You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(33)

“I know, I know.”

We hang up, and you said it—this is one of those weeks—so on the way home from Mooney’s, I stop by the video store to pick up You’ve Got Mail.

The snarky shithead behind the counter grunts at me. “Chick flick,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “My girlfriend’s coming over.”

The lie felt good. At home, I drag the TV stand into my cardboard box. Dumb and Dumber are out with their astrology sluts. I have your scarf on my lap, and I turn out the lights and I feel you, Vail. It’s like you’re here in the dark with me, watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan talk pencil sharpeners and New York City. I picture you out with Cynthia, talking about me, thinking about me, picturing us as them, You’ve Got Voicemail.

After I finish the movie, I jack off. I do not rub my hands on your scarf.

And then I call you and get your voicemail. The words I know by heart: “You went to Vail and all you got was this lousy voicemail. Beeeeep.”

I do it, Vail. I do my best Tom Fucking Hanks. “So, I’m pretty sure you already know this, but Meg Ryan…” I count to three. I make you wait. “Well, she kinda looks like you. You’re like that, you know? You bounce when you walk and…” I laugh a little so you can blush and feel like the princess that you are, my princess, my ring, mine. “The thing is, though…” I want book club with you, I want connection with you. “Tom Hanks is the man, always, but am I on crack? Because he’s also kind of…I mean, you know he’s the worst, right? He’s Joe Fucking Fox. He’s Fox Books and he’s putting the good gal out of business and he’s lying about who he is and I would never…” People in cardboard boxes shouldn’t throw stones. Gently, Joseph. “Anyway, I saw in the Voice that Hannah and Her Sisters is playing at the Forum this week. And it’s only this week. So if you can, tell Barry I said to fuck off. Tell Cynthia I said to have some water. Let’s go see Hannah on the big screen, yeah? See you on AOL IM tomorrow.”

The night is like the others (it never fucking ends!), and the morning is no better. You didn’t leave me a late-night treat, but you might call while I’m in the shower, so I put my Motorola in a plastic bag and leave it on the sink. You don’t call. And it’s fine. I didn’t go too far with my voicemail, right? I have to be patient like Tom Hanks. I get dressed. I walk to work. I think Tom Hanks kind of thoughts—I love New York in late January, when pink hearts pop up in all the windows—and I make it to Mooney’s. I turn on the lights in my Shop Around the Corner and I make small talk with Mooney—you still haven’t called—and I log on to IM—you’re not there, not yet—and I don’t “obsess” over you. I do the Tom Hanks thing. I charm customers. I help a divorced dad pick out the right book for his sad thumb-sucking offspring, but then…wait.

Am I the Meg Fucking Ryan? The wide-eyed duped bookseller in the dark?

I laugh like you’re here to tell me I’m being silly, and see how you do that? You make me feel better even when you’re not around. Life is so different with you in it, Vail. I am never really alone because I get to talk to you in my head. And I’m on. I’m being the man I know you want me to be in case you walk into the shop and surprise me. Nothing gets me down, not even the bitter woman who tries to return a battered Good in Bed. No one would do that in Meg Ryan’s fucking shop and okay. By 3:02 p.m. the wait for you to pop out of the blue has me turning blue. Tom Hanks was the captain of his ship. He was in charge, testing his potential bride, helping her soften and grow. Where are you? I get so blue that I leave my cell phone on the counter when I hit the head—I am Dumbest—but then I go back up front, and the light is blinking.

One new voicemail.

“Joe,” you squeal. “Omigod so first, FYI, Barry made me kill my IM. He doesn’t want me doing that when I’m working. And oh God…Cynthia got hit by a bike messenger. Pause for reaction….” I smile at you. Do you feel it? I hope so. “I was in the ER with her, and it was a whole thing, and you know how it is…domino effect where much as I would love to go see Hannah with you, I can’t do that because I lost the whole night to Cyn—” You sigh. You long for me. You Meg for me. “I swear, I am seriously questioning my life choices right now and kind of think being an indentured servant isn’t the best job for me. Anyway! Drumroll…”

This is it—we’re gonna make a plan, you need to see me, you want to see me—but then Mooney snaps his hairy-knuckled fingers at me. “Put that thing down, Joseph.”

I put the thing down. “Sorry.”

He launches into a tirade about a sales rep, but who cares?! Nothing matters except you and your drumroll, and I get it now. Serendipity. You’ve Got Mail. It’s the same shit. Two sweet, good people belong together but life pulls them apart and the longer they go without seeing each other the more they want to see each other. Mooney snaps his fingers at me.

“Give it.”

“Give it?”

“That cellular device, Joseph. You’re not being present.”

I love the old guy, I do, but I will knock his jagged fucking teeth into the back of his fucking throat. “Okay, sorry. I’ll put it in my messenger bag.”

“Don’t say messenger bag, Joseph. Give me the device.”