on anything but his fingers. He had perfect guy hands. About twice the size of mine, they never got sweaty and they smelled like burning leaves. In a good way. He wasn’t into holding hands, but he always had his arm around my shoulder, or on my back, or on my knee.
Enough of that. Change the channel in my head.
JulieAndrewsJulieAndrewsJulieAndrews.
Chocolate Easter bunnies.
Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.
Well, not quite Sandra Dee. I’m waiting in full slut-attire for Natalie, when I hear Sam and Marc approaching the front door. Giggling. They’re always giggling. They’re also one of those couples who are always touching each other, making everyone around them uncomfortable.
I didn’t realize when I signed the lease that I would have two roommates instead of one.
Okay fine, the truth is that I hardly ever see Marc. Sam has a TV and a bathroom in her room, and they hardly ever come out. They just have sex. A lot. And they watch Law and Order, which for some reason seems to be on about six times a day.
What really bugs me about Sam is her why-can’t-you-cleanup-cuz-your-mess-is-really-annoying look. Like when she finds my socks on the coffee table. Or when she asks why I always leave the remnants of things in the fridge, like a milk container, a pizza box of only crusts, the pitcher of iced tea that has a rim of brown gel on the bottom but no tea. Once, she told me as she tossed my moldy half-leftover cheese sandwich in the trash can, that next time I didn’t have to save her any. No, no sarcasm there.
Here’s the thing: finishing something usually involves cleaning up or throwing something out, which probably also involves replacing an already full garbage bag with an empty one and then having to bring the filled one to the garbage chute—which all together spells too much work.
I have the same issues with filtered water. I never finish the pitcher. I hate having to fill it up.
I guess I haven’t as yet discovered the joys of closure.
Sam gets annoyed that I make everything her responsibility. Like collecting the rent, paying the bills, watering the plants, feeding the cat…I always assume she’ll take care of it because I take care of the other stuff, right? Don’t ask me to define the other stuff; right now, I’m into the intangible (Jer, Jer, Jer). Luckily, Sam always ends up doing everything, because otherwise we’d have an eviction notice, brown plants, and a dead kitty.
I’m kidding about the cat. I’d remember to feed a cat. We don’t even have a cat, I swear.
Sam opens the door. She and her attachment are each holding a bag of groceries.
“Look at you! Sexy stuff! What are you up to tonight?”
“I’m going to Orgasm.”
Marc laughs. “Lucky you.”
Sam giggles again, drops her bag of groceries, and grabs Marc around the waist. “The bar Orgasm, silly.”
“I know. I was just teasing, Sessy Bear.”
Marc calls Sam “Sessy Bear.” I don’t know why. I don’t even know what it means.
“I know, Biggy Bear.”
Sam calls Marc “Biggy Bear.” I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why.
“Who are you going with?” Sam asks.
“Nat. We’re going to get very drunk and meet men. You two wanna come?” Please say no.
“Sounds like fun,” Marc says. “But we’re going to watch ‘L and O.’”
Thank God.
Sam giggles. “Is that the new name? Like SNL and KFC?”
“It’s all about acronyms now, you know,” Marc says. “If you’re nice, Sessy Bear, maybe afterwards we’ll get an ice cream from DQ.”
“Is it normal that someone could be such a geek?” Sam asks me, playfully patting Biggy Bear on his behind.
“You’re the geek,” says her attachment.
For the second time today, I think I’m going to throw up.
After they disappear behind a thankfully closed door, I decide to prepare the instruments of our intoxication while I wait for Nat.
I take out the vodka and two shot glasses. She’ll be here any second. I might as well pour while I wait.
Yay! I’m going out tonight! Although I’ve never been to Orgasm, I’ve heard many detailed descriptions from Natalie. “It’s the place to be seen,” she once explained after I had lied about having too much work to do to go. As if I ever brought work home. They certainly aren’t paying me enough for that. Paying me enough, period.
“Anyone who’s anyone goes there,” she said. I was slightly surprised that people besides the prom queen on TV movies actually used that expression.
Whatever. Tonight I’ll be seen. If Natalie ever gets to my house, that is. Nat, where are you?
Jeremy, where are you? Long, Dutch legs come to mind.
I might as well get started and have mine. Drink, that is. Not long legs. All fantasy should be based on some degree of truth; what’s the use of yearning for something that can absolutely never happen?
Ouch. That burns. The drink, that is, not the truth (although that, too, can jolt a girl if she lets it).
Damn slut and her damn Dutch navel ring.
Now Nat’s shot is just sitting there, all alone, like the last lonely chocolate chip cookie in the box.
So I down it just as the downstairs buzzer rings. “I found something to wear,” Nat’s voice flows up through the intercom. “Come downstairs.”
See? If I hadn’t had those shots, they would have gone to waste.
3
Orgasming
“HI, HON! SHALL WE WALK?” Natalie asks, slinging her arm through mine.
“Of course we should. It’ll only take us eight minutes.”
“Which way is it?”
Silly Natalie. It’s not that I’m a walking compass or anything, but I pass the bar at least twice a day. So does Natalie. True, Boston’s not the easiest city to navigate; streets tend to inexplicably change names from Court to State, from Winter to Summer, and then disappear altogether. I’m no stranger to getting lost-induced panic attacks (I will never find my way home, I will end up in a bad neighborhood, I will get robbed and killed and no one will notice until months later when they find my decomposed body still strapped to my ten-year-old Toyota in the river—for the love of God, why don’t I have a cell phone like everyone else?), but Back Bay is pretty much a grid.
“Tonight I can have three shots,” she says.
Sobriety is not Nat’s concern. She is a self-admitted obsessive calorie counter. She carries a yellow spiral notebook with a picture of grapes on the cover, a purple felt pen, and a highlighter everywhere she goes. She writes down everything she eats. She even highlights her “boo-boos” (her word choice, not mine).
“You know,” she continues, “one shot of vodka has sixty-two calories.”
No, I don’t know. Or care. This week, anyway. One hundred and twenty-four calories down. Six zillion to go.
Today, Natalie does not in fact look fat. She looks exactly the same as she always does—very, very skinny and very, very tall. Well, not very, very tall, but tall compared to me (everyone is tall compared to me, since I measure about three inches over five feet). Natalie is probably only five foot six, but standing next to me I tend to think of Michael Jordan.
Actually, she looks more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except that Nat has