(Sorry about the limited formatting on the FF site. I hope you can still get it-you'll know what I mean when you get there!)
Chapter 35…Pairs…
We pull up in a cab to an Alphabet City club with a lot of kids standing outside smoking and talking. A sign posted on the door reads, "Closed for Private Party." True to the twins' word, they have me on the guest list, plus one.
When we walk in, Em finds a seat at the bar saying she wants to park herself there. This place is packed and the music thrums through my body and I immediately want to go find some relatively quiet corner to remove myself from the fray, or at least take a seat with Em, but I quell the urge and instead make my way through the crowd to the DJ booth. The twins are joyous and laughing as they dance around the booth, perfectly at ease and in command. When they spot me, they both wave like maniacs.
J jumps down from the booth and swiftly hugs me before grabbing my hand and dragging me to the edge of the dancers. He whips us out of the crowd and stands in front of some sort of movie camera set up on a tripod, saying into it, "See, I told you we asked her! I just didn't think she'd actually come."
A head peaks out from behind the camera—Adam's. On seeing me, a slow smile spreads across his face. "I owe you one. A big one!" he shouts to J, who drops my hand and heads back toward the booth. Adam says something to one of the handful of guys with him, one of whom takes his place behind the camera. Then he walks toward me. When he's directly in front of me, he gently turns my shoulders to where I'm directly facing the camera. He stands behind me and points one hand toward it and I see he's got a sleeve of tattoos up his arm; his shirt was covering them when I first met him. I find I like it. I like it because it looks nothing like those strong golden arms I've become used to.
"Just look there for me," he whispers in my ear. "I want to remember this moment." I feel a blush overtake my face as I stand there stupidly staring into the camera. I turn my head to look at him and his face is inches away, his chin now resting on my shoulder.
"What's all this camera for?"
"I'd rather show you than tell you," he answers, looking at me with… attraction. I think. "Maybe this weekend? A rough cut might be ready by then." A slow song starts over the speakers, a James Brown oldie I know from Bea, of course. "Now I really owe the pair of them. Will you dance with me?" I let him lead me into the crowd of dancers.
This song is completely appropriate; it's called "Try Me." And that's exactly what I'm going to do with Adam. But what I end up having to do is to try not to compare him to Leif. I have to try not to notice that he smells differently—clean, earthy, but no hint of an ocean breeze. The feeling of dancing with him, which I also did briefly that night I met him at Bea's, has no feel of fire and home and aliveness, but it's…nice. Quite comfortable, actually. I shove the memories of Leif aside, as much as I'm able, and dance with this boy with the sweet brown eyes.
We don't stay long, though. And the reason is that when the second slow song plays, over Adam's shoulder, I see Em dancing with some big he-man guy. Slow dancing. Closely. With her eyes closed. What is she doing? What about James? I mean…it's only dancing, but it just seems all kinds of wrong that she's dancing with someone else.
As the song comes to a close, I tell Adam that I need to go. He protests but follows me as I grab Em before exiting the club; she comes willingly enough, though. Out on the sidewalk, Adam and I exchange numbers and I hear how lame it sounds when I tell him that I didn't call because I lost his phone number. I'm not sure if I would've had the nerve to call even if I did have it, though. He says he'll text me where his band is playing tomorrow night. He puts me in the cab with a soft kiss to my cheek.
It is after we're both dressed for bed and Em comes back into my room, collapsing onto one of my pair of double beds that I ask her about that guy. She adjusts the pillows under her head and stares at the ceiling mural of trees before she answers with her own question.
"What's always been my dream? What have I always said I was going to do after graduation? Like, from the first moment we met."
"Move here, intern at Vogue. Start a clothing business selling fine ladies' dresses and the like. Get a classic six apartment at a perfect Upper East Side pre-war building. Get married at twenty-four or five. Have kids."
"And it never wavered, right?" Em asks.
"Sometimes you wanted two children, and sometimes three, like your own family, but nothing else changed."
"And do you know what I just realized that whole vision was based on, what Henry helped me uncover? What he calls 'the thing behind the thing'? It was all what is acceptable to my family. To my mom and dad, my upbringing, sort of turned into Tory Burch's life and business. I do love the Tory Burch brand, mind you, I have several of her dresses and shoes, but what I see now, is that it was never really my vision even though it seemed like it. It was what was imposed upon me, by my own self, from my own easy and privileged past. And that vision got blown out of the water, I'm not even sure how, but now I just don't know what I want to do anymore. I just don't know." Em smiles over at me. "Who does that remind you of?"
"Me."
"Uh huh." She turns back to the ceiling. "Don't be mad, okay, but I kind of judged you for that. For not knowing. I pressed you for an answer, probably more than anyone else did, only because I didn't understand it. How could you not know?"
"That's okay, everyone else judged me, too."
"But now I see the beauty in it and I'm so sorry for ever judging you. Not knowing is not a bad thing, although it is scary when I've always been so goal-oriented. I'm leaving the question open while I peel away all these layers over myself and find the missing structure. That's what I went to Stanford to do, I think, but I'm only just doing it now."
"Yep. The O.G. definitely got you thinking. I can hear his words in you."
"It might've been being so weak and sick yesterday in Philly that really did it. It freaked me out and I've never felt so powerless in my life. I can't even explain how much that changed me, like in one day, although maybe it's been coming for a while now."
Yes, I feel a wave of guilt for originally judging Em for drinking too much over the weekend, but I know she didn't. I start to confess this to her when she continues.
"Well, so…tonight, in dancing with that random guy, I was just…I don't know…checking…what it felt like to be in someone else's arms…as in, not James's."
"And?"
"It felt...weird." Only now do I realize I was holding my breath for her answer. Weird means wrong, right? "It's kind of funny that I meet the perfect man who would fit right into the vision of my life I've always had, and then that vision changes." Em smiles ruefully. "Adam seems nice and he obviously likes you. He has good taste."
"We'll see," is all I say, grabbing on to an idea. I scoot off the bed and go into my closet. "Your birthday's not until July and this was supposed to be your gift and I probably can't afford to get you another one, so remember this when it comes time, okay?"
I hand Em the last of the artworks I got from Megan and she sits up against the headboard and immediately starts tearing off the string and wrapping. I sit on the bed, watching her face. She says something under her breath and I think I've just witnessed the first time Emory Clare Buchanan has cussed. She doesn't say anything else as her eyes drink it in.
I'd described to Megan the kind of bullying Em was going through and even some of the things the mean girls said to her. Megan relayed that she'd been bullied throughout high school and vowed to create an inspirational piece for Em. What she'd done was nothing short of divine.
It is a combo charcoal drawing and painting of a kind of winged lion that looks almost like the mythical griffon, only more lion-faced than eagle. Em was born in the astrological sign of Leo; it's the first thing I learned about her when my grandparents and I answered her ad for a roommate and she and her mother were showing us around the townhouse.
The lion creature is standing in a field of daffodils with flames coming out of the top of them like little candles licking at the clawed feet. Its intricately detailed metallic golden wings are in the process of unfurling, shaking off bright yellow baby feathers which drift down, some bursting into flame. At the top of the piece, the sun is depicted as a brilliant magnolia blossom, beaming its rays over the whole.
Somehow, the creature's expression is fierce, while still having the soft eyes of Tweety Bird—Em's eyes.
"Look at the back," I say to Em, after several minutes of silence. "The title." She turns it around and I watch her dumbstruck face.
Its title reads, "I Tawt I Taw The Precise Moment Tweety Grew A Pair…And Took Flight." Tucked in the corner is Megan's business card. She turns the painting back around.
Emory doesn't notice when I finally climb into the other bed, set the alarm, and close my eyes.
Pairs…(him)
Monday, May 14
Mr. Ellis suggested that I use this notebook he gave me at our meeting tonight to wri
This is stupid. I can't do this.
Pairs...(her)
I'm standing at the seashore, a series of white-topped waves forming out at sea and gently cresting, their lingering foam washing ashore, tickling my feet. I look down to see it is not foam at all, but pieces of paper shaped like feathers. I pick one up to read what's written on it and a clean ocean scent, like a balm, wafts out of it.
My eyes blink open in the dark. It takes me a moment to realize I'm in my room. The glow of the clock says it's 2:15. I sit up and flip on the bedside lamp. Em has not slept in the other bed, but sitting on the pillow is the ugliest paper origami bird—if you can even call it that—I have ever seen. I unfurl it to see that it's a note.
Merci, merci, merci, merci, merci! I love it more than you can know. I'm going to fly back to my apartment.
I check my phone next to see a text from her that was sent around midnight. She arrived safely.
I turn off the light and close my eyes.
…Pairs…(him)
May 14
Mr. Ellis suggested, that I use this notebook he gave me at our meeting tonight to wri
This is stupid. I can't do this.
Now May 15
Dream. Fluttering things. Leaves shaped like feathers. Wings. Maybe it was just James' fluttery snoring, which I can hear from out here on the sofa. Must've fallen asleep right on this thing. I can feel the imprint of the notebook back cover on my face—cherry blossoms. It does not make for the best pillow. Henry urged me to use it to write about…this new time?…Notes on our project together?…Stuff?…I don't know. I was touched by his gift and couldn't possibly tell him I'm not a "journaling" kind of guy. Sometimes I think he can read my mind because he said, you may not think you're the type to write stuff down, but I have a feeling it will come in quite handy at some point. I'm also positive he knew I would say yes to his secret proposition even though I don't have time for it. Yeah. He knew. He knew I'd make time for it after what I learned in Philly. I'm amending any earlier thought I had of his being the wisest man I've ever known to him also being the wiliest. But still, he can't have known that James' graduation gift to me was a pen, a Falcon Pilot which cost too much, which I'm using now. That was also my gift to James, only a different kind—a vintage one with a shield on it. Pen and paper. Somehow it just seems meant to be, so maybe I'll try. To use this book. Great. It's 2:19 and I have to be up in two hours and eleven minu