was it you said about nostalgia?" Madeline cocks her head.
I fold my arms on top of the table. "I'd like something really, truly, completely unique to happen to me— something utterly unexpected—"
Madeline stretches her hand out and quickly grabs Rob's wrist. "Get ready."
Rob eyes the twisted fabric of his sleeve clasped between her fingers. "For what?"
As if I weren't even there, Madeline whispers, "Sybil's grandeur riff—"
I roll my eyes. "Not fair. Not fair at all."
Madeline lets go of his wrist. " After a well-articulated discourse on the need for grandeur, we will be treated to a soliloquy on why Sybil Weatherfield will soon be leaving New York City for greener, grander pastures."
I look around, putting my fork down because I genuinely want to stop eating now. "Madeline is misrepresenting me." I melodramatically twist my body around in her direction. "Why are you misrepresenting me?"
"Sybil," she begins, "he said he wants to get it all on the table."
Rob flips both hands over, his palms up, his fingers moving as if to say bring it on. "Give me the riff. I wanna hear the riff."
A theatrical silence hangs over our Michelangelo table of or
nate iron and cool marble. Quite lovely for a monologue on grandeur, really. Both of them stare at me. I stare at them. Okay, I'll do it. "I just want the extraordinary," I say to Rob, appealing to Rob, elucidating for Rob. "I mean, here I am. I'll never know what it was like to be a flapper. I'll never live in New Orleans in the French Quarter. I'll never walk around my French Quarter hotel room in a slip, fanning myself in front of an old fan with those metal blades spinning like an ancient propeller on a rusty plane. I'll never do those things. I just want something grand to happen." My face heats up. "You know?"
Rob, the rock 'n' roll prophet who first appeared in a Burger Christ t-shirt, spouting off knowing words about love slaves, says, "That sentimentality really will kill you." He speaks with his mouth full of cheesecake. " Maybe something grand is happening right now."
I look at the mushed-up cheesecake in his mouth. "But maybe it isn't," I say.
He looks at me intently. "I'm the one in a band called Glass Half Empty, Sybil Weatherfield."
"Madeline hasn't told us her unrealizable dreams yet." I turn to her, sweating.
"And you didn't give us the I' m– leaving– New York follow-up." She chomps on an ice cube. "I don't think I'll ever hike the Appalachian Trail, though."
I swing around to face her. "I never knew you wanted to."
"Well, I do," she says. "Preferably with a man I love who owns a two-man sleeping bag and good raingear."
"And a dog," I say. "You forgot the dog. A golden retriever?"
Rob, who barely even knows me, says, "I doubt you'll ever leave Manhattan, Sybil." It's after two in the morning, and Rob rips his paper napkin into tiny pieces. For a while, we're quiet. Rob fixes his eyes on me. "Do you love your boyfriend?"
Straight out, just like that.
"Do I love my boyfriend?" I repeat.
"Yes, do you love your boyfriend?"
"Jeff 's a good man."
"We've probably heard enough clichés for one night," he says.
Madeline, at this very moment, makes herself known. She loudly puts down her empty caffé Americano cup, and it vibrates in its saucer, china moving against china. She tries to stop it with her fingers. "Sorry."
I blink. "We each bring our own expertise to the table, Jeff and I. I don't know if it's really about love." Madeline gazes into her water glass, Rob stares intently, and I pontificate. "It's like we're each solving for x. That's exactly how it is. We're solving for x."
Rob lets out a huge sigh. "I've always hated math."
"That's sex without love, though, isn't it?" Madeline chimes in. "It definitely doesn't fit into your grandeur plan, your longing for the extraordinary —"
"Thanks, girlfriend." I look at my watch. "It's been lovely, folks." I reach for my bag. "I have to give Jeff credit. He's decent. He's decent to me." I pull out a ten. "He's a decent man. We act like we're in love." I finish my water. "It's nice to have someone treat you so decently. He never approaches me as if he were just solving for x. I really appreciate the decency."
Madeline pulls out a cigarette for the street. "Snuffy and Sybil enjoy the pretense of a committed, decent relationship. What's love got to do with it? Huh, Sybil?"
I flutter my eyelids in her direction. "Touché."
Madeline provides a wry viewing of her pearly whites.
Rob grabs the check, pushing away my ten. "I'll treat for Indian tomorrow."
"Rain check, babe." Madeline bats her lashes. " Platonic-male-friend plans."
Rob looks at me.
"You mean gay-male-friend plans," I say with a touch of mean.
Why would I go for dinner with him after this deluge of the personal? I don't know, but I say, "I'd like that very much."
On the sidewalk, we exchange kisses on cheeks like we're Europeans and not sad kids on a wintry Manhattan night. Madeline and I walk off together, heading to my Village basement, content with the combative quality of our conversation. "Six o'clock tomorrow at Bombay Café, then?" Rob calls after us.
"Six o'clock," I say.
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