Sad Desk Salad (5 page)

Once we’ve decided on our plan of action, Rel tells us she has a surprise for us in her purse. “We need to go outside for me to show you,” she says. We tromp out of the tiki bar together, leaving $40 on the table to pay for our bowls and for Amber. Even though she was a preening narcissist on
Top Model,
seeing her in person made me feel warmly toward her. I hope she’ll use some of her tip money to pay for some new headshots so she can stop serving booze bowls to NYU students.

I haven’t been this drunk on a weeknight since I moved in with Peter about nine months ago. When we first combined our mismatched tablewear in that small basement apartment, we entered a deep nesting phase, one that made me feel surprisingly relieved and relaxed. I had become self-destructive in the immediate aftermath of my father’s death: carousing to an unhealthy degree, drinking mirthless whiskeys while covering mediocre bands for
Rev
at various seedy concert venues around New York City.

Cohabitating made that life seem even less desirable. Peter took pride in watering our meager backyard garden; I read Mark Bittman cookbooks and started making healthy meals that usually involved quinoa. But more than that: At the beginning of this year, Peter went from being an associate at a small firm to an analyst at a big one, and I started working at Chick Habit. Both of our jobs are nearly impossible to do with a hangover—forcing myself to have a smart take on Michelle Obama and the latest mommy blogs is unbearable unless my brain is at full capacity.

Yet here I am, about to get even more smashed: The “surprise” turns out to be a small plastic bag of weed, which Rel proceeds to furtively pack into a one-hitter that looks like a cigarette. “We’re already wasted,” Tina says, swaying on those four-inch heels. “Is this going to turn out well?”

Rel hands her the pipe and I guess Tina convinces herself that it’s a fine idea, because she takes a long deep pull and her face relaxes instantly. She hands the pipe over to me. I take a deep pull just like hers and end up sputtering and coughing, and while I’m trying to breathe I fall backward into a potted tropical plant.

“
Ahahaahaha the pot made you fall into a pot!
” Rel can’t stop laughing, and she says it over and over again like an autistic child: “Pot pot pot pot pot.”

Tina and I are laughing, too, though the edges of my vision are starting to get a little fuzzy, and then Rel says, “It’s such a fucking gorgeous night. Let’s go to the beach!” It’s true: The day’s heat is no longer rising from the sidewalks, and there’s a slight breeze against my bare legs. It’s not yet August, when the entire city becomes soggy and fetid and unbearable. These July nights are perfect and fleeting.

I use Rel’s back as a beacon to guide me down the stairs at Second Avenue, the straps of her sundress crisscrossing daintily over her shoulder blades. I don’t really understand where we’re going, just that I’m with Rel and Tina and everything seems hilarious. My apartment is just a few stops away and so I can gracefully hop off and go home to Peter in ten minutes or so. I look over at Tina and she’s grinning broadly. Her face in repose is generally so reserved—lips pursed, eyes unsmiling—that seeing her look happy is infectious. For reasons obscure to me Tina starts singing Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” really loudly right after we travel under the East River into Brooklyn. A bearded dude gets off at York Street, chuckling to himself, and then we’re all alone in the car, so Rel and I join in, reaching a shouty crescendo with the song’s last line: “AND YOU SAY / I ONLY HEAR WHAT I WANT TO . . .”

Suddenly I realize the train is outside, and I look out the thinly cracked window at the broad boulevards below. I start smelling the Atlantic’s particular brine. I can tell that we’re getting farther and farther from the tiki bar. I also realize that we’ve blown past my subway stop and I don’t even know how far. I take out my phone and see that I have two missed calls and three texts from Peter. The texts are increasingly anxious.

Peter Rice (8:48 PM): Hey! Hope you’re having fun with the girls! Call me when you have a second.

Peter Rice (10:55 PM): Haven’t heard from you. Have a big day tomorrow so I’m getting into bed.

Peter Rice (12:59 AM): Can’t sleep. Where are you??? Hello??

My iPhone says it’s 1:22 now. “Shit, I have to call Peter!” I exclaim. My face flushes three times, first with guilt because he’s probably sitting at home worrying about me; immediately after because I’m annoyed that his feelings have interrupted my buzz; finally, a third time because I feel guilty for being annoyed.

“
Busted!
” Rel shouts.

I fumble at my phone, finally getting to Peter’s number. He picks up after one ring.

“Alex, where are you?”

“Hey, baby! I’m on the F!” I say it brightly, hoping that he’ll hear that I’m kind of drunk but still safe, and he won’t want to start a fight over the phone.

“How are you getting reception?” he asks, the confusion outweighing the palpable concern in his tone.

“We’re outside!”

“What do you mean you’re outside?” Peter’s voice is rising, incredulous.

“We’re going to the beach?” It comes out as a question because I still am not 100 percent sure where we’re headed.

“Are you going to Coney Island at one in the goddamn morning?”

Rel is sitting next to me and can hear what Peter is saying. “We sure are!” she says, loud enough for him to hear.

“Alex.” He says it evenly but I detect a tinge of condescension. The tone sets me on edge and instinctively makes me want to contradict him.

“Mmmm?”

“This is a really bad idea.”

“It’s going to be okay, I promise!”

“I’m too tired to argue with you. Have fun on needle beach with a bunch of crackheads,” he says, and hangs up.

I can’t tell if he’s pissed that I didn’t call him earlier or if he’s more worried that I’m going to get hurt among the syringes and dirty condoms that litter the Coney Island boardwalk. Or maybe it’s that he’s a tiny bit jealous that I’m out with Rel and Tina while he’s in bed by eleven so he can be shiny and fresh for work in the morning. His call takes me out of the moment, and I look down at the mottled floor. It’s unclear how for long I’ve spaced out for when Tina shouts, “Oh my God we’re
here
!”

The last stop on the train is Stillwell Avenue. We walk out of the subway onto Surf Avenue and the smell of the ocean smacks us in the face. The last time I was at Coney Island was for a big music festival and the clean sea waft was marred by the overwhelming scent d’Portapotty. Not tonight. The rickety wooden Cyclone looms over us as we stroll. It’s light enough for our path to be clear, but dark enough so that we can’t see the hot dog wrappers and the discarded bottles of suntan lotion that surely surround us. Tina seems to know where she’s going, so Rel and I hang back and watch her walk languidly toward the boardwalk. Rel reaches for my hand and holds it the way a small child would.

When she spots the beach, Tina takes off her shoes and breaks into a run. Rel drops my hand and follows on her heels. I start running, too. The only people in sight are a couple of Russian teenagers huddled together on a bench off to our left. They don’t even look up as we come whooping past, throwing our light summer frocks and our canvas bags onto the sand.

Tina’s the first one in the bracing Atlantic salt water. “IIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,” she shrieks as she hits the waves. I’m already running so fast into the surf I don’t have time to register the temperature until I’m struggling to catch my breath in the chest-deep water.

Rel is smart enough to see us shudder and stays in the shallows. We join her back in the surf and loll around in the sand, letting the waves wash over us. For such a fashionista, Tina is wearing some seriously dumpy undergarments: Her baggy white Hanes droop around her hips. Rel’s yanking up the waistband of her boy-cut briefs, and I’m trying to clear the sand out of my unassuming black bra.

Simultaneously, and for no apparent reason, we stop fidgeting. For what seems like forever we sit in silence and listen to the sound of the ocean. The salty air on my exposed skin makes me feel almost achingly alive, diametrically opposite to my days spent in our basement dwelling, shackled to my laptop.

Finally, Rel says, “This is the best possible end to a shitty day.” Tina and I nod our heads in solemn agreement.

An early morning chill has descended onto the beach and I start shivering. I get up and paw around for my muumuu, which now has fine grains of sand attached to all the eyelets and sticks unattractively to my damp body when I pull it on. I reach down and gather my bag, instinctively grabbing for my iPhone. It’s been about forty minutes since we arrived at Coney Island, and it feels like that’s the longest period of time I’ve been away from an electronic device since I started working this job.

I wipe the sand away from the phone’s screen and find another text from Peter.

Peter Rice (2:34 AM): Please just come home.

TUESDAY

Chapter Three

The
bring bring
of my iPhone jolts me out of a sweaty half slumber at 6:20. I would estimate I’ve been asleep for about two and a half hours. I stretch my legs and feel sand crunching in between my toes. My first coherent thought is, Why is there so much sand in this bed? And then the previous evening’s activities come roaring back to me.

I look over at Peter’s side of the bed and realize that it’s a mass of blankets and a depression where his body should be. I heave myself out of bed and go out into the living room, where Peter’s sitting in the crack between the couch cushions, drinking coffee with a blank expression. The burgeoning crow’s-feet around his pale eyes look deeper than usual, probably because he barely slept last night. And I know it’s my fault.

“Hi,” I say, padding over to him. With every shuffle-step my head throbs. I pick the salty muumuu up from the floor and slip it on. Tiny grains of sand skitter across our wood floors. “I’m really sorry about last night. I was freaking out about that hate site and I wanted to unwind with the girls.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says tersely.

“I don’t really think it’s fine,” I say, sitting down next to him.

“I’m not trying to control you,” Peter says. “But you can’t disappear like that for hours and hours and not tell me where you are.”

“I said I was sorry!” I reply, a nasal whine appearing in my voice, which I hate. I collect myself and say, “I promise I won’t let it happen again.”

“It’s more than that. I don’t want to sound like your dad.” Peter winces and pauses; he sometimes forgets about my father, and always feels guilty when he does. “But I feel like those girls are a bad influence on you. You’ve never done something like this before. Coney Island?”

I don’t want to tell him that right after my dad died I used to do stuff like this all the time. So instead I become defensive. “Seriously?! It’s not like we went to Baghdad. We went to the beach. And it’s not like I was alone. Don’t be so provincial.”

“Fine.” This time when he says it he just sounds resigned, and he stands up as if he’s about to leave.

“Peter, come on.”

“I don’t want to fight you on this.”

“Can’t you appreciate the extenuating circumstances?”

“Sort of,” he grudgingly says. Then his tone abruptly shifts. “I did read the hate blog last night.”

“What? How did you even find it? I didn’t give you the URL!” I am genuinely surprised, and then concerned.

“Promise not to get mad?”

“Maybe.”

“I Googled ‘Alex Lyons sucks’ and it was the first thing that came up.”

“Fuck.” But I have to laugh.

“Have you looked at it yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t know if you should. There’s some pretty awful stuff on there.”

“I’m a big girl, I can take it,” I tell him, with zero certainty that it’s true.

“They’re just anonymous losers. Who cares what they think?”

I sit with that thought for a second. I don’t want to tell Peter that it’s not what they think—though that can be hurtful—it’s what they could potentially reveal that’s so worrisome. There are probably things I don’t even remember doing that could be dug up and framed in a way that would make me look like a monster. But instead of following that horrifying train of thought, I decide to change the subject.

“What about you? Are you going to be okay at work today even though you didn’t get much sleep?”

Peter sighs. “Yeah, I think it will be fine. I got a few hours and you know they have that fancy new Nespresso machine at the office. I’ll just mainline caffeine all day.” He starts palming the ceiling with his hand as we talk. The downside of living in the garden apartment is that our ceilings are so low I can touch them with the tips of my fingers. When he’s anxious, Peter puts his whole hand up there. His ire seems to have dissipated, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to fully forgive me for a few days. Still, I feel like at least one fire has been put out.

Peter walks over to the kitchen to put his coffee cup in the sink.

“I love you,” I tell him.

“I love you, too,” Peter says, and bends down to kiss me on the forehead.

I hate having even the smallest tiff with Peter, since I’m so grateful for his presence in my life. In the months before Peter and I met, I felt lost in such a profound way I couldn’t even voice it. I dated a bunch of clones of my terrible ex-boyfriend Caleb—artists in every different medium. I went out every night and was drinking even more than when Caleb and I were together.

What brought me out of my downward spiral was the night I went home with this nebbishy, sleazy guy from
Rev
named Adrian who always wore an out-of-date leather jacket and tried to pass as twenty-nine though he was probably in his midthirties. Adrian was a writer for the magazine who came into the office only occasionally, but whenever he did he would loiter by my desk and ask me to go to concerts with him. I always turned him down, but when Adrian asked me to a secret Magnetic Fields show just after my dad died, I said, “Sure, why not.”