Love Show
Authors: Audrey Bell
by Audrey Bell
Copyright © 2014 by Audrey Bell. All rights reserved.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical
methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain
non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Printed in the United
States of America.
First Edition.
Cover design © Sarah
Hansen, Okay Creations LLC
Cover photograph
©ollyy, Shutterstock
audreybellbooks.blogspot.com
“You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.”
-
Joan Didion
Table of Contents
The fall of my senior year of college, my roommate decided I
was a head case because of the espresso machine to which we owed our
friendship.
Actually, David probably decided I
was a head case the first day of freshman year, when we met. My mother had just
decided to get divorced for the fifth time and I had just decided I’d had
enough.
"I just don't understand where
the rest of your room is," my mother said for the eighth time.
"This is the whole room. All
of it."
"But where will you put your
espresso machine?"
"In the hallway. The espresso
machine can go in the hallway or it can go with you, but it is not going in
here."
"I think you should complain.
I thought you were supposed to be going to college. This looks like a prison
cell."
I’d stepped out of the tiny room
with the espresso machine to catch my breath. And that’s when I’d met David.
He had taken the espresso machine
and, because he had no one to move him in, he'd also taken my mother.
Anyways, he'd been fine with my
being a head case and in love with the espresso machine until the last week of
November my senior year, when he decided he was definitely not okay with
either.
I had just gotten back to
Northwestern from my third-round interview at
The New York Times
and had
to put the finishing touches on a junior staffer's piece on online privacy
before memorizing idiomatic expressions for my advanced Arabic test in the
morning.
So, I needed a few cappuccinos.
It was the fourth cappuccino that
did it. David stormed out of the room.
"What. The. Hell. Are. You.
Doing."
I held up my Arabic textbook.
"Test tomorrow."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Sorry, I know it's
late."
"It's not late. It's early.
It's five forty-five in the morning," he said.
"Seriously?" I glanced at
the clock. "Gosh, time flies."
"Time does not fly, Hadley. It
moves at a constant pace." He looked at me seriously. "You look like
a drug addict. And not in a good way."
"Can you ever look like a drug
addict in a good way?"
"I'm sure it's been done
before. But not by you."
"Well, I'm not on drugs."
"That's okay. I'm having an
intervention anyways."
“A study intervention?”
He took my Arabic book away.
I smiled and held my hand out for
the book. "David, I need to study."
"You need to study like the
Mojave Desert needs a dry spell. You have a 4.0 GPA. You are the last person in
the world who needs to study. Here are some people who need to study. Me. Tara
Barnes. Kim Kardashian. Miley Cyrus. You do not need to study. You need to take
a nap, a Xanax, and a two-year vacation."
"Oh, please.”
"You're addicted to
work."
"I am not
addicted
to anything." I tried to snatch the book back from him.
"You are. Work and caffeine
and possibly sugar," he said mildly, leafing through the pages. "I
mean, look at this. You learned how to speak a language in college. You want to
know what I learned?"
"Theater?"
He arched an eyebrow. "How to
roll a joint." He closed the book. "Anyways, this is unhealthy. It's
unhealthy for you and it's even more unhealthy for me."
"How is it unhealthy for
you?"
"Because, people think I live
with a drug addict. And your work ethic makes me feel small and pathetic and
lazy and we can't have that. I need to feel superior or, when that's not possible,
at the very least, equal to you."
I smiled. "I need the book
back."
"You need to get laid,"
David said.
"Let's talk about this
later."
"Like when?" David asked.
"Today."
"When today? Before or after
the newspaper staff meeting?"
"Christ, I forgot about that.
Dinner. We can cook dinner."
“Isn't the newspaper cohosting the Ambassador
to Turkey at the multicultural center for dinner tonight?”
I looked at him. “I need the book
back, David.”
He sat down on the couch. "How
was the interview?"
"Seriously?"
"You want the book back?"
I exhaled. “It was fine.” I rubbed
my chin. “I liked the journalist who interviewed me. She seemed cool—intense
but cool.” I shrugged. "They said they weren't sure about my experience
level. It would be in Africa, not the Middle East, and Arabic's not as useful.
But, the interview seemed fine. I liked her a lot.” I shrugged.
"That's good!"
“Yeah. It's good.” I agreed. “I
really want the job.”
He looked at me expectantly.
“So, is that all?" I asked,
reaching out my hand for the book.
“Of course not. I want to discuss
your mental health and your sex life. That was supposed to be an icebreaker.”
“Look, I get it. I'm stressed out
right now and it's freaking you out and I woke you up—”
“It's not
freaking
me out.
I'm worried about you,” he said sincerely.
“There’s nothing to worry about.
Promise.”
He smiled. “It's not an insult, Hadley.”
“It is, though. Kind of,” I said. “Like,
you're worried I can't do what I signed up for.”
"Well, that's not what I
meant. I'm not worried that you can't do it. I'm worried that you're going to
do everything you signed up for so well that you won't ever enjoy anything.” He
smiled. “I'm saying you’re awesome and you need to take a nap and get laid or,
at the very least, make out with a stranger.”
“What does that have to do with
anything?”
He rolled his eyes. "It has to
do with the college experience."
“Fine. You're right.”
"See, the thing—” He stopped
himself short. “Wait, what? I'm right?”
“Yes. Now, can I have the book?”
"So, you'll make out with a
stranger?"
“No. You're right. I'm a head case.
I'll take a nap.”
He growled.
“Book.”
He handed it back to me. “We're not
done here. I'm just going to bed. Not to sleep, obviously. You would look down
on that. I'm going to practice transcendental meditation and possibly achieve
nirvana. I'll let you know if I get there.”
He flounced back to his room and I
returned to the text, my eyes blurring.
David had probably been right to worry about my mounting
sleep debt. After my Arabic exam, I went to the wrong library to meet with one
of the freshman staff writers for
The Daily Northwestern
who had doubts
about a piece he'd been working on.
Justin Shelter hunched over his
laptop at a corner table in the engineering library. Which was crowded. And
quiet. On a Friday! David would've had strong words for this.
"Sorry,” I said breathlessly.
“I forgot we were doing this here. I forgot you were an engineering student
altogether. That's the kind of day I've had.”
“No sweat,” Justin said with a
grin. “Thanks for coming.”
Most of the kids who worked for the
paper were in the Medill School of Journalism, but there were a few outsiders.
Justin was one of them. He was also one of our more talented writers. He had a
knack for investigative journalism and had spent the last month working on a
piece on alcohol and student health.
I read over his most recent draft
while he watched, occasionally chewing a stray fingernail.
A student had died over the summer from
alcohol poisoning, and it had prompted a lot of concerned emails from the
administration, but no real changes. The death hadn’t occurred on campus, but
Justin thought it might be a symptom of a larger issue.
He was right—a dozen different
students, most of them freshmen, had been hospitalized since the beginning of the
year for alcohol poisoning and eleven of them had come from the same address,
an off-campus fraternity house.
“Wow,” I said when I got to that
point. “That changes things.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Have you contacted anyone at the
fraternity?”
“Yeah, I emailed the president
twice. He hasn't written back, and I don't think he will.” He frowned. "I
asked a few other kids. They didn't exactly give me anything printable. Unless,
‘don't be a fag’ counts as a legitimate comment.”
“Animals,” I said. “Well, if they
don't want to defend themselves, fine.”
“I don't want it be a takedown
piece, you know? It's about student health.”
“Yeah. But, you can't change
facts,” I said. “The fact that kids have gone to the hospital from their
parties at a disproportionate rate isn't a takedown. It’s just what’s true.”
He squinted at his computer screen.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Make it clear that the house is at
the center of the incidents. Say they declined your repeated requests for
comment. Talk to a few other people. People who aren’t in the fraternity but go
to their parties. See if they can give you a better idea of what happened,
whether the fraternity should bear some of the responsibility or not, whether
this is specific to this fraternity or specific to fraternities in general,” I
shrugged. “You want to be fair, but you can't leave it out.”
“I know.” He smiled ruefully. “I
just don’t want to seem like a kid with an ax to grind.”
“You're not the story. The facts
speak for themselves, not to your opinions,” I said. He'd have heard that if he'd
taken a journalism class. “It's a good story, you've worked hard on it.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Right. I
know.” He let out a heaving sigh. “Just…it would be easier if it were easier.”
I laughed. “Yes. It would. But,
listen, I think you are great. I think the article will be great,” I said. “Don't
let it stress you out. It's a good story; it's an important story. You know all
this.”
He nodded. “Thanks. Sorry to be an
alarmist. I just wasn't sure what to do.” He grinned. “Literally no one ever read
my high school newspaper, so I didn't have to worry about it.”
“Well, people will read this.”
“That's the problem!” He smiled and
then sighed. “Alright, well, I'll get a draft to you sometime next week. Exams
are killing me.”
“Take your time.”
He laughed. “Right. How many
writers do you say that to?”
“None. Zero. Only you. But you're
the only person who investigates anything, so you're special.” I got to my feet.
“You coming to this multiculturalism thing?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got to
study this stuff, unfortunately.”
“Well, I have to practice my
speech. But email me if anything else comes up, okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
David and Nigel, his friend from the GSA, were making
risotto when I got back to the apartment to change into something less ratty than
my torn jeans and ragged t-shirt.
“I thought you were coming to the
dinner,” I told David.
David raised his eyebrows. “I’m
coming to the dinner for you, but you really can't expect me to eat cafeteria
food on a Friday night.”
I looked at Nigel. “How'd you get
roped into this?”
“I wanted to come,” Nigel insisted.
“Liar. I don't even want to go.”
Nigel laughed. “So, David said you
were just meeting Justin Shelter?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you know him?”
“I do. I'm trying to set David up
with him.”
“You're joking,” I said.
“What's wrong with him?” David
asked. “I
knew
something was wrong with him.”
“I just didn't know he was gay.”
“Does
he
know he's gay?”
David asked.
“Yes,” Nigel said.
“I'll take it under consideration.”
Nigel shrugged. David had a bad
habit of falling in love with straight boys. Nigel had a bad habit of trying to
fix it.
“You know who needs relationship
advice?” David asked.
"Amanda Bynes," I said.
“Close.”
“Miley Cyrus. Kim Kardashian,” I
said. “Tiger Woods.”
“Hadley Arrington. Front of the
line.”
Nigel laughed. “Ooh. Really? I want
to help.”
"I need to get dressed,” I
said, sighing.
"She needs to get laid,"
David told Nigel.
I went to my room and pulled on a
black dress that I'd worn to a winter formal my junior year of high school. It
had held up well, like the saleswoman at Bergdorf's had promised.
My mother and I had been on one of
those horrific college tours that everyone goes on with their parents, where
the only thing you end up doing is fighting.
She'd signed divorce papers that November
and Tom, Julian, and Leah—my stepfather, stepbrother, and stepsister—had
disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived. The house had disappeared too,
another casualty of the divorce.
We'd moved to a penthouse apartment
on Market Street, and, after three months of refusing to unpack, I'd finally put
away my books and my clothes. I'd been dusting off the box of picture frames to
put up around my room when my mother told me that Lawrence had proposed.
We’d left on the college tour the
next morning. I would end up remembering each school by what we fought about
there.
NYU had been our last stop. The
dress had been an attempt at a bribe.
“You have to understand, Hadley,” my
mother said, after she'd bought the dress and a pair of shoes that I would
never learn to walk in. “You'll be gone soon, and I don't want to be alone.”
I had already known that, but I had
never heard her say it aloud and it made one thing very clear to me: being
afraid to be alone made you dependent on someone else. Someone you hadn’t met yet.
A stranger. And a stranger was an incredibly stupid and unreliable thing to depend
on.
I promised myself I would never do
that. And I never did.
When I stepped back out of my room,
David handed me a plate of butternut squash risotto. “Nigel said he needs to
know what's your type.”
I looked at Nigel. “Of what?”
“Of man,” David said.
I took a bite of the risotto and
closed my eyes. “I could live on this stuff.”
“I think her type needs to be very,
very, very calm,” David said.
“I don't have a type,” I admitted.
I set down my fork.
“Last boyfriend?” Nigel asked.
I rolled my eyes. My last boyfriend
had been Luke. In high school. Nice kid. I had liked him. Lost my virginity to
him. The whole nine yards. I broke up with him when he said he loved me. It reminded
me too much of my mother.
He told everyone I was a huge
bitch. I didn’t blame him for that. But, he also told everyone I was a slut.
That was, first of all, a lie, and second of all, a douche bag move.
He’d been the popular one, though.
People believed him. Everyone believed him. And when everyone believes
something about you, it might as well be true.
“Some lacrosse player,” I said
dismissively, not wanting to get into it. "High school.”
“Seriously?” Nigel asked. “Your
type is lacrosse player?”
I shook my head. “No. I don't have
a type. My last boyfriend was a lacrosse player. That’s all.”
“Well, good. We don't have a
lacrosse team,” David said.
"On second thought, maybe it
is
lacrosse player," I said.
“Her type is not lacrosse player.
Don't try to find one,” David said. “She'll hurt it.”
“How would I hurt a lacrosse
player?”
“You’d kill him with your Arabic
textbook,” David said.
“Well, when's the last time you
went on a date?” Nigel asked.
I cocked my head, trying to think.
“I don't know. Nobody's asked me out since high school.”
“Well, to be fair, that would be
hard to do,” David said. “The only things that might have gotten to know you
well enough to ask you out are your textbooks and the newspaper, and, as you
may have heard, they generally don't ask questions.”
“Ray Chang,” I said, ignoring
David. “He was the valedictorian of my high school and my ex-stepbrother was on
the fencing team with him.”
“We have a fencing team. And
valedictorians,” Nigel pointed out.
“We didn't exactly hit it off,” I
admitted. “And it was a prom date, not a real date. We both needed someone to
go with.”
“Okay, who’s your celebrity crush?”
“Edward Murrow.”
“Is he in
Twilight
?” Nigel
asked.
“No, he's been dead for decades,” I
said.
They both looked at me blankly.
“He ended Joe McCarthy's career?” I
reminded them. “He did the report on the Army-McCarthy hearings?”
Nothing.
“George Clooney made a movie about
him?
Good Night and Good Luck.
Come on, really?” I said, looking from
Nigel to David.
“Huh, missed that one,” Nigel said.
David exhaled. “So you're saying
you're a necrophiliac? Is that it?”
“I'm saying I'm not interested in
being set up with anyone,” I said. “I don't want a boyfriend.”
“I'm not trying to find you a
boyfriend. I'm trying to get you laid so you relax. And then
I
can
relax.”
“Who is the last person you hooked
up with?” Nigel asked.
I shrugged. The last person I'd
hooked up with had been Andrew—a boy I still worked with on the newspaper—and
it had been the night I found out I would be Editor-in-Chief.
It had been the kind of night that
only ever happens right after finals. The kind of night when you can’t tell
exactly what it is that has gotten you so drunk: exhaustion or alcohol or
relief.
“Andrew,” I said. “But that barely
counts.”
“Andrew is not her type,” David
said. “Which is unfortunate, because he would be very convenient and he’s in
love with her.”
“He’s not in love with me.”
Nigel cocked his head. “So,
basically, you don't know what you want."
“She has no idea,” David said.
“She needs to go to tailgate,”
Nigel said.
“Okay, I have things to do.” I
picked up my plate of risotto, waved the printout of my speech in front of them,
and walked to the sanctuary of my room.
"You're coming to
tailgate," David called after me.
The speech went off without a hitch.
I walked back to campus with David,
sipping vodka and lemonade from a Gatorade bottle. Nigel had abandoned us to
meet a student at the University of Chicago he had just started dating.
“I'm tired,” I admitted, wincing as
I swallowed a large gulp of David's concoction.
My phone vibrated in my coat pocket
and I stared at the unrecognizable number.
“I bet that's the
Times
.”
“Doubtful,” I said. “On a Friday
night?”
“Answer it!” he said urgently.
"Hello, this is Hadley.”
“Hadley, it's Suzanne Reiss from
the
New York Times
.”
“How are you?” I asked, nodding at
David to let him know he’d guessed correctly. He fist-pumped exuberantly. I
rolled my eyes.
“Listen, I just wanted to give you
a call and tell you how impressed we were with your candidacy.” She took a breath.
“Unfortunately, we've decided to go in a different direction with someone with
more experience.”
I swallowed. What are you supposed
to say to that? Thank you for being impressed?
“But, I really want to emphasize
that we all thought you did a great job and that you were a strong candidate
for this position. And we will certainly keep your résumé on file for future openings.”
I swallowed. “Ah, okay. Yeah.
Thanks. That'd be good.”
“I'm sorry this isn’t better news,”
she continued. She sounded sympathetic. “We wish you every success, not that
you'll need our wishes to achieve it.”
I blinked. "Oh, um. Okay.
Well, thanks for letting me know.”
“Of course, Hadley. I really do
wish it were better news. Have a good evening.”
“Thanks,” I said again. “You, too.”
I pushed the phone back into my bag, trying to pretend that didn't just happen.
That I hadn't just been told “no” by
The New York Times
.
I should have seen it coming.
I blinked twice, surprised at the
hot rush of anger and hurt I felt. It was childish, really, to cry over not
getting a prestigious job that I was lucky to even be interviewing for, but
here I was, disappointed, out of sorts, strangling the flash of emotion in my
chest.