Room for Love (37 page)

I end my shower with a blast of cold water in an attempt to de-puff my eyes and retrieve some of my usual bounciness. Even a girl mid-existential crisis whose apartment burned down can muster up enough pep to face a minor New York cultural event, right? I take a handful of hair product out of the medicine cabinet, glob it onto my wet mop, wrap it all up in a towel, finish off my glass of wine, refill it in the kitchen, and race into the bedroom. It's a quarter to nine when I call a car service (ETA: in five minutes), throw open Courtney's closet door, and, without having to think, pull out a totally un-Courtney emerald-green, silk, sexpot cocktail dress that she never wears and I've always coveted and the black strappy sandals that accompany her to weddings only. How lucky am I that both my best friend and my sister wear size 8 shoes and size 6 dresses just like me? I toss the towel from my head onto the edge of the bathtub, slather lotion all over (even though it will slide right off me in the heat of the night), and when my car honks, I scrunch my wet hair, down my wine, grab my purse, and jet out the door. I'll put on makeup in the car, which will cost me twenty bucks—that's what I get for sleeping for three and a half hours in the middle of the afternoon.

When I reach the party, at a monstrous warehouse in Chelsea, I see a throng of people crowding the front door, trying to persuade the pack of perky publicists to let them in. Luckily for me, big boss Steve happens to be out there chatting up one of the bouncers, and he grabs my hand and pulls me past the red rope.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” he asks, wearing a look of fatherly concern.

“I'm great,” I tell him, tipsy. “Stoked to be out.” Stoked? I must be drunk.

Steve pats my back and nudges me into the industrial elevator, which subsequently lurches up and ejects us on the second floor, which is so packed with people that I have to squeeze past sweaty limbs, chests, and backs to find the bar and order a two-dollar beer in a plastic cup. Techno music blasts and videos play on most of the walls towering twenty feet overhead. My eyes are drawn from one projection to the next, unable to focus on anything specific. I swerve toward the corner farthest from the bar, where the crowd thins a bit, and become hypnotized by images of women of different shapes and sizes on the wall in front of me. They're all dressed in the uniform preferred by twenty-something inhabitants of Williamsburg: some variation of stretchy, blousy, vintage, eye catching, low slung, bleak. The cuts quicken until the women are slamming against the makeshift screen one upon another in rapid succession. They should blur into some vague generalization about womanhood, but they don't; each maintains her individual beauty and distinctness. There's something poignant, mesmerizing about the piece.

“Like it?” a familiar male voice asks over my shoulder.

I swing around to find Jake standing next to me in baggy jeans and a tight orange Frosted Flakes T-shirt, and grab his shoulder to steady myself.

“I do, so much,” I say. “Is it yours?”

“Yeah,” he says proudly, a wide grin on his pretty face. “I'm doing video and photography stuff these days, installations, you know.”

“Congratulations,” I tell him, taking a sip of his strong cocktail.

“There's a gallery interested in me,” he brags. “Maybe two. One place bought two of my paintings.”

“That's great, Jake,” I shout over the music. “Hey, you didn't sleep with all those chicks, did you?”

He laughs a low, devilish laugh. “Not all of them,” he says. “None of them while we were together. I promise.” I realize I'm not jealous of those girls or annoyed that he's been slutting around since we broke up. Jake is not someone who can get to me anymore and it feels great.

“Hey, I want to hang out, Jacquie,” he says, feeding me another swig of his drink. As I bite my lip, about to tell him why we shouldn't hop back into bed, which is of course what he means, he says, “Can we, like—? It's weird, you know? It was crazy when we were hanging out, but I feel like you inspired me or something, like this work is a lot because of you or something.” He looks down and futzes with a hole in his shirt that reveals a circle of tanned, flat stomach. “That's probably kinda lame, huh? But you believed in me, you know, maybe we should try to see if we could, I don't know.”

He stares at me with hard eyes that soften as they land on mine and reaches out to run a single finger down my bare shoulder. His touch makes me want to pull him toward me, crash against the wall, wrap my legs hard around his small waist, grind myself up against the seam of his jeans as he grabs my ass, as he would, bites my lip, mauls me in a room full of my friends and acquaintances. But I stop myself.

“Jake, this wasn't me. It was you,” I say, recovering from my raunchy reverie. “You just needed to find your medium, you know what I mean? It's about confidence and getting into yourself and finding out what your strengths are, you know? It was bound to come once you let yourself go.” Damn, I sound like a barfly perched on a stool, pontificating for whoever will listen. “I don't think you really want me back in your life, Jake. Remember how insane we made each other?”

“We fucked great,” he says, making me laugh way too loudly.

“Yeah, we did,” I say, savoring the ache he can still ignite between my thighs just by saying the f-word. “But that's not everything.” I reach out for him and he leans into my arms.

“Jake.” I feel so much tenderness for him, I almost tell him I love him, but I know he'll take it the wrong way. “I really care about you. I'll always be your friend.”

He straightens up and runs his hand coolly through his shaggy hair.

“Yeah, me too,” he says, his eyes beginning to dart around the room, eventually landing on an older man in really expensive jeans, whom I take to be one of his professional suitors.

“Hey,” he says, pushing his chin out in the man's direction, “I should bolt.” He nods at me and scampers off, leaving me alone with an endless loop of beautiful New York women that my exboytoy had sex with. There are so many of them. I watch for a while until my sister pokes me in the waist with a skinny finger.

“Hipsters are so over,” she snarls over the music, “there are way too many asymmetrical haircuts here,” and drags me back to the bar for a refill and then onto the dance floor, where Steve and Jeremy are bumping and grinding all over each other. I wonder why I never thought of setting them up; they're so obvious. Jeremy's cradling a bottle of tequila, which he dangles in my face.

“Where'd you get that?” I shout, taking a swig.

“Blew the bartender,” he says.

I take another sip and shake my head, hoping it will make it go down easier. “I was just drinking wine at Courtney's,” I say.

“Wine, then liquor—never been sicker, thicker, bicker, dicker,” he slurs, wagging a finger at me and offering the bottle to Steve, who's gazing amorously into his eyes.

“You are wasted, mister,” I say. “And in vino veritas.”

“In tequila, vomit and stupidity,” he says, winding his arms more tightly around my boss's waist.

My sister and I dance with them to a trippy mash-up of “Superfreak” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” and I wave at Jake's bland, cute roommate who is DJing. Jeremy doesn't check his cell phone once during the entire song. From out of nowhere, Chester spills a beer on my arm and I shake it off flamboyantly, rolling my eyes in mock disgust. He sticks his tongue lecherously between two fingers in homage to the scumbag whose truck Thelma and Louise blew up, before shuffling off to harass Spencer and his wife, who are swaying on the edge of the dance floor, trying to decide if they should join us. The music transitions smoothly into Robert Palmer's “Addicted to Love” and we all abandon our cool, swirling our sweaty manes around shouting, “You're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love.” Jeremy and Steve are pointing at each other and singing, “Might as well face it, you're addicted to love. Might as well face it, you're addicted to love,” when I feel a sudden urge to throw up and run. Steadying myself, I spot Courtney making her way out of the elevator. As I push through the crowd, Sam slams into me, apologizes without even looking to see whose bones she might have broken, and continues yelling at Charlie, flailing her arms around like a diva pissed off that her agent isn't earning her enough money. If the music weren't so loud, I'm sure Sam and Charlie would be making quite a scene. I wonder with a sick thrill what they're fighting about and kick myself for falling prey to the worst type of schadenfreude—at the expense of my friends. I scold myself and grab Court by the bony shoulder.

“You're here!” I say.

“Not just me!” she says with an ethereal grin.

I follow her eyes toward the bar and see Brad's familiar poofy head making its way toward us. “Oh my God!” I scream.

Brad hands two beers to Courtney and picks me up and twirls me around. “Nice dress,” he says.

“You can have it,” says Courtney.

“Really?”

“I never wear it,” she says. I hug her and ask Brad what the hell he's doing here.

“I missed my girls,” he says with a grin. “I couldn't wait for Court to come to me. I had to prove my love with a grand gesture.”

“Guess what!” Courtney says, bouncing. “I'm going on tour with Brad!”

I squint at her quizzically.

“Court's going to look into getting someone to cover her summer school class so she can come on tour with me. I've only got another couple months, so it shouldn't be hard.”

“Shut up!” I squeal, relieved that they've decided to stay together.

“This being-apart thing clearly isn't working for us,” Brad says, putting his arm around her shoulder. “I'm a miserable wretch without her.” Court smiles and leans into his chest. “I start to lose touch with the things that are important to me. In a perfect world, Court will get knocked up immediately—” I drop my jaw and throw Court an expression of “Wait a sec—you said he didn't want kids,” and she smiles back at me in an expression of “Of course he did, he just needed me to remind him.”

“I'll be the fattest groupie in the history of groupies!” she says.

“Woo-hoo!” I say, swaying my hips drunkenly to the music.

“You know, Jacquie, my wife is a very silly lady,” Brad says. “Doesn't she realize that's what love is? You come with me, I go with you. We're in it together. Know what I'm sayin'? Even the things I do for me are really about you, baby. We're in it.”

“Oh God, I feel a song coming on,” I say.

Brad hits me on the head. I spin around and notice Steve and Jeremy making out on the dance floor and Alicia flirting with DJ No Personality. It all makes me dizzy.

“My sister is so not ready to settle down,” I shout.

“She's finding herself,” Courtney says. “She's going to be fine, Jacquie. You just have to accept that your little sister is on a different schedule than you are.”

“You're right,” I say. Alicia is never going to wash my dishes. She's never going to call to let me know she's alive after a night of urban escapades. And she probably won't choose one man, one job, one city until she's forty-two. And that's fine for her. I guess I need to stop playing worried big sister and let her be.

I jump when someone grabs me from behind and swing around to see Anthony, all smiles. I'm surprised that he's here; he told me he had a meeting tonight. He hands me a beer and kisses me on the mouth.

“Oh God, don't know if I need another one,” I say. “Feeling a bit woozy. Anthony, you remember Courtney, and this is Brad, Courtney's husband. Brad, Anthony, my boyfriend.” Brad winks at me and they shake hands. I down my beer.

“Great to meet you, man,” Anthony says. “Love your stuff.”

“Thanks, thanks a lot.”

As Anthony babbles to Courtney and Brad about how excited he is that we're back together, while checking his blinking phone to see who's calling him and scoping out the room to see who he knows, I can no longer hear what he's saying. Through a boozy haze, I watch his ridiculously sexy lips moving over his adorably crooked teeth as his words become a rumbling, a foreign language, static. He reaches over and takes my hand in his and raises it to his mouth to kiss my knuckle. I swell at his affection, as I always swell at his affection, so infrequent, so unexpected, like finding a twenty-dollar bill in my coat pocket when it's raining and my wallet's empty and I need cab fare home. If he were always this loving, always around, would I still want him? The party blurs as I ask myself whether Anthony loves me. How can he? He doesn't even really know me, yet he is making an effort. He's here, talking to my friends, blowing off a meeting, being the boyfriend I've wanted him to be. So what is my problem? It's as if I am sitting here waiting for him to mess up.

“Anthony?” I interrupt. When he doesn't respond, I raise my voice. “Anthony! I have to talk to you.” The three of them turn toward me. I wave at the happy couple as I steer Anthony through the crowd. I don't want to talk here, so I lead him by the hand out of the building, down the block. We dodge traffic and race across the highway until we are looking out onto the Hudson River, where he nuzzles my neck and inches his hand up under my dress. We fool around for a while, him fondling my thigh, me sitting on the railing, tugging him toward me with my legs.

“Anthony,” I whisper, grabbing his hand. “Anthony, do you love me?”

“Of course I do,” he says, kissing my fingers one by one.

“You don't really know me very well,” I say. “I know that's my fault, I mean, there are things I kept from you, but sometimes it's like you don't want to know more.”

“That's crazy,” he says.

“Since we've been together, I never see my friends or go out for work or do yoga.”

“You do yoga?”