Carrie Pilby (6 page)

He came back out in a minute and said he'd drive me home.

We rode to my dorm in silence. He didn't say anything when I got out of the car.

In my room, I curled up in my bed in the dark and stared at the phone, sure he'd call. I rehearsed various speeches in my mind, speeches in which I would tell him that maybe there was a way we could get past this, that maybe there were things he wouldn't say, either, if I asked, that I had already made compromises and that I'd been happy to make them for him, but this was something that bothered me. And if we couldn't get past this, I wanted to say why it was hard for me to yield to his request.

But I never got the chance to say any of it. He didn't call.

The only time the two of us did talk was in class, when all of us were discussing the reading materials. That was it.

The semester eventually drew to a close. He and I never had another personal conversation.

I got an A in the class. I guess David would have been afraid to give me anything less.

By the way, I deserved it anyhow.

 

For a long time after that, I had trouble seeing couples kissing on campus. Their lives were so normal; why did mine always have to be strange? Did these carefree couples know that for some people, not everything worked out so neatly? Did they appreciate that?

The worst was, I knew a lot of the couples were together just for sex. At least David and I talked about books, music and his work. What did these people who did nothing all day but face-mash actually talk about? Some of the girls on my floor had boyfriends whose biggest accomplishment was making fifth-string lacrosse or flunking astronomy.

The rest of my time at Harvard wasn't much of an improvement. I studied hard, graduated and moved into the apartment my father found for me.

 

Now that I've just spent some time thinking about the relationship with David, I feel sore and unfulfilled, similar to how I often felt after the encounters themselves.

So I go out to the supermarket to grab some ice cream and rainbow sprinkles.

I wend my way through the murky city air and into the perfume-and-garlic world of D'Agostino. I pluck a frosty pint of Cherry Garcia from the freezer, and as I'm pacing the aisles, I pick up sprinkles and cherry soda, too.

Once I get home, I make an ice-cream soda. The fizz bubbles high above the glass. When I taste it, I immediately realize
I shouldn't have been denying it to myself for so long. The ice cream slides down my throat into my gut. It feels absolutely wonderful. There is nothing better than this.

I pass a mirror on the way back into my room and notice that my lips have turned red.

In the morning, I'm depressed. I don't know what to do. I have another appointment with Petrov. This probably won't help. But maybe it will.

The sidewalk is soggy, but the sun is out. I keep my eyes on the ground, feeling just as low. When I descend into the subway, there's only one other person in the station. Still, I have to glance up at him.

The way he looks strikes me immediately. He's wearing a gray bowler hat. He appears to be in his early thirties. He's also got on a long raincoat, and he's clean shaven and looks unusually neat. But it's the hat that strikes me. No one wears hats these days, especially a gray bowler hat. He looks like he's out of an old detective movie.

He paces before the complement of full-length Broadway ads:
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; Les Mis; Phantom of the Opera.
Occasionally, he starts muttering to himself. Just one of the many people in this city who are on the borderline.

I lean against the wall and stare at the ground, at the oval slabs of gum that have been there so long they've turned black, and at the dirt and stones and wrappers. The Hat Guy is still pacing, still muttering, and I don't want to appear to be staring at him, so I look away. There are so many places where we pick things to stare at in order to avoid looking at strangers. We do it in elevators all the time. But there is hardly anything to stare at on an elevator. I should start a company that manufactures sticky blue dots that read “Stare at this dot to avoid talking to the person next to you.” I could make a fortune.

I wonder what people are supposed to talk about in elevators. “Wouldn't it be funny if these Braille ‘numbers' were really curse words?” “You know, it has been statistically proven that ninety percent of ‘door close' buttons don't really work.” “Hey, wanna order pizza from the emergency phone?” “You know, most buildings don't have a thirteenth floor because the builders were superstitious. But
this
building actually used to have a thirteenth floor. It collapsed last year during a storm.” Come to think of it, I might use that one.

The light from the subway train comes out of the tunnel, and then the train itself appears. The Hat Guy hops on, and we immediately head to opposite corners of the car like boxers in a ring.

The Hat Guy pulls a long, thin book out of a flat paper bag and again starts muttering. On the train, there's not much to stare at, except ads for community colleges. I think the quality of a college is inverse to how much it has to advertise. You don't see Yale putting ads in the subway. The other ads are about made-for-TV movies on cable. Years ago, you used to be lucky if you could find one decent program out of three networks. Now, through the wonder of cable, the odds have been reduced to one in twenty.

 

I get to Petrov's a few minutes early and the door to his office is closed. I crouch next to the door and put my ear to it.

I hear the guy inside say, “It's in every one. In every sexual fantasy I have, right as we're about to…uh, do it, the phone rings.”

Petrov: The phone rings in your fantasies right as you're about to have sex.

Man: Yes.

P: Do you answer it?

M: No. But it completely ruins the mood, and the fantasy's over.

P: So you're getting hot and heavy with a woman, you're about to have sexual intercourse, and the phone rings.

M: Yes.

P: I think you have intimacy issues.

M: What makes you say
that?

What idiots. Petrov shouldn't even charge me, after having to listen to this dreck all day.

I hear him approaching the door, and I scramble away from it. The guy who comes out is about four foot ten. I wonder how people like him even
have
sex. I'm not trying to be funny. How do people who are so different in height have intercourse? I've seen four-foot-eleven girls with men who look like they're six foot three. When they're in bed, do the girls climb up to kiss them, then lower themselves and have sex, and then, when they're finished, climb back up and kiss them again?

“Hi, Carrie,” Dr. Petrov says. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine.” I enter and sit down.

“Is there a ‘but'?” he asks, sitting across from me. “You seem hesitant.”

“Well,” I say, “I sort of have this problem.”

“Okay.”

“Whenever I'm having a sexual fantasy, the phone rings.”

Petrov shifts uncomfortably. “I'd appreciate your not listening in on my sessions.”

“I couldn't help it. The door was just flat enough for my ear.”

“Let's see what kind of progress you've made on your to-do list.”

 

ZOLOFT®

1. Do things from list of 10 things you love
   
2. Join an org./club
   
3. Go on date
   
4. Tell someone you care
   
5. Celebrate New Yr's
   

“I had ice cream,” I say. “To fulfill mandate number one.”

“That's great,” he says. “Did you get rainbow sprinkles?”

“Yes. I made a whole ice-cream soda.”

“And how did it make you feel?”

I have to admit it. “Pretty good,” I say.

He smiles, as if he's earned a victory. This bugs me, so I add, “I haven't made any progress on getting a date. Or joining an organization.”

“What about the guy from legal proofreading who flirts with you?”

“He doesn't flirt with me. And I haven't seen him again yet. I will, though.”

“Good. Remember not to back down if he wants to get to know you better. Even if he's not exactly like you, you can still become friends with him.”

“Okay.”

“Have you found any clubs you might want to join?”

“I'm looking around,” I say. “I'm still considering that church.”

“You know, you're in New York City. If you pick up the Weekly Beacon, there are lots of events in the listings section.”

This reminds me of something. The Weekly Beacon has a very popular personal ad section. It gives you a little more than the usual personal ad websites on the Internet. You can read the
Beacon'
s ads in the paper or on the Web, but they also have a feature where you can have a voice mailbox so you can hear the other person's voice and they can hear yours, without having to give out your number at first. So not only can you trade e-mails, but you can trade phone messages, too. That provides me with optimum chance to talk to them and rank their creepiness potential before I have to meet them. A lot of people on the Internet pretend to be different than they are. This is perfect. I should be able to get at least one date and satisfy Petrov's requirement easily, even if this wasn't the method he had in mind.

I can place an ad and tell all about myself. What's more, I can mention in the ad that I have morals and that I'm smart. And I can include my restrictions for the people who respond. That way, I might actually meet someone who has standards and intellectual interests.

I'm definitely going to do that.

Petrov asks, “Are you okay? You seem a little down today.”

We go into how my week went, how my father is, and about New York in general, but I don't mention Professor Harrison. I tell Petrov I'm going to rent classic movies after the session. That's how I've been occupying several evenings lately, since I've read a lot of classic literature but haven't seen enough classic films. The movies come from a top-100 movie list recently released by the Association of American Film Reviewers. They actually released a whole bevy of lists, including 100 best movies, 100 best movie scores, 100 best leading men, 100 best leading women, and 100 best movie characters. If I had to do my own film characters list, number 1 would be C. F. Kane, 2
would be Nurse Ratched, 3 would be Dr. Strangelove, and 4 through 21 would be Sybil. There are some great characters in movies—greater than in real life.

 

When I leave Petrov's office, I figure I'll walk home instead of taking the scumway, so that I can pick up a DVD on the way. It's not that long a walk. Maybe this is good practice for staying out on New Year's Eve.

A few blocks out of Petrov's office, I see someone familiar. It's Hat Guy again. He disappears around a corner. Is he following me? It's awfully odd to see someone twice in one day whom you've never seen before.

I wonder if my father is having him tail me to check up on me. I decide I'll follow him a bit. I run up the block and around the corner. He disappears again. I try to catch up, but I lose him.

Maybe I'm imagining it.

 

When I get back to my apartment building, Bobby is outside, bending over a cellar window that's caked with mud and damp leaves. He notices me from between his own legs. “Hey, beautiful,” he says. I quickly turn and don't say anything. I push the front door open and jog up the stairs, which have been trampled for so many years that the black rubber matting beneath the carpeting has bled through on the edge of each step, and the color of the rug has turned from yellow to sallow.

When I reach the top, I stop. I stand there and feel a hole in my stomach. All Bobby did was say, “Hey, beautiful.” And he's old; maybe saying it brought him joy. Why was I so mean? What if he really
does
think I'm beautiful? What if, as far as he was concerned, he was just being nice?

No one else consistently tells me I'm beautiful.

I stand there and feel sickness wash over myself.

Then, the feeling goes away, like it usually does.

 

That night, I get called for legal proofreading. It turns out to be even more monotonous than the last assignment. I sit with three other proofers in a room that's almost completely barren. The desks look like they were swiped from an elementary school: manila tops, metal green insides. The floor is white and dusty. It's freezing in there. It must be the room they don't let their clients see.

The other proofers are much older than me. I look at them, but unfortunately, none of them look like they'd make a good date. I will have to keep looking, and I'll have to place that ad soon.

The four of us sit like bored students in study hall, waiting for work. The other proofers discuss a variety of topics: whether Walt Disney is really frozen, trying to name all of the ingredients in a V8, leaving a dog out and forgetting you left it out, kids drinking chocolate milk with their school lunch every day, Japanese cartoon characters that look American, bad television shows. A man and woman talk about their belief that today's television is much worse than when they were kids. People always say that, but I guess they don't realize that TV is always going to seem worse now than it did when you were twelve. Anyway, I happen to like TV. I've met people who will self-righteously declare that they don't own a TV set, as if it makes them morally superior to everyone else, as if they are declaring they have never told a lie or broken the law. There is absolutely nothing immoral about television. It's not even unhealthy. Vapid and stultifying, maybe. But we all need it sometimes. I know I do. My mind worked so hard for the first eighteen years of my life that it needs—and deserves—a virtual brain pillow to rest in.

Around 3:00 a.m., the room is silent. Everyone is reading newspapers. I'm starving. At least, that's what I tell myself. Probably, I'm more bored than hungry. I get up, go to the kitch
en, drop some coins into the snack machine and grab a bag of pretzels. I return to my seat and start eating. A few people turn around. I can't help it. Pretzels crunch.

I start to feel like everyone is looking at me. I put the bag aside and sit quietly. But I see the pretzels there, their tiny knobs calling out to me. My mouth waters. I know it will water until every last pretzel is gone. The psychology behind that is interesting. When I can take it no more, I grab the bag, head into the kitchen and scarf down the pretzels. I hate peer pressure.

 

When I return to my seat, I decide I'll write a draft of my personal ad for the
Beacon.

I take out a pen and print:

I can't wait to see the responses I get. I pull out my pocket calendar and write on it, on a date next week, “E-mail personal ad to
Beacon.
” I'm giving myself a week to find a less-desperate way of meeting people. But if nothing else works out, I can place this ad and answer other people's.

 

The next night, I'm scheduled to return to the firm where Douglas P. Winters works. I'm excited. I tell myself that I must dig in my heels and ignore his salacious comments, as he may be my only prospect for a date by New Year's. But I hope that he doesn't drop me before it happens because he realizes, as David did in college, that I still have morals.

David left me wondering for a long time if all men would be like him, making me do things that felt wrong, then immediate
ly shutting me down coldly if I didn't. And I hated the women who routinely gave in and made it easy for them to be that way. Nowadays, I don't think every man is evil, but the good ones can also get a good-looking woman, so a woman who isn't good-looking just has to lower and lower her standards until they're down around her ankles. It's not fair; it's just life. I sometimes think that women are the most hypocritical beings around. They complain from nine to five about how men are pigs, and then they give them what they want from five to nine. But I can't say they're doing it out of any malice; it just comes from neediness. I've heard feminists say that women shouldn't “need a man,” but it's not that women need a man. It's that most people need
someone,
and if they're women and they happen to be heterosexual, their choice is limited to men. And if they're not beautiful women who can pick and choose, their choice can be limited to self-centered men. All right, maybe it's not so bleak, but it'd be less bleak if people actually had standards and tried to hold out, like I did by refusing David's requests.