Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Part 9

"I'll let you answer the phone when you tell me why Aunt Edie doesn't want you to have it in the first place," I say.

"I've got a boyfriend," Chrissie says.

"Of course you do," I say.

"So, I can talk to him?"

"Pick up the phone if you want, but you shouldn't, he's an a.s.shole."

"You've never even seen him."

"Don't have to," I say. "He's a fifteen-year-old boy, which means he's an a.s.shole by default, or he's older than that, in which case he's an a.s.shole for dating you."

"I don't look fourteen," says Chrissie, which answers one question but isn't any kind of counterargument to my original point. It's true, though, she doesn't look fourteen, in the way no girl looks fourteen once she's got t.i.ts and an a.s.s like Chrissie's and men have stopped looking at her face. She's the wrong kind of pretty, the kind that's soft but not fragile, the kind that inspires the impulse to touch.The boyfriend doesn't answer when Chrissie calls him back. answer when Chrissie calls him back.

"a.s.shole," she mutters. she mutters.

"Look at the water," I say, because we're driving over the Chesapeake, and I've always thought it was a beautiful view, the wires of the bridge cutting into the image of the water beneath. Pa.s.sing through the bridge with the sloping wires on either side always feels to me like being inside of a giant stringed instrument. Chrissie looks sideways out the window for a second, then turns back to me.

"We're going all the way to North Carolina just to see this guy?" she asks.

"What else do you want to do?"

"I think maybe I should go to a doctor."

"What's wrong with you?" I ask. I'm already checking out the traffic headed back to Delaware, because if this kid tells me she's pregnant I'm turning the car around and giving her back to Aunt Edie. I've already done my lifetime share of abortion hand-holding.

"I think my v.a.g.i.n.a's broken," she says.

"OK," I say. "OK, look. I don't know what that means, and I don't think I want to, because as far as I'm concerned, you don't have a v.a.g.i.n.a and won't for ten years, and even then I probably won't want to hear much about it, OK? Talk to your mother about this stuff."

"If I ever met a woman without a v.a.g.i.n.a, it's my mother," Chrissie says.

"Don't say that," I say, because you're supposed to remind people how they actually do love their parents. Chrissie's mom is away at a summerlong church retreat. For a while she sent Chrissie post-cards that said things like YOU'RE NEVER ALONE WHEN YOU'RE WITH JESUS and I PUT ALL OF MY EGGS IN ONE BASKET AND GAVE THEM TO THE LORD. Chrissie finally wrote back, Can Jesus make me an omelet, then? He's kind of a c.r.a.ppy mom otherwise. Can Jesus make me an omelet, then? He's kind of a c.r.a.ppy mom otherwise. She hasn't gotten a post-card since She hasn't gotten a post-card since.

"Is something wrong?" I ask. "Are you sick or something?"

"No," she says, "but we tried to have s.e.x last week and I hadn't done it before and it didn't work."

"What do you mean, 'it didn't work'?"

"It wouldn't go in," she says. "So he stopped and I left because I thought maybe there was something wrong with me."

"Well, what did you do beforehand?" I ask.

When she answers, it becomes clear to me that this kid has no idea what's supposed to be happening, and neither does her boyfriend. I feel kind of sorry for her entire generation, because they've learned all the theatrical parts of s.e.x so they walk around pouting and posing like little baby p.o.r.n stars, and all the clinical parts of s.e.x so they know when to demand penicillin, but not the basic mechanical processes of actual pleasure, which everyone a.s.sumes someone else has covered. I didn't know s.h.i.+t about s.e.x when I was her age, but at least I was allowed to say so; no one expected us to be certified experts. It's not my subject of choice, but I don't know who else will explain things to her, except maybe Tia, which seems dangerous. When I'm done, I tack on a speech about how she's fourteen and emotional right now and he's probably too old for her and even if there's a condom it could break or fall off and she could die, and besides, she's not comfortable enough with her body to enjoy anything that happens to it yet, and there's lots of things she can do that aren't actually f.u.c.king.

Maybe I've kind of freaked her out, because somewhere north of Columbia we pa.s.s a Friendly's, and she gets all excited about it. Even though we're nowhere near Richmond I agree to stop when she asks. She's dropped the diet stuff, at least, but if you've ever seen anything more disturbing than a kid eating a Reese's Pieces Happy Face Sundae after you've just explained to her how to give a proper b.l.o.w. .j.o.b, I don't want to hear about it.

Chrissie sleeps most of the rest of the way to Raleigh. I could use her to keep an eye on the map, because I've only been down here a handful of times, and I hate this stretch of highway. There's something about the compressed s.p.a.ce of cars that makes people want to say things out loud, maybe just to see what echoes back, and every memory I have of this part of 95 is a memory of argument. The first time I went to Raleigh, I was about Chrissie's age and my mom was driving. On the way back, we were trying to get out of the state a few hours ahead of the tropical storm that was on its way, but already it was thundering and lightning, and the rain was steadily splattering onto our winds.h.i.+eld, distorting everything on the other side faster than the winds.h.i.+eld wipers could clear it. of the rest of the way to Raleigh. I could use her to keep an eye on the map, because I've only been down here a handful of times, and I hate this stretch of highway. There's something about the compressed s.p.a.ce of cars that makes people want to say things out loud, maybe just to see what echoes back, and every memory I have of this part of 95 is a memory of argument. The first time I went to Raleigh, I was about Chrissie's age and my mom was driving. On the way back, we were trying to get out of the state a few hours ahead of the tropical storm that was on its way, but already it was thundering and lightning, and the rain was steadily splattering onto our winds.h.i.+eld, distorting everything on the other side faster than the winds.h.i.+eld wipers could clear it.

The argument we'd been having was stupid. It was Father's Day, and she wanted me to call her boyfriend, this jacka.s.s dentist she'd been seeing for a while, and wish him a happy Father's Day. The dentist was always blowing my mother off at the last minute. He yelled when they fought, and sulked when he didn't get his way. He'd stretched his fairly substantial income to its natural limits, and was always "borrowing" money from my mom that we never got back. You could smell the bulls.h.i.+t coming off of him, unless you were my mother, and then you thought he was the answer to our prayers. I said the dentist had his own kids and I already had a father to call, and my mother said my father was out of the country and the dentist's kids weren't going to call him, and I said that's because even they know he's an a.s.shole. My mother got all huffy and cried and said she was just trying to have a family, and I said she already had a family, at least until I was eighteen and I could get away from her crazy a.s.s, and she pulled over and slapped me and then said, I'm getting out now I'm getting out now, and until the car door opened and the sting of the rain hit me, I didn't know out of what.

Through the stream of rain on the winds.h.i.+eld, I watched my mother get smaller and smaller because of distance and water. It was like watching a person deflate. I understood that if she wasn't coming back, I wasn't going anywhere, not because I was still a few months away from my learner's permit, but because I lacked the instinct to run. I understood, for the first time, how much I loved my mother. I understood that if I could help it, I would never love anybody that much again. When she got back in the car ten minutes later, soaking wet and both of us still crying, we didn't say a word about it-not then, not all the way back to DC.

I want to wake Chrissie and tell her about this as if it's a warning: Don't push too hard; your last chance to see a person the way you wanted them to be may come at any moment. One minute you have a parent, or a friend, or a lover, something solid, and physics tells you their resistance will always be there to meet you as you press yourself into relief against them. Then all of a sudden your mother is a fading outline in a thunderstorm, wet and weak and so far out of reach; or your lover who may also be your best and only friend is pulled so quickly into someone else's life that you don't even realize he's left yours until you're getting a save-the-date card; or your father is somewhere at the other end of the world and even if you had a number for him, you'd feel wrong calling to tell him to quit collecting stuff when it's painfully clear that you have nothing to offer to replace it. But I don't wake Chrissie because she's sleeping like a baby, and anyway, she isn't a baby and she doesn't need me to tell her what it is to watch somebody let you down by being human in the saddest and neediest ways, what it is to push at something that has long since given way. It hits me like my mother's slap that just watching me these days is teaching her this lesson.

I wake Chrissie up just before the highway exit so she can read me the rest of the directions. The bar is not hard to find and has its own parking lot. On the outside it's kind of like a giant cottage, mute stucco with a brown s.h.i.+ngled roof. Inside, it's big and dimly lit. The ceilings are high and the splintered wooden rafters are showing. We're still early for the show and there are only a handful of people in the bar. I can see Brian onstage with his back to me. I try to sneak up on him, but before I get all the way there he turns around. just before the highway exit so she can read me the rest of the directions. The bar is not hard to find and has its own parking lot. On the outside it's kind of like a giant cottage, mute stucco with a brown s.h.i.+ngled roof. Inside, it's big and dimly lit. The ceilings are high and the splintered wooden rafters are showing. We're still early for the show and there are only a handful of people in the bar. I can see Brian onstage with his back to me. I try to sneak up on him, but before I get all the way there he turns around.

"Hey, stranger," he says, hopping down from the stage. He hugs me like I've just gotten back from a war. The smell of him is like if someone made a perfume out of cigarette smoke. "I missed you, kid."

"I missed you too," I say, kissing him on the cheek. Chrissie smirks beside me, and starts humming the underpants song under her breath again.

"Who's this?" asks Brian, taking note of Chrissie for the first time.

"I gotta pee," says Chrissie. She walks off in the other direction. The sound of her heels against the floor of the mostly empty bar is less of a controlled staccato and more of a stomp, stomp, stomp stomp, stomp, stomp.

"Who was that that?" asks a s.h.a.ggy-looking guy messing with the keyboard.

"That's fourteen and it's my cousin," I say. "I've got a knife in my pocketbook and I will cut you if you touch her." fourteen and it's my cousin," I say. "I've got a knife in my pocketbook and I will cut you if you touch her."

"Shame," says the keyboardist. "You legal, then?"

"Stop flirting with my sister," says Brian, hugging me to him again.

Brian and I call each other brother and sister because it lets us pretend we have an excuse for still knowing each other. In anyone else's life, Brian would be the college ex I never spoke to again, and I would be the crazy ex who'd once deliberately destroyed his brand-new guitar. But instead of being embarra.s.sed by everything that's happened between us, we're both comforted by the fact that someone else has seen us at all of our possible worsts and hung around anyway.

There was a point, maybe even a year, where we were f.u.c.king each other for the conversation afterward. Not that the s.e.x was bad, it just wasn't the point anymore. We talked about our futures, the ones we never dared to imagine being full of anything but chaos. We toasted to the shortcomings of the various potential stepparents we'd grown up with: between the two of us, nineteen in total. When he was at his drunkest, he always told me the story about the time his mother pa.s.sed him off as a neighbor she babysat, in order to date a banker who didn't want kids, and when we were done laughing as though it were hysterical, him imitating the banker and his eight-year-old self, one of us would cry for real, and I would hold him and tell him I was sorry he was so f.u.c.ked up, and he would tell me he was sorry I was f.u.c.ked up enough to want him anyway.

"So, where's this poor girl you've tricked into marrying you?" I ask. "Is she locked up somewhere so she doesn't escape before the wedding?" poor girl you've tricked into marrying you?" I ask. "Is she locked up somewhere so she doesn't escape before the wedding?"

"Ha," says Brian, but his smile feels forced. "She's on her way. Alan and I came in the van with the equipment."

The last time Brian got engaged, he would have cracked up at the joke. The last girl was an actress, someone he met at an Exxon convenience store on a road trip right after the play she was in had ended its run. They'd gotten engaged a month later, two weeks before she got called to New York for a better gig. Brian came to see me right after she left, and we'd spent the weekend in bed with each other, him talking about how wonderful she was, me reminding him of all the other women he'd said that about. I'd met Jay two weeks later. When Brian's engagement inevitably fell through, we joked that if things had ended between them a few months sooner, he could have kept the wedding date and married me instead.

Brian and I almost did get married once, but not for real for real. We were in Vegas, which is a city I've always loved for its ability to be at once shameless about its fantasy self and honest about its real one, which is the only reason I've ever loved anything. A college friend with too much money had invited us out there for a birthday party, and we were champagne-drunk and tired of the Strip one night. I said I'd always wanted to get married in Vegas, because marriage was just a big flashy spectacle designed to cover up the tacky tragedy of human loneliness, and why would you get married anywhere you could forget that? Brian said he'd always wanted Elvis at his wedding, but only if it was fat Elvis, and anyway, us being us we might as well get our first divorces out of the way early. All of it was kind of a joke and kind of not, and I don't remember why we didn't do it, just that we ended up riding those gondola boats around the underground of The Venetian all night instead.

Brian bounces off to get me a vodka tonic, extra lime-he doesn't have to ask what I'm drinking-and while I'm waiting for him to come back, or Chrissie to reappear from the ladies' room, the fiancee walks in the front door. I haven't seen her picture, but I know her right away. She's wearing a vintage Wonder Woman T-s.h.i.+rt stretched tight across her chest, and Brian's got a thing for both b.o.o.bs and comic books. She's cute. Platinum blond hair, layered and flipped up at the ends, a dab of frosted lip gloss. If her look was a smell, it would be grape bubble gum. Her name is Miranda. Brian met her at the go-kart track two years ago, but they've only been dating six months. She's an elementary school teacher who moonlights as a semiprofessional local comedian. Ever since he met her, I get random text messages from him, jokes and one-liners, and I know it means he's watching her perform. to get me a vodka tonic, extra lime-he doesn't have to ask what I'm drinking-and while I'm waiting for him to come back, or Chrissie to reappear from the ladies' room, the fiancee walks in the front door. I haven't seen her picture, but I know her right away. She's wearing a vintage Wonder Woman T-s.h.i.+rt stretched tight across her chest, and Brian's got a thing for both b.o.o.bs and comic books. She's cute. Platinum blond hair, layered and flipped up at the ends, a dab of frosted lip gloss. If her look was a smell, it would be grape bubble gum. Her name is Miranda. Brian met her at the go-kart track two years ago, but they've only been dating six months. She's an elementary school teacher who moonlights as a semiprofessional local comedian. Ever since he met her, I get random text messages from him, jokes and one-liners, and I know it means he's watching her perform.

She obviously recognizes me when she sees me, and even though her smile seems genuine, I resent this girl already-not for having him, but because I'll have to have her now. She's like a crayon drawing he's handing me, and like her or not I'll have to pin her to my refrigerator for years.

"So, what do you think?" Brian whispers when he returns with my drink.

"Nicely done," I say.

He looks relieved. When Miranda comes over, she hugs me first, awkwardly smus.h.i.+ng into the hand I'd extended to shake hers.

"I'm sorry," she says, laughing a little as she pulls away. "Was that weird? I feel like we already know each other."

"No," I lie. I'm saved from making further small talk when Chrissie finally rejoins us, looking like she's ready for a glamour shot. She's let her hair down and combed some sort of glitter through it, and put on mounds of blush and eye shadow and a coffee-colored lipstick that's a good two shades too dark for her skin tone. I can't open my mouth to tell her to wash her face, because I'm too busy trying not to laugh at her.

"Your sister?" Miranda asks.

"Cousin," I say.

"Clearly, good looks run in the family," she says. Her voice flutters a little when she laughs. "And those are great shoes," she says to Chrissie.

It's as if she has studied a playbook on meeting your fiance's ex-girlfriend. Chrissie looks at me like she doesn't know whether it's OK to accept the compliment. I look away, because I don't want her to think she needs my permission to like the girl, but I also don't want to give it. Besides, Chrissie's shoes are tacky stiletto sandals from Pay-less, and I probably should have talked her out of them this morning.

Brian ushers Miranda and me to a table up front, and then disappears to bring back drinks for her and Chrissie. By the time he gets back, a beer for her and a s.h.i.+rley Temple for Chrissie, a decent crowd has started to filter in. Before the set he squeezes my hand for luck, then gives Miranda a closed-mouth kiss. Chrissie watches this like it's a spectator sport, and seems pleased enough that I've brought her into my real life that she's reconciled herself with the indignity of drinking the s.h.i.+rley Temple.

"This is kind of all right," she says when Brian finally starts playing, which, given her usual tone these days, is like she's handing him a Grammy.

Watching Brian perform always makes me feel weirdly proprietary about him, which is stupid, because this is the thing about him that has has to be public. But I was there when he was making this s.h.i.+t up on his guitar, and when he'd wake up at three a.m. to whisper a song into my ear, and when he was ready to give it all up and get a real job and I told him not to. When Miranda leans forward into the music and closes her eyes like Brian is singing to her directly, something in me snaps. "Isn't he great?" she whispers to me between songs, opening her eyes again and looking so sincere that I have to look away to stop myself from telling her he isn't really hers, that she only loves him because she'll never know him the way I do. It makes me happy when I recognize myself in a lyric, even if the lyric is to be public. But I was there when he was making this s.h.i.+t up on his guitar, and when he'd wake up at three a.m. to whisper a song into my ear, and when he was ready to give it all up and get a real job and I told him not to. When Miranda leans forward into the music and closes her eyes like Brian is singing to her directly, something in me snaps. "Isn't he great?" she whispers to me between songs, opening her eyes again and looking so sincere that I have to look away to stop myself from telling her he isn't really hers, that she only loves him because she'll never know him the way I do. It makes me happy when I recognize myself in a lyric, even if the lyric is I lied, you lied, I lied, to really love something is suicide I lied, you lied, I lied, to really love something is suicide, because how I feel about Brian hasn't been about love in a long time, it's been about mattering the most, and as I count the songs, I'm confident I'm still winning on that scorecard.

When the set is over, Brian and the keyboardist, Alan, disappear backstage for a minute, and Miranda asks a million questions about Delaware. I let Chrissie answer most of them, which means that the answer she gets most frequently is "dumb," followed closely by "stupid." is over, Brian and the keyboardist, Alan, disappear backstage for a minute, and Miranda asks a million questions about Delaware. I let Chrissie answer most of them, which means that the answer she gets most frequently is "dumb," followed closely by "stupid."

"Still," says Miranda, "summer's great when you're a kid, isn't it? I get jealous of my students sometimes-they don't know how good they have it."

"Summer's awesome," says Chrissie. "My grandfather's dying. And my dad won't even talk to me about it, and my parents just got divorced, and my mom's at Bible camp trying to join some weirdo cult thing because she's lonely and is trying to pretend Jesus is her boyfriend, and my my boyfriend works at a gas station and has never left the state of Delaware, even though he's older than me and Delaware is, like, ten feet big and he apparently doesn't understand enough about s.e.x to make it work right so I can f.u.c.k him to get my mind off things." boyfriend works at a gas station and has never left the state of Delaware, even though he's older than me and Delaware is, like, ten feet big and he apparently doesn't understand enough about s.e.x to make it work right so I can f.u.c.k him to get my mind off things."

She takes an emphatic sip of her s.h.i.+rley Temple, even though the drink is nothing but melting red ice by now, and stomps back to the bathroom. A guy at the bar reaches for her arm as she pa.s.ses him, but she doesn't break stride long enough to notice."I'm sorry," Miranda says, sliding her chair out of the way so I can go after Chrissie. I stay put. sliding her chair out of the way so I can go after Chrissie. I stay put.

"She'll be fine," I say, by which I mean that I can't help her. I think of offering to get Miranda a drink, but her first beer is still barely half gone, an observation that prompts me to push my own empty gla.s.s behind a napkin holder. The tables in the bar are covered in old newsprint that's been lacquered over, and I try to make out the words to one of the stories sh.e.l.lacked beneath my drink, but can't read it in the dim light. Beside it, a vintage ad warns me: Perspiration Ruins Panty Hose! Perspiration Ruins Panty Hose!

"Is this weird for you?" Miranda finally asks.

"Which part?" I ask, and she doesn't press it. I keep an eye on the bathroom door to see when Chrissie comes out.

"I know about all the nonsense, with him and women," she says after a minute. "I'm not an idiot. I'm not pretending this is foolproof. But you should see how serious he is about things these days. About his music. About not f.u.c.king up the way he has before. About being honest with himself. About dealing with all the stuff he's not over. You made him a better person. I hope you know that."

"If I did," I say, "it was an accident."

I laugh, and we both pretend I'm kidding.

By the time Brian and the keyboardist stop mingling with the crowd and selling ten-dollar CDs with homemade covers, Chrissie and her slightly smudged mascara have rejoined us. Miranda and Chrissie and I are doing our best impressions of people having fun in a bar, and I find it briefly hysterical the work we're putting into emotionally containing ourselves in front of a guy who prints out all of his song lyrics and sets them on fire in mini trash cans when he gets really angry, until it occurs to me that maybe he doesn't do that anymore. While a folksinger in a long tie-dye dress sets up her sound equipment, the speaker continues playing the c.r.a.ppy Top Forty that started when Brian went off, and Alan grimaces. He's taken off the black collared s.h.i.+rt he performed in and is wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt that says I'M NOT A GYNECOLOGIST, BUT I'LL TAKE A LOOK. His arms beneath the cap sleeves are covered in baby-fine hairs, dirty blond like the hair on his head. Brian and the keyboardist stop mingling with the crowd and selling ten-dollar CDs with homemade covers, Chrissie and her slightly smudged mascara have rejoined us. Miranda and Chrissie and I are doing our best impressions of people having fun in a bar, and I find it briefly hysterical the work we're putting into emotionally containing ourselves in front of a guy who prints out all of his song lyrics and sets them on fire in mini trash cans when he gets really angry, until it occurs to me that maybe he doesn't do that anymore. While a folksinger in a long tie-dye dress sets up her sound equipment, the speaker continues playing the c.r.a.ppy Top Forty that started when Brian went off, and Alan grimaces. He's taken off the black collared s.h.i.+rt he performed in and is wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt that says I'M NOT A GYNECOLOGIST, BUT I'LL TAKE A LOOK. His arms beneath the cap sleeves are covered in baby-fine hairs, dirty blond like the hair on his head. Dirty Dirty is the right adjective for him altogether. Chrissie whispers something into his ear that I hope is music-related, but probably isn't because of the way he turns away from her and licks his upper lip. He whispers something back to her and she smiles. is the right adjective for him altogether. Chrissie whispers something into his ear that I hope is music-related, but probably isn't because of the way he turns away from her and licks his upper lip. He whispers something back to her and she smiles.

"Alan," says Miranda, while I'm still trying to figure out where to intervene, but he ignores her and keeps talking to Chrissie. says Miranda, while I'm still trying to figure out where to intervene, but he ignores her and keeps talking to Chrissie.

"There's your smile," he says. "Not that you don't have great pouting lips, but something's gotta give. You're fourteen, right? Whatever it is, it's not forever."

"My parents are splitting," she says again. "And my grandfather is dying. So it's pretty much forever." She does this dramatic half-sigh thing and puts her pout back on.

"Chrissie," I say, "stop it." I say, "stop it."

It's not that I doubt she's upset, it's that I'm watching her turn into the kind of girl who always needs to a.s.sert that something tangible is wrong in order to justify making things worse. Alan knows she's overdoing it, too, because he smirks a little and raises his beer gla.s.s.

"To death and divorce, then," he says, "which are forever."

"And marriage," I say, clinking my drink to his and nodding at Brian, "which is not."

Miranda's looking at Brian like she's waiting for him to say something, and he's looking at the floor like the universe will work this one out without him. I look at Miranda, the startled flicker in her eyes fading to something almost wounded as Brian stays silent, and for a second I feel something like triumph. Then I look at Chrissie. Her pout is gone, and she is smiling at me with a giddy sort of pride. It makes me want to hit something that this is the thing that has finally put me entirely back in her good graces. Brian like she's waiting for him to say something, and he's looking at the floor like the universe will work this one out without him. I look at Miranda, the startled flicker in her eyes fading to something almost wounded as Brian stays silent, and for a second I feel something like triumph. Then I look at Chrissie. Her pout is gone, and she is smiling at me with a giddy sort of pride. It makes me want to hit something that this is the thing that has finally put me entirely back in her good graces.

Miranda grabs her purse from the back of the chair, and makes a show of fis.h.i.+ng out her keys. When she finds them, she holds them aloft for a second, like she's not sure what happens next.

"OK," she says, standing up. n.o.body looks at her directly. "I'm going home."

"I'm sorry," I say. "It was just a joke. I shouldn't have said it."

"I hope next time we meet, you find our engagement just slightly less hysterical," she says. "I want to like you. Brian wants me to like you."

Brian still doesn't look up. "Are you coming with me?" Miranda asks. He throws up his arms as if this decision is out of his hands.

"I can't leave before Angie's set is over," Brian says. "I'll call you later. I'll get a ride home with Alan."

"Yeah you will," says Miranda, and I want to tell her right then how much I like her, how at this point the last fiancee would have been weeping and begging and making a total fool of herself, but she's already leaving. Brian doesn't get up.

"You're a b.i.t.c.h," Brian says to me-not like he's mad, just like it's an observation.

I turn to Chrissie to tell her to go outside for a second, but Alan is already motioning her toward the bar. I let them go and turn back to Brian.

"I'm sorry," I say. "This probably wasn't the best week for this. We're all a little high-strung."

"Are you OK?" he asks. He puts a hand on my knee. There's a faint flicker of a scar below his index finger, from where I accidentally burned him with a cigarette lighter once.

"I'm as OK as I get."

"I really do love her," he says. "Not the idea of her, but her. This isn't like the other times. I'm trying to do something right here."

"Which other times?" I ask.

"Don't do that," he says. "I'm not going to lie to you about what you and I were. Are."

"I know," I say. "I know. I'll apologize to her tomorrow."

"If she 's speaking to me tomorrow," he says.

"Why wouldn't she be?"

"Right," he says. His hand is still on my knee. "Why wouldn't she be? I'll call her later."

I lean into him and reach for the cigarettes in his s.h.i.+rt pocket, and brush my arm against his while he lights my cigarette.

"I should get Chrissie," I say, but I don't look away from him. The look in his eyes could melt gla.s.s.

Chrissie's laughter from across the room interrupts our silent negotiation. She's standing at the bar with Alan and a girl in a tissue-thin tank top. Alan's already got his hand on Tank Top Girl's hip, and Chrissie's holding something in her hand that is clearly not a s.h.i.+rley Temple and probably not straight soda. Her eyes are scanning the room, and I a.s.sume she's looking not for me but for a guy she can use to make Alan jealous, because she doesn't realize she's already lost this fight. across the room interrupts our silent negotiation. She's standing at the bar with Alan and a girl in a tissue-thin tank top. Alan's already got his hand on Tank Top Girl's hip, and Chrissie's holding something in her hand that is clearly not a s.h.i.+rley Temple and probably not straight soda. Her eyes are scanning the room, and I a.s.sume she's looking not for me but for a guy she can use to make Alan jealous, because she doesn't realize she's already lost this fight.

"I should get her out of here," I say. "Where'd you find that a.s.shole?"