“You okay?” Tish asked. “What do you mean, Willy stole from you?”
Fiona reached out and grabbed Tish’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll tell you later.”
Back at the booth, they found Gil sitting alone. “I feel like dancing,” Fiona said to him.
“Oh no,” he said, looking up. “I don’t do that.”
“Where’s Ari?” Tish asked, sinking down in the booth. Gil shrugged.
“You can dance with me,” Fiona said. “I’ll show you.”
She led him to the crowded floor, draped her arms over his shoulders, and linked her fingers behind his neck. She felt Gil’s hands, tentative at her waist. They dragged and swayed, slowly and without paying any mind to the blaring music, a deep house number with a bright trumpet melody. Everyone else was thrashing about, as if jolted alive by the thumping bass line. Fiona and Gil moved together like this for a while, gently holding each other, keeping the space of an egg between them. And then someone elbowed Gil in his back and he lurched toward her. The gap between them closed, the egg crushed. She pressed into him, and they kept dancing.
Over Gil’s shoulder she caught sight of Tish, shimmying with her eyes closed. Ari grooved behind her, his arms circled around her waist. Fiona thought of all the times she and Tish had prowled the city looking for a good time. She recalled a hotel lounge in the Meatpacking high above the black cobblestone alleys, floor-to-ceiling glass, the bar in the corner pulsing white, then violet, then blue, a startling effect on the ten-foot Buddha relaxing next to the coat check. They’d told each other that rubbing the Buddha’s big toe meant good luck—that you’d find excellent dick that night. She thought of the SoHo rooftop with the view of the Hudson, the West Side Highway running electric alongside it. Leaning against the stone balustrade, Fiona had watched those two columns of ghostly light in Battery Park. She remembered last summer, a windowless basement in the Bowery, the underground cave a giant sweating mass of bodies grinding to Daft Punk and Massive Attack; a rumor whispered that Q-Tip was supposed to show up for a secret set.
Fiona fixed her gaze on Tish, across the dance floor. Under the strobing light, she couldn’t tell if Tish was looking back. I don’t blame you for Willy, she wanted Tish to know. In fact, crazy as it sounded, Fiona was glad she had met him. With Willy, Fiona surrendered. For the first time, she chose to stop pushing so hard. She’d learned to give in. To lose—and lose big—was a new and thrilling kind of freedom, when Fiona loosened her grip on shame. All of a sudden she understood why Gabriel had said she reminded him of his student, the girl who jumped into the elevator shaft. Something about Fiona’s face must have telegraphed her desire for escape.
“Want to get out of here?” Gil whispered in her ear. “Trick or treat,” he mumbled drunkenly.
Fiona hesitated. She didn’t want to leave yet. She wanted to stay for just a while longer. “Keep dancing with me, will you?”
She looked over Gil’s shoulder. Her eyes skimmed the crowd, and Fiona realized she was wishing, once again, to catch a glimpse of Willy, one last time. Then she remembered that was impossible now. Tish had disappeared from her spot next to the speakers near the edge of the dance floor. Ari was gone, too. There was no one Fiona recognized in the crowd.
Cold Turkey
I never agreed to it, but after Carly and I split up, Won appointed himself my life coach. His first directive: I had to swear on everything I wouldn’t call Carly or try to see her; no exceptions, never again, bye girl, have a nice life.
“Remember me and Jesse?” he said.
“The go-go boy?”
“Camping trip in Joshua Tree. Fantasia’s quarter-life crisis slash birthday weekend.” Won narrowed his eyes at me across the table. “What go-go boy are you talking about?”
“Where was I?” I said. “Why didn’t I get an invitation?”
“Somewhere with Carly, obviously,” he said. “Being boring,” he added. “Anyway, Jesse should’ve been a one-night stand. Then my stupid ass couldn’t say no to him once we were back in LA.”
The server brought out our food: grilled pork banh mi for me, pho tai with the raw beef on the side for Won. Any time he deigned to travel east of Fairfax, Won insisted on eating at this tiny spot tucked inside Chinatown’s Central Plaza, no more than four tables here, the brown wood clock in the shape of Vietnam on the wall behind the cash register. Usually, I had to drive west to see him.