I remember that he doesn’t know about that. His true meaning sinks in, and I inform him, “I’ve been with Will for three years.”
“That long? So it’s serious, then.”
Naturally, I’m all, “Yeah. Absolutely. Very serious.”
Well, it is.
“You know what?” I hop off my stool. “I just remembered something I have to do.”
“Really?”
No. But I’m too humiliated to stay here with him any longer. Besides, that kiss really threw me.
Basically, what it did was turn me on, and I can’t go around being turned on by other men. I’m supposed to be with Will, and only Will.
I pull on my raincoat and fumble in my pocket for money. I throw a twenty on the bar.
“You’re really leaving? Just like that?”
“I just…I have to run. I can’t believe I forgot all about this thing….”
The thing being Will.
“Well, at least give me your number. We can still get together. I can always use another female pal.” He grabs a napkin and takes a pen out of his pocket.
Yes, he has a pen in his pocket. Dammit. How convenient for him.
“What’s the number?” he asks.
I rattle it off.
“Got it,” he says, scribbling it on the napkin.
No, he doesn’t. I just gave him my grandparents’ number with a Manhattan area code.
“Take this back,” he says, shoving the twenty at me. “This is on me. You’re not even going to get to eat any of the skins.”
“That’s okay. I’m not that hungry after all.”
He’s still holding the twenty in his outstretched hand, and I’m looking down at it like it’s some kind of bug.
“Take it,” he says.
“No, that’s okay. I can’t let you pay.”
“Why not? Really, I won’t think it’s a date if I pay,” he says with a grin.
That does it. I’m getting out of here.
He shoves the twenty into my pocket and I take off for the door, rushing out into the rain with my slicker open and my hood down.
I’m drenched before I get to the corner.
My first instinct is to rush right over to Will’s.
If I were in my right mind, I would stop, reconsider and go with my second instinct, which is to slink home on the subway, take a hot shower and crawl into bed—rather, futon.
Instead, I go with my first instinct.
In the lobby of Will’s building, I buzz his apartment.
Nerissa’s hollow voice comes over the intercom.
“It’s me,” I say. “Tracey.”
“Hi, Tracey,” says Miss Brit in her polished accent. “Will’s not here.”
He’s not?
But he’s supposed to be here. Packing.
Well, maybe she’s lying.
No, that doesn’t make sense.
Maybe he had to run out for more strapping tape or a new marker.
“Do you know where he is?” I ask her.
“No, I don’t. I just got back from rehearsal. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
No offer to let me come up and wait for him, I notice. Well, the apartment is pretty minuscule, and she probably doesn’t feel like hanging out with me until Will comes back from wherever he is.
But still, I have a right to be there if I feel like waiting for him. More right than she does, since Will’s name is on the lease, I think irrationally.
“See you later, Tracey,” she says breezily. Her later comes out “light-ah,” heavy on the “t.” Tracey is “trice-ee.”
“Yeah. Cheerio.”
I stalk back out into the pouring rain.
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