I know that a river is no more particular
to the water
that establishes it
Pacey put his bag down and looked around Gretchen's apartment. It didn't take very long. "Jeez, Gretchen, I haven't sailed on a boat this small in three years."
"It's not a boat, it's a studio apartment in Manhattan," Gretchen said. "You can put your sleeping bag by that bookcase."
"Thank you for this portion of floor, you are beneficent and kind," Pacey said.
"Hey, the people who lived here before me were a couple with twin babies," Gretchen said, sitting down on her bed.
"By people, you actually mean rats, right? Because that's the only way a family of four lived here." He unrolled his sleeping bag and put his bag at the end of it. He said, "I'm also paying you for this privilege, aren't I?"
"You're the one who has a job," Gretchen said.
"You have a job," Pacey said.
"And I can hardly afford this place, maybe now I can actually stop shopping at thrift stores," Gretchen said. "I'm glad you came back to land, Pacey."
"Three years was enough. It was glorious, but enough," he said.
"I'd've thought you would have stopped a year ago," Gretchen said.
"Nope," Pacey said. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I saw the whole world in three years, you know. Every continent except Antarctica, I've taken a piss on all six. That's an accomplishment."
"That's a gross way to phrase it," Gretchen said. "I've missed you."
He smiled at her. "I missed you, too. Now help me figure out how to get to this restaurant tomorrow morning. I'm supposed to start at 4 am."
The next morning he memorized Gretchen's map of streets and rode her bike to his destination and his exciting new career, probably. The chef Dougie had dated and Rudolpho had known (probably the same way) was named Danny. Danny reviewed Pacey's documents, told him to work everything out with someone named Blair when she got in, and gave him a knife and some fish to clean. "These are not great fish," Pacey said while he gutted.
"I know, I'm not letting you touch stuff I plan to serve to my customers yet."
"Thank god," Pacey said. He still did a fantastic job.
Danny said, "Your brother said you were working on yachts or something?"
"Yup," Pacey said. "Sailing, crewing, occasionally assistant chef-ing when the real cooks let me. I've been all over the world."
"Awesome," Danny said, clearly bored. "But you're not doing that now, you're not going to leave me as soon as someone offers you a chance to go to Cannes or something?"
"Nope," Pacey said. "See, I started doing this right after I graduated high school, literally, I didn't go to my high school graduation because I was flying down for that first job. That was three months, and 2 days later, I had another three month job and on and on. I've been to Cannes three times, actually. But I want to be in one place for a while, maybe have an actual girlfriend and not just a long series of one night stands -"
"I just needed the nope," Danny said. "I'll be back in an hour to check on you."
Xxx
He'd been home in his new micro quarters for enough time to shower, change into sweats, grab a beer from Gretchen's refrigerator and start some rice cooking when Dawson knocked.
"Hey, hey," Dawson said, hugging Pacey as soon as he opened the door.
"Good to see you, too," Pacey said. He waved to Gretchen's bed and went to the kitchen to finish his dinner. So, he took three steps and Dawson took about five. It also occurred to him that Dawson probably knew this place better than he did. "Hey, have you eaten? I can add enough for two."
"Go for it," Dawson said. "I know you were going to call all of us, but I just had to come over."
Pacey said, "I actually was gonna call all of you, but I literally moved in last night and had my first day of work starting today at 4 am, so yeah, I put it off until tomorrow."
"It's great you already have a job," Dawson said. "No thoughts of college?"
"Why would I?" Pacey shrugged. "Bill Gates, Woody Allen, we have all these examples of great men who didn't need college, I think I can still make my mark."
"Very good point," Dawson said. "You're okay, right? Gretchen said a year ago you were in the hospital for a few weeks."
"She did, did she?" Pacey spooned out dinner onto two paper plates he found, added a plastic fork for each of them from one of the apparently hundreds Gretchen had in her drawer and walked five steps to sit on the floor in front of the TV.
"Is it a secret?" Dawson looked genuinely concerned.
Pacey shrugged again. "Not really, but we never told Mom so she wouldn't worry, so it's a secret from her. It wasn't serious."
"You were in a hospital for a month but that wasn't serious," Dawson said. "I'm sorry, you obviously don't want to talk about it."
"It's nothing," he said. He ate his dinner. Then he said, "There was a, I was attacked. Stabbed, actually." He pulled up the hem of his sweats. "See?" Pacey contorted himself to show the back of his legs to Dawson.
"That's awful," Dawson said. "But you're okay?"
"Absolutely, but you can see why we didn't tell my mom. My chances of being a butt double professionally are gone thanks to the scars, but otherwise, again, everything is fine," Pacey said. Dawson was looking at him with a very concerned expression which Pacey was not in the mood for. He said, "Were you dating my sister at the time?"
"I was," Dawson said, smiling. "Dating her again. After that time in high school. When she was my first."
"You've had to wait three years to make me miserable with that again," Pacey said. "It's creepy, Dawson. You filmed me losing my virginity, and you lose yours to my sister. That's creepy."
"We grew up in a small town," Dawson said. "You and I also have an ex-girlfriend in common."
"Since I've been gone you dated Joey and then Gretchen, right," Pacey said. "How about Jen, you working on her?"
"Sadly, no," Dawson said. "You know she and Jack live here now, right? They're both at NYU."
"Like you," Pacey said. "Why didn't you like USC?"
"If USC wasn't in Los Angeles, it would have been great," Dawson said. "But, alas. I was ready to transfer after two weeks. It was also very validating to get accepted by the school that rejected me. I'm glad you're in town, seriously."
"I believe you," Pacey said. "Sorry if I'm too lowkey, I just got up at 3 am."
"You have a job," Dawson said. "Cooking."
"Jeez, how much do you and Gretchen talk? Didn't you guys break up? She said last night you have a new girlfriend," Pacey said.
"We email when she gets bored at work. We email a lot," Dawson said. "I email with Joey and Andie and Jack and Jen and other people you've never met and aren't from Capeside."
"You're so cosmopolitan," Pacey said, smiling.
"Did you really tell Gretchen you've peed on every continent besides Antarctica?"
"Doesn't it sound like me?" Pacey grabbed both their plates and forks and took two long steps to the kitchen to throw them away.
"That was really good for rice and veggies, Pacey, thanks," Dawson said. He wiped his hands on his jeans. He said, "I was going to say you should see my short film but if you have any lingering PTSD like issues from being stabbed, it's a slasher flick so -"
"I'll pass," Pacey said. "Sorry. I don't have PTSD, at all. But oddly enough, I enjoy watching people get fake stabbed a lot less than I used to."
"Is the guy at least in jail?"
"Yeah," Pacey said. "A jail like mental institution. And his parents paid for my hospital stay in Hawaii, plus some extra." Pacey felt like he wanted to do something with his hands but he settled for jamming them in his pants. "This is really far from my favorite memory to revisit."
"Got it," Dawson said. "No more questions. Did anyone tell Jen's pansexual now?"
"That is a fantastic segue, please tell me more," Pacey said, grinning.
Xxx
"I'm so glad you smoke pot," Jen said, grinning. "Dawson and Gretchen don't, so we can't make our Capeside reunion dinners as baked as I might like. Not that I smoke out every day or anything."
"She doesn't," Jack said.
"Just every other day," Pacey said. He passed the joint back to Jen who finished it. She took out another one from a ziploc bag in her backpack.
"Not even that often," Jack said.
"Really," Jen said. "I'm seeing this girl who's pretty straight edge, and also she wants to be a cop, which is insane. I don't get any studying done. I have this cardio thing that's really depressing and limiting so we won't talk about it."
"I can't afford it," Jack said.
"Maybe if you smoked less cigarettes," Jen said.
"Jen, you know as well as I do it's impossible to be a gay man in New York City and not smoke," Jack said.
"They came to your door and made sure you knew, right?" Pacey grinned. The three of them were sprawled across Jen's queen bed. Jen and Jack both had studio apartments near NYU, across the hall from each other. They were both somehow tinier than Gretchen's.
It was swelteringly hot in New York City and neither Jen or Jack had air conditioning. So Jen had insisted everyone strip down to their underwear. Pacey sweated into the bedsheet and looked up watching the fan rotate.
Jack said, "Hey, Pacey, how often were you stoned while you were yachting?"
"I didn't yacht, man, that's what the rich guys do, I was the crew. I was only stoned between jobs," Pacey said.
Jack sat up and looked over Pacey from toes to damp hair. Jack said, "God, you're in great shape, Pacey. Super ripped. Is that a tattoo?"
Pacey pulled down his boxer briefs on his right hip a little. He said, "This is a tattoo, yes. Got it in Brussels a few months ago. Everyone on the crew of that job got one. Mine's the best, though."
Jen said, "It's nice. But Brussels is nowhere near water, how do you yacht in Brussels?"
"Again, I didn't yacht. The guy we were working for was getting a new yacht, so he traveled with us from Antwerp to where he bought the yacht. Rich people do weird stuff, seriously," Pacey said. "There's water in Brussels. It's near to water."
Pacey turned on his stomach so his back could get some of the barely moving air thanks to the fan. Jen said, "Okay, I know we're not supposed to ask about the whole stabbing thing because Dawson says you have PTSD -"
"I don't have PTSD," Pacey said. "Come on."
"Dawson said Gretchen told him you have nightmares. You've been back a week," Jen said. "It looks like someone just stabbed their way up your leg."
"I had one nightmare, which wasn't about being stabbed," Pacey said. It wasn't exactly about what had happened. "It looks like that because, guess what? Someone stabbed his way up my leg. All the way up to my butt but I'm not taking off my underwear. It really wasn't that bad. He didn't hit bone or nick an artery, I just lost a lot of blood and have a few scars. Which will fade."
Jack said, "If it wasn't serious, why were you in the hospital for a month?"
Pacey flipped back on his back. He said, "He didn't clean his knife between stabbings and I wasn't the only one who got stabbed."
"That's so rude," Jen said. "He could have at least wiped off the knife."
Pacey laughed. "Yeah, that was definitely the rude part. Just because I don't want to talk about it or see a slasher movie doesn't mean I have PTSD."
"I know," Jen said.
"She's studying to be a psychologist," Jack said.
"I know," Pacey said.
"But the nightmares could be a symptom," Jen said. "Do you have flashbacks?"
"No, and I'm not hypervigilant and I'm not prone to irritability and aggression as I'm demonstrating right now by not lashing out at you two losers," Pacey said.
"But you know the symptoms," Jen said.
"After you get stabbed, sometimes they have people come to talk to you to make sure you're getting over being stabbed," Pacey said. "When rich people pay your bills, they're even good at their job."
"Okay," Jen said. "No more stabbing talk."
"Thank god," Pacey said. "Hey, Jen, any chance you'd sleep with me?"
"Should I be here for this?" Jack didn't make a move to get up.
"Well, Pacey, you look great. I mean, ridiculously great. But I don't think you're over Joey," Jen said.
"Three years ago," Pacey said. "Do you know how many people I've had sex with since then?"
Jack said, "When you say people, is there any chance you mean you've come around to my side?"
"Sorry, Jack, no," Pacey said. "It's a lot of women."
"If you were having meaningless one night stands, that totally persuades me you are so over Joey and it wouldn't be a horrible thing to have sex with you," Jen said.
"You sound like it doesn't," Pacey.
"She doesn't mean it," Jack said.
"How do you know they were meaningless? There was meaning there. The meaning was we liked each other," Pacey said.
"You went out on that boat with Joey and had sex with her and came back and kept having sex with her and you were clearly in love and said it to her at least once where we all heard it," Jen said.
"More than once," Jack said.
"Then you dump her right after graduation because you've decided you two have no future," Jen said. "You didn't even apply to college."
"I wasn't made for college," Pacey said.
"You broke Joey's heart," Jack said mournfully. "Thank God she got over it. That professor she was dating freshman year was hot."
"I broke my own heart," Pacey said. "I was super stupid." He sat up. "Wait, didn't you tell me Andie dated a professor, too? Is everyone doing it now?"
"I never have," Jen said. "Jack got hit on by one."
"He was handsome," Jack said. "Andie dated a professor who was a creepy. Her freshman year at Harvard, Joey's sophomore year at Worthington. I just want to keep your timelines straight, Pacey." Then he giggled after saying the word straight.
"You know, I'm seeing them both this weekend. Like, driving up to Boston tomorrow morning," Pacey said.
"You never wanted to sleep with me," Jen said.
"Are you kidding? You're fucking hot, Lindley," Pacey said. "I mean this sincerely." He laid back down. "But I'm probably not over Joey. Not that I have any expectations. I just want to be friends. She's over me."
"She is over you," Jen said.