“There’s another example I could give you, but I’m not sure if I should.”
Jessica gives him a measured look. “It’s already out there. You might as well.”
Marcus takes a deep breath, clasps a clenched fist to his heart, and in a spot-on imitation of a certain geeksta performer they both know well, sings two words from the chorus of the eighty-seventh most popular song on iTunes.
“My … SONG …”
Jessica gasps in instant recognition. “So you do know about Len’s song!”
“Of course I know about Len’s song!” Marcus clears his throat, then launches into the chorus.
“You have stopped the arrow of time … There’s no meaning to this rhyme … Because my SONG will never mean as much as the one … He once sang … For you, yes, you …”
Marcus had known about Len’s song all along, just as Jessica suspected. Therefore, he also knows about how she fucked Len after refusing Marcus’s marriage proposal, knows as much as there is to know on the subject of Jessica and Len. He knows, he knows, he knows, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care in the same way that Jessica suddenly realizes that she no longer cares about the ex-lover who gave him the gorgeous cashmere sweater, or any of the girls who came before her, for that matter. She doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care, because none of those other people are in this elevator right now. It’s just Jessica and Marcus, oxymoronically alone together.
Jessica applauds, and Marcus takes an operatic bow. She wants to tell him that Len was right about his song never meaning as much, that is, until Marcus just sang it for her in the elevator. But she can’t. Not yet.
They take another anticipatory step backward as the elevator stops on the fifteenth floor. But, as before, no one gets on. There are still just the two of them in this elevator, and Jessica is both aching for and aching from this realization.
“When you started singing with me,” Marcus continues, “I was singing the note as it should have been sung. You were singing an imperfect—or, if you want to be technical, bare, open, or empty—fifth above it. Together, we created a vocal spark that sounded like a perfect fifth, the most stable of all harmonies.”
A vocal spark? Is that the explanation behind the evangelical fervor she felt onstage? Jessica can tell that Marcus is being totally sincere about this, but she can’t allow herself to agree to it, nor follow up in the obvious way. In other words, Marcus, we were perfect in our imperfection.
Instead, Jessica blurts, “You once called me sloppy firsts.”
“What?!” He snaps to attention, quickly sobered by this statement.
“You did.”
“That’s offensive,” he says with a frown. “And it doesn’t even make sense. I mean, I’ve heard of sloppy seconds, but sloppy firsts? I guess I didn’t know what to say to you, so I just said something stupid to fill the void. Something like Blame Byron!”
They both laugh at this very recent memory.
“Sloppy firsts,” Marcus says, rubbing his temples. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know, either,” Jessica says, “and I’ve been spending the last ten years trying to figure it out.”
Jessica can hear motors grinding as the elevator continues its climb. Then, over that whirring sound, Jessica hears the sound of skin sliding against skin as Marcus rubs his palms together.
“Strange but true,” he says. “A man pays one hundred dollars to have his fortune read by a New Orleans voodoo Queen. She takes his money, then takes his hands. She tells him he’s going to get run over. Two days later, he is run over in the Newark Liberty International Airport by the only woman who has ever mattered to him.”
“Wait,” Jessica says sharply. “When did this happen?”
“Two days ago.”
Her eyes narrow. “You were in New Orleans two days ago? But I thought…”
“I was coming from New Orleans when you ran over me, not going.”
The gears turn, turn, turn. “So you’re not flying out anywhere tomorrow?” Her voice is pinched.
Marcus can’t let his over-the-top impulsiveness, his need to prove that he still cares, be the very thing that drives her away yet again. He won’t join her on her flight to St. Thomas. The ticket will go unused. He’d rather lose $895 (he doesn’t have) than lose her again. He briefly considers the possibility that his name might be called over the Clear Sky public address system, as Jessica’s was this morning. This is a final boarding call for passenger Marcus Flutie …
“Marcus?”
“No,” he answers. “I’m not flying anywhere tomorrow.”
“Then,” she ventures hesitantly, “why are you still here?”
The words are still fresh from her mouth as he offers himself as an answer, reaching across the bare, open, and empty space between them, collecting her hands in his. All these hours together spent talking, she has strenuously avoided touching him, smelling him, tasting him, afraid of how her body would respond. She flinches. He tightens his grip. He won’t let go that easily. He pulls her toward him.
“Birthday presents,” Marcus says, close enough that the top of her head is warmed by his every breath.
“What?”
“This bag is filled with birthday presents.”
Jessica points to herself in dumb disbelief. “For me?”
He nods. This is the difference between bittersweet reunion and restraining order, he thinks.
Words fail her. Her mouth glug-glug-glugs like that of a fish. How did you know it was my birthday? she wants to ask. When did you know?
“Last week,” he replies, answering her unasked question.
Last week, thinks Jessica. Of course he realized it last week. Marcus had never forgotten that January 19 was her birthday, just as she had never forgotten that July 19 was his, just as there would be parts of their shared past that they would never be able to forget. She slowly lifts her eyes to look up at Marcus. The tenderness in his unwavering gaze makes her want to laugh and cry at the same time. She giggles—the middle ground.
“You’re giggling,” Marcus says.
“I am.”
“And you’re chewing on your lip,” Marcus says.
“I am?”
“You are. Or were, until I called you on it.”
“I didn’t think I did that anymore.”
“Well,” Marcus says. “Apparently, you do.” He lifts their still-interlocked hands and gingerly brushes a knuckle against her lips. Jessica’s mouth parts, wanting more. Ten years earlier, Jessica had conjured a birthday celebration not unlike this, a sweet-sixteen variation on what she referred to in her journal as her “standard stuck-in-an-enclosed-space-and-the-trauma-bonds-us-sexually-and-otherwise daydream.” Despite her best efforts to act her age, Jessica is tempted to punch the open-door button between floors to fulfill this long-ago fantasy.
The elevator dings open on the twentieth floor. A middle-aged couple is taken aback.
“Oh!” exclaims the woman.
“Erg,” grumbles the man.
Jessica and Marcus, standing inches apart, separated only by a quartet of clumsily clutched hands. Jessica and Marcus, alone together in that elevator, are a far more intimate sight than any less innocent act could be. This anonymous middle-aged husband and wife are embarrassed to have found themselves as accidental interlopers.
“Sorry,” calls out the wife as Jessica and Marcus silently push past them and head for their room.
eighteen
As instructed, Jessica is waiting on Marcus’s bed. He has turned off all the lights and is now walking toward her with two Hostess cupcakes balanced in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
“Happy birthday to you,” he’s singing. “Happy birthday, dear Jessica … Happy birthday to you.”
He kneels down on the floor next to the bed and holds up the cell phone, on which she can see he has uploaded the photo of a lit candle. “Er, I couldn’t buy any candles, so this will have to do.” He hands over one cupcake and keeps the o
ther for himself.
Jessica shyly shrugs an okay.
“So close your eyes and make a wish on the count of three.”
Jessica does as she’s told.
“One …”
I wish …
“Two …”
… our love was right now and …
“Three!
Jessica opens her lids, and Marcus snaps the cell phone shut. He’s right beside her in the darkness, but it isn’t close enough. She reaches out to take Marcus’s hand, to pull his body on top of hers on the bed. She grasps empty air instead of his warm skin. He has already gotten up off the floor and is halfway across the room to switch the lights back on.
Jessica is relieved and frustrated in equal measure. She is feeling more earthbound than she did when she saw him onstage, even a little ashamed that she so eagerly testified her love. But as she watches him move across the room, she cannot deny her powerful physical attraction to this man, nor how half of her is begging to renege on her chaste promises and fuck Marcus Flutie straight through the night until tomorrow morning. But no! The other half knows intellectually that fucking Marcus all night long will not only lead to regret, as it did with Len. It will also prove Marcus right about her inability to make good on such celibate claims.
Jessica counts the loop-de-loops on the cupcake—one two three four five six seven—then stuffs the whole damn thing in her mouth. Her cheeks balloon with synthetic chocolate and artificial cream.
“We’ve never celebrated a birthday together before,” Marcus says, coming toward her with the bag of gifts.
Jessica chokes down a spit-thickened wad of synthetic chocolate and artificial cream. “Uhhuunnhh?”
He perches himself cross-legged beside her on the bed, then very deliberately places the shopping bag between them. “We were never together for our birthdays.”
The mattress is quivering. At first Jessica thinks her pent-up sexual energy is manifesting itself as a geotectonic phenomenon. After a moment, however, she realizes that she’s not the one responsible for this involuntary bedquake.
nineteen
Marcus is flapping his knees in and out and up and down faster-faster-faster than the suicidal moths on The Queen’s dilapidated doorstep. He wonders if he might have to excuse himself to the bathroom and rub another one out.
I will prove to her that I’ve only got the best intentions, he promises himself. I will prove to her that this is not just about sex. That this is not just about tonight.
Jessica dances her chocolate-covered fingertips along his bicep. He blanches.
“What did I do?” Jessica asks innocently.
“Nothing,” Marcus says, composing himself. “I just zoned out there for a moment…” He trails off.
“Can I have my present now?” Jessica asks, eyes aflutter. If he didn’t know any better, he would swear that she was sort of… maybe … perhaps … coming on to him? No, this is another test. She’s just hopped up on sugar. This isn’t sexual. He squirms and pulls his T-shirt down over his crotch. Ohhhhhh, maaaaan. He hasn’t been this torqued up since he was a twelve-year-old virgin popping boners whichever way the wind blew.
“Pleeeeeeeeease?” Jessica whines.
Marcus opens the bag just slightly, takes a peek, removes the boxer shorts he bought for himself.
“These are mine,” he says. “But the rest…”
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” Jessica lunges, grabbing more of Marcus than the bag. To defend himself, Marcus releases the bag into her arms, rolls off the bed, and stands militarily (ahem) erect.
“Er,” he says, his hands jangling around inside his front pockets. “So there’s a T-shirt and boxers in there because I thought you might need them to sleep in. And a toothbrush because I assumed you packed yours and it arrived in the Virgin Islands without you. And a shot glass for, er, well… doing shots. Not that I’m suggesting we get drunk or anything, but…” He’s filibustering madly. “And there’s a deck of cards in there because I thought I could maybe, I don’t know, teach you how to play hearts. Remember? That was the game your grandmother Gladdie always played … It was weird, but I thought of her when I was with The Queen. It was a memory I hadn’t thought of in a long time. She was such a great woman, your grandmother. Oh, man. Oh, shit. I just realized that you need four players for hearts. Maybe we can play rummy or something instead. I don’t know. That Barrytini really scrambled my brain and … I… uh … gotta excuse myself to use the bathroom, okay? So you might want to turn on the TV or something, because I might be in there a while and …”
Midramble, he backs himself into the bathroom, shuts the door, and locks it behind him. He collapses against the door like the sole horror-movie survivor of the scythe-slashing psycho killer’s rampage.
twenty
Something just happened. And Jessica is not sure what. She can hear the sound of running water in the bathroom. The sound of Marcus taking a shower.
Marcus is naked in the shower, she thinks. Goddamn him for making me think about him naked in the shower right now!
To distract herself from thoughts of Marcus naked in the shower (STOP THINKING ABOUT MARCUS NAKED IN THE SHOWER), Jessica teethes on the deck of cards, bites off a piece of plastic, spits it across the duvet. She unsheathes the cards from their wrapping, shuffles the deck. The cards make a fluttering sound that brings her straight back to the Silver Meadows retirement home, waiting patiently while her grandmother shot the moon, beating Marcus, her late-in-life partner, Moe, and a perpetual crank in sweatpants whose name Jessica can’t remember. Three out of four of those players are dead. Death. Gladdie’s funeral… Jessica and Marcus furtively kissing behind closed doors … their first kiss … in a bathroom …
This is not helping her get her mind off of Marcus naked in the shower.
The phone lights up. Barry Manilow sings. Jessica sees the Pineville area code followed by an unfamiliar number. She picks up, expecting to be disappointed. “Hello?”
“I’m totally breaking the rules right now.”
Jessica nearly drops the phone. “Sunny?”
“Anyway, I had to wait until everyone left before I could call you. I’m supposed to be resting, but I’m, like, hello?! I was comatose for three days, I think I’ve rested enough.”
“Y-y-y-you’re awake?” Jessica stammers.
“Well, duh,” Sunny says. “How could I talk if I were still unconscious?”
“B-b-but you suffered a traumatic brain injury. You can’t just wake up and go right back to normal! I read all about it on the Internet. It only happens in the movies.”
“It’s not like I just woke up a minute ago. I was kind of in and out all through last night and the early morning, then more awake than not as the day went on. I still look like hell. I mean, I look like I’ve been run over.” Sunny pauses dramatically before adding, “Which I was. And now I’ve got an even worse haircut to grow out. But other than that, the doctors say I should make a full recovery.”
Jessica’s throat is closing. “Did you know I was with you last night?” she croaks.
“I have a memory of you talking to me,” Sunny replies, “but I honestly don’t know how much of what was going on in my head was really happening or a figment of my imagination.”
Jessica nods in commiseration even though Sunny can’t see her. Her phone beep-beep-beeps to warn her that the battery’s almost dead.
“My parents told me that you were so worried about me. I told them the only reason you like me is because I’m your alter ego, the Korean reincarnation of your younger self, Pineville High’s current model of the cynical girl who has it all yet has nothing at all…”
A spider army skitters up Jessica’s spine. What did she just say?
The phone beep-beep-beeps again.
“It’s almost too bad I got into Columbia early decision, or this would have made one hell of a get-into-college essay, huh? Oh, and think about that supa-dupa bonus layer of depth and profundity you could have added to my letter of
recommendation—oof!” Sunny gasps. “Shit, I gotta go, I hear the nurse coming. I’ll talk to you later.”
The call ends without good-byes. And to belabor the point, Jessica’s phone beep-beep-beeps one last time before shutting down completely.
Jessica cradles her darkened phone, stunned by how quickly tragedy turns to comedy and back again. She crashes onto the bed, shaking seismically from the inside out, laughing and sobbing ferocious tears of relief.
twenty-one
Marcus isn’t proud of cranking it twice in six hours, but desperate times call for desperate measures. If he unloads (again), he’s fairly confident he can make it through the next few hours with monklike reserve. He fills his palm with liquid soap and is about to commence another round of jerk-and-pull when he hears a terrifying noise over the sound of the water rushing out of the shower head, the guttural wail of a wounded mammal. He slows the flow of water just to confirm that he’s actually hearing what he’s hearing. He is. And it’s coming from right outside the bathroom door.
He cries out, “Jessica!”
Without hesitation, Marcus scrambles out of the shower stall, his sopping feet slip-sliding across the slick tiles. He bursts through the bathroom door and sees Jessica thrashing around on the bed, choking on agonizing sobs.
He rushes over to her, envelops her entire body in a wet embrace. “What is it?” he pleads. “Tell me!”
Jessica gasps for air. She takes a ragged, gurgly breath. She’s shocked by her body’s response to this good news. She had no idea just how much emotion she’d bottled inside until it all came gushing out. “She’s okay!”
“Who’s okay?”
“Sunny … hit by a car … in the hospital… coma …”
Her half-sentences are horrifying enough. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
She squirms. “I didn’t know how deep you wanted to get.”
“Deep,” Marcus says without hesitation. “Always deep.” He cradles her in his still-wet arms, strokes her hair. “Tell me more.”