I was relieved that Rebecca planned our date for Wednesday, which was to see her friend’s rock-and-roll band’s concert on the Lower East Side. The friend was the man from her party with long hair named James. He sang and played guitar, and although the crowd was not very bottlenecked in the dark room, several females stood in the front and watched him nonstop. People danced merely by rotating back and forth on an axis over their feet and not truly moving, so I didn’t have to worry about dancing poorly and looking foolish. I asked if Rebecca wanted a beer. She said, “Sure, but you don’t need to buy it for me,” and I said I would purchase this first set and she could purchase the second set. “It’s called ‘buying a round,’” she said.
By the time we were on Rebecca’s round, James’s band was done. After they put away their equipment, he located us at the bar and hugged Rebecca. “Thanks for coming, Becks,” he said. “Looks like you’re the only one who made it.”
She nodded at the females. “You’ve got plenty of groupies.”
“They’re a pale mimesis of you,” he said as he compressed her around the shoulders with his arm.
Rebecca retracted very slightly, just a few inches. “You remember Karim from my party, right?”
“No, nice to meet you,” James said, and shook my hand with great force. It was very loud in the bar, and I heard him say, “You a fan of Indian rock?”
“I am not Indian,” I said. “I am from Qatar.”
James’s upper lip rotated to the left when he laughed via his nose, but Rebecca didn’t and she said, “No, ‘indie rock’—it’s short for independent. Music not released on big record labels.”
“In that case, yours is the first band I have heard that is in that class, and I did enjoy your music,” I said, even though I didn’t truly enjoy his music and thought his voice was impure, unlike that of Leonard Cohen or John Lennon or even Bob Dylan, whose voice is impure but intriguing.
James said he could obtain free alcohol for us, and soon he had three small glasses of whiskey and three cans of a beer that tasted mostly like water, and we drank the whiskey and then the beer to reduce the burning, and after we finished the beers he produced a second round and we repeated our actions.
I was slightly dizzy, but Rebecca was very unstable, and when she almost became imbalanced James held her and her body became fragile in his arms, and he said, “Your hair always smells so fucking good, like strawberries,” which doubly angered me because it smells in fact like watermelons, and then he slowly danced with her even though the band was playing a fast song.
I wanted to leave so I wouldn’t have to see what was happening, but I was afraid that if I left James would attempt even more. So I stood by the bar and watched them dance in the middle of the room and felt my body heat up like a microwave at James every time he whispered something in her ear and also at Rebecca for frequently laughing at what he said and for acting like this directly in front of me while we were on a romantic date.
When James lighted a cigarette for himself and let Rebecca inhale from it as well, I decided that if this was what she wanted to do, then it was her choice, and I left.
Outside the wind burned my ears as I determined the location of the subway. Before I walked away, Rebecca exited the bar and almost fell. “Wait,” she said.
I rotated but didn’t speak. “Why are you leaving?” she asked. Some of her words blended together.
“You do not seem to require my presence,” I said.
She leaned against the wall of the bar. “I don’t normally act this way,” she said.
“Then why are you doing it now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. For attention,” she said. “Sometimes. When I drink. Even from sleazeballs like James.”
“But why do you want attention from James when I am already paying it to you?” I asked.
“Because,” she said, and she decelerated her words. “I really like you.”
I leaned against the wall next to her. “Then those are not logical actions,” I said.
She collapsed but I hugged her before she fell. She pocketed her hands inside my coat to keep them warm and got close to me and our breath was the only non-cold thing near our faces, and she kissed me and it made my entire body feel hotter, but not like the temperature spike of a digital microwave as before, as it was more like an analog toaster with gradual heat. “You want to come home with me?” she asked.
“Of course I want to,” I said. First we went into a store and I bought her a large bottle of water. She nearly crashed into a stand that stored snacks. When I helped her outside she almost fell again, and I said, “Maybe we should go home independently tonight.” She nodded. I retrieved a taxi and gave the driver $30 and wrote down his car’s ID number and said if he made her pay I would contact his employer.
After I linked Rebecca’s seat belt, I told her I would call later to certify her safety. She pulled my tie and body close to her and said, “You can hate me if you want.”
“I do not hate you,” I said. “Obviously, I also really like you.” She asked, “Yeah?” and I said yes again, and then kissed her on her hand. She smiled when I did that and touched the spot with her other hand, and I closed the door and watched her drive away.
When I returned home I had an email waiting for me from Mr. Schrub’s secretary. My heart became stimulated because I thought it would be about a meeting with Mr. Schrub, but she was forwarding me a message from Mrs. Schrub that read:
Dear Karim,
Would you care to attend a holiday fund-raising event next Wednesday the 22nd that I’m organizing?
The event was to raise money for refugees from Kosovo. I knew she hadn’t told Mr. Schrub she was inviting me, because if he was there he would not have wanted me to also be there after my last email to Mr. Ray. And this would be my best opportunity to confront him again about my proposal.
buying a round = purchasing alcoholic drinks in bulk for several people
groupies = females who desire musicians
indie = independent
mimesis = imitation
sleazeball = James
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: DECEMBER 19
On Friday afternoon a few small white objects fell from the sky, and for a moment I thought someone was ejecting shredded paper from a window above me. I opened a window and put my hand out to touch the snowflakes, but they deleted almost instantly on my hands. I wanted Zahira to be able to see them.
I called home. My father picked up. I disconnected.
Rebecca had invited me to go out to a bar with some of her friends and Jessica that night in Brooklyn, because she was leaving for Wisconsin on Tuesday for almost a week to work remotely on the Y2K preparations. We had to go to her apartment first to drop off some of her possessions, and we decided to eat something there first. When she looked out the window after we finished, she said, “You mind if we ditch the bar and stay in with this weather?”
“I am not dying to go to the bar,” I said. I didn’t feel like talking to new people, even though I liked Rebecca’s friends, minus James, and I also understood why Rebecca once said she liked Jessica but didn’t 100 % connect with her.
She had a selection of board games, and I chose one that I thought would enhance my English: Scrabble. I would lose but I didn’t mind playing poorly in front of Rebecca.
She explained the rules to me and we started as we sat on the carpet next to her coffee table. “We can listen to some indie rock that’s better than James’s band,” she said, which made me smile to myself, “or this CD of ’50s songs.” I said I was unfamiliar with music from the 1950s so I would prefer that, and she said, “Me, too. There’s only so many scratchy-voiced tales of postgraduate alienation a girl can take.” I didn’t always understand Rebecca’s ideas, but I valued the way she stated them.