The Boy Next Door (3 page)

“Why?” I retorted. “You got anything worth stealing?”

“Well, you’ve had your eye on my Nintendo for years. . . .”

I laughed. Jason rubbed his eyes and smiled at me. He looked adorably sleepy. I remembered what Nana said about him earlier in the night and decided she had to be mistaken. “I take it you had a good time?”

I nodded eagerly. “I wish you had been there.”

“Isn’t it better this way?” he asked, smiling. “This way you get to tell me about it.”

I laughed again because he was absolutely right. I wanted nothing more than to recount every minute of my fantastic evening to my best friend. He listened dutifully as I sat perched at the edge of his bed, giving him an animated account of the night until the time was up on my curfew and I snuck back out the window and went home.

Jason, the smart bastard, got into Yale for college, while I ended up at the city college, living at home. The first two years of college, we emailed each other nearly constantly. Although Jason wasn’t introverted or anything, he had a lot of trouble making friends due to his disability. He did make friends, but they were the same type of loser-guy computer geeks he hung out with in high school. But the difference was that while in high school, he had accepted his status as perpetually dateless, now that he was in college, he was talking about girls more and more. I could hear him getting frustrated. My heart went out to him.

Then one day during our junior year, he emailed me that a girl named Sally in his computation theory class had accepted a dinner invitation. I imagined that Sally, a computer science major, was hideously ugly and probably had a moustache or something, yet I found myself feeling . . . well, I’m not sure if jealous is the right word, but . . . I don’t know. Every time Jason mentioned Sally in an email, I’d feel myself cringe. Even though he continued to respond quickly to all my emails, I felt like I had lost my desire to keep in touch with him. Eventually, it just seemed like so much effort to keep writing to my (former) best friend. So I stopped. No explanation, no apology. . . . I just stopped writing to him.

After college, I got the hell out of Pittsburgh and moved to New York City. I had taught myself to play the electric guitar in college and I agreed to front a band called (much to my current embarrassment) Cynthia’s Armpit. I’m mortified by the band name now, but at the time it seemed impossibly cool, as did the guys in the band, which is why I had fucked pretty much all of them within a month’s time.

I used to describe Cynthia’s Armpit as an edgier version of the band Garbage. I thought of myself as a young Shirley Manson (who was probably actually not that much older than me) and even dyed my hair red to emulate her. You can imagine that Cynthia’s Armpit was not a raging success. We got a few gigs playing bars and coffee shops, usually for no payment except free drinks, and sometimes not even that. I supported myself by waitressing.

When I think of how I used to get up there in front of huge crowds dressed in slutty, skintight outfits, my eyes caked in black makeup, shouting out lyrics because I couldn’t really sing. . . . Well, it’s not something I like to go around telling people. But at the time, I totally thought I was The Shit.

One night, a couple of years into the band’s trajectory toward failure, Cynthia’s Armpit was playing at some seedy bar in the village. It was the kind of bar where I had to take a trench coat with me to immediately drape around myself so I didn’t get raped the second I got off the stage. But within the crowd of would-be rapists watching me sing, I saw one guy who seemed incredibly out of place.

The guy was wearing a suit and tie, for one thing, rather than a wife-beater T-shirt. The suit looked expensive too. It was hard to see him due to the lighting in the bar, but he seemed really cute too, if a bit too clean cut. I could see him bobbing his head to our cacophonous music and I was pleased that a cute, well dressed guy was digging us. Or maybe just digging me. I hadn’t dated a cute, successful guy in . . . well, ever.

As soon as our set was over, I put away my guitar in its case and went over to say hello to the mysterious stranger. But before his face became clear from within the shadows of the bar, I saw the wheels on the ground below him and my heart leapt. As I got closer and saw those bright green eyes behind the rimless frames, I realized I wasn’t looking at a stranger. “Jason?” I said in amazement. “What are you doing here?”

He flashed that endearing half-grin. “Well, I came to listen to the great Tasha Moran sing, of course.”

I couldn’t help myself—I threw my arms around him in a great big bear hug, which he returned with equal eagerness. The hug lasted like five minutes, I was so happy to see him. When it was finally over, I dropped into the chair next to him. “It’s so good to see you!” I sighed. “How did you find me?”

He shrugged. “Our mothers live next door to each other. It wasn’t hard. Cynthia’s Armpit is the kind of name that bears repeating.”

I blushed. “I know. It seemed so cool at first, but now . . .”

“I like it,” Jason said. “You just need to make sure to copyright it before someone steals it.”

I slugged him in the arm. “Oh my God, shut up!”

Jason grinned at me. “It’s good to see you too, Tash. Love the red hair.”

“It’s not too red?” I asked self-consciously. Yesterday I’d been at Macy’s and some old woman was shaking her head at me disapprovingly. A few years ago, I would have thrived on a look like that, but now it was beginning to bother me.

“Hair can never be too red, can it?” Jason asked, smiling. “Anyway, you can pull it off.”

I looked him up and down, confirming that his suit was as expensive as it appeared from afar. “You look like you’re doing well.”

He pulled at his tie. “Investment banking. I know, don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

“That I’ve sold out to corporate America to make money.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Well, you’d be the first,” Jason said. “But this is all part of my plan to retire at forty and then do something really worthwhile.”

“Like what?”

“Christ, I don’t know,” he said. “Open an orphanage? Rescue lost puppies? I’m only 25; I’ve got some time to think about it.”

As Jason loosened his tie again with his left hand, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of a ring on his fourth finger. He wasn’t married. Actually, I was surprised. Despite his failure with girls in high school, I had always thought he’d meet some girl in college, fall head over heels for her, and they’d get hitched after graduation. Part of the reason I stopped writing to him was that I didn’t know if I wanted to hear about it when it happened. Not that I didn’t want Jason to be happy, because I did. But I felt like losing my best friend to another woman would be more than I could handle. It was easier to give him up voluntarily first.

“So,” Jason said, “are you done for the night? Can I buy you a drink?”

Our eyes met and for a moment, it was very clear that he hadn’t come here for the sake of friendship. My heart leaped in my chest as I contemplated my answer, but before I could say anything, our drummer Sonny plopped down next to me and threw a hand around my shoulder. Then, to make matters worse, he planted a big sloppy kiss on the corner of my mouth.

“Hey, Tasha,” Sonny said. “This guy bothering you?”

“No,” I said quickly, as Sonny started flexing his tattooed biceps. “This is my, um, old friend Jason.”

“Cool,” Sonny said. He held out his hand and Jason shook it. “I’m Sonny, Tasha’s boyfriend.”

Sonny’s statement wasn’t entirely false. We were sleeping together (and he gave me Chlamydia, thank you very much) and occasionally we had dinner or hit a party or club together. So I couldn’t really deny it. Especially since Cynthia’s Armpit was going through some inner turmoil recently and I didn’t want to do anything to upset the balance further.

“Oh,” Jason said. He seemed slightly taken aback, but recovered quickly. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

“We’ve got to go back on in five,” Sonny said, running a hand over his shaved head. He wanted people to think he was Michael Stipe, but really, he was just hiding his thinning hair.

“Don’t let me keep you, Tasha,” Jason said quickly. He glanced down at his watch. “I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow and I actually kind of need to head out soon.”

As I looked at Jason’s familiar face, I knew I couldn’t let him out of my life again. “Let me give you my cell number,” I said. “We could, um, have lunch sometime.”

Jason smiled. “That would be great. I’ll call you this weekend.” And he programmed my number into his phone.

Jason backed away from his table and wheeled toward the door as we were setting up our instruments again. Sonny’s eyes widened when he saw Jason’s exit. “Holy shit,” he said. “I didn’t realize that guy was crippled. I thought he was hitting on you or something.”

“No,” I said quietly, feeling a twinge of regret. “We’re just old friends.”

As promised, Jason called me that weekend and we had lunch on Sunday. We caught up on old times, but nothing more. Somehow if there had been a chance for Jason and I to be more than friends, the opportunity had passed us by. But that lunch succeeded in rekindling our lost friendship, and within a few months, Jason had been promoted back to Best Friend, a status he has retained to this day.

Which made it only fitting that he should be the one throwing my 32nd birthday party.

Two

We’re celebrating my birthday at a bar near where Jason works in the financial district. It was my idea to be closer to his work because me and my teacher friends get out of work at 3PM, while he and his i-banker friends get out of work much later. I want the i-bankers to be there because they’re young and cute and available. I’m never going to get a boyfriend at a bar full of teachers.

Yes, I’m single on this particular birthday. I’m not feeling terribly great about it either, especially since two weeks ago, I caught my handsome doctor boyfriend cheating on me with a nurse. No doctors. Never again. They are way too full of themselves.

So far, I’m not having that much fun. I’m sipping a Daiquiri, sharing a table with Patti, a second grade teacher at my school. Patti keeps looking at her watch because she promised her husband she’d be home by ten, and it’s pissing me off. She’s 35 years old . . . why does she have a curfew? I feel like she’s rubbing my nose in the fact that she’s married and I’m not.

I teach music at an elementary school. It’s not my dream job, but it’s okay work. I have to thank Jason for it actually, because he’s the one who encouraged (i.e., pushed) me to go to Baruch and get a teaching degree. If not for him, I’d probably still be waiting tables.

The Katy Perry song “Teenage Dream” comes on the radio for what feels like the tenth time since I’ve been here. I hate this song and I hate Katy Perry. She’s like 25 and pretty much everything I wanted to be when I was 25: pretty, rich, and a famous recording artist. I guess I still sort of wish for all those things, but it seems far less likely now than back when I was in my early twenties and actually in a band. Back then, I had hopes of being another Katy Perry. Now it’s pretty damn obvious that will never happen. Therefore, I hate her. Plus her music sucks.

I look up from my drink and see Jason throwing darts across the room. He seems to be winning and I hear a cheer as he throws a bull’s-eye. I can tell by the sounds of the squeal that it’s his girlfriend Melissa. Jason and Melissa have been going out for just over a year now. I’ll withhold sharing my opinions about Melissa for the moment.

As for Jason, he looks good tonight. Every year I seem to look older, while Jason somehow just gets better looking. I’m not sure how that works but it seems to be true. We both have early crow’s feet around our eyes, but while his make him look sexier, mine just age me. And unlike me, he hasn’t been yanking out the few gray hairs that have emerged from his scalp, and once again, the effect is sexy. No wonder he has a significant other while I don’t. He even manages to look good in his stiff, button down shirt from work, that’s now rolled up at the sleeves to reveal his tight forearm muscles from years of wheeling himself around.

When the game is over, Jason navigates his wheelchair through the bar. His latest wheelchair was acquired roughly a year ago, and it’s a much more streamlined and sporty version of the sometimes awkward wheelchairs he had as a kid. He always opts for plain gray and steel, as opposed to the brighter
colors
in his childhood (the worst was bright yellow once). Back then, the backrest of his chair used to rise up to his shoulder level with large handlebars sticking out so that his parents could push him if need be. Now the back rises only up to the blades of his scapula, which I think is the minimal back support he can tolerate, and there are definitely no handlebars.