listening to this song, wishing she were here like she's here right now. Instead he's wishing she's the one he can't get over.

The garage door starts opening. They sit up. They stand up. Just before they leave his room to go back downstairs: “ ‘Day Dream.' ”

“Huh?” she asks.

“That's the name of the song.”

She takes his hand and leads him back downstairs.

4
Physical Components of the Verdict Darren's Mom Quickly Delivered to Darren on Her Way out the Door to Get the Candles

1.
 Shoulders raised

2.
 Eyebrows raised

3.
 Bared-teeth smile

4.
 (After lowering shoulders and eyebrows, and un-baring her teeth), the words “She's cute!” mouthed

4
Interpretations of These Components

1.
 The shoulders: something like, “Isn't this fun?”

2.
 The eyebrows: “Lucky you!”

3.
 The teeth: “Kind of crazy, but pretty neat, too!”

4.
 The mouthed words are more complicated. But if Darren had to guess, then he'd guess something like: “Though I'm certainly not focusing here on anything sexual, per se, I am pleased that this fairly attractive, rather wholesome, and probably well-behaved girl appears interested in you, and I strongly encourage you to be interested in her as well, because, let's face it, your social calendar has been awfully empty of late, and maybe this is just what you need, so I'm going to do my part to, you know, give you two some time alone, because, just between you and me, we totally have Shabbat candles, I just made that up!”

4
Questions That Nate Asks and Then Immediately Answers Himself Right After Being Introduced to Rachel Downstairs

1.
 You're the piano player, right? Right.

2.
 Hey, if I could unearth that old Casio keyboard we got like nine hundred years ago, would you be willing to rock out with me and the bro-ham? I'll take that as a yes.

3.
 How ya feeling about watching us be Jewish for dinner? Pretty psyched, I bet.

4.
 Guess how many jobs I now have? Zero!

14
Observations Nate Quietly Shares with Darren While Rachel Is in the Bathroom

1.
 Dude.

2.
 I can't believe the gods arranged home delivery for you.

3.
 You must have really suffered in some previous life.

4.
 I'm completely serious about that, by the way.

5.
 And the dyed-black hair, man.

6.
 It's like your stinking destiny to wind up with a girl who dyes her hair black.

7.
 Which isn't my thing.

8.
 But hey, different strokes for different folks and all that.

9.
 She's quality, I'm serious.

10.
 You can just tell.

11.
 Like right away.

12.
 You need not worry about my hanging around this evening.

13.
 Insane.

14.
 Totally insane.

3
Medical Supplies Darren's Mom Presents to Him upon Her Return, Along with Her Instructions

1.
 A red and white box (“Take a couple of these now, I don't think the others are helping.”)

2.
 A green and blue box (“Take two of these before you go to bed, they'll help you sleep. Knock you right out.”)

3.
 A travel pack of Kleenex (“These have aloe in them, so your poor nose doesn't end up raw.”)

3
Bits of Dress-up Nate Is Wearing When He Comes Up from the Basement, Casio Keyboard in Hand

1. A black felt fedora

2. An oversize pair of yellow plastic sunglasses with purple lenses

3. A pink feather boa

3
Musical Acts Rachel (Now Wearing the Boa) Mentions to Nate (Still Wearing the Fedora) After He Asks Her, “So What Do You Listen to Other Than Classical?” While Darren (for Whom Everything Is Now Purple) Follows Them to the Garage and Helps Set Up the Keyboard

1.
 THE BEATLES

“The Beatles don't count,” Nate says.

“Why not?” Rachel asks.

“Because everyone loves the Beatles.”

“So?”

“Okay, fine, so what's your favorite song of theirs?”

“Favorite? That's impossible.”

“Fine. Favorite two. Or three.”

“Hmm. Okay. ‘Penny Lane.' Uh, ‘Martha My Dear.' And ‘Lady Madonna.' ”

“You like Paul.”

“You don't?”

“What else? Someone else.”

2.
 ELTON JOHN

“Seriously?” Nate says.

“Yes, seriously. What?”

“Nothing. Noted. Next.”

3.
 JONI MITCHELL

“Right on,” Nate says.

“I'm glad you approve.”

“You like anyone who still exists?”

“I told you he was kind of a dick sometimes,” Darren says.

“You won't like the current stuff I like.”

“How do you know?” Nate asks.

“Because you're not a twelve-year-old girl.”

“But you still are?”

“No comment.”

“Meaning in spirit or something?”

“Darren, do you guys play here a lot?”

“C'mon, Rachel,” Nate says. “You have to tell me.”

“Sort of,” Darren says.

3
Hugely Popular Musical Acts Nate Accuses Rachel of Liking, Only One of Which She Denies

1.
 Too embarrassing to mention

2.
 Worse than #1

3.
 This is one that not even Rachel likes

3
Chords Nate Calls Out and Starts Playing Over and Over Until Rachel (on Keyboards, Obviously) and Darren (Bass, Duh) Join In

1.
 G

2.
 C

3.
 D

4
Stages of Darren's Experience of Playing a Certain Mega Teenybopper Hit

1.
 Playing competently.

2.
 But still feeling like the distant point on their pop-music triangle. There's something Nate and Rachel are sharing that Darren can't really share with them. It might be a sense of abandon. As in, you decide to play some arguably stupid song you've told yourself to hate a hundred times, whether or not it deserves to be hated at all. But then you start playing it, and you realize it's kind of a cool song, or at least a very fun song to play.

3.
 Getting into it. Finally, because what's the big deal?

4.
 Only then remembering you hate it and that you maybe (no, you definitely) judge the crap out of people who do like this song. Making it so you can't totally give yourself over to the song right now, even though why not? Because what would be so wrong with just enjoying this song (and your rendition of it) for a measly three minutes? Who would care? Who would think less of you for it? Certainly not Rachel or Nate. They're having the time of their lives. And no one else is even here. Leaving only you. It's you who won't let yourself. You idiot loser.

7
Accoutrements Assembled for the Sabbath Meal

1.
 Two silver candlesticks

2.
 Two candles

3.
 One silver wine goblet

4.
 Some red wine

5.
 One ceramic challah platter

6.
 One poppy-seed challah

7.
 One challah cover, which says in reddish-orange Hebrew lettering on top,
SHABBAT SHALOM

11
Physical Acts His Mom Performs Before Even Saying the Prayer for the Candles

1.
 Lights the candles

2.
 Places her hands over her eyes

3.
 Just stands there like that for maybe six seconds

4.
 Inhales deeply

5.
 Holds her breath

6.
 Exhales rather dramatically

7.
 Inhales deeply

8.
 Holds her breath

9.
 Exhales even more dramatically

10.
 Removes her hands

11.
 Smiles in a way Darren still doesn't understand

1
Person Darren Realizes Would Maybe Appreciate This Moment More Than Anyone, with the Candles Flickering and His Mom Standing There, Breathing Slowly, and Rachel Being Attentive and Respectful and Maybe Even Grateful, but Somehow in a Way That Isn't Obsequious at All, and Even Nate Looking Off to the Side Pensively, Like the Whole Damn Picture of the Four of Them Is God's Advertisement for Shabbat or Something

1.
 His dad

4
People Apparently About to Participate in His Mom's Little Pre-Meal Activity, Which Involves Answering the Question “What's One Good Thing—and It Can't Have Anything to Do with School or Work—That Happened to You This Week?”

1.
 His mom

2.
 Nate

3.
 Darren

4.
 Rachel

2
Participants Who Get to Go Before a Nice Little Argument Leads to His Mom Saying, “Forget It. I Try to Do Something Nice, Something Special, and This Is What I Get. Great.”

1.
 HIS MOM

“Fine, I'll go,” she says. “Hmm. I had a good week. Not great, but it was good. What to choose from? Had a nice coffee with Karen yesterday. No. Had a great talk with the new project manager at—”

“You said it can't have anything to do with work,” Darren says.

“You caught me. I'm so awful. Okay. Hmm. All right, I know. You're going to laugh, or roll your eyes, you two. But so what? I met my son's friend Rachel. Who I didn't even—never mind. I met her, and well, you'll understand this when you're older, I was so relieved. No, that's not strong enough. I was so grateful, yes, grateful, at what wonderful taste he has in people. No, I mean it. Why are you covering your face, Darren? Do you guys remember, I'm sorry, Nate, but do you remember when Nate brought, what was his name, Ricky Dubrowski?”