Jessica Z Page 4

  “You are such a complete freak,” I say.

  “I know, Jess,” he says, and he kisses me on the cheek. “But the world would not be the same if I wasn’t this way, right?”

  “You have a point, Danny.”

  He’s working to get his key in our building’s front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow night, what?”

  “Patrick’s party. Duh!”

  “Oh,” I say. This is the first I’ve heard, but I go ahead and say: “Right.”

  “Later,” he says, and the door bangs closed behind him.

  I’m pretty sure Patrick hasn’t mentioned anything about any party tomorrow night. I take out my phone and dial him as I walk along on the mostly empty sidewalk, and he answers almost as soon as I have the thing up to my ear.

  “Jess!” he shouts over the bar sounds behind him. “Did you change your mind?”

  “No, no,” I say. “I’m meeting up with Amy for a little bit.”

  “Ah, I see how it is, you can make time for Amy, but not for Pat.”

  “That’s right.” I almost ask him outright about the party, but I opt for subterfuge instead. “Hey, do you want to do a nice dinner out tomorrow? Like the Danube, maybe? I could make reservations…”

  “We can’t do that, I’ve got people coming over, remember?”

  “What?”

  “I’m doing that little party for the artist guy, Joe and I know him from back in…I know I told you about this.”

  “I don’t think you did.”

  “Well, okay, we’re doing a party at my place tomorrow night. Now you know. You sure you don’t want to change your mind and come out here?”

  “I’m sure. Talk to you later.”

  Did he tell me about this? Was I just so preoccupied with everything going on last week that I missed it? I try to forget about it, but it nags me until I’m inside Brenneman’s and my eyes adjust. Amy’s not sitting with nice Susan, the sweet, shy travel-marketing person I was expecting, but instead it’s skanky Susan there in the booth, the girl with weird teeth and a bad boob job who sells ads for one of the alternative papers and has just finished dealing, Amy has told me, with a case of chlamydia. I force a smile when I see her, but I already know how the night will unfold: Susan will dominate all conversation, say bitchy things about every other girl in the bar, then get grossly drunk and go home with some big bellied, former-life fraternity boy.

  “Hi, Jessica,” Susan says as I take a seat, and she gives me a hug and makes a face—I suppose it’s a smile—that looks like she’s just sucked the juice from a lime.

  “Hey, Jessie babe,” Amy says, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. I’m fairly certain she’s the only person on earth who can get away with calling me “Jessie babe.” “Did you bus it today?” she asks.

  “With a grin all the way to Leavenworth,” I say.

  “Girls. Girls,” Susan says, leaning forward and raising her hands, palms forward. “Do we have to talk about this? Haven’t we had enough?”

  This girl is unbelievable. Yes, Susan. We’ve had enough. Let’s just forget about this. Let’s just try very, very hard, and pretend it never happened. Pretend it isn’t happening.

  I can tell Amy’s thinking the same thing. “You’re right,” she says, giving me a little eye roll that Susan completely misses. “I did get my hair cut this week.” I know it’s not true and I try not to laugh when I hear her say it, and I wonder: how is it that Amy considers this Susan person one of her friends?

  “It’s great,” Susan says, and she makes the citrus expression again. “You have just the face for that look.” She takes a sip of her whatever it is she’s drinking and turns to me. “So who is this Gretchen woman I keep seeing Patrick with?”

  “What?” I’m so surprised by this I don’t know what else to say.

  “Yeah, Gretchen, I think, I always see them having lunch at that, what’s that place in Palo Alto? Cheng’s.” She looks at Amy. “Her name is Gretchen, right?” Susan doesn’t seem to pick up on the look that Amy gives her, but I do.

  “Yes, I think her name is Gretchen,” Amy finally says, and I can’t really figure out her expression now that she’s looking at me.

  But I’m pretty sure she knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  You know he’s with some Gretchen person? And you haven’t told me?

  “I think she works with him,” Amy goes on, quietly. “Or something like—”

  “She’s cute,” Susan cuts in, fishing a chunk of fruit out of her glass with her perfect nails. “Sort of short, but she’s a cute girl.”

  “I heard it might warm up this weekend, finally,” Amy says weakly. Now I understand the look on her face; it’s that I’m-so-sorry-Jess-please-let-me-die-now look. Susan is oblivious.

  “God, I hope it warms up,” Susan says. “I’m so over the big chill.” She shuffles toward me on the bench seat. “Can I get by you, Jessica? I need a potty break.”

  I get up to let her slip by, then jump back into my spot across from Amy. “Why didn’t you tell me about this Gretchen person? You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I thought they just worked together, Jess. I’m serious. She works with him, I never thought there was anything—”

  “You’re supposed to tell me these things. You’re supposed to, you’re my eyes in Mountain View.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything to tell you. Would I tell you if he was out to lunch with some guy?”

  “I would have told you.”

  “Told me what? My boyfriend’s going out to lunch with people from his office?” Amy leans back and crosses her arms. “I thought you were finished with waiting for him anyway. What happened to bad timing? What happened to ‘I give up’?”

  “I still would have said something. You’re not stupid.”

  Amy doesn’t say anything, and we just sit and look at each other until Susan gets back.

  I probably should have stopped drinking after I got the Gretchen news, or non-news, or whatever it was. Now, on my way back home, I’m drunk and angry and I’m squeezing my keys as I try to stomp my footprints into the concrete of the sidewalk.

  I’m an idiot. Of course he didn’t tell me about this party.

  Of course this Gretchen is going to be there.

  Do I know her? Have I ever met her at one of Pat’s little functions out in the valley? Has she ever been up at his place?

  I climb the stairs to my floor and pause for a second, then continue up the fifth flight to Patrick’s door. I almost knock, but hold myself back, and I put my ear to the door instead. Nothing. It’s only a little bit after eleven; he won’t be back for hours. Or they won’t be back for hours? No, no. Maybe?

  Goddammit.

  I do knock, finally, and wait for a moment. Then I go back downstairs and don’t bother to turn on the lights in my own place, just undress in the dark and get into bed and hug my big down pillow. And I sleep.

  Sometime later—the clock by my bed says two thirty-two—I hear keys in my door, and my living room is momentarily illuminated from the hallway. I see Patrick’s silhouette coming into my bedroom, and suddenly I’m wide awake and furious. Right, I’m thinking, as I listen to him drop his clothes on the floor next to my bed, right, you go out and get loaded and hang with your little friend Gretchen and then you think you can come home and get sweet Jessica to go back on the rule? If you could so adamantly refuse it Monday night, I can stonewall just as well now. You’re looking at the impenetrable Fortress Jessica under these covers tonight, pal. This rule is standing like the Great Wall of Vagina.

  And then I’ve got it: as soon as he gets in bed and comes to me with those drunken paws, I’ll pounce. “So who is Gretchen, Patrick?” I’ll ask. “Can you tell me about Gretchen?” My delivery will be so vicious, so icy, he’ll wordlessly jump up and run away. Or beg me for forgiveness. Or both.

  But no paws are forthcoming as I lie there, breathing, pretending to be asleep. Patric
k just sits on the edge of the bed. Then quietly, almost cautiously, he eases in under the covers and reclines. A moment later he rolls toward me and nestles in against my back. An arm slips around my waist. And nothing more.

  “What are you doing, Patrick?” I whisper.

  “I needed to be close to you,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  I roll so I’m facing him and put my hand to his cheek. “Can we stop the rule?” I’m still whispering. “We don’t have to do it anymore. Can we finally just be—”

  Patrick sighs, but he keeps his arm around me. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Let’s talk about all this tomorrow.”

  6

  Patrick leaves to run—again—before I’m awake, and when I do get up I wonder if it was fitness or guilt that drove him out the door. I make some coffee, try not to think of names beginning with “G,” and boot up my computer to check e-mail. My computer isn’t even that old, but the thing gets slower every time I use it, I think.

  There’s a message from Katie, dated yesterday afternoon, in my in-box. “Can’t answer phone, proctoring exam for Dr. Kurtz,” her mail says. “Thinking of you too.”

  I check the news online, and the big story today is that they’ve identified all of the bus bombers. Their photos are posted, there on the cable news home page, lined up in a two-by-two grid. Two of them look white, one looks black, and the other has Asian features, maybe Filipino. The first picture, one of the whitish guys, looks serious, like a mug shot. He’s angry in his photo. The others seem to have been taken from snapshots. In the black guy’s picture, he’s smiling, and you can see he had his arm over someone’s shoulder, a woman cropped away. You can barely tell that he’s wearing a Raiders jersey, and the other white guy is wearing some sports shirt too. Maybe they met at a game? The Filipino guy looks really scrawny. I bet he was scared before he pressed the button.

  I click on the story and read some more. There’s a blurry surveillance picture from Monday morning in there, shot from a mini-mart security camera or something. Somebody’s paying for his beef jerky or his gasoline, and in the background, wearing a hoodie and a backpack, is the black guy walking really purposefully. There are some quotes from one of the mothers. She can’t believe it, she says. He was such a shy boy. He loved his Xbox. There must be a mistake.

  Well, sure it’s a mistake, lady. What kind of a mom are you?

  I get more coffee and settle in to check the PitchBitch. I’m thrilled to see she has a new post, even if it is pretty brief and almost totally devoid of snark. Everything is fine at PB HQ, she writes, thanks for all the e-mails, she’s okay, her cat, Blanco, remains calm as usual, things are fine. She writes about how she had to pitch a spec campaign the day after the bus bombing because the client was in town and was flying out that night; apparently it was a total disaster because she was hungover on top of being an emotional mess, but it ended up being no great loss because the product was some weird treatment for dry skin and the client was, as she puts it, “a complete raging giant puckered asshole.” She goes on to describe an evening out with Jazzboy: the place was lame (she doesn’t mention where; I want some dish), he seemed preoccupied (with work obligations; cryptic, but she claims to understand), and she ended up leaving early and not being really mad about doing so, because, she says, “the big big big chance comes tonight.”

  I know how she feels. And despite the fact that she generally works with fluff consumer products and I’m doing kayaks and bike shorts, I think she’s my online long-lost twin. I’m pulling for the PitchBitch. I really am.

  My phone rings as I sit there at my desk, and the ID says: “UNKNOWN CALLER—JACKPOT NV.” A name like “Jackpot” gets me curious, so I pick up.

  “Hello?” I’m struggling to recall if I know anyone in Nevada.

  “Jessica, this is your father speaking.”

  “Oh, hi, Dad. How are you?”

  “I am well. And how are you?”

  “I’m doing okay.” It’s really pointless to say anything else. After these pleasantries are completed, my dad can get into what he does best: talking about himself. I hear him draw in a long breath, and then he lets it rip.

  “It’s been quite an adventure traveling through this nation’s western states…” he begins, and I seriously wonder for a moment if he’s reading to me from a prepared text. I wander back to the kitchen, not really listening. There’s barely any coffee left, and it’s starting to get that burnt smell, so I pour it out and start another pot. A kid’s riding his bike in a circle down on the street, and I watch him through the window while Dad’s voice drones into my ear. And just as I refill my mug with fresh coffee, there’s a little shift in his tone that signifies he’s wrapping up, so I tune back in.

  “And I must say,” he says, “Wilma has been a splendid companion, wandering over these highways and back roads. A splendid companion.”

  “That does sound splendid, Dad.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t take up any more of your morning, Jessica. Do take care of yourself.”

  Having looked back upon their marriage through the somewhat clarifying lens of my own adult relationships, I’m not surprised that Mom divorced Dad. If anything, I’m proud of her. What does surprise me is that they got together in the first place. And even more startling is the fact they were, at some point, physically intimate. Katie and I do exist, so it’s safe to assume there were at least two episodes of parental sexual intercourse. How did that happen?

  Someday, I’ll ask Mom what the hell she was thinking.

  It’s hard not to feel as though Patrick is avoiding me for the rest of the day. I hear him, more than once, running up and down the stairs in our building, and every time I try to duck out and catch him he’s lugging something like a case of wine or flat of Danny’s handblown martini glasses and tells me hold on, just a couple more trips to go, he’s getting ready for the party. Finally I just go up and sit on his couch to wait for the next ascent, and it isn’t long before I hear him running up the stairs two at a time. He looks a little surprised as he comes in and sees me there.

  “Hey,” he says. He’s carrying one of those wooden wine crates, filled with bottles of differing heights and colors. “You want to help?”

  “I want to talk,” I say. Why do I always feel scared and clumsy at times like this? Sober times, anyway.

  “I know.” He’s pulling the bottles out of the box and arranging them on a folding table.

  Why not just get to the point? “Who is Gretchen?” I ask.

  “Christ, Jessica.” Patrick stops with the bottles and turns toward me. “Where did you get that? Who said something about Gretchen?”

  “Who is she?”

  “She consults for us. She’s great, she’s fun. Super nice. She’ll be here tonight. You’ll like her.”

  This is what I hate about Patrick sometimes. He sounds so sincere, so far from defensive, it’s hard not to feel like I’m completely disarmed. In fact, I do almost look forward to meeting her. But there’s something more I need to ask.

  “Have you slept with her?”

  “What? Where the hell did that come from?”

  “Have you?”

  “Not—No. I haven’t.” He turns back to the bottles.

  “Were you about to say ‘not yet’?”

  “Come on.”

  “I can’t believe you sometimes.” I stand up and put my hands on my hips. “I want to stop the rule. It’s not even the rule…I want to be…I want to be us. Why can’t we just—”

  “I can’t do that right now, Jess.” He’s holding a big bottle of some whiskey-colored liquor by the neck and resting it on his thigh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can’t do this. I can’t, I sat around, and sat around, while you waited for what’s-his-name from college to move out here or whatever—”

  “His name is Jason.”

  “I don’t care what his name is. I was ready to wait, I knew that fucki
ng guy would flake. I was trying to be nice. And what the hell’s up with you, sleeping with me while you’re still waiting for your supposed true—”

  “Shut up,” I say, and now I’m squeezing my fists and can feel myself shaking.

  “You shut up.” Patrick sets the bottle on the table, and he’s so calm it’s infuriating. “You make this dumb fucking rule—one that you don’t seem very prepared to live with, I should add—but okay, I’ll respect that, timing’s not right, whatever. I respect that. But then you get mad at the idea of me hanging out with someone else? What’s up with that? What exactly are you expecting me to do here?”

  He’s right, and I hate it.

  “I just think I’m ready now” is all I can make myself say.

  “I’m sorry, Jess, but right now I’m not.”

  I don’t want to fall apart, and if I do, I don’t want him to see it. So I turn and hurry out through the still-open door and run down the stairs.

  “Hey, Jess,” I hear Patrick call. “I told everyone to show up around six-thirty tonight.”

  There’s a knock at my door at five ’til seven, and I open it to find Danny, arms crossed and smiling. He’s wearing a tight black shirt and a scarf, and he might be the only man I know who can pull off that look while avoiding the appearance of arrogant desperation that it seems to paint on anyone else.

  “I was told to escort you upstairs,” he says. We can hear footsteps and laughing and music through my ceiling.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I think I may just stay here.”

  Danny raises an eyebrow and makes an exaggerated show of looking me up and down, then he steps into my apartment and slips his arm through my own. “I see, you always dress up like this when you plan to stay in? Do you need to grab anything?” He’s guiding me to the door.

  “I’m set.”

  “You know how much I love that dress,” Danny says. I’m pulling my door shut and about to thank him for the compliment, but he manages to slip in: “Did you get it from that catalog you were on?”