You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(107)

“Well, I would judge me. I mean, I work for Sex and the City. I think I know an unavailable cad when I see one.”

Cad and it’s all coming together. The day we met. I am such an Anglophile. I bet he told you about his semester in Manchester. I bet you turned British for him. He really fucking brainwashed you and you really do need me. I nod. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

A long silence, and then I break the ice, same way I did in your freezer. “So do you wanna come out with us?”

“And meet Dick’s flavor of the week? I think I can skip that.”

I hate to hurt you, but I have to hurt you. “Well, according to Dick…this is it. They might even go to Vegas and get hitched. He says he’s never been in love. It’s actually made me like the guy a little more, you know?”

Kids scream and giggle. Not you, though. “Married?”

“I mean, who knows, and sorry if this is gross, but Christ. He won’t stop going off how it’s the best he ever had, best sex, best…Never mind.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a lawyer.”

You roll your eyes and you will never want to set foot in the Beanery again or even walk down that block. “Right,” you say. “He does this sometimes. Finds a mommy. It won’t last.”

“She’s only like twenty-six. Some genius I guess who went to law school while she was in college. He worships her because she’s so…together or whatever. But you’re right. I guess she is kinda like his mom. She has her own place, and like he keeps saying, she’s all growns up.”

Oh, Vail, I know it hurts. I know you are comparing yourself to the imaginary lawyer and you think you are failing, but you need to quit this fucker. You need to see him for what he is, a pig in a freezer. Heartless and cold.

You tuck your hair behind your ears. “Well, good for him! And as a plain old twenty-five-year-old lost girl…”

“You’re not lost.”

“No, but Uncle Barry is all over me. He called while I was in the bathroom, and I gotta run some errands for him. We good?”

“We’re great, Vail. You’re great.”

It’s not a lie. We are good. You collect your purse and you reach for the cape, but you stop. It’s not easy for you, I know. But maybe you needed Dick to fall in love, to set you free. Now you can really be with me, the man who makes you mixtapes and cleans your home and sucks your extra toe and loves you no matter what you fucking do.

I pay the bill—you’re welcome—and we go downstairs, out into the cold, and we laugh about the nasty northeast wind, but it feels forced. Like we’re doing it for cameras or something. I don’t like missing you when you’re right fucking next to me, and it’s not me. It’s you. Your teeth are chattering. I offer you my coat.

You pause. You resist my nice warm coat. “What about you, though? You’ll freeze.”

“Don’t worry about me, Vail.” It’s not that cold in the warehouse.

“I can’t take your coat, Joe. I can’t believe I forgot my cape.”

“We can go back and get it.”

“Nah,” you say. “I think it’s meant to be. Let some other girl have it.”

That’s what I want to hear, and you are turning on Dick at ninety miles an hour. Again I offer my coat. “Vail….” Let me love you. “You’re not taking it if I’m offering.”

You do it. You allow me to save you. I ease your arms into the sleeves. Your teeth chatter and it’s not because of the cold wind. It’s because of him, Dick.

Do you get it now, Vail? Dick bad. Joe good. Sometimes, it really is that simple.

You peck me on the lips. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

When you round the corner, I turn on Dick’s phone. A nanosecond later it is ringing and it’s you. Oh, you are challenging me, and I am rising to the occasion. No pain, no gain. I feel your agony. You call again and again, and I’m sure you’re still at it while I’m underwater, bound for Bed-Stuy, and it’s infuriating. What is wrong with you? You are Sharon Stone in Casino. She marries the good guy who loves her and still she sneaks off to call the bad man, the pimp. If she knew how to be loved, if she wanted to be loved, she would have allowed herself to be loved. I picture you at home. I see you, little colt. You are crying in your pillow and whining to Cynthia about that effing dickhead bastard. And it’s sad. I don’t want you to be sad, but where is your dignity? I tried to help. I removed him from the equation. I got him a genius girlfriend.

And still, you call him. Still.

I make it back to the warehouse. I reach for the door, and the ghost of Virginia Woolf blows through me like the wind.

Some people have to die so that others might begin to live.

Dick is wide awake. Humbled. That’s what sitting in a puddle of his own piss will do to a man. No more pride. He’s a loser, baby, so why don’t I kill him?





37


I can’t do it, Vail. I can’t kill him. I’m not that guy. But I also can’t send him home.

I grab his laptop. He rubs his eyes. “I get it, okay? I was a piece of shit. I’m…I’m sorry, kid.”

Too little, too late is a saying for a reason, asshole. “She deserves better.”