I turned on my heel and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “Listen to me, Jamie. Do nothing. We are not meant to be. I live here and you live there. You are some insanely rich genius, and I don’t even own a car. I probably don’t have a job, either.” It was the first time I had seen him clean-shaven. I leaned up on my toes and kissed him softly then whispered, “You fucked with me. You fucked with us. And now we can never be.”
He stared down at me, looking somber. “Just tell me one thing.”
“What?” I seethed.
“Am I the only one you think about?” Tears filled my eyes again. I put my head down quickly and turned to walk toward the L station. He didn’t move but instead shouted, “I won’t give up. The poets are right!”
I got on the wrong train, so it took me an extra half hour to get home. When I entered my building, Jamie was sitting at the base of the stairs. He had ditched his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He looked the part of the CEO millionaire for once, except for maybe the tattoos and his tanned skin.
“Go home, Jamie.”
He got up and followed me toward the elevator. “Kate, please. Let’s go get a coffee and talk about this.”
“No.” I continued walking past him.
“I thought I scared you off with the note. I thought maybe it was too soon for you, and then when I read the article I realized how upset you were.”
“I told you, it doesn’t matter now. All of it is too fucked up. I thought you were someone else. I don’t even know you.”
“You do know me. I’m the same person. I’m Jamie. Nobody cares who R. J. Lawson is. It’s just a name. You know the real me.”
“I thought I knew you.” I stopped at the elevator.
“I am so sorry. I know I should have told you before we . . .”
I turned around, crossed my arms, and yelled, “What? Fucked?”
Staring into my eyes, he moved toward me and touched his fingertips to my cheek. “Calm down, please.” He tilted his head and let his gaze drop to my mouth. “You know that’s not what we did.”
“Yes it is. You said it yourself.” I pulled his hand away. “Please go home. We had a fling. It’s over now. Go. Home.” I stepped into the elevator and held strong until the doors closed and then I collapsed against the wall in sobs.
I hit the button for the top-floor roof deck, but the elevator came to a stop on the fifth floor. Dylan and Ashley stepped in. I didn’t make eye contact with them.
“You going to the roof, Kate?” He bent slightly to look at my face.
I sniffled. “Just goin’ for a ride. The roof deck is all yours.”
“You know Ashley, right?”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
She seemed timid. “Same to you.”
When the elevator doors opened, Ashley stepped out but Dylan remained inside. “I’ll be right back, Ash. I’m gonna walk Kate to her apartment.”
Shaking my head frantically, I pushed against his back. “No, you guys go, I’m fine.”
I held the open-door button and urged him to exit the elevator. “Kate, you are not fine. I can see how upset you are. Was it Stephen? I’ll kick his ass.” He pushed my hand away from the button and then kissed the air in Ashley’s direction. “I’ll be back in two minutes, babe.” She smiled longingly at him as the doors closed completely.
When we reached the door of my apartment, he wrapped his skinny arms around me and tucked me into his chest. “Whatever it is you’re going through, I’m sorry.” I cried quietly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three pills: two yellow and one blue. “Here, you can have these.”
“What is it?”
“They’re benzos.”
“What’s that?”
“Those two are Ativan and that’s Xanax.” He pointed to the blue pill. “They’ll relax you and help you sleep. Just take one at a time.”
He dropped them into my hand. “Where do you get this stuff?”
“From my grandma’s stash.”
“That’s terrible, you being so young and . . . all of the drugs.”
“It’s cute that you’re worried about me. I actually haven’t done any drugs in the last couple of days. Ashley makes me want to be sober.” He smiled coyly. “She’s like a drug to me.”
“You’re sweet.” I pushed him toward the elevator. “Now go to the roof and make out with Ashley.”
“Okay, see ya. Call me if you need anything, or if you just want to hang out,” he said as he walked away.
I chased the blue pill with a large gulp of beer and the rest of the night was a blur.
Page 13
Enterprise Copy
A month went by before I started feeling normal again. I easily fell into the same old routine, except I was condemned to the Arts and Leisure section of the paper. I didn’t mind—at least Jerry hadn’t fired me. He understood that I had been duped by everyone at the winery. I got to see Will Ryan and his wife play in Chicago, and Jerry printed (without question) my very gleaming review of the concert. Beth ended up writing the rowback for the R.J. article. That’s when a newspaper tries to correct a story without indicating an error to begin with. She managed to imply that we were deceived, even though she didn’t say it outright. To our complete amazement, there was little response to my article or the rowback, so that was a relief. We realized that the whole thing was very dramatically blown out of proportion, thanks to my personal involvement with the subject. Still, Jerry and I agreed that it would be best for me to lay low until it all was completely forgotten. R. J. Lawson, whoever he was, fell easily off the radar once again, but the wine and winery didn’t stop getting praise. After my article ran, several Napa magazines featured full spreads of the Lawson winery and the gorgeous vineyard surrounding it. It continued to be recognized like it had been before, but R.J. the man was never mentioned in those articles. Jamie maintained his privacy after the rowback. I looked at each picture of the winery with a strange feeling, like I had never been there. My memories of that beautiful place had been tarnished.
I never went to another gay bar with Beth, but we made a pact to have dinner once a week. True to her words at the Dogfather, she finally started dating someone seriously, and for the first time I was actually producing more words than her on the weekends. I’d march into work every Monday and lean over her cubicle and say, “I busted out eight thousand words.”
She would always chuckle. “Yeah, but I got laid.”
“That’s overrated,” I would say. Lying, of course.
It was hard not to be happy for Beth and Jerry and Dylan, who had all managed to find their people, so I devoted myself to positively supporting all of their relationships. I added another houseplant to my apartment, along with a betta fish that I named Anchovy. Just getting a fish equaled more commitment than Rose had made in her whole life. I figured I was easily on my way to twenty cats. I wondered about Rose’s dream all the time. I still had it, but it would always end before she’d open her eyes. The terrifying and touching moments in the dream were gone, but the sadness remained.
Stephen stopped screwing women in the basement after Dylan and I sent around a petition requesting that the door to the basement laundry room be removed. The super, who was not a fan of Stephen, gladly took the door off. Jamie continued leaving me messages, begging me to call him. That lasted two weeks, and then he resigned himself to simply calling and saying, “Good night” or “Good morning” or “I’m thinking about you,” on my voice mail. The messages made my heart ache, but it was a good ache. Somehow it felt like a healing ache. It’s like the pain you feel when the skin around a wound tightens up. I got to work on time every day because I stopped searching for Just Bob. I didn’t stop searching for the holiday train, though. My pathetic goal in life became sitting next to Santa on the goddamned L, and I wouldn’t stop until it happened. I made myself believe that searching for a fake Santa on a train was enough to live for.