Pug Hill (28 page)

“Sometimes,” I continue, “Benji made mix tapes for me, and other times I’d just take tapes he’d made for himself, and pretend he’d made them for me. I’d take them home and sit on the floor by my stereo, hitting pause and play again and again, until I’d written down every last word to every last song in a notebook that I don’t have anymore but wish I still did.”

My speech is almost over. As I work my way through another few sentences about Benji, I remember kissing him. I remember kissing him in November when we were home from college. We’d gone outside at a party and were lying together by someone’s swimming pool, on a lounge chair. Wherever we were, whoever’s party we were at, I remember thinking how their family was much more relaxed than mine about when to pack up and put away the pool furniture. I remember telling him that, and I remember him saying that it was a good thing we weren’t at my house. I remember thinking how it wouldn’t have mattered, how I would have been with him in the wet November leaves. I would have been with him in the almost frozen pool.

I remember how we decided that November that we should see other people since my college was in New Hampshire and his was in Virginia, how college was important, and we didn’t want to spend it on the phone. I remember how he went back to the University of Richmond where I’d wished I’d applied, and I met someone new at college, his last name was Glickman. I remember Nana called and said she heard that at last someone had the sense to date someone Jewish.

“Hope?” Oh, damn, I’ve stopped talking again. I have no idea how long I’ve been standing up here so very much like a deer in the headlights. I take a deep breath. I get ready for my big finish. I like my big finish. I begin speaking again,

“I’ve noticed in life that the older you get, the fewer men there are who will take the time to make you a mix tape. I’m not sure,” I say slowly, taking care not to rush, “that there are any men left in the world who are going to make me a mix tape. I’m still optimistic, though. I like to think he’s out there, and that I’ll meet him, and on our third, fourth date, he’ll say, ‘Here, look,’ as he pulls something out of his jacket pocket, ‘I made this for you.”’

I look out at the room and then over to Lawrence. He is on his feet in a flash, clapping away quickly and saying, “Bravo!”

“Very good job, Hope,” Beth Anne says, and I’m happy she doesn’t want to talk about the part when I forgot that I was in the middle of giving a speech. But then I think,
Wow, I really did forget I was giving a speech.

“Thanks,” I tell her.

“What was your anxiety level?”

“You know, it really wasn’t that bad. Like, at most a five.”

“Excellent, Hope, good to hear.”

Lindsay also selects Lawrence as her coach and they head off into the hall. When they return Lindsay delivers a slightly choppy, but actually very funny, speech titled, “The E-mail That Got Away.” I don’t pay as much attention as I really should, because my mind is still all tripped up, my mind is still a freshman in college, saying a long good-bye to Benji Brown, a good-bye that I didn’t believe was ever going to be real.

I’m trying to remember the last time I kissed him, and I can’t. I wish I had known when it was going to be the last time I was ever going to kiss him. Because I would have concentrated more, paid closer attention, tried to somehow record every last detail about it. If I had known it was the last time, I would have kissed him for longer than I ever had before. And then, just for old times sake, I would have kissed him again.

As everyone except for Rachel sits around the big table up on the second floor of the Cedar Tavern, the air between us is softer, kinder than it’s been. It’s more familiar also, like we know each other more. I think how much more you know people when you know what they’ve lost.

I wonder where Benji Brown might be in the world at right this very second. I have no idea. The James Taylor album that’s been playing in my mind skips over to a different song. I lean back a little in my chair, take a sip of my white wine spritzer, and listen as James Taylor sings so softly:
this is a song for you far away from me.

“Listen, man, thanks for suggesting this, it was fun,” Elliot says as he leans over and does some sort of guy handshake-snapping thing with Sergei.

“A lot of fun!” Sergei agrees. “See you all on Monday. Bye, Elliot. Bye, Hope.”

“Bye Sergei,” I say and I wonder if that just came out slurry, or if I just think that it did. It is two-thirty in the morning. I can’t remember when I was last out this late, and I think the possibility might be high that it was in a different decade. I also think the possibility might be high that I am wasted. Elliot asked Sergei and me at work on Friday if we minded if some of his artist friends came with us as they, too, wanted to celebrate Elliot’s promotion. We both said that of course we didn’t mind and then I couldn’t sleep at all last night trying to think of what to wear that would make me seem cool to Elliot and all his artist friends, the type of people who surely sneered at people who lived on the Upper West Side, the type of people who only lived in artsy, exotic places like Brooklyn.

That I found myself at Foot Locker first thing this morning, buying a pair of Pumas (my thinking being that Pumas were indeed a hip footwear choice) actually did not do a whole hell of a lot to increase my confidence about my level of coolness.

Claire is not here. Maybe Claire is at fat camp. Or better yet, maybe Claire doesn’t exist at all. The artist friends have come and gone. It’s just Elliot and me. I have spent a tremendous amount of this evening thinking that Elliot is perfect. And dreamy. Though to my credit, when, over the course of the evening, Elliot has gotten up to get us yet another round, or to go to the bathroom, I have refrained from thinking things like, “God, look how fucking hot he is when he walks.” Thinking such things, I know this, would generally not be a good idea. Thinking such things could be but a stop or two away from Penis-Lunging-Ville, a Ville to which I do not wish to go.

Elliot takes another sip of his beer, puts it down on the table. “So how’s it going with the Rothko?” he asks. It is the first time tonight that I have remembered that Elliot is now my boss.

“Good, hard though,” I say, and take another sip of my beer.

“Paintings Conservation,” he says, draining his beer, “it’s so hard. It’s painful and you’re always alone.” I live for this shit, I really do. Elliot is so deep. And so blurry. I nod in agreement and take another sip of beer. Elliot reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He glances at its screen, and as he goes to put it back away, I remember standing on the steps of my brownstone so long ago, imagining typing “Elli” into my phone. I know that I am drunk, yes, but I feel that the symbolism, whatever it might be, needs to be captured. I reach into my bag, grab my phone.

“What’s your number?” I ask. “I should program you in.”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, “718-555-1212.” I key in the number, type in E-L-L-I, smile to myself, and flip my phone shut. As I slip the phone back into my bag, I think that I’d like to have sex with my boss.

“Uh, what’s yours?”

“Oh, um, 917-222-1515.”

“Cool,” he says and I watch him type in the number. A wave of dizziness sweeps over me. It occurs to me that I’m too drunk, that going drink for drink, for some inexplicable reason, with Sergei and Elliot wasn’t a good idea at all. It occurs to me that possibly I’m
thisclose
to something I’ll later regret. I watch as Elliot types the four letters of my name into his phone. H-O-P-E. It occurs to me that the only thing you can shorten Hope to is Ho.

“I think I’m just going to grab an ice water,” I tell him.

“I’ll get it for you,” he says, and heads to the bar.

God,
I think,
look how fucking hot he is when he walks.
He comes back and I thank him for the water. I’m careful not to drink it too quickly, lest there be unseemly vomiting. He’s telling me something about some new black light he used recently, and I can’t really listen. I’m looking at his eyes. They’re usually green but in this light they look so much more like purple. And I don’t think they’re ever going to light up for me the way they do when you tell him that Claire’s on the phone. I’m also thinking a little bit that it’s happened, that even though I didn’t want it to, that somewhere along the way I might really have become a stalker.

When the bar closes at three, even though I’ve been on water for the past half hour, I am still much drunker than I’d like to be. I also have a very, very bad taste in my mouth from all the beer.

But, also, I am blessed; I only have to dig in my bag for a second to find my gum.

“Can I have a piece?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, and hand him the pack. As he takes it from me, a thought pops into my head. I think maybe he doesn’t just want the gum for the sake of the gum. He wants the gum so that he has fresh breath when he kisses me passionately, like he’s been waiting his whole life for me. Like he’s been waiting his whole life to kiss me. Really, it’s not simply because the eleven beers he just drank left him feeling like a small burrowing animal crawled into his mouth, lied down, and quietly died. No, he wants the gum because he and I, Elliot Death and Hope McNeill, are destined, just destined, to be together.

We walk, each chewing silently on our gum, cosmic symbol of our togetherness that it is, into the quiet desolation of Smith Street.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” I say and we look at each other and I move the cosmic gum around in my mouth a bit and then I bite down on it.

He stands in the street, just off the sidewalk, and he looks at me, really looks at me. And for as long as I’ve waited, for what seems like an eternity, for him to look at me, there is a part of me that doesn’t need to wonder if this is wrong, because I know it is. Because of Claire. He hasn’t leaned in to kiss me, hasn’t done much else other than ask me for gum and stand with me in the street, but I wonder what will happen if he does. I think that all I’ve ever wanted in the world has been reduced to this very second, to how much I want Elliot to kiss me, if for no other reason than for all the hours I’ve logged.

But the universe, thinking about the universe, it keeps getting in my way. It’s the way of the universe, I think, that you just don’t kiss other people’s boyfriends. I think of all the boyfriends I’ve ever had, all the way back to Benji Brown who might have been the only good one, and in a way, how sad is that, or is it okay? Right now though what I’m thinking about has less to do with Benji Brown, the best boyfriend even if he is, chronologically, the farthest away from me now. Right now, with the real possibility that Elliot Death might at any minute lean in to kiss me, I can’t help thinking of the boyfriend who must only be referred to as Cheater. I can’t help thinking that somewhere along the way, out there in the universe, there have been girls who kissed my boyfriend.

Standing on Smith Street, in my Pumas, waiting for Elliot to kiss me, I can’t help thinking that maybe the universe owes me something.

“Okay, well I am actually going that way,” he says.

“Oh, right,” I say, “I should get a cab.” I wonder if cabs drive around this late at night in Brooklyn. I hope that they do, because right now, for so many reasons, I don’t want to be on the train.

Something behind me catches Elliot’s eye and he looks away from me, looks over my shoulder. His arm goes up.

“Here comes a cab,” he says. He stares at it with determination as it approaches, like it is one of so many Old Master landscapes. The taxi pulls up, and the moment is gone. And then, as I bite down again on the gum, the gum that I thought was so significant only a moment ago, I wonder if there was ever any moment at all.

“Really fun night, Hope,” he says as he leans over and opens up the door for me. “Thanks for coming out.”

“I had fun, too,” I say. “Bye, Elliot.”

“Good night, Hope. See you Monday,” he says and the door slams shut and even though we’re already driving away and if I turned around, which I won’t, I’d see Elliot getting smaller and smaller on Smith Street, I say, “Yeah, see you Monday.” Only the cab driver is here to hear me say it, and I don’t think he’s listening either.

As we speed over the Brooklyn Bridge, as I look at the lights of the city in front of me, I think that if there is any part of being single that I actually really want to run away from, it is the hopefulness, the feeling that at any moment, everything might be about to change. It’s the hopefulness that’s got to go.

I wonder if maybe instead of getting kissed by Elliot, if what the universe owes me now, after everything, is a really good cry. I wonder if what the universe owes me is a hall pass to just sit in the back of a taxi and sob.

And then it hits me. I don’t want to be this type of person. I don’t want to be the type of person who will spend as long as I’ve spent thinking so much about someone else’s boyfriend. I don’t want to spend any more time staring across a room, wondering what’s going to happen next. I don’t want to wait so much for things to change, for things to get better, for things to pass. I don’t want to be a spectator, staring across the giant Conservation Studio of my life, waiting for something to happen.