you ever pull a stunt like that again,” Mom said, slapping the lid on the Pond’s jar.
“Actually, there’s this arts program at Edinburgh next summer that I wanted to talk to you about,” I said.
She muted the TV and glared at me.
“I’m kidding,” I said. The phone rang in my room and I rolled off her bed.
“Don’t stay on long,” she called. “I can hear you, you know.”
“College is so boring,” Will said when I answered. “They’re all next door. I can hear them.”
“Are they eating pineapple pizza?”
“Yeah, that’s right, and friggin’ taco sandwiches. Hell, I just want to go to sleep. With you. I wish we could be together all the time. I wish you could live in my drawer. I wish I could uncork you from a bottle whenever I wanted. God, I just miss you, Thee.”
I breathed in his voice, little pinpricks moving across my chest, as though my heart were waking up from falling asleep.
“Imagine we’re really old and you die and everyone sees me trudging up and down First Avenue with my boots undone,” he said. “They’d say, ‘Poor Vic.’ ”
“You changed your name?”
“Yeah, I changed my name to Vic, thinking it would make me feel better.”
“But it doesn’t,” I said.
“No, it does not,” he said indignantly. “But they all say, ‘Poor old Vic, lost the love of his life,’ and the other widowers bring me Ovaltine and doughnuts, which I can’t eat because I’m so bereft. And they ask me out.”
“The widowers? You’ve gone gay?” I watched puffs of cottony smoke billow from a tower outside my window, thinking, White looks so strange in the dark.
“No, I mean widows,” Will said. “The ladies. I take one out a few times, but soon enough, wouldn’t you know it, she starts to bug the shit out of me.”
“Let me guess, she gets on you about exercising.”
“Right. ‘Fitness first,’ she cackles over and over, like a parrot, so I break up with her because she just reminds me that I don’t care about fitness anymore because you’re not there. At night I’d lie in my little single bed, remembering G-Rock, my flower girl. Your green eyes that catch fire when you’re in the sun and the way your face automatically points to the sky when you laugh. I’d look out my window, at the little sliver of moon and I’d say, ‘Damn you, moon, give me back my girl.’ I’d curse, then I’d beg, then I’d curse, then I’d beg, all night, every night, till I finally died too.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Sad, right?”
“So sad.”
“Well, maybe it’ll end happier than that,” he said. “Maybe you won’t die and I won’t die and we’ll live happily ever after forever. We’d be the first people to live forever.”
“That’d be nice,” I said. I stretched my legs to a cool partof the mattress and pictured us living in a tiny, gold-wallpapered apartment in Paris on the Seine, next to that famous bookstore. How great and weird would it be if we stayed together forever, I thought. High school sweethearts. How great and weird.
10.
“I can’t take it,” my friend Jill said as she squeezed a slimy lemon onto a wedge of washed-out-looking honeydew. We were cutting fourth period at a coffee shop near school on a brisk morning just before Thanksgiving break. Jill’s mother raised Pomeranians and sold them at cut rates. I used to see the handwritten ad at a deli near my house. A sketch of a pug-nosed dog inside a lopsided heart. There were something like twelve Pomeranians living in Jill’s apartment, and Jill’s mother made her walk the bigger ones every night before she went to bed.
“She makes me carry these tiny wads of tinfoil, which aren’t big enough to pick up the poo,” she continued. “Then, when they get their periods, they walk around in public in little doggie diapers. People stare at me on the street. I hate her.” As I pictured twelve diapered Pomeranians dancing at Jill’s feet, a cold, sinking feeling rushed through me. Where
“Actually, there’s this arts program at Edinburgh next summer that I wanted to talk to you about,” I said.
She muted the TV and glared at me.
“I’m kidding,” I said. The phone rang in my room and I rolled off her bed.
“Don’t stay on long,” she called. “I can hear you, you know.”
“College is so boring,” Will said when I answered. “They’re all next door. I can hear them.”
“Are they eating pineapple pizza?”
“Yeah, that’s right, and friggin’ taco sandwiches. Hell, I just want to go to sleep. With you. I wish we could be together all the time. I wish you could live in my drawer. I wish I could uncork you from a bottle whenever I wanted. God, I just miss you, Thee.”
I breathed in his voice, little pinpricks moving across my chest, as though my heart were waking up from falling asleep.
“Imagine we’re really old and you die and everyone sees me trudging up and down First Avenue with my boots undone,” he said. “They’d say, ‘Poor Vic.’ ”
“You changed your name?”
“Yeah, I changed my name to Vic, thinking it would make me feel better.”
“But it doesn’t,” I said.
“No, it does not,” he said indignantly. “But they all say, ‘Poor old Vic, lost the love of his life,’ and the other widowers bring me Ovaltine and doughnuts, which I can’t eat because I’m so bereft. And they ask me out.”
“The widowers? You’ve gone gay?” I watched puffs of cottony smoke billow from a tower outside my window, thinking, White looks so strange in the dark.
“No, I mean widows,” Will said. “The ladies. I take one out a few times, but soon enough, wouldn’t you know it, she starts to bug the shit out of me.”
“Let me guess, she gets on you about exercising.”
“Right. ‘Fitness first,’ she cackles over and over, like a parrot, so I break up with her because she just reminds me that I don’t care about fitness anymore because you’re not there. At night I’d lie in my little single bed, remembering G-Rock, my flower girl. Your green eyes that catch fire when you’re in the sun and the way your face automatically points to the sky when you laugh. I’d look out my window, at the little sliver of moon and I’d say, ‘Damn you, moon, give me back my girl.’ I’d curse, then I’d beg, then I’d curse, then I’d beg, all night, every night, till I finally died too.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Sad, right?”
“So sad.”
“Well, maybe it’ll end happier than that,” he said. “Maybe you won’t die and I won’t die and we’ll live happily ever after forever. We’d be the first people to live forever.”
“That’d be nice,” I said. I stretched my legs to a cool partof the mattress and pictured us living in a tiny, gold-wallpapered apartment in Paris on the Seine, next to that famous bookstore. How great and weird would it be if we stayed together forever, I thought. High school sweethearts. How great and weird.
10.
“I can’t take it,” my friend Jill said as she squeezed a slimy lemon onto a wedge of washed-out-looking honeydew. We were cutting fourth period at a coffee shop near school on a brisk morning just before Thanksgiving break. Jill’s mother raised Pomeranians and sold them at cut rates. I used to see the handwritten ad at a deli near my house. A sketch of a pug-nosed dog inside a lopsided heart. There were something like twelve Pomeranians living in Jill’s apartment, and Jill’s mother made her walk the bigger ones every night before she went to bed.
“She makes me carry these tiny wads of tinfoil, which aren’t big enough to pick up the poo,” she continued. “Then, when they get their periods, they walk around in public in little doggie diapers. People stare at me on the street. I hate her.” As I pictured twelve diapered Pomeranians dancing at Jill’s feet, a cold, sinking feeling rushed through me. Where
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