“Do you really think this approach is ever going to work, though?” I asked. “All you’re doing is making me never want to see you again under any circumstances.”
“Well,” she said, “we don’t want that, certainly.”
The bartender started to walk off, but I called him back, ordering yet another round for Wrigley and me.
“Are you really that into her?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.”
“Then why were you so quick to go for having a relationship with me?”
“I was confused,” I said. “I didn’t think that Leila even liked me, much less felt the same way that I did. After you stormed out of the car that night and went down on the cab driver in my rearview mirror, I went home and found her making out with a friend of hers. Then, while you and I were doing it on the roof, I don’t know, I guess I was just overwhelmed. Look,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like you, and it’s nothing personal. Leila’s just who I really want to be with.”
“What I don’t get,” she said, ordering another vodka, “is why that means you can’t be around me anymore.”
“It’s not that I can’t be around you,” I tell her, “it’s that I can’t be with you, not in the way we used to be.”
“Come on,” she said. “You’re not married. You’re hardly even with her. Besides, I have pussy seniority.”
“You come up with some of the weirdest phrases,” I told her.
I tried to order another shot of vodka, but the bartender informed me that we were both cut off.
After he walked away, though, Wrigley leaned over the counter and grabbed the nearest bottle. It was dark rum, but hey, it was alcohol.
After a stolen shot, I continued.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” I told her. “You can have any guy in the city. I bet there are a ton of guys out there who are into the things that I’m not. That has to have crossed your mind.”
“It’s not the same, though,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Like I was telling your roommate, it’s a sexual compatibility thing. You can be with someone—”
“When did you talk to my roommate?” I asked. Leila hadn’t told me.
Wrigley shrugged and said, “You can be with someone who technically does all the things you want to do, but if you’re not sexually compatible, it’s never going to feel anywhere near as good. You, for as much of a pussy as you are, rub me the right way, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
She poured a couple more shots and we drank them.
The bartender, though, noticed and that’s when we got kicked out.
For a while, we just walked and talked.
I told her, “I’m not the only person you’re going to be sexually compatible with.”
“I know,” she said, “but until I find someone else who is, I don’t think it’s fair for you to just leave me hanging in the breeze.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, “but that’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it has to be.”
We talked some more after that, and I do remember her apologizing for coming on so strong with Leila, though she didn’t really go into too much detail about what that meant.
It wasn’t looking like I was going to make any headway until my liquid brain spat out an idea.
“You know,” I told her, “Leila’s moving out of the city, and there’s a good chance that we’re going to break up when she does. I don’t know that for sure, but things aren’t looking like they’re going to last. If you keep doing what you’re doing, I’m never going to want to be around you again, much less back inside.”
“And what if she leaves and the two of you stay together?” she asked.
“If that happens, then that’s what happens. Truthfully, I hope that is what happens, but if you don’t back the fuck off, I can tell you right now that you and I are never going to be an option again, even if Leila and I do break up.”
She thought about it for a minute.
“I had all sorts of shit planned, though,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” she said. “Just some ways to convince you that you were going to bed in the wrong vag, you know.”
“Wrigley…”
“Just tell me two things,” she said.
“What?”
“Is it love?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “I really think it is.”
She nodded.
“What’s the other thing?”
She looked at me. “What’s that like?”
I smiled. I very clearly remember smiling.
“It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. Everything is better. It’s like being on ecstasy all the time, minus the comedown and health implications. It’s something you never want to let go of, and it makes everything else in the world seem so small, so trivial.”
“Huh,” she said. “That sounds nice.”
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked.
She scoffed. “No.”
“You should try it sometime,” I told her. “Find someone who drives you insane in the best possible way, someone who you drive insane in the same way. There’s really nothing like it.”
“Maybe I will,” she said.
We walked another half block before she spoke again.
“All right,” she said. “You’re off the hook.”
“Thank y—”
“For now,” she said. “But if you and your little honey biscuit end up going splitskies, I want to be the first one you call. I’m seriously getting blue ovaries over here.”
I laughed so hard I lost my balance. That, of course, only made Wrigley start laughing.
We spoke for a few more minutes before I hailed a cab. I thanked her for finally understanding, and we actually shook hands before I got in the taxi.
I look at the clock.
Leila said she wouldn’t be any later than eight o’clock, but it’s already nine-thirty.
I pull out my phone and call her number, but it just goes straight to voicemail.
Maybe we miscommunicated somehow and one of us ended up in the wrong bar.
I don’t know, but I don’t like what I’m feeling. It’s the kind of heaviness that makes it a little hard to breathe.
The thought crosses my mind, but I dismiss it before it has a chance to fully form. I’m nowhere near ready for that.
I order another shot and ask the bartender if they sell any gum.
He says, “Sorry,” and pours me my shot.
I pay him and drink it down, watching the ice cube melt in my tequila sunrise.
It doesn’t make much sense, but I kind of wish that Wrigley was here right now. Despite her general lunacy, she actually does have a way of cutting through the shit and giving some pretty solid advice from time to time.
I’m not ready to make that phone call, either, though.
Leila and I have been talking about how we’re going to find a way to spend time with each other after she leaves, but neither one of us really wanted to take that conversation too far.
I know, on my end, that’s because I simply don’t want her to go, much less admit the reality that there’s nothing I can really do about it without guilting her and being the biggest ass hat on the planet.
Another shot of vodka finds its way into my stomach, and I’m really starting to get worried.
That’s when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I smile and turn around.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.
“Now that’s not the way to greet someone,” Mike says. “How are you doing?”
“Half-drunk,” I tell him. “Where’s Leila?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he says.
“What happened?” I ask, and am instantly on my feet.
“Sit down,” he says. “She’s already gone.”
* * *
She’s gone. She’s actually gone.
After Mike found me at the restaurant, he saw me back home. He even paid for the cab.
His car, he told me, was somewhere in New Jersey, carrying Leila and all of the stuff she wanted to take with her. Or, to be more accurate, all the stuff she wanted to take that the movers didn’t take themselves.