You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(55)

I slam the door of my cardboard box that isn’t a real door. You laugh.

“Wait…. So that’s what’s different. You’re watching my show!”

I am self-conscious like birthday girl Carrie turning thirty-fucking-five. “Ha. No.”

“Joe, come on. I heard it.”

“My roommates, Vail. Their girlfriends are watching it.”

“Oh, well, just so you know, if you did take an interest in my favorite show, which also happens to be my work…I mean, that would be a sweet thing, and I might even kind of like it.”

That’s the right kind of kind of and I KIND OF LOVE YOU TOO, but wait. Aidan is sweet, and he’s not the one. I go stoic. Silent. I will kill Dumber and bury him and the remote in the back fucking yard, but this is New York. We don’t have a back fucking yard.

“Anyway,” you say. “Have you ever heard of Il Cantinori?”



* * *



—

That was a test. A trick question. Carrie and The Others go there. I didn’t break. I told you I didn’t know it and you told me to be there at eight and I’m here first.

It’s not the best table, but we’re not rich and old. I cobbled a suit out of some more thrift store finds, and you’re being the Carrie, as if I’ll only love you if you’re late and—

“Wow.”

I rise to greet you. You’re naked. Not actually naked. But your dress…It’s Carrie’s dress, the one she wears on the bus in the show. The naked dress. The one she wears the first night she fucks Mr. Big. You peck me on the cheek. “Why, thank you, sir. You’re not so bad yourself.”

No combat boots tonight. Heels. High ones. “I’m enjoying the new shirt, Joe.”

It’s a white-collar shirt. A Mr. Big kind of shirt. “I had a meeting.”

“Since when do you have meetings?”

“I always have meetings, kid. I just don’t necessarily tell you about these meetings.”

You know the scene, it’s season 1 or 2. Big refers to Carrie as his girlfriend and she goes wild, and he says he calls her that a lot, but he just doesn’t say that to her face. We are doing it, Vail. We are becoming the people you want us to be. This is it, in that Rod Stewart tonight kind of way, where the spaghetti is spicy and the happiest people in the room are the ones at the worst fucking table. You tug at your dress and bend over to rub your foot, your poor lovely bones trapped in that caustic Blahnik. You are a girly girl and I am a manly man and the birds and the bees came alive for us, for the butterflies at play in our bodies.

You don’t go on and on about your job. Carrie loves her work, but she loves Mr. Big more. I sip on scotch. You guzzle cosmos. We laugh a lot. I ask you if you lost your boots in actual fucking combat, and you ask what time my rent-a-suit is due back.

You tell me to be nice, and I raise my fucking eyebrows. “Baby, I’m a lot of things, but nice isn’t one of them. And those boots really do have to go….”

The fireworks stop cold. We aren’t them anymore. We are us. You pull on your cardigan.

“Vail, wait. I was just kidding.”

I’ve never seen you like this, actively trying to find where you end, where Carrie begins, telling me that I hit a nerve. “You don’t know anything about fashion, Joe. Already I feel fat enough next to the girls at work, in the show. I don’t need this.”

“You’re not fat, Vail. You’re just not a beanpole.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Be the Big man. Cool cat. “Baby, come on. You know I love your boots.”

Your hands are shaking. The white tablecloth is stained, and you’re all Big-ged out. You gulp. “Sorry, I just…Joe, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

You love me. You can say it first. “There’s nothing to worry about, Vail. I’m here.”

You want me to get under the table. I comply. Am I supposed to go down on you like Samantha’s awful fucking frenemy? Do you think I have a fucking foot fetish?! No. Your hand lifts the tablecloth. You make a little fist and you let go and then…And then…You pull off a stiletto and…Holy. Fucking. Six. You have six toes on your left foot. Is this how you felt when you first saw my Portnoy? I plant a kiss on that extra little piggy—you can do that in a dark New York restaurant—and I slide your special foot back into her high-heeled cage. I come up for air, for you. The first word out of your mouth is a good one—wow—and you bubble on about your armor, your go-to tights and your boots.

“…And the last guy I dated was so cold, constantly teasing me and not in the fun sexy way, more like he was trying to get me to hate myself but you…That was pretty perfect.”

Perfect has to lead to sex. “Just being me, baby.”

“And it’s especially…wow…because I was such a bitch to you on V-Day. I’m always snapping at you or being ‘sensitive.’ I mean, that’s been an issue for me in the past….”

“It’s not an issue with me. You had every right to be pissed, Vail. I should’ve called.”

“And I shouldn’t have ditched you right after the Pop Rocks. Sometimes I think I’m allergic to good guys.”

I take your hand. It’s you and me. I say nothing. I know how Carrie needs Mr. Big to be quiet sometimes. You wipe away what might be a real tear or a crocodile tear, and I don’t care. You smile. “I like tonight.”