In the Wake of Wanting (8 page)

I take a bite of my salad and am just getting ready to relax when Edie runs up to me and signals for me to pick her up. I push my chair back and pull her into my lap. “What’s new with you, bunny?”

“I don’t know,” she answers coquettishly.

“You don’t know?”

“Uncle Trey?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Zaina?” she asks me.

I look at her closely and smile, giving her a big kiss on her forehead. “She’s in England. And thank you,” I whisper the second part in her ear, grateful that she’s centered me and brought me back to my reality with her innocent question.

I send a text message to Zaina before I go underground to the train.

-
I know it’s late. Please tell me you’re awake.

After only a couple of seconds, I can see she’s typing something.

- -
I was getting ready for bed. Are you okay?

I decide not to make her wait for me to get home, and hail a cab instead of taking the subway, where I’ll have no cell service for my entire ride home. I dial her number just after I check in with my taxi app on the phone.

“Hi there,
Tria
. This is a nice surprise.” she says, her voice sounding so far away, as it always does over the phone when she’s in England. The connection is never great, which is why we do so many video calls from our computers.

“I’m sorry it’s so late, Zai, but I miss you. I just got finished with dinner at Valbella with my family. I’m in a cab.” It’s my way of letting her know this won’t be the most personal conversation we could have.

“That’s okay.”

“Why are you still up?”

“It’s stupid, but I was catching up on some TV shows, watching those DVDs my parents got me for Christmas. Two episodes turned into five.”

“And here I thought you were studying.”

“I probably should have been… I had to take a break from memorizing the names of all the bones in the body.”

“Do you have a test?”

“Yeah. It’s at three tomorrow. I know them all,” she says. “It’s just insecurity making me doubt myself now. You know how I get.”

I smile and laugh to myself, knowing exactly how she gets. “Yeah.” In high school, I’d spend many late nights simply distracting her so she wouldn’t worry herself to death over things like this. “I think the TV shows were probably just what you needed.”

“You aren’t here,” she says sadly. “And you don’t have time for that nonsense anymore, anyway.”

“I could always make time for a little distraction, if that’s what you need, Zai. Sure, I’m busy, but what are friends for, right?” I ask her, immediately shocked by what I just said to her. “
Boyfriends
for… what are
boyfriends
for?”

“Right,” she agrees, not giving it a second thought. I’m relieved, but still stunned. “Can you distract me right now?”

She sounds sexy, the way she asks me. “I’m at least twenty minutes away from my apartment, Zai–”

“Twenty-five,” the cab driver says.

“Did you hear that? Twenty-five, according to the cabbie, who probably doesn’t want to hear me do that right now,” I tell her.

“That would be embarrassing,” she says.

“Just a tad.” I think back to our night together when she was still in town, celebrating our anniversary. We didn’t seem as close as we used to be, but it was still an incredible night with her. “When you need a distraction like that, remember the Glenmere,” I tell her softly. “With the fireplace going, we had the lights off. And the snow outside, it was lit so perfectly by the full moon. I remember how beautiful you were in my arms, how your skin looked in the glow of the fire. Do you remember?”

“I could see the ecstasy make its way from somewhere deep inside you to your smile and then to your eyes while we were making love,” she reminisces. I close my eyes, letting myself go back to that weekend with her.

“It makes me happy when I…
make you happy
,” I tell her. I whisper the last part and duck my head away from the driver, just in case. Although we’d been dating for four years, we’d been sexually active for less than two, and since she had been away at college for much of that time, we were still learning a lot about one another. We hadn’t perfected the art of
coming together
, so when it happened, I always felt a certain sense of victory.

“Oh,
Tria
,” she breathes into the phone. Even though she sounds distant, I could recognize that lustful plea in my sleep. “Ohhh,
Tria
,” she says again. My eyes flicker toward the driver to see if he’s watching, because suddenly I feel very guilty, knowing my girlfriend’s on the other end of the line having an orgasm. And I’m getting
very
turned on in the backseat of this guy’s cab. I didn’t mean for her to get her rocks off while I was thinking back to our weekend together. I knew that’s where she wanted to take the conversation, but I thought I’d made it clear I wasn’t in any place to do that right now… because I’m left with a hard on, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. “
Tria
! Ohhh! Fuck me, Trey! Ohhh! Trey! Ohhh!” I have to hold the phone away from my ear since my natural inclination is to join in with her. I have responses to her cries, each and every one of them, and when I get home, I’ll be screaming them aloud to an empty apartment.

“Can you let me out here?” I ask bluntly, making a split decision when we hit a red light. “I’ve already paid with the app. Thanks,” I tell him as I step out, untucking my shirt when I hit the sidewalk. I get my bearings and am grateful to have exited so close to a subway station. Heading underground with the flow of traffic on the pavement, I let Zaina tell me when she’s ready to resume conversation.

“Trey Holland?” someone asks me once I’m through the turnstile.

I nod, my ear to my phone, trying to politely signal to them I’m busy. “If I could just get a picture with you…” I lean in to her as she holds her phone up for a selfie, and then smile as I look into the camera. “Thank you so much!”

“Who was that?” Zaina asks, out of breath.

“I’m waiting for my train. Some girl.”

“I thought you were in a taxi.”

“I was, but you made it pretty uncomfortable for me, so I got the hell out of there,” I tell her, finding it impossible to mask my frustration. “You
knew
I wasn’t at home, Zai. Why’d you do that?”

“I couldn’t help myself,” she says, laughing. “I didn’t think it really mattered.”

“I’m about to get on a subway looking like a total slouch with a fucking boner,” I tell her, covering my mouth and ducking into the wall to tell her this. “This isn’t funny.”

The 1 train pulls up, and I get in just as she starts to argue with me, trivializing my reasons for being upset with her. I’m sure she can hear the announcements on the train. She has to know that’s a warning. And five seconds later, before I can get a word in anyway, the call is cut off.

chapter five

Coley beats me to
The Wit
on Wednesday and is sitting at our table in the front of the classroom with a manilla folder under her folded hands. She’s wearing more makeup today, and her hair is silky and straight. I can’t see the freckles on her nose and cheeks today, and I miss them. She barely says hello to me when I come in, seeming very meek, even though we had a nice, long conversation on Monday, when I thought I’d convinced her that I was a pretty average college student, just like her.

“All right, freshmen. Does everyone have their assignments from Monday?” Professor Aslon asks.

A collective “yes” is muttered around the room.

“Take them out and hold them up so I can see,” she says. Coley picks up her envelope and sticks it high into the air, holding it with the hand farthest away from me.
It’s no use, Coley.

Professor Aslon walks to a few of the tables where the freshmen sit, cursorily glancing at some of the documents before giving them back to the students. She bypasses our table as she returns to the front of the classroom to deliver her next instruction.

“Now, hand your assignment to your editor."

The freshmen protest while the rest of the room laughs at their reactions. We’ve all been through this exercise before.

“You said
you
were the audience,” Coley speaks up with genuine fear.

“I am,” our professor says. “But I don’t read anything that hasn’t been edited. I think I mentioned that Monday. Or maybe that wasn’t clear. Regardless,” she says, her louder voice needed over the opposing arguments coming from all around the room, “this is an important lesson for all of you. Freshmen, this isn’t about you. Okay? Stop being self-absorbed. There are going to be times this year when you’re given a tough assignment… something you know your editor may not agree with you on, or may not be interested in reading. You may want to censor your own article, or withhold comments, opinions, or sentences. That’s not what this class is about. Your job is to write the story that your audience needs to read. Write it the way you see it.

"You were all selected for this course for a reason. We know you can write. We know you have opinions. You each have your own style. Give us your all, each and every time, with every story and article you write.

“This assignment should get it all out there. In every first impression piece, there’s at least one thing in there that the writer doesn’t want the editor to see. Most of the time there are at least five things. Yes, it’s a little uncomfortable. Journalism isn’t always comfortable. This is real life.

“But like I said, this isn’t just about you. This is about your editors, too. This is a lesson in objectivity for them, too. They get to edit a piece about themselves. They may want to argue with what you’ve written, but they can’t. This is about
your
first impression.
Your
opinion. They don’t have to like it. They may not agree with it. They may know with absolute certainty that you are one-hundred percent wrong about everything you think about them. But they have to take their emotions out of it and edit your piece."

Professor Aslon walks up to our table.

“Trey, I believe you’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”

“I have,” I answer.

“How was it?"

“Embarrassing,” I admit with a nod.

“Did you say something regrettable about your editor?” She knows I did.

“Yes. I said that Monica was a little bitchy.” My classmates laugh at me.

Professor Aslon walks over to Monica, who’s now been promoted to a senior copy editor position this year. “Monica, what did you do about that?"

She grins as she looks at me. “I asked him to explain why he felt that way, first of all… and once he gave me some examples, I suggested we change the word to ‘officious,' because we don’t like using the word ‘bitchy' in stories because it’s a little, um, nescient for Columbia University."

“That’s right. And how did the two of you fare the rest of the semester?”

“Well, together we had the most stories above the fold on the front page, and I invited him to my Christmas party at the end of the semester. We’re friends now."

“All right,” Professor Aslon announces. “You’ve got this class time to work and your own free time to do any suggested rewrites. Remember, you’re not changing
content
. We’re talking grammar, spelling, vocabulary, structure, refining style… you get the idea. I want to see final versions on Friday. You’re free to go.”

“Trey, I really don’t want you to read this,” Coley says.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s just your first impression of me… it can be completely off base. I promise not to take it personally.”

“Do we have to go over it in the classroom?”

“Nope,” I tell her.

“Can we go to a bar?"

I look at her questioningly and laugh. “I’m only nineteen. I know you’re even younger than that.”

“I know but… I’m going to need a drink.”

“It can’t be that bad.” I get up and gather my things. “Come on. Aside from a bar, do you have any suggestions on where to go?”

“Somewhere private-ish,” she says. “This is going to be embarrassing.”

“I’ve been there, Coley,” I tell her. “You heard what happened to me. I said Monica was bitchy. I said other things, too. I felt terrible. And I survived. You will, too.”

“Right,” she says under her breath.

“The library?” I ask.

“No. Too many people.”

“Back to the coffee shop?”

“Still too many people.”

“How about Morningside Park? Do you have a class immediately after this?”

“No. I have a lunch break.”

“So do I. If it’s really bad, we can go grab a bite and keep working, if you want. I’ll leave it up to you.”