“You look like you need to have some fun,” Daisy had said when she proposed the plan. “I’m running a bet with my friend. Stay until midnight, and when she asks for your phone number, refuse to give it to her.”
“Weird bet,” I said.
“Part of our acting process.” She scooped up a handful of pretzels and popped them in her mouth. “Helps us pretend we’re anyone but ourselves.”
“Actresses are very strange.” I laughed.
“You don’t know the half of it.” She untied her apron from her waist, waved over her friend, then passed the apron to her.
I spend the better part of the hour checking the door, swiveling my neck so often a muscle pinches. I should say something to Amanda, tell her how much it annoys me when she just goes AWOL, but I hate getting into it, the confrontation, the fights.
We met through mutual friends at a Yankees game two summers ago: a Goldman analyst buddy had been released into the wild for the night and his partner had given him the Goldman box—fifteen of us were invited. Amanda and I hit it off immediately: we were all hot dogs and kettle corn and cold beer for the three-hour stretch of the game. Every once in a while, she’d stop to look out on the field and yell: “Jeter, you’re such a little bitch!” but she was from Boston and a Red Sox fan, so I forgave this. Besides, her fiery attitude was perfectly in line with her red hair, her zeal. She was passionate about her med school, she was passionate about politics (we were in the midterm election cycle that year); it was only surprising that she was just as passionate about me. We took the subway home together, with everyone really, and when I went to exit at my parents’ stop, she said: “No, you’re not getting off here. Astor Place is your stop.” And so I abided.
But now it’s nearly midnight, and my neck hurts and my beer is flat and warm. I have promised Daisy that I’d stay until her friend, Tatum, who is wiping down the bar and shutting down some girl I recognize as the sister of an asshole I went to high school with, loses the bet.
“Bitch!” the girl yells at Tatum, who looks on with mild interest, the epitome of cool, not rattled in any way. I watch her for a beat, as that asshole’s sister falls off her stool and to the ground, and am struck by the fact that Tatum’s face doesn’t flinch for even the tiniest of seconds. I remember that asshole, how I’d be reading in the library and he’d come by and shove my book to the floor, and how I was dating Paige Brewer and he wanted to sleep with her, so he told me that she left her underwear in his locker. He’d taunt me, cajole me, and never once did my facenotflinch, never did I shake him off so completely, like Tatum is able to shake off his sister now. She grabs her towel and wipes down the bar, and I wonder what I could learn from her, what she could teach me.
“I hope you don’t take her personally,” I say. “I went to high school with her older brother. I think being an asshole is genetic.”
She laughs at this, throws her head back like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. I’m great at writing drama, milking emotion out of real life, but I’ve never been a comedian. Amanda never finds me gut-busting hilarious. Something needy swells in me.More.
“Free refill for you,” she says.
I wave her off, though not because I want to. I’m just trying to be responsible. I have an early shoot, and also she makes me uneasy, like I’m sitting here waiting for Amanda but want to be sitting here talking to her. I’ve never been disloyal, never even considered being unfaithful. I make a mental leap—to me unbuttoning Tatum’s shirt, kissing the nape of her neck—and then press it to the back of my brain.No.
“I don’t need another,” I say. “I’m on my way out.”
“You turn into a pumpkin before midnight?”
She’s closer now, and I can see how beautiful she is. Long brown hair tied up in a bun, sharp green eyes that probably veer toward hazel when the sky is overcast. She has a dimple on one cheek, a fan of freckles on her nose, not dark enough that she couldn’t cover them up, but tonight, she lets them breathe. I imagine, again, taking off her shirt.
“Nah, just ... I have an early shoot tomorrow and the person I was meeting tonight never showed.”
“A shoot? I’m intrigued,” she says.
“Grad student.”
“Are you at Tisch? I’ve never seen you before; I’m there for theater.”
“I’m there for writing, MFA. You know, about to set the world on fire as the next big screenwriter.”
Shit. What a stupid fucking thing to say.Selling myself short, listening to the voice of my dad in my ear.
I add, “Or something like that. I don’t know, talk to my parents and they’ll tell you I gave up my very lucrative analyst position at Morgan Stanley for a graduate degree in film.”
“Banking boys are so boring. No wonder you quit.” She smiles and her dimple craters, and now I’m on to removing everything she has on, stripping her naked. “Eh, tell your parents to screw themselves.”
“I’m still living with them, so that’s a little hard.”Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Why am I saying all this?I play this off like I’m joking. Like I’m not sitting here exposing all of my shortcomings to the most intoxicating woman I’ve met since, well, since that Yankees game with Amanda.
“Yikes,” she says.
“Tell me about it.” I laugh, wave a hand, recover.
“Tatum Connelly.” She extends a hand, and I clasp it, don’t want to let go.
“Ben Livingston.” She winces when I do indeed hold on for a moment too long. “Sorry. Habit. Trained that way by my dad since I was six.”
“Fun childhood.”
