In the few minutes we spent observing Jeff on the floor of that party, he didn’t speak once, though all conversation was subtly directed toward him. His eyes alighted on me—he saw everyone, I think—but they seemed to look right through me, like he had access to another highervibrational plane of existence. I didn’t particularly like the way it felt.
When Nisha worked up the courage to crawl over and tell him she was a fan, he finally spoke. I couldn’t hear a single word they exchanged, so my transcript comes directly from Nisha, who recounted it to me at least three times on the walk home, and then again this morning, when she burrowed into my bed and, with the clarity of retrospect and soberness, burst into tears of overwhelm.
Nisha:I’m a huge fan of yours.
Jeff:That’s lovely to hear. I appreciate it.
End scene.
“It’s nice that the whole ‘don’t meet your heroes’ thing doesn’t apply to Nisha’s experience. That she doesn’t regret it,” Reid says now.
“Have you ever done that?” I ask. “Met your heroes, I mean.”
He considers this for a moment. “Maybe not a personal hero, but my mom stayed friends with a few of the musicians she knew from Laurel Canyon, even after we moved out to Altadena. Some of them were really famous. One time, I think when I was four or five, Stephen Stills came out there to spend the day with us. He picked lemons from the tree in our neighbor’s yard and made us lemonade.”
“How was that?”
“He put, like, half a pound of sugar in it, so I had a great time.”
I laugh. He gestures to the plastic cup I grabbed from the deli along with the sandwiches I’d picked up for our lunch.
“How’s that?” He peers into my drink.
“Want to try?”
He leans across the table just enough to grab the straw with his teeth while I hold the cup for him. I watch the strong lines of his throat work while he swallows, his eyes trained on mine.
This, I think,is the most intimate thing I’ve done with anyone in a long time. Maybe ever.
He sits back down. “Better than Stephen’s.”
“Thanks. Tropicana is responsible for the recipe. But I did dispense it into this cup myself.”
“You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”
“How lucrative a field is drink-dispensing, do you think?” It’s a dumb joke, but he laughs anyway. I’ve never made a guy laugh this easily, and it feelsso right, like the click of a shutter that captures a singular, impossible moment. I sigh. “Well, good, because I can feel my job prospects diminishing with every passing minute.”
“Why’s that?” His face goes serious.
“School is... tough for me right now. I haven’t done a single thing to prepare for this semester. I keep putting it off, saying I’ll do it tomorrow. I don’t even remember what classes I signed up for.”
I wasn’t planning on dragging school into this conversation. I don’t want him to think that I’m a slacker, or that I’m not grateful to go to NYU. But there’s something about the way Reid is looking at me that makes me wantto open up, to share this small, seemingly manageable thing that’s somehow become gargantuan and swallowed me in anxiety.
“What do you have to do to prepare?” There’s no trace of judgment in his words. Just a matter-of-fact question to gather information and see what we can do with it. It instantly makes me feel calmer.
“I need to look over all my syllabi and then buy books. That’s probably the most pressing thing.”
“Why don’t we do that tonight? I can meet you at the NYU bookstore after work. Or wherever you get your books.”
“Really? You would do that with me?”
“Yeah, of course. When I was in middle school, I went through a pretty serious procrastination phase, and the only thing that got me through it was when my mom would sit down at the kitchen table with me while I did my homework. She didn’t even help, unless I asked for it. Just her presence, her sitting there with me, was enough.”
I must be looking at him for too long, or with too much sincerity, because at some point, he asks if I’m OK.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s just, like, the nicest thing anyone has ever offered to do for me.”
A furrow forms between his brows. He leans in toward me, so close I can see that his eyes are not really brown but terracotta, shot through with pale gold flecks.
