“I don’t go to clubs much.”
She hadn’t asked him anything; clubs are loud.
“What?”
“Sorry… never mind.”
He wasn’t trying to talk to her. But now he’s noticed her. A small, WASP-y girl. She looks like everyone in his family, like his little sister with straighter, blonder hair. She’s with a few friends — a brunette one, a curly one, a dyed one. But she looks different. She fills her top more. She smiles easier, looks better.
Frightened, Aaron staggers away from the bar. He pushes through the dance floor, through pairs of contorting sweat-licked bodies, as his every step sticks to the rubberized cement. He wishes he could have talked to her.
Sitting on a barstool at the opposite end of the room, he can make out her figure an instant at a time when the bodies flail in just the right way. He wonders how he ended up at a club when as a middle schooler he never attended a dance and as a high schooler he hadn’t gone to prom.
Last call comes. He and his two drunken friends wait for their coats. A small hand grabs his upper arm.
“Hi,” she says. “We met earlier. Can we get in line with you?”
“Of course,” he tries to say.
“Hello?”
His friend Alan cuts in, smiling at the curly girl. “Ladies, of course you may join us. Of course.”
Aaron nods.
“I’m Julie.”
“Hi,” he croaks.
“Hi.”
He tries to clear his throat. “I’m Aaron. I’m…sorry…”
“What?”
“Sorry if I, before, if I was, I don’t know, bothering you or something. It was an accident. I thought you said something to me and then I realized you didn’t, but not until after I’d said something. You know.”
He hesitates.
“Just, sorry. I’m not the kind of guy who goes to clubs. I hate clubs. I hate noise and lights and sweat. To me, ‘clubbing’ sounds like something you do to an endangered species. It’s my friend Alan’s twenty-first birthday. I’ve known Alan a long time.” As he struggles not to sound like a dying house pet, he notices he’s the soberest person in the group and it makes him nervous.
“Oh. No. I didn’t say anything to you.”
He knew that. The coat check line doesn’t move. As Julie’s drunken friends chat with Aaron’s drunken friends, they stand shoulder to shoulder in line. “I go to Park,” she says.
“Oh,” he replies as coolly as possible. “So this is like the cool place to come, then?”
“Yeah, well, if you can get in.”
Aaron looks away, mumbling absently. She looks him up and down quickly. He isn’t attractive. He’s weak, which she supposes is almost cute. She doesn’t want him to grab her. She doesn’t want him to touch her at all. But she’s open to listening to him, to letting him take the night as far as he can.
“I like your shoes,” she says, very aware that she’s fallen to his level of awkwardness.
“I like yours, too.”
She likes that she doesn’t have to worry about looking uncool around him. His nervousness gives her confidence. If she doesn’t want him, she at least likes the idea of him wanting her. His buffoonish longing empowers her.
Alan caresses and jokes with the curly girl. She leans into him and they both laugh. He talks into Aaron’s ear, enlisting his friend’s help. “Yeah, I’ll go. Yeah, whatever you want,” Aaron says.
Alan announces that he and the girl are not yet done for the night and invites everyone to join them. They’ll find a place. Aaron, as promised, says he’ll go. No one else responds. Aaron tries not to look at Julie. He doesn’t want her to see his pleading look. He notices that Alan’s girl seems nervous. She’s looking around for a friend. Aaron knows that he’d probably be happiest if it all collapsed here, if everyone just went home now. He tries to stop thinking, but only notices the lengthy silence.
“I’ll go,” a shrill voice says. It’s the dyed girl. Aaron’s eyes close in disappointment. “You know what, I’ll go,” Julie says with much more confidence than the shrill voice. “You’ll keep me company, right Aaron?”
His head jerks up. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He scans the group for any sarcastic glances. The dyed girl is relieved. He tries to hide his desperation, tries not to look at Julie. He wonders why she’s staying out with him. Sweat rolls off his face. He stares at her feet and legs, unable to make eye contact.
“GREAT! Then we’re ooooooff!” Alan bellows. The group splits up, Alan with his arm over the curly girl’s shoulder and Aaron and Julie walking behind.
They stumble around, looking for an excuse to stay up together. A few snowflakes fall. The air is sharp. The bars have closed. It seems like there’s nowhere to go.
Julie makes small talk with Aaron. He starts and stops replying without regard for his listener. But he’s more than interested. For moments at a time he needs her.
She wants to give him a chance. “Aaron, you’re smart,” she says.
He looks up, unsure of what’s happening. Slowly, he replies. “Yes, I am.”
“I saw that,” she says.
“You’re smart, too. I can tell,” he says hurriedly.
“You have a smart face. It looks older than it should, but smarter, too.”
“How old do I look?”
“You’re probably twenty one or twenty two. But your face is older.”
He hesitates. “How old are you?”
She looks at him for a few moments and smiles. “I’m younger. Could you tell?”
“Maybe…Yeah, I thought so.”
“Good. Let’s leave it there.”
“Where do you go to…” he trails off, not wanting to hear anything more on the subject.
She pulls lightly on his shoulder, bringing him down to her height. “Relax, Aaron,” she whispers. “Please relax.”
But he just looks forward. He sees through Alan and the curly girl to intersection after intersection after intersection of nothing but lightly falling snow in the empty city. She kisses his cheek. He notices the still air between them and wishes she were still anonymous.
She grabs his hand for a few steps. It’s wetter than she wants and her clasp is tighter than he expects. She, too, looks ahead. She slows her walk and thinks about trying to restart the night, trying to keep them alive. Her confidence wanes. She feels weak. Her face is stung by the cold. She doesn’t want to do Aaron’s part for him. She looks at him and then at her watch, obviously, so that he’ll notice. And so she decides, without Aaron knowing or having a chance to intercede, that tonight they’ll settle for rote conversation. She begins plotting her escape. He would have only squandered his chances, anyway, she thinks.
She yawns. “So, what are you studying?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Aren’t you a junior?”
“Kind of.” He stops. “I took some time off. My credits and majors and all that are still being sorted out. By offices and advisors. You know.”
“Oh.”
“I entered as a Physics major. I tried a few other things. I really like languages now. I was actually born in Italy, so I might major in that.”
“You don’t sound Italian.”
“No, I’m American. My dad worked for the Catholic Church, actually.”
She smiles. “Your dad’s a priest?” she asks.
“No—”
“I’m kidding.”
A split second late, he laughs. “Right, sorry. He’s an accountant, actually.” He laughs again, but seconds later so that it just breaks a silence, making them both more uncomfortable. “What about you?” he asks.
“Just anything about me?”
“Sure,” he says with a weak smile.
But before she can start to create some tale about what makes her interesting, why she’s special, they’re interrupted. “HERE. This is where we are,” Alan tells them.
“…a diner…?” the curly girl asks.
“A diner!” he says.
Julie isn’t impressed, either. “I’m tired. Let’s just—” but she is stopped by her friend’s look, a look that begs her to put up with Aaron just a little longer.
So they enter the diner and sit at the first booth by the door, which doesn’t close all the way and lets in too much of a breeze. Julie’s skin is covered in goose bumps. Alan makes sure she and Aaron are left to sit together, across from him and his girl.
Julie isn’t playing along happily any more. She looks above to the water-stained ceiling, refusing to face Aaron. Still, he doesn’t realize how much she’d rather be elsewhere.
“Anything you want, it’s on me,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
A waitress walks over. Julie asks for a cup of water.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Aaron says.
“Thanks, I’m tired.”
“Come on, it’s on me.”
“ I know. I know it’s on you,” she wants to say.
“Will that be all?” the waitress asks.
He orders a coffee and eggs and looks to Julie. “Yes, thank you,” she says.
“You want to hear something? A story?”
She does nothing.
“I broke up with my girlfriend last month.”
She looks at him, puzzled. She shoots Alan and her curly friend a look. They’re entwined and don’t notice. Finally she lets out a long, slow breath and says to him, “I’m sorry, really, I am…but I just don’t care.”
“Well, not my girlfriend, but, you know, we were together,” he says automatically. “Oh—oh. Oh…” he realizes.
“That was mean, I’m sorry,” she says without looking up.
“It’s okay.” He pauses. “Well, she broke up with me, anyway.”
“Of course she broke up with you,” Julie wants to say. She wouldn’t be the first person to tell him that. But she just repeats, “Sorry.”
Alan asks for the check as soon as the food arrives. Everyone but Aaron eats hurriedly, trying to push the night to its end. After a few bites, Alan looks at his girl. “I think we’re going to head out,” he says.
He throws some cash on the table, enough to cover everyone’s food. He nods to Aaron. “Later,” he says as he helps the curly girl into her jacket. They smile at each other, leaving Aaron and Julie alone together.
Wordless minutes pass. She wishes he’d say something so dumb that it could push her away, but he doesn’t say a thing. She wants to end the night without embarrassing him further. He just looks at her, running his eyes all over her face, breasts and arms. She didn’t mind this earlier. Now she feels like she’s being touched, like he’s groping her.
She gives off a forced sigh and checks her watch once again. “What time is it?” he asks, still not understanding she wants to go home.
“It’s just after three.”
“Really?” He looks outside the window, expecting to see some sign of dawn, a peering stream of sunlight or a trash truck on the street, but it’s just dark, as if it could be dinnertime.
“It feels like it’s been days,” she almost says.
He stays silent, still undressing her with his eyes. She hates it. She twitches in frustration, rising a bit in her seat. She can’t control herself anymore.
“I’m going to go right now,” she half screams. “I need to leave.”
“What?”
“I’m leaving. Goodbye.”
“…You are?”
“Yes, Aaron. Yes.”
“Let’s go, then,” he says.
“Stop. Do you think we’re…? I’m leaving you. I’m leaving without you. We aren’t leaving here together. I never want to see you again.”
“I thought—”
“No.”
His voice catches for a moment and he looks at her eyes, only at her eyes. “Of course…” he mumbles mostly to himself. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
He leans towards her. “No, you don’t understand. Really, I am. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you unhappy. I’m sorry.”
“I need to go now.”
“I understand,” he tries to say.
She looks away.
“Sorry,” he mouths almost silently.
She rises and throws her coat on. “Goodbye,” she says without looking back.
As she runs through the door he stares straight ahead to where her eyes just sat. He doesn’t move. The door swings shut. He sits there and sits there and sits there. The snow is gusting. She walks through it, tiny and frail in the wind. His sweaty hands stick to the plastic booth cover. He stares at where she was. He wants to ache for her. Nothing pounds inside him, not an erection, not a heart, not a thing. He feels sore. He wants to be upset. And he is, but not at Julie or at the idea of Julie or at anything in particular. He wishes she had hurt him bigger, that he had something better to remember. If only the night had been more spectacular, had meant more. He sits in the diner alone, his shoes sliding around in the black snow sludge, stirring his coffee with a butter knife, staring at her across the booth.
