You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(11)

I point to the concession stand. “Popcorn?”

“Mmm…” It hangs there, incomplete, and c’mon, Vail. Give me the fucking hmmm. “Nah, I’m good.”

You don’t want our hands to meet in a bowl of salty butter anymore. Assuming you did earlier. Did you? You dig into that giant bag and flash a box of peanut M&M’s. “The snacks are always such a rip-off.”

“True,” I say, but not true. It’s a date, Vail. I want to be ripped off for you. You won’t let me feed you a fucking snack at the movies and is it true that girls turn on a dime after the first kiss? Hello, Mr. Tongue.

You grab the door for me and that’s my job. No. No! “After you, kid.”

Kid. Is that good? Bad? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, and you want to sit in row ten, so we sit in row ten, and you want to be smack-dab in the middle, so we are smack-dab in the middle. You dump your messenger bag in an empty chair. You’re the captain and I’m the guy with the big, sloppy tongue and it doesn’t feel like a date, the way you talk about the plots, the bullshit actors, the sets. The movie doesn’t matter. We matter.

You open your box of peanut M&M’s. I don’t hold out my hand.

“Oh,” you say. “Are you allergic?”

Are you allergic to my tongue? “Nah,” I say. “I’m just not a peanut guy.”

As in YOU BROKE MY NUT SACK. But then you fiddle with the box like you don’t hate Mr. Tongue, like you wish you brought the good M&M’s. “I didn’t know,” you murmur. “Sorry.”

Fuck it. I offer my hand, the palm. “Maybe I should give them another shot.”

You pour cheapo, chemical-drenched nuts into my left hand—I wish I were on the right, I’m a righty—but you’re smiling again. Girlish. Maybe you would give Mr. Tongue another shot. “So,” you say. “My boss knows the director of this movie.”

There is no part of that sentence that interests me or distracts me from your legs, but I know the drill. Guys with bad tongues have to play the game. “Oh yeah? That’s cool.”

“Well, yeah. I’m in the industry…. In TV.”

Ugh. “Cool.”

“Oh, I’m not like…I’m not in it in it. It’s not my ‘dream’ or anything. My friend had an uncle who knew someone who knew someone, and I’m just assisting this director dude.”

Oh, great. A friend with connections and an older man with a shiny big job and a dozen or so years more practice with his Mr. Fucking Tongue. “That’s cool.”

“Anyway,” you say. “It’s not glamorous or anything. Mostly I run errands for his wife.”

I like you for that, for knowing that I needed a little boost. “Cool.”

“But the thing is…yeah. So, I work for Sex and the City….”

You say this like it’s a coup, like you edit Philip Roth. I don’t watch that show, but I know the gist. Is that what comes next? You sit with the girls and tell them about Mr. Fucking Tongue over pink, stupid drinks? “Cool.”

“And before you ask, I mean, no, I can’t tell you what happens with Carrie and Aidan.”

I say the only word I have left. “Cool.”

You tuck the box of M&M’s into your giant messenger bag. “Okay then. Message received…. I know I sound pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic.”

“Oh, come on. I’m a big girl. I hate the sound of my voice when I get nervous and start bragging about my job and you’re just like, ‘Cool,’ as in not cool.”

I touch your hand and smile. “It’s all right. It’s…”

If there’s any chance for me and Mr. Tongue, you’ll finish the sentence for me and then you do it, Vail. You look me in the eye and say the magic nervous word. “Cool.”

I want to kiss your hand the same way I kissed your mouth, but no. Not yet. I tell you I’m even worse, self-conscious and nervous, obsessing over every word, every move. “Even the book.”

“The book?”

“Why did I say you bought Portnoy’s Complaint? Why didn’t I go with Goodbye, Columbus, or American Pastoral? Why did I pick the perviest one in the bunch?”

It’s time for you to assure me that there is no such thing as bad Philip Roth, but instead you just stare at me. “Huh?”

“The book I told Mooney that you bought…Portnoy’s Complaint.” You furrow your brow, and I say it again. “Portnoy’s Complaint…. The book I said you bought so you could get in the loo.”

You laugh now, as if you already forgot the origin of our love story, as if Mr. Tongue really did kill the potential. “Ah,” you say. “I guess I didn’t know it’s a real book.”

“It’s Philip Roth.”

“Who’s Philip Roth?”

Blasphemy and your Polaroids flash in the bad way.

“Was it made into a movie?”

I choke on the end-of-the-world air in this dank, daytime dark slimy abyss of a fucking theater. “It’s the kind of novel that you just have to read.”

You shiver. You say it’s cold in here and I didn’t wear a coat so I can’t offer you a coat and are you a Philistine? Is that the best you can do? Whine about the cold as if every fucking theater isn’t an icebox? Who’s Philip Roth? You fidget with your box of M&M’s. This is bad. Maybe. I stare at you. “Sorry,” you say. “I’m not like…Books aren’t my thing.”