He wants my number. He lives here and wants to see me when he’s in town.
How often are you here?
A couple days every couple weeks.
It seems like the right amount. He hands me two scraps of paper—one with his number on it, the other blank. I’ve left my purse inside the bar. The trucker looks like a bigger version of a dirty, whiny folk singer I like. His cap is now off, his hair an unkempt overgrowth on his head and face, his lumberjack jacket zipped all the way up. I want to tell him who he reminds me of, but instead I write down my number, because he only looks like a singer-songwriter. I trust he will not whisper in infinite harmony with himself about his ex-girlfriend. He’ll just be.
As he pulls away, he looks down at me from his perch. I crank my fist up and down, and he pulls his horn. Haa-honnn.
Inside the bar my friends have quarantined themselves at a corner table, debating the Teapot Dome Scandal. They wave their arms and throw their heads around—a flock of pigeons pecking at the same piece of garbage. When I say hello, they look at me like they forgot I came with them. The virgin I’ve been seeing narrows his eyes at me and asks, Where were you?
THE NEXT MORNING I call my grandmother. It’s my grandparents’ sixty-eighth wedding anniversary, and I tell her congratulations, my voice sounding small like a child’s, something that happens when I talk to her. I ask her if she and Grandpa did anything special today, and she laughs and says with a sigh, Ohhh, no, nothing special, just the usual. They went to church, she says, and ate lunch at the local family restaurant. It’s called Family Restaurant. I can immediately recall the limp pickle spears and sheets of iceberg that came with my burgers from Family Restaurant when I was a kid, how my dad would pull fries off my plate and replace them with sprigs of parsley. How he would order a tomato juice and shake pepper and Tabasco and A.1. into it, then below the table tip vodka in from a pocket flask. We’d cheers as though drinking champagne, tiny bubbles popping in my soda. I tell Grandma that sometimes the old places are the best ones, and she agrees and asks me if it’s snowing where I am, only a couple of hours south of where she is. There’s snow on the ground, I say, but just a little. Then we talk about how much we like snow—this is the Midwest and we like snow—and she says that she and my grandfather shovel the walks themselves, but that the high school kids still cut through the yard and muck it all up. I tell her that the mailman does the same thing. Although what I say is true, I’m partly talking for effect—I hope that she will appreciate me, someone much younger than herself, complaining about disrespectful people ruining my perfect blanket of snow. I tell her how I wait for the mail, getting really excited, and how nothing good ever comes. Bills, offers for credit cards, coupons to fast-food restaurants. On Sunday evenings I watch 60 Minutes just for Andy Rooney. I want to trim back his eyebrows the same way I want to clear the ice from the walks. Grandma says, Your father used to love to shovel the walks when he was a kid. He’d do the whole block without even being asked. She’s been doing this to me a lot since July. Laying out some little piece of something that I never knew about him and can no longer ask him about. I’m glad she tells me this stuff, but all the details—snow shoveling, his Cub Scout badges, serious, unsmiling yearbook photos—seem misplaced and wrong, like excerpts from another man’s history.
I’VE ONLY BEEN OUT with the virgin three times, but he already wants to DTR—define the relationship. This, apparently, is a thing. He’s chosen the only hip restaurant in town—the dark place with red, glowing lights and little white plates—to do this. I look around at all the other tables where people wear dark, slim-fitting clothing. Surely they know what’s going on. They see his white-blond hair, khaki pants, and small, contained face, and they know.
The thing is, though, I kind of want him. I want to take him out and mess him up a little. I just can’t help it.
Our waitress comes. She looks like a model, as skinny as a Pall Mall. I don’t smoke, but will sometimes crave a cigarette harder than anything. I’ll bum one, take a few good drags, then remember why I don’t smoke. It’s not about the filling up of my lungs, but the gesture, making those movements with my hands, letting people know that I’m too cool to care about what happens to my body.
So how many little plates should we order? I smile up at the waitress. I want to somehow signal to her that the virgin and I aren’t really together, that I’d much rather buy her a fancy drink and kiss her cool, thin lips, or at least hang out, brush her long, silky hair, and talk about boys.
As many as you’d like, she says.
I look at the virgin. He’s got his nose in the menu.
I circle a block of tapas with my forefinger and she leaves, taking the menus with her. The virgin finally looks up and gives me a tender smile, but then lets it drop. It’s serious time.
So, he says.
So, I say.
So I was thinking about going down to Springfield this weekend.
Uh huh.
They’ve got the new Lincoln library. Have you ever been? I’ve heard it’s amazing.
The virgin is a Lincoln Studies Scholar. This designation exists in only one program in America, our very own university. I picture a Lincoln beard over his face, something he could put on and take off like those Groucho Marx glasses, but the image just gets me thinking of my Russian ex-boyfriend who had the most excellent thick black beard. He was always screaming at his mother over the phone in Russian: “ Nyet, nyet, nyet!” I loved it when he fought with her; I loved it when he told her no. When he’d hang up the phone, I would pull him down on the bed and fuck him, thinking of how much his mother would have hated me had we ever met.
So what do you think? he says. I mean, well, what do you think about us? He looks as earnest as a Sesame Street character.
Well. I clear my throat. You’re a fine person to sit next to in a movie theater—you let me eat nearly all of the popcorn, and I never worry about you talking to me during. I trust you as a driver, even if you’re a little on the slow side. You always signal well in advance, which I appreciate.
Cassie.
You have really nice breath. Not to be underestimated. It seems like you eat an Altoid maybe fifteen minutes before we see each other—it’s not too strong, but it’s clearly there, definitely lingering.
Cassie.
The waitress brings a round of little plates. She barely fits them all on the table, their lips overlapping.
Well, this all looks really good! I beam. Each dish is delicately arranged, the foods glistening in their oils. I roll my silverware out of the napkin. I don’t know where to begin.
Cassie?
We eat quietly. I take exactly half of everything. When the food is gone, I excuse myself, go up to the bar, and ask the bartender for a smoke. I give him a one-sided smile, like I’m not trying too hard. I take it outside in the gray, slushy snow and choke the whole thing down in front of the restaurant’s big glass windows, so that the people both inside and outside can see me.
THE TRUCKER’S NAME is Roger. When he calls, I ask him how old he is, because the only person I’ve ever known named Roger was my father’s best friend. My father’s Roger was a carpenter, skinny as a rail, and had a har-har-har style of laughing. I think of how My Father’s Roger sounds like a pretty good name for an alt-country band.