Why We Broke Up (15 page)

“So don’t freak out.”

“OK.”

“Don’t.”

“OK I said.”

“Because I need to ask someone.”

“Min, this is turning into that movie with you saying it over and over. Just ask what you—”

“Am I,” I asked, “is it OK to not be a virgin?”

Al sat up straight and put the beer on the coffee table. “So, you’re telling me—?”

“No,” I said. “I am, still.”

“Because that would be quick.”

“OK,” I said. “Maybe you’ve answered it, I guess.”

“Min, I’m just saying.”

“No, no, you’re right.”

“Just a couple
weeks
, right?”

“Yes. But I
didn’t
. I
haven’t
. But you would think—”

“I would have no opinion, Min.”

“Don’t say that. You said
quick
.”

“Well, it would be.”

“
Quick
is an opinion.”

“No, Min.” Al finished the beer but kept looking at it. “
Quick
is an adjective.”

We smiled at each other a little bit. “I guess what I’m asking—”

“I think I know what you’re asking. I don’t know, Min.”

“Is it OK, is what I mean.”

“Is it OK not to be a virgin,
yes
. Most people aren’t virgins, Min. That’s why there’s people to begin with.”

“Yeah, but—” I jiggled my leg on the sofa. I didn’t care about those people, I thought. I just cared about you. “What do you think,” I asked, “is what I’m asking. You’re a guy.”

“Yes.”

“So you know how you think about it. If a girl, you know, if you fool around in a car let’s say, or a park.”

“Jesus, Min. What park?”

“No, no, just if. For example.”

“OK, then what kind of car? Because if it was the new M-3—”

I pillow-swatted him. “What do people think about that?”

“People?” Al said.

“
Al
. Different
people
. You know!”

“Different people think different things.”

“I know, but, like, a
guy
.”

“Some guys like it, I guess. I mean, of course. Sexy, right? Some would think worse things. And then, some people would think something else I guess, I don’t know, this is ridiculous Min, I have no opinion.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” I said, “not to me. Al, what I’m trying to ask is, what about you?”

Al stood up, so careful and quiet, like he had shattered glass all over him, or was holding a baby. I was stupid, yes, a fool and an idiot. I am an idiot, Ed, it’s another reason we broke up. “What about me what?” he said.

“What do you think,” I said, “and don’t say you have no opinion.”

Al looked around the room. The music waited. “I guess I think, Min, that when I think about sex, you know, I want it to feel
good
. Not
feel good
, shut up, but
right
. Happy, not just banging away somewhere. You know, you should not just do it to do it. You should love the guy.”

“I do,” I said quietly, “love the guy.”

Al stood still for a sec. Quietly, quietly he sighed to me, like the way the cookie crumbles. “Not to sound like that movie they made us watch,” he said, “but Min, how do you know you’re not just—”

“I know what you think he’s like,” I said, “but he’s not like that.”

Al shook his head, very hard. “I have no opinion of him. It’s just, tell me something, Min, if you’re going to tell me. You love him.”

“Yes.”

“And you told him?”

“I think he knows.”

“So you haven’t. And has he said anything?”

“Al, no.”

“Then how can you—how do you know he’s—”

I told him. I never told you this, but I told Al our plans, the things we were planning for the star we followed. I didn’t have the cookbook with me, or the lobby card—but he listened to the sugar we stole, the coat I bought you, the recipes perfect for the party. Al didn’t want to like it, he didn’t want to be excited, but he couldn’t help it.

“I know where we could get those egg things, I bet,” he said.

“I know, Vintage Kitchen,” I said. “I thought that. How many would we need, you think, to make the igloo?”

“It might be expensive,” he said. “If you show me the recipe you found—I can’t believe you took Ed Slaterton to Tip Top Goods. Is nothing sacred?”

“If you liked getting up early,” I said.

“Don’t put this on me. And
when
again is this party?”

“December fifth, because Al, can I tell you what it also is? It’s our, Ed and I’s, two-month anniversary.”

Al looked at me again. “That’s another thing you didn’t tell him, right?
Please
tell me that. Because definitely a guy thing I can tell you, they—
we
don’t want to hear that kind of thing, too early, too
quick
. Don’t tell a guy two-month anniversary.”

“I told him,” I said, “and he loves it.” An
idiot
.

Al gave me a long, slow blink. “I guess it’s love,” he said.

“I guess so,” I said. “But Al, what do you think?”

“I think I don’t want to miss that party,” he said. “Do you think she’ll really come? I mean, if it’s her. It’s probably—”

“If we invite her right,” I said, “and if it’s her. But the thing is, Al, you’re our only chance for Pensieri.”

“What?”

“For the cookies. You gotta have that in the shop, right? It’s weird and Italian.”

“So
everything
about the stolen-sugar whatevers will be stolen?”

“Well—”

“Because there’s no way my dad’s giving us a bottle of that. They’re like seventy-something dollars, made from rare baby plums or something.”

“Have you ever had it?”

“If I’d had it, Min,” Al said, gentle and sighing, “it would have been with you. You’re the only one.”

“So you’ll get it for me? Us?”

Al looked at his watch. “Now would be a good time, actually. We’ll take the truck, I have the keys.”

“Will you get in trouble?”

“Nah, I do the inventory now. They’ll never notice, nobody buys that stuff.”

“Thank you, Al.”

“Sure.”

“No,” I said. “I mean,
thank you
. For tonight, all of it.”

Al gave that sigh again. “What’s,” he said, “the use of friendship?”

Ed, I’ll tell you what’s the use of friendship, because we never were friends. The use is racing off into the night, is what the use is. Rolling down the windows, the rained-out air in our faces all the way to the shop. The use is the good talking, and the not talking as we got there. The use is the fun bicker of what the best robbery movie is as we slipped into the shop and the hilarity at the final right answer,
Catty Cat and the Cat Burglar
, which we saw together in second grade and never forgot, the badly animated cape of Catty Cat, the British voice of villain Doghouse Wiley, the theme song,
Catty Cat, Catty Cat
,
cape and boots and crazy hat
,
fighting crime
,
doin’ fine
,
would you take a look at that?
, singing it down the darkened aisles of the shop, casting the shadows of strange bottles in our path, the imported shapes of oil and pickled whatnot and skyscraper square boxes of pasta, salamis swinging like bats sleeping upside down over the
cash register, the green-red-white neon stripes on the clock shining on the baby photo of Al, huge and faded, up on the wall. This is what the use of friendship is, Ed: Al coming down from the stepladder, leaning so close I thought, was afraid for a sec, he would kiss me, sliding this bottle cold and dusty into my hands.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He waved it away, but then, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.
Look
at this label.”

“Min, why didn’t we ever talk like this before?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you went out with Joe for how long, and you never asked me anything about what would a guy think.”

“Well, but Joe was like you.
Us
.”

“No, he wasn’t. Not to me, anyway.”

“You liked him, I thought.”

Al put the ladder away. “Min, Joe was a manipulative dick.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“You never—”

“I can tell you now.”

“You said you had no opinion. When we broke up, that’s what you said.”

“I know what I said.”

“Well, do you know what you’re
saying
? I
asked
you
something tonight, and now it’s like I don’t know if I can trust it, what you told me.”

“What?”

“Don’t
what?
like that. Al, I’m going out with Ed Slaterton. I think I—I told you I love him and you are my best friend and I want to know you’re not a
liar
about it.”

“Stop this. You say this when you’re holding an expensive bottle I stole from my dad for your scheme?”

“I thought it was
our
scheme,” I said. “Al, what do you think of my boyfriend and don’t say
no opinion
.”

“Don’t ask me then. Because I don’t know him.”

“Don’t lie to me. You don’t like him.”

“I don’t know him.”

“It was him tearing down that poster, right? It was just a poster, Al.”

“Min.”

“Or the jukebox at Cheese Parlor, but you can’t blame him for that, because you guys, Lauren especially, were totally—”

“Min,
no
.”

“Then what?”

“What what?”

“What,” I said firmly, “do you think of him?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“I am asking you.”

And Ed, I never told you what he said. He didn’t say he had no opinion. He had an opinion.

The night broke apart then, and I never told you about it, and now it’s scarcely something I can put in order—shouting outside the shop, knocking over one of the displays, Al’s insistence, the way he gets when he decides this time he will not be, not be, not! Be! Wrong! Crying on the bus, realizing it was the wrong bus goddamnit, Al calling after me in the parking lot not to be an idiot. Me, being an idiot, slamming into the house, waking up my mother. Al mad and silent, the door of the shop open and the lights on to clean up the mess. Nothing like a movie, nothing I like, telling my stupid mother I was with
Al
and that she doesn’t have to fucking worry about that anymore, it would never, never happen again. Asleep. Crying. Throwing my clothes off, putting the bottle carefully in the drawer, it not fitting in the drawer, getting a box from the basement. Shrieking “
Nothing!
” at my mother, crying. Slamming the basement door, wiping my nose. I never told you any of this. Emptying the drawer into the box, muttering out loud to myself. Asleep, crying again, a bad dream. And then the phone ringing in the morning and it was you, Ed.

“Min, I tried to call you before.”

“What?”

“Last night. But I couldn’t—it just rang, so I hung up.”

“I was with a friend.”

“Oh.”

I sighed. “Or maybe—”

“Joan’s gone.” You sounded hoarse. “She’ll be gone all day and my mom’s at the Center and I want to talk to you. Can you come over?”

I swear I was walking in your door before I hung up the phone, looking at you. You looked a wreck, your eyes angry and unslept. I put the Pensieri down on the table, but you didn’t even look at it, circling around like you were on the court, kitchen-hallway-living room-kitchen, sweaty. I felt crazed to see you, each glimpse of your eyes a reply, a new win of the argument against Al, my mother, anybody in the whole world, all the liars, everybody and everyone.

“Listen,” you said, “I want to say sorry about what Joan did. I couldn’t believe it when I woke up and you were gone.”

I’d almost forgotten about it, sort of. “That’s OK.”

You slapped a bookcase. “No, it isn’t. She shouldn’t have done that shit.”

“You had a family thing, it’s OK.”

“Ha!” Ed said. I couldn’t help it, it made me giggle. You gave me a grin, surprised, a sharp smile, and said it again. “Ha!”

“Ha!”

“
Ha!
You want to know what a
family thing
is, for Joan? It’s, she wants to talk to me, so she sends my friends away. It’s such bullshit, a family thing. My mom is who she got it from, but it’s not working, she’s not my mom.” You looked
scared, for some reason, to say that, a look I’d seen you get at practice when Coach blew the whistle and you thought maybe you’d screwed up and you were in trouble.

“It’s OK,” I said.

“I mean, she could have waited, you know, to talk to me. But of course she couldn’t, because she’s
out all day today!
With
Andrea!
But if it’s
my
girlfriend, then throw her out of the house because we have to talk right this minute!”

“What did she want to talk to you about?”

You stopped pacing and sat down real sudden on a chair in the corner. And then got up, almost comical, like a Piko and Son movie, except you weren’t switching hats with anybody. “Listen,” you said. “I want to tell you something.”

“OK.” This was about your mom, I decided, wrong again Ed, wrong always is what I idiot am.

“What she wanted to say was that with you I was, that we’re going too fast is what she said. You told her about the movie-star thing and she knew I’m not like that and she said it was one thing with, like, the other girls I go out with, before. But that you were so smart and like, I don’t know,
inexperienced
is what she said, but not like that, you know?”

“Yes,” I said, my stomach on the floor. You were dumping me because your sister said so?

“And, OK, I see what she means, but she doesn’t, Min, know what she’s talking about. She’s so, everybody’s so
stupid
, you know? Christian too, Todd, whoever says stupid things, you’re from different worlds, like you dropped here in a spaceship.”

I had to say something. “Yeah,” I said. “So—?”

“So they can
fuck
themselves,” you said. “I don’t care, you know?”

I felt a smile on my face, tears too.

“Because Min, I
know
, OK? I’m stupid I know, about faggy movies, sorry, fuck, I’m stupid about that too.
No offense
. Ha! But I want to do it, Min. Any party you want, anything, not go to bonfires. Whatever you want to do, for the eighty-ninth birthday, even though I can’t remember the name.”