| 7.30 I am in a bed in Boston. A married man is asleep beside me. There are a dozen cigarettes in the Shangri-la ashtray. I told him, "I may go through boys like cigarettes, but I'm not a homewrecker." He laughed. I wonder if he's in the habit of having female friends over when his wife's gone. I don't think so, he was so nervous. I think I have a special privilege. Hear that, World? I'm special to most unstable twenty-year-olds. I've also gotten one damned hour of sleep. How did I get here? Curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat, but I ain't dead. 10.30 He's wide awake, it's Sunday morning, and something happened that shouldn't: a husband woke up to someone other than his wife. But ain't it great that we've so much control of ourselves? Two fine human bodies with all of our faculties intact (enhanced, even), and we don't do a thing wrong. I'm proud of myself. I get so proud that I think I can dump Aidan, but I remember the compensatory, phony I love you note I left on his desk before I ran away the night before. 11.00 On the subway, I told a boy with long blonde hair that he would be beautiful clean-cut and shaven, but he's also beautiful just the way he is. It seemed to touch him for a second, and then he went back to being a dirty, angry, lost soul on the subway. I'm rushing to a café in barefeet and wool trousers that women don't wear anymore. Everyone must think I'm nuts. I am.
Thomas: One thing that scares me about marriage is - and I know it won't happen - but what if I'm cheated on?
Pérri and I mulled over this for awhile, and realized that rules of love aren't the same forever, everything changes when you get married, except for your fears and insecurities. 12.45 Crema Café has no damned seats, as usual, so I have to sit outside with ungloved hands and scribble out my disorganized brain onto a few paper napkins. I'm about to leave, but a thin, freckled, redhead sits down nearby; another lone soldier in the battle against New England winter. He's looking at a flipbook of paintings; he's an art history major. He wants to know what I'm writing. I tell him about the married man, our perfectly platonic evening, the annoying boyfriend I ran from, that I feel like toxic waste most of the time, and that I know my story is many-rivered, flying on one wing and sometimes blindly. He understands what I mean, even though it's nonsense. He wants to know more about me, so he takes my phone number. He's not a new candidate. The only thing that makes him different from the others is his hair colour, but purple-haired or red-eyed, I've had enough of soft, sweetheart, poetry-writing so-called intellectuals. I want someone tough, alive, real. Thomas is real, and he doesn't bullshit. But Thomas is married. 1.30 I finally locate Aidan and I don't have it in me to break things off. Next weekend. My stomach suddenly feels like it wants to toss me over the side of a ship and into a roaring sea of misery, so we calmly go to the train station and I vomit my breakfast.
Thomas: How is your day?
Me: Miserable. I'm exhausted, nauseous, and guilty.
Thomas: Why are you guilty?
I explain that I didn't get rid of "that tart" I'm dating because I was too lovely to him the night before. I also tell him I'm afraid I put him in a weird situation. He tells me not to worry. I read a message from him, it says he's really glad we got to hang out, that I'm a very cool person to be around. I realize that it will never happen again, and that it would be very strange if we started making a routine out of hanging out when his wife was out of town. Then it occurs to me that maybe he's just a friendly, interesting person who wants some good company, and in fact did not invite me over to lay in his bed like a precious jewel that he looks at but never touches.
Thomas: I'm all set on the mary-jane for tonight, I don't want to get stoned enough to do something really dumb.
We're friends. Hell, we could be the best of friends. Probably not. Married men don't befriend young girls, unless it's a foreign film, or Lolita. 6.45 Now I am home and every face I see I think it's Tom's. I wish these intangible, interchangeable love interests would stop coming round to tempt me. I've still got Aidan hanging by a thread, Jeff hasn't spoken to me, and Blake, the art history major, is talking about walking around the museum next weekend and discussing our ever-so-interesting lives. You know I'm not going to stop talking about this. |
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