Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel (22 page)

“No, I’m an adult, who eats grown-up food. We’ll order from Cafe Gitane around the corner. It’s good and it’s on me.”

The restaurant was on Marjorie’s former block in NoLIta—euro, hipster, lots of aviator sunglasses. And it
was
good. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to throw away someone else’s food.”

“If that came from Fred’s fridge, I probably saved you from
E. coli
poisoning.”

Marjorie sighed. She had wondered about the worn-off expiration date on that jar of almond butter. “I’ll have the hearts of palm salad with chicken.”

Gus was dialing. “So you’re a regular, I guess?”

“I used to live around here.”

He placed their order. Afterward, they walked down the hall to their offices, parting at the entries. Neither closed his or her door, though, and once they sat, they had only to look up to face each other. Marjorie tried to focus on work, but a mixture of hunger and curiosity kept her stealing glances across the way.

They made inadvertent eye contact for a third time, and Gus laughed quietly. “Mike and I set it up this way so we could talk easily.”

“Ah.”

“I can close the door, if you need. It just gets kinda stuffy.”

“No, that’s fine.” She trained her eyes back on her computer screen. “I’m good. Good, good, good.”

“You know, you do that all the time.”

“What?”

“That repeating thing. Thing, thing, thing.”

“Oh! You know, someone else pointed that out to me recently. It’s unconscious. Sorry.”

“It’s not bad. Just … distinct.”

Marjorie cringed. “‘Distinct’ is code for weird. I hope it’s not a habit I picked up from my mother.”

Gus considered that. “Why? Does she drive you nuts?”

“Often. Yours?”

“I don’t see my mother that much, so less so. But she’s her own special case. That’s the thing with family: You miss them, then they make you insane.”

Why didn’t Gus see his mother? Marjorie wondered. Fred said they lived close by in Philly. “My parents are uptown in the apartment I grew up in. Some distance might not hurt.”

“You didn’t leave New York for college? How come?”

“It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately: What would have happened if I’d left?”

Marjorie and Gus had stopped pretending to work. He sat back in his chair, rolling a pen between his fingers, listening. She rested her cheek against her palm in thought.

“Because of your work situation?”

She hesitated. Should she be honest? This was a strange conversation to have with a boss with whom she did not get along and by whom she hoped to be hired long term. But she felt compelled to “confess,” just as Mac had in her presence.

“Yes. Because of my work, living, and everything else situation. I got offered a job while I was in college, so I never left after graduation either.” She bit down on her thumbnail. “I think maybe I was afraid of something different.”

“And now?” Gus tilted his head in question.

“Now I’m here. Living with Fred in Brooklyn—”

“Instead of NoLIta.”

“Instead of NoLIta, which I loved. And working here. This week.” She forced a grin. “So.”

Instead of returning her smile, he furrowed his brow. “Is the change bad?”

She glanced around, as if trying to decide, her eyes resting on Michael’s silly wall calendar: fruits with felt eyes, noses, and mouths to represent each month. “I don’t think so. I love Fred. I’m so lucky to have met her. I guess I have my mother to thank for that.”

He nodded. “They’re a good bunch, those Reynolds kids.”

“Yeah. Plus, I actually like Carroll Gardens. And this work is great: writing, watching movies. It’s just weird to be peripheral to everything you’ve known. Suddenly, I have a different life. I moved a couple weeks ago, but it seems like it’s been a millennium.”

“So how come you know something about film?”

“Ah, so you admit it!” She pointed a finger,
J’accuse.

“I admit nothing.”

“Of course not.” She shook her head. “My father is a media studies professor; he’s obsessed with film and TV. I spent my childhood watching seminal, and not so seminal, pieces of art and entertainment. It’s sort of the religion of my household. That and secular Judaism. Okay. Now it’s my turn. You’ve asked me twenty questions. I get one.”

“Fair enough.” Gus opened his arms, as if to present himself.

“What’s with the books? There’s nothing else in your office. What’s the deal?”

“Seriously? You know nothing about me; you can ask
anything.
And that’s what you choose? You must be lousy at Truth or Dare.”

“I didn’t know I could ask those kinds of questions!”

“You can’t.” He smirked. “Well,
Freedom
I’m reading—not too fascinating. The others are my favorites. I bring them everywhere I spend chunks of time, then reread them—or at least passages—regularly, to keep in touch with strong storytelling. I can get jaded. These help me remember what constitutes ‘good.’”

“So Franny and Zooey, huh?”

An unfamiliar voice rang out from the front of the office: “Hello? Delivery!”

“Shit, I almost forgot.” Gus jumped up and jogged toward the front. Marjorie could tell he was athletic.
Ugh.
If only Lydia and Kate hadn’t mentioned his arms. Ever since, she couldn’t help checking him out: his back, his hands, the imperfect speckle in his left eye. She pushed down the thoughts, chalking up the odd accompanying feeling to low blood sugar from hunger.

Gus dropped her salad off at her desk. And they went back to work, doors closed.

26

Seven cups of tea, three Coke Zeros, six bathroom breaks, countless snacks, one dinner, and one sunset later, an almost deaf and dumb Marjorie finished watching her allotted movies. When she stood, a crick in her back threatened to take her back down. Kneading her muscles, she turned her back to the door, stretched upward, her hands pressed together, and dove down to touch her toes, her hair spilling over her legs.

At that moment, Gus opened the door to find Marjorie ass foremost—a compromising position considering her miniskirt. “Hey, I—” He stopped short. “What are you doing? Is that Downward-Facing Dog?”

Marjorie shot to standing, yanking her skirt down over her thighs and her shirt over her stomach. “I was just—my back. It’s—”

He smirked. “C’mon. I want to show you something.”

Gus led a mortified Marjorie into his office, where the TV was paused on an image of butterflies. She’d half expected C-SPAN, as he’d grumbled nonstop since she met him about Congress and gerrymandering. His obsession with politics had motivated Marjorie to bone up in case he ever paused for a response. He rolled the second office chair around to his side of the desk and motioned for her to sit.

“It’s a documentary about monarchs,” he explained. “It takes three generations for them to complete their migration. Somehow the offspring intuit the directions—like they’re biologically programmed. Just look.”

He sat beside her and aimed the remote at the screen. Unable to sit still, Marjorie sat up straight, slouched, crossed and uncrossed her legs, pressed her thighs together, stuck, unstuck. She could feel him next to her, could smell that damn gum.

On-screen, butterflies swarmed, as the narrator described the culmination of their southern migration; they settled over their Mexican nesting place like an orange-and-black blanket. And Gus was right, it was beautiful. Not just the images, but also the concept that personal and even ancestral memories could be embedded in the body’s neurons, arteries, blood, muscles, and bones. In her exhausted state, Marjorie almost began to cry.

The film was over; credits rolled.

“How cool is that?” said Gus.

“Pretty cool.”

The nature documentary’s requisite instrumentals soared.

“So, you almost finished?”

“I’m actually done.”

Gus exhaled. “Great work today.”

“Maybe. I went brain-dead three hours ago and have no idea what I’ve watched since.”

“Part of the process.” His gaze lingered on her face: cheekbone, earlobe, mouth.

“What time is it?”

They both glanced at the clock. “After one.”

“Hey.” Marjorie hoped to sound offhand. “Before you do something atrocious to make me feel otherwise, I want to say I’m grateful.”

“For?”

“The chance to do more interesting work.”

“You earned it.” Gus shrugged. “You can do yoga in my office anytime.”

Marjorie shot him a feigned dirty look, suppressing a smile. “Seriously, it means a lot.” She reached out to squeeze his shoulder, then pulled her hand back, unsure.

“So,” he said.

“So, so, so,” she said.

In the unadorned room at that advanced hour, beneath dimmed halogens and white-painted pipes, a charge sparked between these two individuals, surprising them both in its intensity. Outside, bulbs from a thousand apartments twinkled and fell, a fluid strobe. Goose bumps rose against Marjorie’s shirt sleeves. She could chart the distance to Gus’s hands, could feel the air between them emulsify. The clock’s second hand hesitated.

Slowly, carefully, Gus raised a palm and rubbed at the back of his neck. He took a steadying breath, stealing himself. “Okay.” He swiveled his chair to face Marjorie and leaned in close, elbows resting on his knees. “Here’s the thing—”

That’s when a voice broke in from down the hall, startling them. “Hello!”

Gus and Marjorie both blinked as if blinded by harsh bar lights, having lingered after last call. Suddenly, they remembered the world outside, where people were sleeping or talking, kissing or fighting, and the moment combusted, too easily shattered.

“Madge! You here?” called the voice again.

Marjorie shot to standing. “I forgot, I texted him; he said he’d come grab me.”

Gus sat frozen, slouched over his legs. “Right. Him?”

“Coming!”

She flipped on the light and pulled the door open, rushing down the corridor to greet Mac. Reaching him, she planted a kiss on his lips that lingered too long. He tasted faintly of rum; she, of guilt.

“Now, that’s a greeting.” He winked. “You ready?”

“Just have to grab my stuff.”

He followed her back to Michael’s office, his hands in his pockets as he strolled. Mac took his time; it was not in his nature to rush. Once there, he peeked inside, assessed the fruit calendar, then turned and started when he spotted Gus behind his desk.

“Oh, it’s
you,
” said Mac. “You work here.” Marjorie might have forgotten her chance meeting with Gus at Fred’s party (she was no monarch butterfly), but Mac had not.

“It’s Gus’s company.” Marjorie slipped her tote onto her shoulder. “With Fred’s brother. I mentioned that.”

“Got it.” Mac’s darkened expression said he most certainly did. “I didn’t make the connection.” He strode over to Gus, never breaking eye contact. “Good to remeet you.” He offered his hand; they shook. “Mac O’Shea.”

“The imaginary friend.”

Mac shook his head, a decisive jerk. “The boyfriend.”

Oblivious, Marjorie bustled in, smacking her many bags against the door. She examined them both—Gus in his now wrinkled shirt and sneakers; Mac in his immaculate short-sleeved button-down and shiny shoes—and thought,
A man dressed like a boy; a boy dressed like a man.

“Okay, I’m ready! Thanks again for everything, Gus.”

“Like I said, you did a good job.”

Mac edged toward the exit. “Shall we, Madgesty?”

Gus seemed to process the nickname with alarm, looking to Marjorie for confirmation. She didn’t meet his eyes as she left. “Well, bye.”

Walking down the concrete hall, she thought ahead with detachment to Mac’s air-conditioned loft, the stiff books, king-size platform bed with ironed sheets, all edges.

“Shoot! I forgot something!” she said. “I’ll meet you by the elevator.”

As Mac exited, she reappeared, breathless, in Gus’s doorway. “You were about to say something.”

“What?”

“You said, ‘Here’s the thing,’ then Mac came in. You were about to say something.”

Gus shrugged. “I don’t remember. Must have been about the butterflies.”

Marjorie bit her lip. “Well, if you think of it, you have my number.”

“I do …
Madgesty.
”

She took a step, rethought it, and returned once more. “Don’t ever call me that, okay? I don’t like it.”

“Fair enough.” Gus forced a smile. Then, when he finally heard Marjorie close the front door, he covered his eyes with his hand and groaned.

27

Outside, the air was muddy, viscous. Since Monday morning, moisture had been building. Humidity had collected in insidious pockets, coating the region and its inhabitants like a parasitic blanket, causing fingers to stick together, hair to crinkle, and tempers to hover somewhere between homicidal and burner lethargic.

Joan Didion famously wrote about LA’s arid Santa Ana winds that steal breath and make people’s minds go funny. This was New York’s equivalent. And there was no lake, pool, weeping willow, Mexican taco stand or Southern pie shop to render the mugginess worthwhile. Marjorie felt mad and overcome by a desire to escape.

Mac was unperturbed by the heat. “It’s fine,” he assured Marjorie, as if his feelings made it universally so. Suddenly, his jaunty gait, staccato voice, and old stories about John, Matt, and Carlos (all of whom he’d seen that night) bugged her. His cavalier attitude seemed like a dearth of personal insight.

Waiting to cross the street at a red light, he placed a palm on her shoulder. She turned on him with murderous eyes. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Whoa.” He removed his hand, lest it get bit. “We need to get you into a cab.”

And because he was Mac and so impossibly charmed, a yellow taxi pulled up at the next corner. They slid inside. The air conditioner, though not frigid enough for Marjorie’s taste, helped. After a couple minutes, during which Mac remained sagely quiet, she decompressed. Mac was fine. Mac was great. She was losing her mind.

Marjorie sighed, a signal that her mood was improving. Mac gazed out at the blur of passing streets. “So, that’s your boss, huh? You didn’t say he was the guy from the party.”