Miss Misery (10 page)

She dialed the number.

“It's ringing,” she said.

I stared at my phone. Nothing happened.

“Maybe you have bad service in here,” she said. “It's still ringing.”

I stared down. Still nothing.

“Look, you freak.” She kicked at my heels below the table. “You probably gave me the wrong phone number anyway. That's probably your sty—hello?”

I looked up. Her face looked crinkled, confused.

“Who is this? David?”

I grabbed her wrist and mouthed, “Don't tell him!”

“Uhhh…yeah. Hi, David. This is Cath from the other night. Where are you? The Apple Store? Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I check my e-mail there all the time too.”

My brain was numb. Suddenly, she was laughing.

“Yeah, I do still think I'm right. I was just talking…about…that.” She paused and pulled her arm away from me. “Look, dude, what the hell? Do you have a twin brother or something? Because if you do, this is
so
not cool.”

I grabbed the phone away from her. “Who the hell is this?”

A voice on the other end said, “This is David Gould. Who the hell is
this
?”

I said, “
This
is David Gould,” but my tongue felt cottony, and even I didn't know if I believed myself anymore.

“Oh,” said the voice. “Ha.” Did I really sound like that? “Well,” it said, “are you having fun yet?”

“What?” I was yelling now. “What the fuck does that mean? Who is this? How did you get my password?” I could hear the store behind him, people milling about, pricing iPods, speaking Italian.

“Because I certainly am.” The voice practically purred. “Bye, David. Tell Cath to call me later. And don't be a stranger.”

Click.

I held the phone to my ear longer than I should have, mainly because I knew that when I pulled it away I'd have to rejoin the planet again—a planet that was spinning away from me really rather quickly.

When I did, Cath was looking at her knees. “That wasn't you,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“But it was.” Her eyes were glistening.

“I know,” I said, but quieter.

“I need another drink,” she said. And for the first time that day, we agreed.

LATER, WHEN I THINK we were drunk, we hashed out a plan.

“So let's be clear.” Cath listed a bit in her booth and slurred her words slightly. “You want to meet yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“And you want me to introduce you to yourself.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“And you can't pay a therapist to do this for you?”

“Cath.”

She shook her head and killed off her third Tom Collins. I'd often heard that gin made an angry drunk, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on Cath Kennedy: The more she drank, the gentler she appeared, the softer her hard edges seemed.

“So you're just another David that's gonna use me, huh?”

“What? No!”

She smiled. “I'm kidding. But this is really fucking weird.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. The last thing I ever thought I'd be doing is sitting here with you.”

She crunched an ice cube. “What? Why? What's wrong with me?”

“Nothing's wrong with you.” I wanted to say, Other than the fact that you bite your nails and didn't call your father until you'd been in New York for three days. But I didn't. Instead I sipped more beer. “I just didn't know that you were real.”

“Well, here I am,” she said, frowning. Then she smiled. “Whoever you are, you were a really good kisser, you know.”

My face got hot. “It wasn't me, Cath.”

“So you say, so you say.” She drummed her nibbled nails on the tabletop. “How long have you been reading my diary?”

“Um, I don't know. A year maybe?”

“OK. Why me?”

I paused.

“I don't know,” I lied. “You're, um, very compelling. And you have good taste in music. And in books. You like Murakami.”

Her face turned bright. “You like Murakami?”

“He's my favorite,” I said.

“Mine too.” She took a sip of Tom Collins. “Which one do you like best?”

“Dance, Dance, Dance,”
I said without hesitation.

Her eyebrows raised. “Are you serious? That's your favorite?”

“Yep,” I said.

“But that's the one where nothing happens—the dude just wanders around haunted hotels and obsesses over a dead girl's ears. He's just a lonely guy getting mixed up in other people's lives.”

“It's my favorite,” I said.

“OK,” she said, and shook her head. “Whatever. But wait: This whole time, you were writing a book about me? And you were going to tell me…when?”

“It's not a book about
you
, Cath. It's about online diaries. But you weren't going to be in it.”

“Why not?” She seemed genuinely offended.

“Well, because…” I paused. “Reptilia” by the Strokes started up on the jukebox and I wanted to tell Cath that she loved this song, but I imagined she already knew. “Because you were private, you know? It was like having a favorite TV show that you don't want anyone else to know about.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I'm glad my fucking life can be so entertaining.”

“It's not like that.”

“It's not?”

“Well…yeah, it is. But it's more than that too.” I sighed. “Look, I'm sorry. I'm a little drunk. And more than a little freaked out.”

“I can tell. Look, I'll help you. I like adventures. And plus, I thought I liked you—or at least the other you.
You
you I'm not so sure about.”

I smiled and batted my eyes.

“But for God's sake you have to even the playing field, creepo. What's the address of
your
diary?”

I blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah fucking seriously! I usually don't like books with more than one author, but I'll see if I can make an exception.”

“OK. That's fair.” I was shuffling my empty beer glass between my hands like an air-hockey puck. “But…there's something you should know about it.”

“Don't worry,” she said. “I won't take the stuff about Saturday night personally since apparently you didn't write it.”

“No,” I said slowly. “It's not that. It's that my diary, the whole thing, it's…fake.”

“Well, duh,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“That's the beauty of the creepy things, right? You can say anything you want and no one's gonna contradict you. Well, except in the comments but you can shut those off.”

“No, I know that. I don't mean it's embellished. I mean it's fiction. I make it up. I've never done any of the stuff in it.”

“That's weird.”

“I know.”

“Why would you take the time to do that? You're, like, a real writer. You get paid. You have a life.”

“Yeah, but…” I felt the beer sloshing around in my brain, making me more than a little seasick. “There's stuff that I don't do in my life. That I can't do or whatever. And this way…at least I can write about it. I can live vicariously through it, you know? But now someone has
violated
that whole made-up life and is mocking me or whatever and it…sucks. It really, really sucks.”

Cath was staring at me. “Dude, whoever David number two is, he's not mocking you.”

“He's not?”

“Hell, no. It sounds to me like he's improving on you.”

“He is.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “I mean, you talk a lot of game—write it, too. This guy—whoever the fuck he is—at least he has the balls to go through with it.”

I looked away.

“I'm getting another drink.” She stood up. “And then I'm going to see my friend DJ. You're welcome to come if you want. But I understand if you'd rather just go home and write about what you think it was like.”

My head was in my hands before she'd even made it to the bar.

I reached for my wallet, steadied my hand, and followed her up for another drink.

 

Forty-five minutes later, I was following Cath down Essex Street in the fading sunlight. All around us were lazily handsome young people in thick-framed black glasses, artfully torn ringer Ts, and flowery sun-dresses. People leaned against buildings, sipped Sparks in front of bodegas, strummed guitars on the hoods of cars. Even the dawdling end-of-rush-hour traffic seemed tastefully color-coordinated. It was like hiking through an Urban Outfitters catalog.

Cath, in contrast, walked Manhattan's sidewalks like she was scaling a mountain: head back, center of gravity low, gulping up the pavement in comically huge swallows of steps. Her arms swung at her sides; her tiny hands balled into fists. It was hard to keep up.

“So, is your friend named DJ or is that what he's planning on doing tonight?”

“Cute,” she said. And picked up the pace.

“Where are we going?”

“To a bar.”

“OK. What makes this bar different from all other bars?”

“Tonight we recline instead of sitting upright.” She smiled.

“Ah, Passover humor,” I said appreciatively. “I didn't think they made Canadian Jews.”

“They do, but I'm not one of them. My best friend in high school was a chosen person.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Angie Gotbaum.”

All of a sudden Cath stopped short and wheeled around into me.

“Look, creepo, I don't mind you knowing lots of stuff about me—well, I do mind, but I can live with it. But you don't have to
prove
that you know me. Not when there's two of you and I barely know either of your asses.”

I couldn't think of a response to that, so she spun back around on her heels and took off east on Rivington.

“It's called the Satellite Heart,” she said over her shoulder. “It doesn't have a sign. It's awesome.”

Natch, I thought to myself. And picked up the pace.

 

From my early, drunken impressions of it, the Satellite Heart was indeed a bar, and it was also not quite like other bars. For one, it was fucking impossible to find. Located just off an alley that I had never even noticed, just off Rivington, just off Essex, the bar itself was below ground and, as (non)advertised, it did not have a sign. You had to step down a half-flight of metal stairs to reach the unmarked door; all that was visible from the street was the top of a wide window filled with red velvet curtains. At first sight, while my spinning head waited for my pupils to dilate, the Satellite Heart looked like David Lynch's idea of a fortune-teller's studio (minus the gypsy dwarf), but after a moment I could see that the red velvet couches gave way to the more staid exposed brick of the rear wall. The air-conditioning was cool and so was the mood of the place. The music was unobtrusive, the conversation a murmur. It felt a million miles away from the summer sweat of the city street behind us. The bar seemed to have its own curious personality; something throbbed through the place like blood.

The room itself was about double the size of my bedroom, with a handsome wood bar dominating the far wall. The bartender was a broad-shouldered Eastern European–looking man with a thick mustache and a playful grin who seemed to be taking in the atmosphere as he stood there with his thick arms crossed. To the right of the bar was a makeshift DJ booth where a toothpick-skinny black guy was spinning vinyl. It was a remix of a remix of a Rapture song.

“Hey, you!” I turned around with everyone else only to find that the bartender (who did have a rather impressive accent) was yelling at me.

“Yes?” I said, hating the sound of my voice.

“Close the damn door! I pay for the air-conditioning!”

“Oh,” I said dumbly. “Right.” And slammed it shut behind me. With the traffic noises removed, the hum of conversation from the low couches all around me swelled up to fill the void. I glanced around the room and saw no faces, just types: tight T-shirts, dark suit jackets, tousled bedhead, visible bra straps.

Cath had scampered ahead and was busily conferring with the DJ, who was, it seemed, actually her friend. I walked to the bar and had a seat.

“You,” said the bartender.

“Yes?” I said.

“You were raised in—how you say it—a barn?”

“No,” I said. “I was raised in Rhode Island.”

“Very good!” he said, throwing back his head and roaring with laughter.

I hadn't meant to be funny, but gave an encouraging chuckle. Cath came up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder, which twitched a little at the contact.

“What are you laughing about?” she asked.

“Rhode Island,” I said. “I think.”

“Oh,” she said. “That's funny?”

“Apparently.”

“Franta,” Cath said to the bartender, who was still wiping tears from his eyes, “this is David.”

“Hallo, David!” said Franta. “I am Franta. This is my bar.” He rummaged around for a moment before producing a highball glass full of ice and putting it in front of Cath. “You know this girl?”

I started to speak.

“Too well,” Cath said.

“Ah!” said Franta, his eyes gleaming. “Very good, very good.” He mixed a Tom Collins for Cath and poured it without ever glancing at what he was doing. “David, tonight you are going to drink whiskey.”

“I am?” I said.

Cath leaned in close. “Let him choose. Just this first time. That way you get to come back.”

I felt like a stranger in my own skin, not to mention my own city. But I was all the way in now, so I licked my dry lips and nodded.

Franta clapped his hands together and theatrically dropped a single ice cube in a lowball glass. He set it in front of me with a flourish, then produced an unmarked brown bottle from somewhere below the bar.

“This is for you, David. It's very good. Very good!” Franta lifted the bottle high above his head and let it pour all over the lonely ice cube, filling the glass halfway before jerking the bottle back without spilling a single extra drop. “Now: Drink.”

I raised the glass to my lips a bit unsteadily and sipped. The whiskey burned and tasted vaguely like licking mossy tree bark. But I felt a flash of warmth shoot through me, in spite of the AC, and I smiled. “Yes,” I croaked. “Very good.”

Franta clapped his hands again. “You see?”

Cath tugged at my elbow. “Come meet my friend.”

“DJ?” I said, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

“David,” Franta whispered as I stood up. “I was also not raised in barn. I was raised in Czech Republic!”

As I watched Franta's mustache twitch with mirth, I wondered if laughter was the appropriate response this time, too. Luckily, I didn't have to wonder long; Cath yanked me away and led me behind the DJ booth.