Read Online I Just Want My Pants Back by David Rosen - Free Book Online Page A

that we were standing. I always forgot his height, almost six foot five. He looked a little worn-out. He had spent lunch telling me some of the more disturbing tales of being a resident, which besides long hours and only one day off included having to touch horrible people on horrible parts of their bodies. “It’s a bit like joining a fraternity and being hazed,” he had explained. The things the ER doctors didn’t want to do, the residents got. Which, in New York, according to Eric, often involved men who took too much Viagra and needed to have the blood siphoned from their unwaveringly erect penises with a hypodermic needle. Yeah, I just didn’t like people enough to ever help them out with stuff like that. It went without saying that Eric was a far better person than I. He came from a family of surgeons—his mom, dad, and older brother. He would be one soon too; he just had to get through this penis-draining phase and on to the real work. He would; he was irritatingly patient.
    Eric and I didn’t hang out one-on-one all that often, but I was always pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was when we did. He wasn’t caught up in a lot of the pop-culture bullshit I was, and we tended to have conversations about real things, often politics or health topics I had read about in the Times . He also wasn’t afraid to cry. I mean, he should’ve been more afraid, he was kind of a bawler. I had seen him tear up at least a half dozen times, most recently after he, Stacey, and I watched the old film Heaven Can Wait on cable. Over lunch I’d done my best Al Roker and predicted that his wedding day was going to be partly cloudy, with a passing shower of man tears.
    As we stood there, faces pointed at the sun, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head to see a petite blond girl in a black sweater.
    “Hey, Jason, how are you?” the blonde said, beaming. I knew that smile. Intimately.
    “Holy shit—Annie!” We hugged. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”
    “Yeah, I moved here about a year ago, I got a job at People magazine as a photo editor. I live up on the Upper West Side.” She flipped her hair. She was dressed way more stylishly than the last time I had seen her. She actually did look like a photo editor. The trendy tight sweater, fancy jeans, some kind of stylish boots. “And you? What’s your story?”
    “I live in the West Village.” She made a face, as if she were impressed. “Yeah, I was really lucky, and got this great place.” I realized Eric was standing there awkwardly. “This is actually the guy who found me the place, Eric. He went to Cornell too, but he was a couple years ahead of us.”
    Eric reached out his hand and shook Annie’s. “Hi, I’m old Eric.”
    “Hi, nice to meet you.” Annie turned back to me. “I love the West Village, good for you,” she said, grabbing my arm. “So what else? What are you doing for work?”
    “Nothing too exciting, really. Right now I just work at this casting place around the corner.” I shrugged.
    “You don’t sound that into it,” she said, seeming genuinely surprised.
    “Oh, you know, it’s fine.”
    She fingered an earring, smiling. “When we broke up, I always had nightmares that the next time I saw you, you’d have models on your arm, a famous record producer or something,” she said.
    “Oh, well, I am hugely famous in Croatia. People have posters of me there.” I laughed.
    Eric excused himself and popped into a deli on the corner. Annie and I talked and caught up for five minutes and gave the brief versions of our deals, until he came back.
    Annie looked at her watch. “Shoot, I better get going.” We hugged again and said our good-byes. Then Eric and I continued around the corner.
    “So what was up with that girl?” he asked. “You used to date her?”
    “Yeah, it was after you graduated, spring of senior year. She’s a year younger. I was working crazy hours at the fucking Sam Goody because I was saving up to go