Cult Classic(4)
And yet the temptation was always there, to grab a stranger, point, and whisper: “Ask me anything about that man over there.”
* * *
“Is Lola leaving us?” Clive barked from his end of the table.
He hiccuped but seemed delighted by it, like a baby. No one made it out of these dinners sober. Perhaps because they took place on Friday nights. Or perhaps it was because Clive never took care of the check and was impervious to all suggestions that he should. Zach’s theory was that being cheap made Clive feel like he was running for office. Gather ’round, ye townspeople, and watch the multimillionaire eat a hot dog! Mine was that it was a show of respect, like we were all on the same playing field now that he couldn’t fire us. Vadis’s was that we were overthinking it: Rich people stay rich by not spending money; she should know (she was being grossly underpaid by the bedding socialite). Whatever the reason, we always split the bill, which meant cutting off our noses to spite our wallets and ordering as many cocktails as possible.
“How could you?” Clive asked, feigning a wound.
“Because I’m not interested in spending time with you.”
“Liar,” he bellowed, and slapped the table.
Even drunk and sloppy, a Viking demanding mead, the man was alluring. Maybe not to me, not anymore, but certainly to the Chantals of the world. See the sharp cheekbones to which his youth had clung like a cliffhanger. See the sparkly eyes of indeterminate color lurking below the swoosh of hair that flaunted its bounty. See the chin scar from a childhood bike accident in a town with no plastic surgeons.
“Where are you going?” he mouthed, more sincerely this time.
I pressed two fingers against my lips and moved them away. I could tell he wanted to sneak out with me, the conversational equivalent of eating a hot dog. But he couldn’t risk being spotted smoking by some wellness fanatic with a platform. Plus, his desire to hold court was too strong. To leave would be to acknowledge the conversation would continue without him there to moderate it.
* * *
A long bar area connected the entrance to the dining room in the back. Patrons attempted to shift their stools even though they were nailed to the ground. They nursed cocktails with spears of dark cherries and citrus rinds. Mirrored shelving made the rows of booze seem infinite. I felt a sense of pride, imagining a foreigner stumbling into this place, noting that all the world’s swank looks more or less the same. It was mid-May, the season formerly known as “spring,” but the restaurant had yet to take down the velvet curtains that circled the entrance. Passing through them felt like walking onto a stage.
I was unfamiliar with this section of Chinatown, as much as anyone can be unfamiliar with an island on which one resides. The area a few blocks over was experiencing a mini-resurgence in the form of vegan provisions and upscale boutiques manned by Parsons students (the prices could be guessed by multiplying hanger distance and overhead). This was perplexing to me, as there was nothing to resurge. The neighborhood had been fashionable for years. Whatever businesses opened now did not arise from cheap rents or a triangulation of community and so ladling on layers of practiced nonchalance made it feel as if people with no sense of history had planted a flag in a neighborhood where the denizens had been drinking natural wine since 2005.
All this cool I wanted to avoid. All this cool made me tired.
So I made a left, toward Houston, into a less self-consciously trendy zone. There were remnants of a street fair, racks of stiff leather jackets spilling out onto the street. I passed an art gallery with no art, a dive bar with no sign, and buzzers with no names. Eventually, I spotted the telltale yellow of an electric awning. This was a high-class bodega; the kind with enough energy bars to set the mind to calculating how long the body could last if trapped inside. I waited behind an elderly man as he selected lotto numbers and a pack of Merits. The hem of his pants dragged along the floor as the cashier suffered him patiently. Atop the register was a wide-eyed plastic cat, its paw moving up and down in silent protest.
When it was my turn, I felt compelled to be extra sane. I forwent matches in a tone that suggested I was giving up my inheritance.
“I’ll take a lighter, too,” I said. “Please.”
The cashier slid one across the plastic counter. I gave the metal wheel a quick roll.
“Don’t light that in your pocket,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Actually, I would dream of it and often did. I worried that I’d be mindlessly playing with a lighter in my pocket and set myself on fire. I thought about it so much, it was a miracle it never happened.
I walked back along the same side of the street, packing the cigarettes against my palm. I got a disproportionate kick out of pleasant interactions with strangers. I suspect it’s because these were the kinds of interactions I wished I could see performed by every man I’d ever dated. Or vice versa. So many of my past relationships devolved into fights on public transport or long chains of undignified texts and I’d think: If only I could see you, flipping through your mail. Or booking airline tickets. And if only you could see me, wishing the driver a good night. Or either of us, reciting our social security numbers to prove we are ourselves. Where did these seductively functional people go when sex got in the way?
It was then that I spotted my ex-boyfriend Amos.
Amos was standing outside the restaurant with a taller friend. The two of them shared a square of sidewalk, the friend running his thumb under the strap of a messenger bag to relieve the weight. I could tell they’d just come from inside. Larger forces had protected us from seeing each other, but larger forces had done all they could. When I left and came back, they’d washed their hands of me.