You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(25)

I love you. “Thank you.”

“It’s more just…I mean, it’s a shocker, Cusack. Like I get it. We barely know each other…blah, blah, blah, but also…you never talk about partying.”

You bring your knees to your chest and hold them with your arms, and there are two cages now, the stripes on your tights, the arms on your legs. “It’s not a criticism, Joe.”

THEN WHY ARE YOU HOLDING YOUR LEGS HOSTAGE?

“I know, baby.”

You flinch like I’m not supposed to call you that, and you shake your little head. “It’s just…It’s not what I expected.”

Think, Joe, think. “My buddy Jeremy was moving away, so it was a guys’ night, a going-away thing…”

“Who’s Jeremy?”

Piven. It’s Jeremy Fucking Piven. “Jeremy Perry. He’s the best.”

“Did you meet in high school or college?”

I dropped out of the former, never even contemplated the latter. “Mooney’s. He’s a writer, or he wants to be. He came into the shop a lot.”

You let go of your legs, and that’s progress. That’s the Piven effect, because girls are like that. You want guys to have friends. You smile. “So where did he move?”

Your feet return to my lap, and we are on the road to Serendipity. “San Francisco.”

“Ah,” you say, and you like it, this idea of me, you’re buying it. “So why did he move?”

I tickle the top of your foot. “Well, he dropped out of school….” I pause for reaction, but you don’t react. “He’s seriously like the smartest guy I know, and he was blogging, and now…now he got a job at a real paper.”

“You’ll have to show me his blog.”

Not possible—it doesn’t exist—and I thank my lucky stars that a computer can’t fit in your pocket. You wiggle your toes—you want me—and I hold them in my hands—I want you—and you let out a little moan. I passed the test. I do have a place. My place isn’t this place. My place isn’t my place. My place just might be with you. You sip your wine. You feel it too. You touch your hair—you’re teaching me how to touch you—and you gulp. I like you like this. Nervous. Opening slowly, petal by petal, and then taking a deep breath as you plunge into the deep end, the place you go because I went there first.

“So, my best friend, Anjanette…she also dropped out of school.”

“Cool.”

“And like you said, well, she’s not the smartest person I know….” That’s me. “But she’s the happiest person I know.”

I rub circles on the pads of your little feet. You smile. Do you want me to kiss them?

“Joe, random question, but did you ever see Coyote Ugly?”

Fuck it. I can’t lie anymore. “Nope.”

“First of all, we’re watching it, stat.”

Oh, you want me. You just planned our next date.

“Deal.”

“Second, okay. It’s so good, Joe. It’s about these Jersey girls, right? And they were so us. One is a dreamer, and the other is…practical. The dreamer wants to be a songwriter, so she moves to New York, and by the end of the movie, she makes it.”

“And the best friend?”

You have sadness in you, and that’s why you wear those plaid tights, that awful cape. “Well, she’s just happy to have her little home. And it’s like…it’s enough for her to have this small little life, you know? She’s not like trying to be things. She just is, you know?”

I hold your feet. You know that I know. You trust me.

“So, I fly home a few months back. Anj and I go see Coyote Ugly, and after the movie, we’re like…weird. We can’t decide where to eat and it’s odd. Best friends, but we’re like aliens. We go to Chili’s and it’s…I mean, it’s not like Carrie and the girls, you know?”

No, I don’t know, but at the same time I do. “Weird.”

“Yes. Weird is it. We get our grub, and we talk about the movie, and she’s like, ‘Gundylocks, slow your roll.’?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, it’s a nickname, only back home.” The way you look down hurts, like this whole other part of you is inaccessible, tucked into your family’s cookie-cutter hearth, steaming in a kettle I can’t touch. “Anyway,” you go on. “She says she’s worried about me living in the city.”

“Why?”

You’re pouring more wine, and I will kill Angus Kaplan—I won’t kill him—but I would if it meant we could live in the sinking living room, if I knew we could talk like this every night.

“Well, Joe, come on. She was right. She said I’m not like the girl in the movie. I don’t have a dream. A purpose. A passion. And it hurt, you know? ’Cause Anj…she has her purpose, she’s settled…and…She didn’t want to hear about my ‘crazy’ life, and I didn’t want to hear about her curtains. It’s not a tragedy, but…Do you know those books…Amelia Bedelia?”

I know all the books and I remember the first date, the list I made for conversation starters. We are doing it before we do it and show me another guy who could say what I say right now. “Amelia Bedelia does everything wrong.”