Love Show (13 page)

“God, you really are from San
Francisco, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “It can’t come as a
shock to you that I’m not a romantic.”

“Well…even unromantic people fall
in love.”

“I loathe that phrase.”

“Seriously?” Andrew asked, with a
smile.

“The idea that people
fall
in love,” I said. “It sounds so sloppy. You just
fell?
Really?”

Andrew laughed at me.

“What? It’s ridiculous. Control
your emotions. Can you imagine if criminals went around saying they fell into
hatred or jealousy and that’s why they killed four people or robbed the bank?
We act like love is this uncontrollable thing. But when it comes to anger and
all of that ugly stuff, we’re expected to control it. We’re supposed to handle those
emotions without hurting anyone. But throw out the word ‘love’ and everyone
thinks all of the rules should go right out the window and who can help it if
someone gets hurt? It’s
absurd
and it’s degrading, honestly, that we
expect people to control themselves except for when it comes to wanting to
sleep
with someone.”

“Oh, come
on
,” he said.
“It’s about more than sex.”

“I don’t think it is. It’s sex and
not wanting to be alone. Everyone is afraid to be alone.”

“Yeah, well,” Andrew shrugged. “Who
wants to end up alone?”

“I wouldn't mind," I said.

"Well, you're good
company," he pointed out.

“So if it was just me, myself, and
I until the end of time, I’d probably be okay with that.”

Andrew bit his lip, withdrawing
from the argument. “Yeah, well.” He finished his wine and refilled the glass.

The waitress set down our entrees.

“Yeah, well what?” I asked, amused
at how personally he was taking my refusal to believe in people falling in
love.

He looked away from me. He looked
like he suddenly thought dinner was a bad idea. “Not everyone likes themselves
that much.”

I caught the soft look in his eyes.
"Sorry." I bit my lip. "I mean, I like you a lot better than I
like myself.”

He managed a weak laugh. “Thank
you. That makes one of us.” He cleared his throat. “I just think people our age
don’t want to put themselves out there anymore. And so they don’t. And so
nobody actually falls in love. They play it safe. And that’s why everyone keeps
getting hurt. You’re supposed to fall in love. My parents got married when they
were twenty. And they’re still married.”

I raised my eyebrows. “My parents
got married when they were twenty-one and they aren’t.”

“Well, that’s the thing, it’s a
crapshoot. But you have to play the game.”

“Why?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. So you
can have a family and stability and someone…someone to come home to.”

He had such an earnest look in his
eyes just at that moment. I wanted to promise him that he was going to fall
wildly in love and laugh so hard when he remembered how he used to think he
might end up alone. But who really knew? We all worried sometimes. Even the
ones of us who were sure it would all work out had to remind ourselves that we
would be okay. We all have our own doubts. We all have weaknesses. Even in our
strong places, we have weaknesses.

After we’d discussed separatists in Libya and gun control in
the Senate and whether the Northwestern basketball team could possibly get any
worse this year, we shared dessert and Andrew got the bill. I was sure it was
exorbitant.

"We should split it," I
said.

Andrew shook his head.
"Please. I ordered the wine."

"Well, I drank it," I
insisted.

Andrew smiled and shook his head
again. "No way, Hadley."

He handed his card to the waitress
and leaned back.

"Well," I smiled.
"You’ve convinced me on Valentine's Day. We’ll do the issue. Juliet can
run it."

He laughed. "Yeah? You sure.”

“Absolutely.”

“I really just wanted to take you
to dinner. So, don't feel obligated."

"Ah," I said awkwardly. “Well,
I don’t feel obligated. You made a good argument.”

He signed the credit card slip.
"Ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

I was slightly tipsy from the wine,
and my boot slipped on the carpet. I giggled nervously when Andrew caught my
hips.

"I haven't been this full
since Thanksgiving," I told Andrew. “It’s throwing off my center of
balance.”

He laughed, leaving his hand on my
lower back. There just wasn’t a graceful way to pull away.

We turned towards the door. And
that’s when I saw a pair of dark eyes across the room. Dark and doe like and
briefly vulnerable. Bambi eyes. Jack’s eyes.

They flashed and looked away. I
stopped, wavering, and Andrew stopped, too.

“What’s up?” Andrew asked.

Jack was sitting across the table
from Robert Riley. He’d looked away from me already, though from a distance I
could see a tight ball of tension in his jaw. His handsome face betrayed
nothing else. I wondered what they were talking about.

Riley was speaking intently and Jack
was nodding. He wasn’t wearing plaid, but a dark zip-up sweater. It made him
look just a few years older and a shade more serious. It made him look good.
Even better than usual. If he knew I was staring, he gave me no sign. He
obviously had no intention of saying hello.

“Hadley?” Andrew repeated.
“Everything okay?”

“Yes. Yeah. Sorry,” I said. I faked
a yawn, turning to smile uncertainly at Andrew. I told myself it didn’t matter.
That Jack surely was upset about something unrelated to me. He wasn’t my boyfriend.
Neither was Andrew. I wasn’t on a date. It was for the newspaper. That was the
whole reason I’d said yes.

I managed to twist away from Andrew
at the door, wrapping my arms around my body and scurrying to the car. I leaned
my head against the cold car window when we got in.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, as he
started the car and blasted in the heat.

He smiled. “Yeah. That was fun. We
should do that again.”

“Mm,” I nodded noncommittally. The
brief drive to my apartment was quiet except for the sound of a late night NPR
host droning on about drones. I yawned again when we reached my place.

“I’ll walk you up.”

“You don’t have to do that.” I
smiled. “I’m good. I’ve got mace and everything.”

Andrew bit his lip. “Well, we
should do this again.”

I rubbed my chin. “I don’t know if
we should make a habit of it.” I smiled. “You might go broke.”

He leaned towards me for a kiss. I
ducked my head, kissed his cheek, and unbuckled my seatbelt in one motion. I
opened the door and shivered in the cold air.

 “Yeah. Well, have a good night,”
Andrew said. He was embarrassed and I felt a twinge of guilt.

“You too,” I said. “Seriously.
Thanks, Andrew.”

He smiled tightly. “No problem.”

I closed the car door and jogged
upstairs, shaking out my hands, which had gone numb.

When I reached the second floor, I
saw David and Ben standing in the open doorway to our apartment.

Ben cradled David’s face in his
hands and kissed him tenderly. They both smiled at each other for a long moment
before Ben dropped his hands, kissed David’s forehead, and turned to go.

The door closed before either
noticed me. Ben turned towards the stairwell, his head down. When he looked up,
he saw me.

“Hey,” he said to me. “How was the
date?”

I couldn’t believe he was trying to
have a conversation with me. “It wasn’t a date.”

Ben grinned. “Got it. You know, you
sound like me. I never think anything is a date either.”

I glared at him. I couldn’t help
myself. “I am
nothing
like you,” I said fiercely.

Ben jerked his head back. “Relax.
It was a joke."

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck
you think you are.”

“I think I’m David’s boyfriend.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked.

Ben smirked. “Do you want to ask
David?"

“If you ever hit him again, I’m
calling the cops,” I said. “And then I’ll ruin your life. I mean it. Ruin it.”

Ben looked taken aback. He shook
his head. “David wouldn’t want you to threaten me, Hadley. We got into an
argument. I told him I was sorry. But, you really need to keep your mouth shut.
Alright? You need to give David a break.”

I shook my head. “I mean it. If you
hit him again, I’m calling the cops. That’s not okay.”

Ben shook his head. “It was a
disagreement. You wouldn’t understand.”

He tried to step around me and I
stopped him.

“No. I do understand,” I said. “I
understand a lot better than you because I was the one who took care of him.”

Ben was quiet.

“He couldn’t even talk, he was so
upset,” I said icily. “His eye was swollen shut and he lost a tooth. Don’t tell
me I don’t understand.”

Ben was quiet. He licked his lips.
“He didn't tell me that. I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to hit him that
hard.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t mean
to hit him
that
hard?”

“I just wanted him to shut up and
listen,” he said. He exhaled. “Listen, I screwed up. Alright? You don’t need to
tell me that. I snapped. You have no idea how sorry I am. Ask David.”

“No. I don’t care,” I said. “I
don’t care what David says and I don’t care how bad you feel. If you hurt him
again, I’m calling the cops. David doesn’t have the most normal idea of what a
healthy relationship looks like.”

Ben looked at me, bewildered. “We
have a healthy relationship. I’m not like his goddamn family. I care about
him.”

“Well, do a better job of showing
it,” I said. “You could start by acknowledging he exists when you ask him to
meet you at a fucking bar.”

Ben shook his head.

“Have a good night, Ben,” I said
sarcastically, stepping around him and walking to the apartment door.

I took a deep breath before I
pushed it open, making sure Ben had retreated down the hallway.

David was sprawled on the couch,
swooning. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey,” I replied. I smiled, trying
not to shake from my confrontation with Ben. David really would be furious if
he knew.

“How was your date?”

“Wasn’t a date?”

“Did he try to kiss you?”

I exhaled.

“You owe me twenty dollars.”

I rubbed my chin. “Jack was there.”

“Shit,” David said.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s bad,
right?”

David shrugged. “I mean, it wasn’t
a date, right?”

"I think Andrew thought it
was,” I said. “But, no, I didn’t.” I glanced over to the counter. Flowers in a
vase. Gardenias. I hadn't noticed them before.

“Ben?” I asked.

David bit his lip. “Yeah. He came
to apologize.”

I nodded once. “Figured.”

David was quiet. “It won’t happen
again.”

“You trust him?”

“I do.”

“Because I mean, if you want to
report it. I can corroborate everything.”

“Hadley. Would you please just drop
it?”

I didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Well, the flowers are nice.”

He nodded and got up. “I should put
them in water.” He smiled. “You want tea?”

I shook my head, feeling profoundly
sad all of a sudden. “No. I’m just going to call it a night.”

He smiled. “Okay.” I watched him
turn towards the sink, humming underneath his breath, to fill the vase with
water, adjusting the stems so the flowers fanned in a wide circle.

I turned and walked towards the
bedroom, thinking of Jack’s flash of sadness, and then anger, and then
indifference at the restaurant.

It was so easy to see so many
things if you just stopped for the briefest moment and watched closely
enough—Jack’s knotted jaw, David’s trembling lips, Andrew’s flat, hurt eyes,
even the way Ben wore his fear of being found out in the deep furrow of his
brown—all of the pain they tried to bear in silence had signed its signature so
clearly across their half-broken faces.

I didn't hear from Jack for three days.

It wasn't an intelligent thing to
fixate on—not when I needed to make a decision about
USA Today
, keep up
with Arabic homework, and avoid looking like an idiot in Riley’s class.

But I was fixated.

So much so that I didn't hear the
question Riley asked me Friday afternoon.

"Anyone home?" Riley
demanded.

I looked at him blankly. "I'm
sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"What do we mean by
conflict-sensitive journalism?"

"Journalism that actively
works to reduce conflict, encourage resolution," I said.

He nodded. "Can that kind of
journalism ever be unbiased?"

I paused. "Well, according to
Ross Howard, yes. And it encompasses more than writing articles that will
encourage people to be nice to one another. Part of conflict-sensitive
journalism is just good journalism. Not relying on the statements of spokesmen,
looking to report on, say the opinions of low-ranking members of the military
or unarmed civilians, acknowledging widespread beliefs without necessarily
validating them.”

Riley nodded. "Good. And why
do journalists have an obligation to follow Howard’s principles?"

"Because journalists are
mediators. They make choices on what to communicate and how to communicate it.
When you frame a conflict in Syria, for example, as intractable, you also inform
the opinion of someone halfway around the world reading your paper. And that
has real-world effects.”

Riley nodded. He glanced at the
clock. "Exactly. We'll be concluding our ethical inquiry into reporting
from areas of conflict next week and moving onto specific conflicts in our
modern world. We will also be doing the first round of profiles in courage,"
he said. "You'll each be assigned a journalist who lost his or her life in
combat. Frame it as a short, retrospective magazine piece—who she was, what he
did, how she died, what he wrote that we will remember, and what do we learn
from it." He looked around the classroom and nodded.  "Be safe this
weekend, please."

The class cleared out quickly. On
Mondays and Wednesdays, people always hung back to talk to him, but at
four-thirty on a Friday afternoon, everyone sped out the door.

I took my time deliberately,
waiting so that the room would be empty when I asked him for help.

When the door closed and it was
just me and him, I looked up. "Professor Riley?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"I was wondering if maybe I
could talk to you about my career after college," I said.

He nodded, like he’d tolerate me
for a few seconds

“I have a job offer. I don’t know
if I should take it. "

"Yeah. Where at?"

"
USA Today
."

He nodded. "Not a bad
paper."

"Yeah. The position is at the
D.C. bureau. Politics. And I'm not that interested in policy. And I d—”

"Turn it down," he said
flatly.

"Well, I don't have another
offer."

"Well, get another
offer."

I smiled weakly. "Right."

"Listen. You're a smart kid.
And you're tough." He paused. "You're the Editor-in-Chief of the
undergrad paper, yeah?"

"Yeah.”

"Scrap a little bit," he
said. "They tell you a lot of things about job interviews, but it's not a
tea party."

"Yeah, okay."

"Where else have you
interviewed?"

"Just
The New York Times
,"
I said. "For the Africa bureau. I didn't get it."

He nodded. "They say
why?"

I nodded. "Not enough
experience."

“You sure you don’t want to do
policy?”

“I want to do conflict and combat
in the Middle East,” I said. “Maybe I could like policy, but—”

"Don't take it if you already
know it’s not what you want," he said. "Nobody likes a journalist who
doesn't seem committed. When you tell them in two years you want something
different, they're not necessarily going to give it to you then either. You
speak Arabic, right, kid?”

I nodded. "Yeah.”

He nodded once, reaching into his
pocket for a cigarette. “I might have something from you.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get excited,” he said. “I’ll
make a phone call.” He opened the door, letting me out before him and I grinned
broadly.

“Professor Riley, thank you.”

He nodded once. “A word of advice,
Arrington? You’re going to have to get into the habit of telling people what
you want if you’re going to have a fighting chance at it.” He gave me a knowing
look.

I bit my lip, thinking about Jack
rather than journalism when he said that.
I want to talk to you
,
Jack.

I nodded. “Right.”

“I mean it,” he said. “You’re too
talented to fuck around.”

I grinned. “Thanks.”

He nodded, dismissing me, and I
walked away, knowing I should talk to Jack, knowing I should tell him that it
seemed like he was ignoring me and I wanted to know why. Maybe it was all about
seeing me with Andrew, but I felt sure I had told him Andrew was just a friend.

I texted him as I walked to the parking lot.

Are you free?

Yeah
.

I waited long enough to be sure he wasn't
going to ask me to come over. Keeping Riley’s advice in mind, I texted him:
Do
you want to come over?

Nothing. I reached my car and made
a face.

Or I can come there?

He wrote back right away:
Yeah,
if you want.

If you want. Meaning he didn’t really
care. Well, I did care. I wanted to see him and ask him why he'd been acting
weird.

Which he totally had been.

So I drove to the frat house,
parked my car, walked past a snowman-building contest deteriorating into a
drunken snowball fight in the front yard, and up the stairs. I stepped into the
house without knocking.

Jack sat slumped down on a couch in
the living room, texting on his phone with one thumb, and sipping a beer. He
sat in between Xander and a kid named Nate, both of them too riveted by a
basketball game to notice me. Jack did though. He looked
surprised.                                                         

"Hey," I said softly.

“Hey,” he said. He leaned forward,
resting his forearms on his knees, and turned his attention fully to the
basketball game on the screen. "What do you want?" he asked coolly.

"What's your problem?"
Nate asked him, chuckling.

Jack shrugged.

I leaned my head towards the door. "Should
I go?"

He looked at me shamelessly, like
he could see right through the jacket I was wearing. He took a long sip of his
beer, without breaking eye contact.

“Christ, Diamond," Xander
muttered. "Stop eyefucking each other and go to your room.”

Jack turned and looked at him. He
stood up. “Hey,” he said to Xander. He was pissed off.

Xander smiled casually. “You know I’m
joking." He looked at me, saying it mainly for my benefit.

“It’s not funny.” Jack said
shortly. He nodded at me. “Upstairs?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Xander's fucking
stupid," he muttered as we left the living room and walked up the stairs,
towards his room. He closed the door behind me and took off his shirt roughly.

Well that was direct. He thought I
was just here for sex.

I cocked my head at him.
“Jack?"

“What?” he asked roughly.

“What are you doing?”

He smiled sarcastically. “I thought
we weren’t going to ask each other personal questions,” he said. Maybe he saw
the hurt in my eyes. He looked away.

"You’re mad about dinner.”

"You lied.”

I exhaled. "How exactly did I
lie
?"

"I thought you didn't date
anyone," he said. He had stopped smiling. "You told me that,
right?"

"It's complicated, but—”

"Complicated? You go to dinner
with Andrew Brenner and you fuck me? No, that's not complicated," he
smiled bitterly. "I mean this is fun and all, Hadley. This is really
fucking
great
. But, don’t tell me you don't date people when all you
really mean is you don't take me seriously. And don't tell me something is
complicated when it's actually really simple."

"Andrew is the managing editor
of the paper," I said. "He wanted to discuss a Valentine's Day
issue."

"He took you to dinner to talk
about Valentine's Day?"

“The Valentine’s Day issue of the
newspaper." I ran my hand through my hair. "And let me finish. I already
told you it wasn't a date. I’m not
lying
to you—”

“You—”

“Would you let me finish?”

He looked at me. “Fine,
finish."

“I didn't have time to talk about
the issue last week and I said we'd talk over dinner to get him off my
back," I said. "I thought we'd go to Chipotle or something. I didn't
even remember I'd agreed to dinner until five minutes before and he had to
drive me home to change because he'd made a reservation at Mill House."

He laughed bitterly.
"Right."

"That's what happened!"

"I know you," he said.
"You wouldn't have gone if you didn't want to. You say 'no' like nobody's
business."

“It’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Because he’s not like you,” I
snapped.

Jack stepped back, hurt.
"Right. Well, good to know where I stand."

“You don’t know where you stand.
Obviously. We wouldn't be having this stupid argument if you did. He’s...he’s
nothing like you. He doesn’t….he doesn’t
scare
me like you do.” I took a
breath. “I don’t think you understand how much you scare me, Jack.”

He was quiet for a second. He took
half a step towards me. He spoke softly. “Hadley, how the hell do I scare you?”

I looked at him and whispered, “You
just do.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you. You're my
friend and I'm sleeping with you and I just like you. I like having you around
and I'm not used to that."

Oh," he said. "Well, I
like you, too."

"Right," I smiled
sarcastically. "You've been dying to see me."

He took a step towards me and he
reached for my wrists. He pulled me to him. His eyes were deep. “I’m sorry,” he
said. “I just thought…”

“I’m not dating him,” I said
softly.

“Okay,” he said. He pressed his
forehead to mine.

He undressed me slowly, kissing me
everywhere. He took his time. Something deeper that words passed between us
when we had sex. He said things without speaking and I understood without
hearing. I understood that he was a little lost and confused. He understood
that I was stressed out and afraid that everyone would find out how much I was
faking it. He could taste that I was afraid of so many things. Even him.
Especially him.

His mouth and his muscles and his
hands knew me well. They loved me well.

I caught my breath curled against
his shoulder. “That was good,” I whispered and he laughed gently.

He kissed my stomach right above my
hipbone. “You excited to skydive?”

“Can’t wait.”

He smiled. “Good.”

I sat up and he ran his hands up my
body once more. “I should go,” I said.

He dropped a kiss on my neck.
“Hads?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have anything to be
afraid of,” he whispered into my ear. “I promise.”

When I finally left the frat house, I checked my email and
found a short note from a
New York Times
editor.

Hi Hadley,

Rob Riley suggested you might be
a good fit for a position in the Middle East this summer. I know you've
interviewed for the Cairo bureau. Could you fly out for an interview next week?

Dale Broussards

I wrote back immediately, agreeing.
I decided Jack might be good luck.