I have to eat a piece of cake.
“Come on, it’s a dinky-small slice.”
I look at the cake. It’s very dark.
“Don’t make me spoonfeed you like a baby.”
She sighs when I take the smallest bite I can possibly take.
“Things we do for the people we love.”
This is, I think, how she always talks. It sounds like she’s quoting from something, some movie or some book, or maybe a song, but I never know where she gets it. She probably saw it online.
Everything is online.
I delete it before anyone can react.
Veronica takes the cake away, asks me if it’s good but doesn’t give me time to consider what “good” would entail; she hands me the clothes and says, “Come on, come on — whole day planned!”
I walk toward the bathroom but she asks me why.
She winks.
I understand.
I strip naked and put on the fresh set of clothes.
With her watching.
Veronica never leaves my side. Her eyes never avert my gaze. When I look she is already looking, and I am positive that she has accepted me for who I am. She seems to think I’m more than what I see and do, and in a public setting like this park, I can only imagine that it has to do with possibilities. Possibilities: There are 18 people in this park. 3 dogs. 1 cat.
Too many people.
Not enough people.
Two extraneous considerations about the number of people in this park.
The park is more for pets and their owners, but Veronica wanted to go here. I don’t know why we are here.
The bench isn’t very comfortable.
“What a beautiful day,” she announces.
It is a good day. How many good days are there in a given week? What constitutes as “good?” The weather, the mood, the plan, the follow-through, the people that fit into your day, the fact that the day will end? These are considerations that come to mind while sitting in the middle of all this humanity. And the humanity seems to be self-aware, aware of every single component, every single person.
I don’t have time to see if it gets enough likes. I don’t get to correspond with my friends and followers.
Veronica talks to me.
She talks to me the way she always talks to me:
No pause, no beginning and no real end. Ongoing.
And in between what I don’t hear, I am able to decipher what her and I share. There are similarities I think. I can see why she and I keep crossing paths. Veronica is on one end and I am on the other; she acts strange to me and yet she thinks I am strange.
The rules of attraction and what are the rules?
We enjoy telling people the wrong things, giving them the wrong directions, when they interfere, walking up to our bench, up to us, and asking for some street, some number, some store, some restaurant.
There are a lot of possibilities.
A lot of them are looking for the right subway train.
She gives them the wrong directions.
And either I had the exact same thought or I merely heard what she said and it registered moments later. But we think the same thoughts.
Veronica looks at her phone at the same time I look at mine.
She texts me, “We’re going to miss the previews.”
I text back, “Yeah you’re right. I guess we should go, shouldn’t we?”
Her reply, “LOL.”
Mine, “What?”
I look at her.
She looks up from her phone and says, “Oh, nothing — sometimes it’s just like I’m talking to two different people.”
I think about this but nothing comes to mind.
The sun washes out the park, making it difficult to see the 23, 25, now 28 people and their pets, counting 6 dogs. 2 cats. A number of pigeons.
“Ready?”
Her voice rises at the end, making it a question.
The movie. Meaning a movie theater.
Meaning …
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
She grabs my hand, holds it, doesn’t let go.
You aren’t going to lose me. I’m right here, where I’ve always been.
We walk toward the C train.
Veronica wants to take the subway.
No metro card. No metro card.
I tell her, “No metro card.”
She exhales, making an indecipherable sound, “It’s your day, love; I can pay for train-fare.”
I don’t ride the train.
She insists.
Her hand holds mine.
Won’t let go.
The C train is old. Sounds are louder yet muffled inside the train. There are 62 people in this train. I do nothing but check my phone. Time is:
Friday, 5:10PM.
Friday, 5:11PM.
Friday, 5:12PM.
Friday, 5:13PM.
I look around the train once.
Friday, 5:14PM.
“Something wrong?” I hear her say.
If I respond, that means people will hear my voice.
I feel different today.
Eyes on me. There aren’t usually as many eyes on me. I am only accustomed to a few glances, a few grins, a few glares. I have one set that won’t leave, and it takes a lot to make sure.
Make sure what?
I type it out.
The feeling, you know, when you leave your apartment and you are walking down a street and then in line at a store, around people you’ve never seen before. The feeling, you know, when they look at you and there’s nothing but the instant notice, the judgment, and then they look away. Everything in that one look, that one glance: decision, judgment, adjustment. They see you as that, and assume based on what they see, in that one instant. The feeling that it has to be right, that one instance; they need to understand with one glance. Or if they don’t, they need to see that difference.
They need to know that you …
Veronica tugs my sleeve, “Your face is red, oh dear. You okay?”
I don’t value the disruption.
I text her, “I didn’t want to take the train. I don’t like the train.”
Not looking up, I wait for her reply.
“We will be there in two stops.”
“How long do you think that’ll be?”
“A few minutes?”
Not long enough.
She says, “You’re sweating.”
I text back, “Have to be quiet.”
Veronica seems to understand.
I think she understands because instead of holding my hand tighter, she lets it go. She lets my hand drop to my side.
She lets me finish my typing.
I sit there feeling the train violently shaking as I, in turn, begin to shake.
I don’t remember what I had been thinking about.
I didn’t save it.
Have to start from scratch.
Or don’t start at all.
I glance around the train. 62 people.
She said a few minutes. I remember—
Friday, 5:17PM.
Friday, 5:18PM.
Friday, 5:19PM.
Friday …
The movie previews are too long and too loud and there are way too many. It is too dark in the theater and the chairs are too close together.
There are too many people. Sold out showing, Veronica said when we walked right past the ticket line.
She bought tickets already.
That’s what she said about having the day planned.
I type out the name of the movie and how I don’t know if I really want to watch a 2 and a half hour movie about people lost in space.